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Neocolonialism Bulletin, 2015

Neocolonialism as Financial Imperialism

2018 2017 2016 2015 2014  2013 2011  2009 2008

Branko Milanovic:

As we enter 2015, it is not useless to look backwards in order to try to guess the trends of the future. I would argue that the age that we are, to some extent exiting now, and which extended from the early 1980s, can be called the “second age of imperialism”--the first one, in the modern history, having been the age of high imperialism 1870-1914. I will focus here on some of its key manifestations in the ideological sphere, in the areas I know, history and economics.

 But it should be obvious that ideology is but a manifestation of the underlying real forces, which were twofold:

The violent manifestations of the second age of imperialism were invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, brutal war in Libya...

NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

[Jun 17, 2019] Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy of Meritocracy

In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.
Notable quotes:
"... "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, ..."
"... 1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about 75% of a year at NU. ..."
"... Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy. ..."
"... The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget. ..."
"... JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified): ..."
"... of-paying) IF a built for that purpose government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think? ..."
"... Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. ..."
"... Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply educate the proles? ..."
economistsview.typepad.com
Thomas Piketty on a theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!:
Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy of Meritocracy in the US: ...the amount of household debt and even more recently of student debt in the U.S. is something that is really troublesome and it reflects the very large rise in tuition in the U.S. a very large inequality in access to education. I think if we really want to promote more equal opportunity and redistribute chances in access to education we should do something about student debt. And it's not possible to have such a large group of the population entering the labor force with such a big debt behind them. This exemplifies a particular problem with inequality in the United States, which is very high inequality and access to higher education. So in other countries in the developed world you don't have such massive student debt because you have more public support to higher education. I think the plan that was proposed earlier this year in 2015 by President Obama to increase public funding to public universities and community college is exactly justified.
This is really the key for higher growth in the future and also for a more equitable growth..., you have the official discourse about meritocracy, equal opportunity and mobility, and then you have the reality. And the gap between the two can be quite troublesome. So this is like you have a problem like this and there's a lot of hypocrisy about meritocracy in every country, not only in the U.S., but there is evidence suggesting that this has become particularly extreme in the United States. ... So this is a situation that is very troublesome and should rank very highly in the policy agenda in the future in the U.S.

DrDick -> Jeff R Carter:

"college is heavily subsidized"

Bwahahahahahahaha! *gasp*

In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.

cm -> to DrDick...

I don't know what Jeff meant, but "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, don't you think? Subsidies don't have to be paid directly to the recipient. The people who are getting the student loans don't get to keep the money (but they do get to keep the debt).

DrDick -> to cm...

No I do not agree. If anything, they are a subsidy to the finance industry (since you cannot default on them). More basically, they do not make college more affordable or accessible (his point).

cm -> to DrDick...

Well, what is a subsidy? Most economic entities don't get to keep the money they receive, but it ends up with somebody else or circulates. If I run a business and somebody sends people with money my way (or pays me by customer served), that looks like a subsidy to me - even though I don't get to keep the money, much of it paid for operational expenses not to forget salaries and other perks.

Just because it is not prearranged and no-strings (?) funding doesn't mean it cannot be a subsidy.

The financial system is involved, and benefits, whenever money is sloshing around.

Pinkybum -> to cm...

I think DrDick has this the right way around. Surely one should think of subsidies as to who the payment is directly helping. Subsidies to students would lower the barrier of entry into college. Subsidies to colleges help colleges hire better professors, offer more classes, reduce the cost of classes etc. Student loans are no subsidy at all except to the finance industry because they cannot be defaulted on and even then some may never be paid back because of bankruptcies.

However, that is always the risk of doing business as a loan provider. It might be interesting to assess the return on student loans compared to other loan instruments.

mrrunangun -> to Jeff R Carter...

The cost of higher education has risen relative to the earning power of the student and/or the student's family unless that family is in the top 10-20% wealth or income groups.

50 years ago it was possible for a lower middle class student to pay all expenses for Northwestern University with his/her own earnings. Tuition was $1500 and room + board c $1000/year. The State of Illinois had a scholarship grant program and all you needed was a 28 or 29 on the ACT to qualify for a grant that paid 80% of that tuition. A male student could make $2000 in a summer construction job, such as were plentiful during those booming 60s. That plus a low wage job waiting tables, night security, work-study etc could cover the remaining tuition and expense burden.

The annual nut now is in excess of $40,000 at NU and not much outside the $40,000-50,000 range at other second tier or elite schools.

The state schools used to produce the bedrock educated upper middle class of business and professional people in most states west of the seaboard. Tuition there 50 years ago was about $1200/year and room and board about $600-800 here in the midwest. Again you could put yourself through college waiting tables part-time. It wasn't easy but it was possible.

No way a kid who doesn't already possess an education can make the tuition and expenses of a private school today. I don't know what the median annual family income was in 1965 but I feel confident that it was well above the annual nut for a private college. Now it's about equal to it.

mrrunangun -> to mrrunangun...

1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about 75% of a year at NU.

anne -> to 400 ppm CO2...

Linking for:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Presentation-National-Debt.png

Click on "Share" under the graph that is initially constructed and copy the "Link" that appears:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=13Ew

March 22, 2015

Federal debt, 1966-2014

This allows a reader to understand how the graph was constructed and to work with the graph.

ilsm:

The US spends half the money the entire world spends on war, that is success!

Massive student debt, huge doses poverty, scores of thousands [of annual neglect related] deaths from the wretched health care system etc are not failure!

tew:

Poor education is the enemy of meritocracy. Costly, bloated administrations full of non-educators there to pamper and pander to every possible complaint and special interest - that is the enemy of meritocracy.

Convincing kids to simple "follow their dreams" regardless of education cost and career potential is the enemy of meritocracy. Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy.

Manageable student debt is no great enemy of meritocracy.

cm -> to tew...

This misses the point, aside frm the victim blaming. Few people embark on college degrees to "follow their dream", unless the dream is getting admission to the middle class job market.

When I was in elementary/middle school, the admonitions were of the sort "if you are not good in school you will end up sweeping streets" - from a generation who still saw street cleaning as manual labor, in my days it was already mechanized.

I estimate that about 15% or so of every cohort went to high school and then college, most went to a combined vocational/high school track, and some of those then later also went college, often from work.

This was before the big automation and globalization waves, when there were still enough jobs for everybody, and there was no pretense that you needed a fancy title to do standard issue work or as a social signal of some sort.

Richard H. Serlin:

Student loans and college get the bulk of the education inequality attention, and it's not nearly enough attention, but it's so much more. The early years are so crucial, as Nobel economist James Heckman has shown so well. Some children get no schooling or educational/developmental day care until almost age 6, when it should start in the first year, with preschool starting at 3. Others get high quality Montessori, and have had 3 years of it by the time they enter kindergarten, when others have had zero of any kind of education when they enter kindergarten.

Some children spend summers in high quality summer school and educational programs; others spend three months digressing and learning nothing. Some children get SAT prep programs costing thousands, and high end educational afterschool programs; others get nothing after school.

All these things should be available in high quality to any child; it's not 1810 anymore Republicans, the good old days of life expectancy in the 30s and dirt poverty for the vast majority. We need just a little more education in the modern world. But this also makes for hugely unequal opportunity.

Observer -> to Observer...

Data on degree by year ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

Observer -> to Syaloch...

One needs to differentiate between costs (total dollars spent per student credit hour or degree, or whatever the appropriate metric is) and price (what fraction of the cost is allocated to the the end-user student).

Note that the level of state funding impacts price, not cost; that discussion is usually about cost shifting, not cost reduction.

I'd say that the rate of increase in costs is, more or less, independent of the percent of costs borne by the state. You can indeed see this in the increase in private schools, the state funding is small/nil (particularly in schools without material endowments, where actual annual fees (prices) must closely actual match annual costs). Price discounts and federal funding may both complicate this analysis.

I think much more effort should be spent on understanding and controlling costs. As with health care, just saying "spend more money" is probably not the wise or even sustainable path in the long term.

Costs were discussed at some length here a year(?) or so ago. There is at least one fairly comprehensive published analysis of higher education costs drivers. IIRC, their conclusion was that there were a number of drivers - its not just food courts or more administrators. Sorry, don't recall the link.

Syaloch -> to cm...

Actually for my first job out of college at BLS, I basically was hired for my "rounded personality" combined with a general understanding of economic principles, not for any specific job-related skills. I had no prior experience working with Laspeyres price indexes, those skills were acquired through on-the-job training. Similarly in software development there is no degree that can make you a qualified professional developer; the best a degree can do is to show you are somewhat literate in X development language and that you have a good understanding of general software development principles. Most of the specific skills you'll need to be effective will be learned on the job.

The problem is that employers increasingly want to avoid any responsibility for training and mentoring, and to shift this burden onto schools. These institutions respond by jettisoning courses in areas deemed unnecessary for short-term vocational purposes, even though what you learn in many of these courses is probably more valuable and durable in the long run than the skills obtained through job-specific training, which often have a remarkably short shelf-life. (How valuable to you now is all that COBOL training you had back in the day?)

I guess the question then is, is the sole purpose of higher education to provide people with entry-level job skills for some narrowly-defined job description which may not even exist in a decade? A lot of people these days seem to feel that way. But I believe that in the long run it's a recipe for disaster at both the individual and the societal level.

Richard H. Serlin -> to Observer...

"Observer"

The research is just not on you side, as Heckman has shown very well. Early education and development makes a huge difference, and at age 5-7 (kindergarten) children are much better off with more schooling than morning to noon. This is why educated parents who can afford it pay a lot of money for a full day -- with afterschool and weekened programs on top.

Yes, we're more educated than 1810, but I use 1810 because that's the kind of small government, little spending on education (you want your children educated you pay for it.) that the Republican Party would love to return us to if they thought they could get away with it. And we've become little more educated in the last 50 years even though the world has become much more technologically advanced.

anne:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=14T9

January 30, 2015

Student Loans Outstanding as a share of Gross Domestic Product, 2007-2014


http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=14Ta

January 30, 2015

Student Loans Outstanding, 2007-2014

(Percent change)

anne:

As to increasing college costs, would there be an analogy to healthcare costs?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/

July 25, 2009

Why Markets Can't Cure Healthcare
By Paul Krugman

Judging both from comments on this blog and from some of my mail, a significant number of Americans believe that the answer to our health care problems - indeed, the only answer - is to rely on the free market. Quite a few seem to believe that this view reflects the lessons of economic theory.

Not so. One of the most influential economic papers of the postwar era was Kenneth Arrow's "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Health Care," * which demonstrated - decisively, I and many others believe - that health care can't be marketed like bread or TVs. Let me offer my own version of Arrow's argument.

There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don't know when or whether you'll need care - but if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the doctor's office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.

This tells you right away that health care can't be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance. And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense when it comes to health care. And you can't just trust insurance companies either - they're not in business for their health, or yours.

This problem is made worse by the fact that actually paying for your health care is a loss from an insurers' point of view - they actually refer to it as "medical costs." This means both that insurers try to deny as many claims as possible, and that they try to avoid covering people who are actually likely to need care. Both of these strategies use a lot of resources, which is why private insurance has much higher administrative costs than single-payer systems. And since there's a widespread sense that our fellow citizens should get the care we need - not everyone agrees, but most do - this means that private insurance basically spends a lot of money on socially destructive activities.

The second thing about health care is that it's complicated, and you can't rely on experience or comparison shopping. ("I hear they've got a real deal on stents over at St. Mary's!") That's why doctors are supposed to follow an ethical code, why we expect more from them than from bakers or grocery store owners.

You could rely on a health maintenance organization to make the hard choices and do the cost management, and to some extent we do. But HMOs have been highly limited in their ability to achieve cost-effectiveness because people don't trust them - they're profit-making institutions, and your treatment is their cost.

Between those two factors, health care just doesn't work as a standard market story.

All of this doesn't necessarily mean that socialized medicine, or even single-payer, is the only way to go. There are a number of successful healthcare systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn't work. And people who say that the market is the answer are flying in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence.

* http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/2/PHCBP.pdf

anne -> to anne...

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SEEB01?output_view=pct_12mths

January 30, 2015

College tuition and fees, 1980–2015

(Percentage change)

1980 ( 9.4)
1981 ( 12.4) Reagan
1982 ( 13.4)
1983 ( 10.4)
1984 ( 10.2)

1985 ( 9.1)
1986 ( 8.1)
1987 ( 7.6)
1988 ( 7.6) Bush
1989 ( 7.9)

1990 ( 8.1)
1991 ( 10.2)
1992 ( 10.7) Clinton
1993 ( 9.4)
1994 ( 7.0)

1995 ( 6.0)
1996 ( 5.7)
1997 ( 5.1)
1998 ( 4.2)
1999 ( 4.0)

2000 ( 4.1)
2001 ( 5.1) Bush
2002 ( 6.8)
2003 ( 8.4)
2004 ( 9.5)

2005 ( 7.5)
2006 ( 6.7)
2007 ( 6.2)
2008 ( 6.2)
2009 ( 6.0) Obama

2010 ( 5.2)
2011 ( 5.0)
2012 ( 4.8)
2013 ( 4.2)
2014 ( 3.7)

January

2015 ( 3.6)


Syaloch -> to anne...

I believe so, as I noted above. The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget.

Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid evidence.

anne -> to Syaloch...

Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid evidence.

[ Look to the paper by Kenneth Arrow, which I cannot copy, for what is to me a convincing explanation as to the market defeating factors of healthcare. However, I have no proper explanation about education costs and am only speculating or looking for an analogy. ]

anne -> to Syaloch...

The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget.

[ Nicely expressed. ]

Peter K. -> to anne...

"As to increasing college costs, would there be an analogy to healthcare costs?"

Yes, exactly. They aren't normal markets. There should be heavy government regulation.

Denis Drew:

JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified):

Only allow government guaranteed loans (and the accompanying you-can-never-get-out-of-paying) IF a built for that purpose government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think?

Denis Drew -> to cm...

A big reason we had the real estate bubble was actually the mad Republican relaxation of loan requirements -- relying on the "free market." So, thanks for coming up with a good comparison.

By definition, for the most part, people taking out student loans are shall we say new to the world and more vulnerable to the pirates.
* * * * * * * * * *
[cut and paste from my comment on AB]
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.

According to an article in the Huffington Post At Kaplan University, 'Guerrilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep In Debt, Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. Going so far as to falsely pad bills $5000 or so dollars at diploma time - pay up immediately or you will never get your sheepskin; you wasted your time. No gov agency will act.

According to a lovely graph which I wish I could patch in here the Post may actually be currently be kept afloat only by purloined cash from Kaplan:

earnings before corporate overhead

2002 - Kaplan ed, $10 mil; Kaplan test prep, $45 mil: WaPo, $100 mil
2005 - Kaplan ed, $55 mil; Kaplan test prep, $100 mil; WaPo, $105 mil
2009 - Kaplan ed, $255 mil; Kaplan test prep, $5 mil; WaPo negative $175 mil

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/kaplan-university-guerilla-registration_n_799741.html

Wonder if billionaire Bezos will reach out to make Kaplan Ed victims whole. Will he really continue to use Kaplan's pirated money to keep WaPo whole -- if that is what is going on?

Johannes Y O Highness:

"theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!: "

Too damn high
but why?

Because! Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply educate the proles?

Opportunity cost! The burden of the intelligentsia, the brain work can by carried by robots or humans. Choice of the wealthy? Humans, hands down. Can you see the historical background?

Railroad was the first robot. According to Devon's Paradox, it was overused because of its increment of efficiency. Later, excessive roadbeds were disassembled. Rails were sold as scrap.

The new robots are not heavy lifters. New robots are there to do the work of the brain trust. As first robots replaced lower caste jokers, so shall new robots replace upper caste jokers. Do you see the fear developing inside the huddle of high rollers? Rollers now calling the play?

High rollers plan to educate small time hoods to do the work of the new robots, then kill the new robots before the newbie 'bot discovers how to kill the wealthy, to kill, to replace them forever.

Terrifying fear
strikes

Observer:

Good bit of data on education costs here

http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/

This chart shows state spending per student and tuition ...

" overall perhaps the best description of the data is something along the lines of "sometimes state appropriations go up and sometimes they go down, but tuition always goes up." "

http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/2012/12/04/chart-of-the-week-state-appropriations-and-public-tuitions/

[Jun 17, 2019] Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy of Meritocracy

In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.
Notable quotes:
"... "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, ..."
"... 1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about 75% of a year at NU. ..."
"... Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy. ..."
"... The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget. ..."
"... JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified): ..."
"... of-paying) IF a built for that purpose government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think? ..."
"... Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. ..."
"... Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply educate the proles? ..."
economistsview.typepad.com
Thomas Piketty on a theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!:
Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy of Meritocracy in the US: ...the amount of household debt and even more recently of student debt in the U.S. is something that is really troublesome and it reflects the very large rise in tuition in the U.S. a very large inequality in access to education. I think if we really want to promote more equal opportunity and redistribute chances in access to education we should do something about student debt. And it's not possible to have such a large group of the population entering the labor force with such a big debt behind them. This exemplifies a particular problem with inequality in the United States, which is very high inequality and access to higher education. So in other countries in the developed world you don't have such massive student debt because you have more public support to higher education. I think the plan that was proposed earlier this year in 2015 by President Obama to increase public funding to public universities and community college is exactly justified.
This is really the key for higher growth in the future and also for a more equitable growth..., you have the official discourse about meritocracy, equal opportunity and mobility, and then you have the reality. And the gap between the two can be quite troublesome. So this is like you have a problem like this and there's a lot of hypocrisy about meritocracy in every country, not only in the U.S., but there is evidence suggesting that this has become particularly extreme in the United States. ... So this is a situation that is very troublesome and should rank very highly in the policy agenda in the future in the U.S.

DrDick -> Jeff R Carter:

"college is heavily subsidized"

Bwahahahahahahaha! *gasp*

In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.

cm -> to DrDick...

I don't know what Jeff meant, but "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, don't you think? Subsidies don't have to be paid directly to the recipient. The people who are getting the student loans don't get to keep the money (but they do get to keep the debt).

DrDick -> to cm...

No I do not agree. If anything, they are a subsidy to the finance industry (since you cannot default on them). More basically, they do not make college more affordable or accessible (his point).

cm -> to DrDick...

Well, what is a subsidy? Most economic entities don't get to keep the money they receive, but it ends up with somebody else or circulates. If I run a business and somebody sends people with money my way (or pays me by customer served), that looks like a subsidy to me - even though I don't get to keep the money, much of it paid for operational expenses not to forget salaries and other perks.

Just because it is not prearranged and no-strings (?) funding doesn't mean it cannot be a subsidy.

The financial system is involved, and benefits, whenever money is sloshing around.

Pinkybum -> to cm...

I think DrDick has this the right way around. Surely one should think of subsidies as to who the payment is directly helping. Subsidies to students would lower the barrier of entry into college. Subsidies to colleges help colleges hire better professors, offer more classes, reduce the cost of classes etc. Student loans are no subsidy at all except to the finance industry because they cannot be defaulted on and even then some may never be paid back because of bankruptcies.

However, that is always the risk of doing business as a loan provider. It might be interesting to assess the return on student loans compared to other loan instruments.

mrrunangun -> to Jeff R Carter...

The cost of higher education has risen relative to the earning power of the student and/or the student's family unless that family is in the top 10-20% wealth or income groups.

50 years ago it was possible for a lower middle class student to pay all expenses for Northwestern University with his/her own earnings. Tuition was $1500 and room + board c $1000/year. The State of Illinois had a scholarship grant program and all you needed was a 28 or 29 on the ACT to qualify for a grant that paid 80% of that tuition. A male student could make $2000 in a summer construction job, such as were plentiful during those booming 60s. That plus a low wage job waiting tables, night security, work-study etc could cover the remaining tuition and expense burden.

The annual nut now is in excess of $40,000 at NU and not much outside the $40,000-50,000 range at other second tier or elite schools.

The state schools used to produce the bedrock educated upper middle class of business and professional people in most states west of the seaboard. Tuition there 50 years ago was about $1200/year and room and board about $600-800 here in the midwest. Again you could put yourself through college waiting tables part-time. It wasn't easy but it was possible.

No way a kid who doesn't already possess an education can make the tuition and expenses of a private school today. I don't know what the median annual family income was in 1965 but I feel confident that it was well above the annual nut for a private college. Now it's about equal to it.

mrrunangun -> to mrrunangun...

1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about 75% of a year at NU.

anne -> to 400 ppm CO2...

Linking for:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Presentation-National-Debt.png

Click on "Share" under the graph that is initially constructed and copy the "Link" that appears:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=13Ew

March 22, 2015

Federal debt, 1966-2014

This allows a reader to understand how the graph was constructed and to work with the graph.

ilsm:

The US spends half the money the entire world spends on war, that is success!

Massive student debt, huge doses poverty, scores of thousands [of annual neglect related] deaths from the wretched health care system etc are not failure!

tew:

Poor education is the enemy of meritocracy. Costly, bloated administrations full of non-educators there to pamper and pander to every possible complaint and special interest - that is the enemy of meritocracy.

Convincing kids to simple "follow their dreams" regardless of education cost and career potential is the enemy of meritocracy. Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy.

Manageable student debt is no great enemy of meritocracy.

cm -> to tew...

This misses the point, aside frm the victim blaming. Few people embark on college degrees to "follow their dream", unless the dream is getting admission to the middle class job market.

When I was in elementary/middle school, the admonitions were of the sort "if you are not good in school you will end up sweeping streets" - from a generation who still saw street cleaning as manual labor, in my days it was already mechanized.

I estimate that about 15% or so of every cohort went to high school and then college, most went to a combined vocational/high school track, and some of those then later also went college, often from work.

This was before the big automation and globalization waves, when there were still enough jobs for everybody, and there was no pretense that you needed a fancy title to do standard issue work or as a social signal of some sort.

Richard H. Serlin:

Student loans and college get the bulk of the education inequality attention, and it's not nearly enough attention, but it's so much more. The early years are so crucial, as Nobel economist James Heckman has shown so well. Some children get no schooling or educational/developmental day care until almost age 6, when it should start in the first year, with preschool starting at 3. Others get high quality Montessori, and have had 3 years of it by the time they enter kindergarten, when others have had zero of any kind of education when they enter kindergarten.

Some children spend summers in high quality summer school and educational programs; others spend three months digressing and learning nothing. Some children get SAT prep programs costing thousands, and high end educational afterschool programs; others get nothing after school.

All these things should be available in high quality to any child; it's not 1810 anymore Republicans, the good old days of life expectancy in the 30s and dirt poverty for the vast majority. We need just a little more education in the modern world. But this also makes for hugely unequal opportunity.

Observer -> to Observer...

Data on degree by year ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

Observer -> to Syaloch...

One needs to differentiate between costs (total dollars spent per student credit hour or degree, or whatever the appropriate metric is) and price (what fraction of the cost is allocated to the the end-user student).

Note that the level of state funding impacts price, not cost; that discussion is usually about cost shifting, not cost reduction.

I'd say that the rate of increase in costs is, more or less, independent of the percent of costs borne by the state. You can indeed see this in the increase in private schools, the state funding is small/nil (particularly in schools without material endowments, where actual annual fees (prices) must closely actual match annual costs). Price discounts and federal funding may both complicate this analysis.

I think much more effort should be spent on understanding and controlling costs. As with health care, just saying "spend more money" is probably not the wise or even sustainable path in the long term.

Costs were discussed at some length here a year(?) or so ago. There is at least one fairly comprehensive published analysis of higher education costs drivers. IIRC, their conclusion was that there were a number of drivers - its not just food courts or more administrators. Sorry, don't recall the link.

Syaloch -> to cm...

Actually for my first job out of college at BLS, I basically was hired for my "rounded personality" combined with a general understanding of economic principles, not for any specific job-related skills. I had no prior experience working with Laspeyres price indexes, those skills were acquired through on-the-job training. Similarly in software development there is no degree that can make you a qualified professional developer; the best a degree can do is to show you are somewhat literate in X development language and that you have a good understanding of general software development principles. Most of the specific skills you'll need to be effective will be learned on the job.

The problem is that employers increasingly want to avoid any responsibility for training and mentoring, and to shift this burden onto schools. These institutions respond by jettisoning courses in areas deemed unnecessary for short-term vocational purposes, even though what you learn in many of these courses is probably more valuable and durable in the long run than the skills obtained through job-specific training, which often have a remarkably short shelf-life. (How valuable to you now is all that COBOL training you had back in the day?)

I guess the question then is, is the sole purpose of higher education to provide people with entry-level job skills for some narrowly-defined job description which may not even exist in a decade? A lot of people these days seem to feel that way. But I believe that in the long run it's a recipe for disaster at both the individual and the societal level.

Richard H. Serlin -> to Observer...

"Observer"

The research is just not on you side, as Heckman has shown very well. Early education and development makes a huge difference, and at age 5-7 (kindergarten) children are much better off with more schooling than morning to noon. This is why educated parents who can afford it pay a lot of money for a full day -- with afterschool and weekened programs on top.

Yes, we're more educated than 1810, but I use 1810 because that's the kind of small government, little spending on education (you want your children educated you pay for it.) that the Republican Party would love to return us to if they thought they could get away with it. And we've become little more educated in the last 50 years even though the world has become much more technologically advanced.

anne:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=14T9

January 30, 2015

Student Loans Outstanding as a share of Gross Domestic Product, 2007-2014


http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=14Ta

January 30, 2015

Student Loans Outstanding, 2007-2014

(Percent change)

anne:

As to increasing college costs, would there be an analogy to healthcare costs?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/

July 25, 2009

Why Markets Can't Cure Healthcare
By Paul Krugman

Judging both from comments on this blog and from some of my mail, a significant number of Americans believe that the answer to our health care problems - indeed, the only answer - is to rely on the free market. Quite a few seem to believe that this view reflects the lessons of economic theory.

Not so. One of the most influential economic papers of the postwar era was Kenneth Arrow's "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Health Care," * which demonstrated - decisively, I and many others believe - that health care can't be marketed like bread or TVs. Let me offer my own version of Arrow's argument.

There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don't know when or whether you'll need care - but if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the doctor's office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.

This tells you right away that health care can't be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance. And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense when it comes to health care. And you can't just trust insurance companies either - they're not in business for their health, or yours.

This problem is made worse by the fact that actually paying for your health care is a loss from an insurers' point of view - they actually refer to it as "medical costs." This means both that insurers try to deny as many claims as possible, and that they try to avoid covering people who are actually likely to need care. Both of these strategies use a lot of resources, which is why private insurance has much higher administrative costs than single-payer systems. And since there's a widespread sense that our fellow citizens should get the care we need - not everyone agrees, but most do - this means that private insurance basically spends a lot of money on socially destructive activities.

The second thing about health care is that it's complicated, and you can't rely on experience or comparison shopping. ("I hear they've got a real deal on stents over at St. Mary's!") That's why doctors are supposed to follow an ethical code, why we expect more from them than from bakers or grocery store owners.

You could rely on a health maintenance organization to make the hard choices and do the cost management, and to some extent we do. But HMOs have been highly limited in their ability to achieve cost-effectiveness because people don't trust them - they're profit-making institutions, and your treatment is their cost.

Between those two factors, health care just doesn't work as a standard market story.

All of this doesn't necessarily mean that socialized medicine, or even single-payer, is the only way to go. There are a number of successful healthcare systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn't work. And people who say that the market is the answer are flying in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence.

* http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/2/PHCBP.pdf

anne -> to anne...

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SEEB01?output_view=pct_12mths

January 30, 2015

College tuition and fees, 1980–2015

(Percentage change)

1980 ( 9.4)
1981 ( 12.4) Reagan
1982 ( 13.4)
1983 ( 10.4)
1984 ( 10.2)

1985 ( 9.1)
1986 ( 8.1)
1987 ( 7.6)
1988 ( 7.6) Bush
1989 ( 7.9)

1990 ( 8.1)
1991 ( 10.2)
1992 ( 10.7) Clinton
1993 ( 9.4)
1994 ( 7.0)

1995 ( 6.0)
1996 ( 5.7)
1997 ( 5.1)
1998 ( 4.2)
1999 ( 4.0)

2000 ( 4.1)
2001 ( 5.1) Bush
2002 ( 6.8)
2003 ( 8.4)
2004 ( 9.5)

2005 ( 7.5)
2006 ( 6.7)
2007 ( 6.2)
2008 ( 6.2)
2009 ( 6.0) Obama

2010 ( 5.2)
2011 ( 5.0)
2012 ( 4.8)
2013 ( 4.2)
2014 ( 3.7)

January

2015 ( 3.6)


Syaloch -> to anne...

I believe so, as I noted above. The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget.

Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid evidence.

anne -> to Syaloch...

Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid evidence.

[ Look to the paper by Kenneth Arrow, which I cannot copy, for what is to me a convincing explanation as to the market defeating factors of healthcare. However, I have no proper explanation about education costs and am only speculating or looking for an analogy. ]

anne -> to Syaloch...

The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget.

[ Nicely expressed. ]

Peter K. -> to anne...

"As to increasing college costs, would there be an analogy to healthcare costs?"

Yes, exactly. They aren't normal markets. There should be heavy government regulation.

Denis Drew:

JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified):

Only allow government guaranteed loans (and the accompanying you-can-never-get-out-of-paying) IF a built for that purpose government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think?

Denis Drew -> to cm...

A big reason we had the real estate bubble was actually the mad Republican relaxation of loan requirements -- relying on the "free market." So, thanks for coming up with a good comparison.

By definition, for the most part, people taking out student loans are shall we say new to the world and more vulnerable to the pirates.
* * * * * * * * * *
[cut and paste from my comment on AB]
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.

According to an article in the Huffington Post At Kaplan University, 'Guerrilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep In Debt, Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. Going so far as to falsely pad bills $5000 or so dollars at diploma time - pay up immediately or you will never get your sheepskin; you wasted your time. No gov agency will act.

According to a lovely graph which I wish I could patch in here the Post may actually be currently be kept afloat only by purloined cash from Kaplan:

earnings before corporate overhead

2002 - Kaplan ed, $10 mil; Kaplan test prep, $45 mil: WaPo, $100 mil
2005 - Kaplan ed, $55 mil; Kaplan test prep, $100 mil; WaPo, $105 mil
2009 - Kaplan ed, $255 mil; Kaplan test prep, $5 mil; WaPo negative $175 mil

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/kaplan-university-guerilla-registration_n_799741.html

Wonder if billionaire Bezos will reach out to make Kaplan Ed victims whole. Will he really continue to use Kaplan's pirated money to keep WaPo whole -- if that is what is going on?

Johannes Y O Highness:

"theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!: "

Too damn high
but why?

Because! Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply educate the proles?

Opportunity cost! The burden of the intelligentsia, the brain work can by carried by robots or humans. Choice of the wealthy? Humans, hands down. Can you see the historical background?

Railroad was the first robot. According to Devon's Paradox, it was overused because of its increment of efficiency. Later, excessive roadbeds were disassembled. Rails were sold as scrap.

The new robots are not heavy lifters. New robots are there to do the work of the brain trust. As first robots replaced lower caste jokers, so shall new robots replace upper caste jokers. Do you see the fear developing inside the huddle of high rollers? Rollers now calling the play?

High rollers plan to educate small time hoods to do the work of the new robots, then kill the new robots before the newbie 'bot discovers how to kill the wealthy, to kill, to replace them forever.

Terrifying fear
strikes

Observer:

Good bit of data on education costs here

http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/

This chart shows state spending per student and tuition ...

" overall perhaps the best description of the data is something along the lines of "sometimes state appropriations go up and sometimes they go down, but tuition always goes up." "

http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/2012/12/04/chart-of-the-week-state-appropriations-and-public-tuitions/

In Defense of Difficulty By Steve Wasserman

March 18, 2015 | The American Conservative

A phony populism is denying Americans the joys of serious thought.

... ... ...

Universities, too, were at fault. They had colonized critics by holding careers hostage to academic specialization, requiring them to master the arcane tongues of ever-narrower disciplines, forcing them to forsake a larger public. Compared to the Arcadian past, the present, in this view, was a wasteland.

It didn't have to be this way. In the postwar era, a vast project of cultural uplift sought to bring the best that had been thought and said to the wider public. Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago and Mortimer J. Adler were among its more prominent avatars. This effort, which tried to deepen literacy under the sign of the "middlebrow," and thus to strengthen the idea that an informed citizenry was indispensable for a healthy democracy, was, for a time, hugely successful. The general level of cultural sophistication rose as a growing middle class shed its provincialism in exchange for a certain worldliness that was one legacy of American triumphalism and ambition after World War II. College enrollment boomed, and the percentage of Americans attending the performing arts rose dramatically. Regional stage and opera companies blossomed, new concert halls were built, and interest in the arts was widespread. TV hosts Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, and Dick Cavett frequently featured serious writers as guests. Paperback publishers made classic works of history, literature, and criticism available to ordinary readers whose appetite for such works seemed insatiable.

Mass circulation newspapers and magazines, too, expanded their coverage of books, movies, music, dance, and theater. Criticism was no longer confined to such small but influential journals of opinion as Partisan Review, The Nation, and The New Republic. Esquire embraced the irascible Dwight Macdonald as its movie critic, despite his well-known contempt for "middlebrow" culture. The New Yorker threw a lifeline to Pauline Kael, rescuing her from the ghetto of film quarterlies and the art houses of Berkeley. Strong critics like David Riesman, Daniel Bell, and Leslie Fiedler, among others, would write with insight and pugilistic zeal books that often found enough readers to propel their works onto bestseller lists. Intellectuals such as Susan Sontag were featured in the glossy pages of magazines like Vogue. Her controversial "Notes on Camp," first published in 1964 in Partisan Review, exploded into public view when Time championed her work. Eggheads were suddenly sexy, almost on a par with star athletes and Hollywood celebrities. Gore Vidal was a regular on Johnny Carson. William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line" hosted vigorous debates that often were models of how to think, how to argue, and, at their best, told us that ideas mattered.

As Scott Timberg, a former arts reporter for the Los Angeles Times, puts it in his recent book Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, the idea, embraced by increasing numbers of Americans, was that

drama, poetry, music, and art were not just a way to pass the time, or advertise one's might, but a path to truth and enlightenment. At its best, this was what the middlebrow consensus promised. Middlebrow said that culture was accessible to a wide strat[um] of society, that people needed some but not much training to appreciate it, that there was a canon worth knowing, that art was not the same as entertainment, that the study of the liberal arts deepens you, and that those who make, assess, and disseminate the arts were somehow valuable for our society regardless of their impact on GDP.

So what if culture was increasingly just another product to be bought and sold, used and discarded, like so many tubes of toothpaste? Even Los Angeles, long derided as a cultural desert, would by the turn of the century boast a flourishing and internationally respected opera company, a thriving archipelago of museums with world-class collections, and dozens of bookstores selling in some years more books per capita than were sold in the greater New York area. The middlebrow's triumph was all but assured.

The arrival of the Internet by century's end promised to make that victory complete. As the Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page story in 1998, America was "increasingly wealthy, worldly, and wired." Notions of elitism and snobbery seemed to be collapsing upon the palpable catholicity of a public whose curiosities were ever more diverse and eclectic and whose ability to satisfy them had suddenly and miraculously expanded. We stood, it appeared, on the verge of a munificent new world-a world in which technology was rapidly democratizing the means of cultural production while providing an easy way for millions of ordinary citizens, previously excluded from the precincts of the higher conversation, to join the dialogue. The digital revolution was predicted to empower those authors whose writings had been marginalized, shut out of mainstream publishing, to overthrow the old monastic self-selecting order of cultural gatekeepers (meaning professional critics). Thus would critical faculties be sharpened and democratized. Digital platforms would crack open the cloistered and solipsistic world of academe, bypass the old presses and performing-arts spaces, and unleash a new era of cultural commerce. With smart machines there would be smarter people.

Harvard's Robert Darnton, a sober and learned historian of reading and the book, agreed. He argued that the implications for writing and reading, for publishing and bookselling-indeed, for cultural literacy and criticism itself-were profound. For, as he gushed in The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future, we now had the ability to make "all book learning available to all people, or at least those privileged enough to have access to the World Wide Web. It promises to be the ultimate stage in the democratization of knowledge set in motion by the invention of writing, the codex, movable type, and the Internet." In this view, echoed by innumerable worshippers of the New Information Age, we were living at one of history's hinge moments, a great evolutionary leap in the human mind. And, in truth, it was hard not to believe that we had arrived at the apotheosis of our culture. Never before in history had more good literature and cultural works been available at such low cost to so many. The future was radiant.

Others, such as the critics Evgeny Morozov and Jaron Lanier, were more skeptical. They worried that whatever advantages might accrue to consumers and the culture at large from the emergence of such behemoths as Amazon, not only would proven methods of cultural production and distribution be made obsolete, but we were in danger of being enrolled, whether we liked it or not, in an overwhelmingly fast and visually furious culture that, as numerous studies have shown, renders serious reading and cultural criticism increasingly irrelevant, hollowing out habits of attention indispensable for absorbing long-form narrative and sustained argument. Indeed, they feared that the digital tsunami now engulfing us may even signal an irrevocable trivialization of the word. Or, at the least, a sense that the enterprise of making distinctions between bad, good, and best was a mug's game that had no place in a democracy that worships at the altar of mass appeal and counts its receipts at the almighty box office.

... ... ...

...Today, America's traditional organs of popular criticism-newspapers, magazines, journals of opinion-have been all but overwhelmed by the digital onslaught: their circulations plummeting, their confidence eroded, their survival in doubt. Newspaper review sections in particular have suffered: jobs have been slashed, and cultural coverage vastly diminished. Both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have abandoned their stand-alone book sections, leaving the New York Times as the only major American newspaper still publishing a significant separate section devoted to reviewing books.

Such sections, of course, were always few. Only a handful of America's papers ever deemed book coverage important enough to dedicate an entire Sunday section to it. Now even that handful is threatened with extinction, and thus is a widespread cultural illiteracy abetted, for at their best the editors of those sections tried to establish the idea that serious criticism was possible in a mass culture. In the 19th century, Margaret Fuller, literary editor of the New York Tribune and the country's first full-time book reviewer, understood this well. She saw books as "a medium for viewing all humanity, a core around which all knowledge, all experience, all science, all the ideal as well as all the practical in our nature could gather." She sought, she said, to tell "the whole truth, as well as nothing but the truth."

The arrival of the Internet has proved no panacea. The vast canvas afforded by the Internet has done little to encourage thoughtful and serious criticism. Mostly it has provided a vast Democracy Wall on which any crackpot can post his or her manifesto. Bloggers bloviate and insults abound. Discourse coarsens. Information is abundant, wisdom scarce. It is a striking irony, as Leon Wieseltier has noted, that with the arrival of the Internet, "a medium of communication with no limitations of physical space, everything on it has to be in six hundred words." The Internet, he said, is the first means of communication invented by humankind that privileges one's first thoughts as one's best thoughts. And he rightly observed that if "value is a function of scarcity," then "what is most scarce in our culture is long, thoughtful, patient, deliberate analysis of questions that do not have obvious or easy answers." Time is required to think through difficult questions. Patience is a condition of genuine intellection. The thinking mind, the creating mind, said Wieseltier, should not be rushed. "And where the mind is rushed and made frenetic, neither thought nor creativity will ensue. What you will most likely get is conformity and banality. Writing is not typed talking."

The fundamental idea at stake in the criticism of culture generally is the self-image of society: how it reasons with itself, describes itself, imagines itself. Nothing in the excitements made possible by the digital revolution banishes the need for the rigor such self-reckoning requires. It is, as Wieseltier says, the obligation of cultural criticism to bear down on what matters.

♦♦♦

Where is such criticism to be found today? We inhabit a remarkably arid cultural landscape, especially when compared with the ambitions of postwar America, ambitions which, to be sure, were often mocked by some of the country's more prominent intellectuals. Yes, Dwight Macdonald famously excoriated the enfeeblements of "mass cult and midcult," and Irving Howe regretted "This Age of Conformity," but from today's perspective, when we look back at the offerings of the Book-of-the-Month Club and projects such as the Great Books of the Western World, their scorn looks misplaced. The fact that their complaints circulated widely in the very midcult worlds Macdonald condemned was proof that trenchant criticism had found a place within the organs of mass culture. One is almost tempted to say that the middlebrow culture of yesteryear was a high-water mark.

The reality, of course, was never as rosy as much of it looks in retrospect. Cultural criticism in most American newspapers, even at its best, was almost always confined to a ghetto. You were lucky at most papers to get a column or a half-page devoted to arts and culture. Editors encouraged reporters, reviewers, and critics to win readers and improve circulation by pandering to the faux populism of the marketplace. Only the review that might immediately be understood by the greatest number of readers would be permitted to see the light of day. Anything else smacked of "elitism"-a sin to be avoided at almost any cost.

This was a coarse and pernicious notion, one that lay at the center of the country's longstanding anti-intellectual tradition. From the start of the republic, Americans have had a profoundly ambivalent relationship to class and culture, as Richard Hofstadter famously observed. He was neither the first nor the last to notice this self-inflicted wound. As even the vastly popular science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov understood, "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

... ... ...

When did "difficulty" become suspect in American culture, widely derided as anti-democratic and contemptuously dismissed as evidence of so-called elitism? If a work of art isn't somehow immediately "understood" or "accessible" by and to large numbers of people, it is often ridiculed as "esoteric," "obtuse," or even somehow un-American. We should mark such an argument's cognitive consequences. A culture filled with smooth and familiar consumptions produces in people rigid mental habits and stultified conceptions. They know what they know, and they expect to find it reinforced when they turn a page or click on a screen. Difficulty annoys them, and, having become accustomed to so much pabulum served up by a pandering and invertebrate media, they experience difficulty not just as "difficult," but as insult. Struggling to understand, say, Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness masterpiece The Sound and the Fury or Alain Resnais's Rubik's Cube of a movie "Last Year at Marienbad" needn't be done. The mind may skip trying to solve such cognitive puzzles, even though the truth is they strengthen it as a workout tones the muscles.

Sometimes it feels as if the world is divided into two classes: one very large class spurns difficulty, while the other very much smaller delights in it. There are readers who, when encountering an unfamiliar word, instead of reaching for a dictionary, choose to regard it as a sign of the author's contempt or pretension, a deliberate refusal to speak in a language ordinary people can understand. Others, encountering the same word, happily seize on it as a chance to learn something new, to broaden their horizons. They eagerly seek a literature that upends assumptions, challenges prejudices, turns them inside out and forces them to see the world through new eyes.

The second group is an endangered species. One reason is that the ambitions of mainstream media that, however fitfully, once sought to expose them to the life of the mind and to the contest of ideas, have themselves shrunk. We have gone from the heyday of television intellection which boasted shows hosted by, among others, David Susskind and David Frost, men that, whatever their self-absorptions, were nonetheless possessed of an admirable highmindedness, to the pygmy sound-bite rants of Sean Hannity and the inanities of clowns like Stephen Colbert. Once upon a time, the ideal of seriousness may not have been a common one, but it was acknowledged as one worth striving for. It didn't have to do what it has to today, that is, fight for respect, legitimate itself before asserting itself. The class that is allergic to difficulty now feels justified in condemning the other as "elitist" and anti-democratic. The exercise of cultural authority and artistic or literary or aesthetic discrimination is seen as evidence of snobbery, entitlement and privilege lording it over ordinary folks. A perverse populism increasingly deforms our culture, consigning some works of art to a realm somehow more rarified and less accessible to a broad public. Thus is choice constrained and the tyranny of mass appeal deepened in the name of democracy.

... ... ...

Steve Wasserman, former literary editor of the Los Angeles Times, is editor-at-large for Yale University Press.

This essay is adapted with permission from his chapter in the forthcoming The State of the American Mind: Sixteen Critics on the New Anti-Intellectualism, edited by Adam Bellow and Mark Bauerlein, to be published by Templeton Press in May 2015.

[Feb 02, 2019] In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism

The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies, a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.
Notable quotes:
"... His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the "dung of the devil." He does not simply argue that systemic "greed for money" is a bad thing. He calls it a "subtle dictatorship" that "condemns and enslaves men and women." ..."
"... The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution. "This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop," said Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of America in Washington. ..."
"... Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and, most notably, Greece . But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the left. ..."
"... Even some free-market champions are now reassessing the shortcomings of unfettered capitalism. George Soros, who made billions in the markets, and then spent a good part of it promoting the spread of free markets in Eastern Europe, now argues that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. ..."
"... Many Catholic scholars would argue that Francis is merely continuing a line of Catholic social teaching that has existed for more than a century and was embraced even by his two conservative predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Leo XIII first called for economic justice on behalf of workers in 1891, with his encyclical "Rerum Novarum" - or, "On Condition of Labor." ..."
"... Francis has such a strong sense of urgency "because he has been on the front lines with real people, not just numbers and abstract ideas," Mr. Schneck said. "That real-life experience of working with the most marginalized in Argentina has been the source of his inspiration as pontiff." ..."
"... In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide productive economies for the poor. "How different this is than the situation that results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!" he said on Wednesday night. ..."
"... It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, "Laudato Si'," released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and straying dangerously beyond religion - while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush. ..."
"... The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies, a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy. ..."
"... "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy," he said on Wednesday. "It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment." ..."
"... "I'm a believer in capitalism but it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that we have," said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government ..."
"... "What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to my neighborhood with the hearts full of hopes and dreams but without any real solution for my problems?" he asked. "A lot! They can do a lot. ..."
Jul 11, 2015 | msn.com

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay - His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the "dung of the devil." He does not simply argue that systemic "greed for money" is a bad thing. He calls it a "subtle dictatorship" that "condemns and enslaves men and women."

Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism - even as he called for a global movement against a "new colonialism" rooted in an inequitable economic order.

The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution. "This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop," said Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of America in Washington.

The last pope who so boldly placed himself at the center of the global moment was John Paul II, who during the 1980s pushed the church to confront what many saw as the challenge of that era, communism. John Paul II's anti-Communist messaging dovetailed with the agenda of political conservatives eager for a tougher line against the Soviets and, in turn, aligned part of the church hierarchy with the political right.

Francis has defined the economic challenge of this era as the failure of global capitalism to create fairness, equity and dignified livelihoods for the poor - a social and religious agenda that coincides with a resurgence of the leftist thinking marginalized in the days of John Paul II. Francis' increasingly sharp critique comes as much of humanity has never been so wealthy or well fed - yet rising inequality and repeated financial crises have unsettled voters, policy makers and economists.

Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and, most notably, Greece. But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the left.

Even some free-market champions are now reassessing the shortcomings of unfettered capitalism. George Soros, who made billions in the markets, and then spent a good part of it promoting the spread of free markets in Eastern Europe, now argues that the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

"I think the pope is singing to the music that's already in the air," said Robert A. Johnson, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which was financed with $50 million from Mr. Soros. "And that's a good thing. That's what artists do, and I think the pope is sensitive to the lack of legitimacy of the system."

Many Catholic scholars would argue that Francis is merely continuing a line of Catholic social teaching that has existed for more than a century and was embraced even by his two conservative predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Leo XIII first called for economic justice on behalf of workers in 1891, with his encyclical "Rerum Novarum" - or, "On Condition of Labor."

Mr. Schneck, of Catholic University, said it was as if Francis were saying, "We've been talking about these things for more than one hundred years, and nobody is listening."

Francis has such a strong sense of urgency "because he has been on the front lines with real people, not just numbers and abstract ideas," Mr. Schneck said. "That real-life experience of working with the most marginalized in Argentina has been the source of his inspiration as pontiff."

Francis made his speech on Wednesday night, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, before nearly 2,000 social advocates, farmers, trash workers and neighborhood activists. Even as he meets regularly with heads of state, Francis has often said that change must come from the grass roots, whether from poor people or the community organizers who work with them. To Francis, the poor have earned knowledge that is useful and redeeming, even as a "throwaway culture" tosses them aside. He sees them as being at the front edge of economic and environmental crises around the world.

In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide productive economies for the poor. "How different this is than the situation that results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!" he said on Wednesday night.

It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, "Laudato Si'," released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and straying dangerously beyond religion - while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush.

"I wish Francis would focus on positives, on how a free-market economy guided by an ethical framework, and the rule of law, can be a part of the solution for the poor - rather than just jumping from the reality of people's misery to the analysis that a market economy is the problem," said the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, which advocates free-market economics.

Francis' sharpest critics have accused him of being a Marxist or a Latin American Communist, even as he opposed communism during his time in Argentina. His tour last week of Latin America began in Ecuador and Bolivia, two countries with far-left governments. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who wore a Che Guevara patch on his jacket during Francis' speech, claimed the pope as a kindred spirit - even as Francis seemed startled and caught off guard when Mr. Morales gave him a wooden crucifix shaped like a hammer and sickle as a gift.

Francis' primary agenda last week was to begin renewing Catholicism in Latin America and reposition it as the church of the poor. His apology for the church's complicity in the colonialist era received an immediate roar from the crowd. In various parts of Latin America, the association between the church and economic power elites remains intact. In Chile, a socially conservative country, some members of the country's corporate elite are also members of Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic organization founded in Spain in 1928.

Inevitably, Francis' critique can be read as a broadside against Pax Americana, the period of capitalism regulated by global institutions created largely by the United States. But even pillars of that system are shifting. The World Bank, which long promoted economic growth as an end in itself, is now increasingly focused on the distribution of gains, after the Arab Spring revolts in some countries that the bank had held up as models. The latest generation of international trade agreements includes efforts to increase protections for workers and the environment.

The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies, a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.

Mr. Piketty roiled the debate among mainstream economists, yet Francis' critique is more unnerving to some because he is not reframing inequality and poverty around a new economic theory but instead defining it in moral terms. "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy," he said on Wednesday. "It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment."

Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist, said that he saw Francis as making a nuanced point about capitalism, embodied by his coinage of a "social mortgage" on accumulated wealth - a debt to the society that made its accumulation possible. Mr. Hanauer said that economic elites should embrace the need for reforms both for moral and pragmatic reasons. "I'm a believer in capitalism but it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that we have," said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government policies like a higher minimum wage.

Yet what remains unclear is whether Francis has a clear vision for a systemic alternative to the status quo that he and others criticize. "All these critiques point toward the incoherence of the simple idea of free market economics, but they don't prescribe a remedy," said Mr. Johnson, of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Francis acknowledged as much, conceding on Wednesday that he had no new "recipe" to quickly change the world. Instead, he spoke about a "process of change" undertaken at the grass-roots level.

"What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to my neighborhood with the hearts full of hopes and dreams but without any real solution for my problems?" he asked. "A lot! They can do a lot. "You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands."

[Dec 24, 2018] Jewish neocons and the romance of nationalist armageddon

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Pity of It All : A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 ..."
"... Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results. ..."
"... Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal emphasis on an American dominated global empire. ..."
"... Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. ..."
"... Right now, their interests have diverged over the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. ..."
"... Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed. Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis. ..."
"... Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia. Or you can count their billions. ..."
"... The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop, confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality. ..."
"... Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country. They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on. ..."
"... "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper" ..."
"... "The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. " ..."
"... Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention. ..."
"... " (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper does not say that." ..."
"... But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld? ..."
"... Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS. ..."
"... But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence of the manifest destiny. ..."
May 06, 2014 | mondoweiss.net

At the Huffington Post, Jim Sleeper addresses "A Foreign-Policy Problem No One Speaks About," and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives. Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, even if he's not a warmongering neocon himself. The Yale lecturer's jumping-off point are recent statements by Leon Wieseltier and David Brooks lamenting the decline of American power.

In addition to Wieseltier and Brooks, the "blame the feckless liberals" chorus has included Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, David Frum, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and many other American neoconservatives. Some of them have been chastened, or at least been made more cautious, by their grand-strategic blunders of a few years ago ..

I'm saying that they've been fatuous as warmongers again and again and that there's something pathetic in their attempts to emulate Winston Churchill, who warned darkly of Hitler's intentions in the 1930s. Their blind spot is their willful ignorance of their own complicity in American deterioration and their over-compensatory, almost pre-adolescent faith in the benevolence of a statist and militarist power they still hope to mobilize against the seductions and terrors rising all around them.

At bottom, the chorus members' recurrent nightmares of 1938 doom them to reenact other nightmares, prompted by very similar writers in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Those writers are depicted chillingly, unforgettably, in Chapter 9, "War Fever," of Amos Elon's The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933. Elon's account of Germany's stampede into World War I chronicles painfully the warmongering hysterics of some Jewish would-be patriots of the Kaiserreich who exerted themselves blindly, romantically, to maneuver their state into the Armageddon that would produce Hitler himself.

This is the place to emphasize that few of Wilhelmine German's warmongers were Jews and that few Jews were or are warmongers. (Me, for example, although my extended-family history isn't much different from Brooks' or Wieseltier's.) My point is simply that, driven by what I recognize as understandable if almost preternatural insecurities and cravings for full liberal-nationalist belonging that was denied to Jews for centuries in Europe, some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves into the Iraq War, and they have continued, again and again, to employ modes of public discourse and politics that echo with eerie fidelity that of the people described in Elon's book. The Americans lionized George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and many others as their predecessors lionized Kaiser Wilhelm, von Bethmann-Hollweg, and far-right nationalist associates who hated the neo-cons of that time but let them play their roles .

Instead of acknowledging their deepest feelings openly, or even to themselves, the writers I've mentioned who've brought so much folly and destruction upon their republic, are doubling down, more nervous and desperate than ever, looking for someone else to blame. Hence their whirling columns and rhythmic incantations. After Germany lost World War I, many Germans unfairly blamed their national folly on Jews, many of whom had served in it loyally but only a few of whom had been provocateurs and cheerleaders like the signatories of [Project for New American Century's] letter to Bush. Now neo-cons, from Wieseltier and Brooks to [Charles] Hill, are blaming Obama and all other feckless liberals. Some of them really need to take a look in Amos Elon's mirror.

Interesting. Though I think Sleeper diminishes Jewish agency here (Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are no one's proxy) and can't touch the Israel angle. The motivation is not simply romantic identification with power, it's an ideology of religious nationalism in the Middle East, attachment to the needs of a militarist Sparta in the Arab world. That's another foreign policy problem no one speaks about.

Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:11 pm

"Democracy in in the Middle East" was always just a weasel-word saying of "let's try to improve Israel's strategic position by changing their neighbours".

The neocons basically took a hardline position on foreign interventionism based out of dual loyalty. This is the honest truth. For anti-Semites, a handful of neocons will always represent "The Jews" as a collective. For many Jews, the refusal to come to grips with the rise of the neocons and how the Jewish community (and really by "community" I mean the establishment) failed to prevent them in their own midst, is also a blemish.

Of course, Jim Sleeper is doing these things now. He should have done them 15-20 years ago or so. But better late than never, I guess.

Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:16 pm

P.S. While we talk a lot about neocons as a Jewish issue, it's also important to put them in perspective. The only war that I can truly think of that they influenced was the Iraq war, which was a disaster, but it also couldn't have happened without 9/11, which was a very rare event in the history of America. You have to go back to Pearl Harbor to find something similar, and that wasn't technically a terrorist attack but rather a military attack by Japan.

Leading up to the early 2000s, they were mostly ignored during the 1990s. They did take over the GOP media in the early 90s, using the same tactics used against Hagel, use social norms as a cover but in actuality the real reason is Israel.

Before the 90s, in the 70s and 80s, the cold war took up all the oxygen.
So yeah, the neocons need to be talked about. But comparing what they are trying to do with a World War is a bit of a stretch.

Finally, talking about Israel – which Sleeper ignored – and the hardline positions that the political class in America have adopted, if you want to look who have ensured the greatest slavishness to Israel, liberal/centrist groups like ADL, AJC and AIPAC(yes, they are mostly democrats!) have played a far greater role than the neocons.

But I guess, Sleeper wasn't dealing with that, because it would ruin his view of the neocons as the bogeymen.

Just like "liberal" Zionists want to blame Likud for everything, overlooking the fact that Labor/Mapai has had a far greater role in settling/colonizing the Palestinian land than the right has, and not to speak about the ethnic cleansing campaigns of '48 and '67 which was only done by the "left", so too the neocons often pose as a convenient catch-all target for the collective Jewish failure leading up to Iraq.

And I'm using the words "collective Jewish failure" because I actually don't believe, unlike Mearsheimer/Walt, that the war would not have gone ahead unless there was massive support by the Israel/Jewish lobby. If Jews had decided no, it would still have gone ahead. This is also contrary to Tom Friedman's famous saying of "50 people in DC are responsible for this war".
I also think that's an oversimplification.

But I focus more on the Jewish side because that's my side. And I want my community to do better, and just blaming the neocons is something I'm tired of hearing in Jewish circles. The inability to look at liberal Jewish journalists and their role in promoting the war to either gentile or Jewish audiences.

Kathleen, May 6, 2014, 6:53 pm

There was talk about this last night (Monday/5th) on Chris Matthew's Hardball segment on Condi "mushroom cloud" Rice pulling out of the graduation ceremonies at Rutger's. David Corn did not say much but Eugene Robinson and Chris Matthews were basically talking about Israel and the neocons desires to rearrange the middle east "the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad" conversation.

Bumblebye, May 6, 2014, 2:33 pm

"some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves into the Iraq War"

Have to take issue with that – the neo-cons hurled young American (and foreign) servicemen and women into that war, many to their deaths, along with throwing as much taxpayer money as possible. They stayed ultra safe and grew richer for their efforts.

Citizen, May 7, 2014, 9:03 am

@ Bumblebye

Good point. During WW1, as I read the history, the Jewish Germans provided their fair share of combat troops. If memory serves, despite Weimar Germany's later "stab in the back" theory, e.g., Hitler himself was given a combat medal thanks to his Jewish senior officer. In comparison to the build-up to Shrub Jr's war on Iraq, the Jewish neocons provided very few Jewish American combat troops.

It's hard to get reliable stats on Jewish American participation in the US combat arms during the Iraq war. For all I've been able to ascertain, more have joined the IDF over the years. At any rate, it's common knowledge that Shrub's war on Iraq was instigated and supported by chicken hawks (Jew or Gentile) at a time bereft of conscription. They built their sale by ignoring key facts, and embellishing misleading and fake facts, as illustrated by the Downing Street memo.

Keith, May 6, 2014, 7:47 pm

PHIL- Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine.

The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results.

Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal emphasis on an American dominated global empire.

So yes, the nationalistic emphasis is an anachronism, however, the decline of the US in conjunction with the extension of a system of globalized domination should hardly be of concern to elite power-seekers who will benefit. In fact, the new system of corporate/financial control will be beyond the political control of any nation, even the US. If they can pull it off. An interesting topic no doubt, but one which I doubt is suitable for extended discussion on Mondoweiss. As for power-seeking as a consequence of a uniquely Jewish experience, perhaps the less said the better.

ToivoS, May 7, 2014, 8:10 pm
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes that 10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition with them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on the same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.

Right now, their interests have diverged over the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support the political movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty antisemite whose followers killed many thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those left behind perished during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any of them would identify with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.

In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with the Bandera brigades.

RudyM, May 7, 2014, 9:36 pm
Interesting, meaty analysis here of the various players in Ukraine. This is unequivocally from a Russian perspective, incidentally:

link to wikispooks.com

(I know I'm always grabbing OT threads of discussion, but when it comes down to it, I know much less about Zionism and Israel/Palestine than many, if not most of the regular commenters here.)

I also am going to drift further off-topic by saying there is strong evidence that the slaughter in Odessa last Friday was highly orchestrated and not solely the result of spontaneous mob violence. Very graphic and disturbing images in all of these links:

I have only glanced at these:

American, May 6, 2014, 9:23 pm
" and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives. Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, ..>>

Stop it Sleeper. Do not continue to use the victim card ' to explain' the trauma, the insecurities, the nightmares, the angst, the feelings, the sensitivities, blah blah, blah of Zionist or Israel.

That is not what they are about. These are power mad psychos like most neocons, period.

And even if it were, and even if all the Jews in the world felt the same way, the bottom line would still be they do not have the right to make others pay in treasure and blood for their nightmares and mental sickness.

Citizen May 7, 2014, 9:46 am
@ yonah fredman

"The freedom of Ukraine is a worthy goal."

As near as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), the Ukrainians themselves are about half and half pro Russia and Pro NATO. Your glance at the history of the region as to why this is so, and your text on historical Ukranian suffering and POTV on MW commentary on this –did not help your analysis and its conclusion.

There's a difference between isolationism and defensive intervention, and even more so, re isolationism v. pro-active interventionism "in the name of pursuing the democratic ideal". See Ron Paul v. PNAC-style neocons and liberal Zionists.

Also, if you were Putin, how would you see the push of NATO & US force posts ever creeping towards Russia and its local environment? Look at the US military postings nearing Russia per se & those surrounding Iran. Compare Russia's.

And note the intent to wean EU from Russian oil, and as well, the draconian sanctions on Iran, and Obama's latest partnering sanctions on Russia.

Imagine yourself in Putin's shoes, and Iran's.

Don't abuse your imagination only by imagining yourself in Netanyahu's shoes, which is the preoccupation of AIPAC and its whores in the US Congress.

ToivoS, May 7, 2014, 8:49 pm

Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes that 10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition with them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on the same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.

Right now, their interests have diverged over the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support the political movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty anti-Semite whose followers killed many thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those left behind perished during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-Zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any of them would identify with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.

In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with the Bandera brigades.

ToivoSMay 7, 2014, 9:39 pm
Yonah writes The freedom of Ukraine is a worthy goal. If the US is not able to back up our attempt to help them gain their freedom it is not something to celebrate, but something to lament.

What are you saying? Ukraine has been an independent nation for 22 years. What freedom is this? What we have witnessed is that one half of Ukraine has gotten tired that the other half keeps on electing candidates that represent those Ukrainians that identify with Russian culture. They (the western half) successfully staged a coup and purged the other (eastern half) from the government. You call that "freedom". Doesn't it embarrass you, Yonah, that the armed militias that conducted that coup are descendants of the Bandera organization.

Does that ring a bell? These are the Ukrainians that were involved in the holocaust. Does Babi Yar stir any memories Yohan? It was a massacre of 40,000 Jews just outside of Kiev in 1942. It was the single largest massacre of Jews during WWII. The massacre was led by the Germans ( Einsatzgruppe C officers) but was carried out with the aid of 400 Ukrainian Auxillary Police. These were later incorporated into the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician" made up mostly Ukrainians. The division flags are to this day displayed at Right Sector rallies in western Ukraine.

Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed. Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis.

piotrMay 7, 2014, 10:18 pm
Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia. Or you can count their billions. In any case, the neutral posture is sensible for Israel here. Which is highly uncharacteristic for that government.

yonah fredman, May 7, 2014, 10:38 pm

Toivo S- The history of Jew hatred by certain anti Russian elements in the Ukraine is not encouraging and nothing that I celebrate. Maybe I have been swayed by headlines and a superficial reading of the situation.

If indeed I am wrong regarding the will of the Ukrainian people, I can only be glad that my opinion is just that, my opinion and not US or Israel or anyone's policy but my own. I assume that a majority of Ukrainians want to maintain independence of Russia and that the expressions of rebellion are in that vein.

My people were murdered by the einsatzgruppen in that part of the world and so maybe I have overcompensated by trying not to allow my personal history to interfere with what I think would be the will of the majority of the Ukraine.

But Toivo S. please skip the "doesn't it embarrass you" line of thought. Just put a sock in it and skip it.

ToivoSMay 8, 2014, 12:51 am

Well thanks for that Yonah. My wife's family descended from Jewish communities in Odessa and Galicia. They emigrated to the US between 1900 and 1940. After WWII none of their relatives left behind were ever heard from again. Perhaps you have family that experienced similar stories. What caused me to react to your post above is that you are describing the current situation in Ukraine as a "freedom" movement by the Ukrainians when the political forces there descended from the same people that killed my inlaws family (and apparently yours to). Why do you support them?

yonah fredmanMay 8, 2014, 1:30 am

ToivoS- I support them because I trust/don't trust Putin. I trust him to impose his brand of leadership on Ukraine, I don't trust him to care a whit about freedom. It is natural that the nationalist elements of Ukraine would descend from the elements that expressed themselves the last time they had freedom from the Soviet Union, that is those forces that were willing to join with the Nazis to express their hatred for the communist Soviet Union's rule over their freedom. That's how history works. The nationalists today descend from the nationalists of yesterday.

But it's been 70 years since WWII and the Ukrainians ought to be able to have freedom even if the parties that advocate for freedom are descended from those that supported the Nazis. (I know once i include the Nazi part of history any analogies are toxic, but if I am willing to grant Hamas its rights as an expression of the Palestinian desire for freedom, why would I deny the Ukrainian foul nationalist parties their rights to express their people's desire for freedom.)

Political parties are not made in a sterile laboratory, they evolve over history and most specifically they emerge from the past. I accept that Ukrainian nationalism has not evolved much, but nonetheless not having read any polls I assume that the nationalists are the representatives of the people's desire for freedom. And because Putin strikes me as something primitive, I accept the Ukrainian desire for freedom.

CitizenMay 8, 2014, 9:18 am

@ yonah f

What are you supporting? Let me refresh your historic memory: Black's Transfer Agreement. Now apply analogy, responding to ToivoS. Might help us all to understand, explore more skillfully, Israel's current stance on the Putin-Ukranian matter .?

(I think Nuland's intervention caught on tape, combined with who she is married to, already explores with great clarification what the US is doing.

irishmosesMay 8, 2014, 12:32 pm

Yonah said:

"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. Most people here would probably disagree with Sleeper, because he does not deny that the world needs a cop, nor that the US would play a positive role, if it only had the means and the desire to do so. People here (overwhelmingly) see the US role as a negative one (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world,"

The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop, confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality.

Contrast that with the realist or realism approach recommended by George Kennan, and followed by this country successfully through the end of the Cold War. That approach is conservative and contends we should stay out of wars unless the vital national security interests of the US are at stake, like protecting WESTERN Europe, Japan, Australia, and the Western Hemisphere. This meant we could sympathize with the plight of all the eastern Europeans oppressed by the Soviets, but would not defend militarily the Hungarians (1956) or the Czechs (1968). It also meant we wouldn't send US troops into North Vietnam because we didn't want to go to war with the Chinese over a country that was at best tangential to US interests. When we varied from that policy (Vietnam and Iraq wars, Somalia) we paid a very heavy price while doing nothing to advance or protect our vital national security interests.

The sooner this country can return to our traditional realism-based foreign policy the better. Part of that policy would be to disassociate the US from its entangling alliance with Likud Israel and its US Jewish supporters that espouse the Likud Greater Israel line.

Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country. They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on.

Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews. It is also directed at Neoconservative foreign policy advocates, comprised of Jews and non-Jews, and overlap between the two groups. Please also note my use of the term "major role", and that I am not saying the Neocons and their supporters (Jewish or non) were solely responsible for our involvement in the Iraq war. I am offering these caveats in the hope that the usual changes of antisemitism can be avoided in your or anyone else's response to my arguments.

The influence of Neocons on US foreign policy has been very harmful to this country and poses a grave danger to its future. It would be wise for you to reflect on that harm and those dangers and decide whether you belong in the realist camp or want to continue running with the Neocons.

seanmcbride, May 8, 2014, 1:01 pm

irishmoses,

Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews.

What about the role of *liberal Zionists*, like Hillary Clinton, in supporting and promoting the Iraq War? Clinton still hasn't offered an apology for helping to drive the United States in a multi-trillion dollar foreign policy disaster - and she has threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran.

What about Harry Reid's lavish praise of Sheldon Adelson?

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has for some time billed the Koch brothers as public enemy No.1 .

But billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson? He's just fine, Reid says.

"I know Sheldon Adelson. He's not in this for money," the Nevada Democrat said of Adelson, the Vegas casino magnate who reportedly spent close to $150 million to support Republicans in the 2012 presidential election."

link to politico.com

Are there really any meaningful distinctions between neoconservatives in the Republican Party and liberal Zionists in the Democratic Party?

talknic, May 7, 2014, 3:24 am

@ yonah fredman "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper"

Strange

"state into the Armageddon .. "

"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. "

Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention.

" (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper does not say that."

You do tho, without quoting anyone "here".

BTW Pajero, strawmen no matter how lengthy and seemingly erudite, rarely walk anywhere

JeffB, May 7, 2014, 9:06 am

I'm going to put this down as Jewish navel gazing.

Jews are disproportionately liberal. Jews make up a huge chunk of the peace movement. Jews are relative to their numbers on the left of most foreign policy positions.

Iraq was unusual in that Jews were not overwhelming opposed to the invasion, but it is worth noting the invasion at the time was overwhelming popular. Frankly given the fact that Jews are now considered white people and the fact that Jews are almost all middle class they should be biased conservative. There certainly is no reason they should be more liberal than Catholics. Yet they are. It is the degree of Jewish liberalism not the degree of Jewish conservatism that is striking.

But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld?

lysias, May 7, 2014, 10:55 am

The neocons lost one last night: Antiwar Rep. Walter Jones Beats Neocon-Backed GOP Rival:

Strongly antiwar incumbent Rep. Walter Jones (R – NC) has won a hotly contested primary tonight, defeating a challenge from hawkish challenger and former Treasury Dept. official Taylor Griffin 51% to 45%.

American, May 7, 2014, 11:24 am

Yep.

Voter turn out was light .. tea party types did a lot of lobbying for Griffin here .but Jones prevailed. Considering the onslaught of organized activity against him by ECI and the tea partiers for the past month he did well.

Citizen, May 8, 2014, 9:24 am

@ lysias
Let's refresh our look at what Ron Paul had to say about foreign policy and foreign aid. Then, let's compare what his son has said, and take a look of his latest bill in congress to cut off aid to Palestine. Yes, you read that right; it's not a bill to cut off any aid to Israel.

Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS.

traintosiberia, May 8, 2014, 9:12 am

Stockman's Corner

Bravo, Rep. Walter Jones -- Primary Win Sends Neocons Packing

by David Stockman • May 7, 2014 link to davidstockmanscontracorner.com

The heavy artillery included the detestable Karl Rove, former Governor and RNC Chair Haley Barber and the War Party's highly paid chief PR flack, Ari Fleischer.

But it was Neocon central that hauled out the big guns. Bill Kristol was so desperate to thwart the slowly rising anti-interventionist tide within the GOP that he even trotted out Sarah Palin to endorse Jones's opponent"

But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence of the manifest destiny.

[Dec 31, 2015] Absolutely Mr. Celik. Absolutely!

marknesop.wordpress.com
Northern Star, December 30, 2015 at 3:11 pm
http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/moscow-demands-arrest-of-rebel-for-murder-of-russian-warplane-pilot-1260805

"Revenge is the most natural right," Celik said in the interview, while refraining from claiming the pilot's death"

Absolutely Mr. Celik Absolutely! ..

yalensis , December 30, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike of views for an older story, from November 29, which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.

[Dec 31, 2015] Absolutely Mr. Celik. Absolutely!

marknesop.wordpress.com
Northern Star, December 30, 2015 at 3:11 pm
http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/moscow-demands-arrest-of-rebel-for-murder-of-russian-warplane-pilot-1260805

"Revenge is the most natural right," Celik said in the interview, while refraining from claiming the pilot's death"

Absolutely Mr. Celik Absolutely! ..

yalensis , December 30, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike of views for an older story, from November 29, which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.

[Dec 31, 2015] Absolutely Mr. Celik. Absolutely!

marknesop.wordpress.com
Northern Star, December 30, 2015 at 3:11 pm
http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/moscow-demands-arrest-of-rebel-for-murder-of-russian-warplane-pilot-1260805

"Revenge is the most natural right," Celik said in the interview, while refraining from claiming the pilot's death"

Absolutely Mr. Celik Absolutely! ..

yalensis , December 30, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike of views for an older story, from November 29, which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.

[Dec 31, 2015] Absolutely Mr. Celik. Absolutely!

marknesop.wordpress.com
Northern Star, December 30, 2015 at 3:11 pm
http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/moscow-demands-arrest-of-rebel-for-murder-of-russian-warplane-pilot-1260805

"Revenge is the most natural right," Celik said in the interview, while refraining from claiming the pilot's death"

Absolutely Mr. Celik Absolutely! ..

yalensis , December 30, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike of views for an older story, from November 29, which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.

[Dec 30, 2015] Ukrainian economy in depression: exports fall by about a third in 2015

Recession in Russia was the last nail on the coffin...
izvestia.ru

Exports of goods and services of Ukrainian production in 2015 will fall by about a third. And this is not surprising: as a result of "reforms" in the country almost died the industry lost its main Russian market, where Ukraine has supplied products with high added value. The cumulative figure of industrial production YTD is approximately -15%. The main export product of Ukraine for the first time since the pre-industrial era were products of agriculture. In the first place - corn.

[Dec 30, 2015] Ukrainian economy in depression: exports fall by about a third in 2015

Recession in Russia was the last nail on the coffin...
izvestia.ru

Exports of goods and services of Ukrainian production in 2015 will fall by about a third. And this is not surprising: as a result of "reforms" in the country almost died the industry lost its main Russian market, where Ukraine has supplied products with high added value. The cumulative figure of industrial production YTD is approximately -15%. The main export product of Ukraine for the first time since the pre-industrial era were products of agriculture. In the first place - corn.

[Dec 30, 2015] Ukrainian economy in depression: exports fall by about a third in 2015

Recession in Russia was the last nail on the coffin...
izvestia.ru

Exports of goods and services of Ukrainian production in 2015 will fall by about a third. And this is not surprising: as a result of "reforms" in the country almost died the industry lost its main Russian market, where Ukraine has supplied products with high added value. The cumulative figure of industrial production YTD is approximately -15%. The main export product of Ukraine for the first time since the pre-industrial era were products of agriculture. In the first place - corn.

[Dec 28, 2015] Collection of Vladimir Putins most notable speeches published

Walker, as usual, is just doing his paid job ;-). Bots have no Christmas vacations by definition: MTavernier, Metronome151, psygone, Alderbaran, MentalToo, Hektor Uranga, and one interesting new one Chukuriuk are all on duty. A deep observation by one of the commenters: "Interesting how all the trolling comments, such as yours, seem to be against Putin..."
What some people doe not understand is that Putin represents a countervailing force to the US imperial expansionism (and neoliberal expansionism in general). As there is an inherent value in existence of countervailing force (neocons thing otherwise ;-) Putin deserve some level of support even if one does not agree with everything he is doing. In a way Putin is more valuable to the USA then to Russia as he prevents the USA elite from doing extremely stupid thing which were done during Yeltsin rule which led to overstretching of the US empire and contains seeds its subsequent decline.
Notable quotes:
"... For all his sins you have to admire Putin. He is a man of conviction that actually believes in something that is worth saving, and will stop at nothing to achieve it. ..."
"... Battling against hostility from the West Putin has reformed the nations economy, and continues to work on behalf of his peoples interests. Its hard to imagine how Russia could ever replace Putin, or indeed what the new Russia would even look like without Putin at the helm. But for now the people are clearly grateful to have a strong decisive leader, as indeed are many other leaders across the globe who find Putin's honesty and conviction a breath of fresh air in a world of deception and double dealing. I guess with Putin you get what it says on the tin. ..."
"... Russian military requested by Assad to assist him in protecting his government. All others including America, British, French, Australian,Canadian, etc are there in contravention of International law ..."
"... Murdoch and Thatcher as a model of the free press? ..."
"... The Guardian and its puppet-masters hate the Russian people don't they? But they can't bring themselves to say that, so it's Putin they attempt to ridicule. ..."
"... Give me one Putin over a hundred Cameron's any day of the week. I've listened to a couple of those speeches, they are excellent, I don't bother listening to Mr Cameron. ..."
"... I know a few 'Russians' who have lived in the 'west' for 15/20 years. They had no illusions about their soviet upbringing, but knew the qualities of life - health care, education, housing - that it brought. They are generally agreed that the wonderland that was supposed to exist beyond their borders was an illusion. But they're hard working people, and they do OK. ..."
"... Russia has been able, in just 20 years, without wars and other troubles, to go from a semi-colony up to a world stage recognized leader. All Putin's risk-taking decisions have been successes or are still playing out and have good potential for ending in success. ..."
"... All this, quietly and imperceptibly, without tanks or strategic aviation, has been achieved by the Russian diplomacy, directed in a difficult confrontation with the block of the most powerful militarily and economically countries, while starting from a much lower position. ..."
"... Crimea would never have happened without the illegal coup backed by the west. We could choose to believe the western media's opinion on the state of Russia, or we could listen to the people who live there. ..."
"... What's that Shaun?.. Someone's publishing a book of Putin quotes?.. I've got a similar book by that other respected world leader and statesman.. You know.. Short, fat, speech impediment, drunk most of the time ... what's his name?..oh yeah, Churchill. ..."
"... This is what many in the west said too. Putin is just one of the few people with serious power to publically state the same. Western officials including Tony Blair admit that IS arose out of the chaos in Iraq. Its not even up for debate. The abomination that is IS is the chaos he warned us of. ..."
"... However, in the USA, Presidents tend to have Library Centers to archive their words of wisdom. Bush Junior's is located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in University Park, Texas, opened on April 25, 2013. ..."
"... Interesting how all the trolling comments, such as yours, seem to be against Putin... ..."
"... The MSM has brainwashed the western world and they don't know anything else but what they are fed. ..."
"... If you understand that the leader's image is so important for the well-being of the population you wouldn't be criticizing him. After the drunken years of Yeltsin the Russians needed a different role model. There is a reason for Obama (a heavy smoker) not to do it ( at least not in front of the cameras) ..."
"... They might have added his habit of speaking the truth. Best chance of finding out what's actually going on in Syria + the Middle East generally is to listen to Putin. ..."
The Guardian

Words That Change the World is a 400-page compilation of Vladimir Putin's most notable speeches, and has been sent out to all Russian MPs and other political figures as a gift from the presidential administration ahead of the country's new year holiday.

Anton Volodin of the pro-Kremlin youth group Network, which published the book, told the Guardian: "A year ago we noticed when reading one of his early speeches that it was exactly right in its predictions, so we decided to check all of his other speeches. And it turns out basically everything he said has either already come true or is in the process of coming true at this very moment."

There are 19 articles and speeches collected in the book, starting from 2003 and ending with Putin's speech to the UN general assembly earlier this year. Volodin said: "If you read through them all, you can see a clear pattern in his rhetoric and thoughts. A lot of people say he's unpredictable or untruthful, but actually everything he says is transparent, clear and fully formed."

Alderbaran -> Popeyes 28 Dec 2015 16:21

China's GDP is roughly five times that of Russia and China is already leasing land in Russia's east. I'm also assuming it is getting a pretty good deal on oil at the moment too - Don't expect an equal partnership

Russia needs the West, just as the West needs Russia. Do you agree?

Laurence Johnson 28 Dec 2015 16:19

For all his sins you have to admire Putin. He is a man of conviction that actually believes in something that is worth saving, and will stop at nothing to achieve it.

Battling against hostility from the West Putin has reformed the nations economy, and continues to work on behalf of his peoples interests. Its hard to imagine how Russia could ever replace Putin, or indeed what the new Russia would even look like without Putin at the helm. But for now the people are clearly grateful to have a strong decisive leader, as indeed are many other leaders across the globe who find Putin's honesty and conviction a breath of fresh air in a world of deception and double dealing. I guess with Putin you get what it says on the tin.

KoreyD -> dyst1111 28 Dec 2015 16:19

Russian military requested by Assad to assist him in protecting his government. All others including America, British, French, Australian,Canadian, etc are there in contravention of International law

Popeyes 28 Dec 2015 16:18

"If those who had been present at the UN general assembly had listened to Putin's words, the world would be a very different place. Hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive and Europe would not be full of refugees from the middle east."
Of course he was right but of course he wasn't the only one saying these things at the time. Such a shame our witless leaders didn't listen and perhaps we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

Popeyes 28 Dec 2015 15:54

Russia is slowly moving out of the dollar system and Western sanctions will eventually have little impact on the Russian economy. Russia and China can easily survive and prosper without the dollar. Unfortunately Europe will lose out massively due to Russia's response to the sanctions and will continue banning imports from the EU, agricultural produce, as well as manufactured goods, leaving hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. Just think what Putin has done even before he started bombing ISIS. He protects his country, his management of Russia's economy despite international sanctions are feats that are to be admired. Is it any wonder he is hated and feared by the West.

Fallowfield -> MTavernier 28 Dec 2015 16:16

I'm trying to work this out. Come on, you're not really saying that we have a free press in the west are you?

I believe it happened once, Watergate and all that. Murdoch and Thatcher as a model of the free press?

No, you're taking the piss. I'll stop there.

Fallowfield -> Alderbaran 28 Dec 2015 16:10

The people I know were 'the younger generation'. Their illusions about the west were quickly shattered. Different mafias, you see.
Putin's message? How very unlike our own dear Queen's Speech.

Alderbaran -> SHappens 28 Dec 2015 16:03

A very fair point but you have to admit that a forum saturated with meaningless posts is frustrating for those who actually want to discuss the article. I feel compelled to challenge a number of these posters.

Personally I feel that Russia started on a very different track following Putin's return as president in 2012 and following the Bolotnaya square demonstrations - He was shaken by this!

I see a cult of personality blinding many Russians, including many of the commentators on this forum and it seems that in Russia what is important is not the facts but nationalism and a shared identity. This helps to protect Putin from criticism ans shores up his position but it is worrying when a government relies so much on one man and that there is nothing to indicate that Putin intends to change this. The publication of a book of speeches by "Network" is yet another indication of the reliance on this personality cult and to be very frank, it disturbs and saddens me.

Does any of this concern you too, or do you think that this is the best that Russia should hope for at the moment?

Equidom 28 Dec 2015 16:02

The Guardian and its puppet-masters hate the Russian people don't they? But they can't bring themselves to say that, so it's Putin they attempt to ridicule.

Rantalot 28 Dec 2015 15:42

Give me one Putin over a hundred Cameron's any day of the week. I've listened to a couple of those speeches, they are excellent, I don't bother listening to Mr Cameron.

Fallowfield 28 Dec 2015 15:29

I know a few 'Russians' who have lived in the 'west' for 15/20 years. They had no illusions about their soviet upbringing, but knew the qualities of life - health care, education, housing - that it brought. They are generally agreed that the wonderland that was supposed to exist beyond their borders was an illusion. But they're hard working people, and they do OK.

They support Putin. Why? KGB indoctrination? Far from it, these are the people who wanted to get away. And they - just like you - love their homeland. And who protects their homeland? The President of the USA? The PM of the UK? You must be joking.
Putin. Nobody else.

SHappens -> apacheman 28 Dec 2015 15:26

Russia has been able, in just 20 years, without wars and other troubles, to go from a semi-colony up to a world stage recognized leader. All Putin's risk-taking decisions have been successes or are still playing out and have good potential for ending in success.

All this, quietly and imperceptibly, without tanks or strategic aviation, has been achieved by the Russian diplomacy, directed in a difficult confrontation with the block of the most powerful militarily and economically countries, while starting from a much lower position.

This is part of Putin, and Lavrov's great achievements. Might be worth for you to read this book after all, you might be learning something.


Alderbaran -> WalterCronkiteBot 28 Dec 2015 15:20

Who said you were Russian and why did you suggest that you might be if Putin has a lot of support outside the country?

What surprised me is your apparently unsupportable notion that Putin is trying to make Russia look amicable. Your post also brought up topics far from the bounds of this article, yet you state that you don't know what to believe in.

If you are sincere in wanting to understand Russia better, David Remnick's excellent book on Russia is a great start - see Lenin's Tomb. Chrystia freeland's 'Sale of the Century' brilliantly describes the Yeltsin years and the power struggles taking place following the fall of the wall. I'd also recommend listing to Mark Galeotti on the sublect of Russia, and he is a regular conrtibutor to both RT and RFERL.

Peter Evans -> Alderbaran 28 Dec 2015 15:10

Crimea would never have happened without the illegal coup backed by the west. We could choose to believe the western media's opinion on the state of Russia, or we could listen to the people who live there.

Fallowfield -> CoinBiter 28 Dec 2015 15:09

After the USA, UK and other allied countries had invaded Russia in 1919 the eventual Soviet Republic did what it could to protect itself I suppose. And Russia still does. Ask where the USA bases are, and compare their distribution to those of Russia.

The USA didn't fancy one in Cuba, did they? A perfectly lawful international agreement. They threatened nuclear destruction as an ultimatum.

WalterCronkiteBot -> Alderbaran 28 Dec 2015 15:04

Yes I'm an evil Russian. I can't possibly be from the west.

To answer your question though, I don't know what to believe hence me stating "What I don't get with Putin is...". I don't understand the actual situation because I don't have inside knowledge.

I'm saying on the face of it he appears to speak for those in the west against war in the ME, which is good, but we shouldnt trust him entirely.

If that makes me a Kremlin shill so be it.

Not4TheFaintOfHeart 28 Dec 2015 14:59

Can somebody please tell Shaun to come in from the cold... It's over Shaun: Syria saved from a Libya/Iraq fate x2, ISIS degraded very nicely, thank you, Crimea voted to be part of the RF, Mistrals now sold to Egept, BRICS bank created, colour revolution in Georgia thwarted...

What's that Shaun?.. Someone's publishing a book of Putin quotes?.. I've got a similar book by that other respected world leader and statesman.. You know.. Short, fat, speech impediment, drunk most of the time ... what's his name?..oh yeah, Churchill.


Fallowfield -> Metronome151 28 Dec 2015 14:49

Well we certainly jailed members of the WSPU for wanting to vote. 14 Northern Irish civil rights protest marchers, legal and unarmed, were shot dead on the street by British troops in 1972, as I remember. Striking workers have been jailed, and many more have had cases against them dropped in court for 'lack of evidence', ie when the police evidence presented was so obviously falsified. I wonder where the KGB got their ideas from?

apacheman -> Fallowfield 28 Dec 2015 14:48

And the Soviet people could thank the West for the Lend-Lease supplies that allowed them to withstand the Nazi juggernaut, without which they would have collapsed.

WalterCronkiteBot 28 Dec 2015 14:46

"Putin was correct to predict chaos in international affairs if the UN and other institutions of international law are ignored."

This is what many in the west said too. Putin is just one of the few people with serious power to publically state the same. Western officials including Tony Blair admit that IS arose out of the chaos in Iraq. Its not even up for debate. The abomination that is IS is the chaos he warned us of.

In 2013 Putin accused Kerry of lying when he told a senate hearing that AQ are not in Syria and as such pose no threat in that region. He warned us but noone listened. Now we have Syria overran by AQ affiliated groups toting US made weaponry.

What I don't get with Putin is the apparent naivety. As his speeches show he is well aware of the machinations of the western powers, yet puts faith in them time and time again. Hes either very naive or just wants to ensure that Russia look as amicable as possible in the history books.


Peter Evans 28 Dec 2015 14:34

The US loved Yeltsin, a weak leader, they do not like a strong Russian leader who does the best for his country.


mgeary -> rcil2003 28 Dec 2015 14:33

Oh, the results in the USA are the same as in Russia, the only difference being that they have a ruling elite there, who promote different faces every election for the Presidency.

This and the fact that, in contrast to Russia, they are being subtle about it...


Chuckman 28 Dec 2015 14:25

The most able leader of our generation. Simply a remarkable man.

Readers may enjoy:

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/vladimir-putin-the-worlds-last-true-statesman/

presstheredbutton 28 Dec 2015 14:14

This got me pondering on what an equivalent publication for George W Bush would contain. Chapter One - reading "My Pet Goat".

However, in the USA, Presidents tend to have Library Centers to archive their words of wisdom. Bush Junior's is located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in University Park, Texas, opened on April 25, 2013. The janitor wasn't best pleased; he had to find a new broom cupboard...

rcil2003 -> euphoniumbrioche 28 Dec 2015 14:16

western leaders are nothing but interchangeable game show hosts. Behind them is the real power, wielded in secret by utterly evil characters like Dick Cheney, who would have been right at home in the Third Reich.

presstheredbutton -> nonanon1 28 Dec 2015 14:15

Interesting how all the trolling comments, such as yours, seem to be against Putin...

Parangaricurimicuaro -> Metronome151 28 Dec 2015 14:20

Now you are giving me the reason. The MSM has brainwashed the western world and they don't know anything else but what they are fed.

Parangaricurimicuaro -> hermionegingold 28 Dec 2015 14:01

If you understand that the leader's image is so important for the well-being of the population you wouldn't be criticizing him. After the drunken years of Yeltsin the Russians needed a different role model. There is a reason for Obama (a heavy smoker) not to do it ( at least not in front of the cameras)

greatapedescendant -> Strummered 28 Dec 2015 13:46

They might have added his habit of speaking the truth. Best chance of finding out what's actually going on in Syria + the Middle East generally is to listen to Putin.

ID7586903 28 Dec 2015 13:45

Putin is the savior of Europe, and its culture

[Dec 24, 2015] Obama s foreign policy goals get a boost from plunging oil prices

Notable quotes:
"... At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States. ..."
The Washington Post

Plunging crude oil prices are diverting hundreds of billions of dollars away from the treasure chests of oil-exporting nations, putting some of the United States' adversaries under greater stress.

After two years of falling prices, the effects have reverberated across the globe, fueling economic discontent in Venezuela, changing Russia's economic and political calculations, and dampening Iranian leaders' hopes of a financial windfall when sanctions linked to its nuclear program will be lifted next year.

At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States.

"Cheap oil hurts revenues for some of our foes and helps some of our friends. The Europeans, South Koreans and Japanese - they're all winners," said Robert McNally, director for energy in President George W. Bush's National Security Council and now head of the Rapidan Group, a consulting firm. "It's not good for Russia, that's for sure, and it's not good for Iran."

... ... ...

In Iran, cheap oil is forcing the government to ratchet down expectations.

The much-anticipated lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program is expected to result in an additional half-million barrels a day of oil exports by the middle of 2016.

But at current prices, Iran's income from those sales will still fall short of revenue earned from constrained oil exports a year ago.

Moreover, low prices are making it difficult for Iran to persuade international oil companies to develop Iran's long-neglected oil and gas fields, which have been off limits since sanctions were broadened in 2012.

"Should Iran come out of sanctions, they will face a very different market than the one they had left in 2012," Amos Hochstein, the State Department's special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, said in an interview. "They were forced to recede in a world of over $100 oil, and sanctions will be lifted at $36 oil. They will have to work harder to convince companies to come in and take the risk for supporting their energy infrastructure and their energy production."

Meanwhile, in Russia, low oil prices have compounded damage done by U.S. and European sanctions that were designed to target Russia's energy and financial sectors. And when Iran increases output, its grade of crude oil will most likely go to Europe, where it will compete directly with Russia's Urals oil, McNally said.

Steven Mufson covers the White House. Since joining The Post, he has covered economics, China, foreign policy and energy.

[Dec 24, 2015] European Leaders Cry Foul Against Germany's Support for Gas Pipeline

Dec 21, 2015 | OilPrice.com
There is a growing chorus in Europe against Germany's support to expand a major natural gas pipeline from Russia over fears that it will leave Europe more dependent on their eastern neighbor.

The Nord Stream 2 would build on the existing Nord Stream pipeline, a conduit that delivers Russian natural gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea. Crucially, the project cuts out Ukraine, a key strategic objective for Russia since the original project's inception.

The latest $11 billion expansion would double the pipeline's current capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. From Russia's perspective, the project will increase market share and gas sales; from Germany's point of view, the project increases sources of supply. Nord Stream 2 was originally conceived of years ago, but in June 2015 Gazprom signed a memorandum with Royal Dutch Shell and OMV to move forward.

Nick Cunningham is a Vermont-based writer on energy and environmental issues. You can follow him on twitter at @nickcunningham1

[Dec 24, 2015] Obama's foreign policy goals get a boost from plunging oil prices

Notable quotes:
"... At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States. ..."
The Washington Post

Plunging crude oil prices are diverting hundreds of billions of dollars away from the treasure chests of oil-exporting nations, putting some of the United States' adversaries under greater stress.

After two years of falling prices, the effects have reverberated across the globe, fueling economic discontent in Venezuela, changing Russia's economic and political calculations, and dampening Iranian leaders' hopes of a financial windfall when sanctions linked to its nuclear program will be lifted next year.

At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States.

"Cheap oil hurts revenues for some of our foes and helps some of our friends. The Europeans, South Koreans and Japanese - they're all winners," said Robert McNally, director for energy in President George W. Bush's National Security Council and now head of the Rapidan Group, a consulting firm. "It's not good for Russia, that's for sure, and it's not good for Iran."

... ... ...

In Iran, cheap oil is forcing the government to ratchet down expectations.

The much-anticipated lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program is expected to result in an additional half-million barrels a day of oil exports by the middle of 2016.

But at current prices, Iran's income from those sales will still fall short of revenue earned from constrained oil exports a year ago.

Moreover, low prices are making it difficult for Iran to persuade international oil companies to develop Iran's long-neglected oil and gas fields, which have been off limits since sanctions were broadened in 2012.

"Should Iran come out of sanctions, they will face a very different market than the one they had left in 2012," Amos Hochstein, the State Department's special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, said in an interview. "They were forced to recede in a world of over $100 oil, and sanctions will be lifted at $36 oil. They will have to work harder to convince companies to come in and take the risk for supporting their energy infrastructure and their energy production."

Meanwhile, in Russia, low oil prices have compounded damage done by U.S. and European sanctions that were designed to target Russia's energy and financial sectors. And when Iran increases output, its grade of crude oil will most likely go to Europe, where it will compete directly with Russia's Urals oil, McNally said.

Steven Mufson covers the White House. Since joining The Post, he has covered economics, China, foreign policy and energy.

[Dec 24, 2015] Is The Russian-Turkish Standoff An Opportunity For The West

Notable quotes:
"... apparently, two USAF F-15C Eagle air superiority fighters (which had been deployed to Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey, in November 2015) were in the air as back-up to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish Air Force: THK) F-16s, one of which shot down the Su-24. ..."
"... At best, Russia may now move to cover its tactical operations in northern Syria more effectively by offering its own deterrence of top cover by advanced fighters while the ground attack aircraft, such as the Su-24s, do their job. It is also clear that any further Turkish incursions into Syrian airspace were now at-risk, but the Turks already knew that. ..."
Dec 14, 2015 | OilPrice.com

It was, in this latest incident, Turkey, working with the U.S. Government of President Barack Obama, which planned and executed the November 24, 2015, interception of the Russian Air Force Su-24. The event was not a spontaneous occurrence, and, apparently, two USAF F-15C Eagle air superiority fighters (which had been deployed to Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey, in November 2015) were in the air as back-up to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish Air Force: THK) F-16s, one of which shot down the Su-24. USAF sources subsequently said that the U.S. was taken by surprise when the THK shot down the Sukhoi, but that hardly squares with the historical Turkish practice of coordinating such actions with Washington. Moreover, the Turkish narrative that it "warned" the Russian aircraft several times over a period of five minutes before the THK F-16 shot it down also does not square with reality.

And in this particular ground attack operation, the two Su-24s - including the one which was destroyed - were engaged on missions which did not require them to enter Turkish airspace, even though an acci-dental entry into it was conceivable. Their targets were in the area of northern Syria: pro-Ankara Turkmen militia engaged in supporting the massive cross-border operations of ISIS (asad- Dawlah al-Islamiyah fi al-'Iraq wash-Sham, or Islamic State) moving oil, fighters, and weapons across the Syria-Turkish border.

Dave Majumdar, Defense Editor at the U.S. blogsite, The National Interest, on December 7, 2015, noted: "The United States and Turkey are working on an agreement that would allow the US Air Force F-15Cs to defend Turkish airspace. However, the precise rules of engagement and procedures have yet to be ironed out." It is possible that Turkey wanted to illustrate to the US that its airspace was, in fact, threatened. But what has been clear is that no credible Russian military threat to Turkey existed.

At best, Russia may now move to cover its tactical operations in northern Syria more effectively by offering its own deterrence of top cover by advanced fighters while the ground attack aircraft, such as the Su-24s, do their job. It is also clear that any further Turkish incursions into Syrian airspace were now at-risk, but the Turks already knew that.

Recently-retired U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn publicly said in Moscow on December 10, 2015, that there was no possibility that the Turkish shootdown was undertaken without the express permission and direction of "the highest authority" in Turkey.

Indeed, Turkey has traditionally played the role of aggressor in terms of airspace violation. Not only did the THK lose an RF-4E Phantom II reconnaissance aircraft well into Syrian airspace on June 22, 2012, as a result of surface-to-air missile fire, it continues to consistently invade the airspace of fellow NATO member and neighbor Greece in a manner far more hostile than the penetration of Turkish airspace it alleged Russia undertook (for 17 seconds). THK F-16s entered Greek airspace some 2,200 times in 2014 alone. Moreover, Turkey consistently has violated Cypriot air-, sea, and land-space since its 1974 invasion and occupation of the northern 37 percent of Cyprus.1

So Turkey is hardly the victim. [Indeed, by deliberately starting the "civil war" to remove Pres. Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria, Turkey only incurred a "refugee problem" as a result of its own actions, and has subsequently sought to push those refugees onward into Europe as quickly as possible, seeking political rewards from Europe as the only power capable of stopping the refugee flows.]

In any event, Pres. Erdogan, three years ago said that "a short- term border violation can never be a pre-text for an attack". But that, of course, was when a THK aircraft was shot down by Syria when the THK F-4E deliberately and for some time penetrated Syrian airspace on a mission against Syria.

... .... ....

Turkey, too, will not remain inactive. It will resume its support for anti-Russian terrorism, including support for jihadist movements in the Caucasus. These have included such groups as Kvadrat (Quadrant), a Bos-nia-based Wahhabist unit, which had "laundered" its operations through Turkish-occupied Northern Cy-prus, thence into Turkey and on into the Russian Caucasus.4 But the reactivation of Turkish-backed terror-ism in the Russian Caucasus will be far wider than just Kvadrat: Turkey works extensively, even now, with Chechen and other Caucasus groups inside ISIS and in the jihadi operations in Syria.

Significantly, by early December 2015, President Erdogan assumed that the crisis had passed sufficiently for Turkey to expand its activities in the area. There was no indication that Turkey and ISIS had diminished their extensive and integrated operations in terms of oil transactions, the supply of weapons to ISIS via Turkey, and the use of Turkey as a medical support arena for ISIS wounded. But Turkey went further and deployed Turkish Army troops into northern Iraq near the ISIS-held city of Mosul in early December 2015. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi led calls for Turkish troops to be withdrawn immediately; they had not been withdrawn by the time this report went to press.

... ... ...

The path, however, is open for a great Russian cooperation with the Kurdish forces, as well as with other regional allies which are concerned about Turkey's strategic adventurism. The Kurds, particularly those led by the majority Kurdish force (under the PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, the Kurdish Workers' Par-ty), are now well underway in responding to Ankara. The civil war is underway inside Turkey, and it re-mains literally out-of-bounds to the international media. What is significant is that the Kurds have thus far not agreed to cooperate with Russia, but are awaiting a nod from their principal ally, Israel, before trust-ing Russia.

Thus Israel's position becomes critical in this debate.

Much of the Israeli leadership still hopes that a rapprochement might be achievable with Turkey, but that hope is fading. On the other hand, Israeli planners have to consider whether a broken Turkey - perhaps replaced by a patchwork of states, and with no non-Arab player other than Iran to monitor the region - is worse than a troublesome Turkey. There is also the question of whether unqualified Israeli support for the Kurdish "big push" against Turkey would then jeopardize Israeli strategic relations with Saudi Arabia, which is apparently undecided on whether, or how much, it favors a continuation of the Turkish state.

Without Turkey, according to the Saudi rationale, who would be the counterweight to Iran?

Israel is also not immune to this argument, although for Israel the prospect exists for an eventual reunion with Tehran, after the clerical leadership goes, or modifies.

So Russia is left with three potential regional allies - apart from Syria, Iraq, and Iran - against Ankara: Greece, Egypt, and Jordan. And Cyprus and Armenia to the limited extent that they can assist.

... ... ...

Articles 10 to 18 are the articles which allow for various states, including Russia, to transit military ships through the straits. In short, if Turkey invoked either Article 20 or Article 21, Russia would be legally blocked from moving any naval vessel through the Straits.

Moscow has clearly long gamed out this scenario, which accounts for President Putin's commitment to a measured response to Ankara. Thus it must be a proxy response, for the most part, as well as an economic one. But while it demonstrates the delicacy needed by Moscow, it also demonstrates the reality that Russia cannot continue to be strategically constrained by an increasingly hostile and ambitious Turkey.

So where Turkey is vulnerable is in its economy.

The effects of Russian economic embargoes against Turkey are far more significant than would seem to be the case because the Turkish economy is more vulnerable than it has been portrayed. It is far more leveraged with borrowings than at any time in the recent past. It has a discreet outflow of domestic capital and is heavily reliant on discreet financial injections, probably coming from Qatar, and possible Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia's ability to prop up Turkey is becoming limited.

...while Turkey may not be regarded as an entirely stable partner for the PRC in the region, Beijing would be wary of acting precipitously against it.

...Iran - like Russia - is constrained to act cautiously and indirectly against Turkey. Moreover, Iran cannot risk that its own Kurdish population could join with Syrian, Iraqi, and Turkish Kurds to form a new Kurdish state.

...And in the short-term, this all has hardened Ankara's position on remaining in control of the northern 37 percent of Cyprus, which it has occupied militarily since 1974.

...There is no doubt that Pres. Erdogan believes that continued brinkmanship will be possible, although he is not perhaps aware that he is losing the information war, or the psychological war.

Amvet on December 15 2015 said:

Thank you Mr. Copley for a well researched, honest, and very interesting article. Any chance of getting this published in any US mainstream
newspaper or magazine ?? .

Jim on December 15 2015 said:

...Nice information actually, most mainstream media doesn't even come close. Thanks. definitely a deliberate and pre-approved escalation of the conflict, pointing fingers back to Washington, D.C.

Chris on December 15 2015 said:

A great article that brings together much of what has been reported and provides a coherent framework for understanding it. This piece should be in a general interest publication such as the NY Times so that more Americans could understand what is really going on in the Middle East.

[Dec 23, 2015] How America Lost the Rest of the World

Notable quotes:
"... I'm still trying to think through the implications but they are certainly disquieting. Without trying to hard I'd summarize that "the masks are coming off." ..."
"... The question then is, what happens after "the masks come off?" ..."
"... Short-sighted western pundits will still be penning deadline copy headlined "How Putin lost Ukraine" while those with real vision will be putting the finishing touches on "How America Lost the Rest of the World" ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com
Cortes, December 18, 2015 at 3:38 am
Michael Hudson on IMF manoeuvres

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/18/the-imf-changes-its-rules-to-isolate-china-and-russia/

Tim Owen, December 18, 2015 at 6:24 am
Hard to overstate the importance of this article. Thanks for spotting it.

There's a lot here but this passage is kind of free-standing in its value by simply condensing how the IMF has contorted itself:

"The IMF thus is breaking four rules:

  1. Not lending to a country that has no visible means to pay back the loan breaks the "No More Argentinas" rule adopted after the IMF's disastrous 2001 loan.
  2. Not lending to countries that refuse in good faith to negotiate with their official creditors goes against the IMF's role as the major tool of the global creditors' cartel.
  3. And the IMF is now lending to a borrower at war, indeed one that is destroying its export capacity and hence its balance-of-payments ability to pay back the loan.
  4. Finally, the IMF is lending to a country that has little likelihood of refuse carrying out the IMF's notorious austerity "conditionalities" on its population – without putting down democratic opposition in a totalitarian manner. Instead of being treated as an outcast from the international financial system, Ukraine is being welcomed and financed."

I'm still trying to think through the implications but they are certainly disquieting. Without trying to hard I'd summarize that "the masks are coming off."

The question then is, what happens after "the masks come off?"

… war.

(Sometimes it's best just to blurt out what's worrying you.)

marknesop, December 18, 2015 at 10:36 am
Short-sighted western pundits will still be penning deadline copy headlined "How Putin lost Ukraine" while those with real vision will be putting the finishing touches on "How America Lost the Rest of the World".

[Dec 23, 2015] The Neocons - Masters of Chaos

Notable quotes:
"... It's now clear that if Obama had ordered a major bombing campaign against Assad's military in early September 2013, he might have opened the gates of Damascus to a hellish victory by al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists or the even more brutal Islamic State, since these terrorist groups have emerged as the only effective fighters against Assad. ..."
"... By late September 2013, the disappointed neocons were acting out their anger by taking aim at Putin. They recognized that a particular vulnerability for the Russian president was Ukraine and the possibility that it could be pulled out of Russia's sphere of influence and into the West's orbit. ..."
"... But Gershman added that Ukraine was really only an interim step to an even bigger prize, the removal of the strong-willed and independent-minded Putin, who, Gershman added, "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad [i.e. Ukraine] but within Russia itself." In other words, the new neocon hope was for "regime change" in Kiev and Moscow. [See Consortiumnews.com's " Neocons' Ukraine/Syria/Iran Gambit. "] ..."
"... Putin also had sidetracked that possible war with Iran by helping to forge an interim agreement constraining but not eliminating Iran's nuclear program. So, he became the latest target of neocon demonization, a process in which the New York Times and the Washington Post eagerly took the lead. ..."
"... As the political violence in Kiev escalated – with the uprising's muscle supplied by neo-Nazi militias from western Ukraine – neocons within the Obama administration discussed how to "midwife" a coup against Yanukovych. Central to this planning was Victoria Nuland, who had been promoted to assistant secretary of state for European affairs and was urging on the protesters, even passing out cookies to protesters at Kiev's Maidan square. ..."
"... When the coup went down on Feb. 22 – spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias who seized government buildings and forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives – the U.S. State Department quickly deemed the new regime "legitimate" and the mainstream U.S. media dutifully stepped up the demonization of Yanukovych and Putin. ..."
"... Although Putin's position had been in support of Ukraine's status quo – i.e., retaining the elected president and the country's constitutional process – the crisis was pitched to the American people as a case of "Russian aggression" with dire comparisons made between Putin and Hitler, especially after ethnic Russians in the east and south resisted the coup regime in Kiev and Crimea seceded to rejoin Russia. ..."
"... Pressured by the Obama administration, the EU agreed to sanction Russia for its "aggression," touching off a tit-for-tat trade war with Moscow which reduced Europe's sale of farming and manufacturing goods to Russia and threatened to disrupt Russia's natural gas supplies to Europe. ..."
"... While the most serious consequences were to Ukraine's economy which went into freefall because of the civil war, some of Europe's most endangered economies in the south also were hit hard by the lost trade with Russia. Europe began to stagger toward the third dip in a triple-dip recession with European markets experiencing major stock sell-offs. ..."
Oct 17, 2014 | consortiumnews.com

If you're nervously watching the stock market gyrations and worrying about your declining portfolio or pension fund, part of the blame should go to America's neocons who continue to be masters of chaos, endangering the world's economy by instigating geopolitical confrontations in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Of course, there are other factors pushing Europe's economy to the brink of a triple-dip recession and threatening to stop America's fragile recovery, too. But the neocons' "regime change" strategies, which have unleashed violence and confrontations across Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran and most recently Ukraine, have added to the economic uncertainty.

This neocon destabilization of the world economy began with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 under President George W. Bush who squandered some $1 trillion on the bloody folly. But the neocons' strategies have continued through their still-pervasive influence in Official Washington during President Barack Obama's administration.

The neocons and their "liberal interventionist" junior partners have kept the "regime change" pot boiling with the Western-orchestrated overthrow and killing of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the proxy civil war in Syria to oust Bashar al-Assad, the costly economic embargoes against Iran, and the U.S.-backed coup that ousted Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.

All these targeted governments were first ostracized by the neocons and the major U.S. news organizations, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, which have become what amounts to neocon mouthpieces. Whenever the neocons decide that it's time for another "regime change," the mainstream U.S. media enlists in the propaganda wars.

The consequence of this cascading disorder has been damaging and cumulative. The costs of the Iraq War strapped the U.S. Treasury and left less government maneuvering room when Wall Street crashed in 2008. If Bush still had the surplus that he inherited from President Bill Clinton – rather than a yawning deficit – there might have been enough public money to stimulate a much-faster recovery.

President Obama also wouldn't have been left to cope with the living hell that the U.S. occupation brought to the people of Iraq, violent chaos that gave birth to what was then called "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" and has since rebranded itself "the Islamic State."

But Obama didn't do himself (or the world) any favors when he put much of his foreign policy in the hands of Democratic neocon-lites, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Bush holdovers, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus. At State, Clinton promoted the likes of neocon Victoria Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan, and Obama brought in "liberal interventionists" like Samantha Power, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In recent years, the neocons and "liberal interventionists" have become almost indistinguishable, so much so that Robert Kagan has opted to discard the discredited neocon label and call himself a "liberal interventionist." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Obama's True Foreign Policy 'Weakness.'"]

Manipulating Obama

Obama, in his nearly six years as president, also has shied away from imposing his more "realistic" views about world affairs on the neocon/liberal-interventionist ideologues inside the U.S. pundit class and his own administration. He has been outmaneuvered by clever insiders (as happened in 2009 on the Afghan "surge") or overwhelmed by some Official Washington "group think" (as was the case in Libya, Syria, Iran and Ukraine).

Once all the "smart people" reach some collective decision that a foreign leader "must go," Obama usually joins the chorus and has shown only rare moments of toughness in standing up to misguided conventional wisdoms.

The one notable case was his decision in summer 2013 to resist pressure to destroy Syria's military after a Sarin gas attack outside Damascus sparked a dubious rush to judgment blaming Assad's regime. Since then, more evidence has pointed to a provocation by anti-Assad extremists who may have thought that the incident would draw in the U.S. military on their side. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Was Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack?"]

It's now clear that if Obama had ordered a major bombing campaign against Assad's military in early September 2013, he might have opened the gates of Damascus to a hellish victory by al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists or the even more brutal Islamic State, since these terrorist groups have emerged as the only effective fighters against Assad.

But the neocons and the "liberal interventionists" seemed oblivious to that danger. They had their hearts set on Syrian "regime change," so were furious when their dreams were dashed by Obama's supposed "weakness," i.e. his failure to do what they wanted. They also blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin who brokered a compromise with Assad in which he agreed to surrender all of Syria's chemical weapons while still denying a role in the Sarin attack.

By late September 2013, the disappointed neocons were acting out their anger by taking aim at Putin. They recognized that a particular vulnerability for the Russian president was Ukraine and the possibility that it could be pulled out of Russia's sphere of influence and into the West's orbit.

So, Carl Gershman, the neocon president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to sound the trumpet about Ukraine, which he called "the biggest prize."

But Gershman added that Ukraine was really only an interim step to an even bigger prize, the removal of the strong-willed and independent-minded Putin, who, Gershman added, "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad [i.e. Ukraine] but within Russia itself." In other words, the new neocon hope was for "regime change" in Kiev and Moscow. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Neocons' Ukraine/Syria/Iran Gambit."]

Destabilizing the World

Beyond the recklessness of plotting to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia, the neocon strategy threatened to shake Europe's fragile economic recovery from a painful recession, six years of jobless stress that had strained the cohesion of the European Union and the euro zone.

Across the Continent, populist parties from the Right and Left have been challenging establishment politicians over their inability to reverse the widespread unemployment and the growing poverty. Important to Europe's economy was its relationship with Russia, a major market for agriculture and manufactured goods and a key source of natural gas to keep Europe's industries humming and its houses warm.

The last thing Europe needed was more chaos, but that's what the neocons do best and they were determined to punish Putin for disrupting their plans for Syrian "regime change," an item long near the top of their agenda along with their desire to "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," which Israel has cited as an "existential threat."

Putin also had sidetracked that possible war with Iran by helping to forge an interim agreement constraining but not eliminating Iran's nuclear program. So, he became the latest target of neocon demonization, a process in which the New York Times and the Washington Post eagerly took the lead.

To get at Putin, however, the first step was Ukraine where Gershman's NED was funding scores of programs for political activists and media operatives. These efforts fed into mass protests against Ukrainian President Yanukovych for balking at an EU association agreement that included a harsh austerity plan designed by the International Monetary Fund. Yanukovych opted instead for a more generous $15 billion loan deal from Putin.

As the political violence in Kiev escalated – with the uprising's muscle supplied by neo-Nazi militias from western Ukraine – neocons within the Obama administration discussed how to "midwife" a coup against Yanukovych. Central to this planning was Victoria Nuland, who had been promoted to assistant secretary of state for European affairs and was urging on the protesters, even passing out cookies to protesters at Kiev's Maidan square.

According to an intercepted phone call with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Nuland didn't think EU officials were being aggressive enough. "Fuck the EU," she said as she brainstormed how "to help glue this thing." She literally handpicked who should be in the post-coup government – "Yats is the guy," a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk who would indeed become prime minister.

When the coup went down on Feb. 22 – spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias who seized government buildings and forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives – the U.S. State Department quickly deemed the new regime "legitimate" and the mainstream U.S. media dutifully stepped up the demonization of Yanukovych and Putin.

Although Putin's position had been in support of Ukraine's status quo – i.e., retaining the elected president and the country's constitutional process – the crisis was pitched to the American people as a case of "Russian aggression" with dire comparisons made between Putin and Hitler, especially after ethnic Russians in the east and south resisted the coup regime in Kiev and Crimea seceded to rejoin Russia.

Starting a Trade War

Pressured by the Obama administration, the EU agreed to sanction Russia for its "aggression," touching off a tit-for-tat trade war with Moscow which reduced Europe's sale of farming and manufacturing goods to Russia and threatened to disrupt Russia's natural gas supplies to Europe.

While the most serious consequences were to Ukraine's economy which went into freefall because of the civil war, some of Europe's most endangered economies in the south also were hit hard by the lost trade with Russia. Europe began to stagger toward the third dip in a triple-dip recession with European markets experiencing major stock sell-offs.

The dominoes soon toppled across the Atlantic as major U.S. stock indices dropped, creating anguish among many Americans just when it seemed the hangover from Bush's 2008 market crash was finally wearing off.

Obviously, there are other reasons for the recent stock market declines, including fears about the Islamic State's victories in Syria and Iraq, continued chaos in Libya, and exclusion of Iran from the global economic system – all partly the result of neocon ideology. There have been unrelated troubles, too, such as the Ebola epidemic in western Africa and various weather disasters.

But the world's economy usually can withstand some natural and manmade challenges. The real problem comes when a combination of catastrophes pushes the international financial system to a tipping point. Then, even a single event can dump the world into economic chaos, like what happened when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008.

It's not clear whether the world is at such a tipping point today, but the stock market volatility suggests that we may be on the verge of another worldwide recession. Meanwhile, the neocon masters of chaos seem determined to keep putting their ideological obsessions ahead of the risks to Americans and people everywhere.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

[Dec 22, 2015] Destruction of the financial system of Ukraine is complete

Essentially it got "below junk" rating...
Notable quotes:
"... How could Ukraine's government deficit only be 4.1% when its currency has crashed, it has lost most of its sources of income and it has just defaulted on its debt? What the fuck are they talking about? ..."
"... First, there is no way on God's green earth that there is a negative difference of only 4.1% between Ukraine's annual revenues and its annual expenditures, especially since it has almost no revenues except from taxation. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

marknesop, December 19, 2015 at 6:43 pm

According to Madame Jaresko, their decision not to pay the $3 Billion bond to Russia has set Ukraine free, free as a bird, and allowed it to now be in full compliance with the financing requirements of the IMF program.

Start shovelin' in the money, IMF, because Ukraine has the magic formula – just refuse to pay what you owe, call it a 'temporary suspension of payments' instead of 'a default', and reap the reward for your display of responsibility.

I foresee the mileage Russia is going to get out of this will far exceed the value of the $3 Billion.

marknesop, December 19, 2015 at 8:47 pm

How could Ukraine's government deficit only be 4.1% when its currency has crashed, it has lost most of its sources of income and it has just defaulted on its debt? What the fuck are they talking about?

"The proposed budget would work to reduce the government's deficit from 4.1% to 3.7%, with measures including an increase in revenue by widening the tax base."

First, there is no way on God's green earth that there is a negative difference of only 4.1% between Ukraine's annual revenues and its annual expenditures, especially since it has almost no revenues except from taxation.

And now the IMF expects to realize more revenue from widening the tax base – yes, I can imagine what a popular initiative that is. Now you know how Yushchenko felt, Yatsie, when the IMF denied him a second big loan because he refused to eliminate the gas subsidies to residents.

Now the IMF has finally realized that triumph through a different leader, and it wants to see even more tax revenue. You are about to be as popular as a turd in the punch bowl; have fun with that.

kirill, December 20, 2015 at 12:58 pm

I would not trust any GDP numbers from the Kiev regime either. They lost 25% of the economy in the Donbas alone not counting Crimea. This has knock on effects to the rest of Banderastan. Yet they are yapping about some 12% contraction in 2015 after a 7% contraction in 2014. I see no clear indication that they are counting the GDP only for regime controlled Banderastan.

As for the budget, according to regime officials, Banderastan lost 30% of its hard currency revenues with the loss of the Donbass. I estimate the tax loss to Kiev to be about 30% as well.

The Donbass was the industrialized part of the country while western Banderastan is primarily agrarian. So talk about 4% shortfalls in revenue is utter rubbish. In most countries the money making parts of the economy subsidize the rest and sure as hell it was not western Banderastan that was subsidizing the Donbass. That was just virulent blood libel such as the claim that Russians settled eastern Ukraine only after the Holodomor.

marknesop, December 20, 2015 at 1:13 pm

Europe deserves Ukraine. Let them have it, the quicker the better. It's fine when Yats is selling that stinking mess to his simple-minded constituents, but European policymakers will see through it right away. Unfortunately, Brussels knows better than to bring Ukraine any closer into the fold, because if they get a visa-free regime, the place will empty out in a week as Ukrainians flee throughout Europe (which is already, everyone must know, full of refugees) looking for jobs.

[Dec 22, 2015] Americas Double Standard on Trade

Dec 22, 2015 | naked capitalism
Yves here. If you followed the TransPacific Partnership negotiations closely, you may recall that Japan looked like it was going along only to placate Washington, and then it signed up only because the US allowed it to drop its "defense only" posture (remember that Japan is a military protectorate of the US) and gave major concession on agriculture (Japan's farmers are a famously powerful voting block). But even then, Japan is not firmly in the US fold. It has made clear that the US needs to get a deal done pronto.

By contrast, this post describes the US foot-dragging and gamesmanship to protect US agricultural interests from competition from developing economies.

Yesterday, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman delivered his plenary statement to the trade ministers gathered in Nairobi for the World Trade Organization's tenth ministerial conference. His statement, which calls for the abandonment of the Doha Development Round in favor of negotiations on new issues of more strategic interest to the United States, deserve a response from a countryman.

Mr. Froman calls on trade representatives "to move beyond the cynical repetition of positions designed to produce deadlock." Yet this is precisely what Mr. Froman has come to Nairobi to repeat: U.S. positions designed to produce deadlock.

He decries the lack of progress in the last 15 years of Doha negotiations, yet he fails to acknowledge that the United States has been, and remains, the principal reason for that failure. Since 2008, when negotiations broke down, the U.S. has refused to continue negotiating on the key issues central to the development agenda – reducing agricultural subsidies, allowing developing countries special protection measures for agriculture, eliminating export subsidies and credits, and a host of other issues.

Those issues remain critical to developing countries, and U.S. intransigence in addressing those concerns is the main reason Doha has stagnated. In addition, the U.S. has introduced new issues to create further obstacles to progress, such as its objection to India's ambitious and laudable public stockholding program to provide food security to fully two-thirds of its people.

The draft declaration on agriculture in Nairobi offers no progress on resolving this issue, despite the explicit commitment in Bali and later in Geneva to find a permanent solution that can allow India and other countries to pursue such programs.

That is not the only developing country issue left unaddressed. The declaration offers nothing to developing countries to allow them to protect sensitive sectors from unfair or sudden import surges, the Special Safeguard Mechanism. It offers no meaningful cuts in U.S. export credits, which have favored U.S. exporters to Africa with some $1.25 billion in credits over the last six years.

Perhaps most notably, the declaration makes no mention of the key issue in the Doha Round: reductions in rich country agricultural subsidies and supports. With crop prices low and a new Farm Bill authorizing rising levels of support to U.S. farmers and exporters, this omission is a direct blow to those developing countries which see their farmers and export prospects harmed by underpriced U.S. exports.

Nor does Mr. Froman mention cotton subsidies, an issue which the United States and the WTO membership committed to address "expeditiously" ten long years ago in Hong Kong. The issue remains unresolved, and the draft agriculture text fails to offer anything to Africa's C-4 cotton producing countries, which have millions of poor farmers desperately in need of relief.

Instead, the U.S. Farm Bill promises further price suppression. According to a recent study, cotton subsidies could total $1.5 billion, increasing U.S. exports 29% and suppressing prices by 7%. All cotton producers in the rest of the world will suffer an estimated $3.3 billion in annual losses, with India projected to lose $800 million per year.

The C-4 countries as a group stand to lose $80 million a year in reduced income, a huge blow to struggling farmers in low-income countries.

Mr. Froman touts the ways U.S. policy has moved forward beyond Doha. He says the United States extended the African Growth and Opportunity Act by a decade, "the longest extension in that program's history." That limited extension of trade preferences to African countries last year provided a paltry $264,000 in benefits to the C-4 countries. The projected losses from U.S. cotton dumping are 300 times greater.

Mr. Froman concludes that with a new approach that abandons the development round while taking up issues of investment, procurement, and other matters of priority to the United States, "we can ensure that global trade will drive development and prosperity as strongly this century as it did in the last."

The U.S. Trade Representative seems to have conveniently forgotten that the Doha Development Round he wants to sweep aside was a direct response to the fact that global trade rules in the last century failed to drive development and prosperity, at least for many developing countries.

As a U.S. researcher long engaged with the issues of concern to developing countries, I find Mr. Froman's approach shameful. Multilateralism demands engagement and compromise, particularly in a "development round" designed to address past inequities. Mr. Froman is unfortunately offering nothing more than "the cynical repetition of positions designed to produce deadlock." The latest in a steady stream of U.S. hypocrisy.

By Timothy Wise, Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University. Originally published in The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya)

[Dec 21, 2015] Australians has doubts about Dutch safety board conclusion about the type of monitions that destroyed the aircraft

Notable quotes:
"... "initial information that the aircraft was shot down by a [Buk] surface to air missile" did not meet the Australian or international standard of evidence …." ..."
"... What will happen to the resolve of the holdouts if the narrative on MH17 begins to veer away from rock-solid Russian ownership of the tragedy? Because that was the whole backbone of the sanctions – Crimea was not enough to get Germany and France on board, and they still needed the little push that MH17 provided. If that rationale vanished, or even if serious doubt was introduced, the whole EU position on sanctions could fall apart. ..."
"... It's bigger than I thought – there is some sort of internal power struggle going on, and West refuses to change his findings – which still point to Russia for responsibility – in spite of Donoghoe's testimony. ..."
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Jen, December 19, 2015 at 7:12 pm
Wooooh, this news is a doozy:

http://johnhelmer.net/?p=14787
http://investmentwatchblog.com/mh17-australia-say-russia-not-to-blame-evidence-tampered-with/

First two paragraphs:
"The Australian Federal Police and Dutch police and prosecutors investigating the cause of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 believe the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) has failed to provide "conclusive evidence" of what type of munition destroyed the aircraft, causing the deaths of 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Testifying for the first time in an international court, Detective Superintendent Andrew Donoghoe, the senior Australian policeman in the international MH17 investigation, said a "tougher standard than the DSB report" is required before the criminal investigation can identify the weapon which brought the aircraft down, or pinpoint the perpetrators.

Their criminal investigation will continue into 2016, Donoghoe told the Victorian Coroners Court (lead image) on Tuesday morning. He and other international investigators are unconvinced by reports from the US and Ukrainian governments, and by the DSB, of a Buk missile firing. "Dutch prosecutors require conclusive evidence on other types of missile," Donoghoe said, intimating that "initial information that the aircraft was shot down by a [Buk] surface to air missile" did not meet the Australian or international standard of evidence …."

marknesop, December 19, 2015 at 7:31 pm
Great catch, Jen!! Wow, you're right – this is big, especially in view of the wavering by some EU members on sanctions. I wonder what Merkel has up her sleeve; she says Germany – while going ahead with Nord Stream II, which is "first and foremost a business proposition" – is "seeking ways to ensure that Ukraine is not completely excluded as a transit country".

Ummm…what role would that be? Because if, in exchange for pushing ahead on Nord Stream, Russia is maneuvered into still sending gas through Ukraine so that Ukraine can collect transit fees, the project would be self-defeating. I trust the business minds in Russia are sharp enough to stay ahead of that one. Ukraine will still receive gas from Russia, if it wants it and can pay in advance for it, but it will be for domestic supplies only and consequently not subject to transit fees. Russia must not weaken on this, because the EU still hopes to rebuild Ukraine using Russian money, and it cannot do it without Russian help and support. If that is withheld, Russia only needs to wait them out.

Needless to say, Tusk supports Renzi's position, not because he is an Italiophile but because he supports Ukraine and would like to see it remain a transit country, and pocketing $2 Billion a year in Russian cash.

What will happen to the resolve of the holdouts if the narrative on MH17 begins to veer away from rock-solid Russian ownership of the tragedy? Because that was the whole backbone of the sanctions – Crimea was not enough to get Germany and France on board, and they still needed the little push that MH17 provided. If that rationale vanished, or even if serious doubt was introduced, the whole EU position on sanctions could fall apart.

marknesop, December 19, 2015 at 8:37 pm

It's bigger than I thought – there is some sort of internal power struggle going on, and West refuses to change his findings – which still point to Russia for responsibility – in spite of Donoghoe's testimony. There were revelations in the original post such as that Australia had sought permission from the Novorossiyan authorities to collect evidence and artifacts, as well as Kiev – thereby implicitly recognizing Novorossiya – and that when it solicited witnesses to testify, some agreed only on the condition their names would not be revealed, that the Ukrainian authorities would not be involved and that the investigators would protect them. Sure sounds like they want to say something they know the Ukrainian government will punish them for saying, if it can identify them. This whole inquiry just got interesting again.

At the moment it looks like a faction of the Australian investigation disagrees with the pat finding of the Dutch, but the Victorian state coroner is totally on board with the "Russia did it" scenario and is determined to have his way no matter how foolish it makes him look. This one could go anywhere from here.

Moscow Exile, December 19, 2015 at 11:28 pm

Clearly that Aussie cop is in the pocket of the Evil One!

Isn't he the one who said earlier that the Russian-backed terrorists at the MH-17 crash site behaved like decent human beings and treated the crash victims' remains with dignity and did not loot their belongings?

I mean, what a ludicrous thing to say!

Everyone knows that these Russian beasts are ….blah, blah, blah ...

davidt, December 20, 2015 at 2:03 pm

Donoghue is not the only AFP cop speaking up for the crash site locals. Their sensitivity and humanity is a rather at odds with a disparaging comment about the AFP on these pages over a year ago (and which I objected to at the time). I noticed last week that Patrick Armstrong is now reconsidering the Sukhoi did it scenario because of an apparent lack of fragments from a Buk warhead.

This has always been a serious concern to the Russian investigators, see
http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/10/russians-angered-dutch-probe


[Dec 20, 2015] Michael Hudson The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia

Notable quotes:
"... By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is ..."
"... KILLING THE HOST: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy ..."
"... What especially annoys U.S. financial strategists is that this loan by Russia's sovereign debt fund was protected by IMF lending practice, which at that time ensured collectability by withholding new credit from countries in default of foreign official debts (or at least, not bargaining in good faith to pay). To cap matters, the bonds are registered under London's creditor-oriented rules and courts. ..."
"... After the rules change, Aslund later noted, "the IMF can continue to give Ukraine loans regardless of what Ukraine does about its credit from Russia, which falls due on December 20. [8] ..."
"... The post-2010 loan packages to Greece are a notorious case in point. The IMF staff calculated that Greece could not possibly pay the balance that was set to bail out foreign banks and bondholders. Many Board members agreed (and subsequently have gone public with their whistle-blowing). Their protests didn't matter. Dominique Strauss-Kahn backed the US-ECB position (after President Barack Obama and Treasury secretary Tim Geithner pointed out that U.S. banks had written credit default swaps betting that Greece could pay, and would lose money if there were a debt writedown). In 2015, Christine Lagarde also backed the U.S.-European Central Bank hard line, against staff protests. [10] ..."
"... China and Russia harbored the fantasy that would be allowed redress in the Western Courts where international law is metered out. They are now no longer under that delusion. ..."
"... It's not Hudson but the US that has simplified the entire world situation into "good guys vs. bad guys", a policy enshrined in Rumsfeld's statement "you're either with us or you're against us". ..."
"... what is left unsaid is the choices Russia then faces once their legal options play out and the uneven playing field is fully exposed. Do they not then have a historically justifiable basis for declaring war? ..."
December 18, 2015 | naked capitalism

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is KILLING THE HOST: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy

The nightmare scenario of U.S. geopolitical strategists seems to be coming true: foreign economic independence from U.S. control. Instead of privatizing and neoliberalizing the world under U.S.-centered financial planning and ownership, the Russian and Chinese governments are investing in neighboring economies on terms that cement Eurasian economic integration on the basis of Russian oil and tax exports and Chinese financing. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) threatens to replace the IMF and World Bank programs that favor U.S. suppliers, banks and bondholders (with the United States holding unique veto power).

Russia's 2013 loan to Ukraine, made at the request of Ukraine's elected pro-Russian government, demonstrated the benefits of mutual trade and investment relations between the two countries. As Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov points out, Ukraine's "international reserves were barely enough to cover three months' imports, and no other creditor was prepared to lend on terms acceptable to Kiev. Yet Russia provided $3 billion of much-needed funding at a 5 per cent interest rate, when Ukraine's bonds were yielding nearly 12 per cent."[1]

What especially annoys U.S. financial strategists is that this loan by Russia's sovereign debt fund was protected by IMF lending practice, which at that time ensured collectability by withholding new credit from countries in default of foreign official debts (or at least, not bargaining in good faith to pay). To cap matters, the bonds are registered under London's creditor-oriented rules and courts.

On December 3 (one week before the IMF changed its rules so as to hurt Russia), Prime Minister Putin proposed that Russia "and other Eurasian Economic Union countries should kick-off consultations with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a possible economic partnership."[2] Russia also is seeking to build pipelines to Europe through friendly instead of U.S.-backed countries.

Moving to denominate their trade and investment in their own currencies instead of dollars, China and Russia are creating a geopolitical system free from U.S. control. After U.S. officials threatened to derange Russia's banking linkages by cutting it off from the SWIFT interbank clearing system, China accelerated its creation of the alternative China International Payments System (CIPS), with its own credit card system to protect Eurasian economies from the shrill threats made by U.S. unilateralists.

Russia and China are simply doing what the United States has long done: using trade and credit linkages to cement their geopolitical diplomacy. This tectonic geopolitical shift is a Copernican threat to New Cold War ideology: Instead of the world economy revolving around the United States (the Ptolemaic idea of America as "the indispensible nation"), it may revolve around Eurasia. As long as the global financial papacy remains grounded in Washington at the offices of the IMF and World Bank, such a shift in the center of gravity will be fought with all the power of the American Century (indeed, American Millennium) inquisition.

Imagine the following scenario five years from now. China will have spent half a decade building high-speed railroads, ports power systems and other construction for Asian and African countries, enabling them to grow and export more. These exports will be coming on line to repay the infrastructure loans. Also, suppose that Russia has been supplying the oil and gas energy needed for these projects.

To U.S. neocons this specter of AIIB government-to-government lending and investment creates fear of a world independent of U.S. control. Nations would mint their own money and hold each other's debt in their international reserves instead of borrowing or holding dollars and subordinating their financial planning to the IMF and U.S. Treasury with their demands for monetary bloodletting and austerity for debtor countries. There would be less need for foreign government to finance budget shortfalls by selling off their key public infrastructure privatizing their economies. Instead of dismantling public spending, the AIIB and a broader Eurasian economic union would do what the United States itself practices, and seek self-sufficiency in basic needs such as food, technology, banking, credit creation and monetary policy.

With this prospect in mind, suppose an American diplomat meets with the leaders of debtors to China, Russia and the AIIB and makes the following proposal: "Now that you've got your increased production in place, why repay? We'll make you rich if you stiff our New Cold War adversaries and turn to the West. We and our European allies will help you assign the infrastructure to yourselves and your supporters, and give these assets market value by selling shares in New York and London. Then, you can spend your surpluses in the West."

How can China or Russia collect in such a situation? They can sue. But what court will recognize their claim – that is, what court that the West would pay attention to?

That is the kind of scenario U.S. State Department and Treasury officials have been discussing for more than a year. The looming conflict was made immediate by Ukraine's $3 billion debt to Russia falling due by December 20, 2015. Ukraine's U.S.-backed regime has announced its intention to default. U.S. lobbyists have just changed the IMF rules to remove a critical lever on which Russia and other governments have long relied to enforce payment of their loans.

The IMF's Role as Enforcer of Inter-Government Debts

When it comes down to enforcing nations to pay inter-government debts, the International Monetary Fund and Paris Club hold the main leverage. As coordinator of central bank "stabilization" loans (the neoliberal euphemism for imposing austerity and destabilizing debtor economies, Greece-style), the IMF is able to withhold not only its own credit but also that of governments and global banks participating when debtor countries need refinancing. Countries that do not agree to privatize their infrastructure and sell it to Western buyers are threatened with sanctions, backed by U.S.-sponsored "regime change" and "democracy promotion" Maidan-style.

This was the setting on December 8, when Chief IMF Spokesman Gerry Rice announced: "The IMF's Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to official creditors." The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financial arrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving other governments. This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.

In this U.S.-centered worldview, China and Russia loom as the great potential adversaries – defined as independent power centers from the United States as they create the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative to NATO, and the AIIB as an alternative to the IMF and World Bank tandem. The very name, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, implies that transportation systems and other infrastructure will be financed by governments, not relinquished into private hands to become rent-extracting opportunities financed by U.S.-centered bank credit to turn the rent into a flow of interest payments.

The focus on a mixed public/private economy sets the AIIB at odds with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its aim of relinquishing government planning power to the financial and corporate sector for their own short-term gains, and above all the aim of blocking government's money-creating power and financial regulation. Chief Nomura economist Richard Koo, explained the logic of viewing the AIIB as a threat to the US-controlled IMF: "If the IMF's rival is heavily under China's influence, countries receiving its support will rebuild their economies under what is effectively Chinese guidance, increasing the likelihood they will fall directly or indirectly under that country's influence."[3]

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov accused the IMF decision of being "hasty and biased."[4] But it had been discussed all year long, calculating a range of scenarios for a long-term sea change in international law. The aim of this change is to isolate not only Russia, but even more China in its role as creditor to African countries and prospective AIIB borrowers. U.S. officials walked into the IMF headquarters in Washington with the legal equivalent of financial suicide vests, having decided that the time had come to derail Russia's ability to collect on its sovereign loan to Ukraine, and of even larger import, China's plan for a New Silk Road integrating a Eurasian economy independent of U.S. financial and trade control. Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the NATO-oriented Atlantic Council, points out:

The IMF staff started contemplating a rule change in the spring of 2013 because nontraditional creditors, such as China, had started providing developing countries with large loans. One issue was that these loans were issued on conditions out of line with IMF practice. China wasn't a member of the Paris Club, where loan restructuring is usually discussed, so it was time to update the rules.

The IMF intended to adopt a new policy in the spring of 2016, but the dispute over Russia's $3 billion loan to Ukraine has accelerated an otherwise slow decision-making process.[5]

The Wall Street Journal concurred that the underlying motivation for changing the IMF's rules was the threat that Chinese lending would provide an alternative to IMF loans and its demands for austerity. "IMF-watchers said the fund was originally thinking of ensuring China wouldn't be able to foil IMF lending to member countries seeking bailouts as Beijing ramped up loans to developing economies around the world."[6] In short, U.S. strategists have designed a policy to block trade and financial agreements organized outside of U.S. control and that of the IMF and World Bank in which it holds unique veto power.

The plan is simple enough. Trade follows finance, and the creditor usually calls the tune. That is how the United States has used the Dollar Standard to steer Third World trade and investment since World War II along lines benefiting the U.S. economy.

The cement of trade credit and bank lending is the ability of creditors to collect on the international debts being negotiated. That is why the United States and other creditor nations have used the IMF as an intermediary to act as "honest broker" for loan consortia. ("Honest broker" means in practice being subject to U.S. veto power.) To enforce its financial leverage, the IMF has long followed the rule that it will not sponsor any loan agreement or refinancing for governments that are in default of debts owed to other governments. However, as the afore-mentioned Aslund explains, the IMF could easily

change its practice of not lending into [countries in official] arrears … because it is not incorporated into the IMF Articles of Agreement, that is, the IMF statutes. The IMF Executive Board can decide to change this policy with a simple board majority. The IMF has lent to Afghanistan, Georgia, and Iraq in the midst of war, and Russia has no veto right, holding only 2.39 percent of the votes in the IMF. When the IMF has lent to Georgia and Ukraine, the other members of its Executive Board have overruled Russia.[7]

After the rules change, Aslund later noted, "the IMF can continue to give Ukraine loans regardless of what Ukraine does about its credit from Russia, which falls due on December 20.[8]

Inasmuch as Ukraine's official debt to Russia's sovereign debt fund was not to the U.S. Government, the IMF announced its rules change as a "clarification." Its rule that no country can borrow if it is in default to (or not seriously negotiating with) a foreign government was created in the post-1945 world, and has governed the past seventy years in which the United States Government, Treasury officials and/or U.S. bank consortia have been party to nearly every international bailout or major loan agreement. What the IMF rule really meant was that it would not provide credit to countries in arrears specifically to the U.S. Government, not those of Russia or China.

Mikhail Delyagin, Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems, understood the IMF's double standard clearly enough: "The Fund will give Kiev a new loan tranche on one condition that Ukraine should not pay Russia a dollar under its $3 billion debt. Legally, everything will be formalized correctly but they will oblige Ukraine to pay only to western creditors for political reasons."[9] It remains up to the IMF board – and in the end, its managing director – whether or not to deem a country creditworthy. The U.S. representative naturally has always blocked any leaders not beholden to the United States.

The post-2010 loan packages to Greece are a notorious case in point. The IMF staff calculated that Greece could not possibly pay the balance that was set to bail out foreign banks and bondholders. Many Board members agreed (and subsequently have gone public with their whistle-blowing). Their protests didn't matter. Dominique Strauss-Kahn backed the US-ECB position (after President Barack Obama and Treasury secretary Tim Geithner pointed out that U.S. banks had written credit default swaps betting that Greece could pay, and would lose money if there were a debt writedown). In 2015, Christine Lagarde also backed the U.S.-European Central Bank hard line, against staff protests.[10]

IMF executive board member Otaviano Canuto, representing Brazil, noted that the logic that "conditions on IMF lending to a country that fell behind on payments [was to] make sure it kept negotiating in good faith to reach agreement with creditors."[11] Dropping this condition, he said, would open the door for other countries to insist on a similar waiver and avoid making serious and sincere efforts to reach payment agreement with creditor governments.

A more binding IMF rule is that it cannot lend to countries at war or use IMF credit to engage in warfare. Article I of its 1944-45 founding charter ban the fund from lending to a member state engaged in civil war or at war with another member state, or for military purposes in general. But when IMF head Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine, in spring 2015, she made a token gesture of stating that she hoped there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would step up the civil war with the Russian-speaking population in the eastern Donbass region.

The problem is that the Donbass is where most Ukrainian exports were made, mainly to Russia. That market is being lost by the junta's belligerence toward Russia. This should have blocked Ukraine from receiving IMF aid. Withholding IMF credit could have been a lever to force peace and adherence to the Minsk agreements, but U.S. diplomatic pressure led that opportunity to be rejected.

The most important IMF condition being violated is that continued warfare with the East prevents a realistic prospect of Ukraine paying back new loans. Aslund himself points to the internal contradictions at work: Ukraine has achieved budget balance because the inflation and steep currency depreciation has drastically eroded its pension costs. The resulting lower value of pension benefits has led to growing opposition to Ukraine's post-Maidan junta. "Leading representatives from President Petro Poroshenko's Bloc are insisting on massive tax cuts, but no more expenditure cuts; that would cause a vast budget deficit that the IMF assesses at 9-10 percent of GDP, that could not possibly be financed."[12] So how can the IMF's austerity budget be followed without a political backlash?

The IMF thus is breaking four rules: Not lending to a country that has no visible means to pay back the loan breaks the "No More Argentinas" rule adopted after the IMF's disastrous 2001 loan. Not lending to countries that refuse in good faith to negotiate with their official creditors goes against the IMF's role as the major tool of the global creditors' cartel. And the IMF is now lending to a borrower at war, indeed one that is destroying its export capacity and hence its balance-of-payments ability to pay back the loan. Finally, the IMF is lending to a country that has little likelihood of refuse carrying out the IMF's notorious austerity "conditionalities" on its population – without putting down democratic opposition in a totalitarian manner. Instead of being treated as an outcast from the international financial system, Ukraine is being welcomed and financed.

The upshot – and new basic guideline for IMF lending – is to create a new Iron Curtain splitting the world into pro-U.S. economies going neoliberal, and all other economies, including those seeking to maintain public investment in infrastructure, progressive taxation and what used to be viewed as progressive capitalism. Russia and China may lend as much as they want to other governments, but there is no international vehicle to help secure their ability to be paid back under what until now has passed for international law. Having refused to roll back its own or ECB financial claims on Greece, the IMF is quite willing to see repudiation of official debts owed to Russia, China or other countries not on the list approved by the U.S. neocons who wield veto power in the IMF, World Bank and similar global economic institutions now drawn into the U.S. orbit. Changing its rules to clear the path for the IMF to make loans to Ukraine and other governments in default of debts owed to official lenders is rightly seen as an escalation of America's New Cold War against Russia and also its anti-China strategy.

Timing is everything in such ploys. Georgetown University Law professor and Treasury consultant Anna Gelpern warned that before the "IMF staff and executive board [had] enough time to change the policy on arrears to official creditors," Russia might use "its notorious debt/GDP clause to accelerate the bonds at any time before December, or simply gum up the process of reforming the IMF's arrears policy."[13] According to this clause, if Ukraine's foreign debt rose above 60 percent of GDP, Russia's government would have the right to demand immediate payment. But no doubt anticipating the bitter fight to come over its attempts to collect on its loan, President Putin patiently refrained from exercising this option. He is playing the long game, bending over backward to accommodate Ukraine rather than behaving "odiously."

A more pressing reason deterring the United States from pressing earlier to change IMF rules was that a waiver for Ukraine would have opened the legal floodgates for Greece to ask for a similar waiver on having to pay the "troika" – the European Central Bank (ECB), EU commission and the IMF itself – for the post-2010 loans that have pushed it into a worse depression than the 1930s. "Imagine the Greek government had insisted that EU institutions accept the same haircut as the country's private creditors," Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov asked. "The reaction in European capitals would have been frosty. Yet this is the position now taken by Kiev with respect to Ukraine's $3 billion eurobond held by Russia."[14]

Only after Greece capitulated to eurozone austerity was the path clear for U.S. officials to change the IMF rules in their fight to isolate Russia. But their tactical victory has come at the cost of changing the IMF's rules and those of the global financial system irreversibly. Other countries henceforth may reject conditionalities, as Ukraine has done, and ask for write-downs on foreign official debts.

That was the great fear of neoliberal U.S. and Eurozone strategists last summer, after all. The reason for smashing Greece's economy was to deter Podemos in Spain and similar movements in Italy and Portugal from pursuing national prosperity instead of eurozone austerity. Opening the door to such resistance by Ukraine is the blowback of America's tactic to make a short-term financial hit on Russia while its balance of payments is down as a result of collapsing oil and gas prices.

The consequences go far beyond just the IMF. The fabric of international law itself is being torn apart. Every action has a reaction in the Newtonian world of geopolitics. It may not be a bad thing, to be sure, for the post-1945 global order to be broken apart by U.S. tactics against Russia, if that is the catalyst driving other countries to defend their own economies in the legal and political spheres. It has been U.S. neoliberals themselves who have catalyzed the emerging independent Eurasian bloc.

Countering Russia's Ability to Collect in Britain's Law Courts

Over the past year the U.S. Treasury and State Departments have discussed ploys to block Russia from collecting under British law, where its loans to Ukraine are registered. Reviewing the repertory of legal excuses Ukraine might use to avoid paying Russia, Prof. Gelpern noted that it might declare the debt "odious," made under duress or corruptly. In a paper for the Peterson Institute of International Economics (the banking lobby in Washington) she suggested that Britain should deny Russia the use of its courts as an additional sanction reinforcing the financial, energy, and trade sanctions to those passed against Russia after Crimea voted to join it as protection against the ethnic cleansing from the Right Sector, Azov Battalion and other paramilitary groups descending on the region.[15]

A kindred ploy might be for Ukraine to countersue Russia for reparations for "invading" it, for saving Crimea and the Donbass region from the Right Sector's attempt to take over the country. Such a ploy would seem to have little chance of success in international courts (without showing them to be simply arms of NATO New Cold War politics), but it might delay Russia' ability to collect by tying the loan up in a long nuisance lawsuit.

To claim that Ukraine's debt to Russia was "odious" or otherwise illegitimate, "President Petro Poroshenko said the money was intended to ensure Yanukovych's loyalty to Moscow, and called the payment a 'bribe,' according to an interview with Bloomberg in June this year."[16] The legal and moral problem with such arguments is that they would apply equally to IMF and US loans. Claiming that Russia's loan is "odious" is that this would open the floodgates for other countries to repudiate debts taken on by dictatorships supported by IMF and U.S. lenders, headed by the many dictatorships supported by U.S. diplomacy.

The blowback from the U.S. multi-front attempt to nullify Ukraine's debt may be used to annul or at least write down the destructive IMF loans made on the condition that borrowers accept privatizations favoring U.S., German and other NATO-country investors, undertake austerity programs, and buy weapons systems such as the German submarines that Greece borrowed to pay for. As Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted: "This reform, which they are now trying to implement, designed to suit Ukraine only, could plant a time bomb under all other IMF programs." It certainly showed the extent to which the IMF is subordinate to U.S. aggressive New Cold Warriors: "Essentially, this reform boils down to the following: since Ukraine is politically important – and it is only important because it is opposed to Russia – the IMF is ready to do for Ukraine everything it has not done for anyone else, and the situation that should 100 percent mean a default will be seen as a situation enabling the IMF to finance Ukraine."[17]

Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the Committee for International Affairs at the Federation Council (the upper house of Russia's parliament) accused the United States of playing "the role of the main violin in the IMF while the role of the second violin is played by the European Union. These are two basic sponsors of the Maidan – the symbol of a coup d'état in Ukraine in 2014."[18]

Putin's Counter-Strategy and the Blowback on U.S.-European and Global Relations

As noted above, having anticipated that Ukraine would seek reasons to not pay the Russian loan, President Putin carefully refrained from exercising Russia's right to demand immediate payment when Ukraine's foreign debt rose above 60 percent of GDP. In November he offered to defer payment if the United States, Europe and international banks underwrote the obligation. Indeed, he even "proposed better conditions for this restructuring than those the International Monetary Fund requested of us." He offered "to accept a deeper restructuring with no payment this year – a payment of $1 billion next year, $1 billion in 2017, and $1 billion in 2018." If the IMF, the United States and European Union "are sure that Ukraine's solvency will grow," then they should "see no risk in providing guarantees for this credit." Accordingly, he concluded "We have asked for such guarantees either from the United States government, the European Union, or one of the big international financial institutions." [19]

The implication, Putin pointed out, was that "If they cannot provide guarantees, this means that they do not believe in the Ukrainian economy's future." One professor pointed out that this proposal was in line with the fact that, "Ukraine has already received a sovereign loan guarantee from the United States for a previous bond issue." Why couldn't the United States, Eurozone or leading commercial banks provide a similar guarantee of Ukraine's debt to Russia – or better yet, simply lend it the money to turn it into a loan to the IMF or US lenders?[20]

But the IMF, European Union and the United States refused to back up their happy (but nonsensical) forecasts of Ukrainian solvency with actual guarantees. Foreign Minister Lavrov made clear just what that rejection meant: "By having refused to guarantee Ukraine's debt as part of Russia's proposal to restructure it, the United States effectively admitted the absence of prospects of restoring its solvency. … By officially rejecting the proposed scheme, the United States thereby subscribed to not seeing any prospects of Ukraine restoring its solvency."[21]

In an even more exasperated tone, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev explained to Russia's television audience: "I have a feeling that they won't give us the money back because they are crooks. They refuse to return our money and our Western partners not only refuse to help, but they also make it difficult for us."[22] Adding that "the international financial system is unjustly structured," he promised to "go to court. We'll push for default on the loan and we'll push for default on all Ukrainian debts."

The basis for Russia's legal claim, he explained was that the loan

was a request from the Ukrainian Government to the Russian Government. If two governments reach an agreement this is obviously a sovereign loan…. Surprisingly, however, international financial organisations started saying that this is not exactly a sovereign loan. This is utter bull. Evidently, it's just an absolutely brazen, cynical lie. … This seriously erodes trust in IMF decisions. I believe that now there will be a lot of pleas from different borrower states to the IMF to grant them the same terms as Ukraine. How will the IMF possibly refuse them?

And there the matter stands. As President Putin remarked regarding America's support of Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and other ISIS allies in Syria, "Do you have any idea of what you have done?"

The Blowback

Few have calculated the degree to which America's New Cold War with Russia is creating a reaction that is tearing up the world's linkages put in place since World War II. Beyond pulling the IMF and World Bank tightly into U.S. unilateralist geopolitics, how long will Western Europe be willing to forego its trade and investment interest with Russia? Germany, Italy and France already are feeling the strains. If and when a break comes, it will not be marginal but a seismic geopolitical shift.

The oil and pipeline war designed to bypass Russian energy exports has engulfed the Near East in anarchy for over a decade. It is flooding Europe with refugees, and also spreading terrorism to America. In the Republican presidential debate on December 15, 2015, the leading issue was safety from Islamic jihadists. Yet no candidate thought to explain the source of this terrorism in America's alliance with Wahabist Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and hence with Al Qaeda and ISIS/Daish as a means of destabilizing secular regimes seeking independence from U.S. control.

As its allies in this New Cold War, the United States has chosen fundamentalist jihadist religion against secular regimes in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and earlier in Afghanistan and Turkey. Going back to the original sin of CIA hubris – overthrowing the secular Iranian Prime Minister leader Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 – American foreign policy has been based on the assumption that secular regimes tend to be nationalist and resist privatization and neoliberal austerity.

Based on this fatal long-term assumption, U.S. Cold Warriors have aligned themselves not only against secular regimes, but against democratic regimes where these seek to promote their own prosperity and economic independence, and to resist neoliberalism in favor of maintaining their traditional mixed public/private economy.

This is the back story of the U.S. fight to control the rest of the world. Tearing apart the IMF's rules is only the most recent chapter. The broad drive against Russia, China and their prospective Eurasian allies has deteriorated into tactics without a realistic understanding of how they are bringing about precisely the kind of world they are seeking to prevent – a multilateral world.

Arena by arena, the core values of what used to be American and European social democratic ideology are being uprooted. The Enlightenment's ideals of secular democracy and the rule of international law applied equally to all nations, classical free market theory (of markets free from unearned income and rent extraction by special vested interests), and public investment in infrastructure to hold down the cost of living and doing business are to be sacrificed to a militant U.S. unilateralism as "the indispensible nation." Standing above the rule of law and national interests, American neocons proclaim that their nation's destiny is to wage war to prevent foreign secular democracy from acting in ways other than submission to U.S. diplomacy. In practice, this means favoring special U.S. financial and corporate interests that control American foreign policy.

This is not how the Enlightenment was supposed to turn out. Classical industrial capitalism a century ago was expected to evolve into an economy of abundance. Instead, we have Pentagon capitalism, finance capitalism deteriorating into a polarized rentier economy, and old-fashioned imperialism.

The Dollar Bloc's Financial Iron Curtain

By treating Ukraine's nullification of its official debt to Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund as the new norm, the IMF has blessed its default on its bond payment to Russia. President Putin and foreign minister Lavrov have said that they will sue in British courts. But does any court exist in the West not under the thumb of U.S. veto?

What are China and Russia to do, faced with the IMF serving as a kangaroo court whose judgments are subject to U.S. veto power? To protect their autonomy and self-determination, they have created alternatives to the IMF and World Bank, NATO and behind it, the dollar standard.

America's recent New Cold War maneuvering has shown that the two Bretton Woods institutions are unreformable. It is easier to create new institutions such as the A.I.I.B. than to retrofit old and ill-designed ones burdened with the legacy of their vested founding interests. It is easier to expand the Shanghai Cooperation Organization than to surrender to threats from NATO.

U.S. geostrategists seem to have imagined that if they exclude Russia, China and other SCO and Eurasian countries from the U.S.-based financial and trade system, these countries will find themselves in the same economic box as Cuba, Iran and other countries have been isolated by sanctions. The aim is to make countries choose between impoverishment from such exclusion, or acquiescing in U.S. neoliberal drives to financialize their economies and impose austerity on their government sector and labor.

What is lacking from such calculations is the idea of critical mass. The United States may use the IMF and World Bank as levers to exclude countries not in the U.S. orbit from participating in the global trade and financial system, and it may arm-twist Europe to impose trade and financial sanctions on Russia. But this action produces an equal and opposite reaction. That is the eternal Newtonian law of geopolitics. The indicated countermeasure is simply for other countries to create their own international financial organization as an alternative to the IMF, their own "aid" lending institution to juxtapose to the U.S.-centered World Bank.

All this requires an international court to handle disputes that is free from U.S. arm-twisting to turn international law into a kangaroo court following the dictates of Washington. The Eurasian Economic Union now has its own court to adjudicate disputes. It may provide an alternative Judge Griesa's New York federal court ruling in favor of vulture funds derailing Argentina's debt negotiations and excluding it from foreign financial markets. If the London Court of International Arbitration (under whose rules Russia's bonds issued to Ukraine are registered) permits frivolous legal claims (called barratry in English) such as President Poroshenko has threatened in Ukrainian Parliament, it too will become a victim of geopolitical obsolescence.

The more nakedly self-serving and geopolitical U.S. policy is – in backing radical Islamic fundamentalist outgrowths of Al Qaeda throughout the Near East, right-wing nationalist governments in Ukraine and the Baltics – the greater the catalytic pressure is growing for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, AIIB and related Eurasian institutions to break free of the post-1945 Bretton Woods system run by the U.S. State, Defense and Treasury Departments and NATO superstructure.

The question now is whether Russia and China can hold onto the BRICS and India. So as Paul Craig Roberts recently summarized my ideas along these lines, we are back with George Orwell's 1984 global fracture between Oceanea (the United States, Britain and its northern European NATO allies) vs. Eurasia.

... .... ....

RabidGandhi December 18, 2015 at 9:16 am

My issue with Hudson is that he tends to paint things in a "good guys/bad guys" dichotomy viz. the IMF vs. the AIIB. Personally, I think it's quite positive that the international sovereign finance institutions will now be more international and less unipolar, but his scenario where

Nations would mint their own money and hold each other's debt in their international reserves instead of borrowing or holding dollars and subordinating their financial planning to the IMF and U.S. Treasury with their demands for monetary bloodletting and austerity for debtor countries.

is rather pie-in-the sky. What reason do we have to believe that concentrated Chinese capital would somehow be more benevolent than our current overlords? Oh because AIIB has the word "infrastructure" in its title (just as the Interamerican Development Bank is all about development) /sarc.

Furthermore, if US planners had half a clue about economics, they would be jumping for joy that the AIIB and the CIPS will finally help release them (eventually) from the burden of having the USD as the global reserve currency, thus relieving the US of the albatross of having to ship its internal demand to China and other net exporters.

All in all, yes AIIB should be positive, but as Hudson himself points out, this is not so much about economics as it is geopolitics. The world should tread with the utmost caution.

Dino Reno December 18, 2015 at 9:48 am

I think his main point is not so much about economics or geopolitics, it's about the rule of law, specifically international law and how it applies to the debt collection brokered between counties.

China and Russia harbored the fantasy that would be allowed redress in the Western Courts where international law is metered out. They are now no longer under that delusion.

Even if they come up with a lending facility, the West will thwart their ability to collect on those debts at every turn by simply declaring those debts null and void and extending new funds using the infrastructure build by the bad (Russian/Chinese) debt as collateral. The thirst for power and profit will always be with us, but now it will not be tempered by any international order under the rule of law.

Nick December 18, 2015 at 10:15 am

China is learning the hard way how the game is played. For example, they're discovering that much of the tens of billions in no-strings attached loans given to Africa will not provide the returns initially thought (even accounting for massive corruption on all sides), which is why they have been reduced for the first time in a decade this past year.

Alejandro December 18, 2015 at 10:41 am

Don't see how "economics" and "social" can be de-linked from "politics"…understanding the limits of "local" may provide an awareness of the "quid pro quo" of extending, direction of extension, and what defines (in/inter) "dependency"…how sacrifice is "shared" or imposed, and how "prosperity" is concentrated or distributed…

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL December 18, 2015 at 2:50 pm

It's not Hudson but the US that has simplified the entire world situation into "good guys vs. bad guys", a policy enshrined in Rumsfeld's statement "you're either with us or you're against us".

It's like a playground with one big bully and lots of kids running scared, now a second bully appears and they all have to ask themselves whether Bully #2 will be nicer to them, in this case it appears Bully #2 is saying he won't tell them how to run their lives or steal their lunch money.

Post-comet in 2000 when everything started going to hell the worst casualty has been the rule of law, from hanging chads through to the Patriot Act, death by a thousand cuts of the Constitution, unprosecuted war crimes, unprosecuted financial crimes, and now the very fabric of international law being rent apart. I'm reminded of the Hunter Thompson scene where he has an expired driver's license and a cop pulls him over, he has two choices, hand over the license and get busted, or drive away and get busted… so he comes up with a third choice: he blows his nose all over the license and hands it over to the cop. The equivalent of Bully #1 taking the only soccer ball on the playground and kicking it over the fence so the game is screwed up for everybody, Pepe's "Empire of Chaos" indeed.

global123 December 18, 2015 at 9:47 am

stellar article michael hudson

1)Western economies depend on ocean transport…if chinese or ruskies destroy it, USA-EU will be bankrupt in weeks..USA-EU are consumers and not producers..their exports to rest of world are tiny..So,their position is very weak at this point
2)The asian countries like china-india will be forced to join hands under joint attack by US financial system and islamic jihadists..Russia and china,former enemies,are now friends…who could have imagines it?
Russo-chinese-iranian alliance is huge failure of US foreign policies
3)Using islamic terrorists and islamic countries like turkey-saudi arabia-pakistan-indonesia-egypt is not going to work for USA because muslims think USA as enemy no.1…
4)A military superiority can not guarantee permanent -everlasting victory against too many opponents
What i see here is USA has made entire islamic world their enemy,alongwith china and russia
In case of real war,USA position will be very weak

camelotkidd December 18, 2015 at 9:49 am

This is an amazing article. Bravo!
Now it's becoming clear just what Margaret Thatcher meant when she told everyone that there was no alternative to neoliberalism.

Steve H. December 18, 2015 at 10:00 am

Thank you for continuing to mark the historical specifics of the finance/legal wing of geopolitical conflict, and the perverse failings of Full Spectrum Dominance.

The Oceana/Eurasia dichotomy is a dangerous frame of reference. It essentially contrasts the transport efficiencies of water to the solid defensive capacity of the frozen steppes. But when things get bloody, they usually crack along language lines. Not only as a proxy for migrations of the gene, but also world-views. How horse-people see things, what metaphors they use, are very different than how cow-people categorize the world.

This highlights that Russia is continuing to operate within the language and legal framework of the Indo-European languages. In other words (!), it is a fight between the U.S. and Russia for European alliances. If this is the case, then the alliance of NATO with Turkic and Arabic lines is of convenience, in that they are not partners but proxies. Europe is faced with the habit of the U.S. in saying, Let's you and him fight. But there's an oceans difference between the U.S. and European interests.

It also means that Russia and China are being pushed together by western exclusion, like drops of oil on the water. I maintain that Russia has doubled down on global warming, to open up northern sea routes and make the steppes arable. China is already a sea-power, but its massive population will need lebensraum as the fossil-fuel support for the energy needs of megapoli decay. The mountains are a formidable barrier for them to take the steppes by force.

The question for the rest of the world then becomes, who do you want to have as a friend in a hundred years. Do you bet on the Wizards of Wall Street, with their Magic Money Wand of Fiat? Or do you think Russia will ground-n-pound the fairy dust into the mud?

SocietalIllusions December 18, 2015 at 11:17 am

what is left unsaid is the choices Russia then faces once their legal options play out and the uneven playing field is fully exposed. Do they not then have a historically justifiable basis for declaring war?

The game of brinksmanship continues…

Jim Haygood December 18, 2015 at 11:18 am

'The Russian and Chinese governments are investing in neighboring economies on terms that cement Eurasian economic integration.'

Whereas the U.S. is 'investing' in new military bases to cement U.S. global domination.

Guess which model actually benefits local living standards, and 'wins hearts and minds'?

Global domination as a policy goal bankrupted the USSR. It's not working for the USSA either, as the U.S. middle class (once the envy of the world) visibly sinks into pauperization.

Thus the veracity of Michael Hudson's conclusion that 'when a break comes, it will not be marginal but a seismic geopolitical shift.'

Steven December 18, 2015 at 1:56 pm

I get the same thrill reading Hudson the religiously devout must experience reading their bibles or Korans – a glimpse of 'truth' as best it can be known. My first encounter was this interview in Counterpunch: An Interview with Michael Hudson, author of Super Imperialism That led directly to "Super Imperialism" (and just about every book since its publication). After reading it, I was left with the uneasy feeling that no good would come from an international monetary system that allowed any one nation to pay its way in the world by creating money 'out of thin air' i.e. as sovereign and private debt or, almost the same thing, Federal Reserve Notes.

The race to the bottom of off-shored jobs and industries freed from all environmental restrictions, AKA 'globalization', had started to really kick in but it was just before Operation Iraqi Liberation (get it?). Fundamentally, it wasn't war for oil, of course, but a war to preserve the Dollar Standard. Recycling petrodollars bought a little time after the 1971 collapse of Bretton Woods. But with the world's treasuries filling up with US dollars and debt, the product of the Congressional-military-industrial-complex running wild and more recently the U.S. 0.01% successfully evading almost all forms of taxation, some kind of control more basic than controlling the world's access to money (which basically means credit) was required.

When people like Alan Greenspan (pretend to) come clean, you really want to look twice:

THOUGH it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the knowledge to the economics of life are not generally realized, life in its physical aspect is fundamentally a struggle for energy, in which discovery after discovery brings life into new relations with the original source.

Frederick Soddy, WEALTH, VIRTUAL WEALTH AND DEBT, 2nd edition, p. 49
The world can live without American dollars, especially these days when the U.S. no longer makes much the world needs or can afford but most obviously because it already possesses more of them than can ever be redeemed ('debt that can't be repaid and won't be') What it can't live without is ENERGY.

So long as most of that energy needs to be pumped out of the ground, the nation that ultimately controls access to the pumps – or to the distribution networks required to deliver it to the ultimate user – controls the world. This is most likely why Reagan promptly dismantled Jimmy Carter's White House solar panels. It is why the US and its European vassals have been dragging their feet for a half-century on the development of renewable energy sources and the electrification of transportation. It is why the banks and Wall Street will stand solidly behind the various electrical utilities efforts to discourage the development of any alternative energy sources from which their executives and shareholders can not extract the last pint of blood or has Hudson more politely calls it 'economic rent'.

P.S. Hudson seems to have a dangerous monopoly on economic truth these days. Is there anyone else who even comes close?

[Dec 19, 2015] Russia opens black box of jet downed by Turkey

Notable quotes:
"... I believe it was not there on patrol, but specifically to shoot the Russian plane down and come back ..."
"... Although I believe the Turkish map, I still think the Turks proved themselves on the side of the terrorists. ..."
"... Crossing that strip of Turkish territory by a friendly plane should not have been reason for shooting it down, only a PRETEXT. That may be the reason why the plane was shot down, because the Russians were not expecting the Turks to shoot at them. ..."
news.yahoo.com

Mister 2 hours ago 0

[The air force commander said 14 countries had been invited to monitor the (Russian) investigation but only China and Britain had accepted the official offer]

Shameful.

Shelly Winters 1 day ago 5

Not sure what information this "black box" contains, but CVR's and FDR's in most all aircraft (especially commercial jetliners) records only what the flight crew says in the cockpit and what operational parameters the aircraft experienced i.e. throttle settings, aileron positions, pitch, etc. It's questionable if the downed fighter aircraft's actual flight path would be stored internally in any such device, especially a fighter aircraft operating in hostile airspace. This data the Russians claim to have, if it really exists, could be certainly manipulated. The only true data for flight path would be a ground radar tape pulled from two different locations in the area.

James

I said it before, I believe the radar map the Turks showed with the paths was correct. And here are the military, but also their Religious reasons.

"War of the maps: Turkey released a map showing where Russia violated its airspace, and Russia countered"

/finance[dot]yahoo[dot]com/news/war-maps-turkey-released-map-210422386.html

You can see there is a very narrow strip of Turkish territory, about a mile wide, protruding deep into the Syrian territory. I don't know exactly the frequency of the sweep of the Turkish radar, but still, looking at the distances between dots, you can figure out the speed. The time to cross the Turkish strip must have been no longer than 20seconds, my initial estimate was 8, the Turks later said 17, but that's not important. The Russian plane is seen to make a wide circle near the Syrian border, flying much below it's maximum speed, probably looking for terrorist bases and convoys, and which circles crossed that limb. It was flying slow and probably low, and in circles, to get a good look. During the next cycle, I do believe the Turks warned it while flying over Syria, 10 times during 5' not to cross that 1 mile strip again. The Russian Su-24 bomber is seen heading for the strip the second time. Notice the Su-24 is a bomber not a dog-fighter like the F-16 and it's older. And there were two F-16's. The Turkish map shows only one path though. But the Russian maps shows only one too! On the Turkish map though, the F-16 is seen lurking in the air, and at some point accelerated sharply, approaching very close and very fast, probably in full afterburner, which is specifically reserved for attack.

I believe it was not there on patrol, but specifically to shoot the Russian plane down and come back. At (probably) the same time, the Russian path is seen with a very sharp small quirk. A sort of a mini-loop. I am sure they were trying to avoid incoming missiles. Their plane got hit, and it is seen trying to accelerate, probably to flee, and then the record ends.

HOWEVER ----------------- Although I believe the Turkish map, I still think the Turks proved themselves on the side of the terrorists.

After all, if the Russian plane was trying to get rid of the terrorists at the Turkish border, and no HONEST state wants terrorists at it's border, and the Russians were trying to do the "dirty job" of getting rid of them, Turkey should have been glad the Russians are helping them. But the fact they shot the Russian plane down, proves Turkey is harboring and abetting terrorists, if not recruits and send them itself.

Crossing that strip of Turkish territory by a friendly plane should not have been reason for shooting it down, only a PRETEXT. That may be the reason why the plane was shot down, because the Russians were not expecting the Turks to shoot at them.

So the Turks are not technically lying, but they ARE! The Russians probably did go through that miserable strip, and that's the technical truth. But Turkey is defending terrorists, and claiming it is not, that's the lie!

There are very sharp Religious reasons why they should do that, and still show the correct map. INTERESTING.. Ever heard of Tawriyya? Let me explain it for you in short. The Koran forbids a Muslim to lie, under penalty of the white-hot fires of Hell. But.. We already know if he becomes a Martyr, all his sins including lies will be forgotten.

But.. for a lie, you will be forgotten, if it's technically, a truth. What does that mean? Say, a Muslim has a $100 bill in his pocket. Somebody comes and asks him for a nickel. He will say: I don't have a nickel in my pockets! That's Tawriya, and Allah will have no reason to send him to Hell, because indeed he does not have a nickel in his pockets! That's a technical truth.

Erdogan, if he were asked "Are the terrorists working for you"? He could answer "Not a single terrorist is working for me". Indeed. Not one, but thousands. Allah won't punish him for that.

He could be asked: "Why did you shoot the plane down"? and he could answer "It was flying over our territory". He will not mention the reason was to protect his terrorists and their oil convoys. That's "Kitman". Saying half the truth. Allah won't punish him for that either.

As for lying to the Infidels, Allah won't punish him if he does it out of fear of the Infidels. Yes, but Islam is at perpetual war with the Infidels, until they either convert or disappear from the face of the Earth by any means, so orders Allah. So being at war with ANY infidel, a Muslim can lie to an Infidel all day and all night long! BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS AT WAR WITH ALL INFIDELS, UNTIL THERE ARE NO MORE INFIDELS! SO ORDERS ALLAH! DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT MEANS?

BUT THE TOUGHEST OF ALL IS THE "MURUNA" DOCTRINE. That literally explains terrorism. If you get to understand, you will be very surprised, of how you didn't know it.

If you want to find what terrorism is, and why Erdogan himself, said "There is no moderate and extremist Islam. There is only Islam". And he knew what he was talking about, learn more. So find the MURUNA concept or doctrine. You can find a better explanation here:

You can look on Google for this: "Knowing Four Arabic Words May Save Our Civilization from Islamic Takeover"

And save it before it disappears.

Remember, you won't win any battle not knowing your enemy first.

BTW, did you know where the expression "the writing is on the wall" comes from? I's origin is also explained there.

[Dec 19, 2015] Ukraine still committed to good faith debt talks with Russia Finance Ministry

Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine remains committed ... to negotiating in good faith a consensual restructuring of the December 2015 Eurobonds, Nonsense, they are nothing but thieves in suits; Fascist politicians stealing from the taxpayers in the USA, EU, Russia and the Ukraine. You supporters of modern Fascism are disgusting little NeoCon trolls, yes you are! ..."
"... Under this IMF restructuring deal with the Ukraine, the oligarchs mandated that Monsanto GMO comes in. Now the once fertile farms will grow poisoned food. ... They also mandated hydraulic fracking rights to Exxon and BP. Now the aquifers will be poisoned. ... Moreover, the IMF social chapter destroys family values and requires that corrosive gay propaganda be thrust into the children's minds. ... Welcome to the new Globalist Business Model. ..."
"... The Ukraine is like a dying carcass. ... The EU jackals are howling, the IMF vultures are circling, and the NATO hyenas are picking the flesh off of the bones. ..."
"... Ukraine's Finance Minister, who promised in the above Reuters article today Dec 18, 2015, to talk in good faith with the Russian Federation about their $3 Billion Loan due and payable on Dec 15, as of today is in Default on that $3 Billion Loan , and therefore isn't eligible to receive any Loan from the IMF, headed by Chief Lagarde who must now stand trial for an improper loan of $434 Million . ..."
"... Good faith? They actually mean bait and switch ..."
"... The deadbeat American lackeys in Kiev have no intention of paying their debts to Russia because Washington DC is run by thieves and immoral people. You know this is true. ..."
"... Meanwhile Ukraine has restricted air travel, cutoff Crimea, and fought efforts to grant autonomy to Russian-speaking regions. With unpaid debt, the country still stokes war with Russia after being warned by Mr. Kerry to stop. ..."
news.yahoo.com

Algis

"Ukraine remains committed ... to negotiating in good faith a consensual restructuring of the December 2015 Eurobonds," Nonsense, they are nothing but thieves in suits; Fascist politicians stealing from the taxpayers in the USA, EU, Russia and the Ukraine. You supporters of modern Fascism are disgusting little NeoCon trolls, yes you are!

Robert

This is the new Globalist Business Model.

  1. Overthrow a sovereign country by revolution or outright bombing campaign.
  2. Appoint oligarchs to run it and fascists to rule the streets.
  3. Rack the country with unpardonable debt.
  4. Bring in the IMF and other global banks to 'restructure' the economy.
  5. Loot the country's resources by selling off the infrastructure for pennies on the dollar.
  6. Impose huge austerity programs. ... Cuts pensions in half and double basic living costs.
  7. Finally, colonialize the citizens under multi-national corporate rule where the people have little or no say.

Under this IMF restructuring deal with the Ukraine, the oligarchs mandated that Monsanto GMO comes in. Now the once fertile farms will grow poisoned food. ... They also mandated hydraulic fracking rights to Exxon and BP. Now the aquifers will be poisoned. ... Moreover, the IMF social chapter destroys family values and requires that corrosive gay propaganda be thrust into the children's minds. ... Welcome to the new Globalist Business Model.

The Ukraine is like a dying carcass. ... The EU jackals are howling, the IMF vultures are circling, and the NATO hyenas are picking the flesh off of the bones.

Algis

Russia needs to take payment out of their proverbial hides. No one consider it unjustified except a few brainwashed Americans and of course the immoral and corrupt ruling class of the Empire!

new_federali...

Ukraine's Finance Minister, who promised in the above Reuters article today Dec 18, 2015, to talk in good faith with the Russian Federation about their $3 Billion Loan due and payable on Dec 15, as of today is in Default on that $3 Billion Loan , and therefore isn't eligible to receive any Loan from the IMF, headed by Chief Lagarde who must now stand trial for an improper loan of $434 Million .

Therefore, Gold did achieve an all-important triple bottom at $1,050 per ounce this week, and is now in a furious rally up $15 to $1,065 per ounce as DXY (U.S. Dollar Index) falls sharply today due to utter failure of U.S.- led IMF to rescue Ukraine from Financial Collapse today -- Thus Gold will now rally sharply through at least Feb 2016 when Gold will be at $1,500 per ounce, and ultimately going to new all-time highs above $2,000 per ounce -- Dec 18, 2015 at 11:53 a.m. PST.

Commenter

Good faith? They actually mean bait and switch

Algis

The deadbeat American lackeys in Kiev have no intention of paying their debts to Russia because Washington DC is run by thieves and immoral people. You know this is true.

RonP

Meanwhile Ukraine has restricted air travel, cutoff Crimea, and fought efforts to grant autonomy to Russian-speaking regions. With unpaid debt, the country still stokes war with Russia after being warned by Mr. Kerry to stop.

[Dec 19, 2015] Turkey Blasts Breakthrough UN Resolution On Syria It Lacks Perspective. Assad Must Go!

Notable quotes:
"... "Now, is there a way of us constructing a bridge, creating a political transition, that allows those who are allied with Assad right now, allows the Russians, allows the Iranians to ensure that their equities are respected, that minorities like the Alawites are not crushed or retribution is not the order of the day? I think that's going to be very important as well." ..."
"... Seymour Hersh Links Turkey to Benghazi, Syria and Sarin ..."
"... The assessment of the Defense Intelligence Agency is that the sarin was supplied by Turkey to elements in Ghouta with the intent of "push[ing] Obama over the red line. " Intercepted transmissions from Turkish operators in the aftermath of the attack are jubilant, and the success of their covert mission must have seemed well in hand. Obama's implicit call to war in the coming month was proof of that. ..."
Dec 19, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Following June elections in which AKP lost its absolute parliamentary majority thanks in part to a stronger than expected showing at the polls by the pro-Kurdish HDP, Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan began to lose his mind.

The vote put in jeopardy Erdogan's bid to effectively rewrite the country's constitution on the way to consolidating his power in an executive presidency. That decisively undesirable outcome could not stand and so Erdogan did what any respectable autocrat would do: he nullified the election. First, the President undermined the coalition building process so he could call for new elections. Next, he fanned the flames of civil war and reignited a long-simmering conflict with the PKK. The idea was to scare the electorate into believing that a "strong" AKP government was the only antidote to domestic and international terror. Finally, Erdogan cracked down on the press and anyone else critical of his rule. AKP was also suspected of covertly backing attacks on HDP offices and newspapers. Some (i.e. the PKK) went so far as to suggest that Erdogan secretly worked with Sunni extremists to orchestrate suicide bombings - in other words, there's speculation Erdogan terrorized his own people.

Sure enough, AKP had a better showing at re-do elections last month, but by that point, Erdogan was on the fast track to dictatorial delirium. On November 24, he shot down a Russian fighter jet near the border with Syria in the first such direct military confrontation between Russia and a NATO member in at least six decades. And the madness didn't stop there. After Putin and the Russian MoD laid out their case against Ankara's role in financing Islamic State via Turkey's complicity in the group's lucrative oil trafficking business, Turkey sent hundreds of troops and around two dozen tanks to Bashiqa in Iraq which is right on the crude smuggling route. The deployment infuriated Baghdad and after Turkey refused to pull the troops out, Iraq went to the UN Security Council. Subsequently, Turkish troops were "attacked" by Islamic State.

The Turks claim that Iraq invited them in the past, a contention Baghdad vehemently denies. Thanks to Barzani and the Kurds, Ankara gets to claim that at least someone welcomes the Turkish troop presence (remember, despite Erdogan's hatred of the PKK and the YPG, Turkey is friendly with Erbil, which relies on Turkey to get some 630,000 b/d of what is technically illegal crude to market).

Well, for anyone who thought Turkey might be set to bow to international pressure by moving its troops north and thus back towards the Turkey-Iraq border, think again because on Saturday, Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu was out with a series of declarations that seem to suggest Turkey is going full-belligerent-retard as Erdogan scrambles to preserve the "Assad must go" narrative on the way to securing whatever Ankara's interests are in both Iraq and Syria.

First, Davutoglu said that the provision of training to the Peshmerga and Mosul militiamen is "in line with a request from Iraq authorities and as such, the mission in Iraq will continue "until Mosul is freed" from ISIS.

Ok, so two things there. The deployment is not "in line with a request from Iraq." At this point, Turkey's position has moved from comically absurd to maddeningly obstinate. How many times does Baghdad have to say that Turkey isn't invited before NATO forces Turkey to drop the "they told us we could be here" line? Further, the idea that Turkey will stay until Mosul "is liberated" from ISIS, means Erdogan plans to remain in Iraq indefinitely. As we've documented on several occasions, an operation to retake Mosul is for all intents and purposes a pipe dream and if Turkey intends to wait it out, the troops and tanks could be there for years.

Next, Davutoglu claims that the Islamic State attacks on Turkish positions in Bashiqa prove Turkey "is right." "Right" about what, it's not clear, but what's interesting is that the attacks came just as ISIS launched its first major offensive in northern Iraq since July in a move that US officials say was likely designed to disrupt preparations for an assault on Mosul. The point: all of this is rather conveniently timed.

Davutoglu then slammed a UN Security Council resolution agreed in New York on Friday. The meeting of foreign ministers was tipped by John Kerry in Moscow on Tuesday and when discussions ended, diplomats adopted a resolution which purports to draw a road map for ending the war in Syria. As WSJ notes, the resolution "left unresolved divisions among world powers on key issues in the conflict."

Which "key issues", you ask? Well, the only ones that matter - namely, i) the fate of Bashar al-Assad and ii) which groups should be recognized as "terrorists" and which should be awarded the "moderate opposition" badge.

"Both issues were left out of the resolution after an hourslong meeting of foreign ministers in New York on Friday failed to reach a compromise and at one point verged on collapse," WSJ goes on the recount, adding that "Russian and Iranian diplomats said the question of Mr. Assad wasn't discussed on Friday because neither of their countries would accept a deal that calls for Mr. Assad's exit, even at the end of a political transition period."

As we've said on too many occasions to count, Syria is absolutely critical for Tehran when it comes to preserving Iranian influence and ensuring that the so-called "Shiite crescent" doesn't wane. For Russia, this is a chance to supplant the US as Mid-East superpower puppet master and Moscow isn't about to see it slip away by agreeing to a resolution that makes Assad's ouster a foregone conclusion.

For Turkey, the absence of a decision on Assad's future is maddening. The Security Council resolution "lacks realistic perspective," Davutoglu said on Saturday, before adding that the "Syria crisis can only be solved if Bashar al-Assad leaves power."

Consider that, and consider the fact that, as we reported yesterday, Ankara is now establishing a military base in Qatar in order that the two country's might work more closely on tackling "common enemies."

What we're beginning to see here is the formation of three alliances in the Mid-East: 1) Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq; 2) Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar; 3) Britain, France, and Germany. The first alliance is pro-Assad, anti-terror. The second is anti-Assad, pro-Sunni extremist. The third is anti-Assad (although less vehemently so), anti-terror (conspiracy theories aside). Note that we've left the US out. Why? Because Washington is now stuck. The US wants desperately to maintain coordination with Ankara, Riyadh, and Doha, but between stepped up media coverage of Saudi Arabia's role in underwriting extremism (via the promotion of Wahhabism) and hightened scrutiny on Erdogan's role in financing terrorists, the position is becoming increasingly untenable. But aligning solely with the UK, France, and Germany entails adopting a more conciliatory approach to Assad - just ask Berlin which, as we reported on Friday, is now working with Assad's intelligence police and may soon establish a base in Damascus.

With that in mind, we'll close with the following from Obama, which underscores the extent to which the US is now thoroughly confused as to what to do next:

"Now, is there a way of us constructing a bridge, creating a political transition, that allows those who are allied with Assad right now, allows the Russians, allows the Iranians to ensure that their equities are respected, that minorities like the Alawites are not crushed or retribution is not the order of the day? I think that's going to be very important as well."

JustObserving

First try the sarin gas supplying war criminal, Erdogan

Turkey supplied the sarin that killed over 1300 Syrians in Ghouta to try to get the Nobel Prize Winner to bomb Assad into oblivion

Seymour Hersh Links Turkey to Benghazi, Syria and Sarin

The assessment of the Defense Intelligence Agency is that the sarin was supplied by Turkey to elements in Ghouta with the intent of "push[ing] Obama over the red line." Intercepted transmissions from Turkish operators in the aftermath of the attack are jubilant, and the success of their covert mission must have seemed well in hand. Obama's implicit call to war in the coming month was proof of that.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/05/06/seymour-hersh-links-turke...

WTFRLY

White House, Media Silent One Year After Murder of US Reporter Who Exposed Western Links to ISIS October 20, 2015

Turkey killed and American reporter to protect the lies. British reporter Jackie Sutton was found dead a year to the day in Istanbul airport...

DeadFred
There aren't that many Turkish troops in Iraq, they can be removed with Iraqi Army and Shiite militia ground troops. The Russian can fly CAP but they shouldn't be involved beyond that. The purpose of Erdogan's insanities is to goad Putin into doing something that will bring NATO against him. He's been wise enough to avoid that so far. The Western economies are a gnats eyelash from collapse so all he needs to so is wait. Maybe selling a few shares of SPY at the right time would help or giving a few billion to some untracable players who call for delivery on their gold futures. I hope he's patient, the end-game is upon us but the fewer nukes that get used the better.
two hoots

Israel, where are you in all of this? Oh, see below:

Forget Qatar/Russia pipelines.

Israel/Turkey/US/NATO connection found here: "That would allow Turkey to reduce its energy dependence on Russia and open up a new market for Israeli and U.S. developers of a new natural gas project off the Israeli coast." (WSJ)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-turkey-poised-to-renew-diplomatic-relations-1450438539

Nat Gas in Israel waters: "Israel has proposed that EU countries invest in a multi-billion euro pipeline to carry its natural gas to the continent, noting that the supply from Israel would reduce Europe's current dependence on natural gas from Russia." (Start Up-Israel)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-pitches-massive-natural-gas-pipeline-plan-to-europe/

It could be a whole new NG game? And what thinks Russia/Qatar in all of this?

[Dec 19, 2015] The Exception

Notable quotes:
"... "Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt, and that incompetence, ineptitude, lack of accountability is now dangerous Carly won the sound bite of the century award with that one! ..."
"... I voted for this turd because you Rightwingnut Fuckheads gave me the option of McCain the first time and Romney the second time. ..."
Zero Hedge

FireBrander

I expect the lies....but the level of lies when it comes to "fighting ISIS" is off-the-fucking-charts!...and no one calls him on it!

>The USA/NATO Created ISIS.

>The USA/NATO is using ISIS to oust ASSAD because he's too friendly with Russia/Iran.

>The USA/NATO FUNDS ISIS via Turkey.

Obama: "ISIS is a seriously threat, they are contained and we will destroy ISIS"

Bill Clintons' mouth has got to be gaping; and I'm sure thoroughly impressed that Obama could tell a whopper like that without question...NOT ONE REPUBLICAN at the debate even called Obama on ISIS!

Neil Patrick Harris

You gotta wonder how much money they promised him when he leaves office.

Peter Pan

Unfortunately Obama is beyond being a threat. He ( and whoever is pulling on his strings) is an actual attack on America.

FireBrander

"Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt, and that incompetence, ineptitude, lack of accountability is now dangerous" Carly won the sound bite of the century award with that one!

..and the new budget bill will fully fund ALL OF IT's desires....

FireBrander

I voted for "this turd" because you Rightwingnut Fuckheads gave me the option of McCain the first time and Romney the second time.

You're welcome for my vote saving you from those fuckheads...McCain would have nuked the planet by now and Romney would have handed the country to his VC friends and you'd be living in a "dorm" putting together iPhones.

Romney criticised Obama in one of the debates because "The number of battleships in our fleet is the lowest since the 50's"...battleships? Romney, you stupid fuck, it's 20xx you moron...battleships are pretty irrelevent in today's "theater of war"...Obama held it together and replied, I give the Admirals EVERYTHING THEY ASK FOR...and Romney dropped it.

Great ZH piece on Romney; what a piece of shit:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-17/rip-truman-show-bubble-finance-...

[Dec 19, 2015] The Washington Post's Non-Political Fed Looks a Lot Like Wall Street's Fed

Notable quotes:
"... Any serious discussion of Fed policy would note that the banking industry appears to have a grossly disproportionate say in the country's monetary policy. ..."
Dec 19, 2015 | Beat the Press

... ... ...

But what is even more striking is the Post's ability to treat the Fed a neutral party when the evidence is so overwhelming in the opposite direction. The majority of the Fed's 12 district bank presidents have long been pushing for a rate hike. While there are some doves among this group, most notably Charles Evans, the Chicago bank president, and Narayana Kocherlakota, the departing president of the Minneapolis bank, most of this group has publicly pushed for higher rate hikes for some time. By contrast, the governors who are appointed through the democratic process, have been far more cautious about raising rates.

It should raise serious concerns that the bank presidents, who are appointed through a process dominated by the banking industry, has such a different perspective on the best path forward for monetary policy. With only five of the seven governor slots currently filled, there are as many presidents with voting seats on the Fed's Open Market Committee as governors. In total, the governors are outnumbered at meetings by a ratio of twelve to five.

Any serious discussion of Fed policy would note that the banking industry appears to have a grossly disproportionate say in the country's monetary policy. Furthermore, it seems determined to use that influence to push the Fed on a path that slows growth and reduces the rate of job creation. The Post somehow missed this story or at least would prefer that the rest of us not take notice.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-federal-reserve-makes-a-good-judgment-call-in-raising-interest-rates/2015/12/18/7954e1c6-a4f8-11e5-ad3f-991ce3374e23_story.html

-- Dean Baker

[Dec 18, 2015] The Upward Redistribution of Income: Are Rents the Story?

Looks like growth of financial sector represents direct threat to the society
Notable quotes:
"... Perhaps the financialization of the economy and rising inequality leads to a corruption of the political process which leads to monetary, currency and fiscal policy such that labor markets are loose and inflation is low. ..."
"... Growth of the non-financial-sector == growth in productivity ..."
"... In complex subject matters, even the most competent person joining a company has to become familiar with the details of the products, the industry niche, the processes and professional/personal relationships in the company or industry, etc. All these are not really teachable and require between months and years in the job. This represents a significant sunk cost. Sometimes (actually rather often) experience within the niche/industry is in a degree portable between companies, but some company still had to employ enough people to build this experience, and it cannot be readily bought by bringing in however competent freshers. ..."
December 18, 2015 | cepr.netDean Baker:
Working Paper: : In the years since 1980, there has been a well-documented upward redistribution of income. While there are some differences by methodology and the precise years chosen, the top one percent of households have seen their income share roughly double from 10 percent in 1980 to 20 percent in the second decade of the 21st century. As a result of this upward redistribution, most workers have seen little improvement in living standards from the productivity gains over this period.

This paper argues that the bulk of this upward redistribution comes from the growth of rents in the economy in four major areas: patent and copyright protection, the financial sector, the pay of CEOs and other top executives, and protectionist measures that have boosted the pay of doctors and other highly educated professionals. The argument on rents is important because, if correct, it means that there is nothing intrinsic to capitalism that led to this rapid rise in inequality, as for example argued by Thomas Piketty.

Flash | PDF

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Fair Economist, December 18, 2015 at 11:34 AM

"...the growth of finance capitalism was what would kill capitalism off..."

"Financialization" is a short-cut terminology that in full is term either "financialization of non-financial firms" or "financialization of the means of production." In either case it leads to consolidation of firms, outsourcing, downsizing, and offshoring to reduce work force and wages and increase rents.

Consolidation, the alpha and omega of financialization can only be executed with very liquid financial markets, big investment banks to back necessary leverage to make the proffers, and an acute capital gains tax preference relative to dividends and interest earnings, the grease to liquidity.

It takes big finance to do "financialization" and it takes "financialization" to extract big rents while maintaining low wages.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron, December 18, 2015 at 11:42 AM
[THANKS to djb just down thread who supplied this link:]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021305040

Finance sector as percent of US GDP, 1860-present: the growth of the rentier economy

[graph]

Financialization is a term sometimes used in discussions of financial capitalism which developed over recent decades, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity) and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics.

Financialization is a term that describes an economic system or process that attempts to reduce all value that is exchanged (whether tangible, intangible, future or present promises, etc.) either into a financial instrument or a derivative of a financial instrument. The original intent of financialization is to be able to reduce any work-product or service to an exchangeable financial instrument... Financialization also makes economic rents possible...financial leverage tended to override capital (equity) and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics...

Companies are not able to invest in new physical capital equipment or buildings because they are obliged to use their operating revenue to pay their bankers and bondholders, as well as junk-bond holders. This is what I mean when I say that the economy is becoming financialized. Its aim is not to provide tangible capital formation or rising living standards, but to generate interest, financial fees for underwriting mergers and acquisitions, and capital gains that accrue mainly to insiders, headed by upper management and large financial institutions. The upshot is that the traditional business cycle has been overshadowed by a secular increase in debt.

Instead of labor earning more, hourly earnings have declined in real terms. There has been a drop in net disposable income after paying taxes and withholding "forced saving" for social Security and medical insurance, pension-fund contributions and–most serious of all–debt service on credit cards, bank loans, mortgage loans, student loans, auto loans, home insurance premiums, life insurance, private medical insurance and other FIRE-sector charges. ... This diverts spending away from goods and services.

In the United States, probably more money has been made through the appreciation of real estate than in any other way. What are the long-term consequences if an increasing percentage of savings and wealth, as it now seems, is used to inflate the prices of already existing assets - real estate and stocks - instead of to create new production and innovation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization

pgl said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron, December 18, 2015 at 03:25 PM
Your graph shows something I've been meaning to suggest for a while. Take a look at the last time that the financial sector share of GDP rose. The late 1920's. Which was followed by the Great Depression which has similar causes as our Great Recession. Here is my observation.

Give that Wall Street clowns a huge increase in our national income and we don't get more services from them. What we get is screwed on the grandest of scales.

BTW - there is a simple causal relationship that explains both the rise in the share of financial sector income/GDP and the massive collapses of the economy (1929 and 2007). It is called stupid financial deregulation. First we see the megabanks and Wall Street milking the system for all its worth and when their unhanded and often secretive risk taking falls apart - the rest of bear the brunt of the damage.

Which is why this election is crucial. Elect a Republican and we repeat this mistake again. Elect a real progressive and we can put in place the types of financial reforms FDR was known for.

Peter K. said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron, December 18, 2015 at 11:50 AM

" and it takes "financialization" to extract big rents while maintaining low wages."

It takes governmental macro policy to maintain loose labor markets and low wages. Perhaps the financialization of the economy and rising inequality leads to a corruption of the political process which leads to monetary, currency and fiscal policy such that labor markets are loose and inflation is low.

djb said...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021305040

I don't know about the last couple years but this chart indicates a large growth in financials as a share of gdp over the years since the 40's

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to djb, December 18, 2015 at 12:03 PM
[Anne gave you FIRE sector profits as a share of GDP while this gives FIRE sector profits as a share of total corporate profits.]

*

[Smoking gun excerpt:]

"...The financial system has grown rapidly since the early 1980s. In the 1950s, the financial sector accounted for about 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Today, that figure has more than doubled, to 6.5 percent. The sector's yearly rate of growth doubled after 1980, rising to a peak of 7.5 percent of GDP in 2006. As finance has grown in relative size it has also grown disproportionately more profitable. In 1950, financial-sector profits were about 8 percent of overall U.S. profits-meaning all the profit earned by any kind of business enterprise in the country. By the 2000s, they ranged between 20 and 40 percent...

[Ouch!]

[Now the whole enchilada:]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember_2014/features/frenzied_financialization052714.php?page=all

If you want to know what happened to economic equality in this country, one word will explain a lot of it: financialization. That term refers to an increase in the size, scope, and power of the financial sector-the people and firms that manage money and underwrite stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other securities-relative to the rest of the economy.

The financialization revolution over the past thirty-five years has moved us toward greater inequality in three distinct ways. The first involves moving a larger share of the total national wealth into the hands of the financial sector. The second involves concentrating on activities that are of questionable value, or even detrimental to the economy as a whole. And finally, finance has increased inequality by convincing corporate executives and asset managers that corporations must be judged not by the quality of their products and workforce but by one thing only: immediate income paid to shareholders.

The financial system has grown rapidly since the early 1980s. In the 1950s, the financial sector accounted for about 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Today, that figure has more than doubled, to 6.5 percent. The sector's yearly rate of growth doubled after 1980, rising to a peak of 7.5 percent of GDP in 2006. As finance has grown in relative size it has also grown disproportionately more profitable. In 1950, financial-sector profits were about 8 percent of overall U.S. profits-meaning all the profit earned by any kind of business enterprise in the country. By the 2000s, they ranged between 20 and 40 percent. This isn't just the decline of profits in other industries, either. Between 1980 and 2006, while GDP increased five times, financial-sector profits increased sixteen times over. While financial and nonfinancial profits grew at roughly the same rate before 1980, between 1980 and 2006 nonfinancial profits grew seven times while financial profits grew sixteen times.

This trend has continued even after the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent financial reforms, including the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Financial profits in 2012 were 24 percent of total profits, while the financial sector's share of GDP was 6.8 percent. These numbers are lower than the high points of the mid-2000s; but, compared to the years before 1980, they are remarkably high.

This explosion of finance has generated greater inequality. To begin with, the share of the total workforce employed in the financial sector has barely budged, much less grown at a rate equivalent to the size and profitability of the sector as a whole. That means that these swollen profits are flowing to a small sliver of the population: those employed in finance. And financiers, in turn, have become substantially more prominent among the top 1 percent. Recent work by the economists Jon Bakija, Adam Cole, and Bradley T. Heim found that the percentage of those in the top 1 percent of income working in finance nearly doubled between 1979 and 2005, from 7.7 percent to 13.9 percent.

If the economy had become far more productive as a result of these changes, they could have been worthwhile. But the evidence shows it did not. Economist Thomas Philippon found that financial services themselves have become less, not more, efficient over this time period. The unit cost of financial services, or the percentage of assets it costs to produce all financial issuances, was relatively high at the dawn of the twentieth century, but declined to below 2 percent between 1901 and 1960. However, it has increased since the 1960s, and is back to levels seen at the early twentieth century. Whatever finance is doing, it isn't doing it more cheaply.

In fact, the second damaging trend is that financial institutions began to concentrate more and more on activities that are worrisome at best and destructive at worst. Harvard Business School professors Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein argue that between 1980 and 2007 the growth in financial-industry revenues came from two things: asset management and loan origination. Fees associated either with asset management or with household credit in particular were responsible for 74 percent of the growth in financial-sector output over that period.

The asset management portion reflects the explosion of mutual funds, which increased from $134 billion in assets in 1980 to $12 trillion in 2007. Much of it also comes from "alternative investment vehicles" like hedge funds and private equity. Over this time, the fee rate for mutual funds fell, but fees associated with alternative investment vehicles exploded. This is, in essence, money for nothing-there is little evidence that hedge funds actually perform better than the market over time. And, unlike mutual funds, alternative investment funds do not fully disclose their practices and fees publicly.

Beginning in 1980 and continuing today, banks generate less and less of their income from interest on loans. Instead, they rely on fees, from either consumers or borrowers. Fees associated with household credit grew from 1.1 percent of GDP in 1980 to 3.4 percent in 2007. As part of the unregulated shadow banking sector that took over the financial sector, banks are less and less in the business of holding loans and more and more concerned with packaging them and selling them off. Instead of holding loans on their books, banks originate loans to sell off and distribute into this new type of banking sector.

Again, if this "originate-to-distribute" model created value for society, it could be a worthwhile practice. But, in fact, this model introduced huge opportunities for fraud throughout the lending process. Loans-such as "securitized mortgages" made up of pledges of the income stream from subprime mortgage loans-were passed along a chain of buyers until someone far away held the ultimate risk. Bankers who originated the mortgages received significant commissions, with virtually no accountability or oversight. The incentive, in fact, was perverse: find the worst loans with the biggest fees instead of properly screening for whether the loans would be any good for investors.

The same model made it difficult, if not impossible, to renegotiate bad mortgages when the system collapsed. Those tasked with tackling bad mortgages on behalf of investors had their own conflicts of interests, and found themselves profiting while loans struggled. This process created bad debts that could never be paid, and blocked attempts to try and rework them after the fact. The resulting pool of bad debt has been a drag on the economy ever since, giving us the fall in median wages of the Great Recession and the sluggish recovery we still live with.

And of course it's been an epic disaster for the borrowers themselves. Many of them, we now know, were moderate- and lower-income families who were in no financial position to borrow as much as they did, especially under such predatory terms and with such high fees. Collapsing home prices and the inability to renegotiate their underwater mortgages stripped these folks of whatever savings they had and left them in deep debt, widening even further the gulf of inequality in this country.

Moreover, financialization isn't just confined to the financial sector itself. It's also ultimately about who controls, guides, and benefits from our economy as a whole. And here's the last big change: the "shareholder revolution," started in the 1980s and continuing to this very day, has fundamentally transformed the way our economy functions in favor of wealth owners.

To understand this change, compare two eras at General Electric. This is how business professor Gerald Davis describes the perspective of Owen Young, who was CEO of GE almost straight through from 1922 to 1945: "[S]tockholders are confined to a maximum return equivalent to a risk premium. The remaining profit stays in the enterprise, is paid out in higher wages, or is passed on to the customer." Davis contrasts that ethos with that of Jack Welch, CEO from 1981 to 2001; Welch, Davis says, believed in "the shareholder as king-the residual claimant, entitled to the [whole] pot of earnings."

This change had dramatic consequences. Economist J. W. Mason found that, before the 1980s, firms tended to borrow funds in order to fuel investment. Since 1980, that link has been broken. Now when firms borrow, they tend to use the money to fund dividends or buy back stocks. Indeed, even during the height of the housing boom, Mason notes, "corporations were paying out more than 100 percent of their cash flow to shareholders."

This lack of investment is obviously holding back our recovery. Productive investment remains low, and even extraordinary action by the Federal Reserve to make investments more profitable by keeping interest rates low has not been able to counteract the general corporate presumption that this money should go to shareholders. There is thus less innovation, less risk taking, and ultimately less growth. One of the reasons this revolution was engineered in the 1980s was to put a check on what kinds of investments CEOs could make, and one of those investments was wage growth. Finance has now won the battle against wage earners: corporations today are reluctant to raise wages even as the economy slowly starts to recover. This keeps the economy perpetually sluggish by retarding consumer demand, while also increasing inequality.

How can these changes be challenged? The first thing we must understand is the scope of the change. As Mason writes, the changes have been intellectual, legal, and institutional. At the intellectual level, academic research and conventional wisdom among economists and policymakers coalesced around the ideas that maximizing returns to shareholders is the only goal of a corporation, and that the financial markets were always right. At the legal level, laws regulating finance at the state level were overturned by the Supreme Court or preempted by federal regulators, and antitrust regulations were gutted by the Reagan administration and not taken up again.

At the institutional level, deregulation over several administrations led to a massive concentration of the financial sector into fewer, richer firms. As financial expertise became more prestigious than industry-specific knowledge, CEOs no longer came from within the firms they represented but instead from other firms or from Wall Street; their pay was aligned through stock options, which naturally turned their focus toward maximizing stock prices. The intellectual and institutional transformation was part of an overwhelming ideological change: the health and strength of the economy became identified solely with the profitability of the financial markets.

This was a bold revolution, and any program that seeks to change it has to be just as bold intellectually. Such a program will also require legal and institutional changes, ones that go beyond making sure that financial firms can fail without destroying the economy. Dodd-Frank can be thought of as a reaction against the worst excesses of the financial sector at the height of the housing bubble, and as a line of defense against future financial panics. Many parts of it are doing yeoman's work in curtailing the financial sector's abuses, especially in terms of protecting consumers from fraud and bringing some transparency to the Wild West of the derivatives markets. But the scope of the law is too limited to roll back these larger changes.

One provision of Dodd-Frank, however, suggests a way forward. At the urging of the AFL-CIO, Dodd-Frank empowered the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine the activities of private equity firms on behalf of their investors. At around $3.5 trillion, private equity is a massive market with serious consequences for the economy as a whole. On its first pass, the SEC found extensive abuses. Andrew Bowden, the director of the SEC's examinations office, stated that the agency found "what we believe are violations of law or material weaknesses in controls over 50 percent of the time."

Lawmakers could require private equity and hedge funds to standardize their disclosures of fees and holdings, as is currently the case for mutual funds. The decline in fees for mutual funds noted above didn't just happen by itself; it happened because the law structured the market for actual transparency and price competition. This will need to happen again for the broader financial sector.

But the most important change will be intellectual: we must come to understand our economy not as simply a vehicle for capital owners, but rather as the creation of all of us, a common endeavor that creates space for innovation, risk taking, and a stronger workforce. This change will be difficult, as we will have to alter how we approach the economy as a whole. Our wealth and companies can't just be strip-mined for a small sliver of capital holders; we'll need to bring the corporation back to the public realm. But without it, we will remain trapped inside an economy that only works for a select few.

[Whew!]

Puerto Barato said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron,
"3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Today, that figure has more than doubled, to 6.5"
~~RC AKA Darryl, Ron ~

Growth of the non-financial-sector == growth in productivity

Growth of the financial-sector == growth in upward transfer of wealth

Ostensibly financial-sector is there to protect your money from being eaten up by inflation. Closer inspection shows that the prevention of *eaten up* is by the method of rent collection.

Accountants handle this analysis poorly, but you can see what is happening. Boiling it down to the bottom line you can easily see that wiping out the financial sector is the remedy to the Piketty.

Hell! Financial sector wiped itself out in 008. Problem was that the GSE and administration brought the zombie back to life then put the vampire back at our throats. What was the precipitating factor that snagged the financial sector without warning?

Unexpected
deflation
!

Gimme some
of that

pgl said in reply to djb...

People like Brad DeLong have noted this for a while. Twice as many people making twice as much money per person. And their true value to us - not a bit more than it was back in the 1940's.

Rock O Sock O Choco said in reply to djb... December 18, 2015 at 06:26 PM

JEC - MeanSquaredErrors said...

Wait, what?

Piketty looks at centuries of data from all over the world and concludes that capitalism has a long-run bias towards income concentration. Baker looks at 35 years of data in one country and concludes that Piketty is wrong. Um...?

A little more generously, what Baker actually writes is:

"The argument on rents is important because, if correct, it means that there is nothing intrinsic to capitalism that led to **this** rapid rise in inequality, as for example argued by Thomas Piketty." (emphasis added)

But Piketty has always been very explicit that the recent rise in US income inequality is anomalous -- driven primarily by rising inequality in the distribution of labor income, and only secondarily by any shift from labor to capital income.

So perhaps Baker is "correctly" refuting Straw Thomas Piketty. Which I suppose is better than just being obviously wrong. Maybe.

tew said...

Some simple math shows that this assertion is false "As a result of this upward redistribution, most workers have seen little improvement in living standards" unless you think an apprx. 60% in per-capita real income (expressed as GDP) among the 99% is "little improvement".

Real GDP 2015 / Real GDP 1980 = 2.57 (Source: FRED)
If the income share of the 1% shifted from 10% to 20% then The 1%' real GDP component went up 410% while that of The 99% went up 130%. Accounting for a population increase of about 41% brings those numbers to a 265% increase and a 62% increase.

Certainly a very unequal distribution of the productivity gains but hard to call "little".

I believe the truth of the statement is revealed when you look at the Top 5% vs. the other 95%.

cm said in reply to tew...

For most "working people", their raises are quickly eaten up by increases in housing/rental, food, local services, and other nondiscretionary costs. Sure, you can buy more and better imported consumer electronics per dollar, but you have to pay the rent/mortgage every months, how often do you buy a new flat screen TV? In a high-cost metro, a big ass TV will easily cost less than a single monthly rent (and probably less than your annual cable bill that you need to actually watch TV).

pgl said in reply to tew...

Are you trying to be the champion of the 1%? Sorry dude but Greg Mankiw beat you to this.

anne said...

In the years since 1980, there has been a well-documented upward redistribution of income. While there are some differences by methodology and the precise years chosen, the top one percent of households have seen their income share roughly double from 10 percent in 1980 to 20 percent in the second decade of the 21st century. As a result of this upward redistribution, most workers have seen little improvement in living standards from the productivity gains over this period....

-- Dean Baker

anne said in reply to anne...

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/

September 16, 2015

Real Median Household Income, 1980 & 2014


1980 ( 48,462)

2014 ( 53,657)


53,657 - 48,462 = 5,195

5,195 / 48,462 = 10.7%


Between 1980 and 2014 real median household income increased by a mere 10.7%.

anne said in reply to don...

I would be curious to know what has happened to the number of members per household....

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/

September 16, 2015

Household Size

2014 ( 2.54)
1980 ( 2.73)

[ The difference in household size to real median household incomes is not statistically significant. ]

anne said in reply to anne...

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/families/index.html

September 16, 2015

Real Median Family Income, 1948-1980-2014


1948 ( 27,369)

1980 ( 57,528)

2014 ( 66,632)


57,528 - 27,369 = 30,159

30,159 / 27,369 = 110.2%


66,632 - 57,528 = 9,104

9,104 / 57,528 = 15.8%


Between 1948 and 1980, real median family income increased by 110.2%, while between 1980 and 2014 real median family income increased by a mere 15.8%.

cm said...

"protectionist measures that have boosted the pay of doctors and other highly educated professionals"

Protectionist measures (largely of the variety that foreign credentials are not recognized) apply to doctors and similar accredited occupations considered to be of some importance, but certainly much less so to "highly educated professionals" in tech, where the protectionism is limited to annual quotas for some categories of new workers imported into the country and requiring companies to pay above a certain wage rate for work visa holders in jobs claimed to have high skills requirements.

A little mentioned but significant factor for growing wages in "highly skilled" jobs is that the level of foundational and generic domain skills is a necessity, but is not all the value the individual brings to the company. In complex subject matters, even the most competent person joining a company has to become familiar with the details of the products, the industry niche, the processes and professional/personal relationships in the company or industry, etc. All these are not really teachable and require between months and years in the job. This represents a significant sunk cost. Sometimes (actually rather often) experience within the niche/industry is in a degree portable between companies, but some company still had to employ enough people to build this experience, and it cannot be readily bought by bringing in however competent freshers.

This applies less so e.g. in medicine. There are of course many heavily specialized disciplines, but a top flight brain or internal organ surgeon can essentially work on any person. The variation in the subject matter is large and complex, but much more static than in technology.

That's not to knock down the skill of medical staff in any way (or anybody else who does a job that is not trivial, and that's true for many jobs). But specialization vs. genericity follow a different pattern than in tech.

Another example, the legal profession. There are similar principles that carry across, with a lot of the specialization happening along different legislation, case law, etc., specific to the jurisdiction and/or domain being litigated.

[Dec 18, 2015] How low can oil prices go? Opec and El Niño take a bite out of crudes cost

Oil is a valuable chemical resource that is now wasted because of low prices... "The obvious follow-up question is, how long will the sane people of the world continue to allow so much fossil-fuel combustion to continue? An exercise for readers."
Notable quotes:
"... Iran wont flood the market in 2016. Right now Iran is losing production. It takes time to reverse decline and make a difference. ..."
"... Those who predict very low prices dont understand the industry (I do). The low price environment reduces capital investment, which has to be there just to keep production flat (the decline is 3 to 5 million barrels of oil per day per year). At this time capacity is dropping everywhere except for a few select countries. The USA is losing capacity, and will never again reach this years peak unless prices double. Other countries are hopeless. From Norway to Indonesia to Colombia to Nigeria and Azerbaijan, peak oil has already taken place. ..."
"... If oil prices remain very low until 2025 itll either be because you are right or because the world went to hell. ..."
"... But Im with Carambaman - prices will go up again. Demand is and will still be there. The excess output will eventually end, and the prices stabilises. And then move up again. ..."
"... Time to examine the real question: how long can the Saudis maintain their current production rates? Theyre currently producing more than 10 Mbarrels/day, but lets take the latter figure as a lower bound. They apparently have (per US consulate via WikiLeaks--time for a followup?) at least 260 Gbarrels (though it seems no one outside Saudi really knows). You do the math: 260 Gbarrels / (10 Mbarrels/day) = 26 kdays ~= 70 years. @ 15 Mbarrels/day - 47.5 years. @ 20 Mbarrels/day - 35 years. ..."
"... The obvious follow-up question is, how long will the sane people of the world continue to allow so much fossil-fuel combustion to continue? An exercise for readers. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia, a US ally, using oil production and pricing to crush US oil shale industry? Did I read that correctly? ..."
"... Yeah, but I suspect it was *written* incorrectly. Im betting the Saudis real target is the Russians. ..."
"... In 1975 dollars, thats $8.31 / bbl (with a cumulative inflation factor of 342% over 40 years), or $.45 / gal for gas (assuming a current price of $2.00 / gal). ..."
"... I spent 30 years in the oil industry and experienced many cycles. When it is up people cannot believe it will go down and when it is down people cannot believe it will go up. It is all a matter of time ..."
Dec 16, 2015 | The Guardian

Fernando Leza -> jah5446 15 Dec 2015 06:12

Iran won't flood the market in 2016. Right now Iran is losing production. It takes time to reverse decline and make a difference.

Those who predict very low prices don't understand the industry (I do). The low price environment reduces capital investment, which has to be there just to keep production flat (the decline is 3 to 5 million barrels of oil per day per year). At this time capacity is dropping everywhere except for a few select countries. The USA is losing capacity, and will never again reach this year's peak unless prices double. Other countries are hopeless. From Norway to Indonesia to Colombia to Nigeria and Azerbaijan, peak oil has already taken place.

Fernando Leza -> SonOfFredTheBadman 15 Dec 2015 06:05

If oil prices remain very low until 2025 it'll either be because you are right or because the world went to hell. I prefer your vision, of course. But I'm afraid most of your talk is wishful thinking. Those of us who do know how to put watts on the table can't figure out any viable solutions. Hopefully something like cheap fusion power will rise. Otherwise you may be eating human flesh in 2060.

Fernando Leza -> p26677 15 Dec 2015 06:00

Keep assuming. I'll keep buying Shell stock.

MatCendana -> UnevenSurface 14 Dec 2015 03:36

Regardless of the breakeven price, producers with the wells already running or about to will keep pumping. Better to have some income, even if the operation is at a loss, than no income. This will go on and on right until the end, which is either prices eventually go up or they run out of oil and can't drill new wells.

But I'm with Carambaman - prices will go up again. Demand is and will still be there. The excess output will eventually end, and the prices stabilises. And then move up again.

Billy Carnes 13 Dec 2015 19:52

Also this hurts the states...Louisiana is now in the hole over 1.5 Billion or more

TomRoche 13 Dec 2015 12:31

@Guardian: Time to examine the real question: how long can the Saudis maintain their current production rates? They're currently producing more than 10 Mbarrels/day, but let's take the latter figure as a lower bound. They apparently have (per US consulate via WikiLeaks--time for a followup?) at least 260 Gbarrels (though it seems no one outside Saudi really knows). You do the math: 260 Gbarrels / (10 Mbarrels/day) = 26 kdays ~= 70 years. @ 15 Mbarrels/day -> 47.5 years. @ 20 Mbarrels/day -> 35 years.

That's just Saudi (allegedly) proven reserves. But it's plenty long enough to push atmospheric GHG levels, and associated radiative forcing, to ridiculously destructive excess.

The obvious follow-up question is, how long will the sane people of the world continue to allow so much fossil-fuel combustion to continue? An exercise for readers.

TomRoche -> GueroElEnfermero 13 Dec 2015 12:14

@GueroElEnfermero: 'Saudi Arabia, a US ally, using oil production and pricing to crush US oil shale industry? Did I read that correctly?'

Yeah, but I suspect it was *written* incorrectly. I'm betting the Saudis' real target is the Russians.

Sieggy 13 Dec 2015 11:49

In 1975 dollars, that's $8.31 / bbl (with a cumulative inflation factor of 342% over 40 years), or $.45 / gal for gas (assuming a current price of $2.00 / gal).

Carambaman 13 Dec 2015 10:25

I spent 30 years in the oil industry and experienced many cycles. When it is up people cannot believe it will go down and when it is down people cannot believe it will go up. It is all a matter of time

[Dec 17, 2015] US militarism is Alice in Wonderland

economistsview.typepad.com
anne, December 17, 2015 at 11:50 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/asia/navy-seal-team-2-afghanistan-beating-death.html

December 16, 2015

Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Complaints of a Cover-Up
By NICHOLAS KULISH, CHRISTOPHER DREW and MATTHEW ROSENBERG

U.S. soldiers accused Afghan police and Navy SEALs of abusing detainees. But the SEAL command opted against a court-martial and cleared its men of wrongdoing.

ilsm said in reply to anne...

Too much training to send to jail.

While E-4 Bergdahl does in captivity what several hundred officers did in Hanoi and gets life!

US militarism is Alice's Wonderland!

[Dec 17, 2015] Please Don't Shut Down the Internet, Donald Trump

The New Yorker

Still, two interesting-and vexing-issues for the technology industry, and for the politicians who regulate it, emerged in the debate. The first came up in John Kasich's response to Trump's proposal. "Wolf, there is a big problem-it's called encryption," he said. "We need to be able to penetrate these people when they are involved in these plots and these plans. And we have to give the local authorities the ability to penetrate, to disrupt. That's what we need to do. Encryption is a major problem, and Congress has got to deal with this, and so does the President, to keep us safe."

The central question is whether American technology companies should offer the U.S. government, whether the N.S.A. or the F.B.I., backdoor access to their devices or servers. The most important companies here are Apple and Google, which, in the fall of 2014, began offering strong encryption on the newer versions of Android and iOS phones. If you keep your passcode secret, the government will be unable to, for instance, scroll through your contacts list, even if it has a warrant. This has, naturally, made the government angry. The most thorough report on the subject is a position paper put out last month by Cyrus Vance, Jr., Manhattan's district attorney. In the previous year, Vance wrote, his office had been "unable to execute approximately 111 search warrants for smartphones because those devices were running iOS 8. The cases to which those devices related include homicide, attempted murder, sexual abuse of a child, sex trafficking, assault, and robbery."

The solution isn't easy. Apple and Google implemented their new encryption standards after Edward Snowden revealed how the government had compromised their systems. They want to protect their customers-a government back door could become a hacker's back door, too-and they also want to protect their business models. If the N.S.A. can comb through iPhones, how many do you think Apple will be able to sell in China? In the debate, Carly Fiorina bragged about how, when she ran Hewlett-Packard, she stopped a truckload of equipment and had it "escorted into N.S.A. headquarters." Does that make you more or less eager to buy an OfficeJet Pro?

The second hard issue that came up indirectly in the debate-and, more specifically, in recent comments by Hillary Clinton-is how aggressive American companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google (with YouTube) should be in combatting the use of their platforms by ISIS. Again, there's no simple answer. You can't ban, say, everyone who tweets the hashtag #ISIS, because then you'd have to ban this guy. The algorithms are difficult to write, and the issues are difficult to balance. Companies have to consider their business interests, their legal obligations to and cultural affinities for free speech, and their moral obligations to oppose an organization that seeks to destroy the country in which they were built-and also kill their C.E.O.s.

[Dec 17, 2015] Putin hails Donald Trump as bright and talented

economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs said... December 17, 2015 at 11:26 AM
Putin hails Donald Trump as 'bright and talented'
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/12/17/putin-hails-donald-trump-bright-and-talented/CCIktxBPs0ax3bGNMz7yqO/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe
Vladimir Isachenkov - Associated Press - December 17, 2015

MOSCOW - Russia and the US agree on a general approach to settling the Syrian crisis, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, saying that Moscow stands ready to improve ties with Washington.

Putin also said that Russia will continue its air campaign in Syria until a political process starts, and lashed out at Turkey for trying to ''lick the Americans in some of their private parts'' by downing a Russian warplane. ...

Commenting on relations with Washington, Putin said that Russia supports a US-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution on settling the Syrian crisis, presented by US Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to Moscow earlier this week.

''In general, we like it,'' Putin said. ''I believe that the Syrian authorities should be OK with it too, although they may not like something in it.''

He added that ''concessions must be made by both sides'' to end the conflict that has killed more than 250,000 and turned millions into refugees since 2011.

He said the Russian approach, ''strangely as it may seem, coincides with the US vision: joint work on a constitution, creation of instruments of control over future early elections, holding the vote and recognizing its results on the basis of that political process.''

''We will help settle this crisis in every possible way,'' Putin said. At the same time, he reaffirmed Russia's stance on the key issue that divided Russia and the West, the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying the Syrians themselves must determine who rules them. ...

Already on his way out of the hall, he was asked about US presidential candidate Donald Trump and praised him as a ''very bright and talented man,'' adding that he welcomes the Republican's pledges to establish closer ties with Russia. ...

[Dec 17, 2015] US militarism is Alice in Wonderland

economistsview.typepad.com
anne, December 17, 2015 at 11:50 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/asia/navy-seal-team-2-afghanistan-beating-death.html

December 16, 2015

Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Complaints of a Cover-Up
By NICHOLAS KULISH, CHRISTOPHER DREW and MATTHEW ROSENBERG

U.S. soldiers accused Afghan police and Navy SEALs of abusing detainees. But the SEAL command opted against a court-martial and cleared its men of wrongdoing.

ilsm said in reply to anne...

Too much training to send to jail.

While E-4 Bergdahl does in captivity what several hundred officers did in Hanoi and gets life!

US militarism is Alice's Wonderland!

[Dec 17, 2015] The Putin-Did-It Conspiracy Theory

Notable quotes:
"... It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not Vladimir Putin, who pushed the EU agreement and miscalculated the consequences, as the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has reported . Putin's only role in that time frame was to offer a more generous $15 billion aid package to Ukraine, not exactly a war-like act. ..."
February 15, 2015 | readersupportednews.org

The actually "incontrovertible" facts about the Ukraine crisis are these: The destabilization of President Viktor Yanukovych's elected government began in November 2013 when Yanukovych balked at a proposed association agreement promoted by the European Union. He sought more time after the sticker shock of learning from Kiev economic experts that the deal would cost Ukraine $160 billion in lost revenue by cutting trade with Russia.

It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not Vladimir Putin, who pushed the EU agreement and miscalculated the consequences, as the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has reported. Putin's only role in that time frame was to offer a more generous $15 billion aid package to Ukraine, not exactly a war-like act.

Yanukovych's decision to postpone action on the EU association prompted angry demonstrations in Kiev's Maidan square, largely from western Ukrainians who were hoping for visa-free travel to the EU and other benefits from closer ties. Putin had no role in those protests – and it's insane to think that he did.

In February 2014, the protests grew more and more violent as neo-Nazi and other militias organized in the western city of Lviv and these 100-man units known as "sotins" were dispatched daily to provide the muscle for the anti-Yanukovych uprising that was taking shape. It is frankly nutty to suggest that Putin was organizing these militias. [See Consortiumnews.com's "When Is a Putsch a Putsch."]

Evidence of Coup Plotting

By contrast, there is substantial evidence that senior U.S. officials were pushing for a "regime change" in Kiev, including an intercepted phone call and various public statements.

In December 2013, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a neocon holdover, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European aspirations." In early February, she discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who the new leaders of Ukraine should be. "Yats is the guy," she declared, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Who's Telling the Big Lie on Ukraine?"]

The Maidan uprising gained momentum on Feb. 20, 2014, when snipers around the square opened fire on police and protesters touching off a violent clash that left scores of people dead, both police and protesters. After the sniper fire and a police retreat - carrying their wounded - the demonstrators surged forward and some police apparently reacted with return fire of their own.

But the growing evidence indicates that the initial sniper fire originated from locations controlled by the Right Sektor, extremists associated with the Maidan's neo-Nazi "self-defense" commandant Andriy Parubiy. Though the current Ukrainian government has dragged its feet on an investigation, independent field reports, including a new one from BBC, indicate that the snipers were associated with the protesters, not the Yanukovych government as was widely reported in the U.S. media a year ago.

The worsening violence led Yanukovych to agree on Feb. 21 to a deal guaranteed by three European countries. He accepted reduced powers and agreed to early elections so he could be voted out of office. Yet, rather than permit that political settlement to go forward, neo-Nazis and other Maidan forces overran government buildings on Feb. 22, forcing Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.

The U.S. State Department quickly deemed this coup regime "legitimate" and Nuland's choice, Yatsenyuk, emerged as Prime Minister, with Parubiy put in charge of national security.

In other words, there is plenty of evidence that the Ukraine crisis was started by the EU through its mishandling of the association agreement, then was heated up by the U.S. government through the work of Nuland, Pyatt and other officials, and then was brought to a boil by neo-Nazis and other extremists who executed the coup.

[Dec 17, 2015] Neocon Influence on Angela Merkel

February 21, 2007 | Dialog International
Is Angela Merkel getting bad advice from Washington neocons through their representative in Berlin? Now we read that Jeff Gedmin - the head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin - is meeting on a regular basis with the Chancellor to instruct her on the Bush administration's line:

Angela Merkel relies on the advice of Jeffrey Gedmin, specially dispatched to Berlin to assist her by the Bush clan. This lobbyist first worked at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) [2] under Richard Perle and Mrs. Dick Cheney. He enthusiastically encouraged the creation of a Euro with Dollar parity exchange rate. Within the AEI, he led the New Atlantic Initiative (NAI), which brought together all the America-friendly generals and politicians in Europe. He was then involved in the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and wrote the chapter on Europe in the neocon programme. He argued that the European Union should remain under NATO authority and that this would only be possible by "discouraging European calls for emancipation." [3] Finally he became the administrator of the Council of the Community of Democracies (CCD), which argues in favour of a two-speed UN, and became director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin [4]. Subsequently he turned down the offer from his friend John Bolton [5] of the post of deputy US ambassador to the UN so as to be able to devote himself exclusively to Angela Merkel.

Elsewhere we read that Chancellor Merkel receives daily briefings from the neocon stalwart Gedmin:

Gedmin "brieft" die Kanzlerin täglich: Er hat damit die Rolle inne, die bei der Stasi die Führungsoffiziere hatten. Wenn wir uns noch Demokratie nennen wollen, dann muss Merkel gezwungen werden, die Inhalte dieser täglichen "Briefings" dem Land offenzulegen. In anderen Ländern gibt es dafür Gesetze, die "Freedom of Information Act" heissen.

Could this be true? I hope not. Gedmin is known for his columns in the conservative daily Die Welt where he reports on the marvelous successes the Iraq War. And who can forget Gedmin's column during last summer' s Israel/Lebanon War where he wrote about how Hezbollah fighters drank the blood of their victims in Lebanon? If Angela Merkel is looking for good advice, there are much more honest and intelligent resources than Jeff Gedmin.

[Dec 17, 2015] Why Merkel betrays Europe and Germany

Note that the quality of translation from German of this article is low.
Notable quotes:
"... Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ..."
"... Bild and Die Welt ..."
"... In 2003, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder opposed the Anglo-American intervention in Ira q. Angela Merkel then published a courageous article in the Washington Post ..."
"... As Stanley Payne, the famous American historian said about Spain (or any western democracy) that now politicians are not elected but chosen by apparatus, agencies and visible hands of the markets ..."
"... Merkel is publicly supported by Friede Springer , widow of West German press baron, Axel Springer , whos publishing conglomerate, the Springer Group secretly received around $7 million from the CIA in the early 1950s. ..."
"... She is counseled by Jeffrey Gedmin. Gedmin is a regular columnist in Die Welt , a publication of the Springer Group. After becoming administrator of the Council of the Community of Democracies and director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin in 2001, Gedmin devoted himself exclusively to Merkel . Gedmin was too involved in the infamous Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and wrote the chapter on Europe in the neocon programme. He argued that the European Union should remain under NATO authority and that this would only be possible by discouraging European calls for emancipation . ..."
"... In a few years, Merkel has destroyed European solidarity, annihilated the German nuclear power plants (an old American obsession too), impoverished Germans and their once efficient Rheinisch and solitary economy, backed the mad dog American diplomacy and created along with an irresponsible American administration (irresponsible because America will never win this kind of conflict) a dangerous crisis against Russia than can end on a war or a scandalous European partition. ..."
Mar 06, 2015 | PravdaReport

One must understand the reasons of Angela Merkel's behaviour. She obeys America and her Israeli mentor ('Israel is Germany's raison d'être'???), she threatens and mistreats Europe; she attacks Russia and now she builds a new sanitary cordon (like in 1919) in order to deconstruct Eurasia and reinforce American agenda in our unlucky continent. Now Merkel advocates for the rapid adoption on the most infamous and perilous treaty of commerce in history, the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). Dr Roberts has recently explained the meaning of 'Fast Track' expression and a courageous Guardian, last 27th may, has exposed the corruption of American Congress on this incredible yet terrible matter.

Why is Merkel so pro-American and anti-European?

Let us explain with the data we know the reasons of such nihilist and erratic behaviour.

Angela Merkel was then publicly supported by two press groups. Firstly, she was able to count on the support of Friede Springer, who had inherited the Axel Springer group (180 newspapers and magazines, including Bild and Die Welt). The group's journalists are required to sign an editorial agreement which lies down that they must work towards developing transatlantic links and defending the state of Israel. The other group is Bertelsmann.

Angela Merkel radically rejects European independence

In 2003, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder opposed the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq. Angela Merkel then published a 'courageous' article in the Washington Post in which she rejected the Chirac-Schröder doctrine of European independence, affirmed her gratitude and friendship for "America" and supported this scandalous and ridiculous war. I quote some lines of this interesting act of submission to her American lords:

Yet Merkel won the elections in 2007. She announced the abolition of graduated income tax, proposing that the rate should be the same for those who only just have what is necessary and those who live in luxury: maybe this is the a result of her Christian education?

The outgoing Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, severely criticized this proposal in a televised debate. The CDU's lead was decimated, and in the actual election, the CDU polled 35% of the votes and the SPD 34%, the remainder being spread amongst a number of small parties. The Germans didn't want Schröder any longer, but nor did they want Merkel. I repeat that she was imposed more than elected. As Stanley Payne, the famous American historian said about Spain (or any western democracy) that now politicians are 'not elected but chosen' by apparatus, agencies and 'visible hands' of the markets

These last weeks, "Mother" Merkel tries to re-launch the proposed merger of the North American Free Trade Area and the European Free Trade Area, thereby creating a "great transatlantic market" to use the words once pronounced by Sir Leon Brittan, a famous paedophile involved in scandals and bribes since, and mysteriously found dead a couple of months ago.

Let us se now some of their connections:

We have never been so far from 'emancipation' now in Europe, and never been so near to a war with Russia and maybe (in order to satisfy American gruesome appetite) with Central Asia and China. In France, 61% of the people who had witnessed the war asserted in 1945 that we were saved by the Russian Army. Now, thanks to American propaganda backed by European collaborators, we are hardly 10% to know that fact. The rest is misled by propaganda, media, TV and films. Daniel Estulin speaks of a remade, of a re-fabricated past by US television and media agencies.

In a few years, Merkel has destroyed European solidarity, annihilated the German nuclear power plants (an old American obsession too), impoverished Germans and their once efficient Rheinisch and solitary economy, backed the 'mad dog' American diplomacy and created along with an irresponsible American administration (irresponsible because America will never win this kind of conflict) a dangerous crisis against Russia than can end on a war or a scandalous European partition.

See also: Germany Americanizes Europe

[Dec 17, 2015] A Blind Eye Toward Turkey's Crimes

Notable quotes:
"... The Official Story of the sarin attack – as presented by Secretary of State John Kerry, Human Rights Watch and other "respectable" sources – firmly laid the blame for the Aug. 21, 2013 atrocity killing hundreds of civilians outside Damascus on Assad. That became a powerful "group think" across Official Washington. ..."
December 16, 2015 | consortiumnews.com

A Blind Eye Toward Turkey's Crimes

To make the story even more compelling, an opposition leader braves the wrath of the autocrat by seeking to expose these intelligence schemes, including the cover-up of key evidence. The autocrat's government then seeks to prosecute the critic for "treason."

But the problem with this story, as far as the American government and press are concerned, is that the autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is in charge of Turkey, a NATO ally and his hated neighbor is the much demonized Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Major U.S. news outlets and political leaders also bought into the sarin deception and simply can't afford to admit that they once again misled the American people on a matter of war.

The Official Story of the sarin attack – as presented by Secretary of State John Kerry, Human Rights Watch and other "respectable" sources – firmly laid the blame for the Aug. 21, 2013 atrocity killing hundreds of civilians outside Damascus on Assad. That became a powerful "group think" across Official Washington.

Though a few independent media outlets, including Consortiumnews.com, challenged the rush to judgment and noted the lack of evidence regarding Assad's guilt, those doubts were brushed aside. (In an article on Aug. 30, 2013, I described the administration's "Government Assessment" blaming Assad as a "dodgy dossier," which offered not a single piece of verifiable proof.)

However, as with the "certainty" about Iraq's WMD a decade earlier, Every Important Person shared the Assad-did-it "group think." That meant - as far as Official Washington was concerned - that Assad had crossed President Barack Obama's "red line" against using chemical weapons. A massive U.S. retaliatory bombing strike was considered just days away.

... ... ...

But the "group think" was resistant to all empirical evidence. It was so powerful that even when the Turkish plot was uncovered by legendary investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh, his usual publication, The New Yorker, refused to print it. Rebuffed in the United States – the land of freedom of the press – Hersh had to take the story to the London Review of Books to get it out in April 2014. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Was Turkey Behind Syria Sarin Attack?"]

... ... ...

In statements before parliament and to journalists, Erdem cited a derailed indictment that was begun by the General Prosecutor's Office in the southern Turkish city of Adana, with the criminal case number 2013/120.

Erdem said the prosecutor's office, using technical surveillance, discovered that an Al Qaeda jihadist named Hayyam Kasap acquired the sarin.

At the press conference, Erdem said, "Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims that it is fighting terrorism."

Erdem said the released operatives were allowed to cross the border into Syria and the criminal investigation was halted.

Another CHP deputy, Ali Şeker, added that the Turkish government misled the public by claiming Russia provided the sarin and that "Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a U.S. military intervention in Syria."

Erdem's disclosures, which he repeated in a recent interview with RT, the Russian network, prompted the Ankara Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation into Erdem for treason. Erdem defended himself, saying the government's actions regarding the sarin case besmirched Turkey's international reputation. He added that he also has been receiving death threats.

"The paramilitary organization Ottoman Hearths is sharing my address [on Twitter] and plans a raid [on my house]. I am being targeted with death threats because I am patriotically opposed to something that tramples on my country's prestige," Erdem said.

[Dec 16, 2015] Cornering Russia, Risking World War III

Notable quotes:
"... "The chance for a durable Washington-Moscow strategic partnership was lost in the 1990 after the Soviet Union ended. Actually it began to be lost earlier, because it was [President Ronald] Reagan and [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev who gave us the opportunity for a strategic partnership between 1985-89. ..."
"... "And it certainly ended under the Clinton Administration, and it didn't end in Moscow. It ended in Washington - it was squandered and lost in Washington. And it was lost so badly that today, and for at least the last several years (and I would argue since the Georgian war in 2008), we have literally been in a new Cold War with Russia. ..."
"... "TODAY THERE ARE NO RED LINES. One of the things that Putin and his predecessor President Medvedev keep saying to Washington is: You are crossing our Red Lines! And Washington said, and continues to say, 'You don't have any red lines. We have red lines and we can have all the bases we want around your borders, but you can't have bases in Canada or Mexico. Your red lines don't exist.' This clearly illustrates that today there are no mutual rules of conduct. ..."
"... "Another important point: Today there is absolutely no organized anti-Cold War or Pro-Detente political force or movement in the United States at all –– not in our political parties, not in the White House, not in the State Department, not in the mainstream media, not in the universities or the think tanks. … None of this exists today. … ..."
"... In practice, President Assad's imposed ouster precisely will empower ISIS, rather than implode it, and the consequences will ripple across the Middle East – and beyond. ..."
"... Indeed, ISIS and the other Caliphate forces have very clear human motivations and clearly articulated political objectives, and none of these is in any way consistent with the type of Syrian State that America says it wants for Syria. This precisely reflects the danger of becoming hostage to a certain narrative, rather than being willing to examine the prevailing conceptual framework more critically. ..."
"... unfortunately, today's reports seem to indicate that the White House and State Department are thinking primarily how to counter Russia's actions in Syria. They are worried, it was reported, that Russia is diminishing America's leadership in the world. ..."
"... Washington's disinclination to permit Russia any enhancement to its standing in Europe, or in the non-West, through its initiative strategically to defeat Wahhabist jihadism in Syria, is not only to play with fire in the Middle East. It is playing with a fire of even greater danger: to do both at the same time seems extraordinarily reckless. ..."
"... As Europe becomes accomplice in raising the various pressures on Russia in Syria – economically through sanctions and other financial measures , in Ukraine and Crimea, and in beckoning Montenegro, Georgia and the Baltic towards NATO – we should perhaps contemplate the paradox that Russia's determination to try to avoid war is leading to war. ..."
"... Russia's call to co-operate with Western states against the scourge of ISIS; its low-key and carefully crafted responses to such provocations as the ambush of its SU-24 bomber in Syria; and President Putin's calm rhetoric, are all being used by Washington and London to paint Russia as a "paper tiger," whom no one needs fear. ..."
"... In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the "benevolent" hegemon, or to prepare for war. ..."
Consortiumnews
Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia's genuine national interests, its "red lines," and the risk that "tough-guy-ism" can lead to nuclear war, as Alastair Crooke explains.

We all know the narrative in which we (the West) are seized. It is the narrative of the Cold War: America versus the "Evil Empire." And, as Professor Ira Chernus has written, since we are "human" and somehow they (the USSR or, now, ISIS) plainly are not, we must be their polar opposite in every way.

"If they are absolute evil, we must be the absolute opposite. It's the old apocalyptic tale: God's people versus Satan's. It ensures that we never have to admit to any meaningful connection with the enemy." It is the basis to America's and Europe's claim to exceptionalism and leadership.

And "buried in the assumption that the enemy is not in any sense human like us, is [an] absolution for whatever hand we may have had in sparking or contributing to evil's rise and spread. How could we have fertilized the soil of absolute evil or bear any responsibility for its successes? It's a basic postulate of wars against evil: God's people must be innocent," (and that the evil cannot be mediated, for how can one mediate with evil).

Westerners may generally think ourselves to be rationalist and (mostly) secular, but Christian modes of conceptualizing the world still permeate contemporary foreign policy.

It is this Cold War narrative of the Reagan era, with its correlates that America simply stared down the Soviet Empire through military and – as importantly – financial "pressures," whilst making no concessions to the enemy.

What is sometimes forgotten, is how the Bush neo-cons gave their "spin" to this narrative for the Middle East by casting Arab national secularists and Ba'athists as the offspring of "Satan": David Wurmser was advocating in 1996, "expediting the chaotic collapse" of secular-Arab nationalism in general, and Baathism in particular. He concurred with King Hussein of Jordan that "the phenomenon of Baathism" was, from the very beginning, "an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy."

Moreover, apart from being agents of socialism, these states opposed Israel, too. So, on the principle that if these were the enemy, then my enemy's enemy (the kings, Emirs and monarchs of the Middle East) became the Bush neo-cons friends. And they remain such today – however much their interests now diverge from those of the U.S.

The problem, as Professor Steve Cohen, the foremost Russia scholar in the U.S., laments, is that it is this narrative which has precluded America from ever concluding any real ability to find a mutually acceptable modus vivendi with Russia – which it sorely needs, if it is ever seriously to tackle the phenomenon of Wahhabist jihadism (or resolve the Syrian conflict).

What is more, the "Cold War narrative" simply does not reflect history, but rather the narrative effaces history: It looses for us the ability to really understand the demonized "calous tyrant" – be it (Russian) President Vladimir Putin or (Ba'athist) President Bashar al-Assad – because we simply ignore the actual history of how that state came to be what it is, and, our part in it becoming what it is.

Indeed the state, or its leaders, often are not what we think they are – at all. Cohen explains: "The chance for a durable Washington-Moscow strategic partnership was lost in the 1990 after the Soviet Union ended. Actually it began to be lost earlier, because it was [President Ronald] Reagan and [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev who gave us the opportunity for a strategic partnership between 1985-89.

"And it certainly ended under the Clinton Administration, and it didn't end in Moscow. It ended in Washington - it was squandered and lost in Washington. And it was lost so badly that today, and for at least the last several years (and I would argue since the Georgian war in 2008), we have literally been in a new Cold War with Russia.

"Many people in politics and in the media don't want to call it this, because if they admit, 'Yes, we are in a Cold War,' they would have to explain what they were doing during the past 20 years. So they instead say, 'No, it is not a Cold War.'

"Here is my next point. This new Cold War has all of the potential to be even more dangerous than the preceding 40-year Cold War, for several reasons. First of all, think about it. The epicentre of the earlier Cold War was in Berlin, not close to Russia. There was a vast buffer zone between Russia and the West in Eastern Europe.

"Today, the epicentre is in Ukraine, literally on Russia's borders. It was the Ukrainian conflict that set this off, and politically Ukraine remains a ticking time bomb. Today's confrontation is not only on Russia's borders, but it's in the heart of Russian-Ukrainian 'Slavic civilization.' This is a civil war as profound in some ways as was America's Civil War."

Cohen continued: "My next point: and still worse – You will remember that after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Washington and Moscow developed certain rules-of-mutual conduct. They saw how dangerously close they had come to a nuclear war, so they adopted "No-Nos,' whether they were encoded in treaties or in unofficial understandings. Each side knew where the other's red line was. Both sides tripped over them on occasion but immediately pulled back because there was a mutual understanding that there were red lines.

"TODAY THERE ARE NO RED LINES. One of the things that Putin and his predecessor President Medvedev keep saying to Washington is: You are crossing our Red Lines! And Washington said, and continues to say, 'You don't have any red lines. We have red lines and we can have all the bases we want around your borders, but you can't have bases in Canada or Mexico. Your red lines don't exist.' This clearly illustrates that today there are no mutual rules of conduct.

"Another important point: Today there is absolutely no organized anti-Cold War or Pro-Detente political force or movement in the United States at all –– not in our political parties, not in the White House, not in the State Department, not in the mainstream media, not in the universities or the think tanks. … None of this exists today. …

"My next point is a question: Who is responsible for this new Cold War? I don't ask this question because I want to point a finger at anyone. The position of the current American political media establishment is that this new Cold War is all Putin's fault – all of it, everything. We in America didn't do anything wrong. At every stage, we were virtuous and wise and Putin was aggressive and a bad man. And therefore, what's to rethink? Putin has to do all of the rethinking, not us."

These two narratives, the Cold War narrative, and the neocons' subsequent "spin" on it: i.e. Bill Kristol's formulation (in 2002) that precisely because of its Cold War "victory," America could, and must, become the "benevolent global hegemon," guaranteeing and sustaining the new American-authored global order – an "omelette that cannot be made without breaking eggs" – converge and conflate in Syria, in the persons of President Assad and President Putin.

President Obama is no neocon, but he is constrained by the global hegemon legacy, which he must either sustain, or be labeled as the arch facilitator of America's decline. And the President is also surrounded by R2P ("responsibility-to-protect") proselytizers, such as Samantha Power, who seem to have convinced the President that "the tyrant" Assad's ouster would puncture and collapse the Wahhabist jihadist balloon, allowing "moderate" jihadists such as Ahrar al-Sham to finish off the deflated fragments of the punctured ISIS balloon.

In practice, President Assad's imposed ouster precisely will empower ISIS, rather than implode it, and the consequences will ripple across the Middle East – and beyond. President Obama privately may understand the nature and dangers of the Wahhabist cultural revolution, but seems to adhere to the conviction that everything will change if only President Assad steps down. The Gulf States said the same about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq. He has gone (for now), but what changed? ISIS got stronger.

Of course if we think of ISIS as evil, for evil's sake, bent on mindless, whimsical slaughter, "what a foolish task it obviously [would be] to think about the enemy's actual motives. After all, to do so would be to treat them as humans, with human purposes arising out of history. It would smack of sympathy for the devil. Of course," Professor Chernus continues, "this means that, whatever we might think of their actions, we generally ignore a wealth of evidence that the Islamic State's fighters couldn't be more human or have more comprehensible motivations."

Indeed, ISIS and the other Caliphate forces have very clear human motivations and clearly articulated political objectives, and none of these is in any way consistent with the type of Syrian State that America says it wants for Syria. This precisely reflects the danger of becoming hostage to a certain narrative, rather than being willing to examine the prevailing conceptual framework more critically.

America lies far away from Syria and the Middle East, and as Professor Stephen Cohen notes, "unfortunately, today's reports seem to indicate that the White House and State Department are thinking primarily how to counter Russia's actions in Syria. They are worried, it was reported, that Russia is diminishing America's leadership in the world."

It is a meme of perpetual national insecurity, of perpetual fears about America's standing and of challenges to its standing, Professor Chernus suggests.

But Europe is not "far away"; it lies on Syria's doorstep. It is also neighbor to Russia. And in this connection, it is worth pondering Professor Cohen's last point: Washington's disinclination to permit Russia any enhancement to its standing in Europe, or in the non-West, through its initiative strategically to defeat Wahhabist jihadism in Syria, is not only to play with fire in the Middle East. It is playing with a fire of even greater danger: to do both at the same time seems extraordinarily reckless.

Cohen again:

"The false idea [has taken root] that the nuclear threat ended with the Soviet Union: In fact, the threat became more diverse and difficult. This is something the political elite forgot. It was another disservice of the Clinton Administration (and to a certain extent the first President Bush in his re-election campaign) saying that the nuclear dangers of the preceding Cold War era no longer existed after 1991. The reality is that the threat grew, whether by inattention or accident, and is now more dangerous than ever."

As Europe becomes accomplice in raising the various pressures on Russia in Syria – economically through sanctions and other financial measures, in Ukraine and Crimea, and in beckoning Montenegro, Georgia and the Baltic towards NATO – we should perhaps contemplate the paradox that Russia's determination to try to avoid war is leading to war.

Russia's call to co-operate with Western states against the scourge of ISIS; its low-key and carefully crafted responses to such provocations as the ambush of its SU-24 bomber in Syria; and President Putin's calm rhetoric, are all being used by Washington and London to paint Russia as a "paper tiger," whom no one needs fear.

In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the "benevolent" hegemon, or to prepare for war.

Alastair Crooke is a British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, which advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West. [This article also appeared at the Conflicts Forum's Web site and is republished with permission.]

[Dec 16, 2015] Big Banks Caught Using Credit Default Swaps To Destroy Nations

Notable quotes:
"... when the Big Banks were caught and convicted of conspiring to manipulate the $500 trillion, LIBOR debt market ..."
"... when the Big Banks were caught and convicted of conspiring to launder trillions for the global drug cartels and "terrorist" entities, despite the supposed "wars" the U.S. claims to be fighting against drugs and terrorism ..."
"... The Vampire Squid Firmly Attached To The Face Of Humanity ..."
"... As far as I can gather, the World Bank and the IMF are apart of the very same Cartel that own/control the Central Banks. ..."
Dec 16, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Then we have the confessions of the criminals. A full one-quarter of Wall Street's and London's senior banking executives freely admit that crime is a way of life in their industry -- organized crime. Even in our justice system (or what remains of it), once armed with confessions, the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" no longer applies – the guilt is conceded.

The Big Banks manipulate credit default swaps to perpetrate economic terrorism against other nations in the world, where they literally destroy the economies of those victim-nations. It used to be a theory, but now the proof is finally emerging. You heard it here first.

LawsofPhysics

So what? Has any of the bank management/leaders gone to prison and lost all their wealth?

Ghordius

good article

"when the Big Banks were caught and convicted of conspiring to manipulate the $500 trillion, LIBOR debt market"

(Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc agreed to plead guilty to felony charges of conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros)

"when the Big Banks were caught and convicted of conspiring to launder trillions for the global drug cartels and "terrorist" entities, despite the supposed "wars" the U.S. claims to be fighting against drugs and terrorism"

(Wells Fargo and JPMorgan)

and of course, The Vampire Squid Firmly Attached To The Face Of Humanity, Goldman Sachs, The Great Destroyer

commoncourtesy

Fancy-free please will you explain further.

As far as I can gather, the World Bank and the IMF are apart of the very same Cartel that own/control the Central Banks. All are controlled by the BIS who is run/controlled by pretty much all the same criminals on a merry-go-round. Throw in the Vatican, The Crown (BAR) Temple - The City of London, Washington DC, the Rothschild's et al, puppet Governments (and their military) on the same payroll and the world is pretty much screwed.

Who are the Board of Governors you are talking about?

Who is this coalition?

Please name names.

Can you vouch for their credibility or are they part of the corrupt cartel?

There is far TOO MUCH SECRECY going on.

If everything was more transparent, out of the shadows and open the world would not be in the state is in today.

Closed dealings, complexity and behind the curtain negotiations promote corruption.

How can justice be served when most public jurors would not be able to understand the fraudulent accounting practices being utilised?

What is the TRUTH?

andrewp111

A big load of bullshit. The US has its own currency and that currency is backed by military power. Greece is a subordinate vassal state of the EU. There is no comparison between the two.

[Dec 14, 2015] Barack Obama warns leaders of Islamic State in speech: 'you are next'

Notable quotes:
"... There is no "far left" in Europe any more. Since the Merkels, Hollandes, Blairs and Rasmussens of this world were planted in prominent positions because of their excruciatingly statusquo orientation, even the moderate "left" has practically ceased to exist. We now have rabid right or moderately rabid right to choose from, except for a few notable exceptions. ..."
"... Obama does not have a clue, he has lost the plot. He is backing Saudi Arabia who are the biggest instigators of terrorism in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is announcing a 34-state military alliance to fight terrorism. ..."
"... Seems to me that IS was created, either accidentally or deliberately, by the US and its success has gone beyond the US administrations worst nightmare? When the US refuses slam Turkey for it's recent shoot-down of the Russian plane, and do anything to support Iraq in getting rid of unwanted Turkish military near Mosul, within Iraq and near the IS capital, nor wanting to know about Turkish involvement supplying Sarin gas agents to IS, or stopping Turkey supplying food and arms to IS, and receiving stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil as payment, nor preventing Turkey from being the transit centre and R & R centre for IS recruits, then maybe its time to assume that IS is the deliberate brainchild of the US, and that Turkey is playing to the US tune and protection, for promises of territory in a future carve up of Iraq and or Syria. ..."
"... Seems that ISIL, ISIS, IS and Daesh are all names invented by the US to spread the narrative through the media. They all mean US proxy army to me. Just my opinion. ..."
"... Perhaps that is because ISIS doesn't actually occupy "territory" as such. As Mr. Knight says, they are an ideology, an idea. An idea, unfortunately in this case, doesn't live in houses in prescribed areas any more than Republicanism lives in Chicago. The way forward has to involve NOT creating another 10,000 new mortal enemies in the Middle East every day. Even if only twelve innocent people had died in Iraq in 2003, instead of the hundreds of thousands who actually did, one could understand very large groups of people related to the victims cursing the US for its irresponsible meddling. ..."
"... Incredibly ignorant of the president. The US lives in sin with the Saudis. As long as the Saudis keep importing Wahhabism out of their country to others, the problem will exist. ..."
"... We bombed the Taliban. We bombed Al Qaeda. Neither lead to anything more than establishing the rise of ISIS in the destabilised areas we had bombed. ..."
"... The biggest contribution America can make to getting rid of Isis is to "persuade" its friends and allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey mainly - to turn off the tap of finance, munitions and logistics to Isis, Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra) and its allies like Ahrar Al Sham. No American ground troops needed; they would be counter-productive. ..."
"... The secular Syrian government, with women in its ranks, is fighting for its life against a most ruthless and abominable enemy: fanatical jihadist mercenaries financed by an execrable mediaeval tyranny, Saudi Barbaria. This is the enemy of all we stand for, the enemy that perpetrated 9/11 and 7/7 and their latest clone that bombed Paris concert-goers and Russian holiday-makers. They are paid and trained by Riyadh. And armed to the teeth with modern American weapons, passed to them by the newest demagogue, Turkey's Erdoğan. ..."
"... The sworn enemy of all these head-chopping bigots is Assad's secular republic of Syria because it challenges the ideological dogmatism of Sharia Law. This law is as rigid as Hitler's Nazism or Stalin's communism. ..."
"... I wonder if because 'a few weeks' was finally taken to supposedly destroy this critical infrastructure - if the 'evasive' ISIL oil business - along with revenues - will suffer? I also wonder why the air campaign hasn't been extended to include the purchasers of ISIL's oil supplies - at sea and in their home countries. ..."
"... Isis must ultimately be defeated by Muslim forces, or we'll be manufacturing radical faster than we can kill them. ..."
"... The Muslims seem to be manufacturing radicals quickly enough without any help from us. ..."
"... What have they been doing for the last two years then? No attacks on ISIS trucks transporting oil, no sanctions on countries that have been buying that oil. We only get some action now that Russia has been attacking ISIS in Syria and of course there is minimal reporting of the successes of the Russians in Western media. As far as Libya is concerned, there are very ominous signs that ISIS is moving to set up headquarters in that country, a country a lot closer to Europe than Syria or Iraq are. There is also the problem that the Russians will not be involved in Libya, unlike Syria, they do not have a functioning government to ask them in. Libya is the nightmare created by NATO and the US, they will have to take full responsibility for their dreadful actions there and fight the barbarians they created, no sitting back and allowing them to flourish this time. ..."
"... What a farce, who does Obama think he's kidding? If the US was serious about ISIS it would have been finished off a year ago, now that Russia has called the US's bluff they now have to pretend to step up to the plate. Pathetic. ..."
"... More drivel from the counterfeit president. His allies in the middle east are disgusting butchers. Take Turkey: it is a great shame for Turkey that 32 journalists are imprisoned in the 21st century. Some were arrested on Nov. 26 after being charged in May with espionage, revealing confidential documents and membership in a terrorist organization. The charges are related to a report published by a leading newspaper claiming weapons-loaded trucks that were discovered in January 2014 en route to Syria actually belonged to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and had been sent to provide support to rebel groups. ..."
The Guardian


ricohflex 14 Dec 2015 22:26

Talk big but no action. Hot air. Everybody knows now.
After the Syria red line fiasco, the whole world knows US president makes empty promises.
In the next TV broadcast, he will give excuses why he cannot do it. Then he will repeat "No Boots On The Ground". Then the US president will blame Congress for not giving him permission to do the most basic things.
...
Now in end-2015 Obama has only ONE thing on his mind.
He wants to preserve the legacy of his presidency.
He does not want to do anything to risk the presidency being blamed.
He does not want to take any mis-step.
It is a Zero Risk environment in the White House now.
He dares not even reveal the truth on what country's air space the SU-24 was flying in, when it was shot down.
It will just be TALK from now on until the next president takes over in 2016.


wardropper -> LupusCanis 14 Dec 2015 22:21

There is no "far left" in Europe any more. Since the Merkels, Hollandes, Blairs and Rasmussens of this world were planted in prominent positions because of their excruciatingly statusquo orientation, even the moderate "left" has practically ceased to exist. We now have rabid right or moderately rabid right to choose from, except for a few notable exceptions.


GerdT 14 Dec 2015 22:21

Looking out the window I can see the hills that mark the border to Cambodia and not far away Vietnam. I still remember the speeches given during the Vietnam War and how close victory was. The bombs dropped on these countries including North Vietnam during the war exceeded what was dropped during WWII in the Atlantic/European and the Pacific theater of war. Still, it was a US helicopter that left from the American Embassy in Saigon that concluded that war, with the US going home and into denial about the outcome of that war.

The apocalypse foreseen by the prophets of doomsday painting a picture of an Asian continent that would turn into a communist infested threat to human kind didn't happen.

I have been recently in Vietnam and Cambodia and seen that people get on with their lives and economies that try to improve for the coming ASEAN community. Without help from western countries they have started to rebuild what was left of their countries after the champion of democracy had left. As the peanut farmer and former President Jimmy Carter said, the destruction was mutual and hence Vietnam didn't deserve any compensation for the unbelievable collateral damage caused by US intervention in this country. If the US was really trying to protect democracy or as Bill Clinton described it protecting National Security, which he defined as US business interests and given the US a right to interfere in any country that tries to threaten them, is a debatable point.

During the following decades the US again would raise terror and war in countries to ensure that the branding of democracy they preferred would be exported. South Vietnam hadn't been a democracy when the US decided to send troops across and the political leaders of that country came from the military, granting themselves the titles of president and minister, but holding the country in the same grip as in the North the communist did. From South America to the Middle East the US supported groups and leaders that were favorable to US business interests. The Taliban were a useful tool to drive out the Soviet Union only to become a haven for Bin Laden and his followers. Iraq has turned into a political and humanitarian nightmare and ISIL that was as a startup supplied with weapons and training by the US to drive out Assad from Syria is now the greatest threat to world peace according to the US.

We only have to take a look at the close friends and allies of the US in the Middle East and South America to understand how they spell democracy and human rights. Maybe it is time to listen to the millions of people with families that want to live in peace and are tired of foreign interference in their countries. Instead of supplying arms and support to people that favor the western or eastern political view, we should start to invest and rebuild these countries to ensure they can become equal and respected partners within the global community.

Phil Atkinson 14 Dec 2015 22:18

What a joke! Ashton Carter to visit the Middle East to jockey along the Arab states - the same people that the USA supplies weapons to, that end up with terrorists. Or Turkey, that erstwhile NATO member which has been stealing Syrian oil and selling it to Israel and speaking of Israel, that country still illegally occupying the Golan Heights in Syria and aiding and abetting Al-Nusra Front fighters and bombing inside Syria.

Ashton Carter is a dangerous fool, who believes his own government's propaganda. He should be kept at home.

SomersetApples 14 Dec 2015 22:08

Obama does not have a clue, he has lost the plot. He is backing Saudi Arabia who are the biggest instigators of terrorism in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is announcing a 34-state military alliance to fight terrorism.

Informed17 14 Dec 2015 22:08

If ISIS does not do what Obama says, US-led coalition of 60+ countries will destroy another pair of Islamist excavators. I am sure ISIS leaders are scared shitless.

RocketSurgeon 14 Dec 2015 22:03

Seems to me that IS was created, either accidentally or deliberately, by the US and its success has gone beyond the US administrations worst nightmare?
When the US refuses slam Turkey for it's recent shoot-down of the Russian plane, and do anything to support Iraq in getting rid of unwanted Turkish military near Mosul, within Iraq and near the IS capital, nor wanting to know about Turkish involvement supplying Sarin gas agents to IS, or stopping Turkey supplying food and arms to IS, and receiving stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil as payment, nor preventing Turkey from being the transit centre and R & R centre for IS recruits, then maybe its time to assume that IS is the deliberate brainchild of the US, and that Turkey is playing to the US tune and protection, for promises of territory in a future carve up of Iraq and or Syria.

Seems that ISIL, ISIS, IS and Daesh are all names invented by the US to spread the narrative through the media. They all mean US proxy army to me.
Just my opinion.

readerofgrauniad -> Stephen_Sean 14 Dec 2015 22:01

But who are the good boys in this? To end the war, Asad is probably the best option, and compared to IS he looks like a saint.


wardropper -> Lech1980 14 Dec 2015 21:59

Perhaps that is because ISIS doesn't actually occupy "territory" as such. As Mr. Knight says, they are an ideology, an idea. An idea, unfortunately in this case, doesn't live in houses in prescribed areas any more than Republicanism lives in Chicago. The way forward has to involve NOT creating another 10,000 new mortal enemies in the Middle East every day. Even if only twelve innocent people had died in Iraq in 2003, instead of the hundreds of thousands who actually did, one could understand very large groups of people related to the victims cursing the US for its irresponsible meddling. I would imagine our enemies over there number about 50 million by now, and nobody in human history has been able to survive having that many enemies...

Thomas Hancock 14 Dec 2015 21:55

Incredibly ignorant of the president. The US lives in sin with the Saudis. As long as the Saudis keep importing Wahhabism out of their country to others, the problem will exist. The thing you learn from history is that no one learns anything from history. Maybe someone can get a time machine and go back to kill Ho Chi Minh, and Vietnam will be a capitalist paradise. This is the same strategy that helped create ISIS in the first place.

Bernard Knight 14 Dec 2015 21:55

We bombed the Taliban. We bombed Al Qaeda. Neither lead to anything more than establishing the rise of ISIS in the destabilised areas we had bombed. What is the point?

1ClearSense -> Stephen_Sean 14 Dec 2015 21:48

Is that right? You mean when they hit 1050 oil tanker trucks, that's nothing? US followed up hitting 300. They stopped oil revenues for ISIS, and reduced their revenues by 50 %. The number of sorties they have run on ISIS has been considerably more than US. They have also hit other terrorists to secure the rear, so Syrian troops can move on ISIS. You guys are brainwashed.


Budovski Ximples -> AaronClausen 14 Dec 2015 21:42

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-turkey-and-saudi-arabia-shock-western-countries-by-supporting-anti-assad-jihadists-10242747.html


pierotg LupusCanis 14 Dec 2015 21:42

"the US has killed 23,000 ISIL members in airstrikes"

Who told you? Disney Channel? Anyone can lie to you as long as you are behind a TV screen. It's quite an easy task (having sufficient intelligence resources and money of course)... It's incredibly obvious it would be sufficient hitting the financing of those mercenaries or not to buy the oil they are selling. You know all that "intelligence resources, analysts, linguists, SIGINT experts...". If only the US government wanted really. And yet what is ISIS? Quite a volatile entity... looks like franchising terror... IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh will "desappear" when it won't be useful anymore. And they will only find a new name whenever a new proxy ground army should be required.

"Kremlinbot"? The cold war revamping has seduced you. Let me rimand you this facts:

  • In 2014 the USA has spent in its military expenditure more than 600 Bn $.
  • Russia is around 80.
  • It's been estimated that after WWII the USA caused the death of about 30 million people all over the planet (challenging Stalin scores).

You'll find the facts... Not on Disnet Channel though.

After the dissolution of USSR it was clear that it was not "the enemy" anymore. Yet the Ministry of Defence (and its industry) need powerful and fearsome enemies!
Et voilà, despite what the Ministry fo Truth says, after 20 years of tranquillity it's Russia getting sourranded by military bases along its borders, losing Ukraine (and possibly its strategic Crimea) and now directly challenged in Syria (where they have military bases). Doesn't Russia have the right to "defend" itself and have allies? They have a Ministry of Defense too...

What if Russia had intervened to topple king Salman of Suadi Arabia because of him being a fearsome dictator? Yet no one did nothing when the "arab spring" was brutally repressed in the region (with the help of the USA).

It's quite hard not to admit the USA has been quite agressive and active ... So whose to blame for this warfare and new cold war tensions? You might be more biased and less Whitehousebot.

PS
Of course I'm not russian.

Bernard Knight 14 Dec 2015 21:40

At it's core ISIS, ISL, DEASH, call them what you will, are a murderous death cult using jihad and the establishment of a califate as their raison d'etre. They are an ideology, an idea. No amounts of bombing or taking territory will annihilate that idea. Perhaps it should be the Islamic world that tackles this threat, starting with first and foremost, our foremost arms purchasers, Saudi Arabia.

Shatford Shatford 14 Dec 2015 21:34

Asked if Obama had consciously chosen to make his rhetoric more aggressive for public benefit, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said when the president meets the national security council, "he is not looking at public opinion polls".

Obvious bullshit. It's this kind of Hilary Clinton-like waffling rhetoric and pandering to opinion polls is what is driving the popularity of Donald Trump's campaign.

Nolan Harding 14 Dec 2015 21:25

The Islamic state is surrounded by hostile forces, they are under siege so how are they getting ammunition, refined gasoline, food, internet service and all thier Toyota trucks. Obviously the forces surrounding them are not that hostile. A real siege would have seen them starving to death years ago. Like in Leningrad...now THAT was a siege and REAL war, not this strategic game the deluded masses think is a ' war'.


JMWong 14 Dec 2015 21:24

Obama has missed the opportunity to announce that hw would the bunch of criminals consisting of Bush, Cheney, Blair, Rumsfeld, Allbright, McCain, Cameron, Hollande, etc. to the International Tribunal for trial for their crimes against humanity. They have murdered millions of people.


bunkusmystic -> burnel 14 Dec 2015 21:18

Have a look at the latest Isis videos they have all the latest American weapons ... How do you think they get them? Is it private citizens in Saudi who buy them or the government ... The Saudis want the Iraqi and Syrian oil fields and they are using this Isis fabrication to get them. If the coalition is so serious about fighting Isis how is it that thousands of oil tankers pass through turkey each day? With no one noticing??? It's only Russia who is taking real action


tjmars 14 Dec 2015 21:17

This is to draw the heat-seeker foreign press away from the Mad Turk Erdogan who is fake-begging the Russians to prove the accusations that Erdogan Jr is running "red-stained oil" to major buyers on the Turkish black market...
Ooops!...don't want to know who those 'terrorist supporting capitalists" are!...
Is this an example of 'laissez-faire" in Late Capitalism...a "bubble" for risk-taking investors?
Whew! Its a good thing "Soylent Green" was a fictional commodity in movies or the funeral homes would be void of any "dead meat" for ritual burials..
Thanlks to Capitalism, we will one day see the mythical "dog-eat-dog" aphorism come to light with "god-damned" good profits...
The western central bankers weren't 'standing behind the curtain" pulling the levers of power again were they?
Do a litmus test on their 'red tooth and claw' mentality...
Hey where did they go?
Obama made them disappear with his speech!


clashcr 14 Dec 2015 21:14

Hmm, not a word about Assad. Well US policy about radical Islam - take your pick there are nearly 20 groups in Syria - is about it being overt and not covert. So, they are pleased when radicals show their faces and establish territory because it attracts more radicals to leave the west to go there to be killed. The other result may be that the moderates like the Muslim Brotherhood who may seriously have been talking about a pan-Islamic Caliphate and Sharia law have seen their cause put back by decades.


JMWong -> sage10 14 Dec 2015 21:12


If the USA wants to fight ISIS, it must attack ISIS at its source, that is, the countries where the ISIS fighters originate. This means Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the USA itself, UK, France, etc. Bomb these countries and the sources of ISIS fighters will dry up.

sashasmirnoff 14 Dec 2015 21:09

I apologize for deviating slightly from this story, but I have a link to share concerning what would usually be considered a sensational story, but this paper has neglected to cover it. A Turkish Parliamentarian has come forward with documented proof that in 2013 Turkey supplied IS with the components to manufacture Sarin gas and facilitated their transport to the IS in Syria. I have no idea why the Guardian doesn't consider this to be newsworthy.

https://www.rt.com/news/325825-sarin-gas-syria-turkey/

sage10 14 Dec 2015 20:59

I still see nothing but a PR blitz here. The strategy has not changed. The claims of success are over-rated. ISIS still controls large swathes of territory; and more importantly, it has shown it can project power internationally...all the way to the US...through sleeper cells and lone wolf attacks. The only way to deal with such a pernicious organization is a full on-the-ground massive combined arms assault: armor, air power, and heavy infantry. It won't take a Desert Storm type campaign, as ISIS is no where near as large as Saddam's army; but it will take a real coordinated military campaign with boots-on-the-ground to seize and hold territory. No question about that. Obama won't commit to that type strategy, so it will be up to the next President to do so, as ISIS will still be around by then, given Obama's reliance solely on air power.


giorgio16 14 Dec 2015 20:59

...is Obama aware that Russia is already fighting isis,...and from the right side?... or he is pretending he is in charge now?
...Saudis are fighting shias in Yemen on one side, creating a humanitarian disaster no one wants to acknowledge, and Assad in Sirya on the other creating another disaster convenniently blamed on Assad by Obama and co...interesting times ahead...


TomGray 14 Dec 2015 20:43

Obama used the same decapitation tactic against Al Queda. Al Queda destabilized because of it and morphed into ISIS. There is no shortage of people who want to become leaders in any organization. Obama's tactics may hinder ISIS but they will not cause the organized violence that it currently represents to disappear. The players may change but the game remains the same.

Decapitation can only be part of an effective strategy and so far Obama has not demonstrated that he has the capability to draw together the other essential elements


ID4352889 -> DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 20:41

Saudi flew thousands of Jihadists out of Syria a while ago and sent them to Libya. It is well documented. The West did not interfere. Presumably for the same reasons they didn't interfere with the Turkey/Daesh oil scam.


DelOrtoyVerga 14 Dec 2015 20:35

Hurry up Obama before the Ruskies steal your thunder! or the few sparks that are left by now that is...
Mwahahaha...

I'm sure these special forces, these token "boots on the ground" you are sending will be exclusively focusing on ISIL and are not being sent to undermine the Syrian government or their allies, I repeat the special forces ARE NOT BEING SENT TO UNDERMINE THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT OR THEIR ALLIES.

HowSicklySeemAll 14 Dec 2015 20:26

Why did the US wait until now to 'drop more bombs than ever before'?

Russian foreign minister recently stated that:

"We have noticed that the US-led coalition stepped up its fight against IS only after Russia dispatched a combat air group to Syria. The coalition efforts undertaken in Syria earlier could be described as odd, to say the least This brings to mind NATO's operations in Afghanistan We don't want the fight to be feigned."

DomesticExtremist 14 Dec 2015 20:13

Can we assume from this that the fix is in: Kilary has been selected for Pres and Obomber has to roll the pitch on her behalf so that she can hit the ground running?

"We came, we saw, they died. (insane cackle)."

Look out for some killer blow to be landed on the Donald soon.

Sualdam -> meewaan 14 Dec 2015 20:10

The biggest contribution America can make to getting rid of Isis is to "persuade" its friends and allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey mainly - to turn off the tap of finance, munitions and logistics to Isis, Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra) and its allies like Ahrar Al Sham. No American ground troops needed; they would be counter-productive.

MrJanuary 14 Dec 2015 19:55

Well done Russia for mobilizing the worlds second largest military force, the USA, in Syria against ISIS.


robertthebruce2014 -> MasonInNY 14 Dec 2015 19:48

We love Putin here in Europe, at least he defends European interests. The USA is only defending Saudi and Israeli interest. We are currently in the process of breaking up the NATO coalition. The USA can stick with Turkey, Israel, and the Saudis.


pierotg 14 Dec 2015 19:43

December 2015: "We are hitting Isil harder than ever" .

July 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2NkjNvwuaU

!!! Look at the eys of that general behind, please! He was falling almost asleep and then ... frozen! Is it just my impression? That would be really hilarious if we weren't talking about war and crimes against humanity.

Please, stop lying this way.
This is far too much. This is alienating.

The USA and UK governments are loosing all that was left of their credibility and reliability in the last decade and the only strategy left seems to make the big lie bigger than ever. This is like shouting at the world "I can do whatever suits me and f**k the rest!"
Even their relationships with their EU partners have proved slick.

I've been listening to politicians speeches and interviews lately and found myself thinking: "That autocrat and ex KGB agent ruling Russia sounds much less hypocrite and far more competent". What if you could choose between Putin or Trump to represent your country (just as if they were sport pros you could hire for your team)?

This is far too much. This won't do any good and nuclear weapons can still destroy our planet in 30 minutes. Whoever is behind this mess what's going to profit then? This is obscene incompetence and fearsome irresponsibility.

In my teens Steve Stevens's Top Gun Theme got me goosebumps... On my Strat guitar there has been a Union Jack pickguard for 25 years... What shall I tell my son when he will ask me why I removed the original white one? I'm getting quite embarrassed.

Is it the End of the World as We know it? Yet I don't feel fine.


1ClearSense 14 Dec 2015 19:40

Yemen is the poorest Arab country with limited resources. The Saudis, along with a slew of other Arab regimes have been bombing the Yemeni military and Houthi militia who were clearing up Al Qaeda out of Yemen pretty good, for 9 months.

In the summer the Saudis and UAE sheiks decided to send ground forces to "liberate" Yemen. Other than taking some part of southern Yemen with the help of separatists and jihadis of all sort, they failed in their mission. A single attack on Saudi military caused dozens of Saudi and Emarati dead. The Emaratis decided on Colombian mercenaries, the Saudi paid Sudanese military to send troops. Yesterday the Yemenis killed a large number of these mercenaries (anywhere between 80 to 150) including the Saudi commander and another high official and a Emarati officer.

Southern Yemen, the "Saudi liberated" areas is being taken over by al Qaeda piece by piece, and also ISIS has become very active. The idea that these Arab regimes can be productive in anything to defeat jihadi terror is a pipe dream. It is all about public relations and having "Sunni Arabs" along to defeat "Sunni Arabs" jihadis. This is so completely miscalculation that will backfire. Saudis and their crew have no desire or ability to defeat the wahhabi terrorists. The time has come to see it as what it is, the only way to defeat the jihadi terrorists is teaming up with the people who are being successful, and that doesn't include the Arab tyrannies.


Panda Bear -> Steven Wallace 14 Dec 2015 19:33

Did your father know offices controlled by the \British at Suez were apparently given over to the Moslem Brotherhood? UK used Islamic extremists back then and US has continued the policy it appears.

I was recently reminded of Churchill's speech about the possibility of Germans invading Britain... "We'll fight them on the beeches" etc. Wonder if the Germans would have considered the British fighters terrorists if they had managed to occupy Britain?
Occupation by foreign forces is ok if it's our forces or our allies and our enemies cannot resist or they are designated as terrorists... National Sovereignty is disregarded whole sale by US/NATO and allies.

One rule for us, another for 'them'! Hypocrisy reigns supreme.


Steven Wallace -> Zara Thustra 14 Dec 2015 19:32

haha ok well thats too simplistic Mr Zarathustra . The issue with Islamic fundamentalism is that it uses a religion to kill innocents without targeting anyone of any real importance . The Koran has not changed like the New Testament but I really do not believe that modern day Muslims who pray would all wish to kill me because I am not a Muslim .

That scare mongering is simply a distraction ,as George Bush said " Who is this Bin Laden ?" Well I would have said " You know him George ,his family financed your oil business ,they are friends of your family ".

All Muslims are scary to us while the real issues are being ignored 24/7

The Bible is full of evil concepts ,why not consider ourselves in the West as evil Christians ?

Not me though ,I'm an atheist


LewisFriend -> Miramon 14 Dec 2015 19:32

Well Assad wasn't massacring people either till their was an uprising.. Yet in Syria people were a lot more free than Saudi.. They also don't have the CIA on the ground encouraging one. Be under no illusions the ruling Saudi clique are animals.


WatchEm 14 Dec 2015 19:30

Barack Obama warns leaders of Islamic State in speech: 'you are next'

Threats like that are enough to get my parrot squawking with laughter - forget any "terrorists" or anyone with a live brain cell.

Yet more tries to reassure a domestic audience, who unlike the majority of nations, apparently live in fear, and need convincing that the USG is doing something and "leading the way" in their declared "War on Terrorism". It's like having to tolerate listening to the banality of what purports to be US "news networks".

Unfortunately, after around 10,000 bombing runs and predictable time-wasting talk, the message is still not sinking in that the Grand Master Plan of 'leading the way' is a failure and reduced to hope that they can stop terrorism by 'taking out' some leadership. Yep, heard that one before. The USG 'defeated terrorism' by 'taking out' Al Queda leaders - a number of them 34+ times. Al Queda no longer exists - not.

Instead of 'leading from the rear' and expecting other nations to clean up the carnage and havoc left over by US adventures into the Middle East, perhaps the USG could find a few non-torturers, non rapists and no members of US death squads and clean the region up with their own trash collectors as 'boots on the ground'. Well... no harm in dreaming and fantasising it might work and "we can win, win, win" ...

So, bottom line, order more bombs with taxpayers funds Carter, and pretend you matter while the 'leader' continues the infantile rhetoric for US consumption, just as his predecessor did. May the US people and people in other victim nations be saved from US 'little men' - both 'generals' and politicians.


PS Try not to bomb innocent men, women and children on the ground during the bombing runs. They never deserved your slaughter, carnage, death squads and torture the last time around and don't need a US euphemism, "collateral damage", to justify their deaths. But of course, counting bodies is not a topic of conversation in the Rogue Regime of the West. It only matters if it is US men, women and children who are slaughtered while the US regime role play fighting for "democracy and freedom" by "leading from the rear".


Panda Bear -> MRModeratedModerate 14 Dec 2015 19:21

Some of them are very busy bombing Yemen to destruction and recruiting mercenaries in places such as Columbia to help! The situation for citizens in Yemen is dire, some areas described as on the verge of famine partly due to the embargo that is also imposed.

JMWong 14 Dec 2015 19:09

This speech shows the hypocrisy of the Americans. In fact, as it was made clear many times before, the real objective of the USA is to invade Syria, to destroy Syria and to murder as many Syrians as possible, including its President, Assad. The USA had the same objective with regards to Iraq and Lybia. Iraq was invaded and destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were murdered by the coalition of the willing led by the USA. The lives of tens of millions Iraqis have been destroyed. Its President, Saddam Hussein was murdered. In the case of Libya, the same coalition of the willing, led by the same USA, bombed Libya for six months. It was the greatest terrorist attack over the last ten years. It was six months of terror for millions of Libyans everyday for over six months. More than thirty thousand Libyans were murdered in this exceptional terror attack, including its President, Kaddafi. Now, the USA is leading the same coalition of the willing to murder hundreds of thousand Syrians. Assad must go, chant the USA and its f...king partners. We heard the same chant with regrda to Saddam Hussein and Kaddafi. Saddam Hussein must go. Kaddafi must go. As if the USA with its f.. Partners are the ones to choose who should and should not rule Iraq, Libya and Syria. ISIS was created, is funded, trained armed and supported by the USA and its willing partners. For more than one year that they are bombing Syria, they did not see the thousands and thousands of trucks carrying robbed oil from Syria to Turkey. And now Obama, flanked by thecriminal Ash Carter, a creature of McCain, claims that he is determined to fight ISIS. Since many of the ISIS fighters come from the USA, UK, France, why do you not start by bombing the USA, UK, France. Why start with Syria?

Steven Wallace 14 Dec 2015 19:05

Because truth has no place in the modern political theatre . Truth is down to perception and when you control the media you control the truth .Remember NORID ,when the US funded the IRA against the UK ? The IRA used bombs to kill many innocents in their resistance to the British occupation . My brother was a soldier in the British Army and believed he was doing the right thing by going to Northern Ireland . After reflection he now feels he was wrong to be a part of that situation .My father served in Egypt during the Suez Crisis and felt he was right to be there and later questioned why so many young lads were sent to such a inhospitable foreign land . The reason always comes down to money .

MRModeratedModerate 14 Dec 2015 19:04

"in recent weeks we've unleashed a new wave of strikes on their lifeline, on their oil infrastructure..."

I don't see no bombs falling on Turkey?

illbthr22 -> ObambiBot 14 Dec 2015 18:54

Your country provides nothing positive to the world. I watch American movies, eat American food, listen to American music. Russia doesn't exist to me. The only time i hear Russia mentioned is when Russia is threatening war with someone or 2 drunks are beating each other up on youtube.


supercool -> BG Davis 14 Dec 2015 18:49

Again read my comment. The way the war on drugs is waged and fought. It is never ending, murky and with so many dubious allegiances.

The war on terror is never ending, murky and with so many dubious allegiance. For example we exported Jihadism to Afghanistan to defeat the invading communist Soviet's, they eventually morphed to the Taliban who then gave sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. Which formed an affiliate branch in Iraq after our invasion in 2003 and which morphed into the Islsmic state.


HollyOldDog -> stonedage 14 Dec 2015 18:48

Obama is the first black American President but that doesn't mean that he is the first sensible one.


Whitt -> supercool 14 Dec 2015 18:46

As someone who is old enough to have lived under two great Presidents and three great-but-flawed Presidents, I'm saying that Obama is a 2nd-rater at best. A hundred years from now he'll be a triva-question President like Millard Fillmore or Grover Cleaveland.

OscarAwesome 14 Dec 2015 18:44

Sure, this is typical political spruiking. Obama doing the Commander in Chief thing, proclaiming PROGRESS, reaffirming how bad the 'enemy' are, saying tough things as a response to the accusations of weakness by US conservatives (who are coy about what their actual alternative to Obama's approach is because it probably looks very much like catastrophic full invasion foolishness of George W's Iraq war), blah, blah, we've seen it all before on countless occasions.

The situation in Syria in particular is ridiculously complex and consists of a plethora of detail and options for action about which we will all have wildly divergent opinions.

But there is a part of this that is simple. There are practically zero options for dealing with ISIL/IS/ISIS/whatever besides killing them. They seek no negotiations, offer no potential compromise position and their take on politics is to simply kill everyone who isn't them. The lack of alternate, peaceful/diplomatic options ISIS and similar groups offer, with their preposterous Dark Ages philosophies, is in a macabre way almost refreshing.

The hard bit is how to kill/capture/degrade their capability without a) slaughtering bystanders and b) causing such carnage as to act as an ISIS recruitment agency.
For all the great many faults and excesses of the West and the larger Muslin world, ISIS

do not in any way offer a comprehensive socio-political alternate system of government with a vestige of logical appeal to humanity (unlike, say the threat communism represented in the 20th century). They have some vague pipe dream of apocalyptic conflict where the other 99.999% of the human race is either slaughtered or magically converted to embracing the reversal of human history by 1,500 years. Not going to happen. Silly.

The threat ISIS represent is largely emotional. Unless you are lightning-strike like unfortunate (or they get hold of nuclear weapons) ISIS disturb our assumptions of physical safety in a symbolic way only. The histrionics generated by that fear is our real enemy.

Popeyes 14 Dec 2015 18:44

What a disappointment, I was waiting for Obama to explain just why he didn't bomb IS oil facilities, and why the U.S. are still best buddies with Saudi who it seems supplies and finances most of the terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Nothing new here move along.

Horst Faranelli 14 Dec 2015 18:43

...but the spot oil price is squeezing the heart out of Russia.

Panda Bear -> GustavoB 14 Dec 2015 18:43

There have been reports for a while (since Russia began bombing) that Isis have been fleeing Syria and many commanders have relocated to Libya. Isis have overtaken one of the so called governments and are making gains, oil assets their next target I read yesterday.


Seasuka -> DoomGlitter 14 Dec 2015 18:41

Whatever America's position now, for decades they have supported and helped to arm Salafist jihadis through Saudi and the Muslim World league in opposition to any secular or perceived communist movements in the region which might threaten oil supplies. Ditto uk.


jmNZ 14 Dec 2015 18:40

The secular Syrian government, with women in its ranks, is fighting for its life against a most ruthless and abominable enemy: fanatical jihadist mercenaries financed by an execrable mediaeval tyranny, Saudi Barbaria. This is the enemy of all we stand for, the enemy that perpetrated 9/11 and 7/7 and their latest clone that bombed Paris concert-goers and Russian holiday-makers. They are paid and trained by Riyadh. And armed to the teeth with modern American weapons, passed to them by the newest demagogue, Turkey's Erdoğan.

The sworn enemy of all these head-chopping bigots is Assad's secular republic of Syria because it challenges the ideological dogmatism of Sharia Law. This law is as rigid as Hitler's Nazism or Stalin's communism.

And we wonder whether we should support Assad?
For the record, here are some undisputed facts:

30 countries, including South Africa, sent election observers to Syria and found them to be "reasonably free and fair". This was in 2014 when Basher al-Assad got 88% of the vote in the first multi-party presidential elections. Nearly half the population of Syria actually made it to the polls. Not half the electorate, half the population.

Syria is governed by 5 parties in coalition opposed by a 2 party coalition of 5 members and 77 "Independents". Assad's Baqath Party has a majority, 134 out of 250.

Syria is today's Czechoslovakia.


Whitt -> supercool 14 Dec 2015 18:34

"Compare his Presidency with George Bush or most previous American President's if recent years." - supercool
*
Considering that most of the Presidents that we've had over the last few decades have been mediocrities and that Bush Jr. was downright incompetent, that is truly an example of damning with faint praise.
*
*
"Obama goes into the history books as a great President who achieved so many first's"
*
To paraphrase the immortal Douglas Adams, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "great" that I was not previously aware of.


ByThePeople 14 Dec 2015 18:10

"in recent weeks'...'destroying hundreds of their (ISIL's) tanker trucks, wells and refineries. So far, ISIL has lost about 40% of the populated area it once controlled n Iraq."

Anyone else a bit shocked that after having several countries dropping bombs on ISIL for an extended period of time - that ISIL would still be in possession of hundreds of tanker trucks, wells and refineries - their 'life line'....?

A full fledged oil business in up, running and in the market to sell oil - which is obviously all being bought up and these revenues, combined with other revenue streams, have been supporting ISIL's efforts for an extended period of time.

I wonder if because 'a few weeks' was finally taken to supposedly destroy this critical infrastructure - if the 'evasive' ISIL oil business - along with revenues - will suffer? I also wonder why the air campaign hasn't been extended to include the purchasers of ISIL's oil supplies - at sea and in their home countries.

Panda Bear -> supercool 14 Dec 2015 18:10

Homs has a cease fire, the 'moderate' terrorists have left. Syrian Arab Army and it's allies are making gains, an airport retaken yesterday. Much Isis oil trading infrastructure destroyed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PauFSKZafr4
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syrian-army-retakes-key-airbase-rebel-forces-eastern-ghouta-1589655831
I'm fascinated to know what the Henry Jackson Society is doing there/reporting...


ohhaiimark -> JackGC 14 Dec 2015 18:03

And here in lies the problem. The US is not serious about taking down ISIS. They are a convient bunch of psychopaths that can be used for various agendas the US has in mind. Including but not limited to weakening/removing Assad, getting Iran embroiled in costly war, terrifying domestic populations into giving up freedoms, justifying more military interventions that go against international law.

The list goes on


1ClearSense 14 Dec 2015 17:59

The cult of Wahhabi terrorist supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Turkey need to be defeated. With all the public information available, we are here because of all the wrong moves by the US. It is about time to nip this in the bud. The root problem is in Saudi Arabia. In no uncertain terms US needs to tell the Arab tyrannies to stop the jihadi terror. It is obviouse US has listened to the Saudis and Qataris to create a Sunni militia in Iraq, Syria to "confront" Iran. The imaginary ghost that constantly scares Saudi tyranny. The result has been all the various head chopping terror groups. The "Sunni" Arab tyrannies will never supply troops to take over areas occupied by terrorists. Qatar demands sanitizing al Qaeda terrorist in Syria and giving them a say. It is stupid to even consider these as allies in fight against the wahhabi Islamist terrorists. Time has come to forget about removing Assad, just cooperate with Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq to take back land from all terrorists step by step, and have the legitimate government in Syria and Iraq, with their pro government militia control the ground.

TheBorderGuard -> gunnison 14 Dec 2015 17:55

Isis must ultimately be defeated by Muslim forces, or we'll be manufacturing radical faster than we can kill them.

The Muslims seem to be manufacturing radicals quickly enough without any help from us.

TonyBlunt 14 Dec 2015 17:51

"We are hitting Isil harder than ever."

Here is how hard the US and their regional allies have been hitting ISIL and the other jihadi terrorists:

bolobo -> impartial12 14 Dec 2015 17:50

Good docu about that recently. Might still be available on BBCiplayer. The Americans bought Saudi drilling rights for 2cents and the Brits bought Iraqi rights for tuppence. Twenty years later the middle easterns thought "hold on a minute," and offered a fifty-fifty split. The Americans pragmatically accepted, thus their relationship with the House of Saud, the Brits got all uppity at the natives and got kicked out.

TheSindhiAbbasi -> gunnison 14 Dec 2015 17:45

What about billions of US military equipment in Iraq, that was captured by Daesh?

gunnison 14 Dec 2015 17:40

Freeze Saudi assets and blockade all their exports until they send all that gee-whiz military equipment we sold them into this fight, and all the Saudi military we trained too.

Isis must ultimately be defeated by Muslim forces, or we'll be manufacturing radical faster than we can kill them.

Panda Bear -> Jools12 14 Dec 2015 17:36

"We only get some action now that Russia has been attacking ISIS in Syria and of course there is minimal reporting of the successes of the Russians in Western media."

Exactly. Russia is the old enemy, it is interfering and questioning US actions and has huge natural resources. Putin called them out in his speech at the UN...
US has been provoking Russia for some time, and is also provoking China. This may not end well for any of us and no one will stand up and demand it stops!

HAGGISANCHIPS -> ame1ie 14 Dec 2015 17:34

The nazi ideology was removed militarily. It couldn't survive because it was morally wrong and repugnant, like Daesh.

Edward Frederick Ezell 14 Dec 2015 17:27

Sending our professional agents of coercion and terror to kill people in foreign countries over which we somehow more or less claim jurisdiction is not something that is clearly beneficial in the long term although it does respond appropriately to the call for vengeance and blood from our own political actors.

Panda Bear -> Taku2 14 Dec 2015 17:27

US has turned it into a proxy war with Russia and Iran and has called in the NATO allies to back them up. Obama seems to work differently to previous presidents like Bush, he seems to like to work quietly using drones and not much publicized actions and calls in the NATO and allied troops to cover their actions.

Taku2 14 Dec 2015 17:23

America will do this America will do that. Well, guess what; you cannot do it on your own. You cannot make a successful strategic plan to fight Daesh without the Russians, Iranians and Syrian government forces being integral elements of such a plan.

Daesh is like an Hydra, so bombing alone cannot defeat it, it just spread it to new areas. You need to do an honest review of how Daesh was created; albeit, unintentionally, by ill-conceived American and EU/NATO policies in the Middle East and Africa.

America and EU/NATO cannot effective fight the war being waged by Daesh and Al Qaeda, until they have learned the lessons to be learned from their misguided policies, and openly acknowledged the mistakes they have made.

Sunrise_Song 14 Dec 2015 17:18

What would it be like to live in a truly peaceful and free world? All it takes is strength, foresight and the guts to be honest.

All the things the West is failing at. Obama like most Western leaders is a weaver of lies and half-truths.

How can we ever have peace until we challenge the core issue? This is an ideological fight. It's a war of minds. ISIS believe the West is a basin of sin. That our liberal and secular ways need to be destroyed and replaced by their ideologies and way of life.

Only, we can see they're wrong. That even with our faults and flaws, our belief in freedom, democracy and equality is the best way, still we defend that same ideology in our own nations.

Obama is failing the American people. Just like Merkel and Co are failing the European people.

Bombs won't stop IS.


Jools12 14 Dec 2015 17:18

What have they been doing for the last two years then? No attacks on ISIS trucks transporting oil, no sanctions on countries that have been buying that oil. We only get some action now that Russia has been attacking ISIS in Syria and of course there is minimal reporting of the successes of the Russians in Western media. As far as Libya is concerned, there are very ominous signs that ISIS is moving to set up headquarters in that country, a country a lot closer to Europe than Syria or Iraq are. There is also the problem that the Russians will not be involved in Libya, unlike Syria, they do not have a functioning government to ask them in. Libya is the nightmare created by NATO and the US, they will have to take full responsibility for their dreadful actions there and fight the barbarians they created, no sitting back and allowing them to flourish this time.


TheBorderGuard 14 Dec 2015 17:13

Obama told reporters: "This continues to be a difficult fight. Isil is dug in, including in urban areas, and they hide behind civilians, using defenceless men, women and children as human shields. So even as we're relentless, we have to be smart, targeting Isil surgically, with precision."

Good luck, boss. Ask Netanyahu how it went for the Israelis when they tried to end Hamas' rocket attacks from Gaza. Because that's the kind of foe you'll be up against.


poechristy 14 Dec 2015 17:10

Someone has obviously told Obama that his Mr Nice Guy act was merely encouraging Islamic State and their supporters in the US. It's time for all Western nations to make clear that anyone involved in any way with Islamic State-funding them, promoting them, or returning from fighting for them- will feel the full force of the law. I can't understand why those returning from Syria are not immediately arrested and held to account.
I rather suspect we wouldn't be seeing the same appeasement if white supremacists were returning from a foreign land having been involved in the torture,rape and murder of ethnic minorities.


lefthalfback2 DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 17:06

NYT said a few days back that ISIS are looking to Surt in Libya as the spot to which they can decamp if the Heat comes down in Iraq. Does not seem likely to me since it is on the coast and could easily be struck from the sea.


Whitt DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 17:03

Weren't you paying attention?

(1) We have a coalition of the willing in the international War on Terror.
(2) ISIS is on their last legs. There's nothing left but a bunch of dead-enders.
(3) We're squeezing their heart in Iraq, their balls in Syria, and their spleen in Libya.
(4) There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
(5) Ve are vinning ze var!

Now get with the program and quit interfering with the narrative or it's off to Gitmo with you, me lad!


ohhaiimark 14 Dec 2015 16:58

Want to stop ISIS? It's rather simple. Sanction those who fund them. Sanction those who spread Wahhabism. Sanction those who buy oil off them....Basically sanction all of America's allies in the region.

Then work together with the Russians, the Syrians, the Iranians and whoever else is willing to send ground troops in to take each town and city occupied by these scumbags one by one.

You can't defeat ISIS if your goal is also to remove Assad. That will only help ISIS. It's time to wake up from that delusion that Assad is going anywhere. Once the war is over, then we can let the Syrian people decide who will lead them through democratic elections.


Djinn666 14 Dec 2015 16:56

They've squeezed so hard that it oozed into Libya and other points on the compass, including San Bernardino.

Note to CIC Obama, However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results (Winston Churchill).


Fence2 14 Dec 2015 16:54

What a farce, who does Obama think he's kidding? If the US was serious about ISIS it would have been finished off a year ago, now that Russia has called the US's bluff they now have to pretend to step up to the plate. Pathetic.


DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 16:50

Meanwhile in Libya....http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/world-leaders-push-libya-peace-isil-fills-vacuum-151214044020934.html
Apparently there are 3,000 ISIL fighters in Libya at the moment. It's time President Obama and John Kerry gave us the whole story, but I guess with Saudi Arabia and Turkey being allies the US can't rock the boat too much.


dikcheney 14 Dec 2015 16:48

More drivel from the counterfeit president. His allies in the middle east are disgusting butchers. Take Turkey: it is a great shame for Turkey that 32 journalists are imprisoned in the 21st century. Some were arrested on Nov. 26 after being charged in May with espionage, revealing confidential documents and membership in a terrorist organization. The charges are related to a report published by a leading newspaper claiming weapons-loaded trucks that were discovered in January 2014 en route to Syria actually belonged to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and had been sent to provide support to rebel groups.

The USA has been seduced and conned for decades until its entire policy is focused on fighting proxy wars to keep the middle east ablaze in the interests of others. SHAME on the dumb USA.

laguerre 14 Dec 2015 16:39

A load of rubbish. US supports the Saudis, who support ISIS. US attacks on ISIS are not serious, as the speech suggests.

[Dec 14, 2015] No Turkish fabric to make anti-Turkish T-shirts, say Russian designers

There are two possibilities here: iether Guardian pressitutes sometimes try to play degenarates or they consider their readers to be degenerates...
Notable quotes:
"... Typical The Moscow Times garbage. ..."
"... Hmmm, some really sophisticated comments and analysis apropos of current issues in geopolitics and international relations. Nuanced, objective, and informative. Excuse me but I have to go watch some more esoteric reportage from Fox News. ..."
www.theguardian.com

cvneuves 13 Dec 2015 21:12

Typical The Moscow Times garbage.

Scipio1 13 Dec 2015 18:54

Hmmm, some really sophisticated comments and analysis apropos of current issues in geopolitics and international relations. Nuanced, objective, and informative.

Excuse me but I have to go watch some more esoteric reportage from Fox News.

[Dec 14, 2015] The long-cherished neocon dream of "regime change" in Syria is blocking a possible route out of the crisis

consortiumnews.com
anne,
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/12/blocking-democracy-as-syrias-solution/

December 12, 2015

Blocking Democracy as Syria's Solution By Robert Parry

The long-cherished neocon dream of "regime change" in Syria is blocking a possible route out of the crisis – a ceasefire followed by elections in which President Assad could compete. The problem is there's no guarantee that Assad would lose and thus the dream might go unfulfilled.
By Robert Parry

The solution to the crisis in Syria could be democracy – letting the people of Syria decide who they want as their leaders – but it is the Obama administration and its regional Sunni "allies," including U.S.-armed militants and jihadists, that don't want to risk a democratic solution because it might not achieve the long-held goal of "regime change."

Some Syrian opposition forces, which were brought together under the auspices of the Saudi monarchy in Riyadh this past week, didn't even want the word "democracy" included in their joint statement. The New York Times reported on Friday, "Islamist delegates objected to using the word 'democracy' in the final statement, so the term 'democratic mechanism' was used instead, according to a member of one such group who attended the meeting."

Even that was too much for Ahrar al-Sham, one of the principal jihadist groups fighting side-by-side with Al Qaeda's Nusra Front, the two key elements inside the Saudi-created Army of Conquest, which uses sophisticated U.S.-supplied TOW missiles to kill Syrian government troops.

Ahrar al-Sham announced its withdrawal from the Riyadh conference because the meeting didn't "confirm the Muslim identity of our people." Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sought to maintain a secular government that protects the rights of Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other religious minorities, but Sunni militants have been fighting to overthrow him since 2011.

Despite Ahrar al-Sham's rejection of the Saudi-organized conference, all the opposition participants, including one from Ahrar al-Sham who apparently wasn't aware of his group's announcement, signed the agreement, the Times reported.

"All parties signed a final statement that called for maintaining the unity of Syria and building a civil, representative government that would take charge after a transitional period, at the start of which Mr. Assad and his associates would step down," wrote Times' correspondent Ben Hubbard.

But the prospects of Assad and his government just agreeing to cede power to the opposition remains highly unlikely. An obvious alternative – favored by Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin – is to achieve a ceasefire and then have internationally supervised elections in which the Syrian people could choose their own leaders.

Although President Barack Obama insists Assad is hated by most Syrians – and if that's true, he would presumably lose any fair election – the U.S. position is to bar Assad from the ballot, thus ensuring "regime change" in Syria, a long-held goal of Official Washington's neoconservatives.

In other words, to fulfill the neocons' dream of Syrian "regime change," the Obama administration is continuing the bloody Syrian conflict which has killed a quarter million people, has created an opening for Islamic State and Al Qaeda terrorists, and has driven millions of refugees into and through nearby countries, now destabilizing Europe and feeding xenophobia in the United States.

For his part, Assad called participants in the Saudi conference "terrorists" and rejected the idea of negotiating with them. "They want the Syrian government to negotiate with the terrorists, something I don't think anyone would accept in any country," Assad told Spanish journalists, as he repeated his position that many of the terrorists were backed by foreign governments and that he would only "deal with the real, patriotic national opposition."

Kinks in the Process

Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Friday that he was in contact with senior Saudi officials and noted, "there are some questions and obviously a couple of – in our judgment – kinks to be worked out" though expressing confidence that the problems could be resolved.

A key problem appears to be that the Obama administration has so demonized Assad and so bought into the neocon goal of "regime change" that Obama doesn't feel that he can back down on his "Assad must go!" mantra. Yet, to force Assad out and bar him from running in an election means escalating the war by either further arming the Sunni jihadists or mounting a larger-scale invasion of Syria with the U.S. military confronting Syrian and now Russian forces to establish what is euphemistically called "a safe zone" inside Syria. A related "no-fly zone" would require destroying Syrian air defenses, now supplied by the Russians.

Obama has largely followed the first course of action, allowing Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other Sunni "allies" to funnel U.S. weapons to jihadists, including Ahrar al-Sham which fights alongside Al Qaeda's Nusra Front as the two seek to transform Syria into a Islamic fundamentalist state, a goal shared by Al Qaeda's spinoff (and now rival), the Islamic State.

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has termed Obama's choice of aiding the jihadists a "willful decision," even in the face of DIA warnings about the likely rise of the Islamic State and other extremists.

In August 2012, DIA described the danger in a classified report, which noted that "The salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq, later ISI or ISIS and then the Islamic State] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria." The report also said that "If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared salafist principality in eastern Syria" and that "ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria."

Despite these risks, Obama continued to insist that "Assad must go!" and let his administration whip up a propaganda campaign around claims that Assad's forces launched a sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. Though many of the U.S. claims about that attack have since been discredited – and later evidence implicated radical jihadists (possibly collaborating with Turkish intelligence) trying to trick the U.S. military into intervening on their side – the Obama administration did not retract or clarify its initial claims.

By demonizing Assad – much like the demonization of Russian President Putin – Obama may feel that he is deploying "soft power" propaganda to put foreign adversaries on the defensive while also solidifying his political support inside hawkish U.S. opinion circles, but false narratives can take on a life of their own and make rational settlements difficult if not impossible....

ilsm -> anne...
The Syria terror consortium was in Riyadh checking in with their bankers. To the Sunni democracy is apostate anathema.
anne -> ilsm...
I understand the frustration and beyond, after all I read about Yemen being bombed with American bombs and target sightings and I cannot imagine the policy incentives driving us.

Nonetheless, the Yemen bombings go on day on day on day.

anne -> ilsm...
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen? Who could possibly ever understand, but our policy makers act as though they do.

[Dec 14, 2015] Marine Le Pen is not alone, and that is a real problem for the EU

European nationalism is an allergic reaction to neoliberalism. Guardian does not mention Ukraine and Baltic states. also far right nationalist goverment with Baltic states imposing "Baltic version of apartheid" to Russian speaking minority.
Dec 07, 2015 | The Guardian

Such is the picture in western Europe. In eastern Europe, the nationalist right is already in power in Hungary and in Poland. Viktor Orbán in Budapest is the pioneering cheerleader. He has no opposition to speak of. His main "opposition" comes not from the centre-left but from the neo-fascist Jobbik movement. In Poland, Jarosław Kaczyński and his Law and Justice party in Poland are wasting little time in aping Orbán's constitutional trickery to entrench itself in power.

On the critical issues of the day – immigration, security and Euroscepticism – there is little to separate Orbán and Kaczyński from President Miloš Zeman in Prague and Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, both on the left. Besides, on economics, the role of the state and welfare, the far-right parties are way to the left of social democracy, seeking to turn the clock back to state interventionism, full employment, generous pensions and welfare systems (for native whites, not immigrants).

What these far-right parties in east and west all share are chipped shoulders heaving with grievance – summed up as hostility to and rejection of globalisation and multiculturalism. They do not like modern life. They are anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-American (Poland excepted), illiberal. And they like Vladimir Putin (again, except Kaczyński).

They are nationalists. This also militates against making common cause despite all the similarities in outlook, because nationalists usually see foes rather than friends in other nationalists.

... It is a tall order. The European Union has never looked so temporary and fragile.

[Dec 14, 2015] Oil producers prepare for prices to halve to $20 a barrel

Notable quotes:
"... There's nothing new in shale gas that the oil industry itself hasn't done before. Hydrofracturing as a technique for enhancing oil recovery was developed over 50 years ago, and most of the North Sea was fracked (as are oil wells all over the world). The big technological breakthrough that allowed exploitation of shale gas was horizontal drilling, which allowed long pipes to be installed in the (usually narrow) shale gas strata. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia trying to kill the shale oil industry in USA, limit Iran rise and as a bonus undermine Russian military activities. ..."
"... The falling price of oil has initiated a historic wealth transfer effect of about $1 trillion a year between net oil importers and oil exporters reversing decades of historical trend. The US consumer alone gets $200 billion, and Europe and Asia (especially India and China) are even bigger beneficiaries of this massive wealth transfer of wealth by cheap oil. ..."
"... This is what's called an economic stimulus - but from cheaper oil prices. As Bloomberg noted recently: OPEC Provides Economic Stimulus Central Bankers Can't or Won't ..."
"... A non-economists understanding of macro is almost always politics masquerading as science. ..."
"... The theory that Saudi has engineered this oil price drop is nonsense. If they wanted to do this they would have increased production. The price fall is mostly due to the vast amount of speculation in US shale oil that completely ignored the effect of a massive increase in supply on price. These speculators are now paying for this mistake by leading the world in corporate defaults. Shale oil production will eventually slow down due to lack of finance and the price will start to increase. I don't think anyone can predict future price due to the complexity. ..."
"... Did you miss the bit where Russia will need to make cuts all the way through its services in line with the money they are losing via weak experts? Do you understand the knock-on effect this has through the rest of her economy - the recession it generates? Macroeconomics is a very interesting subject, and Creekwhore seems to have a good grasp on it. ..."
"... Hard to know which makes them happier, really. I was doing some work in Saudi in 2012 and there was a lot of concern there that not only were they losing the supply monopoly, but that as the US was becoming not just self-sufficient but an exporter it would make KSA less strategically relevant to the US and others in the west and therefore lose them influence on world events. They know they need the realpolitik power of the being the swing-producer in the oil cartel as without it no-one in the west is queuing up to be the natural ally of a quasi-medieval despotism with a lousy human rights record and a deal with some very suspect religious extremists. ..."
"... My take on this is that the Russian economy is also a target - even perhaps the real target. ..."
"... The Saudi's tactics are supposedly designed to hit the US shale producers, but, from what I understand, if these do go under they can quite easily start up again when the oil price recovers, then we're back to where we started. What is the point of all this market manipulation? ..."
"... US shale producers are much better placed than anyone expected them to be. Saudi Arabia has maybe another 18 months to play at this before they start to really rack up the debts. You've got a young, angry, largely unemployed population there that's basically pacified by the largesse of public spending. ..."
www.theguardian.com

The consultancy Capital Economics said: "Brent's [short-lived] dip today below $40 per barrel is a further damning verdict on Opec's bungled communications after its meeting last Friday. However, it was never likely that the group would agree to cut output to boost prices. Instead, any recovery next year will depend on reductions in non-Opec supply and on stronger demand. On this basis, while we are lowering our end-2016 forecast for Brent from $60 to $55, we continue to expect oil prices to stage a partial recovery next year."

Hugh Easton -> woldsgardener 11 Dec 2015 13:57

There's nothing new in shale gas that the oil industry itself hasn't done before. Hydrofracturing as a technique for enhancing oil recovery was developed over 50 years ago, and most of the North Sea was fracked (as are oil wells all over the world). The big technological breakthrough that allowed exploitation of shale gas was horizontal drilling, which allowed long pipes to be installed in the (usually narrow) shale gas strata.

So why do environmentalists make a big deal of hydrofracking at all? As with so much else green, there's no science behind it. They've just seized on a scarysounding something and are using it to bamboozle the public into thinking that a technology they oppose is dangerous.

TheinfamousmrFox -> sportinlifesport 11 Dec 2015 08:44

Actually, they're losing money. Even those with the lowest production costs (Saudi A) are burning through their currency reserves at a fantastic rate.

Essentially, OPEC are betting they can crush the US and Russian oil industries before they go broke themselves. However they didn't count on the growing green momentum starting to replace a lot of fossil fuel technology;- and that's not going to get slower.

Boutros Gladius ID6232853 11 Dec 2015 03:56

Check your numbers before you call nonsense. Demand was up 1.4m barrels/day in 2014, and is projected to be up by over a million for 2015 and 2016. In fact, it's up a similar amount every year for the last decade, with the single exception of the year of the financial crash. Demand increases will inexorably eat up any oversupply -- this price reduction is a mere blip.

ncaplan88 9 Dec 2015 18:40

It's great for us in America. Almost all retail is pegging to the price of shipping. Shipping is deisel fueled. Better to let OPEC run down their stocks than pump out the last of our reserves. King Salman is a good ally to help weaken our traditional enemies.


zacmcd -> zoggo 9 Dec 2015 17:43

Conspiracy theory rubbish. The low interest rate environment has led money to chase bad high yield investments, while the oil price was high this included shale. China's economic slow down has meant oil consumption growth hasn't risen as expected so supply now exceeds demand.

Russia along with Norway, Brazil, Canada etc are being punished for not having diversified economies not because Uncle Sam does or doesn't like them.


BlueMazda 9 Dec 2015 12:24

Forget the two big players, Russian and Saudis. What is the impact on the smaller producers in the ME, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan et. al.? Are they selling at below extraction costs per barrel? Will we see a ME recession? Social turmoil?


Timothy Underwood -> Chris Johnson 9 Dec 2015 10:52

Its not sad at all. The reason low oil prices is bad for 'the markets' is because the oil price drop basically means that consumers spend less on gas, and then instead buy more TVs, cars and eat out more often.

The margins on hundred dollar oil are really, really good for companies. The majority of that money isn't spent pumping and refining the oil. Most of the money when Exxon sells a barrel at $100 goes to Exxon shareholders (and whatever country the oil is pumped in).

TVs and cars are very competitive markets. When you buy a car or TV generally 90-95% of the money goes to making the car, which leaves only a little left over for the shareholders of Ford or Samsung. So low oil prices are hurt the share price of oil companies far more than they help the share prices of non oil companies.

In other words low oil prices move money from rich people to ordinary people. Non oil things are just less profitable to sell on average.

The value of the market is a rough proxy for how much money rich people expect to get for owning companies over the next 15 years. Oil being low means rich people get less money for owning companies, money which gas buyers instead have to spend on whatever they want.

AdamMps -> creekwhore 9 Dec 2015 06:41

this move may well drive the global economy off a cliff

Cheap oil is both good and bad for the global economy. Bad for oil investment, good because consumers and business will save money on fuel and presumably spend it elsewhere instead.

There's been a few articles which suggest that it's bad outweighs the good this time around, but it certainly doesn't drive the global economy off a cliff.

ID6232853 -> gottliebvera 9 Dec 2015 06:06

Saudi Arabia trying to kill the shale oil industry in USA, limit Iran rise and as a bonus undermine Russian military activities.

psygone 9 Dec 2015 05:22

This is all good news.

The falling price of oil has initiated a historic wealth transfer effect of about $1 trillion a year between net oil importers and oil exporters reversing decades of historical trend. The US consumer alone gets $200 billion, and Europe and Asia (especially India and China) are even bigger beneficiaries of this massive wealth transfer of wealth by cheap oil.

This is what's called an economic stimulus - but from cheaper oil prices. As Bloomberg noted recently: OPEC Provides Economic Stimulus Central Bankers Can't or Won't

The Middle East and Russia with diminishing and constrained sovereign funds are the ones getting stuck with the bill. Oil producers with diversified economies like Canada and Norway will do well.

Thank you cheap oil and carry on ......... "drill baby drill"

SenseCir -> mrolius 9 Dec 2015 04:35

Did you miss the bit where Russia will need to make cuts all the way through its services in line with the money they are losing via weak experts?

Yes countries that foolishly turned their blessing with a natural resource into a dependency of exporting it suffer, and their suffering propagates to an extent. That doesn't drive the global economy of a cliff, nor even is the net effect negative. Once again, when those blessed with oil decide to charge less for it, surplus is shifted.

Macroeconomics is a very interesting subject, and Creekwhore seems to have a good grasp on it.

I doubt it. A non-economists understanding of macro is almost always politics masquerading as science.

bjamesr 9 Dec 2015 04:31

The theory that Saudi has engineered this oil price drop is nonsense. If they wanted to do this they would have increased production. The price fall is mostly due to the vast amount of speculation in US shale oil that completely ignored the effect of a massive increase in supply on price. These speculators are now paying for this mistake by leading the world in corporate defaults. Shale oil production will eventually slow down due to lack of finance and the price will start to increase. I don't think anyone can predict future price due to the complexity.

mrolius -> SenseCir 9 Dec 2015 04:09

Did you miss the bit where Russia will need to make cuts all the way through its services in line with the money they are losing via weak experts? Do you understand the knock-on effect this has through the rest of her economy - the recession it generates? Macroeconomics is a very interesting subject, and Creekwhore seems to have a good grasp on it.

JemWallis -> SenseCir 9 Dec 2015 04:04

But given the oversupply of oil, you will be forced to pay a substantial premium for the storage of your commodity since you will be competing for long term storage space. That factor alone will add to your costs and therefore the price you will accept to make the 'huge profit' will get ever larger. What if prices rise more slowly than your on-going costs?

TheHighRoad -> WaldorfTBeagle 9 Dec 2015 03:57

Hard to know which makes them happier, really. I was doing some work in Saudi in 2012 and there was a lot of concern there that not only were they losing the supply monopoly, but that as the US was becoming not just self-sufficient but an exporter it would make KSA less strategically relevant to the US and others in the west and therefore lose them influence on world events. They know they need the realpolitik power of the being the swing-producer in the oil cartel as without it no-one in the west is queuing up to be the "natural ally" of a quasi-medieval despotism with a lousy human rights record and a deal with some very suspect religious extremists.

SenseCir -> creekwhore 9 Dec 2015 03:51

The fact this move may well drive the global economy off a cliff

How so, because a fundamental good everyone needs is cheap? Because, assuming Opec cannot defeat the frackers, their price schedule does not maximise their profit, shifting some of the surplus to consumers and non-oil producing countries? What the fuck are you talking about?

SenseCir rjb04tony 9 Dec 2015 03:48

What is the point of all this market manipulation?

Why do you call it 'market manipulation' when they lower prices through shipping a lot, and not when they raise prices through restricting output? The latter is what they would ideally like to do, because it maximises profit. Opec are a cartel. The consumers, and countries that don't export oil, lose when they exercise their monopoly power.

SA clearly think that a Standard Oilish strategy will work. If they deem to have damaged other oil producers sufficiently, you can rest assured that the price of oil will go up again, ensuring billions of economic profit going to SA and others, extracted from everyone else.

zoggo -> rjb04tony 9 Dec 2015 03:46

My take on this is that the Russian economy is also a target - even perhaps the real target.

WaldorfTBeagle 9 Dec 2015 03:07

I doubt Saudi's strategy has much to do with US frackers personally and lots to do with hurting Iran.

rjb04tony 9 Dec 2015 02:53

The Saudi's tactics are supposedly designed to hit the US shale producers, but, from what I understand, if these do go under they can quite easily start up again when the oil price recovers, then we're back to where we started. What is the point of all this market manipulation?

graz 9 Dec 2015 02:36

US shale producers are much better placed than anyone expected them to be. Saudi Arabia has maybe another 18 months to play at this before they start to really rack up the debts. You've got a young, angry, largely unemployed population there that's basically pacified by the largesse of public spending.

The problem with the House of Saud. They've got some of the best economists money can buy but you've got the egos of some 'limited' princes overruling them.

Never mind the oil price, if these fools miscalculate on this, on their Yemeni adventures, it could spell chaos for the Middle East and the wider world. >

[Dec 13, 2015] US military spending is currently $738.3 billion

Notable quotes:
"... military spending is currently $738.3 billion. ..."
"... Defense spending was 60.3% of federal government consumption and investment in July through September 2015. ..."
"... Defense spending was 23.1% of all government consumption and investment in July through September 2015. ..."
"... Defense spending was 4.1% of Gross Domestic Product in July through September 2015. ..."
economistsview.typepad.com

Economist's View

anne said...

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/in-paris-talks-rich-countries-pledged-0-25-percent-of-gdp-to-help-poor-countries

December 13, 2015

In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries

In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment, it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 6 percent of what the U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent of GDP.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html

-- Dean Baker

anne said in reply to anne...
"...about 6 percent of what the U.S. spends on the military...."

I do not understand this figure since currently defense spending is running at $738.3 billion yearly or which 6% would be $44.3 billion:

http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&904=2014&903=5&906=q&905=2015&910=x&911=0

anne said in reply to anne...
Correcting Dean Baker:

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/in-paris-talks-rich-countries-pledged-0-25-percent-of-gdp-to-help-poor-countries

December 13, 2015

In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries

In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment, it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 7.4 percent ** of what the U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent of GDP.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html

** http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&904=2014&903=5&906=q&905=2015&910=x&911=0

-- Dean Baker

anne said in reply to anne...
Dean Baker clarifies:

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/in-paris-talks-rich-countries-pledged-0-25-percent-of-gdp-to-help-poor-countries

December 13, 2015

In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries

In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment, it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 6 percent of what the U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent of GDP.

(I see my comment on military spending here created a bit of confusion. I was looking at the U.S. share of the commitment, 0.25 percent of its GDP and comparing it to the roughly 4.0 percent of GDP it spends on the military. That comes to 6 percent. I was not referring to the whole $100 billion.)

* http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html

-- Dean Baker

djb said in reply to anne...
100,000,000,000/0.06 = 1.67 trillion
anne said in reply to djb...
$100 billion a year, ........about 6 percent of what the U.S. spends on the military

100,000,000,000/0.06 = 1.67 trillion

[ This is incorrect, military spending is currently $738.3 billion. ]

anne said in reply to djb...
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&904=2014&903=5&906=q&905=2015&910=x&911=0

January 15, 2015

Defense spending was 60.3% of federal government consumption and investment in July through September 2015.

(Billions of dollars)

$738.3 / $1,224.4 = 60.3%

Defense spending was 23.1% of all government consumption and investment in July through September 2015.

$738.3 / $3,200.4 = 23.1%

Defense spending was 4.1% of Gross Domestic Product in July through September 2015.

$738.3 / $18,064.7 = 4.1%

djb said in reply to djb...
oh never mind I get it

.25 % is 6 percent of the percent us spends on military

the 40 trillion is the gdp of all the countries

got it

anne said in reply to djb...
"I get it:

.25 % is 6 percent of the percent US spends on military."

So .25 percent of United States GDP for climate change assistance to poor countries is 6 percent of the amount the US spends on the military.

.0025 x $18,064.7 billion GDP = $45.16 billion on climate change

$45.16 billion on climate change / $738.3 billion on the military = 0.61 or 6.1 percent of military spending

anne said in reply to anne...
United States climate change assistance to poor countries will be .25 percent of GDP or 6% of US military spending.
anne said in reply to anne...
What the United States commitment to climate change assistance for poor countries means is spending about $45.2 billion yearly or .25 percent of GDP. Whether the President can convince Congress to spend the $45 billion yearly will now have to be answered.
anne said in reply to djb...
"I get it:

.25 % is 6 percent of the [amount] US spends on military."

[ This is correct. ]

anne said in reply to djb...
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/in-paris-talks-rich-countries-pledged-0-25-percent-of-gdp-to-help-poor-countries

December 13, 2015

In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries

In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment, it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 6 percent of what the U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent of GDP.

(I see my comment on military spending here created a bit of confusion. I was looking at the U.S. share of the commitment, 0.25 percent of its GDP and comparing it to the roughly 4.0 percent of GDP it spends on the military. ** That comes to 6 percent. I was not referring to the whole $100 billion.)

* http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html

** http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&904=2014&903=5&906=q&905=2015&910=x&911=0

-- Dean Baker

anne said in reply to djb...
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&904=2007&903=5&906=q&905=2015&910=x&911=0

January 15, 2015

Defense spending was 4.1% of Gross Domestic Product in July through September 2015.

$738.3 / $18,064.7 = 4.1%

ilsm said in reply to anne...
UK is the only NATO nation beside the US that spend the suggested 2% of GDP. The rest run about 1.2%.

Small wonder they need US to run their wars of convenience.

More telling US pentagon spending is around 50% of world military spending and has not won anything in 60 years.

[Dec 13, 2015] Deregulation of exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit-default swaps and corruption of Congress and government

Notable quotes:
"... Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street reforms and actions Bill Clinton performed as President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of Greenspans record? ..."
"... Its actually pro-neoliberalism crowd vs anti-neoliberalism crowd. In no way anti-neoliberalism commenters here view this is a character melodrama, although psychologically Hillary probably does has certain problems as her reaction to the death of Gadhafi attests. The key problem with anti-neoliberalism crowd is the question What is a realistic alternative? Thats where differences and policy debate starts. ..."
"... Events do not occur in isolation. GLBA increased TBTF in AIG and Citi. TBTF forced TARP. GLBA greased the skids for CFMA. Democrats gained majority, but not filibuster proof, caught between Iraq and a hard place following their votes for TARP and a broader understanding of their participation in the unanimous consent passage of the CFMA, over objection by Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN). ..."
"... It certainly fits the kind of herd mentality that I always saw in corporate Amerika until I retired. The William Greider article posted by RGC was very consistent in its account by John Reed with the details of one or two books written about AIG back in 2009 or so. I dont have time to hunt them up now. Besides, no one would read them anyway. ..."
"... GS was one of several actions taken by the New Deal. That it wasnt sufficient by itself doesnt equate to it wasnt beneficial. ..."
"... "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," said then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy." ..."
"... The repeal of Glass Steagal was a landmark victory in deregulation that greased the skids for the passage of CFMA once Democrats had been further demoralized by the SCOTUS decision on Bush-v-Gore. The first vote on GLBA was split along party lines, but passed because Republicans had majority and Clinton was willing to sign which was clear from the waiver that had been granted to illegal Citi merger with Travelers. Both Citi and AIG mergers contributed to too big to fail. The CFMA was the nail in the coffin that probably would have never gotten off the ground if Democrats had held the line on the GLBA. Glass-Steagal was insufficient as a regulatory system to prevent the 2008 mortgage crisis, but it was giant as an icon of New Deal financial system reform. Its loss institutionalized too big to fail ..."
"... Gramm Leach Biley was a mistake. But it was not the only failure of US regulatory policies towards financial institutions nor the most important. ..."
"... It was more symbolic caving in on financial regulation than a specific technical failure except for making too big to fail worse at Citi and AIG. It marked a sea change of thinking about financial regulation. Nothing mattered any more, including the CFMA just a little over one year later. Deregulation of derivatives trading mandated by the CFMA was a colossal failure and it is not bizarre to believe that GLBA precipitated the consensus on financial deregulation enough that after the demoralizing defeat of Democrats in Bush-v-Gore then there was no New Deal spirit of financial regulation left. Social development is not just a series of unconnected events. It is carried on a tide of change. A falling tide grounds all boats. ..."
"... We had a financial dereg craze back in the late 1970s and early 1980s which led to the S L disaster. One would have thought we would have learned from that. But then came the dereg craziness 20 years later. And this disaster was much worse. ..."
"... This brings us to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary of the United States and at the time right hand man to then Treasury Security Robert Rubin. Mr. Summers was widely credited with implementation of the aggressive tactics used to remove Ms. Born from her office, tactics that multiple sources describe as showing an old world bias against women piercing the glass ceiling. ..."
"... According to numerous published reports, Mr. Summers was involved in. silencing those who questioned the opaque derivative product's design. ..."
"... The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 0.1 percent tax on stock trades, scaled with lower taxes on other assets, would raise $50 billion a year in tax revenue. The implied reduction in trading revenue was even larger. Senator Sanders has proposed a tax of 0.5 percent on equities (also with a scaled tax on other assets). This would lead to an even larger reduction in revenue for the financial industry. ..."
"... Great to see Bakers acknowledgement that an updated Glass-Steagall is just one component of the progressive wings plan to rein in Wall Street, not the sum total of it. Besides, if Wall Street types dont think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much. ..."
"... Yes thats a good way to look it. Wall Street gave the Democrats and Clinton a lot of campaign cash so that they would dismantle Glass-Steagall. ..."
"... Slippery slope. Ya gotta find me a business of any type that does not protest any kind of regulation on their business. ..."
"... Yeah, but usually because of all the bad things they say will happen because of the regulation. The question is, what do they think of Clintons plan? Ive heard surprisingly little about that, and what I have heard is along these lines: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street-plan/ ..."
"... Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Streets excesses on Thursday. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief. ..."
"... Iceland's government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled "A better monetary system for Iceland". ..."
economistsview.typepad.com

RGC said...

Hillary Clinton Is Whitewashing the Financial Catastrophe

She has a plan that she claims will reform Wall Street-but she's deflecting responsibility from old friends and donors in the industry.

By William Greider
Yesterday 3:11 pm

Hillary Clinton's recent op-ed in The New York Times, "How I'd Rein In Wall Street," was intended to reassure nervous Democrats who fear she is still in thrall to those mega-bankers of New York who crashed the American economy. Clinton's brisk recital of plausible reform ideas might convince wishful thinkers who are not familiar with the complexities of banking. But informed skeptics, myself included, see a disturbing message in her argument that ought to alarm innocent supporters.

Candidate Clinton is essentially whitewashing the financial catastrophe. She has produced a clumsy rewrite of what caused the 2008 collapse, one that conveniently leaves her husband out of the story. He was the president who legislated the predicate for Wall Street's meltdown. Hillary Clinton's redefinition of the reform problem deflects the blame from Wall Street's most powerful institutions, like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, and instead fingers less celebrated players that failed. In roundabout fashion, Hillary Clinton sounds like she is assuring old friends and donors in the financial sector that, if she becomes president, she will not come after them.

The seminal event that sowed financial disaster was the repeal of the New Deal's Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which had separated banking into different realms: investment banks, which organize capital investors for risk-taking ventures; and deposit-holding banks, which serve people as borrowers and lenders. That law's repeal, a great victory for Wall Street, was delivered by Bill Clinton in 1999, assisted by the Federal Reserve and the financial sector's armies of lobbyists. The "universal banking model" was saluted as a modernizing reform that liberated traditional banks to participate directly and indirectly in long-prohibited and vastly more profitable risk-taking.

Exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit-default swaps flourished, enabling old-line bankers to share in the fun and profit on an awesome scale. The banks invented "guarantees" against loss and sold them to both companies and market players. The fast-expanding financial sector claimed a larger and larger share of the economy (and still does) at the expense of the real economy of producers and consumers. The interconnectedness across market sectors created the illusion of safety. When illusions failed, these connected guarantees became the dragnet that drove panic in every direction. Ultimately, the federal government had to rescue everyone, foreign and domestic, to stop the bleeding.

Yet Hillary Clinton asserts in her Times op-ed that repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with it. She claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the reckless behavior of institutions like Lehman Brothers or insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks. Her argument amounts to facile evasion that ignores the interconnected exposures. The Federal Reserve spent $180 billion bailing out AIG so AIG could pay back Goldman Sachs and other banks. If the Fed hadn't acted and had allowed AIG to fail, the banks would have gone down too.

These sound like esoteric questions of bank regulation (and they are), but the consequences of pretending they do not matter are enormous. The federal government and Federal Reserve would remain on the hook for rescuing losers in a future crisis. The largest and most adventurous banks would remain free to experiment, inventing fictitious guarantees and selling them to eager suckers. If things go wrong, Uncle Sam cleans up the mess.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and other reformers are pushing a simpler remedy-restore the Glass-Steagall principles and give citizens a safe, government-insured place to store their money. "Banking should be boring," Warren explains (her co-sponsor is GOP Senator John McCain).
That's a hard sell in politics, given the banking sector's bear hug of Congress and the White House, its callous manipulation of both political parties. Of course, it is more complicated than that. But recreating a safe, stable banking system-a place where ordinary people can keep their money-ought to be the first benchmark for Democrats who claim to be reformers.

Actually, the most compelling witnesses for Senator Warren's argument are the two bankers who introduced this adventure in "universal banking" back in the 1990s. They used their political savvy and relentless muscle to seduce Bill Clinton and his so-called New Democrats. John Reed was CEO of Citicorp and led the charge. He has since apologized to the nation. Sandy Weill was chairman of the board and a brilliant financier who envisioned the possibilities of a single, all-purpose financial house, freed of government's narrow-minded regulations. They won politically, but at staggering cost to the country.

Weill confessed error back in 2012: "What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking. Have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's not going to be too big to fail."

John Reed's confession explained explicitly why their modernizing crusade failed for two fundamental business reasons. "One was the belief that combining all types of finance into one institution would drive costs down-and the larger institution the more efficient it would be," Reed wrote in the Financial Times in November. Reed said, "We now know that there are very few cost efficiencies that come from the merger of functions-indeed, there may be none at all. It is possible that combining so much in a single bank makes services more expensive than if they were instead offered by smaller, specialised players."

The second grave error, Reed said, was trying to mix the two conflicting cultures in banking-bankers who are pulling in opposite directions. That tension helps explain the competitive greed displayed by the modernized banking system. This disorder speaks to the current political crisis in ways that neither Dems nor Republicans wish to confront. It would require the politicians to critique the bankers (often their funders) in terms of human failure.

"Mixing incompatible cultures is a problem all by itself," Reed wrote. "It makes the entire finance industry more fragile…. As is now clear, traditional banking attracts one kind of talent, which is entirely different from the kinds drawn towards investment banking and trading. Traditional bankers tend to be extroverts, sociable people who are focused on longer term relationships. They are, in many important respects, risk averse. Investment bankers and their traders are more short termist. They are comfortable with, and many even seek out, risk and are more focused on immediate reward."

Reed concludes, "As I have reflected about the years since 1999, I think the lessons of Glass-Steagall and its repeal suggest that the universal banking model is inherently unstable and unworkable. No amount of restructuring, management change or regulation is ever likely to change that."

This might sound hopelessly naive, but the Democratic Party might do better in politics if it told more of the truth more often: what they tried do and why it failed, and what they think they may have gotten wrong. People already know they haven't gotten a straight story from politicians. They might be favorably impressed by a little more candor in the plain-spoken manner of John Reed.

Of course it's unfair to pick on the Dems. Republicans have been lying about their big stuff for so long and so relentlessly that their voters are now staging a wrathful rebellion. Who knows, maybe a little honest talk might lead to honest debate. Think about it. Do the people want to hear the truth about our national condition? Could they stand it?

http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-is-whitewashing-the-financial-catastrophe/

EMichael -> RGC...
"She claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the reckless behavior of institutions like Lehman Brothers or insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks."

Of course this claim is absolutely true. Just like GS would not have affected the other investment banks, whatever their name was. And just like we would have had to bail out those other banks whatever their name was.

Peter K. -> EMichael...
Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street "reforms" and actions Bill Clinton performed as President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of Greenspan's record?

Yes Hillary isn't Bill but she hasn't criticized her husband specifically about his record and seems to want to have her cake and eat it too.

Of course Hillary is much better than the Republicans, pace Rustbucket and the Green Lantern Lefty club. Still, critics have a point.

I won't be surprised if she doesn't do much to rein in Wall Street besides some window dressing.

sanjait -> Peter K....
"Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street "reforms" and actions Bill Clinton performed..."

That, right there, is what's wrong with Bernie and his fans. They measure everything by whether it is "pro- or anti- Wall Street". Glass Steagall is anti-Wall Street. A financial transactions tax is anti-Wall Street. But neither has any hope of controlling systemic financial risk in this country. None.

You guys want to punish Wall Street but not even bother trying to think of how to achieve useful policy goals. Some people, like Paine here, are actually open about this vacuity, as if the only thing that were important were winning a power struggle.

Hillary's plan is flat out better. It's more comprehensive and more effective at reining in the financial system to limit systemic risk. Period.

You guys want to make this a character melodrama rather than a policy debate, and I fear the result of that will be that the candidate who actually has the best plan won't get to enact it.

likbez -> sanjait...

"You guys want to make this a character melodrama rather than a policy debate, and I fear the result of that will be that the candidate who actually has the best plan won't get to enact it."

You are misrepresenting the positions. It's actually pro-neoliberalism crowd vs anti-neoliberalism crowd. In no way anti-neoliberalism commenters here view this is a character melodrama, although psychologically Hillary probably does has certain problems as her reaction to the death of Gadhafi attests. The key problem with anti-neoliberalism crowd is the question "What is a realistic alternative?" That's where differences and policy debate starts.

RGC -> EMichael...
"Her argument amounts to facile evasion"

Fred C. Dobbs -> RGC...

'The majority favors policies to the left of Hillary.'

Nah. I don't think so.

No, Liberals Don't Control the Democratic Party http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/no-liberals-dont-control-the-democratic-party/283653/
The Atlantic - Feb 7, 2014

... The Democrats' liberal faction has been greatly overestimated by pundits who mistake noisiness for clout or assume that the left functions like the right. In fact, liberals hold nowhere near the power in the Democratic Party that conservatives hold in the Republican Party. And while they may well be gaining, they're still far from being in charge. ...

Paine -> RGC...

What's not confronted ? Suggest what a System like the pre repeal system would have done in the 00's. My guess we'd have ended in a crisis anyway. Yes we can segregate the depository system. But credit is elastic enough to build bubbles without the depository system involved

EMichael -> Paine ...

Exactly.

Most people think of lending like the Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan still exists.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael...

Don't be such a whistle dick. Just because you cannot figure out why GLBA made such an impact that in no way means that people that do understand are stupid. See my posted comment to RGC on GLBA just down thread for an more detailed explanation including a linked web article. No, GS alone would not have prevented the mortgage bubble, but it would have lessened TBTF and GS stood as icon, a symbol of financial regulation. Hell, if we don't need GS then why don't we just allow unregulated derivatives trading? Who cares, right? Senators Byron Dorgan, Barbara Boxer, Barbara Mikulski, Richard Shelby, Tom Harkin, Richard Bryan, Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders all voted against GLBA to repeal GS for some strange reason and Dorgan made a really big deal out of it at the time. I doubt everyone on that list of Senators was just stupid because they did not see it your way.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael...
I ran all out of ceteris paribus quite some time ago. Events do not occur in isolation. GLBA increased TBTF in AIG and Citi. TBTF forced TARP. GLBA greased the skids for CFMA. Democrats gained majority, but not filibuster proof, caught between Iraq and a hard place following their votes for TARP and a broader understanding of their participation in the unanimous consent passage of the CFMA, over "objection" by Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN). We have had a Republican majority in the House since the 2010 election and now they have the Senate as well. If you are that sure that voters just choose divided government, then aren't we better off to have a Republican POTUS and Democratic Congress?

sanjait -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

"I ran all out of ceteris paribus quite some time ago. Events do not occur in isolation. GLBA increased TBTF in AIG and Citi. TBTF forced TARP. GLBA greased the skids for CFMA. "

I know you think this is a really meaningful string that evidences causation, but it just looks like you are reaching, reaching, reaching ...

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> sanjait...

Maybe. No way to say for sure. It certainly fits the kind of herd mentality that I always saw in corporate Amerika until I retired. The William Greider article posted by RGC was very consistent in its account by John Reed with the details of one or two books written about AIG back in 2009 or so. I don't have time to hunt them up now. Besides, no one would read them anyway.

I am voting for whoever wins the Democratic nomination for POTUS. Bernie without a like-minded Congress would not do much good. But when we shoot each other down here at EV without offering any agreement or consideration that we might not be 100% correct, then that goes against Doc Thoma's idea of an open forum. Granted, with my great big pair then I am willing to state my opinion with no consideration for validation or acceptance, but not everyone has that degree of a comfort zone. Besides, I am so old an cynical that shooting down the overdogs that go after the underdogs is one of the few things that I still care about.

RGC -> Paine ...

GS was one of several actions taken by the New Deal. That it wasn't sufficient by itself doesn't equate to it wasn't beneficial.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RGC...

[Lock and load.]

http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2015/05/13/glass-steagall-one-democratic-senator-who-got-it-right/

Glass-Steagall: Warren and Sanders bring it back into focus

Madonna Gauding / May 13, 2015

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are putting a new focus on the Glass-Steagall Act, which was, unfortunately, repealed in 1999 and led directly to the financial crises we have faced ever since. Here's a bit of history of this legislative debacle from an older post on Occasional Planet published several years ago :

On November 4, 1999, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) took to the floor of the senate to make an impassioned speech against the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, (alternately known as Gramm Leach Biley, or the "Financial Modernization Act") Repeal of Glass-Steagall would allow banks to merge with insurance companies and investments houses. He said "I want to sound a warning call today about this legislation, I think this legislation is just fundamentally terrible."

According to Sam Stein, writing in 2009 in the Huffington Post, only eight senators voted against the repeal. Senior staff in the Clinton administration and many now in the Obama administration praised the repeal as the "most important breakthrough in the world of finance and politics in decades"

According to Stein, Dorgan warned that banks would become "too big to fail" and claimed that Congress would "look back in a decade and say we should not have done this." The repeal of Glass Steagall, of course, was one of several bad policies that helped lead to the current economic crisis we are in now.

Dorgan wasn't entirely alone. Sens. Barbara Boxer, Barbara Mikulski, Richard Shelby, Tom Harkin, Richard Bryan, Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders also cast nay votes. The late Sen. Paul Wellstone opposed the bill, and warned at the time that Congress was "about to repeal the economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place."

Democratic Senators had sufficient knowledge about the dangers of the repeal of Glass Steagall, but chose to ignore it. Plenty of experts warned that it would be impossible to "discipline" banks once the legislation was passed, and that they would get too big and complex to regulate. Editorials against repeal appeared in the New York Times and other mainstream venues, suggesting that if the new megabanks were to falter, they could take down the entire global economy, which is exactly what happened. Stein quotes Ralph Nader who said at the time, "We will look back at this and wonder how the country was so asleep. It's just a nightmare."

According to Stein:

"The Senate voted to pass Gramm-Leach-Bliley by a vote of 90-8 and reversed what was, for more than six decades, a framework that had governed the functions and reach of the nation's largest banks. No longer limited by laws and regulations commercial and investment banks could now merge. Many had already begun the process, including, among others, J.P. Morgan and Citicorp. The new law allowed it to be permanent. The updated ground rules were low on oversight and heavy on risky ventures. Historically in the business of mortgages and credit cards, banks now would sell insurance and stock.

Nevertheless, the bill did not lack champions, many of whom declared that the original legislation - forged during the Great Depression - was both antiquated and cumbersome for the banking industry. Congress had tried 11 times to repeal Glass-Steagall. The twelfth was the charm.

"Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," said then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."

"I welcome this day as a day of success and triumph," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.).

"The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown," said Sen. Bob Kerrey, (D-Neb.).

"If we don't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "There are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive."

Unfortunately, the statement by Chuck Schumer sounds very much like it was prepared by a lobbyist. This vote underscores the way in which our elected officials are so heavily swayed by corporate and banking money that our voices and needs become irrelevant. It is why we need publicly funded elections. Democratic senators, the so-called representatives of the people, fell over themselves to please their Wall Street donors knowing full well there were dangers for the country at large, for ordinary Americans, in repealing Glass-Steagall.

It is important to hold Democratic senators (along with current members of the Obama administration) accountable for the significant role they have played in the current economic crisis that has caused so much suffering for ordinary Americans. In case you were wondering, the current Democratic Senators who voted yes to repeal the Glass-Steagall act are the following:

Daniel Akaka – Max Baucus – Evan Bayh – Jeff Bingaman – Kent Conrad – Chris Dodd – Dick Durbin – Dianne Feinstein – Daniel Inouye – Tim Johnson – John Kerry – Herb Kohl – Mary Landrieu – Frank Lautenberg – Patrick Leahy – Carl Levin – Joseph Lieberman – Blanche Lincoln – Patty Murray – Jack Reed – Harry Reid – Jay Rockefeller – Chuck Schumer – Ron Wyden

Former House members who voted for repeal who are current Senators.

Mark Udall [as of 2010] – Debbie Stabenow – Bob Menendez – Tom Udall -Sherrod Brown

No longer in the Senate, or passed away, but who voted for repeal:

Joe Biden -Ted Kennedy -Robert Byrd

These Democratic senators would like to forget or make excuses for their enthusiastic vote on the repeal of Glass Steagall, but it is important to hold them accountable for helping their bank donors realize obscene profits while their constituents lost jobs, savings and homes. And it is important to demand that they serve the interests of the American people.

*

[The repeal of Glass Steagal was a landmark victory in deregulation that greased the skids for the passage of CFMA once Democrats had been further demoralized by the SCOTUS decision on Bush-v-Gore. The first vote on GLBA was split along party lines, but passed because Republicans had majority and Clinton was willing to sign which was clear from the waiver that had been granted to illegal Citi merger with Travelers. Both Citi and AIG mergers contributed to too big to fail. The CFMA was the nail in the coffin that probably would have never gotten off the ground if Democrats had held the line on the GLBA. Glass-Steagal was insufficient as a regulatory system to prevent the 2008 mortgage crisis, but it was giant as an icon of New Deal financial system reform. Its loss institutionalized too big to fail.]

pgl -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

Gramm Leach Biley was a mistake. But it was not the only failure of US regulatory policies towards financial institutions nor the most important. I think that is what Hillary Clinton is saying.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> pgl...

It was more symbolic caving in on financial regulation than a specific technical failure except for making too big to fail worse at Citi and AIG. It marked a sea change of thinking about financial regulation. Nothing mattered any more, including the CFMA just a little over one year later. Deregulation of derivatives trading mandated by the CFMA was a colossal failure and it is not bizarre to believe that GLBA precipitated the consensus on financial deregulation enough that after the demoralizing defeat of Democrats in Bush-v-Gore then there was no New Deal spirit of financial regulation left. Social development is not just a series of unconnected events. It is carried on a tide of change. A falling tide grounds all boats.

pgl -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

We had a financial dereg craze back in the late 1970's and early 1980's which led to the S&L disaster. One would have thought we would have learned from that. But then came the dereg craziness 20 years later. And this disaster was much worse.

I don't care whether Hillary says 1999 was a mistake or not. I do care what the regulations of financial institutions will be like going forward.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> pgl...

I cannot disagree with any of that.

sanjait -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

"Deregulation of derivatives trading mandated by the CFMA was a colossal failure and it is not bizarre to believe that GLBA precipitated the consensus"

Yeah, it is kind of bizarre to blame one bill for a crisis that occurred largely because another bill was passed, based on some some vague assertion about how the first bill made everyone think crazy.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> sanjait...
Democrats did not vote for GLBA until after reconciliation between the House and Senate bills. Democrats were tossed a bone in the Community Reinvestment Act financing provisions and given that Bill Clinton was going to sign anyway and that Republicans were able to pass the bill without a single vote from Democrats then all but a few Democrats bought in. They could not stop it, so they just bought into it. I thought there was supposed to be an understanding of behaviorism devoted to understanding the political economy. For that matter Republicans did not need Democrats to vote for the CFMA either, but they did. That gave Republicans political cover for whatever went wrong later on. No one with a clue believed things would go well from the passage of either of these bills. It was pure Wall Street driven kleptocracy.
likbez -> sanjait...
It was not one bill or another. It was a government policy to get traders what they want.

See

Bruce E. Woych | August 6, 2013 at 5:45 pm |

http://www.imackgroup.com/mathematics/989981-the-untold-story-brooksley-born-larry-summers-the-truth-about-unlimited-risk-potential/

The Untold Story: Brooksley Born, Larry Summers & the Truth …
http://www.imackgroup.com/mathematics/989981-the-untold-story-brooksley-born-larry...
Oct 5, 2012 … Larry Summers is attempting to re-write history at the expense of … and they might just find one critical point revealed in Mr. Cohan's article.
[PERTINENT EXCERPT]: Oct 5, 2012

"As the western world wakes to the fact it is in the middle of a debt crisis spiral, intelligent voices are wondering how this manifested itself? As we speak, those close to the situation could be engaging in historical revisionism to obfuscate their role in the design of faulty leverage structures that were identified in the derivatives markets in 1998 and 2008. These same design flaws, first identified in 1998, are persistent today and could become graphically evident in the very near future under the weight of a European debt crisis.

Author and Bloomberg columnist William Cohan chronicles the fascinating start of this historic leverage implosion in his recent article Rethinking Robert Rubin. Readers may recall it was Mr. Cohan who, in 2004, noted leverage issues that ultimately imploded in 2007-08.

At some point, market watchers will realize the debt crisis story will literally change the world. They will look to the root cause of the problem, and they might just find one critical point revealed in Mr. Cohan's article.

This point occurs in 1998 when then Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ChairwomanBrooksley Born identified what now might be recognized as core design flaws in leverage structure used in Over the Counter (OTC) transactions. Ms. Born brought her concerns public, by first asking just to study the issue, as appropriate action was not being taken. She issued a concept release paper that simply asked for more information. "The Commission is not entering into this process with preconceived results in mind," the document reads.

Ms. Born later noted in, the PBS Frontline documentary on the topic speculation at the CFTC was the unregulated OTC derivatives were opaque, the risk to the global economy could not be determined and the risk was potentially catastrophic. As a result of this inquiry, Ms. Born was ultimately forced from office.

This brings us to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary of the United States and at the time right hand man to then Treasury Security Robert Rubin. Mr. Summers was widely credited with implementation of the aggressive tactics used to remove Ms. Born from her office, tactics that multiple sources describe as showing an old world bias against women piercing the glass ceiling.

According to numerous published reports, Mr. Summers was involved in. silencing those who questioned the opaque derivative product's design. "

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> Paine ...

TBTF on steroids, might as well CFMA - why not?

Bubbles with less TBTF and a lot less credit default swaps would have been a lot less messy going in. Without TARP, then Congress might have still had the guts for making a lesser New Deal.

EMichael -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

TARP was window dressing. The curtain that covered up the FED's actions.

pgl -> RGC...

Where have I heard about William Greider? Oh yea - this critique of something stupid he wrote about a Supreme Court decision:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/06/how-many-errors-can-william-greider-make-in-two-sentences-describing-lochner-v-new-york/

pgl -> RGC...

"Exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit-default swaps flourished, enabling old-line bankers to share in the fun and profit on an awesome scale."

These would have flourished even if Glass-Steagall remained on the books. Leave it to RGC to find some critic of HRC who knows nothing about financial markets.

RGC -> pgl...

Derivatives flourished because of the other deregulation under Clinton, the CFMA. The repeal of GS helped commercial banks participate.

RGC -> pgl...

The repeal of GS helped commercial banks participate.

Fred C. Dobbs -> pgl...

Warren Buffet used to rail about how risky derivative investing is, until he realized they are *extremely* important in the re-insurance biz, which is a
big part of Berkshire Hathaway.

Peter K. said...

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-and-cracking-down-on-wall-street

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Cracking Down on Wall Street
by Dean Baker

Published: 12 December 2015

The New Yorker ran a rather confused piece on Gary Sernovitz, a managing director at the investment firm Lime Rock Partners, on whether Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would be more effective in reining in Wall Street. The piece assures us that Secretary Clinton has a better understanding of Wall Street and that her plan would be more effective in cracking down on the industry. The piece is bizarre both because it essentially dismisses the concern with too big to fail banks and completely ignores Sanders' proposal for a financial transactions tax which is by far the most important mechanism for reining in the financial industry.

The piece assures us that too big to fail banks are no longer a problem, noting their drop in profitability from bubble peaks and telling readers:

"not only are Sanders's bogeybanks just one part of Wall Street but they are getting less powerful and less problematic by the year."

This argument is strange for a couple of reasons. First, the peak of the subprime bubble frenzy is hardly a good base of comparison. The real question is should we anticipate declining profits going forward. That hardly seems clear. For example, Citigroup recently reported surging profits, while Wells Fargo's third quarter profits were up 8 percent from 2014 levels.

If Sernovitz is predicting that the big banks are about to shrivel up to nothingness, the market does not agree with him. Citigroup has a market capitalization of $152 billion, JPMorgan has a market cap of $236 billion, and Bank of America has a market cap of $174 billion. Clearly investors agree with Sanders in thinking that these huge banks will have sizable profits for some time to come.

The real question on too big to fail is whether the government would sit by and let a Goldman Sachs or Citigroup go bankrupt. Perhaps some people think that it is now the case, but I've never met anyone in that group.

Sernovitz is also dismissive on Sanders call for bringing back the Glass-Steagall separation between commercial banking and investment banking. He makes the comparison to the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline, which is actually quite appropriate. The Keystone battle did take on exaggerated importance in the climate debate. There was never a zero/one proposition in which no tar sands oil would be pumped without the pipeline, while all of it would be pumped if the pipeline was constructed. Nonetheless, if the Obama administration was committed to restricting greenhouse gas emissions, it is difficult to see why it would support the building of a pipeline that would facilitate bringing some of the world's dirtiest oil to market.

In the same vein, Sernovitz is right that it is difficult to see how anything about the growth of the housing bubble and its subsequent collapse would have been very different if Glass-Steagall were still in place. And, it is possible in principle to regulate bank's risky practices without Glass-Steagall, as the Volcker rule is doing. However, enforcement tends to weaken over time under industry pressure, which is a reason why the clear lines of Glass-Steagall can be beneficial. Furthermore, as with Keystone, if we want to restrict banks' power, what is the advantage of letting them get bigger and more complex?

The repeal of Glass-Steagall was sold in large part by boasting of the potential synergies from combining investment and commercial banking under one roof. But if the operations are kept completely separate, as is supposed to be the case, where are the synergies?

But the strangest part of Sernovitz's story is that he leaves out Sanders' financial transactions tax (FTT) altogether. This is bizarre, because the FTT is essentially a hatchet blow to the waste and exorbitant salaries in the industry.

Most research shows that trading volume is very responsive to the cost of trading, with most estimates putting the elasticity close to one. This means that if trading costs rise by 50 percent, then trading volume declines by 50 percent. (In its recent analysis of FTTs, the Tax Policy Center assumed that the elasticity was 1.5, meaning that trading volume decline by 150 percent of the increase in trading costs.) The implication of this finding is that the financial industry would pay the full cost of a financial transactions tax in the form of reduced trading revenue.

The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 0.1 percent tax on stock trades, scaled with lower taxes on other assets, would raise $50 billion a year in tax revenue. The implied reduction in trading revenue was even larger. Senator Sanders has proposed a tax of 0.5 percent on equities (also with a scaled tax on other assets). This would lead to an even larger reduction in revenue for the financial industry.

It is incredible that Sernovitz would ignore a policy with such enormous consequences for the financial sector in his assessment of which candidate would be tougher on Wall Street. Sanders FTT would almost certainly do more to change behavior on Wall Street then everything that Clinton has proposed taken together by a rather large margin. It's sort of like evaluating the New England Patriots' Super Bowl prospects without discussing their quarterback.

Syaloch -> Peter K....

Great to see Baker's acknowledgement that an updated Glass-Steagall is just one component of the progressive wing's plan to rein in Wall Street, not the sum total of it. Besides, if Wall Street types don't think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much.

Peter K. -> Syaloch...

Yes that's a good way to look it. Wall Street gave the Democrats and Clinton a lot of campaign cash so that they would dismantle Glass-Steagall. If they want it done, it's probably not a good idea.

EMichael -> Syaloch...

Slippery slope. Ya' gotta find me a business of any type that does not protest any kind of regulation on their business.

Syaloch -> EMichael...

Yeah, but usually because of all the bad things they say will happen because of the regulation. The question is, what do they think of Clinton's plan? I've heard surprisingly little about that, and what I have heard is along these lines: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street-plan/

"Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street's excesses on Thursday. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief."

pgl -> Syaloch...

Two excellent points!!!

sanjait -> Syaloch...

"Besides, if Wall Street types don't think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much."

It has an effect of shrinking the size of a few firms, and that has a detrimental effect on the top managers of those firms, who get paid more money if they have larger firms to manage. But it has little to no meaningful effect on systemic risk.

So if your main policy goal is to shrink the compensation for a small number of powerful Wall Street managers, G-S is great. But if you actually want to accomplish something useful to the American people, like limiting systemic risk in the financial sector, then a plan like Hillary's is much much better. She explained this fairly well in her recent NYT piece.

Paine -> Peter K....

There is absolutely NO question Bernie is for real. Wall Street does not want Bernie. So they'll let Hillary talk as big as she needs to . Why should we believe her when an honest guy like Barry caved once in power

Paine -> Paine ...

Bernie has been anti Wall Street his whole career . He's on a crusade. Hillary is pulling a sham bola

Paine -> Paine ...

Perhaps too often we look at Wall Street as monolithic whether consciously or not. Obviously we know it's no monolithic: there are serious differences

When the street is riding high especially. Right now the street is probably not united but too cautious to display profound differences in public. They're sitting on their hands waiting to see how high the anti Wall Street tide runs this election cycle. Trump gives them cover and I really fear secretly Hillary gives them comfort

This all coiled change if Bernie surges. How that happens depends crucially on New Hampshire. Not Iowa

EMichael -> Paine ...

If Bernie surges and wins the nomination, we will all get to watch the death of the Progressive movement for a decade or two. Congress will become more GOP dominated, and we will have a President in office who will make Hoover look like a Socialist.

Syaloch -> EMichael...

Of course. In politics, as they say in the service, one must always choose the lesser of two evils. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4PzpxOj5Cc

pgl -> EMichael...

You should like the moderate Democrats after George McGovern ran in 1972. I'm hoping we have another 1964 with Bernie leading a united Democratic Congress.

EMichael -> pgl...

Not a chance in the world. And I like Sanders much more than anyone else. It just simply cannot, and will not, happen. He is a communist. Not to me, not to you, but to the vast majority of American voters.

pgl -> EMichael...

He is not a communist. But I agree - Hillary is winning the Democratic nomination. I have only one vote and in New York, I'm badly outnumbered.

ilsm -> Paine ...

I believe Hillary will be to liberal causes after she is elected as LBJ was to peace in Vietnam. Like Bill and Obomber.

pgl -> ilsm...

By 1968, LBJ finally realized it was time to end that stupid war. But it seems certain members in the State Department undermined his efforts in a cynical ploy to get Nixon to be President. The Republican Party has had more slime than substance of most of my life time.

pgl -> Peter K....

Gary Sernovitz, a managing director at the investment firm Lime Rock Partners? Why are we listening to this guy too. It's like letting the fox guard the hen house.

sanjait -> Peter K....

"The piece is bizarre both because it essentially dismisses the concern with too big to fail banks and completely ignores Sanders' proposal for a financial transactions tax which is by far the most important mechanism for reining in the financial industry."

This is just wrong. Is financial system risk in any way correlated with the frequency of transactions? Except for market volatility from HFT ... no. The financial crisis wasn't caused by a high volume of trades. It was caused by bad investments into highly illiquid assets. Again, great example of wanting to punish Wall Street but not bothering to think about what actually works.

Peter K. said...

Robert Reich to the Fed: this is not the time to raise rates.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1116088268403768

RGC said...

Iceland's Radical Money Plan

Iceland, too, is looking at a radical transformation of its money system, after suffering the crushing boom/bust cycle of the private banking model that bankrupted its largest banks in 2008. According to a March 2015 article in the UK Telegraph:

Iceland's government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled "A better monetary system for Iceland".

"The findings will be an important contribution to the upcoming discussion, here and elsewhere, on money creation and monetary policy," Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson said. The report, commissioned by the premier, is aimed at putting an end to a monetary system in place through a slew of financial crises, including the latest one in 2008.

Under this "Sovereign Money" proposal, the country's central bank would become the only creator of money. Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments and would serve as intermediaries between savers and lenders. The proposal is a variant of the Chicago Plan promoted by Kumhof and Benes of the IMF and the Positive Money group in the UK.

Public Banking Initiatives in Iceland, Ireland and the UK

A major concern with stripping private banks of the power to create money as deposits when they make loans is that it will seriously reduce the availability of credit in an already sluggish economy. One solution is to make the banks, or some of them, public institutions. They would still be creating money when they made loans, but it would be as agents of the government; and the profits would be available for public use, on the model of the US Bank of North Dakota and the German Sparkassen (public savings banks).

In Ireland, three political parties – Sinn Fein, the Green Party and Renua Ireland (a new party) - are now supporting initiatives for a network of local publicly-owned banks on the Sparkassen model. In the UK, the New Economy Foundation (NEF) is proposing that the failed Royal Bank of Scotland be transformed into a network of public interest banks on that model. And in Iceland, public banking is part of the platform of a new political party called the Dawn Party.

December 11, 2015
Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador

by Ellen Brown

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/11/reinventing-banking-from-russia-to-iceland-to-ecuador/

pgl -> RGC...

"Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments and would serve as intermediaries between savers and lenders."

OK but that means they issue bank accounts which of course we call deposits. So is this just semantics? People want checking accounts. People want savings accounts. Otherwise they would not exist. Iceland plans to do what to stop the private sector from getting what it wants?

I like the idea of public banks. Let's nationalize JPMorganChase so we don't have to listen to Jamie Dimon anymore!

sanjait -> pgl...

I don't know for sure (not bothering to search and read the referenced proposals), but I assumed the described proposal was for an end to fractional reserve banking. Banks would have to have full reserves to make loans. Or something. I could be wrong about that.

Syaloch said...

Sorry, but Your Favorite Company Can't Be Your Friend

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/upshot/sorry-but-your-favorite-company-cant-be-your-friend.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

To think that an artificial person, whether corporeal or corporate, can ever be your friend requires a remarkable level of self-delusion.

A commenter on the Times site aptly quotes Marx in response:

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

[Dec 12, 2015] Guyenot Who are the Neocons

Notable quotes:
"... The American Neocons are Zionists (Their goal is expanding political / military power. Initially this is focused on the state of Israel.) ..."
"... Obviously , if Zionism is synonymous with patriotism in Israel, it cannot be an acceptable label in American politics, where it would mean loyalty to a foreign power. This is why the neoconservatives do not represent themselves as Zionists on the American scene. Yet they do not hide it all together either. ..."
"... He points out dual-citizen (Israel / USA) members and self proclaimed Zionists throughout cabinet level positions in the US government, international banking and controlling the US military. In private writings and occasionally in public, Neocons admit that America's war policies are actually Israel's war goals. (Examples provided.) ..."
"... American Jewish Committee ..."
"... Contemporary Jewish Record ..."
"... If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find horrifying . And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants' grandchildren ..."
"... Goyenot traces the Neocon's origins through its influential writers and thinkers. Highest on the list is Leo Strauss. (Neocons are sometimes called "the Straussians.") Leo Strauss is a great admirer of Machiavelli with his utter contempt for restraining moral principles making him "uniquely effective," and, "the ideal patriot." He gushes over Machiavelli praising the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech. ..."
"... believes that Truth is harmful to the common man and the social order and should be reserved for superior minds. ..."
"... nations derive their strength from their myths , which are necessary for government and governance. ..."
"... national myths have no necessary relationship with historical reality: they are socio-cultural constructions that the State has a duty to disseminate . ..."
"... to be effective, any national myth must be based on a clear distinction between good and evil ; it derives its cohesive strength from the hatred of an enemy nation. ..."
"... deception is the norm in political life ..."
"... Office of Special Plans ..."
"... The Zionist/Neocons are piggy-backing onto, or utilizing, the religious myths of both the Jewish and Christian world to consolidate power. This is brilliant Machiavellian strategy. ..."
"... the "chosen people" myth (God likes us best, we are better than you) ..."
"... the Holy Land myth (one area of real estate is more holy than another) ..."
"... General Wesley Clark testified on numerous occasions before the cameras, that one month after September 11th, 2001 a general from the Pentagon showed him a memo from neoconservative strategists "that describes how we're gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran". ..."
"... Among them are brilliant strategists ..."
"... They operate unrestrained by the most basic moral principles upon which civilization is founded. They are undisturbed by compassion for the suffering of others. ..."
"... They use consciously and skillfully use deception and "myth-making" to shape policy ..."
"... They have infiltrated the highest levels of banking, US military, NATO and US government. ..."
Peak Prosperity

Mememonkey pointed my to a 2013 essay by Laurent Guyenot, a French historian and writer on the deep state, that addresses the question of "Who Are The Neoconservatives." If you would like to know about that group that sends the US military into battle and tortures prisoners of war in out name, you need to know about these guys.

First, if you are Jewish, or are a GREEN Meme, please stop and take a deep breath. Please put on your thinking cap and don't react. We are NOT disrespecting a religion, spiritual practice or a culture. We are talking about a radical and very destructive group hidden within a culture and using that culture. Christianity has similar groups and movements--the Crusades, the KKK, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, etc.

My personal investment: This question has been a subject of intense interest for me since I became convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, that the Iraq war was waged for reasons entirely different from those publically stated. I have been horrified to see such a shadowy, powerful group operating from a profoundly "pre-moral" developmental level-i.e., not based in even the most rudimentary principles of morality foundational to civilization.

Who the hell are these people?!

Goyenot's main points (with a touch of personal editorializing):

1. The American Neocons are Zionists (Their goal is expanding political / military power. Initially this is focused on the state of Israel.)

Neoconservativism is essentially a modern right wing Jewish version of Machiavelli's political strategy. What characterizes the neoconservative movement is therefore not as much Judaism as a religious tradition, but rather Judiasm as a political project, i.e. Zionism, by Machiavellian means.

This is not a religious movement though it may use religions words and vocabulary. It is a political and military movement. They are not concerned with being close to God. This is a movement to expand political and military power. Some are Christian and Mormon, culturally.

Obviously , if Zionism is synonymous with patriotism in Israel, it cannot be an acceptable label in American politics, where it would mean loyalty to a foreign power. This is why the neoconservatives do not represent themselves as Zionists on the American scene. Yet they do not hide it all together either.

He points out dual-citizen (Israel / USA) members and self proclaimed Zionists throughout cabinet level positions in the US government, international banking and controlling the US military. In private writings and occasionally in public, Neocons admit that America's war policies are actually Israel's war goals. (Examples provided.)

2. Most American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal and do NOT share the perspective of the radical Zionists.

The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right, is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary, a media arm of the American Jewish Committee, which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward, the oldest American Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: "If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find horrifying. And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants' grandchildren".

3. Intellectual Basis and Moral developmental level

Goyenot traces the Neocon's origins through its influential writers and thinkers. Highest on the list is Leo Strauss. (Neocons are sometimes called "the Straussians.") Leo Strauss is a great admirer of Machiavelli with his utter contempt for restraining moral principles making him "uniquely effective," and, "the ideal patriot." He gushes over Machiavelli praising the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.

Other major points:

4. The Zionist/Neocons are piggy-backing onto, or utilizing, the religious myths of both the Jewish and Christian world to consolidate power. This is brilliant Machiavellian strategy.

[The]Pax Judaica will come only when "all the nations shall flow" to the Jerusalem temple, from where "shall go forth the law" (Isaiah 2:1-3). This vision of a new world order with Jerusalem at its center resonates within the Likudnik and neoconservative circles. At the Jerusalem Summit, held from October 12th to 14th, 2003 in the symbolically significant King David Hotel, an alliance was forged between Zionist Jews and Evangelical Christians around a "theopolitical" project, one that would consider Israel… "the key to the harmony of civilizations", replacing the United Nations that's become a "a tribalized confederation hijacked by Third World dictatorships": "Jerusalem's spiritual and historical importance endows it with a special authority to become a center of world's unity. [...] We believe that one of the objectives of Israel's divinely-inspired rebirth is to make it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets". Three acting Israeli ministers spoke at the summit, including Benjamin Netanyahu, and Richard Perle.

Jerusalem's dream empire is expected to come through the nightmare of world war. The prophet Zechariah, often cited on Zionist forums, predicted that the Lord will fight "all nations" allied against Israel. In a single day, the whole earth will become a desert, with the exception of Jerusalem, who "shall remain aloft upon its site" (14:10).

With more than 50 millions members, Christians United for Israel is a major political force in the U.S.. Its Chairman, pastor John Haggee, declared: "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West, [...] a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ".

And Guyenot concludes:

Is it possible that this biblical dream, mixed with the neo-Machiavellianism of Leo Strauss and the militarism of Likud, is what is quietly animating an exceptionally determined and organized ultra-Zionist clan? General Wesley Clark testified on numerous occasions before the cameras, that one month after September 11th, 2001 a general from the Pentagon showed him a memo from neoconservative strategists "that describes how we're gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran".

Is it just a coincidence that the "seven nations" doomed to be destroyed by Israel form part of the biblical myths? …[W]hen Yahweh will deliver Israel "seven nations greater and mightier than yourself […] you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them."

My summary:

[Dec 12, 2015] Visualizing The Worlds Hot Money

Notable quotes:
"... Goldman Sachs buzz-acronym BRICS are five of the largest exporters of hot money . It amuses me to no end how so many buy the idea that the BRICS are gonna take over the world... ..."
"... Better definitions would have black money correspond to any government/public spending, declared capital and proceeds from violent crime (i.e. money that is acquired through or enables violence) and honest money to all the undeclared savings, underground economy/trade proceeds and non-institutional drug money. ..."
"... the most of China money leaves through HK do you think HK is a dump ? ..."
"... Over the years I have written several brief explanations of how offshore havens work. The one at the link below covers the basic-basics reasonably well. http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2013/01/offshore-tax-havens-what-they-do.html ..."
"... once again, we see banksters and corrupt corporate sector players colluding with corrupt individuals and assorted criminals - many inside .gov itself - to move ill-gotten gains to safer places out of reach of law enforcement in their own countries. ..."
"... Banksters facilitate virtually every financial crime. ..."
Zero Hedge

Every year, roughly $1 trillion flows illegally out of developing and emerging economies due to crime, corruption, and tax evasion. This amount is more than these countries receive in foreign direct investment and foreign aid combined.

This week, a new report was released that highlights the latest data available on this "hot" money. Assembled by Global Financial Integrity, a research and advisory organization based in Washington, DC, the report details illicit financial flows of money from developing countries using the latest information available, which is up until the end of 2013.

Chart The World's Hot Money

The cumulative amount of this "hot money" coming out of developing countries totaled just over $7.8 trillion between 2004 and 2013. On an annual basis, it breached the $1 trillion mark each of the last three years of data available, which is good for a growth rate of 6.5% rate annually.

In Asia, illicit financial outflows are growing even quicker at an 8.6% clip. It's also on the continent that five of the ten largest source economies for these flows can be found, including the largest offender, which is Mainland China.

How does this "hot" money leave these countries? Global Financial Integrity has calculated that 83% of illicit financial flows are due to what it calls "trade misinvoicing".

It's defined as the following:

The misinvoicing of trade is accomplished by misstating the value or volume of an export or import on a customs invoice. Trade misinvoicing is a form of trade-based money laundering made possible by the fact that trading partners write their own trade documents, or arrange to have the documents prepared in a third country (typically a tax haven), a method known as re-invoicing. Fraudulent manipulation of the price, quantity, or quality of a good or service on an invoice allows criminals, corrupt government officials, and commercial tax evaders to shift vast amounts of money across international borders quickly, easily, and nearly always undetected.

Trade misinvoicing accounted for an average of $654.7 billion per year of lost trade in developing markets over the data set covered by the report.

Source: Visual Capitalist

38BWD22

Goldman Sachs buzz-acronym "BRICS" are five of the largest exporters of "hot money". It amuses me to no end how so many buy the idea that the BRICS are gonna take over the world...

markmotive

6 signals for an impending bear market:

http://www.planbeconomics.com/2015/12/6-signals-for-impending-bear-marke...

jefferson32

What the fuck is "illicit" money? Savings that weren't looted away?

Better definitions would have "black" money correspond to any government/public spending, declared capital and proceeds from violent crime (i.e. money that is acquired through or enables violence) and honest money to all the undeclared savings, underground economy/trade proceeds and non-institutional drug money.

avenriv

the most of China money leaves through HK do you think HK is a dump ?

did you ever leave your small town ?

38BWD22

I found Hong Kong rather nice some 20 years ago, Beijing not so much.

We just came back from India.

So, yes, I have been to four of those BRICS, and am not impressed. Sorry.

Feel free to tell me more though. Especially about your travels. ;)

BarnacleBill

As a (retired) tax-haven professional in three countries, and a former Manager of the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce, I must caution against the term "mis-invoicing" - with or without the hyphen...More properly, it's re-invoicing, and no more illicit than the procedure by which any trader buys goods at one price and sells them at another.

When a corporate buyer is owned by the same people as own the seller, their transaction may raise an eyebrow or two, but usually it would be permitted by the published taxation laws of all the relevant companies, as those laws are interpreted by both private-sector lawyers and the tax authorities. With transactions of that kind, it is beneficial for the owners if the tax-rates are different in the two jurisdictions. Well, of course; but that situation is always - always - allowed by the laws of those jurisdictions, whether they are developed or developing.

Over the years I have written several brief explanations of how "offshore" havens work. The one at the link below covers the basic-basics reasonably well. http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2013/01/offshore-tax-havens-what-they-do.html

Duc888

"Every year, roughly $1 trillion flows illegally out of developing and emerging economies due to crime, corruption, and tax evasion"

Yea, that would be banksterz, CIA and their drug running, NGO's and their child trafficking....... etc... Might want to throw a few more zero's in there too.

Bob who runs the deli down the street and pockets $500 "illicit" dollars a week is not your worry or concern you stupid fuckkkerz.


zeroboris

The Russian central bank every year publishes a report of how many billions of dollars have stolen from our economy, and... does nothing, nothing at all to stop this.

smacker

There are good arguments to say that what people do with their own money is nothing to do with .gov.

But once again, we see banksters and corrupt corporate sector players colluding with corrupt individuals and assorted criminals - many inside .gov itself - to move ill-gotten gains to safer places out of reach of law enforcement in their own countries.

Banksters facilitate virtually every financial crime.

[Dec 11, 2015] Why Its Tricky for Fed Officials to Talk Politically

"There is no reason for central banks to have the kind of independence that judicial institutions have. Justice may be blind and above politics, but money and banking are not." Economic and politics are like Siamese twins (which actually . If somebody trying to separate them it is a clear sign that the guy is either neoliberal propagandists or outright crook.
Notable quotes:
"... I think FED chairman is the second most powerful political position in the USA after the POTUS. Or may be in some respects it is even the first ;-) So it is quintessentially high-power political position masked with the smokescreen of purely economic (like many other things are camouflaged under neoliberalism.) ..."
"... I think that is a hidden principle behind attacks on FED chair. A neoliberal principle that the state should not intrude into economics and limit itself to the police, security, defense, law enforcement and few other related to this functions. So their point that she overextended her mandate is an objection based on principle. Which can be violated only if it is used to uphold neoliberalism, as Greenspan did during his career many times. ..."
"... This kind of debate seems to be a by-product of the contemporary obsession with having an independent central bank, run according to the fantasy that there is such a thing as a neutral or apolitical way to conduct monetary policy. ..."
"... A number of commenters and authors have recently pointed out that inequality may not just be an unrelated phenomenon to monetary policy, but actually, in part at least, a byproduct of it. ..."
"... The theory is that the Fed in the Great Moderation age has been so keen to stave off even the possibility of inflation that it chokes down the vigor of recoveries before they get to the part where median wages start rising quickly. The result is that wages get ratcheted down with the economic cycle, falling during recessions and never fully recovering during the recoveries. ..."
"... Two Things: (i) The Fed should be open and honest about monetary policy. No one wants to return to the Greenspan days. (ii) Brad Delong is a neoliberal hack. ..."
"... As to why risk a political backlash in the piece, the short answer is: to invoke the debate on whether politics or fact (science) is going to dominate. Because they can't both. See: Romer. Let's have this out once and for all. ..."
Dec 11, 2015 | Economist's View
anne said...
Fine column, with which I agree. Federal Reserve policy as such is difficult and contentious enough to avoid wandering to social-economic analysis or philosophy from aspects of the Fed mandate.

As for the use of the word "hack" in referring to Janet Yellen, that needlessly insulting use was by a Washington Post editor and not by columnist Michael Strain.

anne -> RW (the other)...

As Brad notes, many Fed Chairs before Yellen have opined on matters outside monetary policy so why is Yellen subject to a different standard?

[ Fine, I have reconsidered and agree. No matter how the headline was written, the headline was meant to be intimidating and was willfully mean and that could and should have been made clear immediately by the writer of the column. ]

likbez -> anne...

"Federal Reserve policy as such is difficult and contentious enough to avoid wandering to social-economic analysis or philosophy from aspects of the Fed mandate."

Anne,

I think FED chairman is the second most powerful political position in the USA after the POTUS. Or may be in some respects it is even the first ;-) So it is quintessentially high-power political position masked with the smokescreen of "purely economic" (like many other things are camouflaged under neoliberalism.)

That's why Greenspan got it, while being despised by his Wall-Street colleagues...

He got it because he was perfect for promoting deregulation political agenda from the position of FED chair.

pgl -> likbez...

Greenspan was despised on Wall Street? Wow as he tried so hard to serve their interests. I guess the Wall Street crowd is never happy no matter how much income we feed these blow hards.

anne -> likbez...

So it is quintessentially high-power political position masked with the smokescreen of "purely economic" (like many other things are camouflaged under neoliberalism.)

[ I understand, and am convinced. ]

Peter K. said...

I respectfully disagree. Republicans are always working the refs and despite what the writer from AEI said, they're okay with conservative Fed chairs talking politics. They have double standards.

Greenspan testified to Congress on behalf of Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Something about how since Clinton balanced the budget, the financial markets had too little safe debt to work with. (maybe that's why they dove into mortgaged-backed securities). But tax cuts versus more government spending? He and Rubin advised Clinton to drop his middle class spending bill and trade deficit reduction for lower interest rates. That's economics which have political outcomes.

So if the rightwing is going to work the the refs, so should the left. We shouldn't unilaterally disarm over fears Congress will gun for the Fed. There should be more groups like Fed Up protesting.

The good thing about Yellen's speech is that it's a signal to progressives that inequality is problem for her even as she is raising rates in a political dance with hawks and Congress.

The Fed is constantly accused of increasing inequality so it's good Yellen is saying she thinks it's a bad thing and not American.

Bernie Sanders is right that for change to happen we'll need more political involvement from regular citizens. We'll need a popular movement with many leaders.

The Fed should be square in the sights of a progressive movement. A high-pressured economy with full employment should be a top priority.

Instead I saw Nancy Pelosi being interviewed by Al Hunt on Charlie Rose the other night. Hunt asked her about Yellen raising rates.

Pelosi said no comment as she wasn't looking at the data Yellen was and didn't want to interfere. The Fed should be independent, etc. Perhaps like Thoma she has the best of motives and doesn't want to motivate the Republicans to go after the Fed and oppose what she wants.

Still I felt the Democratic leadership should be committed to a high-pressure economy. Her staff should know what Krugman, Summers etc are saying. What the IMF and World Bank are sayings.

She should have said "they shouldn't raise rates until they see the whites of inflation's eyes" as Krugman memorably put it. She should have said that emphatically.

We need a Democratic Party like that.

Instead Peter Diamond is blocked from becoming a Fed governor by Republicans and Pelosi is afraid to comment on monetary policy.

Peter K. -> Peter K....

A longer reply from DeLong:

http://www.bradford-delong.com/2015/12/must-read-i-would-beg-the-highly-esteemed-mark-thoma-to-draw-a-distinction-here-between-inappropriate-and-unwise-in-m.html

Must-Read: I would beg the highly-esteemed Mark Thoma to draw a distinction here between "inappropriate" and unwise. In my view, it is not at all inappropriate for Fed Chair Janet Yellen to express her concern about excessive inequality. Previous Fed Chairs, after all, have expressed their liking for inequality as an essential engine of economic growth over and over again over the past half century--with exactly zero critical snarking from the American Enterprise Institute for trespassing beyond the boundaries of their role.

But that it is not inappropriate for Janet Yellen to do so does not mean that it is wise. Mark's argument is, I think, that given the current political situation it is unwise for Janet to further incite the ire of the nutboys in the way that even the mildest expression of concern about rising inequality will do.

That may or may not be true. I think it is not.

But I do not think that bears on my point that Michael R. Strain's arguments that Janet Yellen's speech on inequality was inappropriate are void, wrong, erroneous, inattentive to precedent, shoddy, expired, expired, gone to meet their maker, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing up the daisies, kicked the bucket, shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleeding choir invisible:

Mark Thoma: Why It's Tricky for Fed Officials to Talk Politically: "I think I disagree with Brad DeLong...

pgl -> Peter K....

"my point that Michael R. Strain's arguments that Janet Yellen's speech on inequality was inappropriate are void, wrong, erroneous..."

DeLong is exactly right here. Strain's argument has its own share of partisan lies whereas Yellen is telling the truth. Brad will not be intimidated by this AEI weasel.

sanjait said...

Why would Yellen not talk about inequality? It's an important macroeconomic topic and one that is relevant for her job. It's both an input and an output variable that is related to monetary policy.

And, arguably I think, median wage growth should be regarded as a policy goal for the Fed, related to its explicit mandate of "maximum employment."

But even if you think inequality is unrelated to the Fed's policy goals, that doesn't stop them from talking about other topics. Do people accuse the Fed of playing politics when they talk about desiring reduced financial market volatility? That has little to do with growth, employment and general price stability.

likbez -> sanjait...

I think that is a hidden principle behind attacks on FED chair. A neoliberal principle that the state should not intrude into economics and limit itself to the police, security, defense, law enforcement and few other related to this functions. So their point that she overextended her mandate is an objection based on principle. Which can be violated only if it is used to uphold neoliberalism, as Greenspan did during his career many times.

Sandwichman said...

I think I disagree with Mark Thoma's disagreement with Brad DeLong. Actually, ALL economic discourse is political and efforts to restrain the politics are inevitably efforts to keep the politics one-sided

Dan Kervick said...

This kind of debate seems to be a by-product of the contemporary obsession with having an "independent" central bank, run according to the fantasy that there is such a thing as a neutral or apolitical way to conduct monetary policy.

But there really isn't. Different kinds of social, economic and political values and policy agendas are going to call for different kinds monetary and credit policies. It might be better for our political health if the Fed were administratively re-located as an executive branch agency that is in turn part of a broader Department of Money and Banking - no different from the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, Education, etc. In that case everybody would then view Fed governors as ordinary executive branch appointees who report to the President, and whose policies are naturally an extension of the administration's broader agenda. Then if people don't like the monetary policies that are carried out, that would be one factor in their decision about whom to vote for.

There is no reason for central banks to have the kind of independence that judicial institutions have. Justice may be blind and above politics, but money and banking are not. Decisions in that latter area should be no more politics-free than decisions about taxing and spending. If we fold the central bank more completely into the regular processes of representative government, then if a candidate wants to run on a platform of keeping interest rates low, small business credit easy, bank profits small, etc., they could do so without all of the doubletalk about the protecting the independence of the sacrosanct bankers' temple.

We could also then avoid unproductive wheel-spinning about that impossibly vague and hedged Fed mandate that can be stretched to mean almost anything people want it to mean. The Fed's mandate under the political solution would just be whatever monetary policy the President ran on.

likbez -> Dan Kervick...

"The Fed's mandate under the political solution would just be whatever monetary policy the President ran on"

Perfect !

Actually sanjait in his post made a good point why this illusive goal is desirable (providing "electoral advantage") although Greenspan probably violated this rule. A couple of hikes of interest rates from now till election probably will doom Democrats.

Also the idea of FEB independence went into overdrive since 80th not accidentally. It has its value in enhancing the level of deregulation.

Among other things it helps to protect large financial institutions from outright nationalization in cases like 2008.

Does somebody in this forum really think that Bernanke has an option of putting a couple of Wall-Street most violent and destructive behemoths into receivership (in other words nationalize them) in 2008 without Congress approval ?

Dan Kervick -> Sanjait ...

Sanjait, with due respect, you are not really responding to the reform proposal, but only affirming the differences between that proposal and the current system.

Yes, of course fiscal policy is "constrained" by Congress. Indeed, it is not just constrained by Congress but actually made by Congress, subject only to an overridable executive branch veto. The executive branch is responsible primarily for carrying out the legislature's fiscal directives. That's the point. In a democratic system decisions about all forms of taxation and government spending are supposed to be made by the elected legislative branch, and then executed by agencies of the executive branch. My proposal is that monetary policy should be handled in the same way: by the elected political branches of the government.

You point out that under current arrangements, central banks can, if they choose, effect large monetary offsets to fiscal policy (or at least to some of the aggregate macroeconomic effects of those policies). I don't understand why any non-elected and politically unaccountable branch of our government should have the power to offset the policies of the elected branches in this way. Fiscal and monetary policy need to be yoked together to achieve policy ends effectively. Those policy ends should be the ones people vote for, not the ones a handful of men and women happen to think are appropriate.

JF -> Dan Kervick...

"In a democratic system" is what you wrote.

It is more proper to refer to it as republicanism. The separation of powers doctrine, underlying the US constitution, is a reflection of James Madison's characterization in the 51st The Federalist Paper, and it is a US-defined republicanism that is almost unique:

"the republican form, wherein the legislative authority necessarily predominates."

- or something like that is the quote.

In the US framers' view, at least those who constructed the re-write in 1787 and were the leaders - I'd say the most important word in Madison's explanation is the word "necessarily" - this philosophy has all law and policy stemming from the public, it presumes that you can't have stability and dynamic change of benefit to society without this.

Arguably, aristocracies, fascists, totalitarians, and all the other isms, just don't see it that way, they see things as top-down ordering of society.

The mythology of the monetary theorizing and the notions about a central bank being independently delphic has some of this top-down ordering view to it (austerianism, comes to mind). Well, I don't believe in a religious sense that this is how it should be, nor do you it seems.

It will be an interesting Congress in 2017 when new legislative authorities are enacted to establish clearer framing of the ministerial duties now held by the FRB.

Are FED officials scared that this will happen, and as a result they circle the wagons with their associates in the financial community now to fend off the public????

I hope this is not true. They can allay their own fears by leading not back toward 1907, in my opinion.

Of course, I could say where I'd like economic policies to go, and do here often, but this thread is about Yellin and other FED officials.

I recognize that FRB officials can say things too, and should, as leaders of this nation (with a whole lot of research power and evidence available to them their commentary on political economics should have merit and be influential).

Thanks for continuing to remind people that we govern ourselves in the US in a US-defined republican-form. But I think the people still respect and listen to leadership - so speak out FED officials.

JF -> Dan Kervick...

But Dan K, then you'd de-mythologize an entire wing of macroeconomics in a wing referred to as monetary theory based on a separate Central Bank, or some non-political theory of money.

Don't mind the theory as it is an analytic framework that questions and sometimes informs - but it is good to step back and realize some of the religious-like framing.

It is political-economy.

Peter K. -> pgl...

Yellen really lays it out in her speech.

"The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me. The past several decades have seen the most sustained rise in inequality since the 19th century after more than 40 years of narrowing inequality following the Great Depression. By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then.2 It is no secret that the past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity."

And even links to Piketty in footnote 42.

"Along with other economic advantages, it is likely that large inheritances play a role in the fairly limited intergenerational mobility that I described earlier.42"

42. This topic is discussed extensively in Thomas Piketty (2014), Capital in the 21st Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press). Return to text

Sanjait said...

A number of commenters and authors have recently pointed out that inequality may not just be an unrelated phenomenon to monetary policy, but actually, in part at least, a byproduct of it.

The theory is that the Fed in the Great Moderation age has been so keen to stave off even the possibility of inflation that it chokes down the vigor of recoveries before they get to the part where median wages start rising quickly. The result is that wages get ratcheted down with the economic cycle, falling during recessions and never fully recovering during the recoveries.

Do I believe this theory? Increasingly, yes I do. And seeing the Fed right now decide to raise rates, citing accelerating wage growth as one of the main reasons, has reinforced my belief.

A Boy Named Sue said...

Two Things: (i) The Fed should be open and honest about monetary policy. No one wants to return to the Greenspan days. (ii) Brad Delong is a neoliberal hack.

A Boy Named Sue -> A Boy Named Sue...

I do admit, Delong is my favorite conservative economist. He is witty and educational, unlike most RW hacks.

Jeff said...

As to "why risk a political backlash" in the piece, the short answer is: to invoke the debate on whether politics or fact (science) is going to dominate. Because they can't both. See: Romer. Let's have this out once and for all.

[Dec 11, 2015] How Far Can The Syria Conflict Spiral Out Of Control

Notable quotes:
"... By James Stafford, Editor in Chief of OilPrice. Originally published at OilPrice ..."
"... • How far the Russia-Turkey spat can go economically ..."
"... • The fallout effects for countries caught in between ..."
"... • What Russia wants ..."
"... • What Turkey wants ..."
"... • What other geopolitical purposes ISIS serves ..."
"... • Why ISIS can't be controlled ..."
"... • How Shi'ite radical groups differ ..."
"... • Why we're looking at a possible remapping of a significant part of the energy arena ..."
"... • Why we shouldn't listen to billionaire buffoons ..."
"... Larger picture of what's really going on with Turkey's intentions driven by Ergodan, Bensh's correct description of Ergo's character and flaws, and less explicitly stated US (he says "west") 1/2 ass efforts to defeat IS despite US leaders (from WH to Congress) emphatic claims otherwise… ..."
"... "Coupled with unparalleled levels of socioeconomic insecurity, Sunni marginalization produced a real social base whose attraction to ISIS goes beyond religious or ideological factors." ..."
"... ISIS may project a utopic promise of stability and prosperity, but this is far from the reality on the ground. We can be absolutely certain that it will experience its own internal revolts, as similarly declarative examples of Islamic "states" have faced in the past. ..."
"... Yet, from the point of view of Washington, a geostrategic problem lingered: how to break the Tehran-Damascus alliance. And ultimately, how to break the Tehran-Moscow alliance. ..."
"... The "Assad must go" obsession in Washington is a multi-headed hydra. It includes breaking a Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria alliance (now very much in effect as the "4+1" alliance, including Hezbollah, actively fighting all strands of Salafi Jihadism in Syria). But it also includes isolating energy coordination among them, to the benefit of the Gulf petrodollar clients/vassals linked to US energy giants. ..."
"... Thus Washington's strategy so far of injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a pre-planed op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the endgame being regime change in Damascus. ..."
"... Of course Turkey is the wild card – Erdogan is increasingly looking like he might be the spark that sets off a much larger conflict. To answer the question, I think there are a lot of really bad scenarios that could happen here, and they are a lot closer than people think (Turkey shutting down the Bosphorus, for starters.) ..."
"... It is way past time for the arrogant stupidity of Washington's neoconservatives to be exposed and for them to at a minimum be removed from the levers of power – if not tried for crimes against humanity. And that includes Obama if he is really one of them, i.e. if he believes in anything but the politics of power. ..."
"... Specifically with respect to Syria, it looks like about the best the 'West' (i.e. the US and its vassals) can hope for is some pipeline arrangement providing Europe with an alternative, a competing supplier for its energy needs. In exchange, the 'West' can agree to end its economic war against Russia, Iran et.al and get back to the business of business, i.e. exporting something other than debt and bombs. ..."
"... I remember reading years ago that the rise of the AKP, and the rising standard of living with it, was fueled directly by a large stream of cash that was funneled from the House of Saud. ..."
"... The interest must be paid… ..."
"... I think the waffling on ISIS is due to their location among Sunnis. The US would like to win Sunnis over, so they're cautious about bombing, which of course is to ISIS' advantage. ..."
"... From where I sit, the Syria conflict is an important part of a much larger one – between the 'West' and Russia. Things have been heating up again in the Ukraine. Biden gave a speech there just a couple of days ago in which he insisted that 'NATO would not rest until Crimea was returned to the Ukraine.' That's not going to happen without a war. ..."
naked capitalism

By James Stafford, Editor in Chief of OilPrice. Originally published at OilPrice

...No one can fight a war without oil, according to Robert Bensh, partner and managing director of Pelicourt LLC oil and gas company. But while the politically unhinged are coming out the woodwork, the more important aspects of this story remain elusive to the public. Is the dangerously unspoken theory that ISIS is a bulwark against Iran what's keeping the West from tackling the Islamic State wholeheartedly on its territory?

... ... ...

In an exclusive interview with James Stafford of Oilprice.com, Bensh discusses:

• How far the Russia-Turkey spat can go economically
• The fallout effects for countries caught in between
• What Russia wants
• What Turkey wants
• What other geopolitical purposes ISIS serves
• Why ISIS can't be controlled
• How Shi'ite radical groups differ
• Why we're looking at a possible remapping of a significant part of the energy arena
• Why we shouldn't listen to billionaire buffoons

... ... ...

Robert Bensh: Russia and Turkey have a great deal of economic interdependence, and nowhere more than in the energy sector. There has been no talk of cutting Russian gas to Turkey, and I don't see how Russia can afford this right now. Turkey is not only a significant customer for Russia, but it's also a key gas-transit point.

James Stafford: So what does Turkey want?

Robert Bensh: The better question is: "What does Erdogan want?" You know, Putin's probably not too far off in his statement referring to Erdogan's loss of "mind and reason". Erdogan has been going down this path little by little for some time and it's no secret that he has some megalomaniacal tendencies that grow more and more out of control every year. It would seem that he has dreams of a return of the Ottoman Empire-and that ISIS could be a logical ally to that end. Of course, ISIS is not likely looking to be beholden to another Ottoman Empire controlling a greater Sunni-Arab dominion. Many, many Turks fail to share this dream with their leader, and his ambitions will also be his eventual downfall unfortunately.

For the Turkish regime, there is also the idea that ISIS will ostensibly give them more power against the rise of the Kurds, both in southeastern Turkey and in northern Syria. It will even raise the Turks' status in the face of the Saudis whose oil wealth has make them more powerful than the Turks in many ways.

Jim McKay

Yves: I think your "quibble" is… indeed minor.

Larger picture of what's really going on with Turkey's intentions driven by Ergodan, Bensh's correct description of Ergo's character and flaws, and less explicitly stated US (he says "west") 1/2 ass efforts to defeat IS despite US leaders (from WH to Congress) emphatic claims otherwise…

These are realities. Whatever small portion of US electorate reads here, at least a few are being introduced to this. We are heading into another election with… in my view, more deeply entrenched public opinions on this based on lies, then maybe any time I recall my entire life. It's just, the game is bigger now with more potential for longer lasting catastrophe if we don't find a way to right our ship.

I appreciate this article… it's on the right track. Only other thing I'd mention: amidst all this, we've had recent international climate meetings with little progress. Clearly, this is bigger problem for entire planet that nobody will escape. I'm stuck by Bensh's comments on protecting their investments (oil) and how the various players he mentions all make decisions based on… oil. It over rides, it seems…everything else that matters.

The planet needs to get behind renewables, and develop them… fast. It's not so hard to see how doing so would change these other geo-political games forever.

financial matters

I think taking the 'businessman' look at this is not a bad way to look at it. As Adam Hanieh has pointed out

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/isis-syria-iraq-war-al-qaeda-arab-spring/

"Coupled with unparalleled levels of socioeconomic insecurity, Sunni marginalization produced a real social base whose attraction to ISIS goes beyond religious or ideological factors."

and also

"ISIS may project a utopic promise of stability and prosperity, but this is far from the reality on the ground. We can be absolutely certain that it will experience its own internal revolts, as similarly declarative examples of Islamic "states" have faced in the past.

Despite all the setbacks of the last few years, the potential growth of a genuinely left alternative has not been extinguished and, most importantly, has never been more necessary."

--

William Polk echoes this idea of the importance of a non-military and non-police response.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/17/falling-into-the-isis-trap/

"–The results of insurgency are described in my book Violent Politics. There I have shown that in a variety of societies over the last two centuries in various parts of Africa, Asia and Europe, guerrillas have nearly always accomplished their objectives despite even the most draconian counterinsurgency tactics."

His point being that dealing with the fundamental socioeconomic imbalances/repression can be more effective.

Eureka Springs

Interesting to me as much for what is not considered by oil businessmen.

A few quick points:

  • No mention of human suffering, not even in cost/opportunity terms.
  • No mention of rule of law.
  • No mention of what happens to the earths climate/ecosystem if all the oil and gas at stake is unleashed.
  • No mention of who many of the business players are, certainly not in detail. No mention of Erdogans family, Tony Hayward, trafficking / selling this stolen oil…
  • Nor mention of Israel being the major end buyer.
  • When mentioning Assad buys oil from IS (U.S Turk Israel Saudi Qatari Qaeda Nusra) no mention of the point Assad is buying his countries own oil at the point of a gun from the thieves who stole it.
  • No mention that this uncertainty/chaos is both deliberate and a constant feature of big oil and MIC's business model.
  • No concern that more tyrants of the head chopping variety are bound to achieve or maintain power.
cassandra

…and

  • No mention of strategic significance of naval base at Tartus
  • No mention of "legal" Saudi arms purchasing and trafficking, and extremist support in Syria, Yemen and about the globe.

Brooklin Bridge

This is a good interview. Along with other posts on the subject, this is bringing a little clarity to why there is no clarity.

participant-observer-observed

Hmmm. No mention of Saudi and others in the dynamic…

for more details, read above with Escobar's Pipelineistan,
here c/o Tom Dispatch.

Jack Heape

Thanks for that link. Escobar always has some good insights. I also suggest Juan Cole. He recently had a good piece on President Erdogan.

camelotkidd

Pepe Escobar has been all over the back story of what he calls pipelineistan– http://counterpunch.org/2015/12/08/syria-ultimate-pipelineistan-war /

"Yet, from the point of view of Washington, a geostrategic problem lingered: how to break the Tehran-Damascus alliance. And ultimately, how to break the Tehran-Moscow alliance.

The "Assad must go" obsession in Washington is a multi-headed hydra. It includes breaking a Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria alliance (now very much in effect as the "4+1" alliance, including Hezbollah, actively fighting all strands of Salafi Jihadism in Syria). But it also includes isolating energy coordination among them, to the benefit of the Gulf petrodollar clients/vassals linked to US energy giants.

Thus Washington's strategy so far of injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a pre-planed op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the endgame being regime change in Damascus."

participant-observer-observed

Yes, thanks for that most recent Escobar piece at Counterpunch; the one i linked above is already old but still interesting.

The regime change recipe of DC has already been tried and has failed in Iraq, Libya, etc., no one can fathom any improvements replacing Assad + Isis with Isis alone, aka rag tag coalitions of jihadis! Even Saudis can hardly wish for it.

ChrisFromGeorgia

Based on reported facts on the ground (well, reported by non-US media that is) the SAA is making slow but steady progress in retaking key towns and the highway between Aleppo and Damascus. No doubt Russian air and logistical support has made a difference.

If things keep going this way, Assad will likely regain the upper hand and the Saudi/US sponsored jihadis will be confined to the eastern part of the country. It's looking like Washington will have to make a choice – accept Assad as the legitimate ruler (for now) or continue to provoke the situation with guerrilla tactics. We know from history that there is precedent for long wars against legitimate governments that displease Washington (see Daniel Ortega, Sandanistas.) My guess is they go this route and hope to eventually install a stooge.

Of course Turkey is the wild card – Erdogan is increasingly looking like he might be the spark that sets off a much larger conflict. To answer the question, I think there are a lot of really bad scenarios that could happen here, and they are a lot closer than people think (Turkey shutting down the Bosphorus, for starters.)

Steven

It is way past time for the arrogant stupidity of Washington's neoconservatives to be exposed and for them to at a minimum be removed from the levers of power – if not tried for crimes against humanity. And that includes Obama if he is really one of them, i.e. if he believes in anything but the politics of power.

This 'Arrogance of Power' has characterized US foreign policy making since the end of WWII. The U.N. was sold to the public as an arrangement for collective security so the U.S. would not have to 'make the world safe for democracy' (sic) a third time. It has been in reality nothing more than a tool for the pursuit of (perceived) US interests, promptly discarded when the principles in its charter became inconvenient.

Short of initiating the world's Mutually Assured Destruction, the U.S. is running out of options – in Syria and around the world. It may be too late for the U.S. to get serious about collective security, to tell the world 'this time we really mean it'. Having squandered economic and "too good to waste" military power in a successive string of needless wars, it may no longer be possible to convince especially those who hold the levers of power in Russia and China that we are serious about collective security and willing to accept a multi-polar world.

Specifically with respect to Syria, it looks like about the best the 'West' (i.e. the US and its vassals) can hope for is some pipeline arrangement providing Europe with an alternative, a competing supplier for its energy needs. In exchange, the 'West' can agree to end its economic war against Russia, Iran et.al and get back to the business of business, i.e. exporting something other than debt and bombs.

kgw

I remember reading years ago that the rise of the AKP, and the rising standard of living with it, was fueled directly by a large stream of cash that was funneled from the House of Saud.

The interest must be paid…

susan the other

This was really to the point, without actually making it. One thing is becoming clear – the oil wars are distilling down to natural advantage. It currently belongs to SA – but the future looks like it prefers to use Levant & east Mediterranean oil because it will be easier to pipe to southern Europe. And maybe cleaner? So everybody and their dog is fighting for access to it.

It explains Netanyahu's trip to Moscow & the French clearly in league with Russia for achieving access to this resource (why else?). And it is partly being driven by decisions to leave current oil reserves in the ground. As Palast said it is a "war for no oil."

Which in turn makes sense of Kerry's admonishing the Senate about the Iran deal – that if they want to continue to be oil brokers (petrodollar brokers) they have to come to terms with Iran because there are plenty of other nations who can step up; and of course we want our EU cousins to get a cut of Levant oil, and etc. And Russia is clearly protecting its oil interests. I wonder how long this feeding frenzy will continue.

Horatio Parker

I think the waffling on ISIS is due to their location among Sunnis. The US would like to win Sunnis over, so they're cautious about bombing, which of course is to ISIS' advantage.

tgs

From where I sit, the Syria conflict is an important part of a much larger one – between the 'West' and Russia. Things have been heating up again in the Ukraine. Biden gave a speech there just a couple of days ago in which he insisted that 'NATO would not rest until Crimea was returned to the Ukraine.' That's not going to happen without a war.

[Dec 11, 2015] Caught On Tape Ukraine Premier Assaulted In Parliament

Notable quotes:
"... lawmaker Oleh Barna walked over to him with a bunch of red roses and then grabbed him around the waist and groin, lifting him off his feet and dragging him from the rostrum. ..."
"... As The FT reports, ..."
Zero Hedge
& Fighting broke out in parliament among members of Ukraine's ruling coalition on Friday after a member of President Petro Poroshenko's bloc physically picked up Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk and pulled him from the podium.

Yatseniuk was defending his embattled government's record when lawmaker Oleh Barna walked over to him with a bunch of red roses and then grabbed him around the waist and groin, lifting him off his feet and dragging him from the rostrum.

Members of Yatseniuk's People Front party waded in, pushing Barna and throwing punches, sparking a brawl in the assembly.

You just can't make this up...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2zgTl6-KWqg

The PM later said there were "a lot of morons," so he would not comment on the incident.

* * *

As The FT reports,

Ukraine's parliament has indefinitely postponed a vote of no-confidence in the government of Arseniy Yatseniuk, but not without highlighting the fragility of the country's pro-western coalition.

Citing a flurry of corruption scandals and the lacklustre pace of reforms, an increasing number of MPs - even within the ruling majority - have in recent weeks called for the ousting of Mr Yatseniuk via a no-confidence vote on Friday.

Ukraine's western backers, namely the US and EU, feared such a move could plunge the war-torn and recession-ravaged country into a deep political crisis as it continues to battle Russian-backed separatists in eastern regions - and jeopardise a $40bn international bailout led by the International Monetary Fund.

Such concerns are believed to have been expressed by US vice president Joe Biden in closed door discussions during a visit to Kiev early this week in which he publicly called for political unity, swifter reforms and deeper anti-corruption efforts.

And this is the nation's government who US-taxpayer-backed IMF just forgave their debt, implicitly backing them, and entering The Cold War...

Instead, the IMF is backing Ukrainian policy, its kleptocracy and its Right Sector leading the attacks that recently cut off Crimea's electricity. The only condition on which the IMF insists is continued austerity. Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, has fallen by a third this years, pensions have been slashed (largely as a result of being inflated away), while corruption continues unabated.

Despite this the IMF announced its intention to extend new loans to finance Ukraine's dependency and payoffs to the oligarchs who are in control of its parliament and justice departments to block any real cleanup of corruption.

For over half a year there was a semi-public discussion with U.S. Treasury advisors and Cold Warriors about how to stiff Russia on the $3 billion owed by Ukraine to Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund. There was some talk of declaring this an "odious debt," but it was decided that this ploy might backfire against U.S. supported dictatorships.

In the end, the IMF simply lent Ukraine the money.

By doing so, it announced its new policy: "We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to US allies." This means that what was simmering as a Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S. financial and military orbit.

[Dec 10, 2015] Special Report Buybacks enrich the bosses even when business sags

Notable quotes:
"... Most publicly traded U.S. companies reward top managers for hitting performance targets, meant to tie the interests of managers and shareholders together. At many big companies, those interests are deemed to be best aligned by linking executive performance to earnings per share, along with measures derived from the company's stock price. ..."
"... But these metrics may not be solely a reflection of a company's operating performance. They can be, and often are, influenced through stock repurchases. In addition to cutting the number of a company's shares outstanding, and thus lifting EPS, buybacks also increase demand for the shares, usually providing a lift to the share price, which affects other performance markers. ..."
"... Pay for performance as it is often structured creates "very troublesome, problematic incentives that can potentially drive very short-term thinking." ..."
"... As reported in the first article in this series, share buybacks by U.S. non-financial companies reached a record $520 billion in the most recent reporting year. A Reuters analysis of 3,300 non-financial companies found that together, buybacks and dividends have surpassed total capital expenditures and are more than double research and development spending. ..."
"... "There's been an over-focus on buybacks and raising EPS to hit share option targets, and we know that those are concentrated in the hands of the few, and that the few is in the top 1 percent," said James Montier, a member of the asset allocation team at global investment firm GMO in London, which manages more than $100 billion in assets. ..."
"... The introduction of performance targets has been a driver of surging executive pay, helping to widen the gap between the richest in America and the rest of the country. Median CEO pay among companies in the S P 500 increased to a record $10.3 million last year, up from $8.6 million in 2010, according to data firm Equilar. ..."
"... At those levels, CEOs last year were paid 303 times what workers in their industries earned, compared with a ratio of 59 times in 1989, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit. ..."
finance.yahoo.com

NEW YORK(Reuters) - When health insurer Humana Inc reported worse-than-expected quarterly earnings in late 2014 – including a 21 percent drop in net income – it softened the blow by immediately telling investors it would make a $500 million share repurchase.

In addition to soothing shareholders, the surprise buyback benefited the company's senior executives. It added around two cents to the company's annual earnings per share, allowing Humana to surpass its $7.50 EPS target by a single cent and unlocking higher pay for top managers under terms of the company's compensation agreement.

Thanks to Humana hitting that target, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Broussard earned a $1.68 million bonus for 2014.

Most publicly traded U.S. companies reward top managers for hitting performance targets, meant to tie the interests of managers and shareholders together. At many big companies, those interests are deemed to be best aligned by linking executive performance to earnings per share, along with measures derived from the company's stock price.

But these metrics may not be solely a reflection of a company's operating performance. They can be, and often are, influenced through stock repurchases. In addition to cutting the number of a company's shares outstanding, and thus lifting EPS, buybacks also increase demand for the shares, usually providing a lift to the share price, which affects other performance markers.

As corporate America engages in an unprecedented buyback binge, soaring CEO pay tied to short-term performance measures like EPS is prompting criticism that executives are using stock repurchases to enrich themselves at the expense of long-term corporate health, capital investment and employment.

"We've accepted a definition of performance that is narrow and quite possibly inappropriate," said Rosanna Landis Weaver, program manager of the executive compensation initiative at As You Sow, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that promotes corporate responsibility. Pay for performance as it is often structured creates "very troublesome, problematic incentives that can potentially drive very short-term thinking."

A Reuters analysis of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index found that 255 of those companies reward executives in part by using EPS, while another 28 use other per-share metrics that can be influenced by share buybacks.

In addition, 303 also use total shareholder return, essentially a company's share price appreciation plus dividends, and 169 companies use both EPS and total shareholder return to help determine pay.

STANDARD PRACTICE

EPS and share-price metrics underpin much of the compensation of some of the highest-paid CEOs, including those at Walt Disney Co, Viacom Inc, 21st Century Fox Inc, Target Corp and Cisco Systems Inc.

... ... ...

As reported in the first article in this series, share buybacks by U.S. non-financial companies reached a record $520 billion in the most recent reporting year. A Reuters analysis of 3,300 non-financial companies found that together, buybacks and dividends have surpassed total capital expenditures and are more than double research and development spending.

Companies buy back their shares for various reasons. They do it when they believe their shares are undervalued, or to make use of cash or cheap debt financing when business conditions don't justify capital or R&D spending. They also do it to meet the expectations of increasingly demanding investors.

Lately, the sheer volume of buybacks has prompted complaints among academics, politicians and investors that massive stock repurchases are stifling innovation and hurting U.S. competitiveness - and contributing to widening income inequality by rewarding executives with ever higher pay, often divorced from a company's underlying performance.

"There's been an over-focus on buybacks and raising EPS to hit share option targets, and we know that those are concentrated in the hands of the few, and that the few is in the top 1 percent," said James Montier, a member of the asset allocation team at global investment firm GMO in London, which manages more than $100 billion in assets.

The introduction of performance targets has been a driver of surging executive pay, helping to widen the gap between the richest in America and the rest of the country. Median CEO pay among companies in the S&P 500 increased to a record $10.3 million last year, up from $8.6 million in 2010, according to data firm Equilar.

At those levels, CEOs last year were paid 303 times what workers in their industries earned, compared with a ratio of 59 times in 1989, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit.

SALARY AND A LOT MORE

Today, the bulk of CEO compensation comes from cash and stock awards, much of it tied to performance metrics. Last year, base salary accounted for just 8 percent of CEO pay for S&P 500 companies, while cash and stock incentives made up more than 45 percent, according to proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services.

...In 1992, Congress changed the tax code to curb rising executive pay and encourage performance-based compensation. It didn't work. Instead, the shift is widely blamed for soaring executive pay and a heavier emphasis on short-term results.

Companies started tying performance pay to "short-term metrics, and suddenly all the things we don't want to happen start happening," said Lynn Stout, a professor of corporate and business law at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York. "Despite 20 years of trying, we have still failed to come up with an objective performance metric that can't be gamed."

Shareholder expectations have changed, too. The individuals and other smaller, mostly passive investors who dominated equity markets during the postwar decades have given way to large institutional investors. These institutions tend to want higher returns, sooner, than their predecessors. Consider that the average time investors held a particular share has fallen from around eight years in 1960 to a year and a half now, according to New York Stock Exchange data.

"TOO EASY TO MANIPULATE"

Companies like to use EPS as a performance metric because it is the primary focus of financial analysts when assessing the value of a stock and of investors when evaluating their return on investment.

But "it is not an appropriate target, it's too easy to manipulate," said Almeida, the University of Illinois finance professor.

...By providing a lift to a stock's price, buybacks can increase total shareholder return to target levels, resulting in more stock awards for executives. And of course, the higher stock price lifts the value of company stock they already own.

"It can goose the price at time when the high price means they earn performance shares … even if the stock price later goes back down, they got their shares," said Michael Dorff, a law professor at the Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

Exxon Corp, the largest repurchaser of shares over the past decade, has rejected shareholder proposals that it add three-year targets based on shareholder return to its compensation program. In its most recent proxy, the energy company said doing so could increase risk-taking and encourage underinvestment to achieve short-term results.

The energy giant makes half of its annual executive bonus payments contingent on meeting longer-term EPS thresholds. Since 2005, the company has spent more than $200 billion on buybacks.

ADDITIONAL TWEAKS

While performance targets are specific, they aren't necessarily fixed. Corporate boards often adjust them or how they are calculated in ways that lift executive pay.

[Dec 09, 2015] Are Windows and OS X malware

May 26, 2015 | ITworld
Are Windows and OS X malware?

Richard Stallman has never been...er...shy about sharing his opinions, particularly when it comes to software that doesn't adhere to his vision. This time around he has written an opinion column for The Guardian that takes on Microsoft Windows, Apple's OS X and even Amazon's Kindle e-reader.

Richard Stallman on malware for The Guardian:

Malware is the name for a program designed to mistreat its users. Viruses typically are malicious, but software products and software preinstalled in products can also be malicious – and often are, when not free/libre.

Developers today shamelessly mistreat users; when caught, they claim that fine print in EULAs (end user licence agreements) makes it ethical. (That might, at most, make it lawful, which is different.) So many cases of proprietary malware have been reported, that we must consider any proprietary program suspect and dangerous. In the 21st century, proprietary software is computing for suckers.

Windows snoops on users, shackles users and, on mobiles, censors apps; it also has a universal back door that allows Microsoft to remotely impose software changes. Microsoft sabotages Windows users by showing security holes to the NSA before fixing them.

Apple systems are malware too: MacOS snoops and shackles; iOS snoops, shackles, censors apps and has a back door. Even Android contains malware in a nonfree component: a back door for remote forcible installation or deinstallation of any app.

Amazon's Kindle e-reader reports what page of what book is being read, plus all notes and underlining the user enters; it shackles the user against sharing or even freely giving away or lending the book, and has an Orwellian back door for erasing books.

More at The Guardian

As you might imagine, Stallman's commentary drew a lot of responses from readers of The Guardian:

JohnnyHooper: "The Android operating system is basically spyware, mining your personal information, contacts, whereabouts, search activity, media preferences, photos, email, texts, chat, shopping, calls, etc so Google can onsell it to advertisers. Nice one, Google, you creep."

Ece301: "What the free software movement needs is more than just the scare stories about 'capability' - without reliable examples of this stuff causing real-world problems for real people such detail-free articles as this are going to affect nothing.

I'm quite willing to make the sacrifice of google, apple, the NSA etc. knowing exactly where I am if it means my phone can give me directions to my hotel in this strange city. Likewise if I want the capability to erase my phone should I lose it, I understand that that means apple etc. can probably get at that function too.

Limiting_Factor: "Or for people who don't want to mess about with command lines and like to have commercially supported software that works. Which is about 99% of the home computer using population. You lost, Richard. Get over it."

CosmicTrigger: "Selling customers the illusion of security and then leaving a great gaping hole in it for the government to snoop in return for a bit of a tax break is absolutely reprehensible."

Liam01: "This guy is as extreme as the director of the NSA , just at the other end of the spectrum. I'd be more inclined to listen if he showed a hint of nuance, or didn't open with an egoistic claim of "invented free software"."

AlanWatson: "My Kindle doesn't report anything, because I never turn the WiFi on. Just sideload content from wherever I want to buy it (or download if there is no copyright), format conversion is trivial, and for the minor inconvenience of having to use a USB cable I'm free of Amazon's lock-in, snooping and remote wipes. Simple."

Rod: "Here's my crazy prediction: Stallman's diatribes will continue to have zero measurable impact on adoption rates of Free software. Time to try a different approach, Richey."

Quicknstraight: "Not all snooping is bad for you. If it enhances your experience, say, by providing you with a better playlist or recommendations for things you like doing, what's the big deal?

Consumers don't have it every which way. You either accept a degree of data collection in return for a more enjoyable user experience, or accept that no data collection means you'll have to search out everything for yourself.

The average user prefers the easier option and has no interest in having to dig away through loads of crap to find what they want.

They key question should be what happens to data that is mined about users, not whether mining such data is bad per se."

Bob Rich: "As an author, I LIKE the idea that if a person buys a copy of my book, that copy cannot be freely distributed to others. With a paper book, that means that the original owner no longer has access to it. With an electronic book, "giving" or "lending" means duplicating, and that's stealing my work. The same is true for other creators: musicians, artists, photographers."

Mouse: "Stallman's a hero and we wouldn't have the level of (low-cost) technology all we enjoy today without him. I remember reading an article by him years ago and he said that the only laptop he'd use was the Lemote Yeeloong because it was the only system that was 100% open, even down to the BIOS - he was specifically paranoid about how government agencies might modify proprietary code for their own ends - and at the time I thought "Jeez, he's a bit of a paranoid fruitcake", but post-Snowden he's been proven to be right about what the security services get up."

More at The Guardian

[Dec 09, 2015] Declassified CIA Manual Shows How US Uses Bureaucracy to Destabilize Governments

www.zerohedge.com
Submitted by Jake Anderson via TheAntiMedia.org,

When most people think of CIA sabotage, they think of coups, assassinations, proxy wars, armed rebel groups, and even false flags - not strategic stupidity and purposeful bureaucratic ineptitude. However, according to a declassified document from 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which later became the CIA, used and trained a curious breed of "citizen-saboteurs" in occupied nations like Norway and France.

The World War II-era document, called Simple Sabotage Field Manual, outlines ways in which operatives can disrupt and demoralize enemy administrators and police forces. The first section of the document, which can be read in its entirety here, addresses "Organizations and Conferences" - and how to turn them into a "dysfunctional mess":

On its official webpage, the CIA boasts about finding innovative ways to bring about sabotage, calling their tactics for destabilization "surprisingly relevant." While they admit that some of the ideas may seem a bit outdated, they claim that "Together they are a reminder of how easily productivity and order can be undermined."

In a second section targeted at manager-saboteurs, the guide lists the following tactical moves:

Finally, the guide presents protocol for how saboteur-employees can disrupt enemy operations, too:

The CIA is proud of its Kafkaesque field manual and evidently still views it as an unorthodox but effective form of destabilizing enemy operations around the world. Of course, so too might an anarchist or revolutionary look at such tactics and view them in the context of disrupting certain domestic power structures, many of which are already built like a bureaucratic house of cards.

It seems if any country should refrain from showcasing how easy it is to disrupt inefficient federal agencies, however, it would be the United States.

[Dec 08, 2015] France's cowardly elite is to blame for the rise of Marine Le Pen

That looks like a French backlash against neoliberal globalization, Against the society that cares only about top 1%.
Notable quotes:
"... Contrary to what we are told by the transnational business-political-media elite, there is nothing inevitable about ever-increasing 'globalisation'. It is simply a race to the bottom for ever-cheaper labour and erasure of sovereign national obstructions to corporate profit. ..."
"... the impact of the third globalisation wave on any given country is the result of very deliberate political choices (many of which were taken by French governments rather later than their neighbours), not of some sort of inevitable natural fact. You do not, for instance, have to espouse unmitigated cross-border capital transfers. ..."
"... the sooner the European Left admits that it was right in the 70s, when it correctly identified the EEC as an anti-worker construct, the better. Unless you fancy having a smattering of far right governments all over the EZ, that is. ..."
"... France has terrible foreign policy. They completely destroyed Libya. France is responsible for the rise of far-right. ..."
"... The elite's disregard for anyone's opinion apart from their own is largely the cause of the rise of the Front National. It is difficult to see how allowing millions of immigrants to settle in Europe can end well in the short to long term. ..."
"... Not a bad article, this. Still, I wish this newspaper's writers would stop defining democracy as "that with which I agree". The FN is a Democratic Party. Deal with it. ..."
"... If mainstream liberal and conservative parties will not listen to the citizenry's very real and very legitimate concerns about immigration and Islam, that citizenry will hold their collective nose and vote for right wing populists who will. ..."
"... What we saw in France is being repeated in Sweden, the Netherlands and much of Eastern Europe. It is fueling Donald Trumps presidential run and Nigel Faranges parliamentary ambitions. ..."
"... For the older generation in particular, Britain has changed out of all recognition in hte last 50 years. Although change can be a good thing, it can also be extremely unsettling. ..."
"... Democracy in action. Unlike the UK whereby the politicians execute policy that they either lied about during the election, or they simply changed their mind in contempt of the electorate safe in the knowledge that the electorate will have to wait years to kick them out again. ..."
"... Agreed, any grand coalition of the French ruling elite created as a blocker will only prove to many of the French people that there is very little real difference between the established parties; possibly driving those who do want real change towards the FN. ..."
"... Globalisation depends on no borders - Factories and production have moved to avail of cheaper production. Shareholders and investment funds have benefited. Many, many citizens of sovereign nations have not. Now some European politicians and institutions have determined that immigration and multiculturalism is the new agenda anyway. There is to be no consultation by the political elite or the media with the people of the sovereign nations of Europe - It is to be forced on people whether they like it or not. ..."
"... The rise of Front National is happening for the same reason the rise of the far right (or just plain right wing) parties is happening all over Europe: Moderate parties on both sides of the political spectrum refuse to have anything even resembling a discussion on the negative side of immigration or multiculturalism. It's really as simple as that. The far right has been handed a complete monopoly on an issue which is becoming an increasingly hot topic. They have an open goal. ..."
www.theguardian.com
umbofreddy smarty78, 7 Dec 2015 22:01

Nougarayde was a journalist at the" Monde"; you know, this "french elite newspaper", who hate the front national and despise its supporters!

viscount_jellicoe, 7 Dec 2015 21:39

Contrary to what we are told by the transnational business-political-media elite, there is nothing inevitable about ever-increasing 'globalisation'. It is simply a race to the bottom for ever-cheaper labour and erasure of sovereign national obstructions to corporate profit.

Daniele Gatti, 7 Dec 2015 21:46

Your economic history is missing a few very important details, namely:

1) the impact of the third globalisation wave on any given country is the result of very deliberate political choices (many of which were taken by French governments rather later than their neighbours), not of some sort of inevitable natural fact. You do not, for instance, have to espouse unmitigated cross-border capital transfers.

2) there is no mention at all of the failed European monetary experiments, namely the ERM and the euro. The first was de facto dismantled in 1993 (by setting ridiculous oscillation bands) to avoid a French Black Wednesday after it had destroyed competitiveness pretty much everywhere apart from Germany and the Deutschemark area, the second is doing pretty much the same, only it was slower to compromise France than other countries because its economy is stronger than others.

The fact remains that while relatively high public spending, in violation of the Maastricht parameters, directly translates into higher inflation than Germany, which leads to loss of competitiveness, which leads to a CA deficit.

Sorry, but the French school system has absolutely nothing to do with all of the above, and the sooner the European Left admits that it was right in the 70s, when it correctly identified the EEC as an anti-worker construct, the better. Unless you fancy having a smattering of far right governments all over the EZ, that is.

Andu68, 7 Dec 2015 21:49

Why exactly is the FN far right? The only controversial position they have is their belief there is an urgent need to restrict immigration, yet this is a position held by the majority of European's public opinion, though not by mainstream politicians and certainly not by members of the left intellectual elite like Miss Nougareyde.

LouSmorels, 7 Dec 2015 21:49

If I were French, I would vote FN! Why should the French give up their country to become something else. Not everyone wants to end up like Sweden...

finnrkn -> LouSmorels, 7 Dec 2015 22:22

Not even Sweden wants to end up like Sweden nowadays.

ClaudeNAORobot,

Perhaps the rise of the FN reflects its offering to the electorate something that they want. It's something you don't want, so, rather in the spirit of the EU's rejection of result of a referendum that gives the 'wrong' result, you seek some excuse for that that you perceive to be the ill judgement of a portion of the electorate. Democracy can be irritating, can't it?

euphoniumbrioche, 7 Dec 2015 20:46

France's cowardly elite is to blame for the rise of Marine Le Pen

France has terrible foreign policy. They completely destroyed Libya. France is responsible for the rise of far-right.

allom8 -> euphoniumbrioche, 7 Dec 2015 20:55

An inadequate explanation given the far right's continued rise all over Europe. The elephant in the room gets bigger with every passing day.

GodzillaJones, 7 Dec 2015 20:48

It's a reflection of politics in the West at the moment. When voters are not represented by their politicians, they look for something else, even if it's a bit unsavoury.

ID9969553, 7 Dec 2015 20:48

The elite's disregard for anyone's opinion apart from their own is largely the cause of the rise of the Front National. It is difficult to see how allowing millions of immigrants to settle in Europe can end well in the short to long term.

WagerObe -> gunforhire, 7 Dec 2015 22:01

Interestingly though, LR did not get the voting shares lost by the PS. They went to the FN. This is not a vote. against socialism, indeed on economic questions the FN is closer to the communists than classic right-wing parties.

This is a vote against the main stream parties, and frankly it is not surprising. A succession of UMP - PS governments have changed nothing. Remains to be seen if FN can confirm the try next Sunday. If they win PACA

finnrkn, 7 Dec 2015 20:49

Not a bad article, this. Still, I wish this newspaper's writers would stop defining democracy as "that with which I agree". The FN is a Democratic Party. Deal with it.

ID7475021 -> finnrkn, 7 Dec 2015 20:57

The Nazi party in Germany used democracy to help itself climb to power... one of the problems democracy has not managed to address is how to deal with parties who use that democracy with the ultimate aim of destroying it.

finnrkn -> ID7475021, 7 Dec 2015 21:04

True enough; communist parties also subverted democracy in Eastern Europe. Beyond nationalism, though, I can't see there's much of a comparison to be made between the FN and the Nazis.

elliot2511, 7 Dec 2015 20:49

If mainstream liberal and conservative parties will not listen to the citizenry's very real and very legitimate concerns about immigration and Islam, that citizenry will hold their collective nose and vote for right wing populists who will.

What we saw in France is being repeated in Sweden, the Netherlands and much of Eastern Europe. It is fueling Donald Trumps presidential run and Nigel Faranges parliamentary ambitions.

ltm123 elliot2511, 7 Dec 2015 21:09

Unfortunate those very real concerns about immigration are not very legitimate. You only have to do a small amount of research to realise that immigration isn't to blame for most of the things the main stream media would have you believe.

huzar30 ltm123, 7 Dec 2015 21:14

That really isn't the point. For the older generation in particular, Britain has changed out of all recognition in hte last 50 years. Although change can be a good thing, it can also be extremely unsettling.

elliot2511 -> ltm123, 7 Dec 2015 21:23

"You only have to do a small amount of research to realise that immigration isn't to blame for most of the things "
You may be right...but people do not want mass immigration, and more particularly, do not want mass immigration from Islamic countries. That might be fair or unfair, justified or unjustified, but surely the greater population should have some say in what their country looks like.

Laurence Johnson, 7 Dec 2015 20:50

Democracy in action. Unlike the UK whereby the politicians execute policy that they either lied about during the election, or they simply changed their mind in contempt of the electorate safe in the knowledge that the electorate will have to wait years to kick them out again.

Dave Beardsly -> Laurence Johnson, 7 Dec 2015 21:13

Democracy in action. Unlike the UK

Is it a better democracy? Or is it something to do with a more impartial, fairer, press? Because however bad our democracy is or isn't, we know for sure our press can make and break anyone it chooses.

Sachaflashman, 7 Dec 2015 20:51

"But the fact that such a question can now legitimately be raised is in itself a trauma for all those who care about democracy."

In plain English: a democratic party that has managed to purge its past, re-defined itself and convinced 6 million citizens to vote for it....is nothing more than a trauma. If anything, the democratic trauma is a system whereby party A. can win the most votes only to be knocked out in round two by party B. dropping out and lending its votes to party C.

This is a recipe for allowing bland, elitist politicians to stay in power forever.

Mark Steven -> Conway Sachaflashman, 7 Dec 2015 22:22

Agreed, any grand coalition of the French ruling elite created as a blocker will only prove to many of the French people that there is very little real difference between the established parties; possibly driving those who do want real change towards the FN.

Magicmoonbeam2, 7 Dec 2015 20:53

The so called elite have become accustomed to ruling independently of their electorates because for years their electorates had nowhere else to go. Now that their electorates have somewhere else to go, the brown squishy stuff is hitting the fan.


Quiller -> Dave Beardsly, 7 Dec 2015 21:29

Globalisation depends on no borders - Factories and production have moved to avail of cheaper production. Shareholders and investment funds have benefited. Many, many citizens of sovereign nations have not. Now some European politicians and institutions have determined that immigration and multiculturalism is the new agenda anyway. There is to be no consultation by the political elite or the media with the people of the sovereign nations of Europe - It is to be forced on people whether they like it or not.

Any nation, people or politician who questions the new ideology is categorised as backward and reactionary. Secret meeting are held to push the issues forward. People of the sovereign nations of Europe have not signed up to the Federal Europe - France and other nations rejected the European Constitution. Nonetheless the ideologues press the issues forward onto the people.

The latest revolt has been over the issue is immigration by Germany and Sweden - their initial action was - "we can do it !". When it dawned on them that they could not, they have tried to bully their way through the other sovereign nations via government structures, the European Union and the UN.

Following the atrocities in France, Beirut, Ankara, Nigeria, Syria - the people are deciding they do not want to be a part of the change to the multicultural environment. Why would they when they perceive the change to be a retrograde step. If the current political party that one has voted for does not serve one's interests or they appear to be a political party with no clothes, then it is time to move on to a different political representative party. Of course - the smear continues against political parties that do not have the ideologues view.

allom8, 7 Dec 2015 20:57

The rise of Front National is happening for the same reason the rise of the far right (or just plain right wing) parties is happening all over Europe: Moderate parties on both sides of the political spectrum refuse to have anything even resembling a discussion on the negative side of immigration or multiculturalism. It's really as simple as that.

The far right has been handed a complete monopoly on an issue which is becoming an increasingly hot topic. They have an open goal.

Koolio, 7 Dec 2015 21:03

"none of the mainstream parties have been able to address the many social and economic ailments"

They've never tried. French politicians promise bold visions of the past as they keep trying to reheat and perpetuate policies that generate the record unemployment and entrenched structural inequalities while hoping if they say "républicain" ten times a day nobody will question their consistent failure.

Even the politicians are stale, for example the Républicains are fighting over whether to back proven failure Sarkozy or convicted criminal Juppé (albeit gifted a crony-style presidential pardon by his ex-boss Chirac). Given choices like this no wonder millions of voters dissatisfied by Hollande and Valls skip to the FN.

bally38, 7 Dec 2015 21:08

Marine Le Pen has no solution for France's problems, her economic programme is all about retreating from the outside world and Europe.

My understanding of the FN economic policy. Withdraw from the Euro. Close the borders. Put up a high tariff wall around france. (Which would mean de facto withdrawal from the Single Market).

Quite how they think jobs are created in a global economy I really don't know. In some ways it would be great if they did win. Currently the eurosceptics can act all cosy with each other. Whereas in fact, their policies would amount to a mutual trade war.

MrBojangles007, 7 Dec 2015 21:08

Political dogma from the EU federalists and the invite from Merkel to all the worlds refugees is naive in the extreme. The people still love their country and most do not want a country called Europe.

Too much too soon, we do not even speak the same language around 28 countries, until we do - a country called Europe is for the birds. The Euro has not worked, open borders have not worked, the EU is in an utter mess.

FN - will always make progress when chaos reigns.

PrinceEdward, 7 Dec 2015 21:29

"The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy ... and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous." -- Captain Jean-Luc Picard, USS Enterprise

flowerssoft, 7 Dec 2015 21:32

France's cowardly elite are responsible because they have refused to tackle issues which negatively affect the white working class in France.

PrinceEdward, 7 Dec 2015 21:35

People across the West are still scratching their heads as to why, given the large numbers of un and under employed young people, we need mass immigration, even in the face of austerity.

The only answer I ever here is: If you're not for it, you're a xenophobe. Regardless of the sharp cuts to social programmes and the lack of housing throughout Europe. And if a European Country genuinely needs unskilled workers, there are plenty of Eastern and Southern Europeans who would be happy to bridge the gap.

haunsk PrinceEdward, 7 Dec 2015 21:54

There you have it in a nutshell. We are being spun,we are being played.

smarty78, 7 Dec 2015 21:37

'France's cowardly elite...'

Natalie, it's rare I agree with you, so I'll focus on our consensus with the headline.

That the other parties are now looking to form a block against FN demonstrates quite perfectly the arrogance of the French political elite and their utter contempt for democracy.
I dearly wish FN the very best of luck - at least they attend to the legitimate grievances of a significant proportion of people.
Fascist, Nazi, extremist blahblah... Bring it on and watch this space.

André Pampel, 7 Dec 2015 21:51

Ironic being that as far as economics goes extreme left and right speak almost from the same page....Mainly protectionism. What Nougayréde conviently does not say is how many people from the extreme left have gone over to the fn and that their vote is extremely high in the 18-34 age group, and the well educated in that group too. And herself was and is still part of the "establishment" so ironic criticising her chums like that....

Anneke Ruben, 7 Dec 2015 21:52

If people feel threatened, they tend to be more conservative. And frankly, I don't see a reason why France or the rest of Europe shouldn't feel threatened.. Mass unemployment, the Euro zone mess, thousands of migrants that pose as "refugees", migrants that mostly follow an unreformed religion, the mass shootings in Paris... So... Why is the left blaming the "elite" and not the ones responsible for creating this mess?

[Dec 08, 2015] The importance of the global financial cycle in creating boom and bust cycles in emerging markets

economistsview.typepad.com

Syaloch -> sanjait..., December 08, 2015 at 08:31 AM

Meta-criticism of reports in this case is neither here nor there, since it's possible to track down the original sources.

The Times summary of Ms. Rey's Jackson Hole paper is accurate; in it she does discuss the importance of the global financial cycle in creating boom and bust cycles in emerging markets. (This isn't news to anyone who's followed Krugman's writings on global financial crises over the years.)

http://www.kansascityfed.org/publicat/sympos/2013/2013Rey.pdf

When Yellen announced that the Fed would not raise rates in September, she did cite "heightened uncertainties abroad" as a factor. While I cannot find her mentioning China specifically, a lot of the discussion in financial sources prior to the announcement cite the Chinese devaluation as an important factor leading to Yellen's decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/business/economy/fed-leaves-interest-rates-unchanged.html

As for economists warning that a rate increase combined with uncertain exchange rates in China and other countries would weaken global growth, that was most likely a reference to the IMF's World Economic Outlook report, which does indeed make this argument.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/RES100615A.htm

[Dec 07, 2015] The key prerequisite of casino capitalism is corruption of regulators

Economist's View

likbez said...

When capital became unable of reaping large and fairly secure profits from manufacturing it like water tries to find other ways. It starts with semi-criminalizing finance -- that's the origin of the term "casino capitalism" (aka neoliberalism). I see casino capitalism as a set of semi-criminal ways of maintaining the rate of profits.

The key prerequisite here is corruption of regulators. So laws on the book does not matter much if regulators do not enforce them.

As Joseph Schumpeter noted, capitalism is not a steady-state system. It is unstable system in which population constantly experience and then try to overcome one crisis after another. Joseph Schumpeter naively assumed that the net result is reimaging itself via so called "creative destruction". But what we observe now it "uncreative destruction". In other words casino capitalism is devouring the host, the US society.

So all those Hillary statements are for plebs consumption only (another attempt to play "change we can believe in" trick). Just a hot air designed to get elected. Both Clintons are in the pocket of financial oligarchy and will never be able to get out of it alive.

GeorgeK said...

I believe I'm the only one on this blog that has actually traded bonds, done swaps and hedged bank portfolios with futures contracts. Sooo I kinda know something about this topic.

Hilary is a fraud; her daughter worked at a Hedge fund where she met her husband Marc Mezvinsky, who is now a money manager at the Eaglevale fund. Oddly many of the Eaglevale investors are investors in the Clinton Foundation and have also given money to Hilary's campaign. The Clinton Foundation gets boat loads of money from Hedge funds and will not raise taxes on such a rich source of funding.

The grooms mother is Marjory Margolies (ex)Mezvinsky, she cast the final vote giving Clinton the winning vote to raise taxes. She subsequently lost her run for reelection to congress, then her husband was convicted of fraud and they divorced.

This speech is an attempt to pry people away from Bernie, it won't work with primary voters but might with what's left of rational Republicans in the general election.

[Dec 07, 2015] Hillary Clinton How I'd Rein In Wall Street

Economist's View

likbez said...

When capital became unable of reaping large and fairly secure profits from manufacturing it like water tries to find other ways. It starts with semi-criminalizing finance -- that's the origin of the term "casino capitalism" (aka neoliberalism). I see casino capitalism as a set of semi-criminal ways of maintaining the rate of profits.

The key prerequisite here is corruption of regulators. So laws on the book does not matter much if regulators do not enforce them.

As Joseph Schumpeter noted, capitalism is not a steady-state system. It is unstable system in which population constantly experience and then try to overcome one crisis after another. Joseph Schumpeter naively assumed that the net result is reimaging itself via so called "creative destruction". But what we observe now it "uncreative destruction". In other words casino capitalism is devouring the host, the US society.

So all those Hillary statements are for plebs consumption only (another attempt to play "change we can believe in" trick). Just a hot air designed to get elected. Both Clintons are in the pocket of financial oligarchy and will never be able to get out of it alive.

GeorgeK said...

I believe I'm the only one on this blog that has actually traded bonds, done swaps and hedged bank portfolios with futures contracts. Sooo I kinda know something about this topic.

Hilary is a fraud; her daughter worked at a Hedge fund where she met her husband Marc Mezvinsky, who is now a money manager at the Eaglevale fund. Oddly many of the Eaglevale investors are investors in the Clinton Foundation and have also given money to Hilary's campaign. The Clinton Foundation gets boat loads of money from Hedge funds and will not raise taxes on such a rich source of funding.

The grooms mother is Marjory Margolies (ex)Mezvinsky, she cast the final vote giving Clinton the winning vote to raise taxes. She subsequently lost her run for reelection to congress, then her husband was convicted of fraud and they divorced.

This speech is an attempt to pry people away from Bernie, it won't work with primary voters but might with what's left of rational Republicans in the general election.

[Dec 07, 2015] Did Erdogan Commit Political Suicide Shahir ShahidSaless

www.huffingtonpost.com
Erdogan, desperate and angry over his losing battle to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, ordered the shooting down of a Russian fighter jet. Erdogan has been actively pursuing the ouster of Assad since 2012, but Russia's recent intervention in Syria, in alliance with Iran and its highly ideologically and politically motivated proxies, has resulted in a serious setback for Erdogan's plans.

Putin's determination to destroy Turkey's proxies at the Syrian borders and to thwart Erdogan's plan to create a no-fly/buffer zone in the area has derailed Erdogan's plans for Syria. Erdogan hoped to use the buffer zone as an operational hub aimed at bringing down President Assad.

Russian attacks on Turkmen-dominated areas in Bayirbucak, where the Russian plane was downed, would also inflict serious collateral damage to Turkey. The Turkish government regards the area in north-west Syria, presently under the control of the Bayirbucak Turkmens, as an important buffer zone preventing the territorial expansion of Syria's Kurdish-minority militias, whom it regards as terrorists linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Erdogan's objective in shooting down the plane was to provoke Russia into a harsh response. He hoped the response would bring Russia into conflict with the whole of NATO, which would help reverse Turkey's declining fortunes in the Syrian war.

Erdogan's calculations went terribly wrong. Following the incident, Turkey requested an emergency meeting with NATO members. Contrary to Erdogan's expectations, although, members did not support Russia, neither did they wholeheartedly support Turkey. Many members questioned Turkey's action and, according to Reuters, "expressed concern that Turkey did not escort the Russian warplane out of its airspace." In a clear indication of the suspicion among NATO members regarding Turkey's real intention behind its adventurism, some diplomats told Reuters, "There are other ways of dealing with these kinds of incidents."

Not only didn't Cold War II happen, French President Francois Hollande, who promised "merciless" revenge in the aftermath of Paris attacks, met with Putin and they agreed to form an alliance against Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL) in Syria. The outcome of such an alliance is that the "Assad must go" mantra will be overshadowed by the war against Daesh--something that Erdogan hated to occur. Erdogan's plan to bring the West and Russia into conflict became even more unattainable when France's move was followed by Britain and then Germany.

Turkey also lost significant room to maneuver in the post-shootdown of the Russian fighter jet. Russia, by deploying the powerful S-400 surface-to-air missile system in Hmeymim airbase near Latakia, sent a strong signal to Turkey--a de facto no-fly zone already in effect south of the Turkish-Syrian border.

Russia also sent Turkey and NATO a clear message by arming its fighter jets with air-to-air missiles. On November 30, the Russian Air Force announced that "today, for the first time ‪Su34‬ fighter-bombers departed for combat sorties with air-to-air short- and medium-range missiles.... The usage of such weaponry is necessary for providing security of the aircraft of the Russian" air force, the announcement read. ‬‬‬

Moscow also authorized numerous economic sanctions against Ankara ranging from tourism to agricultural products as well as sanctions on energy and construction projects.

Erdogan took a conciliatory stance after the incident. In a speech in Ankara, he said, "We are strategic partners ... 'Joint projects may be halted, ties could be cut'? Are such approaches fitting for politicians?" Erdogan even requested a meeting with Putin while both leaders were in Paris for the COP21 climate change conference on November 30, but Putin rejected the request.

Russians launched a heavy campaign to damage Erdogan's credibility and reputation. Vladimir Putin and numerous other Russian politicians leveled accusations regarding Turkey's sponsorship and cooperation with ISIS as well as allegations of buying oil smuggled by ISIS.

On November 30, on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris, Putin stated, "At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale." He even went further to say, "We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil's delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers."

In response, Erdogan said he will resign as the country's president if Russia provides evidence that implicates Turkey in any oil trade with ISIS.

Later, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said, "We have repeatedly publicly stated that oil from the IS-controlled territories is transported abroad, particularly to Turkey. The facts that substantiate these claims will be formally presented in the UN in particular, and to all parties concerned."

Then on December 2, the Russian Defense Ministry held a briefing concerning ISIS funding. During the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, satellite images, and videos, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said, "According to our data, the top political leadership of the country - President Erdogan and his family - is involved in this criminal business."

Antonov added, "In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president's son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son-in-law has been appointed energy minister. What a marvelous family business."

On December 3, without mentioning specifics, Putin declared there was more evidence to come. "We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling," he said. "But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime ... are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken."

At this point, it is apparent that Putin's ultimate objective is to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him to severely damage Erdogan's name and trustworthiness, both domestically and internationally, or, even better, bring him and his regime down as a perceived power behind the extremists and the anti-Assad forces in Syria. This is in line with Russia's plan for realizing its strategic objectives in Syria.

[Dec 06, 2015] With allies like Turkey, who needs enemies

Notable quotes:
"... Turkey and the U.S. State Department scoffed when Russia accused the Turkish government of being involved with smuggling ISIS oil. However, after Moscow presented convincing proof of Turkey's involvement, the Obama Administration changed its story. ..."
"... "If the American colleagues are not satisfied with those ones, they should watch videos gained by their own UAVs," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Facebook. ..."
"... The ever-changing political spin in Washington to avoid admitting the obvious looks increasingly dishonest. ..."
"... The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter's visit to northern Iraq on Nov. 4. ..."
www.dailykos.com

Turkey has sent 2,000 troops into Iraq without getting permission from Baghdad.

The Iraqi government has demanded they withdraw, calling it a "hostile act", but Ankara has decided to ignore Baghdad's wishes.

This is only the latest act that undermines the wisdom of having Turkey as a military ally.

Turkey and the U.S. State Department scoffed when Russia accused the Turkish government of being involved with smuggling ISIS oil. However, after Moscow presented convincing proof of Turkey's involvement, the Obama Administration changed its story.

While the US has long hyped the problem of ISIS oil smuggling, the recent Russian Defense Ministry presentation, showing significant evidence of Turkey being involved in buying ISIS oil and taking it to refineries run by the Turkish government, has changed their tune.
After a previous denial of the allegation against Turkey, the US is now admitting that the oil is ending up smuggled into Turkey, but insists it is "of no significance" because so much of the oil produced in ISIS-controlled parts of Syria is consumed inside Syria.
"The amount of oil being smuggled is extremely low and has decreased over time," claimed US special envoy Amos Hochstein, a stunning admission which suggests the US was well aware of oil smuggling into Turkey even before the Russian evidence.

Just in case we don't want to believe the Russian videos, Moscow has a solution.

"If the American colleagues are not satisfied with those ones, they should watch videos gained by their own UAVs," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Facebook.

The ever-changing political spin in Washington to avoid admitting the obvious looks increasingly dishonest.

With the U.S. government knowing about Turkey's government involvement (Russia's photos show ISIS oil smuggling trucks passing through border crossings without stopping), it begs the question of what our objectives actually are?

gjohnsit

Erdogan Moves To Annex Mosul

Should Mosul be cleared of the Islamic State the Turkish heavy weapons will make it possible for Turkey to claim the city unless the Iraqi government will use all its power to fight that claim. Should the city stay in the hands of the Islamic State Turkey will make a deal with it and act as its protector. It will benefit from the oil around Mosul which will be transferred through north Iraq to Turkey and from there sold on the world markets. In short: This is an effort to seize Iraq's northern oil fields.

That is the plan but it is a risky one. Turkey did not ask for permission to invade Iraq and did not inform the Iraqi government.

The Turks claim that they were invited by the Kurds:

Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul as the Turkish forces in the region training the Peshmerga forces have been reinforced, Hürriyet reported.

The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter's visit to northern Iraq on Nov. 4.

There are two problems with this. First: Massoud Barzani is no longer president of the KRG. His mandate ran out and the parliament refused to prolong it. Second: Mosul and its Bashiqa area are not part of the KRG. Barzani making a deal about it is like him making a deal about Paris.

mookins

Al-masdar news-feed-thing had guncam footage of a night attack, by frogfoots with their cannons, on an ISIS truck park. Magnified view at first so you could see they were full-sized like semi's; and no casual agglomeration, these were parked efficiently in a herringbone pattern, at least 400 and I think closer to a thousand. At the film's end the whole thing is just large, neat rectangles of brightness.

So little did ISIS have to fear from an American-coalition airstrike that they had it set up like this. And now these White House statements that it was no big deal.

And Europe sees all this on the news, the ISIS we didn't fight, the flood of refugees that resulted, and sees Russia and Iran being the good guys.

I read where Putin was worried, called Merkel and Hollande to see if they were still on board with 'Minsk 2', the current ceasefire agreement in Ukraine, and they said yes they were. He was worried because Ukraine's President had said he rejected it and the U.S. had said we support that, we reject it too.

We've lost Europe. World getting better fast.

MrWebster, Dec 06 · 04:28:32 PM

Your observations are right on, but only if you assume that thee enemy is IS and Al Queda in Syria. At this point, I don't believe it is. Assad/Russians are perceived as the bigger and more important enemy for the Obama administration and the neocons to focus on. In this case, what Turkey is doing is acceptable-they are enabling opposition forces to Assad/Russians. Heck, when the Russians started bombing, the Al Nusrat Front (Al Queda in Syria) was magically transformed by the administration and the mass media into "rebels", "moderate rebels", "insurgents", "opposition".

native -> MrWebster

I wonder who gets to claim Mosel, after all the dust settles? Abadi seems to have lost all control over his nominal countrymen in the north. But will the Iraqi Kurds side with Turkey, and against their brethren just across the border?

[Dec 06, 2015] US elite strategy toward Russia is replica of UK strategy a century before

Notable quotes:
"... The relationship between Russia and Western Europe's far right may be a marriage of convenience... ..."
"... Closer ties with rising political parties in the EU will give Putin more leverage against NATO. For its part, the European right sees the Russian leader as a staunch defender of national sovereignty and conservative values who has challenged US influence ..."
russia-insider.com

merchantsofmenace

The relationship between Russia and Western Europe's far right may be a marriage of convenience...

Closer ties with rising political parties in the EU will give Putin more leverage against NATO. For its part, the European right sees the Russian leader as a staunch defender of national sovereignty and conservative values who has challenged US influence...

https://medium.com/the-eastern-project/greece-s-nazi-problem-continues-5b92ca57dc6d#.kfiaixvdm 1

YoringeTBE -> merchantsofmenace
russia-insider.com

Stratfor Chairman Straight-Talking: US Policy Is Driven by Imperative to Stop Coalition between Germany and Russia

George Friedman, Founder and Chairman of Stratfor, or what is called by many "private/shadow CIA" for its well known connections and close cooperation with the CIA, gave a very interesting speech to the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs on subject Europe: Destined for Conflict? in February of this year.

[Dec 06, 2015] More Planes Than Targets Why the Air War on ISIS Will Fail

www.counterpunch.org
Even if Britain's role is symbolic at this stage, it has joined a very real war against an enemy of great ferocity and experience, not least of air attacks. The highly informed Turkish military analystMetin Gurcan, writing on Al-Monitor website, says that air strikes may have been effective against Isis communications and training facilities, but adds that "it is extraordinary that there is not a single [Isis] control facility that has been hit by allied air strikes".

This is not for lack of trying and shows that talk of destroying Isis command and control centres in Raqqa is wishful thinking, given that 2,934 American air strikes in Syria have failed to do so over the last 14 months.

Air strikes have had an impact on Isis's tactics and casualty rate, above all when they are used in close co-operation with a well-organised ground force like the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Isis may have lost as many as 2,200 fighters at Kobani which is a small and closely packed city. On the other hand, the length of time it took to drive Isis out of it with 700 air strikes demonstrated their fighters' willingness to die.

Many Isis commanders reportedly regard their tactics at Kobani as a mistake which cost the group too many casualties and which it should not repeat. To do so it sacrificed two of its most important military assets which are mobility and surprise. This does not mean that it will not fight to the last bullet for cities like Raqqa and Mosul, but it did not do so for Tikrit and Sinjar where it used snipers, booby traps and IEDs, but did not commit large detachments of troops.

Isis has modified its tactics to take account of the continuing risk of air strikes. It now has a decentralised command structure, with tactical decisions being taken by leaders of small units of eight to 10 men, whose overall mission is determined from the centre – but not how it should be accomplished. This limits the ability of its opponents to monitor its communications.

Its forces assemble swiftly and attack soon afterwards with multiple diversionary operations, as was seen when Mosul was captured in June 2014 and again when they took Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, this May.

They had been fighting their way into Baiji refinery, but this turned out to be a diversion and Isis units pulled back from there as soon as Ramadi fell.

Isis's approach is to use a mixture of conventional, guerrilla and terrorist tactics, none unique in themselves, but they have never been used before in combination. Air strikes mean that it is less able to use captured tanks or big concentrations of vehicles packed with fighters. Instead it uses IEDs, booby traps, snipers and mortar teams in even greater numbers.

Public martyrdom as an expression of religious faith is such a central part of its ideology that it can deploy suicide bombers on foot or in vehicles in great numbers to destroy fortifications and demoralize the enemy. Some 28 suicide bombers were reportedly used in the final stages of the battle for Ramadi. Psychological warfare has always been an important element of Isis's tactical armory. It has sought to terrify opposition forces by showing videos in which captured Iraqi or Syrian soldiers are filmed being ritually decapitated or shot in the head.

Sometimes, the families of Syrian soldiers get a phone call from their son's mobile with a picture of his body with his severed head on his chest. Mass killings of prisoners have taken place after all Isis's victories (the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra Front, does the same thing).

Heavy air attack will increase Isis's losses and it will be more difficult to bring in foreign volunteers through Turkey because most of the border is now closed. But Isis rules an area with a population of at least six million and conscripts all young men, who often want to become fighters because there is no other employment. Isis may have a fighting force of 100,000 men, as is strongly suggested by the very long front lines it holds and its ability to make multiple attacks simultaneously. Whatever Britain's role, we will be fighting a formidable military machine.

[Dec 06, 2015] CIA personnel and assets had the strongest motives to murder Kennedy

www.nakedcapitalism.com
Vatch

JKF? I didn't know that the historian John King Fairbank was assassinated.

roadrider

Then I guess you have solid evidence to account for the actions of Allen Dulles, David Atlee Phillips, William Harvey, David Morales, E. Howard Hunt, Richard Helms, James Angleton and other CIA personnel and assets who had

1) perhaps the strongest motives to murder Kennedy

2) the means to carry out the crime, namely, their executive action (assassination) capability and blackmail the government into aiding their cover up and

3) the opportunity to carry out such a plan given their complete lack of accountability to the rest of the government and their unmatched expertise in lying, deceit, secrecy, fraud.

Because if you actually took the time to research or at least read about their actions in this matter instead of just spouting bald assertions that you decline to back up with any facts you would find their behavior nearly impossible to explain other than having at, the very least, guilty knowledge of the crime.

skk

Ruby claimed he was injected with cancer in jail, which ultimately rendered his second trial (after winning appeal overturning his death sentence) moot. It sounded crazy, but so did the motive proffered at his first trial-- that he wanted to save Mrs. Kennedy the anguish...

that is such an amazing story.. i've yet to watch the video of Lyndon Johnson's swearing in - where Marr states he's seen to be winking and smiling etc -

Jim Marrs - Kennedy Assassination Lecture

those who wish - Pick it up at around 12 minutes. actually in that lecture he may well be showing videos of it - I wdn't know cos just listen to the audio.

skk

JFK is the one 'safe' conspiracy to talk about without getting the extreme whacko label.

fascinating "lectures" - British Humanist Society and all - still you gotta listen to everything especially the other side:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/V6s_Jw3RU9g?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&list=PL44BEE83ED9D841A8

Make a note of the names - rising stars in the I'm "left" but I'm not a conspiracist gaggle - ist a standard gaggle - Chomsky, Monbiot are in it ( to win it of course - their fabled "socialist" kingdom" ) - yeah yeah its BritLand so yeah why I care I suppose.

[Dec 06, 2015] The USA is number one small arms manufacturer in the world

peakoilbarrel.com
Glenn Stehle, 12/05/2015 at 2:54 pm
Ves,

There was an article in one of the Mexico City dailies today, written in response to the shootings in San Bernardino, that cited some numbers that were news to me:

1) The United States is the #1 small arms manufacturer in the world

2) 83% of small arms manufactured in the world are manufactured in the United States

3) The US's closest competitor is Russia, which manufactures 11% of the world's small arms

4) Small arms are the US's third largest export product, surpassed only by aircraft and agricultural products

5) The US market itself consumes 15 million small arms per year, and there are 300 million small arms currently in the posession of US private citizens

6) Saudi Arabia, however, is by far and away the largest small arms consumer in the world, and purchases 33.1% of all small arms produced in the world

7) Saudi Arabia then re-distributes these small arms to its allies in Syria, Lybia, etc.

8) So far in 2015, there have been 351 "mass shootings" in the United States in which 447 persons have been killed and another 290 wounded

9) The world's leading human rights organizations never speak of the bloodbath ocurring around the world due to the proliferation of small arms, much less the United Nations Security Council.

10) Both the United States and Russia seem quite content to keep any talk of small arms proliferation off the agenda.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2015/12/05/opinion/023a1pol

[Dec 04, 2015] German Financialization and the Eurozone Crisis

Notable quotes:
"... Bundenstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht ..."
naked capitalism
Many studies of the Eurozone crisis focus on peripheral European states' current account deficits, or German neo-mercantilist policies that promoted export surpluses. However, German financialization and input on the eurozone's financial architecture promoted deficits, increased systemic risk, and facilitated the onset of Europe's subsequent crises.

Increasing German financial sector competition encouraged German banks' increasing securitization and participation in global capital markets. Regional liberalization created new marketplaces for German finance and increased crisis risk as current accounts diverged between Europe's core and periphery. After the global financial crisis of 2008, German losses on international securitized assets prompted retrenchment of lending, paving the way for the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis. Rethinking how financial liberalization facilitated German and European financial crises may prevent the eurozone from repeating these performances in the future.

After the 1970s, German banks' trading activity came to surpass lending as the largest share of assets, while German firms increasingly borrowed in international capital markets rather than from domestic banks. Private banks alleged that political subsidies and higher credit ratings for Landesbanks, public banks that insured household, small enterprise, and local banks' access to capital, were unfair, and, in response, German lawmakers eliminated state guarantees for public banks. Landesbanks, despite their historic role as stable, non-profit, providers of credit, consequently had to compete with Germany's largest private banks for business. Changes in competition restructured the German financial system. Mergers and takeovers occurred, especially in commercial banks and Landesbanks. German financial intermediation ratios-total financial assets of financial corporations divided by the total financial assets of the economy-increased. Greater securitization and shadow banking relative to long-term lending increased German propensity for financial crisis, as securities, shares, and securitized debt constituted increasing percentages of German banks' assets and liabilities.

Throughout this period, Germany lacked a centralized financial regulatory apparatus. Only in 2002 did the country's central bank, the Bundesbank, establish the Bundenstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin), which consolidated the responsibilities of three agencies to oversee the whole financial sector. However, neither institution could keep pace with new sources of financial and economic instability. German banking changes continued apace and destabilizing trends in banking grew.

German desire for financial liberalization at the European level, meanwhile, helped increase potential systemic risk of European finance. Despite some European opposition to removing barriers to capital and trade flows, Germany prevailed in setting these preconditions for membership in the European economic union. Germany's negotiating power stemmed from its strong currency, as well as French, Italian, and smaller European economies' desire for currency stability. Germany demanded an independent central bank for the union, removal of capital controls, and an expansion of the tasks banks could perform within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The Second Banking Coordination Directive (SBCD) mandated that banks perform commercial and investment intermediation to be certified within the EMU; the Single Market Passport (SMP) required free trade and capital flows throughout the EMU. The SMP and SBCD increased the scope of activity that financial institutions throughout the union were expected to provide, and opened banks up to markets, instruments, and activities they could neither monitor nor regulate, and hence to destabilizing shocks.

Intra-EMU lending and borrowing subsequently increased, and total lending and borrowing grew relative to European countries' GDP from the early 1990s onward. Asymmetries emerged in capital flows between Europe's core, particularly the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, to Europe's newly liberalized periphery. German banks lent increasing volumes to EMU member states, especially peripheral states. Though this lending on a country-by-country basis was a small percentage of Germany's GDP, it constituted larger percentages of borrowers' GDPs. In 2007, Germany lent 1.23% of its GDP to Portugal; this represented 17.68% of Portugal's GDP; in 2008, Germany lent 6% of its GDP to Ireland; this was 84% of Irish GDP. Germany, the largest European economy, lent larger percentages of its GDP to peripheral EMU nations relative to its lending to richer European economies. These flows, more potentially disruptive for borrowers than for the lender, reflected lack of oversight in asset management. German lending helped destabilize European financial systems more vulnerable to rapid capital inflows, and created conditions for large-scale capital flight in a crisis.

Financial competition increased in Europe over this period. Financial merger activity first accelerated within national borders, and later grew at supra-national levels. These movements increased eurozone access to capital, but increased pressure for banks to widen the scope of the services and lending that they provided. Rising European securitization in this period increased systemic risk for the EMU financial system. European holdings of U.S.-originated asset-backed securities increased by billions of dollars from the early 2000s until shortly before 2008. German banks were among the EMU's top issuers and acquirers of such assets. As banks' holdings of these assets increased, European systemic risk increased as well.

European total debt as a percentage of GDP rose in this period. Financial debt relative to GDP grew particularly sharply in core economies; Ireland was the only peripheral EMU economy with comparable levels of financial debt. Though government debt relative to GDP fell or held constant for most EMU nations, cross-border acquisition of sovereign debt increased until 2007. German banks acquired substantially larger portfolios of sovereign debt issued by other European states, which would not decrease until 2010. Only in 2009 did government debt relative to GDP increase throughout the eurozone, as governments guaranteed their financial systems to minimize the costs of the ensuing financial crisis.

The newly liberalized financial architecture of the eurozone increased both the market for German financial services and overall systemic risk of the European financial system; these dynamics helped destabilize the German financial system and economy at large. Rising German exports of goods, services, and capital to the rest of Europe grew the German economy, but divergence of current account balances within the EMU exposed it to sovereign debt risk in peripheral states. Potential systemic risk changed into systemic risk after the subprime mortgage crisis began. EMU economies would not have subsequently experienced such pressure to backstop national financial systems or to repay sovereign loans had German banks not lent so much or purchased so many sovereign bonds within the union. Narratives that fail to acknowledge Germany's role in promoting the circumstances that underlay the eurozone crisis ignore the destabilizing power of financial liberalization, even for a global financial center like Germany.

susan the other, December 3, 2015 at 1:06 pm

This is very interesting. It describes just how the EU mess unfolded beginning in 1970 with deregulation of the financial industry in the core. Big fish eat little fish. It is as if for 4 decades the banks in Germany compensated their losses to the bigger international lenders by taking on the riskier borrowers and were able to do so because of German mercantilism and financial deregulation. Like the German domestic banks loaned the periphery money with abandon, and effectively borrowed their own profits by speculating on bad customers. As German corporations did business with big international banksters, who lent at lower rates, other German banks resorted to buying the sovereign bonds of the periphery and selling CDOs, etc. The German banks were as over-extended looking for profit as consumers living on their credit cards. Deregulation enriched only the biggest international banks. We could call this behavior a form of digging your own grave. In 2009 the periphery saw their borrowing costs threatened and guaranteed their own financial institutions creating the "sovereign debt" that the core then refused to touch. Hypocrisy ruled. Generosity was in short supply. The whole thing fell apart. Deregulation was just another form of looting.

washunate, December 3, 2015 at 1:28 pm

German losses on international securitized assets prompted retrenchment of lending, paving the way for the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis.

I agree with the general conclusion at the end that German financialization is part of the overall narrative of EMU, but I don't follow this specific link in the chain of events as described. The eurozone has a sovereign debt crisis because those sovereign governments privatized the profits and socialized the losses of a global system of fraud. And if we're assigning national blame, it's a system run out of DC, NY, and London a lot more than Berlin, Frankfurt, and Brussels.

Current and capital account imbalances cancel each other out in the overall balance of payments. As bank lending decreases (capital account surplus shrinks) then the current account deficit shrinks as well (the 'trade deficit'). The problem is when governments step in and haphazardly backstop some of the losses – at least, when they do so without imposing taxes on the wealthy to a sufficient degree to pay for these bailouts.

[Dec 04, 2015] Congressional Aid to Multinationals Avoiding Taxes

EconoSpeak

The OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative is an effort by the G20 to curb the abuse of transfer pricing by multinationals. Senator Hatch is not a fan:

Throughout this process we have heard concerns from large sectors of the business community that the BEPS project could be used to further undermine our nation's competitiveness and to unfairly subject U.S. companies to greater tax liabilities abroad. Companies have also been concerned about various reporting requirements that could impose significant compliance costs on American businesses and force them to share highly sensitive proprietary information with foreign governments. I expect that we'll hear about these concerns from the business community and others during today's hearing.
Indeed we heard from some lawyer representing The Software Coalition who was there to mansplain to us how BEPS is evil. I learned two startling things. First – Bermuda must be part of the US tax base. Secondly, if Google is expected to pay taxes in the UK, it will take all those 53,600 jobs which are mainly in California and move them to Bermuda:
in particular how the changes to the international tax rules as developed under BEPS will significantly reduce the U.S. tax base and create disincentives for U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) to create R&D jobs in the United States
Yes – I find his testimony absurd at so many levels. Let's take Google as an example. When they say foreign subsidiaries – think Bermuda. Over the past three year, Google's income has average $15.876 billion per year but its income taxes have only average $2.933 billion for an effective tax rate of only 18.5%. How did that happen? Well – 55% of its income is sourced to these foreign subsidiaries and the average tax rate on this income is only 6.5%. Nice deal! Google's tax model is not only easy to explain but is also a very common one for those in the Software Coalition. While all of the R&D is done in the U.S. and 45% of its sales are in the U.S. – U.S. source income is only 45% of worldwide income. Very little of the foreign sourced income ends up in places like the UK even 11% of Google's sales are to UK customers. Only problem is that income ends up on Ireland's books with the UK getting a very modest amount of the profits. Now you might be wondering how Google got to the foreign taxes to be only 6.5% of foreign sourced income since Ireland's tax rate is 12.5%. But think Double Irish Dutch Sandwich and you'll get how the profits ended up in Bermuda as well as perhaps a good lunch! But what about that repatriation tax you ask. Google's most recent 10-K proudly notes:
"We have not provided U.S. income taxes and foreign withholding taxes on the undistributed earnings of foreign subsidiaries".
In other words, they are not paying that repatriation tax. Besides the Republicans want to eliminate. Let's be honest – Congress has hamstringed the IRS efforts to enforce transfer pricing. The BEPS initiative arose out of this failure. And now the Republicans in Congress are objecting to even these efforts. And if Europe has the temerity of expecting its fair share of taxes, U.S. multinationals will leave California and relocate in Bermuda? Who is this lawyer kidding? Myrtle Blackwood
The development model in nation after nation is dependent upon global corporations. What is happening is simply a byproduct of this.
Jack
Would the problem of transfer mythical corporate location and the resulting lost taxes be resolved if taxes were based on point of revenue? Tax gross income where it is earned instead of taxing profits where they are not earned.

[Dec 04, 2015] The Neoconservative Movement is Trotskyism

"... Kristol argues in his book The Neoconservative Persuasion that those Jewish intellectuals did not forsake their heritage (revolutionary ideology) when they gave up Communism and other revolutionary movements, but had to make some changes in their thinking. America is filled with such former Trotskyists who unleashed an unprecedented foreign policy that led to the collapse of the American economy. ..."
"... Noted Australian economist John Quiggin declares in his recent work Zombie Economics that "Ideas are long lived, often outliving their originators and taking new and different forms. Some ideas live on because they are useful. Others die and are forgotten. But even when they have proved themselves wrong and dangerous, ideas are very hard to kill. Even after the evidence seems to have killed them, they keep on coming back. ..."
"... These ideas are neither alive nor dead; rather…they are undead, or zombie, ideas." Bolshevism or Trotskyism is one of those zombie ideas that keeps coming back in different forms. It has ideologically reincarnated in the political disputations of the neoconservative movement. ..."
"... As soon as the Israel Lobby came along, as soon as the neoconservative movement began to shape U.S. foreign policy, as soon as Israel began to dictate to the U.S. what ought to be done in the Middle East, America was universally hated by the Muslim world. ..."
"... In that sense, the neoconservative movement as a political and intellectual movement represents a fifth column in the United States in that it subtly and deceptively seeks to undermine what the Founding Fathers have stood for and replace it with what the Founding Fathers would have considered horrible foreign policies-policies which have contributed to the demise of the respect America once had. ..."
"... For example, when two top AIPAC officials-Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman-were caught passing classified documents from the Pentagon to Israel, Gabriel Schoenfeld defended them. ..."
"... Israel has been spying on the United States for years using various Israeli or Jewish individuals, including key Jewish neoconservative figures such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, who were under investigation for passing classified documents to Israel. ..."
January 22, 2013 | Veterans Today

Kristol argues in his book The Neoconservative Persuasion that those Jewish intellectuals did not forsake their heritage (revolutionary ideology) when they gave up Communism and other revolutionary movements, but had to make some changes in their thinking. America is filled with such former Trotskyists who unleashed an unprecedented foreign policy that led to the collapse of the American economy.

We have to keep in mind that America and much of the Western world were scared to death of Bolshevism and Trotskyism in the 1920s and early 30s because of its subversive activity.

Noted Australian economist John Quiggin declares in his recent work Zombie Economics that "Ideas are long lived, often outliving their originators and taking new and different forms. Some ideas live on because they are useful. Others die and are forgotten. But even when they have proved themselves wrong and dangerous, ideas are very hard to kill. Even after the evidence seems to have killed them, they keep on coming back.

These ideas are neither alive nor dead; rather…they are undead, or zombie, ideas." Bolshevism or Trotskyism is one of those zombie ideas that keeps coming back in different forms. It has ideologically reincarnated in the political disputations of the neoconservative movement.

... ... ...

As it turns out, neoconservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute are largely extensions of Trotskyism with respect to foreign policy. Other think tanks such as the Bradley Foundation were overtaken by the neoconservative machine back in 1984.

Some of those double agents have been known to have worked with Likud-supporting Jewish groups such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, an organization which has been known to have "co-opted" several "non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel. It flew out the retired general Jay Garner, now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq."

Philo-Semitic scholars Stephen Halper of Cambridge University and Jonathan Clarke of the CATO Institute agree that the neoconservative agendas "have taken American international relations on an unfortunate detour," which is another way of saying that this revolutionary movement is not what the Founding Fathers signed up for, who all maintained that the United States would serve the American people best by not entangling herself in alliances with foreign entities.

As soon as the Israel Lobby came along, as soon as the neoconservative movement began to shape U.S. foreign policy, as soon as Israel began to dictate to the U.S. what ought to be done in the Middle East, America was universally hated by the Muslim world.

Moreover, former secretary of defense Robert Gates made it clear to the United States that the Israelis do not and should not have a monopoly on the American interests in the Middle East. For that, he was chastised by neoconservative Elliott Abrams.

In that sense, the neoconservative movement as a political and intellectual movement represents a fifth column in the United States in that it subtly and deceptively seeks to undermine what the Founding Fathers have stood for and replace it with what the Founding Fathers would have considered horrible foreign policies-policies which have contributed to the demise of the respect America once had.

... ... ...

Israel has been spying on the United States for years using various Israeli or Jewish individuals, including key Jewish neoconservative figures such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, who were under investigation for passing classified documents to Israel.

The FBI has numerous documents tracing Israel's espionage in the U.S., but no one has come forward and declared it explicitly in the media because most political pundits value mammon over truth.

For example, when two top AIPAC officials-Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman-were caught passing classified documents from the Pentagon to Israel, Gabriel Schoenfeld defended them.

In the annual FBI report called "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage," Israel is a major country that pops up quite often. This is widely known among CIA and FBI agents and U.S. officials for years.

One former U.S. intelligence official declared, "There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States. Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States.

They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations. People here as liaisons… aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable."

[Dec 04, 2015] China vows to drive smart aleck lecturers from its universities

Notable quotes:
"... Corruption happen everywhere, just look at US. They merely make it legal to bribe the politician, it is call lobbying. Look at all those who cheated their clients by selling them CDOs and betting against them. It became a financial worst crisis for the world, yet none of them was jailed and they all get to keep the billions. ..."
The Guardian

KarlBC g_reader_1, 4 Dec 2015 09:43

Corruption happen everywhere, just look at US. They merely make it legal to bribe the politician, it is call lobbying. Look at all those who cheated their clients by selling them CDOs and betting against them. It became a financial worst crisis for the world, yet none of them was jailed and they all get to keep the billions.

Estimate the cost to win 2016 president election = USD 1bn. Even Bush, not a front runner, had already spend USD30millions. Contribution of fund in return for IOU favors, look like corruption to me too.

NigelJ, 4 Dec 2015 10:53

some of this anti-corruption campaign would certainly not go amiss in the UK.

TheHighRoad isabey, 4 Dec 2015 09:29

Perhaps the difference is that many academics in the UK are contracted to do a certain number of hours teaching and must support the university's reputation with research but are also permitted - contractually - to work in industry and with NGOs to supplement their income and to expand their knowledge of current practice to make their teaching and research more relevant. It isn't illegal or even unusual or suspect and if you are envious of it I suggest you spend 8 years working your way through an ordinary degree, a master's and a doctorate so that you too can participate in it - though don't get your hopes up for "raking it in".

Oh, and they don't work in a system where corruption investigations are used as a pretext to weed out "unreliable elements" who talk about dangerous things that might lead impressionable young people to ask difficult questions about the government in a one-party state.

[Dec 04, 2015] Turkish Stream is now officially cancelled. All the eggs are now in the same basket: Nord Stream II.

Notable quotes:
"... "Firstly, Ukraine is an energy-deficient country and the tendency we observe today will continue and develop: gas production in Ukraine will decline and consumption will grow. We proceed from the assumption that the Ukrainian economy will develop successfully. The present-day level of gas consumption clearly shows that Ukraine has not solved all of its economic problems. In this regard, gas supplies to Ukraine will increase in the medium and long term. Secondly, if a merger takes place, we will load Ukraine's gas transmission system to the extent possible and it surely means additional income that is significant for the Ukrainian budget. At the same time, if the Ukrainian gas transmission system is loaded with some 95 billion cubic meters of gas per year, we know well that it may deliver 120 and even 125 billion cubic meters with a particular level of investments in modernization and reconstruction, of course. And if small investments are made in new compressor stations and pipeline loops, we may probably speak of 140 billion cubic meters of gas. However, we realize that European gas consumption will grow. According to our estimates, gas demand in Europe may grow up to 130-140 billion cubic meters of gas by the turn of 2020." ..."
"... Remember the story with biogas, wonderful – 20 per cent by 2020, and mass media start writing that it will enable escaping from dependence on Russia. Then we find out that biogas is there, together with food supply problems, etc. Then we observed the European Union's wonderful program – "20-20-20". I think, there's no need of deciphering it – everyone knows about it. And again mass media say that it will enable reducing dependence on Gazprom and Russia. The same thing is with shale gas. First, no one will cope with shale gas transportation, because it is too expensive, add transport – and it is already a business with no prospects. I have a plea for mass media – would you please stop frightening Europe, stop frightening everyone around with Russia and Gazprom. For Europe it is a real blessing that it has such a powerful neighbor with such conventional gas reserves. Exploration of non-conventionals [N.B.: Non-conventional energy resources] may end with no results, as experience of certain countries shows. So let's live in peace and friendship and contribute to strengthening Russia's contacts and ties with the European Union and Ukraine . ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com
karl1haushofer, December 3, 2015 at 9:42 am
Turkish Stream is now officially cancelled. All the eggs are now in the same basket: Nord Stream II. Hopefully the US/UK/Baltics/Poland front will not be able to stop it. Because otherwise Russia is stuck with Ukraine as a transit country.
marknesop, December 3, 2015 at 10:45 am
Well, I don't think they want to stop it. They want the gas the same as before – they just want it on their own terms. Brussels wants to exercise control over whose gas goes through the pipeline, so that if they are have a "spat" with Russia, they can stop orders of Russian gas and bring some at-this-moment-unknown supplier's gas through the same pipeline, probably Azerbaijan.

Read this 2011 press conference with Gazprom; I found it while looking for a layman's explanation of what the Third Energy Package actually entails. Because it appears what is most unappealing to it from Gazprom's point of view is that it limits vital investment in gas futures, considering it would substantially restrict long-term contracts. They could be happy with you today, buying off your competitors tomorrow. According to Brussels, that's healthy competition which ensures the customer gets the best price, while Gazprom naturally prefers to deal in long-term contracts which lock the customer in, although they are usually willing to talk out a deal if it looks like the customer is really unhappy because unhappy customers are bad for business, even in the gas industry.

Right away, you notice that Europe accepts long-term contracts, but nonetheless takes the position that long-term capacity supply orders upset the market. As Gazprom correctly points out, these two views cannot reasonably coexist.

In 2011, Gazprom was still considering a joint venture with NaftoGaz Ukraine, and intended to actually increase gas transit through Ukraine while simultaneously building South Stream. They were also considering a merger, and Miller said if that came about, Ukrainian gas consumers would pay the same prices as Russia. Look how far they are away from that now – funny old world, innit? Here was Miller's vision, at the time, for a Gazprom-NaftoGaz merger:

"Firstly, Ukraine is an energy-deficient country and the tendency we observe today will continue and develop: gas production in Ukraine will decline and consumption will grow. We proceed from the assumption that the Ukrainian economy will develop successfully. The present-day level of gas consumption clearly shows that Ukraine has not solved all of its economic problems. In this regard, gas supplies to Ukraine will increase in the medium and long term.
Secondly, if a merger takes place, we will load Ukraine's gas transmission system to the extent possible and it surely means additional income that is significant for the Ukrainian budget. At the same time, if the Ukrainian gas transmission system is loaded with some 95 billion cubic meters of gas per year, we know well that it may deliver 120 and even 125 billion cubic meters with a particular level of investments in modernization and reconstruction, of course. And if small investments are made in new compressor stations and pipeline loops, we may probably speak of 140 billion cubic meters of gas. However, we realize that European gas consumption will grow. According to our estimates, gas demand in Europe may grow up to 130-140 billion cubic meters of gas by the turn of 2020."

You can see, I'm sure, why Brussels didn't like it. Under the Third Energy Package, the operator of the gas transit system will be elected by the European Union on a tender basis. You can see, I'm sure, why Gazprom didn't like that. If the merger between Gazprom and NaftoGaz Ukraine had come about, Ukrainians would have paid Russian domestic prices, in a word, forever.

What Europe's position boils down to is it wants a system whereby its suppliers do not own anything of the transit system, and the operator could be anyone depending on who sucks up to Europe the most, so that it can make its suppliers fight with one another and be assured of the cheapest prices. Until that magical sugar-daddy supplier appears that can provide steady and sustained competition to Russia, Europe is not in a very good bargaining position. But you bet that would change fast if the western alliance could get rid of Assad, partition Syria and get a Qatari gas pipeline laid across it.

Here's a poignant reminder of what might have been, which serves to point up who are the real troublemakers:

"Remember the story with biogas, wonderful – 20 per cent by 2020, and mass media start writing that it will enable escaping from dependence on Russia. Then we find out that biogas is there, together with food supply problems, etc. Then we observed the European Union's wonderful program – "20-20-20". I think, there's no need of deciphering it – everyone knows about it. And again mass media say that it will enable reducing dependence on Gazprom and Russia. The same thing is with shale gas. First, no one will cope with shale gas transportation, because it is too expensive, add transport – and it is already a business with no prospects. I have a plea for mass media – would you please stop frightening Europe, stop frightening everyone around with Russia and Gazprom. For Europe it is a real blessing that it has such a powerful neighbor with such conventional gas reserves. Exploration of non-conventionals [N.B.: Non-conventional energy resources] may end with no results, as experience of certain countries shows. So let's live in peace and friendship and contribute to strengthening Russia's contacts and ties with the European Union and Ukraine."

kirill , December 3, 2015 at 2:17 pm
See above. It is time for Russia to lay down the law. Russia can go without the $25 billion per year of lost revenues. But whole EU economies will crash into epic depressions without this energy supply. In other words, the EU is looking at TRILLIONS of DOLLARS in economic damage. The Brussels Uncle Scam cocksuckers will have to justify their actions. Russia does not have to since it is the vendor. If you are not happy, then shop the fuck elsewhere, idiots.

[Dec 03, 2015] Russia won't forget downed jet, Putin warns Turkey in annual address

The Guardian

Russian president says Ankara will not 'get away with a tomato ban' in response to 'cynical war crime'

... ... ...

The Russian president said he was still bemused by the Turkish decision to shoot down the Su-24. He said: "Perhaps only Allah knows why they did this. And it seems Allah decided to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by relieving them of their sense and judgment."

Russia has implemented a series of economic sanctions against Turkey, including banning fruit and vegetable imports and ordering Russian tour operators not to send tourists to the country. Putin emphasised that this limited response was not an attempt to move on and start afresh, however.


"There will not be a nervous, hysterical reaction, that would be dangerous for us and for the whole world," he said. "We will not engage in sabre rattling. But if people think that after carrying out a cynical war crime, killing our people, they'll get away with a tomato ban or some limits in the construction sector, they're very wrong. We will keep remembering what they did. And they will keep regretting it."

The day before, Russia's defence ministry had called journalists to a briefing at its command centre, showing slides and satellite imagery claiming to show proof that Turkey was profiting from the trade in Isis oil.

"A unified team of bandits and Turkish elites operates in the region to steal oil from their neighbours," deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday. Erdoğan later dismissed the accusations as "slander".

... ... ...

Putin again called for a unified coalition to fight terrorism, and said it was unacceptable to delineate between different terrorist groups. The Russian airstrikes have hit many groups that western countries do not consider terrorists. Putin also made it clear once again who he blames for the current terrorist threat.

"Iraq, Libya and Syria have turned into zones of chaos and anarchy which threaten the whole world," he said. "And of course we know why this happened. We know who wanted to change inconvenient regimes, and crudely impose their rules. And what was the result? They made a mess, ruined the states, turned different peoples against each other and then, as we say in Russia, washed their hands of the places, opening the road for radicals, extremists and terrorists."

[Dec 03, 2015] It's a pretty tough situation for Putin

Recently annonced: Too Late for Apologies: Russia Halts Turk Stream Gas Pipeline
marknesop.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile, December 3, 2015 at 4:39 am

Just announced:

Too Late for Apologies: Russia Halts Turk Stream Gas Pipeline

Earlier, during his address to the nation, the Evil One questioned the sanity of the Turkish political leadership, stressing that Russia is nor criticising the Turkish nation for the recent downturn in Russo-Turksh relationships.

marknesop, December 3, 2015 at 7:37 am

Washington will be delighted, as it was one of the hoped-for consequences of the major downturn in relations. Hoped for by Washington and Brussels, I mean. Brussels will now ramp up its rhetoric against Nord Stream II, and if the coalition building it have not got all their ducks in a row the EC will be all too ready to put a stop to it. The objective will be leaving Russia no option but to continue transit through Ukraine, because the transit fees are vital to its solvency. The EU can't afford to give it $2 Billion a year for nothing for as far as the eye can see.

kirill, December 3, 2015 at 2:13 pm

As I posted elsewhere, Russia needs to make a formal announcement that the transit of gas via Ukraine will stop at the end of 2016 regardless of the state of alternative routes. Brussels can then go and eat shit.

likbez, December 3, 2015 at 8:21 pm

It's a pretty tough situation for Putin. No friends anywhere. Everybody want a peace of Russia economically or otherwise. The situation reminds me a Russian cruiser Varyag at the Battle of Chemulpo Bay with the Japanese squadron of Admiral Uriu.

Fledging political alliance of Turkey and Ukraine is not a very good development. Also while economic sanctions are not that damaging to Russia per se as they are for Turkey, they still increase isolation of Russia. Exactly what the USA wanted from the very beginning.

So this whole incident with shooting down Russian Su-24 looks like another victory of the US diplomacy in its efforts to isolate Russia. And it might well be a plot similar to MH17 plot, if you wish. It does not matter if Erdogan acted on his own initiative or with gentle encouragement. The net result is the same.

Also a new Saudi leadership is a pretty impulsive and aggressive folk. And the are definitely adamantly anti-Russian.

[Dec 03, 2015] Who are those moderate rebels in Syria

marknesop.wordpress.com
yalensis, December 3, 2015 at 4:48 pm

You are burying the lede, which is Congressman Ed Royce's not-so veiled threat against Russia:

"I think what Vladimir Putin should think on, for a minute, is the fact that Moscow itself IS a target. The attack on the Metro-Liner from Russia over Egypt clearly is another message from ISIS. So, at this point what we would like to see is a recalibration on the part of the Russian military. So that instead of attacking the Free Syrian Army and the more secular Syrian forces, they should begin to attack ISIS. So far we haven't seen that."

Translation from American B.S. into plain talk:
"Putin: Stop attacking our guys, we know they are ISIS but we have to pretend they're not. If you keep attacking them, we'll have them commit ever more terror attacks against the Russian people."

marknesop , December 3, 2015 at 6:15 pm

The USA is perhaps the worst choice on the planet to ask who is a "moderate rebel" and who is ISIS, as witnessed by their sad-sack training plan for moderate rebels which produced 5 or so whom they say are reliable after spending $500 Million. Obviously they trained many more than 5, but they have no idea where those people or their equipment are now. The real hot button in that article is the mention of General Steven Groves and his operation to "oversee the suppression of assessments showing the war on a perilous trajectory." That's what the American intelligence organs do now – blow smoke up people's asses so they can't see reality.

[Dec 03, 2015] Germany Rebukes Its Own Intelligence Agency for Criticizing Saudi Policy

Notable quotes:
"... "The cautious diplomatic stance of the older leading members of the royal family is being replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention," said the memo, which was titled " Saudi Arabia - Sunni regional power torn between foreign policy paradigm change and domestic policy consolidation" and was one and a half pages long. ..."
"... Since taking the throne early this year, King Salman has invested great power in Prince Mohammed, making him defense minister and deputy crown prince and giving him oversight of oil and economic policy. The sudden prominence of such a young and untested prince - he is believed to be about 30, and had little public profile before his father became king - has worried some Saudis and foreign diplomats. ..."
"... Prince Mohammed is seen as a driving force behind the Saudi military campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, which human rights groups say has caused thousands of civilian deaths. ..."
"... In its memo, the BND said that Saudi rivalry with Iran for supremacy in the Middle East, as well as Saudi dependency on the United States, were the main drivers of Saudi foreign policy. ..."
"... The Saudi-Iranian rivalry plays out throughout the region, the memo said, most recently and strikingly in the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. There, it said, "Saudi Arabia wants to prove that it is ready to take unprecedented military, financial and political risks in order not to fall into a disadvantageous position in the region." ..."
"... In Syria, Saudi Arabia's aim was always to oust President Bashar al-Assad, and that has not changed, the memo said. ..."
"... "The concentration of economic and foreign policy power on Mohammed bin Salman contains the latent danger that, in an attempt to establish himself in the royal succession while his father is still alive, he could overreach with expensive measures or reforms that would unsettle other members of the royal family and the population," the memo observed, adding, "That could overstrain the relations to friendly and above all to allied states in the region." ..."
The New York Times

The intelligence agency's memo risked playing havoc with Berlin's efforts to show solidarity with France in its military campaign against the Islamic State and to push forward the tentative talks on how to end the Syrian civil war. The Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, is due to vote on Friday on whether to send reconnaissance planes, midair fueling capacity and a frigate to the Middle East to support the French.

The memo was sent to selected German journalists on Wednesday. In it, the foreign intelligence agency, known as the BND, offered an unusually frank assessment of recent Saudi policy.

"The cautious diplomatic stance of the older leading members of the royal family is being replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention," said the memo, which was titled "Saudi Arabia - Sunni regional power torn between foreign policy paradigm change and domestic policy consolidation" and was one and a half pages long.

The memo said that King Salman and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman were trying to build reputations as leaders of the Arab world.

Since taking the throne early this year, King Salman has invested great power in Prince Mohammed, making him defense minister and deputy crown prince and giving him oversight of oil and economic policy. The sudden prominence of such a young and untested prince - he is believed to be about 30, and had little public profile before his father became king - has worried some Saudis and foreign diplomats.

Prince Mohammed is seen as a driving force behind the Saudi military campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, which human rights groups say has caused thousands of civilian deaths.

... ... ...

In its memo, the BND said that Saudi rivalry with Iran for supremacy in the Middle East, as well as Saudi dependency on the United States, were the main drivers of Saudi foreign policy.

The Saudi-Iranian rivalry plays out throughout the region, the memo said, most recently and strikingly in the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. There, it said, "Saudi Arabia wants to prove that it is ready to take unprecedented military, financial and political risks in order not to fall into a disadvantageous position in the region."

In Syria, Saudi Arabia's aim was always to oust President Bashar al-Assad, and that has not changed, the memo said.

But it suggested that the recent shift in Saudi leadership has added new factors in the Middle East. "The concentration of economic and foreign policy power on Mohammed bin Salman contains the latent danger that, in an attempt to establish himself in the royal succession while his father is still alive, he could overreach with expensive measures or reforms that would unsettle other members of the royal family and the population," the memo observed, adding, "That could overstrain the relations to friendly and above all to allied states in the region."

[Dec 03, 2015] Murder And Mayhem In The Middle East

Notable quotes:
"... Because you live in the real world, you know that NATO knew exactly where Gaddafi was at all times and that he was in that convoy attempting to escape NATOs bombing raid. Further, you wont be surprised to learn that many of these vehicles were pickup trucks that really posed no military threat to NATO. The point was to kill Gaddafi, and numerous resources were brought to bear on that mission. ..."
"... Gaddafis killing was the assassination of a foreign leader by Western interests. In this case, Gaddafi was just yet another target in a long line of leaders that attempted to keep those same interests at bay. ..."
"... While imperfect by many standards, all of these countries were stable and increasingly prosperous before outside interests came in and turned them into a living nightmare. ..."
"... It is this context that explains why such reactionary and violent groups as ISIS arose. They are the natural response of violated people seeking to assert some control over lives that otherwise have no hope and even less meaning. ..."
"... Islamic State militants have consolidated control over central Libya, carrying out summary executions, beheadings and amputations, the United Nations said on Monday in a further illustration of the North African states descent into anarchy. ..."
"... All sides in Libyas multiple armed conflicts are committing breaches of international law that may amount to war crimes, including abductions, torture and the killing of civilians, according to a U.N. report. ..."
"... Islamic State (IS) has gained control over swathes of territory, committing gross abuses including public summary executions of individuals based on their religion or political allegiance , the joint report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. Support Mission in Libya said. ..."
"... The U.N. had documented IS executions in their stronghold city of Sirte, in central Libya along the Mediterranean coast, and in Derna to the east, from which they were later ousted by local militias. Victims included Egyptian Copts, Ethiopians, Eritreans and a South Sudanese, the report said. ..."
Dec 1, 2015 | Safehaven.com

Why it matters to those living in the West

To understand what's happening in Syria right now, you have to understand the tactics and motivations of the US and NATO -- parties sharing interwoven aims and goals in the Middle East/North African (MENA) region.

While the populations of Europe and the US are fed raw propaganda about the regional aims involved, the reality is far different.

Where the propaganda claims that various bad dictators have to be taken out, or that democracy is the goal, neither have anything at all to do with what's actually happening or has happened in the region.

For starters, we all know that if oil fields were not at stake then the West would care much much less about MENA affairs.

But a lot of outside interests do care. And their aims certainly and largely include controlling the region's critical energy resources. There's a lot of concern over whether Russia or China will instead come to dominate these last, best oil reserves on the planet.

Further, we can dispense with the idea that the US and NATO have any interest at all in human rights in this story. If they did, then they'd at least have to admit that their strategies and tactics have unleashed immeasurable suffering, as well as created the conditions for lots more. But it would be silly to try and argue about or understand regional motivations through the lenses of human rights or civilian freedoms -- as neither applies here.

Divide And Conquer

Instead, the policies in the MENA region are rooted in fracturing the region so that it will be easier to control.

That's a very old tactic; first utilized to a great extent by Britain starting back in the 1700s.

Divide and conquer. There's a reason that's a well-worn catch phrase: it's hundreds of years old.

But to get a handle on the level of depravity involved, I think it useful to examine what happened in Libya in 2011 when NATO took out Muamar Gaddafi and left the country a broken shell -- as was intended.

I cannot really give you a good reason for NATO involving itself in taking out Gaddafi. I only have bad ones.

The official reason was that after the Arab Spring uprising in Libya in early 2011 (with plenty of evidence of Western influences in fanning those flames) things got ugly and protesters were shot. This allowed the UN to declare that it needed to protect civilians, and the ICC to charge Gaddafi with crimes against humanity, declaring that he needed to stand trial.

Here's how it went down:

On 27 June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, head of state security, for charges concerning crimes against humanity.[268] Libyan officials rejected the ICC, claiming that it had "no legitimacy whatsoever" and highlighting that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".[269]

That month, Amnesty International published their findings, in which they asserted that many of the accusations of mass human rights abuses made against Gaddafist forces lacked credible evidence, and were instead fabrications of the rebel forces which had been readily adopted by the western media.

Source

After the ICC's indictment, it was a hop, skip and a jump to declaring a NATO-enforced 'no fly zone' over Libya to protect civilians.

From there it was just a straight jump to NATO actively shooting anything related to the Gaddafi government. NATO had thereby chosen sides and was directly supporting the rebellion.

The pattern in play here is always the same: cherry-picked events are used as a pretext to support the side seeking to topple the existing government and thereby leave a sectarian wasteland to flourish in the inevitable power vacuum.

If you are like most people in the West, you know almost nothing of any of this context. It's not well reported. And Libya is rarely in the news even though it's going through increasingly desperate times.

I found a speech given by Gaddafi a few months before he was killed to be especially compelling and revealing. I will reproduce it in its entirety here:

For 40 years, or was it longer, I can't remember, I did all I could to give people houses, hospitals, schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland from the desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned daughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped my brothers and sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.

I did all I could to help people understand the concept of real democracy, where people's committees ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes, new suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They told Americans and other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and "freedom" never realizing it was a cut throat system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with those words, never realizing that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get soup.

No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since Salah-al-Deen, when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps I tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination - from thieves who would steal from us.

Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer. So, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.

I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it.

Let this testament be my voice to the world, that I stood up to crusader attacks of NATO, stood up to cruelty, stood up to betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitions, and that I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light. When others were building castles, I lived in a modest house, and in a tent. I never forgot my youth in Sirte, I did not spend our national treasury foolishly, and like Salah-al-Deen, our great Muslim leader, who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took little for myself...

In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy", but they know the truth yet continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my vision, my path, is, and has been clear and for my people and that I will fight to my last breath to keep us free, may Allah almighty help us to remain faithful and free.

Source

Gaddafi's great crime seems to be giving away too much oil wealth to his people. Was he a strongman? Yes, but you have to be to rule in that region right now. Was he the worst strong man? No, not by a long shot.

As bad as he was, at least he didn't kill a million Iraqis on trumped up charges of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Nor was he chopping off 50 heads per week and stoning females for adultery as is the case with Saudi Arabia right now.

But again, whether he killed protestors or not, or committed war crimes or not, is irrelevant to the power structure. What mattered was that he had locked out Western interests, and instead used his country's oil wealth to provide free or extremely cheap health care, education and housing to a wide swath of Libyans.

So let's cut to the murder scene. Here's how it went down:

At around 08:30 local time on 20 October, Gaddafi, his army chief Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, his security chief Mansour Dhao, and a group of loyalists attempted to escape in a convoy of 75 vehicles.[7][8] A Royal Air Force reconnaissance aircraft spotted the convoy moving at high speed, after NATO forces intercepted a satellite phone call made by Gaddafi.[9]

NATO aircraft then fired on 11 of the vehicles, destroying one. A U.S. Predator drone operated from a base near Las Vegas[8] fired the first missiles at the convoy, hitting its target about 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of Sirte. Moments later, French Air Force Rafale fighter jets continued the bombing.[10]

The NATO bombing immobilized much of the convoy and killed dozens of loyalist fighters. Following the first strike, some 20 vehicles broke away from the main group and continued moving south. A second NATO airstrike damaged or destroyed 10 of these vehicles. According to the Financial Times, Free Libya units on the ground also struck the convoy.[11]

According to their statement, NATO was not aware at the time of the strike that Gaddafi was in the convoy. NATO stated that in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1973, it does not target individuals but only military assets that pose a threat. NATO later learned, "from open sources and Allied intelligence," that Gaddafi was in the convoy and that the strike likely contributed to his capture.[11]

Source

To believe NATO, it had no idea Gaddafi was in that convoy (honest!), but just managed to have a Predator drone handy as well as a large number of jets armed for ground targets (not anti-aircraft missiles, as a no-fly zone might imply). It merely struck all of these vehicles over and over again in their quest to kill everyone on board because they were "military assets that posed a threat."

Because you live in the real world, you know that NATO knew exactly where Gaddafi was at all times and that he was in that convoy attempting to escape NATO's bombing raid. Further, you won't be surprised to learn that many of these vehicles were pickup trucks that really posed no military threat to NATO. The point was to kill Gaddafi, and numerous resources were brought to bear on that mission.

Gaddafi's killing was the assassination of a foreign leader by Western interests. In this case, Gaddafi was just yet another target in a long line of leaders that attempted to keep those same interests at bay.

After NATO was finished making a mess of Libya by taking out Gaddafi and leaving a right proper mess of a power vacuum, it simply departed -- leaving the country to fend for itself. Libya descended, of course, into an outright civil war and has remained ever since a hotbed of sectarian violence and increasing ISIS control and presence.

If NATO/US had to follow the Pier I rule of "you break it, you buy it" they would still be in Libya offering money and assistance as the country settles down and begins the long process of rebuilding.

But no such luck. That's absolutely not how they operate. It's disaster capitalism in action. The idea is to break things apart and then make money off of the pieces. It's not to help people.

Otherwise, how do we explain these images?

While imperfect by many standards, all of these countries were stable and increasingly prosperous before outside interests came in and turned them into a living nightmare.

It is this context that explains why such reactionary and violent groups as ISIS arose. They are the natural response of violated people seeking to assert some control over lives that otherwise have no hope and even less meaning.

I'm not justifying ISIS; only explaining the context that led to its rise.

Speaking of which, let's turn back to Libya:

ISIS is tightening its grip in Libya

Nov 15, 2015

GENEVA (Reuters) - Islamic State militants have consolidated control over central Libya, carrying out summary executions, beheadings and amputations, the United Nations said on Monday in a further illustration of the North African state's descent into anarchy.

All sides in Libya's multiple armed conflicts are committing breaches of international law that may amount to war crimes, including abductions, torture and the killing of civilians, according to a U.N. report.

Islamic State (IS) has gained control over swathes of territory, "committing gross abuses including public summary executions of individuals based on their religion or political allegiance", the joint report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. Support Mission in Libya said.

The U.N. had documented IS executions in their stronghold city of Sirte, in central Libya along the Mediterranean coast, and in Derna to the east, from which they were later ousted by local militias. Victims included Egyptian Copts, Ethiopians, Eritreans and a South Sudanese, the report said.

Some were accused of "treason", others of same-sex relations, but none were given due legal process, according to the report, which covered the year through October.

Four years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is locked in a conflict between two rival governments - an official one in the east and a self-declared one controlling the capital Tripoli - and the many armed factions that back them.

Source

After that atrocious summary, how bad does life under Gaddafi sound now? Again, he was targeted for execution by Western interests and the resulting mess is of little surprise to anybody with even modest curiosity about how violent overthrows tend to work out in the MENA region.

But where is the UN security council denouncing the war crimes? And where is the ICC leveling crimes against humanity charges? Nowhere. There's no more Western political interest in Libya now that it has been broken apart.

As they say in the military: once is bad luck, twice is a coincidence, but three times is enemy action. This pattern of eliminating "a very bad man" and leaving the country in a complete mess has happened three times of late, with Syria targeted to be the fourth. So enemy action it is.

ISIS and other extreme jihadist groups arose because of brutal conditions that made such harsh interpretations of ancient religious texts make sense by comparison. When you have nothing left to believe in, one's belief system can compensate by becoming rather inflexible.

I know I have greatly simplified a terribly complex dynamic, but -- speaking of beliefs -- I don't believe that terrorists are born, I believe they are raised. When one has nothing left to lose, then anything becomes possible, including strapping on a suicide belt and flicking the switch.

What I am saying is that this is not a battle between Christians and Muslims, nor is it a battle between good and evil, both characterizations that I've read recently in great abundance. That's all nonsense for the masses.

This is about resources and true wealth that is being siphoned from the people who have had the misfortune to be born on top of it, and towards other regions with greater power and reach.

There's nothing different in what I am reading today from what the British redcoats did in India from the late 1700's throughout the 1800's. Their military might assured that the East India Tea Company could continue to extract resources from the locals.

At the time the locals were called heathens, implying they were subhuman and therefore could be safely dispatched. Now they are called terrorists -- same thing. Dehumanize your foe to help rationalize one's behaviors. It's a tried and true practice of war propaganda.


How This Affects You

While we might be tempted to sit in our Western environs, secure in the idea that at least we aren't 'over there' where all the bad things are happening, it would be a mistake to think that this turmoil will not impact you.

I'm not talking about the ultra-remote chance of being a victim of blow-back terrorism either. I am referring to the idea that it would be a mistake to think that any government(s) that think nothing of ruining entire MENA countries will hesitate to throw anybody else under the bus that gets in their way.

Ben Bernanke gave no thought to throwing granny under the bus in order to help the big banks get even bigger. He willingly and knowing transferred over a trillion dollars away from savers and handed it to the big banks.

Similarly, we shouldn't expect enlightened behavior to emerge from the shadows of leadership once things get even dicer on the world stage. In fact, we should expect the opposite.

It would be a mistake to think that powers in charge would not turn their malign intent inwards toward their own populace if/when necessary. Today it's Syria, yesterday it was Libya, but tomorrow it might be us.

The people of France recently got a small taste of the horror that has been visited upon the people of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. And while I have no interest in seeing any more violence anywhere, perhaps the people of France will finally begin to ask what happened and why. I don't mean the fine details of the night of the massacre, but how it came to be considered a 'thing to do' at all by the people who did it. (For those unaware, France has been particularly involved for years in fomenting revolt within Syria)


Conclusion

My intention in stringing these dots together is so that we can have an informed discussion about what's happening in Syria and the Middle East at large. I am not at all interested in trying to understand events through the framing lenses of religion and/or 'terrorism', both of which are tools of distraction in my experience.

Instead, I want to understand the power dynamics at play. And to try to peel back the layers, to understand why the powers that be consider this region so important at this moment in history.

I think they know as well as we do that the shale oil revolution is not a revolution at all but a retirement party for an oil industry that has given us everything we hold economically dear but is on its last legs.

I think that the power structures of the next twenty years are going to be utterly shaped by energy - who has it, who needs it and who's controlling it.

Saudi Arabia is acting increasingly desperate here and I think we know why. They have a saying there: "My father rode a camel, I drove a car, my son flies a jet and his son will ride a camel."

They know as well as anyone that their oil wealth will run out someday; and so, too, will the West's interest in them. With no giant military to protect them, the royalty in Saudi Arabia should have some serious concerns about the future.

Heck, it's even worse than that:

Saudi Wells Running Dry -- of Water -- Spell End of Desert Wheat

Nov 3, 2015

Saudi Arabia became a net exporter of wheat in 1984 from producing almost none in the 1970s. The self-sufficiency program became a victim of its own success, however, as it quickly depleted aquifers that haven't been filled since the last Ice Age.

In an unexpected U-turn, the government said in 2008 it was phasing out the policy, reducing purchases of domestic wheat each year by 12.5 percent and bridging the gap progressively with imports.

The last official local harvest occurred in May, although the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization projects that a small crop of about metric 30,000 tons for traditional specialty bakery products will "prevail" in 2016. At its peak in 1992, Saudi Arabia produced 4.1 million tons of wheat and was one of the world's top 10 wheat exporters.


Source

The Saudis did something very unwise - they pumped an aquifer filled over 10,000 years ago and used it to grow wheat in the desert. Now their wells are running dry and they have no more water.

And yet their population is expanding rapidly even as their oil fields deplete. There's a very bad intersection for Saudi Arabia, and the rulers know it.

It helps to explain their recent actions of lashing out against long-standing regional foes and helps to explain the increasing desperation of their moves to help destabilize (and even bomb) their neighbors.

My point here is that as resources become tight, the ruling powers can be expected to act in increasingly desperate ways. This is a tenet of the Long Emergency of which James Kunstler wrote.

The only response that makes any sense to me, at the individual level, is to reduce your needs and increase your resilience.

This is something we cover in great detail in our new book, Prosper!: How To Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting, so I won't go into all the details here. Instead, my goal is to help cast a clarifying light on recent events and add some necessary detail that can help us more fully appreciate what's happening around the world and why taking prudent preparations today is becoming increasingly urgent.

[Dec 03, 2015] ISIS Oil Plot Thickens Turkish MP Has Evidence Erdogans Son-In-Law Involved In Illegal Crude Trade

Notable quotes:
"... Underscoring that contention is CHP lawmaker Eren Erdem who says he, like Moscow, will soon provide proof of Erdogan's role in the smuggling of Islamic State oil. I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists," Erdem said at a press conference on Thursday (see more from Sputnik ). ..."
"... There is one company, headquartered in Erbil, which in 2012 acquired oil tankers, and which is currently being bombarded by Russian aircraft," Erdem said. "I am now studying this companys records. It has partners in Turkey, and I am checking them for links to Albayrak. ..."
"... Note that this is entirely consistent with what we said last week , namely that in some cases, ISIS takes advantage of the Kurdish oil transport routes, connections, and infrastructure in Turkey. It will certainly be interesting to see if theres a connection between Albayrak, the energy ministry, and Bilal Erdogans BMZ Group. ..."
"... Many loose ends now for Erdogan popping up. How long he can play whack-a-mole until one illuminates paper trail implication between ISIS and Erdogans masters like McCain, Graham, Nuland? ..."
"... Maybe Erdogan will come up with a massive distraction that makes oil-thievery insignificant. Hope not. ..."
Zero Hedge
... ... ...

Underscoring that contention is CHP lawmaker Eren Erdem who says he, like Moscow, will soon provide proof of Erdogan's role in the smuggling of Islamic State oil. "I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists," Erdem said at a press conference on Thursday (see more from Sputnik).

Berat Albayrak is Erodan's son-in-law and is Turkey's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

Erdem isn't the only person to mention Albayrak this week. Recall that in his opening remarks at the dramatic Russian MoD presentation on Wednesday Deputy Minister of Defence Anatoly Antonov said the following:

"No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of Turkey is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-appointed Minister of Energy? What a brilliant family business!"

"There is one company, headquartered in Erbil, which in 2012 acquired oil tankers, and which is currently being bombarded by Russian aircraft," Erdem said. "I am now studying this company's records. It has partners in Turkey, and I am checking them for links to Albayrak."

Note that this is entirely consistent with what we said last week, namely that in some cases, ISIS takes advantage of the Kurdish oil transport routes, connections, and infrastructure in Turkey. It will certainly be interesting to see if there's a connection between Albayrak, the energy ministry, and Bilal Erdogan's BMZ Group.

If you know anything about Erdogan, you know that he doesn't take kindly to this kind of thing and as Erdem goes on to account, he's already been the subject of a smear campaign:

"Today, the Takvim newspaper called me an American puppet, an Israeli agent, a supporter of the [Kurdish] PKK, and the instigator of a coup…all in the same sentence. I am inclined to view this attack on me as an attempt to belittle my significance, to attack my reputation in the eyes in the public, given that my investigation is a real threat to the government. Such a sharply negative reaction suggests that my assumptions are fair, and I am moving in the right direction to find the truth."

The lawmaker says that type of attack has "only convinced [him] further on the need to carry this investigation through to the end."

In the meantime, we can only hope that, for the sake of exposing the truth, "the end" doesn't end up being a Turkish jail cell, or worse for Erdem.

Troll Magnet

Do they make nail guns in Turkey?

Truther

Yep, with top brands for JPM, Goldman, RBS, WF, CITI and Deutche. They even self point at you too.

Baby Bladeface

Many loose ends now for Erdogan popping up. How long he can play whack-a-mole until one illuminates paper trail implication between ISIS and Erdogan's masters like McCain, Graham, Nuland?

o r c k

Maybe Erdogan will come up with a "massive" distraction that makes oil-thievery insignificant. Hope not.

Anonymous User

The shit is hitting the fan for the turks

GhostOfDiogenes

Go figure huh?

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/israel-main-buyer-isis-oil-report/...

[Dec 03, 2015] On That Video Where Some Egyptians Allegedly Say Obama Is Insane And On Drugs And Should Be Removed From Office

EconoSpeak

An old and close, but very conservative and increasingly out of touch with reality friend of mine posted a video some days ago on Facebook. He indicated that he thought it was both funny and also insightful. It seemed highly suspicious to me, so I googled it and found that the person who uploaded it onto you tube stated in the comments on it that it is a spoof. Here is a link that discusses why it is known it is a spoof as well as linking to the video itself and its comments. It has reportedly been widely distributed on the internet by many conservatives who think it is for real, and when I pointed out it is a spoof, my friend defriended me from Facebook. I am frustrated.

So, for those who do not view it, it purports to show a talk show in Egypt where a brief clip of Obama speaking last May to graduating military officers about how climate change is and will be a serious national security issue, something the Pentagon has claimed. He did not say it was the most serious such issue, and at least in the clip he said nothing about Daesh/ISIS/ISIL, although of course he has said a lot about it and not only has US drones attacking it but reportedly we have "boots on the ground" now against them in the form of some Special Ops.

So, the video then goes back to the supposed talk show where they are speaking in Arabic with English subtitles. According to these subtitels, which are partly accurate translations but also wildly inaccurate in many places (my Arabic is good enough that I have parsed out what is what there) the host asks, "Is he insane?" A guest suggests he is on drugs. Another claims he just does what Michelle says and that his biceps are small. Finally a supposed retired general pounds the table and denounces him over Libya policy (that part is for real, although his name is never mentioned) and suggests that Americans should act to remove him from office. Again, conservative commentators have found hilarious and very insightful, with this even holding among commenters to the video aware that it is a mistranslated spoof. Bring these guys on more. Obviously they would be big hits on Fox News.

So, I would like to simply comment further on why Egyptians would be especially upset about Libya, but that them being so against the US is somewhat hypocritical (I also note that there is reason to believe that the supposed general is not a general). Of course Libya is just to the west of Egypt with its eastern portion (Cyrenaica under Rome) often ruled by whomever was ruling Egypt at various times in the past. So there is a strong cultural-historical connection. It is understandable that they would take Libyan matters seriously, and indeed things in Libya have turned into a big mess.

However, the move to bring in outside powers to intervene against Qaddafi in 2011 was instigated by an Egyptian, Abu Moussa. This was right after Mubarak had fallen in the face of massive demonstrations in Egypt. Moussa was both leader of the Arab League and wanting to run for President of Egypt. He got nowhere with the latter, but he did get somewhere with getting
the rest of the world to intervene in Libya. He got the Arab League to support such an intervention, with that move going to the UN Security Council and convincing Russia and China to abstain on the anti-Qaddafi measure. Putin has since complained that those who intervened, UK and France most vigorously with US "leading from behind" on the effort.went beyond the UN mandate. But in any case, Qaddafi was overthrown, not to be replaced by any stable or central power, with Libya an ongoing mess that has remained fragmented since, especially between its historically separate eastern and western parts, something I have posted on here previously.

So, that went badly, but Egyptians blaming the US for this seems to me to be a bit much, pretty hypocritical. It happens to be a fact that the US and Obama are now very unpopular in Egypt. I looked at a poll from a few months ago, and the only nations where the US and Obama were viewed less favorably (although a few not polled such as North Korea) were in order: Russia, Palestinian Territories, Belarus, Lebanon, Iran, and Pakistan, with me suspecting there is now a more favorable view in Iran since the culmination of the nuclear deal. I can appreciate that many Egyptians are frustrated that the US supported an election process that did not give them Moussa or El-Baradei, but the Muslim Brotherhood, who proceeded to behave badly, leading to them being overthrown by an new military dictatorship with a democratic veneer, basically a new improved version of the Mubarak regime, with the US supporting it, if somewhat reluctantly.

Yes, this is all pretty depressing, but I must say that ultimately the Egyptians are responsible for what has gone down in their own nation. And even if those Egyptian commentators, whoever they actually are, are as angry about Obama as they are depicted as being, the fact is that Obama is still more popular there than was George W. Bush at the same time in his presidency, something all these US conservatives so enamored of this bizarre video seem to conveniently forget.

Addenda, 5:10 PM:

1) The people on that video come across almost like The Three Stooges, which highlights the comedic aspect that even fans of Obama are supposed to appreciate, although it does not add to the credibility of the remarks of those so carrying on like a bunch of clowns.

2) Another reason Egyptians may be especially upset about the situation in Libya is that indeed Daesh has a foothold in a port city not too far from the Egyptian border in Surt, as reported as the top story today in the NY Times.

3) Arguably once the rest of the world got in, the big problem was a failure to follow through with aiding establishing a central unified government, although that was always going to be a problem, something not recognized by all too many involved, including Abu Moussa. As it was once his proposal got going, it was then Sec. of State Hillary Clinton who was the main person leading the charge for the US to get in over the reluctance of Obama. This was probably her biggest mistake in all this, even though most Republicans think the irrelevant sideshow of the unfortunate incident in Benghazi is the big deal.

4) Needless to say, Republican views at the time of the intervention were just completely incoherent, as symbolized at one point by Senator Lindsey Graham, who within the space of a single sentence simultaneously argued for the US to do nothing and also to go in full force with the proverbial "boots on the ground."

Further Addendum, 7:10 PM:

One of the pieces of evidence given that supposedly shows that the video is a spoof is that the supposed retired Brigadier General Mahmoud Mansour cannot be found if one googles his name, except in connection with this video. There are some other Egyptians named Mansour who show up, but this guy does not. However, it occurs to me that he might be for real, but simply obscure. After all, Brigadier is the lowest rank of General, one star, with Majors being two star, Lieutenants being three star (even though Majors are above Lieutenants), and with four and five star not having any other rank assigned to them. Furthermore, Egypt has a large military that has run the country for decades, so there may well be a lot of these Brigadier Generals, with many of them amounting to nothing. So, if he is for real, his claim to fame will be from jumping up and down, pounding on a table and calling for the overthrow of the POTUS.

Barkley Rosser

[Dec 03, 2015] The history of the Arab conquest of Byzantium is purposefully ignored

economistsview.typepad.com
Syaloch said in reply to anne...,

Yep. I sometimes think that the history of the Arab conquest of East Roman (Byzantine) provinces is purposefully ignored because it doesn't fit into a Western narrative of what Arab Muslim peoples are like.

The modern Islamic fundamentalist movements we see today are actually a fairly recent invention -- Wahhabism for example originated in the 18th century. And their rise to dominance is largely due to meddling by Western governments, which backed these groups to prevent Soviet expansion into the Middle East and southern Asia and to undermine nationalist movements that might oppose Western interests.

[Dec 03, 2015] ISIS oil hub with 3000 parked oil trucks escaped detection by the USA and its eagle-eyed coalition

marknesop.wordpress.com
marknesop, December 2, 2015 at 2:10 pm
Here's the evidence that the USA rejects. I particularly enjoyed the satellite imagery of the "ISIS oil hub", at which were parked 3,000 oil trucks. Apparently it escaped detection by the USA and its eagle-eyed coalition. Does it seem realistic that a country which was offered a major and legitimate pipeline deal would rather move its oil around in thousands of tanker trucks? If the oil trucking business were benefiting Assad's regime, don't you think ISIS would have blown it sky-high by now? It's in a region they control and apparently in the middle of open ground, completely unguarded.

The battle lines have been drawn in yet another field of conflict – Russia aims to take down Erdogan, and Washington aims to keep him in his position. It remains to be seen just how embarrassing that will become.

marknesop, December 2, 2015 at 1:10 pm
Moscow is not backing away at all from accusations that Erdogan's family is personally involved in receiving and trafficking in ISIS oil. In a phenomenon pointed out by others of late, Yahoo comments are now overwhelmingly supportive of Russia on these issues. Not only that, mainstream news are picking up the accusation rapidly. The USA may reject Russia's evidence, but we knew they would do that anyway – the USA would reject a signed confession by Erdogan if they got it from Russia. I don't know why Moscow even bothers to show evidence to the Americans, it would do far better to approach Europeans – especially Germany and France – with its proof. If it could convince Germany, the USA would look a lot more foolish if it said it was all more Russian propaganda and lies.

The USA will shield Erdogan for so long as it can, because his country is in a tremendous strategic position and is studded with NATO military installations. Washington certainly does not want to be confronted with a leadership transition it cannot micromanage. It might throw Erdogan under the bus, but not until it has identified and groomed a successor.

It is also significant that rather than groveling for mercy, Russia continues to attack the alliance's credibility, and it is scoring hits.

Patient Observer, December 2, 2015 at 2:11 pm
The comment with the most "likes" on a yahoo article on Russian claiming that Turkey is buying ISIS oil (lost the link):
" 542 – likes
First it does not require a high school education to understand in order for ISIS to sell any oil from captured oil fields and or refineries it must have buyers of said oil. Our govt claims to watch everyone and know everything yet with all their tax payer space observations, massive fleet of drones to track ants in the sand they cannot figure out where all the oil goes to fund ISIS?
Our govt is intentionally not stopping this oil from being sold and our leaders aware of this need to be exposed then put on trial then executed. In fact political figures in our country need to be facing firing squads monthly until they tell the truth and serve just our citizens. This in turn makes for a huge employment opportunity both in firing squads and new politicians."
marknesop, December 2, 2015 at 2:21 pm
The European Union voted to give itself permission to buy oil from "Syrian rebels" to help them overthrow Assad. The only stipulations of who could not benefit from it were "regime-associated" individuals and companies. The agency that must be consulted – the Syrian National Coalition – is based in Turkey and its president is chummy with Erdogan. Come on. Washington is ready to indict and convict Moscow on a hell of a lot less evidence than this on any day you care to name.
et Al, December 2, 2015 at 2:43 pm
Neuters: Russia says it has proof Turkey involved in Islamic State oil trade
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/12/02/mideast-crisis-russia-turkey-idUKL8N13R2KV2015120

…U.S. officials say coalition air strikes have destroyed hundreds of IS oil trucks while the Russian campaign has mainly targeted opponents of the Syrian government who are not from Islamic State, which is also known as ISIL.

"The irony of the Russians raising this concern is that there's plenty of evidence to indicate that the largest consumer of ISIL oil is actually Bashar al-Assad and his regime, a regime that only remains in place because it is being propped up by the Russians," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The State Department's Toner said U.S. information was that Islamic State was selling oil at the wellheads to middlemen who were involved in smuggling it across the frontier into Turkey…

…The ministry said the Western route took oil produced at fields near the Syrian city of Raqqa to the settlement of Azaz on the border with Turkey.

From there the columns of tanker trucks pass through the Turkish town of Reyhanli, the ministry said, citing what it said were satellite pictures of hundreds of such trucks moving through the border crossing without obstruction.

"There is no inspection of the vehicles carried out … on the Turkish side," said Rudskoy.

Some of the smuggled cargoes go to the Turkish domestic market, while some is exported via the Turkish Mediterranean ports of Iskenderun and Dortyol, the ministry said.

Another main route for smuggled oil, according to the ministry, runs from Deir Ez-zour in Syria to the Syrian border crossing at Al-Qamishli. It said the trucks then took the crude for refining at the Turkish city of Batman….

…The defence ministry officials said the information they released on Wednesday was only part of the evidence they have in their possession, and that they would be releasing further intelligence in the next days and weeks.
####

I can't wait for that twitter evidence from the State Department and the Pentagon. It should be devastating.

[Dec 03, 2015] Why did Turkey shoot down the Russian Soukhoï 24

Notable quotes:
"... It was agreed that the Turkish army would be allowed to penetrate Syrian territory, within a limit of 8 kilometres, in order to ensure that the PKK could not fire mortars from Syria. ..."
"... Since the beginning of the current aggression against Syria, the Turkish army has used and abused this privilege - no longer to prevent attacks by the PKK, but to set up training camps for jihadists. ..."
"... In October 2015, when the Russian military campaign was just starting, and Salih Muslim was beginning the operation of forced Kurdisation of Northern Syria, the famous Turkish whistle-blower, Fuat Avni, announced via Twitter that Turkey was preparing the destruction of a Russian aircraft. This occurred on the 24th November. ..."
www.voltairenet.org

At the end of the Turkish civil war, Turkey threatened to invade Syria with the help of NATO if it continued to offer asylum to the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcallan. President Hafez el-Assad thus asked Öcallan to find another refuge, and was obliged to conclude an oral agreement with Turkey. It was agreed that the Turkish army would be allowed to penetrate Syrian territory, within a limit of 8 kilometres, in order to ensure that the PKK could not fire mortars from Syria.

Since the beginning of the current aggression against Syria, the Turkish army has used and abused this privilege - no longer to prevent attacks by the PKK, but to set up training camps for jihadists.

In October 2015, when the Russian military campaign was just starting, and Salih Muslim was beginning the operation of forced Kurdisation of Northern Syria, the famous Turkish whistle-blower, Fuat Avni, announced via Twitter that Turkey was preparing the destruction of a Russian aircraft. This occurred on the 24th November.

From the perspective of the Third Syrian War [1], the attack was designed to send a message to Russia in order to scare it into defending only Damascus and Lattakia, leaving the rest of the country in the hands of Turkey and its allies.

Technically, the aerial defence of Turkey, like that of all NATO members, is co-ordinated by the CAOC in Torrejón (Spain). The chief of the Turkish air force, General Abidin Ünal, should therefore have given advance warning of his decision to CAOC commander General Rubén García Servert. We do not know if he did so [2]. In any case, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan confirmed that he himself had validated the order to destroy the Russian plane.

The Russian chief of staff had provided NATO with the flight plans of their aircraft in advance, so that neither the Alliance nor Turkey could ignore the fact that the plane was Russian, despite Turkish allegations to the contrary. Besides this, a NATO AWACS had taken off beforehand from the Greek base in Aktion (close to Preveza) in order to survey the area [3].

The Russian army bombarded the Sultan Abdülhamid Brigade – from the name of the last Ottoman sultan, infamous for organising the massacre of Oriental Christians. Since the beginning of the war against Syria, the Turkish secret services have never stopped supplying weapons to the Turkmen militias in Northern Syria, and overseeing their operations. The Turkish Press has documented the transfer of at least 2,000 truck-loads of weapons and ammunition - which President Erdoğan has admitted [4] – the majority of which was immediately distributed to Al-Qaïda by the Turkmen militias. In particular, in 2011, these militias dismantled the 80,000 factories in Aleppo, the Syrian economic capital, and sent the machine tools to Turkey [5]. So, contrary to Turkish allegations, the Russian bombing was not intended to target the Turkmen, but effectively to destroy a terrorist group guilty of organised pillage, according to the definition in international conventions [6]. The Russian bombardment had provoked the flight of 1,500 civilians and caused vigourous protests by Turkey [7], which addressed a letter to the Security Council [8].

The Turkish – not Syrian – jihadist, member of the Grey Woves, Alparslan Çelik, is commander of the Turkmen militias in Syria.

The main leader of the Turkmen militias in Syria is Alparslan Çelik, a member of the Grey Wolves, the Turkish neo-fascist party, which is historically linked to the NATO secret services [9]. He claims to have given the order to kill the Russian pilots as they parachuted down [10].

The Russian plane which was shot down only entered Turkish air-space for 17 seconds, and was hit after it was already in Syrian air-space. However, since Turkey considered that it had annexed the 8-kilometre corridor which it was authorised to enter according to the agreement with ex-President Hafez el-Assad, it may have believed that the intrusion lasted longer. In any case, in order to shoot down the Sukhoï 24, the Turkish fighter had to enter Syrian air-space for 40 seconds [11].

The Russians had taken no particular measures to protect their bombers, considering that Turkey is an official participant in the fight against terrorist organisations. And an intrusion lasting only a few seconds has never been considered as a " threat to national security " " particularly since Turkey had been informed of the flight plan, and also that it regularly violates the air-space of other states, such as Cyprus.

Immediately solicited by Turkey, NATO called a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, which was unable to issue a resolution, but did its best by asking for a reading of a brief declaration by their General Secretary which called for ... de-escalation -- [12]. Various sources reported profound disagreement within the Council [13].

The official Saudi Press published an audio recording of an appeal by Turkish military air controllers to the Russian plane warning it against an entry into Turkish air-space [14]. Several AKP politicians commented on this recording and denounced the risks taken by the Russian army. However, the Russian military has denied the authenticity of the recording, and has proved that it is a fake. The Turkish government then denied any implication in the publishing of the recording.

President Putin qualified the destruction of the Soukhoï 24 as a " knife in the back ". He publicly questioned the rôle of Ankara in the financing of Daesh, particularly because of the free transit of stolen petrol across Turkey. The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs has asked the 4.5 million Russians who had planned to travel to Turkey to cancel their trip, and has restored entry visas for Turkish nationals. By decree, the Kremlin has forbidden all new contracts between Russian persons or organisations and Turkish persons or organisations, including the employment of personnel, the import/export of merchandise, and tourism [15].

[Dec 03, 2015] Putin says Turkey 'will regret' shooting down of Russian bomber

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Turkey will regret "more than once" about its shooting down of a Russian bomber jet near the Syrian-Turkish border, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Dec. 3.

President Vladimir Putin said Turkey's shooting down of a Russian military jet was a "war crime" and that the Kremlin would punish Ankara with additional sanctions, signaling fallout from the incident would be long-lasting and serious.

Putin, who made the comments during his annual state of the nation speech to his country's political elite on Dec. 3, said Russia would not forget the Nov. 24 incident and that he continued to regard it as a terrible betrayal.

"We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling [with Turkey]," said Putin, after asking for a moment's silence for the two Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for Russian victims of terrorism.

"But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime, the murder of our people, that they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken."

Turkey would have cause to regret its actions "more than once," he said, promising Russia's retaliatory actions would be neither hysterical nor dangerous.

In his aggressive remarks unusual in diplomatic tongue, Putin said "it appears that Allah decided to punish the ruling clique of Turkey by depriving them of wisdom and judgment."

Putin said Moscow's anger over the incident was directed "at particular individuals" and not at the Turkish people.

[Dec 03, 2015] Tomgram Andrew Bacevich, An Invitation to Collective Suicide

Notable quotes:
"... Aside from long-shots Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, any candidate likely to enter the Oval Office in January 2017 will be committed to some version of much-more war, including obviously Donald Trump, Marco (" clash of civilizations ") Rubio, and Hillary Clinton, who recently gave a hawkish speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on her version of war policy against the Islamic State. ..."
"... Assume that the hawks get their way -- that the United States does whatever it takes militarily to confront and destroy ISIS. Then what? Answering that question requires taking seriously the outcomes of other recent U.S. interventions in the Greater Middle East. In 1991, when the first President Bush ejected Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait, Americans rejoiced, believing that they had won a decisive victory. A decade later, the younger Bush seemingly outdid his father by toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan and then making short work of Saddam himself -- a liberation twofer achieved in less time than it takes Americans to choose a president. After the passage of another decade, Barack Obama got into the liberation act, overthrowing the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in what appeared to be a tidy air intervention with a clean outcome. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton memorably put it , "We came, we saw, he died." End of story. In fact, subsequent events in each case mocked early claims of success or outright victory. Unanticipated consequences and complications abounded. "Liberation" turned out to be a prelude to chronic violence and upheaval. ..."
"... Indeed, the very existence of the Islamic State (ISIS) today renders a definitive verdict on the Iraq wars over which the Presidents Bush presided, each abetted by a Democratic successor. A de facto collaboration of four successive administrations succeeded in reducing Iraq to what it is today: a dysfunctional quasi-state unable to control its borders or territory while serving as a magnet and inspiration for terrorists. ..."
"... Were it not for the reckless American decision to invade and occupy a nation that, whatever its crimes, had nothing to do with 9/11, the Islamic State would not exist. ..."
"... True, in both Syria and Iraq the Islamic State has demonstrated a disturbing ability to capture and hold large stretches of desert, along with several population centers. It has, however, achieved these successes against poorly motivated local forces of, at best, indifferent quality. ..."
"... Time and again the unanticipated side effects of U.S. military action turned out to be very bad indeed. In Kabul, Baghdad, or Tripoli, the Alamo fell, but the enemy dispersed or reinvented itself and the conflict continued. Assurances offered by Kristol that this time things will surely be different deserve to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Pass the whole shaker. ..."
"... American Interest ..."
"... Now I happen to think that equating our present predicament in the Islamic world with the immensely destructive conflicts of the prior century is dead wrong. Yet it's a proposition that Americans at this juncture should contemplate with the utmost seriousness. ..."
"... With so much on the line, Cohen derides the Obama administration's tendency to rely on "therapeutic bombing, which will temporarily relieve the itch, but leave the wounds suppurating." The time for such half-measures has long since passed. Defeating the Islamic State and "kindred movements" will require the U.S. to "kill a great many people." To that end Washington needs "a long-range plan not to 'contain' but to crush" the enemy. Even with such a plan, victory will be a long way off and will require "a long, bloody, and costly process." ..."
"... Nor were Americans sufficiently willing to die for the cause. In South Vietnam, 58,000 G.I.s died in a futile effort to enable that country to survive. In Iraq and Afghanistan, where the stakes were presumably much higher, we pulled the plug after fewer than 7,000 deaths. ..."
"... In the meantime, U.S. forces would have to deal with the various and sundry "kindred movements" that are already cropping up like crabgrass in country after country. Afghanistan -- still? again? -- would head the list of places requiring U.S. military attention. But other prospective locales would include such hotbeds of Islamist activity as Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, and Yemen, along with several West African countries increasingly beset with insurgencies. Unless Egyptian, Pakistani, and Saudi security forces demonstrate the ability (not to mention the will) to suppress the violent radicals in their midst, one or more of those countries could also become the scene of significant U.S. military action. ..."
"... At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To make it somewhat more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that number in historical perspective. During the first phases of World War III, for example, the United States routinely allocated 10% or more of total gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those charged with managing World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to build upon. ..."
"... In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal responsibility would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders are loathe to make. Today, neither party appears up to taking on such challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will persuade them to rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasn't so far. ..."
"... In my view, Cohen's World War IV is an invitation to collective suicide. Arguing that no alternative exists to open-ended war represents not hard-nosed realism, but the abdication of statecraft. Yet here's the ultimate irony: even without the name, the United States has already embarked upon something akin to a world war, which now extends into the far reaches of the Islamic world and spreads further year by year. ..."
"... Andrew J. Bacevich, a ..."
"... , is professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of ..."
"... , among other works. His new book, ..."
"... is due out in April 2016. ..."
"... on Twitter and join us on Facebook . Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's ..."
"... , and Tom Engelhardts latest book, ..."
Dec 03, 2015 | TomDispatch

Let's consider the two parties in Washington. I'm not referring to the Republican and Democratic ones, but our capital's war parties (there being no peace party, of course). They might be labeled the More War Party and the Much (or Much, Much) More War Party. Headed by President Obama, the first is distinctly a minority grouping. In a capital city in which, post-Paris, war seems to be the order of the day, it's the party of relative restraint, as the president has clearly grasped the obvious: for the last 14 years, the more wholeheartedly the U.S. has gone into any situation in the Greater Middle East, militarily speaking, the worse it has turned out.

Having promised to get us out of two wars and being essentially assured of leaving us in at least three (and various other conflicts on the side), he insists that a new invasion or even a large-scale infusion of American troops, aka "boots on the ground," in Syria or Iraq is a no-go for him. The code word he uses for his version of more war -- since less war is simply not an option on that "table" in Washington where all options are evidently kept -- is "intensification." Once upon a time, it might have been called "escalation" or "mission creep." The president has pledged to merely "intensify" the war he's launched, however reluctantly, in Syria and the one he's re-launched in Iraq. This seems to mean more of exactly what he's already ordered into the fray: more air power, more special forces boots more or less on the ground in Syria, more special ops raiders sent into Iraq, and perhaps more military advisers ever nearer to the action in that country as well. This is as close as you're likely to get in present-day America, at least in official circles, to an antiwar position.

In the Much (or Much, Much) More War party, Republicans and Democrats alike are explicitly or implicitly criticizing the president for his "weak" policies and for "leading from behind" against the Islamic State. They propose solutions ranging from instituting "no-fly zones" in northern Syria to truly intensifying U.S. air strikes, to sending in local forces backed and led by American special operators (à la Afghanistan 2001), to sending in far more American troops, to simply putting masses of American boots on the ground and storming the Islamic State's capital, Raqqa. After fourteen years in which so many similar "solutions" have been tried and in the end failed miserably in the Greater Middle East or North Africa, all of it, as if brand new, is once again on that table in Washington.

Aside from long-shots Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, any candidate likely to enter the Oval Office in January 2017 will be committed to some version of much-more war, including obviously Donald Trump, Marco ("clash of civilizations") Rubio, and Hillary Clinton, who recently gave a hawkish speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on her version of war policy against the Islamic State. Given that stark reality, this is a perfect moment to explore what much-more war (call it, in fact, "World War IV") might actually mean and how it might play out in our world -- and TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich is the perfect person to do it. Tom

Beyond ISIS: The Folly of World War IV
By Andrew J. Bacevich

Assume that the hawks get their way -- that the United States does whatever it takes militarily to confront and destroy ISIS. Then what?

Answering that question requires taking seriously the outcomes of other recent U.S. interventions in the Greater Middle East. In 1991, when the first President Bush ejected Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait, Americans rejoiced, believing that they had won a decisive victory. A decade later, the younger Bush seemingly outdid his father by toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan and then making short work of Saddam himself -- a liberation twofer achieved in less time than it takes Americans to choose a president. After the passage of another decade, Barack Obama got into the liberation act, overthrowing the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in what appeared to be a tidy air intervention with a clean outcome. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton memorably put it, "We came, we saw, he died." End of story.

In fact, subsequent events in each case mocked early claims of success or outright victory. Unanticipated consequences and complications abounded. "Liberation" turned out to be a prelude to chronic violence and upheaval.

Indeed, the very existence of the Islamic State (ISIS) today renders a definitive verdict on the Iraq wars over which the Presidents Bush presided, each abetted by a Democratic successor. A de facto collaboration of four successive administrations succeeded in reducing Iraq to what it is today: a dysfunctional quasi-state unable to control its borders or territory while serving as a magnet and inspiration for terrorists.

The United States bears a profound moral responsibility for having made such a hash of things there. Were it not for the reckless American decision to invade and occupy a nation that, whatever its crimes, had nothing to do with 9/11, the Islamic State would not exist. Per the famous Pottery Barn Rule attributed to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, having smashed Iraq to bits a decade ago, we can now hardly deny owning ISIS.

That the United States possesses sufficient military power to make short work of that "caliphate" is also the case. True, in both Syria and Iraq the Islamic State has demonstrated a disturbing ability to capture and hold large stretches of desert, along with several population centers. It has, however, achieved these successes against poorly motivated local forces of, at best, indifferent quality.

In that regard, the glibly bellicose editor of the Weekly Standard, William Kristol, is surely correct in suggesting that a well-armed contingent of 50,000 U.S. troops, supported by ample quantities of air power, would make mincemeat of ISIS in a toe-to-toe contest. Liberation of the various ISIS strongholds like Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq and Palmyra and Raqqa, its "capital," in Syria would undoubtedly follow in short order.

In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, the American mood is strongly trending in favor of this sort of escalation. Just about anyone who is anyone -- the current occupant of the Oval Office partially excepted -- favors intensifying the U.S. military campaign against ISIS. And why not? What could possibly go wrong? As Kristol puts it, "I don't think there's much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there."

It's an alluring prospect. In the face of a sustained assault by the greatest military the world has ever seen, ISIS foolishly (and therefore improbably) chooses to make an Alamo-like stand. Whammo! We win. They lose. Mission accomplished.

Of course, that phrase recalls the euphoric early reactions to Operations Desert Storm in 1991, Enduring Freedom in 2001, Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and Odyssey Dawn, the Libyan intervention of 2011. Time and again the unanticipated side effects of U.S. military action turned out to be very bad indeed. In Kabul, Baghdad, or Tripoli, the Alamo fell, but the enemy dispersed or reinvented itself and the conflict continued. Assurances offered by Kristol that this time things will surely be different deserve to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Pass the whole shaker.

Embracing Generational War

Why this repeated disparity between perceived and actual outcomes? Why have apparent battlefield successes led so regularly to more violence and disorder? Before following Kristol's counsel, Americans would do well to reflect on these questions.

Cue Professor Eliot A. Cohen. Shortly after 9/11, Cohen, one of this country's preeminent military thinkers, characterized the conflict on which the United States was then embarking as "World War IV." (In this formulation, the Cold War becomes World War III.) Other than in certain neoconservative quarters, the depiction did not catch on. Yet nearly a decade-and-a-half later, the Johns Hopkins professor and former State Department official is sticking to his guns. In an essay penned for the American Interest following the recent Paris attacks, he returns to his theme. "It was World War IV in 2001," Cohen insists. "It is World War IV today." And to our considerable benefit he spells out at least some of the implications of casting the conflict in such expansive and evocative terms.

Now I happen to think that equating our present predicament in the Islamic world with the immensely destructive conflicts of the prior century is dead wrong. Yet it's a proposition that Americans at this juncture should contemplate with the utmost seriousness.

In the United States today, confusion about what war itself signifies is widespread. Through misuse, misapplication, and above all misremembering, we have distorted the term almost beyond recognition. As one consequence, talk of war comes too easily off the tongues of the unknowing.

Not so with Cohen. When it comes to war, he has no illusions. Addressing that subject, he illuminates it, enabling us to see what war entails. So in advocating World War IV, he performs a great service, even if perhaps not the one he intends.

What will distinguish the war that Cohen deems essential? "Begin with endurance," he writes. "This war will probably go on for the rest of my life, and well into my children's." Although American political leaders seem reluctant "to explain just how high the stakes are," Cohen lays them out in direct, unvarnished language. At issue, he insists, is the American way of life itself, not simply "in the sense of rock concerts and alcohol in restaurants, but the more fundamental rights of freedom of speech and religion, the equality of women, and, most essentially, the freedom from fear and freedom to think."

With so much on the line, Cohen derides the Obama administration's tendency to rely on "therapeutic bombing, which will temporarily relieve the itch, but leave the wounds suppurating." The time for such half-measures has long since passed. Defeating the Islamic State and "kindred movements" will require the U.S. to "kill a great many people." To that end Washington needs "a long-range plan not to 'contain' but to crush" the enemy. Even with such a plan, victory will be a long way off and will require "a long, bloody, and costly process."

Cohen's candor and specificity, as bracing as they are rare, should command our respect. If World War IV describes what we are in for, then eliminating ISIS might figure as a near-term imperative, but it can hardly define the endgame. Beyond ISIS loom all those continually evolving "kindred movements" to which the United States will have to attend before it can declare the war itself well and truly won.

To send just tens of thousands of U.S. troops to clean up Syria and Iraq, as William Kristol and others propose, offers at best a recipe for winning a single campaign. Winning the larger war would involve far more arduous exertions. This Cohen understands, accepts, and urges others to acknowledge.

And here we come to the heart of the matter. For at least the past 35 years -- that is, since well before 9/11 -- the United States has been "at war" in various quarters of the Islamic world. At no point has it demonstrated the will or the ability to finish the job. Washington's approach has been akin to treating cancer with a little bit of chemo one year and a one-shot course of radiation the next. Such gross malpractice aptly describes U.S. military policy throughout the Greater Middle East across several decades.

While there may be many reasons why the Iraq War of 2003 to 2011 and the still longer Afghanistan War yielded such disappointing results, Washington's timidity in conducting those campaigns deserves pride of place. That most Americans might bridle at the term "timidity" reflects the extent to which they have deluded themselves regarding the reality of war.

In comparison to Vietnam, for example, Washington's approach to waging its two principal post-9/11 campaigns was positively half-hearted. With the nation as a whole adhering to peacetime routines, Washington neither sent enough troops nor stayed anywhere near long enough to finish the job. Yes, we killed many tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, but if winning World War IV requires, as Cohen writes, that we "break the back" of the enemy, then we obviously didn't kill nearly enough.

Nor were Americans sufficiently willing to die for the cause. In South Vietnam, 58,000 G.I.s died in a futile effort to enable that country to survive. In Iraq and Afghanistan, where the stakes were presumably much higher, we pulled the plug after fewer than 7,000 deaths.

Americans would be foolish to listen to those like William Kristol who, even today, peddle illusions about war being neat and easy. They would do well instead to heed Cohen, who knows that war is hard and ugly.

What Would World War IV Look Like?

Yet when specifying the practical implications of generational war, Cohen is less forthcoming. From his perspective, this fourth iteration of existential armed conflict in a single century is not going well. But apart from greater resolve and bloody-mindedness, what will it take to get things on the right track?

As a thought experiment, let's answer that question by treating it with the urgency that Cohen believes it deserves. After 9/11, certain U.S. officials thundered about "taking the gloves off." In practice, however, with the notable exception of policies permitting torture and imprisonment without due process, the gloves stayed on. Take Cohen's conception of World War IV at face value and that will have to change.

For starters, the country would have to move to something like a war footing, enabling Washington to raise a lot more troops and spend a lot more money over a very long period of time. Although long since banished from the nation's political lexicon, the M-word -- mobilization -- would make a comeback. Prosecuting a generational war, after all, is going to require the commitment of generations.

Furthermore, if winning World War IV means crushing the enemy, as Cohen emphasizes, then ensuring that the enemy, once crushed, cannot recover would be hardly less important. And that requirement would prohibit U.S. forces from simply walking away from a particular fight even -- or especially -- when it might appear won.

At the present moment, defeating the Islamic State ranks as Washington's number one priority. With the Pentagon already claiming a body count of 20,000 ISIS fighters without notable effect, this campaign won't end anytime soon. But even assuming an eventually positive outcome, the task of maintaining order and stability in areas that ISIS now controls will remain. Indeed, that task will persist until the conditions giving rise to entities like ISIS are eliminated. Don't expect French President François Hollande or British Prime Minister David Cameron to sign up for that thankless job. U.S. forces will own it. Packing up and leaving the scene won't be an option.

How long would those forces have to stay? Extrapolating from recent U.S. occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, something on the order of a quarter-century seems like a plausible approximation. So should our 45th president opt for a boots-on-the-ground solution to ISIS, as might well be the case, the privilege of welcoming the troops home could belong to the 48th or 49th occupant of the White House.

In the meantime, U.S. forces would have to deal with the various and sundry "kindred movements" that are already cropping up like crabgrass in country after country. Afghanistan -- still? again? -- would head the list of places requiring U.S. military attention. But other prospective locales would include such hotbeds of Islamist activity as Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, and Yemen, along with several West African countries increasingly beset with insurgencies. Unless Egyptian, Pakistani, and Saudi security forces demonstrate the ability (not to mention the will) to suppress the violent radicals in their midst, one or more of those countries could also become the scene of significant U.S. military action.

Effective prosecution of World War IV, in other words, would require the Pentagon to plan for each of these contingencies, while mustering the assets needed for implementation. Allies might kick in token assistance -- tokenism is all they have to offer -- but the United States will necessarily carry most of the load.

What Would World War IV Cost?

During World War III (aka the Cold War), the Pentagon maintained a force structure ostensibly adequate to the simultaneous prosecution of two and a half wars. This meant having the wherewithal to defend Europe and the Pacific from communist aggression while still leaving something for the unexpected. World War IV campaigns are unlikely to entail anything on the scale of the Warsaw Pact attacking Western Europe or North Korea invading the South. Still, the range of plausible scenarios will require that U.S. forces be able to take on militant organizations C and D even while guarding against the resurgence of organizations A and B in altogether different geographic locations.

Even though Washington may try whenever possible to avoid large-scale ground combat, relying on air power (including drones) and elite Special Operations forces to do the actual killing, post-conflict pacification promises to be a manpower intensive activity. Certainly, this ranks as one of the most obvious lessons to emerge from World War IV's preliminary phases: when the initial fight ends, the real work begins.

U.S. forces committed to asserting control over Iraq after the invasion of 2003 topped out at roughly 180,000. In Afghanistan, during the Obama presidency, the presence peaked at 110,000. In a historical context, these are not especially large numbers. At the height of the Vietnam War, for example, U.S. troop strength in Southeast Asia exceeded 500,000.

In hindsight, the Army general who, before the invasion of 2003, publicly suggested that pacifying postwar Iraq would require "several hundred thousand troops" had it right. A similar estimate applies to Afghanistan. In other words, those two occupations together could easily have absorbed 600,000 to 800,000 troops on an ongoing basis. Given the Pentagon's standard three-to-one rotation policy, which assumes that for every unit in-country, a second is just back, and a third is preparing to deploy, you're talking about a minimum requirement of between 1.8 and 2.4 million troops to sustain just two medium-sized campaigns -- a figure that wouldn't include some number of additional troops kept in reserve for the unexpected.

In other words, waging World War IV would require at least a five-fold increase in the current size of the U.S. Army -- and not as an emergency measure but a permanent one. Such numbers may appear large, but as Cohen would be the first to point out, they are actually modest when compared to previous world wars. In 1968, in the middle of World War III, the Army had more than 1.5 million active duty soldiers on its rolls -- this at a time when the total American population was less than two-thirds what it is today and when gender discrimination largely excluded women from military service. If it chose to do so, the United States today could easily field an army of two million or more soldiers.

Whether it could also retain the current model of an all-volunteer force is another matter. Recruiters would certainly face considerable challenges, even if Congress enhanced the material inducements for service, which since 9/11 have already included a succession of generous increases in military pay. A loosening of immigration policy, granting a few hundred thousand foreigners citizenship in return for successfully completing a term of enlistment might help. In all likelihood, however, as with all three previous world wars, waging World War IV would oblige the United States to revive the draft, a prospect as likely to be well-received as a flood of brown and black immigrant enlistees. In short, going all out to create the forces needed to win World War IV would confront Americans with uncomfortable choices.

The budgetary implications of expanding U.S. forces while conducting a perpetual round of what the Pentagon calls "overseas contingency operations" would also loom large. Precisely how much money an essentially global conflict projected to extend well into the latter half of the century would require is difficult to gauge. As a starting point, given the increased number of active duty forces, tripling the present Defense Department budget of more than $600 billion might serve as a reasonable guess.

At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To make it somewhat more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that number in historical perspective. During the first phases of World War III, for example, the United States routinely allocated 10% or more of total gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those charged with managing World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to build upon.

Of course, that money would have to come from somewhere. For several years during the last decade, sustaining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pushed the federal deficit above a trillion dollars. As one consequence, the total national debt now exceeds annual GDP, having tripled since 9/11. How much additional debt the United States can accrue without doing permanent damage to the economy is a question of more than academic interest.

To avoid having World War IV produce an endless string of unacceptably large deficits, ratcheting up military spending would undoubtedly require either substantial tax increases or significant cuts in non-military spending, including big-ticket programs like Medicare and social security -- precisely those, that is, which members of the middle class hold most dear.

In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal responsibility would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders are loathe to make. Today, neither party appears up to taking on such challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will persuade them to rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasn't so far.

The Folly of World War IV

In his essay, Cohen writes, "we need to stop the circumlocutions." Of those who would bear the direct burden of his world war, he says, "we must start telling them the truth." He's right, even if he himself is largely silent about what the conduct of World War IV is likely to exact from the average citizen.

As the United States enters a presidential election year, plain talk about the prospects of our ongoing military engagement in the Islamic world should be the order of the day. The pretense that either dropping a few more bombs or invading one or two more countries will yield a conclusive outcome amounts to more than an evasion. It is an outright lie.

As Cohen knows, winning World War IV would require dropping many, many more bombs and invading, and then occupying for years to come, many more countries. After all, it's not just ISIS that Washington will have to deal with, but also its affiliates, offshoots, wannabes, and the successors almost surely waiting in the wings. And don't forget al-Qaeda.

Cohen believes that we have no alternative. Either we get serious about fighting World War IV the way it needs to be fought or darkness will envelop the land. He is undeterred by the evidence that the more deeply we insert our soldiers into the Greater Middle East the more concerted the resistance they face; that the more militants we kill the more we seem to create; that the inevitable, if unintended, killing of innocents only serves to strengthen the hand of the extremists. As he sees it, with everything we believe in riding on the outcome, we have no choice but to press on.

While listening carefully to Cohen's call to arms, Americans should reflect on its implications. Wars change countries and people. Embracing his prescription for World War IV would change the United States in fundamental ways. It would radically expand the scope and reach of the national security state, which, of course, includes agencies beyond the military itself. It would divert vast quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes. It would make the militarization of the American way of life, a legacy of prior world wars, irreversible. By sowing fear and fostering impossible expectations of perfect security, it would also compromise American freedom in the name of protecting it. The nation that decades from now might celebrate VT Day -- victory over terrorism -- will have become a different place, materially, politically, culturally, and morally.

In my view, Cohen's World War IV is an invitation to collective suicide. Arguing that no alternative exists to open-ended war represents not hard-nosed realism, but the abdication of statecraft. Yet here's the ultimate irony: even without the name, the United States has already embarked upon something akin to a world war, which now extends into the far reaches of the Islamic world and spreads further year by year.

Incrementally, bit by bit, this nameless war has already expanded the scope and reach of the national security apparatus. It is diverting vast quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes even as it normalizes the continuing militarization of the American way of life. By sowing fear and fostering impossible expectations of perfect security, it is undermining American freedom in the name of protecting it, and doing so right before our eyes.

Cohen rightly decries the rudderless character of the policies that have guided the (mis)conduct of that war thus far. For that critique we owe him a considerable debt. But the real problem is the war itself and the conviction that only through war can America remain America.

For a rich and powerful nation to conclude that it has no choice but to engage in quasi-permanent armed conflict in the far reaches of the planet represents the height of folly. Power confers choice. As citizens, we must resist with all our might arguments that deny the existence of choice. Whether advanced forthrightly by Cohen or fecklessly by the militarily ignorant, such claims will only perpetuate the folly that has already lasted far too long.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular, is professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, among other works. His new book, America's War for the Greater Middle East (Random House), is due out in April 2016.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2015 Andrew J. Bacevich

[Dec 02, 2015] BOMBSHELL Ambush of Russian Bomber Was Guided by US Reconnaissance

Looks like Obama revenge to Putin for entering Syria...
Notable quotes:
"... The American E-3A was supposed to determine the activity of the Su-24M2s onboard targeting radar, to determine if it was in search mode or if it had already locked on to a target and was processing launch data. It is known that the AWACS can direct the activity of aircraft in battle, conveying information to their avionics and flight computers. ..."
"... This plane [the F-16CJ] had been specifically built for Turkey. Its distinctive feature is a computer that controls a new, AN/APG-68 radar system, and which fulfills the role of a copilot-navigator. ..."
"... Indeed, the interception accuracy of the F-16CJ fighters was augmented by ground-based U.S. Patriot air defense systems, which are deployed in Turkey, or more precisely, their multirole AN/MPQ-53 radars. The Patriot can work with an E-3 or with MENTOR spy satellites, and it cant be ruled out that the satellite assets involved the Geosat space system as well. ..."
"... The flight trajectory of the F-16CJ indicates a precision interception of its target by means of triangulation: A pair of E-3s plus the Patriots air defense radar plus the geostationary MENTOR spy satellites plus, possibly, the Geosat space system. ..."
"... Of course. A pair of F-16CJs flew to the [missile] launch zone and, at a distance of 4-6 kilometers, practically point blank!, launched an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile into the rear hemisphere of our Russian bomber. Besides which, the AN/APG-68 onboard radar of the fighter which launched the missile, was working in "target illumination" mode. That is, it turned on at the moment of launch, and turned off as soon as the missile definitively locked on to its target. ..."
"... The Turks nonetheless committed one mistake, which led to their provocation not quite working out. The F-16CJ went out on its interception two minutes late, when the Su-24M2 had already left the disputed 68-kilometer zone in the north of Syria [this may be referring to the Turks self-styled no-fly-zone against Assad]; to leave it required at most 1.5 minutes. But the "kill" command to the F-16CJ had not been revoked; thus the missile launch was carried out a bit further than the intended point. This is confirmed by the fact that the [Turkish TV] footage of the Su-24M2s fall was planned to be filmed from both Syrian territory and Turkish territory; however, the "Syrian footage" is more detailed. It appears that this saved our navigator. He was able to go into the woods and wait for a rescue team. ..."
russia-insider.com

A Russian military expert and columnist of the journal Arsenal of the Fatherland explains the details of the downing of the bomber and why not all went smoothly in an interview to the news agency Regnum

How did it all happen?

A U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS plane took off on 24 November from the Preveza airbase in Greece. A second E-3A of the Saudi Arabian air force took off from the Riyadh airbase. Both planes were executing a common task-determining the precise location of Russian aircraft. It is they that picked the "victim."

The American E-3A was supposed to determine the activity of the Su-24M2's onboard targeting radar, to determine if it was in search mode or if it had already locked on to a target and was processing launch data. It is known that the AWACS can direct the activity of aircraft in battle, conveying information to their avionics and flight computers.

That is, to determine how defenseless was our plane?

As it turns out, yes. As we know, the Su-24M2 was returning from its mission, and its flight computer was operating in "navigation" mode in tandem with the GLONASS [Russian GPS system.] It was returning to base and was not preparing for action. The whole time, the E-3s were transferring detailed information about the Su-24M2 to a pair of Turkish F-16CJ's. This plane [the F-16CJ] had been specifically built for Turkey. Its distinctive feature is a computer that controls a new, AN/APG-68 radar system, and which fulfills the role of a copilot-navigator.

But this information is obviously not enough to precision-strike a small target. Was something else used?

Indeed, the interception accuracy of the F-16CJ fighters was augmented by ground-based U.S. Patriot air defense systems, which are deployed in Turkey, or more precisely, their multirole AN/MPQ-53 radars. The Patriot can work with an E-3 or with MENTOR spy satellites, and it can't be ruled out that the satellite assets involved the Geosat space system as well.

The flight trajectory of the F-16CJ indicates a precision interception of its target by means of triangulation: A pair of E-3s plus the Patriot's air defense radar plus the geostationary MENTOR spy satellites plus, possibly, the Geosat space system.

Besides which, the E-3s provided guidance as to the location of our plane in the air; they determined its route, speed, and the status of its weapons control systems; and the Patriot's air defense radar together with the MENTOR spy satellite provided telemetry on the SU-24M2's movement relative to the ground surface-that is, it provided a precise prediction as to where our plane would be visible relative to the mountainous terrain.

So it turns out that the Turkish fighters knew with absolutely certainty where to wait in ambush for our plane?

Of course. A pair of F-16CJ's flew to the [missile] launch zone and, at a distance of 4-6 kilometers, practically point blank!, launched an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile into the rear hemisphere of our Russian bomber. Besides which, the AN/APG-68 onboard radar of the fighter which launched the missile, was working in "target illumination" mode. That is, it turned on at the moment of launch, and turned off as soon as the missile definitively locked on to its target.

Did our pilots have a chance to save their plane?

No. The Su-24M2 crew's probability of escaping destruction was equal to zero…

…Turkey does not have its own capabilities for such a detailed and very precise operation. And don't forget about the second E-3, from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The whole scenario was very fast-moving, lasting just seconds.

Did it really happen that smoothly?

The Turks nonetheless committed one mistake, which led to their provocation not quite working out. The F-16CJ went out on its interception two minutes late, when the Su-24M2 had already left the disputed 68-kilometer zone in the north of Syria [this may be referring to the Turk's self-styled no-fly-zone against Assad]; to leave it required at most 1.5 minutes. But the "kill" command to the F-16CJ had not been revoked; thus the missile launch was carried out a bit further than the intended point. This is confirmed by the fact that the [Turkish TV] footage of the Su-24M2's fall was planned to be filmed from both Syrian territory and Turkish territory; however, the "Syrian footage" is more detailed. It appears that this saved our navigator. He was able to go into the woods and wait for a rescue team.

[Dec 02, 2015] Wolf Richter: Financially Engineered Stocks Drag Down S P 500

All this neoliberal talk about "maximizing shareholder value" is designed to hide a redistribution mechanism of wealth up. Which is the essence of neoliberalism. It's all about executive pay. "Shareholder value" is nothing then a ruse for getting outsize bonuses but top execs. Stock buybacks is a form of asset-stripping, similar to one practiced by buyout sharks, but practiced by internal management team. Who cares if the company will be destroyed if you have a golden parachute ?
Notable quotes:
"... By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street . ..."
"... IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. ..."
"... Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it. ..."
"... Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period. ..."
"... This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income of $847 billion. ..."
"... Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery. ..."
"... Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income is declining. ..."
"... But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered. ..."
"... Me thinks Wolf is slightly barking up the wrong tree here. What needs to be looked at is how buy backs affect executive pay. "Shareholder value" is more often than not a ruse? ..."
"... Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s). ..."
"... On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement? ..."
"... buybacks *can* be asset-stripping and often are, but unless you tie capital allocation decisions closer to investment in the business such that they're mutually exclusive, this is specious and a reach. No one invests if they can't see the return. It would be just as easy to say that they're buying back stock because revenue is slipping and they have no other investment opportunities. ..."
"... Perhaps an analysis of the monopolistic positions of so many American businesses that allow them the wherewithal to underinvest and still buy back huge amounts of stock? If we had a more competitive economy, companies would have less ability to underinvest. Ultimately, I think buybacks are more a result than a cause of dysfunction, but certainly not always bad. ..."
"... One aspect that Reuters piece mentions, but glosses over with a single paragraph buried in the middle, is the fact that for many companies there are no ( or few) reasons to spend money in other ways. If capex/r d doesn't give you much return, why not buy out the shareholders who are least interested in holding your stock? ..."
"... Dumping money into R D is always risky, although different industries have different levels, and the "do it in-house" risk must be weighed against the costs of buying up companies with "proven" technologies. Thus, R D cash is hidden inside M A. M A is up 2-3 years in a row. ..."
November 21, 2015 | naked capitalism

By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street.

Magic trick turns into toxic mix.

Stocks have been on a tear to nowhere this year. Now investors are praying for a Santa rally to pull them out of the mire. They're counting on desperate amounts of share buybacks that companies fund by loading up on debt. But the magic trick that had performed miracles over the past few years is backfiring.

And there's a reason.

IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R&D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. And its stock is down 38% since March 2013.

Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R&D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R&D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it.

"Activist investors" – hedge funds – have been clamoring for it. An investigative report by Reuters, titled The Cannibalized Company, lined some of them up:

In March, General Motors Co acceded to a $5 billion share buyback to satisfy investor Harry Wilson. He had threatened a proxy fight if the auto maker didn't distribute some of the $25 billion cash hoard it had built up after emerging from bankruptcy just a few years earlier.

DuPont early this year announced a $4 billion buyback program – on top of a $5 billion program announced a year earlier – to beat back activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management, which was seeking four board seats to get its way.

In March, Qualcomm Inc., under pressure from hedge fund Jana Partners, agreed to boost its program to purchase $10 billion of its shares over the next 12 months; the company already had an existing $7.8 billion buyback program and a commitment to return three quarters of its free cash flow to shareholders.

And in July, Qualcomm announced 5,000 layoffs. It's hard to innovate when you're trying to please a hedge fund.

CEOs with a long-term outlook and a focus on innovation and investment, rather than financial engineering, come under intense pressure.

"None of it is optional; if you ignore them, you go away," Russ Daniels, a tech executive with 15 years at Apple and 13 years at HP, told Reuters. "It's all just resource allocation," he said. "The situation right now is there are a lot of investors who believe that they can make a better decision about how to apply that resource than the management of the business can."

Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period.

This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income of $847 billion.

Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery.

Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income is declining.

"Serving customers, creating innovative new products, employing workers, taking care of the environment … are NOT the objectives of firms," sais Itzhak Ben-David, a finance professor of Ohio State University, a buyback proponent, according to Reuters. "These are components in the process that have the goal of maximizing shareholders' value."

But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered.

Citigroup credit analysts looked into the extent to which this is happening – and why. Christine Hughes, Chief Investment Strategist at OtterWood Capital, summarized the Citi report this way: "This dynamic of borrowing from bondholders to pay shareholders may be coming to an end…."

Their chart (via OtterWood Capital) shows that about half of the cumulative outperformance of these buyback queens from 2012 through 2014 has been frittered away this year, as their shares, IBM-like, have swooned:

Mbuna, November 21, 2015 at 7:31 am

Me thinks Wolf is slightly barking up the wrong tree here. What needs to be looked at is how buy backs affect executive pay. "Shareholder value" is more often than not a ruse?

ng, November 21, 2015 at 8:58 am

probably, in some or most cases, but the effect on the stock is the same.

Alejandro, November 21, 2015 at 9:19 am

Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s).

On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement?

Jim, November 21, 2015 at 10:42 am

More nuance and less dogma please. The dogmatic tone really hurts what could otherwise be a fine but more-qualified position.

"Results of all this financial engineering? Revenues of the S&P 500 companies are falling for the fourth quarter in a row – the worst such spell since the Financial Crisis."

Eh, no. No question that buybacks *can* be asset-stripping and often are, but unless you tie capital allocation decisions closer to investment in the business such that they're mutually exclusive, this is specious and a reach. No one invests if they can't see the return. It would be just as easy to say that they're buying back stock because revenue is slipping and they have no other investment opportunities.

Revenues are falling in large part because these largest companies derive an ABSOLUTELY HUGE portion of their business overseas and the dollar has been ridiculously strong in the last 12-15 months. Rates are poised to rise, and the easy Fed-inspired rate arbitrage vis a vis stocks and "risk on" trade are closing. How about a little more context instead of just dogma?

John Malone made a career out of financial engineering, something like 30% annual returns for the 25 years of his CEO tenure at TCI. Buybacks were a huge part of that.

Perhaps an analysis of the monopolistic positions of so many American businesses that allow them the wherewithal to underinvest and still buy back huge amounts of stock? If we had a more competitive economy, companies would have less ability to underinvest. Ultimately, I think buybacks are more a result than a cause of dysfunction, but certainly not always bad.

NeqNeq, November 21, 2015 at 11:44 am

One aspect that Reuters piece mentions, but glosses over with a single paragraph buried in the middle, is the fact that for many companies there are no ( or few) reasons to spend money in other ways. If capex/r&d doesn't give you much return, why not buy out the shareholders who are least interested in holding your stock?

Dumping cash into plants only makes sense in the places where the market is growing. For many years that has meant Asia (China). For example, Apple gets 66% (iirc) of revenue from Asia, and that is where they have continued investing in growth. If demand is slowing and costs are rising, and it looks like both are true, why would you put even more money in?

Dumping money into R&D is always risky, although different industries have different levels, and the "do it in-house" risk must be weighed against the costs of buying up companies with "proven" technologies. Thus, R&D cash is hidden inside M&A. M&A is up 2-3 years in a row.

[Dec 02, 2015] Russia Presents Detailed Evidence Of ISIS-Turkey Oil Trade

Notable quotes:
"... Now obviously, conclusive evidence that Ankara is knowingly facilitating the sale of ISIS crude will probably be hard to come by, at least in the short-term, but the silly thing about Erdogans pronouncement is that were talking about a man who was willing to plunge his country into civil war over a few lost seats in Parliament. The idea that he would ever step down is patently absurd. ..."
"... Whats critical is that the world gets the truth about whos financing and facilitating Raqqas Rockefellers. If a NATO member is supporting this, and if the US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks for 14 months as part of an understanding with Erdogan, well then we have a problem. ..."
"... In the opening address, the Deputy says the ISIS oil trade reaches the highest levels of Turkeys government. He also says Erdogan wouldnt resign if his face was smeared with stolen Syrian oil. Antonov then blasts Ankara for arresting journalists and mocks Erdogans lovely family oil business. Antonov even calls on the journalists of the world to get involved and help Russia expose and destroy the sources of terrorist financing. ..."
"... I might be too harsh, but at the hands of the Turkish military killed our comrades. The cynicism of the Turkish leadership is unlimited. Look what theyre doing ?! Climbed to a foreign country, it shamelessly robbed. And if the owners interfere, then they have to be addressed. ..."
"... No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of Turkey is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-appointed Minister of Energy? What a brilliant family business! ..."
"... National intelligence agencies watch Facebook, Twitter, Google and other search engines to see if they have to do damage control. If a few sites come out with articles implicating Bilal but the little people dont do many searches for him or re-tweet links, then theres no reason to react. They simply ignore the story. ..."
"... The government defines the narrative, and MSM stenographers fill in the pieces. Facebook, Twitter and Google are checked to see if they had the desired effect. They can also use a bit more direct techniques like massaging the Google search result rankings or blowing away Facebook and Twitter accounts they dont like. Israel is insane about collecting this data from Americans and reacting. Uncle Sugar isnt going to cough up that free $3 billion a year handout to them if the people are in the streets with pitchforks and torches. They are especially interested in de-ranking Google results that make Israel look bad, and promoting sites that deliver the message they want. Google is the worst search engine to look for Israeli current events. ..."
"... Obama Administration Supporting Islamic State -- OASIS. It certainly is if youre a terrorist rebel or well-connected oil pimp... ..."
"... The US made a deal with OPEC: the US would help to remove Assad, and in return, OPEC would dump oil to weaken Russia and Iran, fulfilling PNAC/Cheneys pet dream of consolidating the remaining oil reserves under US-friendly control. ISIS was a tool to that end. ..."
"... Now that the cat is out of the bag, now that Chinas overdue correction has been triggered, now that Brazil and Canada know who is largely responsible for their collapsing economies, now that Europe knows why they are overrun by refugees, I wonder how friendly those countries will be moving forward. ..."
"... As I read it, according to traditional international law, the Russian Federation may legally seize Erdogans Maltese-flagged neutral tankers carrying ISIS crude oil, because that crude oil constitutes a significant portion of ISIS war making potential, that tanker then effectively constituting an enemy merchant vessel, with the tankers subsequent condemnation in Russian prize courts, as the capturing belligerent power. ..."
"... A former police commander from Tajikistan was featured in an ISIS video recently where he admitted he was trained by the U.S. State Department and former military contractor Blackwater all the way up until last year. ..."
"... It was Turkeys national intelligence agency, known as MIT, that first organized Syrian military defectors into Western-backed groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. ..."
"... Free Syrian Army factions still convene on Turkish soil in the Joint Operations Center, a CIA-led intelligence hub that gives vetted rebels training as well as U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles used to destroy Syrian army tanks and armored units. ..."
"... Islamist groups, however, have benefited from Turkeys pro-opposition policy as well. In May, the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published video from 2014 showing customs agents impounding a truck owned by the MIT. The trucks manifest said it was carrying humanitarian assistance for Syrians. Instead it was bearing a cache of ammunition and shells the newspaper said were destined for Islamist rebels. The videos release caused a furor. Erdogan vowed to prosecute Cumhuriyet, a threat he carried out Friday when authorities arrested two of the papers journalists on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization. ..."
"... According to a 2015 United Nations study, two border crossings controlled by a faction of the Army of Conquest handle more than 300 trucks a day, a figure that exceeds prewar levels. The traffic yields an estimated $660,000 a day. ..."
Zero Hedge
On Monday, Turkey's sultan President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said something funny. In the wake of Vladimir Putin's contention that Russia has additional proof of Turkey's participation in Islamic State's illicit crude trade, Erdogan said he would resign if anyone could prove the accusations.

Now obviously, conclusive evidence that Ankara is knowingly facilitating the sale of ISIS crude will probably be hard to come by, at least in the short-term, but the silly thing about Erdogan's pronouncement is that we're talking about a man who was willing to plunge his country into civil war over a few lost seats in Parliament. The idea that he would ever "step down" is patently absurd.

But that's not what's important. What's critical is that the world gets the truth about who's financing and facilitating "Raqqa's Rockefellers." If a NATO member is supporting this, and if the US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks for 14 months as part of an understanding with Erdogan, well then we have a problem. For those who need a review, see the following four pieces:

Unfortunately for Ankara, The Kremlin is on a mission to blow this story wide open now that Turkey has apparently decided it's ok to shoot down Russian fighter jets. On Wednesday, we get the latest from Russia, where the Defense Ministry has just finished a briefing on the Islamic State oil trade. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Turkey may be in trouble.

First, here's the bullet point summary via Reuters:

That's the Cliff's Notes version and the full statement from Deputy Minister of Defence Anatoly Antonov is below. Let us be the first to tell you, Antonov did not hold back.

In the opening address, the Deputy says the ISIS oil trade reaches the highest levels of Turkey's government. He also says Erdogan wouldn't resign if his face was smeared with stolen Syrian oil. Antonov then blasts Ankara for arresting journalists and mocks Erdogan's "lovely family oil business." Antonov even calls on the journalists of the world to "get involved" and help Russia "expose and destroy the sources of terrorist financing."

"Today, we are presenting only some of the facts that confirm that a whole team of bandits and Turkish elites stealing oil from their neighbors is operating in the region," Antonov continues, setting up a lengthy presentation in which the MoD shows photos of oil trucks, videos of airstrikes and maps detailing the trafficking of stolen oil. The clip is presented here with an English voice-over. Enjoy.

... ... ...

Oh, and for good measure, Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy says the US is not bombing ISIS oil trucks.

ISIS OIL logistics hub, over 3,000 TRUCKS, travelling between Iraq & TURKEY & US can't seem to find this???
BS pic.twitter.com/TNBa7CD9F0

- WowWow (@wowscasino) December 2, 2015

* * *

Full statement from Anatoly Antonov (translated)

At a briefing for the media, "the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the fight against international terrorism. The new data "

International terrorism - is the main threat of our time. This threat is not illusory but real, and many countries, primarily Russia, knows this firsthand. The notorious "Is Islamic state" - the absolute leader of the terrorist international. This is a rearing monster of international terrorism can be countered. And you can win. Over the past two months, Aerospace Russian forces is clearly demonstrated.

We are firmly convinced that victory over LIH need to deliver a powerful and devastating blow to the sources of its funding, as repeatedly mentioned by President Vladimir Putin. Terrorism has no money - is a beast without teeth. Oil revenues are a major source of terrorist activity in Syria. They earn about $ 2 billion. Dollars annually, spending this money on hiring fighters around the world, providing them with weapons, equipment and weapons. That's why so LIH protects thieves oil infrastructure in Syria and Iraq.

The main consumer of stolen from legitimate owners - Syria and Iraq - the oil is Turkey. According to the data entered in this criminal business involved the highest political leadership of the country - President Erdogan and his family.

We have repeatedly talked about the dangers of flirting with terrorists. It's like that stokes. The fire from one country can spill over to others. This situation we are seeing in the Middle East. Today, we present only part of the facts, confirming that the region has a team of bandits and Turkish elites stealing oil from the neighbors.

This oil in large numbers on an industrial scale, for the living pipelines from thousands of oil tankers entering the territory of Turkey. We are absolutely convinced today present you the hard facts about what the final destination of the stolen oil - Turkey. There is a large number of media representatives, and Our briefing will see more of your colleagues. In this regard, I would like to say the following. We know and appreciate the work of journalists. We know that in the journalistic community, many courageous, fearless people honestly do its job. Today, we have clearly shown you how the illegal trade in oil, the result of which - the financing of terrorism. Provided concrete evidence that, in our opinion, may be the subject of investigative journalism.

We are confident that the truth with your help will, will find its way. We know the price to Erdogan. He has already been caught in a lie again Turkish journalists who opened Turkey delivery of arms and ammunition to militants under the guise of humanitarian convoys. For this imprisoned journalists.

Do not resign Turkish leaders, particularly Mr. Erdogan, and did not recognize, even if their faces will be smeared by oil thieves. I might be too harsh, but at the hands of the Turkish military killed our comrades. The cynicism of the Turkish leadership is unlimited. Look what they're doing ?! Climbed to a foreign country, it shamelessly robbed. And if the owners interfere, then they have to be addressed.

I stress that Erdogan's resignation is not our goal. It is - it is the people of Turkey. Our goal and the goal to which we urge you, ladies and gentlemen, - joint action to block the sources of funding for terrorism. We will continue to provide evidence of robbery by Turkey of its neighbors. Maybe I'll be too straightforward, but the control of these thieves in business can be entrusted only to the most close people.

No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of Turkey is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-appointed Minister of Energy? What a brilliant family business!

This, in general, may elsewhere? Well, once again, of course, such cases can not be charging anyone, only the closest people. Votes this fact in the Western media we do not see much, but it sure can not hide the truth. Yes, of course, dirty petrodollars will work. I am sure that there are now discussions about the fact that everything you see here, - falsification. Well. If it did not - let be allowed in those places that we showed journalists.

It is obvious that today the publicity was devoted only part of the information about the monstrous crimes of the Turkish elites who directly finance international terrorism. We believe that any sane journalist should fight this plague of the XXI century. The world experience has repeatedly argued that the objective journalism is able to be an effective and formidable tool in the fight against various financial corruption schemes. We invite colleagues to investigative journalism on the disclosure of financial schemes and supplies oil from the terrorists to the consumers. Especially since the oil produced in the controlled militants territories in transit through Turkish ports shipped to other regions. For its part, the Ministry of Defense of Russia will continue to disclose new evidence on the supply of terrorists oil to foreign countries and to talk about the conduct of aerospace forces of Russia operations in Syria.Let's unite our efforts. We will destroy the sources of financing of terrorism in Syria, as you get involved in the kind of work abroad. "

Latina Lover

Doesn't matter what evidence Putin offers, the USSA Minion Mainstream Media liars will bury, distort or outright lie to defend Turkey. If Putin wanted any media play, he should photoshop the detailed evidence on a picture of Kim Kardasians ass.

The good news is that the Turks will figure it out, along with the rest of the world.

The9thDoctor

The main difference between al-CIAduh and CIsisA is that even the dumbest of the dumb have figured out that ISIL is controlled and equipped by Western Intelligence.

two hoots

John Kerry can explain this....to his own satisfaction.

Gaius Frakkin' ...

I've already seen more evidence for ISIS-Turkey oil trading than Saddam's WMDs... still waiting for that BTW.

farflungstar

NATO cunts supporting terrorists deserve whatever they get.

There was a lull when the Russians made their entrance into Syria, as Thinktank Land had to recalibrate their bullshit and get on message for the sheep. A couple weeks later the AmeriKans are crying crocodile tears over civilians and Russia killing kinder, gentler terrorists rather than ISIS.

LOL AmeriKans concerned over civilian casualties.

Kirk2NCC1701

And yet, we are still suppose to "Support Our Troops"

If they had 'truth in advertising', they'd call it "Support Our Storm-Troopers", to serve the Empire

Wise up, people. We have a MERCENARY ARMY -- by Definition.

MERCENARY =

a. You Volunteered 1,

b. You are getting Paid,

c. You have a Contract (with or w/o a Retirement Package)

d. After said Contract has expired, and if Released from further Duty (at sole discretion of Employer), you may enter a new Contract with a private 'security firm', i.e. "Mercs R US", or retire to pursue other activities (work for Gov.US, or one of its para-Gov units known as NGOs). In some cases, you may be so disillusioned or burned out, that you actually join the private sector. In some rare cases, assuming you haven't killed yourself, you may actually have become an open or closet anti-war activist. Which makes you a Born-Again Citizen, and a genuine Hero. If you are married with children, you are a mutha-facking hero, aka... 'Dad'.

[1] It matters not/naught if you're a well-meaning 'Patriot' (10%), a Economic Desperado (85%) or a Closet Psycho (5%). They'll take you even if you're not a US Citizen. In which case, you can become one after a mere 2 years, and in the Naturalization Process their Look-back Window is literally 2 years. I know this for fact. If you want to challenge me on this, you'll have to put your money where your mouth is, and pony up some serious Cash/BTC

McMolotov

For people of a certain age, "Russia is evil" is their default setting. They literally had that message pounded into their brains for decades, and unless they frequent alternative media sites, it's hard to overcome.

I see it with my parents. I can talk to them about this stuff for a few hours and gradually get them to see glimmers of the truth, but they usually completely revert to their normal thinking by the next time I see them. It doesn't help that they have Fox News on all the time.

rwe2late

UndergroundPost

Su-24 you say?

There is fair certainty that the SU-24 was hit (inside Syria) by radar-guided missiles(s) fired by the Turk jets,

and the missiles were guided and the SU-24 targeted by airborne US AWACS.

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/bombshell-turkish-attack-russian-s...

The Chief

Im not sure which is worse, domestic frackers and their rape of the the american consumer and retiree with ridiculous oil and gas prices, junk bond sales to pensioners, etc, or ISIS. ISIS, in my view is no threat at all. These are contractors working for deep state functionaries intent on a long-term rape of the global population...but really, just hoodlums intent on taking a vig from illegal oil sales. Just ask Bush, Cheney, and now the democratic machine. New guys at the trough.

Frackers, however, are scum of the fucking earth. The business doesnt work unless oil prices are high. Fuck that. They pay their bills with a junk bond ponzi.

As for frackers themselves...its a tiny fraction of the workforce. Go be auto mechanics or go back to selling meth, fuckers.

847328_3527

Canada could take 50,000 refugees by end of 2016

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/governor-general-urges-support-fo...

The Canadian Gubmint will need to cut benefits to its citizens for the benefit of newcomers just as Barry wants to cut SS for Senior Americans so he can import thousands more.

"Yes we can!"

kralizec

Must be Vlad is daring the Turk to invoke Artcile 21 of Montreux: Erdogan has a trump card against Putin that would transform the Syrian war

You have to admire their bold manner, they are fearless.

They love warning NATO to back off. http://news.yahoo.com/russia-warns-nato-montenegro-invite-111359017.html

But who doesn't? They are a paper tiger, seems pointless to join them.

They get to build on newly seized territory ala China. http://news.yahoo.com/russia-building-military-bases-islands-claimed-jap...

The annexation of Crimea and Donbas is secure. Oil, gas and currency deals with China, India...nuclear deals with Iran.

And nobody is stopping him. Who can? That Muzzie faggot pretender in Washington? The toothless NATO police? The bed-wetting Euro's submitting to Islam?

Ha!

It is a de facto Russian/Chinese world now. Most still have no clue. The kabuki is so strong, the illusion of states and freedom and wealth...all an illusion.

Pah, who cares? Put on the DWTS, snort some lines and pop the bubbly! All is well!

Life of Illusion

Kralizec, you need to complete the illusion......wheres the oil goes when in Turkey.....

http://www.invest.gov.tr/en-US/infocenter/news/Pages/210714-goldman-sachs-buys-turkish-petkim-aegean-port.aspx

Goldman Sachs buys into Turkish Petkim's Aegean port 21.07.2014

Hurriyet Daily News – Global leader US investment firm Goldman Sachs has become a partner in Turkey's largest integrated port, operated by petrochemicals maker Petkim, in a deal that will boost Petkim's plans to develop the port as the largest in the Aegean region.

Petkim announced that it has reached a preliminary agreement to sell its 30 percent stake in Petkim Limanc?l?k (Petlim) for USD 250 million, after months of talks beginning in February of this year.

Petkim and Petlim are controlled by the Turkish branch of Azeri energy giant SOCAR. Petlim was founded to run the financial operations of Petkim's port in the Alia?a district of the Aegean province of ?zmir.

"For one of the world's biggest investors to become a partner in our port company means approval of the value and finance of our project," SOCAR Turkey President Kenan Yavuz said, speaking after a ceremony to mark the signing of the deal

Urban Redneck

The yahoos at Yahoo!News should really stick to message boards and perhaps one day expand to fringe blogging (if they can ever pull their heads of their asses). Neither the Russians nor the Turks are interested in seeing the Straights closed.

The purpose of the Montreaux Convention is to prevent another Russo-Turkish war by guaranteeing Russia (and other States that border the Black Sea) will have full military and commercial access to the Straights, while foreign powers will have only limited access. In return for providing this guarantee Turkey was allowed to build fortification to support its obligations under the treaty, while maintaining Turkey's natural right to self defense.

Any attempt by Turkey to prevent Russian access to the Straights, is an act of blockade, and invites either a blockade of Turkish ports (and pipelines) on the Mediterranean, if not another Russo Turkish war. Closing the Straights is simply not some trump card, and even the Sultan of Ankara isn't dumb enough to view such an action as a step towards extending his grip on power.

moonshadow

Putin with "checkmate". Erdogan can only flip the board over and walk away muttering to the int'l crowd somethin bout "Putin...cheater". Great article, Antonov's comments priceless, and video worth a smirk a minute

Noplebian

The NATO led escalation and it's push towards WW3, continues unabated……

http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...

JustObserving

Will Erdogan resign?

How about detailed evidence on the shooting of the Russian jet?
BOMBSHELL: Ambush of Russian Bomber Was Guided by US Reconnaissance

A U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS plane took off on 24 November from the Preveza airbase in Greece. A second E-3A of the Saudi Arabian air force took off from the Riyadh airbase. Both planes were executing a common task-determining the precise location of Russian aircraft. It is they that picked the "victim."

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/bombshell-turkish-attack-russian-s...

JustObserving

Erdogan and his oil-smuggling son, Bilal, will be welcomed as heroes in Neocon-controlled Washington. Argentina and Paraguay are now for minor criminals only.


Calmyourself

Erdogan you Islamist bastard Ataturk is laughing at you from beyond the grave, GTFO

edit: why the hell has no one dropped cluster munitions on that truck park? US has been there a year and just missed it? Apparently Obama's (Stalin's) purge of the military has been quite successful because none of them have any balls.

RockySpears

Because cluster bombs are illegal. Not that this is exactly what they were designed for, but people cried about the little bomblets that failed to go off and were subsequently "ploughed" up by civilian farmers.

War is bad, but sometimes it is made worse by the intention to do good.

Same as Chemical weapons, for the most part, they kill no one, they just incapacitate. And anyway, why is a 1,000lb of TNT NOT chemical?

Calmyourself

Only against civilians and nobody signed on anyway.

"During Desert Storm US Marines used the weapon extensively, dropping 15,828 of the 27,987 total Rockeyes against armor, artillery, and personnel targets. The remainder were dropped by Air Force (5,346) and Navy (6,813) aircraft.[1]"

Chairman

2003-2006: United States and allies attacked Iraq with 13,000 cluster munitions, containing two million submunitions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. At multiple times, coalition forces used cluster munitions in residential areas, and the country remains among the most contaminated by this day, bomblets posing a threat to both US military personnel in the area, and local civilians.

When these weapons were fired on Baghdad on April 7, 2003 many of the bomblets failed to explode on impact. Afterward, some of them exploded when touched by civilians. USA Today reported that "the Pentagon presented a misleading picture during the war of the extent to which cluster weapons were being used and of the civilian casualties they were causing." On April 26, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the US had caused only one civilian casualty.

margincall575

Follow up

Breaking: Did the US and Saudis use AWACS to help target the SU-24?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/12/01/breaking-did-the-us-and-saudis-u...

zeroboris

I used to read the soviet newspaper Pravda and am reading modern western media. And know what? Pravda was many times more truthful. Many of us, Russians, didn't understand this in soviet times (we had no access to western papers). But now I can tell this without any doubt. Most of modern Russian papers are less truthful too.


ThanksChump

I'd be surprised if the WPost ignores this. They did cover the Iraqi claim that the US is backing ISIS.

Paveway IV

National intelligence agencies watch Facebook, Twitter, Google and other search engines to see if they have to do damage control. If a few sites come out with articles implicating Bilal but the 'little people' don't do many searches for him or re-tweet links, then there's no reason to react. They simply ignore the story. If they notice enough little people start Googling Bilial and illegal oil sales or retweeting damaging articles, then they let the boss know. The U.S. MSM is ordered to send out a few stories quoting each other to spin it one way or another.

The government defines the narrative, and MSM stenographers fill in the pieces. Facebook, Twitter and Google are checked to see if they had the desired effect. They can also use a bit more direct techniques like massaging the Google search result rankings or blowing away Facebook and Twitter accounts they don't like. Israel is insane about collecting this data from Americans and reacting. Uncle Sugar isn't going to cough up that free $3 billion a year handout to them if the people are in the streets with pitchforks and torches. They are especially interested in de-ranking Google results that make Israel look bad, and promoting sites that deliver the message they want. Google is the worst search engine to look for Israeli current events.

You'll notice none of the MSM ISIS oil sales articles will mention U.S. stooge Barzani's involvement, and they for damn sure won't mention Israel as a destination for much of the stolen oil. They'll simply steer the narrative to focus on Turkish oil sales, and somehow blame it on Assad.

krispkritter

Obama Administration Supporting Islamic State --> OASIS. It certainly is if you're a terrorist 'rebel' or well-connected oil pimp...

ThanksChump

Occam's Razor.

The US made a deal with OPEC: the US would help to remove Assad, and in return, OPEC would dump oil to weaken Russia and Iran, fulfilling PNAC/Cheney's pet dream of consolidating the remaining oil reserves under US-friendly control. ISIS was a tool to that end.

That's the easy obvious part.

Less obvious is the tie to Ukraine. Ukraine should have been "converted" after Assad was driven out, and not before. This has me confused. Was it only a mistake in timing?

Now that the cat is out of the bag, now that China's overdue correction has been triggered, now that Brazil and Canada know who is largely responsible for their collapsing economies, now that Europe knows why they are overrun by refugees, I wonder how friendly those countries will be moving forward.

Mike Masr

https://www.rt.com/news/324252-russian-military-news-briefing/

US pal and NATO ally Turkey

SoDamnMad

I' m watching the rebroadcast live right now. Video of all these trucks. Damn good video and stills. Gee, why can't the USSA produce these(oh yeah, the MSM isn't allowed to show the truth. Better to show some college campus protest rather than the truth about whose side is really trying to stop terrorism.) Maybe our reconaissence equipment isn't as good as Russian equipment and our satelittes can't find the Turkish-Syrian border. Never seen so many trucks back to back, even on the Jersey Turnpike or the Long Beach Freeway before a holiday when the economy was good.s a lot of bucks going into Erdogan son's pocket (and Israel's)

fel.temp.reparatio

Erdogan: "So what if the MIT trucks were filled with weapons?"

Yttrium Gold Nitrogen

Statements available in English here:

http://eng.syria.mil.ru/en/index/syria/news/more.htm?id=12070726@cmsArticle

Duc888

....another interesting point here...

http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/features/2015/11/26/raqqas-rockefellers...

"The Islamic State group uses millions of dollars in oil revenues to expand and manage vast areas under its control, home to around five million civilians.

IS sells Iraqi and Syrian oil for a very low price to Kurdish and Turkish smuggling networks and mafias, who label it and sell it on as barrels from the Kurdistan Regional Government.

It is then most frequently transported from Turkey to Israel, via knowing or unknowing middlemen, according to al-Araby's investigation.

The Islamic State group has told al-Araby that it did not intentionally sell oil to Israel, blaming agents along the route to international markets."

no1wonder

Official media release (and speech translation into English) by Russia's Defense Ministry:

http://eng.syria.mil.ru/en/index/syria/brief.htm

cn13

This story is finally hitting the MSM in the U.S. after being reported here for the past week. The powers to be must have needed time to get their lies straight. Anyway, check out the comment section on Yahoo regarding this story. It is almost 100% pro-Russian and anti-NATO/U.S.

I have never seen anything like this before.

The U.S. public has lost total confidence in the government. They are finally catching on to the lies and deceit of those in power.

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-says-proof-turkey-main-consumer-islamic-state-124337872.html

MadVladtheconquerer

Looks like Putin is simply trying to maintain what little remains of the status quo in Syria:

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/is-russia-fighting-isil-or-occupying-sy...

gregga777

As I read it, according to traditional international law, the Russian Federation may legally seize Erdogan's Maltese-flagged "neutral" tankers carrying ISIS' crude oil, because that crude oil constitutes a significant portion of ISIS' war making potential, that tanker then effectively constituting an enemy merchant vessel, with the tanker's subsequent condemnation in Russian prize courts, as the capturing belligerent power.

I hope that the Russian Federation's Navy seizes all of Erdogan's tankers, bankrupting Erdogan's company. Let them then sit in port for the next several years awaiting disposition in a Russian prize court.

dot_bust

Then there's this rather enlightening bit of information:

ISIS Colonel was Trained By Blackwater and U.S. State Department for 11 Years

A former police commander from Tajikistan was featured in an ISIS video recently where he admitted he was trained by the U.S. State Department and former military contractor Blackwater all the way up until last year.

http://theantimedia.org/isis-colonel-trained-by-blackwater-and-us-state-...

Amun

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-turkey-20151201-stor...

"It was Turkey's national intelligence agency, known as MIT, that first organized Syrian military defectors into Western-backed groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

Free Syrian Army factions still convene on Turkish soil in the Joint Operations Center, a CIA-led intelligence hub that gives vetted rebels training as well as U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles used to destroy Syrian army tanks and armored units.

Islamist groups, however, have benefited from Turkey's pro-opposition policy as well. In May, the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published video from 2014 showing customs agents impounding a truck owned by the MIT. The truck's manifest said it was carrying humanitarian assistance for Syrians. Instead it was bearing a cache of ammunition and shells the newspaper said were destined for Islamist rebels. The video's release caused a furor. Erdogan vowed to prosecute Cumhuriyet, a threat he carried out Friday when authorities arrested two of the paper's journalists on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization.

Turkish assistance has been instrumental in empowering the Army of Conquest, a loose coalition of hard-line Islamist factions including Al Nusra Front, which seized control of Idlib province in March in an offensive backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Economic ties also have been forged between Turkey and rebel factions.

According to a 2015 United Nations study, two border crossings controlled by a faction of the Army of Conquest handle more than 300 trucks a day, a figure that exceeds prewar levels. The traffic yields an estimated $660,000 a day. "

[Dec 01, 2015] US Intervention Before And After

Zero Hedge
WhackoWarner

Before death in Libya....Ghadaffi's crime was in "not playing along and selling out". Kinda like Iraq and all. They all should just hand over everything and say thanks...but they did not . There is disinfo on both sides, But the "madman" and people who actually live there never seem to make the NYTimes.

"For 40 years, or was it longer, I can't remember, I did all I could to give people houses, hospitals, schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland from the desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned daughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped my brothers and sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.

I did all I could to help people understand the concept of real democracy, where people's committees ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes, new suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They told Americans and other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and "freedom" never realizing it was a cut throat system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with those words, never realizing that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get soup.

No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since Salah-al-Deen, when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps I tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination - from thieves who would steal from us.

Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer. So, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.

I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it.

Let this testament be my voice to the world, that I stood up to crusader attacks of NATO, stood up to cruelty, stood up to betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitions, and that I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light. When others were building castles, I lived in a modest house, and in a tent. I never forgot my youth in Sirte, I did not spend our national treasury foolishly, and like Salah-al-Deen, our great Muslim leader, who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took little for myself...

In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy", but they know the truth yet continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my vision, my path, is, and has been clear and for my people and that I will fight to my last breath to keep us free, may Allah almighty help us to remain faithful and free.

Kirk2NCC1701
"they hate us for our freedoms"

No, "They hate us for our freebombs" that we keep delivering.

Suppose you lived in a town that was run by a ruthless Mafioso boss. Sure he was ruthless to troublemakers and dissenters, but if you went about your business (and paid your taxes/respects to him), life was simple but livable, and crime was negligible.

Now imagine that a crime Overlord came from another country and decided to wreck the town, just to remove your Mafioso Don. In the process, your neighborhood and house were destroyed, and you lost friends and family.

Now tell me that YOU would not make it YOUR life's mission to bring these War Criminals to justice -- by any and all means necessary. And tell me that these same Criminals could not have foreseen all this. Now say it again - but with a straight face. I dare you. I fucking double-dare you!

Max Cynical
US exceptionalism!
GhostOfDiogenes
The worst one, besides Iraq, is Libya.

The infrastructure we destroyed there is unimaginable.

Sure Iraq was hit the worst, and much has been lost there....but Libya was a modern arab oasis of a country in the middle of nothing.

We destroyed in a few days what took decades to build.

This is why I am not proud of my country, nor my military.

In fact, I would like to see Nuremberg type trials for 'merican military leaders and concentration gulags for the rest of enlisted. Just like they did to Germany.

Its only proper.

GhostOfDiogenes
The USA did this murder of Libya and giving ownership to the people who did '911'? What a joke. http://youtu.be/aJURNC0e6Ek
Bastiat
Libya under Ghadaffi: universal free college education, free healthcare, free electricity. interest free loans. A very bad example of how a nation's wealth is to be distributed!
CHoward
The average American has NO idea how much damage is being done in this world - all in the name of Democracy. Unbelivable and truly pathetic. Yet - most sheeple still believe ISIS and others hate us because of our "freedoms" and i-pods. What bullshit.
Bioscale
Czech public tv published a long interview in English with Asad, it was filmed in Damascus some days ago.Very unusual thing, actually. Terrorism being transported by US, Turkey and France to Syria is being openly debated. http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/svet/1628712-asad-pro-ct-rebelove-jsou-...

Overfed

Compare and contrast Assad, giving an interview very well in a second language, with O'bomb-a, who can't even speak to school children without a teleprompter. Sad.

Razor_Edge

Along with President Putin, Dr al Assad is consistently the most sane, rational and clearly honest speaker on the tragedy of Syria. By contrast, our satanic western leaders simply lie outrageously at all times. How do we know? Their lips are moving. They also say the most absurd things.

We in the west may think that at the end of the day, it's not going to harm us, so why discomfort ourselves by taking on our own elites and bringing them down. But I believe that an horrific future awaits us, one we richly deserve, because we did not shout stop at this ocean of evil bloodshed being spilt in our names. We pay the taxes that pay for it, or at least in my countrys case, (traditional policy of military neutrality), we facilitate the slaughter (troop transports through Shannon airport), or fail to speak out for fear it may impact FDI into Ireland, (largest recipient of US FDI in the world).

We are our brothers keepers, and we are all one. It is those who seek to separate us to facilitate their evil and psychopathic lust for power and money, who would have us beieve that "the other" is evil. Are we really so simple minded or riven by fear that we cannot see through the curtain of the real Axis of Evil?

Demdere

Israeli-neocon strategy is to have the world's economy collapse at the point of maximum war and political chaos.

Then they can escape to Paraguay. Sure as hell, if they stay here, we are going to hang them all. Treasonous criminals for the 9/11 false flag operation.

By 2015, every military and intelligence service and all the think tanks have looked at 9/11 carefully. Anyone who looks at the evidence sees that it was a false flag operation, the buildings were destroyed via explosives, the planes and evil Arab Muslims were show. Those agencies reported to their civilian leaders, and their civilian leaders spread the information through their societies.

So all of the politically aware people in the world, including here at home, KNOW that 9/11 was a false flag operation, or know that they must not look at the evidence. Currently, anyone who disagrees in MSM is treated as invisible, and I know of no prominent bloggers who have even done the bits of extention of 'what it must mean' that I have done.

But it certainly means high levels of distrust for the US and for Israel. It seems to me that World Domination is not possible, because the world won't let you, and the means of opposition are only limited by the imaginations of the most creative, intelligent and knowledgable people. We don't have any of those on our side any more.

L Bean

In their farcical quest to emulate the Roman empire...

Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant - Tacitus

They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.

[Nov 30, 2015] The Spanish General could give the order to shoot down Russian su-

This is not very probably hypothesis, but if this is true then it was NATO organized provocation...
"All the airspace in southern Europe from the Azores to the Eastern border of Turkey (Syria, Iraq, Iran) controlled by the radars mounted on towers airbase in Torrejon near Madrid. Command there 57-year-old General Ruben Garcia Servert. The final decision in the center of the Combined Air Operations takes it.
Notable quotes:
"... There is, of course, is an option that responsibility for the attack on "Drying" took over the Turkish General 62-year-old Abidin Unal, but in this case, a high-ranking Spanish military became the main witness giving orders. "If you want to shoot down the aircraft of the enemy, I is the person taking final decision" is a quote from an interview Garcia of Servert given in January of this year to the newspaper "El Mundo". ..."

"All the airspace in southern Europe from the Azores to the Eastern border of Turkey (Syria, Iraq, Iran) controlled by the radars mounted on towers airbase in Torrejon near Madrid. Command there 57-year-old General Ruben Garcia Servert. The final decision in the center of the Combined Air Operations takes it.

There is, of course, is an option that responsibility for the attack on "Drying" took over the Turkish General 62-year-old Abidin Unal, but in this case, a high-ranking Spanish military became the main witness giving orders. "If you want to shoot down the aircraft of the enemy, I is the person taking final decision" is a quote from an interview Garcia of Servert given in January of this year to the newspaper "El Mundo".

Who actually gave the order to shoot down the su-24, still we do not know. But do know that the recent crash of the UAV happened at the command of a Turkish General unknown, what was not slow to inform the military. In October two cases of violation by Russian planes of air space of Turkey Abidin conceded right to make the final decision to the Spaniard".

[Nov 30, 2015] Paul Craig Roberts Rages At The Arrogance, Hubris, Stupidity Of The US Government

Notable quotes:
"... No, except make a fool of itself by supporting ISIS. We brought ISIS in there (to Syria) - everybody knows that. Just the other day the former head the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said on television that 'Yes, we created ISIS and we used them as henchmen to overthrow governments.' (Laughter). ..."
"... And the polls in Europe show that the people are on Russia's side regarding the shooting down of their aircraft. They don't believe (the West's) story at all. So I think what you are seeing here is the arrogance, hubris, and stupidity of the United States government. They are just handing every possible advantage over to the Russians. ..."
"... Read more here and listen to the full interview... ..."
Zero Hedge

On the heels of the Chinese stock market plunging 5.5%, continued turmoil in the Middle East and the price of gold hitting 5 year lows, former U.S. Treasury official, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts told Eric King of King World News that Putin and the Russians are now dominating in Syria and the Middle East as the West destroys itself.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: "It could well be that this is going to work out so much in Russia's favor that Putin will send a letter of thanks to the Turkish President and say, 'Thank you very much. You've done us a huge favor. (Laughter). We lost a pilot and a naval marine but we sure have gained a lot. That was only two deaths for winning a war."…

"So that looks to me like the most likely outcome. The unintended consequence of this are so positive for Russia that it's got Washington quaking and Europe wondering about the idiocy of being in NATO."

Eric King: "What I'm hearing from you Russia is dominating in Syria. The Russians have completely taken over and there's really nothing Washington can do."

Paul Craig Roberts: "No, except make a fool of itself by supporting ISIS. We brought ISIS in there (to Syria) - everybody knows that. Just the other day the former head the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said on television that 'Yes, we created ISIS and we used them as henchmen to overthrow governments.' (Laughter).

And the polls in Europe show that the people are on Russia's side regarding the shooting down of their aircraft. They don't believe (the West's) story at all. So I think what you are seeing here is the arrogance, hubris, and stupidity of the United States government. They are just handing every possible advantage over to the Russians.

This American government is the most incompetent government that has ever walked the earth. Those people don't have any sense at all. Just look at what they've done. In 14 years they've destroyed 7 countries, killed millions of people, and displaced millions of people. And where are those displaced people? They are overrunning Europe.

This is all because those Europeans were stupid enough to enable our wars. Now the political parties in Europe are under tremendous pressure from these refugees and the populations who object to them, and from the rising dissident parties who are saying, 'Look at what these people who you trusted have done. They've changed your country. It's not Germany anymore - it's Syria.' (Laughter).

This is a disaster. Only the stupid Americans could have produced such a disaster. Does Putin need to do anything? We're doing it all for him. So he doesn't need to do anything. He's not going to attack anybody. What does he need to attack anybody for? The idiot Americans are destroying themselves and their allies. This is an amazing fiasco."

Read more here and listen to the full interview...

Chupacabra-322

"This American government is the most incompetent government that has ever walked the earth. Those people don't have any sense at all. Just look at what they've done. In 14 years they've destroyed 7 countries, killed millions of people, and displaced millions of people. And where are those displaced people? They are overrunning Europe."

So true, it must be repeated.

chubbar

It's so incompetent it is looking deliberate.

KingFiat

King World News always says the price of gold is going to the moon tomorrow when the financial system collapses. After a while you realize no real news comes from there, and ignore them.

Not the same for Paul Craig Roberts, And I am glad to read his insights here, even if originated from KWN.

CaptainDanite

There is no denying that the KWN site is hokey, and that Eric King has a limited repertoire of "stunning" adjectives, and that the frequent employment of bold red and blue fonts can be annoying, etc., etc. However, the simple fact remains that he CONSISTENTLY conducts well-directed and well-edited interviews with some of the most respected voices in the alternative media arena. I routinely look forward to his interviews with Nomi Prins, Eric Sprott, Ronald Stoeferle, and Bill Fleckenstein -- among many, many others. At least KWN is not entirely inundated with ads like ZH is, nor is the mobile version of the site repeatedly susceptible to adware browser hijacks like ZH's mobile version is.

Furthermore, while I frequently find points of disagreement with Paul Craig Roberts, this most recent interview is PCR at his ever-loving best; it strikes to the heart of the matter of the increasingly frightening conflict brewing between the US, NATO, and the Russians. I highly recommend this interview to everyone out there who is starting to get very uncomfortable about the foreign policy incompetence of the Obama administration as it appears to be deliberately steering us into the maw of WWIII.

Lore

PATHOCRACY

"The ultimate cause of evil lies in the interaction of two human factors: 1) normal human ignorance and weakness and 2) the existence and action of a statistically small (4-8% of the general population) but extremely active group of psychologically deviant individuals. The ignorance of the existence of such psychological differences is the first criterion of ponerogenesis. That is, such ignorance creates an opening whereby such individuals can act undetected.

The presence of such 'disease' on the individual level is described in the Almost Human section of this website. However, depending on the type of activity of psychopathic and characteropathic individuals, evil can manifest on any societal level. The greater the scope of the psychopath's influence, the greater harm done. Thus any group of humans can be infected or 'ponerized' by their influence. From families, clubs, churches, businesses, and corporations, to entire nations. The most extreme form of such macrosocial evil is called 'pathocracy'.

Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes

"If the many managerial positions are assumed by individuals deprived of sufficient abilities to feel and understand the majority of other people, and who also exhibit deficiencies in technical imagination and practical skills - (faculties indispensable for governing economic and political matters) - this then results in an exceptionally serious crisis in all areas, both within the country in question and with regard to international relations. Within, the situation becomes unbearable even for those citizens who were able to feather their nest into a relatively comfortable modus vivendi. Outside, other societies start to feel the pathological quality of the phenomenon quite distinctly. Such a state of affairs cannot last long. One must then be prepared for ever more rapid changes, and also behave with great circumspection." (2nd. ed., p. 140)

LetThemEatRand

It's long by today's standards, but another great PCR link for those who are interested. Intelligent and thoughtful debate where the two participants actually allow each other to make their points. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/25/pcr-debates-the-intelligent-a...

Killdo

this is a pretty good book on how to spot psychos and prevent being screwed over by them:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767915828?keywords=the%20sociopath%20n...

I've read about 10 books on the subject and I find this one very intresting, well written and based on realaity (I think the author is a prof frm harvard).

It really helped me connect the dots while I lived in LA (according to the author one of 3 world'scapitals of psychopathy together with London and NY)

[Nov 30, 2015] Erdogan Says Will Resign If Oil Purchases From ISIS Proven After Putin Says Has More Proof

Notable quotes:
"... "There are security officers who are sympathizing with ISIS in Turkey. They are allowing them to go from Istanbul to the borders and infiltrate ... Syria and Iraq." ..."
Nov 30, 2015 | Zero Hedge
"I've shown photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya. Putin was of course referencing Islamic State's illicit and highly lucrative oil trade, the ins and outs of which we've documented extensively over the past two weeks:

Turkey's move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border afforded the Russian President all the motivation and PR cover he needed to expose Ankara's alleged role in the trafficking of illegal crude from Iraq and Syria and in the aftermath of last Tuesday's "incident," Putin lambasted Erdogan. "Oil from Islamic State is being shipped to Turkey," Putin said while in Jordan for a meeting with King Abdullah. In case that wasn't clear enough, Putin added this: "Islamic State gets cash by selling oil to Turkey."

To be sure, it's impossible to track the path ISIS oil takes from extraction to market with any degree of precision. That said, it seems that Islamic State takes advantage of the same network of smugglers, traders, and shipping companies that the KRG uses to transport Kurdish crude from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. From there, the oil makes its way to Israel and other markets (depending on which story you believe) and if anyone needs to be thrown off the trail along the way, there's a ship-to-ship transfer trick that can be executed off the coast of Malta. The maneuver allegedly makes the cargoes more difficult to track.

Some believe Erdogan's son Bilal - who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group - is heavily involved in the trafficking of Kurdish and ISIS crude. Most of the ships BMZ owns are Malta-flagged.

In light of the above, some have speculated that Turkey shot down the Su-24 in retaliation for Russia's bombing campaign that recently has destroyed over 1,000 ISIS oil trucks. Here's what Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said on Friday:

"All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company's nerves. They're importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well."

Al-Zoub isn't alone in his suspicions. In an interview with RT, Iraqi MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie - who personally led Saddam to the gallows - said ISIS is selling around $100 million of stolen crude each month in Turkey. Here are some excerpts:

"In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price."

"Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market."

"Money and dollars generated by selling Iraqi and Syrian oil on the Turkish black market is like the oxygen supply to ISIS and it's operation," he added. "Once you cut the oxygen then ISIS will suffocate."

"There isn't a shadow of a doubt that the Turkish government knows about the oil smuggling operations. The merchants, the businessmen [are buying oil] in the black market in Turkey under the noses – under the auspices if you like – of the Turkish intelligence agency and the Turkish security apparatus."

"There are security officers who are sympathizing with ISIS in Turkey. They are allowing them to go from Istanbul to the borders and infiltrate ... Syria and Iraq."

"There is no terrorist organization which can stand alone, without a neighboring country helping it – in this case Turkey."

That's pretty unequivocal. But it gets better.

On Monday, Putin was back at it, saying that Russia has obtained new information that further implicates Turkey in the Islamic State oil trade. "At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale," Putin said on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris. "We have traced some located on the territory of the Turkish Republic and living in regions guarded by special security services and police that have used the visa-free regime to return to our territory, where we continue to fight them."

"We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil's delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers," he added, taking it up another notch still.

As for Erdogan, well, he "can't accept" the accusations which he calls "not moral":

LATEST - Erdo?an: Russia's claim that Turkey bought oil from Daesh is not 'moral', such claims have to be proved pic.twitter.com/PZka8MwzpL

- DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) November 30, 2015

Hilariously, the man who just finished starting a civil war just so he could regain a few lost seats in Parliament and who would just as soon throw you in jail as look at you if he thinks you might be a threat to his government, now says he will resign if Putin (or anyone else) can present "proof": "We are not that dishonest as to buy oil from terrorists. If it is proven that we have, in fact, done so, I will leave office. If there is any evidence, let them present it, we'll consider [it]."

Hold your breath on that.

And so, the Turkey connection has been exposed and in dramatic fashion. Unfortunately for Ankara, Erdogan can't arrest Vladimir Putin like he can award winning journalists and honest police officers who, like Moscow, want to see the flow of money and weapons to Sunni militants in Syria cut off.

The real question is how NATO will react now that Turkey is quickly becoming a liability. Furthermore, you can be sure that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (who are all heavily invested in the Sunni extremist cause in Syria), are getting nervous. No one wants to see this blown wide open as that would mean the Western public getting wise to the fact that it is indeed anti-ISIS coalition governments that are funding and arming not only ISIS, but also al-Nusra and every other rebel group fighting to wrest control of the country from Assad. Worse, if it gets out that the reason the US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks until now is due to the fact that Ankara and Washington had an understanding when it comes to the flow of illicit crude to Cehyan, the American public may just insist on indicting "some folks."

Remember, when it comes to criminal conspiracies, the guy who gets caught first usually ends up getting cut loose. It will be interesing to see if Erdogan starts to get the cold shoulder from Ankara's "allies" going forward.

[Nov 30, 2015] Russia Bans Soros Foundation As A Threat To National Security And Constitutional Order Zero Hedge

Notable quotes:
"... "A lot of what we do was done 25 years ago covertly by the CIA" Alan Weinstein, one of the founders of the National Endowment for Democracy. Although it promotes itself as a "non-governmental organization", NED receives at least 90% of its funding from the US Congress, earmarked to USAID. ..."
"... Around that time, Soros Foundation 'appeared' in our country and started usual advertising and promises how they will give money to 'promising' projects made by young people. Of course, we had an amazing thing (it was really hard to make a printed computer magazine while having civil war and sanctions, heh) and were certain that we would easily qualify for grant. We got rejected. A guy printing black and white A4 pamphlet saying shit about government got the money. ..."
www.zerohedge.com
AlaricBalth

"A lot of what we do was done 25 years ago covertly by the CIA" Alan Weinstein, one of the founders of the National Endowment for Democracy. Although it promotes itself as a "non-governmental organization", NED receives at least 90% of its funding from the US Congress, earmarked to USAID.

JRobby

Maybe the USSA will do the same with "The Council On Foriegn Relations"??

What would we call it when a controlling faction of the USSA Government outlawed itself and declared itself a threat to national security and Constitutional order?

Schizophrenia?

Government need...

That's an organization that needs to go. I know some of its membership in NYC. . . It's not evil, per se, but it places self-enrichment above ethics. That, and since they all have fancy degress and like to pass their resumes around the table, they naturally believe they know better than the little people what's best for the little peons.

nmewn

"In a statement released on Monday, prosecutors said the activities of the Open Society Institute and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation were a threat to the foundations of Russia's Constitutional order and national security. They added that the Justice Ministry would be duly informed about these conclusions and would add the two groups to Russia's list of undesirable foreign organizations."

Yet here, somehow, he is still a major donor to the National Socialist Democrat Party and BlackLiesMatter.

The world, as I once knew it, has been completely turned upside down...lol.

#SafePlace!

/////

Now wut little trolls...how could that possibly offend you? I mean outside of me being absolutely correct about this worthless POS all these years ;-)

conscious being

I'm suprised it took this long.

Quinvarius

Looks like buying Russian politicians is not so easy. The West however is is craven and corrupt. This is huge set back for Obama's transvestite, looter, gay, racist agenda of destroying civilization.

blentus

So, there I was, 18 years old, and living in a shitty civil war torn country. Not giving a fuck about anything, me and few of my friends managed to print a computer magazine and keep it going for a while. It was impossible to make money with it, and we never did it for the money anyway. It was a good 'distraction' from everything around us, and it also helped other curious kids. This was before Internet became popular/accessible, so good information was not so easy to obtain.

Around that time, Soros Foundation 'appeared' in our country and started usual advertising and promises how they will give money to 'promising' projects made by young people. Of course, we had an amazing thing (it was really hard to make a printed computer magazine while having civil war and sanctions, heh) and were certain that we would easily qualify for grant.

We got rejected. A guy printing black and white A4 pamphlet saying shit about government got the money.

I was lucky enough to learn early how these pieces of shit work.

Every time I hear phrase 'NGO' my brain simply translates it to 'cunts'. Can't help it.

smacker

Something tells me that some very smart people in Moscow have been carefully studying who is creating all this global unrest.

Russia's actions to kick out "Soros Open Society" and the "US National Endowment for Democracy" - neither of which have anything to do with what their names suggest - is to prevent Russia becoming another victim.


[Nov 30, 2015] Secular stagnation and the financial sector

Notable quotes:
"... Surely the answer is "risk transfer" ..."
"... Is what you're saying here is that, by extending a lot of credit, the financial sector allowed households to maintain consumption in the face of a permanent decline in income (at least relative to expectation)? That's an important part of the story, I agree. ..."
"... the FIRE sector in particular, are parasitic on the economy. ..."
"... Perhaps financialization isn't so much a thing-in-itself as the mechanism through which wealth concentrates in periods of slow growth? ..."
"... As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk. I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles and busts." ..."
"... Did Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and North Korea do better than the financialized economies of the world? Did the hand of the State in Russia, China and other countries secure better outcomes than the global financial sector in countries that allowed it to operate (albeit with heavy regulation)? ..."
"... The financial system can engage in usury, lending money with no connection to productive investment, by simply creating a parasitic claim on income. There are straightforward ways of doing this: credit cards with high rates of interest or payday lending. There are slightly more complicated approaches: insurance that by design doesn't pay off for the nominal beneficiary. ..."
"... "The biggest economic policy decision of the last thirty years has been the decision to de-socialise a lot of previously socially insured risks and transfer them back to the household sector (in their various capacities as workers, homeowners and consumers of healthcare). The financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision." ..."
"... My feeling (based on nothing but intuition) is that the answer is (d). The government is a tool of moneyed interests. I know, it sounds awfully libertarian, but it is what it is. And I can't foresee any non-catastrophic end to it. ..."
November 29, 2015 | Crooked Timber

In my last post on private infrastructure finance and secular stagnation, I suggested a bigger argument that

The financialization of the global economy has produced a hugely costly financial sector, extracting returns that must, in the end, be taken out of the returns to investment of all kinds. The costs were hidden during the pre-crisis bubble era, but are now evident to everyone, including potential investors. So, even massively expansionary monetary policy doesn't produce much in the way of new private investment.
This isn't an original idea. The Bank of International Settlements put out a paper earlier this year arguing that financial sector growth crowds out real growth. But how does this work and what can be done about it? I'm still organizing my thoughts on this, so what I have are some ideas rather than a fully formed argument.

First, if the financial sector is unproductive, how can it be so large and profitable in a market economy?

There are a few possible explanations

(a) As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk. I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles and busts.

(b) Tax evasion: the global financial sector allows corporations to greatly reduce their tax liabilities. Most of the savings in tax is captured in the financial sector itself, but the amount flowing to corporations is sufficient to offset the high costs of the modern financial sector, relative to (for example) old-style bank finance and simple corporate structures financed by debt and equity

(c) Volatility: the financialization of the economy has produced greatly increased volatility (in exchange rates, asset prices and so on). The financial sector amplifies and profits from this volatility, partly through regulatory arbitrage, and partly through entrenched and systematic fraud as in the LIBOR and Forex scandals.

(d) Political capture: The financial sector controls political outcomes in both traditional ways (political donations, highly revolving door jobs for future and former politicians) and through the ideology of market liberalism, which is perfectly designed to support policies supporting the financial sector, while discrediting policies traditionally sought by other parts of the corporate sector, such as protection for manufacturing industry. The shift to private finance for infrastructure, discussed in the previous post is part of this. The construction part of the infrastructure sector (which was always private) has suffered from the reduced flow of projects, but the finance part (previously managed through government bonds) has benefited massively.

The result of all this is that the financial sector benefits from an evolutionary strategy similar to that of an Australian eucalypt forest. Eucalypts are both highly flammable (they generate lots of combustible oil) and highly fire resistant. So eucalypt forests are subject to frequent fires which kill competing species, and allow the eucalypts to extend their range.

dsquared 11.29.15 at 1:24 pm

Surely the answer is "risk transfer". The biggest economic policy decision of the last thirty years has been the decision to de-socialise a lot of previously socially insured risks and transfer them back to the household sector (in their various capacities as workers, homeowners and consumers of healthcare). The financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision. Their role is to provide insurance to the rest of society and this is what they did – in fact, they provided too much of it, with too little capital which is why they went bust, and why their bankruptcy was so disastrous (there's nothing worse than an insurer bankruptcy, because it hits you with a big loss at exactly the worst time). I think c) above is particularly unconvincing, as the biggest stylised feature of the period of financialisation was the Great Moderation – in fact, the financial sector stored up volatility that would otherwise have been experienced by other people, including the intermediation of some genuinely historically massive imbalances associated with the industrialisation of China, and stored it up until it couldn't hold any more and exploded.

I also don't think LIBOR and FX fit into that pattern at all very well either. Financial systems have two kinds of problem, which is why they often have two kinds of regulators. They have prudential problems and conduct problems. Both LIBOR and FX were old-fashioned profiteering and cartel arrangements, which could happen in any industry (hey let's talk about drug pricing and indeed university tuition some time). In actual fact, as I wrote a while ago, it's only LIBOR that can really be considered a scandal – FX was very much more a case of customers who wanted the benefits of tight regulation but didn't want to pay for them, and were lucky enough to find a political moment in which the time was right for an otherwise very unpromising case.

In other words, the answer to all your questions is "leverage". That's why financial systems grew so fast, that's why they're associated with poor economic performance, and that's why they tend to show up in periods of secular stagnation – a secular stagnation is almost defined as a period during which people try to maintain their standard of living by borrowing. Of course, if the financial sector had been required to hold enough equity capital in the first place, it would never have grown so big in the first place, and we could all be enjoying the thirteenth year of the post-dot-com bust[1] in relative contentment.

[1] I am never going to shut up about this. The real estate bubble was a policy-created bubble. It was blown up in real time and intentionally, by a Federal Reserve which wanted to cushion the blow of the tech bust. If the financial sector had refused to finance it, the financial sector would have been trying to run a monetary policy directly opposed to that of the central bank.

John Quiggin 11.29.15 at 1:55 pm 2

I agree that risk transfer is a big deal. On the other hand, it's not obvious that the financial sector did a lot to insure households against most of the additional risk, or that the Great Moderation corresponded to a reduction in the volatility faced by households. On the first point, despite massive financial innovation since 1980, the set of financial instruments easily available to households hasn't changed all that much. Most obviously, there's no insurance against bad employment and wage outcomes and home equity insurance hasn't really happened either.

Is what you're saying here is that, by extending a lot of credit, the financial sector allowed households to maintain consumption in the face of a permanent decline in income (at least relative to expectation)? That's an important part of the story, I agree.

The secular stagnation framing of the question leads me to think more about why investment hasn't responded to monetary policy rather than directly about households.

Eggplant 11.29.15 at 2:04 pm, 3

(e) Principle-agent problem.
(f) Implicit government backing allowing the underpricing of risk.

dsquared 11.29.15 at 2:32 pm. 4

Yeah, that's my point – the massive extension of credit to households was the financial sector's role in the big policy shift. At the end of the day, although we might with the benefit of hindsight agree that "subprime mortgages with no income verification at teaser rates" were a pretty stupid product that should never have been offered, they were a brand new financial product that had never been offered to households before! Even the example you mention – "insurance against bad employment and wage outcomes" – was sort of sold, albeit that what I'm referring to here is Payment Protection Insurance in the UK, which sort of underlines that it wasn't done well or responsibly.

I guess my argument here is that it's the combination of deregulation and stagnation that was necessary to create the 2000s policy disaster. But if we hadn't had the bad products we got, we'd have had something else go wrong, probably outside the regulated sector. Because the high debt levels were a policy goal (or at least, were the inevitable and forseeable consequence of trying to do demand management without fiscal policy), and as I keep saying in different contexts, you can't get to a stupid debt ratio by only doing sensible things.

The secular stagnation framing of the question leads me to think more about why investment hasn't responded to monetary policy rather than directly about households.

Isn't the answer to this just the definition of a Keynesian recession? Investment hasn't responded to monetary policy because there's no interest rate at which it makes sense to produce goods that can't be sold.

DrDick 11.29.15 at 2:32 pm 5

Capital generally, and the FIRE sector in particular, are parasitic on the economy. They provide some minimal benefits if kept strongly in check, but quickly become destructive if allowed to grow unchecked, as they have now.

Eggplant 11.29.15 at 2:37 pm 6

(g) Rising inequality leading to an ever increasing savings glut, providing the financial industry with a target-rich environment.

yastreblyansky 11.29.15 at 3:22 pm, 7

Dumb outsider thought, turning Eggplant @6 upside down: What about r > g? Perhaps financialization isn't so much a thing-in-itself as the mechanism through which wealth concentrates in periods of slow growth?

T 11.29.15 at 3:31 pm, 8

"But if we hadn't had the bad products we got, we'd have had something else go wrong, probably outside the regulated sector."

A more sophisticated version of the widely debunked theory that Fannie and Freddie blew up the housing sector by giving loans to poor people. Rule 1: It's never ever the bankers' fault. Rule 2: see Rule 1. At least d-squared has been consistent…

Or maybe there has been a systematic continuous effort to use political influence to garner rents by gutting both the regulatory and judicial constraints on their behavior. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/politics/illinois-campaign-money-bruce-rauner.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

yastreblyansky 11.29.15 at 3:35 pm, 9

Or rather through which rent-claimers concentrate wealth (@t) bringing long-term low growth.

bjk 11.29.15 at 3:43 pm, 10

Which direction is financialization heading? It looks to be decreasing. The mutual fund industry is in terminal decline, losing market share to ETFs. There are fewer financial advisors today than in 2008, yet the number of millionaires has increased. Stock trading has broken a 40 year trend of increasing volumes. Electronic and exchange trading of bonds and derivatives is increasing, driving down margins. Bots have driven human traders out of jobs (Dark Pools has a good account of this). Banks are earnings low single digit returns in their trading divisions, which suggests they will be shut down if things don't improve. It looks like finance is doing a good job of shrinking itself, with a little help from Elizabeth Warren.

T 11.29.15 at 4:50 pm, 16

There were several issues and arguments posed in the OP. I'm addressing this:

"First, if the financial sector is unproductive, how can it be so large and profitable in a market economy?
There are a few possible explanations

(a) As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk. I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles and busts."

D-squared response is of course it's the risk transfer. That flat out contradicts JQ, but d-squared is a master of the straight face. And then he proceeds - "there has been a decision to desocilaize"; "the financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision"; and "the real estate bubble was a policy-created bubble."

So JQ, here's your answer of FIRE's ascendancy from an insider: You know me and my friends were standing around just doing nothin' and then these policy guys come around. Next thing ya know, we've doubled our share of GDP and put our bosses in the top 0.01%. Who woulda known? Crazy shit, huh? Hey and if anyone asks, tell 'um "risk transfer." And if they press, tell 'um "secular stagnation." In fact, tell 'um frickin' anything. It just wasn't our fault.

Rakesh Bhandari 11.29.15 at 4:51 pm, 17

I know that I shall have to read John Kay's Other People's Money at some point. I am wondering what people make of the old the then Marxist Hilferding's concept of promoters' profit as a way to understand some financial sector activity. I posted this here a few years back.

Here's his example, and I am trying to figure out to the extent that it throws light on the recent activity of Wall Street.

Start with an industrial firm with a capital of 1,000,000 marks that makes a profit of 150,000 marks with the average profit of 15 percent.

With an interest rate of 5% straight capitalization of income of 150,000 marks will have an estimated price of 3,000,000 marks (150,000/.05=3,000,000 marks)

A deduction of 20,000 marks for the various administration costs and directors fees would make the actual payment to shareholders 130,000 rather 150,000 marks

A risk premium of, say, 2% would be added to a fixed safe rate of interest of 5% in estimating the actual stock price

So what, then, is the stock price (130,000/.07)? 1,857,143 or roughly 1,900.000 marks

This 900,000 is free after deducting the initial investment of 1,000,000 marks

The balance of 900, 000 marks appears as promoters' profit which arises from the conversion of profit-bearing capital into interest bearing capital.

In 1910, Hilferding called this promoters profit, an economic category sui generis; it is earned by the promoter by selling of stocks or the securitizing of income on the capital market.

For Hilferding the investment bank, which promotes the conversion of profit-bearing to interest-bearing capital, claims the promoters profit.

The analysis seems pertinent to the securitization process today, and I would love to hear Henwood's and others' thoughts about this.

As Roubini and Mihm have pointed out, we have seen the securitization of mortgages, consumer loans, student loans, auto loans, airplane leases, revenues from forests and mines, delinquent tax liens, radio tower loans, boat loans, state revenues, the royalties of rock bands!

We have seen, in their words, an explosion in the selling of future income of dependable projected revenue streams such as rents or interest payments on mortgage payments as securities.

That securitization been driven by investors' quest for yield lift given the low rate of interest, itself the result of the global savings glut and Fed policy.

And it seems that Wall Street, with the connivance of the credit agencies, was able to appropriate value from the purchasers of securities by understating the risk premia.

The risk premium and promoters' profit are inversely correlated so there is a strong incentive to understate the former. This is what Hilferding did not say, but seems worth emphasizing today.

Aaron Brown 11.29.15 at 5:43 pm. 18
I sincerely do not understand your point here. I'm not arguing, just asking for clarification:

(a) As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk. I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles and busts.

For one thing, I don't see that the two bubbles and one bust of 1996 – 2015 are self-evidently worse than the more numerous bubbles and busts of 1976 – 1995. You might say the 2008 brush with Great Depression outweighs the hyperinflation and multiple deep recessions of the earlier era, but certainly the Internet and housing bubbles were more productive and less threatening than the commodity, Japan, emerging debt and other bubbles. Anyway, it's a close enough comparison that someone could certainly keep a straight face while saying that in the last 20 years financial volatility inflicted less real economic damage than in the preceding 20 years.

But the bigger issue is no one claims the financial system encourages steady growth. Creative (bubble) destruction (bust) is the rule. It is command economies that outlaw bubbles and busts–and inflation and unemployment–at the cost of unproductive employment, empty shelves, stifled innovation, loss of freedom and other consequences.

If you want to argue that the financial system did not earn its profits in the last 20 years, it seems to me you have to argue that economic growth was slow, or that more people in the world are in poverty today, or that there was not enough innovation; not that the ride was too volatile. Did Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and North Korea do better than the financialized economies of the world? Did the hand of the State in Russia, China and other countries secure better outcomes than the global financial sector in countries that allowed it to operate (albeit with heavy regulation)?

It is certainly possible to argue that we could have had more growth and innovation and poverty reduction; and less volatility; with some third way that's better than both our current financial system and the alternatives practiced in the world today. But that point is not so obvious that any defender of the global financial system must be joking.

Why do you think the booms and busts of the last 20 years are such a clear and damning indictment of the financial system that the point needs no further elaboration?

Bruce Wilder 11.29.15 at 6:11 pm, 19

The financial system can engage in usury, lending money with no connection to productive investment, by simply creating a parasitic claim on income. There are straightforward ways of doing this: credit cards with high rates of interest or payday lending. There are slightly more complicated approaches: insurance that by design doesn't pay off for the nominal beneficiary.

There are really complicated ways of doing this: derivatives, for example, which blow up (and as an added bonus, undermine the informational efficiency of financial markets).

I keep thinking of Piketty's r > g: the ever-accumulating pile of money rising like a slow, but unstoppable tide. It has to be invested or "invested" - that is, it can buy the assembly of resources into productive capital assets that represent financial claims on the additional income generated by business innovation and expansion . . . OR . . . it can be used to finance the parasitic and predatory manipulations of an emergent neo-feudalism.

Where the secular stagnation thesis is not pure apologetic fraud, I would interpret it as saying, there are currently few opportunities to invest in additional productive "real" capital stock. For technological reasons, the new systems require much less capital than the old systems, so when an old telephone company replaces its expensive copper wire with fiber optics and cellphone towers, it may be able to fund a large part of the transition out of current cash-flow, even while maintaining the value of the bonds that once represented investment in a mountain of copper, but are now just rentier claims on an obsolete world.

In the brave new world, a handful of companies, who have lucked into commercial positions with high rents, throw off a lot of cash. So, the Apples and Intels do not need to be allocated new capital, but their distribution of cash to people who don't need it, is generating a lot of demand for "financial product". The rest of the business world is just trying to manage a slow decline, able to throw off modest amounts of cash, desperate to find sources of political power that might yield reliable rents, but without opportunities to innovate that would actually require net investment in excess of current cashflows from operations.

So, the financial system is just responding to this enlarged demand for non-productive investment in financial products that generate return from parasitic extraction.

In the interest of parasitic extraction, the financial system pursues the politics of neoliberal privatization as a means of generating financial products to satisfy demand.

Does that sound like a plausible narrative?

Dipper 11.29.15 at 6:30 pm, 20

re volatility, the thing you really want to worry about is liquidity. Pre-crash banks could warehouse risk and so provide liquidity. One consequence was volatility was recorded because liquid markets allowed prices to be observed.

Regulators have observed the conflict of interest caused by banks providing a financial service but also participating in the markets with their own money, and have acted to restrict banks from holding risk for proprietary trading (the Volcker rule). This is fine, but there has been a noticeable decrease in liquidity in what were once deep markets. The EURCHF un-pegging in Jan this year is a good example of reduced liquidity resulting in a massive move. There may well be more of this to come.

Sebastian H 11.29.15 at 6:34 pm, 21
"The biggest economic policy decision of the last thirty years has been the decision to de-socialise a lot of previously socially insured risks and transfer them back to the household sector (in their various capacities as workers, homeowners and consumers of healthcare). The financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision."

I can't tell if you are arguing with John or agreeing with him. Is this agreement with his d) [the political capture explanation]? I don't know very much about the deep history of financial regulation, but I'm fairly certain that most voters have never put desocialization of risk in their top 5 concerns. Is it possible that the financial sector was the obvious conduit because they were among the important authors of the ideas?

MisterMr 11.29.15 at 6:50 pm, 22

Previously commented here as Random Lurker.

In my opinion, finance had a passive role in the build up of the crisis.
Others have said similar things uptread, however this is my opinion:

1) the wage share of GDP depends largely on political choices; since the late seventies there has been a trend of a falling wage share more or less everywhere, as countries with a lower wage share are more competitive on the world market.
2) a falling wage share means a rising profit share, and "capitalists" tend to reinvest part of their profits, so a falling wage share caused a worldwide saving glut.
3) this worldwide saving glut caused an increased financialisation and a bubbling up of the price of some assets, particularly those assets whose supply is inelastic (for example, the value of distribution chains or of famous consumer brands).
4) this in turn causes an increased volatility of financial markets, and worse financial crises.

This situation is what we perceive as a secular stagnation, and IMHO depends mostly on a low worldwide wage share.
Unfortunately, I have no idea of how to reach an higher wage share, and I don't think "the market" has any mechanism to push up said wage share.

Rakesh Bhandari 11.29.15 at 7:08 pm, 23

Bruce,
What you are saying makes sense to me. Steven Pressman has also raised the question of how r is to be maintained with "an abundance of capital and its need for high rates of return." (Understanding Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century).

It's almost as if Piketty in his criticism of the rentier has a rentier's disregard for how the returns are actually to be made. To the extent that he considers production it is through marginal productivity theory. Piketty claims that marginal rate of substitution of capital for labor will remain above unity (and too bad Piketty dismissed the Cambridge Capital critique because Ian Steedman has used Sraffian theory to show the possibilities of high profits in even a fully automated economy).

Of course as Pressman implies, this "technical" view may blind us to the higher exploitation that may be necessary for returns to continue to remain high as capital becomes more abundant. Pressman also implies that Piketty also does not consider how finance can make higher rates of return by making higher-interest loans to weaker parties while having them absorb most of the risk (this would be your second kind of investment).

Search for the several paragraphs on the rentier in this section. It is remarkable that no one has yet compared Piketty's criticism of the rentier to this.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm

felwith 11.29.15 at 8:31 pm, 24

" I don't know very much about the deep history of financial regulation, but I'm fairly certain that most voters have never put desocialization of risk in their top 5 concerns."

Of course not, but there are actors here other than "the public" and "the banks". In this case, I'm pretty sure Daniel is referring to the destruction of unionized middle class jobs with pensions and cheap-to-the-worker health insurance, which was carried out by their employers. While I doubt I could pick a bank owner out of a lineup filled out with captains of industry, they aren't actually interchangeable.

Peter K. 11.29.15 at 9:43 pm, 25

@1 Dsquared:

"Of course, if the financial sector had been required to hold enough equity capital in the first place, it would never have grown so big in the first place, and we could all be enjoying the thirteenth year of the post-dot-com bust[1] in relative contentment."

Secular stagnation to me just means not enough macro (monetary/fiscal) policy to keep up aggregate demand for full employment and target inflation.

Monetary and fiscal policy is being blocked by politics partly because filthy rich financiers are buying their way into politics:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/politics/illinois-campaign-money-bruce-rauner.html

The question about Dsquare's alternate history I would have is: what is the response of fiscal and monetary policy to the "domestication" of the financial sector via higher capital requirements and leverage regulations, etc.?

If fiscal and monetary policy keeps the economy at a high-pressure level with full employment and rising wages, I don't see why secular stagnation is a problem.

But politics is blocking fiscal and monetary policy. Professor Quiggin talks of "massive" monetary policy, but it wasn't massive given the need. (It was massive compared to past recoveries.) It was big enough to avoid deflation despite unprecedented fiscal austerity. It wasn't big enough to hit their inflation target in a timely matter.

Ze K 11.29.15 at 9:53 pm, 27

My feeling (based on nothing but intuition) is that the answer is (d). The government is a tool of moneyed interests. I know, it sounds awfully libertarian, but it is what it is. And I can't foresee any non-catastrophic end to it.

[Nov 29, 2015] Former CIA Deputy Director Gives A Stunning Reason Why Obama Has Not Attacked ISIS Oil Infrastructure

Notable quotes:
"... As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol , continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it. ..."
"... Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer ..."
"... Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity ..."
"... when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers. ..."
Zero Hedge

As we pointed out a week ago, even before the downing of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16, the most important question that nobody had asked about ISIS is where is the funding for the terrorist organization coming from, and more importantly, since everyone tacitly knows where said funding is coming from (as we have revealed in an ongoing series of posts "Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President", "How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence" and "ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection") few on the US-led Western Alliance have done anything to stop the hundreds of millions in oil sale proceeds from funding the world's best organized terrorist group.

We concluded by asking "how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?"

To be sure, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son, Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.

This past week, someone finally came up with a "reason" why the Obama administration had been so impotent at denting the Islamic State's well-greased oil machine. In an interview on PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers, to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn't order the bombing of ISIS's oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about environmental damage.

Yes, he really said that:

We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.

In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.

Brilliant.

As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II.

But back to Obama's alleged decision that not polluting the environment is more important than halting the funding artery that keeps ISIS in business.

Morell continued "Prior to Paris, there seemed to be a judgment that look, we don't want to destroy these oil tankers because that's infrastructure that's going to be necessary to support the people when ISIS isn't there anymore, and it's going to create environmental damage. And we didn't go after oil wells - actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn't want to do environmental damage and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure, right."

Then we started asking questions, others joined in, and everything changed: "So now we're hitting oil in trucks and maybe you get to the point where you say we also have to hit oil wells. So those are the kind of tough decisions you have to make."

Of course, the lunacy gets even more ridiculous when one recalls that none other than one of the democrat frontrunners for president, Bernie Sanders, suggested in all seriousness that the real cause for terrorism is climate change, an allegation subsequently echoed by both UK's Prince Charles and none other than the chief of the UN, Ban Ki-moon himself.

So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can't eradicate the primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.

We are truly speechless at this idiocy.

Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.

For those who can't believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.

Looney

Morell is the same spook who "edited" Susan Rice's Benghazi SNAFU. Why don't all these assholes like Morell, Greenspan, Bernanke, just shut up, crawl under a rock, and hope they're never found? ;-)

Buckaroo Banzai

The media is in the tank for cunts like this, and most people just don't bother paying attention anyway. If Charlie Rose asked tough questions, his career would have ended before it even began. Instead he makes a wonderful living playing the kindly avuncular shill.

Ignatius

There is no lie these murderous cunts won't tell. I guess depleted uranium is not an environmental concern? Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em.

Pladizow

  • ----> Not OK to spill oil
  • ----> OK to spill blood

JustObserving

2400 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq and 1000 tons in Afghanistan.

Fallujah cancer rates worse than Hiroshima due to use of depleted uranium. Leukemia rates 38 times higher than normal https://vimeo.com/38175279

Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer

http://www.mintpressnews.com/depleted-uranium-iraq-wars-legacy-cancer/19...

Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity

http://www.globalresearch.ca/depleted-uranium-contamination-a-crime-agai...

prmths2

It's not that simple:

"In a follow up study, in which Dr Busby was a co-author, hair, soil and water samples were taken from Fallujah and tested for the presence of heavy metals. The researchers expected to find depleted uranium in the environmental samples. It is well known that the US used depleted uranium weapons in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war; and Iraqis, at least, are well aware of the increases in cancers and infant mortality rates in the city of Basrah, which was heavily bombarded during Desert Storm. However, what the researchers found was not depleted uranium, but man-made, slightly enriched uranium."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-healt...

"Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind, care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. "

"Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s) causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah."

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/htm

It is possible that there may be a synergistic effect involving heavy metals in general (i.e., Pb, U, Hg)

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00128-012-0817-2.pdf

Urban Redneck

It's not necessarily a lie, but it is necessarily a straw man and red herring, which distracts from a conversation of the forgone alternatives to achieve the (supposedly) desired ends. Charlie cocksucker and his mindless followers apparently buy the implicit argument the only tools in the almighty CIA's chest to combat ISIS's operations funding with oil revenues was "bombing Syria's (relatively tiny) oil fields" and creating an environmental catastrophe somehow akin to Saddam in Kuwait...

'Muricans are getting exactly the government the (collectively) deserve.

Lore

I think the psychopaths don't give a shit. Remember the scale of MONEY and CONTROL at stake. If you want to disable an insubordinate regime for standing up to your plans for regional hegemony and energy supply, you punish the host population by taking out key infrastructure. So for starters, place the launch triggers for all the drone strikes and aircraft sorties in the hands of obedient lackies who follow orders without giving a shit, assemble a list of strategic targets, and then announce "Aha! ISIS happens to be standing directly in front of this strategically-important piece of infrastructure" (bridge, refinery, storage tank, whatever), and then press the button. Proxy war is simply the policy of blaming somebody else for your own rotten behaviour. If the Syrian people are displaced, so much the better, because mass migration conveniently handicaps the economies of nations in Europe that might get in the way of continued button-pushing.

It's fucking evil, from start to finish. There was a time when it was a compliment to be called a Company Man, but nowadays it just means you're a pathological liar and a whore and a louse.

NoDebt

So they'll blow up wedding parties and whatever innocent civilians happen to be around their "targets" but they won't dare touch an oil well.

That speaks volumes. Delusional is the wrong word. Makes it sound like it's not their fault or something.

KesselRunin12Parsecs

"We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage"

So now explain 'SCORCHED EARTH POLICY' after you presumably rescued babies from incubators in 1991 you POS mF'er.

Kirk2NCC1701

Actually, he's telling you everything he can and you need to know or figure out.

Y'all must be 'Mericans, cause you can't read between the lines or read the situation/context. Allow me to translate for you:

1. He's under an NDA, and must keep his Oath of Secrecy.

2. If he gives you a blatantly BS answer, it is YOUR job to figure out that he (a) can't tell you the truth and (b) that it's Code for "Yes we support them to the hilt, and use Middle-men and Cutouts as SOP, but also we deny everything as SOP."

Normalcy Bias

He reminds me of his movie counterpart, the 'Robert Ritter, CIA Deputy Director' character from Clear and Present Danger.

Evil, arrogant, smug, and devoid of any conscience...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsDjpKr2Mk

me or you

Meanwhile:US and Turkey cease flights over Syria, as Russia deploys 7000 troops to Turkish border with Armenia

Chris88

We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.

..damage a perfectly good CIA creation.

Junerberno

After the attack by Boko Haram (Al Qaeda) on the shopping mall in Nairobi, the US moved to seize a senior Al Qaeda operative living in a mansion in North Africa. We knew where he was all along, but never went after him, until after the attack. He was "made" by the Saudis and we were appeasing him while he was "doing good" (killing Shia) but when he stepped out of line we punished him. It's certain we asked for permission before arresting him finally, of course.

Pausing, because it must sink in: Al Qaeda. Who attacked us 9-11. Our brownshirts.

So now we suddenly care about ISIL after they "step out of line" in Paris. They were our friends when they were sawing the heads off Shia. But they stepped out of line so we used a stick on their hands.

The US knows where all of ISIL are at all times. ISIL has been permitted to slaughter everyone in its path because they are focused on killing Shia, and Israel supports a holocaust against Shia muslims.

earleflorida

when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers.

Raymond_K._Hessel

No, isis is not fairly described as comprised of former Baathists. Thats some neocon propaganda.

Its mostly Libyans and Saudis and Yemenis and some Iraqis and Turks, cats herded by the us and israel and saudi.

Isis is a proxy for these states and turkey.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189385.html
http://ftmdaily.com/what-jerry-thinks/whysyria/

coast

But they can bomb the fuck out of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. setting those countries back to the stone age, displacing and killing millions, destroying historical buildings, build nuke plants on fault lines, gmo food, flouride poison in our water, spraying shit in the skies etc....but NOOOO!!, we cant bomboil oil infrastructures that are helping arm the terrorists...what a fucking liar piece of shit..

marcusfenix

this is some epic and absurd bullfuckingshit to the highest degree right here.

if they had no plans to hit IS in the one way it would really hurt them, in the only way it would make any difference then it begs the question....

why bother bombing them at all?

these people are not stupid, they know exactly how war works, how to wage it properly and how to defeat an enemy. and yet they try and sell the idiotic idea that they did not go after the most valuable and vulnerable of IS assets out of environmental concerns?

really?

and this is exactly why the "coalition" warned the Syrian air force against carrying out missions in these areas, outright threatened them in fact. to provide air cover and a safe route for IS oil to find it's way into Turkey and Iraq. and it worked, it was smooth sailing and billions all around right up until Moscow stepped in and literally started blowing up the program.

the "save the environment" excuse doesn't play on any level and WFT good does it do the Syria people for this infrastructure to exist so long as IS controls it, they sure as shit are not benefiting from it. in fact it only hurts them more because the longer IS can make billions off the sale of this oil the longer this war will drag on.

the longer the war drags on the more innocent Syrian's die so it would in fact be better for the common people of Syria for this oil pipeline to be destroyed and ISIS starved to death. then afterwords the Syrians can go ahead and start rebuilding the infrastructure. but there won't be an afterwords so long as IS can make that money and fund there whole drug soaked, murderous operation.

and I wonder what the citizens of Paris think about the environmental concerns vs wiping out the islamic states revenue stream?

all this sudden care and concern flowing from DC about civilians, about oil smugglers, civilian infrastructure and mother earth makes me want to vomit.

because it's all just a never ending stream of bullshit and lies.

sometimes, in the darkest corners of my mind, I do sincerely wonder weather nuclear war might just the only thing that will bring this lunacy to an end. not saying i want it to happen or that i want to live through it but it might just be the only way for somebody, somewhere in the world to get a fresh start free of this insane asylum we all live in.

Johnny Horscaulk

http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/10/05/seize-the-chaos/
https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/clean-break-to-dirty-wars-d5ebc5fda9f9

http://leaksource.info/2015/01/17/the-yinon-plan-greater-israel-syria-ir...

Isis is a name for us/israeli/saudi/Israeli mostly foreign mercenaries there to destroy Syria as a functioning state.

For Israel.

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islam...

And to block the Iran pipeline
http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competin...

But for the us deep state, the zog, its really basically about Greater Israel.

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/zionist2.html

[Nov 29, 2015] Former CIA Deputy Director Gives A Stunning Reason Why Obama Has Not Attacked ISIS Oil Infrastructure

Notable quotes:
"... As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol , continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it. ..."
"... Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer ..."
"... Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity ..."
"... when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers. ..."
Zero Hedge

As we pointed out a week ago, even before the downing of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16, the most important question that nobody had asked about ISIS is where is the funding for the terrorist organization coming from, and more importantly, since everyone tacitly knows where said funding is coming from (as we have revealed in an ongoing series of posts "Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President", "How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence" and "ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection") few on the US-led Western Alliance have done anything to stop the hundreds of millions in oil sale proceeds from funding the world's best organized terrorist group.

We concluded by asking "how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?"

To be sure, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son, Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.

This past week, someone finally came up with a "reason" why the Obama administration had been so impotent at denting the Islamic State's well-greased oil machine. In an interview on PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers, to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn't order the bombing of ISIS's oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about environmental damage.

Yes, he really said that:

We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.

In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.

Brilliant.

As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II.

But back to Obama's alleged decision that not polluting the environment is more important than halting the funding artery that keeps ISIS in business.

Morell continued "Prior to Paris, there seemed to be a judgment that look, we don't want to destroy these oil tankers because that's infrastructure that's going to be necessary to support the people when ISIS isn't there anymore, and it's going to create environmental damage. And we didn't go after oil wells - actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn't want to do environmental damage and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure, right."

Then we started asking questions, others joined in, and everything changed: "So now we're hitting oil in trucks and maybe you get to the point where you say we also have to hit oil wells. So those are the kind of tough decisions you have to make."

Of course, the lunacy gets even more ridiculous when one recalls that none other than one of the democrat frontrunners for president, Bernie Sanders, suggested in all seriousness that the real cause for terrorism is climate change, an allegation subsequently echoed by both UK's Prince Charles and none other than the chief of the UN, Ban Ki-moon himself.

So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can't eradicate the primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.

We are truly speechless at this idiocy.

Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.

For those who can't believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.

Looney

Morell is the same spook who "edited" Susan Rice's Benghazi SNAFU. Why don't all these assholes like Morell, Greenspan, Bernanke, just shut up, crawl under a rock, and hope they're never found? ;-)

Buckaroo Banzai

The media is in the tank for cunts like this, and most people just don't bother paying attention anyway. If Charlie Rose asked tough questions, his career would have ended before it even began. Instead he makes a wonderful living playing the kindly avuncular shill.

Ignatius

There is no lie these murderous cunts won't tell. I guess depleted uranium is not an environmental concern? Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em.

Pladizow

  • ----> Not OK to spill oil
  • ----> OK to spill blood

JustObserving

2400 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq and 1000 tons in Afghanistan.

Fallujah cancer rates worse than Hiroshima due to use of depleted uranium. Leukemia rates 38 times higher than normal https://vimeo.com/38175279

Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer

http://www.mintpressnews.com/depleted-uranium-iraq-wars-legacy-cancer/19...

Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity

http://www.globalresearch.ca/depleted-uranium-contamination-a-crime-agai...

prmths2

It's not that simple:

"In a follow up study, in which Dr Busby was a co-author, hair, soil and water samples were taken from Fallujah and tested for the presence of heavy metals. The researchers expected to find depleted uranium in the environmental samples. It is well known that the US used depleted uranium weapons in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war; and Iraqis, at least, are well aware of the increases in cancers and infant mortality rates in the city of Basrah, which was heavily bombarded during Desert Storm. However, what the researchers found was not depleted uranium, but man-made, slightly enriched uranium."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-healt...

"Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind, care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. "

"Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s) causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah."

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/htm

It is possible that there may be a synergistic effect involving heavy metals in general (i.e., Pb, U, Hg)

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00128-012-0817-2.pdf

Urban Redneck

It's not necessarily a lie, but it is necessarily a straw man and red herring, which distracts from a conversation of the forgone alternatives to achieve the (supposedly) desired ends. Charlie cocksucker and his mindless followers apparently buy the implicit argument the only tools in the almighty CIA's chest to combat ISIS's operations funding with oil revenues was "bombing Syria's (relatively tiny) oil fields" and creating an environmental catastrophe somehow akin to Saddam in Kuwait...

'Muricans are getting exactly the government the (collectively) deserve.

Lore

I think the psychopaths don't give a shit. Remember the scale of MONEY and CONTROL at stake. If you want to disable an insubordinate regime for standing up to your plans for regional hegemony and energy supply, you punish the host population by taking out key infrastructure. So for starters, place the launch triggers for all the drone strikes and aircraft sorties in the hands of obedient lackies who follow orders without giving a shit, assemble a list of strategic targets, and then announce "Aha! ISIS happens to be standing directly in front of this strategically-important piece of infrastructure" (bridge, refinery, storage tank, whatever), and then press the button. Proxy war is simply the policy of blaming somebody else for your own rotten behaviour. If the Syrian people are displaced, so much the better, because mass migration conveniently handicaps the economies of nations in Europe that might get in the way of continued button-pushing.

It's fucking evil, from start to finish. There was a time when it was a compliment to be called a Company Man, but nowadays it just means you're a pathological liar and a whore and a louse.

NoDebt

So they'll blow up wedding parties and whatever innocent civilians happen to be around their "targets" but they won't dare touch an oil well.

That speaks volumes. Delusional is the wrong word. Makes it sound like it's not their fault or something.

KesselRunin12Parsecs

"We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage"

So now explain 'SCORCHED EARTH POLICY' after you presumably rescued babies from incubators in 1991 you POS mF'er.

Kirk2NCC1701

Actually, he's telling you everything he can and you need to know or figure out.

Y'all must be 'Mericans, cause you can't read between the lines or read the situation/context. Allow me to translate for you:

1. He's under an NDA, and must keep his Oath of Secrecy.

2. If he gives you a blatantly BS answer, it is YOUR job to figure out that he (a) can't tell you the truth and (b) that it's Code for "Yes we support them to the hilt, and use Middle-men and Cutouts as SOP, but also we deny everything as SOP."

Normalcy Bias

He reminds me of his movie counterpart, the 'Robert Ritter, CIA Deputy Director' character from Clear and Present Danger.

Evil, arrogant, smug, and devoid of any conscience...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsDjpKr2Mk

me or you

Meanwhile:US and Turkey cease flights over Syria, as Russia deploys 7000 troops to Turkish border with Armenia

Chris88

We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.

..damage a perfectly good CIA creation.

Junerberno

After the attack by Boko Haram (Al Qaeda) on the shopping mall in Nairobi, the US moved to seize a senior Al Qaeda operative living in a mansion in North Africa. We knew where he was all along, but never went after him, until after the attack. He was "made" by the Saudis and we were appeasing him while he was "doing good" (killing Shia) but when he stepped out of line we punished him. It's certain we asked for permission before arresting him finally, of course.

Pausing, because it must sink in: Al Qaeda. Who attacked us 9-11. Our brownshirts.

So now we suddenly care about ISIL after they "step out of line" in Paris. They were our friends when they were sawing the heads off Shia. But they stepped out of line so we used a stick on their hands.

The US knows where all of ISIL are at all times. ISIL has been permitted to slaughter everyone in its path because they are focused on killing Shia, and Israel supports a holocaust against Shia muslims.

earleflorida

when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers.

Raymond_K._Hessel

No, isis is not fairly described as comprised of former Baathists. Thats some neocon propaganda.

Its mostly Libyans and Saudis and Yemenis and some Iraqis and Turks, cats herded by the us and israel and saudi.

Isis is a proxy for these states and turkey.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189385.html
http://ftmdaily.com/what-jerry-thinks/whysyria/

coast

But they can bomb the fuck out of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. setting those countries back to the stone age, displacing and killing millions, destroying historical buildings, build nuke plants on fault lines, gmo food, flouride poison in our water, spraying shit in the skies etc....but NOOOO!!, we cant bomboil oil infrastructures that are helping arm the terrorists...what a fucking liar piece of shit..

marcusfenix

this is some epic and absurd bullfuckingshit to the highest degree right here.

if they had no plans to hit IS in the one way it would really hurt them, in the only way it would make any difference then it begs the question....

why bother bombing them at all?

these people are not stupid, they know exactly how war works, how to wage it properly and how to defeat an enemy. and yet they try and sell the idiotic idea that they did not go after the most valuable and vulnerable of IS assets out of environmental concerns?

really?

and this is exactly why the "coalition" warned the Syrian air force against carrying out missions in these areas, outright threatened them in fact. to provide air cover and a safe route for IS oil to find it's way into Turkey and Iraq. and it worked, it was smooth sailing and billions all around right up until Moscow stepped in and literally started blowing up the program.

the "save the environment" excuse doesn't play on any level and WFT good does it do the Syria people for this infrastructure to exist so long as IS controls it, they sure as shit are not benefiting from it. in fact it only hurts them more because the longer IS can make billions off the sale of this oil the longer this war will drag on.

the longer the war drags on the more innocent Syrian's die so it would in fact be better for the common people of Syria for this oil pipeline to be destroyed and ISIS starved to death. then afterwords the Syrians can go ahead and start rebuilding the infrastructure. but there won't be an afterwords so long as IS can make that money and fund there whole drug soaked, murderous operation.

and I wonder what the citizens of Paris think about the environmental concerns vs wiping out the islamic states revenue stream?

all this sudden care and concern flowing from DC about civilians, about oil smugglers, civilian infrastructure and mother earth makes me want to vomit.

because it's all just a never ending stream of bullshit and lies.

sometimes, in the darkest corners of my mind, I do sincerely wonder weather nuclear war might just the only thing that will bring this lunacy to an end. not saying i want it to happen or that i want to live through it but it might just be the only way for somebody, somewhere in the world to get a fresh start free of this insane asylum we all live in.

Johnny Horscaulk

http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/10/05/seize-the-chaos/
https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/clean-break-to-dirty-wars-d5ebc5fda9f9

http://leaksource.info/2015/01/17/the-yinon-plan-greater-israel-syria-ir...

Isis is a name for us/israeli/saudi/Israeli mostly foreign mercenaries there to destroy Syria as a functioning state.

For Israel.

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islam...

And to block the Iran pipeline
http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competin...

But for the us deep state, the zog, its really basically about Greater Israel.

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/zionist2.html

[Nov 29, 2015] Turkish militants kill russian pilot while he is decending

yudenich.ru

watch-v=tiR8E-SwVeI

Terrorism is typically ideologically driven and as such has no nationality. But this case looks like an e4xception: Turkish media machine has already asssigned this crime to certain mythical "Syrian Turkomans".

But in reality this looks like Grey Wolfs not "Turkomans", and their leader is a Turkish neo-fascist Alpaslan Celik - son of the mayor of a small Turkish town. Golden youth so to speak.

http://ntv.livejournal.com/426110.html?mode=reply#add_comment

So, all those dances over the body of pilot are very similar to explosions in Suruç and Ankara.

[Nov 29, 2015] Turkey hands over body of Russian pilot to Russia

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Turkey has initiated the process to hand over the body of a Russian pilot to Moscow after his jet was shot down by Turkey, a day before a United Nations climate conference starts in Paris that could bring a "saddened" Turkish president and his Russian counterpart together.

In a press briefing held at Ankara's airport prior to his departure for a EU-Turkey Summit in Brussels on Nov. 29, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said the body of Russian pilot Oleg Peshkov, who died after his plane was downed by Turkish F-16s on Nov. 24 when it reportedly breached Turkish airspace for 17 seconds, had been taken by Turkey and would be sent to Russia on its request.

[Nov 29, 2015] How ISIS is financed

Notable quotes:
"... Their main source of income is oil sales, but they also resource to taxes to the population, sales of antiquities, bank raids, appropriation of part of Iraq salaries to government employees in occupied areas that are still being paid, extortion to businesses, appropriation of part of crops, ransoms and slave sales. Some of the magnitudes are estimated. ..."
"... The income from oil is estimated at 1.5 million dollars per day from 34-40,000 barrels per day at 20-35 $ per barrel. ..."
"... Their main expense is calculated at 10 million dollars per month (0.33 mill $/day) in salaries. They pay almost a fifth of their income in salaries, and that is one of the reasons of their popularity. ..."
"... Recently the international coalition, with France taking a very active role, has started bombing their oil facilities, thus attacking the jugular of ISIS. They must be desperate because they see no way of protecting their oil financing from air attacks. After a very long time of successes, ISIS is now having problems to hold its ground in parts of Syria and Kurdistan. ..."
peakoilbarrel.com

Javier, 11/14/2015 at 11:03 am

OFM,

This article in Spanish from one of the main journals explains how ISIS is financing. Their main source of income is oil sales, but they also resource to taxes to the population, sales of antiquities, bank raids, appropriation of part of Iraq salaries to government employees in occupied areas that are still being paid, extortion to businesses, appropriation of part of crops, ransoms and slave sales. Some of the magnitudes are estimated.

The income from oil is estimated at 1.5 million dollars per day from 34-40,000 barrels per day at 20-35 $ per barrel.

Their main expense is calculated at 10 million dollars per month (0.33 mill $/day) in salaries. They pay almost a fifth of their income in salaries, and that is one of the reasons of their popularity.

http://www.elmundo.es/papel/historias/2015/11/11/56422776268e3efc608b45e5.html

Recently the international coalition, with France taking a very active role, has started bombing their oil facilities, thus attacking the jugular of ISIS. They must be desperate because they see no way of protecting their oil financing from air attacks. After a very long time of successes, ISIS is now having problems to hold its ground in parts of Syria and Kurdistan.

I have family in Paris. My niece, her husband and all his family are in Paris. None of them was present in the attacks, but we are all shocked by the magnitude.

Caelan MacIntyre, 11/13/2015 at 8:02 pm

"Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians.

The term was first used in 1989 by a team of American analysts, including William S. Lind,[citation needed] to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces , returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times." ~ Wikipedia

Ironically, much of it is and will be the result of the nation states' monopolies on violence enacted.

[Nov 29, 2015] Top U.S. Air Defense Commander Turkey's Shootdown of Russian Jet "Had to Be PRE-PLANNED"

See also Ambush of Russian Su-24 over Syria
Notable quotes:
"... Yesterday, McInerney told Fox News – much to the surprise of the reporter interviewing him – that assuming the Turkish version of the flight path of the Russian jet is accurate, Russia wasn't ..."
"... As the International Court of Justice ruled in the seminal Nicaragua case (1986), any use of force even in alleged self-defense must also fulfill the basic customary international law requirements of (1) necessity and (2) proportionality. Even accepting the government of Turkeys version of events, it does not appear that there was any necessity for Turkey to destroy the Russian jet. ..."
"... From another [International Court of Justice] case, the basic test for "necessity" is that the necessity of self-defense must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation. Clearly, that was not the case here. ..."
Zero Hedge
In his role as Norad commander for Alaska, McInerney dealt with more Russian fighter jet incursions (which he calls "bear penetrations") than anyone else in the world.

So McInerney knows how to tell innocent from hostile incursions by foreign fighter jets, standard rules of engagement of foreign fighter jets, how to read radar tracks, and the other things he would need to know to form an informed opinion about the shootdown of a foreign jet.

Yesterday, McInerney told Fox News – much to the surprise of the reporter interviewing him – that assuming the Turkish version of the flight path of the Russian jet is accurate, Russia wasn't threatening Turkey, and that Turkey's shoot down of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned", as the jet wasn't in Turkish air space long enough for anything other than a premeditated attack to have brought it.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

McInerney is right … especially given that a U.S. official told Reuters that the Russian jet was inside of Syria when it was shot down:

The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

... ... ...

International law expert Francis Boyle - Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, who was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 – said by email:

The Russian bombing of Syria is technically legal because they have the explicit permission of the Syrian government, but of course Putin will ultimately act in accord with his interests, not what is best for the Syrian people.

***

As the International Court of Justice ruled in the seminal Nicaragua case (1986), any use of force even in alleged self-defense must also fulfill the basic customary international law requirements of (1) necessity and (2) proportionality. Even accepting the government of Turkey's version of events, it does not appear that there was any "necessity" for Turkey to destroy the Russian jet.

Washington's Blog asked Boyle whether this is analogous to the "use of force" by someone with a gun who claims he was threatened by someone else. He answered affirmatively, explaining:

Necessity and Proportionality are each separate requirements for the use of force in self-defense.

From another [International Court of Justice] case, the basic test for "necessity" is that the necessity of self-defense must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation. Clearly, that was not the case here.

[Nov 29, 2015] Former CIA Deputy Director Gives A Stunning Reason Why Obama Has Not Attacked ISIS Oil Infrastructure

Notable quotes:
"... As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol , continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it. ..."
"... Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer ..."
"... Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity ..."
"... when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers. ..."
Zero Hedge

As we pointed out a week ago, even before the downing of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16, the most important question that nobody had asked about ISIS is where is the funding for the terrorist organization coming from, and more importantly, since everyone tacitly knows where said funding is coming from (as we have revealed in an ongoing series of posts "Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President", "How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence" and "ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection") few on the US-led Western Alliance have done anything to stop the hundreds of millions in oil sale proceeds from funding the world's best organized terrorist group.

We concluded by asking "how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?"

To be sure, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son, Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.

This past week, someone finally came up with a "reason" why the Obama administration had been so impotent at denting the Islamic State's well-greased oil machine. In an interview on PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers, to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn't order the bombing of ISIS's oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about environmental damage.

Yes, he really said that:

We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.

In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.

Brilliant.

As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II.

But back to Obama's alleged decision that not polluting the environment is more important than halting the funding artery that keeps ISIS in business.

Morell continued "Prior to Paris, there seemed to be a judgment that look, we don't want to destroy these oil tankers because that's infrastructure that's going to be necessary to support the people when ISIS isn't there anymore, and it's going to create environmental damage. And we didn't go after oil wells - actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn't want to do environmental damage and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure, right."

Then we started asking questions, others joined in, and everything changed: "So now we're hitting oil in trucks and maybe you get to the point where you say we also have to hit oil wells. So those are the kind of tough decisions you have to make."

Of course, the lunacy gets even more ridiculous when one recalls that none other than one of the democrat frontrunners for president, Bernie Sanders, suggested in all seriousness that the real cause for terrorism is climate change, an allegation subsequently echoed by both UK's Prince Charles and none other than the chief of the UN, Ban Ki-moon himself.

So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can't eradicate the primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.

We are truly speechless at this idiocy.

Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.

For those who can't believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.

Looney

Morell is the same spook who "edited" Susan Rice's Benghazi SNAFU. Why don't all these assholes like Morell, Greenspan, Bernanke, just shut up, crawl under a rock, and hope they're never found? ;-)

Buckaroo Banzai

The media is in the tank for cunts like this, and most people just don't bother paying attention anyway. If Charlie Rose asked tough questions, his career would have ended before it even began. Instead he makes a wonderful living playing the kindly avuncular shill.

Ignatius

There is no lie these murderous cunts won't tell. I guess depleted uranium is not an environmental concern? Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em.

Pladizow

  • ----> Not OK to spill oil
  • ----> OK to spill blood

JustObserving

2400 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq and 1000 tons in Afghanistan.

Fallujah cancer rates worse than Hiroshima due to use of depleted uranium. Leukemia rates 38 times higher than normal https://vimeo.com/38175279

Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer

http://www.mintpressnews.com/depleted-uranium-iraq-wars-legacy-cancer/19...

Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity

http://www.globalresearch.ca/depleted-uranium-contamination-a-crime-agai...

prmths2

It's not that simple:

"In a follow up study, in which Dr Busby was a co-author, hair, soil and water samples were taken from Fallujah and tested for the presence of heavy metals. The researchers expected to find depleted uranium in the environmental samples. It is well known that the US used depleted uranium weapons in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war; and Iraqis, at least, are well aware of the increases in cancers and infant mortality rates in the city of Basrah, which was heavily bombarded during Desert Storm. However, what the researchers found was not depleted uranium, but man-made, slightly enriched uranium."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-healt...

"Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind, care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. "

"Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s) causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah."

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/htm

It is possible that there may be a synergistic effect involving heavy metals in general (i.e., Pb, U, Hg)

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00128-012-0817-2.pdf

Urban Redneck

It's not necessarily a lie, but it is necessarily a straw man and red herring, which distracts from a conversation of the forgone alternatives to achieve the (supposedly) desired ends. Charlie cocksucker and his mindless followers apparently buy the implicit argument the only tools in the almighty CIA's chest to combat ISIS's operations funding with oil revenues was "bombing Syria's (relatively tiny) oil fields" and creating an environmental catastrophe somehow akin to Saddam in Kuwait...

'Muricans are getting exactly the government the (collectively) deserve.

Lore

I think the psychopaths don't give a shit. Remember the scale of MONEY and CONTROL at stake. If you want to disable an insubordinate regime for standing up to your plans for regional hegemony and energy supply, you punish the host population by taking out key infrastructure. So for starters, place the launch triggers for all the drone strikes and aircraft sorties in the hands of obedient lackies who follow orders without giving a shit, assemble a list of strategic targets, and then announce "Aha! ISIS happens to be standing directly in front of this strategically-important piece of infrastructure" (bridge, refinery, storage tank, whatever), and then press the button. Proxy war is simply the policy of blaming somebody else for your own rotten behaviour. If the Syrian people are displaced, so much the better, because mass migration conveniently handicaps the economies of nations in Europe that might get in the way of continued button-pushing.

It's fucking evil, from start to finish. There was a time when it was a compliment to be called a Company Man, but nowadays it just means you're a pathological liar and a whore and a louse.

NoDebt

So they'll blow up wedding parties and whatever innocent civilians happen to be around their "targets" but they won't dare touch an oil well.

That speaks volumes. Delusional is the wrong word. Makes it sound like it's not their fault or something.

KesselRunin12Parsecs

"We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage"

So now explain 'SCORCHED EARTH POLICY' after you presumably rescued babies from incubators in 1991 you POS mF'er.

Kirk2NCC1701

Actually, he's telling you everything he can and you need to know or figure out.

Y'all must be 'Mericans, cause you can't read between the lines or read the situation/context. Allow me to translate for you:

1. He's under an NDA, and must keep his Oath of Secrecy.

2. If he gives you a blatantly BS answer, it is YOUR job to figure out that he (a) can't tell you the truth and (b) that it's Code for "Yes we support them to the hilt, and use Middle-men and Cutouts as SOP, but also we deny everything as SOP."

Normalcy Bias

He reminds me of his movie counterpart, the 'Robert Ritter, CIA Deputy Director' character from Clear and Present Danger.

Evil, arrogant, smug, and devoid of any conscience...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsDjpKr2Mk

me or you

Meanwhile:US and Turkey cease flights over Syria, as Russia deploys 7000 troops to Turkish border with Armenia

Chris88

We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.

..damage a perfectly good CIA creation.

Junerberno

After the attack by Boko Haram (Al Qaeda) on the shopping mall in Nairobi, the US moved to seize a senior Al Qaeda operative living in a mansion in North Africa. We knew where he was all along, but never went after him, until after the attack. He was "made" by the Saudis and we were appeasing him while he was "doing good" (killing Shia) but when he stepped out of line we punished him. It's certain we asked for permission before arresting him finally, of course.

Pausing, because it must sink in: Al Qaeda. Who attacked us 9-11. Our brownshirts.

So now we suddenly care about ISIL after they "step out of line" in Paris. They were our friends when they were sawing the heads off Shia. But they stepped out of line so we used a stick on their hands.

The US knows where all of ISIL are at all times. ISIL has been permitted to slaughter everyone in its path because they are focused on killing Shia, and Israel supports a holocaust against Shia muslims.

earleflorida

when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers.

Raymond_K._Hessel

No, isis is not fairly described as comprised of former Baathists. Thats some neocon propaganda.

Its mostly Libyans and Saudis and Yemenis and some Iraqis and Turks, cats herded by the us and israel and saudi.

Isis is a proxy for these states and turkey.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189385.html
http://ftmdaily.com/what-jerry-thinks/whysyria/

coast

But they can bomb the fuck out of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. setting those countries back to the stone age, displacing and killing millions, destroying historical buildings, build nuke plants on fault lines, gmo food, flouride poison in our water, spraying shit in the skies etc....but NOOOO!!, we cant bomboil oil infrastructures that are helping arm the terrorists...what a fucking liar piece of shit..

marcusfenix

this is some epic and absurd bullfuckingshit to the highest degree right here.

if they had no plans to hit IS in the one way it would really hurt them, in the only way it would make any difference then it begs the question....

why bother bombing them at all?

these people are not stupid, they know exactly how war works, how to wage it properly and how to defeat an enemy. and yet they try and sell the idiotic idea that they did not go after the most valuable and vulnerable of IS assets out of environmental concerns?

really?

and this is exactly why the "coalition" warned the Syrian air force against carrying out missions in these areas, outright threatened them in fact. to provide air cover and a safe route for IS oil to find it's way into Turkey and Iraq. and it worked, it was smooth sailing and billions all around right up until Moscow stepped in and literally started blowing up the program.

the "save the environment" excuse doesn't play on any level and WFT good does it do the Syria people for this infrastructure to exist so long as IS controls it, they sure as shit are not benefiting from it. in fact it only hurts them more because the longer IS can make billions off the sale of this oil the longer this war will drag on.

the longer the war drags on the more innocent Syrian's die so it would in fact be better for the common people of Syria for this oil pipeline to be destroyed and ISIS starved to death. then afterwords the Syrians can go ahead and start rebuilding the infrastructure. but there won't be an afterwords so long as IS can make that money and fund there whole drug soaked, murderous operation.

and I wonder what the citizens of Paris think about the environmental concerns vs wiping out the islamic states revenue stream?

all this sudden care and concern flowing from DC about civilians, about oil smugglers, civilian infrastructure and mother earth makes me want to vomit.

because it's all just a never ending stream of bullshit and lies.

sometimes, in the darkest corners of my mind, I do sincerely wonder weather nuclear war might just the only thing that will bring this lunacy to an end. not saying i want it to happen or that i want to live through it but it might just be the only way for somebody, somewhere in the world to get a fresh start free of this insane asylum we all live in.

Johnny Horscaulk

http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/10/05/seize-the-chaos/
https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/clean-break-to-dirty-wars-d5ebc5fda9f9

http://leaksource.info/2015/01/17/the-yinon-plan-greater-israel-syria-ir...

Isis is a name for us/israeli/saudi/Israeli mostly foreign mercenaries there to destroy Syria as a functioning state.

For Israel.

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islam...

And to block the Iran pipeline
http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competin...

But for the us deep state, the zog, its really basically about Greater Israel.

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/zionist2.html

[Nov 28, 2015] Russias Intervention in Syria and What Washington Should Do

Standard neocon drivel... Standard Republican hawk mentality (he is a junior senator from Arkansas). The only interesting detail is that this guy was both in 1977.
Notable quotes:
"... In Syria, Putin professes that he wants to fight ISIS, but this is mere posturing. Even with new Russian strikes on ISIS-controlled areas in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks and the downing of the Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, Russian forces have trained the large majority of its bombs on coalition-backed opposition fighters. Putin has also explicitly stated that he wants to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which directly contrasts with stated U.S. policy. Turkey, a NATO ally, has suffered repeated violations of its airspace as Russia pursues its offensive against Syrian opposition forces. ..."
"... Putin is very consciously challenging the United States and the U.S.-led international order, and is now waging a proxy war against it. It is well past time for the West to recognize his challenge, rise up to it, and move to win the proxy war ..."
Nov 28, 2015 | Foreign Affairs
he attacks by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Paris have forced a major rethinking of U.S. strategy in the Syrian conflict. A part of that rethinking must be U.S. President Barack Obama's unwise decision to treat Russia as a legitimate partner in negotiations over Syria's future.

At the G-20 meeting in Turkey this week, Russia quickly offered itself as a key partner in the fight against ISIS and the stabilization of Syria, and Obama again expressed his willingness to entertain that notion.

This is a grave mistake. Rather than being a constructive partner, President Vladimir Putin's Russia has been engaged in a proxy war against the United States in Syria, despite Obama's protestations to the contrary. And when an enemy wages war against the United States, it does not get to choose whether it is at war; its only choice is to win or lose. Right now, the United States is losing the proxy war in Syria-and a wider competition for regional influence-against Russia. And it will continue to do so without a dramatic shift in policy to confront Russian aggression.

A PROXY WAR AND THE WIDER STRUGGLE

In Syria, Putin professes that he wants to fight ISIS, but this is mere posturing. Even with new Russian strikes on ISIS-controlled areas in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks and the downing of the Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, Russian forces have trained the large majority of its bombs on coalition-backed opposition fighters. Putin has also explicitly stated that he wants to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which directly contrasts with stated U.S. policy. Turkey, a NATO ally, has suffered repeated violations of its airspace as Russia pursues its offensive against Syrian opposition forces.

Russia is engaged in a shooting war against the United States' clients to undermine U.S. policy. If that's not a proxy war, what is?

But this proxy war is only the most recent and dramatic front in a wider competition between the United States and Russia. Ukrainians overthrew former President Viktor Yushchenko, who was aligned with Putin, in 2013 and sought to reorient their country toward the West. In short order, Russia invaded Crimea-which it still illegally occupies-and fomented the ongoing civil war in the Donbass. Likewise, Russia illegally occupies the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions in Georgia, one of the most pro-Western countries in Eastern Europe. In fact, Russia has continued to seize more Georgian territory in recent months.

Russia also continues a campaign of provocations against NATO allies in northern and Eastern Europe, threatening their air and naval boundaries and putting civil aviation at risk. Meanwhile, Central and Eastern European countries-who suffered under Soviet domination-report that Russian propaganda in traditional and social media has become pervasive.

Russia has become so emboldened that it does not even demur from direct provocations against the United States. Last month, Russian ships and submarines operated near U.S. undersea data cables and Russian bombers buzzed the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, forcing it to scramble for fighters. And last week, it was revealed by Russian media-perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not-that the Russian military is developing an unmanned underwater vehicle capable of carrying nuclear payloads that is invulnerable to interception. A nuclear attack on U.S. port cities is the only reasonable rationale for such a weapon.

... ... ...

Finally, assertive diplomacy must be a part of U.S. policy toward Russia. The Department of State should create a new "country-at-risk" designation that would entitle nations under threat from external destabilization to a basket of U.S. and NATO assistance programs, including the intelligence assistance described above. This basket of assistance could also include programs aimed at helping these nations diversify their industrial bases and their sources of energy to be less dependent on trade with Russia. The overall effect of the new designation would signal increased commitment from the United States, and indicate to Putin that any escalation by Russia would automatically invite greater Western engagement.

The United States should also energize its public diplomacy and information strategies. It could take the lead in funding translation services to make Western media available in Russia. The United States needn't create content. Unlike in Russia, robust debate and diverse viewpoints already exist in U.S. media. The United States simply needs to ensure that this content is disseminated widely in Russia and Eastern Europe to provide a counter-narrative to Russian-controlled media and an example to the Russian people of what free media looks like.

... ... ...

Putin is very consciously challenging the United States and the U.S.-led international order, and is now waging a proxy war against it. It is well past time for the West to recognize his challenge, rise up to it, and move to win the proxy war. Otherwise, Washington may find itself in a genuine war against a nuclear peer

Tom Cotton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Bryant "Tom" Cotton[1] (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician who is the junior United States Senator from Arkansas. A member of the Republican Party, Cotton has been serving in the Senate since January 3, 2015.

[Nov 28, 2015] An Invisible US Hand Leading to War Turkey's Downing of a Russian Jet was an Act of Madness

www.counterpunch.org

In considering the terrifying but also sadly predictable news of a Russian fighter jet being downed by two Turkish fighters, let's start with one almost certain assumption - an assumption that no doubt is also being made by the Russian government: Turkey's action, using US-supplied F-16 planes, was taken with the full knowledge and advance support of the US. In fact, given Turkey's vassal status as a member of US-dominated NATO, it could well be that Ankara was put up to this act of brinksmanship by the US.

... ... ...

Russia - knowing that this is really not about Turkey, but about push-back by the US against growing Russian power and influence, both globally and in the Middle East region - could also choose to respond in a venue where it has more of an advantage, for example in Ukraine, where it could amp up its support for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps by downing a Ukrainian military plane, or more broadly, providing air cover to protect those regions. Russia could also, less directly, provide aid to Kurdish rebels in both Syria and in Turkey itself who are fighting against Turkish forces.

... ... ...


It is all terribly dangerous and it is hard to predict where things will lead. One thing seems certain, though. This outrageous shootdown of a Russian plane that was in no way posing a threat to Turkey or Turkish forces, will not end here, because Russia and President Putin cannot allow Turkey and NATO to so blatantly act against Russia and its pilots and go unpunished, particularly as it is Russia that is acting legally in Syria, while the US, Turkey and other nations backing rebel forces there are in all acting blatant violation of international law.

Unless saner heads start prevailing in Washington, this could all quickly spiral into the kind of situation in 1914, where a lot of ill-conceived treaties led to a minor incident in the Balkans turning inexorably into World War I.


Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

[Nov 28, 2015] Violence Erupts In Turkey After Prominent Lawyer Is Assassinated On Live TV

Notable quotes:
"... While Erdogan is indeed a nasty piece of work, it does seem like someone IS trying to topple him and destablize Turkey. As a vassal, he doesnt quite know his place and had actually contemplate joining the East as shown by Blue Stream and negotiations to purchase Chinese Red Flag missile system. ..."
"... Quite possilbly being encoraged to shoot down the Russian fighter and led to believe NATO would back him up. Once relationship with Russia is being torn and completely isolated in teh world by having his relationship with ISIS exposed, Turkey is ready for destablisation and eventual carved-up. Its no wonder the western press has only good things to say about the Kurds. ..."
"... Reminds me of Iraq/Kuwait. ..."
"... The only regional power counter to Iran on the ground is Turkey, so now you will see that place put through the wringer as well. Population is around 75 million, so its heavy density, old culture, access to NATO and western security interests and all the other trappings compel Turkey to fill the vacuum to be created in Syria. ..."
"... The arrival of the Russians in Syria seems to have awoken NATO. NATO has started its response to Russia and will penalize it for the support for the Assad government. ..."
"... We know that Turknam commander Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey's Elazig province. He is a member of the Grey Wolves. ..."
"... We know that use of the BGM-71 TOW missiles – which cost $50,000 a piece – is up over 850% in October with the American-made weapons responsible for the destruction of scores of Syrian army tanks. These are being passed through Turkey. ..."
"... They dont share our values Maybe not your values but certainly Washingtons values ..."
"... the bigger question is why is there even a NATO at all? The big bad Soviet Union Warsaw Pact are long gone. Truth is NATO now is the Atlanticists + some puppet regimes in eastern Europe/Turkey. ..."
"... It is obvious the west is trying to stretch Russia via Ukraine and Syria and now Turkey; the further you stretch an any, the more difficult it is to focus on the bigger picture. China better step up to the Russian plate and soon if anyone expects to reign in the NATO terrorists. ..."
"... Seems like everything in the Middle East is going tribal, sectarian, and vigilante. Bad day for established government and power for the people in a general sense ..."
Zero Hedge
Dame Ednas Possum

I read the UK's weekend FT (Financial Times) over lunch. There was no mention whatsoever of the Russian bomber being shot down several days ago.

This paper supposedly prides itself on objective analysis of important events.

Not one single mention of this blatant, premeditated act of war.

Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot?

No mention of Turkey's active support of Isis.

No mention of the oil sales or the arms supplies.

The mainstream media is complicit in the crimes.

Pathetic, piece of shit shill presstitutes.

trader1

Dame,

Last updated: November 24, 2015 6:44 pm
Turkey shoots down Russian fighter jet on Syrian border
FT reporters

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d2b1abb0-9287-11e5-94e6-c5413829caa5.html

Optimusprime

And I have friends--staunch "progressives"--who think reading FT and The Economist (both Rothschild organs) somehow keeps one realistically abreast of the news.

Killdo

you are right - FT is pathetic - I stopped reading it about 6 months ago after many years. Even their best books of they year section is not that good any more.

I've noticed the Guardian is pretty anti-Russian (but comments are almost like ZH)

fleur de lis

Ergodan is giving us a real time profile of the typical violent psychopath dragging entire nations into a ditch. It is rare that they spin out of control in public so badly. The Matrix must be furious. He wrecked their little scheme and gave the Russians the upper hand.

Psychopaths are everywhere at the helms of power, destroying entire social structures, looting resources, triggering wars and leaving a trail of bloodshed to keep the NWO in control.

But these things must be done quietly. The target populations must not be alerted that they are being terrorized and robbed. They might catch on and revolt.

That is why NATO is so angry with him -- they don't care about the Russian jet or the murders of the pilot and the marine. It's just that Ergodan made such an absolute mess of it. Maybe it was being planned along those lines anyway but he got out in front and did things his way, thus overplaying his hand and NATO's.

By becoming the biggest loose cannon on Earth he has attracted the negative attention of his handlers. He will be reprimanded in no uncertain terms.

Fractal Parasite

Well, the Erdogan regime has scored so many own goals lately, it's hard not to imagine that he is being purposefully chucked under the bus.

rwe2late

A familiar road travelled often. Erdogan strives to retain power by a crackdown on domestic dissent coupled with expansionist war abroad.

Major US news media champion for Turk-run "safe zone" inside Syria. Turk troops as well as operatives have already invaded Syria.

Turk media has proclaimed: "Aleppo to become the 82nd province of Turkey"

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/08/09/18775960.php

US about to back escalated Turk invasion/annexation of Northern Syria??

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-turkey-edging-up-to-syrian-border-pretex...

To Hell In A Handbasket

Turkey invented the DEEP STATE. Everything is fucked and our generation will be officially be viewed as fucking USELESS, as it was on our watch that tyranny and plutocracy made a come back. How many good men and women around the world have died standing up to political bullying and the plebs have stood by and did nothing?

Cindy6

While Erdogan is indeed a nasty piece of work, it does seem like someone IS trying to topple him and destablize Turkey. As a vassal, he doesn't quite know his place and had actually contemplate joining the East as shown by Blue Stream and negotiations to purchase Chinese Red Flag missile system.

Quite possilbly being encoraged to shoot down the Russian fighter and led to believe NATO would back him up. Once relationship with Russia is being torn and completely isolated in teh world by having his relationship with ISIS exposed, Turkey is ready for destablisation and eventual carved-up. It's no wonder the western press has only good things to say about the Kurds.

Reminds me of Iraq/Kuwait.

If he has any brain cell left, he should immediately patch up relationship with Russia and China. Else he's toast and Eurasia having another failed state.

Parrotile

Well, it seems that Erdogan may NOT have any functioning brain cells left - russia-turkey-war-of-words-escalates.

So we have:

  1. Shootdown of Russian aircraft in Syrian airspace;
  2. "Pretence" that the aircraft "violated" Turkish airspace for a few seconds (this is the same Turkey that regards 2000 violations of Greek airspace to be perfectly OK;
  3. Support of oil smuggling – let's be honest, oil THEFT, by a known terrorist group (and we know who is a direct beneficiary from this trade – "Keep it in the Family".)

This being an Aussie MSM publication, notice that none of the above points have been mentioned even in passing. Got to keep feeding the masses "Government Approved" information, lest that might have ideas of their own . . . .

Linoleum Blownapart

In my mind, there's a difference between an ongoing feud with tension and jabs, vs. an all-out fist fight to the death.

Events so far have been isolated enough that diplomats can still sit around the table and talk. Personally, I'm not calling WW3 until U.S. and Russia have severed diplomatic relations, which they haven't at all:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/g20-barack-obama-and-vladim...

bankonzhongguo

The only regional power counter to Iran on the ground is Turkey, so now you will see that place put through the wringer as well. Population is around 75 million, so its heavy density, old culture, access to NATO and western security interests and all the other trappings compel Turkey to fill the vacuum to be created in Syria.

That's a tall order to fill, but one easily paid for using the same model in Saudi and Egypt over the decades.

Good time to be in the black markets in Turkey witness all the refugees in the pipeline to Berlin and Washington.

Not sure of what kind of Alevi-Sufi capacity Quds has in the east, but given how the Sons of Noah operate in Chechnya who knows what the future holds.

atthelake

www.kingworldnews.com has some good tapes, including Paul Craig Roberts on Russia and Turkey.

SgtShaftoe

Agreed, I just got done listening to the PCR piece about an hour ago. It was very good analysis.

Ms No

People will start disappearing in mass and they will find them 15 years down the road in mass graves. This is a pattern which is constant throughout history any time there is a military dicatorship or tyranny of whatever variety... and yes they will likely be tortured. This is right out of the CIAs South America playbook. Same MO every time with only slight variations.

Moccasin

Things are moving quickly, what's next is what's important. Each criminal act inside a NATO country is used by NATO to its advantage in the escalation of war in Syria. With emphasis on Turkey where its most recent criminal activities appear premeditated. NATO is rushing to war in Syria after the recent criminal act in Paris. The arrival of the Russians in Syria seems to have awoken NATO. NATO has started its response to Russia and will penalize it for the support for the Assad government.

The criminal act in Turkey, the assassination of a "Prominent Kurdish Lawyer" is just another move that will be used to justify more war. The slippery slope of war is getting steep. I will expect Turkish ground troops to arrive in Syria soon to create a 'buffer zone' and that slice of dirt will be the ground where the Turks will put the Kurds backs to the wall again. What's next is what is important. War Pigs!

flapdoodle

I suspect the problem for Turkey invading Syria is that Putin told Erdogan that anything that crosses into Syrian territory near Latakia will have the shit bombed out of it.

The US and NATO is trying desperatly to put in ground troops (hence the Paris false flag to try to get the French (NATO) in, but I still think Turkey (also NATO) is reluctant to do this openly), and they may succeed in getting troops into Eastern Syria, but Putin, with SAA, Quds, and Hezbullah, has the advantage in Western Syria and will make a move there very difficult for NATO. If Western Syria was a crucial part of the Zionazi gameplan, they better come up with something else quick. Putin has reached the high ground first.

The fact that Turkey has grounded their flights into Syria is telling. They don't know what the fuck to do.

Its quite possible that Putin maneuvered the Turks into downing the Su-24. or at least set up the environment propitious to its occurring - unfortunately for Turkey.

Putin really knows his judo and used his opponents own move against him. The S-400 timing was just right, and the downing gave Russians the perfect excuse to smash the hell out of the Turkey/Syria border.

Whatever happened to Turkey's vaunted 5mi exclusion zone at the border??? Its gone, baby, gone...

GreatUncle

Think most people know what Erdogan is about ...

Cynically the US pipes up condemming the killing but support Erdogan. US foreign policy is a fucking shambles ain't that the truth. So once again Turkey shows it should never be allowed to join the EU because it does not support human rights.

2 pillars of the EU are already crumbling, the euro and the schengen agreement, then allowing Turkey into the EU club you just dismantled a 3rd pillar and the EHCR.

So which supporting pillar of the EU crumbles next then ? Or alternatively you might want to consider the Lisbon Treaty a worthless piece of paper.

debtor of last ...

So the gas pipeline from Quatar stops at the Syrian-Turkish border. For now.

Dutch Geert Wilders (our Marine le Pen) called Erdogan a madman, about 3 years back. But he's raciss of course....

green dragon

We know that Turknam commander Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey's Elazig province. He is a member of the Grey Wolves.

We know that use of the BGM-71 TOW missiles – which cost $50,000 a piece – is up over 850% in October with the American-made weapons responsible for the destruction of scores of Syrian army tanks. These are being passed through Turkey.

We know that Turkey has focused their bombing efforts on Kurdish sites.

We know that so called nice Terrorists supported by Turkey seized Kurds from buses travelling from the town of Afrin to the city of Aleppo.

We know that Erdogan's government is planned to place reporters who exposed weapons in Aid shipments from Turkey in jail.

We know much but do nothing!

I-am-not-one-of-them

they won't denounce their own foreign policy, they want that policy to succeed

you seem to think criminals should have a concience or morals

smacker

Westerners should boycott all travel and tourism to Turkey. Too much civil unrest, cold blooded street assassinations, riots, police violence etc. "Turkey has become a terrorist country and is unsafe"

Dark Daze

Why are the Turks in NATO? They don't deserve to be. They don't share our values, our traditions, our religion or our style of government. They are nothing more than evil, back stabbing, slimey bags of Sunni shit, and always have been. And now that Erdogan is becoming a dictator things are only going to get worse. I would not support my government sending one soldier, one plane or one ship to defend those animals. Let the Russians have at them I say.

Omen IV -> Dark Daze

"They don't share our values" Maybe not your values but certainly Washington's values

ross81 -> Dark Daze

the bigger question is why is there even a NATO at all? The "big bad" Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact are long gone. Truth is NATO now is the Atlanticists + some puppet regimes in eastern Europe/Turkey. They want the entire Middle East and wont tolerate a Russian or BRICS influence there at all. Good to see though that the Shiite Bloc are tired of all this fucking chaos & mayhem and are joining the Russian side.

Joe Plane

The Warsaw pact was created after NATO and as a counter act.

Don't know how many people know this but in 1954 the USSR, Belorussia and Ukraine (the latter two being seperate members of the UN) applied for membership in NATO. And were rejected.

Crocodile

It is obvious the west is trying to stretch Russia via Ukraine and Syria and now Turkey; the further you stretch an any, the more difficult it is to focus on the bigger picture. China better step up to the Russian plate and soon if anyone expects to reign in the NATO terrorists.

... ... ...

farflungstar

Kurdistan is being groomed to be israel's latest manufactured ally in the region - they've been stroking the Kurds for quite some time.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article189385.html

I wonder just how willing Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey (nations with significant Kurdish pops.) are going to be to cede territory to what will be an israeli ally - a little? not too much? not at all?

Eventually they may have no choice.

nah

Seems like everything in the Middle East is going tribal, sectarian, and vigilante. Bad day for established government and power for the people in a general sense


[Nov 28, 2015] Remaking the Middle East: How the US Grew Tired and Less Relevant

Notable quotes:
"... In reality, this perception is misleading; not that Kerry is a warmonger on the level of George W. Bush's top staff, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. The two were the very antithesis of any rational foreign policy such that even the elder George H. W. Bush described them with demeaning terminology , according to his biographer, quoted in the New York Times . Cheney was an "Iron-ass", who "had his own empire … and marched to his own drummer," H.W. Bush said, while calling Rumsfeld "an arrogant fellow" who lacked empathy. Yet, considering that the elder Bush was rarely a peacemaker himself, one is left to ponder if the US foreign policy ailment is centered on failure to elect proper representatives and to enlist anyone other than psychopaths? ..."
"... comparing the conduct of the last three administrations, that of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, one would find that striking similarities are abundant. In principle, all three administrations' foreign policy agendas were predicated on strong militaries and military interventions, although they applied soft power differently. ..."
"... In essence, Obama carried on with much of what W. Bush had started in the Middle East, although he supplanted his country's less active role in Iraq with new interventions in Libya and Syria. In fact, his Iraq policies were guided by Bush's final act in that shattered country, where he ordered a surge in troops to pacify the resistance, thus paving the way for an eventual withdrawal. Of course, none of that plotting worked in their favor, with the rise of ISIS among others, but that is for another discussion. ..."
"... In other words, US foreign policy continues unabated, often guided by the preponderant norm that "might makes right", and by ill-advised personal ambitions and ideological illusions like those championed by neo-conservatives during W. Bush's era. ..."
"... The folly of W. Bush, Cheney and company is that they assumed that the Pentagon's over $1.5 billion-a-day budget was enough to acquire the US the needed leverage to control every aspect of global affairs, including a burgeoning share of world economy. ..."
"... The Russian military campaign in Syria, which was halfheartedly welcomed by the US. has signaled a historic shift in the Middle East. Even if Russia fails to turn its war into a major shift of political and economic clout, the mere fact that other contenders are now throwing their proverbial hats into the Middle East ring, is simply unprecedented since the British-French-Israeli Tripartite Aggression on Egypt in 1956. ..."
"... It will take years before a new power paradigm fully emerges, during which time US clients are likely to seek the protection of more dependable powers. In fact, the shopping for a new power is already under way, which also means that new alliances will be formed while others fold. ..."
November 14, 2015 | original.antiwar.com
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is often perceived as one of the "good ones" – the less hawkish of top American officials, who does not simply promote and defend his country's military adventurism but reaches out to others, beyond polarizing rhetoric.

His unremitting efforts culminated partly in the Iran nuclear framework agreement in April, followed by a final deal, a few months later. Now, he is reportedly hard at work again to find some sort of consensus on a way out of the Syria war, a multi-party conflict that has killed over 300,000 people. His admirers see him as the diplomatic executor of a malleable and friendly US foreign policy agenda under President Obama.

In reality, this perception is misleading; not that Kerry is a warmonger on the level of George W. Bush's top staff, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. The two were the very antithesis of any rational foreign policy such that even the elder George H. W. Bush described them with demeaning terminology, according to his biographer, quoted in the New York Times. Cheney was an "Iron-ass", who "had his own empire … and marched to his own drummer," H.W. Bush said, while calling Rumsfeld "an arrogant fellow" who lacked empathy. Yet, considering that the elder Bush was rarely a peacemaker himself, one is left to ponder if the US foreign policy ailment is centered on failure to elect proper representatives and to enlist anyone other than psychopaths?

If one is to fairly examine US foreign policies in the Middle East, for example, comparing the conduct of the last three administrations, that of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, one would find that striking similarities are abundant. In principle, all three administrations' foreign policy agendas were predicated on strong militaries and military interventions, although they applied soft power differently.

In essence, Obama carried on with much of what W. Bush had started in the Middle East, although he supplanted his country's less active role in Iraq with new interventions in Libya and Syria. In fact, his Iraq policies were guided by Bush's final act in that shattered country, where he ordered a surge in troops to pacify the resistance, thus paving the way for an eventual withdrawal. Of course, none of that plotting worked in their favor, with the rise of ISIS among others, but that is for another discussion.

Obama has even gone a step further when he recently decided to keep thousands of US troops in Afghanistan well into 2017, thus breaking US commitment to withdraw next year. 2017 is Obama's last year in office, and the decision is partly motivated by his administration's concern that future turmoil in that country could cost his Democratic Party heavily in the upcoming presidential elections.

In other words, US foreign policy continues unabated, often guided by the preponderant norm that "might makes right", and by ill-advised personal ambitions and ideological illusions like those championed by neo-conservatives during W. Bush's era.

Nevertheless, much has changed as well, simply because American ambitions to police the world, politics and the excess of $600 billion a year US defense budget are not the only variables that control events in the Middle East and everywhere else. There are other undercurrents that cannot be wished away, and they too can dictate US foreign policy outlooks and behavior.

Indeed, an American decline has been noted for many years, and Middle Eastern nations have been more aware of this decline than others. One could even argue that the W. Bush administration's rush for war in Iraq in 2003 in an attempt at controlling the region's resources, was a belated effort at staving off that unmistakable decay – whether in US ability to regulate rising global contenders or in its overall share of global economy.

The folly of W. Bush, Cheney and company is that they assumed that the Pentagon's over $1.5 billion-a-day budget was enough to acquire the US the needed leverage to control every aspect of global affairs, including a burgeoning share of world economy. That misconception carries on to this day, where military spending is already accounting for about 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending, itself nearly a third of the country's overall budget.

However, those who are blaming Obama for failing to leverage US military strength for political currency refuse to accept that Obama's behavior hardly reflects a lack of appetite for war, but a pragmatic response to a situation that has largely spun out of US control.

The so-called "Arab Spring", for example, was a major defining factor in the changes of US fortunes. And it all came at a particularly interesting time.

First, the Iraq war has destroyed whatever little credibility the US had in the region, a sentiment that also reverberated around the world.

Second, it was becoming clear that the US foreign policy in Central and South America – an obstinate continuation of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which laid the groundwork for US domination of that region – has also been challenged by more assertive leaders, armed with democratic initiatives, not military coups.

Third, China's more forceful politics, at least around its immediate regional surroundings, signaled that the US traditional hegemony over most of East and South East Asia are also facing fierce competition.

Not only many Asian and other countries have flocked to China, lured by its constantly growing and seemingly more solid economic performance, if compared to the US, but others are also flocking to Russia, which is filling a political and, as of late, military vacuum left open.

The Russian military campaign in Syria, which was halfheartedly welcomed by the US. has signaled a historic shift in the Middle East. Even if Russia fails to turn its war into a major shift of political and economic clout, the mere fact that other contenders are now throwing their proverbial hats into the Middle East ring, is simply unprecedented since the British-French-Israeli Tripartite Aggression on Egypt in 1956.

The region's historians must fully understand the repercussions of all of these factors, and that simply analyzing the US decline based on the performance of individuals – Condoleezza Rice's hawkishness vs. John Kerry's supposed sane diplomacy – is a trivial approach to understanding current shifts in global powers.

It will take years before a new power paradigm fully emerges, during which time US clients are likely to seek the protection of more dependable powers. In fact, the shopping for a new power is already under way, which also means that new alliances will be formed while others fold.

For now, the Middle East will continue to pass through this incredibly difficult and violent transition, for which the US is partly responsible.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is a media consultant, an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press).

[Nov 28, 2015] Turkey's Erdogan Expresses Regret Over Russian Plane Downing

He already flip-flopped his reaction on staged by his government ambush several times. This is probably not the last.
www.huffingtonpost.com

Turkey (AP) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday voiced regret over Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane, saying his country was "truly saddened" by the incident and wished it hadn't occurred.

It was the first expression of regret by the strongman leader since Tuesday's incident in which Turkish F-16 jets shot down the Russian jet on grounds that it had violated Turkey's airspace despite repeated warnings to change course. It was the first time in half a century that a NATO member shot down a Russian plane and drew a harsh response from Moscow.

"We are truly saddened by this incident," Erdogan said. "We wish it hadn't happened as such, but unfortunately such a thing has happened. I hope that something like this doesn't occur again."

Addressing supporters in the western city of Balikesir, Erdogan said neither country should allow the incident to escalate and take a destructive form that would lead to "saddening consequences."

He renewed a call for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a climate conference in Paris next week, saying it would be an opportunity to overcome tensions.

[Nov 28, 2015] ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal Raqqas Rockefellers, Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection

Notable quotes:
"... "All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company's nerves. They're importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well. ..."
"... "First and foremost, the Turks help the militants sell stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil for $20 a barrel, which is half the market price. ..."
"... According to a European official at an international oil company who met with al-Araby in a Gulf capital, Israel refines the oil only once or twice because it does not have advanced refineries. It exports the oil to Mediterranean countries - where the oil gains a semi-legitimate status - for $30 to $35 a barrel. ..."
"... The oil is sold within a day or two to a number of private companies, while the majority goes to an Italian refinery owned by one of the largest shareholders in an Italian football club [name removed] where the oil is refined and used locally, added the European oil official. ..."
"... Israel has in one way or another become the main marketer of IS oil. Without them, most IS-produced oil would have remained going between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Even the three companies would not receive the oil if they did not have a buyer in Israel, said the industry official. ..."
Zero Hedge
One person who definitely thinks the Erdogans are trafficking in ISIS oil is Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi who said the following on Friday:

"All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company's nerves. They're importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well."

And then there's Iraq's former National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie who posted the following to his Facebook page on Saturday:

"First and foremost, the Turks help the militants sell stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil for $20 a barrel, which is half the market price."

Meanwhile, the US is preparing for an all-out ISIS oil propaganda war. As WSJ reported on Wednesday, "the Treasury [has] accused a Syrian-born businessman, George Haswani, who his a dual Syrian-Russian citizen, of using his firm, HESCO Engineering and Construction Co., for facilitating oil trades between the Assad regime and Islamic State." Why Assad would buy oil from a group that uses the cash at its disposal to wage war against Damascus is an open question especially when one considers that Assad's closest allies (Russia and Iran) are major oil producers. Of course between all the shady middlemen and double dealing, there's really no telling.

Ultimately we'll probably never know the whole story, but what we do know (and again, most of the evidence is either circumstantial, anecdotal, of largely qualitative) seems to suggest that in addition to providing guns and money to the FSA and al-Nusra, Turkey may well be responsible for facilitating Islamic State's $400+ million per year oil enterprise. And as for end customers, consider the following bit from Al-Araby al-Jadeed:

According to a European official at an international oil company who met with al-Araby in a Gulf capital, Israel refines the oil only "once or twice" because it does not have advanced refineries. It exports the oil to Mediterranean countries - where the oil "gains a semi-legitimate status" - for $30 to $35 a barrel.

"The oil is sold within a day or two to a number of private companies, while the majority goes to an Italian refinery owned by one of the largest shareholders in an Italian football club [name removed] where the oil is refined and used locally," added the European oil official.

"Israel has in one way or another become the main marketer of IS oil. Without them, most IS-produced oil would have remained going between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Even the three companies would not receive the oil if they did not have a buyer in Israel," said the industry official.

Finally, you'll note that this is all an effort to answer what we called "the most important question about ISIS that no one is asking" - namely, "who are the middlemen?" As we noted more than a week ago, "we do know who they may be: the same names that were quite prominent in the market in September when Glencore had its first, and certainly not last, near death experience: the Glencores, the Vitols, the Trafiguras, the Nobels, the Mercurias of the world." Consider that, and consider what Reuters says about the trade in illicit KRG oil: "Market sources have said several trading houses including Trafigura and Vitol have dealt with Kurdish oil. Both Trafigura and Vitol declined to comment on their role in oil sales."

Similarly, FT notes that "both Vitol and Trafigura had paid the KRG in advance for the oil, under so-called 'pre-pay' deals, helping Erbil to bridge its budget gaps."

Indeed, when Kurdistan went looking for an advisor to assist in the effort to circumvent Baghdad, the KRG chose "Murtaza Lakhani, who worked for Glencore in Iraq in the 2000s, to assist finding ships."

"He knew exactly who would and who wouldn't deal with us. He opened the doors to us and identified willing shipping companies to work with us," Ashti Hawrami (quoted above) said.

Indeed. And given everything said above about the commingling of illegal KRG crude and illicit ISIS oil shipments, it's probably a foregone conclusion that these same firms are assisting in transport arrangements for Islamic State

Noplebian

Interesting, but not surprising......

http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...

Occident Mortal

Outstanding work. And Raqqafellers will stick.

I pointed to these assholes yesterday...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-27/how-turkey-exports-isis-oil-wor...

quintago

Right after 9/11, the Israelis swept in and starting building links with the Kurds. Google it. They are using the Kurds as a destabilizer and as a source for oil. Ashkelon and Haifa moving oil to europe is their grand dream.

BuddyEffed

If there has been ship to ship transfers I bet someone, and maybe several recon capable countries have spy photos. That could be part of the over the top game here. Let's bargain or we will release photos.

BuddyEffed

This just in : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/erdogan-russian-plane-downing_5659bd...
Erdogan expressing regrets for the downed plane. Also probably regretting ZH analysis.

I'm guessing the photos of the ship to ship transfers won't be released at this time.

jefferson32

Once again Meyssan's analysis proves extremely accurate. In July 2014, he writes:

On June 20, Israel bought the oil that the local Kurdish government had stolen in Kirkuk despite the international opinion voiced by the Iraqi federal government. The transit of the oil had been facilitated by the ISIL which controls the pipeline and Turkey which allowed the goods to be loaded onto a tanker at the port of Ceyhan.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article184669.html

jefferson32

To understand how Turkey can, on one hand, cooperate with the Kurds in northern Irak - and enable their oil commerce - and, on the other hand, be fighting Kurds in Syria (and Turkey itself), it is important to realize these two populations, although both ethnically kurdish, have little in common.

For starters, they don't speak the same language, and killed each other throughout the Cold War.

Nowadays, the Iraki Kurds are pro-West and lead by Barzani (admitedly a Mossad agent put in place by the Americans and British). The Syrian Kurds are aligned with Iran and Russia.

Thierry Meyssan's exposé is much better than mine:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article189385.html

Paveway IV

Half of all Turks live under the poverty line. A quarter of those live underneath the starvation line = eat from dumpsters. Erdogan and his crime family live in a three-quarters of a billion dollar palace.

The Kurds have it worse, from Be Very Worried About Barzani Family Power Struggle

"...Masud Barzani is president and lives in a palace complex in a resort inherited from Saddam Hussein. His nephew, Nechirvan Barzani, is prime minister. His uncle, Hoshyar Zebari, was Iraq's foreign minister and is now finance minister. Masud's eldest son, Masrour Barzani, leads the intelligence service; and his second son Mansour is a general, as is Masud's brother Wajy. Barzani's nephew Sirwan owns the regional cell phone company which, while purchased with public money, remains a private holding. Barzani's sons are frequently in Washington D.C. They have their wives give birth in Sibley Hospital in order to ensure the next generation has American citizenship, and Masrour Barzani acquired an $11 million mansion in McLean, Virginia. Hanging out in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, some of Masoud Barzani's daughters-in-law have, according to Kurdish circles, been known to introduce themselves as "Princesses of Kurdistan" as they visit high-end shops accompanied by their own rather unnecessary (while in the United States) security details..."

Kurds hate Barzani - he's in power because Israel and the U.S. back him. Time to strip the Barzani babies of their U.S. citizenship and bar their entire clan from ever setting foot on U.S. soil for the rest of their lives.

Everything the U.S. touches turns to shit. Every country we have anything to do with is ruled by psychopathic, money-grubbing gangsters. Every country we "freedomize and liberate" ends up knee-deep in the blood of their own citizens while the wars have turned out to be neocon chickenhawks grudge against a leader they don't like.

When Syria and Iraq have been sufficiently destroyed, U.S. and U.K. oil companies will own the oil and gas production destined for the EU or Israel. The U.S. will continue to turn a blind eye to the tin-pot dictators they have empowered and made profanely rich while their 'little people' eat out of garbage cans. If those peons rise up to kick the dictator's asses (Erdogan, Barzani, and whoever is in charge if the Iraqi hell-hole of death), then we will be there with weapons, armor, aircraft and troops to kill those dumpster-diving terrorists.

If we don't like the Saddam Husseins or Bashar al-Assads of the world, WHY THE FUCK DO WE KEEP MAKING MORE OF THEM?


Paveway IV

The Tylers do a good job of showing the trail of breadcrumbs in these oil operations. If you need a PowerPoint deck and streaming video of Israeli brokers negotiating legally-questionable and terrorist-supporting stolen oil purchases and scans of bill-of-sales from ISIS from Erdogan's son, then you're probably on the wrong site.

There are plenty of accounts of Israel buying Kurdish oil directly, or acting as a middleman for EU sales. Any Israeli brokers can legally claim ignorance of the source of the oil, but everyone involved knows exactly where some it comes from and why it's so cheap. The legality of ANY Kurdish oil sales are still in legal limbo - the U.S. courts won't permit its import. The fact that a substantial quantitiy of Kurdish (or Turkish terminal spot sales of 'Kurdish') oil is in fact ISIS oil stolen in Syria and Iraq really isn't a secret to anybody. To show what is (or should be) obvious to a reasonably intelligent person is not the same thing as concrete proof with a documented legal trail. Israel probably regrets the ISIS connection, but ISIS won't be around forever. Israel plans on buying oil from the Kurds for a long, LONG time, so I don't expect them to ask too many questions now.

We're talking a few Israeli brokers and refinery buyers, not ten million Israelis conspiring to buy and sell ISIS oil. If it wasn't Israeli oil dealers, it would be someone else.

Urban Redneck

It's not tenuous, it's politely phrased, but there are actually a lot more people and institutions involved. The physical oil trade is a black art, and all the practitioners know each other, and as many times as a title to cargo may trade hands at sea, ONE party is responsible for legitimizing black market product (after which it can be traded more freely). Unfortunately, the simplest and least bloody solution is unlikely at this point, international sanctions on Turkey and an embargo on all oil from Ceyhan not originating from the Baku pipeline.

Lurk Skywatcher

Why Assad would buy oil from a group that uses the cash at its disposal to wage war against Damascus is an open question especially when one considers that Assad's closest allies (Russia and Iran) are major oil producers.

Only an open question for trolls and dullards. Syria has lost a lot of its oil infrastructure, and it needs oil to operate. The Assad government probably isn't buying directly, but unscrupulous middlemen will try to make a profit no matter what their nationality.

Watch how the MSM will pump the US version, and ignore the Russian version, of who benefits from ISIS oil sales... it fits their agenda like a glove.

Kayman

Perversely Obama was correct in saying ISIS is the JV team. A small cog in a very illegal, immoral but lucrative trade in stolen oil. A lot of dirty money to pass around, deposit in Swiss bank accounts in Potus' name, or members of the family, Congress vendors, etc.

If the U.S. and Nato wanted to- they could strangle the neck of the ISIS chicken by cutting off all oil going through Turkey and all newbie ISIS recuits and arms heading back into Raqqa.

But there is too much dirty money being made by the real players in the game. Can't have a peace settlement with dirty hands in the game. I now wonder if the ISIS internet recruitment videos are being made in Turkey, Israel or Hollywood.

Neochrome

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b8234932-719b-11e5-ad6d-f4ed76f0900a.html#axzz...

According to this it is Syrian REBELS who are dependent on ISIS oil, it would also partially explain why is US unhappy with turn of events. It is safe to say that the line between ISIS and "rebels" is practically non-existent:

"It's a situation that makes you laugh and cry," said one Syrian rebel commander in Aleppo, who buys diesel from Isis areas even as his forces fight the group on the front lines. "But we have no other choice, and we are a poor man's revolution. Is anyone else offering to give us fuel?"

Indeed, diesel and petrol produced in Isis areas are not only consumed in territory the group controls but in areas that are technically at war with it, such as Syria's rebel-held north: the region is dependent on the jihadis' fuel for its survival.

"At any moment, the diesel can be cut. No diesel - Isis knows our life is completely dead," says one oil trader who comes from rebel-held Aleppo each week to buy fuel and spoke to the Financial Times by telephone.

Palladin

According to this article the US destroyed 116 oil trucks, and the Russians destroyed another 500. I don't know how many barrels of oil that is but that has to make a real mess with all that oil leaking all over the place.

Where are all the Envrionmentlists wringing their Dawn covered hands over all of this. Probably no Seagulls were harmed, but still somebody has to clean up the mess.

And it seems to me the MSM should be paying more attention to this "Envrrionmental Disaster" like they love to do whenever an offshore oil rig spills any amount of oil.

Kayman

Palladin

Obama couldn't risk killing "innocent" truck drivers- a direct acknowledgement that everyone but the public knew Turkey was the oil conduit. Now you are offering him the opportunity to stop incinerating the trucks for environmental reasons- you ought to be on Obama's staff.

I-am-not-one-of-them's picture

the US used Russian footage of destroying 116 oil trucks as proof. I doubt they did, it's their mercenaries and their operation

that's why nothing happened in the 2 years they pretended to destroy ISIS and Russia has immediate success, one is genuine and the other is fake

harleyjohn45

This article says 1300 transports have been destroyed. I read an article that ISIS is using smaller trucks as tankers now, instead of 36,000 liters to 9000 liters per load. Soon they will be carrying oil in 5 gallon buckets.

Noplebian

This just about sums up the whole ISIS situation......

http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unrest/2015/11/cowardly-isiss-terrorist-...

Perfecthedge

This is outstanding, investigative journalism. Not the trash that we get from CNN, Fox and the BBC.

I just checked Trafigura.com and whenever I see a corporation talking about "ethics and transparency" (on their home page). I get suspicious. I am sure KPMG or whatever hooker-accounting firm is auditing this firm, is doing a fine job.

On another side note, Paypal thinks I am a terrorist and money-laundering criminal, because I wanted to transfer 20 Euros from my Bank account to my Paypal, to buy swimwear on Ebay.

FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM HARD IN THE ASSHOLE.

Herdee

Americans need to look at the world through different perspectives.Use alternative media and open up your minds:

http://russia-insider.com/en

Teh Finn

Russian media claims the men are "ISIS leaders who it is [thought] participated in massacres in Syria's Homs and Rojava, the Kurdish name for Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan."

How do you say "Chris Matthews" in Rus?

PoasterToaster

The other unasked question is, "After they trade the oil for money, who the hell is selling them all the weaponry?".

smacker

"[...] the trucks that haul oil north just might have, maybe, a teensy-weensy, tiny, itsy-bitsy chance of carrying weapons back from Turkey."

I think you're right. Recall that convoy Russian jets bombed yesterday which ended up in flames.

Erdogan bellyached about it in a press interview claiming it was "humanitarian aid" (ho-ho). Too bad. Video pix showed the trucks had crates of shells and other weaponry. Some of the shells appeared to have Ukraine/Cyrillic markings on them.

green dragon

Veterens Today makes a case that

[Turkey did this all during the Bush era, having cut a deal with US "manager" Paul Bremmer, a deal VT insiders helped manage for Bremmer and that I was witness to personally.

The game involved playing Baghdad against Erbil and bleeding off oil revenues from the Kirkuk Oil Fields, largest oil reserves in the world, as they moved by pipeline through Kurdistan and into Turkey. There they were offloaded onto American tankers in the Mediterranean where these huge ships, largest in the world, were filled with oil but it was never recorded and the oil never paid for.

Turkey got their cut, certain Turkish naval officers became fabulously wealthy while the Bush cabal poured billions into their Cayman offshore accounts managed by Bain Capital.]

[Nov 28, 2015] John Helmer The Classic Rules for Combatting Turkish Aggression

Even if it was some forces not controlled by Erdogan committed this ambush, his reaction was a typical reaction of ultranationalist, panturkist. All this talk about out turkish brothers is just a smoke screen for territorial and regional ambitions of Erdogan government. He is becoming kind of Saudi Arabia Nop.1 but without oil. and that spell trobles for the edonomy and his regime.
Notable quotes:
"... To me Erdogan and his government more and more look like members of Grey Wolf organization, a copycat of Ukrainian Svoboda with the same level of ultra-nationalism and neofascism in their brains. ..."
"... Has anyone considered the possibility this was not Erdogan's decision – perhaps his son's oil partners in ISIS had the right connections in the Turkish military, or suppose Uncle Sam just directed Erdogan to ratchet it up or watch his career dissolved by that same military, or maybe something worse, for males. ..."
"... It's not like going after Syria was Erdogan's idea – he'd had good relations with Assad for years ..."
naked capitalism
... Igor Sechin, the former deputy to President Vladimir Putin, was a leading advocate of forgetting Russia's historical lessons for dealing with the Turks, and disdaining to learn new ones. Putin was reluctant to learn them until yesterday.

Here they are:

1. Turkey never makes a military move without getting Pentagon approval first. In order for yesterday's shoot-down of the Su-24 to take place as it did, a battery of signals intelligence and other electronic warfare means would have been deployed by a joint US-Turkish command unit, giving the Turkish F-16 pilot confidence he was taking the Russian pilot unprepared. It was not, as the Turkish Government has announced, "an automatic response to our airspace being violated" because the airspace was Syrian, unilaterally claimed by the Turks to be their "exclusion zone". Neither was it, as Putin has announced, a "stab in the back" from the Turks. Nor was it, as Putin added, "despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents". What happened was full frontal – it was because of the agreement the Turks have with the US military command. Nor can Putin have been genuinely surprised that "instead of immediately establishing contacts with us, as far as we know Turkey turned to its NATO partners to discuss this incident." Had Putin said he suspected that Turkey turned to "its NATO partners" before the "incident", he would have been closer to the truth.

2. Aggression by Turkey and the US can be defeated by a smaller force, but it must be in constant readiness, employing every form of early warning and disguising its force by surprise. Putin has said the Russian Su-24 was struck by a missile fired by a Turkish F-16 when the Russian aircraft was one kilometre inside the Syrian side of the border. That being true, Russian air defence support for the fighter must have been tracking the Turkish aircraft from the second it started its take-off roll. It ought to have tracked its course upward, and monitored its missile-arming electronics and such fire orders as came from elsewhere. The Russian warning and control operators and the Su-24 crew should have detected the hostile fire-radar, and had the option to jam it. If none of these things was done on the Russian side, alerting the Su-24 crew to their peril, the Russian forces weren't ready, and the Su-24 was taken by surprise. The consequences cannot be explained by the commander-in-chief telling a visitor – the King of Jordan pretending to call the Russian president his "brother": "we will never turn a blind eye to such crimes as the one that was committed today." Blind is the word for it – before, not after.

THE RUSSIAN SU-24 FLIGHT PATH – TURKISH, BBC VERSION

SU-24-FLIGHT-PATH-

THE RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY VERSION

RDMmap

Source: http://sputniknews.com/military/20151124/1030695406/mod-su-24-flight-path.html

3. In western Europe, in the Balkans, and in the Middle East the Turks have no durable friend or ally. For Russian strategy not to be ambushed by the Turks, it must have strong allies like Iran, weak ones like Cyprus and Serbia, and vacillating ones like the Bulgarians, and listen to their experience of warfighting with the Turks. It is a waste of breath to try reassuring Ankara that Russia's "plane and our pilots were in no way a threat to the Turkish Republic in any way." That's because the Turks know we know they are threatening, as well as financing the break-up of the Russian Caucasus. It's because they know Russia is committed to blocking Turkish expansion, and to protecting Shiite Iraq and the Kurds from Turkish attack. If these aren't the new strategic commitments, then Russia should hasten to withdraw its forces before it falls into more bloody ambushes. If they are the new commitments, then the consequences are as obvious as they are immediate.

All Russians are now at risk if they travel to Turkey, so President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's exclusion zone should stop all Russian flights and all Russian nationals from entering the country.

Time, too, for the Turks to warm their houses and cook their dinners with someone else's gas.

liberal, November 26, 2015 at 10:08 am

IMHO Turkey didn't consult with the US first. It smells of a stupidity that Ergodan would commit.

I mean, here's the idiot who apparently didn't game out the overthrow of Assad, and the likely impact it would have on the Kurds.

timbers, November 26, 2015 at 10:33 am

Great article. It's implication of how Russia should respond might be:

Russia should concentrate on protecting it's fighters near Turkish border and be prepared to protect and respond to head off Turkish aggression, and not directly escalate militarily but instead stay focused on it's original mission.

Putin's past behavior may suggest he will choose a good course not unlike the above, weather he knows of the lesson Helmer describes, or not. Putin is not rash, realizes that while Russia is powerful and has options it is not the only powerful nation and faces constraints as well (if only the US did, too), considers before he moves. Hopefully this will keep him focused on what he wants to achieve in Syria and not get side tracked with Turkey even if it makes him look "weak" in the media. Read that Putin is looking at sealing the Syrian-Turkish border, which would freeze out the biggest influx of trouble makers in Syria. Am thinking Putin should slowly move to freeze out all Western access to Syrian airspace, perhaps with the much discussed S-400's and another methods.

Positioning more defensive missiles, jet fighter escorts, and using the radar warning Helmer discusses to deter and preemptively defend against Turkey repeating this incident, is the best corse IMO. It appears Russia is doing at least some of these things from what I'm reading.

mike, November 26, 2015 at 3:16 pm

Fair enough assessment; I would not expect a second Russian plan to be shot down! Your right Putin is not rash!

kl, November 26, 2015 at 10:59 am

The West forgot Turkey. We forgot something it never did, that its main role is ultra-nationalism and ripping off the West.
Apparently, Russians forgot this too. As a Russian passport offers few travel opportunities, Turkey and Egypt are prime destinations. I see Russian women suck up to Turkish and other middle Eastern men regularly. It's sad and shows a complete lack of understanding of the Turkish aggression, including enslaving slaves not that any centuries ago (officially) and the extant burgeoning sex slave trade (unofficially) today.

al apaka, November 27, 2015 at 1:43 am

uhhh regarding Russian passports, that is just plain wrong. go to Asia sometime. or Africa.
the rest of your screed is sad, you've obviously got issues with swarthy folks, me senses projection in your focus on Russian women…lose your wife to a raghead, did you?

digi_owl, November 26, 2015 at 3:16 pm

Turkey has always been a wild card in NATO. Heck, the reason they are a member at all is that USA needed a standing ground army near the USSR that was not made up of US troops. And turkey had the biggest such after WW2 (and still has the biggest one next to USA within NATO). Their physical location also provided a "second front" deterrent to a land war in Europe.

Then again while a land war was perhaps a risk during Stalin, afterwards it was more about having a buffer between Russia and Germany than anything else. the Soviet leadership was more worried about a offense from USA than planning some kind of grand takeover of Europe.

kj1313, November 26, 2015 at 9:44 pm

Tbh Turkey is the one country where I would have trusted the military to depose the tin pot dictator.

Jon, November 27, 2015 at 8:33 am

Turkey is no longer the solid Nato member and unflinching US ally that it was during the Cold War, or indeed even 15 years ago. The AKP government has new friends in the World and is happy play its cards against the EU and US when it chooses.

Most like this move was part of Turkey's soft-on-ISIS/hard-on-PKK-and-other-Kurds playbook and most unlikely to be cleared with the US – though of course playing the Nato membership card after the event makes sense.

Mustafa, November 27, 2015 at 2:58 pm

Whenever Russian and Turks are fighting our enemies win. When they come together the history is changing its direction. This the a lesson from the history. There is a saying in Russian " The Russian-Turkish war from 1877 is a war where we have lost 100 million golden rubles and 100.000 lives and won nothing." Turkey have lost the Balkans and Cyprus in this very same war. But Atatürk and Lenin made it differently and the course of the history has changed. The battle in Galipoli where Atatürk defeated the super powers at that time the British and French and opened the door for the success of the Soviet revolution in 1917. Then Lenin gave his hand to Atatürk in 1920 and opened the door for the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. This was the end of British and French dominance in the east. Putin and Erdogan have to learn from the history…

likbez, November 27, 2015 at 11:16 pm

To me Erdogan and his government more and more look like members of Grey Wolf organization, a copycat of Ukrainian Svoboda with the same level of ultra-nationalism and neofascism in their brains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization)

Looks like in several countries we are returning to 1930th. Talleyrand complain about the restoration of the monarchy "These people have learned nothing and for­gotten nothing" is perfectly applicable to nationalism Renaissance we experience today. It this an allergic reaction on neoliberalism or may be nationalism is once in a century epidemics that hit mankind to regulate its numbers is unclear to me.

The sad side of this incident is that will damage Russia economically by increasing economic isolation. So the winner of Peace Nobel Price and all neocons around him got a good Thanksgiving present. Or, from another point of view, Putin's decision to save Alawite community from extermination by Islamic radicals backfired. No good deed is left unpunished in high politics.

Fiver, November 28, 2015 at 4:47 am

Has anyone considered the possibility this was not Erdogan's decision – perhaps his son's oil partners in ISIS had the right connections in the Turkish military, or suppose Uncle Sam just directed Erdogan to ratchet it up or watch his career dissolved by that same military, or maybe something worse, for males.

It's not like going after Syria was Erdogan's idea – he'd had good relations with Assad for years, but he (and everyone else outside and in) was relentlessly pushed from the 'west' (yes, no capital 'W' earned this century) even as the European portion of it again failed to open for Turkey – the big payoff of Admission to the EU/EZ that is just recently promised yet anew for Turkey, but with events will recede again as the ink dries. So Erdogan cast his lot with Uncle re the 'Arab Regime Change Spring' and like the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, GCC et al, Erdogan took deeply of the sort of Kool Aid that makes bad ideas look good – and so Erdogan got religion in both supporting ISIS by enabling ISIS oil operations and trade in Syria and profiting from it, even while assuring the west it was taking the fight to ISIS.

This is what they call a 'fluid' situation, and I can well imagine other events that place one or more other allied leaders in even worse political jams. The collateral damage this confrontation has already inflicted is stupendous, and being borne by all the wrong people. I'm sure this will give Erdogan plenty of future reasons for him want to flip back to a more pro-Syria, or pro-Russia footing. Or more.

[Nov 28, 2015] Who is buying ISILs oil

Al Jazeera English
On the face of it, it looks like any state-run oil industry. Engineers, managers and traders all help extract, refine and distribute oil, which makes its way across Syria and Iraq, as well as overseas. But this is no state-run company. This is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) lifeline - a business that provides the armed group with more revenue than any other source.

Oil helps to fund its war in Syria and Iraq, as well as to provide electricity to the 10 million people living under ISIL control. But despite the oil trade being targeted by the US-led coalition against ISIL, the business continues to thrive. And many people are increasingly asking why.

Russia has accused Turkey of buying oil from the armed group. Ankara in turn threw this allegation back at Moscow because of Russian support for Bashar al-Assad, who is also accused of buying oil from ISIL.

And to complicate matters, ISIL oil is also being sold to other rebel groups in Syria, most of whom are opposed to ISIL but have no alternative sources of fuel.

So, who are the individuals and groups involved in refining and selling ISIL's oil? And where does that oil end up?

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2015/11/buying-isil-oil-151127173736852.html

Presenter: Hazem Sika

Guests:

Shwan Zulal - Managing Director of Carduchi Consulting

Carole Nakhle - Director of Crystol Energy

Afshin Shahi - Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Islam

[Nov 28, 2015] Jonathan Marshall

Nov 27, 2015 | The Scott Horton Show

Jonathan Marshall, an independent researcher living in San Anselmo, California, discusses the Obama administration's failure to broker a peace deal in Syria due to its neocon-like focus on regime change.

[Nov 28, 2015] Shooting down the Russian jet a symptom of Turkey's central malaise - GÜVEN SAK

Notable quotes:
"... President Recep Tayyip Erdo an has said he would do it again if he could go back, but he also said we might have reacted differently had we known that the unidentified aircraft was Russian. I'm not sure which statement to believe. ..."
"... In Turkish, we sometimes say "I am telling this to my daughter with the hope that my daughter-in-law will get the message." People in this part of the world communicate obliquely. What is Turkey's overriding concern in Syria? It is keeping the PKK/PYD in check, plain and simple. ..."
"... Thanks to the civil war, the PYD has in some ways surpassed Öcalan's dreams. It has become a governing institution of the Syrian Kurds, and the YPG, its armed wing, has become the main instrument of the Western coalition against ISIL. That means Turkey cannot fight it directly. Meanwhile, Turkey's reconciliation process with its own Kurdish population has come to an abrupt halt. Why? Because the civil war in Syria shifted the balance of power in the Kurds' favor. ..."
www.hurriyetdailynews.com

The million dollar question is: Why did Turkey do it? The Russians were violating Turkish airspace on an almost daily basis. Did it feel like it had to make good on its threats for earlier violations? Why now?

Since the start of this war in Syria, Turkey has wanted to be taken seriously. Syria shot down a Turkish plane in 2012, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took Turkish Consulate staff in Mosul hostage for months, and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD) is steadily gaining ground with Western backing. Russia's blatant disregard for Ankara's concerns was only the straw that broke the camel's back. The Turkish leadership felt it necessary to show it means business, and shooting down a Russian plane, they thought, might have been a way to show that. But was it the right move? President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he would do it again if he could go back, but he also said we might have reacted differently had we known that the unidentified aircraft was Russian. I'm not sure which statement to believe.

In Turkish, we sometimes say "I am telling this to my daughter with the hope that my daughter-in-law will get the message." People in this part of the world communicate obliquely. What is Turkey's overriding concern in Syria? It is keeping the PKK/PYD in check, plain and simple. Turks are obsessed with this, to the extent that talking about fighting ISIS makes them uncomfortable, not necessarily because they like the group, but because they don't want to overshadow the threat of the PYD. They have not forgotten that the PYD was established by Abdullah Öcalan during his exile as a small Syrian arm of his operations. Thanks to the civil war, the PYD has in some ways surpassed Öcalan's dreams. It has become a governing institution of the Syrian Kurds, and the YPG, its armed wing, has become the main instrument of the Western coalition against ISIL. That means Turkey cannot fight it directly. Meanwhile, Turkey's reconciliation process with its own Kurdish population has come to an abrupt halt. Why? Because the civil war in Syria shifted the balance of power in the Kurds' favor.

Why did Turkey down that Su-24? Because it needed its Western allies to know that it means business, even if it won't hit PYD bases directly. That would not normally be a problem, but the range of responses from Ankara shows that it was not a very calculated step. Rather, it was a product of our tangled feelings toward Kurdish politics, which manifested obliquely in the debris of that plane. Similar to the Mavi Marmara incident, the episode will probably be useful in domestic politics but it will end up disproportionately hurting Turkey's foreign policy.

Ankara must learn to measure its actions based on realities out there on the ground, not its emotional and ideological echo chamber at home. In the case of Syria, this means facing up to our feelings about the Kurds, at home and across the border, once and for all.

[Nov 28, 2015] Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern

Notable quotes:
"... It's no secret by now that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are funding Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq ..."
"... Frida Ghitis says the Syrian conflict "pitted moderates against extremists, and then extremists against ultra-extremists." http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/24/opinions/ghitis-russia-jet-shot-down/index.html So I suppose the United States is now on the side of the "extremists." We certainly would never approve of backing the "ultra-extremists," the way our allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia do. ..."
"... Not Turkmen commander-Turkish ..."
"... So Putin may have to put some of his other goals in the region on the back burner in order to actually wage war on ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups. ..."
"... Putin is right in saying that Turkey, a NATO member, is backing ISIS, not only financially but militarily. For Turkey their main interest is in Syrian Kurds not getting organized, armed, and in control of their own territory. When Turkey says they are fighting ISIS, they are dropping most of the bombs on Syrian Kurds. And they have never respected Iraq borders when attacking Iraqi Kurds. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia is also supporting ISIS, not only because they also defend an extremist Sunni Islam as Wahabbist Saudi Arabia, but also because it is part of their proxy wars against Shia Iran, and Syria is one of the Shia States with Sunni majority. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest supporter of Islamic terrorism. ..."
"... Holland stupidly wants to march on ISIS, but nobody else wants to put troops on the ground. The only ones with troops on the ground fighting ISIS are Syrian army and Kurds. The latter ones are unacceptable to Turkey, so the former ones might become our new ally. ..."
"... Alawites, the core of the Syrian army, are paying a very high price for the war. About a third of their manpower has died in the 5 year war. They only keep fighting because they know they face extermination if they lose the war, whether from Syrian Sunnies or from ISIS. ..."
"... who want higher oil prices might have had their wish granted today after the downing of the russian SU-24 inside syria from a turkish F-16 (you will hear loads of shit in CnnAbcFoxNbcNewYotkTimes…please feel free to complete the alphabet soup here …they are all the SAME! that it was in turkish air space but THAT IS A LIE!!!!) ..."
"... It is your right to believe that Erdogan/Turkey -and they alone- are "brave" enough to shoot down a Russian aircraft while flying OUTSIDE their territory; It is your right to believe that Maidan/Kiev protests and the ousting of Yanukovich happened/grew genuinely from the Ukrainian people; It is your right to believe that the pro-russian rebels shut down the MH17 in Ukraine; It is your right to believe that our army and air force cannot destroy a bunch of white-basketball-shoe-wearing-mid-eval -lunatics after a year of bombing campaign and that we cannot disrupt their tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of barrels of oil per day production/selling which brings them millions of dollars per day in hard currency (…yet somehow russians did it in a month); It is your right to believe that russians are threatening Europe even though we are expanding NATO right at their borders; It is your right to believe that a bunch of illiterate, ugly, smelly morons with rusted AK-47 can defeat France and Belgium; It is your right to believe that: "…they hate us for our freedoms…" and "…our troops are fighting over there to keep us safe over here…" and other "lovely" narratives as such. It is your right! ..."
"... Are you absolutely sure of that? The Russians are saying that's not true, that the plane never entered Turkish air space. Russia's side is presented in this video: https://www.rt.com/news/323369-turkey-downed-russian-jet/ ..."
"... If a person is indeed on a truth-finding mission, is it not incumbent upon that person to listen to what all sides have to say, and then make up one's mind based on the evidence which is presented? ..."
"... RT, for instance, has a short clip of an interview with retired U.S. Airforce general Thomas McInery where he asserts that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned." ..."
"... If what General McInery says is correct - that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned" - then there was plenty of time for Anakra to get Washington's approval before the pre-planned attack occurred. I'm not saying that this happened, only that it is not outside the realm of possiblity. ..."
"... Well as far as I am concerned, President Obama circling the wagons around Turkey hardly qualifies him as being one the brightest lights on the Christmas tree. Obama is attempting to defend the indefensible. Why do you believe that is? ..."
"... It is clear that this was an hostile deliberate act by Turkey against Russia regardless of where that plane was at the moment. Where the plane was is only relevant to see if it was legal or illegal, but the deliberate hostile act remains either case. ..."
"... Turkey doesn't like the way Russia is helping the Syrian government, but they just proved to NATO that they are unreliable and more a liability than a trustworthy ally. This is how wars start, by unjustified escalation. ..."
"... If one watches the RT video I linked above, Erdogan can be heard saying exactly that same thing back in 2012 after Syria shot down a Turkish jet because of an air space violation. Here's what Erdogan said then: ..."
"... But whether the US might have given the green light for such an act, and the potential reasons for such a thing. Well, now that's interesting, despite Ron's insistence that it's absolutely untenable position. I say, very tenable for a country that has invaded and overthrown dozens of governments in just my short lifetime. ..."
"... personally think Ves' comment below about Turkey's desperation about losing their proxies is probably closer to the mark though. I've seen over the past couple decades Turkey has seen itself as a regional player linking the middle east and Europe and global economic hub. ..."
"... Hey Petro, yeah, just on the face of it I didn't see your comment as being that outlandish. the united states has a very very very long history of making moves that seem quite "beyond the pale" ..."
"... To say, if he did, that the US directly said, "shoot a plane down ASAP" is probably unlikely. But Turkey, a member of NATO, might be a little hesitant to take such an action unless it felt that the United States had its back. Now Turkey has been a bit "rogue" in recent years – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/turkey-denies-agreement-open-air-bases-us-isis . I mean the final answer is really above my pay grade, but I think you are beginning to see that there are a lot of moving parts to this equation and I'm beginning to agree with wimbi – can we go back to how much drag there would be on a bomber if it lost its tail section? ..."
"... That Turks are so desperate to stop their proxies in Syria being annihilated within next few months? Shooting down Russian plane is what desperate party does in order to change war dynamics on the ground. ..."
"... Unlike US, Russia is very active attacking oil trucks that smuggle ISIS oil to Turkey. Those trucks belong to a shipping company BMZ that belongs to the son of Erdogan. Russia is causing a personal economic loss to the Erdogan family. ..."
"... The international coalition against Syria and Russia is beginning to crack on the wake of the Paris attacks by ISIS. Turkey doesn't want that to happen. This explains the shooting of the plane and the rushed going of Turkey to NATO to ask for support. It is intended to dynamite any possibility of understanding between US-lead coalition in Syria and Russia against ISIS. Obama has his hands tied, as he needs to use his base in Turkey. ..."
peakoilbarrel.com

Glenn Stehle, 11/24/2015 at 5:34 pm

Opening up natural gas supplies to Turkey and Europe which are not controlled by Russia and its allies? This requires a pipeline across Syria but Assad nixed the deal.

No wonder Saudi Prince…told President Vladmir Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad, it will be "completely" in Saudi Arabia's hands and will "not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports", according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action.

THE GUARDIAN, "Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern"

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/30/syria-chemical-attack-war-intervention-oil-gas-energy-pipelines

Jimmy, 11/24/2015 at 7:55 pm

Something tells me Putin is gonna turn up the dial on Turkeys little Kurdish problem. Putin has a lot of levers to choose from in dealing with Turkey. Whilst Russia does need Turkey perhaps more than Turkey needs Russia they certainly don't need Erdogan.

Watcher, 11/24/2015 at 5:18 pm

btw given these short time periods quoted, you also have to add the seconds req'd for all these alleged warnings.

ZH commenters are saying Turkish PM's son is the primary recipient of ISIS oil flowing thru Turkey. That was motivation, allegedly. Shrug.

I can say one thing for sure, no way in hell there were 10 warnings of this jet in the time frame available.

Jimmy, 11/24/2015 at 8:00 pm

Russia seems to be getting in the way of the Turkish Presidents family business of smuggling ISIS oil. FOX missed it.

http://olympia.gr/2015/11/24/erdogans-son-bilal-erdogan-smuggles-illegal-isiss-oil-russianplane-syria/

Glenn Stehle, 11/25/2015 at 7:18 am

It's no secret by now that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are funding Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq:

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are actively supporting a hardline coalition of Islamist rebels against Bashar al-Assad's regime that includes al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria….

The decision by the two leading allies of the West to back a group in which al-Nusra plays a leading role has alarmed Western governments and is at odds with the US, which is firmly opposed to arming and funding jihadist extremists in Syria's long-running civil war.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-turkey-and-saudi-arabia-shock-western-countries-by-supporting-anti-assad-jihadists-10242747.html

Frida Ghitis says the Syrian conflict "pitted moderates against extremists, and then extremists against ultra-extremists." http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/24/opinions/ghitis-russia-jet-shot-down/index.html

So I suppose the United States is now on the side of the "extremists." We certainly would never approve of backing the "ultra-extremists," the way our allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia do.

twocats,11/25/2015 at 9:28 pm

I thought Russia and US both agreed to start bombing oil shipments. Of course, the US didn't WANT to do that as it weakens their proxy allies. It's an a great game of thrones episode that's for sure.

Opritov Alexandr, 11/25/2015 at 9:25 am

"A Turkmen commander said they shot the pilots."
--–
Not Turkmen commander-Turkish : http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2491068.html#comments

twocats,11/25/2015 at 9:23 pm

I'm calling "completely irrelevant due to the fact that it's irrelevant". Is Turkey at war with Russia? Are they in a direct conflict in any way really? Does ISIS have bombers? So there's absolutely positively no way they could have "mistaken" the bomber for something else. And unless they are ready to declare war directly with Russia, the attack is on the verge of insanity.

I know sovereignty is important and all, and they could certainly buzz and even fire "shots across the bow" pretty easily. If we are disputing between 19 and 10 seconds of air space violations, we are idiots. Geeky idiots, but idiots nonethe less.

Fernando Leanme, 11/26/2015 at 5:06 am

The Turks were defending Turkmen on the Syrian side. Erdogan said so. The Russians may sit down with turkey and concede a portion of Latakia to Turkey. The excuse will be the fact that it's populated by Turkmen. If Turkey agrees and redraws the border it will be huge win for Russia. It will give them the precedent to justify taking over the Crimea and the Donbas.

Glenn Stehle says: 11/25/2015 at 6:49 am

Germany apparently has come to a similar conclusion.

German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said:

This incident shows for the first time that we are to dealing with an actor who is unpredictable according to statements from various parts of the region – that is not Russia, that is Turkey.

https://www.rt.com/news/323240-russia-turkey-warplane-downed/

NATO, however, has closed ranks with Turkey. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance backs Ankara:

We stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our NATO ally.

https://www.rt.com/news/323240-russia-turkey-warplane-downed/

Obama joined NATO in closing ranks with Turkey:

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/plane-shootdown-could-lead-to-nato-conflict-with-russia/

and

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hollande-and-obama-address-isis-threat/

The MSM talking heads are also swinging into action to defend Turkey, arguing that even if the Russian jet was not shot down over Turkey (something an anonymous Pentagon official told Reuters is the case, since video evidence makes further denials by Anakra and Washington unplausible) then Russia still had it coming. Nick Burns, former National Security Council Director for Russian Affairs, charged:

There's an important principle at stake here… Every nation has a right to protect its own borders. And President Obama sided with the Turks today in saying that they have that right. It was a gross violation of international law for the Russians to even fly close to that border…

The Russians may have thought that the Turks weren't serious but they found out today they were.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/analysis-of-russian-plane-shootdown/

This incident should shed light on the fact that neither the great powers (like the US, France or Russia) nor the regional players (like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or Iran) are participating in this conflict to fight a common enemy, ISIS. They are there for other reasons.

Russia, however, is in a tough spot. Pepe Escobar, for instance, noted in Asia Times that Russia has eight times the Islamic extremists living on its soil as does France:

Bajolet tells us that at least 500 French jihadis from "Syraq" might present a threat; compare it with 4,000 in respect to Russia (and that explains Putin's determination to go after all shades of jihadism).
http://www.sott.net/article/306819-Pepe-Escobar-Paris-terror-attacks-who-profits

So Putin may have to put some of his other goals in the region on the back burner in order to actually wage war on ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups.

Javier, 11/25/2015 at 7:37 am

Glenn,

It is a very complex issue as every player has different interests. Putin is right in saying that Turkey, a NATO member, is backing ISIS, not only financially but militarily. For Turkey their main interest is in Syrian Kurds not getting organized, armed, and in control of their own territory. When Turkey says they are fighting ISIS, they are dropping most of the bombs on Syrian Kurds. And they have never respected Iraq borders when attacking Iraqi Kurds.

Saudi Arabia is also supporting ISIS, not only because they also defend an extremist Sunni Islam as Wahabbist Saudi Arabia, but also because it is part of their proxy wars against Shia Iran, and Syria is one of the Shia States with Sunni majority. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest supporter of Islamic terrorism.

The Alawites of Syria (including the al-Assad family) are also happy that ISIS is in Syria. Without them they have no chance of keeping power, but in a three sides war with one of them being unacceptable to Occident, they are no longer looking so bad.

Syrian opposition is the big loser here. They are bombed by Turkey and Russia (different targets) and attacked on land by Alawites and ISIS as each one wants to expand first at their expense.

This is why refugees are coming out in droves now as the war is getting much worse.

Turkey feels pretty safe. NATO has no choice but to close ranks, and the European Union is paying big money to Turkey to keep a lid on the refugee problem, as Spain does with Morocco.

Holland stupidly wants to march on ISIS, but nobody else wants to put troops on the ground. The only ones with troops on the ground fighting ISIS are Syrian army and Kurds. The latter ones are unacceptable to Turkey, so the former ones might become our new ally.

Alawites, the core of the Syrian army, are paying a very high price for the war. About a third of their manpower has died in the 5 year war. They only keep fighting because they know they face extermination if they lose the war, whether from Syrian Sunnies or from ISIS.

Ves, 11/25/2015 at 8:40 am

Javier,
You got all ingredients right but all your conclusions are not correct.

Paulo, 11/26/2015 at 10:33 am

I wonder what Obama will say about the right of a country to shoot down an aircraft for airspace violation….when one of theirs gets shot down over the Spratleys by China?

Petro, 11/24/2015 at 4:04 pm

A bit off topic Ron, but maybe not by much:

-Shallow Sand et al.

who want higher oil prices might have had their wish granted today after the downing of the russian SU-24 inside syria from a turkish F-16 (you will hear loads of shit in CnnAbcFoxNbcNewYotkTimes…please feel free to complete the alphabet soup here …they are all the SAME! that it was in turkish air space but THAT IS A LIE!!!!)

Let us ALL hope and pray that Putin does not take this at face value (Act of WAR!….which indeed is….probably ordered by your and my tax dollars in DC)….for if He does, oil prices are going to be the last thing we have to worry about, dear Shallow Sand!!!!

Be well,

Petro

P.S.: sorry for the off topic comment Ron and thank you for the post!

Ron Patterson , 11/24/2015 at 5:17 pm

(Act of WAR!….which indeed is….probably ordered by your and my tax dollars in DC)…

Petro, that that the shooting down of this Russian plane was probably ordered by the President, or the Pentagon, is the most ignorant thing I have ever read on this blog. Any goddamn fool with half a brain would know better than that.

Sorry for the strong language but when someone posts something so utterly stupid just to take a swipe at our President, or government, really pisses me off.

That being said, I agree that Turkey shooting down that Russian plane was a very stupid and dangerous thing for Turkey to do. But to say such action was ordered by the US is beyond belief.

Petro, 11/24/2015 at 10:45 pm

Dear Ron,

First, I would like to apologize for being caught in your "cross-hairs" as the result of my unorthodox comment. It will not happen again!

Second, I genuinely respect the tremendous amount of time and information with which you so generously enable all of us frequenting this great forum each and every week! As I have mentioned on numerous comments of mine here, I feel lucky and empowered every time I read one of your well written "mind-teasers".
I truly do!
-For those reasons (and a couple of others) I will not engage on answering:
"…is the most ignorant thing I have ever read on this blog. Any goddamn fool with half a brain would know better than that…."
and
"…when someone posts something so utterly stupid…".

I would sincerely hope however, that in this forum we refrain from using word concoctions such as : "goddamn fool", "utterly stupid", "most ignorant thing I have ever read" aimed at the PERSONAL level – even when scientifically and logically (with regard to this blog) they are "deserved"

– i.e. when Peter writes "If 2015 is the peak Oil year, then it is the $45 per barrel peak.

This should give people pause for thought. How on earth can we really be at peak oil, with prices this low. We cannot."

-or RDG writes "Peak Oil is irrelevant because the world's methane potential is underestimated…"

-or Arceus writes"I suspect if the Saudis could double their production to 20 million boepd they could almost double their market share. The only downside would be oil would likely be selling at 20 dollars per barrel."

-to which you (to my delight-I might add) replied:

"That's the funniest thing I have read in weeks."

It is your right to believe that Erdogan/Turkey -and they alone- are "brave" enough to shoot down a Russian aircraft while flying OUTSIDE their territory;
It is your right to believe that Maidan/Kiev protests and the ousting of Yanukovich happened/grew genuinely from the Ukrainian people;
It is your right to believe that the pro-russian rebels shut down the MH17 in Ukraine;
It is your right to believe that our army and air force cannot destroy a bunch of white-basketball-shoe-wearing-mid-eval -lunatics after a year of bombing campaign and that we cannot disrupt their tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of barrels of oil per day production/selling which brings them millions of dollars per day in hard currency (…yet somehow russians did it in a month);
It is your right to believe that russians are threatening Europe even though we are expanding NATO right at their borders;
It is your right to believe that a bunch of illiterate, ugly, smelly morons with rusted AK-47 can defeat France and Belgium;
It is your right to believe that: "…they hate us for our freedoms…" and "…our troops are fighting over there to keep us safe over here…" and other "lovely" narratives as such.
It is your right!

What I am trying to suggest however, is that there is quite a bit of very logical and credible evidence that points to other versions of the "truth".
…and NO!
I do not follow idiots akin to Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh…, nor do I wear a tin foil hat.
You say: "…our President, or government…"
I say that the LAST president to be considered truly OURS was JFK.
How did we go from Jefferson/Adams/Payne/…..JFK to ReaganBushClintonBushWO and worse- seriously considering idiots like TrumpHillarious – is beyond me and only Heavens know (I guess A.Bartlet applies even with regard to "worse" and "worse-er" and "worse-rer-rer" people).
What is really done in our name and with our money dear Ron, shall give a "heart attack" to us all …very soon.

In any case, I tried to follow up with Shallow since he was worried about oil prices and I have replied to him (and others) about that on several previous comments.

Again, I apologize for my unorthodox comment and for any unintentional insult.

Be well,

Petro

Ron Patterson, 11/25/2015 at 6:59 am

Petro, I stand by my comment. The plane was in Turkish air space for seconds. If you think someone in Washington said "shoot the goddamn thing down" then you are a fool.

There was not time to notify anyone except Turkish officials on the ground. Turkey does not take orders from Washington.

Nothing else going on in France, Belgium or anywhere else had anything to do with what I wrote or what I was replying to. You simply saw an opportunity to blame the US government for something they very obviously had nothing to do with. I would have agreed with everything you wrote in that one post had you not took the opportunity to blame it on Washington. If you are going to post on this blog then you have the obligation to use a little common sense.

Glenn Stehle, 11/25/2015 at 8:39 am

Ron Patterson said:

The plane was in Turkish air space for seconds.

Are you absolutely sure of that? The Russians are saying that's not true, that the plane never entered Turkish air space. Russia's side is presented in this video: https://www.rt.com/news/323369-turkey-downed-russian-jet/

If a person is indeed on a truth-finding mission, is it not incumbent upon that person to listen to what all sides have to say, and then make up one's mind based on the evidence which is presented?

RT, for instance, has a short clip of an interview with retired U.S. Airforce general Thomas McInery where he asserts that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned."

One could probably do no better than to heed the advice which Thomas Jefferson gave his nephew in a letter dated August 10, 1787:

[S]hake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear….

Caelan MacIntyre, 11/25/2015 at 8:52 am

The Fog of War

Ron Patterson, 11/25/2015 at 8:59 am

Hey, that was not my point. My point was that the shoot down was not ordered by the US Government in Washington.

Shooting down that Russian warplane was an extremely stupid thing for Turkey to do. But what is even more stupid is to say that the shoot down was ordered by Washington.

Glenn Stehle, 11/25/2015 at 11:37 am

Ron,

I was referring to your argument:

The plane was in Turkish air space for seconds. If you think someone in Washington said "shoot the goddamn thing down" then you are a fool.

If what General McInery says is correct - that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned" - then there was plenty of time for Anakra to get Washington's approval before the pre-planned attack occurred. I'm not saying that this happened, only that it is not outside the realm of possiblity.

I have a feeling like these cat-and-mouse games between pilots probably go on continuously during conflict situations. However, I have no experience in these matters, and oddly enough, the only fighter pilot I've ever known in my entire life was transgendered:

I also worked for "T" vets inclusion in GLBVA during those years and VA support of "T" vets (which finally happened recently) – I'm a retired USAF Major and Command Pilot. During the '90s I was a rather prolific writer; although, quite a bit of it is probably lost to transgender antiquity. I've been lecturing on gender, gender roles, and the "T" topic at Trinity University for the past 16 years.

http://research.cristanwilliams.com/2012/03/09/tere-fredrickson-interview/

Ron Patterson, 11/25/2015 at 12:08 pm

there was plenty of time for Anakra to get Washington's approval before the pre-planned attack occurred. I'm not saying that this happened, only that it is not outside the realm of possiblity.

Goddammit, will the stupid shit never stop. It is just down in the dirt stupid to suggest that the President would want such a thing. It could lead to the break-up of NATO. Also, the very idea that Turkey would cot-tow to Washington's wishes is also stupid.

To shoot this plane down was the stupidest thing Turkey could possibly do. But a lot stupider things have been done by Middle East Islamic rulers causing things to get a lot worse. But to suggest that our President is just as stupid is beyond the pale. Can you guys just not use a little common sense?

To suggest that Washington was behind this smacks of a conspiracy theory. I think all conspiracy theorists have a screw loose.

Glenn Stehle, 11/25/2015 at 4:06 pm

Ron,

Well as far as I am concerned, President Obama circling the wagons around Turkey hardly qualifies him as being one the brightest lights on the Christmas tree. Obama is attempting to defend the indefensible. Why do you believe that is?

And you don't believe that reinforces the appearance of impropriety, of him being complicit in Turkey's shooting down the plane? Talk about bad optics!

Mark Ames minces no words:

Russia will just have to play and replay the shooting down of its jet, and the Syrian rebels gloating over the dead pilots, to see Putin's already sky-high popularity ratings push even higher….

Point being: this is working out wonderfully for Putin.

In fact, if there's any conspiracy I can make sense of with what's gone on over the past year and a half, it's that anti-Russia neocons and their pals have been doing everything possible to increase Putin's popularity and power at home, in order to build him up as an even more plausible villain over here. Or maybe they're straight-up Putin moles. But that of course gives everyone, especially these idiots, too much credit.

https://pando.com/2015/11/24/turkey-shoots-down-russian-plane-wars-have-funny-way-taking-life-their-own/eba0108e463df65f823e3f435b3eead1d41c6e25/

Ron Patterson, 11/25/2015 at 5:05 pm

Glenn, the idea that Obama ordered the shooting down the Russian plane is pure ignorance, stupidity gone to seed. I will not lower myself by arguing such an utterly stupid scenario.

One more point. This is not a conspiracy theory website. We do not discuss conspiracy theories here.

Bye now.

twocats, 11/26/2015 at 12:08 am

What if this conversation happened:

Turkey, "A lot of recent missions by Russia has put them very close to our borders if not outright in our airspace. What do you want us to do."

White House, "You have the right to defend the sovereignty of your airspace by any means you deem necessary. We feel that Russia is being very reckless in their choice of targets and are endangering stability in the area."

NATO, "You do realize that if Turkey provokes Russia it could draw us directly into the conflict."

White House, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

I mean, if you can't see some version of the above dialogue happening then all I can say to you that you'll understand is, "God Bless America, the greatest country that ever existed."

Javier, 11/25/2015 at 9:09 am

Glenn,

Does it really matter? There is international consensus that planes are not shot down for briefly entering foreign airspace without permit when the nations are not belligerent. Airspace is not clearly delimited up in the air and pilots are often too busy to check.

It is clear that this was an hostile deliberate act by Turkey against Russia regardless of where that plane was at the moment. Where the plane was is only relevant to see if it was legal or illegal, but the deliberate hostile act remains either case.

To me it looks like the Russian plane was flying in circles and was passing over a small tip (~2 km wide) of Turkish territory each time. This was used as an excuse to shoot down the plane in what cannot be claimed as a self-defense act, but clearly a hostile warning.

Turkey doesn't like the way Russia is helping the Syrian government, but they just proved to NATO that they are unreliable and more a liability than a trustworthy ally. This is how wars start, by unjustified escalation.

Ron Patterson, 11/25/2015 at 9:26 am

This time I agree 100% with Javier's assessment of the situation.

Glenn Stehle, 11/25/2015 at 11:02 am

Javier said:

There is international consensus that planes are not shot down for briefly entering foreign airspace without permit when the nations are not belligerent. Airspace is not clearly delimited up in the air and pilots are often too busy to check.

If one watches the RT video I linked above, Erdogan can be heard saying exactly that same thing back in 2012 after Syria shot down a Turkish jet because of an air space violation. Here's what Erdogan said then:

A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack.

https://www.rt.com/news/323369-turkey-downed-russian-jet/

Now, however, the Ministry of Truth in Washington, Anakra and Brussels is saying just the opposite.

Ves, 11/25/2015 at 11:06 am

Blowback. Sinking fast due to their own narrative.

Javier, 11/25/2015 at 11:56 am

Hahahaaa, that's a good one.

Politicians, or the art of defending one thing and the opposite without any blush.

twocats, 11/26/2015 at 12:02 am

fuck an A glen, you're back to the minutiae of that!! stop derailing these conversations about whether or not the plane was in airspace of turkey. I mean really does it matter?! 1km, 40 km, I don't know, irrelevant.

But whether the US might have given the green light for such an act, and the potential reasons for such a thing. Well, now that's interesting, despite Ron's insistence that it's absolutely untenable position. I say, very tenable for a country that has invaded and overthrown dozens of governments in just my short lifetime.

I personally think Ves' comment below about Turkey's desperation about losing their proxies is probably closer to the mark though. I've seen over the past couple decades Turkey has seen itself as a regional player linking the middle east and Europe and global economic hub.

Or it could just be the pilot took the wrong pills getting into the cockpit.

Petreo, 11/25/2015 at 11:04 pm

"If you are going to post on this blog then you have the obligation to use a little common sense."

Dear Ron,
I clearly was!
Not just a little, but a lot of common sense.
In my comment to Shallow I wrote: "…sorry for the off topic comment Ron…"
In my second comment to you I wrote: "…First, I would like to apologize for being caught in your "cross-hairs" as the result of my unorthodox comment.
It will not happen again!…"

I did that, for I did not want to remind you of our first exchange on this site -in which you got a taste of how good I am at "shooting back" (just as Erdogan shall taste how good Putin is at shooting back …very soon!)
-Yet, you continued with your hysterical, inflammatory bursting!
I am not certain what pricked your "bubble" -holiday shopping not going well, perhaps – my condolences!
In any event, you GROSSLY misunderstood and misrepresented what I wrote.
Nowhere did I write that: " …ourPresident ordered: shoot the goddamn thing down…" – as you so eloquently put it.
Let me repeat to you what I wrote (short term amnesia – especially when one is enraged – is a bitch!):
"….probably ordered by your and my tax dollars in DC…".

-What I was trying to convey (obviously fruitlessly!) was that even though Erdogan/Turks pulled the trigger (or maybe you prefer: "pushed the button") and shot the SU24 down, our un-Kosherly dumb (at the very best!) policies for the last 15 years (and maybe longer!) in the region (and wider), have GREATLY empowered "Erdogan" types.
Key word is "at the very best" here, for there is unmistakable and unambiguous evidence to suggest the other extreme of that spectrum (hint: intent)!

-Whether you consider a senior senator (i.e.McCain) posing with known international criminal be-headers, or viceSercretaryOfState (i.e.V.Nuland) hand picking puppets for the head of KievGovrmt after orchestrating, directing and financing a CLASSIC "coup d'etat" to overthrow the previous govmt there, part of ourGovrmt, or NOT – is your business.
However, that does not give you the moral and social (let alone the common sense one!) right to engage in hysterical, inflammatory and wildly accusational burstings against somebody – even on your blog site!
If that is your idea of patriotism, you surely missed it!

-Yes!
It was theTurks who shot down theRussian aircraft – not us!
But to put it in a historical context, SIMPLER for you to understand:
it was NOT Great Britain, France and US (among others) that in 1933 made Adolf Hitler Reich Chancellor;
it was the Germans – whether they be German elites, or German plebes!

Behavior(s) and decisions by political and economical/financial leaders in those Countries however, GREATLY facilitated Hitler's ascend to power!
In December 1938, less than 10 months before starting the carnage that killed 100 million people worldwide , Hitler was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year".

I would strongly suggest to you sources other than NYT and Fox for your world news updates – you would be enlightened!
If you do not want me to comment here and this is personal, be a man and say so without wild explosions of nastiness!
We are all adults here (one can only hope!) and can take it.
And stop throwing the "conspiracy" label around, as well!
Makes you sound very foolish and brainwashed.

-Have a good Thanksgiving tomorrow and maybe/hopefully by Friday feel more relaxed…

Be well,

Petro

twocats, 11/26/2015 at 12:50 am

Hey Petro, yeah, just on the face of it I didn't see your comment as being that outlandish. the united states has a very very very long history of making moves that seem quite "beyond the pale"

http://www.amazon.com/KILLING-HOPE-William-Blum/dp/B007K517VE

in this specific case, ron's point that this move seems really really stupid does ring true for me. but i think we need to wait a little longer and see how it plays out to know for sure.

Ron Patterson, 11/26/2015 at 8:00 am

Back in 2010 I was living in Pensacola, FL. Right after the Deep Water Horizon disaster everyone was pointing the finger, blaming somebody. And there was a lot of blame to go around but I met several folks here that blamed Obama. Yes, they said, Obama planned and ordered the whole disaster. Just why he would order such a thing no one seemed to know. A few came up with a reason, but no one had the same reason as the other nut cases.

I see the same thing in almost every other disaster throughout the world, "Obama planned and ordered the whole disaster". So whenever I see someone blaming Obama, or Washington, for this or that disaster, it really pisses me off.

And like the other nut cases that blamed Obama for the Macondo disaster, they cannot come up with a reason that Obama would do such a thing, but he is the US president and they hate everything that comes out of Washington so he must have been somehow responsible.

Some people never ever miss a chance to blame Obama, or Washington, for some evil act especially when it cannot be proven otherwise.

twocats, 11/26/2015 at 11:45 am

Yep I'll definitely give you the anti-Washington, and vehement anti-Obama thing (gotta be a lot of rascism wrapped up in that). But I'm assuming you are aware of the fairly well known shenanigans of the United States in terms of intervening and influencing countries in order to make terrible terrible things happen:

1) training Saddam to help overthrow Qasim which led to, well Saddam
2) overhthrowing Mossadeg to install Shah which led to Iranian Revolution
3) giving Saddam chemical weapons to kill 100s thousands of Iranians
4) training Al-Qaeda to fight Russia in Afghanistan, and latter trained again to fight in Kosovo
5) Backed wahabi tribe of Saud and backed their play for power in Arabian penninsula which led to of course Saudi Arabia, despised totalitarian regime which regularly beheads and then crucifies people.

i mean i could go on for hours. so the idea that United States hinted to Turkey that it wouldn't be upset if it 1) defended its border, 2) defended Turkmen majority cities on Syrian side (thanks Fernando), these are not such crazy notions. (see article from oriental review – http://orientalreview.org/2015/11/25/whys-the-us-hanging-turkey-out-to-dry/)

twocats, 11/26/2015 at 12:00 pm

and just for giggles here is a more direct corollary

http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/09/wikileaks-april-glaspie-and-saddam-hussein/

Petro's post was a little long and poorly written so i didn't read it all and he may have been overstating it.

To say, if he did, that the US directly said, "shoot a plane down ASAP" is probably unlikely. But Turkey, a member of NATO, might be a little hesitant to take such an action unless it felt that the United States had its back. Now Turkey has been a bit "rogue" in recent years – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/turkey-denies-agreement-open-air-bases-us-isis. I mean the final answer is really above my pay grade, but I think you are beginning to see that there are a lot of moving parts to this equation and I'm beginning to agree with wimbi – can we go back to how much drag there would be on a bomber if it lost its tail section?

Ron Patterson, 11/26/2015 at 12:05 pm

but I think you are beginning to see that there are a lot of moving parts to this equation

I am beginning to see there is a lot of bullshit in this equation and it is getting deeper and deeper. As I said, it is very easy to throw out bullshit when it cannot be proven otherwise. You can seem like a master of knowledge when all you really are is a master of bullshit.

Reply

AlexS, 11/25/2015 at 7:37 am

Russian jet hit inside Syria after incursion into Turkey: U.S. official

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/25/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-impact-idUSKBN0TE04M20151125

The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said that assessment was based on detection of the heat signature of the jet.
---------------

Russia to move S-400 air defense system to Syria - defense minister

http://tass.ru/en/defense/839109

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Russia will move its air defense system S-400 Triumf to the Hmeimim air base in Syria, accommodating its air and space group, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Wednesday.
The Russian General Staff has warned that Russia will be destroying all potentially dangerous targets over Syria and moved towards the Syrian shores its guided missile cruiser The Moskva armed with the Fort system (the sea-launched equivalent of S-300).
-----------------–
Second pilot of downed Su-24 jet safe, brought to Russian base - Russian defense minister

http://tass.ru/en/defense/839080

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The second pilot of the Su-24 bomber downed by Turkey has been rescued by the Russian and Syrian forces and is safe and sound, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Wednesday.
"The operation ended successfully. The pilot has been taken to our base. Safe and sound," Shoigu said.
He said the rescue operation lasted for 12 hours.
-------------------–

Turkey's Erdogan says does not want escalation after Russian jet downed

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/25/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-erdogan-idUSKBN0TE0QT20151125

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey did not want any escalation after it shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border, saying it had simply acted to defend its own security and the "rights of our brothers" in Syria.
But while neither side has shown any interest in a military escalation, Russia has made clear it will exact economic revenge through trade and tourism. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that important joint projects could be canceled and Turkish firms could lose Russian market share.
Increased tensions could have significant economic and political repercussions which are in neither Moscow nor Ankara's interests, analysts warned. But both Putin and Erdogan are strong-willed leaders ill-disposed to being challenged.

"If Erdogan becomes involved a cycle of violence, FDI (foreign direct investment), tourism, and relations with the EU and U.S. will all be in jeopardy," risk analysis firm Eurasia Group said in a note.
"Our bet is that the episode will not escalate … National interest will probably prevail over emotion, but given the players, that's not a sure bet."
Turkey imports almost all of its energy from Russia, including 60 percent of its gas and 35 percent of its oil. Russia's state Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) is due to build Turkey's first nuclear power station, a $20 billion project, while plans are on the table for a gas pipeline from Russia known as TurkStream.
Turkish building and beverage companies also have significant interests in Russia.
Shares in Enka Insaat, which has construction projects in Russia and two power plants in Turkey using Russian gas, fell for a second day on Wednesday. Brewer Anadolu Efes, which has six breweries in Russia and controls around 14 percent of the market, also saw its shares fall on Tuesday.
Russians are second only to Germans in terms of the numbers visiting Turkey, bringing in an estimated $4 billion a year in tourism revenues. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday advised them not to visit and one of Russia's largest tour operators to the country said it would temporarily suspend sales of trips.

Javier, 11/25/2015 at 8:52 am

Interesting, Alex,

Turkish might have built themselves a no-fly zone at their Syrian border. Russians have Syrian permit to fly their space, while Turkish have not. After what has happened any Turkish plane over Syrian space can be considered a dangerous target by the Russians and shot down.

I don't understand Turkish actions. If it was a military decision from some commander, they should have tried to apologize, and not run to NATO for cover. If it was a presidential decision, I fail to see what good can come from it for Turkey.

Anyway, I hope those Russian tourists going to Egypt or Turkey can find some solace in Spain [grin].

Ves, 11/25/2015 at 11:18 am

Javier: " I don't understand Turkish actions."

It is very obvious what they want. They want NATO boots on the ground. Do you want to go? Do you know any of Germans that want to go? Greeks, Italians? There are no takers in Europe. Even Obama is not biting.

Javier, 11/25/2015 at 12:13 pm

I've never been in favor of bombing other countries, much less of sending troops.

NATO is a defensive pact in theory. I could understand NATO troops in Turkey if invaded by Russia, but not NATO troops in Syria because Turkey shoots down Russian planes. And I don't believe Turkey is trying to trigger a Russian aggression. Too much to lose.

Your words still don't make sense to me.

Ves, 11/25/2015 at 12:23 pm

What part does not make sense?

That Turks are so desperate to stop their proxies in Syria being annihilated within next few months? Shooting down Russian plane is what desperate party does in order to change war dynamics on the ground.

Javier, 11/26/2015 at 5:10 am

Found a much better explanation than yours over at Euan Mearn's blog in a Syrian drought article in the comments.

Unlike US, Russia is very active attacking oil trucks that smuggle ISIS oil to Turkey. Those trucks belong to a shipping company BMZ that belongs to the son of Erdogan. Russia is causing a personal economic loss to the Erdogan family.

The international coalition against Syria and Russia is beginning to crack on the wake of the Paris attacks by ISIS. Turkey doesn't want that to happen.

This explains the shooting of the plane and the rushed going of Turkey to NATO to ask for support. It is intended to dynamite any possibility of understanding between US-lead coalition in Syria and Russia against ISIS. Obama has his hands tied, as he needs to use his base in Turkey.

Putin is probably too smart to respond. He'll find another way. Perhaps supporting Kurds.

Ves, 11/26/2015 at 8:22 am

Javier,
Drought? So we have all armadas of the world, including Lichenstain's one plane, circling Middle East for the last 30 years because of – drought??!!!
No wonder you believe that one of the stated EU goals is for everybody to hold hands and sing Kumbaya at Eurovison contest. Javier, it's always having been delusions of power, control and mucho dinero that caused the conflict- not drought.

Glenn Stehle, 11/26/2015 at 10:27 am

https://twitter.com/ijattala/status/669389283225026560?refsrc=email&s=11

Ves, 11/26/2015 at 10:54 am

Glenn,
that is exactly what explained to Javier. Cutting the oil line for the finance of the Turkish proxies. Once the money line is cut even the proxies don't fight for free.

Javier, 11/26/2015 at 11:33 am

Ves

Did I say anything about drought being related to the conflict?
I just pointed where I got the information.

You seem to like to engage in straw man arguments. Please continue, don't let yourself be bothered by reality.

Ves, 11/26/2015 at 1:48 pm

Javier said: "Found a much better explanation than yours over at Euan Mearn's blog in a Syrian drought article "

I am sorry but I don't know who is Euarn Mearn's and what Syrian drought article has to do with all this. Leave a link or something.

Javier, 11/26/2015 at 2:06 pm

Ves,

Euan Mearns is a frequent visitor and commenter in this blog. He was also a frequent contributor of The Oil Drumm. He has a very good blog on Energy and also some Climate. If you just google his name you get there. The link to the article is this:
http://euanmearns.com/drought-climate-war-terrorism-and-syria/
The information I posted was in one of the comments.
The article actually argues against the climate change-Syrian war-ISIS connection that has appeared in some media.

Ves, 11/26/2015 at 3:25 pm

Thanks Javier. Okey with that little bit of info from you I know what to expect when I click on that link. I will read it.

You have to understand that I limit my reading to only few limited sources just not to corrupt my mind. You see there are expert internet oil "analysts" who claim that US is oil exporter so there are very dangerous stuff out there in cyber space.

Ves, 11/26/2015 at 9:33 pm

Javier,
I agree with article but I am floored that he actually spent all that energy debunking that nonsense that drought caused all this. Who armed all these people, who financed illegal oil operations, where thousands oil tankers are from, why after 4 years of civil war refugees just suddenly start flowing to Europe this summer, so someone let them purposely go, who is blackmailing Europe?

twocats, 11/26/2015 at 2:59 am

the most ignorant, craziest, stupidest, outrageously reasonably explained plausible fitting into global and regional goals possible thing that's ever been said on this blog:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/guest-post-why-us-hanging-turkey-out-dry

[Nov 28, 2015] Experts Turkey might be tried for financing ISIL, arms trafficking

www.todayszaman.com
Russia's pledge to take the issue of Turkey's alleged financing of terrorist factions within Syria -- such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) -- to the United Nations after Turkey recently shot down its jet, has stirred speculation that Turkey could be tried in international courts.

Tensions between Turkey and Russia have been running amok over the past few days, as on Tuesday NATO's second largest army the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) downed a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border, after repeatedly warning it over airspace violations.

Moscow blames Turkey and has set about bolstering its military presence in the region, dispatching several S-400 air defense systems to bolster its Khmeimim air base in Syria's Latakia province. The Kremlin is also determined to punish its one-time friend with economic sanctions such as refusing to buy poultry from Turkey and ordering Russian tourists not to visit the country.

However, the biggest damage Turkey may incur in the fallout of the fallen jet may come after the statements made by Russian leaders, which claim that they will take the issue of ISIL's financial avenues to the UN Security Council -- and that may cause Turkey a much-unneeded headache.

President Vladimir Putin called the downing of the jet a stab in the back administered by "the accomplices of terrorists," referring to Turkey and ISIL.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed Putin, when he said on Wednesday that the Turkish action came after Russian planes successfully targeted the oil infrastructure used by ISIL.

More importantly, Lavrov alleged that Turkey benefited from the oil trade and said Russia will ask the UN Security Council to examine information on how terrorists are financed.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan defied those claims on Thursday saying, "Those who claim we [AK Party] have brought petrol from Daesh [the Arabic term for ISIL], are required to prove their claims, otherwise I will call them [Russian leaders] slanderers."

This is not the first time Turkey has been accused of intermediating ISIL's oil. In July a senior Western official claimed that information gathered at the compound of Abu Sayyaf, ISIL's officer responsible for oil smuggling operations, pointed to high-level contacts between Turkish officials and high-ranking ISIL members, according to a report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper.

Turkey, which only started to take an active part in the international coalition against ISIL, reluctantly, and after two years, has also been accused of turning a blind eye to the crossing of militants into Syria to join ISIL, if not openly facilitating militants' border crossings to join ISIL in Syria.

While giving voice to veiled criticisms of Turkey's dubious dealings with ISIL, Western officials had refrained, until very recently, from directly critiquing Turkish authorities. Russia's recent disclosures indicate that Turkey may be the target of international scrutiny.

Law professor gives al-Bashir example, says trial of Turkey ruler may be possible in future

Günal Kurşun, a professor of criminal law and the president of the Association for Human Rights Agenda, maintained that the current administration could only be tried in international tribunals if and when a new administration comes along and wants to clear the name of the country.

Kurşun gave the example of Omar al-Bashir, the internationally ostracized leader of Sudan, who is currently being tried on 10 counts of crime, including five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes, and three counts of genocide according to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The law professor added that even though the legal aspects of Turkey's rulers such as Erdoğan being tried in the ICC may not be certain, the political ramifications will be far reaching, even as far as to confine the rulers within Turkey by way of entry restrictions to other countries.

He explained to Today's Zaman that there are three parties that can bring up a court case in the ICC against an individual.

To begin with, the prosecutor of the ICC can initiate an investigation, as can a state party to the Rome statute and also the UN Security Council (UNSC) may refer investigations to the ICC, acting to address a threat to international peace and security.

There are four instances where individuals can be tried at the ICC. Those are on charges of genocide, aggression, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Kurşun said it is possible for the UNSC to ascertain Turkey as aiding ISIL, which is held as an international terrorist organization, but added that without the cooperation of the member state, not much could be done in terms of the investigation.

Erdoğan's tacit acknowledgment of weapons filled trucks en-route Syria

Also, the question of whether President Erdoğan should be tried at the (ICC) as an individual stemming from allegations that he had knowledge of, if not actively facilitated, the transfer of weapons-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria, claimed by many to be ISIL.

The issue of Turkey's transportation of arms to Syria came to the fore early in 2014, when an anonymous tip led to the search of a number of trucks on the suspicion of weapons smuggling. It was later discovered that the vehicles where actually en route to Syria and belonged to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

The first stop-and-search took place in Hatay province on Jan. 1, 2014. Another anonymous tip led to three more trucks being intercepted in Turkey's southern Adana province on Jan. 19, 2014.

Erdoğan who was prime minister at the time, said in a TV program immediately after the search of the trucks became public that they were carrying aid supplies to Turkmens in Syria. On the program, Erdoğan appeared to be particularly angry with the prosecutor for having demanded the search of the trucks to be recorded on video and described the search as "treason."

However, Syrian-Turkmen Assembly Vice Chairman Hussein al-Abdullah said in January 2014 no trucks carrying aid had arrived from Turkey.

Then, this Tuesday, Erdoğan seemingly validated claims that the Turkish government was sending weapon-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria by sarcastically asking, "So what if MİT trucks were filled with weapons?"

Speaking to a room full of teachers on Tuesday gathered for Teachers' Day, Erdoğan said, "You know of the treason regarding MİT trucks, don't you? So what if there were weapons in them? I believe that our people will not forgive those who sabotaged this support."

In May, Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of the Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) said in an election rally in the run up to the June 7 general election; "They [the AK Party and Erdoğan] have committed many crimes. They have committed grave sins domestically and internationally, and now there is the possibility that they may be tried at the ICC."

Former ECtHR judge says US-Nicaragua case sets precedent

Rıza Türmen, a former judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and one of Turkey's leading expert in international law, told Today's Zaman that a powerful country like the United States was in the past tried and found guilty by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of aiding and abetting militants in the Central American country of Nicaragua, and that Turkey is no exception.

In 1984, the hitherto relatively unknown country of Nicaragua took the US to the ICJ on the ground that it was responsible for illegal military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua between 1981 and 1984.

In April 1981, US terminated aid to Nicaragua and in September 1981, according to Nicaragua, the United States "decided to plan and undertake activities directed against Nicaragua."

The armed opposition to the new Nicaraguan government was mainly conducted by the Fuerza Democratica Nicaragüense (FDN) and Alianza Revolucionaria Democratica (ARDE). Initial US support to these groups fighting against the Nicaraguan government (called "contras") was covert.

"Turkey does not have the right to intervene in the affairs of another state. However, if the trucks of weapons may be true, as the President [Erdoğan] said, then Turkey will have intervened in the internal affairs of another country," Türmen said.

He added that the UN Security Council is able to initiate the investigations at the ICC, which tries individuals who are charged with committing crime against humanity rather than countries, such as the example with Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.

The former judge did note however that Turkey does not recognize the ICC and that it was very unlikely for Erdoğan to be tried there, but added that even being uttered in the same breath as such allegations would be enough to tarnish the reputation of any leader in the international forum.

Professor: Erdoğan hoped to lead bloc of countries from Tunisia to Syria

According to Baskın Oran, a professor at Ankara University's Faculty of Political Sciences, Erdoğan hoped, after the Arab Spring revolts began in 2011, to lead a bloc of countries, ranging from Tunisia to Syria, all headed by Islamist Muslim Brotherhood governments.

Oran wrote in a June article that when Erdoğan saw "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was blocking this dream; [he] gave orders that arms were to be sent to opposition forces in Syria with the intent of helping to topple Assad."

Oran stated that in sending those weapons, the Erdoğan government clearly violated the United Nations General Assembly's Resolution 2,625 made on Oct. 24, 1970.

Resolution 2,625 clearly reads that "no State shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another State."

Hariri Tribunal set up UN Security Council serves as reminder

In 2005 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1,595, to establish a commission to assist Lebanese authorities in their investigation of the assassination of former Prime Minister Refik Hariri in Beirut, which took place on Feb. 14, 2005.

Under the resolution, the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) was formed and investigated the assassination for four years, but was later superseded by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), also referred to as the Hariri Tribunal, in March 2009.

The United Nations investigation initially implicated high-level Lebanese and Syrian security officers in Hariri's killing, according to the online news portal gulfnews.com. Arrest warrants were issued by the tribunal, demanding the arrests of four Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists.

[Nov 28, 2015] The Iraqi Pissing Match - John Kiriakou on RAI (4-10)

therealnews.com
JAY: It's crazy. There's an interview with Lyndon Johnson near the end of his presidency in the Vietnam War, and he's asked, why do you keep continuing this? What is this about? And he actually, apparently, pulls down his fly and brings out his organ--as this is how it's described by one of his biographers--and he says, this is what it's about.

KIRIAKOU: I believe that story.

JAY: At the time, how much do you understand that's what it's about, that it's just a pissing match?

KIRIAKOU: I did understand it, and I grew frustrated with it. I grew frustrated with American policy toward Iraq and decided I've got to do something completely different. And that's when I began looking for new job.

JAY: Within the CIA

KIRIAKOU: Within the CIA

JAY: And you go to Greece.

KIRIAKOU: Well, there was a position advertised that called for either a Greek or Arabic speaker. And it turned out that at the time--.

JAY: You know what? I'm sorry. I want to go back to where you said you can believe the Johnson story.

Alright. So you're a professional analyst. You're analyzing what's going on in Iraq, what should be done. I mean, it sounds like you're coming to the conclusion, like, all of this is unnecessary in terms of real U.S. national interest. You're saying this is essentially a pissing match. I mean, and I don't think we should make that too banal. What I mean by that: it isn't just a personality thing. I think ingrained in U.S. foreign policy is this, that we must make everyone believe we are stronger than they are. And it's sort of like a loan shark. I said this in another interview. If you let someone get away with not paying back their interest that week, then everyone else isn't going to pay back. That's the theory. So you've got to break some knees, and if somebody's really defiant, for that, for its own sake, you have to prove you can put that person in their place.

But, as an analyst, you can see this isn't good foreign policy.

KIRIAKOU: No, it was quite bad foreign policy. It was a waste of resources and people were getting killed. But at the same time, it goes beyond the president and the State Department and the Defense Department. You have congressional leaders hammering the president for being weak on Iraq and to bomb more and to fight harder and to make sure that Saddam is humiliated. And so you have this spiral of bad policy that you just can't get out of.

JAY: And how much do you think that for certain sectors of the economy--'cause it's certainly not true for all of the economy, but if you're in fossil fuels or if you're in military production and associated high tech, war's damn good for business.

KIRIAKOU: It is good for business. And when you think about it, though, if we--. Look at it this way. We bought much, much more Libyan oil than we ever bought Iraqi oil. Iraqi oil mostly went to Europe. And when Libya collapsed and their oil industry came to a screeching halt, it had virtually no effect on our own economy. Virtually none. So did we really need to hammer the Iraqis like this over more than a decade to protect the oil? We really didn't need the oil anyway.

JAY: But by fossil fuel I mean as long as there's conflict, the price of oil's high.

KIRIAKOU: Mhm. It stays high.

JAY: We know big oil companies make more money the higher the price of oil.

KIRIAKOU: That's right.

JAY: People selling arms, the more stuff you blow up, the more stuff you've got to buy to replace it, and the more threat of conflict, the more--.

KIRIAKOU: Right. It's good for business.

JAY: How much do you think that drives U.S. foreign policy?

KIRIAKOU: I think that's an integral part of U.S. foreign policy. I really do. You know, we've got not just arms manufacturers, but now we have drone manufacturers, for example, that are having to compete against Israeli drones and Chinese drones and Russian drones. So we need for there to be conflicts so we can sell our drones. It's the same with aircraft. You know, Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers would go under if we couldn't sell F-15s and F-16s and F-whatever they are, 23s, the new ones that are coming out, both for our own military and for foreign militaries. So war is good for business.

JAY: I mean, if you're thinking of the current situation, the more potential conflict there is between the Saudis and the Iranians, that's a gold mine If you're selling arms.

KIRIAKOU: Especially when the Saudis have a bottomless pit of money that they can dip into. The same with the Qataris and the Emiratis. It's very lucrative for us to be in the Gulf.

JAY: Now, let's go back. As you're leaving, you go back to Arlington. You're back on the Iraq file. You're starting to see how crazy all this stuff is. Are you starting to question now? KIRIAKOU: Yeah, now I'm starting to get frustrated. This policy is broken, it's not working, and there's no hope of changing it. So I decided to do something completely different. JAY: Okay. KIRIAKOU: And that was operations. JAY: So--oh. Now you're going to leave analysis go to operations. Now, this to me sounds a little contradictory. You're starting to see the pattern of some of the underlining rot of the policy, but now you're going to go over to operations, where some of the dark stuff gets done. KIRIAKOU: Yeah, but some of the dark stuff was meant to save and to protect American lives, and that's really what I wanted to focus on. I ended up going to Greece and spending two years in Greece. And my job in Greece was to try to disrupt terrorist attacks committed by a group that was called Revolutionary Organization 17 November. 17 November had murdered the CIA station chief in Athens in 1975. They murdered two defense attaches. They had shot and severely wounded several embassy officers. And they murdered an American Air Force technical sergeant who was just--the poor guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they had murdered almost two dozen Greek nationals as well, important people--cabinet ministers, the heads of the central bank, university professors, prominent business leaders. And I thought, this is something I could sink my teeth into. JAY: But when you decide to join ops, you don't know that's where you're going. KIRIAKOU: Oh, yeah. JAY: You do? KIRIAKOU: Oh, yeah. JAY: Oh, you know it's Greece. KIRIAKOU: I applied specifically for that job. JAY: And what's the training? KIRIAKOU: It was all of the traditional operational training at--. JAY: Tradecraft they call it. Is that right? KIRIAKOU: Tradecraft, right,-- JAY: Yeah. KIRIAKOU: --at a facility they call "the Farm", which is located south of here. JAY: And how long is the training? KIRIAKOU: Well, because I was midcareer, I didn't have to go through what they called CIA 101. So I went straight into the shooting and the car crashing and the explosives training. And that lasted four and a half months.

[Nov 28, 2015] The Perils of Endless War - Antiwar.com

Notable quotes:
"... John Quincy Adams, for his part, loved an America that "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." ..."
November 28, 2015 | Antiwar.com
War tends to perpetuate itself. As soon as one brute gets killed, another takes his place; when the new guy falls, another materializes.

Consider Richard Nixon's intensification of the American war on Cambodia. In hopes of maintaining an advantage over the Communists as he withdrew American troops from Southeast Asia, Nixon ravaged Vietnam's western neighbor with approximately 500,000 tons of bombs between 1969 and 1973. But instead of destroying the Communist menace, these attempts to buttress Nguyen Van Thieu's South Vietnamese government and then Lon Nol's Cambodian government only transformed it. The bombings led many of Nixon's early targets to desert the eastern region of the country in favor of Cambodia's interior where they organized with the Khmer Rouge.

As a CIA official noted in 1973, the Khmer Rouge started to "us[e] damage caused by B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda." By appealing to Cambodians who were affected by the bombing raids, this brutal Communist organization, a peripheral batch of 10,000 fighters in 1969, had expanded by 1973 into a formidable army with 20 times as many members. Two years later, they seized control of Phnom Penh and murdered more than one million of their compatriots in a grisly genocide.

The following decade, when war erupted between the forces of Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the United States hedged its bets by providing military assistance to both governments as they slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people. But when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, ousted the emir, and ultimately assassinated about 1,000 Kuwaitis, the United States turned on its former ally with an incursion that directly killed 3,500 innocent Iraqis and suffocated 100,000 others through the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure. The US also maintained an embargo against Iraq throughout the 1990s, a program that contributed to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqis and that UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Dennis Halliday deemed "genocidal" when he explained his 1998 resignation.

The newly restored Kuwaiti government, for its part, retaliated against minority groups for their suspected "collaboration" with the Iraqi occupiers. The government threw Palestinians out of schools, fired its Palestinian employees, and threatened thousands with "arbitrary arrest, torture, rape, and murder." Beyond that, Kuwait interdicted the reentry of more than 150,000 Palestinians and tens of thousands of Bedoons who had evacuated Kuwait when the tyrant Saddam took over. Thus, years of American maneuvering to achieve peace and security – by playing Iran and Iraq off of each other, by privileging Kuwaiti authoritarians over Iraqi authoritarians, by killing tens of thousands of innocent people who got in the way – failed.

The chase continues today as the United States targets the savage "Islamic State," another monster that the West inadvertently helped create by assisting foreign militants. History suggests that this war against Islamism, if taken to its logical extreme, will prove to be an endless game of whack-a-mole. Yes, our government can assassinate some terrorists; what it cannot do is stop aggrieved civilian victims of Western bombings from replacing the dead by becoming terrorists themselves. Furthermore, even if ISIS disappeared tomorrow, there would still exist soldiers – in Al-Qaeda, for instance – prepared to fill the void. That will remain true no matter how many bombs the West drops, no matter how many weapons it tenders to foreign militias, no matter how many authoritarian governments it buttresses in pursuit of "national security."

So, what are we to do when foreign antagonists, whatever the source of their discontent, urge people to attack us? We should abandon the Sisyphean task of eradicating anti-American sentiments abroad and invest in security at home. Gathering foreign intelligence is important when it allows us to strengthen our defenses here, but bombing people in Iraq and Syria, enabling the Saudi murder of Yemenis, and deploying troops to Cameroon are futile steps when enemy organizations can constantly replenish their supply of fighters by propagandizing among natives who deplore Western intervention.

This understanding, though underappreciated in contemporary American government, reflects a noble American tradition. John Quincy Adams, for his part, loved an America that "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Decades later, Jeannette Rankin doubted the benefits of American interventionism, contending that "you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." Martin Luther King Jr. warned that "violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." These leaders adamantly rejected an American politics of unending aggressive war. It is time for us to do the same.

Tommy Raskin is a contributor to the Good Men Project and Foreign Policy in Focus.

[Nov 27, 2015] Russia imposes sanctions on Turkey over downed plane

Notable quotes:
"... He earlier called the act a "stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and promised "serious consequences" ..."
www.theguardian.com

...the country's tourist board has suspended all tours to Turkey, a move that it estimated would cost the Turkish economy $10bn (£6.6bn). Russia also said it was suspending all military cooperation with Turkey, including closing down an emergency hotline to share information on Russian airstrikes in Syria.

Putin accused Turkey of deliberately trying to bring relations between Moscow and Ankara to a standstill, adding that Moscow was still awaiting an apology or an offer of reimbursement for damages. He earlier called the act a "stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and promised "serious consequences"

... ... ...

Russia has insisted that its plane never strayed from Syrian airspace, while Turkey says it crossed into its airspace for 17 seconds. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that even if this was the case, shooting the plane down was an extreme over-reaction and looked like a pre-planned provocation.

[Nov 27, 2015] Russia continues to block Turkish goods amid lingering jet crisis

www.todayszaman.com
Trucks carrying Turkish products on international routes have been facing numerous obstacles encouraged by Russia over the four days since Turkey shot down a Russian jet, and many drivers are waiting in long lines to enter Russia at border crossings in Ukraine and Georgia.

"Earlier, Russian custom officials used to take samples from each truck and let them cross the border but now they have halted all entrances saying that they need to check the whole load even though no inspection has been underway since Tuesday," said Fatih Şener, the executive president of the İstanbul-based International Transporters' Association (UND).

Turkish and international media reported after the outbreak of the crisis that Russia immediately launched economic retaliatory steps on its southern border after Turkey's military shot down a Russian fighter near the country's Syrian border. Official statements from Russia revealed that joint economic projects had been placed under risk while many Turkey-bound tourism ventures were cancelled. Amid such restrictions, product transporters have been complaining of the new barriers they have been facing for the past three days. On Friday, Turkish lira hit 2.9345 versus the US dollar, its lowest since Oct. 29.

"I need to underline that barriers are being imposed not only on Turkish trucks but also on Bulgarians and others that carry Turkish products to Russia," Şener added.

Explaining that most of the trucks were loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables, Şener said exported machinery products that had been on their way to Russia, were also hampered.

But the Kremlin has said it will not impose official sanctions on Turkish products, a statement that Şener said the UND was pinning all its hopes on, adding that he hopes the barriers will not be here to stay in the long-term.

Tension threatens $1 bln worth in produce exports


Of the $2.3 billion in fresh fruit and vegetable exports of Turkey in 2014, Russia-bound sales made up 40 percent of the total, or roughly $1 billion. Turkey mostly exports tomatoes, citrus fruits, grapes, pomegranates and cherries to its northern neighbor.

"I don't want to predict disaster but the situation is very gloomy," Hasan Yılmaz, the head of Aegean Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Exporter Unions told the Cihan news agency.

Cihan also reported on Friday that exporters of produce in the southern province of Antalya, who conducted sales worth around $350 million to Russia in 2014, resorted to releasing their goods on the domestic market.

Necati Zengin, a representative at the Antalya-based Kalyoncu Group, a giant exporter company that used to send around a hundred truckloads of produce to Russia via its seven to eight freighters before the crisis, reportedly said all his trucks are now waiting idle at Russian borders. "It is hard to calculate the losses given that a truck is loaded with some $45,000 worth of goods a day," Zengin said.

[Nov 27, 2015] James Winnefeld, the deputy chief of General Staff of the US military, was in Ankara when the incident occurred

marknesop.wordpress.com
marknesop, November 25, 2015 at 11:16 pm

Great post up at Moon of Alabama on the possibility of American involvement in this caper – James Winnefeld, the deputy chief of General Staff of the U.S. military, was in Ankara when the incident occurred. Although it appeared yesterday to have been Erdogan acting on his own, who knows? If he was persuaded into it, you can chalk up another country that will be an avowed enemy of the USA before a year is out, because it is the Turks who will pay for it in lost revenue and economic reprisals. I agree with a lot of B's conclusions as well.

yalensis, November 26, 2015 at 6:00 am

Of course Americans were involved – duh!

Americans played on Erdogan's Islamist streak and flattered the regional ambitions of this "sick man of Europe".
Under Erdie's incompetent rule, Turkey has become just another two-bit goon to put into play against Russia.
Americans sub-contracted out to Erdogan, to control other Turk-based "goon franchises" such as Djemiliev's fake "Crimean Tatars", Chechen "Caliphate" types such as Osmaev, some Azerbaijani types, and obviously the "Turkmen" sub-brigades of ISIS.
Erdogan is the designated "Team Leader" for all of these dubious elements.
Erdogan himself reports back to the "big guy", shown here pardoning a Turkey owned by a certain Dr. Jihad. Coincidence? I think not!

kirill, November 26, 2015 at 2:14 pm

Thanks for the link and great post! Outside of science and other non-politicized parts of academia, all these academics are regime bootlicks. One such "academic" is Nina Khruscheva. They all spew intellectually insulting drivel.

ucgsblog, November 26, 2015 at 1:35 am

Beautiful article Mark! I completely agree with it. Of note:

1. The Turkmen on the Syrian side of the border, who enjoy Erdogan's protection and intervention, machine-gunned the Russian fighter's pilot and navigator while they were hanging in their parachutes, falling from the sky. Is that a war crime? You bet it is.
2. This knee-jerk defense of a lying shitbag like Erdogan is why Russians are grim and filled with resolve.
3. Lavrov likely does have a point, and the Turks were probably lying in ambush for a Russian plane.
4. [The] official response from Washington was that Turkey has a right to defend its territory and its air space, and President Obama blamed the incident on "an ongoing problem with Russian operations near the Turkish border."

These are the reasons why Russia is going to overreact. Add to this that the EU, at the behest of Obama, the only political national leader who didn't offer condolences to Russia after ISIS bombed a Russian civilian plane, imposed sanctions on Russia over an accidental shooting, that Erdogan's been excessively aggressive, and that Russia is just sick and tired of being treated without any respect by the same elites that back Erdogan, it's no surprise that Erdogan will be hit hard from all directions. The economic damages from the tourism market alone is going to be at least $9 billion. Turkish Stream is probably going to be cancelled, as will generous loans. I'm surprised that there's no official break off in relations just yet, but I think that's also coming. And if Erdogan goes into Syria, well, then it gets interesting.

[Nov 27, 2015] Syrian Turkmen commander who killed Russian pilot turns out to be Turkish ultranationalist

RT News
A Syrian rebel commander who boasted of killing a Russian pilot after Turkey downed Russian jet on Tuesday appeared to be Turkish ultranationalist and a son of former mayor in one of Turkish provinces.

Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey's Elazig province.

He also turned out to be the member of The Grey Wolves ultranationalist group, members of which have carried out scores of political murders since 1970s.

READ MORE: Russian Su-24 pilots shot dead while parachuting over Syria - Turkmen militia

Celik came under spotlight after he announced that as the two Russian pilots descended by parachute after the Su-24 jet was downed by Turkish military, both were shot dead by Turkmen forces on Tuesday.

A graphic video posted earlier on social media purported to show a Russian pilot lying on the ground surrounded by a group of armed militants.

[Nov 27, 2015] Turkish F-16 attacked Russian Su-24 without warning, both were above Syria – commander

Notable quotes:
"... "unprecedented backstab." ..."
"... Both aircraft remained in the area for 34 minutes. During this time there was no contact between the crews of the Russian bombers and the Turkish military authorities or warplanes. ..."
"... Commander Bondarev noted that a pair of Turkish F-16Cs had been in the area close to the attack zone for more than an hour prior to the attack, which explains their presence in the area. The time needed to get the aircraft ready at the Diyarbak r airfield and travel to the attack zone is an estimated 46 minutes. ..."
"... One of Turkish F-16Cs stopped its maneuvers and began to approach the Su-24M bomber about 100 seconds before the Russian aircraft came closest to the Turkish border, which also confirms the attack was pre-planned, Commander Bondarev stressed. ..."
"... The chief of Russia's Air Force also called attention to the readiness of the Turkish media, which released a professionally-made video of the incident recorded from an area controlled by extremists a mere 1.5 hours after the Su-24 was downed. ..."
"... The Turkish military not only violated all international laws on protecting national borders, but never delivered an apology for the incident or offered any help in the search and rescue operation for the Su-24 crew. ..."
"... "more than massive, devastating" ..."
Nov 27 , 2015 | RT News
Get short URL A Turkish fighter jet launched a missile at a Russian bomber on Tuesday well ahead of the Su-24 approaching the Turkish border, the chief of Russia's Air Force said. The bomber remained on Turkish radars for 34 minutes and never received any warnings. TrendsSu-24 downing

The attack on the Russian Su-24 bomber was intentional and had been planned in advance, Viktor Bondarev, the chief of Russia's Air Force, announced Friday, calling the incident an "unprecedented backstab."

The commander shared with the media previously unknown details of what happened on Tuesday.

On November 24, a pair of Russian Sukhoi Su-24 tactical bombers took off from Khmeimim airbase in Latakia at 06:15 GMT, with an assignment to carry out airstrikes in the vicinity of the settlements of Kepir, Mortlu and Zahia, all in the north of Syria. Each bomber was carrying four OFAB-250 high-explosive fragmentation bombs.

Ten minutes later, the bombers entered the range of Turkish radars and took positions in the target area, patrolling airspace at predetermined heights of 5,800 meters and 5,650 meters respectively.

Both aircraft remained in the area for 34 minutes. During this time there was no contact between the crews of the Russian bombers and the Turkish military authorities or warplanes.

Some 20 minutes after arriving at the designated area, the crews received the coordinates of groups of terrorists in the region. After making a first run, the bombers performed a maneuver and then delivered a second strike.

Immediately after that, the bomber crewed by Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Peshkov and Captain Konstantin Murakhtin was attacked by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet operating from the Diyarbakır airfield in Turkey.

Read more FSA video claims Russian-made helicopter hit with US-made TOW missile near Su-24 crash site

To attack the Russian bomber with a close-range air-to-air missile, the Turkish fighter jet had to enter Syrian airspace, where it remained for about 40 seconds. Having launched its missile from a distance of 5-7 kilometers, the F-16 immediately turned towards the Turkish border, simultaneously dropping its altitude sharply, thus disappearing from the range of Russian radars at the Khmeimim airbase.

The Turkish fighter moved two kilometers into Syrian airspace while the Russian bomber at no stage violated Turkish airspace, Bondarev stressed.

The crew of the second Su-24M had a clear view of the moment the missile was fired from the Turkish F-16, and reported this to base.

Commander Bondarev noted that a pair of Turkish F-16Cs had been in the area close to the attack zone for more than an hour prior to the attack, which explains their presence in the area. The time needed to get the aircraft ready at the Diyarbakır airfield and travel to the attack zone is an estimated 46 minutes.

One of Turkish F-16Cs stopped its maneuvers and began to approach the Su-24M bomber about 100 seconds before the Russian aircraft came closest to the Turkish border, which also confirms the attack was pre-planned, Commander Bondarev stressed.

The chief of Russia's Air Force also called attention to the readiness of the Turkish media, which released a professionally-made video of the incident recorded from an area controlled by extremists a mere 1.5 hours after the Su-24 was downed.

Commander Bondarev also mentioned the memorandum of understanding regarding the campaign in Syria, signed by Moscow and Washington on October 26. In accordance with this agreement, the Russian side informed its American counterparts about the mission of the two bombers in the north of Syria on November 24, including the zones and heights of operation.

Read more A Russian Aerospace Defense Force jet bombs Islamic State facilities in Syria © Terrorists in Su-24 search operation area killed - Russian Defense Ministry

Taking this into account, the Turkish authorities' statement on not knowing which aircraft were operating in the area raises eyebrows, Bondarev said.

The Turkish military not only violated all international laws on protecting national borders, but never delivered an apology for the incident or offered any help in the search and rescue operation for the Su-24 crew.

The Su-24's pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Peshkov, was shot dead by militants while parachuting to the ground, having ejected from the stricken aircraft. His partner, navigator Captain Konstantin Murakhtin, survived being shot at while parachuting and managed to stay alive on the ground in an area full of terrorists.

The rescue operation took several hours and eventually recovered Murakhtin, although one Russian Marine in the team was killed when the rescue helicopter was destroyed by a US-made tank missile launched by the extremists – an incident they filmed and published online.

Commander Bondarev specifically stressed that the Russian pilot who survived the attack was actively looked for not only by the jihadists, but also by a number of unidentified and technically well-equipped groups.

After Captain Murakhtin was rescued, the Russian Air Force delivered "more than massive, devastating" airstrikes against the militants in the region where the operation had been taking place, Bondarev reported.

[Nov 27, 2015] Putin Hard to imagine Turkish gov't unaware of oil supplies from ISIL

Notable quotes:
"... He also said that the shooting down by Turkey of a Russian jet was an act of betrayal by a country Russia considered to be its friend. ..."
www.todayszaman.com

It is hard to imagine that the Turkish government is unaware of oil supplies to Turkey from areas controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday after talks with French leader Francois Hollande.

Putin used the opportunity of the joint news conference with Hollande to repeat his accusations against Turkey of turning a blind eye to oil smuggling by ISIL. He said it was "theoretically possible" that Ankara was unaware of oil supplies entering its territory from ISIL-controlled areas of Syria but added that this was hard to imagine.

He also said that the shooting down by Turkey of a Russian jet was an act of betrayal by a country Russia considered to be its friend.

[Nov 27, 2015] Russian economic retaliation rains down on Turkey as tension lingers

Notable quotes:
"... Turkeys economy will grow only under 3 percent this year, below the governments target, weighed down by political uncertainty at home and conflict in the Middle East. ..."
"... There are also a whole range of deals, investments and commercial relationships that could be threatened in the fallout from the downing of the Russian jet. ..."
"... Tourism is already being hit. After Russian officials on Tuesday advised holidaymakers against traveling to Turkish resorts ..."
www.todayszaman.com
Moscow made public a series of economic retaliation steps against Turkey on Thursday, after efforts to defuse tensions between Ankara and Moscow over the downing of a Russian jet fighter on Tuesday failed to pay off.

Russia said on Thursday it may impose various economic restrictions on Turkey, including measures to restrict the planned TurkStream gas pipeline, ending cooperation in building Turkey's first nuclear plant and limiting civilian flights to and from Turkey. Such moves would heap serious pain on either Turkey or Russia, both of which are already struggling economically, experts agree.

Russia said on Thursday it would be looking to cut economic ties with Turkey and scrap investment projects in a matter of days in the aftermath of the Turkish downing of a Russian warplane. The televised statement by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev came a day after Russian media reported hundreds of trucks bringing Turkish goods stranded at the border. Medvedev ordered the Russian government to draw up measures that would include freezing some joint investment projects with Turkey, in retaliation for the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey. He also told a meeting of Cabinet ministers on Thursday that the measures would include restrictions on food imports from Turkey.

Shortly after Medvedev, Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said on Thursday that the restrictions against Ankara may include the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which is currently under construction in the southern province of Mersin in Turkey. He said the restrictions, drawn up in retaliation for the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey, may also include limits to civil flights to and from Turkey and a halt to preparations for a Free Trade Zone. Moscow will also halt the creation of a single Turkish-Russian investment fund, Ulyukayev added. Meanwhile, cooperation between Russia and Turkey in tourism will "obviously" be halted, the head of Russia's tourism agency, Rostourism, said on Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported. Separately on Thursday, local authorities in Crimea also said a dozen of planned Turkish investment projects in the region were cancelled.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, however, on Thursday dismissed as "emotional" and "unfitting of politicians" the suggestions that projects with Russia could be canceled.

Turkish stocks fell more than 2 percent while the lira weakened to above 2.9 against the US dollar on Thursday.

Crackdown on Turkish food imports

Russia has increased checks on food and agriculture imports from Turkey, its Agriculture Ministry said on Thursday, in the first public move to curb trade in a dispute with Ankara for downing a Russian fighter jet.

The government told food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor to increase controls after Agriculture Ministry research showed about 15 percent of agriculture imports from Turkey did not meet regulations, the ministry said.

Rosselkhoznadzor normally only checks some food deliveries. The decision to start checking all supplies from Turkey means that while imports will continue, they could be significantly delayed. Moscow often uses Rosselkhoznadzor regulations in diplomatic spats, imposing bans on imports of certain products, citing health reasons. Officials deny the agency's actions are politically driven.

Moscow banned most Western food imports in 2014 when Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday the government was not planning to impose any embargo on Turkish imports. Turkey accounts for about 4 percent of Russia's total food imports, supplying mainly fruits, nuts and vegetables. Agricultural and food product imports from Turkey were worth $1 billion in the first 10 months of 2015, according to customs data. But 20 percent of Russia's vegetables come from Turkey.

Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev said any shortfall could be made up with supplies from Iran, Morocco, Israel and Azerbaijan. Citrus imports could come from South Africa, Morocco, China and other countries if necessary, he said in a statement. Russia's biggest food retailer Magnit said it was still buying fruits and vegetables from Turkey and declined to provide further comment. Food retailer Dixy said it would do its best to find other suppliers if needed.

Russian retailers were forced to find new suppliers in 2014 after Russia banned most Western food imports.

Fragile economies

Russia's economy will shrink around 4 percent this year from the combined effects of the low oil price and sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.

Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian state-owned bank VTB, told reporters at a forum in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg that politics and economics should be kept separate. "I would not be inclined to whip up the situation right now," he said, adding: "I think that one has to approach this very calmly. There are always negative events going on in the world."

Meanwhile, Turkey's economy will grow only under 3 percent this year, below the government's target, weighed down by political uncertainty at home and conflict in the Middle East. "Erdoğan is a tough character, and quite emotional, and if Russia pushes too far in terms of retaliatory action, I think there will inevitably be a counter reaction from Turkey [like] tit-for-tat trade sanctions," Nomura strategist Timothy Ash wrote in a note. "But I think there is also a clear understanding that any such action is damaging for both sides, and unwelcome."

There are also a whole range of deals, investments and commercial relationships that could be threatened in the fallout from the downing of the Russian jet.

Russia's state Atomic Energy Corporation, known as Rosatom, is due to build Turkey's first nuclear power station, a $20 billion project. Rosatom said it has no comment on the issue.

Shares in Turkish firm Enka İnşaat, which has construction projects in Russia and two power plants in Turkey using Russian gas, fell for a second day on Wednesday. Turkish brewer Anadolu Efes, which has six breweries in Russia and controls around 14 percent of the market, also saw its shares fall on Tuesday.

Tourism is already being hit. After Russian officials on Tuesday advised holidaymakers against traveling to Turkish resorts, at least two large Russian tour operators said they would stop selling packages to Turkey. Russians are second only to Germans in terms of the numbers visiting Turkey, bringing in an estimated $4 billion a year in tourism revenues.

[Nov 27, 2015] Kremlin Cutting Economic Links With the Turks

Notable quotes:
"... Oh, Turkey is in a lot of trouble, but this country essentially committed succeed de and I cannot fathom the lack of decent press coverage on that fact. First, Turkey's account of a 17 second overflight of Turkish airspace is mathematically impossible. Worse, Russian, in an attempt to cooperate with the Obama White House, released details of the flight path of that Russian plane to the Turks. Someone in the US government told Turkey exactly when and where that plane would be and Turkey, shot it down for them. WikiLeaks attributes this madness directly to Obama. ..."
"... Claiming Russia gave flight information to the US and therefore Turkey (isn't this a real coalition, he asks, mockingly?) further exacerbates one tension in this complex matrix of relations. ..."
"... President Bush said Saddam must go! That led to a catastrophe in Iraq with unfathomable losses on all sides. President Obama said Assad must go! Now we another catastrophe evolving in Syria and it's neighbors. ..."
"... This superficial assessment of things fails to capture the great gravity of the current situation caused by Turkey's foolish crime. ..."
"... It also reveals that Turkey sides with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, the same ones who blew up a filled Russian plane just a few weeks ago. ..."
"... The decision to down the Russian plane regardless of whether it was in Turkish airspace for 20 seconds or not, was a major error on the part of Erdogan. He is rapidly losing what few friends in the West and the Middle East he may ever have had. The Turks were doing OK before this guy came on the scene. ..."
"... Obama was in Turkey one week before this incident. His remarks following the incident implicitly threatened Russia with more of the same. It is unlikely that Erdogan would have taken such a step without the support of his buddy Obama. ..."
"... Erdogan is trying to calm the storm and hold France 24 television: "We might have been able to prevent this violation of our airspace differently." ..."
"... Perhaps he realises that Ankara might have over-reacted. Turkish airforce could have fired warning shots, without hitting the plane. It was essential to remind Russia of violating Turkish air-space, although Russian planes are not a direct threat to Turkey. ..."
"... Turkey staged a provocation with full knowledge of where and when this Russian airplane will be. And after that NATO fully supported their member. I wonder why Russia sees NATO as threat. The message is loud and clear - NATO countries may provoke Russia under the protection of the allies. ..."
Nov 27, 2015 | www.nytimes.com
The New York Times

"One gets the impression that the Turkish leaders are deliberately leading Russian-Turkish relations into a gridlock," Mr. Putin said, adding later in the day: "Turkey was our friend, almost an ally, and it is a shame that this was destroyed in such a foolish manner."

... ... ...

During a news conference with Mr. Hollande late Thursday, Mr. Putin suggested that the United States, an ally of Turkey, was responsible for the fate of its warplane, since Moscow had passed on information about where and when its bombers would fly.

"What did we give this information to the Americans for?" Mr. Putin asked, rhetorically, before adding: "We proceed from the assumption that it will never happen again. Otherwise we don't need any such cooperation with any country."

... ... ...

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, objected to the failure of Turkish or NATO officials to offer condolences over the two Russian military men who died after the plane was shot down. She also demanded an explanation from Turkey about the death of the pilot, who was killed after he parachuted from the plane. It is believed he was shot by Turkmen insurgents who live along the border on the Syrian side and who are supported by Ankara.

... ... ...

Hundreds of trucks bearing Turkish fruits, vegetables and other products were lining up at the Georgian border with Russia, Russian news media reported, as inspections slowed to a crawl and Russian officials suggested there might be a terrorist threat from the goods.

"This is only natural in light of Turkey's unpredictable actions," Dmitri S. Peskov, the presidential spokesman, told reporters.

jamil simaan, Boston

If you compare Russia as a whole today to a person reacting to unexpected slights and/or attacks from people they used to trust, I don't think its response would seem irrational. Russia will definitely take an economic hit for applying sanctions to Turkey, but who respects a person who always prioritizes making money over self-respect? The way Turkey took down this jet made it all but impossible for Russia not to respond very aggressively because the Russian military has quickly become a moral pillar of Russian society, where the economy is flagging and politics stagnant. What did they expect Russia to do, just take it?

No matter how you slice it, though, Turkey's behavior has been much much worse for Turkey than anybody else. The American perspective is pretty pragmatic, and I'm sure a lot of people in the Obama administration are thinking they'd be pretty angry, too, if that happened to the US. It appears that behind closed doors the American and NATO leadership is not happy with Turkey, especially Erdogan. It couldn't be clearer right now how little any other NATO country would like to go to war for Turkey, especially when it is doing stupid things like this.

Wandering Jew, Israel 1 hour ago

It was reckless and dangerous move on the part of Turkey as a member of NATO. There was no reason to escalate the already sensitive situation shooting down Russian plane that was no real threat for Turkey's security.
Erdogan is more dangerous as a partner than he is as an enemy.

ngop, halifax, canada 4 hours ago

Erdogan is hardly in a position to criticize Russia for violating Turkish airspace (for all of 20 seconds at most) when his forces routinely do much worse things in Syria. His unconscionable and indiscriminate bombing of Kurds, both in Turkey and Syria, as well as doing everything possible to dislodge Assad has the objective result of helping the Islamic State. And speaking of territorial integrity, let's not forget about the forty years of illegal Turkish occupation of Cypress. With friends like Erdogan and his Saudi mentors, we don't need any enemies.

courther, USA 3 hours ago

Can we bottom line this situation? Turkey has really messed up by not only shooting down the bomber but killing the Russian pilot while he was in his parachute floating to the ground. I guess the barbaric Turkmen didn't realize that they were violating the Geneva Convention when they shot the pilot.

The US has also messed up when Russia gave the US its flight plan for the bombers in which the US apparently shared with Turkey. Both the US and Turkey have now backed themselves into a corner with Russia in Syria.

Putin has ordered the S-400 anti-missile defense system to be located 30 miles from the border of Turkey. The S-400 is one of the most advanced anti-missile systems in the world. The US military doesn't have an answer for this powerful and precise anti-defense system. The system is designed to target and destroy 75 targets simultaneously. This include Tomahawks missiles, stealth fighter planes such as the F-22 and the F-35 fighter jets. The system is accurate and precise. It doesn't miss its target. It is fully effective within a 250 miles radius.

Here is where most of you missed the point. With this type of weapon Putin can establish a no-fly zone in Syria and any plane that violate Syrian airspace can be shot down and there is nothing NATO or the US can do because of international law. Russia is a legitimate ally to Syria and can act on Syria's behalf. Whoever let Turkey join NATO messed up.

Julien, Canada

Turkey Violated only Greek Airspace 2,244 Times Last Year!!! Not to mention vialation of other countries.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/24/turkey-violated-greek-airspace-2244-ti...

A formation of Turkish fighter jets violated Greek airspace a total of 20 times!!! in a sigle day engaging in dogfight with Greek defenders. Clear provocation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/turkish-and-greek-jets-engaged-in-dogfigh...

Moreover when Syrian air defence downed Turkish F-4 Phantom, as a reaction Erdogan said in 2012: "Brief Airspace Violations Can't Be Pretext for Attack".

I let you decide what you think about it.

Paul, Virginia 3 hours ago

Considering the facts that both the US and Russia are nuclear powers and that Turkey is a member of NATO requiring NATO to go to war if Turkey was attacked, Turkey's shooting down the Russian jet and calling for an emergency NATO meeting was at the height of irresponsibility and recklessness and stupidity. The tepid reaction from the US and NATO indicates that Turkey was acting alone or without explicit consent from NATO. Russia's reaction so far has been confined to trade and tourism but Russia will surely and shortly begin to take actions that will intimidate Turkey short of an outright military attack, which will again raise at worst verbal tension with NATO for NATO will not risk a war with Russia over Turkey's behavior. It's overdue for the US and NATO to assess and downgrade alliance with Turkey.

Simon, Tampa 3 hours ago

I just hope that Putin takes revenge on Turkey, the Saudis, and other Gulf States by having the FSB leak to the media all the evidence that they are the ones financially supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda. This will embarrass our government, the French and other European countries doing business with them as they support terrorists who kill their citizens. Hollande wants to stop ISIS, then he should do stop doing business with these countries and call for international sanctions against them until they stop their indefensible behavior.

Knorrfleat Wringbladt, Midwest 3 hours ago

Turkey is lying in their effort to support Daesh and appropriate Syian territory. As the conflict worsens Turkey hopes to gain through suppression of its own citizens (Kurds) as well as stealing resources from surrounding weakened states. The fact that their strategy may cause serious setbacks for Western Civilization is an added bonus.
The West is foolish to ally themselves with a nation that for thousands of years has been the pivot between east and west. Turkey has learned to play both sides against each other. We need to do an end run apology to Russia (on Turkeys behalf), severely sanction Turkey for their non cooperation or kick them out of NATO altogether. If we do nothing they will continue to undermine us.

Mike Brooks, Eugene, Oregon 5 hours ago

Oh, Turkey is in a lot of trouble, but this country essentially committed succeed de and I cannot fathom the lack of decent press coverage on that fact. First, Turkey's account of a 17 second overflight of Turkish airspace is mathematically impossible. Worse, Russian, in an attempt to cooperate with the Obama White House, released details of the flight path of that Russian plane to the Turks. Someone in the US government told Turkey exactly when and where that plane would be and Turkey, shot it down for them. WikiLeaks attributes this madness directly to Obama.

Hamid Varzi, Spain 3 hours ago

Let us view the world, for as second, from an Iranian and Russian perspective:

The U.S. directly caused the rise of Islamic Extremism with 60 years of oppressive geopolitical policies in the Middle East. The U.S.'s current allies in the "War on Terror" are Wahhabi-infested Saudi Arabia, Palestine-baiting Israel, increasingly regressive Turkey and Al Qaeda refuge Pakistan. (Instead of focusing on the 50 nuclear weapons that already exist in the nation that created and supported the Taleban, the U.S. is focused on the nuclear programme of Iran that helped it defeat the Taleban in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11!).

Having seen the disastrous results of removing Middle Eastern dictators in Iraq and Libya, the West has now decided to remove the dictator in Syria, but in the expectation of different results.

All the while, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey are laughing their heads off at the discomfort faced by Iran and Russia as a result of crashing oil prices, seemingly ignorant of the far greater threat to their own security posed by the so-called Islamic State. The West, like deer caught in the Saudi, Israeli and Turkish headlights, has become paralyzed and has become easy pickings for radical Islamists, as we saw recently and tragically in Paris.

The West must realize it has become the victim of its own policies: It must urgently reappraise its geopolitical strategies by tackling Islamic Extremism at the source.

Tom, Fl Retired Junk Man 3 hours ago

Turkey is way out of line with their actions, they should apologize immeadiately and never be so foolish as to play with people's lives as though they were chess pieces.
This is not a game, if you screw with Russia there will be a strong response, and it is so unneccesary.

The Obama administration has messed up this relationship with Russia, that stupid reset button that Hillary presented to the Russian's should be reset again.

You get a lot more of a result with honey than with vinegar, and don't forget " Bears like Honey ".

So leave that Russian Bear alone.


This is news? Eugene, OR

Ignore Putin's pleas of outrage in this instance. This is about something other than a lost Russian pilot.

It is all about driving a wedge among NATO members, most specifically France and others inclined to cooperate with Putin in Syria, both practically and in terms of optics, and Turkey.

European-Turkish relations were already strained (human rights, Turkey abetting fighters travelling to join Daesh, rifts over the Kurds, failure to make progress on EU membership, and on) and Putin, believing he is needed by the West newly-energized to attack Daesh, is pressing on the sore point. He knows, for instance, that Turkey is 1) absolutely committed to Assad succession and 2) unwilling to see anything that doesn't hurt the Kurds develop.

With France leading Europe closer to Putin, the previous Western insistence on Assad leaving is weakening (for better or worse), giving way to the desire for tighter coop with Russia. Putin is framing this diplomatically as the only "serious" way to combat Daesh, putting Europe and Turkey increasingly on opposite sides of the Assad question in the short-term.

Claiming Russia gave flight information to the US and therefore Turkey (isn't this a real coalition, he asks, mockingly?) further exacerbates one tension in this complex matrix of relations.

Unlike Republicans I do not see Putin as some master strategist but this play is reasonably smart if transparently obvious.

Concerned. Michigan 2 hours ago

Plain and simple.

The only way ISIS criminals can get in and out of Syria is through Turkey. Why is it so hard to see how complacent are the Turks in allowing free access for these thugs in and out of Syria? It is high time for the world to confront the obvious. The Saudis and Qataris with their financial might have lobbied the Turks and the rest of the world to allow this to go on. Isis existence depends on human flow and money supply from gulf Arab donors and its oil trade through the Turkish border, address these main issues and Isis will be easier to defeat....

Dr. MB, Irvine, CA 4 hours ago

In the land of the Great Atarturk, this gentleman Mr. Erdogan does not fit in! Nations suffer when cynical persons wiggle into power, Turkey will not be an exception, unfortunately!

Barrie F. Taylor, Miami, Florida 4 hours ago

I was born in 1939 and have always been optimistic that war would eventually disappear after WW2 as a method for resolution of disputes between humans. Also I never thought that a nuclear war was likely to happen. The current state of discord in the world is astounding when one considers what we know about our world and existence. Religion should have died out by now but there are still ignorant people who still believe in God and immortality! Warfare and violence only beget violence and warfare - that should clear to anyone. Clearly our educational systems have failed.
As for warfare, it is always the average people who pay the price not our "leaders" who keep well out of harms way. They no longer lead the cavalry charge.
The West should keep out of the Middle East and let them resolve their problems - we've already messed up the area with colonialism , and that includes the US. The most important problem is the is a real likelihood of nuclear conflict due the abundance of nuclear weapons in the region. Because of the lunacy of religion this is probably bound to happen sometime soon.

NY 4 hours ago

The only way to ease the tensions is that Erdogan offers an apology to the Russian people and pays for the damage of the fighter Jet and compensation to the Pilots family. Bar the above he and the Turks will pay a much bigger price.

I would not be surprised if a Turkish F-16 or two being shot down in the future. Erdogan do the smart thing go down on your knees and apologize.

Byron Jones, Memphis, Tennessee 4 hours ago

Points to ponder
1. The Russian jet was in Turkish airspace for a few seconds in face of Turkish allegations that the pilots were warned for several minutes in advance.
2. Why shoot down the jet when a strong, morally outraged response from the Turks would play better internationally?
3. Both Putin and Erdogan have problems at home and there is a long history of bad blood between the two countries.

Putin and Erdogan -- two bullies playing a dangerous game of chicken.

Sridhar Chilimuri, New York 2 hours ago

What a mess!

President Bush said Saddam must go! That led to a catastrophe in Iraq with unfathomable losses on all sides. President Obama said Assad must go! Now we another catastrophe evolving in Syria and it's neighbors.

There is lesson for us to learn. We or any other country should not be participating in leadership changes of other countries - let their people do it!

MN, New York 1 hour ago

Russia had a choice between Assad and Turkey and they chose Assad. They started bullying Turkey repeatedly since their campaign in Syria begun, they went as far as putting eight Turkish F-16s under radar lock by both MiG-29 and anti-aircraft missiles in October. They also specifically targeted Turkmen villages and Turkey backed rebels on Syrian-Turkish borders since October. The list of provocation goes on and on. The Russian ambassador was summoned by Turkey at least 5 times since Russia started its campaign in Syria. Turkey complained to UN more than one time too about Russia.

So if you think Russia has not been asking for this, you're wrong. It's exactly what Russia wants. The provocation started by Russia and Turkey was patient with Russia until they started to bomb the Turkmen. Despite Turkey's effort to de-escalate after the incident, Russia has cut economic ties and the Kremlin even rejected a request to Putin-Erdogan meeting in upcoming Paris convention. Russia continued their path of further provocation by intensifying air strikes on every single Syrian-Turkish border held by Syrian rebels and on Turkmen villages. They even started giving air support to Kurd's PYD in their new push against Syrian rebels.

Turkey on the other hand is under pressure to respond to Russia provocation especially by nationalists who voted to the AKP government for the first time instead of their preferred extreme nationalist MHP party.


ZHR, NYC 2 hours ago

Turkey is not very accurate. Last week Turkish nationalists -- no doubt at the behest of the Erdouan government--protested Russian air strikes in Syria in front of the Dutch Consulate. They got the wrong consulate.

In July, it was reported that Turkish "demonstrators angry about the Chinese government's treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority attacked a Chinese restaurant. It turned out to be owned by a Turk, and worse still the chef was in fact an Uighur Muslim."

Don't blame the Turks. They probably thought they were downing a Bulgarian plane or maybe one from Lichtenstein.


Syed Abbas, Dearborn MI 4 hours ago

What Russia could not do in 70 years, ISIL has done in 1. Break up NATO.

Now, it is France, Russia, Germany Iran against Turkey, US, and ISIL, a conflict that will go on for the rest of the century.

Today, it is not the end, but beginning of the end.


Buckeye, Ohio 1 hour ago

This superficial assessment of things fails to capture the great gravity of the current situation caused by Turkey's foolish crime. This is the first time in over 50 years in which a NATO force attacked and destroyed a Soviet/Russian military target with fatal consequences. This reckless military aggression by Turkey deserves the condemnation, to support, of the USA and all other NATO countries.

It also reveals that Turkey sides with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, the same ones who blew up a filled Russian plane just a few weeks ago. The most rational outcome of this criminal act of war by Turkey is to expel it from NATO which needs to join the Syrian government in annihilating the Daesh terrorists, their roots and current sources of support. Tragically, rationality does not guide the US verbal war on the Daesh terrorists, who, like it, still has regime change in Syria as their irrational goal.

Kosovo, Louisville, KY 2 hours ago

I'm with the Russians, the Turks are double dealing. They support ISIS and are becoming more of an Islamic state themselves...

Simon Sez, Maryland 2 hours ago

Turkey is being relentlessly pulled deeper and deeper into the morass of Islamism from which there is no return.

Ironic that all that Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern, secular Turkey, fought for is now being undone by Erdogan, an Islamic dictator who will brook no dissent.

While Putin is no saint, quite the opposite, his response is less aggressive than it might be. Many Russian nationalists, and there are a lot of them, are loudly criticizing him for not responding more forcefully to the downing of the Russian plane and murder of one of the survivors.

Turkey is going to lose more than Russia from all of this.

The decision to down the Russian plane regardless of whether it was in Turkish airspace for 20 seconds or not, was a major error on the part of Erdogan. He is rapidly losing what few friends in the West and the Middle East he may ever have had. The Turks were doing OK before this guy came on the scene.

Moral of the story: Be careful when you tangle with the Russian Bear.

Especially, when it is wearing the mask of Putin.

Victor O, NYC 2 hours ago

Obama was in Turkey one week before this incident. His remarks following the incident implicitly threatened Russia with more of the same. It is unlikely that Erdogan would have taken such a step without the support of his buddy Obama.

Does the U.S. truly wish to be drawn into a showdown with Russia? While it may be true that Russia is outclassed when it comes to conventional arms, Russia will resort to nuclear weapons if sufficiently challenged. Putin does not see the world through rose-colored glasses, and does not see gay marriage and global warming as the seminal issues of our time.

FromBrooklyn, Europe 2 hours ago

Yes, and the US, Russia and Europe should cooperate without reviving cold-war posturing and work together to defeat ISIS. Turkey can't be trusted; the Erdogans are getting rich from illegal oil and covertly support the terrorists.

anthony weishar, Fairview Park, OH 2 hours ago

There is a glaring problem with the Turkish version of the incident. The pilots ejected and landed in Syria, where "terrorist" captured or killed them. The Turkish map is not valid. If the pilots did land in Turkey, that would mean Turkey is protecting ISIS members and Syrian rebels.

Nick Zucker, San Francisco, CA 1 hour ago @Tolga

Nice revisionism there. All meant to justify a bellicose Turkish military of course. And what about the disputed landbetwwen syria and turkey this article talks about?

Turkey is the only country that doesn't not respect Greek territorial integrity and the only country that recognizes the northern regime in Cyprus. Face it, in the absence of true democracy, Turkish politicians have been feeding Turks a steady diet of imagined external threats (really, from Greece?) to consolidate public opinion around nationalist sentiment.

j. von hettlingen, is a trusted commenter switzerland 4 hours ago

Erdogan is trying to calm the storm and hold France 24 television: "We might have been able to prevent this violation of our airspace differently."

Perhaps he realises that Ankara might have over-reacted. Turkish airforce could have fired warning shots, without hitting the plane. It was essential to remind Russia of violating Turkish air-space, although Russian planes are not a direct threat to Turkey.

But since Russia embarked on the intervention in Syria, its arbitrary shelling of Turkmens in Syria, who are Turkish allies and rebels, backed by the West and the Arabs, has set the cat among the pigeons.

The US stands by NATO, which defended Turkey's action, because nobody wants to upset Ankara and jeopardise its access to the vital Turkish airbase at Incirlik.
That the Kremlin is considering severe economic ties to Turkey may just be rhetoric for domestic consumption because the Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire had fought a series of wars in the 17th-19th century. In recent years Moscow's support for Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian-controlled breakaway enclave in Azerbaijan, is a thorn in Ankara's side, because Azerbaijan and Turkey are seen as "one nation with two states. The annexation of Crimea has led to the marginalisation of the Tartars, a Turkic ethnic group, for whose wellbeing Ankara sees itself responsible.

Maxim, Canada, BC 2 hours ago

Please read what really happened:
https://www.rt.com/news/323651-turkey-su24-downing-syria/
Turkey staged a provocation with full knowledge of where and when this Russian airplane will be. And after that NATO "fully supported" their member. I wonder why Russia sees NATO as threat. The message is loud and clear - NATO countries may provoke Russia under the protection of the allies.

John Warnock, Thelma KY 2 hours ago

Webster can add a new definition to the dictionary for "Middle East"; Quagmire. We need to seriously weigh our long term strategic interests in regard to this region. Put rhetoric aside. Put the infatuation of some with the Holy Land aside. Keep our support for Israel in balance with our commitment to Human Rights.
Ultimately the Moslem Nations of the Middle East need to sort this mess out. The continued interjection of the USA, Russia and Europe only delays the sorting out that must come to pass.

This sorting out must neutralize ISIS and similar groups and probably result in new national boundaries and new nation states. So be it. ISIS is an idea, a terrible idea, not territory.

You cannot destroy it by bombing physical things. The Moslem world must sort it out; just as we have some adherents to various forms of fundamentalism in this country that we need to address. We attract the attention of ISIS because we are there and foolishly do things like maintain the prison at Guantanamo. We are not and should not consider ourselves the World's Cop!

Syed Abbas, Dearborn MI 5 hours ago

The world has decided Russia is clearly on the right on this one.

However, Putin should not punish Turkish (and Russian) people for the sins of Erdogan. Moral high ground is to protest, provide evidence, forgive, and forget, and move on.

Let the universe unfold as it should. Soon the sins of Erdogan will catch up with him.

[Nov 27, 2015] Putin Accuses Obama Of Leaking Flight Details To Turkey

Notable quotes:
"... which the US knew about well in advance, ..."
"... It looks like the shootdown was a planned ambush, and they were trying to capture a Russian pilot. ..."
www.zerohedge.com
This is what Putin said:

"We told our US partners in advance where, when at what altitudes our pilots were going to operate. The US-led coalition, which includes Turkey, was aware of the time and place where our planes would operate. And this is exactly where and when we were attacked. Why did we share this information with the Americans? Either they don't control their allies, or they just pass this information left and right without realizing what the consequences of such actions might be. We will have to have a serious talk with our US partners.

In other words, just like in the tragic bombing of the Kunduz hospital by US forces (which has now been attributed to human error), so this time the target was a Russian plane which the US knew about well in advance, was targeted however not by the US itself, but by a NATO and US-alliance member, Turkey.

strannick

America gave ISIS the TOW rocket that exploded Russia's helicopter on a search and rescue mission to save the remaining pilot.

America gave Turkey the co ordinates to shoot down the Russian bomber, so Turkeys corrupt leader could continue profiting from selling oil for ISIS to fund ISIS terrorism.

Putin's patience is what keeps the world from the brink of nuclear war.

God bless and keep Vladimir Putin.

America is a piece of shit nation with a piece of shit president .

America ruins the world to rule it.

God help us all.

turtle

U.S. knew Russian jet flight path: https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/30212396/us-knew-flight-path-of-plane-downed...

HowdyDoody

The US says ISIS doesn't have an air force?

Is it April 1 already?

Turkey ,a prime supporter and enabler of ISS, just gagging to open a consulate for ISIS, shot down a Russian aircraft involved in attacking ISIS. That seems like an ISIS airforce attack to me, even if we ignore the fact that the USAF attacks Assad instead of ISIS etc.

socalbeach

Russian MOD briefing on the rescue of the navigator, and other subjects. Terrorists and "other mysterious groups" with "special purpose locators" to find the pilot were eliminated by Russian airstrikes and Syrian artillery. "Western" special forces maybe? It looks like the shootdown was a planned ambush, and they were trying to capture a Russian pilot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdtQpfwOoSg

Rakshas

I thought this one was funny as well.....

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/30178705/suspected-isis-recruiter-bombed-dur...

It's unclear when the footage was filmed, but video shows a man being hit by a strike.

The French launched airstrikes on Islamic State following the tragic Paris attacks, which killed 130 people, but it's unclear if they were responsible for this bomb.

France has since released video of their strikes against ISIS.

It's believed the video was filmed between November 15 and 17, it was uploaded to YouTube on November 18.

O Tempora O Morons

Directly from the troll house

Max Steel
I find it amusing when muritards can't use logic against facts and truth they conveniently
paint others as trolls ( Ever thought why West MSM never reported on CIA disinfo agent
and State Deptt of US trolls , do you think they don't exist? Ha! They do but western
censor media is not allowed to report it even rest Google browser being american will
flash non-usa troll msm articles first.

Western Media is a Troll Army

[Nov 27, 2015] Turkeys attack on Russian jet is foreign policy nightmare Austrian ex-chancellor

Notable quotes:
"... Turkey can do much more to fight ISIS, but they are concentrated to fight or to separate or to isolate the Turkish fighters. The Peshmerga, as you know, is a staunch ally against ISIL or ISIS, and Turkey could also do more to stop the influx of foreign recruits a route to Syria. You mentioned the oil smuggling... so I think, a lot can be done, also to stop refugees, uncontrolled flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe. So I think Turkey should do more and on the summit of the EU and Turkey, Im sure a lot of our member-states will ask Turkey to do much more. ..."
RT - SophieCo
Sophie Shevardnadze: Wolfgang Schussel former Chancellor and foreign minister of Austria, welcome to the show, it's really great to have you with us. Now, a NATO country, Turkey, has shot down a Russian bomber in Syria, claiming it strayed into Turkish airspace. When a Turkish plane was shot for violating Syrian airspace, mr. Erdogan dubbed it an "attack with no excuse" - now, when a Russian plane is shot by Turkey in similar circumstances, it's an "appropriate self-defence". How this ambiguous stance of a NATO member and an EU candidate is viewed in Europea? Why is Turkey changing its stance when it feels like it? What's European take on that?

Wolfgang Schussel: I think it's a nightmare incident, what happened a few days ago. This is exactly what some military experts warned about - there were repeated warning that there could be a clash between two nations in this already overcrowded Syrian sky. I think, what is needed is more cooperation and coordination. And, I think, the response of Turkey, even if there would be some incidents, let's say, for 2-5 seconds crossing a border land, it's not an appropriate reaction for that. So, I think, what is needed is a military coordination in this very disputed area.

SS: But also, the way we look at it, this incident with the fighter jet has only highlighted Turkey's dubious behaviour towards ISIS. I mean, the alleged buying of smuggled oil from terrorists, allowing militant movement back and forth over the border and attacking Kurds who are fighting ISIS. Why has this been tolerated by members of the anti-ISIS coalition for so long?

WS: I think it was criticised. Turkey can do much more to fight ISIS, but they are concentrated to fight or to separate or to isolate the Turkish fighters. The Peshmerga, as you know, is a staunch ally against ISIL or ISIS, and Turkey could also do more to stop the influx of foreign recruits a route to Syria. You mentioned the oil smuggling... so I think, a lot can be done, also to stop refugees, uncontrolled flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe. So I think Turkey should do more and on the summit of the EU and Turkey, I'm sure a lot of our member-states will ask Turkey to do much more.

SS: So you think on that summit Turkey is going to be asked by the allies to get its anti-terror act together? Because, "criticising" and actually pressuring Turkey to do this are two different things.

WS: Yeah, but you know, summit is a diplomatic effort to bring up different ideas and to coordinate the political actions, and I think it's an important meeting. I would not underestimate the impetus and a potential influx on the Turkish policy. I hope it will work.

SS: NATO said in October it is ready to defend Turkey against Russia. It now has taken a much more cautious tone. Why the change?

WS: It should not be, so to say, confrontation of NATO and Russia. I think what is needed is direct talks between Turkey and Russia and I hope, I got some information that there's an already planned meeting between Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Turkish foreign minister. They should discuss it, and, anyway, there is a strong need to coordinate military efforts. If Russia - and I would support it - would become a member of the coalition against ISIS and ISIL, there's a need to coordinate the actions, the moves, the targets, et cetera.

SS: Now, while the anti-terror campaign in Syria is ramping up, in Europe operations following the Paris attacks are also in full swing. All of Austria's neighbors - Italy, Hungary, Germany - they're on high terror alert in case of another attack. Why isn't Austria on such an alert? Is Austria confident it's safe, I mean, feeling no need to raise the threat level? Is Austria equipped to handle such a threat?

WS:I think, everybody is on alert and rightly so: because nobody can feel safe and secure or exempt from terror attacks from Al-Qaeda, Daesh, ISIL, ISIS - call it what you want. I think what we learned during the last years, months, or weeks or days is that nothing is guaranteed. We're fighting for our way of life, to entertain us, to love, to listen to music, to meet, to speak freely. This is an attack against all of us, an attack against our values. So I think we all have to be united and no one should think he or she is exempt from being a target of these terrorists. This is our common enemy, and we should also prioritise our action. In the moment, the most urgent priority is to fight against ISIS, and then the rest should be settled. Political, diplomatic effort to settle something, a diplomatic or political solution for Syria - that's for sure, this is needed, but now the most important priority is to fight the Islamic forces.

[Nov 27, 2015] If these other foreign goupes searching for pilot include Americans and that might be the reason that after the plane was shot down, Russia was slapped with additional sanctions

marknesop.wordpress.com

Erika, November 26, 2015 at 11:21 am

Russian Pilot Rescued by Iran's General Soleimani

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940905000553

I am wondering if these other foreign forces they refer to are Americans and perhaps be the reason that after the shooting of the plane, Russia ended up getting additional sanctions.

[Nov 27, 2015] Reckless Turkey

Interesting discussion, Opinion of Charles Shoebridge is quite interesting.
Notable quotes:
"... Russia fighting ISIS, among other purposes, can divide NATO in Russia's interest. Downing of Russia fighter is to distract Russia focus under encouragement of U.S. Russia must not lose sight of the ball and fall into the trap by revenging Turkey. ..."
RT CrossTalk
And now for the consequences: In the wake of Turkey's intentional downing of a Russian military aircraft over Syrian airspace, the Russia-Turkey relationship is in steep decline. Ankara says it merely acted in self-defense, but it appears to be protecting Islamic State.

CrossTalking with Charles Shoebridge and Yenal Kucuker.

William Bellah

The bigger picture is at stake and it all depends on China. The bigger picture is world domination and Russia alone is not enough of a deterrent to stop the U.S. And NATO but with China onboard, backing Russia in Syria, it is a whole different ball game

George Rizk -> Yancey Tobias

Yancey Tobias

Kucuker: "Turkey misunderstood,..." ???? This is nonsense. In the ME, the role of Turkey is well understood. more...

You are correct. A couple of years ago, Egypt ousted a Muslim Brotherhood President, who had sent terrorist to Syria, and looked the other way as Islamists in Egypt torched 75 churches. Mr. Erdoghan at the UN podium chose to condemn Egypt's more than 30 millions revolution against the Muslim extremists. Erdoghan, has exposed himself as a supporter of Muslim extremism, barbarism right at the UN a couple of years ago, and the news are full of information about the terrorist training camps and arms smuggling from Turkey into Syria.

George Rizk

The way this issue should be framed is: gangs of savages have been armed and encouraged by Muslim Sunni fanatic countries to oust Assad. The savages behaved in extremely barbaric fashion, and went after European targets, which made the West repulsed by their actions. Nevertheless, no country had enough guts to send forces to support these barbarians.

Russia decided after four years of such devastation to fight them. Hence Russia is attempting to protect human kind from such subhuman gangs. Any one defending these subhumans is a supporter of forces of darkness. Tukey should be ousted from the UN, and NATO.

Chunde Shi

Russia fighting ISIS, among other purposes, can divide NATO in Russia's interest. Downing of Russia fighter is to distract Russia focus under encouragement of U.S. Russia must not lose sight of the ball and fall into the trap by revenging Turkey.

Vidas Jack

One i can say , Russia is not Great World Power as it was USSR, and that the reason how NATO took down Su-24 in the manner of engagement Russia to WW3.

[Nov 27, 2015] Turkish President Erdo an warns Russia not to play with fire

Notable quotes:
"... Erdo an also touched on the joint press conference held by Putin and French President François Hollande on Nov. 26, describing the former's comments as "unacceptable." Denying allegations that Turkey has been purchasing oil from ISIL, Erdo an said the oil trade between ISIL, Russia and the Syrian regime had been documented by the United States. ..."
www.hurriyetdailynews.com

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned Russia "not to play with fire" in the wake of a crisis between Ankara and Moscow following the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey on Nov. 24 near the Syrian border.

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin says 'those who have double standards on terrorism are playing with fire.' I totally agree with him," Erdoğan said Nov. 27 in the northern province of Bayburt.

"Indeed, supporting the [Bashar] al-Assad regime in Syria, which has killed 380,000 people, is playing with fire. Striking opposition groups that have international legitimacy with the excuse of fighting against Daesh [an acronym of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL] is playing with fire. Using an incident in which Turkey's righteousness is accepted by the whole world as an excuse to torment our citizens who were in Russia to attend a fair is playing with fire. Irresponsibly hitting trucks in the region that are there for trade or humanitarian reasons is playing with fire. We sincerely advise Russia not to play with fire," he added.

Erdoğan also expressed his willingness to meet Putin during the upcoming climate change summit in Paris in order to find common ground and avoid a further escalation of tension.

"We are uncomfortable with efforts to take the dispute over the downed jet into other areas of relations. Let's not allow that to happen," he said, underlining that maintaining good relations was beneficial for both countries.

Claiming that Turkey's shooting down of the Russian jet was not "intentional" but simply a result of an automatic enforcement of rules of engagement, Erdoğan nevertheless argued that Turkey was right to do so.

"Turkey has proved its honesty" by releasing audio recordings of the warnings issued to the Russian pilots, he added.

Erdoğan also touched on the joint press conference held by Putin and French President François Hollande on Nov. 26, describing the former's comments as "unacceptable." Denying allegations that Turkey has been purchasing oil from ISIL, Erdoğan said the oil trade between ISIL, Russia and the Syrian regime had been documented by the United States.

[Nov 27, 2015] Turkish minister says trade retaliation by Russia will hurt its farmers

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Any trade retaliation by Russia over Turkey's downing of a jet flying sorties in Syria would hurt Russian farmers more, Turkish Agriculture Minister Faruk Çelik said on Nov. 27, pointing to import-export figures.

Turkey has not yet received official notification of any embargo by Russia, Çelik also told reporters.

However, it would be wrong to let the tensions between Russia and Turkey impact farming, commercial and economic ties, he said.

Russia has increased checks on food and agriculture imports from Turkey, the Agriculture Ministry said on Nov. 26, in the first public move to curb trade in a dispute with Ankara for the downing a Russian fighter jet.

The Russian government told Russia's food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor to increase controls after agriculture ministry research showed about 15 percent of agriculture imports from Turkey did not meet regulations, the Russian ministry said.

Çelik said Turkey exports around $1.3 billion of agricultural goods to Russia and buys $.2.9 billion of agricultural products from Russia.

"Any trade retaliation move will hurt mainly Russian farmers, not Turkish farmers," he said.

[Nov 27, 2015] Russia imposes sanctions on Turkey over downed plane

Notable quotes:
"... He earlier called the act a "stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and promised "serious consequences" ..."
www.theguardian.com

...the country's tourist board has suspended all tours to Turkey, a move that it estimated would cost the Turkish economy $10bn (£6.6bn). Russia also said it was suspending all military cooperation with Turkey, including closing down an emergency hotline to share information on Russian airstrikes in Syria.

Putin accused Turkey of deliberately trying to bring relations between Moscow and Ankara to a standstill, adding that Moscow was still awaiting an apology or an offer of reimbursement for damages. He earlier called the act a "stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and promised "serious consequences"

... ... ...

Russia has insisted that its plane never strayed from Syrian airspace, while Turkey says it crossed into its airspace for 17 seconds. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that even if this was the case, shooting the plane down was an extreme over-reaction and looked like a pre-planned provocation.

[Nov 27, 2015] Guest Post Why Is The US Hanging Turkey Out To Dry

Notable quotes:
"... It can safely be assumed that the US influenced Turkey into shooting down the Russian jet over Syrian airspace, predicting quite accurately that this would immediately lead to the deterioration of ties between the two states. An elementary forecast of the specific counter-measures that Russia may take stipulates that these will likely relate to the diplomatic, economic, and energy sectors, which is just what the US wants. ..."
"... Furthermore, Turkish Stream looks to be indefinitely put on hold, thus delaying Russia's game-changing pivot to the Balkans. ..."
Zero Hedge

Authored by Andrew Korybko via OrientalReview.com,

Turkey's shooting down of the Russian anti-ISIL aircraft was an unprecedentedly direct aggression against Moscow that trumps even the tense and hostile militarism of the Old Cold War era. The world stands on edge in the immediate aftermath of this attack, with tabloid-esque commentators warning that the beginning of World War III awaits. President Putin, for his part, has been much more measured in responding to the incident, but still couldn't contain his shock at having received this "stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists."

The question now comes down to how Russia will respond to what happened, but perhaps even more important for observers to ponder is why the US is unofficially distancing itself from its ally's aggression. Despite both NATO and Obama giving full backing to Turkey's fateful decision, Reuters has quoted an anonymous American military official that purposely leaked that the Russian plane was downed while over Syrian airspace, basing the assessment on heat signature detection. This raises questions about why the US is playing both sides of the fence – on one hand, publicly supporting Turkey, while on the other, strategically releasing information that conflicts with Turkey's official depiction of events.

The Setup:

This dichotomy is suggestive of a Machiavellian plan whereby the US manipulates both Turkey and Russia into behaving according to what it has already forecast as their most likely responses, knowing full well that these could be guided into supporting grander American strategic interests. For starters, the US likely intimated to Erdogan that not only does he have the 'legal' right to shoot down any Russian aircraft he chooses, but that the US would actually prefer for him to take this course of action sooner than later. This is reminiscently similar to how the US put Sakkashvili up to bombing Tskhinval and invading South Ossetia – it may not have directly issued an official, on-paper order for this to occur, but it left no ambiguity as to how it wanted its proxy to act in each situation.

According To Plan:

For the most part, this explains the public pronouncements of NATO and the US' support for Turkey's actions, and it also goes a long way in soothing Erdogan's nerves and reassuring him that he did the right thing. The predicted aftereffect of the plane's downing was an immediate deterioration of Russian-Turkish relations, with the full consequences potentially affecting the diplomatic, military, economic, and energy spheres. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled his upcoming trip to Turkey and advised Russian tourists to refrain from visiting the country due to the terrorism level being similar to Egypt's. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has spoken about the possibility of barring Turkish companies from the Russian market and cancelling planned nuclear and gas projects with the country.

All of these prospective actions are fully justifiable and grounded in the self-respect that Russia feels in not aiding what has proven itself to be a militantly hostile state no matter the economic stakes involved, but at the same time, one can't help but wonder whether this is exactly what the US wanted. There's no doubt that Russia would react this way, as even a cursory glance of its potential 'response toolkit' indicates that these are the most likely to be taken amidst any deterioration of relations. Therefore, it can't be discounted that the US put Erdogan up to shooting down the Russian jet precisely to provoke the predictable Russian response in threatening to cancel its forthcoming energy projects with Turkey, the core of the strategic partnership between the two. If this is the case, and it certainly seems likely, then it shows exactly how far the US is willing to go to make sure that Russian energy (and subsequently, all of the soft power and multipolar advantages that come with it) doesn't enter the Balkans through the Turkish Stream megaproject, likely because it understands the transformative impact that this would eventually have on the entire region.

The Curveball:

Thus far, everything seems reasonable and well within the realm of predictability, but the curveball comes with the Reuters revelation that an unnamed American military source is essentially saying that the Russian position is justified. Unexpectedly, it now seems as though the US is also playing to Russia's side to an extent, and this raises questions about what it really wants. After all, it's been proven beyond any doubt that American-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles were used to down the Russian rescue helicopter that attempted to retrieve the two pilots. With this indisputable evidence of indirect American aggression against Russia, it certainly is a curious fact that the US establishment would purposely leak a statement saying that the Turkey downed the Russian plane in Syrian airspace, and basically take Russia's side on this behind the scenes.

Playing The Kurdish Card:

Explaining this diplomatic twist requires knowledge about the popular response that Russian citizens and global supporters worldwide are requesting to Turkey's aggression. They quite reasonably propose that Russia intensify its arms shipments to anti-ISIL Kurdish fighters, with the wink-and-a-nod approval that some of them would be siphoned off to the PKK and be used against the Turkish military. This is an effective and pragmatic plan, and in reality, it actually doesn't even require a policy shift from Moscow because support is already being rendered to some Kurdish groups as part of their joint cooperation in the anti-ISIL struggle. The Kurdish Insurgency hasn't gone away since Erdogan unwittingly unearthed it this summer as an electioneering tool, and the fact that it's still going strong even after the elections has scared him so much that he might have been the one who ordered the recent assassination attempt against pro-Kurdish HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas. Thus, if Russia chooses to inflict an asymmetrical response to Turkey by beefing up its indirect support for the PKK and other Turkish-based anti-government Kurds or disrupting Blue Stream gas supplies in order to provoke an intensified rebellion, then it could certainly inflict a heavy amount of strategic damage to Erdogan and increase the likelihood either of a military coup in Turkey (explained more in detail as part of a different article accessible here) and/or the creation of an independent Kurdistan.

That being said, the US has traditionally been the out-of-regional power that has the greatest interest in Kurdistan, seeing the possible state as a 'geopolitical Israel' from which it can simultaneously exert influence on the rump portions of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The strategic trajectory of a theorized Kurdish state has been complicated by the anti-ISIL campaign, however, since many Kurds have shown themselves to be pragmatic in cooperating with Russia and Iran against this shared threat. The positive multipolar cooperation that each of these countries has engaged in with the Kurds challenges the US' planned hegemony over them and their territory, and it thus means that any forthcoming independent Kurdish political entity could theoretically go either towards the multipolar or the unipolar camps. At this point in time, and given all of the dynamic military and diplomatic developments of the past couple of months, the loyalty of a future Kurdish state (no matter if its boundaries are confined only to present-day Turkey and/or Iraq) is totally up for grabs, and it's impossible to accurately forecast which way it will go.

The strategic ambiguity that this entails means a few things to the US and Russia. For the US, it indicates that the time is now for it to bunker down and support Kurdistan's independence before it loses the strategic initiative to Russia, which might be moving in this direction (whether formally or informally) out of grand geopolitical spite for Turkey. Moscow, as was just mentioned, seems inclined to hit Ankara where it hurts most, and that's through supporting the Kurdish Insurgency in one way or another. However, it's not yet known how far this would go, and whether Russia would pursue this strategy as a form of short-term vengeance or if it would resolutely go as far in recognizing Kurdish Independence if it could ever be de-facto actualized. Of course, Russia wouldn't do anything that could endanger the territorial integrity of its Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian allies, but if the Turkish-based Kurds contained their ambitions solely within the borders of Russia's historical rival, then it might be able to rectify itself with this reality, especially if they even refrain from legal independence and instead seek a sort of broadly de-facto independent federative or autonomous status within a unified Turkey (which could only realistically be brought about by an intensified insurgency and/or a coup in Ankara).

Joining Hands For Kurdistan:

Having explained all of this, it's now clear that a remarkable convergence of strategic interests has developed between the US and Russia focusing on Turkish-administered Kurdistan. Understanding the changing calculations that Russia may now be having towards this topic as a response to Turkey's aggression against it, one can't necessarily preclude the possibility that the Reuters leak was actually a strategic overture to Russia. Washington might be sending a signal that it wants to speak to Moscow about ways to cooperate in this regard, knowing that each of them possibly have an interest now in seeing the proto-state rise to the fore of the global arena. A shared understanding has likely developed by now that a New Cold War competition for Kurdistan's loyalty could be fought after the entity is legally formalized (whether as an independent state or a de-facto independent sub-state entity modeled off of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq), and that the two Great Powers need to put aside some of their differences in joining hands to see this happen first.

Such a strong signal could have been discretely and secretly communicated to Russia via secure diplomatic and intelligence channels, but the reason it was so publicly broadcast via Reuters, the global newswire service, is because the US also wants to send a signal to Turkey as well. Despite taking its side on the matter before the global eye, the US is also "stabbing its ally in the back", to channel President Putin, by purposely leaking the information that the Russian jet was shot down over Syrian airspace. It's not news that the US has been unhappy with Erdogan for not behaving more submissively in the past and refusing to blindly go along with the previous plans to invade Syria (rendered useless after Russia's anti-terrorist military intervention there), so it might be trying to convey the message it's had enough of his games and is now playing their own in return. Of course, the US has always been manipulating Turkey ever since it joined NATO and allowed the Americans to operate out of Incirlik airbase, but this time, the treachery is being taken to a higher level by implicitly throwing out suggestions to Russia, Turkey's new foe (and only because the US manipulated Turkey into taking aggressive action against it), that it might want to team up in undermining Ankara's control over its volatile southeast.

Concluding Thoughts:

It can safely be assumed that the US influenced Turkey into shooting down the Russian jet over Syrian airspace, predicting quite accurately that this would immediately lead to the deterioration of ties between the two states. An elementary forecast of the specific counter-measures that Russia may take stipulates that these will likely relate to the diplomatic, economic, and energy sectors, which is just what the US wants. Because of Turkey's aggression against Russia, the strategic partnership between the two is now broken (although not necessarily irreversibly), and Ankara has become the fourth and perhaps most geopolitically significant member of the anti-Russian Intermarum coalition. Furthermore, Turkish Stream looks to be indefinitely put on hold, thus delaying Russia's game-changing pivot to the Balkans. While the 'unintended' consequence of the crisis has been Russia's foreseeable and absolutely legitimate decision to deploy the S-400 SAM system to Syria, this in a way also plays to the manipulated Turkish-Russian rivalry that the US wanted to produce in order to solidify the completion of the Intermarum project and simultaneously counter Russia's growing influence in the Mideast.

The reaction that no one could have predicted, however, is the US purposely leaking comments to Reuters that support the Russian version of events, namely, that the anti-terrorist jet was shot down while flying over Syrian airspace. This completely conflicts with what the US and NATO have said in public, but it shows that the US has had enough time to game out the plane-shooting scenario well in advance, and that it's playing a sinister divide-and-conquer game against Turkey and Russia. Put in the position where its decision makers are scrambling for responses to the unprecedented aggression against them, Russia can now more easily be led into supporting the Kurdish struggle for sovereignty (whether formally independent or de-facto so) in Turkey, which coincides with one of the US' premier geopolitical projects.

From an American perspective, a divided Turkey is doubly useful for its grand strategic designs, as the large pro-NATO Turkish military would remain mostly intact, while the US could gain a major base for force projection (both hard and soft) right in between some of the most important states in the region. It can't, however, go fully forward with this project unless it has the support of the diplomatic leader of the multipolar world, Russia, otherwise Kurdistan will be just as illegitimate as Kosovo is and might not even come to geopolitical fruition if Moscow and Tehran work to stop it.

Seen from the Russian standpoint, the US' intimations actually seen quite attractive. An increase of Russian support to anti-ISIL Kurdish fighters would be a plausibly deniable but strategically obvious way to funnel weapons and equipment to anti-Turkish PKK insurgents. Weakening Turkey from within would be a strong asymmetrical response to a country that has lately been a major thorn in Moscow's side, and it might create the conditions either for a military coup against Erdogan, a divide between him and Davutoglu (which could be used to Russia's diplomatic advantage so long as the constitution remains unchanged and Davutoglu legally remains more powerful than Erdogan), or a weakening of Erdogan and a tempering of his anti-Russian and anti-Syrian positions.

Importantly, the emergence of an independent or semi-independent Kurdish entity in Turkey could create a tempting piece of geopolitical real estate in the New Cold War, but of course, it would then be contested between the multipolar and unipolar worlds. Still, however, it would represent a positive multipolar development in the Mideast, since under the present state of affairs, the entirety of Turkish territory is under unipolar control. If a large chunk of it suddenly became the object of competition between both blocs, then it would definitely signify a strategic advancement at the expense of unipolarity. Of equal importance, this would also significantly impact on the Turkish state and whatever government is in power by that time, and it could possibly make it more amenable to returning to the previously pragmatic relationship with Russia and perhaps even resurrecting Turkish Stream.

Therefore, Russia surprisingly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by covertly supporting the Kurdish cause in Turkey, no matter if it's full-out independence or relatively more restrained autonomy, and even if this is objective is shared by the US and done in semi-coordination with it. Turkey would immediately be put on the defensive (although it could try desperately responding by supporting Tatar terrorists in Crimea), the multipolar world have a chance at competing for the loyalty of an ultra-strategically positioned entity, and the consequences that this has for the Turkish government (whether it remains the same or is changed via a [military] coup) could recreate the political conditions for Turkish Stream's feasibility.

Main_Sequence

The shooting down of the Russia's SU-24 that had allegedly crossed into Turkish airspace was highly likely architected by the USSA and executed directly by CIA assets to drive a wedge between Russia and Turkey to further isolate Russia, and try to prevent any construction of natural gas pipelines from Russia via Turkey, that will eventually feed into Europe.

Due to Turkey's geo-strategic location between the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia for gas pipelines, Turkey becomes the lynchpin for controlling the entire energy distribution network across the aforementioned regions.

DeadFred's picture

Whoa! Who says this un-named military official was doing what the Kenyan guy wanted? There are a lot of them left who detest him and some even remember that their oaths were to the constitution. Not much left of it but that's what they swore to protect.

pretty bird

America is doing the right thing. Obama wants to take charge of a chaotic situation. He's playing both sides against each other. Then the USA will take the lead role. God bless America. And God bless Israel.

Main_Sequence

I wish there was a timestamp for the post at the link below, since I called it earlier.

Moscow Warns CIA, Not Turkey, Downed Russian Fighter Plane Over Syria: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1946.htm

The Navigator
America always fucks over their "friends". It's only when you're their enemy that you know where you stand. After 60 years on this spinning globe and having lived and seen from abroad, it's all a lie, American Pie, American Dream.

Welder

I'd love to see the Turks driven out of Asia Minor back to the steppes of Central Asia where they came from. And Istanbul's name changed back to Constantinople. It's a nice piece of real estate. Strategic too.

Coke and Hookers

This is an interesting analysis though. The only real action the US has apparently taken against ISIS is to support the Kurdish offensive. It seems clear that the US has some sort of plan for future Kurdistan and that ain't the same plan Turkey has. This discrepancy has gotten little attention so far. It makes sense that the US is grooming Kurdistan as a future client state in the area. The Kurds have been semi allied with Iran and Assad for a long time and neutralizing that would be a major bonus.

r0mulus

I don't buy the argument in this article.

The leaking of info to the media by the US general does not necessarily signify the desire of the US to undercut Turkey- it just as easily could suggest a power struggle between elite circles within the overall power structure, or it could simply be a whistleblower coming forward.

The author seems to have jumped to conclusions with their assertion regarding the intention of the leak.

fleur de lis

NATO is hellbent for a war with Russia.

Notice how none of the other NATO club members dare to rough up the Russians. But they needed a point man so they somehow convinced Turkey to shoot down a fighter jet. They must have promised something very sweet to the Turks. What could go wrong?

Did they mention that the FSA, ISIS, etc., would be on the ground waiting? And the cold blooded murder of a Russian pilot was part of the deal? And that their kinfolk the ethnic Turkmen would be so stupid as to boast about it on video for all the world to see?

Now the Turks realize that they have been poisoned. And they have been abandoned by their NATO friends and left to face a very angry bear all alone. The Turks had better wake up and realize that they have never been respected by NATO and are considered expendable by Western warmongers.

Winston Churchill

As I said on the other article, I'm begining to think that shooting down the jet was aimed at getting the S400's deployed. The west doesn't want anymore Russian surprises like
the radar jamming tech Breedlove keeps whining about.

No way this pre planned ambush was not OKed by Uncle Scam. Deploying 400's instead of the nearly obsolete S300's may have been a mistake.

[Nov 27, 2015] Who's-who--Syria's-terror-list

Al-Ahram Weekly

When the foreign ministers of 17 countries met in Vienna on 30 October, they agreed, among other things, that "Daesh [Islamic State] and other terrorist groups, as designated by the UN Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated."

With this rallying cry in mind, Russia's chief diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, is now pressing for preparation of a list of all terrorist groups operating in Syria, so that the country may be rid of them through concerted international action.

When the same ministers convened again in Vienna, on Saturday, 14 November, the idea had gained some traction.

"It is time to deprive the terrorists of any single kilometre in which to hide," US Secretary of State John Kerry said.

The Russians are now pressing for two lists to be prepared: one for terrorist groups that must be annihilated, and one for friendly groups that can take part in the fight against the former. Jordan has been asked to prepare the list of terrorist groups.

But Syrian opposition groups are wary of the Russian approach. They fear that what Moscow is trying to obtain is not a list of groups involved in human rights abuses, but a list of groups opposed to Bashar Al-Assad's regime.

Sifting through the 800 or so armed groups operating in Syria today the Russians identified only 40 groups that they consider to be "moderate".

However, opposition figures told Al-Ahram Weekly that there are many more groups that have never been accused of human rights violations, never hired foreign fighters and never committed atrocities. These groups have for the past four years fought against both Islamic State (IS) and the regime.

Many of these groups are small, often operating within the perimeters of their villages or towns. They operate mostly in self-defence, and many have sworn to abide by the international laws of war and human rights principles.

At the recent meeting in Vienna, it was clear that neither Russia nor Iran is willing to discuss the fate of President Hafez Al-Assad. Indeed, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif threatened to pull out of the Vienna talks if Al-Assad's fate was placed on the agenda.

So, without tackling this thorny issue, the foreign ministers came up with an 18-month plan, starting from early next year, to form an interim government and hold elections.

UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura described the plan as "challenging but possible."

According to the plan, delegates from the government and the "whole spectrum of opposition forces" should meet no later than 1 January 2016 to discuss the formation of an interim government. This interim government, the ministers agreed, will draft a new constitution and hold new elections within the next 18 months.

This will be a "Syrian-led process", Lavrov said during the talks, which were infused with a sense of urgency in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

Mohamed Sabra, chief of the Syrian Republic Party, took issue with the Russian proposals. "The Russian proposal is based on dividing combatant groups into those who agree to a political deal and those who oppose it," he told the Weekly.

"Once the UN Security Council endorses [the terror lists], this would allow the shelling and extermination of those armed groups that Moscow seeks to destroy," he added.

According to Sabra, Moscow is also trying to isolate Islamic groups that disagree with the principles of a democratic and secular state, and thus exclude them from the political process.

"This will lead to a realignment of forces, change the essence of the military conflict in Syria, and sow the seeds of civil war in the country," Sabra remarked.

Among the many armed groups working in Syria today are some that have Gulf backing, others that are supported by Turkey, and some that are homegrown. Kurdish groups have taken up arms, as have the Turkmen, Assyrians, Druze, Christians, Sunnis and Shias.

Then there is the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is an alliance of all of the above. Some of these groups have no more than 100 members, while some have tens of thousands of men under arms.

Deciding which of these groups is terrorist in nature is not going to be an easy task. Sayeed Muqbil, a prominent Syrian opposition figure, said that well-defined criteria must be set to differentiate between terrorists and non-terrorists.

"Before preparing the lists, we must bear in mind that the Syrian regime is responsible for 96 per cent of civilian casualties," Muqbil said, adding that the remaining four per cent were killed by other armed groups, including IS.

"So the forces of the regime and its affiliated militia should be subject also to the same norms. Also, the Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian outfits fighting in Syria must be brought under the same scrutiny," said Muqbil.

In the flurry of diplomatic efforts to find a quick fix for the war in Syria it must not be forgotten that officials in the current regime have ordered massacres to be carried out, barrel bombs to be dropped from planes, and chemical weapons to be used against civilians.

Armed groups affiliated with the regime have killed and abducted its opponents and pillaged areas deemed hostile to the regime. These groups include the National Defence Militia (Milishyat Al-Difaa Al-Watani), Baath Battalions (Kataeb Al-Baath), People's Committees (Al-Ijan Al-Shaabiya), Tempest Eagles (Nosour Al-Zawbaah), Orchard Society (Jamiet Al-Oustan), Hatay Liberation Movement (Harakat Tahrir Iskandarun) and Syria's Hezbollah.

Iraqi groups affiliated with Iran have also committed atrocities. These include the Brigade of Abul Fadl Al-Abbas (Liwa Abul Fadl Al-Abbas), Fatimids Brigade (Liwa Fatimiyun), Zeinab Followers Brigade (Liwaz Zeinabiyun), Mahdi Army (Jeish Al-Mahdi) and Iraq's Hezbollah.

Palestinian factions fighting alongside the regime have also committed human rights abuses, including documented massacres. These groups include the Popular Front Militia (Milishia Al-Jabha Al-Shaabiya), Quds Brigade (Liwa Al-Quds), Thunderbolt Forces (Quwat Al-Saiqa) and Palestine Liberation Army (Jeish Al-Tahrir Al-Filastini).

The IRGC (the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and Lebanon's Hezbollah have also been implicated in war crimes.

Members of Syria's opposition that the Weekly spoke with say that the international community must examine all these groups. If terror is to be isolated, it must be done using clear criteria - criteria that is applied to all parties in the conflict.

[Nov 27, 2015] Downing of Russian Jet Over Turkey was Inevitable

Notable quotes:
"... Ankara may have simply decided it had to nip Russia's incremental aggressions in the bud, with the ruling AK Party feeling particularly confident on the heels of an election sweep last month. ..."
"... Ankara may also have been acting under domestic political pressure to defend the Syrian Turkmen rebels - who are considered ethnic Turks - active on the Syrian side of the border in Hatay province ..."
"... At the very least, many expect an escalation in Russian strikes on Turkey-backed rebels in Syria, including the Turkmens, in retaliation. ..."
"... increase Russian assistance to the Syrian Kurds, whom Turkey views as "a clear and present danger" due to their ties to the Kurdish PKK insurgency in southeast Turkey. ..."
Al Jazeera America

... Ankara may have simply decided it had to nip Russia's incremental aggressions in the bud, with the ruling AK Party feeling particularly confident on the heels of an election sweep last month.

Soner Cagaptay, a Turkey analyst at the Washington Institute think thank in Washington, D.C., noted that Ankara may also have been acting under domestic political pressure to defend the Syrian Turkmen rebels - who are considered ethnic Turks - active on the Syrian side of the border in Hatay province, where the plane was shot down. Russian targeting of Turkmen fighters, who are said to number in the thousands, has been a sore spot for many Turks.

But Turkey didn't appear to have NATO's backing in its decision to shoot down the plane, analysts said...

... Still, analysts said there was a sense of inevitability that this sort of incident could happen again. The Kremlin has sent out signals that Tuesday's events won't deter its mission in northern Syria, where Russian air power has been critical in rolling back rebel gains against Moscow's client, the Assad regime. At the very least, many expect an escalation in Russian strikes on Turkey-backed rebels in Syria, including the Turkmens, in retaliation. Fadi Hakura, a Turkey analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, pointed out that an even more provocative step would be to increase Russian assistance to the Syrian Kurds, whom Turkey views as "a clear and present danger" due to their ties to the Kurdish PKK insurgency in southeast Turkey.

[Nov 27, 2015] Turkey has spent years allowing jihadist groups to flourish - so beware its real reasons for shooting down a Russian plane

independent.co.uk

Turkey is getting desperate. Under President Recep Tayip Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), its policies toward the conflict in Syria over the past four years have been misguided and costly. When conflict broke out in 2011, Ankara mistakenly under-estimated the strength of the Assad regime and supported hardline Islamist groups seeking its downfall. In the process, Turkey also marginalised the Kurds and alienated regional powers like Iran.

Four years on, Assad looks set to hold onto power and his regime will be a central part of a transition plan, one that foreign powers were negotiating last weekend. Turkey's regional rival, Iran, is a key player which can no longer be ignored by the West. Not only does the pro-Assad alliance now have Russian support firmly on its side, but the international community is no longer focused on defeating the regime – instead, it is concerned with defeating jihadist groups like Isis.

The shift in focus is a significant drawback for Erdogan. Years of support for, and investment in, Islamic fundamentalist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria) and Ahrar al-Sham are about to go to waste. Ankara has played a significant role in allowing Isis and other jihadists to flourish in Syria and the region. Turkey has acquiesced to jihadist groups entering Syria via Turkey as well as their use of Turkey as a transit point for smuggling arms and funds into Syria.

...The Kurds in Syria, meanwhile, have established themselves as a reliable Western ally and have created, in the process, an autonomous Kurdish region that has reinvigorated Kurdish nationalism in Turkey and across the region - much to Turkey's dismay as it continues a brutal military campaign to repress the Kurds.

\...The West appeased and bolstered Erdogan in Turkey in the run-up to the country's elections, with the aim of securing a deal with Ankara on the refugee crisis. It may now regret that. Erdogan is not only likely to drive a hard bargain but he may also walk away.

[Nov 27, 2015] President Erdogan hits out at 'shameful' accusations Turks profit from Isis

Notable quotes:
"... Western diplomats believe that, at best, Turkey for too long turned a blind eye to jihadist fighters using Turkey as a conduit for fighters and weapons. ..."
independent.co.uk

He hit back at claims that Turkish officials profited financially from the sale of oil from Isis-held territory, telling his critics: "Shame on you."

In a claim likely to raise eyebrows not only in Moscow but also in Washington, Mr Erodogan insisted that Turkey's fight against jihadists was "undisputed". Western diplomats believe that, at best, Turkey for too long turned a blind eye to jihadist fighters using Turkey as a conduit for fighters and weapons.

[Nov 27, 2015] We need an asymmetrical responce

Notable quotes:
"... All journalists in one voice say that the resulting shooting - professional, and obviously not filmed with a single camera. ..."
"... That is, the provocation was really well prepared. But then the question arises, what we want to achieve this provocation? And whose is it? Erdogan? Or the United States? Or NATO? Or military Turkish intelligence? ..."
"... Now Erdogan clumsily backtrack his previous statements. He stated that the Turkish authorities did not know what brought down the Russian plane, thinking it was Syrian. This is an outright lie. Erdogan gave in to the pressure of his corrupt son who asked his father to avenge for the the trucks burned by Russia's air strikes. ..."
"... Ambush of Russian aircraft is not accidental and is rooted in the psychology of Erdogan. He just won the parliamentary elections: for this purpose he destroyed the peace with the Kurds and started a war with them - in fact, only in order to obtain a parliamentary majority. He is very militant. And due to successes he lost the sense of reality. Now he says that he does not want escalation of the conflict. ..."
izvestia.ru

I think, for anybody not a secret that the impact on Russian aircraft was a well-calculated provocation. Recently I visited "al-Jazeera international, al-Jazeera, the Them", Sky News and other international channels. I had the opportunity to consult with different and very professional operators. All journalists in one voice say that the resulting shooting - professional, and obviously not filmed with a single camera.

That is, the provocation was really well prepared. But then the question arises, what we want to achieve this provocation? And whose is it? Erdogan? Or the United States? Or NATO? Or military Turkish intelligence?

Before you respond to provocation, you need to comprehend the situation. However, it is clear that this was a treacherous blow and the lies of the officials. Turkish plane flew into Syrian territory for the attack by Russian aircraft. Even in NATO, Turkey has presented evidence that Russian aircraft flew for 17 seconds. During this time, 10 times no one would be able to warn our pilot.

Turkish officials, of course, completely lost face. They lie that the plane was shot down over Turkish territory. Even if the plane flew for 17 seconds when he got hit, he was away over Syria. Lie that warned of the Russian pilots. Lying, that didn't mean it. It is clear that this is a trap. They lie that they do not consider Russia as the enemy. Lying that Russian planes, when they even flew into Turkish territory, pose a threat to the security of Turkey. The same Erdogan has repeatedly said that short-flown aircraft is not an excuse to open fire.

Now Erdogan clumsily backtrack his previous statements. He stated that the Turkish authorities did not know what brought down the Russian plane, thinking it was Syrian. This is an outright lie. Erdogan gave in to the pressure of his corrupt son who asked his father to avenge for the the trucks burned by Russia's air strikes.

Ambush of Russian aircraft is not accidental and is rooted in the psychology of Erdogan. He just won the parliamentary elections: for this purpose he destroyed the peace with the Kurds and started a war with them - in fact, only in order to obtain a parliamentary majority. He is very militant. And due to successes he lost the sense of reality. Now he says that he does not want escalation of the conflict.

And Russia does not want escalation, but to forgive treacherous murder of our pilot Russia too. Erdogan needs to understand that. He has a chance to apologize and pay the damages. To do this, Turkey should recognize that shot down Russian aircraft over Syrian territory. Erdogan should apologize to the family of the Russian pilot and assign her a huge lifetime pension. He also needs to give the order to stop military support to Islamic state terrorists and to prosecute those who organized the attack on the Russian plane.

If you meet those conditions, Russia might be satisfied. If Erdogan going to insist that the Turkish military have the right to kill any Russian citizen, whenever and wherever you want, then Russia needs to radically change its position on all issues which are sensitive for Erdogan. And first of all on Kurds.

Russia's response should be asymmetric. We need to fins set of measures the most painful for Erdogan, while maximally avoiding the negative consequences for the Russian population and for Turkish. First of all, the response must be to change the attitude of Russia to the Kurdish resistance and struggle of the Kurds with Turkey. Even minor efforts of Russia in this direction can jeopardize the stability of Erdogan regime and, most likely, will lead to its collapse.

But what we don't need is anti-Turkish hysteria. Neither Russia nor Turkey as the government is not interested to be drawn into conflict with each other. Only our strategic opponents profitable to pit Russia and Turkey against each other ans see from the sidelines the destructive effects of this.

Responsibility for this crime lies with the President Erdogan and the elite around him. It is foolish to blame the Turkish people. We should stop insulting a whole nation.

But the answer should follow. The answer should be tough but limited. And it should hit both Erdogan and his close associates guilty of this vile provocation. In no case we need a prepetition of events near the Turkish Embassy with stones knocking out Windows. Embassies in Russia of all countries should be inviolable. Only in this case we can claim a similar relationship to our embassies abroad.

I would also like to warn against hasty measures in trade and the economy. Cooperation with Turkey is beneficial not only her, but also of Russia and Russian citizens. Any economic sanctions should be applied only in case if we are confident that they minimally affect our population. Again, good work with the Kurds, and the destruction of the joint Turkish-ISIS oil transportation channel might help to created problems for Erdogan regime.

[Nov 26, 2015] Russian Foreign Ministry recommended Russian not to fly to Turkey

svpressa.ru

tour operators and travel agents have been asked to refrain from selling tours that involve flights (including commercial flights) from the Russian Federation to Turkey

The Russian foreign Ministry confirms the recommendation for Russian citizens to refrain from visiting Turkey, and those who are on the territory of the Republic, advises to return to their Homeland. This is stated in an official statement the Russian foreign Ministry.

The report stressed that it involves "continuing in Turkey for terrorist threats".

Earlier, the Minister of foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov has decided to celebrate his visit to Turkey. Also he recommended that the Russians to refrain from traveling to this country. However, he stressed that this recommendation is not even involved with the crash of the Russian plane su-24.

[Nov 26, 2015] Russia targets Turkish economy in retaliation for downing of warplane

The Washington Post

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday called for tough sanctions against Turkey that could bite into more than $30 billion in trade ties between the two countries, as police here began seizing Turkish products and deporting Turkish businessmen.

Russian officials are seething after Turkish F-16s downed a Russian warplane over the Syrian border in a debacle that ultimately left two Russian servicemen dead. Turkey says that the Russian plane breached its airspace and was warned five times to turn back, charges that Russia denies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the act as "a stab in the back from the accomplices of terrorists," and on Thursday said in televised remarks that Turkey still had not apologized over the incident.

On Thursday, it became clear that the Russian government was now turning its ire on whatever extensions of the Turkish economy it could get its hands on.

At a cabinet meeting, Medvedev said that joint investment projects with Turkey would be frozen or canceled. Negotiations over a proposed preferential trade regime with Turkey would also be scrapped, he said. Medvedev called for recommendations from government agencies to be submitted within two days.

[Nov 26, 2015] Why did it take Turkey just 17 seconds to shoot down Russian jet?

Galeotti is just a tool...
Notable quotes:
"... In this respect, it is understandable that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the attack a provocation and an ambush. ..."
"... This is a conflict that Ankara triggered and while it is being managed it is not going to go away. ..."
"... USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:37 ..."
"... Yet another country Russia declares as "hostile" on the global stage : ) With only Assad, Hiz'bollah and Iran providing material comfort ..."
"... I just recorded my warnings to Russia over airspace violations in my bedroom. "Hello, you are heading in the wrong direction. Stop immediately!" No response whatsoever from the Russians. Can post the original recording if anyone is interested. ..."
"... Turkish claims that parts of the plane fell and injuried some Turks , it a joke too far. As is their uncorroborated claim about a warning. ..."
"... "The bearded, turban wearing throat-cutters danced around the dead body of the pilot whom they had killed while he was parachuting down. Is this your understanding of humanity, Ankara? Are these the ones you are protecting, Erdogan?" ..."
"... Yeah, it is fighting against another adventure of US/EU/those ME countries to have regime change to their liking in the region and against ISIS-which was created thanks to that adventure. ..."
"... The question, as posed in the article, is why, in a very short space of time Turkey decided to shoot down an aircraft whose identity they must have known? ..."
"... Erdogan admits giving the order, clear evidence of a deliberate set-up. ..."
"... A more interesting question than pointlessly discussing the morality of it, is what the motivation for the Turks was. I personally think that they wanted to derail the possibility of Russia making some type of détente with the West after the Paris attacks. ..."
"... In addition to son Bilal's illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdogan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdogan seems hell-bent on toppling. ..."
"... They were waiting for the Russian bomber to cross this tiny bit of Turkish airspace that extends far to the South into Syrian territory. The Turks wanted to make a statement. ..."
"... Are you serious? They could not be in a more suitable company - NATO members killed close to 5 million people since WWII worldwide, polluted the countries they attacked with uranium and therefore will kill another couple of millions in decades to come, their corrupted banks caused the world recession, their corrupt politicians make life bitter for both their citizens and people in countries their banks have issues with...this is a fucked up world, there are no good guys. ..."
"... Does it matter? in reality one does not shoot a partner on the fight against terrorists who burn people alive, chop their heads, rape women and sell kids into slavery, and if the fucking yanks are incapable of naming who are these moderates they are also fair game. ..."
"... The way I look at it is that the Turks had two tactics a) wanted the involvement of NATO and Putin did not oblige by starting a conflict with and b) wanting to defend its pals in ISIS and all the offshoots that these despicable people are represented by. ..."
"... The US and Turkey have very different purposes in Syria and Iraq. The US uses "Kurds" as its main force in both Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Since 2011 Erdogan has gone off the top and has resumed Turkey's war against the Kurds. That's all that matters to him. ..."
"... Both the US (through its Persian Gulf "friends") and Turkey were inventing and backing ISIS in 2011. The Russian newcomers began with steps that might save lives, but have also gotten caught up in the absurd US effort to remake the borders. More dead and refugees to follow. ..."
www.theguardian.com

...Airspace incursions, granted usually in less politically tense contexts, happen all the time, and generally you'd expect warning shots to be fired and then attempts to force the intruder to leave or to land.

That the Turks shot down the jet and did so within 17 seconds – with the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he gave the order to fire himself – suggests very strongly they were waiting for a Russian plane to come into or close enough to Turkish airspace with the aim of delivering a rather pyrotechnic message.

Turkish military releases audio recordings said to be warnings to Russian jet

In this respect, it is understandable that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the attack a provocation and an ambush.

... ... ...

Moscow may put greater emphasis on countering Turkey's efforts to establish regional influence (Azerbaijan is an obvious place of contention) and could support problematic non-state actors inside Turkey, from Kurds to criminals (at least, those criminals not already tied to the Turkish state).

This is a conflict that Ankara triggered and while it is being managed it is not going to go away. Nor is it just going to become another chapter in the histories of Russo-Ottoman rivalry. Expect to see this play out in snide, deniable, but nonetheless bitter actions for months to come.


samstheman 26 Nov 2015 10:40

How the West can excuse the reaction of Turkey to a 17 second incursion is beyond me

As for the Turkmen rebels killing the pilot as he descended in possible "self defence" according to US State Department spokesman, please spare us the sophistry if such a description is apt

Vladimir Makarenko -> Dweezle 26 Nov 2015 10:40

...to shoot fish in a barrel. Unarmed bomber going under 300 mph. Well, we see what kind of training is really there now when Russians setting up S 400. This will be fun to watch, especially for Kurds.

psygone USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:37

Yet another country Russia declares as "hostile" on the global stage : ) With only Assad, Hiz'bollah and Iran providing material comfort - its became a rather comical routine.

Nivedita 26 Nov 2015 10:37

It's obvious that Turkey shot the Russian plane to defend the ISIS barbarians. Why would any decent country would want dangerous criminals like Turkey or GCC tyrants for allies?

copyniated 26 Nov 2015 10:36

I just recorded my warnings to Russia over airspace violations in my bedroom. "Hello, you are heading in the wrong direction. Stop immediately!" No response whatsoever from the Russians. Can post the original recording if anyone is interested.

SallyWa 26 Nov 2015 10:35

and could support problematic non-state actors inside Turkey, from Kurds. Are Kurds more problematic than Turks? It seems they are more helpful, at least, when it comes to ISIS.

If_Not_Why_Not -> DarthPutinbot 26 Nov 2015 10:34

Russia denies it was in Turkish airspace. The wreckage was found well in Syria.(as were the pilots.)
Turkish claims that parts of the plane fell and injuried some Turks , it a joke too far. As is their uncorroborated claim about a warning.
Both sides map production proves nothing also.

USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:30

I think that Mr. Erdogan will be terribly disappointed with what awaits him in the coming months and years. And I find it positive that Russia is no longer necessary to keep moral standards towards Turkey as Turkey never did it.


SallyWa 26 Nov 2015 10:30

Wow, quite harsh article towards Turkey.

Also, Turkey won't apologize for downing Russian warplane, Erdogan says.

It is nice that Erdogan not even shows any condolences to those dead and their families.

Proves, that Turkey planned it in advance and it wasn't about airspace or accident.


FGMisNOTOK -> Hottentot 26 Nov 2015 10:29

You are totally correct. There is no way it could be done. They were waiting to fire on the Russian plane as soon as it even slightly overshot the border. Give me a break... 17 seconds. Turkey itself (as the article above says) claimed that this was no cause for attack when its own planes flew over Syria. Hypocrites and liars.


photosymbiosis 26 Nov 2015 10:29

According to many reports, Erdogan's son is a central figure in ISIS cash-for-oil smuggling into Turkey, (which is incidentally heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas imports, for which they must pay full market price, unlike the 50% discount ISIS offers). Maps of the oil smuggling routes to Turkey show that the oil tanker convoys must pass through "moderate rebel anti-Assad" forces, to which should be appended, 'pro-ISIS?'
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/meet-man-who-funds-isis-bilal-erdogan-son-turkeys-president

"The reason we find this line of questioning fascinating is that just last week in the aftermath of the French terror attack but long before the Turkish downing of the Russian jet, we wrote about "The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking" in which we asked who is the one "breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?" - Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

So was this Turkey's effort to stop Russian attacks on the oil tanker convoys (which supply ISIS with several million dollars a day - perhaps several hundred tanker trucks a day, that is)? Is this retaliation by Erdogan for lost revenue?


Jeremn 26 Nov 2015 10:27

Would NATO stand by Turkey even if Turkey acted against the law? Probably, but an interesting question (http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/261300-russians-may-have-a-strong-case-in-turkish-shootdown)

In short, it appears at this point that the Turkish case justifying the use of deadly force is, at best, weak. Nevertheless, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO stands "in solidarity with Turkey." However, it may have been more prudent to withhold judgment until all the facts are definitively known and a full legal analysis is complete. Why? Article 5 of the NATO treaty governing self-defense tracks almost exactly with the Article 51 of the U.N. charter, so if the facts show illegality under international law, that would undercut the wisdom of NATO standing "in solidarity" with any nation.

ChristianAnsgar -> Rahere2015 26 Nov 2015 10:27

You missed the shooting of the pilots while parachuting bit in your rant,isn't that a war crime?


cheetah43 26 Nov 2015 11:08

"The bearded, turban wearing throat-cutters danced around the dead body of the pilot whom they had killed while he was parachuting down. Is this your understanding of humanity, Ankara? Are these the ones you are protecting, Erdogan?" - Russian Foreign Office spokeswoman today during press briefing.

SallyWa -> MTavernier 26 Nov 2015 11:07

Russia is fighting a different, conflicting war to everyone else in Syria.

Yeah, it is fighting against another adventure of US/EU/those ME countries to have regime change to their liking in the region and against ISIS-which was created thanks to that adventure.

Russia repeatedly violated Turkish airspace,

Turkey should learn from better countries how to act in this. European ones. They showed proper examples, while Turkey screwed up.


dyatel42 26 Nov 2015 11:07

It's almost as if Turkey was waiting for an SU24 to stray over it's border for a few seconds. How could they have issued 10 warnings to turn south in 17 seconds and asked the president for his OK to shoot it down in that time? Fairy stories. Given that the aircraft fell into Syria it must have been heading there when it was hit and was obviously not on a surprise mission to bomb Ankara for example. Two men's lives terminated for no real reason at all.

It would seem possible that Turkey was acting on a request from the USA to carry out this murderous attack - what other logical reason could they have had to do it? Given the US hatred of Russia / The Soviet Union and their growing irritation at Russia's involvement in Syria, (at the request of the ruling government of that country) it would be a way of punishing Putin without putting their own aircraft at risk from retaliation and possibly a dangerous escalation in the ongoing American persecution of Russia.


ID4352889 -> MTavernier 26 Nov 2015 11:06

And obviously you were in the cockpit to verify the warning that has been belatedly claimed by a notorious terror state which has been in cahoots with Daesh all along?


Hoppolocos -> MTavernier 26 Nov 2015 11:03

As is usual in these cases it may be they are both telling a version of the truth, credible deniability? The Turks may well have broadcast warnings, but on which frequency? The Russians may have elected to not be listening to any frequency the Turks may use ergo it's the other's that were at fault. The question, as posed in the article, is why, in a very short space of time Turkey decided to shoot down an aircraft whose identity they must have known?

In the current situation the possibility of an aircraft straying into the wrong airspace must be a consideration, thus as strong diplomatic protect would have seemed the more obvious reaction. Have there been such incursions in the recent past? Has Russia been pushing it's luck? If not then one has the feeling that Turkey is deliberately trying to push it's luck and push Russia away from the Turkmen bases. Would they have dared if they weren't confident of NATO support and if so, who has allowed them to think this would automatically be forthcoming given the circumstances?

Roger Hudson -> Ipek Ruacan 26 Nov 2015 11:00

Turkey violates Syrian airspace at will, it also violated Greek airspace over 2000 times last year.
The Russian plane flew over a small 'appendix' of true Turkey that is 2 miles wide, somebody worked out a jet can't fly slow enough to do it in 17 seconds. How long did the warning take?.' Erdogan admits giving the order, clear evidence of a deliberate set-up.

kritter 26 Nov 2015 11:00

Galeotti talks about this like there are good guys and bad buys here, when clearly there aren't.

It is simply another play in a proxy war between two very countries, led by two very similar presidents. A more interesting question than pointlessly discussing the morality of it, is what the motivation for the Turks was. I personally think that they wanted to derail the possibility of Russia making some type of détente with the West after the Paris attacks.

fireangel 26 Nov 2015 10:58

The smashing of ISIS' oil industry will not only be a blow to the entire ISIS death squad project, but will directly affect Turkey, widely thought to be involved in the transportation of ISIS-produced oil, and even Erdogan's family itself, as it is the company run by his son Bilal that is believed to be running the illicit trade.
Well well well....Bilan Erdogan

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/meet-man-who-funds-isis-bilal-erdogan-son-turkeys-president

*Bilal Erdo?an owns several maritime companies. He has allegedly signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. The Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil wells. Bilal Erdo?an's maritime companies own special wharfs in Beirut and Ceyhan ports that are transporting ISIS' smuggled crude oil in Japan-bound oil tankers.*

In addition to son Bilal's illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdogan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdogan seems hell-bent on toppling.

camerashy -> blogbath 26 Nov 2015 10:58

Listen, as an American I'm telling you, you're wrong and a victim of the billionaire owned propaganda machine they call the news media. You've got your facts all wrong, it's the US who's constantly sticking it to Russia/others because somehow we can't stand anyone opposing us and has independent opinions. From the cooked up US backed coup in Ukraine to provoking China in Asia, and shooting down Russian jets over Syria, look no further than the US/NATO alliance to find your answer.

Erdogan on his own couldn't kill time let alone shooting down Russian jets. Just imagine what would happen if one of our jets had been shot down, they'd have made movies on it already. Also I don't think you really know much about any of these other countries you so freely label! Don't be naive, things aren't always what they seem, you have access to the Internet, well, don't take my word for it, use it and find out from different sources ... here's one:

https://www.facebook.com/BenSwannRealityCheck/videos/882104321854519/

SallyWa -> USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:57

Please note with the level of happiness and delight with which British journalists and readers described as the two nations will destroy each other

There is nothing jolly about it, actually. Even this article says situation is not looking hunky dory, it could fester underneath for quite some time.

secondiceberg 26 Nov 2015 10:54

1. "Smuggling weapons in the guise of humanitarian convoys (something we saw the Russians doing in Ukraine)". The constant repetition of unfounded charges against Russia seem to have become engrained in arsenal of MSM writers. If they have received and read the OSCE daily reports from Ukraine, they should note that those humanitarian convoys were opened and examined at a Russian checkpoint, at Customs, and by a Ukrainian checkpoint before crossing the border. If the Ukrainian officials found any weapons, where is the evidence?

2. "Turks are acting in support of their national interests in Syria with equal ruthlessness." An objective journalist would balance this with the claim by Russia and others that the Turks are illegally buying oil from ISIS, thereby funding them and that their "interests" are in continuing to buttress ISIS existence and actions. We still wait for journalistic investigation of the information given to G20 leaders that some of their own countries are similarly buying oil from ISIS thus keeping funding for that group flowing and giving them strong incentive not to "defeat" ISIS despite their ostensible reason for bombing Syria in the first place.

3. When are we going to find out exactly who the "moderate" Syrian rebels are? And where is the investigation regarding Putin's claim that a lot of the groups fighting with ISIS and against the Assad regime are, in fact, mercenaries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQuceU3x2Ww

Newmacfan 26 Nov 2015 10:54

But it took longer than that according to Mr Erdogan, so many warnings, so many different time parameters quoted by Turkey, even their own maps would suggest that there was not enough time to warn the aircraft, await a reply, fire the weapon and for it to hit the target within the time it was in Turkeys air space, according to Mr Erdogan......in short it is a pack of lies, like the ISIS oil, the porous borders, this is something which should be followed up. There is more to this and Turkeys connection with ISIS and the destabilisation of Syria that warrants a cursory glance.....something possibly very deep and very nasty could well be lurking here and it would be foolhardy not to look!

LiviaDrusilla -> If_Not_Why_Not 26 Nov 2015 10:51

My only doubt is, did NATO know of this before hand?

Good question. I think the answer is 'no'.

To me, it's fairly obvious that the Turks had itchy fingers waiting for a chance to shoot down a Russian jet on the pretext of 'invading their airspace'. They then hoped to trigger the NATO 'an attack on one is an attack on all' clause, something which would, at the very least, lead to the closure of the Bosphurus to Russian shipping, hence making it extremely difficult for them to re-supply their troops. Look at how the very first thing they did was run crying to NATO.

However, it appears their cunning plan backfired. Even the Americans seemed to want to play down the 'violation', saying that the Russian jet was only over Turkish airspace for a grand total of 17 minutes. So Erdogan didn't get the declaration of war he has hoping for, and Turkey is now almost certain to be subjected to various retaliatory measures by Russia.

Bad move, Erdogan. Bad move.

IndependentScott -> raffine 26 Nov 2015 10:50

Wrong. The Turks can shoot down one single plane. They were waiting for the Russian bomber to cross this tiny bit of Turkish airspace that extends far to the South into Syrian territory. The Turks wanted to make a statement.

The Islamic extremists on the ground, be it ISIS or Al Qaeda (in this case it was an Al Qaeda affiliate) cannot do anything against the planes. They do not have anti aircraft weapons which are effective.

nishville -> UralMan 26 Nov 2015 10:52

Now that we have established that Ankara is as murderous, cheating, morally corrupt and evil as Moscow, what are the reasons nowadays for Turkey to remain a member of the NATO

Are you serious? They could not be in a more suitable company - NATO members killed close to 5 million people since WWII worldwide, polluted the countries they attacked with uranium and therefore will kill another couple of millions in decades to come, their corrupted banks caused the world recession, their corrupt politicians make life bitter for both their citizens and people in countries their banks have issues with...this is a fucked up world, there are no good guys.

mkwasp -> will2010 26 Nov 2015 10:48

The radar tracks of both sides show the downed plane flying parallel to the frontier, not into Turkey. Regardless of where it actually was (i.e which track is correct, if either of them were), it manifestly wasn't threatening Turkey. Turkey can't really claim provocation here. Le Monde is also reporting that the Turkish pilots couldn't identify the plane they shot at - which is even more worrying, given very few (US, French, Russian) air forces are operating over Syria.

IndependentScott 26 Nov 2015 10:48

Russia is bombing Turkmen. Turkey is protecting them.

The problem is, these Turkmen are allies of Al Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate which is strong right next to the Turkmen areas. They, alongside the Islamic Front in the area, are fighting Assad troops just a few km away from the largest Russian navel base outside of Russia. Of course, Russia is bombing them. And of course Turkey wants to protect them.

Whether or not that Su-24 actually passed through Turkish airspace for 17 secs or not is completely irrelevant. This was a statement by Turkey to its own people and the Turkmens in the area that they will "help their fellow Turks".

The real awful thing is that a Russian pilot died in the process.

USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:48

Please note with the level of happiness and delight with which British journalists and readers described as the two nations will destroy each other. Something like that British journalists probably experienced in 1941, when Adolf Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, and Turkey, by the way, was with him in alliance.

callaspodeaspode -> anatianblogger 26 Nov 2015 10:42

It is a decent bit of kit, even though old, but it not equipped to fend off fighters in actual combat. It will presumably have some ECM and ability to dispense flares to act as decoy when attacked by heat-seeking missiles, but I've no idea how effective it is against Western NATO standard fighters like up to date block versions of F-16s, which Turkey uses.

And it certainly isn't capable of 2000mph. I don't know where you get that from.
That's nearly Mach 3. Very few military aircraft are able to go at such speeds.
The Fencers top out at around Mach 1.35 at altitude. Are you perhaps confusing it with a Mig-31 fighter?

What I want to know is why the Turkish F16s didn't fly alongside to make themselves visually present and demand to the Russian pilots that they leave the area and then escort them out.

Like the UK's Typhoons do when Russian bombers come too near.

spearsshallbebroken -> anarxist 26 Nov 2015 10:19

Does it matter? in reality one does not shoot a partner on the fight against terrorists who burn people alive, chop their heads, rape women and sell kids into slavery, and if the fucking yanks are incapable of naming who are these moderates they are also fair game.

The way I look at it is that the Turks had two tactics a) wanted the involvement of NATO and Putin did not oblige by starting a conflict with and b) wanting to defend its pals in ISIS and all the offshoots that these despicable people are represented by.

I think the unrepresented swill that is Turkey is going to be done very slowly by Putin.

Leondeinos 26 Nov 2015 10:17

The US and Turkey have very different purposes in Syria and Iraq. The US uses "Kurds" as its main force in both Iraq and Syria. Once again the Kurds are being used and soon will be pounded by all hands. Five years ago Turkey was declaring its desire to be at peace with all its neighbors and doing well at it. It stayed out of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since 2011 Erdogan has gone off the top and has resumed Turkey's war against the Kurds. That's all that matters to him.

Both the US (through its Persian Gulf "friends") and Turkey were inventing and backing ISIS in 2011. The Russian newcomers began with steps that might save lives, but have also gotten caught up in the absurd US effort to remake the borders. More dead and refugees to follow.

It's easy to make a handy ex post facto recording of pilots talking. Happens all the time after premeditated air attacks.

anarxist 26 Nov 2015 10:11

Are you sure about the 17 seconds? Does anyone do the math here?

1.15 miles / 17 seconds x 60 x 60 = 243 miles/hour = 391 km/hour

The Su-24's max speed is 1,320 km/hour.

So if we assume the Su-24 was actually going much faster, was 17 seconds more like 5 seconds? Or perhaps even less?

[Nov 26, 2015] Russia says 'destroyed' Syria rebels in area where jet brought down News , Middle East

THE DAILY STAR

Russia Thursday said its forces had wiped out Syrian rebel groups operating in the area where one of its jets was brought down, unleashing a huge bombardment after rescuing a pilot.

"As soon as our pilot was safe, Russian bombers and artillery of the Syrian government forces carried out massive strikes in the indicated area for an extended period," military official Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agencies.

"The terrorists operating in that area and other mysterious groups were destroyed," he said.

Turkey on Tuesday shot down a Russian jet in northern Syria alleging that it had crossed over into its air space and sparking a war of words with Moscow.

One pilot that parachuted out was later rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces, while a second pilot from the jet and a soldier sent to rescue him were killed by rebels on the ground.

Konsahenkov said that over the past three days its jets carried out 134 combat sorties over the war-torn country and struck 449 targets in the Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib, Latakia, Hama and Homs and Deir al-Zor provinces.

[Nov 26, 2015] Turkey would have acted differently if it had known jet was Russian Erdogan News , Middle East

dailystar.com.lb

THE DAILY STAR

ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that Turkey would have acted differently if it had known that a warplane its forces downed on the Syrian border this week was Russian.

"If we had known if it was a Russian plane maybe we would have warned it differently," Erdogan told France 24 television, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not answered his call after Tuesday's incident that has seriously damaged ties.

[Nov 26, 2015] Incorporating the Rentier Sectors into a Financial Model

Notable quotes:
"... Finance is not The economy ..."
"... In the real world most credit today is spent to buy assets already in place, not to create new productive capacity. Some 80 percent of bank loans in the English-speaking world are real estate mortgages, and much of the balance is lent against stocks and bonds already issued. ..."
"... Debt-leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate purchases turn business cash flow (ebitda: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) into interest payments. Likewise, bank or bondholder financing of public debt (especially in the Eurozone, which lacks a central bank to monetize such debt) has turned a rising share of tax revenue into interest payments. ..."
"... even government tax revenue is diverted to pay debt service ..."
"... Contemporary evidence for major OECD economies since the 1980s shows that rising capital gains may indeed divert finance away from the real sector's productivity growth (Stockhammer 2004) and more generally that 'financialization' (Epstein 2005) has hurt growth and incomes. Money created for capital gains has a small propensity to be spent by their rentier owners on goods and services, so that an increasing proportion of the economy's money flows are diverted to circulation in the financial sector. Wages do not increase, even as prices for property and financial securities rise – just the well-known trend that we have seen in the Western world since the 1970s, and which persists into the post-2001 Bubble Economy. ..."
economistsview.typepad.com

RGC said in reply to JF... November 25, 2015 at 08:34 AM

Incorporating the Rentier Sectors into a Financial Model

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

by Dirk Bezemer and Michael Hudson

As published in the World Economic Association's World Economic Review Vol #1.

.......

2. Finance is not The economy

In the real world most credit today is spent to buy assets already in place, not to create new productive capacity. Some 80 percent of bank loans in the English-speaking world are real estate mortgages, and much of the balance is lent against stocks and bonds already issued. Banks lend to buyers of real estate, corporate raiders, ambitious financial empire-builders, and to management for debt-leveraged buyouts. A first approximation of this trend is to chart the share of bank lending that goes to the 'Fire, Insurance and Real Estate' sector, aka the nonbank financial sector. Graph 1 shows that its ratio to GDP has quadrupled since the 1950s. The contrast is with lending to the real sector, which has remained about constant relative to GDP. This is how our debt burden has grown.

Graph 1: Private debt growth is due to lending to the FIRE sector: the US, 1952-2007

Source: Bezemer (2012) based on US flow of fund data, BEA 'Z' tables.

What is true for America is true for many other countries: mortgage lending and other household debt have been 'the final stage in an artificially extended Ponzi Bubble' as Keen (2009) shows for Australia. Extending credit to purchase assets already in place bids up their price. Prospective homebuyers need to take on larger mortgages to obtain a home. The effect is to turn property rents into a flow of mortgage interest. These payments divert the revenue of consumers and businesses from being spent on consumption or new capital investment. The effect is deflationary for the economy's product markets, and hence consumer prices and employment, and therefore wages. This is why we had a long period of low cpi inflation but skyrocketing asset price inflation. The two trends are linked.

Debt-leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate purchases turn business cash flow (ebitda: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) into interest payments. Likewise, bank or bondholder financing of public debt (especially in the Eurozone, which lacks a central bank to monetize such debt) has turned a rising share of tax revenue into interest payments. As creditors recycle their receipts of interest and amortization (and capital gains) into new lending to buyers of real estate, stocks and bonds, a rising share of employee income, real estate rent, business revenue and even government tax revenue is diverted to pay debt service. By leaving less to spend on goods and services, the effect is to reduce new investment and employment.

Contemporary evidence for major OECD economies since the 1980s shows that rising capital gains may indeed divert finance away from the real sector's productivity growth (Stockhammer 2004) and more generally that 'financialization' (Epstein 2005) has hurt growth and incomes. Money created for capital gains has a small propensity to be spent by their rentier owners on goods and services, so that an increasing proportion of the economy's money flows are diverted to circulation in the financial sector. Wages do not increase, even as prices for property and financial securities rise – just the well-known trend that we have seen in the Western world since the 1970s, and which persists into the post-2001 Bubble Economy.

It is especially the case since 1991 in the post-Soviet economies, where neoliberal (that is, pro-financial) policy makers have had a free hand to shape tax and financial policy in favor of banks (mainly foreign bank branches). Latvia is cited as a neoliberal success story, but it would be hard to find an example where rentier income and prices have diverged more sharply from wages and the "real" production economy.

The more credit creation takes the form of inflating asset prices – rather than financing purchases of goods and services or direct investment employing labor – the more deflationary its effects are on the "real" economy of production and consumption. Housing and other asset prices crash, causing negative equity. Yet homeowners and businesses still have to pay off their debts. The national income accounts classify this pay-down as "saving," although the revenue is not available to the debtors doing the "saving" by "deleveraging."

The moral is that using homes as what Alan Greenspan referred to as "piggy banks", to take out home-equity loans, was not really like drawing down a bank account at all. When a bank account is drawn down there is less money available, but no residual obligation to pay. New income can be spent at the discretion of its recipient. But borrowing against a home implies an obligation to set aside future income to pay the banker – and hence a loss of future discretionary spending.

3. Towards a model of financialized economies

Creating a more realistic model of today's financialized economies to trace this phenomenon requires a breakdown of the national income and product accounts (NIPA) to see the economy as a set of distinct sectors interacting with each other. These accounts juxtapose the private and public sectors as far as current spending, saving and taxation is concerned. But the implication is that government budget deficits inflate the private-sector economy as a whole.

http://michael-hudson.com/2012/09/incorporating-the-rentier-sectors-into-a-financial-model-3/

pgl said in reply to anne...

Peter Dorman's excellent rebuttal of John Harwood:

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/11/tax-policy-and-magic-investment-channel.html

[Nov 26, 2015] Turkey and Russia on collision course in Syria

Al Arabiya News

...Ankara and Moscow, given their diametrically opposed political and operational roadmaps for the conflict in Syria, have been on a clashing trajectory since Russia entered the Syrian military fray last September. One of Russia's many objectives in Syria is to cut into Turkish influence in order to boost the Assad regime, and now that they are in each other's crosshairs, more clashes directly or via proxies seem inevitable.

...Moscow is attempting to shore up the authoritarian security structure of the Assad regime as it flirts with key minorities, while Turkey has pitted itself on the side of the anti-Assad rebels and is embracing the Islamist factions from the country's Sunni majority.

...Almost 1.5 million Syrians are members of the Turkmen community, including the head of the largest Syrian opposition coalition Khaled Khoja. The Turkmen community is historically, linguistically and culturally close to Turkey and their brigades are critical in the fighting against both Assad and ISIS. If Turkey has any hopes of securing a 100-km long safe zone "west of the Euphrates River and reaching into the province of Aleppo" as reported last summer by the Washington Post, the weight of governing and securing it from ISIS and Assad would fall on the Turkmen brigades, Ahrar Sham and Kurdish forces cooperating with Ankara.

...In their statements from the White House on Tuesday, both U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and his French counterpart Francois Hollande called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to focus his strikes on ISIS and refrain from targeting the rebel forces near Turkey's border. Hollande even hinted indirectly at possibility of a humanitarian safe zone, stating that "Turkey plays an important role, and it is together with Turkey that we must find solutions so that the refugees can stay close to their country of origin." Erdogan went a step further, saying Ankara "will soon put into practice humanitarian safe zone between Jarablus and Mediterranean coast" according to CNN Turk.

Easier set than done, however, as the task of securing any safe zone in Syria and managing the day to day services will be threatened by both Russia's and Assad's air force, as well as questions surrounding the opposition's ability to govern those areas.

... ... ...

_________________
Joyce Karam is the Washington Correspondent for Al-Hayat Newspaper, an International Arabic Daily based in London. She has covered American politics extensively since 2004 with focus on U.S. policy towards the Middle East. Prior to that, she worked as a Journalist in Lebanon, covering the Post-war situation. Joyce holds a B.A. in Journalism and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Twitter: @Joyce_Karam

[Nov 26, 2015] France's Hollande Calls for Anti-isil Coalition

It' unclear who in the West exactly is supporting IISIS/ISIL and Al Nusra.
Notable quotes:
"... Both Obama and Hollande, however, insisted that a political transition in Syria must lead to Assad's departure. Russia, on the other hand, has been Assad's staunchest ally. ..."
Al Jazeera America

French President Francois Hollande told Russia's Vladimir Putin on Thursday that world powers must create a "grand coalition" to combat Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who control swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

...Germany, meanwhile, has decided to send reconnaissance aircraft, tanker planes and a warship to help in the fight against ISIL.

Following his meeting with the French president, Obama said Russian cooperation in the fight against IS would be "enormously helpful." Both Obama and Hollande, however, insisted that a political transition in Syria must lead to Assad's departure. Russia, on the other hand, has been Assad's staunchest ally.

Last week, Hollande called for the U.S. and Russia to set aside their policy divisions over Syria and "fight this terrorist army in a broad, single coalition." But his office acknowledges that "coordination" sounds like a far more realistic goal.

[Nov 26, 2015] Putin: Turkey 'knew downed fighter jet was Russian'

The most interesting part is " President Putin even suggested that Turkey had shot down the Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the US." The USA elite like British elite in the past are master of." To pull the hot potato from the hot ashes using somebody else hands" Taking into account Obama warnings, t he USA government was clearly interested that such accident happened and may well play the role of facilitators via AWACS planes (according to Russian military two were in the air: one from Turkish and one for Saudis side) Erdogan is now lying trying to avoid consequences: consequences that are extremely beneficial to the USA not so much to Turkey and Erdogan personally. In other words Sultan of Turkey was used. And the events are very detrimental to Russians. But Russians are masters to even the game even when they have bad cards on hands. The incident is bad for Turkey and Erdogan in sense that it highlighted the fact that Turkey is the chief sponsor of radicals (the assertion provable by the available facts) and one of the major financial backer of ISIS and Al Nusra. It also highlighted the fact that Erdogan son is involved in smuggling oil from ISIS. "A stab in Russia's back by the accomplices of terrorists." is a very precise description of what happened. "There was no warning. Not via radio, or visually. There was no contact at all," the surviving co-pilot of the plane told journalists, safely back at Russia's airbase in Syria after his emergency mid-air ejection. He says the jet was shot down from behind. "If they had wanted to warn us, then they could have shown themselves - flown in parallel," Captain Murakhtin said. President Putin has already accused Ankara of siding with Islamic State (IS) by hitting the Russian jet; he also claimed some in Turkey are benefitting from the illicit sale of IS oil exports. The message to Turkey and its allies is clear: don't dare try it again.
Notable quotes:
"... Speaking at a news conference after the talks, President Putin even suggested that Turkey had shot down the Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the US. ..."
"... Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected calls by Russia to apologise, saying Turkey does not need to say sorry for the violation of its airspace. ..."
"... But Mr Putin insisted it was impossible for Turkey not to have known it was shooting at a Russian plane. It's got insignia, and you can see that very clearly . He went on: In advance, in accordance with our agreement with the US, we gave information on where our planes would be working - at what altitude, and in what areas. Turkey is part of that coalition and they had to know it was the Russian airforce working in that area. ..."
www.bbc.com

Russia has rejected Turkey's claims that it did not know the plane it shot down on the Syria border was Russian.

President Vladimir Putin said Russian planes were easily identifiable and the jet's flight co-ordinates had been passed on to Turkey's ally, the US.

Turkey's president said earlier if it had known the plane was Russian "maybe we would have warned it differently".

Mr Putin was speaking after meeting his French counterpart and pledging closer co-operation against Islamic State.

Russia and France have agreed to co-operate more closely in fighting terrorism in Syria. The two countries will exchange intelligence on Islamic State - and co-ordinate air strikes.

But differences remain over the fate of the Syrian leader. President Hollande made it clear that Bashar al-Assad could play no role in his country's future. President Putin said that was up to the Syrian people to decide.

And there is no sign of the kind of "grand coalition" against terror that France had been calling for, one that would include America.

Speaking at a news conference after the talks, President Putin even suggested that Turkey had shot down the Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the US.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected calls by Russia to apologise, saying Turkey does not need to say sorry for the violation of its airspace. However, he told France 24 television: "If we had known it was a Russian plane, maybe we would have warned it differently".

But Mr Putin insisted it was "impossible" for Turkey not to have known it was shooting at a Russian plane. "It's got insignia, and you can see that very clearly". He went on: "In advance, in accordance with our agreement with the US, we gave information on where our planes would be working - at what altitude, and in what areas. Turkey is part of that coalition and they had to know it was the Russian airforce working in that area.

"If it was an American aircraft, would they have struck?"

Earlier on Thursday, Russia's military suspended all communication channels with the Turkish military, including a "hot line" to help avoid air accidents.

Russia's prime minister also warned the government was planning wide-ranging economic sanctions against Turkey within the coming days.

He warned that food products, Turkish interests in Russia and a number of joint investment projects could be affected.

Russia has also advised its nationals against visiting Turkey, and urged those already there to return home "due to the terrorist threats that remain on Turkish territory".

Turkey and Russia have important economic links. Russia is Turkey's second largest trading partner, while Turkey is the biggest foreign destination for Russian tourists.

On the ground inside Syria the changes have been more immediate. A cruiser has been despatched to help bolster air defences around the Russian base. The sophisticated S400 anti aircraft system is also being deployed and Russian planes will now be protected on bombing raids by fighter jets. The message to Turkey and its allies is clear: don't dare try it again. As for the rescued co-pilot, he says he is impatient to return to the skies. "I want to stay here," he said, referring to the Russian airbase. "I want payback for my commander."


[Nov 26, 2015] Argentine Election a Setback, But Not Likely to Reverse Latin America's 21st Century Trend

Neoliberalism counterattacked and scored a victory in Argentina. the trick is to use economic difficulties caused by neoliberalism to bring to power a neoliberal candidate (or more liberal candidate, if the current was already neoliberal buy stayed Washington consensus). That trick was used previously in Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington has maintained a policy of "rollback" and "containment" against almost all of the left governments that have won elections in the 21st century. So there is quite a bit of excitement here among the business and foreign policy elite ..."
"... Argentina and the region have changed too much over the past 15 years to return to the neoliberal, neocolonial past. The Washington foreign policy establishment may not understand this, but Macri's handlers did. That's why they took the trouble to package him as something very different from what he is. ..."
"... State Corruption is ever and always a pre text for reassertion of plutocratic hegemony ..."
cepr.net

The election of right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri as Argentina's president on Sunday, which just a few months ago was unexpected, is a setback for Argentina and for the region.

... ... ...

Washington has maintained a policy of "rollback" and "containment" against almost all of the left governments that have won elections in the 21st century. So there is quite a bit of excitement here among the business and foreign policy elite, with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff facing a recession and political crisis, and Venezuela's Chavismo confronting an economic crisis and possible loss of its first national election in 17 years. So naturally they are happy about this unprecedented right-wing electoral victory in Argentina. Articles are already sprouting up, welcoming the long-awaited demise of the Latin American left.

But reports of this demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are somewhat exaggerated. A more likely outcome is like that of Chile, where a lackluster candidate was unable to take advantage of Socialist Party President Michelle Bachelet's 80 percent approval rating, and lost to a right-wing billionaire in 2010. He lasted four years, and then the country went back to Bachelet.

Argentina and the region have changed too much over the past 15 years to return to the neoliberal, neocolonial past. The Washington foreign policy establishment may not understand this, but Macri's handlers did. That's why they took the trouble to package him as something very different from what he is.

anne -> anne...

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1AK7

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2014

(Percent change)


https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1AK8

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2014

(Indexed to 2000)

anne:

http://www.cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/argentine-election-a-setback-but-not-likely-to-reverse-latin-america-s-21st-century-trend

November 24, 2015

Argentine Election a Setback, But Not Likely to Reverse Latin America's 21st Century Trend
By Mark Weisbrot

The election of right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri as Argentina's president on Sunday, which just a few months ago was unexpected, is a setback for Argentina and for the region. In the last 13 years, Argentina had made enormous economic and social progress. Under the Kirchners (first Néstor and then Cristina Fernández de Kirchner), poverty fell by about 70 percent, and extreme poverty by 80 percent. (This is for 2003 to mid-2013, the last year for which independent estimates are available; they are also based on independent estimates of inflation.) Unemployment fell from more than 17.2 percent to 6.9 percent , according to the IMF.

But Daniel Scioli, the candidate of the Peronist "Front for Victory", who represented the governing coalition including President Fernández, did not do a good job defending these achievements. He also didn't seem to make clear what he would do to fix the country's current economic problems. In the past four years, growth has been slow (averaging about 1.1 percent annually), inflation has been high (with private estimates in the 20s), and a black market for the dollar has developed. This gave Macri (and his "Cambiemos" or "Let's Change" coalition) an opening to present himself as the candidate of a better future.

With skilled marketing help from an Ecuadorean public relations firm, he also succeeded in defining himself as something far more moderate than he is likely to be, thus winning over voters who might otherwise be afraid of a return to the pre-Kirchner depression years.

Some of the things he has indicated he would do could have a positive impact, if done correctly. He will likely cut a deal with vulture funds who have been holding more than 90 percent of Argentina's creditors hostage since New York judge Thomas Griesa ruled in 2014 that the government is not allowed to pay them. If the cost is not too high, it could be a net positive by re-opening a path for Argentina to return to international borrowing - something that Scioli would likely have also done.

A liberalization of the exchange rate that got rid of the black market could be a big step forward. But much depends on how it is done: If it causes inflation to spike and the government does nothing to protect poor and working people, they could lose a lot.

Macri may also take measures to bring down inflation, which is something that needs to be done. But here especially there are great dangers, because he is likely to do so by shrinking the economy. He wants to reduce the central government budget deficit, which will grow as a percent of GDP with austerity. Given his ideology and politics, there is serious risk of a downward spiral of austerity and recession, as the country suffered from 1998-2001. If there is inflation from the devaluation, and they are eager to get rid of that too, this could make matters worse.

His campaign statements and positions indicate that he is against a government role in promoting industry, so the country's development is likely to suffer as a result. He has proposed tax cuts for upper- income groups, and so budget cuts are likely since he has pledged to reduce the government budget deficit. If you add it all up, the majority of Argentines are likely to suffer from any economic transition that he can engineer.

But he will not have a working majority in Congress, so it remains to be seen how much he can do. Internationally, he has moved immediately to demonstrate his overwhelming loyalty to the United States government, which had been previously demonstrated in confidential U.S. embassy cables published by WikiLeaks. One of his very first statements after being elected was to denounce Venezuela and threaten to have them suspended from Mercosur. Since this is not an issue that was pressing to Argentine voters, it is clear that it is part of the U.S.-led international campaign leading up to Venezuela's December 6 elections, which seeks to delegitimize the government and the elections.

Macri's willingness to join this campaign is something that no other South American president would do. On the contrary, in the past decade South American presidents have repeatedly joined together to defend democracy in the region when it was under attack, with Washington on the other side - not only in Venezuela, in 2014, 2013, and 2002; but in but in Bolivia (2008); Honduras (2009); Ecuador (2010); and Paraguay (2012). If Macri continues down this road, he will not only bring shame to Argentina, but he will damage hemispheric relations.

Washington has maintained a policy of "rollback" and "containment" against almost all of the left governments that have won elections in the 21st century. So there is quite a bit of excitement here among the business and foreign policy elite, with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff facing a recession and political crisis, and Venezuela's Chavismo confronting an economic crisis and possible loss of its first national election in 17 years. So naturally they are happy about this unprecedented right-wing electoral victory in Argentina. Articles are already sprouting up, welcoming the long-awaited demise of the Latin American left.

But reports of this demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are somewhat exaggerated. A more likely outcome is like that of Chile, where a lackluster candidate was unable to take advantage of Socialist Party President Michelle Bachelet's 80 percent approval rating, and lost to a right-wing billionaire in 2010. He lasted four years, and then the country went back to Bachelet.

Argentina and the region have changed too much over the past 15 years to return to the neoliberal, neocolonial past. The Washington foreign policy establishment may not understand this, but Macri's handlers did. That's why they took the trouble to package him as something very different from what he is.

Narwhal -> anne:

too much here to comment on.

Weisbrot couches his analysis in right vs left wing politics which played only a minor part.

The election was about the incompetence of the Kirchners. Argentinians have had enough and finally kicked the incompetents out.

"with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff facing a recession and political crisis" THAT HER INCOMPETENCE AND TOTAL CORRUPTION CAUSED....the vast majority has had enough.

Has this guy actually visited Argentina and Brazil...

anne -> Narwhal:

Do set down a focused argument and references when possible.

When "incompetence" and "total corruption" assertions are made, and even capitalized, they should be referenced. As for the "vast majority" in Argentina who had had enough, would that be the 51.4% who voted for President Macri?

Narwhal -> anne:

Sorry, Anne, I am not going to post a university research paper with references and footnotes (been there and done that).

Argentine politics are so convoluted that I do not pretend to understand them. Suffice to say that the are far more nuanced than simple liberal vs conservative. Only that those of us here in Brazil breathed huge sigh of relief when the election results were announced.

OTOH his indirect references to Brazil showed even less knowledge of the region. I have made a very small attempt to give readers a tiny view of the Brazilian politics and corruption in my other comment.

anne -> Narwhal:

On the other hand [Mark Weisbrot's] indirect references to Brazil showed even less knowledge of the region.

[ I set down the direct references to Brazil by Mark Weisbrot, Franklin Serrano and Ricardo Summa. Possibly the work they have done on Brazil reflects little knowledge as supposedly the work done by Weisbrot on Argentina does, but I find the work carefully done and persuasive. ]

PPaine -> anne:

He has none. He's reacting like the usual middle brow bourgeois. Whatever he or she really is

Nuance here is just enough muddle to confuse the outsider. So long as that outsider salivates with every reference to corruption and incompetence

PPaine -> Narwhal:

No don't hide the hand grenade here. This is class struggle. Nuances are nonsense. State Corruption is ever and always a pre text for reassertion of plutocratic hegemony

The point will be clear once this agent of the haute bourgeoise. Starts rectifying more then a decade of improved welfare systematics

anne -> PPaine :

State Corruption is ever and always a pre text for reassertion of plutocratic hegemony

The point will be clear once this agent of the haute bourgeoise

Starts rectifying more then a decade of improved welfare systematics

[ Interesting and all too reasonable historically for Latin America. ]

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 04:44 PM
anne -> anne:

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1AK7

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2014

(Percent change)
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1AK8

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2014

(Indexed to 2000)

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 05:52 AM
anne -> anne:

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1AK9

November 1, 2014

Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2011


https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1AKc

November 1, 2014

Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2011

(Indexed to 2000)

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 05:54 AM
Narwhal -> anne:

This economist article gives a more complete review of Brazil's economic situation.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/10/economic-backgrounder

-- the real has devalued from about 2.1/US$ to 3.6/US$ today.

--bribes and kickbacks from Petrobras amounting to uncounted HUNDREDS of billions of reais had their origin when President Dilma was Chairwoman of the Board of Directors.

--Ex President Lula's closest aid is serving a jail term for corruption. The government's leader in the Senate was arrested today... the list goes on.

--The government took no steps to prevent the ecological disaster of two dam collapses this month. Many are dead and will never be found or even counted. Thousands are homeless. 60 million tons of toxic mud have completely destroyed 400 km of the Rio Doce. The mud reached the sea Sunday and is now killing the ocean habitat.

--Pres Dilma signed a decree declarion the disaster an act of god, thereby absolving the mining companies and the government of all legal responsibility.

PPaine -> anne:

The economist -- Now there's a source we can rely on --

anne -> anne:

http://www.cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/brazil-needs-new-economic-program-to-jump-start-growth-and-employment

September 4, 2015

Brazil Needs New Economic Program to Jump-Start Growth and Employment
By Mark Weisbrot

Finance Minister Joaquim Levy says that unemployment is going to increase in Brazil and that Brazilians should "face some realities." No country should have a finance minister with this attitude towards one of its population's most important needs – employment. And even worse, someone who is acting on these twisted beliefs in order to make them reality. His own job should be the first to go.

The vast majority of Brazilians are still hugely better off than they were before the Workers Party assumed the presidency in January of 2003. Poverty was reduced by 55 percent and extreme poverty by 65 percent from 2003-2012 and real (inflation-adjusted) wages grew by 35 percent – including a doubling of the real minimum wage. From 2004-2010, the economy grew twice as fast as it had over the previous 23 years, and the gains from growth were much more equally distributed.

But these gains are being eroded, as the economy sinks into recession and unemployment rises. Why has this happened? A new report * by Brazilian economists Franklin Serrano and Ricardo Summa shows that it is not primarily due to external factors – for example, the slowdown of global economic growth and trade. Rather it is mainly a result of government policies that have reduced aggregate demand since the end of 2010: tighter budgets, cuts in public investment, higher interest rates, and tighter credit.

Austerity is not working in Brazil -- any more than it has been working in Europe. These policies are not only creating unnecessary unemployment and poverty in the present, they are also sacrificing Brazil's future. Brazil needs public investment in transportation and other infrastructure, but this is the spending that is first to be sacrificed.

The Central Bank has raised short-term interest rates from 7.5 percent in April 2013 to 14.25 percent today. As a result of having exorbitant interest rates for many years, the government pays more than 6 percent of GDP – about 20 percent of federal spending – in net interest. This is among the world's highest government interest burdens.

Lowering interest rates could free up money in the budget for public investment. It is clear that the government needs to increase spending in order to jump-start the economy. This is what it did, successfully, when the global financial crisis and recession hit in 2009.

Brazil does not yet have to worry about external financial constraints, as it currently has $369 billion in reserves. Its net public debt is only about 34 percent of GDP (This is low by any comparison; the problem is the exorbitant interest rates, averaging 11 percent on outstanding government bonds). The economy has plenty of reason to grow, but it is clear that the private sector is not going to lead this growth.

Dilma won re-election in 2014 by promising to stand up to the oligarchy, and continue the successful policies that brought considerable economic and social progress to Brazil for the first time in decades. Levy and his friends in Brazil's powerful financial sector may prefer higher unemployment and lower wages, but that is not what Brazilians voted for. There is no reason for the government to commit political suicide by continuing to implement the failed economic program of its opposition.

* http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/Brazil-2015-08.pdf

anne -> anne:

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/Brazil-2015-08.pdf

August, 2015

Aggregate Demand and the Slowdown of Brazilian Economic Growth from 2011-2014
By Franklin Serrano and Ricardo Summa

Executive Summary

This paper looks in detail at the sharp slowdown in the Brazilian economy for the years 2011-2014, in which economic growth averaged only 2.1 percent annually, as compared with 4.4 percent in the 2004-2010 period. The latter level of growth was also more than double Brazil's average annual growth rate over the prior 23 years (although it was much lower than the pre-1980 period). It is important to understand why the higher rate of growth experienced from 2004 to 2010 was not sustained over the past few years.

The authors argue that the slowdown is overwhelmingly the result of a sharp decline in domestic demand, rather than a fall in exports and even less any change in external financial conditions. The sharp fall in domestic demand, in turn, is shown to be a result of deliberate policy decisions made by the government. This decision to slow the economy was not necessary, i.e., it was not made in response to some external constraint such as a balance-of-payments problem.

Brazil's exports, and the change in their quantity between the two periods, was too small to account for most of the large slowdown in GDP growth. From 2011-2014, exports amounted to 11.3 percent of GDP, as compared with 11.9 percent for 2004-2010.

The idea that a deterioration in external financial conditions could have driven the slowdown is also contradicted by the data. For example, the total foreign debt-to-exports ratio dropped from 4.7 in 1999 to 1.27 by the end of 2010, and was 1.54 in 2014. The ratio of total external debt to foreign reserves was reduced from 6.5 in 2000 to 0.89 in 2010 (and was 0.93 in 2014). Also, the percent of Brazilian foreign liabilities that are denominated in dollars fell from around 75 percent in 2003 to a minimum of 35 percent in 2010, and was about 40 percent in 2014.

All of this indicates that the economy had room to expand after 2010. But the government decided to reduce aggregate demand through changes in monetary, fiscal, and macroprudential policies. For example, the Central Bank began a cycle of interest rate increases after February 2010 that lasted until August 2011, raising the basic nominal interest rate from 8.75 percent to 12.5 percent. The nominal interest rate increases and the macroprudential measures – which reduced the growth of credit -- helped to a certain extent to end the consumption boom (especially of durable goods). Private consumption growth decelerated sharply until mid-2012, partially as a result of these measures.

At the end of 2010, the government also decided to promote a strong fiscal adjustment in order to increase the primary surplus and to meet the full target of 3.1 percent of GDP in 2011. Another sign of this contractionary commitment of the new government was the decision, after years of high increases, not to raise the real minimum wage at all in 2011, something that had not occurred in Brazil since 1994. And despite the global economic slowdown in early 2011, the signs of which were evident from the first quarter, fiscal adjustment was maintained throughout 2011 and the full target for the primary surplus was achieved.

This rapid increase in the primary surplus was only possible thanks to a strong reduction in the growth of public spending. In 2011, public investment, both of the central government and the state-owned companies, fell dramatically, by 17.9 percent and 7.8 percent in real terms, respectively. The government's contractionary policies led to a pronounced decline in private investment as well, so that total investment (public and private) fell sharply. After growing at an average annual rate of 8.0 percent between 2004 and 2010, peaking at 18 percent in 2010, gross fixed capital formation over 2011-2014 grew by just 1.8 percent annually.

Thus it was the strong reduction in investment growth-not a process of "deindustrialization" related to the real exchange rate, as some have maintained-that explains the slowdown in industrial production since 2011. Manufacturing industry grew in the years 2007-2008 and in 2010, when the exchange rate was already appreciated. It is also worth noting that during the 2004-2010 period of higher growth, the appreciated real exchange rate was very important for controlling inflation and thus also for increasing real wages and the growth rate of household consumption.

This paper also shows that the analysis put forth to justify the government's post-2010 strategy was wrong. Even though the economy was already slowing in 2010, the argument was made that fiscal tightening was necessary in order to have a large reduction in interest rates. The lower interest rates, combined with tax cuts and other incentives for businesses, were expected to then allow the private sector to lead growth by stimulating private investment and also export-led growth as the real exchange rate depreciated due to the lower interest rates. However, as the pro-cyclical policies shrank aggregate demand, private investment plummeted; and for reasons explained below, export-led growth did not occur either. And the supposed link between public debt and sovereign risk also turned out to be an unfounded assumption.

The result is that the government's efforts to encourage the private sector to lead economic growth, through contractionary macro-economic policies, tax-cuts, and public-private partnerships, had the opposite result. To return growth and employment creation to the levels of the 2004-2010 period, the government will have to change course and return to some of the policies and strategy of those years, in which the government took responsibility for ensuring the growth of investment, consumption, formal sector employment, and necessary infrastructure.

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 07:17 AM
pgl -> anne:

These authors are not buying this conventional wisdom:

"This paper also shows that the analysis put forth to justify the government's post-2010 strategy was wrong. Even though the economy was already slowing in 2010, the argument was made that fiscal tightening was necessary in order to have a large reduction in interest rates. The lower interest rates, combined with tax cuts and other incentives for businesses, were expected to then allow the private sector to lead growth by stimulating private investment and also export-led growth as the real exchange rate depreciated due to the lower interest rates."

Neither am I but maybe for different reasons. While I'm not expert on Brazil, its macroeconomic data paints a picture of nominal rates being high more because inflation is high not high real interest rates. Its currency is devaluing in nominal terms for similar reasons. Why a nation with a depressed economy has this high inflation is a mystery.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Brazil should do a 1993 Clinton-Greenspan macroeconomic mix with fiscal austerity. This is akin to what Volcker tried to get the clueless Reagan White House to do in 1983. But it strikes me that Brazil's issues are different and that the fiscal austerity did not have the effects from this conventional wisdom.

Narwhal -> pgl:

Inflation is as much result of devaluation as a cause of devaluation. The major driver is the flow of funds; 1) The slow down and reversal of corporate investment from abroad; 2)Repatriation of accumulated corporate profits to sustain home country weaknesses and avoid probable devaluation before it occurred. 3)Outflow of 'hot money',speculative, portfolio investments. 4)The fall in value of commodity exports (oil). 4) Increased cost of servicing and rolling over foreign debt.

Other factor include: downgrading of Brazilian sovereign debt, the HUGE cost of the Petrobras and other scandals, total loss of confidence both internally and externally in the ability of the government to understand or much less deal with the political/economic situation.

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 09:40 AM
PPaine -> anne:

This analysis leads to one conclusion

Intervene to lower the borrowing rate; that should also lower the forex rate

Brazil needs to attack inflation directly with controls on price increases

See the Abba club
Site now under construction for ultimate solutions
But for now price freezes ala Nixon

This won't happen
Because worker party compromises with the haute bourgeoise prevent this

Recall if dilma goes off he reservation
the coup birds still exist in brazil

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 10:50 AM
PPaine -> PPaine :

The melodrama here was built right into the limits on worker party actions

Take the cut to state deficits

Totally toxic

But like here austerity is viewed as prudence by the respectable class

Reply Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 10:53 AM
ilsm -> PPaine :

losers is losers

if "they" cannot win at austerity

losers is losers

Anonymous:

"Most of What You Learned in Econ 101 Is Wrong"

To this crowd, it should be - Most of what we taught you in Econ 101 is Wrong.

[Nov 26, 2015] Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President

Notable quotes:
"... And people STILL don't understand this whole ISIS thing is entirely scripted. As if the us govt doesn't know exactly who is doing what with this illicit oil trade. Of course, maybe they don't. Maybe they are too busy spying on innocent us citizens to be bothered with actually doing their fucking jobs.... ..."
"... I'm sure we will get a press conference from Obama soon, where he will tell us that he just learned this by reading the newspaper and is just as shocked as we are. What a fucking clownshow we live in. ..."
"... It is inconceivable that the CIA does not already know all of this and a whole lot more. There are geostationary satellites over Iraq spamming Tb/s of data back to Langley. You only need to see the resolution of Google Maps over Iraq to know how much installed aerial surveillance covers that part of the world. Iraq has higher resolution than Manhattan. ..."
"... I would not be surprised if the CIA was tracking and analysing the movements of every single vehicle in Mosul. The technology to do it exists, it's the same technology that will manage driverless car fleets. ..."
"... What makes you think he doesn't know? Like that leading from behind propaganda in Libya so that Obama gets blamed for being a wimp or incompetent rather than the warmonger he really is. It is well known that Obama regularly fails to heed real experts advice or ignores it completely. It's claimed that in many briefings he doesn't even pay attention. His close circle of advisors, like the Kagan family, Victoria Nuland, Valerie Jarret, and such are war mongering conquer the planet types. ..."
"... For the US ISIS serves a purpose thus the pure propaganda that most US air strikes against ISIS are not approved because they might hurt civilians. Obama could care less about civilians or he never would have bombed Libya into a failed state and walked away, would not have supplied arms and money to Syrian foreign jihadists which comprise 90% of those fighting Assad, and he certainly would never run his drone campaign in at least 7 countries that has killed thousands of innocent people. ..."
"... Better to be looked upon in the history books as a tragic figure inexperienced and overwhelmed by the enormity of the office rather than the real Obama who loves spilling blood in world conquest. Recently the head of the UN called on all parties to stop this stuff in Syria and let the Syrians decide for themselves who leads them. Obama's reply was Assad must go which meant business as usual supplying weapons and cash for Syrian terrorists. ..."
"... As per videos and published reports Turkish trucking companies are making nice money hauling goods into Syria, especially to ISIS, with long lines at the border waiting to get across. The Russians are po'd about the Turks taking down their plane so they are targeting convoys entering Syria. Some nice videos of this. It's a wake up call for those trucking companies that it is now too dangerous and unprofitable to continue. They may be insured but close to all insurance companies will not pay off for damages in a war zone. ..."
"... When the Russians first entered the fray in Syria Obama's response was to drop over 100 pallets of weapons, and promises of anti tank and plane weapons, in the Syrian desert and hoped the proper rebels retrieved them. Look it up, it was all over the news. Does this sound like a peace loving leader to you? ..."
"... The US was *never* attacking ISIS (before the Bear showed up) - rather they were carrying out air-strikes on pro-Assad forces and claiming they were ISIS. Nobody outside of the MIC or on the ground there could tell the difference, so they got away with it ... until they didn't. ..."
"... This is directly related the the Su-24 shoot-down. The U.S. has turned a blind eye to Turkey's overt and covert military intervention through its Turkmen Jihadis because one of the main CIA arms-smuggling rat-lines is through the Turkmen Mountain region. The U.S. has willingly and eagerly supplied TOW-2As to the Turkmen jihadis there in order to preserve those smuggling routes. There were probably plenty of Xe/Academi military advisors helping the Turkmen and they were getting killed by Russian air strikes. The CIA is frantic to do something to prevent Syria/Russia from closing those routes, and will back any hair-brained Turkish scheme in desperation. CIA arms smuggling routes IN are also Turkish jihadi smuggling routes IN and ISIS stolen oil routes OUT. They're all related and all threatened by Russia. Same as the Aleppo-Aziz-Killis route - it's multi-purpose for many kinds of smuggling. ..."
"... Erdogan's crime family is a complex issue in already complex environment of Turkish politics - you did a great job of breaking down Bilal's motivations and the oil angle. I feel sorry for all the unfortunate Turks saddled with these psychopathic losers in charge (and I speak from the authority of experience here in the U.S.). ..."
"... Shim said she was among the few journalists obtaining stories of militants infiltrating into Syria through the Turkish border, adding that she had received images from militants crossing the Turkish border into Syria in World Food Organization and other NGOs' trucks. ..."
"... Plus, makes all the sense as to why NATO immediately bought off on the Rooskie fighter shoot-down ..."
"... Wow. I must say. Thanks a lot for this informative article ZH. I always taught that Erdogans many evil plots and insane schemes was really bad , but all the things that are brought into light now are even worse than I imagined. It all makes sense now and it actually explains why Obama and the rest of the western world has done about nothing to stop ISIS and their many war crimes around the globe. ..."
"... What Erdogan and his gangs of thugs are doing is plain out illegal and they should have been prosecuted and treated as ordinary criminals in the war criminal court in haag , but as the article tells us, also former France politicians and Obama has things to explain. ..."
"... If the Turkish President is shooting down anti-ISIS planes in order to save his son's business, and the NATO nations are excusing that action, then we really are in a filthy swamp of criminality. It's going to be very hard to climb out of it. Any high moral ground is way out of NATO's reach - now, if not before. ..."
"... A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdogan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.) ..."
"... Alain Juppe is pursuing the other movements privatizations initiated between 1986 and 1988 and since 1993 with the metallurgical group Pechiney and Usinor Sacilor in 1995, the French Foreign Trade Bank (BFCE, sold over the counter at the National Credit to give birth to Natixis), the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM also sold over the counter to the charter shipping company to create the group CMA - CGM), the General Insurance of France (AGF with the purse-up 51% of the capital, the State retaining only 2%) and the French Rhine Shipping Company (RNFL, sold over the counter at the Technical Association of the coal import ATIC) in 1996 . ..."
Nov 26, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Erdogan's Dirth Dangerous ISIS Games

More and more details are coming to light revealing that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, variously known as ISIS, IS or Daesh, is being fed and kept alive by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President and by his Turkish intelligence service, including MIT, the Turkish CIA Turkey, as a result of Erdogan's pursuit of what some call a Neo-Ottoman Empire fantasies that stretch all the way to China, Syria and Iraq, threatens not only to destroy Turkey but much of the Middle East if he continues on his present path.

In October 2014 US Vice President Joe Biden told a Harvard gathering that Erdogan's regime was backing ISIS with "hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons…" Biden later apologized clearly for tactical reasons to get Erdo?an's permission to use Turkey's Incirlik Air Base for airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, but the dimensions of Erdogan's backing for ISIS since revealed is far, far more than Biden hinted.

According to French geopolitical analyst, Thierry Meyssan, Recep Erdogan "organised the pillage of Syria, dismantled all the factories in Aleppo, the economic capital, and stole the machine-tools. Similarly, he organised the theft of archeological treasures and set up an international market in Antioch…with the help of General Benoît Puga, Chief of Staff for the Elysée, he organised a false-flag operation intended to provoke the launching of a war by the Atlantic Alliance – the chemical bombing of la Ghoutta in Damascus, in August 2013. "

Meyssan claims that the Syria strategy of Erdo?an was initially secretly developed in coordination with former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and Erdogan's then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, in 2011, after Juppe won a hesitant Erdogan to the idea of supporting the attack on traditional Turkish ally Syria in return for a promise of French support for Turkish membership in the EU. France later backed out, leaving Erdogan to continue the Syrian bloodbath largely on his own using ISIS.

greenskeeper carl

And people STILL don't understand this whole ISIS thing is entirely scripted. As if the us govt doesn't know exactly who is doing what with this illicit oil trade. Of course, maybe they don't. Maybe they are too busy spying on innocent us citizens to be bothered with actually doing their fucking jobs....

I'm sure we will get a press conference from Obama soon, where he will tell us that he just learned this by reading the newspaper and is just as shocked as we are. What a fucking clownshow we live in.

strannick

Ahh. It all makes sense now.

The Russian Su24 Bomber wasnt violating Turkish airspace much as it was violating Baby Bilal Erodagans dirty oil concession and destroying his supply tankers.

Daddy Erodagan risks WW3 so his precious can exploit a NATO oil embargo and sell oil for ISIS . Fork out on your own and get a real job and make poppa proud, Go be a Chambermaid in Munich, or show some real grit and open a kebab stand in Berlin, and so spare the planet a nuclear winter.

Ghordius

cosmos, is that the same French government that is currently in Moscow talking with Russia about how to bomb ISIS in Syria? You know, the ISIS that is producing propaganda videos accusing France and Russia to be an "Alliance Of Devils"? This while Germany is discussing about how to support this Franco-Russian cooperation?

giovanni_f

"while Germany is discussing"

"Germany" doesn't "discuss" anything, with Merkel a full-fledged CIA asset. Germany exists as economic exploitation area for Anglosaxon Fiat-money. Forget Germany. I know for I have lived in this country probably for longer time than anyone on ZH.

remain calm

So how hard is it Mr Obama to kill this dude, after all you said, "we are going to hunt down isil where every they are and destroy them and their infrastructure" Well if you kill the money guy the operation falls apart. But you don't want that, do you? You want little crisis's all over the world so you can divert attention from the economy and use the terrorism as a scapegoat. You and your policies are evil.Isil if it really wanted to be powerful needs to kill its true leader and that is you.


Occident Mortal

It is inconceivable that the CIA does not already know all of this and a whole lot more. There are geostationary satellites over Iraq spamming Tb/s of data back to Langley. You only need to see the resolution of Google Maps over Iraq to know how much installed aerial surveillance covers that part of the world. Iraq has higher resolution than Manhattan.

I would not be surprised if the CIA was tracking and analysing the movements of every single vehicle in Mosul. The technology to do it exists, it's the same technology that will manage driverless car fleets.

The problem here is that for whatever reason, the US intelligence agencies are clearly NOT sharing information with the US executive government.

Something has clearly broken in the chain of command inside .gov, and the rest of the world can see this clear as day. Obama is not being told anything.

Maybe to maintain plausible deniability, maybe for some other reason? But I don't think Obama knows squat about any of this. John Kerry must know, he is the guy who gets sent to meet ALL of the involved parties. Notice that they always send Kerry, never Obama. Kerry must hear it from the other side, he meets Lavrov, Assad, Bandar, Erdogan, et al.

This whole 5yr period is just weird.

I think that come 2017, the apple cart is gonna get flipped 50ft in the air as the USA strides back into geopolitics.

not dead yet

What makes you think he doesn't know? Like that leading from behind propaganda in Libya so that Obama gets blamed for being a wimp or incompetent rather than the warmonger he really is. It is well known that Obama regularly fails to heed real experts advice or ignores it completely. It's claimed that in many briefings he doesn't even pay attention. His close circle of advisors, like the Kagan family, Victoria Nuland, Valerie Jarret, and such are war mongering conquer the planet types.

For the US ISIS serves a purpose thus the pure propaganda that most US air strikes against ISIS are not approved because they might hurt civilians. Obama could care less about civilians or he never would have bombed Libya into a failed state and walked away, would not have supplied arms and money to Syrian foreign jihadists which comprise 90% of those fighting Assad, and he certainly would never run his drone campaign in at least 7 countries that has killed thousands of innocent people.

Better to be looked upon in the history books as a tragic figure inexperienced and overwhelmed by the enormity of the office rather than the real Obama who loves spilling blood in world conquest. Recently the head of the UN called on all parties to stop this stuff in Syria and let the Syrians decide for themselves who leads them. Obama's reply was Assad must go which meant business as usual supplying weapons and cash for Syrian terrorists. If he really was serious about peace he would have dropped all funding and arms for Syrian terrorists and forced others doing the same to stop and would have all parties join Assad to irradicate ISIS and the rest. The US has never seriously bombed ISIS, just around the edges to contain not kill them. ISIS has been selling oil for years yet the US never seriously bombed their tankers until the Russians did. Obama lost face and was compelled to finally take out a few tankers and broadcast it to the world to "prove" he was serious about stopping ISIS. Many times Obama claimed the war against ISIS was going to take 20 to 30 years yet the Kurds, who are on the ground fighting, claim if all parties make the effort ISIS could be destroyed in a few weeks.

As per videos and published reports Turkish trucking companies are making nice money hauling goods into Syria, especially to ISIS, with long lines at the border waiting to get across. The Russians are po'd about the Turks taking down their plane so they are targeting convoys entering Syria. Some nice videos of this. It's a wake up call for those trucking companies that it is now too dangerous and unprofitable to continue. They may be insured but close to all insurance companies will not pay off for damages in a war zone.

When the Russians first entered the fray in Syria Obama's response was to drop over 100 pallets of weapons, and promises of anti tank and plane weapons, in the Syrian desert and hoped the "proper rebels" retrieved them. Look it up, it was all over the news. Does this sound like a peace loving leader to you?

new game

never underestimate the enemy, they know wtf is going on. isis is the new commie to fuel the fear needed to keep the juice flowing. moar war, moar fiat financed by banksters. reasons vary depending on the hatred stirred. we are bystanders funding this shit show with our taxes, all captivated by fiat/debt in a closed system with no exits, unless of course, you live in a wood burning, no electric home w/ hand pump well, outdoor shitter, and exist like it is 1850, garden, root cellar and all that.

Trogdor

Like that leading from behind propaganda in Libya so that Obama gets blamed for being a wimp or incompetent rather than the warmonger he really is...

I seem to remember the Halfrican bragging, "I'm really good at killing people" which is something only an infantile psychopath would be proud of. Believing that he's just a simple dupe - or incompetent - is the result of not paying attention.

The US was *never* attacking ISIS (before the Bear showed up) - rather they were carrying out air-strikes on pro-Assad forces and claiming they were ISIS. Nobody outside of the MIC or on the ground there could tell the difference, so they got away with it ... until they didn't.

Oldwood

Plausible deniability

Obama doctrine: nothing that happens under his administration is his responsibility. Even his Obamacare, with all of its disasters, is blamed on him. Nothing. He always claims to be the outsider when in actuality he is in charge of everything.

Kayman

As if the U.S. isn't complicit in this. Look at a map- the oil can't go west thru Assad territory, it can't go south thru Shia Iraq, and it isn't going east thru Iran. So it has no other way to go but thru Turkey.

Turkey is a NATO member. The U.S. and Europe are supporting Turkey, therefore the U.S. and NATO are supporting ISIS. Period. Full stop.

Kick Turkey out of NATO and Blockade Turkey. And ISIS will wither and die.

Coke and Hookers

There will be three priorities now for Russia: 1) No-fly zone south of the Turkish-Syrian border enforced with S 400, 2) Hitting everything moving on every transit route from Turkey and 3) Bombing the shit out of the border area and the Turkmen scum/CIA agents hanging out there and then capturing it.

assistedliving

34 up arrows nowwithstanding, stick to the coke & hookers.

1. S400 deployment will be delayed

2. Nothing more will be hit from Turkey

3. less bombing now let alone "Bombing the shit out....?

Hard to imagine more wrong analysis; Easy to see ZH chickenhawk, Putin loving adoration

OldPhart

Ok, just an observation from the linked video. Your convoy just got bombed by a first world nation's advanced technologies.

You're fucking lucky to be alive. Yet you bunch up all the rest of the convoy, then stand around in the middle of it all watching, recording, the burning of some trucks. Doesn't it occur to these ignorant mother-fucks that what they just created is the biggist classical military strike of all time?

Russia is being merciful to fly by shit like this without strike. I thought Putin was a hard ass, maybe he does have a heart. Well, being a decent person in politics could make one look pretty fuckin' odd in these days of elected psychopaths.

Paveway IV

The ISIS-miniE oil sales are temporary. It was a bone the U.S. (and indirectly Israel) threw to Erdogan so the CIA could run arms through Turkey without questions. Same thing for the Barzani crime cartel in Iraqi Kurdistan. It's all just temporary because, long-term, U.S./U.K./Israeli interests will own and control every oil asset in Syria and Kurdistan. Genel is sliming their way into control of the oil fields stolen first from Iraq and soon from the Kurds. Tony "Deepwater Horizon" Hayward runs that shop for the Rothschilds. At the appropriate time, Mini-Erdogan and Barzani will cease to be useful to the Anglo-Zio cabal and liquidated, just like al Nusra and ISIS. Israel wants to replace Ceyhan with Haifa and control all the oil from their port, and they want to make sure nobody can turn the tap to them off. Rothschild and the U.K./U.S. Israeli-firsters just want their cut of the eventual loot and to preserve their dying petrodollar. They let Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the club for funding, and probably promised them their pipelines through Syria.

This is directly related the the Su-24 shoot-down. The U.S. has turned a blind eye to Turkey's overt and covert military intervention through its Turkmen Jihadis because one of the main CIA arms-smuggling rat-lines is through the Turkmen Mountain region. The U.S. has willingly and eagerly supplied TOW-2As to the Turkmen jihadis there in order to preserve those smuggling routes. There were probably plenty of Xe/Academi military advisors helping the Turkmen and they were getting killed by Russian air strikes. The CIA is frantic to do something to prevent Syria/Russia from closing those routes, and will back any hair-brained Turkish scheme in desperation. CIA arms smuggling routes IN are also Turkish jihadi smuggling routes IN and ISIS stolen oil routes OUT. They're all related and all threatened by Russia. Same as the Aleppo-Aziz-Killis route - it's multi-purpose for many kinds of smuggling.

The backup act of desperation is already playing out. While Syria/Russia tries to take back the two main corridors mentioned above, Turkey and the U.S. are trying to create an entirely new corridor through Afrin canton before Russia gets there. The U.S. may abhor another Kurd slaughter like they were party to in Kobane and Sinjar, but the CIA needs new rat-lines, damn it - that means some Afrin Rojava are going to have to die. Minne-E needs new oil smuggling routes (and a few new tankers), and daddy needs a reliable route to funnel Uighur, Uzbek and Chechen head-choppers to keep the pressure on Assad. Erdogan himself probably has a boner at the thought of another 25,000 dead Kurds. Barazani won't complain too much. The Rojava Kurds don't want to join his criminal gang and swear obedience to him, so he has no use for them. He just needs to convince the world that he is the supreme leader of the Kurdish cause, not the Kurds. See why he likes Erdogan so much?

For the anglo-zio oil cartel, the Syrian war isn't so much about replacing Assad right away. They would be delighted if that happened, but now they just want to preserve what they have in Syria in the face of Russian involvement. If worse comes to worse, all the parties will just retract their jihadis back across Turkish borders and wait for another opportunity. There's plenty of land-grabbing and bribery work in Iraqi Kurdistan to keep them busy for now. The long game is to own all the oil and gas possible in Syria and Iraq when the smoke clears, and then 100% control where it flows to and who sells it for what price. They'll kill every last Syrian, Iraqi and Kurd if necessary to make sure they control the spice.

Paveway IV

That was a damn fine article, Tyler. +1000. I should have offered that thought first before scratching out my rant.

Erdogan's crime family is a complex issue in already complex environment of Turkish politics - you did a great job of breaking down Bilal's motivations and the oil angle. I feel sorry for all the unfortunate Turks saddled with these psychopathic losers in charge (and I speak from the authority of experience here in the U.S.).

Escrava Isaura

Turkey needs this conflict to distract its population. Second, Turkey is a main supported of jihadi organizations such as al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. Even the US trained rebels were killed by these jihadists with the help of Turkey.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/08/03/pentagon-syria-rebels-trained-by-us-to-get-defensive-air-cover.html

Noplebian

WW3 – Turkey/ISIS/Russia – The Countdown Has Begun......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...

Nostradumbass

The reason people have not talked about Turkey is because they tend to end up dead from accidents and suicides while passing through that country.

Yes, tragically, yes they do.

Press TV's correspondent in Turkey, Serena Shim, has been killed in a suspicious car accident near the Turkey-Syria border.

Shim was killed on Sunday as she was on a working mission in Turkey to cover the ongoing war in the strategic Syrian town of Kobani.

She was going back to her hotel from a report scene in the city of Suruç in Turkey's Urfa Province when their car collided with a heavy vehicle. The identity and whereabouts of the truck driver remain unknown.

Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, covered reports for Press TV in Lebanon, Iraq, and Ukraine.

On Friday, she told Press TV that the Turkish intelligence agency had accused her of spying probably due to some of the stories she has covered about Turkey's stance on the ISIL terrorists in Kobani and its surroundings, adding that she feared being arrested.

Shim said she was among the few journalists obtaining stories of militants infiltrating into Syria through the Turkish border, adding that she had received images from militants crossing the Turkish border into Syria in World Food Organization and other NGOs' trucks.

Shim flatly rejected accusations against her, saying she was "surprised" at this accusation "because I have nothing to hide and I have never done anything aside my job."

Kobani and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages.

Turkey has been accused of backing ISIL militants in Syria.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/10/19/382854/press-tv-reporter-in-tur...

MrBoompi

Well of course Turkey sides with ISIS. Many of the ISIS fighters come across the border into Syria from Turkey, where they have been trained. Turkey is on board with the US and the rest of NATO. I suppose we have no choice but wait and see what the US pulls to get rid of Assad now. It won't be pretty.

Main_Sequence

Erdogan has a raging hard-on for the multiple gas pipelines from Libya, Egypt, Israel, and Qatar that will provide tens of billions of dollars in revenues in transit fees. Of course Turkey will do whatever it takes to ensure that Assad falls as it is literally costing Turkey billions of dollars every month that Assad is in power. None of what I have read about Turkey supporting ISIS surprises me in the slightest knowing what Turkey is losing.

knukles

Plus, makes all the sense as to why NATO immediately bought off on the Rooskie fighter shoot-down even though via the NATO documents, it technically puts NATO in a HOT war with Russia aside from the Hot Proxy wars...

Oh my....

REQUIRED READING: Tells it like it really is

http://turoks.net/Cabana/PoohGoesApeshit.php

Rusty Shorts

This U.S. Army film describes Turkey's history, economy, urban areas, industry, and its role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsUEEPN9gWc

Bay of Pigs

Yeah, okay. The US is totally solvent, is that what youre saying....lol.

PeakOil

^This. But I would go further - Russia is fighting for its very existence.

The psychotic megalomaniacal Anglo-Zionist hegemon wishes to rule the world. Totally. Who is standing in their way? Pretty obvious what this is all about wouldn't you say?

AlaricGaudiTheSecond

So Russia is funding terrorists around the globe for profits too? Give me a f*** break!!! Liar!!

captain-nemo

Wow. I must say. Thanks a lot for this informative article ZH. I always taught that Erdogans many evil plots and insane schemes was really bad , but all the things that are brought into light now are even worse than I imagined. It all makes sense now and it actually explains why Obama and the rest of the western world has done about nothing to stop ISIS and their many war crimes around the globe.

What Erdogan and his gangs of thugs are doing is plain out illegal and they should have been prosecuted and treated as ordinary criminals in the war criminal court in haag , but as the article tells us, also former France politicians and Obama has things to explain.

I am simply overwhelmed over how bad it all turns out to be in reality. It explains why the western world was so reluctant to welcome the Russians in their fighting against ISIS, they were afraid that all their little secrets and rotten plots probably would come out. Thanks to Russia, that's exactly what has happened now.

There are absolutely no news about these things in my country, the mainstream media are only publishing the western political correct version of everything, and thus most people are probably still unaware of the real truth.

ISIS is responsible for terror attacks and the lifes of thousands of civilians all around the world. They are off course to blame and should be routed out. However. It is actually Erdogan and his thugs that are their real generals. It is Erdogan who has blood on his hands. It is Erdogan that should be wanted by the courts in Haag.

I am looking forward to read more about Erdogans son and the evil activities these people are involved in. Thank you ZH an keep up the good work.

Fuku Ben

This guy is shaping up to be like another Uday Hussein, Saddam's son. Does he have any rape, torture or murder under his belt, like Uday, in addition to his alleged war crimes and terrorist activities? Do the Turks realize they're going to be ceding a portion of their country for the greater glorious mission of rebuilding The Levant if ISIS/ISIL/Israel (see below) succeed in Syria?

Here is an old quote from a Kurd on the alleged details of the ISIS operation. "Housed in Turkey, trained in Jordan, logistics by Pakistan, literature from Saudi Arabia, funding from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, on the ground day to day running by Israel, arms by the U.S., intelligence by the British, Germans and French and original arms for ISIS came from the Muslim Brotherhood helping them take it from Libya."

One big happy family isn't it. This seems very plausible and explains why they would all be so pissed off at what Russia has done. Again at the last press conference Hollande and Obama openly refused to cooperate with Russia. Obama again insisting that Russia work through his coalition and that Assad be removed.

I wonder how many U.S. citizens even realize they are
under a declared state of Nation Emergency due to that deadliest of threats to the U.S. known as Syria. What a fraudulent joke.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/06/notice-continuati...

Is anyone operating inside Syrian airspace yet actually doing so lawfully besides Russia? Or are lawful authority and international law now just more fraudulent misrepresentations and treated as a joke? Similar to how the global corporations fraudulently act as Countries and pretending that by being a Citizen you have freedoms that they protect.

I'm struggling to find any U.N. authorization for the lawful use of force inside Syria without the consent of the Syrian government. Not that the U.N. has that authority anyway. If anyone finds any please feel free to post it.

http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12132.doc.htm


XXL66

The ISIS-Turkey list :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/research-paper-isis-turke...

smacker

That's a good document.

It places Turkey up to its neck at the scene of the ISIS crime.

Turkey are actively involved in supporting ISIS: recruitment, training, financing, supplying weapons and other goods to ISIS. Recep Erdogan himself is in control and his son Bilal is handling ISIS stolen oil.


Volkodav

US Sanctions Syria for buying oil from Islamic State...

https://in.news.yahoo.com/us-sanctions-syria-buying-oil-163505807.html

HowdyDoody

Syrian uses Syrian oil - sanctions.

Turkey deals in Syiran oil stolen by ISIS - no sanctions.

css1971

"Turkey's actions appear premeditated, planned, and undertaken with a specific objective."

Or put another way. We think you're evil, not stupid.

localizer

To sum it up: Erdogan has put his family income above his country's interests since the math is simple - family pockets gain a fraction of the billions that will not be collected by the Turkish companies now due to "sanctions" imposed by Russia, this has already begun - no Russian tourists (that is about $3 billion/year), suspended construction contracts in Russia for Turkish companies, extra "inspections" on ALL Turkish goods (textiles, food) entering Russia etc...

Lumberjack

You forgot Hillary

viator

And RT chimes in:

https://www.rt.com/business/323391-isis-oil-business-turkey-russia/

Maybe this is among the reasons that some people are mad: "Islamic State is selling oil at $15–25 per barrel"

https://twitter.com/hashtag/StopTurkeySuppportOfISIS

Hannibal

Mystery over who bombed Turkish convoy allegedly carrying weapons to militants in Syria

https://www.rt.com/news/323538-turkey-convoy-syria-attack/

BarnacleBill

If the Turkish President is shooting down anti-ISIS planes in order to save his son's business, and the NATO nations are excusing that action, then we really are in a filthy swamp of criminality. It's going to be very hard to climb out of it. Any high moral ground is way out of NATO's reach - now, if not before.

When I wrote about the famous ISIS Toyotas a year ago (link below), I reckoned the CIA might have bought them on ISIS's behalf - but now I wonder if perhaps Turkey's top oligarch didn't do it on his own. I also presumed the Toyotas had been manufactured in the US, but I've since learned that the Toyota company also manufactures left-hand-drive trucks in Thailand. This story has a lot of angles still to uncover - and not just which tax-haven was used to facilitate the transactions. More likely Hong Kong or Singapore than any one over in this part of the world, in this instance.

http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2014/10/who-sold-isis-all-those-toyotas.html

viator

"Russia is preparing wide-ranging economic sanctions against Turkey over the downing of one of its jets on the Turkey-Syria border."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34933608

"Mr Medvedev said: "The government has been ordered to work out a system of response measures to this act of aggression in the economic and humanitarian spheres."He said the focus would be on "introducing limits or bans" on Turkish economic interests in Russia and a "limitation of the supply" of products, including food.He said tourism, transport, trade, labour and customs as well as "humanitarian contacts" could all be affected. "The same rules may apply to a whole range of investment projects," he said."

Wahooo

Do not focus on Ergodan, focus on the US:

Seymour Hersh, April 2014:

A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdogan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)

Wrascaly Wabbit

The following article is an eye opener in terms of how ISIL finances itself!

http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/03/isis-financial-sources/

The bottom line is you can't sell anything, unless you have someone willing to buy it!

Whoa Dammit

Hey Tyler (or anyone else who wants to do the research,

It might not be a bad idea to look further into Alain Juppe who was mentioned in Engdahl's article. He was responsible for the privatization of a French foreign trade bank and two French shipping companies years back. But old ties run deep in politics and shady deals.

This is what I found from a cursory look at French Wiki:

Alain Juppe is pursuing the other movements privatizations initiated between 1986 and 1988 and since 1993 with the metallurgical group Pechiney and Usinor Sacilorin 1995, the French Foreign Trade Bank (BFCE, sold over the counter at theNational Credit to give birth to Natixis), the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM also sold over the counter to the charter shipping company to create the group CMA -CGM), the General Insurance of France (AGF with the purse-up 51% of the capital, the State retaining only 2%) and the French Rhine Shipping Company (RNFL, sold over the counter at the Technical Association of the coal import ATIC) in 1996.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Jupp%C3%A9

ISIS support in Turkey could have nothing at all to do with any of these companies today, but then again it might. Seeing the foreign trade bank and shipping connections here just alerted my spidey senses.

Joenobody12

http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/25/israeli-colonel-caught-with-is-pants-d...

It is about oil and the disintegration of the Arab countries. Destruction of nations and killing of their people mean absolutely nothing to these psycopaths. In fact , the chosen people have planned the destruction of the Arab countries just so there will be no centralized pwer to threaten Israel.

Gulag

Turkey is facilitating selling ISIS stolen oil from Iraq and Syria oilfields to G20 membership countries on the black market at a dumping price. Has been estimated that as much as $800mil of oil has been sold in Turkey by ISIS using Turkey / Syrian border in direct dealings between Turkish officials and ISIS members under the blind eye of UK and USA.

Turkey is a corrupt, jihadist sh*t hole that hosts, protects, finances and offer intelligence and logistics to ISIS under cover of NATO membership and alliance with USA.

Turkey is considered a USA ally while ISIS is considered a terrorist faction in war with America.

Turkey is s state sponsor of ISIS with a NATO membership. NATO is harboring a state that sponsors ISIS. That makes NATO and all nations within NATO membership accomplices of sponsoring terrorism.

... ... ...

me or you

Turkey is buying and selling ISIS oil while NATO is smuggling Taliban opium.

johmack2

What irks me the most is the lack of investigative journalism during this whole middle east fiasco. It was as if after the watergate scandal, washington vowed never again and thus began the death of journalism. In the day and age when you have have alternative media giving more indept analysis than CNN/BBC on geopolitical issues and sites like muddywaters using investigation as means of peeling away the corporate veil of corruption, one has to wonder the nature of the illusion we find ourselves in.

As i have assimilated more information, the words from morpheous in the matrix to neo in the training simulation continuously ring true.

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. "

[Nov 26, 2015] The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Who Is Protecting ISIS And Why

Notable quotes:
"... The US and its allies have allowed their desire for regime change in Syria to outweigh their stated desire to get rid of ISIS. What does that result in? Implicit or explicit protection for ISIS and related extremist groups inside Syria. Turkey was enjoying big business in Syrian underground oil shipments...until the Russians bombed ISIS's oil infrastructure. Then Turkey attacked a Russian plane. What does it mean? ..."
ronpaulinstitute.org

The US and its allies have allowed their desire for regime change in Syria to outweigh their stated desire to get rid of ISIS. What does that result in? Implicit or explicit protection for ISIS and related extremist groups inside Syria. Turkey was enjoying big business in Syrian underground oil shipments...until the Russians bombed ISIS's oil infrastructure. Then Turkey attacked a Russian plane. What does it mean? Tune in to the Liberty Report:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvFQ_Kp-GwU

Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[Nov 26, 2015] Syrian Rebels Make Intensive Use of US Missiles

Nov 26, 2015 | Antiwar.com

US provision of advanced missiles to Syrian rebel factions once again came into close focus this week, when a faction affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) attacked and destroyed a Russian helicopter trying to rescue pilots from a plane shot down by Turkey.

According to Syrian military officials, however, the US TOW missiles are not the rare sight they once were in the war, and many factions, including those allied with al-Qaeda, are making "intensive" use of the US missiles in northwestern Syria.

TOW missile shipments are seen going through Turkey, with Saudi Arabia subsidizing the program. The US escalated the shipments after Russia began its involvement in the Syrian Civil War, despite insistence that the arms are purely targeted at the Syrian military.

Russia has warned the US the provision of those arms is a "major mistake," and that those arms are going to inevitably wind up in the hands of terrorist organizations, and not just the "vetted" groups. This has been the case in past US arms shipments, and hardly a terror faction exists in Syria anymore that isn't awash in US arms.

[Nov 26, 2015] Turkey won't apologize for downing Russian jet Erdo an

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Nov. 26 that Turkey would not apologize for the Nov. 24 downing of a Russian jet near the Syrian border.

"I think that if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is not us," Erdoğan said in an interview with CNN International.

He also added that the Turkish pilots who shot down the Russian jet had "done their duty within the rules of engagement."

"Those who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize. Our pilots and our armed forces, they simply fulfilled their duties, which consisted of responding to ... violations of the rules of engagement. I think this is the essence of the issue," Erdoğan said.

[Nov 25, 2015] Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey accomplices of terrorists ?

Notable quotes:
"... You have to laugh when you hear Erdogan and that puppy he's got for a Prime Minister solemnly saying that their airspace is sacrosanct and that they would never do the same to another sovereign nation. Yet, every week or so Turkish jets violate Greek airspace over the Aegean. And their jets don't stay for 30 seconds either. Personally I wouldn't believe anything that the Turks say about this incident. ..."
"... Bravo. Pumping out endless western propaganda for the moronic. The Americans and NATO are the biggest warmongers in history: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/.../turkey-has-destroyed.../ ..."
"... Erdogan is a bad guy, who receives western political cover due to Turkey's NATO membership. ..."
"... According to Seymour Hersch it was Turkey that was behind the Ghouta gas attack (well it certainly wasn't Assad). There was also a plan to attack a Turkish shrine inside Syria to be used as a pretext for a full invasion. The video clip is available on youtube. In the recording you can hear the defence minister and the head of intelligence discussing the plan, agreeing to do it, even though they don't like the idea, while lamenting the fact that everything is politics in modern Turkey. Nobody ever talks about this. Erdogan's response to this was to shut down Youtube for a day. ..."
"... ISIS fighters move in and out of Turkey with ease, receive medical treatment there and selling their oil at very competitive prices to people close to the Erdogan regime. Because NATO have gone along with Turkey in the "Assad must go" mantra they've been stuck covering up for his antics. But shooting down a Russian jet that clearly wasn't threatening Turkey was extremely reckless - maybe regime change in Ankara may be on the cards. ..."
"... "Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly." ..."
"... Martin Chulov is certainly not biased in his reporting in favour of Russia or against Turkey. He has reported mostly in favour of the rebels in Syria and only recently realised what the outcome of all this is. ..."
"... His facts about the ISIS-Turkish connection are not imagination presented against reason. Isis i.e. was free to attack the Kurds inside Turkey and the government did nothing to stop them, even when they knew about them very well. ..."
"... Believing that Erdogan, whose country's human rights record is pretty unenviable (in particular with regard to journalists), fell out with Assad because he was appalled by the latter's repression is like believing that Mussolini's decision to aid Franco in the Spanish Civil War was largely motivated by his horror at the bad behaviour of Spanish Anarchists and Communists. ..."
"... Turkey is a conduit, the Turkish presidents son is buying the oil from ISIS, just like US Vice President Joe Bidens son joined the board of Ukraines largest Gas producer after Nato expanded into the Ukraine. ..."
"... Was the downing of the jet by Turkey a tit for tat exercise as Russia destroyed some of the hundreds of lorry oil tankers parked up in ISIS territory heading for Turkey 6 days ago? ..."
"... Al Qaeda was created and used by the usa to do terror on Russia. No reason tho think things have changed, when clearly they have not. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, all have fallen....more to come. There is no "wondering" at all about the orogon an dpurpose of the ISIS when they admit they are al qaeda re packaged ...When the US admits al qaeda has melded into the ISIS. ..."
"... Terrorists in the middle east are a western supported geo-political tool to allow us to bomb, invade, destabilizen and balkanize soverign nations who refuse globalist ideology and orders. ..."
"... All a bit too convenient with the film crew at the ready. Clearly Erdogan is looking to further his agenda and set his sights on expanding Turkey's borders and it looks as though he's using NATO's protection to do it. ..."
"... It's ironic that NATO affords Turkey so much protection given that Turkey funds ISIS, it trades with them, it allows IS fighters free travel across Turkish borders and it also fights IS enemies for them - the Kurds. Outside of the Gulf, Turkey is the jihadist's biggest ally. ..."
"... Well, at least we have seen that those K-36 ejection seats do work; they have reportedly never failed. Of course Turkey, and Western Europe for that matter, has been playing a double game. Just like in Afghanistan in the 1980s, they prefer the acid-throwers and head-choppers to a Russian-backed secular regime. ..."
"... Even the Western MSM has openly reported about and from the staging areas in Turkey, where the jihadists gather before entering Syria. The US-lead "coalition" is now boasting about bombing ISIL oil convoys, but where has it been for the past few years? Everybody with a single functioning grey cell knows that Turkey is involved in the ISIS oil smuggling business and allowing the jihadist to train on its territory. ..."
"... The Turkmen who Turkey is protecting have been attacking Kurds. The Turks have been bombing the Kurds, who are fighting ISIS. ..."
"... The Turks have been buying ISIS' oil and giving other funding. Weapons funded by Gulf States have almost certainly been crossing the Turkish border for ISIS. It is suspected the Turkey has been providing a safe haven for ISIS fighters. Tens of thousands have crossed Turkeys borders to join rebel groups, the chances that some of them have not joined ISIS is nil. ..."
"... Lest anyone forget, Al Qaeda are themselves have orchestrated huge scale terrorist attacks. But becausing they are fighting Assad in Syria, who is hated by the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel, unquestioned or criticised almost regardless what they do by the West allies of the West, apparently Al Qaeda are now fine. ..."
"... I wonder if the leaders of NATO were involved in anyway at all??? ..."
"... And - does this lend weight to those who have shown that ISIS is a result of the Libyan, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and that they are mercenaries who have formed an insurgency within Syria for a regime change? A war crime, definitely against international law. ..."
"... In the warnings at no point do the turks actually say the russians are in turkish airspace, just that they are heading towards it; they also do not threaten to fire upon the Russians like the RAF do over here when they issue a warning. Normally the defending plane would come alongside the transgressor to escort them out the airspace, here they just just shoot at the russians without issuing a warning. It also appears that there just so happened to be a tv crew there perfectly poised to film it - what a coincidence. There is no way we are getting dragged into a war over this. ..."
"... The whole rotten scam is coming undone. No one believes the mainstream media any more. I skip the articles and go straight to the comments. That's where you find out what's really going on. Thank you for all the insightful comments. The truth will set us free ..."
"... 'It is in West's interest that ISIS would spill into Russia one day and do the dirty job there for US and its associates.' ..."
"... Oh, and the "rebels" shooting the pilots as they made their descent is a war crime. ..."
"... "Turkey said one of its US-made F-16 fighters fired on the Russian plane when it entered Turkish airspace after having been warned on its approach to the Turkish border through a 13-mile no-fly zone inside Syria it had declared in July." ..."
"... By what right does Turkey declare a 13 mile no fly zone inside Syria? This is clearly grounds for believing that the Russian jet was in fact shot down over Syria and not Turkey. ..."
"... Turkey has overplayed its hand and Erdogan's strategy and tactics in respect of Syria are now in tatters. NATO will be scrambling to put the frighteners on Erdogan who is clearly a loose cannon and totally out of his depth. ..."
"... Quite interestingly, yesterday, Russians claimed that in the past two previous days they have made 472 attacks on oil infrastructure and oil-trucks controlled by ISIS, which is obviously the right thing to do if you want to derange their sources of financing - but, apparently, the 'training partners' of ISIS are reacting... ..."
"... Russia was invited into support Assad by Syrias leader whether we or Nato like it or not. Turkey France and US were not. Turkeys Air force will have to watch itself now as I suspect Russia will deploy fighter aircraft to protect there bombers and the Kurds. As for the original question I think Putin may be right and Turks do have a foot in both camps. Nato should be very aware of the consequences of playing the whose to blame game when the stakes are so high. ..."
"... So, Turkey downs a Russian bomber and immediately runs to its daddies ?!?! C'mon! What a joke!! ..."
"... Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that "my enemy's enemy is my friend" and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf. A trawl through Sayyaf's compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had "urgent policy implications". ..."
"... Payback for the Russians bombing ISIS oil convoys? Would Turkey shoot down a Russian air force jet without the nod from allies? Situation getting very dangerous I would think. ..."
"... "the US could potentially extract a lot out of it " ..."
"... And even if something is extracted in return, at the end of the day, NATO and the US will be defacto protecting the islamists, which is Turkey's goal. You can say NATO and the US are fucked now because they will have to do what they didn't want to do at all. ..."
"... Attacking people parachuting from an aircraft in distress is a war crime under Protocol I in addition to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. ..."
"... From a Russian perspective the opening paragraphs of article speak for themselves. Russian entry into the 'game' meant Turkey became a second category power in a region they have sought to dominate, the strike is a sign of weakness and not strength and whoever sanctioned it (done so quickly you'd wonder if Ankara was aware) is an amateur player because it weakened Turkey and strengthened the Russian hand. ..."
"... Of course Putin is right but he only tells part of the story. The main accomplice of terrorists and other non-existent so called "moderate" head-choppers is the United States, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel are merely facilitating this policy on behalf of the US and in accordance to their independent regional pursuits, that converge however on the removal of Assad and the use of ISIS as a proxy army to remove Assad. ..."
"... Events like today's become a useful window on an otherwise murky, indecipherable geopolitics. In the fraught aftermath of the Paris attacks, we should do our best to see ISIS for what they are and have always been: the entree to the main course proxy war between Russia and Western allied interests. ..."
"... Today a Russian plane goes down and first of all it's Turkey's fault, but Turkey wouldn't have done that without explicit permission to do so from either NATO or the US, but then a few hours later as it all looks really bad for Turkey (and by association everyone else in the "coalition") it turns out to have been Turkmen, but which ones? There's two factions, one is a "rebel" group backed by the US, the other is a "terrorist" group (aligned with "ISIS") and backed by the US. They are both fighting Assad. ..."
"... Senator John McCain can be thankful the North Vietnamese were not as bad as these Turkmen Turks. "Turkmen militiamen in Syria claimed to have shot the pilots as they descended on parachutes from the stricken Su-24 bomber." What the Turkmen brag about having done is something neither the North Vietnamese nor the actual Nazis would have condoned. ..."
"... Let's assume that this lying ISIS loving terrorist, Erdogan, is speaking the truth. He says Russia has been attacking Syrian Turkoman who are defending their land. One should ask this blood-thirsty ape this question: What then are Kurdish people in Turkey doing? ..."
"... That's the whole problem. The banksters and corporations that run the US have too much to lose in Saudi Arabia and the Persian gulf. And they want that pipeline from the Gulf to the Levant but Syria (with its secular ruler, hated by the jihadists) won't play ball with the banksters. Hence, with American corporations' blessing, Turkey and Arabia loose the Daesh on them . And al-Qeada and al-Nusra and all the other "moderate" rebels supplied with modern weapons by American arms corporations. ..."
"... "Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (£6.6m) per week to the terror group's coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client." ..."
"... Why doesn't The Guardian grow a pair and investigate the role of Turkish President Erdogan in this illegal oil trade, specifically through his son Bilal Erdogan, whose shipping company (jointly owned with two of Erdogan's brothers) BMZ Group has a rapidly expanding fleet of oil tankers... ..."
www.theguardian.com

The relationship hinted at by Russian leader after warplane was shot down is a complex one, and includes links between senior Isis figures and Turkish officials

Wirplit 24 Nov 2015 20:43

Turkey under Erdogan is turning out to be a real problem for the West. Supporting Isis and other jihadist groups and attacking the Kurds. Maybe now the Russians will support the PKK. Tragedy for the liberal Turks that Erdogan won


Phil Atkinson moreblingplease 24 Nov 2015 19:57

The evidence is out there if you want to look for it. Erdogan's son runs a shipping company that transports - guess what? Oil.

Alexander Marne 24 Nov 2015 19:53

It is an obvious attempt of Turkey trying to make the European+American+Christian Civilization wage war against Russia with the NATO war pact argument. NATO at these times is the perfect ingredient needed for a Christian Winter, having Christian Nations disobey the whims of a secular NATO alliance that has everything bus dissolved since the Iron Curtain fell. We all know the radical Muslims and their cousins are our enemy now, not the Soviet WARSAW pact which NATO was created to defend against. NATO members that go to war against Russia would risk internal revolution lead by the Majority Christian Population that has grown evermore dissatisfied of their Frankenstein Secular Ethic governments and sellout leadership.

hfakos Fiddle 24 Nov 2015 19:51

No Russian gas pipeline and, thus transit fees, to Hungary either. Germany shut down SouthStream, only to sign a deal with evil Putin to double the capacity of NorthStream. Who wouldn't love an EU like that? We are all equal, but Germany and Western Europe are more equal than others.

Phil Atkinson -> marph70 24 Nov 2015 19:50

Agreed. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is a misnomer, given its current membership (28 countries). NATO was formed by 12 countries in 1949 and today, is a tool for encirclement of Russia.

yianni 24 Nov 2015 19:47

You have to laugh when you hear Erdogan and that puppy he's got for a Prime Minister solemnly saying that their airspace is sacrosanct and that they would never do the same to another sovereign nation. Yet, every week or so Turkish jets violate Greek airspace over the Aegean. And their jets don't stay for 30 seconds either. Personally I wouldn't believe anything that the Turks say about this incident.

somethingbrite -> KevinKeegansYfronts 24 Nov 2015 19:46

I think we can probably ask that chap in his semi in Coventry where ISIS plan to attack next...the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is it? The man seems to have a hotline to Raqqa and every other ISIS held territory.

That said....the Guardian doesn't appear to have quoted him for a week or so....

Have they been unable to reach him since Paris?

Is he on the run? Hiding out in Belgium maybe?

SystemD 24 Nov 2015 19:40

I listened to Ashdown on Today yesterday. His comments about links between Gulf states and the Tories were extremely interesting and unexpected. The same questions should be asked regarding Turkey. Why has the report about the funding of jihadism in the UK not been published?

Phil Atkinson -> GemmaBlueSkySeas 24 Nov 2015 19:38

Would Turkey have shot down the SU-24 if Turkey wasn't a NATO member? Think on it.

camerashy -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:31

Yeah right, that's the western propaganda machine for you. They were saying the same thing last year ... Only misguided minds believe such nonsense!

Neutronstar7 -> Adrian Rides 24 Nov 2015 19:31

Bravo. Pumping out endless western propaganda for the moronic. The Americans and NATO are the biggest warmongers in history: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/.../turkey-has-destroyed.../

I cannot believe it, but I feel ashamed of my own country and all the other western governments and our proxy's involved in this vile conspiracy. Blow us up, we deserve it.

WankSalad 24 Nov 2015 19:30

All of this should just make us more furious about the Paris attacks.

The attackers; ISIS, are quite literally being armed, supported and facilitated by our "friends and allies" Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Meanwhile Turkey directs it's fire at the Kurds - a group of moderate Muslims and secularists who have only ever wanted independent statehood - whom we are supposed to be helping fight ISIS.

Saudi Arabia has also been quite clearly the source of most of the extremist Islamism that has repeatedly attacked our civil societies. They have funded and set up Islamist mosques all throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

Are we really getting good value out of our relationships with these nations?

^Our leaders refuse to say any of this openly. It's infuriating. Sooner or later something has to give.

Omniscience -> James Brown 24 Nov 2015 19:30

How can a dictator, who took over from his father (a dictator) be called a legitimate government ? Even by a Russian...

hfakos -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:28

Sounds like everyday Western duplicity. Car bombs and suicide bombers are fine as long as they only target Damascus. But when the people the West has nurtured attack Paris, the world ends.

camerashy -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:27

You're such a feeble minded person! At least Puting didn't sell $hitloads of arms to Saudi Arabia enabling them to support and nurture Isis. Look in the mirror once in a while, will ya ...

camerashy 24 Nov 2015 19:19

There's nothing to worry about here ... Putin is one cool customer, he'll have his revenge when time is right, and it'll be nothing like a Cameroneasque thoughtless, hurried, knee jerk reaction. Turkey on its own wouldn't dare do anything like they've done, they're just being manipulated by NATO warmongers who are desperate to justify their existence.

DrKropotkin 24 Nov 2015 19:17

Erdogan is a bad guy, who receives western political cover due to Turkey's NATO membership. But he has strayed very far from the path of sanity and I think NATO will soon start looking for ways to get rid of him.

According to Seymour Hersch it was Turkey that was behind the Ghouta gas attack (well it certainly wasn't Assad). There was also a plan to attack a Turkish shrine inside Syria to be used as a pretext for a full invasion. The video clip is available on youtube. In the recording you can hear the defence minister and the head of intelligence discussing the plan, agreeing to do it, even though they don't like the idea, while lamenting the fact that everything is politics in modern Turkey. Nobody ever talks about this. Erdogan's response to this was to shut down Youtube for a day.

ISIS fighters move in and out of Turkey with ease, receive medical treatment there and selling their oil at very competitive prices to people close to the Erdogan regime. Because NATO have gone along with Turkey in the "Assad must go" mantra they've been stuck covering up for his antics. But shooting down a Russian jet that clearly wasn't threatening Turkey was extremely reckless - maybe regime change in Ankara may be on the cards.

KevinKeegans -> Yfronts 24 Nov 2015 19:17

"Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly."

So people in the Guardian are in contact with "senior" members of Isis? Was it a meeting over tea and scones? Perhaps you could stop being their mouthpiece and ask them which public area they intend to blow up next. After that you could give the authorities their contact details so that they can solve this issue quickly. That would be most helpful. Of course you might lose a couple of years worth of potential headlines.

moria50 -> Rubear13 24 Nov 2015 19:14

ISIS started back in 2009.Jordan has a Centcom underground training centre, and 2,000 US special Forces came to train them.Gen Dempsey oversaw this training camp.

Jordanian special forces were instructors along with the US.

James Brown 24 Nov 2015 19:10

Four years of providing money, transport, training, air and artillery cover against legitimate Syrian government forces to terrorists and Guardian asks this question? Turkey = #1 supporter of Islamic terrorism. Open your damn eyes.

hfakos -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:09

Given that ISIS was created with significant Western help, why would Putin do anything about it? He finally acted when the head-choppers got totally out of control and started to threaten Russia too. The downing of the Russian airliner, the several failed terror attacks in France, and the Paris massacre should have opened your eyes.

NATO has an abysmal foreign policy record. In a mere decade they managed to turn Europe into a place where one has to fear going to the Christmas market. Well done, "winners" of the Cold War.

pdutchman -> PMWIPN 24 Nov 2015 19:07

Martin Chulov is certainly not biased in his reporting in favour of Russia or against Turkey. He has reported mostly in favour of the rebels in Syria and only recently realised what the outcome of all this is.

His facts about the ISIS-Turkish connection are not imagination presented against reason. Isis i.e. was free to attack the Kurds inside Turkey and the government did nothing to stop them, even when they knew about them very well.

Once you see what is going on and what the results are, you have to consider the possibility Europe is threatened by fundamentalists, also inside Turkey and Turkish government.

Just read the political program of grand vizier Davutoğlu, or the speeches of Erdoğan on the glorious pas of the Ottoman empire when he visits former territory.

His vision is one of a regional Islamic state run by Turkey, that would be a superpower.

He detests western democracy and 'European' western humanitarian values and has not made a secret of this. He is a convinced islamist and his support for ISIS and Al Nusra has sadly enough been very successful.

elvis99 -> tr1ck5t3r 24 Nov 2015 19:06

I agree. Its all about the oil.
Not only that there is a huge fracking industry at risk. It costs approx. $80 a barrel to produce and it selling approx.$50 at present. They are running at a loss as most finance for these enterprises were secured when it was $120 a barrel. Yellen could not afford to raise interest rates as it would crush a fossil fuel industry within the USA. Get the war machine moving though and watch the price climb and save that profit margin

hfakos -> kohamase 24 Nov 2015 19:01

It's mostly the Western establishment, not the people. Hungary is not the West but we are in the EU and unfortunately NATO as well, and the vast majority of the population supports Russia on this imho. Russia made the mistake of trusting the West under Yeltsin. What you have to understand, and Putin has got it I think, is that Western Europe has a paranoid obsession to bring Russia to its knees. It's been like this for centuries, just think about how many times the civilized West has invaded your country. And old habits die hard. They prefer head-choppers and acid-throwers to having a mutually beneficial civilized relationship with Russia. But you are not alone, Eastern Europe, although formally in the EU, is also looked down upon by the West.

ID9793630 24 Nov 2015 19:01

It's possible Erdogan is rattled at the possibility that the Russians might be about to pull off a secretive realignment of external participants against ISIS - the possibility of unstated coordination between American, Russian and French armed actions in the air and on the ground, with various local allies - and this incident shooting down the jet, created for the cameras, is also intended to overturn that potential applecart.

underbussen -> DenisOgur 24 Nov 2015 19:00

Yeah, so what then, countries violate others airspace all the time - we don't see them downing each others aircraft do we? Maybe sometimes it happens, this is action by Turkey is outrageous, and very, very aggressive. Turkey will pay, one way or the other, lets see if that gas price goes up and now might they fare should they loose it?

Angelis Dania 24 Nov 2015 18:55

"The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis. Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers."

Assad's allies enabled and supported ISIS? Such an embarrassing thing to say.

"Assad, who had, until his brutal response to pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011, been a friend of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. "After that he became an enemy," said one western official. "Erdoğan had tried to mentor Assad. But after the crackdown [on demonstrations] he felt insulted by him. And we are where we are today."

Armed infiltrators in the protest groups fired first at police according to numerous eyewitnesses. How poor a journalist do you have to be to continue to write articles on the basis of widely debunked allegations? Lol, "Erdoğan tried to mentor President Bashar Al-Assad". What on Earth would motivate you to even quote that? Like an inferiority-complex ridden backwards terrorist supporter like Erdoğan can approach the sagacity and popularity of Dr. Bashar Al-Assad.

MelRoy coolGran 24 Nov 2015 18:55

He did use his spy power to find out the source of Isis funding and was told the funding was coming from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.


hfakos Gaudd80 24 Nov 2015 18:53

Because we, our governments that is, are not serious about tackling Islamist extremism. Scoring points against Russia is still the main motivation of the West. This strategy had a low cost for the West in 1980s far-away Afghanistan. But Syria is in our neighborhood and the world has become much more open. The yanks can still play this nasty game without repercussions, because they are an island protected by two oceans. But it's a mystery to me why Europeans are stupid enough to favor the nearby chaos of the head-choppers to secular regimes. ME oil and gas could be replaced to a large extent by Russia, but this again would go against the paranoid Western desire to see that crumble. So you see France, the UK, and the US bombing ISIS with one hand and giving it money through Saudi and Qatar with the other. It's insanity.

NotWithoutMyMonkey 24 Nov 2015 18:45

This is all you need to know:

Vice President Joe Biden stated that US key allies in the Middle East were behind nurturing ISIS

MelRoy 24 Nov 2015 18:43

Yes, I'm afraid he's right.

The problem is, nobody else is able to say it, because the Obama and Cameron administrations are up to their necks in it. They knew that Turkey was responsible for the gas attacks on civilians in Syria. They know (who doesn't?) that the Turks are killing the people who are fighting terrorists inside Syria. They know that the money, the weapons and the foreign fighters are being funnelled into Syria through Turkey, with the Turkish government's not just knowledge, but cooperation and even facilitation.

They can't say it, because over and over again they have bald-faced lied to the public. They can't say that the "good guys" in the fight against Isil are not just the Kurds, but the Iranians, Hezbollah, Assad and the Russians - our supposed "enemies", and the "bad guys" are the ones we are sending all the money and munitions to - our supposed "allies".

tr1ck5t3r northsylvania 24 Nov 2015 18:41

Oil.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Without oil, the Western economies would crash, we are so dependent on it, but the US military are the biggest dependents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage_of_the_United_States_military
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174810/

the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. This is greater than the total national consumption of Sweden or Switzerland.

Take away the oil and you will see the US military industrial complex die on its knees.

salfraser 24 Nov 2015 18:40

It would be as well to understand the ultimate motives of the current day Saladin. Look what was said in May this year.
27th. May 2015 : President Erdogan And The Prime Minister Of The Turkey Dovotogolu Just Made This Declaration To The Entire Islamic World:
'We Will Gather Together Kurds And Arabs, And All Of The Muslim World, And Invade Jerusalem, And Create A One World Islamic Empire' By Allah's will, Jerusalem belongs to the Kurds, the Turks, the Arabs, and to all Muslims. And as our forefathers fought side by side at Gallipoli, and just as our forefathers went together to liberate Jerusalem with Saladin, we will march together on the same path [to liberate Jerusalem]."

Erdogan and Dovutoglu at their speech in which they spoke of the revival of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Jerusalem The amazing speeches by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu were given at the inauguration ceremony at the country's 55th airport in Yuksekova district of southeastern border province of Hakkari, in which they made an entire declaration to the Islamic world, on their desire to conquer Jerusalem and form a universal Islamic empire.

Looks like our American friends are about to create yet another conflict of interest!


Rubear13 Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 18:39

ISIS was created in 2013-2014 and proclaimed itself chalifate after taking much territory in 2014. During this year russian had a lot of problems with crisis, civil war and ~2-3 millions of refugeers from Ukraine. And he did much. Both in terms of weapons and policy.
By the way, Assad was actually winning war during 2012-2013 before creation of ISIS in Iraq.


RudolphS 24 Nov 2015 18:37

So the jet flew allegedly for 17 seconds in Turkish airspace. As Channel 4 News' international editor Lindsey Hilsum accurately asked today 'How come a Turkish TV crew was in the right place, filming in the right direction as a Russian plane was shot down? Lucky? Or tipped off?'

R. Ben Madison -> leonzos 24 Nov 2015 18:35

I suspect that Erdoğan switched sides when the West began to look like it was going to impose 'regime change' on Syria and wanted to be on the winning side. It took a herculean, bipartisan effort here in the US to keep Obama from obtaining Congressional support for a war on Syria. At the time, I (and many others) condemned the normally warmongering Republicans for tying the president's hands purely out of hypocritical spite, but the Democrats were against it too and the whole effort collapsed.

Having taken an early lead in the "get rid of Assad" race, Erdoğan seems to have had the rug pulled out from under him. Sorry for the mixed metaphor.


johnmichaelmcdermott -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 18:33

How about evidence such as an article from the notorious 'troofer' site, The Jerusalem Post, quoting that other infamous conspiracy site, The Wall Street Journal?

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Israel-treating-al-Qaida-fighters-wounded-in-Syria-civil-war-393862


Robert Bowen -> hfakos 24 Nov 2015 18:31

Gladio B.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whos-afraid-of-sibel-edmonds/


Celtiberico 24 Nov 2015 18:27

"Erdoğan had tried to mentor Assad. But after the crackdown [on demonstrations] he felt insulted by him. And we are where we are today."

Believing that Erdogan, whose country's human rights record is pretty unenviable (in particular with regard to journalists), fell out with Assad because he was appalled by the latter's repression is like believing that Mussolini's decision to aid Franco in the Spanish Civil War was largely motivated by his horror at the bad behaviour of Spanish Anarchists and Communists.


tr1ck5t3r 24 Nov 2015 18:25

Turkey is a conduit, the Turkish presidents son is buying the oil from ISIS, just like US Vice President Joe Bidens son joined the board of Ukraines largest Gas producer after Nato expanded into the Ukraine.

Was the downing of the jet by Turkey a tit for tat exercise as Russia destroyed some of the hundreds of lorry oil tankers parked up in ISIS territory heading for Turkey 6 days ago?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6oHbrF8ADs

Theres a pattern here.

Likewise Russia have released their version of events regarding the shot down jets route, claiming it didnt enter Turkish airspace.

Whats interesting is this Russian data was released at 8pm UK time, and yet the British press are still running with the rhetoric from this morning, where at 4am UK time a Russia jet was shot down according to Reuters..

So it would seem the UK press are sitting on this latest inconvenient news, perhaps trying to come up with a way to spin it or waiting for the UK Govt to advise how to spin it if its even to be mentioned so the Govt looks innocent in the eyes of the electorate.

Whilst the availability of data from Turkey was very quickly made available, perhaps it was fabricated and released too quickly in order to maintain momentum with todays news agenda?

All the while GCHQ and NSA sock puppets & other Nato countries flood various media outlets comments sections to drown out critical analysis.

I wonder if I'll be approached by more US and UK military personal "unofficially" whilst out walking the dog in Thetford forest, and be spoken to?

Its interesting watching the news from other countries, certainly watching Russia Today and their spin is interesting.

I can only conclude there will be another massive financial crisis coming for one or more countries, so in order to divert the masses a war is needed, as wars always boost economies.


Hyperion6 -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 18:24

Sensible people would realise that only one of ISIS and Assad can be brought to the negotiating table. Sensible people would realise that Turkey is playing the same duplicitous game that Pakistan played, namely supporting the most despicable fundamentalists while being an 'ally' of the West.

Frodo baggins -> Gaudd80 24 Nov 2015 18:24

Al Qaeda was created and used by the usa to do terror on Russia. No reason tho think things have changed, when clearly they have not. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, all have fallen....more to come. There is no "wondering" at all about the orogon an dpurpose of the ISIS when they admit they are al qaeda re packaged ...When the US admits al qaeda has melded into the ISIS.

Terrorists in the middle east are a western supported geo-political tool to allow us to bomb, invade, destabilizen and balkanize soverign nations who refuse globalist ideology and orders.

Jan Burton 24 Nov 2015 18:23

Cut the bullshit.

Turkey is little more than an ISIS and al Qaeda support base, and now they're even providing an Air Force.

Get these scumbags out of NATO now

kohamase 24 Nov 2015 18:19

I don't understand you western guys. Am Russian and not a big fun of Putin but in this situation Russia fights terrorists , same people who organized massacre in Paris . Why , why shoot them down??? What is the meaning of this ? We can disagree on many questions but we should agree on One : ISIS must GO !!! If you don't want to do it then at list don't stand on our way cleaning up the mess you've created!!!


Tiberius2 24 Nov 2015 18:17

Crystal clear, the Turks are profiteering from stolen oil, the whole Turkish establishment is involved on this corrupted trade namely : border guards, police and the military, all of them being involved, plus business men with political connections .

ISIS get also weapons and training, Jihadist from the world over, gets red carpet treatment and supply with passports.

The Jihadist can travel unmolested, to and from Syria via Turkey in order to carry out atrocities like Paris and Tunisia.

The West looks the other way to this situation and try to ignore it ,until it gets hit in the hearth, like Paris.

fantas1sta -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 18:17

Oh, I do think Russia was wrong to send troops into Crimea, but I also think the west was wrong to back the coup against Ukraine's democratically elected government. NATO gambled that they could interfere in Ukraine and lost, now they know that Putin is difficult to intimidate and that Russia defends its sphere of influence like the US defends its own. All powers are hypocrites, such is the nature of their global interests, but Turkey are both hypocrites and cowards, shooting down a plane and then hiding their heads under Uncle Sam's sweater.

grish2 Tommy Thrillbigger 24 Nov 2015 18:16

Majority of people in Europe support the Russians. The governments are making excuses for the turks. And the turks are with the head choppers.

theoldmanfromusa -> ID9309755 24 Nov 2015 18:15

You have a strange opinion of the situation. The major problem is that the ruling classes (politicians, imams, etc.) use the most inflammatory rhetoric to stir up the population (most of it) that is not intellectual and/or clever. These intellectual/clever types can then make obscene profits from their rabble rousing.

Apollonian 24 Nov 2015 18:12

All a bit too convenient with the film crew at the ready. Clearly Erdogan is looking to further his agenda and set his sights on expanding Turkey's borders and it looks as though he's using NATO's protection to do it.

It's ironic that NATO affords Turkey so much protection given that Turkey funds ISIS, it trades with them, it allows IS fighters free travel across Turkish borders and it also fights IS enemies for them - the Kurds. Outside of the Gulf, Turkey is the jihadist's biggest ally.

Gaudd80 24 Nov 2015 18:11

If we are really serious about tackling Islamic extremists, then why is it that we are allied those states directly aiding them? Cameron is demanding the right to bomb Syria, while at the same time he's grovelling to the Saudis, crawling to the Gulf States and defending Erdogan. Hammond nearly bust a blood vessel when Skinner said what everyone knows. The whole thing is an utter sham, you have to wonder if ISIS and the other extremist groups aren't actually hugely convenient for some.

ElDanielfire -> Canuckistan 24 Nov 2015 18:05

Yes the Saudi's created ISIS. but the west helped build them up thinking they were something else because the west kept their fingers in their ears because they had a gard -on for yet anotehr regime change in the middle east, despite none of the previous ones (Afghan, Iraq, Libya) having worked and become hell for the citixens of those countries. Also the west always let Saudi and Qutar get awya with anything, even if they fund groups who attack western citizens. It's tragic.

hfakos 24 Nov 2015 18:04

Well, at least we have seen that those K-36 ejection seats do work; they have reportedly never failed. Of course Turkey, and Western Europe for that matter, has been playing a double game. Just like in Afghanistan in the 1980s, they prefer the acid-throwers and head-choppers to a Russian-backed secular regime.

Even the Western MSM has openly reported about and from the staging areas in Turkey, where the jihadists gather before entering Syria. The US-lead "coalition" is now boasting about bombing ISIL oil convoys, but where has it been for the past few years? Everybody with a single functioning grey cell knows that Turkey is involved in the ISIS oil smuggling business and allowing the jihadist to train on its territory.

But Western Europe is complicit too. With all the spying reported by Snowden how is it impossible to prevent thousands of European citizens from traveling to Turkey and onward to Syria and getting radicalized? It is obvious that we have turned a blind eye to the jihadi tourism. Funny that only after the Paris attacks did Hollande and co. start to take this constant flow of Europeans into Syria seriously.

NATO says, two minutes after this incident, that Turkey is right and its airspace has been violated. But all powerful NATO countries cannot track the returning jihadists and the mastermind of the Paris attacks has just been reported to have mingled with Paris policemen after the Bataclan massacre. And one guy is still on the run. The first chickens have come home to roost and there will be more to follow. The West has been playing with fire and will get burned. This is a much more global world with open borders than what we had in the 1980s, when NATO was supporting the Bin Ladens and Gulbudding Hekmatyars in Afghanistan. These jihadists will cause more havoc in Europe for certain. And Russia is more right again than NATO, when it comes to jihadists in Syria.

ID9309755 24 Nov 2015 18:04

Turkey's territorial expansionist ambitions have backfired, just as the ambitions of their Islamism has. The emperor has no clothes and yet it's difficult to deal with this maniac Erdog effendy who is pushing Turkey towards chaos internally and internationally... A country which has intellectuals and clever people has fallen under the power of a group of thugs, the story of the region.

i_pray thinkorswim 24 Nov 2015 18:03

One actually feels sorry for Putin. He is bound by a Treaty he signed along time ago with Assad. He is doing what he is obliged to do under that Treaty and at
the same time he is helping to destroy ISIS.

Then he is attacked up by Turkey a member of NATO, who are supposedly also committed to destroying ISIS .

If I were Putin, I would just walk away and leave the West to sort the mess out . I am sure that Russia feels that it has already lost too many lives.


Wehadonebutitbroke -> Roland Paterson-Jones 24 Nov 2015 18:00

Erm, yes. The Turkmen who Turkey is protecting have been attacking Kurds. The Turks have been bombing the Kurds, who are fighting ISIS.

The Turks have been buying ISIS' oil and giving other funding. Weapons funded by Gulf States have almost certainly been crossing the Turkish border for ISIS. It is suspected the Turkey has been providing a safe haven for ISIS fighters. Tens of thousands have crossed Turkeys borders to join rebel groups, the chances that some of them have not joined ISIS is nil.

Many of the 'moderate' rebels are Al Qaeda by another name or Al Qaeda affiliates. The Turkmen are Al Qaeda affiliates. The line between Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria is vague and has been crossed both ways on numerous occasions.

Lest anyone forget, Al Qaeda are themselves have orchestrated huge scale terrorist attacks. But becausing they are fighting Assad in Syria, who is hated by the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel, unquestioned or criticised almost regardless what they do by the West allies of the West, apparently Al Qaeda are now fine.

anewdawn 24 Nov 2015 18:00

I wonder if the leaders of NATO were involved in anyway at all???

And - does this lend weight to those who have shown that ISIS is a result of the Libyan, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and that they are mercenaries who have formed an insurgency within Syria for a regime change? A war crime, definitely against international law.


Roland Paterson-Jones 24 Nov 2015 17:56

Dudes, Turkey is losing some valuable oil supply due to Russia's 'indiscriminate' bombing of ISIS oil-field territory.

Turkey has some real-politik collateral in the form of 'refugees' to mainland Europe. So Turkey, politically, is in a strong position - EU is shoving money towards them.

Will NATO stand behind Turkey's real-politik?

twosocks 24 Nov 2015 17:54

Just watched the videos and listened to the turkish warnings. The SU24 appears to have been heading south as requested by the turks and in syria when it was hit. It also looks like the turks entered Syrian airspace before they fired on the Russians - just like the 1000+ times they have entered greek airspace in the last year, including one time with 8 planes at the same time.

In the warnings at no point do the turks actually say the russians are in turkish airspace, just that they are heading towards it; they also do not threaten to fire upon the Russians like the RAF do over here when they issue a warning. Normally the defending plane would come alongside the transgressor to escort them out the airspace, here they just just shoot at the russians without issuing a warning. It also appears that there just so happened to be a tv crew there perfectly poised to film it - what a coincidence. There is no way we are getting dragged into a war over this.

Adrian Rides 24 Nov 2015 17:54

The whole rotten scam is coming undone. No one believes the mainstream media any more. I skip the articles and go straight to the comments. That's where you find out what's really going on. Thank you for all the insightful comments. The truth will set us free

rumelian -> kmw2402 24 Nov 2015 17:49

YES, and the lesson for the West should be: Please stop supporting Erdogan and his fellow islamists. Watching events for a decade and praising the relentless efforts of a single party and it's (now former) leader to suppress secular Turks and eroding the pillars of the secular Turkish Republic, in the name of stability in the region, you actually create much instability and threat, both for the region, and for Europe. Squeeze down these so called "moderate" islamists, and with real pro-European Turks taking lead again, you will not have unexpected and complicated acts from Turkey .

thorella -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 17:48

'It is in West's interest that ISIS would spill into Russia one day and do the dirty job there for US and its associates.'

Totally logical

jaybee2 24 Nov 2015 17:46

Well said Pres Putin and hats off to Denis Skinner in parliament!

Turkey is a disgrace and should be booted out of NATO.

It bombs the Kurds fighting lsis barbarians, buys oil from lsis, protects anti Assad terrorists from the Syrian army, helps finance various 'moderate' terrorists as to its shame does this Tory government!

As the 'heir to Blair' Cameron is drooling at the thought of joining in on the bloodlust!

Thank you Mr Skinner, and Hammond, what a silly man!


MatthewH1 24 Nov 2015 17:46

Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'?

Yes.

Oh, and the "rebels" shooting the pilots as they made their descent is a war crime.

quaidesbrumes 24 Nov 2015 17:43

Guardian reports:

"Turkey said one of its US-made F-16 fighters fired on the Russian plane when it entered Turkish airspace after having been warned on its approach to the Turkish border through a 13-mile no-fly zone inside Syria it had declared in July."

By what right does Turkey declare a 13 mile no fly zone inside Syria? This is clearly grounds for believing that the Russian jet was in fact shot down over Syria and not Turkey.

Turkey has overplayed its hand and Erdogan's strategy and tactics in respect of Syria are now in tatters. NATO will be scrambling to put the frighteners on Erdogan who is clearly a loose cannon and totally out of his depth.

lisbon_calling 24 Nov 2015 17:43

The answer to the question in the title is absolutely clear after reading the very informative text.

Quite interestingly, yesterday, Russians claimed that in the past two previous days they have made 472 attacks on oil infrastructure and oil-trucks controlled by ISIS, which is obviously the right thing to do if you want to derange their sources of financing - but, apparently, the 'training partners' of ISIS are reacting...

MrMeinung DavidJayB 24 Nov 2015 17:38

Turkish fighters are violating Greek airspace habitually since decades. And not for mere seconds. The Greeks intercept them but do not shoot them down. The Greeks have brought all kinds of electronic documentation to both NATO and EU - no result.

It is ironic that Turkey of all nations is raising such arguments.

This action is inexcusable and the barbarity that followed (by all information) - the execution of the pilot/pilots - by Turkish friendly fighters, even more so.

LordJimbo -> CommieWealth 24 Nov 2015 17:38

Countries are operating on the basis of their national interests, Assad and Kurds represent threats to Turkey, Russia wants Assad to remain and sees IS and rebel groups (some of whom are reportedly backed by Turkey) as threats, so we see a classic clash of national interests in an already complicated region of the world, topped off by a brutal civil war that has cost the lives of over 200,000 and seen one of the worst humanitarian crises since WWII. The very definition of a perfect political and military storm. I suspect the Russian position will eventually win out in Syria especially now that Hollande wants IS targeted by a 'grand coalition'. For Turkey the major headache has to be the Kurds who will get arms, training and are winning huge amounts of territory.

powercat123 24 Nov 2015 17:36

Russia was invited into support Assad by Syrias leader whether we or Nato like it or not. Turkey France and US were not. Turkeys Air force will have to watch itself now as I suspect Russia will deploy fighter aircraft to protect there bombers and the Kurds. As for the original question I think Putin may be right and Turks do have a foot in both camps. Nato should be very aware of the consequences of playing the whose to blame game when the stakes are so high.

ManxApe 24 Nov 2015 17:36

Which Turkish businessmen did they strike deals with? Specifically which Turkish businessman's shipping company had their oil tankers bombed the other day by Russia? Is this businessman actually a very close relative of Erdoğan? A clue perhaps?Allegedly the shipping company is BMZ.


196thInfantry -> Artur Conka 24 Nov 2015 17:35

The Russian plane was never in Turkish airspace. ATC systems have recorders that record voice communications, radar tracks and controller actions all synchronized. You can be sure that the Turks will not release the raw recorded data.

aLLaguz 24 Nov 2015 17:32

So, Turkey downs a Russian bomber and immediately runs to its daddies ?!?! C'mon! What a joke!!
This is the long awaited war for the Syria-Turkey border, a border that must be closed. Whether for stop jihadists joining ISIS or to stop oil sales.

No fly-zone in northern Syria ?! The only affected parties with this is Assad allies and it is the same reason.... the Syria-Turkey border. For Assad, It is a key region, Kurds must be stopped to reach the Mediterranean sea, the border must be closed to stop jihadists or rebels to join the fight, to stop the oil sales of ISIS, etc, etc, etc.
Russia will fight for the control of the border whether NATO like it or not. Once it is Russian, Kurds will be pushed back.

Cecile_Trib -> penguinbird 24 Nov 2015 17:32

Turkey must learn to stop invading Greece airspace. Or you think it's OK for them as a member of NATO to do that? Or will you say it's OK for Greece to down a couple of Turkish jets?

"In the first month of 2014 alone, Turkish aircraft allegedly violated Greek airspace 1,017 times, Gurcan reports."

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/07/17/turkish-fighter-jets-violate-greek-airspace-again/

vivazapata38 -> penguinbird 24 Nov 2015 17:31

Ha ha, your post is bordering on...no is, sheer arrogance and complete ignorance.The Russian planes are defined as entering "an area of our interest".Which is really vague and is really international airspace.Both the US and UK do the same but more often.Moreover Russia is being surrounded by NATO firepower,missile systems and US paid for coups!


NezPerce 24 Nov 2015 17:31

Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'? Yes

Turkey are directly linked to Al Qaeda as is Saudi Arabia yet they are our allies in the never ending war against terrorism, a war it seems we forgot about when the terrorists became repackaged as freedom fighters. Many of us have been warning that this would inevitably lead us to become victims of the Jihadists but Cameron would not listen, he has a mania to get rid of Assad and has been prepared to get into bed with some of the nastiest people in the world. A New take on the Nasty party.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11697764/Isil-reenters-key-Syria-border-town-of-Kobane-live.html

Turkey 'let Isil cross border to attack Kobane': as it happened

Today's early morning, a group of five cars, loaded with 30-35 of Isil elements, wearing the clothes and raising the flag of the FSA [Free Syrian Army rebels] has undertaken a suicide attack.

The nationalist Southern Front, which includes US-trained fighters, has confirmed that it is taking part in the fight for Daraa, alongside the powerful Islamist groups Ahrar al-Sham and the Al Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.


BigNowitzki -> BeatonTheDonis 24 Nov 2015 17:29

Turkish government giving military support to ethnic Turks in a neighbouring country = good.

Russian government giving military support to ethnic Russians in a neighbouring country = bad.

Good point. I imagine the Putinbots will try and rationalise it away via cognitive dissonance, or some other bogus reason. As I said, Russia's position would be much stronger had they not invaded and occupied part of Ukraine. They were warned....

MaxBoson 24 Nov 2015 17:26

Thanks to the author for pointing out the role Turkey has played in the rise of ISIS, and its instrumentalization of the conflict in Syria for its own ends. Taking this, and Turkey's support for the Turkmen rebels-or terrorists, or freedom fighters, depending on which alliance one is supporting-into account, it is pretty obvious that the main reason why Turkey shot down the Russian planes was that they were bombing Turkmen targets in what Turkey has the cheek to call a no-fly zone, not because their wings were in its airspace for a few milliseconds.

deathbydemocracy 24 Nov 2015 17:23

Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'?

Answer below.

Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that "my enemy's enemy is my friend" and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf.

A trawl through Sayyaf's compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had "urgent policy implications".

That would be a 'Yes'.

Of course Turkey has a right to defend it's borders. In this case though, their borders were not under attack. The Russian plane strayed into Turkish air space for just a few seconds, and it was clearly not part of an attack force against Turkey. The correct move would have been to complain about the Russians, not shoot them down.

robitsme -> BillyBitter 24 Nov 2015 17:23

Most states would show some restraint under the tinderbox circumstances. Erdogan is either completely insane, or he is playing a game, he as an agenda to provoke Russia in some way

rumelian -> JaneThomas 24 Nov 2015 17:21

You are right. Erdogan with his "conservative" comerades is rapidly and relentlessly ruining the the pillars of the secular Turkey for more than a decade, and for much of this time he was actively aided by the Western powers, frequently praized and portrayed as a "moderate" islamist and a reliable partner. The more power he gained, the more he showed his real nature.

Dreaming of becoming a "leader" of the muslim world (in the Middle East), countless times he showed his sympathy towards the fellow "islamists" in the whole region. USA and Western European leaders, still assume that Erdogan is better option than anyone else in Turkey, providing stability and a "buffer zone" to Europe, they ignore the fact, that Turkey was indeed a reliable partner for decades, when ruled by secular governments ,backed by a secular army, but now that's not the case. Western governments now don't know how to deal with it. When you look at the photos of the current Turkish ministers, and their wives (almost all are headscarved) you realize that they had nothing in common with millions of Turkish people who embraced Western lifestyle and customs. Ataturk has created a secular nation, suppressed these islamists almost a century ago for good, knowing their true nature, but now Turkey needs a new Ataturk-style leader to eradicate this pestilence. Until then, Turkey will not be a stable and reliable partner in the Middlle East.

Darook523 24 Nov 2015 17:20

Payback for the Russians bombing ISIS oil convoys? Would Turkey shoot down a Russian air force jet without the nod from allies? Situation getting very dangerous I would think.

vr13vr -> WarlockScott 24 Nov 2015 17:19

"the US could potentially extract a lot out of it "

It could but at the end of the day, can't and won't. The US is not going to split NATO so it will have to offer its support for Turkey. Nor can Europeans do much as they have this "refugees" problem to which Turkey hold the key. And even if something is extracted in return, at the end of the day, NATO and the US will be defacto protecting the islamists, which is Turkey's goal. You can say NATO and the US are fucked now because they will have to do what they didn't want to do at all.


PaniscusTroglodytes -> MrConservative2015 24 Nov 2015 17:18

NATO has had no legitimate purpose for 25 years now. Will this finally give the nudge to wind it up? One can but hope.

Yarkob -> Gglloowwiinngg 24 Nov 2015 17:17

The first reports said it was a Turkish F-16 with an AA missile. Some reports are still saying that. Damage limitation or diversion by Erdogan? The 10th Brigade Turkmen that Debka said carried out the attack are aligned with the US. That conveniently shifts the blame from Turkey back to the US by proxy. Back stabbing going on. Julius Ceasar shit going down I reckon

vgnych 24 Nov 2015 17:10

It is in West's interest that ISIS would spill into Russia one day and do the dirty job there for US and its associates. Syria and Asad has been just a dry run of the concept.

Putin must be seeing it very clear at this point.

Yarkob Gglloowwiinngg 24 Nov 2015 17:07

Attacking people parachuting from an aircraft in distress is a war crime under Protocol I in addition to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

LordJimbo 24 Nov 2015 17:06

From a Russian perspective the opening paragraphs of article speak for themselves. Russian entry into the 'game' meant Turkey became a second category power in a region they have sought to dominate, the strike is a sign of weakness and not strength and whoever sanctioned it (done so quickly you'd wonder if Ankara was aware) is an amateur player because it weakened Turkey and strengthened the Russian hand.


Gideon Mayre 24 Nov 2015 17:05

Of course Putin is right but he only tells part of the story. The main accomplice of terrorists and other non-existent so called "moderate" head-choppers is the United States, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel are merely facilitating this policy on behalf of the US and in accordance to their independent regional pursuits, that converge however on the removal of Assad and the use of ISIS as a proxy army to remove Assad.


Michael Cameron 24 Nov 2015 17:05

Events like today's become a useful window on an otherwise murky, indecipherable geopolitics. In the fraught aftermath of the Paris attacks, we should do our best to see ISIS for what they are and have always been: the entree to the main course proxy war between Russia and Western allied interests.

The idea they're an imminent threat and immediate concern of Cameron and co suddenly hoves into view as hogwash on stilts. Their grandstanding over bombing ISIS while at once supporting their biggest enabler (Can anyone doubt Turkey's laissez-faire stance?) makes sense as an admission of complete powerlessness to resolve an issue above his pay grade i.e. taking on Putin. The extent to which all of these actors are clueless is terrifying. Foreign policy operations as fitful and faltering as anything this side of the Christmas board game.

fantas1sta 24 Nov 2015 17:04

Turkey has been looking for reasons to invade Syria for a long time:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/europe/high-level-leaks-rattle-turkey-officials.html?_r=0

Artur Conka 24 Nov 2015 17:03

A quote from Erdoğan about todays events.

"The reason why worse incidents have not taken place in the past regarding Syria is the cool-headedness of Turkey," Erdoğan said. "Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident. But everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders."

The arrogance of this man is beyond belief, as Al Jazeera reported that the plane, believed to be a Russian-made Sukhoi Su-24, crashed in Syrian territory in Latakia's Yamadi village and NOT in Turkish Airspace. What I love about this statement is the "cool-headedness of Turkey".

What about the headless act of supporting ISIS, and what about the fact that Turkey has some of the worst crackdown of journalist and freedom of speech of any country. Far worse then China.

I truly don't understand how Nato and Turkey's allies support its actions, especially the US. Could someone please explain.

WarlockScott 24 Nov 2015 17:03

Turkey is kinda fucked now, the US could potentially extract a lot out of it in return for 'protection'... For instance stop murdering Kurds or cut off all ISIS links, hell maybe even both. There's no way Erdoğan can play Putin as the counterbalance card now.


arkob 24 Nov 2015 17:02

Methinks the wheels are falling off the Syrian project and there is a scramble for the door and people are getting stabbed in the back all over the shop.

Look at the leaks over the last few weeks implicating the US DoD, Turkey, France and soon the UK, now Obama is telling us his intel assessments were "tainted" *cough*

Today a Russian plane goes down and first of all it's Turkey's fault, but Turkey wouldn't have done that without explicit permission to do so from either NATO or the US, but then a few hours later as it all looks really bad for Turkey (and by association everyone else in the "coalition") it turns out to have been Turkmen, but which ones? There's two factions, one is a "rebel" group backed by the US, the other is a "terrorist" group (aligned with "ISIS") and backed by the US. They are both fighting Assad.

More to come in the next few days, I reckon.

Branislav Stosic 24 Nov 2015 17:01

Cards can definitely be open to see :who wisely silent is on the terrorists side( read USA) and who is really against. There wont be some of the current uncertainties and media acting in this struggle. I hope that at least the European countries together wake up their unhealthy slumber after the terrorist actions in the neighborhood and together, not only in words ,start to put out the source of the fire and of terrorism in which some cunning players constantly topping oil on the fire.

madtoothbrush -> QueenElizabeth 24 Nov 2015 17:00

It's a well known fact that Turkey purchases oil from ISIS occupied territory. Not to mention they bomb Kurds that are fighting ISIS.

Vizier 24 Nov 2015 16:56

Perhaps Russia would like to provide air cover to the Kurds who are under murderous assault by Turkey in their own country. Carving about 20% off Turkey would be a good start.

Gglloowwiinngg 24 Nov 2015 16:55

Senator John McCain can be thankful the North Vietnamese were not as bad as these Turkmen Turks. "Turkmen militiamen in Syria claimed to have shot the pilots as they descended on parachutes from the stricken Su-24 bomber." What the Turkmen brag about having done is something neither the North Vietnamese nor the actual Nazis would have condoned.

NezPerce 24 Nov 2015 16:55

By then, Isis had become a dominant presence in parts of north and east Syria.

This is the problem, Turkey is in a struggle with Iran and the Kurds. Assad is seen as the enemy because he is closer to Iran.

It should be remembered that the Turks see the Kurds as biggest the threat and ISIS as an ally and that the U.S. not Russia has been arming the Kurds. It looks as if the Turks also want to send a message to the US and Europe, a message via air to air missile.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/europe/despite-crackdown-path-to-join-isis-often-winds-through-porous-turkish-border.html?_r=0

The issue has highlighted the widening gulf between Turkey and its Western allies, who have frequently questioned why Turkey, a NATO member with a large military and well-regarded intelligence service, is not doing more to address the jihadist threat.
In recent testimony in Washington before Congress, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, was asked if he was optimistic that Turkey would do more in the fight against the Islamic State.

"No, I'm not," Mr. Clapper said in an unusually blunt public criticism. "I think Turkey has other priorities and other interests."

Georwell -> musterfritz 24 Nov 2015 16:54

nop, just an pair of fighters patrolling the zone 24/7 , since the radars told them the russians daily pattern on bombing the terrorists, AND an green-card to kill a russian plane on first occasion, even if that mind to (again) enter on syrian air space, for the matter. Fact is, the russian pilots do not believe the turks will really open fire - now they know - in the hard way; Was that an planed ambush ? I bet was.

Was a war crime to execute on mid-air the pilots descending on parachute ? Yes it was. Was a war crime to assault the body of the dead pilot ? (are several pictures on the net showing the pilot body stripped and pieces of flesh missing) - yes, was another war crime. All on the line of liver-eaters and "moderate" terrorists.

Maybe when those animals will target another EU capital the peoples will realize who its the true enemy here. For (to many..) bigots here the tragedy on Paris was not enough to bring them the the real picture.

Aneel Amdani -> musterfritz 24 Nov 2015 16:50

Russia did coordinate with other coalition members of US so I suppose Turkey should have been aware of this. F-16 should have bene in air and giving 10 warnings is utter nonsense. Russia has said no warning was given and their plane was in Syria territory. Turkey has a rule of engagement that their territory and threat are well in 5 km of Syria itself. So they take it as a threat. Turkey has gone nuts. they have first increased terrorism and now officially become the Air Force of SIIS. or more, they should have shown a response to Russians for busting more than 1000 oil tnakers that supply cheap oil to Turkey.

rumelian -> jonsid 24 Nov 2015 16:49

Surely, Russia will respond to that incident. I supposed it was not at all expected by Russians, and they will figure out a strategy on what kind of response it will be. I think too, that consequences for Turkey could be serious . But maybe it is a destiny for a country where almost half of the population votes for the corrupt, backward islamists, and their megalomaniac leader.

copyniated 24 Nov 2015 16:48

Let's assume that this lying ISIS loving terrorist, Erdogan, is speaking the truth. He says Russia has been attacking Syrian Turkoman who are defending their land.
One should ask this blood-thirsty ape this question: What then are Kurdish people in Turkey doing?

HuggieBear -> Mindmodic 24 Nov 2015 16:47

"I get the impression that a greater proportion of people in the US are blinded by patriotism" - patriotism would actually require disengaging with the mediaeval oil monarchies of the Middle East and butting out of the world's hot spots. Something Pat Buchanan has advocated for aged.

Aneel Amdani 24 Nov 2015 16:44

the residents of France and Belgium should ask their governments why did they let it to happen in the first place. ISIS was created by West and funded extensively by the Saudis, Turley and Qatar. US is not a kid that after spending more than a 100 billion on intelligence and CIA networks globally, never knew ISIS was getting rich. And now so when everyone knows Turkey buys cheap Oil from ISIS, why aren't they being sectioned or why individuals donating funds to these terrorists being sanctioned.

US is very prompt in going and sanctioning nations that are not with them, but they never sanction dictators like the kings and presidents that support terrorism. the blood of those who died in Paris and those all along since the war in Iraq are all to be blamed on these war hawks in west. If even now Paris cannot ask questions on their governments involvement in destabilizing Libya now, then I guess they will again see Paris happen again. West should be stopped from using the name of terrorism and a Muslim Jihad for their own strategic gains.

jmNZ -> earthboy 24 Nov 2015 16:38

That's the whole problem. The banksters and corporations that run the US have too much to lose in Saudi Arabia and the Persian gulf. And they want that pipeline from the Gulf to the Levant but Syria (with its secular ruler, hated by the jihadists) won't play ball with the banksters. Hence, with American corporations' blessing, Turkey and Arabia loose the Daesh on them . And al-Qeada and al-Nusra and all the other "moderate" rebels supplied with modern weapons by American arms corporations.


fantas1sta Roger -> Hudson 24 Nov 2015 16:36

Turkey has spent a lot of time and money to cultivate an image of itself as a modern, secular, democratic state - it is none of those. It's an ally of the US like Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US, it's a marriage of convenience, nothing else. The US knows that both countries fund terrorists, but they need some kind of presence in that region. The Turks and Saudis need a customer for their oil and someone to run to when they need their autocratic regimes propped up.

Roger Hudson 24 Nov 2015 16:29

Turkey buys ISIL oil.
Turkey helps foreign terrorists to get to ISIL.
Turkey attacks Kurds fighting ISIL.
Turkey facilitates the route of people including terrorists into Europe.
Turkey is run by a megalomaniac.
Turkey got into NATO as a US/CIA anti -Russian (USSR) puppet.
What the sort of corrupt people like Hammond think of their people, fools. Of course Turkey is on the 'wrong side'.

fantas1sta -> MaryMagdalane 24 Nov 2015 16:29

There's no reason for the US to directly antagonize one of the few countries in the world that has a military strong enough to enact its policy goals without the backing of another power - see Crimea. Why would Obama order a Russian plane to be shot down and then call for de-escalation?


jonsid Budovski -> Ximples 24 Nov 2015 16:28

They do have history;-
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/europe/high-level-leaks-rattle-turkey-officials.html?_r=0


altergeist Pupkin 24 Nov 2015 16:23


Erm on balance, yes. Empirically, provably more repugnant. Russia hasn't killed well over a million civilians since 2001, nor laid waste to an entire region, causing untold misery and suffering, screwing allies and enemies alike and helping (both by accident and design) the rise of ISIS. I'm no fan of Putin, and let's be honest, there's no nice people at that level in politics, but the US is far and away ahead of Russia on the dick-ometer these last 20-30 years.


Budovski Ximples 24 Nov 2015 16:23

Yes, of course he's right. What's wrong is that its taken journalists this long to even dare to look at the relationship between Turkey and Islamic State. Or specifically, Erdogan and Islamic State.

Turkey has been directly dealing with various terrorist groups in Syria, supplying weapons, fighters, intelligence and arms as well as buying massive amounts of oil from ISIS refineries (which Russia just pulverized).

They have left their borders open, allowing terrorists to go in and out of Syria as they please.

Their claims to be fighting ISIS are a joke. In their first week of 'fighting ISIS' they did 350 strikes on the Kurds and literally 1 on ISIS.

The terrorist attack by ISIS, aimed at Erdogans opponents, was timed so perfectly to help Sultan Erdogan get elected that I'd go as far as suspect direct Turkish intelligence involvement.

Bonnemort 24 Nov 2015 16:21

Turkey are complicit in terrorism, but then so are the Gulf States/Saudis/US and UK. They're just a bit closer and their hands a bit bloodier. Putin is correct,

Just think, only two years ago Cameron wanted us to join the Syrian civil war on ISIS' side.

And also think - Cameron and Boris Johnson want Turkey to be a full EU member as soon as possible.

Roger Hudson -> Samir Rai 24 Nov 2015 16:21

Turkey was let (pulled) into NATO during the cold war just so US missiles and spy bases could get up on the USSR border. Turkey was run by a military junta at that time.
Same old CIA/US nonsense.

Turkey should be kicked out of NATO and never be allowed near the EU.

photosymbiosis -> kahaal 24 Nov 2015 16:04

Ah, the oil smuggling route to Turkey runs right through a zone controlled by these 'moderates' - perhaps middlemen is a better word? - and so you can't really cut off the flow of oil out of ISIS areas without bombing those convoys even if they are under the temporary protection of "moderates" - so it looks like Turkish oil smugglers and their customers (Bilal Erdogan's shipping company? commodities brokers? other countries in the region?) are working hand in hand with ISIS and the moderates to deliver some $10 million a week to ISIS - and that's how terrorists in Brussels can establish safe houses, purchase weapons and explosives on the black market, and stage attacks - isn't it?

Alexander Hagen 24 Nov 2015 16:02

That is interesting that Erdogan and Assad were on good terms previously. That is hard to fathom. I cannot imagine two people with more differing world views. I did not meet a single Turk while travelling through Turkey that had a kind word about Erdogan, so elevating him to a higher level (mentor) might require some qualification. Though it is true the Turkish economy grew enormously under Erdogan, "The lights of free expression are going out one by one" - paraphrasing Churchill.

cop1nghagen 24 Nov 2015 16:01

"Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (£6.6m) per week to the terror group's coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client."

Why doesn't The Guardian grow a pair and investigate the role of Turkish President Erdogan in this illegal oil trade, specifically through his son Bilal Erdogan, whose shipping company (jointly owned with two of Erdogan's brothers) BMZ Group has a rapidly expanding fleet of oil tankers...

photosymbiosis 24 Nov 2015 16:01

Would anyone be surprised to find that the accomplices of ISIS in Turkey - i.e. the oil smugglers who operate with the full knowledge of the Turkish government - are also transferring cash on behalf of ISIS to their 'recruiters and activists' (aka: 'terrorists') in places like London, Paris, Brussels, etc.?

The lure of oil profits make relationships with terrorists very attractive, it seems - kind of like how Royal Dutch Shell and Standard Oil kept selling oil to the Nazi U-boat fleet right up to 1942, when the US Congress finally passed the Trading With The Enemy Act.

[Nov 25, 2015] Turkish military releases recording of warning to Russian jet

www.theguardian.com

Konstantin Murakhtin, a navigator who was rescued in a joint operation by Syrian and Russian commandos, told Russian media: "There were no warnings, either by radio or visually. There was no contact whatsoever."

He also denied entering Turkish airspace. "I could see perfectly on the map and on the ground where the border was and where we were. There was no danger of entering Turkey," he said.

The apparent hardening of both countries' versions of events came as Russian warplanes carried out heavy raids in Syria's northern Latakia province, where the plane came down. Tuesday's incident – the first time a Nato member state has shot down a Russian warplane since the Korean war – risks provoking a clash over the ongoing conflict in Syria, where Russia has intervened to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

... ... ...

Later, in a telephone call with John Kerry, the US secretary of state, Lavrov said Turkey's actions were a "gross violation" of an agreement between Moscow and Washington on air space safety over Syria. The state department said Kerry called for calm and more dialogue between Turkish and Russian officials.

... ... ...

Russian officials made it clear that despite the fury the reaction would be measured. There is no talk of a military response, and no suggestion that diplomatic relations could be cut or the Turkish ambassador expelled from Moscow. However, the tone of relations between the two countries is likely to change dramatically.

... ... ...

A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, hit out at the US state department official Mark Toner, who said the Turkmen fighters who shot the Russian airman as he parachuted to the ground could have been acting in self defence. "Remember these words, remember them forever. I will never forget them, I promise," Zakharova wrote on Facebook.

[Nov 25, 2015] The shooting down of a Russian jet tangles the diplomatic web still further

Notable quotes:
"... Recently, Moscow's rapprochement with the Syrian Kurds, the PYD, only added to the huge complexity of the situation. ..."
"... any solution of the Syrian conflict will be based on a precondition that the US and Russia put aside their differences, ..."
"... At least one good thing has come from all of this. At least it took Putin to be the first leader to openly say exactly what turkey actually is. A despicable, Islamist supporting vile wolf in Sheep's clothing. ..."
"... well , just think for a second .... all the image - they were shooting him while he was in the air , shouting "Allah Akbar " then they showed a photo with dead pilot , being proud of that ..... Those ppl are the "hope" for a Syria post-Assad....don't you feel that something is wrong here ? ..."
"... Also as soon as the noble Turkman started shooting at the pilot and navigator once they'd bailed out of the plane they showed themselves to be the terrorists they are. Playing "no prisoners" against Russia. ..."
"... At the G20 Antalya summit of Nov 15, Putin embarrassed Obama publicly showing satellite pictures of ridiculously long tanker lines waiting for weeks to load oil from ISIS, as the coalition spared them any trouble. "I've shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil," said Putin. ..."
"... So there you have it. For 15 months, the US didn't touch the oil trade that financed ISIS affairs, until Russia shamed them into it. Then, the mightiest army in the world bombs 400 trucks, while Russia destroys 1000. Then Russia provides videos of its airstrikes, while the US doesn't, and PBS is caught passing off Russian evidence as American. ..."
"... Of course Turkey did not need to down this jet: well planned and a clear provocation to start the propaganda war against Russia which actually wants to stop this war before a transition without a pre-planned (US) outcome. ..."
"... With Saudi and Turkish support for ISIS , just who have they bothered saving and sending out into Europe amongst their name taking and slaughters ? Wahabists? How many cells set up now globally? ..."
"... The turkmen are illegally staging war. Russia is the only country legally in Syria. That's why CIA, Saudi, Turk, Israel etc etc etc operate clandestine. But they all enjoy bombing hotheads. A pity so many of them think their brands of religion or old stories from centuries ago of enemies have any bearing today. Or perhaps they just believe rich mens newspapers and media too much. Maybe all their educations and futures were lost by gangsters that were funded and protected and given country ownership for oil and now forces clean up their centuries long mess for newer deals. ..."
"... I thought Russia was INVITED by the Syrian Gov. to assist them in eradicating ALL rebel factions including a bunch of Turkmen rebels funded by Erdogan. No others operating in Syria are legitimate. Any cowards shouting Allah uakbar and killing POWs should be eradicated ..."
"... According to the BBC the Turkmen fight with Al Nusra. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34910389 UN Resolution 2249 calls not only for action against IS but also Al Nusra and other AQ associated groups. ..."
"... I also know Turkey has been "laundering" ISIS oil from Syria and Iraq to the tune of $2 million/day. ..."
"... Well, a US Air Force has now also suggested that the Turkish shooting down of the Russian had to have been a pre-planned provocation. Also US officials have said it cannot be confirmed that the Russian jet incurred into Turkish territory. And of course there is the testimony of the Russian pilot. ..."
"... What ethnic cleansing??? Assad has a multi sect and multi ethnic government. Meanwhile western and Turkish backed jihadist have openly said they will massacre every last Kurd,Christian,Alawi and Druze in the country. ..."
"... Shooting down the Russian plane was Turkey's way of flexing its muscles. The murder of the pilot in the parashoot was a cowardly act. These are the people the US are backing. They can be added to Obama's list of most favored and join the ranks of the Saudis who behead and crucify protesters ..."
"... Erdogan is playing both NATO and Russia for fools. Trying to create a wedge and sabotage the restoration of stability in Syria. ..."
"... It is all a giant make-believe. They are only using ISIS as a pretext to occupy and breakup Syria. And Western populations swallow all these lies without blinking and feel victimized by refugees. ..."
"... Now, I'd bet that Putin has no plans to exacerbate the current situation by shooting down any Turkish jets out of revenge for yesterday's incident. But it will be unsettling for Turkish flyboys and their bosses to know that a good chunk of their a airspace is totally vulnerable and they fly there only because Russia lets them. ..."
"... it's astonishing how many of the Putin hating NATObots from the Ukrainian-themed CIF threads turn out to be ISIS supporters. ..."
"... indeed, with the "stench" of US grand mufti all over them.. How far do you think Obama will bow on his next visit to Saudi. ..."
"... Yup the FT estimated before the Russians got involved that ISIS were producing between 30,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil a day. You would need over 2000 full size road tankers just to move one days output. Now its fair to assume after filling up it takes more than a day before it gets back to the pump. Surprisingly the US has neither noticed all these tankers and even more surprisingly the oil tanks and installations. ..."
"... The whole regime change plan is hanging in the balance and every day Russia solidifies Assad's position. If this continues for even another month it will be virtually impossible for the Western alliance to demand the departure of Assad. ..."
"... Their bargaining position is diminishing by the day and it is great to watch. Also good to read that the Russians have been pounding the shi*e out of those Turkmen areas. Expect those silly buggers to be slaughtered whilst Erdogan and the Turks watch on helplessly. If they even try anything inside the Syrian border now the Russians will annihilate them. ..."
"... Erdogan's reaction to Syria shooting down a Turkish jet in 2012. "Erdogan criticized Syria harshly on Tuesday for shooting down the Turkish fighter jet, saying: "Even if the plane was in their airspace for a few seconds, that is no excuse to attack." "It was clear that this plane was not an aggressive plane. Still it was shot down," the corrupt ISIS supporting scumbag said" ..."
www.theguardian.com

The nervousness displayed by the AKP administration, in Ankara, has a lot to do with Turkey's Syria policy being in ever-growing disarray, and its failure to set priorities to help resolve the conflict. As the Syrian quagmire deepened, old anti-Kurdish fixations in Ankara came to the surface, and clashed with the priorities of its allies, centred on Isis. Ankara's blocking moves against the only combat force on ground, the PKK-YPG axis, has impeded the fight against jihadists, and its constant redrawing of red-lines (Kurds, Turkmens, no-fly zone, Assad gone etc) may have been frustrating the White House, but does not seem to affect Moscow. Recently, Moscow's rapprochement with the Syrian Kurds, the PYD, only added to the huge complexity of the situation.

In the recent G20 summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was once more keen to underline that "terror has no religion and there should be no our terrorist and your terrorist"

... ... ...

So, the tension now rises between one determined and one undecided, conflicted player – one lucid on strategy, the other lacking it. If any, the lesson to be drawn from this showdown is this: any solution of the Syrian conflict will be based on a precondition that the US and Russia put aside their differences, agree in principle on the future of the region, build a joint intelligence gathering and coordinated battle scheme against jihadists, and demand utter clarity of the positions of their myopic, egocentric allies. Unless they do so, more complications, and risks beyond turf wars will be knocking at the door

Eugenios -> André De Koning 25 Nov 2015 23:24

Assad is targeted because it is a necessary prelude to an attack on Iran. Pepe Escobar called that long ago. What is sought is a Syria in the imperialist orbit or in chaos.

Attack on Iran by whom--you ask? Actually several in cahoots, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, et al.

Lyigushka -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 23:22

BBC maps show ISIS controlled territory only a few miles from the Turkmen area where the shooting down took place.
Your not very good at this are you
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27838034

Lyigushka -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 23:11

A brief search on the internet shows many items referring to Turkish support for IS.

Now the SAA with Russian support is on the border dealing with the jihadist Turkmen, Turkey's duplicity is in danger of being revealed .

Hence the impotent rage and desperate pleas for support to its other US coalition partners and the strange reluctance of the complicit western MSM to fully reveal the lies and double standards of the western allies in this foul business.

Only the other day a US TV program was trying to con its viewers that the US was bombing ISIS oil trucks, with video from a Russian airstrike.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/11/pbs-uses-russian-airstrike-videos-to-claim-us-airstrike-successes.html

James H McDougall 25 Nov 2015 23:09

At least one good thing has come from all of this. At least it took Putin to be the first leader to openly say exactly what turkey actually is. A despicable, Islamist supporting vile wolf in Sheep's clothing. Who else was buying ISIS oil....the tooth fairy ? Never in my life did I think I'd be defending the red team yet here I am.

AtelierEclatPekin -> murati 25 Nov 2015 23:06

well , just think for a second .... all the image - they were shooting him while he was in the air , shouting "Allah Akbar " then they showed a photo with dead pilot , being proud of that ..... Those ppl are the "hope" for a Syria post-Assad....don't you feel that something is wrong here ?

Shankman -> ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 23:02

He was awfully quick to accept Turkey's version of events.

As for his Nobel "Peace" Prize, Alfred Nobel is probably still turning in his grave.

Lyigushka -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 23:02

Of course Turkey supports ISIS and has done for all its existence as part of an opposition to its main enemies, Assad and the Kurds.

A brief search of the internet provides countless articles on this without even having to quote Russian sources. Examples
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/research-paper-isis-turke_b_6128950.html
http://www.infowars.com/former-nato-commander-turkey-is-supporting-isis/

iusedtopost 25 Nov 2015 23:01

.....and the censors are out again.....SHAME on you Guardian.

I say again.....MSM now referring to "Turkmen" like they are cuddly toys FFS

They are head chopping....moon howling....islamo-terrorists.

Russia has the right idea....kill the lot them

ianhassall -> ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 22:56

Also as soon as the noble Turkman started shooting at the pilot and navigator once they'd bailed out of the plane they showed themselves to be the terrorists they are. Playing "no prisoners" against Russia.

And as for the US - they can bomb a Medicin sans Frontiers field hospital in Afghanistan for 37 minutes and the best excuse they come out with is "the plane's email stopped working, it didn't know where the target was, they didn't know where they were, so they just attacked something that looked like". So much for US military's navigation abilities.

NikLot -> LordMurphy 25 Nov 2015 22:44

Dear Lord, where did I defend it?!! How do you read that?!!! Of course it is appalling!!!

I wanted to point out that the 'good terrorist' Turkmen militia or whoever else did it would have done the same to NATO pilots and that the story should be explored from that angle too. Statement by Turkey's PM today, if true, confirms my concern:

"Davutoglu told his party's lawmakers on Wednesday that Turkey didn't know the nationality of the plane that was brought down on Tuesday until Moscow announced it was Russian."

ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 22:38

Its amazing that NATO have been bombing ISIS for 2 years and did very little to halt its progress.

Russia's been doing it for a month and have bombed ISIS, the military supplies NATO have been giving ISIS, and the illegal oil racket that Turkey's been running with ISIS - all at a fraction of the cost that's going into supporting ISIS and other Syrian terrorist groups.

I can see why Turkey's upset. Also anyone who thinks Turkey shot down this plane without the approval of NATO and Obama is kidding themselves. Obama has blood up to his armpits with what's been going on in Syria, despite his Peace Prize credentials.


luella zarf -> ArundelXVI 25 Nov 2015 22:28

OK I did some research and I was somewhat wrong, Russia did initiate the bombing of the oil delivery system, but at the G20 summit. This is the actual chronology:

At the G20 Antalya summit of Nov 15, Putin embarrassed Obama publicly showing satellite pictures of ridiculously long tanker lines waiting for weeks to load oil from ISIS, as the coalition spared them any trouble. "I've shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil," said Putin.

The next day, on Nov 16, the US bombed a truck assembly for the first time in the history of the coalition and then claimed to have hit 116 oil tankers. In the meantime, Russia carried on its own airstrike campaign, destroying more than 1,000 tankers and a refinery in a period of just five days, and posting video footage of the airstrikes.

Because the US never made available any recordings, on Nov 19 PBS used footage of Russian fighter jets bombing an oil storage facility and passed it off as evidence of the US hits. The Moon of Alabama website was the first to notice. On Nov 23, a second American air raid claimed to have destroyed 283 oil tankers.

So there you have it. For 15 months, the US didn't touch the oil trade that financed ISIS affairs, until Russia shamed them into it. Then, the mightiest army in the world bombs 400 trucks, while Russia destroys 1000. Then Russia provides videos of its airstrikes, while the US doesn't, and PBS is caught passing off Russian evidence as American.

idkak -> John Smith 25 Nov 2015 22:17

Currently 18 aircraft are patrolling the area on a daily basis, they must have misread the memo.... Downing a Turkish plane over Turkish soil, or attacking a NATO aircraft on mission in Syria within the alliance that is currently bombing ISIS or other terrorist variants... won't be favorable for Russia or their forces in Syria. Even without NATO, Turkey has a very large military and the location we are talking about is about 2-5 minutes to bomb, and 1-2 minutes to intercept.. so the attack would be about the same level of strategic stupidity as attacking Russia from the Ukraine.

André De Koning -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 22:16

How naive: downing a jet who fights al-Nusra. Of course Turkey has supported terrorist there for a long time and left the border between Turkey and Syria porous, so the proxy war can be fought against Assad (just one man (?) always features in the multi-factorial warfare, which is easy on the ears of simpletons). There were already plans in 1957 and more modern ones in the US to ruin Syria and take the land and resources and use it for the oil pipelines from Saudi to Turkey (Assad did not sign off in 2009, so war was bound to happen).

André De Koning 25 Nov 2015 22:11

Imagine a US fighter being shot down? From the beginning of the war Russia and Syria said there were not just peaceful demonstrators, but people who were shooting and grew into ISIS and Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda. This did not fit the western propaganda and the Divide and Ruin policy (title of Dan Glazebrook's recent book of articles) which is that Syria was a on the Ruin-map for a long time. Turkey's Erdogan is intellectually an Islamist and together with Saudi they and the terrorists are fighting this proxy war the US can hardly afford.

In 7 weeks Russia destroyed more of ISIS infrastructure and oil tankers than the US did in a year (the superpower has managed to make ISIS increase seven-fold). The only objective is one man: Assad and the ruin of Syria to be 'rebuilt' (plundered) by western investments and domination of the entire region of the Middle East. The rest is lies to prop up propaganda and doing as if they bring democracy (like the West does in Saudi?! the biggest friend and weapons buyer. Just like Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, which did not play ball, it will be destroyed by the West. It gets harder with Russia actually wishing to stop the proxy war: Syria itself deciding what their future will be? No way as far as US and UK are concerned (and the weak EU following with their businessmen contingent to reap the benefits). Absolutely disgusting that the people have to suffer it.

Of course Turkey did not need to down this jet: well planned and a clear provocation to start the propaganda war against Russia which actually wants to stop this war before a transition without a pre-planned (US) outcome.

EightEyedSpy -> Eugenios 25 Nov 2015 21:59

Meanwhile, Turkey just gave the Russians a no-fly zone--against Turks.

Not true - unless Russia intends to breach the resolution unanimously passed by the UN Security Council authorising all member nations to fight against ISIS on territory controlled by ISIS in Syria.

Pursuant to the Security Council resolution, which Russia voted for, all member nations have the legal right to use Syrian airspace and traverse Syrian territory for the purpose of fighting ISIS in Syria.

If Russia attempts to impose a no-fly zone against Turkey in Syria, Russia will violate the Security Council resolution ...

btt1943 25 Nov 2015 21:59

Forget about whether Russian jet has infiltrated Turkey's airspace or not as claimed by one and denied by other, the bottom line is Turkey has been wanting to play a big and decisive role in Syrian conflict and ISIS's rise. Ankara does not wish to see Russian's growing influence and intervention in the messy region.


Jimmi Cbreeze -> Normin 25 Nov 2015 21:49

With Saudi and Turkish support for ISIS , just who have they bothered saving and sending out into Europe amongst their name taking and slaughters ? Wahabists? How many cells set up now globally?


Jimmi Cbreeze EightEyedSpy 25 Nov 2015 21:17

The turkmen are illegally staging war. Russia is the only country legally in Syria. That's why CIA, Saudi, Turk, Israel etc etc etc operate clandestine. But they all enjoy bombing hotheads. A pity so many of them think their brands of religion or old stories from centuries ago of enemies have any bearing today. Or perhaps they just believe rich mens newspapers and media too much. Maybe all their educations and futures were lost by gangsters that were funded and protected and given country ownership for oil and now forces clean up their centuries long mess for newer deals.

And then you have the Murdochs and the Rothchilds and the arms industries.

Because where the people are'nt divided by cunning for profit, they are too lunatic and gangster minded to live in peace with each other anyway.
The whole matter is a multi joint taskforce of opportunism. And wealth is going for broke stamping and taking as much corporate ground as possible worldwide.

What chance is there of calling peace? Where and when are all these lunatics going to live in peace and constructively? How would they with half the the globe shitstirring and funding trouble amongst them for profit and gain?

Turkey has attacked Russia on Syrian soil and Russia is the only country legally at arms in Syria. Makes you wonder that Turkey does'nt like Turkmen or consider them a problem. That they provoke getting them wiped out of Syria. How could Assad or anyone govern getting undermined from a dozen directions.

Who knows, the place is a mess. It's no use preaching peace inside the turmoil. It has to come from outside and above. But it appears with this lot-what peace ever.

Bosula trandq 25 Nov 2015 21:07

Since you can't or don't bother to actually read the Guardian or other papers you probably missed that UN Resolution 2249 calls not only for action against IS but also Al Nusra and other AQ associated groups in Syria. The Syrian Free Army is linked with these groups, particularly Al Nusra.

Now you have learned something.


Eugenios 25 Nov 2015 21:04

It seems more likely than not that the Russians will make an effort to capture and try the moderate terrorists who shot the Russian pilot parachuting. It is a war crime after all. The old Soviets would have dispensed with such niceties as trials, but the RF is more legalistic. Nicely enough the moderate terrorists identified themselves on video, don't you know?

There may also be several legal cases brought against Erdogan and Turkey.

Meanwhile, Turkey just gave the Russians a no-fly zone--against Turks.


ozhellene -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 20:57

I thought Russia was INVITED by the Syrian Gov. to assist them in eradicating ALL rebel factions including a bunch of Turkmen rebels funded by Erdogan. No others operating in Syria are legitimate. Any cowards shouting Allah uakbar and killing POWs should be eradicated


luella zarf -> ArundelXVI 25 Nov 2015 20:54

US air strikes destroys 283 oil tankers used for smuggling to fund terror group. You were saying? I don't know why some people around here just feel free to make things up.

Give us a break. The US hit ISIS oil tanks 6 full days after Russia released footage which showed its fighter jets targeting 200 oil trucks and a refinery. In 15 months of bombing ISIS, there were no American airstrikes on oil tanks until Russia came along and showed them how it's done. Even PBS pointed out when reporting the attack "For the first time, the US is attacking oil delivery trucks."

ozhellene 25 Nov 2015 20:35

will this be a "turkey shoot"? Big mistake Mr Erdogan! You just condemned you Turkmen buddies to be bombed by the Russian bears.
Turkey will never avoid the Kurdish finally taking back their rightful lands, stolen during the Ottoman rule.
Never forget that Kurds make up a lot of your population.....waiting for the right moment...

WalterCronkiteBot 25 Nov 2015 20:32

According to the BBC the Turkmen fight with Al Nusra. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34910389 UN Resolution 2249 calls not only for action against IS but also Al Nusra and other AQ associated groups.

These guys advertise and run jihadist training camps for children. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/09/uighur-jihadist-group-in-syria-advertises-little-jihadists.php

They might not be explicitly AQ affiliated or Al Nusra itself but they share similar doctrines and fight together. Attacking them may not be by the word of the resolution but its certainly in the spirit of it.


ianhassall -> ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 20:13

Whether I think the Turkman should be wiped out is generally irrelevent.

I just know in the past 24 hours I've seen Turkey shoot down a Russian plane over Syria to defend the Turkmen. I also saw the Turkmen shooting at 2 Russian pilots why they attempted to parachute to safety, and one was killed. And I've seen the Turkmen fire a Saudi Arabia-supplied TOW missile at a Russian rescue helicopter, destroying it and killing two pilots.

I also know Turkey has been "laundering" ISIS oil from Syria and Iraq to the tune of $2 million/day.

You reap what you sow.

nnedjo 25 Nov 2015 19:49

In the recent G20 summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was once more keen to underline that "terror has no religion and there should be no our terrorist and your terrorist".

Yes, just when Erdogan says this, he thinks only on the Kurds, and wonder why the rest of the world considers the Kurds as freedom fighters, and only Turkey considers them as [its] terrorists.

However, the main message of this article is correct. In order to achieve peace in the Middle East, first the rest of the world must come to terms. The divisions in the world, inherited from the times of the Cold War were reflected also on the Islamic world, and so deepened or even provoked a new sectarian Sunni-Shia divisions and conflicts. So although it's "a chronic disease", it is fallen now into an acute phase in Syria and Iraq. And the urgency of the case requires that really has to come to some deal, primarily between the US and Russia, that it could reach the end of the civil war in Syria, but also in Iraq, because it's all inter-connected. Otherwise, this problem will become even more complicated and prolonged, with unforeseeable consequences.

Eugenios 25 Nov 2015 19:58

Well, a US Air Force has now also suggested that the Turkish shooting down of the Russian had to have been a pre-planned provocation. Also US officials have said it cannot be confirmed that the Russian jet incurred into Turkish territory. And of course there is the testimony of the Russian pilot. No doubt the Guardian will be covering these points, yes?

ianhassall -> EightEyedSpy 25 Nov 2015 19:47

Yes, I know. Why shouldn't Turkey defend terrorits and shoot down a Russian jet while its flying missions in Syria and not incur any wrath.

Russians have been fighting Islamic extremists for a bit longer than the West, who have generally only ever funded or armed them. I'd believe Putin 99 times out of a 100 before I'd believe Obama once.

illbthr22 -> EightEyedSpy 25 Nov 2015 19:21

What ethnic cleansing??? Assad has a multi sect and multi ethnic government. Meanwhile western and Turkish backed jihadist have openly said they will massacre every last Kurd,Christian,Alawi and Druze in the country.

Andrew Nichols -> Jeremn 25 Nov 2015 19:14

We don't have a clear, clear understanding of everything that happened today, okay? I've said that and I can keep saying it all day. We're still trying to determine what happened. It's easy to rush to judgments and to make proclamations and declarations after an incident like this.

Which is exactly what the US did - by supporting Turkeys side of the story. Dont you wish the journalist would point this out?

Cecile_Trib -> Spiffey 25 Nov 2015 19:12

Turkmen terrorists backed by Turkey (now from the air) are there not to fight with Assad but to wipe out Kurds in this region - Edorgan's sweet dream to get the political weight back.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/12/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-isis.html?_r=0

spitthedog -> centerline 25 Nov 2015 18:43

Amazing how Russia attacking the ISIS oil operation can suddenly embarrass the Yanks into doing the obvious. Why didn't they do it before? If ISIS and their FSA buddies loses they can't get rid of Assad for Bibi, simples. The good old FSA, chanting Jihad and carrying white on black Al Qaeda flags. We have an interesting idea of what "moderate" is. Then again Blair was a moderate and he.... ummm....errrr....oops!

luella zarf -> TheOutsider79 25 Nov 2015 18:38

are France the only honest brokers in all of this, the only ones actually doing what they say they are doing - targeting ISIS

No, of course not. It's all spin. France, which was Syria's colonial master, is hoping to regain some of its former influence. ISIS is just a pretext, and they really have no incentive of destroying their only justification for being there in the first place.

When France launched its first airstrikes in Sep, Reuters wrote: "Paris has become alarmed by the possibility of France being sidelined in negotiations to reach a political solution in Syria. A French diplomatic source said Paris needed to be one of the "hitters" in Syria - those taking direct military action - to legitimately take part in any negotiations for a political solution to the conflict."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/27/us-mideast-crisis-france-syria-idUSKCN0RR07Y20150927

This is why they are participating - to get a seat at the table when the great powers break up Syria and hand out land rights for pipelines to big oil.

SallyWa -> HHeLiBe 25 Nov 2015 18:46

Turkey has no interest in the peaceful settlement to the conflict in Syria that world powers are negotiating. As it gets desperate, Turkey will attempt to bring focus back on the Assad regime and reverse the losses it has made both in Syria and geopolitically.


SallyWa -> FelixFeline 25 Nov 2015 18:45

Really? I guess I'll have to take your word for that.

Really. That's sort of your issue, not mine.

Do you have any links to support your claims about these lost ISIS territories?

For example http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/russian-airstrikes-support-syrian-troops-to-push-back-rebels-in-strategic-town
Article tried to call ISIS as rebels, though, it happens sometimes as those are always "good terrorists" or just "rebels" if they do what we need, like in this case if they are anti-Assad .


midnightschild10 25 Nov 2015 18:33

Although there has been a war of words between Greece and Turkey, with Turkey charging the Greeks with invading its air space, Turkey has yet to fire on a Greek plane. The turkmen are considered "moderates, and the US arm them to fight the Assad government. Shooting down the Russian plane was Turkey's way of flexing its muscles. The murder of the pilot in the parashoot was a cowardly act. These are the people the US are backing. They can be added to Obama's list of most favored and join the ranks of the Saudis who behead and crucify protesters, one upmanship over ISIS gruesome beheadings, and of course there is alSiSi, who executes all opposition. Petroshenko, wants to freeze the people of Crimea, and has over 6500 Ukrainian deaths notched on his belt since Nuland and Obama gave him the keys to Kiev.

Turkey feels feisty right now, but he obviously isn't aware of the talk coming from Washington about dividing up Syria among four leaders like they did to Berlin.

Turkey will have no part to play, and the US really wants to keep Russia out of the picture. They blame Assad for ISIS but the vacuum left by the US and the coalition left in Iraq is what gave birth to ISIS. Easy to depose governments, and then let chaos reign. Since Obama keeps bringing up the right of a sovereign nation to protect its borders, he should realize that the Syrian government never invited the US onto its soil. The Turkmen through their actions have shown they are terrorists, and Russia will treat them accordingly.

HHeLiBe 25 Nov 2015 18:32

Erdogan is playing both NATO and Russia for fools. Trying to create a wedge and sabotage the restoration of stability in Syria.

Branko Dodig 25 Nov 2015 18:26

The Russian plane was shot over Syrian airspace. Even if it had strayed over Turkish airspace, it was not shot down there. Basically, an act of revenge for bombing their "rebel" buddies.

SallyWa -> FelixFeline 25 Nov 2015 18:24

It is "Turkey screwed up and overreacted". Not confusing at all.

SallyWa -> FelixFeline 25 Nov 2015 18:23

Sorry, but I'm not Russian and also where have you been - Russia has been fighting ISIS in Syria better than US/coalition, though US/coalition did it like for a whole year.The result is that ISIS lost territories which it gained under US's "watch".

centerline 25 Nov 2015 18:12

Since the G20 meeting, Russia has photographed and destroyed the Turkish/ISIS oil convoys.

In the day or so since Turkey shot down the Russian plane in defence of al Qaeda, Russia has for the first time attacked a Turkish logistics convoy to ISIS and al Qaeda right at the main border crossing to Allepo. A number of trucks destroyed and 7 killed in that operation. turkey will pay dearly in the days to come, without Russia ever having to move into Turkish territory.

Any Turks running errands for AQ and ISIS within Syria will now be an endangered species. Or more to the point they will simply be eradicated like the vermin they are.

luella zarf -> TonyBlunt 25 Nov 2015 18:10

What a joke.

In one year of bombing, August 2014-July 2015, the coalition conducted 44,000 airstrikes in Syria-Iraq and killed 15,000 ISIS fighters, which comes at 3 sorties per terrorist!

It is all a giant make-believe. They are only using ISIS as a pretext to occupy and breakup Syria. And Western populations swallow all these lies without blinking and feel victimized by refugees.


pfox33 25 Nov 2015 17:49

The US and Israel were totally freaking when Russia first considered selling Iran S-300 systems, even though they're defensive. It would have taken the feasibility of bombing Iran's nuclear infrastructure to an unknown place. Russia sold these systems to select customers, like China. The S-400 is not for sale. Any search of Youtube will explain why.

When the S-400 is set up around Latakia they will effectively own the surrounding skies for 400 miles in every direction. That extends well into Turkey.

Now, I'd bet that Putin has no plans to exacerbate the current situation by shooting down any Turkish jets out of revenge for yesterday's incident. But it will be unsettling for Turkish flyboys and their bosses to know that a good chunk of their a airspace is totally vulnerable and they fly there only because Russia lets them.

So maybe the Turks pissed in the pickles. This little problem is keeping the Nato nabobs up at night. They haven't said a fucking word.


Geraldine Baxter -> SallyWa 25 Nov 2015 17:47

it's astonishing how many of the Putin hating NATObots from the Ukrainian-themed CIF threads turn out to be ISIS supporters.

indeed, with the "stench" of US grand mufti all over them.. How far do you think Obama will bow on his next visit to Saudi.


Liesandstats -> luella zarf 25 Nov 2015 17:47

Yup the FT estimated before the Russians got involved that ISIS were producing between 30,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil a day. You would need over 2000 full size road tankers just to move one days output. Now its fair to assume after filling up it takes more than a day before it gets back to the pump. Surprisingly the US has neither noticed all these tankers and even more surprisingly the oil tanks and installations.

jonsid 25 Nov 2015 17:33

An article about Syria is now infested with Banderites. They need to worry more about their own long-time disaster of a country instead of stalking every article mentioning Russia.

Anette Mor 25 Nov 2015 17:29

Russians spent all this time signing the rules of engagement and recognition of each other air crafts over Syria with the US, only to be shot by Turkey. Does NATO even exist as a unit other than in the headquarter offices? They constantly refer to the terms which could allegedly force then to support each other in case of external threat, while clearly they will fuck each other on technicalities for years before doing anything practically viable. Russia waste their time talking to NATO, instead had to bribe Turkey separately into a workable local deal. I am sure Turkey got just the same conclusion after wasting time in NATO talks. Corruption and complicity eaten away common sense in western politician and military heads. They only think how weak or strong they would look imitating one or another decision.

aretheymyfeet -> psygone 25 Nov 2015 17:22

Hilarious, checkmate Putin? The only reason the Turks took this drastic action is because the Western alliance has lost the initiative in Syria and they are desperately trying to goad Russia into overreacting. But, as we have seen time and again from the Russians (Lavrov is an incredibly impressive Statesman) that they are cool headed, and restrained.

The whole regime change plan is hanging in the balance and every day Russia solidifies Assad's position. If this continues for even another month it will be virtually impossible for the Western alliance to demand the departure of Assad.

Their bargaining position is diminishing by the day and it is great to watch. Also good to read that the Russians have been pounding the shi*e out of those Turkmen areas. Expect those silly buggers to be slaughtered whilst Erdogan and the Turks watch on helplessly. If they even try anything inside the Syrian border now the Russians will annihilate them. I'd say if anything, the Turks have strengthened the Russians providing them with the perfect excuse to close the Syrian air space to "unfriendly" forces. Check.


thatshowitgoes 25 Nov 2015 16:56

Erdogan's reaction to Syria shooting down a Turkish jet in 2012. "Erdogan criticized Syria harshly on Tuesday for shooting down the Turkish fighter jet, saying: "Even if the plane was in their airspace for a few seconds, that is no excuse to attack." "It was clear that this plane was not an aggressive plane. Still it was shot down," the corrupt ISIS supporting scumbag said"

SallyWa -> psygone 25 Nov 2015 16:56

means he's politically impotent, militarily boxed in a corner and incompetent for self-inflicting

You know you just described Obama and all his policies in a nutshell.

Bob Nassh -> keepithuman 25 Nov 2015 16:54

I believe there's conditions within the NATO treaty that prevent them from defending another member nation providing the conflict was instigated by war crimes committed by the member nation.


MRModeratedModerate 25 Nov 2015 16:50

But of course Turkey was exposed last year...Yet our governments continue to ignore and cover.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/research-paper-isis-turke_b_6128950.html?ir=Australia

luella zarf Jeremn 25 Nov 2015 16:45

The US doesn't bomb ISIS, only pretends it does. Actually nobody bombs ISIS there except Russia.

Only between August 2014 and July 2015 the coalition aircraft have flown nearly 44,000 sorties, according to USNews, and Airwars said the strikes have killed more than 15,000 Islamic State militants during this period.

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/07/21/stealthy-jet-ensures-other-war-fighting-aircraft-survive

So they needed 3 sorties per terrorist! I have no idea how they manage to be this ineffective unless a) they are world's worst airforce b) it's all make-believe. My money is on option b).

Yury Kobyzev -> Valois1588 25 Nov 2015 16:41

Now fact - turkey government is on ISIS side. Its simplifies situation. Russia now quite free to clean the Turkey border from interface with ISIS. It's half a job in fight.

I don't see why Russia can be damaged by so stupid current west policy. I think that clever part of west will change policy towards Russia in near future and will find there friends as it was during ww2. You can repeat mantra Pu... tin as I use Ooom ... but is he of your level?

Chummy15 25 Nov 2015 16:30

Turkey has made it pretty clear where its primary loyalties lie, with ISIS and the other anti-Assad elements. It was a foolish move shooting down the Russian plane which clearly was no threat to the security of Turkey whether or not it had violated Turkish airspace, something that happen around the world regularly. It adds a further dimension to an already complicated war

[Nov 25, 2015] Russian jet incident planned, Turkish opposition member says

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

The Nov. 24 downing of a Russian fighter jet that violated Turkey's border with Syria by the Turkish military was planned, according to a senior figure from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

"It is seen that the downing of the Russian jet was decided and planned earlier, and it was just implemented yesterday," said İdris Baluken, the opposition party's deputy chair, on Nov. 25.

"What we saw yesterday is a scene from a planned policy," he said.

The AKP [Justice and Development Party] has shown in its insistent practices that it is a part of the war in Syria," he said.

"The real matter about the downing of the jet is that the AKP feels the need to intervene in operations against some gangs such as Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra" he said, claiming that the AKP was not actually concerned about Syria's Turkmens.

The government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have said recent Russian operations in Syria were not targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but Turkmens in the north of the country.

"The AKP did not raise its voice when Turkmens were being killed in Mosul and Telafar in 2014," Baluken said, referring to 2014 ISIL attacks targeting Iraq's heavily-populated Turkmen areas.

Baluken was speaking at a press conference in parliament before the announcing of the new government program and said the Turkish people had already seen the content of the program in the government's recent moves.

Baluken also stated eight civilians were killed in the town of Nusaybin, which entered its 13th day under curfew. The town is located in the southeastern province of Mardin

[Nov 25, 2015] Poking the 'Russian Bear' comes at a cost

Notable quotes:
"... The fate of the Russian pilots in the downed jet will also play a key role here. If it is true that one of the pilots was killed while parachuting down by Turkmen fighters, as Moscow claims, there will be a clamoring for merciless revenge by the Russian public against this group. ..."
"... we had reports of members of Turkey's secret service, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), scurrying to the region desperately trying to find the pilots after the SU-24 was downed. It is questionable, therefore, whether this move by Turkey, legal as it may be, will have bolstered the position of the Turkmens. The immediate impression one gets is that it will make it worse. ..."
"... It is not clear whether Moscow will use the economic card against Turkey, which has a great dependence on Russian natural gas, and the Russian market, not to mention the millions of Russian tourists that stream into Turkey every year. ..."
"... The economic card cuts both ways of course. Russia needs to sell its gas to earn money. But Russian preparedness to sacrifice, once nationalist sentiments are aroused in that country, is a historic fact. ..."
"... it is clear why President Recep Tayyip Erdo an is saying that Turkey has no interests in escalating the crisis with Russia. He has undoubtedly been made aware that poking the "Russian Bear" comes at a cost. ..."
www.hurriyetdailynews.com

There is no doubt that the happiest person because of this unprecedented crisis between Turkey and Russia is Syria's Bashar al-Assad. He must have been delighted at the extremely angry remarks by President Putin aimed at Turkey, and his dire warning that the downing of their jet will have serious consequences for Turkish-Russian ties.

It is also clear that Russia will not be deterred by this affair in either its support for Assad or its operations north of Latakia where it is hitting groups supported by Turkey, including Turkmens. Russia will also take added precautions to bolster its air defense systems in the region, and will back its operations there with support from its military assets in the eastern Mediterranean.

As long as it does not violate Turkish airspace again, there is little, if anything, Turkey can do to ensure that Russia does not bomb the Turkmens with added intensity and ferocity. Turkey can send surface air missiles to the Turkmens, of course, but it is doubtful its NATO allies will allow this, given the risk of these weapons falling into the wrong hands.

The simple fact is that no one in the West is clear about whom these Turkmens really are, and whether they are radical Sunni jihadists or "moderate Islamists." Turkey has to help clarify this point if it wants sympathy in the West for the Turkmens.

The fate of the Russian pilots in the downed jet will also play a key role here. If it is true that one of the pilots was killed while parachuting down by Turkmen fighters, as Moscow claims, there will be a clamoring for merciless revenge by the Russian public against this group.

It was not for nothing that we had reports of members of Turkey's secret service, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), scurrying to the region desperately trying to find the pilots after the SU-24 was downed. It is questionable, therefore, whether this move by Turkey, legal as it may be, will have bolstered the position of the Turkmens. The immediate impression one gets is that it will make it worse.

Then there is the economic dimension, which is being widely covered by the media and need not be repeated here. It is not clear whether Moscow will use the economic card against Turkey, which has a great dependence on Russian natural gas, and the Russian market, not to mention the millions of Russian tourists that stream into Turkey every year.

The economic card cuts both ways of course. Russia needs to sell its gas to earn money. But Russian preparedness to sacrifice, once nationalist sentiments are aroused in that country, is a historic fact.

Looking at all of this, it is clear why President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is saying that Turkey has no interests in escalating the crisis with Russia. He has undoubtedly been made aware that poking the "Russian Bear" comes at a cost.

[Nov 25, 2015] Airplane crisis raising questions about future of close economic, trade ties between Russia and Turkey

Notable quotes:
"... Russia may consider cancelling some important joint projects with Turkey after the downing of the Russian jet by Turkish F-16s near the Syrian border on Nov. 24, raising questions about the future of the countries' intimate economic and trade relations. ..."
"... Turkish companies could lose Russian market share due to the jet fighter incident, Medvedev said in a statement published on the government website. He suggested it may lead to the barring of Turkish companies from the Russian market. ..."
www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Nov. 25 that Russia may consider cancelling some important joint projects with Turkey after the downing of the Russian jet by Turkish F-16s near the Syrian border on Nov. 24, raising questions about the future of the countries' intimate economic and trade relations.

Turkish companies could lose Russian market share due to the jet fighter incident, Medvedev said in a statement published on the government website. He suggested it may lead to the barring of Turkish companies from the Russian market.

"The direct consequences are likely to be the renunciation of a number of important joint projects and Turkish companies losing their position on the Russian market," Medvedev said.

The joint projects that immediately come to mind are a number of existing and planned energy projects between Russia and Turkey.

Turkey commissioned Russia's state-owned Rosatom in 2013 to build four 1,200-megawatt reactors in a project worth $20 billion.

Russia and Turkey are also working on the Turkish Stream pipeline project, an alternative to Russia's South Stream pipeline, which was to transport gas to Europe without crossing Ukraine. The South Stream plan was dropped last year due to objections from the European Commission.

The talks over the pipeline have been postponed due to Turkey's election agenda and disagreements over a gas price discount, as officials from the both countries had earlier mentioned.

"It is quite difficult to start the talks again. If a reconciliatory step is not taken, Russia will most likely not continue this project. Even Russia could even scrap this project and start an alternative project, like, for example, a Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline project," said a sector representative, anonymously quoted by daily Hürriyet on Nov. 25.

... ... ...

Turkish-Russian economic and trade ties in figures

Russia's exports to Turkey in 2014: $25 billion

[Nov 25, 2015] Russian nationalists attack Turkish Embassy in Moscow

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

An ultra-nationalist group of protestors targeted the Turkish Embassy in Moscow on Nov. 25 following demonstrations at Turkey's Nov. 24 downing of a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border.

Around 500 protestors of the Russian political party LDPR carrying Russian, Syrian and party flags first shouted slogans against Turkey in front of the Turkish embassy in the afternoon before pelting the building with stones.

Windows on the first two floors of the four-story building were completely broken, according to diplomats at the embassy.

Diplomats said no one was injured in the attack, adding that the Russian police failed to stop the attack.

Protesters also pelted the embassy's external wall with tomatoes and eggs.

The ultra-nationalist protestors also chanted "We will come again tomorrow" after the attack.

[Nov 25, 2015] Russia and Turkey refuse to back down News , Middle East

Notable quotes:
"... President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made no apology, saying his nation had simply been defending its own security and the "rights of our brothers in Syria." He made clear Turkish policy would not change. ..."
"... Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as a planned act and said it would affect efforts towards a political solution in Syria. Moscow would "seriously reconsider" its relations with Ankara, he said. ..."
"... But the Russian response was carefully calibrated, indicating Moscow did not want to jeopardize its main objective in the region: to rally international support for its view on how the conflict in Syria should be resolved. ..."
"... "We have no intention of fighting a war with Turkey," Lavrov said. ..."
THE DAILY STAR
Russia sent an advanced missile system to Syria Wednesday to protect its jets operating there and pledged its air force would keep flying missions near Turkish airspace, sounding a defiant note after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet.

Underscoring the message, Russian forces launched a heavy bombardment against insurgent-held areas in Latakia Wednesday, near where the jet was downed, rebels and a monitoring group said.

The United States and Europe both urged calm and continued dialogue in telephone conversations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a sign of international concern at the prospect of any escalation between the former Cold War enemies.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made no apology, saying his nation had simply been defending its own security and the "rights of our brothers in Syria." He made clear Turkish policy would not change.

Russian officials expressed fury over Turkey's action and spoke of retaliatory measures that were likely to include curbing travel by Russian tourists to Turkish resorts and some restrictions on trade.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as a planned act and said it would affect efforts towards a political solution in Syria. Moscow would "seriously reconsider" its relations with Ankara, he said.

Jets believed to be Russian also hit a depot for trucks waiting to go through a major rebel-controlled border crossing with Turkey, Bab al-Salam, the head of the crossing said.

Syrian jets have struck the area before, but if confirmed to have been carried out by Russia, it would be one of Moscow's closest airstrikes to Turkish soil, targeting a humanitarian corridor into rebel-held Syria and a lifeline for ordinary Syrians crossing to Turkey.

But the Russian response was carefully calibrated, indicating Moscow did not want to jeopardize its main objective in the region: to rally international support for its view on how the conflict in Syria should be resolved.

"We have no intention of fighting a war with Turkey," Lavrov said.

Erdogan also said that Ankara had no intention of escalating tensions with Russia.

In Paris, President Francois Hollande expressed concern over the war of words raging between Ankara and Moscow.

"We must all work to make sure that the situation [between Russia and Turkey] de-escalates," Hollande told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel said in response she would act "swiftly" to see how Germany could take up "additional responsibilities" to assist in the fight against terror.

[Nov 25, 2015] Downing of Russian plane reveals potential for more conflict

Notable quotes:
"... Russia will choose from a menu of asymmetric responses in retaliation against Turkey, including informal economic sanctions and providing military aid to Turkey's enemies, including the Kurds. ..."
Nov 25, 2015 | The Washington Post

In Moscow at least, the event is being seen as something larger than an attack on an errant jet.

... ... ...

The Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement Wednesday that Russian fighter jets will now escort the bombers, and Moscow will move into Syria powerful new ground-to-air missiles that can reach across the country and far into Turkey from the Russian air base in the province of Latakia on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

Additionally, analysts say, Russia will choose from a menu of asymmetric responses in retaliation against Turkey, including informal economic sanctions and providing military aid to Turkey's enemies, including the Kurds.

... ... ...

Russian attitudes toward Turkey, which were reasonably friendly a year ago, have turned cold with alarming speed. Most Russian tour operators stopped selling travel packages to Turkey on Wednesday. Protesters in Moscow pelted the Turkish Embassy with eggs and rocks, shattering windows. Russian lawmakers introduced a bill that would criminalize denying that the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire was a "genocide." The issue remains highly sensitive: Turkey acknowledges that atrocities occurred but has long denied that what took place constituted a genocide.

... ... ...

Russia will seek retribution against Turkey but wants to avoid antagonizing the West, Baunov said. "If this becomes a fight between Russia and the West, then that goes against the goals of the intervention in the first place: to escape international isolation connected to sanctions," he said.

[Nov 25, 2015] The motive How Russias enemies benefit from the downing of Su-24

Notable quotes:
"... The nightmare of the birth of Kurdistan hangs over Turkey like a sword of Damocles for many decades. The emergence after the collapse of Saddam Hussein of de facto independent Iraqi Kurdistan has made the situation especially dangerous for Turkey, and the sudden appearance of ISIS aggressively fighting the Kurds, the ISIS army led by former Saddam generals, of course, made Turks more than happy. Turkish troops and the air force strike the Kurdish militias in Syria directly. ..."
"... In a sense, our policy today is paying the price for refusing to be consistent in solving geopolitical issues. We entered the game in Syria, with the outstanding issue of Crimea-Novorossia, as a result, today we have an exacerbation in Donetsk, energy and transport blockade of Crimea, a front against ISIS and a looming front against Turkey, which is a NATO member. ..."
"... So, today we are faced with the threat of war on several fronts, in which Turkey has assumed the role of lead instigator and aggressor who must lay siege to Russia. ..."
"... So the situation is really extreme. In a sense, we are cornered. ..."
"... If Russia wants to look good in this conflict it would have to force Turkey to publicly apologize for which it needs a set of effective sanctions and threats - from supporting Kurdistan to breaking the economic and tourist relations, and most importantly - be prepared for fierce stand-off of defense systems at the Syrian border. Then Russia can forget about supplying our group through the Bosphorus. In conclusion, we got another major front in addition to the already existing. ..."
"... And without the support of Washington Turkeys capabilities will shrink to the scale of the state, the power of which is simply not comparable with Russia. We must play not against the player, but against the game technicians. ..."
Fort Russ

...Historically, Turkey owns "the keys of our house," as the Straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles were called in the XIX century by the first Russian geopoliticians. Only with great difficulty in the XVII-XIX centuries Russia has managed to squeeze Turkey from Northern Black Sea coast, Novorossia and Crimea.

By an amazing coincidence the provocation occurred on the birthday of Alexander Suvorov. However, all attempts of the Russian Empire to gain control over the straits and over the ancient Byzantine capital Constantinople met with united resistance of the European powers led by Britain, supporting Turkey. The latest attempt to control the straits by Russia was carried out by Stalin, a response to which was the withdrawal of Turkey under the NATO umbrella.

By controlling the straits Turkey controls most of the supply of our military group in Syria. Montreux Convention makes the peacetime regime of the straits free for all the Black Sea countries, but in time of war Turkey gets the legal right to block the straits to the enemies and open them to the allies.

Turkey allies are NATO countries, and the enemy, judging by the downed aircraft, may be Russia. That is, a provocation with the Su-24 puts supply of our troops in Syria under jeopardy. The only other routs left - much more uncomfortable through Iran and potentially problematic through Iraq, where the United States have a big influence.

... Neo-islamist and neo-ottoman Erdogan carries out a very aggressive policy, not appealing to either Washington or Berlin or Brussels, in fact, seeking to restore the Ottoman Empire.

... Erdogan was the most fanatical enemy of Assad, as he hoped that Islamized Sunni Syria would become a vassal of Turkey, and perhaps even return inside its borders. Turkey was one of the midwives at the birth of ISIS - it is extremely interested in the local oil, and in the ISIS fight with the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds.

The nightmare of the birth of Kurdistan hangs over Turkey like a sword of Damocles for many decades. The emergence after the collapse of Saddam Hussein of de facto independent Iraqi Kurdistan has made the situation especially dangerous for Turkey, and the sudden appearance of ISIS aggressively fighting the Kurds, the ISIS army led by former Saddam generals, of course, made Turks more than happy. Turkish troops and the air force strike the Kurdish militias in Syria directly.

Russian operation in Syria mixed all the cards for Erdogan.

Naturally, the Turkish government is furious and wants to somehow kick Russia out of Syria. Turkey has repeatedly made threatening statements and gestures regarding alleged violations of Turkish borders by our aviation operating against Syrian terrorists.

No other country, including even the United States, made so many attacks against Russian foreign policy. Some experts do not rule out even the involvement of Turkish and Qatari security services in the tragedy with the Russian airplane in Sinai, though officially this hypothesis has never been voiced.

... ... ...

And here comes the next move - the downing of the Russian plane targeting the terrorists, under the pretext of its entry into the Turkish airspace. According to the Turkish version, the Russian Su-24 was shot down after warnings by the Turkish F-16s. According to our Ministry of Defense, the plane never left Syrian airspace.

There is no reason to believe that the Russian side is just being defensive and the Turkish is speaking the truth. The tactical goal of the Turks is with this plane crash to indicate an actual "no-fly zone" in northern Syria, which would save the militants from ultimate annihilation, which in Latakia, (where our plane was shot down) was quite close.

This idea of a no-fly zone was supported by the US hawks, who consider Russia an enemy number one. The last straw, apparently, was the demonstrative destruction by our air-space forces of oil convoys coming from ISIS territory to Turkey.

Most of all the incident with the plane crash is reminiscent of a classic provocation. The Turkish side showed a diagram in which the Russian bomber is flying over microscopic wedge of the Turkish territory deep into Syria. Turkish geographic wedge into Syria - is the so-called area of ​​Alexandretta, which Turkey annexed from France, which controlled Syria after World War I.

In 1938, parliament of this region declared the area an independent republic of Hatay - it was the last foreign policy operation of Kemal Ataturk before his death. In 1939, Turkey annexed Hatay.

This is how the Turkish wedge into the Syrian territory was formed, covered with a multitude of small protrusions. That a Russian plane could fly over one of them is, in principle, not impossible, as the border is very complex and elusive. But it only means that this time it was expected to be knocked down.

The triumphant demonstration of the body of our pilot on Turkish TV and generally surprisingly high preparedness by Turkish media to broadcast the incident in real time, speaks for it being a direct provocation against Russia.

... ... ...

Escalation of the conflict could also be in Turkey's interest, as this will allow it to cut the sea communications of our group in Syria, and perhaps even try to block it with ground forces, which Turkey has much more of in the region (although I would not overestimate the fighting capacity of the Turkish army) .

Turkey can carry out the aggressive actions under the NATO umbrella, because the alliance will likely have to intervene if the Turks employ article 5 of the "North Atlantic Treaty". The Western countries are seriously annoyed by Erdogan, but it is hardly enough to refuse to perform the obligations of the NATO treaty.

Russia's military options to influence Turkey are limited by the weakness of our Black Sea fleet, and most importantly - by the threat of escalating to a global conflict, and, moreover, by extremely disadvantageous configuration of the possible theater of the conflict, as our air-space forces are operating in the Turkish rear and their land communications and air bridge options depend on the politically unstable Iraq, just recently occupied by the US.

That is, before our forces in Syria looms the very threat of severing communications, which was seen from the outset as serious, in contrast to the mythical "militant attacks."

In a sense, our policy today is paying the price for refusing to be consistent in solving geopolitical issues. We entered the game in Syria, with the outstanding issue of Crimea-Novorossia, as a result, today we have an exacerbation in Donetsk, energy and transport blockade of Crimea, a front against ISIS and a looming front against Turkey, which is a NATO member.

So, today we are faced with the threat of war on several fronts, in which Turkey has assumed the role of lead instigator and aggressor who must "lay siege" to Russia. This role for Turkey is historically organic. Here we can recall the war of 1787-1891, which was directly provoked by the Western powers in response to the strengthening of Russia and its occupation of Crimea.

No sooner had Mother Catherine rode to Crimea with foreign delegations, and Potemkin showed his villages, as Turkey declared war on Russia, which made Suvorov and Ushakov famous. Moreover, for Russia it was a war on two fronts - simultaneously Sweden declared war on Russia, and its attack was repelled by the Baltic fleet with almost no involvement of ground forces.

So Russia finally managed, and with the Treaty of Jassy Turkey recognized Crimea Russian, and the Russian border has been pushed beyond the Dniester. But do not forget that Russia was then supported by Austria, but today there are not many of those who wish to go against Turkey in the European Union.

So the situation is really extreme. In a sense, we are cornered. If Russia flushes the incident, it would mean a public apology from our side, then all the Western media publications have already prepared the headlines that the cocky Russia has been put in its place by Turkey, reminding who is who.

If Russia wants to look good in this conflict it would have to force Turkey to publicly apologize for which it needs a set of effective sanctions and threats - from supporting Kurdistan to breaking the economic and tourist relations, and most importantly - be prepared for fierce stand-off of defense systems at the Syrian border. Then Russia can forget about supplying our group through the Bosphorus. In conclusion, we got another major front in addition to the already existing.

The most promising, in my opinion, would be to treat the situation as a systemic problem. That is, Turkish issue should be solved not in Syria but in Ukraine and Novorossia, because Turkey is just a piece of the puzzle in a global confrontation and its aggression will immediately lose its meaning for Washington, if we win at the front nearest to us.

And without the support of Washington Turkey's capabilities will shrink to the scale of the state, the power of which is simply not comparable with Russia. We must play not against the player, but against the game technicians.

[Nov 25, 2015] Sultan Erdogans War on Russia

sputniknews.com

Let's cut to the chase. The notion that Turkey's downing of a Russian Su-24 by a made in USA F-16 was carried out without either a green light or at least pre-arranged "support" from Washington invites suspension of disbelief.

Turkey is a mere vassal state, the eastern arm of NATO, which is the European arm of the Pentagon. The Pentagon already issued a denial - which, considering their spectacular record of strategic failures cannot be taken at face value. Plausibly, this might have been a power play by the neocon generals who run the Pentagon, allied with the neocon-infested Obama administration.

The privileged scenario though is of a vassal Turkey led by Sultan Erdogan risking a suicide mission out of its own, current, desperation.

Here's Erdogan's warped reasoning in a nutshell. The Paris tragedy was a huge setback. France started discussing close military collaboration not within NATO, but with Russia. Washington's unstated aim was always to get NATO inside Syria. By having Turkey/NATO - clumsily, inside Syrian territory - attacking Russia, and provoking a harsh Russian response, Erdogan thought he could seduce NATO into Syria, under the pretext (Article 5) of defending Turkey.

As Bay-of-Pigs dangerous as this may be, it has nothing to do with WWIII - as apocalyptic purveyors are braying. It revolves around whether a state which supports/finances/weaponizes the Salafi-jihadi nebulae is allowed to destroy the Russian jets that are turning its profitable assets into ashes.

President Putin nailed it; it was "a shot in the back". Because all evidence is pointing towards an ambush: the F-16s might have been actually waiting for the Su-24s. With Turkish TV cameras available for maximum global impact.

[Nov 25, 2015] Russia accuses Turkey of hypocrisy after Erdogan admits airspace violation does not justify attack

independent.co.uk

Turkey has been accused of hypocrisy over the downing of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border, after it emerged that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself said "a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack".

The Russian jet which came down on Tuesday morning entered a small sliver of Turkish airspace for 17 seconds, according to the Turkish military's own data, while the Russian defence ministry says the Su-24 bomber was in Syria at all times.

The incident has echoes of a reverse situation in 2012, when the Syrian regime shot down a Turkish F-4 Phantom which, it said, entered its airspace off the country's north-east coast.

Then, Turkey spoke of its "rage" at the decision to shoot down the jet, which was on a training flight testing its own country's radar systems.

"A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", Mr Erdogan said at the time, threatening in response that "every military element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border… will be assessed as a military threat and treated as a military target".

[Nov 25, 2015] Washington using Turkey as a tool to destabilize Russia

Notable quotes:
"... "I don't think the Turkish government would have undertaken such an action against a military superpower like Russia without the consent of the US. It's simply ridiculous to suggest the Turkish military would have acted alone," ..."
"... "So they were carrying out this attack certainly with the backing of the US," ..."
"... "Until 2011, Turkey had a policy in the Middle East which was considered quite diplomatic and progressive; it had a good-neighborly policy," ..."
"... "In the future you're going to see Turkey emerge as a new maritime power." ..."
"... "... You have a Turkish speaking population in Central Asia and in the North Caucasus region. So Turkey has a lot of levers to pull with Russia, and what we're seeing with these attacks is an attempt to raise the tension with Russia," ..."
"... "Of course Russia is destroying the Islamic State, and Turkey needs to keep the IS going in Syria. They have been openly backing it, and that had been openly admitted by the western press," ..."
"... "This is much less about violating Turkish airspace and much more about the fact that both Russia and Turkey are backing different sides in the conflict in Syria. And we effectively have a proxy war. And these types of clashes and conflicts were completely predictable and inevitable", ..."
"... "advances US interests in this particular conflict, so they have no problem with those missiles being used in that capacity and in that direction." ..."
"... "extending and perpetuating the crisis." ..."
"... "The US has no particular problem in allowing its missiles to be used by rebel forces that it considers friendly," ..."
"... "It explains why there has been relative silence with respect to the use of its own missiles in this particular context." ..."
"... "Well, I think right now it's avoiding escalation and cooler heads hopefully will prevail so that Turkey doesn't try to invoke Article 5 under the NATO treaty [Collective Defence]," ..."
"... "But again cooler heads prevailed and they just decided to invoke Article 4 which was to have a consultation. Hopefully that will happen again," ..."
"... "What happened was that the Russian jet got too close to some very serious interests of Turkey, and that is why they probably took action," ..."
"... "It is probably one of the routes through which they send their forces in through Turkey into Syria to fight on behalf of the jihadist groups," ..."
"... "since it was aiming at possibly Al-Nusra or one of the other jihadist groups that was on the ground." ..."
"... "Turkey has tremendous relations and exchanges with Russia from energy to a lot of trade," ..."
"... "It is only right that the two sides get together and talk this thing out. But I don't see NATO getting engaged in this except to have consultations, because the last thing the European countries want - including the US – is an armed conflict with Russia," ..."
RT Op-Edge
NATO member state Turkey seems strangely committed to keeping Islamic State going strong in Syria, thus willing to take dangerous risks in confronting Russia in the region. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, a group of experts told RT.

"I don't think the Turkish government would have undertaken such an action against a military superpower like Russia without the consent of the US. It's simply ridiculous to suggest the Turkish military would have acted alone,"O'Colmain told RT.

"So they were carrying out this attack certainly with the backing of the US," he added.

The political analyst argues we need to look at the region in general. "Until 2011, Turkey had a policy in the Middle East which was considered quite diplomatic and progressive; it had a good-neighborly policy," said O'Colmain.

The expert suggested that the long-term strategy of the US is to use Turkey as a tool to destabilize Russia, and that was confirmed recently by the head of Stratfor, George Friedman, who said: "In the future you're going to see Turkey emerge as a new maritime power."

"... You have a Turkish speaking population in Central Asia and in the North Caucasus region. So Turkey has a lot of levers to pull with Russia, and what we're seeing with these attacks is an attempt to raise the tension with Russia," O'Colmain told RT.

"Of course Russia is destroying the Islamic State, and Turkey needs to keep the IS going in Syria. They have been openly backing it, and that had been openly admitted by the western press," analyst added.

Turkey-Russia proxy war in Syria

We effectively have a proxy war, says Nader Hashemi, Assistant Professor of Middle East Politics at the University of Denver.

"This is much less about violating Turkish airspace and much more about the fact that both Russia and Turkey are backing different sides in the conflict in Syria. And we effectively have a proxy war. And these types of clashes and conflicts were completely predictable and inevitable", he told RT.

Nader Hashemi thinks US-made TOW missiles are being used in a way that "advances US interests in this particular conflict, so they have no problem with those missiles being used in that capacity and in that direction."

Meanwhile, the US holds the opinion that Bashar al-Assad is the primary source of the problem in Syria and Russia's policy in supporting Bashar al-Assad is "extending and perpetuating the crisis."

"The US has no particular problem in allowing its missiles to be used by rebel forces that it considers friendly," Hashemi continued.

"It explains why there has been relative silence with respect to the use of its own missiles in this particular context."

Turkey committed 'foolish and rash decision' in attacking Russian jet

Turkey feels a political need to show its strength inside the country as well as in the Middle East region, Senior Policy Consultant from British American Security Information Council Ted Seay told RT.

"In fact in early October there were supposedly a couple of incursions by Russian military aircraft into Turkish airspace – they were chased away," said Seay.

"What has happened now, I believe, is that Turkey is feeling some kind of political need, whether it is domestically or for its regional sort of audience, to show its strength in these things, and it has made a very foolish and rash decision in firing missiles at a Russian aircraft just to do this," he added.

He argues that "Turkey is in the unfortunate position of being a frontline state with the Syrian civil war, on the one hand, and a NATO ally, on the other."

"It looks to me, as someone who has worked in NATO for several years – that there was ineffective coordination beforehand with NATO authorities and with the allies about how Turkey ought to be ready to respond if, for example, future incidents along the lines of early October again with, again, these alleged airspace incursions happened again," Seay told RT.

He said that there should have been a rehearsal for what is and isn't acceptable under these circumstances. "Quite frankly, apart from self-defense, firing of air-to-air missiles is not acceptable," the expert added.

Acting against Russia not in Erdogan's interest

Ankara took action against a Russian fighter jet because the plane got too close to some serious interests of Turkey, former senior security policy analyst in the office of the US Secretary of Defense Michael Maloof told RT.

It is not in Erdogan's interest to escalate conflict with Russia any further, former senior security policy analyst in the office of the US Secretary of Defense Michael Maloof told RT.

"Well, I think right now it's avoiding escalation and cooler heads hopefully will prevail so that Turkey doesn't try to invoke Article 5 under the NATO treaty [Collective Defence]," Maloof told RT.

He said they tried that a few years ago when they shot down a Syrian jet. "But again cooler heads prevailed and they just decided to invoke Article 4 which was to have a consultation. Hopefully that will happen again," he added.

"What happened was that the Russian jet got too close to some very serious interests of Turkey, and that is why they probably took action," Maloof said.

"It is probably one of the routes through which they send their forces in through Turkey into Syria to fight on behalf of the jihadist groups," he told RT.

Maloof suspects the Russian jet was getting too close "since it was aiming at possibly Al-Nusra or one of the other jihadist groups that was on the ground."

Expert believes that it is really not in Erdogan's interest to escalate this thing any further. "Turkey has tremendous relations and exchanges with Russia from energy to a lot of trade," he said.

"It is only right that the two sides get together and talk this thing out. But I don't see NATO getting engaged in this except to have consultations, because the last thing the European countries want - including the US – is an armed conflict with Russia," Maloof added.

READ MORE: Downing of Russian Su-24 looks like a planned provocation - Lavrov


[Nov 25, 2015] Turkish jets gave us no warning before shooting

The sole survivor of the downed Russian warplane, its navigator no less, categorically denies that his aircraft crossed into Turkish airspace. He also says no visual or radio warning was given before his aircraft was fired at.
www.rt.com

The navigator of the Russian Su-24 shot down by a Turkish fighter jet on Tuesday insists that his plane did not cross into Turkey's airspace, and says he was given no visual or radio warning before being fired at.

"It's impossible that we violated their airspace even for a second," Konstantin Murakhtin told RT and other Russian media. "We were flying at an altitude of 6,000 meters in completely clear weather, and I had total control of our flight path throughout."

As well as denying Ankara's assertions that the plane was in Turkey's airspace, Murakhtin, who says he knows the mission area "like the back of my hand," also refuted Turkish officials' claims that the pilots were warned repeatedly.

"In actual fact, there were no warnings at all. Neither through the radio, nor visually, so we did not at any point adjust our course. You need to understand the difference in speed between a tactical bomber like a Su-24, and that of the F16. If they wanted to warn us, they could have sat on our wing," said Murakhtin, who is currently recuperating at Russia's airbase in Latakia, northern Syria.

"As it was, the missile hit the back of our plane out of nowhere. We didn't even have time to make an evasive maneuver."

READ MORE: Leaked Ankara UN letter claims Su-24's 'air space violation' lasted 17 seconds

As the plane was hit and went down in Syria, the two pilots ejected. Captain Sergey Rumyantsev was killed, with a rebel Turkmen brigade claiming they shot him to death while he was still parachuting.

Murakhtin was extracted in a 12-hour joint operation by Russian and Syrian special forces, in which a Russian marine died.

[Nov 25, 2015] NATO Is Harboring ISIS, And Heres The Evidence

Notable quotes:
"... Conspicuously missing from President Hollande's decisive declaration of war, however, was any mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship. ..."
"... Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS. The figure, according to the US Army's Foreign Studies Military Office (FSMO), is likely exaggerated, but corroborated "by Uighurs captured with Turkish passports in Thailand and Malaysia." ..."
"... direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now 'undeniable.' ..."
"... The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. "The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed," said the official. "There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both." ..."
"... The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross the "border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February." ISIS militants would freely travel "through Turkey in a convoy of trucks," and stop "at safehouses along the way." ..."
"... In January, authenticated official documents of the Turkish military were leaked online, showing that Turkey's intelligence services had been caught in Adana by military officers transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition via truck "to the al-Qaeda terror organisation" in Syria. ..."
"... According to other ISIS suspects facing trial in Turkey, the Turkish national military intelligence organization (MIT) had begun smuggling arms, including NATO weapons to jihadist groups in Syria as early as 2011. ..."
"... Documents leaked in September 2014 showed that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had financed weapons shipments to ISIS through Turkey. ..."
"... A report by the Turkish Statistics Institute confirmed that the government had provided at least $1 million in arms to Syrian rebels within that period, contradicting official denials. Weapons included grenades, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, firearms, ammunition, hunting rifles and other weapons?-?but the Institute declined to identify the specific groups receiving the shipments. ..."
"... Turkey has also played a key role in facilitating the life-blood of ISIS' expansion: black market oil sales. Senior political and intelligence sources in Turkey and Iraq confirm that Turkish authorities have actively facilitated ISIS oil sales through the country. ..."
"... Last summer, Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People's Party, estimated the quantity of ISIS oil sales in Turkey at about $800 million?-?that was over a year ago. ..."
"... Meanwhile, NATO leaders feign outrage and learned liberal pundits continue to scratch their heads in bewilderment as to ISIS' extraordinary resilience and inexorable expansion. ..."
"... "Had Turkey placed the same kind of absolute blockade on Isis territories as they did on Kurdish-held parts of Syria… that blood-stained 'caliphate' would long since have collapsed?-?and arguably, the Paris attacks may never have happened. And if Turkey were to do the same today, Isis would probably collapse in a matter of months. Yet, has a single western leader called on Erdo?an to do this?" ..."
"... The consistent transfers of CIA-Gulf-Turkish arms supplies to ISIS have been documented through analysis of weapons serial numbers by the UK-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR), whose database on the illicit weapons trade is funded by the EU and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. ..."
"... ISIS, in other words, is state-sponsored?-?indeed, sponsored by purportedly Western-friendly regimes in the Muslim world, who are integral to the anti-ISIS coalition. ..."
"... Remember when neocon intellectuals were talking about using proxy forces to roll back Syria in 1996? Good thing for Israel most mouth breathing morons only get their news from the zio box. ..."
www.zerohedge.com

Zero Hedge

For the better part of a year, Turkey remained on the sidelines in the "fight" against ISIS.

Then, on July 20, a powerful explosion ripped through the town of Suruc. 33 people were killed including a number of Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) members who planned to assist in the rebuilding of Kobani.

The attack was promptly attributed to Islamic State who took "credit" for the tragedy the next day.

To be sure, the attack came at a rather convenient time for President Tayyip Erdogan. A little over a month earlier, the ruling AKP party lost its absolute parliamentary majority in part due to a strong showing at the ballot box for the pro-Kurdish (and PKK-aligned) HDP. What happened in the wake of the Suruc bombing was nothing short of a largely successful attempt on Erdogan's part to use fear and violence to scare the electorate into restoring AKP's dominance in snap elections that took place earlier this month.

In short, Erdogan used Suruc as an excuse to begin a "war on terror." Part and parcel of the new campaign was an invite from Ankara for Washington to use Turkey's Incirlik air base. Subsequently, Erdogan reminded the world that the PKK is also considered a terrorist organization and as such, the anti-ISIS campaign would also include a crackdown on Kurdish militants operating in Turkey. Erdogan proceeded to focus squarely on the PKK, all but ignoring ISIS while simultaneously undercutting the coalition building process on the way to calling for new elections. Unsurprisingly, AKP put on a much better showing in the electoral redo, and with that, Erdogan had succeeded in using ISIS as a smokescreen to start a civil war with the PKK, in the process frightening voters into restoring his party's grip on power.

Through it all, the PKK has suggested that Ankara is and always has been in bed with Islamic State. That contention will come as no surprise to those who frequent these pages. It's common knowledge that Turkey backs the FSA and participates in the US/Saudi-led effort to supply Syrian rebels with weapons, money, and training. Indeed, those weapons were on full display Tuesday when the FSA's 1st Coastal Brigade used a US-made TOW to destroy a Russian search and rescue helicopter. That came just hours after the Turkmen FSA-allied Alwiya al-Ashar militia posted a video of its fighters celebrating over the body of an ejected Russian pilot.

In short, Turkey has made a habit out of supporting anyone and everyone who opposes Assad in Syria and that includes ISIS. In fact, if one were to rank the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in order of who is suspected of providing the most assistance to Islamic State, Turkey would likely top the list. Here's what Vladimir Putin had to say earlier today after Turkey downed the Russian Su-24:

  • PUTIN: OIL FROM ISLAMIC STATE IS BEING SHIPPED TO TURKEY
  • PUTIN SAYS ISLAMIC STATE GETS CASH BY SELLING OIL TO TURKEY
  • PUTIN: ISLAMIC STATE GETS MILITARY SUPPORT FROM MANY STATES

It's with all of this in mind that we bring you excerpts from a new piece by Nafeez Ahmed who, you're reminded, penned a lengthy expose earlier this year explaining how the US views ISIS as a "strategic asset." In his latest, Ahmed takes a close look at the relationship between Ankara and Islamic State. The evidence is truly damning.

* * *

From "NATO is harbouring the Islamic State: Why France's brave new war on ISIS is a sick joke, and an insult to the victims of the Paris attacks," by Nafeez Ahmed, originally published in Medium

"We stand alongside Turkey in its efforts in protecting its national security and fighting against terrorism. France and Turkey are on the same side within the framework of the international coalition against the terrorist group ISIS." --Statement by French Foreign Ministry, July 2015

The 13th November Paris massacre will be remembered, like 9/11, as a defining moment in world history.

The murder of 129 people, the injury of 352 more, by 'Islamic State' (ISIS) acolytes striking multiple targets simultaneously in the heart of Europe, mark a major sea-change in the terror threat.

For the first time, a Mumbai-style attack has occurred on Western soil?-?the worst attack on Europe in decades. As such, it has triggered a seemingly commensurate response from France: the declaration of a nationwide state of emergency, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1961 Algerian war.

ISIS has followed up with threats to attack Washington and New York City.

Meanwhile, President Hollande wants European Union leaders to suspend the Schengen Agreement on open borders to allow dramatic restrictions on freedom of movement across Europe. He also demands the EU-wide adoption of the Passenger Name Records (PNR) system allowing intelligence services to meticulously track the travel patterns of Europeans, along with an extension of the state of emergency to at least three months.

Under the extension, French police can now block any website, put people under house arrest without trial, search homes without a warrant, and prevent suspects from meeting others deemed a threat.

"We know that more attacks are being prepared, not just against France but also against other European countries," said the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. "We are going to live with this terrorist threat for a long time."

Hollande plans to strengthen the powers of police and security services under new anti-terror legislation, and to pursue amendments to the constitution that would permanently enshrine the state of emergency into French politics. "We need an appropriate tool we can use without having to resort to the state of emergency," he explained.

Parallel with martial law at home, Hollande was quick to accelerate military action abroad, launching 30 airstrikes on over a dozen Islamic State targets in its de facto capital, Raqqa.

[...]

Conspicuously missing from President Hollande's decisive declaration of war, however, was any mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship.

Syrian passports discovered near the bodies of two of the suspected Paris attackers, according to police sources, were fake, and likely forged in Turkey.

Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS. The figure, according to the US Army's Foreign Studies Military Office (FSMO), is likely exaggerated, but corroborated "by Uighurs captured with Turkish passports in Thailand and Malaysia."

[...]

A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer from a major raid on an ISIS safehouse told the Guardian that "direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now 'undeniable.'"

The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. "The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed," said the official. "There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both."

In a rare insight into this brazen state-sponsorship of ISIS, a year ago Newsweek reported the testimony of a former ISIS communications technician, who had travelled to Syria to fight the regime of Bashir al-Assad.

The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross the "border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February." ISIS militants would freely travel "through Turkey in a convoy of trucks," and stop "at safehouses along the way."

The former ISIS communication technician also admitted that he would routinely "connect ISIS field captains and commanders from Syria with people in Turkey on innumerable occasions," adding that "the people they talked to were Turkish officials… ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks."

In January, authenticated official documents of the Turkish military were leaked online, showing that Turkey's intelligence services had been caught in Adana by military officers transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition via truck "to the al-Qaeda terror organisation" in Syria.

According to other ISIS suspects facing trial in Turkey, the Turkish national military intelligence organization (MIT) had begun smuggling arms, including NATO weapons to jihadist groups in Syria as early as 2011.

The allegations have been corroborated by a prosecutor and court testimony of Turkish military police officers, who confirmed that Turkish intelligence was delivering arms to Syrian jihadists from 2013 to 2014.

Documents leaked in September 2014 showed that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had financed weapons shipments to ISIS through Turkey. A clandestine plane from Germany delivered arms in the Etimesgut airport in Turkey and split into three containers, two of which were dispatched to ISIS.

A report by the Turkish Statistics Institute confirmed that the government had provided at least $1 million in arms to Syrian rebels within that period, contradicting official denials. Weapons included grenades, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, firearms, ammunition, hunting rifles and other weapons?-?but the Institute declined to identify the specific groups receiving the shipments.

Information of that nature emerged separately. Just two months ago, Turkish police raided a news outlet that published revelations on how the local customs director had approved weapons shipments from Turkey to ISIS.

Turkey has also played a key role in facilitating the life-blood of ISIS' expansion: black market oil sales. Senior political and intelligence sources in Turkey and Iraq confirm that Turkish authorities have actively facilitated ISIS oil sales through the country.

Last summer, Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People's Party, estimated the quantity of ISIS oil sales in Turkey at about $800 million?-?that was over a year ago.

By now, this implies that Turkey has facilitated over $1 billion worth of black market ISIS oil sales to date.

[...]

The liberal Turkish daily Taraf quoted an AKP founder, Dengir Mir Mehmet F?rat, admitting: "In order to weaken the developments in Rojova [Kurdish province in Syria] the government gave concessions and arms to extreme religious groups…the government was helping the wounded. The Minister of Health said something such as, it's a human obligation to care for the ISIS wounded."

The paper also reported that ISIS militants routinely receive medical treatment in hospitals in southeast Turkey-?including al-Baghdadi's right-hand man.

[...]

Meanwhile, NATO leaders feign outrage and learned liberal pundits continue to scratch their heads in bewilderment as to ISIS' extraordinary resilience and inexorable expansion.

[...]

As Professor David Graeber of London School of Economics pointed out:

"Had Turkey placed the same kind of absolute blockade on Isis territories as they did on Kurdish-held parts of Syria… that blood-stained 'caliphate' would long since have collapsed?-?and arguably, the Paris attacks may never have happened. And if Turkey were to do the same today, Isis would probably collapse in a matter of months. Yet, has a single western leader called on Erdo?an to do this?"

[...]

In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2014, General Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked by Senator Lindsay Graham whether he knew of "any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL"?

General Dempsey replied:

"I know major Arab allies who fund them."

In other words, the most senior US military official at the time had confirmed that ISIS was being funded by the very same "major Arab allies" that had just joined the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.

These allies include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait in particular.

[...]

Porous links between some Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, Islamist militant groups like al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and ISIS, have enabled prolific weapons transfers from 'moderate' to Islamist militants.

The consistent transfers of CIA-Gulf-Turkish arms supplies to ISIS have been documented through analysis of weapons serial numbers by the UK-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR), whose database on the illicit weapons trade is funded by the EU and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

[...]

ISIS, in other words, is state-sponsored?-?indeed, sponsored by purportedly Western-friendly regimes in the Muslim world, who are integral to the anti-ISIS coalition.

Which then begs the question as to why Hollande and other Western leaders expressing their determination to "destroy" ISIS using all means necessary, would prefer to avoid the most significant factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS' emergence in the context of ongoing Gulf and Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region.

WTFRLY

Every alternative theory about Syria and ISIS, Serena Shim proved, on video. They killed her the same day as those airdrops to the Kurds where one was confirmed to fall into ISIS hands...

White House, Media Silent One Year After Murder of US Reporter Who Exposed Western Links to ISIS October 20, 2015

Hugh G Rection

Remember when neocon intellectuals were talking about using proxy forces to "roll back" Syria in 1996? Good thing for Israel most mouth breathing morons only get their news from the zio box.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm

earleflorida

"Azerbaijan?' and Oil-- smack in the middle of the 'Silk Highway'...

http://us.wow.com/wiki/Israel-Azerbaijan_relations

http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-and-azerbaijan-geopolitical-reasons-for-stronger-ties-2/

this should give some color on a creepy`Mossad' Bibi

(does *cuibono want a 'bibi?) southpark

earleflorida

"Paris: Made in Libya, not Syria?" by Peter Lee

http://atimes.com/2015/11/paris-made-in-libya-not-syria/

[Nov 25, 2015] Turkeys Shootdown of Russian Jet What You Need to Know

Notable quotes:
"... Overt military response is unlikely, except that from now on any Turkish AF aircraft that enters Syrian airspace would be summarily destroyed. ..."
"... Obama remarked that if Putin stopped bombing "moderate" Syrian rebels, then Russian planes wouldn't get shot down. Judging from that remark, it would seem that the Turks and USA want to force the Russians to back away from bombing Nusra positions anywhere near the Turkish border, i.e. a de facto no-fly zone. ..."
"... Certainly there was nothing accidental or unforeseen about the Turkish attack. The Turks fully intended to attack some Russian aircraft and were waiting for an opportunity. ..."
"... The Syrian War is growing past the stage of proxy war. This is now heading toward conventional confrontation between powers. Few of the current world leaders have relevant experience during their lifetimes of either waging such wars, or of avoiding them. ..."
"... Obama's remarks certainly made me wonder if the the Turks had the green light from Washington. He also returned to the standard demand that Assad must go. His remarks appeared to put the blame on Russia and certainly won't help matters. I wouldn't put it pass the neocons that shooting down a Russian plane is all just part of the gameplan. ..."
"... What gets me is that this likely means that Erdogan is getting a much stronger grip on Turkish military, which historically was the only thing that held Turkey secular (in fact, it felt it was its mission from Kemal Ataturk). Or, in what could be even scarier is that military did this deliberately assuming any Putin's reaction would target Erdogan much more than the military, in which case a phrase "rogue generals playing with a nuclear power" comes to mind. ..."
"... As mentioned above, the best response Russia could make right now is to help Kurds with weapons/supplies and establishing no-fly zone over Syria's Kurds. Since Kurds are officially seen by most of the West as "good" (let's ignore the need to have everything black and white for a second), it would be very hard for Turkey to object, even if Russia shoots down some Turkish planes/helicopters over Syria. ..."
"... The governments of "new" members in the Balkans and even Central Europe may say whatever they want, they are figureheads. The populace will not allow any situation where they enter a war against Russia on behalf of Turkey. Too much bad history there, for six centuries now. In Bulgaria the man on the street is right now in a very bad mood and very anti-turk. ..."
"... Here, on the street, everyone see Turkey as an emerging Islamist menace, looking to grab some land in Europe. ..."
"... The Russian bomber shot down is one of the cascade of catastrophic events that started with the West's determination to destabilize Eurasia with proxy neo-Nazi and Jihadist forces and Russia's counter intervention into Syria. ..."
"... Its pretty clear that the Turks deliberately decided to attack a Russian plane in revenge for earlier Russian incursions, hoping that NATO membership protects them from a counter response. The historical analogies that come to mind are numerous – from Armenians carrying out attacks on Turks hoping that 'Christian powers' would come to their aid when the Turks retaliated, to Paul Pot attacking the Vietnamese assuming that China would come to his aid. Both those didn't exactly end well. ..."
"... He can do lots of things to make things more difficult for Turkey. Other people in this thread noted gas deliveries, tourist income, exports and those are a nice place to start. And how about arming the YPG/PKK; now that would be some poetic justice right there. ..."
"... I think Putin is probably, unfortunately, the most rational leader out of a sad bunch. I think the Russian response will be graduated: Cutting tourism, sabotaging Turkish exports with bureaucracy, Russian gas contracts will face sudden bureaucratic difficulties, later the Kurds may suddenly be much better armed and Russia will certainly bomb the everliving shit out of the entire "Turkish terrorist infrastructure" right along the borders, this time going with fighter escorts and perhaps even full ECM support (If they go with ECM support, *that* would be ominous indeed, once these systems are used, they get measured and analyzed, counter-counter measures come up and it's back to the lab for another 20 years). ..."
"... The danger to Russia is that the Turks close the Bophorus. Huge amounts of Russian trade and oil, and their supplies to Syria, ship through this point. ..."
"... The Turks can't and won't close the Bosphorus over economic sanctions. They can try over an eventual shoot-down of a Turkish jet over Syria, but then again the very presence of Turkish jets conducting bombing runs inside Syria is an act of aggression and unless Erdogan wants a Kurdish insurgency armed by Russia inside Turkey proper he won't try to close the shipping lanes. ..."
"... 'The difference between "attack" and "defense" can be infinitesimal, especially if you control the media.' ..."
"... Are the Turks the wild card or is this NATO's project green light? This seems more in line with the Russians must pay for Snowden, Crimea, and Assad than Turkey going off the reservation. ISIL is once again a secondary consideration as Russia must be further backed into a corner. Holland's request that Obama join Russia seems to have been conveniently preempted by world events. Putin is learning that there is no greater crime than embarrassing the West. ..."
"... McInerney said that while he was a NORAD commander in Alaska they would never have done anything like this. ..."
"... If one believes Sibel Edmonds analysis on Operation Gladio B, specifically centered on NATO and the CIAs fostering of criminal organizations to do their dirty work for them, extending so far as to breaking Interpols most wanted criminals out of prisons to work for them, then Turkeys role in fostering ISIS in Syria and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang make perfect sense. ..."
"... The question remains, who is actually conducting this asymmetric warfare? Who are the real puppet masters? My money is on the neocons and the MIC. ..."
"... Fast forward to last month and it is a Russian passenger jet blown up with 224 lives on board by ISIS - which most people know by now is funded, trained, and supplied by various parties including Langley. This week and this time it is a Russian jet fighting ISIS and its ilk shot down over the Syrian border by an actual NATO Turkish F16 jet. Then Youtube videos emerge of FSA rebels killing its ejected pilot and navigator. To crown the whole thing off, a Russian Search and Rescue helicopter is blown up with a US-made TOW missile. Provocations rarely come this extreme and so serendipitously for the provocateurs. ..."
naked capitalism
Krell,

Does Turkey think that Russia will just shut up and accept their dead? Seriously? Some of the articles in our Western media have been truly bad on this development and have been mocking both Putin and the Russians. The whole thing absolutely reeks of a set-up, including the destruction of that rescue helicopter. Whatever the Russians decide to do it will not end well for Turkey.

Putin might just decide to establish a protective umbrella over the Syrian Kurds and stop the Turks from bombing them. Will the Turks then complain to the UN or NATO when some of their aircraft are taken out whilst illegally flying uninvited over a foreign country (Syria) and bombing its citizens (Syrian Kurds)?

As for the Turkmen in Syria, I would not want to be them after murdering those pilots. Especially when they could have traded them to Russia for only 'light' treatment by the Russian military. Turkey apparently, has been wanting to take this part of Syria and fold it into Turkey. Not gunna happen now but I am guessing that the Islamist militants will be marked for special targeting now.

OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 12:28 am

Overt military response is unlikely, except that from now on any Turkish AF aircraft that enters Syrian airspace would be summarily destroyed. There will be a huge pressure from on Putin to send a few turks to meet their allah but such didn't work in Ukraine and won't work now.

Rather, the huge Russian tourist stream to Turkey will disappear, Turkish exports to Russia will be banned, gas supplies will be disrupted due to 'technical reasons' and 'pipeline maintenance', and various financial and government institutions will find themselves under a sustained electronic attacks.

In private Europe is horrified, regardless of what poodle Stoltenberg might say, and most blame Sultan Erdogan for the migrant crisis and for the subsequent blackmail of Europe by the neo-ottoman idiocracy in Ankara. This went too far, and came too soon after Paris, for even the lemmings not to notice whose side Turkey is really on. I am next door right now, and let's just say that the 'man on the street' opinion is harshly and violently anti-turk. Europe will soon be making a choice either way, and 0bama is not helping the US much with his peevish belligerence.

Bill Smith, November 25, 2015 at 7:00 am

Might be tricky doing that as other countries aircraft are staging out of Turkey to bomb targets in Syria.

OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 7:17 am

If Russia and Syria declare that any aircraft entering Syrian airspace from Turkey will be considered hostile and is therefore subject to being shot down, US and French aircraft will bug out and use the Med corridor, pending Russian and Syrian approval. Either way, it will be open season on Turkish jets in Syrian airspace. And rightly so, all Turkey does is enable ISIS by bombing the PKK and arming/oil trading with IS. Putin did not just state that Russia was stabbed in the back by terrorist enablers for nothing.

Roland, November 25, 2015 at 1:10 am

Obama remarked that if Putin stopped bombing "moderate" Syrian rebels, then Russian planes wouldn't get shot down. Judging from that remark, it would seem that the Turks and USA want to force the Russians to back away from bombing Nusra positions anywhere near the Turkish border, i.e. a de facto no-fly zone.

Certainly there was nothing accidental or unforeseen about the Turkish attack. The Turks fully intended to attack some Russian aircraft and were waiting for an opportunity.

The Syrian War is growing past the stage of proxy war. This is now heading toward conventional confrontation between powers. Few of the current world leaders have relevant experience during their lifetimes of either waging such wars, or of avoiding them.

My prediction is that Russia will fight much harder in Syria than would seem "rational." For Russia the question is whether or not they can sustain an alliance. For Russia the Syrian War is not just about Syria, it is about Belarus and other former Soviet republics.

I will be surprised if the Russians back off here. I wonder what the Turks will do when a future batch of Russian air strikes near the Turkish border all have proper fighter escort? Would the Turks engage in a full-fledged air superiority battle at the Syrian frontier?

Would the Russians risk exposing valuable electronic countermeasures assets to enemy observation and assessment, in anything less than a major war?

At any rate, ISIS leaders are chortling. These stupid big lugs are about to lurch into one another and send themselves brawling and sprawling. And all they had to do was shoot some concertgoers!

William C, November 25, 2015 at 8:50 am

The FT is reporting that Turkey has imposed an exclusion zone over Syrian airspace that runs fifteen miles into Syria.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy?

Jagger, November 25, 2015 at 9:47 am

Obama remarked that if Putin stopped bombing "moderate" Syrian rebels, then Russian planes wouldn't get shot down.
judging from that remark, it would seem that the Turks and USA want to force the Russians to back away from bombing Nusra positions anywhere near the Turkish border, i.e. a de facto no-fly zone.

Obama's remarks certainly made me wonder if the the Turks had the green light from Washington. He also returned to the standard demand that Assad must go. His remarks appeared to put the blame on Russia and certainly won't help matters. I wouldn't put it pass the neocons that shooting down a Russian plane is all just part of the gameplan.

Fajensen, November 25, 2015 at 2:22 am

Europe has been at war with Turkey – on and off – for about 1300 years.

It is pretty unlikely (and certain political suicide) that any European country will enter a war *for* Turkey, regardless of any NATO onligations. It's just not done!
The joker is of course the new NATO members (and Sweden) they are always gagging to have go at Russia – if they could just get the US to do all the work for them. Unfortunately, The US have enough bellicose crazies to like this idea.

vlade, November 25, 2015 at 4:16 am

The general feeling in what you call the "new NATO" countries (i.e. ex Soviet block) is that Turkey massively overstepped. They have deep seated (and historically very much justified) suspicion of Russia and its actions, but they like islamists even less, and Turkey's shift from secularism went much less unnoticed than in the rest of Europe/US. After all, Russia isn't the only one who invaded/occupied most of them during the last few hundreds of years..

What gets me is that this likely means that Erdogan is getting a much stronger grip on Turkish military, which historically was the only thing that held Turkey secular (in fact, it felt it was its mission from Kemal Ataturk). Or, in what could be even scarier is that military did this deliberately assuming any Putin's reaction would target Erdogan much more than the military, in which case a phrase "rogue generals playing with a nuclear power" comes to mind.

As mentioned above, the best response Russia could make right now is to help Kurds with weapons/supplies and establishing no-fly zone over Syria's Kurds. Since Kurds are officially seen by most of the West as "good" (let's ignore the need to have everything black and white for a second), it would be very hard for Turkey to object, even if Russia shoots down some Turkish planes/helicopters over Syria.

OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 5:36 am

Exactly. I imagine you are Serbian, I am from Bulgaria by birth and currently there on a short vacation. The governments of "new" members in the Balkans and even Central Europe may say whatever they want, they are figureheads. The populace will not allow any situation where they enter a war against Russia on behalf of Turkey. Too much bad history there, for six centuries now. In Bulgaria the man on the street is right now in a very bad mood and very anti-turk. Accordingly even the government figureheads are unusually subdued and cautious in what they say in reaction to the downing of the Russian jet. To put not too fine a point on it, people are scared of a nuclear conflagration and the situation is explosive.

fajensen, November 25, 2015 at 6:18 am

Sorry my mistake for generalizing.

I was thinking about Georgia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – which only last week (according to Danish media) were eager for "steps to be taken against Russia". Sweden would be totally eager to prove to the world (which actually don't care about Sweden) that they are *so totally not racists* that they (well, "they" being the official Sweden) will readily step up and defend any belief system, the more alien, obnoxious and perverse the better, for "proof of non-racistness". It's really, really weird and strange.

Here, on the street, everyone see Turkey as an emerging Islamist menace, looking to grab some land in Europe.

VietnamVet, November 25, 2015 at 3:57 am

The Russian bomber shot down is one of the cascade of catastrophic events that started with the West's determination to destabilize Eurasia with proxy neo-Nazi and Jihadist forces and Russia's counter intervention into Syria. There are five nuclear countries flying sorties over Syria; Russia, USA, Israel, France and the United Kingdom. World War III is underway but it is unacknowledged. If the rulers headquartered in London, Frankfurt, New York and Washington DC don't fear extinction from the ignition of hydrogen bombs overhead, then that is exactly what will happen. The War will inevitably escalate with no one trying to damp it down.

One alternative to destroying the Northern Hemisphere is to forget regime change and join in an alliance with Russia and the rest of the world to eliminate the Islamic State and quarantine radical Islam.

Plutoniumkun, November 25, 2015 at 5:32 am

Its pretty clear that the Turks deliberately decided to attack a Russian plane in revenge for earlier Russian incursions, hoping that NATO membership protects them from a counter response. The historical analogies that come to mind are numerous – from Armenians carrying out attacks on Turks hoping that 'Christian powers' would come to their aid when the Turks retaliated, to Paul Pot attacking the Vietnamese assuming that China would come to his aid. Both those didn't exactly end well.

I think the key danger here is Russia. Putin knows full well that Germany and France will not respond to a request for help from Turkey, no matter what NATO's agreements state. He may see it as an ideal opportunity to rip NATO apart. He may gamble that a strike against Turkey strong enough to humiliate it, but calculated enough to ensure that the the Germans/French won't join in (the UK will do whatever Obama tells them) would make the NATO agreement a dead letter. He may well succeed. The problem comes if he miscalculates.

drexciya, November 25, 2015 at 5:48 am

Turkey needs to be taken down a bit, so I wouldn't mind Putin learning Erdogan a lesson. But I think Putin is more subtle. He can do lots of things to make things more difficult for Turkey. Other people in this thread noted gas deliveries, tourist income, exports and those are a nice place to start. And how about arming the YPG/PKK; now that would be some poetic justice right there.

vlade, November 25, 2015 at 5:59 am

strike directly against Turkey? that would escalate massively, and could backfire like Polish invasion in WW2, where Hitler thought allies would just roll over as ever before. Except they didn't. Rest assured that this similarity would be drawn out very quickly.

On the other hand, shooting down a Turkish jet or three over Syria, especially if the jets were bombing Kurds, now that would make a different story. Mind you, even that would be a large esaclation but unlikely to draw in NATO...

fajensen, November 25, 2015 at 6:40 am

NATO should have croaked along with the USSR. I'm quite fine with NATO splitting at the seams – because – right now it's a bunch of obsolete war-planners looking for some fight to justify their continued existence, any fight, in fact, NATO today is pretty much a mercenary force for the USA. No way nearly enough equipped for taking on any serious opponent, but good enough for bombing the shit out of places with poor air defense and weak friends. Of course 50% of the population feels the exact opposite way.

I think Putin is probably, unfortunately, the most rational leader out of a sad bunch. I think the Russian response will be graduated: Cutting tourism, sabotaging Turkish exports with bureaucracy, Russian gas contracts will face sudden bureaucratic difficulties, later the Kurds may suddenly be much better armed and Russia will certainly bomb the everliving shit out of the entire "Turkish terrorist infrastructure" right along the borders, this time going with fighter escorts and perhaps even full ECM support (If they go with ECM support, *that* would be ominous indeed, once these systems are used, they get measured and analyzed, counter-counter measures come up and it's back to the lab for another 20 years).

Maybe the Greek's will see an opportunity to pop one off at one of the many, many Turkish violations of Greek airspace?

OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 6:54 am

The turks violate Greek airspace several thousand times a year. It's the turkish version of American exceptionalism.

Jim Haygood, November 25, 2015 at 9:24 am

'NATO – right now it's a bunch of obsolete war-planners looking for some fight to justify their continued existence, any fight.'

Amen, bro. WW I demonstrated how strategic alliances with mutual defense guarantees could escalate disastrously.

NATO lost its reason for existence when the USSR collapsed. Then it began violating its own treaty with "out of area" aggression (Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan).

Clearly, NATO has degenerated into a rogue organization, serving as a fig leaf for US military occupation of Europe 70 years after the war ended. Will Europe ever develop enough backbone to expel its American occupiers?

russell1200, November 25, 2015 at 8:40 am

The danger to Russia is that the Turks close the Bophorus. Huge amounts of Russian trade and oil, and their supplies to Syria, ship through this point.

It is the obvious response to a too forceful response, and obviously escalates in an extreme way.

OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 8:54 am

The Turks can't and won't close the Bosphorus over economic sanctions. They can try over an eventual shoot-down of a Turkish jet over Syria, but then again the very presence of Turkish jets conducting bombing runs inside Syria is an act of aggression and unless Erdogan wants a Kurdish insurgency armed by Russia inside Turkey proper he won't try to close the shipping lanes. Erdogan is nuts but I don't think he is that stupid. In any case, as a native Bulgarian I view a non-Kemalist, islamist, sultan erdogan-led turkey as a danger for regional and global peace and in such case I won't mind one bit the return of Constantinople to Greece and to Orthodox christendom.

nothing but the truth, November 25, 2015 at 7:12 am

you will definitely see SAM missiles being launched against Turkish aircraft from Syrian border areas.

The way NATO is set up it will inevitably lead to a member country pulling everyone into a world war.

The difference between "attack" and "defense" can be infinitesimal, especially if you control the media.

NATO members will push Russia till it retaliates, then all NATO says "game on" and WWW3 is in full mode.

Turkey wouldnt dare do this unless it was part of NATO. So NATO basically has increased member bellicosity and misadventurism.

Jim Haygood, November 25, 2015 at 9:31 am

'The difference between "attack" and "defense" can be infinitesimal, especially if you control the media.'

Our brave stenographers on the front lines of the media battle already are producing telling strikes, such as this morning's NYT article asserting Turkey's 'nuanced reasons' for attacking Russia's aircraft.

Huddled in our bomb shelters, we can draw comfort from the majestic chords of the media's Mighty Wurlitzer.

ex-PFC Chuck, November 25, 2015 at 7:29 am

The Russian responses under Putin will be subtle, strategic surprises, and most likely effective just as they have been in the Ukraine situation. But they will be short of anything that gives cause to the Erdogan regime to formally declare war. Otherwise Turkey will be legally entitled to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to Russian shipping, which would greatly complicate their conduct of operations in Syria. As has been said many times in the past two years, he is playing chess while his opponents are at best capable of something between tic tac toe and checkers.

hemeantwell, November 25, 2015 at 8:35 am

Right. Putin has a many options and he will not react in so headstrong a way as to lose them. Erdogan was able - accusations of vote rigging aside - to boost AKP support through crisis escalation. The shoot down is in a strong sense more of the same. But now Putin can work to isolate Turkey from the rest of NATO, undercut Turkey's already struggling economy, justify aid to the Kurds. I wonder what Erdogan's domestic opposition will do with this. Does anyone know what Gulen and his supporters think?

Jagger, November 25, 2015 at 9:59 am

Right. Putin has a many options and he will not react in so headstrong a way as to lose them.

The problem is public opinion in Russia. They will expect a response and Putin must respond in such a manner that he doesn't get assassinated or couped out of a job because he did not respond forcefully. Putin is a competent or better leader but not invulnerable.

ltr, November 25, 2015 at 7:40 am

An absolute disgrace. Turkey has been encouraging and supporting the destruction of the Syrian government for years and is supporting the destructive insurgents in Syria. Turkey has betrayed the rest of NATO and betrayed Russia.

Dino Reno, November 25, 2015 at 8:43 am

Are the Turks the wild card or is this NATO's project green light? This seems more in line with the Russians must pay for Snowden, Crimea, and Assad than Turkey going off the reservation. ISIL is once again a secondary consideration as Russia must be further backed into a corner. Holland's request that Obama join Russia seems to have been conveniently preempted by world events. Putin is learning that there is no greater crime than embarrassing the West.

Cabreado

"Meanwhile, NATO leaders feign outrage and learned liberal pundits continue to scratch their heads in bewilderment as to ISIS' extraordinary resilience and inexorable expansion."

The most important dynamic in play...

And the most important response is to (re)arrange your thinking to vigorously protect the Principles, because this next war is also set to rip this place apart from within.

Demdere

Pretty clear case of Treason, I believe.

http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A3Sec3.html

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder ofTreason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

------

The problem will be sorting out who to charge. If the CIA has cooperated with ISIS, and is therefore, as an agency, guilty of Treason, are all of the other people in government who gave any in the CIA aid and comfort also guilty?

I think we should err on the side of justice here, and charge them all.

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/ghandis-terrorists/

Just to remind everyone that this is a psyops game, and that anyone can play. As a systems guy and player of games, I assure you that our distributed side of a periphery-vs-cental side of an evolutionary arms race is a guaranteed win. It is our ingenuity against theirs, them mostly bureaucracies.

But we will become very poor.

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/patriot-games/

news printer
McInerney: Turkey Shooting Down Russian Plane Was a 'Very Bad Mistake'

McInerney said that while he was a NORAD commander in Alaska they would never have done anything like this.

"This airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the territory," McInerney said. "It was probably pressing the limits, that's fair. But you don't shoot 'em down just because of that."

http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/11/24/lt-gen-mcinerney-turkey-shooting-down-russian-plane-was-very-bad-mistake

YHC-FTSE

If one believes Sibel Edmond's analysis on Operation Gladio B, specifically centered on NATO and the CIA's fostering of criminal organizations to do their dirty work for them, extending so far as to breaking Interpol's most wanted criminals out of prisons to work for them, then Turkey's role in fostering ISIS in Syria and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang make perfect sense. It compliments the efforts of the war hawks in Washington who benefit from conflict: The neocon zionazis, the MIC and others (Israel foremost, but Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Turkey who use the fear of terrorism as a pretext to keep them in power and excuse their military expansion)

The question remains, who is actually conducting this asymmetric warfare? Who are the real puppet masters? My money is on the neocons and the MIC.

Whoever it may be, a pattern of behaviour is emerging to start a major world war by poking at Russia to the extreme point of no return. Consider Ukraine and its PM: Yatsenyuk (Supported by US State Dept Victoria Nuland and NATO as the face of the Kiev coup) announcing on national tv that he would burn all Russian speakers alive. Then this actually taking place all over Ukraine, most famously at Odessa perpetrated by another Zionazi and Israeli dual national Igor Kolomoisky. Even the current president Poroshenko now admits that the 2014 euromaidan "revolution" was a coup d'etat. As if this wasn't incitement enough, we've had almost a continuous diet of MSM demonization of Putin with several hundred fake "Russian invasion" reports and the downing of MH17. At the same time, NATO mechanized troops have been gathering (In the case of Baltic States) a mere few hundred feet from the Russian border.

Fast forward to last month and it is a Russian passenger jet blown up with 224 lives on board by "ISIS" - which most people know by now is funded, trained, and supplied by various parties including Langley. This week and this time it is a Russian jet fighting ISIS and its ilk shot down over the Syrian border by an actual NATO Turkish F16 jet. Then Youtube videos emerge of FSA rebels killing its ejected pilot and navigator. To crown the whole thing off, a Russian Search and Rescue helicopter is blown up with a US-made TOW missile. Provocations rarely come this extreme and so serendipitously for the provocateurs.

My two cents: There is a pattern to provoke a direct major war with Russia by Victoria Nuland/Kagan and her ilk. It's insane and it's happening. This latest incident is a lure to force Russia into rash action that will be used as the "proof" that has been so lacking to date to demonize Putin in the msm worldwide to hearten the public to taste the blood of war. Sadly, it is delusional to think anyone will survive the full scale nuclear exchange this war may initiate. The tiny portion of humanity left will most likely be rendered sterile by the radiation from thousands of broken and unattended nuclear power stations around the globe. It's game over if this is allowed to continue. But maybe sanity will prevail and it will be a footnote in the annals of close calls.

HowdyDoody

Turkey was also up to its neck in supporting Chechen jihadists used against Russia. They were both a transit route and a location for training camps.

Anunnaki

http://atimes.com/2015/11/turkey-gets-toehold-on-syrian-territory-finally/

It's worse than we think. Obama has given Erdogan the go ahead to seize Syrian Turkmen villages at the G20 gathering

Shooting the plane down in Syrian territory is ipso facto a Turkish No Fly Zone

That is why it has happened now. Expect Turkish vs Russian air battles as Turkey defends its ill gotten gains.

Dr. Bonzo

Very credible mainstream-available evidence links the 9/11 attacks to the CIA, Mossad, Pakistani intelligence and Saudi Arabia. Why should we be surprised? The PNAC policy paper stated plain as day for all to read regime change in Syria, Iraq and Iran. A casual look back at the mideast wars of the last 14 years suggest this very dynamic was at play and remains at play. That the mideast becomes even more destabilized isn't considered an issue of consequence. This is the chief miscalculation by the Masters of the Universe. Israel is territorially not large enough to survive a serious nuclear attack, and the increased nuclear proliferation and enmity engendered by this fucktarded regime change obsession all but guarantees this outcome. It's not an issue of if, but when.

Phillyguy

The goal of US/NATO (including France)/GCC is regime change in Syria. This goal has not changed, Paris attacks notwithstanding. Turkey functions as a US/NATO vassal state, doing the west's bidding. Sultan Erdogan's dreams of a neo-Ottoman empire may well end up turning Turkey in a smoldering mass of rubble.

dogismycopilot

ISIS is setting up a Consulate in Istabul: http://awdnews.com/top-news/islamic-state-isis-to-open-its-first-consula...

grunk

It's time for the media to rehabilitate the ISIS image from fanatical extremists into fierce fighters for liberty.

JohnFrodo

The takeover of Rushbaldi revealed the facts above long ago.

Mike Masr
What is ISIS? A U.S. smokescreen for regime change and war ops

http://novorossia.today/what-is-isis-a-u-s-smokescreen-for-regime-change...

[Nov 25, 2015] Russian foreign minster calls plane downing 'planned provocation'

www.washingtonpost.com

Lavrov's comments offered the clearest signals that Moscow views the downing as more than an accidental mishap while Russia steps up its airstrikes in Syria to support the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey and its Western allies have backed rebel groups seeking to topple Assad in Syria's nearly five-year civil war. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, have raised worries about possible mishaps between Russia's air campaign and a U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State.

... ... ...

"We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation," Lavrov said after discussions with Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu. Lavrov did not elaborate on Moscow's claims.

... ... ...

Moscow further alleged at Turkey was sheltering the Islamic State from Russian attacks. "A stab in the back from the accomplices of terrorism," said Putin on Tuesday.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday warned that the "damage will be hard to repair." Russian officials have raised possible responses such as a ban on Turkish airlines or canceling a proposed gas pipeline between the two countries.

So far, however, Russia has not taken any steps other than to recommend Russian tourists not visit Turkey. Russian tour operators have cancelled most of their packages to Turkish resorts, the Interfax news service reported. More than 3 million tourists visited the popular vacation destination from Russia last year.

[Nov 25, 2015] An Invisible US Hand Leading to War Turkey's Downing of a Russian Jet was an Act of Madness

www.counterpunch.org

Russia - knowing that this is really not about Turkey, but about push-back by the US against growing Russian power and influence, both globally and in the Middle East region - could also choose to respond in a venue where it has more of an advantage, for example in Ukraine, where it could amp up its support for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps by downing a Ukrainian military plane, or more broadly, providing air cover to protect those regions. Russia could also, less directly, provide aid to Kurdish rebels in both Syria and in Turkey itself who are fighting against Turkish forces.

I'm sure there are plenty of other options available to Russia also to turn the screws against both Turkey and NATO, without openly pushing buttons that could lead to a direct confrontation with the US and its NATO fiction. Working in Russia's favor is that the US aside, the European nations of NATO have no desire to be at war with Russia. There are clearly hotheads in the US Congress, the Pentagon, and perhaps even within the neo-con-infested Obama administration, who are pushing for just such a mad showdown. But in Europe, where the actual fighting would mostly occur, and where memories are still strong of the destructive power of war, there is no taste for such insanity. It could, in fact, have been a big error in the long run for the US to push Turkey into such a deadly provocation, if it leads to more anti-American sentiment among the citizens of such key NATO countries as France, Germany, Italy and Britain.

Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

[Nov 25, 2015] 17 Seconds That Changed The World - Leaked Letter Exposes Turkeys Hair-Trigger Reality

Notable quotes:
"... Either way, Turkey seems to have tipped their hand, and that is probably VASTLY more important to how this plays out than the death of a pilot in an armed conflict. ..."
"... All Russia has to do is stay a few miles from the border and keep blowing shit up and killing assholes. ..."
"... Economics and finance is how this war is being fought. Syria is just the hot spot. Look for action on the banking, finance, trade, and economic front. It is coming. ..."
"... Stop all the chatter and simply as, Cui Bono? The answer... as always in deceptive operations like this - is the same. ..."
"... Erdogan set a fucked up precedent for world stability and the West hasn't heard the last of the rhetoric it used in defending his insane actions. Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace. -Barack Obama ..."
"... [stated after Turkey destroyed a Russian jet, which resulted in the death of at least one of the pilots, while the jet was conducting anti-terror operations in Syria against ISIS - admitted bombers of a Russian civilian airliner] ..."
"... Russia, Iran, Syria will prevail because they must prevail. There is no alternative for them. Putin is a very cautious man despite being displayed as hazardeur by western presstitute media. He knows exactly what he is doing and he will be doing it until the logical goal has been reached. For a psychopath like Erdogan, longing for Ottoman empire 2.0 ruled by a mixture of muslim brothers like himself and Turkey-style Wahabists, losing control over the airspace over Syria near the border to Turkey is absolutely inacceptable. By ordering to shoot down that SU-24 Erdogan made a big strategic miscalculation and simply accelerated his complete loss of control, i.e., what he fears most. ..."
"... For Russia it comes as a gift: It has now all reasons to set up a total no-fly zone over North Syria referring to today's incident. And no power in the world can prevent Russia from doing this. ..."
"... That F16 was on an intercept course, it wasn't patrolling up and down the border. That shooting was a deliberate act especially as it took place inside Syrian airspace. ..."
"... You really think Turkey did this without American neocon plotting via NATO via Turkey? All on their own? ..."
"... Apparently Russians are a big source of Tourist income for Turkey. And then, there is all that ISIS blood-oil flowing through Turkey which will now be stopped by Russian carpet bombing of ISIS tankers. ..."
"... Also its going to be awfully hard for Turkish planes to raid into Syria, what with the Russians waiting to mistakenly shoot them down and have local rebels shoot Turkish pilots. ..."
"... One thing I keep meaning to look into, before all my mentors and sources kick the bucket... and I can no longer kick the can, is what the level of Turkish involvement in the various disturbances in the Caucasus actually after the collapse of the Soviet Union. People write about Saudi Arabia's ideological ties, but in the rush to extract Caspian energy for the west, some of those projects took suspicious turns for the strategic benefit of Ankara. ..."
"... The F16 was loitering waiting for the chance to pounce. No way was this anything innocent and baloney about Turkey defending its air space is retard-spew. ..."
"... The preponderance of facts as we now have them would indicate in Russia's favor. ..."
"... They seem to indeed be trying to pull NATO in on Article 5. ..."
"... Mr Erdogan spoke of Turkey's rage at the decision to shoot down the F-4 Phantom on 22 June and described Syria as a clear and present threat . A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack, he said. ..."
Zero Hedge
The highlighted passage reads: "Disregarding these warnings, both planes, at an altitude of 19,000 feet, violated Turkish national airspace to a depth of 1.36 miles and 1.15 miles in length for 17 seconds from 9:24:05 local time."

So, as RT notes, even if we buy Turkey's story (i.e. if we accept that Russia actually did violate Turkish airspace), then it would appear that Ankara has something of an itchy trigger finger. That is, Turkey was apparently willing to risk sparking a wider conflict between NATO and Russia over a 17 second incursion.

But something doesn't sound right.

In other words, as Sputnik put it earlier this evening, "according to those numbers, the Su-24 would have had to be flying at stall speed."

The Su-24's max speed is 1,320 km/hour.

So if we assume the Su-24 was actually going much faster, was 17 seconds more like 5 seconds? Or perhaps even less?

It's important not to forget the context here. Ankara is fiercly anti-Assad and in addition to being generally displeased with Russia's efforts to support the regime, just four days ago, Turkey summoned Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov over the alleged bombing of Turkish villages near the border. "Turkey has asked Russia to 'immediately end its operation,'" AFP reported, adding that "Ankara warned bombing villages populated by the Turkmen minority in Syria could lead to 'serious consequences.'"

Of course Russia wasn't just bombing Turkish civilians for the sheer hell of it. It's likely Moscow was targeting the very same FSA-affiliated Alwiya al-Ashar militiamen who shot and killed the parachuting Russian pilot earlier today.

In short, it looks like Ankara saw an opportunity to shoot down a Russian jet in retaliation for strikes on Turkish rebel fighters who are operating alongside anti-Assad forces. Erdogan is essentially gambling that Russia will not retailiate militarily against Turkey because doing so would open the door for a direct confrontation with NATO.

Time will tell whether that gamble pays off or whether Moscow decides that the next time a Turkish F-16 gets "lost" over Latakia, a little payback is in order.

Femme Fatale

You got it all wrong. That's not what happened at all. Erdogan told Putin: "the Israelis wagged the Americans who wagged me, so what's a poor Turk to do?" >> https://goo.gl/qazI3V

-.-'s picture

Physics are a bitch Erdogan.

TahoeBilly2012

That's some cheeze whiz shit right there, Turkey supports ISIS, so does France....bastards, you kill your own people in cafes!!

Chuckster

Exactly...if you watch the Russians they are always slow to release information. It's like they enjoy letting the rest of the world make asses out of themselves then they come forth with powerful evidence. They have satellites so I expect to see some evidence of what they are saying in the future. In the meantime paybacks are a bitch.

highandwired

Russian defense ministry has already released the satellite info:

https://youtu.be/KGlJFoIBKQw?t=1m16s

CrazyCooter

In war, people die. Equipment is lost. It is fscking reality people. Maybe the pilot fscked up. Maybe they crossed the border and thought it wouldn't matter. Maybe they didn't and just got ambushed.

Either way, Turkey seems to have tipped their hand, and that is probably VASTLY more important to how this plays out than the death of a pilot in an armed conflict. Or, to quote Stalin, "One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic." Y'all won't be pity partying for the next 1,000 dead Russian pilots.

All Russia has to do is stay a few miles from the border and keep blowing shit up and killing assholes.

Economics and finance is how this war is being fought. Syria is just the "hot" spot. Look for action on the banking, finance, trade, and economic front. It is coming.

Good thing Turkey doesn't need Russia for goods, services, parts, energy, food, and shit like that.

Regards,

Cooter

J S Bach

Stop all the chatter and simply as, "Cui Bono?" The answer... as always in deceptive operations like this - is the same.

Supernova Born

They'll be some chagrin in Western capitals the day China starts quoting all this right of self-defense and defense of territory stuff when the next military ship intentionally cruises right past a Chinese base on the Senkakus or Spratleys.

"You are within Chinese territorial waters. You have 17 seconds to depart."

Erdogan set a fucked up precedent for world stability and the West hasn't heard the last of the rhetoric it used in defending his insane actions. "Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace." -Barack Obama

[stated after Turkey destroyed a Russian jet, which resulted in the death of at least one of the pilots, while the jet was conducting anti-terror operations in Syria against ISIS - admitted bombers of a Russian civilian airliner]

giovanni_f

No (I am unsure how such a US-centric crap even deserves the label "assessment"). Russia, Iran, Syria will prevail because they must prevail. There is no alternative for them. Putin is a very cautious man despite being displayed as hazardeur by western presstitute media. He knows exactly what he is doing and he will be doing it until the logical goal has been reached. For a psychopath like Erdogan, longing for Ottoman empire 2.0 ruled by a mixture of muslim brothers like himself and Turkey-style Wahabists, losing control over the airspace over Syria near the border to Turkey is absolutely inacceptable. By ordering to shoot down that SU-24 Erdogan made a big strategic miscalculation and simply accelerated his complete loss of control, i.e., what he fears most.

For Russia it comes as a gift: It has now all reasons to set up a total no-fly zone over North Syria referring to today's incident. And no power in the world can prevent Russia from doing this.

The answer to "cui bono" is Russia but as in chess it was the enemy to make the gift.

Hope that helps for you amateur geopoliticians.

Wile-E-Coyote

That F16 was on an intercept course, it wasn't patrolling up and down the border. That shooting was a deliberate act especially as it took place inside Syrian airspace. Now I expect Russia to hit anything with a pulse in that area, your move Turkey, but be careful Xmas is coming you could get a right stuffing.

an_indian

You really think Turkey did this without American neocon plotting via NATO via Turkey? All on their own?

Apparently Russians are a big source of Tourist income for Turkey. And then, there is all that ISIS blood-oil flowing through Turkey which will now be stopped by Russian carpet bombing of ISIS tankers.

Look for more such Turkish villages to be bombed in future and some of those bombs/missiles losing their way (like the cruise missile that supposedly landed in Iran) and landing on Turkish soil.

Also its going to be awfully hard for Turkish planes to raid into Syria, what with the Russians waiting to "mistakenly" shoot them down and have local rebels shoot Turkish pilots.

This is going to get really complicated real fast.

Urban Redneck

Perhaps nominally, but I think Turkey had the most, relatively, to lose. Petroleum is somewhat fungible, and the current glut notwithstanding, a buyer generally be can found near the current market price. The Turks, however, are traders and if a pipeline doesn't flow through Turkey, their cut is eliminated. One thing I keep meaning to look into, before all my mentors and sources kick the bucket... and I can no longer kick the can, is what the level of Turkish involvement in the various disturbances in the Caucasus actually after the collapse of the Soviet Union. People write about Saudi Arabia's ideological ties, but in the rush to extract Caspian energy for the west, some of those projects took suspicious turns for the strategic benefit of Ankara.

Max Steel

Here is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccENeRldkW4

The F16 was loitering waiting for the chance to pounce. No way was this anything innocent and baloney about "Turkey defending its air space" is retard-spew.

Most importantly they are not at war with each other so Turkish plane could have escorted them out but NOPE.

Turkey's airspace was violated 114 times in one year by Greek, Israeli, and Italian aircraft They somehow avoided shooting any down. "Air space violations are incidents that happen almost every day, and are resolved in a matter of minutes within international law," the Turkish General Staff said in a statement. Six airplanes violated Turkish airspace last week alone, the General Staff said, of which none were shot down and left Turkey's airspace after they were warned by Turkish personnel.

A violation of one to two kilometers is accepted as "natural" given the speed of aircraft, the statement said. This year's violations of Turkish airspace lasted between 20 seconds and nine minutes, which showed "airspace violations can be resolved by warning and interceptions," the statement said."

cheech_wizard

On a bright note:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/11/25/russia-halts-gas...

Last line in the article is priceless.

Temperatures in Ukraine where most homes rely on piped gas for central heating were below freezing Wednesday morning.

SmittyinLA

Russia won't retaliate against Turkey, they'll target Erdogan and his donors-personally like Israelis, behind the jihad are businessmen with assets and interests-that they're gonna lose shortly.

Financial punishment is coming for "friends of Erdogon"

Putin will make it personal, Russia doesn't do "calm", they do "stoic".

css1971

Sampling period. The turkish account of 17 seconds could be related to the sampling period on their monitoring system, but it looks like a large overestimation.

Now, if you look at the Russian realtime tracking, they clipped the border maybe, but didn't enter Turkish airspace :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cs8jdJKSGo

So it comes down to how accurate are the monitoring systems whether the plane entered Turkish airspace or not. He said, she said.

There's a different question though, even if you take the Turkish explanation. As a NATO member, do you shoot down planes :

1. That has entered your airspace literally for seconds and has clearly exited by the time you shoot it down that part is quite clear.

2. From a country which had an agreement in place ahead of time explicitly to prevent exactly this situation.

No, you don't. Unless you are explicitly and deliberately and cynically attempting to escalate the situation.

lakecity55

The preponderance of facts as we now have them would indicate in Russia's favor.

At the least, it would have taken more time for the Turks to set up the shot than any time the bomber may have been in their airspace. A needless provocation on Turkey's part. The math is very telling; at the claimed speed, the bomber would indeed be flying too slow. You can look the bomber's specs up on the intertubes.

They seem to indeed be trying to pull NATO in on Article 5.

jughead

Mr Erdogan spoke of Turkey's "rage" at the decision to shoot down the F-4 Phantom on 22 June and described Syria as a "clear and present threat". "A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack," he said.

whoopsie

Noplebian

The Road to WW3......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...

Last of the Middle Class

Definitely a speed trap waiting, got perfect video footage of the event too. hmmmmm. Turkey was protecting their RADICAL muslim brothers they do NOT want bombed. That is what happened and now the want NATO to intervene on their behalf. Fuck them to hell and back let Putin bomb their radical muslim asses too.

[Nov 25, 2015] Russia to deploy S-400 air defense system in Hmeimim airbase

sana.sy
Russian President Vladimir Putin approved deploying S-400 air defense system at the Russian airbase in Hmeimim in Lattakia, the Kremlin announced on Wednesday.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the President approved the Russian Defense Ministry's proposal to deploy the S-400 system, Russia's most advanced anti-aircraft defense system.

Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a Defense Ministry meeting that S-400 will be deployed in Hmeimim airbase after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed yesterday by an air-to-air missile launched from a Turkish F-16 fighter jet when it was returning from an anti-terrorist mission in the northern countryside of Lattakia.

The S-400 is employed to ensure air defense using long- and medium-range missiles that can hit aerial targets at ranges up to 400 kilometers. The S-400 is capable of hitting tactical and strategic aircraft as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. The system includes a set of radars, missile launchers and command posts, and is operated solely by the Russian military.

[Nov 25, 2015] Alarm bells toll for Turkish tourism sector over Russia crisis

www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Turkish tourism representatives have voiced concern after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov advised Russians on Nov. 24 not to visit Turkey, after Turkey downed of a Russian plane on the Syrian frontier.

Lavrov also said the threat of terrorism in Turkey was no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month.

Russia's tourism agency then recommended the suspension of package holiday sales to Turkey.

"This is no good. We cannot lose the Russian market, which is the second largest source of Turkey's tourism sector. We have already lost over 800,000 Russian tourists over this year due to economic woes in [Russia], and had to make significant cuts in hotel prices to overcome our losses in addition to other concessions. Despite this, we still cannot close the gap," said the head of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TUROFED), Osman Ayık.

... ... ...

While 3.3 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2014, Turkey saw a decrease of approximately 25 percent in the number of tourists from Russia and its neighbors over this year. However, Turkey did become more attractive for Russian tourists after Moscow suspended flights to Egypt.

Turkey's tourism revenues declined 4.4 percent, reaching only $12.29 billion in the third quarter, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) said on Oct. 30, amid security concerns and a decrease in the number of Russian tourists visiting the country.

[Nov 25, 2015] Why it was done? The simple answer is to put pressure on Russia to force it to withdraw from Syria

www.kp.ru
That Turkish F16 fighter pilot alone could not take a decision about the attack. Especially in the border area. Usually every opportunity is used to resolve the situation peacefully. The pilot of a Turkish fighter definitely got the order to land from very high command. But it is unlikely Turkey independently decided about the attack on Russian military aircraft. Most likely, the approval of this provocation was given on the Potomac river. Question: for what?

The simple answer is to put pressure on Russia to force it to withdraw from Syria. But the authors of this provocation here clearly miscalculated. First, in the near future we should expect increase of air strikes on sites under the control of the ISIS.

Secondly, bombers in Syria will no longer fly without cover of fighters, and every attempt of attack on our aircraft will get an adequate response. And finally, third, because Russia is the only invited to the military presence and aid the country's only legitimate government of Syria, now our air defenses and will be hard to clap each attempt any incursion into Syrian airspace by forces that we ourselves define as hostile.

[Nov 25, 2015] Turkey's Stab in the Back

Nov 25, 2015 Antiwar.com

This incident has revealed what the real sides are in the Syrian civil war: who is fighting whom, and for what. The Russian plane crashed into Syrian territory and one of the pilots was shot from the skies as he parachuted: this barbaric act was captured on video by the rebels, who are being reported as affiliated with the Turkmen "10th Brigade." This is just for public consumption, however: in reality, the area is controlled by an alliance of rebel forces dominated by the al-Nusra Front, which is the official Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda. The jihadists took control of the area in March of this year, and it has been the focal point of recent fighting between al-Qaeda and Syrian government forces backed by the Russian air offensive.

... ... ...

Putin's accusation that this is "a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" is absolutely correct – but he isn't just talking about Turkey, whose Islamist regime has been canoodling with the terrorists since the start of the Syria civil war. Washington and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar – who have been directly aiding ISIS as well as the "moderate" head-choppers – is indirectly responsible for the downing the Russian plane – including a barbaric attack on the rescue helicopter, which was downed by a US-provided TOW missile launcher.

... ... ...

it's the Americans who want a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis, not Putin....

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I've written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here

[Nov 25, 2015] Why Did Turkey Attack a Russian Plane

Notable quotes:
"... Why would the Turks do that? Because Russia is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, apparently with considerable success, and Turkey has been extremely persistent in their demands that he be removed. Al-Assad is seen by Turkey, rightly or wrongly, as a supporter of Kurdish militancy along the long and porous border with Turkey. This explains why Ankara has been lukewarm in its support of the campaign against ISIS, tacitly cooperating with the terrorist group, while at the same time focusing its own military effort against the Kurds, which it sees as an existential threat directed against the unity of the Turkish Republic. ..."
"... Would Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan do something so reckless? ..."
"... if his objective was to derail the creation of a unified front against terrorist and rebel groups in Syria and thereby weaken the regime in Damascus, he might just believe that the risk was worth the potential gain. ..."
The American Conservative

Why would the Turks do that? Because Russia is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, apparently with considerable success, and Turkey has been extremely persistent in their demands that he be removed. Al-Assad is seen by Turkey, rightly or wrongly, as a supporter of Kurdish militancy along the long and porous border with Turkey. This explains why Ankara has been lukewarm in its support of the campaign against ISIS, tacitly cooperating with the terrorist group, while at the same time focusing its own military effort against the Kurds, which it sees as an existential threat directed against the unity of the Turkish Republic.

Would Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan do something so reckless? Only he knows for sure, but if his objective was to derail the creation of a unified front against terrorist and rebel groups in Syria and thereby weaken the regime in Damascus, he might just believe that the risk was worth the potential gain.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

[Nov 24, 2015] Nato meets as Russia confirms one of two pilots dead after jet shot down - live updates

Notable quotes:
"... Turkey's international airports have also been busy. Many, if not most, of the estimated 15,000-20,000 foreign fighters to have joined the Islamic State (Isis) have first flown into Istanbul or Adana, or arrived by ferry along its Mediterranean coast. ..."
"... The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis. Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers. ..."
"... Lavrov, speaking to reporters in the southern Russian city of Sochi, advised Russians not to visit Turkey and said the threat of terrorism there was the no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month. ..."
"... One of the possible retaliatory measures Russia could take would be ban flights to Turkey, as Moscow did with Egypt after the Metrojet bombing over Sinai last month, writes Shaun Walker. There are dozens of flights a day between the two countries, so such a move would undoubtedly seriously affect trade and tourism. ..."
www.theguardian.com

Martin Chulov

When Putin labeled Turkey "accomplices of terrorists," he was hinting at complex relationship which includes links between senior Isis figures and Turkish officials, explains the Guardian's Martin Chulov in this analysis.
Turkey's international airports have also been busy. Many, if not most, of the estimated 15,000-20,000 foreign fighters to have joined the Islamic State (Isis) have first flown into Istanbul or Adana, or arrived by ferry along its Mediterranean coast.

The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis. Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers.

From midway through 2012, when jihadis started to travel to Syria, their presence was apparent at all points of the journey to the border. At Istanbul airport, in the southern cities of Hatay and Gaziantep – both of which were staging points – and in the border villages.

Foreigners on their way to fight remained fixtures on these routes until late in 2014 when, after continued pressure from the EU states and the US, coordinated efforts were made to turn them back.

Lavrov cancels planned visit to Turkey
No great surprise this, but Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has cancelled a planned visit to Turkey.

Lavrov was due to visit Ankara on Wednesday for bilateral talks. Turkish officials had insited it would go ahead as planned.

Lavrov, speaking to reporters in the southern Russian city of Sochi, advised Russians not to visit Turkey and said the threat of terrorism there was the no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month.

One of the possible retaliatory measures Russia could take would be ban flights to Turkey, as Moscow did with Egypt after the Metrojet bombing over Sinai last month, writes Shaun Walker. There are dozens of flights a day between the two countries, so such a move would undoubtedly seriously affect trade and tourism.

(That's it from me. I'm handling the live blog over to Mark Tran).

Shaun Walker

...Writing on Twitter Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament's international relations committee, said: "Ankara clearly did not weigh the consequences of its hostile acts for Turkey's interests and economy. The consequences will be very serious."

Here's video of Putin's response to the downing of the Russia jet:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/nov/24/vladimir-putin-turkey-russian-jet-video

Here are the key quotes from Putin's statement:

  • "The loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can't describe it in any other way."
  • "Our aircraft was downed over the territory of Syria, using air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16. It fell on the Syrian territory 4km from Turkey."
  • "Neither our pilots nor our jet threatened the territory of Turkey."
  • "Today's tragic event will have significant consequences, including for Russia-Turkish relations ... Instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours."
  • "Do they want to make Nato serve ISIS? ... We hope that the international community will find the strength to come together and fight against the common evil."

Summary

... ... ...

Russia's president Vladimir Putin has warned Turkey of 'serious consequences' after a Russia fighter jet was shot down close to Turkey's border with Syria. Putin described the incident as a "stab in the back" and accused Turkey of siding with Islamic State militants in Syria.

... ... ...

[Nov 24, 2015] Russo-Syrian Forces Close to Cutting Off ISILs Supply Routes From Turkey

Notable quotes:
"... "The endgame is at hand, and only the most desperate measures can hope to prevent Russia and Syria from finally securing Syria's borders. Turkey's provocation is just such a measure," he emphasizes. ..."
"... "As in the game of chess, a player often seeks to provoke their opponent into a series of moves," Cartalucci notes. ..."
sputniknews.com

Geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci draws attention to the fact that over the recent weeks Russian and Syrian forces have been steadily gaining ground in Syria, retaking territory from ISIL and al-Qaeda.

"The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has even begun approaching the Euphrates River east of Aleppo, which would effectively cut off ISIS [ISIL] from its supply lines leading out of Turkish territory," Cartalucci narrates in his latest article for New Eastern Outlook.

He explains that from there, Syrian troops with Russian air support would move north, into the very "safe zone" which Washington and Ankara have planned to carve out of Syria. Cartalucci points out that the "safe zone" includes a northern Syria area stretching from Jarabulus to Afrin and Al-Dana.

If Syrian troops establish their control over this zone, the Western plan of taking and holding the territory (with the prospect of further Balkanization of the region) would fall apart at the seams. In light of this, the regime change project, harbored by the West since the very beginning of the Syrian unrest, would be "indefinitely suspended," Cartalucci underscores.

"The endgame is at hand, and only the most desperate measures can hope to prevent Russia and Syria from finally securing Syria's borders. Turkey's provocation is just such a measure," he emphasizes.

"As in the game of chess, a player often seeks to provoke their opponent into a series of moves," Cartalucci notes.

According to the geopolitical analyst, Russia's best choice now is to continue winning this war, eventually taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor. By fortifying this area Russian and Syrian forces would prevent NATO from invading Syria, at the same time cutting off the ISIL and al-Nusra Front supply route from Turkey.

Russo-Syrian victory would have far-reaching consequences for the region as a whole. "With Syria secured, an alternative arc of influence will exist within the Middle East, one that will inevitably work against Saudi and other Persian Gulf regimes' efforts in Yemen, and in a wider sense, begin the irreversible eviction of Western hegemony from the region," Cartalucci underscores.

[Nov 24, 2015] Putin condemns Turkey after Russian warplane downed near Syria border

Notable quotes:
"... "We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don't know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours." ..."
www.theguardian.com

A government official said: "In line with the military rules of engagement, the Turkish authorities repeatedly warned an unidentified aircraft that they were 15km or less away from the border. The aircraft didn't heed the warnings and proceeded to fly over Turkey. The Turkish air forces responded by downing the aircraft.

More on this topic: Turkey caught between aiding Turkmen and economic dependence on Russia

"This isn't an action against any specific country: our F-16s took necessary steps to defend Turkey's sovereign territory."

The Turkish UN ambassador, Halit Cevik, told the UN Security Council in a letter that two planes had flow a mile into Turkey for 17 seconds. "Following the violation, plane 1 left Turkish national airspace. Plane 2 was fired at while in Turkish national airspace by Turkish F-16s performing air combat patrolling in the area," he wrote.

... ... ...

Putin said there would be "serious consequences" for Russia-Turkish relations.

"We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don't know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours."

[Nov 24, 2015] The Russians had it coming to them

Schadenfreude ecstasies of UK conservatives. They are glad that Turkey shot down Russian bomber. Not very surprising as Cameron wanted to ally with ISIS against President Asad forces just two years ago. Comments were not allowed for this article.
Notable quotes:
"... Turks would certainly resist any attempt by Russia to launch retaliatory action against the Turkmen, who yesterday claimed they had shot dead the two Russian pilots as they attempted to parachute to safety, although this was later denied by Turkish officials. ..."
"... Turkey funds a number of Turkmen militias in northern Syria that are fighting to overthrow the Assad regime. ..."
"... Mr Putin has badly misread Turkey's determination to defend its interests and, by so doing, has further complicated the tangled web of alliances that underpin the Syrian conflict. ..."
Nov 24, 2015 | Telegraph

The challenge now, for Nato as well as for Russia, is to prevent tensions between Moscow and Ankara from spiralling out of control. Turkey's relations with Russia are already strained following Moscow's Syrian intervention, with the Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan warning that Turkey could cut its lucrative energy ties with Russia. The Turks would certainly resist any attempt by Russia to launch retaliatory action against the Turkmen, who yesterday claimed they had shot dead the two Russian pilots as they attempted to parachute to safety, although this was later denied by Turkish officials.

Turkey funds a number of Turkmen militias in northern Syria that are fighting to overthrow the Assad regime. It is unlikely the Turks would tolerate Russian attacks on their ethnic allies, which could easily lead to direct military confrontation between Russia and Turkey, with all the implications that would have for the Nato alliance, which would then be obliged to defend Turkey's borders.

Mr Putin has badly misread Turkey's determination to defend its interests and, by so doing, has further complicated the tangled web of alliances that underpin the Syrian conflict. He has also made life more difficult for David Cameron, who will tomorrow tell the Commons about his own plans for Britain to participate in the air war against Isil. Like Mr Putin, Mr Cameron says he wants to launch air strikes against Isil in Syria. But, after yesterday, Mr Cameron can be in no doubt that, however he views Mr Putin's role in the conflict, it will most certainly not be that of an ally.

[Nov 24, 2015] Sultan Erdogan has been served notice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7343nXyGS0s
Notable quotes:
"... However, it is wrong to conclude that the Turkish demarche is a mere tactical ploy. There is also the backdrop of the robust Turkish push for establishing a 'no-fly zone' in northern Syria to be kept in view. The demarche is linked to a live broadcast by Erdogan on Wednesday where he underscored that the creation of 'no-fly' and 'safe' zones is crucial to resolving the Syrian crisis… ..."
"... …Put differently, the race for Aleppo has begun. The point is, the Turkish-American operation comes at a time when with Russian air cover, Syrian government forces are struggling to retake Aleppo, which has been under the control of opposition groups for two years. To be sure, the Turkish demarche on Friday threatening Russia with "serious consequences" falls in perspective. ..."
"... The US role in this daring Turkish enterprise remains hidden from view. Senior US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, are credited with privately expressing views supportive of the Turkish proposal on free-trade zone, and leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has openly backed the idea, but President Barack Obama has so far preferred to stand in the shade with an ambivalence that appeared to weigh against the 'no-fly zone'… ..."
"... Russia's best bet is to simply continue winning the war. Taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor and fortifying it against NATO incursions while cutting off ISIS and other terrorist factions deeper within Syria would be perhaps the worst of all possible retaliations. ..."
"... Such a provocation is exactly what the West would do if it were losing in Syria. And Putin doesn't have to prove anything to the Russian people. ..."
"... Erdogan is feeling especially froggy. He says he will establish a humanitarian safe zone between Jarabulus and the Mediterranean with his allies. God help us all. ..."
"... Turkey's territorial integrity cannot include 5 miles of Syrian territory to which it helps itself as a security zone. And Stoltenberg is a tool who should never be taken seriously. He would institute a NATO tax and pour the money directly into arms purchases if he could – he is a dream leader if you are a defense contractor. ..."
"... At the WH news today ….Obama was his usual watermouth in chief clown self…..He kept referring to Hollande as "Francois"….as if they were frat boys smokin' a joint and swillin' beer… ..."
"... But he still is not thru running his unhelpful and provocative trap…He then tries to marginalize the Russkie anti ISIS coalition effort…and condescendingly chides and berates Putin for not toeing the line that Obama hasn't even thought out as to what or where to tow to begin with!!! Then Hollande chimes in with the usual 'Assad must go' mantra…. ..."
"... The NATO freaks have to keep a steadying hand on Francois, lest he wander off the reservation… ..."
"... War is continuation of politics by other means. Diplomatic successes of Russia created backlash and Russia was backstabbed. So one way to look at this incident is that it was a Russian sacrifice on the altar of victory over ISIS. Shooting down of a Russian plane is to be expected in such a war and the fact that it happened just now and the shooter was Turkish F14 changed very little. But if this was a provocation, then timing was perfect. ..."
"... This hysterical gesture also might reflect existence of a split in Turkish leadership and effort of one wing of government to enforce its political plans on the nation. The part who are willing to sacrifice economic ties with Russia to achieve their political goals in Syria Their immediate goal is that the pro-Turkish forces not government forces liberate Rakka (Al-Raqqah) ..."
"... I would add that breaking economic ties with Turkey will hurt Russia no less then Turkey. Closure of Dardanelles by turkey also will not help Russian efforts to defeat ISIS. ..."
"... In any case the partition Syria along religious and ethnic lines was planned from the very beginning by the very same players who are behind this incident. Nobody has any doubts that Turkey was one of the main instigators of Syrian civil war and along with Qatar and Saudis served and still serves the financial hub for the armed opposition and first of all salafists. The fact salafists fighters from the rest of the world travel to Syria via Turkey is an open secret. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com
et Al, November 24, 2015 at 5:30 am
A very interesting, appropriate and very good response.

Sultan Erdogan has been served notice. I hope he's bricking it. Let him stew.

It makes sense that Putin should treat differentiate Turkey from western states. It also help him to present NATO with a stark choice and not much chance to try and claim the middle ground. Either way, unless Turkey gets categorical support from the NATO meeting and not the usual meaningless waffle, he's lost support from both NATO & Russia. Not a good place to be in.

et Al, November 24, 2015 at 12:55 pm

via a comment by GoraDiva on the Moon of Alabama post above:

Asia Times: Turkey gets toehold on Syrian territory, finally
http://atimes.com/2015/11/turkey-gets-toehold-on-syrian-territory-finally/

he cloud of uncertainty is lifting about any new directions of Turkish policies on Syria following the parliamentary elections three weeks ago, which led to a great political consolidation by President Recep Erdogan. The policies will run in the old directions – regime change in Syria – as per Erdogan's compass, which was set four years ago, but they will be vastly more visible in the 'kinetics'…

…An easy explanation is possible that Turkey decided to set the agenda for Lavrov's talks on coming Wednesday that would devolve upon the parameters of the Russian operations in northern Syria that will not cross Turkey's 'red lines'. The exceptionally strong words used by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu regarding the "bloody and barbarian" Syrian regime leaves very little to the imagination as to how Erdogan views the prospect of Assad's future role. The last known Turkish stance is that Erdogan can tolerate Assad for a maximum period of six months during the transition.

However, it is wrong to conclude that the Turkish demarche is a mere tactical ploy. There is also the backdrop of the robust Turkish push for establishing a 'no-fly zone' in northern Syria to be kept in view. The demarche is linked to a live broadcast by Erdogan on Wednesday where he underscored that the creation of 'no-fly' and 'safe' zones is crucial to resolving the Syrian crisis…

…Put differently, the race for Aleppo has begun. The point is, the Turkish-American operation comes at a time when with Russian air cover, Syrian government forces are struggling to retake Aleppo, which has been under the control of opposition groups for two years. To be sure, the Turkish demarche on Friday threatening Russia with "serious consequences" falls in perspective.

The US role in this daring Turkish enterprise remains hidden from view. Senior US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, are credited with privately expressing views supportive of the Turkish proposal on free-trade zone, and leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has openly backed the idea, but President Barack Obama has so far preferred to stand in the shade with an ambivalence that appeared to weigh against the 'no-fly zone'…
####

A good piece by M.K. Bhadrakumar but I wouldn't call it anything like a toe hold yet. While the Americans haven't expressed open support for Turkey, they haven't either condemned Turkey., so I will modify my earlier and a bit rash opinion that the US has hung Turkey out to dry. On reflection, it seems far more reasonable that as usual, if it works out, the US will try to claim some sort of credit, but if it all goes Pete Tong, Turkey is all on its lonesome. NATO is being kept out of this one because the US certainly wouldn't get the unanimity need from all NATO members for such a plan, though I'm sure the Brits and others were informed unofficially.

et Al, November 24, 2015 at 1:03 pm

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/11/the-two-versions-of-the-latakia-plane-incident.html#c6a00d8341c640e53ef01bb0894fb5d970d

If Russia doesn't respond severely, the attacks on Russian and Syrian assets in Syria will escalate.

I think Tony Cartalucci gets it right: http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/24/russian-warplane-down-natos-act-of-war/

Russia's best bet is to simply continue winning the war. Taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor and fortifying it against NATO incursions while cutting off ISIS and other terrorist factions deeper within Syria would be perhaps the worst of all possible retaliations.

My "Russian intuition" tells me that this is what Russia will do. Such a provocation is exactly what the West would do if it were losing in Syria. And Putin doesn't have to prove anything to the Russian people.

Cortes, November 24, 2015 at 1:58 pm

The Twisted Genius, a regular poster on the "Turcopolier " blog Sic Semper Tyrannis of Col. Pat Lang,

After the NATO meeting, Jens Stoltenberg stated, "we stand in solidarity with Turkey and support its territorial integrity." After this and the statements of supplication out of Washington this morning, Erdogan is feeling especially froggy. He says he will establish a humanitarian safe zone between Jarabulus and the Mediterranean with his allies. God help us all.

Northern Star, November 24, 2015 at 3:00 pm

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/11/24/belgium-counterterrorism

Here's a little insight into Belgium…that may surprise you….
This is the fourth day that the country has been under a virtual martial law lockdown…

Brussels is in Belgium……NATO can't even secure-cover- its home base ass!!!!!!!

marknesop, November 24, 2015 at 3:04 pm

Turkey's territorial integrity cannot include 5 miles of Syrian territory to which it helps itself as a security zone. And Stoltenberg is a tool who should never be taken seriously. He would institute a NATO tax and pour the money directly into arms purchases if he could – he is a dream leader if you are a defense contractor.

Northern Star, November 24, 2015 at 2:50 pm

At the WH news today ….Obama was his usual watermouth in chief clown self…..He kept referring to Hollande as "Francois"….as if they were frat boys smokin' a joint and swillin' beer…

It should have been on this grim occasion "Mr. President"..Not "Francois….Then he continues to flippantly refer to The Russian leader as "Putin"…not President Putin…..How fucking smart (wise) is it to antagonize PRESIDENT Putin…in ANY way….especially when on a global forum addressing billions at a time of imminent potential crisis…AKA WW3.

But he still is not thru running his unhelpful and provocative trap…He then tries to marginalize the Russkie anti ISIS coalition effort…and condescendingly chides and berates Putin for not toeing the line that Obama hasn't even thought out as to what or where to tow to begin with!!! Then Hollande chimes in with the usual 'Assad must go' mantra….

marknesop, November 24, 2015 at 3:12 pm

The NATO freaks have to keep a steadying hand on Francois, lest he wander off the reservation….

likbez, November 24, 2015 at 6:10 pm

Hotheads want immediate Russian reaction now. But it will be better if Russians behaved like in well known Russian proverb " mount the horse very slowly and then ride really fast, "

It might be prudent to ignore this incident for now. Here is approximate version of opinion of one Russian analyst about the situation
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2YtDQhpkJI )

War is continuation of politics by other means. Diplomatic successes of Russia created backlash and Russia was backstabbed. So one way to look at this incident is that it was a Russian sacrifice on the altar of victory over ISIS. Shooting down of a Russian plane is to be expected in such a war and the fact that it happened just now and the shooter was Turkish F14 changed very little. But if this was a provocation, then timing was perfect. Relocation US F15 interceptors in the light of this incident looks now strangely well-timed preemptive move. Let's assume that this was accidental "perfect timing" of "our American partners" like Putin like to say.

In case of open democratic elections Assad will win and that's why the game "Assad must go" is played. Turkey tried to force her own plan of settlement. And this incident might well be a part of political game of the most radically pro-Islamist part of Turkish leadership. This hysterical gesture also might reflect existence of a split in Turkish leadership and effort of one wing of government to enforce its political plans on the nation. The part who are willing to sacrifice economic ties with Russia to achieve their political goals in Syria Their immediate goal is that the pro-Turkish forces not government forces liberate Rakka (Al-Raqqah)

I would add that breaking economic ties with Turkey will hurt Russia no less then Turkey. Closure of Dardanelles by turkey also will not help Russian efforts to defeat ISIS.

In any case the partition Syria along religious and ethnic lines was planned from the very beginning by the very same players who are behind this incident. Nobody has any doubts that Turkey was one of the main instigators of Syrian civil war and along with Qatar and Saudis served and still serves the financial hub for the armed opposition and first of all salafists. The fact salafists fighters from the rest of the world travel to Syria via Turkey is an open secret. As Wikipedia notes:

The Syrian opposition, represented by the Syrian National Coalition, receives financial, logistical, political and in some cases military support from major Sunni states in the Middle East allied with the U.S., most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.

…The Salafist groups are partially supported by Turkey, while the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant received support from several non-state groups and organizations from across the Muslim World.

This incident also changes nothing in this set of facts. So continuing to work against the plan to partition Syria and "Assad must go" gambit which includes the creation of buffer zone on the border with Turkey probably is the best option Russians have right now. Like French used to say "revenge is a dish that best served cold".

Turkey and Erdogan will be on the same place the next year too, And probably two years from now too. When there will be much less, if any, Russian tourists in Turkey. And Kurds will exist in the exact the same number and with exactly the same political goals. Fragmentation and internal squabbles within Turkish leadership also will exist in foreseeable future. So future might presents more options for the meaningful reaction then exist today. Loss of the face in this case (and Turkey itself) are much less important then the winning over ISIS.

[Nov 24, 2015] Russian jet downed over Syria, Putin This is a stab in the back by terrorism backers… Lavrov cancels Turkey visit Syrian Ara

Notable quotes:
"... Putin said Russia respects the regional interests of other nations, but warned the atrocity committed by Turkey would not go without an answer. Before Putin's statements came out, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Turkish army's downing of the Russian plane over Syria is "a very serious incident." ..."
sana.sy
Sochi, SANA – Russian President Vladimir Putin said the downing of the Russian aircraft over Syria is a stab in the back delivered by the forces backing terrorism.

"This incident stands out against the usual fight against terrorism," said Putin during a meeting with King of Jordan Abdullah II in the Russian city of Sochi.

"Our troops are fighting heroically against terrorists, risking their lives. But the loss we suffered today came from a stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists," he added.

Putin said the plane was hit by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish jet and crashed in the Syrian territory four kilometers from the border with Turkey, stressing that the Russian plane was flying at an altitude of 6000 meters about a kilometer from the Turkish border.

He stressed that the plane and pilots posed no threat to Turkey as they were carrying out a mission against ISIS in mountainous areas targeting terrorists, most of whom came from Russia.

"ISIS has big money, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, from selling oil. In addition they are protected by the military of an entire nation. One can understand why they are acting so boldly and blatantly. Why they kill people in such atrocious ways. Why they commit terrorist acts across the world, including in the heart of Europe," the Russian President said.

The downing of the Russian warplane happened despite Russia signing an agreement with the US to prevent such incidents in Syria, Putin stressed. Turkey claims to be part of the US-led coalition fighting against ISIS in Syria, he added.

The incident will have grave consequences for Russia's relations with Turkey, Putin warned.

"We have always treated Turkey as not only a close neighbor, but also as a friendly nation," he said. "I don't know who has an interest in what happened today, but we certainly don't."

Putin said Russia respects the regional interests of other nations, but warned the atrocity committed by Turkey would not go without an answer. Before Putin's statements came out, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Turkish army's downing of the Russian plane over Syria is "a very serious incident."

Peskov told reporters in a statement that Russia has confirmed information showing that the aircraft was all the time flying within the borders of Syria, adding that this was registered by electronic monitoring means

Asked about any possible consequences the incident might have on the Russian-Turkish relations, Peskov said it was too early to draw conclusions until the whole situation is clear.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it has summoned the Turkish military attaché in Moscow over the incident.

Earlier, the Ministry said a Russian Su-24 fighter jet had been shot down in Lattakia province.

The Ministry confirmed that the plane hadn't violated Turkish airspace and was flying at an altitude of 6,000 meters.

The pilots managed to eject from the downed jet, the ministry said, adding that their fate is still unknown.

Lavrov cancels Turkey visit over downing of Russian military jet

In a relevant context, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov canceled his visit to Turkey, due on Wednesday, after a Russian Su-24 jet was downed within the Syrian airspaces by a Turkish air force.

"It's necessary to emphasize that the terror threats have been aggravated and that's true even if we don't take into account what happened today," Lavrov said, adding "We estimate the threats to be no less than in Egypt.

The minister also pointed out the increasing level of the terror threat in Turkey which is "not lower than in Egypt, recommending Russians to refrain from visiting Turkey.

[Nov 24, 2015] Turkey Shoots Down Russian Warplane Near Syrian Border

Looks like it was Turkish way to enforce no fly zone over border villages... Like was initial US-Turkish plan. But now its a different game...
Notable quotes:
"... And so, the NYT continues its stenography for the Neocons, by refusing to report that whether the Russian jet actually violated Turkish airspace is in dispute. Even CNN has presented both possibilities. ..."
"... So, Turkey is attacking and oppressing Kurds, won't attack ISIS, seems to be provoking Russia, acts as a middle-man for ISIS oil revenues, is imposing increasingly intolerant religious laws, threatens Israel, and allows thousands of refugees to stream into Europe. ..."
"... Erdogan is playing a dangerous game, he's essentially banking on NATO to come to his aid if Russia retaliates ..."
"... The Syrian crisis started when Turkey, with the backing of Saudi, tried to get rid of Assad. It backfired and created a refugee crisis. Then one day, suddenly, all of the refugees decided to leave for Europe. The question is - how did the refugees take this decision on their own? It was Turkey's secret plan to bring back the glory of the Ottoman empire to Europe. Note that all the terrorists from UK, Australia and other countries who joined ISIS first went to Turkey. Turkey, backed by Saudi, has been supporting ISIS. Turkey has created this mess and its a pity that Angela Merkel does not understand! ..."
"... In war, truth is the first casualty. The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must. Not much has changed since ancient times, just more destructive technology. ..."
The New York Times

Mr. Putin, clearly angry, responded that the Russian jet had never violated Turkish airspace and was shot down over Syria. Speaking in Sochi, he called the downing of the plane a "stab in the back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists," warning that it would have "serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."

Mr. Putin said that instead of "immediately making the necessary contact with us, the Turkish side turned to their partners in NATO for talks on this incident. It's as if we shot down the Turkish plane and not they, ours. Do they want to put NATO at the service of the Islamic State?"

... ... ...

What may make matters worse is that those same tribesmen said they shot both Russian pilots as they floated to earth in their parachutes, having apparently ejected safely after the plane was hit by air-to-air missiles. The Russian minister of defense said that the navigator of the warplane is alive and has been rescued by Syrian and Russian special forces, but that the pilot was killed by ground fire.

... ... ...

Russia's retaliation so far has been largely symbolic. Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov canceled a Wednesday visit to Turkey, and a large Russian tour operator, Natalie Tours, announced it was suspending sales to Turkey. Russians accounted for 12 percent of all tourists to Turkey last year.

The two countries are also significant trade partners. But "Russia-Turkey relations will drop below zero," Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trends Studies, said on the state-run Rossiya 24 cable news channel.

David, Brisbane, Australia 5 hours ago

Turks are lying. According to the tracks they published the downed plane crossed a sliver of Turkish territory no more than 3 km wide. That should take a slowly flying jet less than 15 seconds, nowhere near 5 min the Turks claim it took them to issue 10 warnings. That was a premeditated provocation by the Turks, they were waiting for that plane. It is hard to believe that they would go for such major escalation without getting a go-ahead from US/NATO first.

Peisinoe, New York 4 hours ago

Excuse me NYT - but Turkey is not 'The West'.

It is a country that aligns itself with Wahabism-oriented nations that support and finance terrorism (ie Saudi Arabia).

Lets keep things clear: We cannot fight ISIS by allying ourselves with countries which support it.

It is about time the US stops selling itself for Saudi money - doesn't matter on which side of the aisle you're from - that is plain and simple corruption - corruption of values, of morality, of money, of power...

Jayne Cullen, Anytown, USA

"Turkish fighter jets on patrol near the Syrian border shot down a Russian warplane on Tuesday after it violated Turkey's airspace..."

And so, the NYT continues its stenography for the Neocons, by refusing to report that whether the Russian jet actually violated Turkish airspace is in dispute. Even CNN has presented both possibilities.

Brian, Toronto

So, Turkey is attacking and oppressing Kurds, won't attack ISIS, seems to be provoking Russia, acts as a middle-man for ISIS oil revenues, is imposing increasingly intolerant religious laws, threatens Israel, and allows thousands of refugees to stream into Europe.

What is the process for kicking someone out of NATO?

Ajatha Shatru,

Erdogan is playing a dangerous game, he's essentially banking on NATO to come to his aid if Russia retaliates.

If Russia doesn't retaliate, Putin will loose face in Arab world and Erdogan will be crowned the modern age Saladin.

Western Europe knows Erdogan controls the refugee tap and his leverage is that tens of thousands of refugees will flood into Europe if they don't back him up against Russia.

Putin cares about his macho and decisive image and to maintain it there will be Russian war answer to this downing.

America and NATO needs to call Turkey's bluff and let it face Russian music alone or we are heading towards world war III.

Aay, Sydney

The Syrian crisis started when Turkey, with the backing of Saudi, tried to get rid of Assad. It backfired and created a refugee crisis. Then one day, suddenly, all of the refugees decided to leave for Europe. The question is - how did the refugees take this decision on their own? It was Turkey's secret plan to bring back the glory of the Ottoman empire to Europe. Note that all the terrorists from UK, Australia and other countries who joined ISIS first went to Turkey. Turkey, backed by Saudi, has been supporting ISIS. Turkey has created this mess and its a pity that Angela Merkel does not understand!

Dan O'Brien, Massachusetts

In war, truth is the first casualty. The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must. Not much has changed since ancient times, just more destructive technology.

This is going to end very badly for everyone.

[Nov 24, 2015] We shot the pilots while they were landing with parachutes

This is in incorrect information. One pilot was rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces...
hurriyetdailynews.com

Speaking to the Doğan News Agency, Turkmen Deputy Commander to the 2nd Coast Division Alpaslan Çelik had claimed that both pilots were killed.

"We shot the pilots while they were landing with parachutes. Their bodies are here," Çelik said.

"Our friends are carrying the bodies from the other side of the mountains. Their IDs will probably be found on them," he added.

[Nov 24, 2015] The Two Versions Of The Latakia Plane Incident

Notable quotes:
"... Now I believe that the jet was in the Syrian airspace. It is not difficult to figure out that is purposeful action/plan by NATO and their faithful executioner Turkey. The plan might be to shut down Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian Navy. ..."
"... "There were three villages left to us from Hassa. Others were Teyek, Ekbez, Beylan, the boroughs of skenderun, the township of Reyhaniye, the Antakya district, the Ordu district, the Bay r, Bucak and Hazine townships, a major portion of the Kilis borough, the Elbeyli and Turkmen districts south of Çobanbey-Cerablus region of Antep… This is all Turkish soil that constitutes integrity with the motherland…" ..."
"... This then was not legitimate air-defense but an ambush. ..."
"... Exactly. The context. It happened in the wake of Putin's visit to Iran, which cemented the alliance Russia/Iran for time to come, and strengthened their ties at strategic levels. This is Turkey's declaration of war against both Russia and Iran for supporting Syria. ..."
"... Turkey was one of the G-20 countries denounced by Russia as sponsors of terrorism. Further investigations should expose Turkey et al financial links to takfiri terrorists, possibly creating a diplomatic/political downfall, and with UN sanctions in sight, a preemptive black flag operation was planned. It started with the circus of the Turkmen, calling Russia's envoy to protest, revival of the so-called safe-zone, and the shooting of the Russian jet is the logical consequence of a carefully developed choreography. ..."
"... Russia cannot just take the hit to avoid further escalation. As we all know, restraint and moderation is embedded in Russia's art of diplomacy, but if rabid dog Erdogan is not caged by his US/NATO handlers, the possibility of an escalation is high. However, in the aftermath of France 13/11, and the French/Russian collaboration, another coup from Russian diplomacy, we can expect NATO's response to be measured. ..."
M of A

Bart | Nov 24, 2015 7:42:49 AM | 11

I really don't think this was a whim of Erdogan - he must have had the go-ahead of Obama or even all of NATO to do this - it is a little test case to see what Russia will do. This kind of 5- or 10-second 'trespassing' must be going on on a daily basis, given the very limited aitrspace in which all htese operations take place...

Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 24, 2015 7:50:59 AM | 12

Russia has plenty of options and there's no rush. Turkey will still be there next week /month /year. I hope Vlad keeps Emperor Erdogan in suspense for a while.
AFTER announcing that the shoot-down won't go un-answered.
Everyone likes a good thriller...
Oui | Nov 24, 2015 8:04:03 AM | 13

Live RT – statement by Putin: "We were stabbed in the back by terrorists' supporters. Serious consequences for tragic events on Syrian border."

Further, quite irritated with Turkey, Putin said they talked to their NATO allies first before contacting Russian foreign diplomats to discuss the event.

NATO holding emergency session after Turkey shoots down Russian warplane

Oui | Nov 24, 2015 8:05:11 AM | 14
Mount Turkmen has not fallen to Assad: Turkmen commander

Omar Abdullah, commander of the Sultan Abdulhamit Han Brigade in Syria, said on Monday that the Turkmen brigades have recaptured a strategic point on Mount Turkmen from Assad forces backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

"Mount Turkmen has not fallen to Assad forces. They only seized a part of Kızıldağı," Abdullah said.
In recent days, Syrian regime forces started a heavy assault on Mount Turkmen in Bayır Bucak, a Turkmen populated area in Latakia province.

Turkmens were under intensified Russian airstrikes while Iranian forces and Hezbollah from Lebanon launched a joint land attack with Assad forces. Russian warships fired missiles as tanks and cannons attacked unarmed civilians in Mount Turkmen area.

never mind | Nov 24, 2015 8:12:18 AM | 17
From RT's live coverage
12:53 GMT
Turkey backstabbed Russia by downing the Russian warplane and acted as accomplices of the terrorists, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

The plane was hit by a Turkish warplane as it was travelling 1 km away from the Turkish border, Putin said. The plane posed no threat to Turkish national security, he stressed.

Putin said the plane was targeting terrorist targets in the Latakia province of Syria, many of whom came from Russia.

Russia noticed of the flow of oil from Syrian territory under the control of terrorists to Turkey, Putin said.

Apparently, IS now not only receives revenue from the smuggling of oil, but also has the protection of a nation's military, Putin said. This may explain why the terrorist group is so bold in taking acts of terrorism across the world, he added.

The incident will have grave consequences for Russia's relations with Turkey, Putin warned.

The fact that Turkey did not try to contact Russia in the wake of the incident and rushed to call a NATO meeting instead is worrisome, Putin said. It appears that Turkey want NATO to serve the interests of IS, he added.

Putin said Russia respects the regional interests of other nations, but warned the atrocity committed by Turkey would not go without an answer.

Putin was speaking at a meeting with King of Jordan Abdullah II in Sochi, who expressed his condolences to the Russian leader over the loss of a Russian pilot in Tuesday's incident, as well as the deaths of Russians in the Islamic State bombing of a passenger plane in Egypt.

The two leaders discussed the anti-terrorist effort in Syria and Iraq and the diplomatic effort to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict.

Strong words. It looks like Putin will hold Turkey to account for the downing of one of their jets (and the death of at least one of their own) regardless. The russian intervention in Syria will no doubt continue unabated, maybe even intensify, near the turkish border.

I wonder what assurances Turkey will get in turn from NATO.

Neretva'43 | Nov 24, 2015 8:20:52 AM | 20

In all honesty I think that the Russian "intervention" is way exaggerated. When I see the whole picture I believe it is have been designed to save face of the West Death Squad aka regime change policy. The western media offensive, hence the ruling establishment's policy, give us picture of we-have-nothing-to-do-with-mercenaries. We are now to believe so-called IS is organic product of Islam. And refuges are all terrorist or means to inflitrate into Europe, and their "way of life". The West doesn't wont to be remembered by history department that it is them who instigate of what we have today. Lessons from Central America is learned.

Remember, A HREF="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/leni-riefenstahl/">Leni Riefenstahl's words.

...the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above," but on the "submissive void" of the German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? "Everyone," she said.

Russia and the West has one thing in common, that is hate for Islam. While the West uses Islam as a tool for social engineering and to promote own goals, Russia sees it as existential threat. The West and Russia are alarmed by (unwelcome) refuges in condition of economic malaise.

Downing of Russian jet, if that what's really happened, is new development. As if the crisis actors were unaware of danger which Russian action pose. Do we remember of shooting down mysterious Turkish jet four years ago, of the coast of Latakia and not that far from now downed jet? How come do not see the parachutes, and how come that "independent" channel filmed that as if per order?

Neretva'43 | Nov 24, 2015 8:33:38 AM | 25

Now I believe that the jet was in the Syrian airspace. It is not difficult to figure out that is purposeful action/plan by NATO and their faithful executioner Turkey. The plan might be to shut down Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian Navy.

harry law | Nov 24, 2015 8:51:55 AM | 30

Putin said "This is a stab in the back and instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from NATO to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours". If the jet was shot down in an action against an enemy at war, it would be acceptable. In these circumstances Turkey's action itself was an act of war, since in no way could that Russian jet be threatening Turkey.

Neretva'43 | Nov 24, 2015 8:56:47 AM | 32

@ somebody | Nov 24, 2015 8:46:13 AM | 28

nope!

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do."

Samuel Huntington, US Gov./CIA brain trust member.

Oui | Nov 24, 2015 8:57:17 AM | 33

Who Are These Turkmen?

The Turkmens of Bayırbucak | Hürriyet Daily News |

The current Turkish-Syrian border was drawn with the Oct. 20, 1921, agreement signed between France, the mandatary of Syria, and the Ankara government; regions such as Hatay as well as Bayır and Bucak were on the Syrian side. This was approved in Lausanne.

Mersin deputy Niyazi (Ramazanoğlu) Bey delivered a very important speech in the parliament on the day of Aug. 21, 1923. He stated that while the 1921 agreement was signed, Ankara was still in a very troubled situation and criticized the acceptance of the border agreed upon in 1921.

In his speech, Niyazi Bey explained the Turks who were left on the Syrian side as such:

    "There were three villages left to us from Hassa. Others were Teyek, Ekbez, Beylan, the boroughs of İskenderun, the township of Reyhaniye, the Antakya district, the Ordu district, the Bayır, Bucak and Hazine townships, a major portion of the Kilis borough, the Elbeyli and Turkmen districts south of Çobanbey-Cerablus region of Antep… This is all Turkish soil that constitutes integrity with the motherland…"

They were all on the Syrian side.

Neretva'43 | Nov 24, 2015 8:58:53 AM | 34

Re: guest77 | Nov 24, 2015 8:54:40 AM | 30

Partially true. What is full truth is that Without Iran's Support the Syrian Gov. would fall.

Lone Wolf | Nov 24, 2015 9:28:44 AM | 39

This then was not legitimate air-defense but an ambush.

Exactly. The context. It happened in the wake of Putin's visit to Iran, which cemented the alliance Russia/Iran for time to come, and strengthened their ties at strategic levels. This is Turkey's declaration of war against both Russia and Iran for supporting Syria.

Turkey was one of the G-20 countries denounced by Russia as sponsors of terrorism. Further investigations should expose Turkey et al financial links to takfiri terrorists, possibly creating a diplomatic/political downfall, and with UN sanctions in sight, a preemptive black flag operation was planned. It started with the circus of the Turkmen, calling Russia's envoy to protest, revival of the so-called "safe-zone," and the shooting of the Russian jet is the logical consequence of a carefully developed choreography.

As predicted, we have entered "Deadly Ground" (Sun Tzu).

Russia cannot just take the hit to avoid further escalation. As we all know, restraint and moderation is embedded in Russia's art of diplomacy, but if rabid dog Erdogan is not caged by his US/NATO handlers, the possibility of an escalation is high. However, in the aftermath of France 13/11, and the French/Russian "collaboration," another coup from Russian diplomacy, we can expect NATO's response to be measured.

The next few days are crucial, and will test the extent of the US empire and its minions commitment to destroy Syria and control the ME. It will also test Russia and the 4+1 will to the strategic defense of the ME and by extension, of the Eurasian mass.

alkomv | Nov 24, 2015 9:45:53 AM | 42

@24

The plan might be to shut down Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian Navy

This has been a plan known to Russia for some time, Turkey/US/NATO have actively sought ways to break Montreux and stop the supply of necessary equipment to both Assad and the Russian Federation Forces active in Syria via the "Syria Express".

harry law | Nov 24, 2015 10:02:39 AM | 50

Lone Wolf@38. "The next few days are crucial, and will test the extent of the US empire and its minions commitment to destroy Syria and control the ME". The US in alliance with Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulfies are determined to have hegemony over the middle east. The battle over Syria is crucial in that respect. In my opinion the Syrians with the help of Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah will triumph over the forces of medieval Wahhabism, and its enablers. The US position in the middle east is at stake, so they will go all in. In the case of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah this battle is existential, and so they will fight this battle to the bitter end.

Claud | Nov 24, 2015 10:05:53 AM | 51
Apropos question of degree of US "nudge," I'm basically on the side of those who think no, first, and, anyway, Erdogan (user here as metonymy for Turkish "deep state") doesn't need nudge, and is used to US retroactively agreeing or covering-up whatever he decides to do, so there's no need to think Turkey's acting on behalf of anyone except itself.

HOWEVER, one news bit I've been reading here and there has been roughly to the effect that the CIA/other-three-letter-agencies people tasked with supplying/transporting/training the "moderate rebels" in Turkey have been in a very ugly "Bay of Pigs", Obama-fucked-us mood (a quote a journalist heard was, "Putin just made us his prison bitch"), and I imagine it's with those people that Turkish security types "interface" most from day to day. That might contribute to an odd idea of what DC would "really" want Turks to do.

All this obviously wildly speculative, and in a sense unnecessary in Occan's Razor terms (Erdogan quite capable of thinking this a good idea on his own). However, thought I'd bring up (possibly irrelevant) factor of a good number of pissed-off paramilitaries/contractors with little to do since Russia effectively shut down their "training" boondogle.

Jackrabbit | Nov 24, 2015 10:23:00 AM | 57

You can bet that USA and France were well aware of Turkey's support for ISIS - and well before the Charlie Hebdo attack. Yet it is Russia that: details the funding for ISIS; seriously attacks oil trucks; publicly names Turkey as an ISIS 'accomplice'.

The West should have demanded that Turkey cease their support of ISIS long ago. Instead, we get political/police theatre: troops in the streets, mild airstrikes, aircraft carrier deployments, MSM's amplifying of Islamophobia (ISIS is everywhere!, refugees = ISIS!, oh-hum reporting of attacks on refugees),etc.

Prediction: NATO will support Turkey's defending of its airspace.

Tom Welsh | Nov 24, 2015 10:39:17 AM | 61

@RTE:

"Once you're In - it's hard to get out again".

As the Russians say, "it's a kopeck to get in, but a rouble to get out". Where a rouble may mean a life.

harry law | Nov 24, 2015 11:10:01 AM | 84

RTE @59. "by all International laws and standards they had every right to do what they did". I disagree, Russia is not at war with Turkey, violation of someones airspace, [if it happened] should be dealt with diplomatically. What Turkey did was a act of war, there can be no doubt about that.

Mina | Nov 24, 2015 11:39:32 AM | 92

RTE: could you stop being paranoid and giving people intentions they don't have?

Good article about the Turkmen villages.
http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2015/11/24/qui-sont-les-turkmenes_4816573_3218.html
Turkey is trying to provoke a crisis in Hatay because it is afraid of losing this buffer zone it wants to create on a soil which never belonged to it (see the links of OUI above)

somebody | Nov 24, 2015 11:44:31 AM | 95
Re: RTE | Nov 24, 2015 11:29:02 AM | 88 Problem with your reasoning is that the Russian plane seems to have been shot down in Syrian not in Turkish airspace so the violation is Turkish - if there has been a Russian violation before or not. To shoot down an airplane is an act of war. Turkey dares to do it because they are part of NATO. NATO's reaction will tell if they back this provocation of Russia or not.

[Nov 24, 2015] Putin's response

marknesop.wordpress.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7343nXyGS0s

et Al, November 24, 2015 at 5:30 am

A very interesting, appropriate and very good response.

Sultan Erdogan has been served notice. I hope he's bricking it. Let him stew.

It makes sense that Putin should treat differentiate Turkey from western states. It also help him to present NATO with a stark choice and not much chance to try and claim the middle ground. Either way, unless Turkey gets categorical support from the NATO meeting and not the usual meaningless waffle, he's lost support from both NATO & Russia. Not a good place to be in.

et Al, November 24, 2015 at 5:45 am
At about 8:30 he points out that terrorists from Russia are located north of Latakia and could come back to kill Russians.

He mentions stab in the back twice. He's called Turkey as complicit in supporting terrorism in all but direct name and called the shooting down a crime. He's furious.

Still, this is King Abdullah of Jordan, a loyal American ally, coming to Moscow. Crikey.

Moscow Exile, November 24, 2015 at 5:52 am
Abdullah's mother was English, daughter of an officer and gentleman, no less, in the colonial service. That's why old Abdullah is so well house-trained, I guess.
Patient Observer, November 24, 2015 at 6:12 am
Putin's comment characterizing the Turkish action as a "stab in the back" was spot on. As my father used to say in such situations "They just shitted in their mess kit".
Warren, November 24, 2015 at 5:11 am

Moscow Exile, November 24, 2015 at 5:34 am
Good point that he made about the Turks immediately contacting their NATO allies after downing the Russian warplane, which was making no threat against Turkey, and not contacting Russia. "As if we downed a Turkish jet", he says and asks: "Do they want NATO to serve the interests of ISIS?" A stab in the back, he adds, as the Turks are allegedly fighting terrorism in the area together with their NATO partners.
et Al, November 24, 2015 at 7:15 am
BBC's Jonothan Marcus, their chief diplomatic bloke, has just said that the Su-24 may only have crossed Turkish airspace for 15 or 20 seconds so shooting it down looks dodgy and comments that other military analysts point this out and that this is 'browned off' Turkey telling the Russians to keep out. Most normal people would call it an 'ambush', which is exactly what Moon of Alabama called it hours ago.
karl1haushofer , November 24, 2015 at 9:21 am
Russia's "allies" Belarus and Kazakhstans supported the UN resolution recognizing the nuclear facilities in the Crimea as Ukrainian: http://nnr.su/75218#hcq=2cNuCup

They did not even abstain, but instead supported the resolution.

It is scary how alone Russia seems to be in it's western hemisphere. Surrounded by Finland (coldly hostile against Russia), the Baltics (extremely hostile chihuahuas), Ukraine (hostile enough to nuke Russia if it had nukes), Belarus (not really hostile, but not friendly either. Next target for a Western coup attempt), Turkey (hostile enough to shoot down Russia's military jets), Georgia (hostile), Azerbaijan (hostile/neutral), Armenia (friendly, but poor and meaningless).and Kazakhstan (seems to be the best of Russia's neighbors, but refuses to back Russia in international stage).

Further to West there are also hostile Sweden, very hostile Poland and Romania, and hostile Bulgaria. Those European countries with warm relations towards Russia (like Serbia and Montenegro) are small and strategically unimportant for Russia.

How did it ever come to this?

Patient Observer, November 24, 2015 at 11:24 am

Seems like a good response so far per RT:
https://www.rt.com/news/323329-russia-suspend-military-turkey/
"Three steps as announced by top brass:
– Each and every strike groups' operation is to be carried out under the guise of fighter jets
– Air defense to be boosted with the deployment of Moskva guided missile cruiser off Latakia coast with an aim to destroy any target that may pose danger
– Military contacts with Turkey to be suspended"

The Russian action of using ship-based anti-aircraft systems suggest that the stories about S-300 or S-400 being deployed in Syria are likely not true (and conforming with what Russia has maintained).

[Nov 24, 2015] PM Turkey has right to take all kinds of measures

www.turkishpress.com

ANKARA - Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that Turkey has the right to take "all kinds of measures" against border violations.

He was speaking amid reports that Turkish fighter jets downed a Russian military plane violating Turkish airspace earlier on Tuesday.

Speaking during an engagement in Ankara, Davutoglu said:

"We would like the entire world to know that we will take all necessary measures and make any sacrifices when it comes to the lives and dignity of our citizens and for the security of our borders while our country is in a circle of fire."

Davutoglu said Turkey had exercised its "international right and national duty" by downing the plane which the authorities say was flying over the country's southern Hatay province.

The Turkish premier called on the international community to act regarding the ongoing conflict in Syria.

"Let's put out the fire in Syria," Davutoglu said, adding: "Our message is clear for the Syrian regime forces, terrorist organizations or other foreign forces that are involved in pouring fire over Bayirbucak Turkmens, Aleppo Arabs or Azaz Arabs, Kurds or Turkmens, instead of putting out the fire in Syria.

"While carrying out effective counter-terrorism we are aware that the prerequisite for counter-terrorism is the growing up of young generations within peace and their love for each other," he added.

Turkish, UK PMs discuss downing of Russian jet

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had a phone conversation with his British counterpart David Cameron on Tuesday after Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian warplane.

"Our prime minister has expressed that UN and NATO countries will be informed in detail about the issue," said the Turkish Prime Ministry's press office in a statement.

"It was told [to Cameron] that the ambassadors of the P5 countries [China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.] were also informed by our Foreign Ministry," the statement added.

"The Prime Minister strongly encouraged Prime Minister Davutoglu to make sure there was direct communication between the Turks and Russians on this, so a clearer understanding could be formed of what had happened and how to avoid this happening in the future and to avoid an escalation," said a Downing Street spokeswoman.

"We respect Turkey's right to protect its airspace. There are procedures in place for flying through a country's airspace - you need to seek permission and have it granted and there should be communication between the authorities on the ground and the pilot. All those steps need to be properly followed," she added.

The two leaders agreed to meet on Sunday at the Turkey-EU summit in Brussels, according to the statement.

A Russian warplane was shot down at the Turkish-Syrian border earlier Tuesday after repeatedly ignoring warnings that it was violating Turkish airspace.

Cameron is expected to address parliament Thursday to extend U.K. strikes against Daesh in Syria. The U.K. targets the organization in Iraq.

Thousands of Turkmens have recently been displaced due to simultaneous air and ground attacks by Syrian government forces and Russian jets. Approximately 2,000 Syrian Turkmens have arrived in southern Turkey in the past several days.

Russian warplanes previously violated Turkish airspace twice in October. The incidents came within a few days of the start of Russia's air campaign in Syria on Sept. 30 and led to international condemnation.

Copyright © 2015 Anadolu Agency

[Nov 23, 2015] The Pentagon expands an inquiry into Central Command over allegations that officials overstated the progress of airstrikes against the Islamic State

Notable quotes:
"... Obomber is an interventionista, owned by Lockheed. He at least has not had to duck shoes thrown at him, otherwise we have a repeat of W in the white house.e. Obomber also gets on the board of ARAMCO later in life ..."
www.nytimes.com

anne said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/us/politics/military-reviews-us-response-to-isis-rise.html

November 21, 2015

Military Reviews U.S. Response to Rise of ISIS
By MATT APUZZO, MARK MAZZETTI, and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

The Pentagon has seized a trove of emails from military servers as it expands an inquiry into Central Command over allegations that officials overstated the progress of airstrikes against the Islamic State.

anne ->anne...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/opinion/the-elusive-truth-about-war-on-isis.html

September 16, 2015

The Elusive Truth About War on ISIS

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military officials often provided misleadingly upbeat assessments of battlefield efforts and belittled reporting that contradicted their narrative. Their take on the progress of the troops was frequently at odds with the conclusions of civilian intelligence analysts and reporting by journalists in the field. The opposing views were important because they sometimes forced the Pentagon to face unpleasant truths and change course.

The war against the Islamic State terrorist group, which the Obama administration launched more than a year ago, however, has unfolded out of sight by design....

anne ->anne...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/us/politics/analysts-said-to-provide-evidence-of-distorted-reports-on-isis.html

September 15, 2015

Reports on ISIS Were Distorted by Military, Analysts Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO

The Pentagon's inspector general is examining claims that senior military officers manipulated conclusions about progress against the Islamic State.

anne ->anne...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/world/middleeast/pentagon-investigates-allegations-of-skewed-intelligence-reports-on-isis.html

August 25, 2015

Inquiry Weighs Whether ISIS Analysis Was Distorted
By MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's inspector general is investigating allegations that military officials have skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a more optimistic account of progress, according to several officials familiar with the inquiry....

ilsm ->anne...

Everything that is done inside the pentagon-capitol-K St axis is distorted to sell more weaponry and plunder the US.

ilsm ->anne...

The same misinformation campaign brought you: 10 years of misguided war profiteering in Southeast Asia for Saigon thugs' survival, the nuclear TRIAD to assure the US could kill everything on earth in its dying throes, and the past 40 years of expensive imperialism around the world.

im1dc said... November 22, 2015 at 08:45 AM Ohhhh, someone is not happy with CENTCOM's 'manipulation of (ISIL) intelligence'

Heads to Roll, Careers to be Ended, and hopefully some time in the brig for the top brass who ordered the bogus INTEL too

Fight against Islamic State militants - 8h ago

"Obama on manipulation of intelligence about Islamic State: 'I don't know what we'll discover in regards to what happened at CENTCOM'"

im1dc said...

islm, the President thinks your belief of SA ISIL financial support is wrong

Fight against Islamic State militants - 9h ago

"Saudi Arabia is helping to co-ordinate the fight against financing for Islamic State, Obama says"

Fred C. Dobbs ->im1dc...

The Saudi guv'mint may
be cooperating, while
the vast Saudi wealth
may be at cross purposes.

ilsm ->im1dc...

Obomber is an interventionista, owned by Lockheed. He at least has not had to duck shoes thrown at him, otherwise we have a repeat of W in the white house.e.
Obomber also gets on the board of ARAMCO later in life


[Nov 23, 2015] Putin's crushing strategy for Syria

Notable quotes:
"... The Russians have announced that they will partner with the French to fight the Islamic State in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. But beyond new friendships forged in the wake of the Paris massacre and the downing of a Russian charter flight over the Sinai in October, Moscow's strategic interest in Syria is longstanding and vital to its interest. ..."
"... For all the mythmaking and propaganda, there is a powerful historical context to Russia's latest foreign military intervention. Like all states that try to project force beyond their borders, Putin's Russia faces limits. But those limits differ markedly from those that doomed America's recent fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan. ..."
"... The spectacular international attacks by Islamic State militants against targets in the Sinai, Beirut, and Paris have reminded Western powers of the other interests at stake beyond a resurgent Russia ..."
bostonglobe.com

LATAKIA, Syria - When Russian jets started bombing Syrian insurgents, it was no surprise that fans of President Bashar Assad felt buoyed. What was surprising was the outsized, even over-the-top expectations placed on Russian help.

"They're not like the Americans," explained a Syrian government official responsible for escorting journalists around the coastal city of Latakia. "When they get involved, they do it all the way."

Naturally, tired supporters of the Assad regime are susceptible to any optimistic thread they can cling to after five years of a war that the government was decisively losing when the Russians unveiled a major military intervention in October. Russian fever isn't entirely driven by hope and ignorance. Many of the Syrians cheering the Russian intervention know Moscow well.

A fluent Russian speaker, the bureaucrat in Latakia had spent nearly a decade in Moscow studying and working. Much of Syria's military and Ba'ath Party elite trained in Moscow, steeped in Soviet-era military and political doctrine, along with an unapologetic culture of tough-talking secular nationalism (there's also a shared affinity for vodka or other spirits).

The Russians have announced that they will partner with the French to fight the Islamic State in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. But beyond new friendships forged in the wake of the Paris massacre and the downing of a Russian charter flight over the Sinai in October, Moscow's strategic interest in Syria is longstanding and vital to its interest.

The world reaction to the Russian offensive in Syria has been as much about perception as military reality. Putin, according to Russian analysts who carefully study his policy, wants more than anything else to reassert Russia's role as a high-stakes player in the international system.

Sure, they say, he wants to reduce the heat from his invasion of Ukraine, and he wants to keep a loyal client in place in Syria, but most of all, he wants Russia's Great Power role back.

For all the mythmaking and propaganda, there is a powerful historical context to Russia's latest foreign military intervention. Like all states that try to project force beyond their borders, Putin's Russia faces limits. But those limits differ markedly from those that doomed America's recent fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The spectacular international attacks by Islamic State militants against targets in the Sinai, Beirut, and Paris have reminded Western powers of the other interests at stake beyond a resurgent Russia and a prickly Iran. Until now, Russia's new role in Syria has stymied the West, impinging on its air campaign against ISIS and all but eliminating the possibility of an anti-Assad no-fly zone. ...

-----

The Syria agreement: Too good to be true
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/11/19/the-syria-agreement-too-good-true/0diRPSdAE92OY2uOQnrIaO/story.html?event=event25
via @BostonGlobe - editorial - Nov 19

A day after the horrific attacks in Paris, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced a silver lining: The world had come together and agreed to end the Syrian civil war. At a press conference in Vienna, they laid out an ambitious time line. A cease-fire would be negotiated in a matter of weeks between the Assad regime and rebel groups, with the exception of "terrorists." Talks between Assad and the opposition would be held by Jan. 1. A "credible, inclusive, nonsectarian" government would be established within six months. A new constitution and free and fair elections would materialize within 18 months.

If their plan - backed by the Arab League, the United Nations, the European Union, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates - sounds too good to be true, that's because it probably is.

Much like Kerry's overly optimistic goal of creating a Palestinian state within two years, the Syria plan is based more on the desire for peace than the prospects for it actually happening on the ground. ...

-----

I'm a Muslim - ask me about Islam.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/19/saadia-ahmad-muslim-ask-about-islam/KuZ7PqboSznrQRciyYa1II/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe
Saadia Ahmad - November 19, 2015

... One of the goals of radical Islamic terrorist groups is to divide Muslims and the rest of the world. The disparity in our concern for victims of terrorism, depending on the country attacked and the dominant religion, inadvertently feeds into their narrative. ...

I am as committed to my American identity as I am to my Muslim identity, but I often cannot feel fully at home in either due to misunderstandings and poorly managed conflicts between the two. Muslims like myself seeking to bring reconciliation often encounter backlash and distrust from extremist Muslims and Americans alike.

But my hybrid identity as a Muslim-American born and raised in New Jersey serves as the foundation for my commitment to dialogue facilitation, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. As an American, I know the sheer terror that 9/11 instilled in our individual and collective psyche. I understand the desire to regain a sense of security and comfort in our everyday lives and to defend against any group or ideology that appears even remotely threatening. As a Muslim, I know the exasperation of having our religion hijacked and used for something that was never its purpose. I understand the outrage of being held responsible for what we did not do – in the form of discrimination, prejudice, and warfare against home countries.

The sources of misunderstanding and pain for Americans and Muslims are actually not so different: They arise out of fear and trauma. So, too, the sources for healing are shared, and can be found in dialogue, compassion, and community. I see my purpose as guiding members of these groups to realizing these commonalities, and from this basis developing relationships that mitigate and prevent violent manifestations of conflict. Through my hybrid identity as a Muslim-American, I strive to provide one of many examples of how it is indeed possible to move past fear of "the other" and toward mutually beneficial relationships.

One of my most treasured verses in the Qur'an - introduced to me by a Catholic - has a universal message: "If God had so willed, He could have made you a single people, but His plan is to test you in what He has given you, so strive as one human race in all virtues according to what He has given you (5:48)." Most especially in the wake of trauma and terror, how we each decide to engage with "the other" is our own individual choice, but the fate is shared by us all. ...

(Saadia Ahmad is a student studying conflict resolution at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston.)

Selected Skeptical Comments from Economist's View blog

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs, November 22, 2015 at 06:25 AM

'Putin, according to Russian analysts who carefully study his policy, wants more than anything else to reassert Russia's role as a high-stakes player in the international system.'

It's almost like Putin wants Russia to 'assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature entitle' them. What nerve?

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs, November 22, 2015 at 06:35 AM

US, Russia, and World Powers (but Not Syrians) Agree to Syria Peace Plan
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/11/14/vienna_talks_negotiators_agree_to_syria_peace_road_map_in_the_wake_of_paris.html via @slate
Joshua Keating = November 14

A day after the attacks in Paris underlined the global danger posed by the continuing violence in Syria, Russia, the United States, and governments in Europe and the Middle East agreed at talks in Vienna to a road map for ending the devastating and destabilizing war.

The proposal (*), which appears to draw heavily from a Russian peace plan circulated before the talks, sets Jan. 1 as a deadline for the start of negotiations between Bashar al-Assad's government and opposition groups. Within six months, they would be required to create an "inclusive and non-sectarian" transitional government that would set a schedule for holding new, internationally supervised elections within 18 months. Western diplomats involved in the talks told the Wall Street Journal that the meeting had produced more progress than expected, and the events in Paris may have added new urgency to the proceedings, given the need to build a united front against ISIS, but stumbling blocks remain.

The biggest one is the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose role is side-stepped in the agreement. ...

*- AP: Diplomats set plan for political change in Syria http://apne.ws/1kvMdAi

im1dc -> Fred C. Dobbs., November 22, 2015 at 06:50 AM

US, Russia, and World Powers (but Not Syrians) Agree to Syria Peace Plan"

Oh yea which 'Syrians' did they ask, the Assad group, the ISIL group, the Islamist Rebels, the Iran backed Syrians, or the Democracy Rebels?

Fred C. Dobbs -> im1dc, November 22, 2015 at 06:58 AM

Not them, but apparently 'the Arab League, the United Nations, the European Union, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates' are on board.

Could be the other parties were otherwise engaged.

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs...

There is a story going around about Iranian F-14's escorting Russian Bear bombers on their way through to bomb Syrian deserts.

US navy went all out for F-18 and Tom Cruse's F-14 been in the boneyard for years.

Syaloch -> ilsm, November 22, 2015 at 07:23 AM

Do Israel's New Fighter Jets Mean Stealth Is Going Out of Style?

https://news.vice.com/article/do-israels-new-fighter-jets-mean-stealth-is-going-out-of-style

November 6, 2015

Israel just did something a wee bit nutty with their most recent wish list of US war goodies. It's one of those nerdtastically insider geek things that might actually mean some really interesting stuff.

So - drumroll please - reports have just emerged that Israel wants to buy a proposed, but as yet unmade, version of the F-15 fighter jet called the F-15SE Silent Eagle, in addition to several F-35s.

Okay, so it's not that exciting, unless you've been following the Israeli Air Force. But if you have, this purchase tells you something interesting about what advice those guys are getting from their strategic-planning Ouija boards on the topic of stealth...

ilsm -> Syaloch, November 22, 2015 at 10:14 AM

Not so much stealth.

Israel is using US aid money to "buy" F-35's, likely because the "F-35 sale is a string" for support for more aid to the IDF. There are many things the F-35 cannot do, there are many issues that mean sustaining 18 F-35's is less "capability" than 12 F-15 or F-16's.

Stealth is less a game changer than the reality of F-35 expenses and flaws. I am no fan of stealth it adds expense and overhead with unproven theory as to its "use".

A single engine fighter that carries 16000 of jet fuel is troubling. Rumblings USAF wants a buy of F-16s and F-35s for the same reasons.

Fred C. Dobbs -> ilsm, November 22, 2015 at 11:02 AM

I recall that terms between US & Israel *require* them to purchase US arms, in huge amounts.

If Iran is still flying F14 Tomcats, what of their cobbled together yet shrinking fleet of F4 Phantoms, the '57 Chevy of US jets?

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs, November 22, 2015 at 01:04 PM

A story on Iran F-14.

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/persian-cats-9242012/?no-ist

Seems the Iran AF used F-4's in a ground attack on ISIS positions in 2014. Last recorded F-4 ejection in 2012. The site stopped updating in 2012.

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/Country-By-Country/iranian_f_4_phantom_losses.html

I have a regard for F-4's if nothing else they are only a little less ugly than the A-10, unless they save your bacon in a tight spot on the front line.

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...

Related?

Powerful pill is called toxic
fuel for fighters in Syrian war http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2015/11/21/the-tiny-pill-fueling-syria-war-and-turning-fighters-into-superhuman-soldiers/gLUkphVvyEN8Y5WzzowNhL/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe

Peter Holley Washington Post November 21, 2015

The war in Syria has become a tangled web of conflict dominated by competing military factions fueled by an overlapping mixture of ideologies and political agendas.

Just below it, experts suspect, they're powered by something else: Captagon.

The tiny, highly addictive pill is produced in Syria and now widely available across the Middle East. Its illegal sale funnels hundreds of millions of dollars back into the war-torn country's black-market economy each year, likely giving militias access to new arms, fighters, and the ability to keep the conflict boiling, according to the Guardian.

''Syria is a tremendous problem in that it's a collapsed security sector, because of its porous borders, because of the presence of so many criminal elements and organized networks,'' the UN Office on Drugs and Crime regional representative, Masood Karimipour, told Voice of America.

''There's a great deal of trafficking being done of all sorts of illicit goods - guns, drugs, money, people. But what is being manufactured there and who is doing the manufacturing, that's not something we have visibility into from a distance.''

A powerful amphetamine tablet based on the original synthetic drug known as fenethylline, Captagon quickly produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing Syria's fighters to stay up for days, killing with a numb, reckless abandon.

''You can't sleep or even close your eyes; forget about it,'' said a Lebanese user, one of three who appeared on camera without their names for a BBC Arabic documentary that aired in September. ''And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it.''

''I felt like I own the world high,'' another user said. ''Like I have power nobody has. A really nice feeling.''

''There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon,'' a third man added. ...

... production of Captagon has taken root in Syria, long a heavily trafficked thoroughfare for drugs journeying from Europe to the Gulf States, and it has begun to blossom.

''The breakdown of state infrastructure, weakening of borders and proliferation of armed groups during the nearly three-year battle for control of Syria, has transformed the country from a stopover into a major production site,'' Reuters reported.

''Production in Lebanon's Bekaa valley - a traditional center for the drug - fell 90 percent last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria,'' the Guardian noted.

Cheap and easy to produce using legal materials, the drug can be purchased for less than $20 a tablet and is popular among those Syrian fighters who don't follow strict interpretations of Islamic law, according to the Guardian. ...

[Nov 23, 2015] Tell me how Trump doesn't win the Republican nomination

Notable quotes:
"... By far the most important thing GOP voters are looking for in a candidate is someone to "bring needed change to Washington." ..."
"... He's very strong in several of the early states right now including NH, NV and SC. And he could do very well on "Super Tuesday" with all those southern states voting. I can't see anyone but Trump or Carson winning in Georgia right now, for example, most likely Trump. ..."
"... And as for the idea of the GOP establishment ganging up on him and/or uniting behind another candidate like Rubio, that's at least as likely to backfire as to work. And even if it works, what's to stop Trump from then running as an independent? ..."
"... Indeed. You have a party whose domestic policy agenda consists of shouting "death panels!", whose foreign policy agenda consists of shouting "Benghazi!", and which now expects its base to realize that Trump isn't serious. Or to put it a bit differently, the definition of a GOP establishment candidate these days is someone who is in on the con, and knows that his colleagues have been talking nonsense. Primary voters are expected to respect that? ..."
"... ... with Trump in the race, all of those states-which are more red than they were in '08-are likely out for Democrats. Swing states like Colorado and Virginia are clear toss-ups. There are few states that Romney or McCain won where Trump, as the Republican nominee, wouldn't be in the running, and an analysis of other key states shows that Trump's in far better position than his detractors would like to admit. If Trump were to win every state that Romney won, Trump would stand today at 206 electoral votes, with 55 electoral votes up for grabs in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. Similarly, Trump does not necessarily lose in a single toss-up state versus Hillary Clinton and, in fact, is seemingly competitive in many. ..."
"... Which all means that the election comes down to Florida and Ohio, two states where Trump has significant advantages. In Florida (29 electoral votes), he is a part-time resident and is polling better than the state's former governor and sitting U.S. senator. ... ..."
"... A brokered convention, maybe? Even Romney would have a shot. ..."
"... Top-tier presidential campaigns are preparing for the still-unlikely scenario that the nomination fight goes all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention. ..."
"... There hasn't been a brokered convention since 1976, but the strength of the GOP field, when coupled with the proliferation of super PACs, increases the chances that several candidates could show up in Cleveland next July with an army of delegates at their backs ..."
"... Since the November 13 attacks, every poll-in Florida, two in New Hampshire, and three nationwide-shows Trump maintaining or expanding his lead against his primary opponents. Poor Ben Carson, only recently Trump's chief rival, is losing energy like, well, you know who. In the Fox NH poll, it's Trump at 27, Rubio 13, Cruz 11, and Carson down there at 9 percent alongside Jeb! ..."
"... Play it out: an outsider who's dismissed by his party's elite, comes into the race and overwhelms a large, much more experienced group of candidates in a series of state primaries, both increasing his margins and improving as a candidate as he goes long. All the time riding a crisis that seems made for his candidacy. Does that sound like a sure loser? ... ..."
"... While the investigation into US bombing waste is keyed on who padded the figures rather than the ineptitude of bombing in any use other than taking out property owners to get the greedy to say uncle . The shame of Paris is attributable to the US war machine and every issue requires more money for the pentagon. ..."
"... No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today! Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame. ..."
"... The Devil's Chessboard ..."
Nov 23, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs said... November 23, 2015 at 06:49 AM
(!Trump watch.)

Thinking About the Trumpthinkable
http://nyti.ms/1jeD39I
NYT - Paul Krugman - Nov 22

Alan Abramowitz reads the latest WaPo poll and emails:

'Read these results (#) and tell me how Trump doesn't win the Republican nomination? I've been very skeptical about this all along, but I'm starting to change my mind. I think there's at least a pretty decent chance that Trump will be the nominee.

Here's why I think Trump could very well end up as the nominee:

1. He's way ahead of every other candidate now and has been in the lead or tied for the lead for a long time.

2. The only one even giving him any competition right now is Carson who is even less plausible and whose support is heavily concentrated among one (large) segment of the base-evangelicals.

3. Rubio, the great establishment hope now, is deep in third place, barely in double digits and nowhere close to Trump or Carson.

4. By far the most important thing GOP voters are looking for in a candidate is someone to "bring needed change to Washington."

5. He is favored on almost every major issue by Republican voters including immigration and terrorism by wide margins. The current terrorism scare only helps him with Republicans. They want someone who will "bomb the shit" out of the Muslim terrorists.

6. There is clearly strong support among Republicans for deporting 11 million illegal immigrants. They don't provide party breakdown here, but support for this is at about 40 percent among all voters so it's got to be a lot higher than that, maybe 60 percent, among Republicans.

7. If none of the totally crazy things he's said up until now have hurt him among Republican voters, why would any crazy things he says in the next few months hurt him?

8. He's very strong in several of the early states right now including NH, NV and SC. And he could do very well on "Super Tuesday" with all those southern states voting. I can't see anyone but Trump or Carson winning in Georgia right now, for example, most likely Trump.

9. And as for the idea of the GOP establishment ganging up on him and/or uniting behind another candidate like Rubio, that's at least as likely to backfire as to work. And even if it works, what's to stop Trump from then running as an independent?'

Indeed. You have a party whose domestic policy agenda consists of shouting "death panels!", whose foreign policy agenda consists of shouting "Benghazi!", and which now expects its base to realize that Trump isn't serious. Or to put it a bit differently, the definition of a GOP establishment candidate these days is someone who is in on the con, and knows that his colleagues have been talking nonsense. Primary voters are expected to respect that?

#- Washington Post-ABC News poll, Nov. 16-19, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/washington-post-abc-news-poll-nov-16-19-2015/1880

Dan Kervick -> pgl... November 23, 2015 at 10:42 AM

My guess is that if people dug deeper into the support for Trump, they would find that there is a certain percentage of Republicans who have supported Trump because he was a business man - the only one in the pack - not because they wanted another crazy xenophobic racist wingnut. Now that Trump has gone full wingnut, they are frustrated with the mess they have created for themselves.

Fred C. Dobbs -> Dan Kervick...

Here's Why Donald Trump
Really Could Be Elected President http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/donald-trump-could-be-president via @VanityFair
David Burstein - October 22

... with Trump in the race, all of those states-which are more red than they were in '08-are likely out for Democrats. Swing states like Colorado and Virginia are clear toss-ups. There are few states that Romney or McCain won where Trump, as the Republican nominee, wouldn't be in the running, and an analysis of other key states shows that Trump's in far better position than his detractors would like to admit. If Trump were to win every state that Romney won, Trump would stand today at 206 electoral votes, with 55 electoral votes up for grabs in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. Similarly, Trump does not necessarily lose in a single toss-up state versus Hillary Clinton and, in fact, is seemingly competitive in many.

Virginia is trending blue, but could be a toss-up, particularly given the tale of Dave Brat, whose success in 2014 could be read as a harbinger of Trump. Colorado will have high Republican turnout, given that it is home to what's likely to be one of the country's most contested Senate races-which could make it more competitive than it should be, considering Trump's comments about Latinos. Depending on how well Trump shows in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, they too could be in play. In two of the remaining states, Wisconsin and Nevada, any Democratic nominee will have an upper hand-particularly Clinton.

But Trump will be able to effectively contest, particularly in a place like Wisconsin, with working-class white voters who elected Scott Walker three times in four years. Finally, Pennsylvania, which has been leaning ever-more blue and will likely go blue this year, will nonetheless require Clinton to spend some resources and time there-taking away from her efforts in other swing states.

Which all means that the election comes down to Florida and Ohio, two states where Trump has significant advantages. In Florida (29 electoral votes), he is a part-time resident and is polling better than the state's former governor and sitting U.S. senator. ...

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...

Long time, still, from now to the GOP convention. (Curiously, less every week, however.)

Some GOPsters (including Bush, Rubio, various others) know in their hearts that eventually Trump & Carson will fade, or be dumped, and *their* star will ascend. Sure.

A brokered convention, maybe? Even Romney would have a shot.

NH primary poll puts non-candidate Romney first http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/11/21/gop-voters-would-prefer-romney/WiU9f86jd19UkXYQfb2yxM/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe - Nov 22

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...
Could the GOP Really See a Brokered Convention
in 2016? http://natl.re/CLXxxf via @NRO
Joel Gehrke - May 14, 2015

Ask around and you'll hear a consistent theme from political strategists in the Republican party: The 2016 primary is wide open. "It is by far the most interesting presidential year since I've been involved [in Republican politics]," says Steve Munisteri, a senior adviser to Senator Rand Paul.

How interesting? Top-tier presidential campaigns are preparing for the still-unlikely scenario that the nomination fight goes all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention.

There hasn't been a brokered convention since 1976, but the strength of the GOP field, when coupled with the proliferation of super PACs, increases the chances that several candidates could show up in Cleveland next July with an army of delegates at their backs. "It's certainly more likely now than it's been in any prior election, going back to 1976," Thor Hearn, the general counsel to George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, tells National Review. "I don't put it as a high likelihood, but it's a much more realistic probability than it's been in any recent experience." ...

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...

Believe It: Trump Can Defeat Hillary
http://www.thenation.com/article/believe-it-trump-can-defeat-hillary/
The Nation - Leslie Savan - November 20, 2015

The Paris attacks have made the demagogue even stronger.

Tt hurts to put these words in print, but… Ann Coulter may be right. Shortly after the Paris attacks began last Friday, she tweeted, "They can wait if they like until next November for the actual balloting, but Donald Trump was elected president tonight."

Stephen Colbert agrees. He told us this week to get used to saying "President Trump"-and led his studio audience to repeat the words in unison and then pretend to barf.

Yes, it's hard to stomach. America's most entertaining demagogue winning the GOP primaries and then the general? It can't happen here, can it?

Democrats have been expressing absolute incredulity at the possibility, and quietly chuckling to themselves about the Clinton landslide to come if Donald is his party's nominee. The Huffington Post has banned Trump from its politics section and relegated him to Entertainment, as if there he'd be no more than a joke.

The problem is that our liberal incredulity mirrors that of the Republican establishment, which refuses to believe that their front-runner of five straight months could possibly win their nomination. Now even after the carnage in Paris, Beltway pundits are telling themselves that the base will sober up and turn toward "experienced" pols like Rubio or Bush and away from the newbie nuts. As the always-wrong Bill Kristol said of this latest terrorism crisis, "I think it hurts Trump and Carson, honestly."

But, honestly, it's only strengthened Trump. Since the November 13 attacks, every poll-in Florida, two in New Hampshire, and three nationwide-shows Trump maintaining or expanding his lead against his primary opponents. Poor Ben Carson, only recently Trump's chief rival, is losing energy like, well, you know who. In the Fox NH poll, it's Trump at 27, Rubio 13, Cruz 11, and Carson down there at 9 percent alongside Jeb!

It's easy to laugh at GOPers in denial, but progressives who pooh-pooh Trump's chances of beating Hillary may be whistling past the graveyard of American democracy.

A post-Paris Reuters/Ipsos poll asked 1,106 people which candidate, from the entire 2016 field, could best tackle terrorism, and respondents put Trump and Clinton on equal footing, at 20 percent each.

Not good-when it comes to taking on terrorists, a reality-show "carnival barker" who's never served in the military nor held elected office is tied with a decidedly hawkish former secretary of state?

Play it out: an outsider who's dismissed by his party's elite, comes into the race and overwhelms a large, much more experienced group of candidates in a series of state primaries, both increasing his margins and improving as a candidate as he goes long. All the time riding a crisis that seems made for his candidacy. Does that sound like a sure loser? ...

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs...

Media hype, more Americans died, most did not want to, from gun violence this past weekend......

While the investigation into US bombing waste is keyed on "who padded the figures" rather than the ineptitude of bombing in any use other than taking out property owners to get the greedy to say "uncle". The shame of Paris is attributable to the US war machine and every issue requires more money for the pentagon.

847328_3527
But they're still ... "jealous of our freedom" right?
sgt_doom

"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s, but they never attacked innocent women and children indiscriminately," he said.

No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today!

Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame.

Recommended reading (to better understand why the USA is known as the Great Satan):

The Devil's Chessboard, by David Talbot

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+devil%27s+chessboard&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=78875381302&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2565125617248777980&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_34lcz93rcf_e_p4

logicalman
Funny how these fucks can come out and say this kind of shit and get away with it. The fucker's basically pleading guilty to murder, FFS.
Ms No
They didn't kill anybody in South America my ass.... The school of Americas, Operation Condor, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador .... who the hell are they kidding? The CIA has always been covered and nobody ever cared.
Perimetr Perimetr's picture
"If there's blame to be put. . ."

It's on the CIA for running its global terrorist operations, funded by the $1 trillion dollars a year coming from its Afghanistan heroin operation.

Noplebian

US Gives Their Proxy Army ISIS 45 Minute Warning Before Air Strikes......

http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...

blindman

sirs and madams,
.
"Christmas celebration this year is going to be a charade because the whole world is at war. We are close to Christmas. There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war.

It's all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war. A war can be justified, so to speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be-a little here, a little there-there is no justification.

What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims, and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers."

Francis I
.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2015/11/here-is-british-banned-...

Dinero D. Profit

Ladies and gentlemen of ZH.

In history, what must be, will be.

The discovery of America by Europe had to happen. The savages had to be eliminated and The Revolutionary War had to happen. Slavery had to begin, and after it, segregation had to begin, but, what must be, will be, slavery and segregation had to end. Old School colonization of poor nations had to happen. The Boer War had to happen. The Spanish American War had to happen. The Main had to be sunk. WWI had to happen. Calvary charges had to end. Totalitarian Communism had to happen. Germany's 20's depression had to happen, reactionary jingoism had to happen, and Kristallnacht and the Reichstag fire had to happen. The Allies had to win WWII, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be publicity stunts, and the Cold War had to begin. JFK had to be wacked, the Vietnam War had to happen, the FED still was happening. Civil Rights laws had to be passed. Recognition of China had to happen, going off the gold standard had to happen, and Nixon had to be kicked out of office. Corporate Globalization had to begin. After Carter an actor had to be President. Unions had to be stifled. Perestroika and glasnost had to happen. The Berlin Wall had to come down. The MIC had to find another enemy, and suddenly 9/11 had to happen. …

Over population has to happen, poisoning the environment has to happen, and the NWO has to happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, the NWO is here, and there is nothing you can do, and nothing you could have done to stop it.

Edit. I see none of our supposed enemies 'truth bombing' 9/11, 7/7, and the 13th Paris attacks. I see no trade embagoes, I see no arguments in the Security Council over the illegality of US/Nato bombing in Syria.

blindman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_79...
Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
Posted: 08/03/2015 11:48 am EDT
.
On July 28, Thom Hartmann interviewed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and, at the very end of his show (as if this massive question were merely an afterthought), asked him his opinion of the 2010 Citizens United decision and the 2014 McCutcheon decision, both decisions by the five Republican judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. These two historic decisions enable unlimited secret money (including foreign money) now to pour into U.S. political and judicial campaigns. Carter answered:

It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell." ...
.
it is the money "system", man.

blindman

corporations and hoodwink powers ride on the indifference of the damned, the silence of the dead and doomed.

Dinero D. Profit

The Satus Quo can rely upon the loyalty of their employees, Congress, the military, the military industrial contractors, their workers and family members, the crime control establishment, all Uniersity professors and employees, and every employee of all publically traded companies, and every person employed by the MSM.

The dead and doomed are irrelevant. If you have an establishment job, you'll obey and ask no vital questions.

Dick Buttkiss
Sunnis and Shiites hate each other far more than they hate Christians, Jews, or anyone else. If it weren't for oil, the USG wouldn't give a flyiing fuck if they anihilated each other. Instead, it conspires with them in ways far beyond its ability to comprehend, much less navigate. Thus is the US ship of state heading for the shoals of its destruction, the only question being how much of the country and the outside world it takes down with it.
ross81
thats bullshit Western propaganda that Shiites hate Sunnis and vice versa. In the same way that the Brits stirred up Protestant hatred of Catholics in Ulster for centuries, the US/Israel/Saudi does the same with Sunnis vs Shiites on a much bigger scale in the Middle East. Divide and Conquer.
geno-econ
This is getting scary in that one or two more attacks will result in travel freezes, flow of Middle East oil and result in huge increase in military as well as Homeland security costs. A depression or economic collapse a real possibility Perhaps time for a Peace Conference of all interested parties. The US started this shit and should be the first to call for a Peace Conference. Macho talk will only make things worse.
moonmac
We can print trillions out of thin air at the drop of a hat but we can't kill a small group of terrorists. Got it!
sgt_doom
Or, we pour billions of dollars every year into the CIA, NSA, and DIA, and only a poor old fart such as myself can figure out that Bilal Erdogan is the ISIS connection to oil trading (Turkish president, Erdogan's son) and Erdogan's daughter is with ISIS?
GRDguy
Ex-CIA boss gets it wrong, again.

"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."

should be:

"When you have a small group of financial sociopaths willing to lie-to, steal-from and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."

and you'll probably be punished, jailed or shot for tryin' to protect yourself and your family.

Ban KKiller
War profiteer. That is it. Along wth James Comey, James Clapper, Jack Welch and the list is almost endless...
BarnacleBill
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."

Simply take out the word "their", and the description perfectly fits the CIA, MI6 and their like. For them, it's all a business deal, nothing more - a massive slum-clearance project. Destroy people's houses, provide accommodation and food, ship them somewhere else; do it again and again until the money-printing machine conks out. It's money for old rope.

http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2015/11/slum-clearance-on-massive-scale.html

And, yes, we're all vulnerable. The man got that right.

Duc888
"You get the politicians you deserve."

CIA types are appointed, not elected.

Duc888
I do not know if there are any Catherine Austin Fitts fans on this web site but this is definitely worth the time. The FEDGOV came after her non stop for 6 years when she worked for HUD under Bush Sr. If nothing else this lady is tenacious. In this presentation she uncorks exactly HOW the deep black budgets are paid for...and it ain't your tax dollars. What she uncovered while at HUD was simply amazing..... and she made an excellent point. At the top... it's NOT "fraud" because that's how it was all deigned right from the get go after wwII. It brings to mind the funny computer saying....."it's a feature, not a bug". She digs right into how the CIA was funded... Truly amazing stuff. ...of course the dick head brigade will come along here and deride her because of the conference she is speaking at.... well, who the fuck cares, her presentation is excellent and filled with facts. Yes it is 1 hour 20 minutes long but imho it is well worth the watch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8

Dragon HAwk
After reading all these posts my only question is why does the CIA allow Zero Hedge to Exist ?

except of course to collect names...

[Nov 23, 2015] Imagine a U.S. presidential candidate who met with the Russian government and repeatedly accused them of being too soft on President Obama By Mark Weisbrot

Notable quotes:
"... Imagine a U.S. presidential candidate who met with the Russian government and repeatedly accused them of being too soft on President Obama. A candidate who told Russias foreign minister of the need to set limits on the White Houses misbehavior, and that the Russians silence on the abusive mistreatment [Russia] suffered at the hands of the Obama administration had encouraged more of the same. ..."
"... Mauricio Macri, a right-wing businessman from one of the countrys richest families, is running for president in elections this Sunday. According to leaked documents from the U.S. Embassy, published by WikiLeaks, this is the conversation he had with the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. State Department official in charge of Latin America. He was very concerned that Washington was too soft on Argentina and was encouraging abusive treatment of the U.S. at the hands of the Argentine government. ..."
"... From 2003-2015, according to the IMF, the real (inflation-adjusted) Argentine economy grew by about 78 percent. (There is some dispute over this number, but not enough to change the overall picture.) This is quite a large increase in living standards, one of the biggest in the Americas. Unemployment fell from more than 17.2 percent to 6.9 percent (IMF). The government created the largest conditional cash transfer program in the Americas for the poor. From 2003 to the second half of 2013 (the latest independent statistics available), poverty fell by about 70 percent and extreme poverty by 80 percent. (These numbers are based on independent estimates of inflation.) ..."
"... In the last four years, growth has slowed, inflation has been higher, and a black market has developed for the dollar. Some of this has been due to a number of unfavorable external shocks: the regional economy will have negative growth this year (Argentinas will be slightly positive); ..."
www.cepr.net
http://www.cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/warning-signs-on-the-road-to-change-in-argentina

November 20, 2015

Warning Signs on the Road to "Change" in Argentina
By Mark Weisbrot

Imagine a U.S. presidential candidate who met with the Russian government and repeatedly accused them of being "too soft" on President Obama. A candidate who told Russia's foreign minister of the "need to set limits" on the White House's "misbehavior," and that the Russians' "silence" on the "abusive mistreatment [Russia] suffered" at the hands of the Obama administration "had encouraged more of the same."

Would Americans trust such a candidate? OK, that's a rhetorical question. But in Argentina, it's real.

Mauricio Macri, a right-wing businessman from one of the country's richest families, is running for president in elections this Sunday. According to leaked documents from the U.S. Embassy, published by WikiLeaks, this is the conversation he had with the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. State Department official in charge of Latin America. He was very concerned that Washington was "too soft" on Argentina and was encouraging "abusive treatment" of the U.S. at the hands of the Argentine government.

The analogy is not perfect, since the current Russian government has never played a major role -- or any role, for that matter -- in wrecking the U.S. economy and creating a Great Depression here. But the U.S. Treasury Department, which was the International Monetary Fund's decider during Argentina's severe depression of 1998-2002, did indeed exert an enormous influence on the policies that prolonged and deepened that depression. Argentines are not holding a grudge, but neither would they want the U.S. to again play a major role in their politics or economic policy.

But there are other reasons to worry about Macri's intentions that hit closer to home. In his conversations with U.S. officials, in 2009, he referred to the economic policies of the Kirchners -- Néstor Kirchner, who was president from 2003-2007, and his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was elected in 2007 -- as "a failed economic model." He has made similar statements during the campaign, and although he has often been vague, he has indicated that he wants something very different, and considerably to the right of current economic policy.

It is worth looking at this much-maligned record of the Kirchners, especially since Daniel Scioli, who is the candidate of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her "Front for Victory" alliance, represents some continuity with "Kirchnerismo." Macri's coalition is called "Cambiemos," or "Let's Change."

From 2003-2015, according to the IMF, the real (inflation-adjusted) Argentine economy grew by about 78 percent. (There is some dispute over this number, but not enough to change the overall picture.) This is quite a large increase in living standards, one of the biggest in the Americas. Unemployment fell from more than 17.2 percent to 6.9 percent (IMF). The government created the largest conditional cash transfer program in the Americas for the poor. From 2003 to the second half of 2013 (the latest independent statistics available), poverty fell by about 70 percent and extreme poverty by 80 percent. (These numbers are based on independent estimates of inflation.)

But these numbers do not describe the full magnitude of the achievement. As I describe in my book, "Failed: What the 'Experts' Got Wrong About the Global Economy" (Oxford University Press, 2015), Néstor Kirchner took office as the economy was beginning to recover from a serious depression, and it took great courage and tenacity to stand up to the IMF and its allies, negotiate a sustainable level of foreign debt (which involved sticking to a large default), and implement a set of macroeconomic policies that would allow for this remarkable recovery. It was analogous to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership during the U.S. Great Depression, and like Roosevelt, Kirchner had the majority of the economics profession against him -- as well as the media. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner also had to fight a number of battles to continue Argentina's economic progress.

In the last four years, growth has slowed, inflation has been higher, and a black market has developed for the dollar. Some of this has been due to a number of unfavorable external shocks: the regional economy will have negative growth this year (Argentina's will be slightly positive); Argentina's biggest trading partner, Brazil, is in recession and has seen its currency plummet; and in 2014 a New York judge of questionable competence made a political decision to block Argentina from making debt payments to most of its creditors. So, despite the overall track record of 12 years of Kirchnerismo delivering a large increase in living standards and employment, and successful poverty reduction, there are significant problems that need to be fixed.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran for president of the United States in the midst of a recession and inflation passing 13 percent. He, too, promised change and he delivered it -- and ushered in an era of sharply increased inequality and other social, political, and economic maladies from which America is still suffering. Just look at his proud progeny in the Republican presidential debates.

Macri probably does not have Reagan's talent as an actor and communicator to radically transform Argentina and reverse most of the gains of the last 13 years. But it seems likely from the interests that he represents, and his political orientation, that Argentina's poor and working people will bear the brunt of any economic adjustment. And there is a serious risk that by following right-wing "fixes" for the economy, he could launch a cycle of self-defeating austerity and recession of the kind that we have seen in Greece and the eurozone.

The Kirchners also reversed the impunity of military officers responsible for mass murder and torture during the dictatorship, and hundreds have been tried and convicted for their crimes. Macri has dismissed these unprecedented human rights achievements as mere political showmanship. His party also voted against marriage equality, which was passed anyway, making Argentina the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage.

"Let's Change" is an appealing slogan, but the question is "change to what?"

[Nov 23, 2015] The Crisis of World Order

It's the same PNAC propaganda all over again.
Notable quotes:
"... From the man who brought you the Iraq war and the rise of ISIS--how to solve the ISIS crisis. ..."
"... Youd think ppl who brought the Iraq war, the best recruiters of ISIS, would be nowhere to be seen; but no, are telling how to deal w/ISIS. ..."
"... Narrative is the foundation of their skewed analysis. Their object is to sell perpetual war using super high tech, exquisitely expensive, contractor maintained versions of WW II formations to expired resources eternally for the profits they deliver. They starve the safety net to pay for their income security. ..."
"... ... In July of last year, the New York Times ran two pieces tying Clinton to the neoconservative movement. In "The Next Act of the Neocons," (*) Jacob Heilbrunn argued that neocons like historian Robert Kagan are putting their lot in with Clinton in an effort to stay relevant while the GOP shies away from its past interventionism and embraces politicians like Senator Rand Paul: ..."
"... And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler; wholeheartedly backs Israel; and stresses the importance of promoting democracy. ..."
"... It's easy to imagine Mrs. Clinton's making room for the neocons in her administration. No one could charge her with being weak on national security with the likes of Robert Kagan on board ..."
"... Kagan served on Clinton's bipartisan foreign policy advisory board when she was Secretary of State, has deep neocon roots. ..."
"... A month before the Heilbrunn piece, the Times profiled Kagan ( ..."
"... ), who was critical of Obama's foreign policy, but supported Clinton. "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy," Kagan told the Times. "If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that." ... ..."
"... Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton? http://nyti.ms/1qJ4eLN ..."
"... Robert Kagan Strikes a Nerve With Article on Obama Policy http://nyti.ms/UEuqtB ..."
"... doublethink has become synonymous with relieving cognitive dissonance by ignoring the contradiction between two world views – or even of deliberately seeking to relieve cognitive dissonance. (Wikipedia) ..."
Nov. 20, 2015 | WSJ

...Europe was not in great shape before the refugee crisis and the terrorist attacks. The prolonged Eurozone crisis eroded the legitimacy of European political institutions and the centrist parties that run them, while weakening the economies of key European powers. The old troika-Britain, France and Germany-that used to provide leadership on the continent and with whom the U.S. worked most closely to set the global agenda is no more. Britain is a pale shadow of its former self. Once the indispensable partner for the U.S., influential in both Washington and Brussels, the mediator between America and Europe, Britain is now unmoored, drifting away from both. The Labor Party, once led by Tony Blair, is now headed by an anti-American pacifist, while the ruling Conservative government boasts of its "very special relationship" with China.

... ... ...

There is a Russian angle, too. Many of these parties, and even some mainstream political movements across the continent, are funded by Russia and make little secret of their affinity for Moscow. Thus Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has praised "illiberalism" and made common ideological cause with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Germany, a whole class of businesspeople, politicians, and current and former government officials, led by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, presses constantly for normalized relations with Moscow. It sometimes seems, in Germany and perhaps in all of Europe, as if the only person standing in the way of full alliance with Russia is German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Now the Syrian crisis has further bolstered Russia's position. Although Europeans generally share Washington's discomfort with Moscow's support for Mr. Assad and Russia's bombing of moderate Syrian rebels, in the wake of the Paris attacks, any plausible partner in the fight against Islamic State seems worth enlisting. In France, former President Nicolas Sarkozy has long been an advocate for Russia, but now his calls for partnership with Moscow are echoed by President François Hollande, who seeks a "grand coalition" with Russia to fight Islamic State.

Where does the U.S. fit into all this? The Europeans no longer know, any more than American allies in the Middle East do. Most Europeans still like Mr. Obama. After President George W. Bush and the Iraq war, Europeans have gotten the kind of American president they wanted. But in the current crisis, this new, more restrained and intensely cautious post-Iraq America has less to offer than the old superpower, with all its arrogance and belligerence.

The flip side of European pleasure at America's newfound Venusian outlook is the perception, widely shared around the world, that the U.S. is a declining superpower, and that even if it is not objectively weaker than it once was, its leaders' willingness to deploy power on behalf of its interests, and on behalf of the West, has greatly diminished. As former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer recently put it, the U.S. "quite obviously, is no longer willing-or able-to play its old role."

Mr. Fischer was referring specifically to America's role as the dominant power in the Middle East, but since the refugee crisis and the attacks in Paris, America's unwillingness to play that role has reverberations and implications well beyond the Middle East. What the U.S. now does or doesn't do in Syria will affect the future stability of Europe, the strength of trans-Atlantic relations and therefore the well-being of the liberal world order.

This is no doubt the last thing that Mr. Obama wants to hear, and possibly to believe. Certainly he would not deny that the stakes have gone up since the refugee crisis and especially since Paris. At the very least, Islamic State has proven both its desire and its ability to carry out massive, coordinated attacks in a major European city. It is not unthinkable that it could carry out a similar attack in an American city. This is new.

... ... ...

In 2002, a British statesman-scholar issued a quiet warning. "The challenge to the postmodern world," the diplomat Robert Cooper argued, was that while Europeans might operate within their borders as if power no longer mattered, in the world outside Europe, they needed to be prepared to use force just as in earlier eras. "Among ourselves, we keep the law, but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle," he wrote. Europeans didn't heed this warning, or at least didn't heed it sufficiently. They failed to arm themselves for the jungle, materially and spiritually, and now that the jungle has entered the European garden, they are at a loss.

With the exercise of power barely an option, despite what Mr. Hollande promises, Europeans are likely to feel their only choice is to build fences, both within Europe and along its periphery-even if in the process they destroy the very essence of the European project. It is this sentiment that has the Le Pens of Europe soaring in the polls.

What would such an effort look like? First, it would require establishing a safe zone in Syria, providing the millions of would-be refugees still in the country a place to stay and the hundreds of thousands who have fled to Europe a place to which to return. To establish such a zone, American military officials estimate, would require not only U.S. air power but ground forces numbering up to 30,000. Once the safe zone was established, many of those troops could be replaced by forces from Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, but the initial force would have to be largely American.

In addition, a further 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops would be required to uproot Islamic State from the haven it has created in Syria and to help local forces uproot it in Iraq. Many of those troops could then be replaced by NATO and other international forces to hold the territory and provide a safe zone for rebuilding the areas shattered by Islamic State rule.

At the same time, an internationally negotiated and blessed process of transition in Syria should take place, ushering the bloodstained Mr. Assad from power and establishing a new provisional government to hold nationwide elections. The heretofore immovable Mr. Assad would face an entirely new set of military facts on the ground, with the Syrian opposition now backed by U.S. forces and air power, the Syrian air force grounded and Russian bombing halted. Throughout the transition period, and probably beyond even the first rounds of elections, an international peacekeeping force-made up of French, Turkish, American and other NATO forces as well as Arab troops-would have to remain in Syria until a reasonable level of stability, security and inter-sectarian trust was achieved.

Is such a plan so unthinkable? In recent years, the mere mention of U.S. ground troops has been enough to stop any conversation. Americans, or at least the intelligentsia and political class, remain traumatized by Iraq, and all calculations about what to do in Syria have been driven by that trauma. Mr. Obama's advisers have been reluctant to present him with options that include even smaller numbers of ground forces, assuming that he would reject them. And Mr. Obama has, in turn, rejected his advisers' less ambitious proposals on the reasonable grounds that they would probably be insufficient.

This dynamic has kept the president sneering at those who have wanted to do more but have been reluctant to be honest about how much more. But it has also allowed him to be comfortable settling for minimal, pressure-relieving approaches that he must know cannot succeed but which at least have the virtue of avoiding the much larger commitment that he has so far refused to make.

The president has also been inclined to reject options that don't promise to "solve" the problems of Syria, Iraq and the Middle East. He doesn't want to send troops only to put "a lid on things."

In this respect, he is entranced, like most Americans, by the image of the decisive engagement followed by the victorious return home. But that happy picture is a myth. Even after the iconic American victory in World War II, the U.S. didn't come home. Keeping a lid on things is exactly what the U.S. has done these past 70 years. That is how the U.S. created this liberal world order.

In Asia, American forces have kept a lid on what had been, and would likely be again, a dangerous multisided conflict involving China, Japan, Korea, India and who knows who else. In Europe, American forces put a lid on what had been a chronic state of insecurity and war, making it possible to lay the foundations of the European Union. In the Balkans, the presence of U.S. and European troops has kept a lid on what had been an escalating cycle of ethnic conflict. In Libya, a similar international force, with even a small American contingent, could have kept the lid on that country's boiling caldron, perhaps long enough to give a new, more inclusive government a chance.

Preserving a liberal world order and international security is all about placing lids on regions of turmoil. In any case, as my Brookings Institution colleague Thomas Wright observes, whether or not you want to keep a lid on something really ought to depend on what's under the lid.

At practically any other time in the last 70 years, the idea of dispatching even 50,000 troops to fight an organization of Islamic State's description would not have seemed too risky or too costly to most Americans. In 1990-91, President George H.W. Bush, now revered as a judicious and prudent leader, sent half a million troops across the globe to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, a country that not one American in a million could find on a map and which the U.S. had no obligation to defend. In 1989, he sent 30,000 troops to invade Panama to topple an illegitimate, drug-peddling dictator. During the Cold War, when presidents sent more than 300,000 troops to Korea and more than 500,000 troops to Vietnam, the idea of sending 50,000 troops to fight a large and virulently anti-American terrorist organization that had seized territory in the Middle East, and from that territory had already launched a murderous attack on a major Western city, would have seemed barely worth an argument.

Not today. Americans remain paralyzed by Iraq, Republicans almost as much as Democrats, and Mr. Obama is both the political beneficiary and the living symbol of this paralysis. Whether he has the desire or capacity to adjust to changing circumstances is an open question. Other presidents have-from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton-each of whom was forced to recalibrate what the loss or fracturing of Europe would mean to American interests. In Mr. Obama's case, however, such a late-in-the-game recalculation seems less likely. He may be the first president since the end of World War II who simply doesn't care what happens to Europe.

If so, it is, again, a great irony for Europe, and perhaps a tragic one. Having excoriated the U.S. for invading Iraq, Europeans played no small part in bringing on the crisis of confidence and conscience that today prevents Americans from doing what may be necessary to meet the Middle Eastern crisis that has Europe reeling. Perhaps there are Europeans today wishing that the U.S. will not compound its error of commission in Iraq by making an equally unfortunate error of omission in Syria. They can certainly hope.

Mr. Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order" and, most recently, "The World America Made."

Selected Skeptical Comments
anne said... , November 22, 2015 at 05:50 AM
https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan

Branko Milanovic ‏@BrankoMilan

From the man who brought you the Iraq war and the rise of ISIS--how to solve the ISIS crisis.

Strobe Talbott @strobetalbott

A clarion call by @BrookingsFP's Bob Kagan. Hope (& bet) POTUS has read it. Would-be successors should as well. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-crisis-of-world-order-1448052095

9:03 AM - 21 Nov 2015

anne said in reply to anne... , November 22, 2015 at 05:50 AM

https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/668114578866221056

Branko Milanovic‏ @BrankoMilan

You'd think ppl who brought the Iraq war, the best recruiters of ISIS, would be nowhere to be seen; but no, are telling how to deal w/ISIS.

ilsm said in reply to anne...

Narrative is the foundation of their skewed analysis. Their object is to sell perpetual war using super high tech, exquisitely expensive, contractor maintained versions of WW II formations to expired resources eternally for the profits they deliver. They starve the safety net to pay for their income security.


Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to anne...

Neoconservativism Is Down But Not Out of the 2016 Race

http://bloom.bg/1EpwSou
via @Bloomberg - February 18, 2015

... In July of last year, the New York Times ran two pieces tying Clinton to the neoconservative movement. In "The Next Act of the Neocons," (*) Jacob Heilbrunn argued that neocons like historian Robert Kagan are putting their lot in with Clinton in an effort to stay relevant while the GOP shies away from its past interventionism and embraces politicians like Senator Rand Paul:

'Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in the New Republic this year that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya."

And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler; wholeheartedly backs Israel; and stresses the importance of promoting democracy.

It's easy to imagine Mrs. Clinton's making room for the neocons in her administration. No one could charge her with being weak on national security with the likes of Robert Kagan on board.'

(The story also notes, prematurely, that the careers of older neocons like Wolfowitz are "permanently buried in the sands of Iraq.")

Kagan served on Clinton's bipartisan foreign policy advisory board when she was Secretary of State, has deep neocon roots. He was part of the Project for a New American Century, a now-defunct think tank that spanned much of the second Bush presidency and supported a "Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." PNAC counted Kagan, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, and Jeb Bush among its members. In 1998, some of its members-including Wolfowitz, Kagan, and Rumsfeld-signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton asking him to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

A month before the Heilbrunn piece, the Times profiled Kagan (#), who was critical of Obama's foreign policy, but supported Clinton. "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy," Kagan told the Times. "If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that." ...

*- Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton? http://nyti.ms/1qJ4eLN

#- Robert Kagan Strikes a Nerve With Article on Obama Policy http://nyti.ms/UEuqtB

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...

(I may be a HRC supporter but Neocons still make me anxious.)

'doublethink has become synonymous with relieving cognitive dissonance by ignoring the contradiction between two world views – or even of deliberately seeking to relieve cognitive dissonance.' (Wikipedia)


[Nov 21, 2015] US Congresswoman Introduces Bill To Stop Illegal War On Assad; Says CIA Ops Must Stop

"Any candidate who supports a safe no-fly zone in Syria, must admit that US/Coalition ground/air troops are need to enforce [it]
Nov 21, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Last month, US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard went on CNN and laid bare Washington's Syria strategy.

In a remarkably candid interview with Wolf Blitzer, Gabbard calls Washington's effort to oust Assad "counterproductive" and "illegal" before taking it a step further and accusing the CIA of arming the very same terrorists who The White House insists are "sworn enemies."

In short, Gabbard all but tells the American public that the government is lying to them and may end up inadvertently starting "World War III."

For those who missed it, here's the clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHkher6ceaA

[Nov 21, 2015] Wolf Richter: Financially Engineered Stocks Drag Down S P 500

All this neoliberal talk about "maximizing shareholder value" and hidden redistribution mechanism of wealth up. It;s all about executive pay. "Shareholder value" is nothing then a ruse for getting outsize bonuses but top execs. Who cares if the company will be destroyed if you have a golden parachute ?
Notable quotes:
"... IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. ..."
"... Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it. ..."
"... Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period. ..."
"... This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income of $847 billion. ..."
"... Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery. ..."
"... Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income is declining. ..."
"... But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered. ..."
"... Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s). ..."
"... On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement? ..."
"... "Results of all this financial engineering? Revenues of the S P 500 companies are falling for the fourth quarter in a row – the worst such spell since the Financial Crisis." ..."
November 21, 2015 | naked capitalism

By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street.

Magic trick turns into toxic mix.

Stocks have been on a tear to nowhere this year. Now investors are praying for a Santa rally to pull them out of the mire. They're counting on desperate amounts of share buybacks that companies fund by loading up on debt. But the magic trick that had performed miracles over the past few years is backfiring.

And there's a reason.

IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R&D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. And its stock is down 38% since March 2013.

Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R&D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R&D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it.

"Activist investors" – hedge funds – have been clamoring for it. An investigative report by Reuters, titled The Cannibalized Company, lined some of them up:

In March, General Motors Co acceded to a $5 billion share buyback to satisfy investor Harry Wilson. He had threatened a proxy fight if the auto maker didn't distribute some of the $25 billion cash hoard it had built up after emerging from bankruptcy just a few years earlier.

DuPont early this year announced a $4 billion buyback program – on top of a $5 billion program announced a year earlier – to beat back activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management, which was seeking four board seats to get its way.

In March, Qualcomm Inc., under pressure from hedge fund Jana Partners, agreed to boost its program to purchase $10 billion of its shares over the next 12 months; the company already had an existing $7.8 billion buyback program and a commitment to return three quarters of its free cash flow to shareholders.

And in July, Qualcomm announced 5,000 layoffs. It's hard to innovate when you're trying to please a hedge fund.

CEOs with a long-term outlook and a focus on innovation and investment, rather than financial engineering, come under intense pressure.

"None of it is optional; if you ignore them, you go away," Russ Daniels, a tech executive with 15 years at Apple and 13 years at HP, told Reuters. "It's all just resource allocation," he said. "The situation right now is there are a lot of investors who believe that they can make a better decision about how to apply that resource than the management of the business can."

Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period.

This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income of $847 billion.

Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery.

Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income is declining.

"Serving customers, creating innovative new products, employing workers, taking care of the environment … are NOT the objectives of firms," sais Itzhak Ben-David, a finance professor of Ohio State University, a buyback proponent, according to Reuters. "These are components in the process that have the goal of maximizing shareholders' value."

But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered.

Citigroup credit analysts looked into the extent to which this is happening – and why. Christine Hughes, Chief Investment Strategist at OtterWood Capital, summarized the Citi report this way: "This dynamic of borrowing from bondholders to pay shareholders may be coming to an end…."

Their chart (via OtterWood Capital) shows that about half of the cumulative outperformance of these buyback queens from 2012 through 2014 has been frittered away this year, as their shares, IBM-like, have swooned...

... ... ...

Selected Skeptical Comments

Mbuna, November 21, 2015 at 7:31 am

Me thinks Wolf is slightly barking up the wrong tree here. What needs to be looked at is how buy backs affect executive pay. "Shareholder value" is more often than not a ruse?

ng, November 21, 2015 at 8:58 am

probably, in some or most cases, but the effect on the stock is the same.

Alejandro, November 21, 2015 at 9:19 am

Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s).

On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement?

Jim, November 21, 2015 at 10:42 am

More nuance and less dogma please. The dogmatic tone really hurts what could otherwise be a fine but more-qualified position.

"Results of all this financial engineering? Revenues of the S&P 500 companies are falling for the fourth quarter in a row – the worst such spell since the Financial Crisis."

Eh, no. No question that buybacks *can* be asset-stripping and often are, but unless you tie capital allocation decisions closer to investment in the business such that they're mutually exclusive, this is specious and a reach. No one invests if they can't see the return. It would be just as easy to say that they're buying back stock because revenue is slipping and they have no other investment opportunities.

Revenues are falling in large part because these largest companies derive an ABSOLUTELY HUGE portion of their business overseas and the dollar has been ridiculously strong in the last 12-15 months. Rates are poised to rise, and the easy Fed-inspired rate arbitrage vis a vis stocks and "risk on" trade are closing. How about a little more context instead of just dogma?

John Malone made a career out of financial engineering, something like 30% annual returns for the 25 years of his CEO tenure at TCI. Buybacks were a huge part of that.

Perhaps an analysis of the monopolistic positions of so many American businesses that allow them the wherewithal to underinvest and still buy back huge amounts of stock? If we had a more competitive economy, companies would have less ability to underinvest. Ultimately, I think buybacks are more a result than a cause of dysfunction, but certainly not always bad.

[Nov 21, 2015] On the Lack of Courage in Regulators

Notable quotes:
"... Can courage trump careerism? I believe that for the forseeable future the answer is "No". People are highly incentivized to take the path of least resistance and simply go along to get along. ..."
"... It would be wrong to excuse the inaction of the Obama DOJ and SEC crews as being the result of some larger "corrosion of our collective values." The capos in those crews are the people doing the corroding, and not one of them was forced to (not) do what they did. Notice that every last one of the initial bunch is presently being paid, by Wall Street, to the tune of millions of dollars per year. They opted to cover up crimes and take a pay-off in exchange. And they are owed punishment. ..."
Nov 21, 2015 | naked capitalism
I'm embedding the text of a short but must-read speech by Robert Jenkins, a former banker, hedge fund manager, and regulator (Bank of England) who is now a Senior Fellow at Better Markets. If nothing else, be sure to look at the partial list of bank misconduct and activities currently under investigation.

Jenkins points out that regulatory reform has fallen short on multiple fronts, and perhaps the most important is courage. Readers may understandably object to him giving lip service to the idea that Bernanke acted courageously during the crisis (serving the needs of banks via unconventional means is not tantamount to courage), but he is a Serious Person, and making a case against Bernanke would detract from his bigger message about the lack of guts post-crisis.

Now there have been exceptions, like Benjamin Lawsky, Sheila Bair, Gary Gensler, Kara Stein, and in a more insider capacity, Danny Tarullo. Contrast their examples with the typical cronyism and lame rationalizations for inaction, particularly by the Department of Justice and the SEC. It's not obvious how to reverse the corrosion of our collective values. But it is important to remember than norms can shift much faster than most people think possible, with, for instance, the 1950s followed by the radicalism and shifts in social values of the 1960s, which conservative elements are still fighting to roll back.

Michael G

A link to a text version of the speech for those with uncooperative computers
http://www.ianfraser.org/why-well-all-end-up-paying-for-the-feeble-response-to-the-banking-crisis/
Worth reading

James Levy

We do not live in an economy or a polity that breeds or rewards the kind of public-mindedness and civic virtue that gives you courage. The author thinks the system needs courageous people, but posits no conception of where they would come from and how they would thrive in the current system (news flash: they won't). So this is a classic "I see the problem clearly but can't see that the solution is impossible under the current system" piece.

TMock

Agreed.

For those who desire real solutions, try this…

The Universal Principles of Sustainable Development

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/02/universal-principles-sustainable-development/

Norb

In Tavis Smiley's book, My Journey with Maya Angelou, he recounts an ongoing discussion the two of them entertained throughout the years concerning which trait, Love or Courage, was more important in realizing a full life. Angelou argued that acting courageously was the most important. Smiley saw love as the moving force. While important and moving, the discussion has the dead-end quality of not being able to move past the current system of injustice. I say this because in the end, both support incremental change to the existing system as the means to bring about social justice. The powerful elite have perfected the manipulation of incremental change to render it powerless.

When trying to change a social system, courage is needed. Courage to form a vision of the future that is based on public-mindedness and civic virtues that bring justice into the world. Our current leaders are delivering the exact opposite of civic justice. Its time to call them out on their duplicity, and ignore their vision of the future.

The courage that is needed today is not the courage to stand up to the criminals running things and somehow make them change. It is the courage to make them irrelevant. Change will come from the bottom up, one person at a time.

cnchal

And when one shows up, look what happens.

The disturbing fact is that laws have been broken but law breaking has not touched senior management.

If they knew, then they were complicit. If they did not, then they were incompetent. Alternatively, if the deserving dozens have indeed been banned from the field let the list be known – that we might see some of that "professional ostracism" of which Governor Carney speaks. One person who did lose his position and quite publicly at that was Martin Wheatley, the UK's courageous conduct enforcer.

Meanwhile the chairman of Europe's largest bank, Douglas Flint at HSBC, remains in situ – despite having been on the board since 1995; despite having signed off on the acquisition of Household Finance; and despite having had oversight of tax entangled subsidiaries in Switzerland and money laundering units in Mexico. Oh, and you'll love this: the recently retired CEO of Standard Chartered is reportedly an advisor to Her Majesty's Government. Standard Chartered was among the first to be investigated for violations of rogue regime sanctions. The bank was fined heavily and may be so again.

Courageous people get fired, which leads to no courageous people left.

GlassHammer

Can courage trump careerism? I believe that for the forseeable future the answer is "No". People are highly incentivized to take the path of least resistance and simply go along to get along.

susan the other

By extreme necessity (created by total dysfunction) we will probably wind up with planned and coordinated economies that do not rely on speculation & credit to come up with the next great idea. Those ideas will be forced to come from the top down. And the problems of unregulated capitalism frantically chumming for inspiration and extreme profits will shrink back down from a world-eating monster to just a fox or two.

Oliver Budde

It would be wrong to excuse the inaction of the Obama DOJ and SEC crews as being the result of some larger "corrosion of our collective values." The capos in those crews are the people doing the corroding, and not one of them was forced to (not) do what they did. Notice that every last one of the initial bunch is presently being paid, by Wall Street, to the tune of millions of dollars per year. They opted to cover up crimes and take a pay-off in exchange. And they are owed punishment.

Malcolm MacLeod, MD

Oliver: I believe that you hit the nail on the head, and
I wholeheartedly agree.

[Nov 21, 2015] Ilargi The Great Fall Of China Started At Least 4 Years Ago

Notable quotes:
"... The biggest market in the world today is derivatives, money making money without a useful product or service in sight. With the market in derivatives being ten times larger than global GDP we can see that making useful products and providing useful services is nearly irrelevant even today. ..."
"... "When Capitalism reaches its zenith, everyone will be an investor and no one will be doing anything." ..."
"... This problem of debt vs income seems to reflect the ongoing financialization (extraction, not to be confused with financing) of the global economy rather than a focus on capital development of people and the social and productive infrastructure. ..."
"... The "new model" was inefficient (too many fingers in the pie, all of them extracting value), highly risky (often Ponzi finance from the beginning with reverse amortization), and critically dependent on rising home prices. Even leaving aside the pervasive fraud, the model was diametrically opposed to the public interest, that is, the promotion of the capital development of the economy. It left behind whole neighborhoods of abandoned homes as well as new home developments that could not be sold. ..."
"... In my understanding, the Great Depression was an implosion of the credit system after a period of over investment in productive capacity. The investors failing to pay the workers enough to buy the extra goods produced. The projected returns never materialised to pay back the debt… Boom! ..."
"... China still has implicit state control of the banking sector, they may still have the political will to make any bad debt disappear with the puff of a fountain pen. That option is always available to a sovereign. ..."
"... They specialized in mass production the way agribusiness has here, where the production is not where the consumption is. It's as if all the pig farmers of North Carolina and corn growers in Iowa woke up one morning and found out that the people of the Eastern Seaboard had all been put on a starvation diet. The economic results in the grain belt would not be pretty. Ditto China. ..."
"... Except that China ain't Iowa, they can create a middle class as big as Europe and US combined. ..."
"... It's just anathema for the ruling class to give the little guys a break. ..."
"... The global glut of oil and other resources can't just be attributed to rising production in "tight oil". Somehow the Powers that be are hiding a great deal of economic contraction. If the world economy were growing it would need oil, copper, lead, zinc, wood and wood pulp, gold, and other metals as inputs. What I want to know is the extent of the cover-up, and what the global economy really looks like. ..."
"... We are not competent to forecast the future yet. Even the weather surprises us. Its also the case that people who do have relevant data are quite likely to convert that into profit rather than share it. ..."
"... It's the collapse of bonded warehouse copper/aluminum/etc. lending frauds and all that rehypothecation. I don't think it's just a problem in end demand. It's a problem in the derivatives/futures market. ..."
"... Here is a very good case study for why people are always wrong about economy and markets. What happen to all the currency manipulators like Paul Krugman? ..."
Nov 20, 2015 | naked capitalism
Keith, November 20, 2015 at 7:41 am

We shouldn't be too surprised at falling commodity prices.

Using raw materials to make real things is all very 20th Century, financial engineering is the stuff of the 21st Century.

When Capitalism reaches its zenith, everyone will be an investor and no one will be doing anything.

Central Bank inflated asset bubbles will provide for all.

The biggest market in the world today is derivatives, money making money without a useful product or service in sight. With the market in derivatives being ten times larger than global GDP we can see that making useful products and providing useful services is nearly irrelevant even today.

We are nearly there.

fresno dan, November 20, 2015 at 10:59 am

"When Capitalism reaches its zenith, everyone will be an investor and no one will be doing anything."

+1000
Ah, that glorious day when we're all rich, rich, RICHer than Midas from interest, dividends, and rents!!!
Just to amuse myself, I intend to be a dog poop scooper – and pick up some pocket change of 1 million dollars a poop…

MyLessThanPrimeBeef, November 20, 2015 at 12:37 pm

Money making money.

Be careful.

It's like 'light seeking light doth light of light beguile.'

Money seeking money and money will be of money beguiled.

skippy, November 20, 2015 at 8:29 am

Who cares about Brent when transport is going poof….

financial matters, November 20, 2015 at 8:45 am

This problem of debt vs income seems to reflect the ongoing financialization (extraction, not to be confused with financing) of the global economy rather than a focus on capital development of people and the social and productive infrastructure.

I liked how Wray and Mazzucato linked the two in their Mack the Turtle analogy.

"Underlying all of this financialization was the homeowner's income-something like Dr. Seuss's King Yertle the Turtle-with layer upon layer of financial instruments, all of which were supported by Mack the turtle's mortgage payments. The system collapsed because Mack fell delinquent on payments he could not possibly have met: the house was overpriced (and the mortgage could have been for more than 100% of the price!), the mortgage terms were too unfavorable, the fees collected by all the links in the home mortgage finance food chain were too large, Mack had to take a cut of pay and hours as the economy slowed, and the late fees piled up (fraudulently, in many cases as mortgage servicers "lost" payments).

The "new model" was inefficient (too many fingers in the pie, all of them extracting value), highly risky (often Ponzi finance from the beginning with reverse amortization), and critically dependent on rising home prices. Even leaving aside the pervasive fraud, the model was diametrically opposed to the public interest, that is, the promotion of the capital development of the economy. It left behind whole neighborhoods of abandoned homes as well as new home developments that could not be sold."

Mission Oriented Finance

Carlos, November 20, 2015 at 9:34 am

Interesting, the supposition here is that China is heading for a depression similar to the Great Depression.

In my understanding, the Great Depression was an implosion of the credit system after a period of over investment in productive capacity. The investors failing to pay the workers enough to buy the extra goods produced. The projected returns never materialised to pay back the debt… Boom!

China could well be headed down that road, there isn't enough money getting into the pockets of ordinary Chinese that's for sure. Elites everywhere just can't bring themselves to give a break for those at the bottom.

China still has implicit state control of the banking sector, they may still have the political will to make any bad debt disappear with the puff of a fountain pen. That option is always available to a sovereign.

Then again they may just realize in time, someone needs to be paid to buy all the junk.

James Levy, November 20, 2015 at 12:51 pm

They were counting on us and the Europeans, but we've let them down. The race to the bottom erased the global middle class that could buy Chinese consumer products.

They specialized in mass production the way agribusiness has here, where the production is not where the consumption is. It's as if all the pig farmers of North Carolina and corn growers in Iowa woke up one morning and found out that the people of the Eastern Seaboard had all been put on a starvation diet. The economic results in the grain belt would not be pretty. Ditto China.

Carlos, November 21, 2015 at 1:54 am

So the corn growers need to eat more corn, that's my logic.

Except that China ain't Iowa, they can create a middle class as big as Europe and US combined.

It's just anathema for the ruling class to give the little guys a break.

James Levy, November 20, 2015 at 12:56 pm

The global glut of oil and other resources can't just be attributed to rising production in "tight oil". Somehow the Powers that be are hiding a great deal of economic contraction. If the world economy were growing it would need oil, copper, lead, zinc, wood and wood pulp, gold, and other metals as inputs. What I want to know is the extent of the cover-up, and what the global economy really looks like.

susan the other, November 20, 2015 at 2:22 pm

Where were you in 2011? I was here reading NC. One of the Links posted was a graph of the abrupt shutdown of China's economy – It was a cliffscape.

Very long vertical drop off. So dramatic I could hardly believe it and I said I was having trouble catching my breath. Another commenter said it looked like a tsunami. Of exported deflation as it turns out.

Things have been extreme since 2007 when the banksters began to fall; 2008 when Lehman crashed (just after the Beijing Olympics, how convenient for China…) and credit shut down. China was doin' just fine until then. In spite of the irrational mess in global capitalist eonomix.

The only way to remedy it was to shut it down I guess. That's really not very fine-tuned for a system the whole world relies on, is it?

ewmayer, November 20, 2015 at 6:09 pm

Related, this Pollyanna-ish laff-riot op-ed from Ross Gittins, the economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald:

Don't buy the China doom and gloom stories just yet

Proceeds from the laughable assumption that official China economic numbers 'may not be as reliable as we'd like' rather than being 'persistently and hugely faked,' (especially during slowdowns) and ignores that the housing-market slowdown and huge unsold-RE-overhang will also necessarily be accompanied by a price crash, hence a huge amount of toxic debt being exposed – really basic boom/bust dynamics.

And no demographic boom coming to the rescue, either. (But he does repeatedly invoke the magic 'service economy boom' mantra mentioned by Ilargi.) Thankfully most of the commenters rightly take the author to task.

MyLessThanPrimeBeef, November 20, 2015 at 6:32 pm

Not too long ago, some here were still not buying the doom and gloom stories.

I don't have if they have been persuaded otherwise since.

RBHoughton, November 20, 2015 at 7:50 pm

Couple of thoughts:

Firstly, its only China's buying that stops oil falling even further Sr Ilargi.

Secondly its a Peoples' Republic – employment must be maintained.

We are not competent to forecast the future yet. Even the weather surprises us. Its also the case that people who do have relevant data are quite likely to convert that into profit rather than share it.

Don't worry, be happy. It will be OK.

ewmayer, November 21, 2015 at 2:29 am

Tangential Friday night funny: What's in a name?

Received a small airmail parcel today containing some replacement attachments for my Dremel moto-tool … package was addressed from Shenzen, specifically the "Fuming Manufacturing Park".

Wade Riddick, November 21, 2015 at 4:57 am

It's the collapse of bonded warehouse copper/aluminum/etc. lending frauds and all that rehypothecation. I don't think it's just a problem in end demand. It's a problem in the derivatives/futures market.

Ggg, November 21, 2015 at 6:53 am

Here is a very good case study for why people are always wrong about economy and markets. What happen to all the currency manipulators like Paul Krugman?

[Nov 20, 2015] Hillarys Heavy Obligations to Wall Street Money and The Banks Favorite Candidates

jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them.

Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola

People are discouraged and disillusioned after almost thirty years of distorted governance, specially in the aftermath of the 'Hope and Change' which quickly became 'Vain Hope for Change.' Most cannot admit that their guys were in the pockets of Big Defense, Big Pharma, Big Energy, and Wall Street.

The real question about Hillary comes down to this. Can you trust her to do what she says she will do, the right things for her putative constituents and not her big money donors and paymasters, once she takes office?

Or will that poor family who left the White House 'broke' and then mysteriously obtained a fortune of over $100 million in the following years, thanks to enormous payments for 'speeches' from large financial firms and huge donations to their Trust once again take care of the hand that pays them the most?

This is not to say that there is a better alternative amongst the leading Republican candidates, who have been and are still under the same types of payment arrangements, only with different people signing the checks.

Or we could skip the middlemen entirely and just directly elect one of New York's most prominent of their narcissist class directly, instead of another witless stooge of big money, and hope for something different? And how will that likely work out for us?

It is an exceptionally hard time to be a human being in this great nation of ours.

And so what ought we to do? Wallow in cynicism and the sweet sickness of misanthropy and despair? Vote strictly on the hope of our own narrow self-interest no matter the broader and longer term consequences, and then face the inevitable blowback from injustice and repression?

Give up on our grandchildren and children because we are too tired and interested in our own short term comfort? Too filled with selfishness, anger and hate to see straight, and do anything but turn ourselves into mindless animals to escape the pain of being truly human? Do no thinking, and just follow orders? This latter impulse has taken whole nations of desperate people into the abyss.

Or do we stop wallowing in our specialness and self-pity, and 'stand on the shoulders of giants' and confront what virtually every generation and every individual has had to wrestle with since the beginning of recorded time?

Do we fall, finally stricken with grief in our blindness, on the road to Damascus and say at long last, 'Lord, what then wilt thou have me to do?'

This is the question that circumstance is posing to us. And hopefully we will we heed the answer that has been already given, to be 'steadfast, unshaken, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in Him our labor is not in vain.'

And the touchstone of the alloy of our actions is love.

And so we have before us what Franklin Roosevelt so aptly characterized as our own 'rendezvous with destiny.'


Related:
Wall Street Is Running the World's Central Banks
Wall Street's Favorite Presidential Candidates

[Nov 18, 2015] Can Anything Stop Companies From Loading Up on Debt UBS Says No.

Notable quotes:
"... When it comes to the hubris of corporate chief financial officers, who have been more than happy leveraging up balance sheets in order to reward shareholders, the analysts didn't mince words. We find that corporate CFOs historically are inherently backward-looking when setting corporate financing decisions, relying on past extrapolations of economic activity, even when current market pricing suggests future investment returns may be lower, they wrote. ..."
"... That leaves downgrades by credit-rating agencies as one catalyst that could spark a turn in the cycle; downgrades of corporate credit have already exceeded upgrades this year at some of the bond graders. ..."
"... Might the rating agencies spoil the party? they asked. In the end we believe strong economic interests will overwhelm rationale considerations. Rating agencies remain heavily dependent on new issuance activity, face significant competitive pressures (as issuers will select two of three ratings) and appear unconcerned with where we are in the credit cycle (e.g., see Moody's latest conference call). ..."
"... With UBS having taken all those potential catalysts firmly off the table, that leaves just fundamentals to worry about. Who, for the past few years, has been worrying about those? [Sarcasm? - Editor] ..."
finance.yahoo.com

It's no secret that companies have been taking advantage of years of low interest rates to sell cheap debt to eager investors, locking in lower funding costs that have allowed them to go on a spree of share buybacks and mergers and acquisitions.

With fresh evidence that investors are becoming more discerning when it comes to corporate credit as they approach the first interest rate rise in the U.S. in almost a decade, it's worth asking whether anything might stop the trend of companies assuming more and more debt on their balance sheets.

... ... ...

For a start, they note that higher funding costs are unlikely to dissuade companies from continuing to tap the debt market since, even after a rate hike, financing costs will remain near historic lows. "The predominant reason is the Fed[eral Reserve] is anchoring low interest rates," the analysts wrote.

When it comes to the hubris of corporate chief financial officers, who have been more than happy leveraging up balance sheets in order to reward shareholders, the analysts didn't mince words. "We find that corporate CFOs historically are inherently backward-looking when setting corporate financing decisions, relying on past extrapolations of economic activity, even when current market pricing suggests future investment returns may be lower," they wrote. "Several management teams have been on the road indicating higher funding costs of up to 100 to 200 basis points would not impede attractive M&A deals, in their view."

Higher market volatility has often been cited as one factor that could knock the corporate credit market off its seat...

That leaves downgrades by credit-rating agencies as one catalyst that could spark a turn in the cycle; downgrades of corporate credit have already exceeded upgrades this year at some of the bond graders. Here, Mish and Caprio offered some stunningly blunt words. "Might the rating agencies spoil the party?" they asked. "In the end we believe strong economic interests will overwhelm rationale considerations. Rating agencies remain heavily dependent on new issuance activity, face significant competitive pressures (as issuers will select two of three ratings) and appear unconcerned with where we are in the credit cycle (e.g., see Moody's latest conference call)."

With UBS having taken all those potential catalysts firmly off the table, that leaves just fundamentals to worry about. Who, for the past few years, has been worrying about those? [Sarcasm? - Editor]

"Bottom line, we struggle to envision an end to the releveraging phenomenon-absent a substantial correction in corporate earnings and/or broader risk assets," concluded the UBS analysts.

[Nov 16, 2015] Bankrupt British Empire Keeps Pushing To Overthrow Putin

Notable quotes:
"... Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and its entire system is coming down. ..."
"... EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putins bid for the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil. ..."
"... In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against the Russian government as authoritarian, dictators, and so forth. She said, The trend lines for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state. She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: [T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule. ..."
"... The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, from which perch she has spread Cold War venom against Putin and the Russian government. ..."
"... Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. ..."
"... NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online anti-corruption activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow. ..."
January 1, 2012 | http://schillerinstitute.org/russia/2012/0122_overthrow_putin.html
This article appears in the January 20, 2012 issue of Executive Intelligence Review and is reprinted with permission.

[PDF version of this article]

January 9, 2012 -Organizers of the December 2011 "anti-vote-fraud" demonstrations in Moscow have announced Feb. 4 as the date of their next street action, planned as a march around the city's Garden Ring Road on the 22nd anniversary of a mass demonstration which paved the way to the end of the Soviet Union. While there is a fluid situation within both the Russian extraparliamentary opposition layers, and the ruling circles and other Duma parties, including a process of "dialogue" between them, in which ex-Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is playing a role, it is clear that British imperial interests are intent on-if not actually destroying Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's bid for reelection as Russia's President in the March 4 elections-casting Russia into ongoing, destructive political turmoil.

Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and its entire system is coming down.

Review of the events leading up to the Dec. 4, 2011 Duma elections, which the street demonstrators demanded be cancelled for fraud, shows that not only agent-of-British-influence Mikhail Gorbachov, the ex-Soviet President, but also the vast Project Democracy apparatus inside the United States, exposed by EIR in the 1980s as part of an unconstitutional "secret government,"[1] have been on full mobilization to block the current Russian leadership from continuing in power.

Project Democracy

Typical is the testimony of Nadia Diuk, vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), before the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs last July 26. The NED is the umbrella of Project Democracy; it functions, inclusively, through the International Republican Institute (IRI, linked with the Republican Party) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI, linked with the Democratic Party, and currently headed by Madeleine Albright).

Diuk was educated at the U.K.'s Unversity of Sussex Russian studies program, and then taught at Oxford University, before coming to the U.S.A. to head up the NED's programs in Eastern Europe and Russia beginning 1990. She is married to her frequent co-author, Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic Institute, who headed up the private intelligence outfit Freedom House[2] for 12 years. Her role is typical of British outsourcing of key strategic operations to U.S. institutions.

EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putin's bid for the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil.

In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against the Russian government as "authoritarian," "dictators," and so forth. She said, "The trend lines for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state." She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: "[T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule."

Diuk expressed renewed hope that the disastrous 2004 Orange Revolution experiment in Ukraine could be replicated in Russia, claiming that "when the protests against authoritarian rule during Ukraine's Orange Revolution brought down the government in 2004, Russian citizens saw a vision across the border of an alternative future for themselves as a Slavic nation." She then detailed what she claimed were the Kremlin's reactions to the events in Ukraine, charging that "the leaders in the Kremlin-always the most creative innovators in the club of authoritarians-have also taken active measures to promote support of the government and undermine the democratic opposition...."

Holos Ameryky

The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, from which perch she has spread "Cold War" venom against Putin and the Russian government.

While lauding "the democratic breakthroughs in the Middle East" in 2011, Diuk called on the Congress to "look to [Eastern Europe] as the source of a great wealth of experience on how the enemies of freedom are ever on the alert to assert their dominance, but also how the forces for freedom and democracy will always find a way to push back in a struggle that demands our support."

In September, Diuk chaired an NED event featuring a representative of the NED-funded Levada Center Russian polling organization, who gave an overview of the then-upcoming December 4 Duma election. Also speaking there was Russian liberal politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who predicted in the nastiest tones that Putin will suffer the fate of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In this same September period, Mikhail Gorbachov, too, was already forecasting voting irregularities and a challenge to Putin's dominance.

The NED, which has an annual budget of $100 million, sponsors dozens of "civil society" groups in Russia. Golos, the supposedly independent vote-monitoring group that declared there would be vote fraud even before the elections took place, has received NED money through the NDI since 2000. Golos had a piecework program, paying its observers a set amount of money for each reported voting irregularity. NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny-the online anti-corruption activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations-since 2006, when he and Maria Gaidar (daughter of the late London-trained shock therapy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar) launched a youth debating project called "DA!" (meaning "Yes!" or standing for "Democratic Alternative"). Gorbachov's close ally Vladimir Ryzhkov, currently negotiating with Kudrin on terms of a "dialogue between the authorities and the opposition," also received NED grants to his World Movement for Democracy.

Besides George Soros's Open Society Foundations (formerly, Open Society Institute, OSI), the biggest source of funds for this meddling, including funding which was channeled through the NDI and the IRI, is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Officially, USAID has spent $2.6 billion on programs in Russia since 1992. The current acknowledged level is around $70 million annually, of which nearly half is for "Governing Justly & Democratically" programs, another 30% for "Information" programs, and only a small fraction for things like combatting HIV and TB. On Dec. 15, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon announced that the Obama Administration would seek Congressional approval to step up this funding, with "an initiative to create a new fund to support Russian non-governmental organizations that are committed to a more pluralistic and open society."

Awaiting McFaul

White House/Pete Souza

The impending arrival in Moscow of Michael McFaul (shown here with his boss in the Oval Office), as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, is seen by many there as an escalation of Project Democracy efforts to destabilize the country.

People from various parts of the political spectrum in Russia see the impending arrival of Michael McFaul as U.S. Ambassador to Russia as an escalation in Project Democracy efforts to destabilize Russia. McFaul, who has been Barack Obama's National Security Council official for Russia, has been working this beat since the early 1990s, when he represented the NDI in Russia at the end of the Soviet period, and headed its office there.

As a Russia specialist at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover Institution, as well as the Carnegie Endowment, and an array of other Russian studies think tanks, McFaul has stuck closely to the Project Democracy agenda. Financing for his research has come from the NED, the OSI, and the Smith-Richardson Foundation (another notorious agency of financier interests within the U.S. establishment). He was an editor of the 2006 book Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough, containing chapters by Diuk and Karatnycky.

In his own contribution to a 2010 book titled After Putin's Russia,[3] McFaul hailed the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine-which was notoriously funded and manipulated from abroad-as a triumph of "people's political power from below to resist and eventually overturn a fraudulent election."

Before coming to the NSC, one of McFaul's many positions at Stanford was co-director of the Iran Democracy Project. He has also been active in such projects as the British Henry Jackson Society which is active in the drive to overthrow the government of Syria.

The Internet Dimension

The December 2011 street demonstrations in Moscow were organized largely online. Participation rose from a few hundred on Dec. 5, the day after the election, to an estimated 20,000 people on Bolotnaya Square Dec. 10, and somewhere in the wide range of 30,000 to 120,000 on Academician Sakharov Prospect Dec. 24.

Headlong expansion of Internet access and online social networking over the past three to five years has opened up a new dimension of political-cultural warfare in Russia. An EIR investigation finds that British intelligence agencies involved in the current attempts to destabilize Russia and, in their maximum version, overthrow Putin, have been working intensively to profile online activity in Russia and find ways to expand and exploit it. Some of these projects are outsourced to think tanks in the U.S.A. and Canada, but their center is Cambridge University in the U.K.-the heart of the British Empire, home of Bertrand Russell's systems analysis and related ventures of the Cambridge Apostles.[4]

The scope of the projects goes beyond profiling, as can be seen in the Cambridge-centered network's interaction with Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, a central figure in the December protest rallies.

While George Soros and his OSI prioritized building Internet access in the former Soviet Union starting two decades ago, as recently as in 2008 British cyberspace specialists were complaining that the Internet was not yet efficient for political purposes in Russia. Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism produced a Soros-funded report in 2008, titled "The Web that Failed: How opposition politics and independent initiatives are failing on the Internet in Russia." The Oxford-Reuters authors regretted that processes like the Orange Revolution, in which online connections were crucial, had not gotten a toehold in Russia. But they quoted a 2007 report by Andrew Kuchins of the Moscow Carnegie Center, who found reason for optimism in the seven-fold increase in Russian Internet (Runet) use from 2000 to 2007. They also cited Robert Orttung of American University and the Resource Security Institute, on how Russian blogs were reaching "the most dynamic members of the youth generation" and could be used by "members of civil society" to mobilize "liberal opposition groups and nationalists."

Scarcely a year later, a report by the digital marketing firm comScore crowed that booming Internet access had led to Russia's having "the world's most engaged social networking audience." Russian Facebook use rose by 277% from 2008 to 2009. The Russia-based social networking outfit Vkontakte.ru (like Facebook) had 14.3 million visitors in 2009; Odnoklassniki.ru (like Classmates.com) had 7.8 million; and Mail.ru-My World had 6.3 million. All three of these social networking sites are part of the Mail.ru/Digital Sky Technologies empire of Yuri Milner,[5] with the individual companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore locations.

The Cambridge Security Programme

Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08.

Two top profilers of the Runet are Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, who assessed its status in their essay "Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace."[6] At the University of Toronto, Deibert is a colleague of Barry Wellman, co-founder of the International Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA).[7] Rohozinski is a cyber-warfare specialist who ran the Advanced Network Research Group of the Cambridge Security Programme (CSP) at Cambridge University in 2002-07. Nominally ending its work, the CSP handed off its projects to an array of organizations in the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), including Rohozinski's SecDev Group consulting firm, which issues the Information Warfare Monitor.

The ONI, formally dedicated to mapping and circumventing Internet surveillance and filtering by governments, is a joint project of Cambridge (Rohozinski), the Oxford Internet Institute, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and the University of Toronto.

Deibert and Rohozinski noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. They cited official estimates that 38 million Russians were going online as of 2010, of whom 60 had broadband access from home; the forecast number of Russia-based Runet users by 2012 was 80 million, out of a population of 140 million. Qualitatively, the ONI authors welcomed what they called "the rise of the Internet to the center of Russian culture and politics." On the political side, they asserted that "the Internet has eclipsed all the mass media in terms of its reach, readership, and especially in the degree of free speech and opportunity to mobilize that it provides."

This notion of an Internet-savvy core of the population becoming the focal point of Russian society is now being hyped by those who want to push the December demonstrations into a full-scale political crisis. Such writers call this segment of the population "the creative class," or "the active creative minority," which can override an inert majority of the population. The Dec. 30 issue of Vedomosti, a financial daily co-owned by the Financial Times of London, featured an article by sociologist Natalya Zubarevich, which was then publicized in "Window on Eurasia" by Paul Goble, a State Department veteran who has concentrated for decades on the potential for Russia to split along ethnic or other lines.

Zubarevich proposed that the 31% of the Russian population living in the 14 largest cities, of which 9 have undergone "post-industrial transformation," constitute a special, influential class, as against the inhabitants of rural areas (38%) and mid-sized industrial cities with an uncertain future (25%). Goble defined the big-city population as a target: "It is in this Russia that the 35 million domestic users of the Internet and those who want a more open society are concentrated."

The Case of Alexei Navalny

In the "The Web that Failed" study, Oxford-Reuters authors Floriana Fossato, John Lloyd, and Alexander Verkhovsky delved into the missing elements, in their view, of the Russian Internet. What would it take, they asked, for Runet participants to be able to "orchestrate motivation and meaningful commitments"? They quoted Julia Minder of the Russian portal Rambler, who said about the potential for "mobilization": "Blogs are at the moment the answer, but the issue is how to find a leading blogger who wants to meet people on the Internet several hours per day. Leading bloggers need to be entertaining.... The potential is there, but more often than not it is not used."


Creative Commons
Creative Commons/Bogomolov.PL

NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online "anti-corruption" activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow.

It is difficult not to wonder if Alexei Navalny is a test-tube creation intended to fill the missing niche. This would not be the first time in recent Russian history that such a thing happened. In 1990, future neoliberal "young reformers" Anatoli Chubais and Sergei Vasilyev wrote a paper under International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) auspices, on the priorities for reform in the Soviet Union. They stated that a certain personality was missing on the Soviet scene at that time: the wealthy businessman. In their IIASA paper, Chubais and Vasilyev wrote: "We now see a figure, arising from historical non-existence: the figure of a businessman-entrepreneur, who has enough capital to bear the investment responsibility, and enough technological knowledge and willingness to support innovation."[8]

This type of person was subsequently brought into existence through the corrupt post-Soviet privatization process in Russia, becoming known as "the oligarchs." Was Navalny, similarly, synthesized as a charismatic blogger to fill the British subversive need for "mobilization"?

Online celebrity Navalny's arrest in Moscow on Dec. 5, and his speech at the Academician Sakharov Prospect rally on Dec. 24 were highlights of last month's turmoil in the Russian capital. Now 35 years old, Navalny grew up in a Soviet/Russian military family and was educated as a lawyer. In 2006, he began to be financed by NED for the DA! project (see above). Along the way-maybe through doing online day-trading, as some biographies suggest, or maybe from unknown benefactors-Navalny acquired enough money to be able to spend $40,000 (his figure) on a few shares in each of several major Russian companies with a high percentage of state ownership. This gave him minority-shareholder status, as a platform for his anti-corruption probes.

It must be understood that the web of "corruption" in Russia is the system of managing cash flows through payoffs, string-pulling, and criminal extortion, which arose out of the boost that Gorbachov's perestroika policy gave to pre-existing Soviet criminal networks in the 1980s. It then experienced a boom under darlings of London like Gaidar, who oversaw the privatization process known as the Great Criminal Revolution in the 1990s. As Russia has been integrated into an international financial order, which itself relies on criminal money flows from the dope trade and strategically motivated scams like Britain's BAE operations in the Persian Gulf, the preponderance of shady activity in the Russian economy has only increased.

Putin's governments inherited this system, and it can be ended when the commitment to monetarism, which LaRouche has identified as a fatal flaw even among genuinely pro-development Russians, is broken in Russia and worldwide. The current bankruptcy of the Trans-Atlantic City of London-Eurozone-Wall Street system means that now is the time for this to happen!

Yale Fellows

In 2010, Navalny was accepted to the Yale World Fellows Program, as one of fewer than 20 approved candidates out of over a thousand applicants. As EIR has reported, the Yale Fellows are instructed by the likes of British Foreign Office veteran Lord Mark Malloch-Brown and representatives of Soros's Open Society Foundations.[9] What's more, the World Fellows Program is funded by The Starr Foundation of Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), the recipient of enormous Bush Jr.-Obama bailout largesse in 2008-09; Greenberg and his C.V. Starr company have a long record of facilitating "regime change" (aka coups), going back to the 1986 overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. Navalny reports that Maria Gaidar told him to try for the program, and he enjoyed recommendations from top professors at the New Economic School in Moscow, a hotbed of neoliberalism and mathematical economics. It was from New Haven that Navalny launched his anti-corruption campaign against Transneft, the Russian national oil pipeline company, specifically in relation to money movements around the new East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. The ESPO has just finished the first year of operation of its spur supplying Russian oil to China.

Navalny presents a split personality to the public. Online he is "Mr. Openness." He posts the full legal documentation of his corruption exposés. When his e-mail account was hacked, and his correspondence with U.S. Embassy and NED officials about funding him was made public, Navalny acknowledged that the e-mails were genuine. He tries to disarm interviewers with questions like, "Do you think I'm an American project, or a Kremlin one?"

During the early-January 2012 holiday lull in Russia, Navalny engaged in a lengthy, oh-so-civilized dialogue in Live Journal with Boris Akunin (real name, Grigori Chkhartishvili), a famous detective-story author and liberal activist who was another leader of the December demonstrations, about whether Navalny's commitment to the slogan "Russia for the Russians" marks him as a bigot who is unfit to lead. Addressing crowds on the street, however, Navalny sounds like Mussolini. Prominent Russian columnist Maxim Sokolov, writing in Izvestia, found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic.

Navalny may well end up being expendable in the view of his sponsors. In the meantime, it is clear that he is working from the playbook of Gene Sharp, whose neurolinguistic programming and advertising techniques were employed in Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004.[10] Sharp, a veteran of "advanced studies" at Oxford and 30 years at Harvard's Center for International Affairs, is the author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle, which advises the use of symbolic colors, short slogans, and so forth.

While at Yale, Navalny also served as an informant and advisor for a two-year study conducted at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one of the institutions participating in the OpenNet Initiative, launched out of Cambridge University in the U.K. The study produced a profile titled "Mapping the Russian Blogosphere," which detailed the different sections of the Runet: liberal, nationalist, cultural, foreign-based, etc., looking at their potential social impact.

Allen Douglas, Gabrielle Peut, David Christie, and Dorothea Bunnell did research for this article.


  • [1] "Project Democracy: The 'parallel government' behind the Iran-Contra affair," Washington, D.C.: EIR Research, Inc., 1987. This 341-page special report explored the connection between the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the illegal gun-running operations of Col. Oliver North, et al., which had been mentioned in cursory fashion in the Tower Commission report on that "Iran-Contra" scandal. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.'s introduction to the report identified the roots of North's "Irangate" gun-running in Henry A. Kissinger's reorganization of U.S. intelligence under President Richard M. Nixon, in the wake of post-Watergate findings by the 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee). The process of replacing traditional intelligence functions of government with National Security Council-centered operations, often cloaked as promoting ``democracy'' worldwide, was continued under the Trilateral Commission-created Administration of Jimmy Carter. Supporting ``democracy''--often measured by such criteria as economic deregulation and extreme free-market programs, which ravage the populations that are supposedly being democratized--became an axiom of U.S. foreign policy. The NED itself was founded in 1983.
  • [2] "Profile: 'Get LaRouche' Taskforce: Train Salon's Cold War Propaganda Apparat," EIR, Sept. 29, 2006, reviews the Truman-era roots of relations among Anglo-American intelligence figures John Train, James Jesus Angleton, Jay Lovestone, and Leo Cherne, all of whom were later active against LaRouche and his influence. Cherne's International Rescue Committee (IRC) was described by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, its one-time director of public relations, as an instrument of "psychological warfare." The closely related Freedom House project was directed by Cherne for many years. Geostrategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has written that Russia is destined to fragment as the Soviet Union did, have sat on its board.
  • [3] Stephen K. Wegren, Dale Roy Herspring (eds.), After Putin's Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010, p. 118.
  • [4] Craig Isherwood, "Universal Principles vs. Sense Certainty," The New Citizen, October/November 2011, p. 12 (http://cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/cv7n6_pages12to14.pdf). Founded as the Cambridge Conversazione Society in 1820, by Cambridge University professor and advisor to the British East India Company, the Rev. Charles Simeon, the Apostles are a secret society limited to 12 members at a time. Its veterans have held strategic intelligence posts for the British Empire, both in the heyday of overt colonialism, and in the continuing financial empire and anti-science "empire of the mind," for nearly two centuries, during which Cambridge was the elite university in Britain, Trinity College was the elite college within Cambridge, and the Apostles were the elite within Trinity. Isherwood reported, "Among other doctrines, the Apostles founded: Fabian socialism; logical positivism specifically against physical chemistry; most of modern psychoanalysis; all modern economic doctrines, including Keynesianism and post-World War II 'mathematical economics'; modern digital computers and 'information theory'; and systems analysis. They also founded the world-famous Cavendish Laboratory as the controlling priesthood for science, to attack Leibniz, Gauss, and Riemann, in particular.... John Maynard Keynes, a leader of the Apostles, ... traced the intellectual traditions of the Apostles back to John Locke and Isaac Newton, and through Newton back to the ancient priesthood of Babylon." The group's abiding focus on influencing Russia is exemplified by not only Bertrand Russell himself, but also the involvement of several members of the Apostles, including Lord Victor Rothschild of the banking family, and future Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Sir Anthony Blunt, in the Anglo-Soviet spy rings of the mid-20th Century.
  • [5] Billionaire Milner is a self-described failed physicist. He worked for the World Bank on Russian banking issues in the 1990s, before making his fortune as one of Russia's newly minted "oligarchs"-a business partner of now-jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the Menatep banking group, among other projects.
  • [6] In Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace, an OpenNet Initiative (ONI) book, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2010.
  • [7] David Christie, "INSNA: 'Handmaidens of British Colonialism'," in The Noösphere vs. the Blogosphere: Is the Devil in Your Laptop?, LaRouchePAC, 2007, page 20.
  • [8] Anatoliy Chubais and Sergei A. Vasiliev, "Privatization in the USSR: Necessary for Structural Change," in Economic Reform and Integration: Proceedings of 1-3 March 1990 Meeting, Laxenberg, Austria: IIASA, July 1990. The authors' notion of a charismatic businessman-entrepreneur comes straight from Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who coined the term Unternehmergeist, or "entrepreneur-spirit," to describe people he called agents of "creative destruction."
  • Lord Malloch-Brown: Soros Man Is British Conduit to Obama," EIR, Aug. 22, 2008 reports the earlier collaboration of these two in support of the Rose Revolution in Georgia, in 2003.
  • Ukraine: A Post-modernist Revolution," EIR, Feb. 11, 2005. Sharp's Albert Einstein Institution received grants from the NED and the IRI.
Related pages:

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[Nov 15, 2015] Election 2016 Democratic debate transcript Clinton, Sanders, OMalley in Iowa

Hillary tried to play the gender card and the 9/11 card in an attempt to escape to accusation (actually a provable fact) that she is a Wall Street sheel. "Why has Wall Street been the major campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton?" Sanders asked loudly, concluding that big contributors only give because "They expect to get something. Everybody knows it."
...Clinton asserted that under her bank-regulation plan, if Wall Street institutions don't play by the rules "I will break them up."
Sanders minced her defense into peaces: "Wall Street play by the rules? Who are we kidding?! The business model for Wall Street is fraud," Sanders fired back.
A short time later, the moderators got a tweet calling her out for "invoking 9/11" to justify taking donations from Wall Street. One tweeter said they'd never seen a candidate "invoke 9/11 to champion Wall Street. What does that have to do with taking big donations," Clinton was asked.
Sanders said that there's no getting around the fact that Wall Street has become a dominant political power and its "business model is greed and fraud, and for the sake of our economy major banks must be broken up."
Bernie compared himself to Ike, scoring one of the few real laugh lines of the night. CBS News moderator Nancy Cordes asked Sanders how he's going to pay for expensive programs such as his tuition-free college plan. By taxing the wealthy and big corporations, he says. Asked how much of a tax hike he's planning to stick them with, he responded, "We haven't come up with an exact number yet … But it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower which was 90%," Sanders said of the Republican president.
"I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower," Sanders concluded, to guffaws from the crowd.
CBS News

JOHN DICKERSON:

Senator Sanders, let me just follow this line of thinking. You've criticized then Senator Clinton's vote. Do you have anything to criticize in the way she performed as secretary of state?

BERNIE SANDERS:

I think we have a disagreement. And-- the disagreement is that not only did I vote against the war in Iraq, if you look at history, John, you will find that regime change-- whether it was in the early '50s in Iran, whether it was toppling Salvador Allende in Chile or whether it was overthrowing the government Guatemala way back when-- these invasions, these-- these toppling of governments, regime changes have unintended consequences. I would say that on this issue I'm a little bit more conservative than the secretary.

JOHN DICKERSON:

Here, let me go--

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

John, may I-- may I interject here? Secretary Clinton also said that we left the h-- it was not just the invasion of Iraq which Secretary Clinton voted for and has since said was a big mistake, and indeed it was. But it was also the cascading effects that followed that.

It was also the disbanding of-- many elements of the Iraqi army that are now showing up as part of ISIS. It was-- country after country without making the investment in human intelligence to understand who the new leaders were and the new forces were that are coming up. We need to be much more far f-- thinking in this new 21st century era of-- of nation state failures and conflict. It's not just about getting rid of a single dictator. It is about understanding the secondary and third consequences that fall next.

JOHN DICKERSON:

Governor O'Malley, I wanna ask you a question and you can add whatever you'd like to. But let me ask you, is the world too dangerous a place for a governor who has no foreign policy experience?

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

John, the world is a very dangerous place. But the world is not too dangerous of a place for the United States of America provided we act according to our principles, provided we act intelligently. I mean, let's talk about this arc of-- of instability that Secretary Clinton talked about.

Libya is now a mess. Syria is a mess. Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess. As Americans we have shown ourselves-- to have the greatest military on the face of the planet. But we are not so very good at anticipating threats and appreciating just how difficult it is to build up stable democracies and make the investments in sustainable development that we must as the nation if we are to attack the root causes of-- of the source of-- of instability.

And I wanted to add one other thing, John, and I think it's important for all of us on this stage. I was in Burlington, Iowa and a mom of a service member of ours who served two duties in Iraq said, "Governor O'Malley, please, when you're with your other candidates and colleagues on-- on stage, please don't use the term boots on Iraq-- on the ground. Please don't use the term boots on the ground. My son is not a pair of boots on the ground."

These are American soldiers and we fail them when we fail to take into account what happens the day after a dictator falls. And when we fall to act with a whole of government approach with sustainable development, diplomacy and our economic power in-- alignment with our principles.

BERNIE SANDERS:

But when you talk about the long-term consequences of war let's talk about the men and women who came home from war. The 500,000 who came home with P.T.S.D. and traumatic brain injury. And I would hope that in the midst of all of this discussion this country makes certain that we do not turn our backs on the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us. And that we stand with them as they have stood with us.

JOHN DICKERSON:

Senator Sanders, you've-- you've said that the donations to Secretary Clinton are compromising. So what did you think of her answer?

BERNIE SANDERS:

Not good enough. (LAUGH) Here's the story. I mean, you know, let's not be naive about it. Why do-- why over her political career has Wall Street a major-- the major-- campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton? You know, maybe they're dumb and they don't know what they're gonna get. But I don't think so.

Here is the major issue when we talk about Wall Street, it ain't complicated. You got six financial institutions today that have assets of 56 per-- equivalent to 50-- six percent of the GDP in America. They issue two thirds of the credit cards and one third of the mortgages. If Teddy Roosevelt, the good republican, were alive today you know what he'd say? "Break them up. Reestablish (APPLAUSE) (UNINTEL) like Teddy Roosevelt (UNINTEL) that is leadership. So I am the only candidate up here that doesn't have a super PAC. I'm not asking Wall Street or the billionaires for money. I will break up these banks, support community banks and credit unions-- credit unions. That's the future of banking in America.

JOHN DICKERSON:

Quick follow-up because you-- you-- (APPLAUSE) Secretary Clinton, you'll get a chance to respond. You said they know what they're going to get. What are they gonna get?

BERNIE SANDERS:

I have never heard a candidate, never, who's received huge amounts of money from oil, from coal, from Wall Street, from the military industrial complex, not one candidate, go, "OH, these-- these campaign contributions will not influence me. I'm gonna be independent." Now, why do they make millions of dollars of campaign contributions? They expect to get something. Everybody knows that. Once again, I am running a campaign differently than any other candidate. We are relying on small campaign donors, $750,000 and $30 apiece. That's who I'm indebted to.

BERNIE SANDERS:

Here's-- she touches on two broad issues. It's not just Wall Street. It's campaigns, a corrupt campaign finance system. And it is easy to talk the talk about ending-- Citizens United. But what I think we need to do is show by example that we are prepared to not rely on large corporations and Wall Street for campaign contributions.

And that's what I'm doing. In terms of Wall Street I respectfully disagree with you, Madame Secretary in the sense that the issue is when you have such incredible power and such incredible wealth, when you have Wall Street spending five billion dollars over a ten year period to get re-- to get deregulated the only answer that I know is break them up, reestablish Glass Steagall.

JOHN DICKERSON:

Senator, we have to get Senator O'Malley in. But no-- along with your answer how many Wall Street-- veterans would you have in your administration?

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

Well, I'll tell you what, I've said this before, I-- I don't-- I believe that we actually need some new economic thinking in the White House. And I would not have Robert Rubin or Larry Summers with all due respect, Secretary Clinton, to you and to them, back on my council of economic advisors.

HILLARY CLINTON:

Anyone (UNINTEL PHRASE).

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

If they were architects, sure, we'll-- we'll have-- we'll have an inclusive group. But I won't be taking my orders from Wall Street. And-- look, let me say this-- I put out a proposal-- I was on the front line when people lost their homes, when people lost their jobs.

I was on the front lines as the governor-- fighting against-- fighting that battle. Our economy was wrecked by the big banks of Wall Street. And Secretary Clinton-- when you put out your proposal (LAUGH) on Wall Street it was greeted by many as quote/ unquote weak tea. It is weak tea. It is not what the people expect of our country. We expect that our president will protect the main street economy from excesses on Wall Street. And that's why Bernie's right. We need to reinstate a modern version of Glass Steagall and we should have done it already. (APPLAUSE)

KATHIE OBRADOVICH:

And I will also go after executives who are responsible for the decisions that have such bad consequences for our country. (APPLAUSE)

BERNIE SANDERS:

Look, I don't know-- with all due respect to the secretary, Wall Street played by the rules. Who are we kidding? The business model of Wall Street is fraud. That's what it is. And we-- we have-- (APPLAUSE) and let me make this promise, one of the problems we have had I think all-- all Americans understand it is whether it's republican administration or democratic administration we have seen Wall Street and Goldman Sachs dominate administrations. Here's my promise Wall Street representatives will not be in my cabinet. (APPLAUSE)

BERNIE SANDERS:

But let's-- let me hear it-- if there's any difference between the secretary and myself. I have voted time and again to-- for-- for the background checks. And I wanna see it improved and expanded. I wanna see them do away with the gun show loophole. In 1988 I lost an election because I said we should not have assault weapons on the streets of America.

We have to do away with the strong man proposal. We need radical changes in mental health in America. So somebody who's suicidal or homicidal can get the emergency care they need. But we have-- I don't know that there's any disagreement here.

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

John, this is another one of those examples. Look, we have-- we have a lot of work to do. And we're the only nation on the planet that buries as many of our people from gun violence as we do in my own state after they-- the children in that Connecticut classroom were gunned down, we passed comprehensive-- gun safety legislation, background checks, ban on assault weapons.

And senator, I think we do need to repeal that immunity that you granted to the gun industry. But Secretary Clinton, you've been on three sides of this. When you ran in 2000 you said that we needed federal robust regulations. Then in 2008 you were portraying yourself as Annie Oakley and saying that we don't need those regulation on the federal level. And now you're coming back around here. So John, there's a big difference between leading by polls and leading with principle. We got it done in my state by leading with principle. And that's what we need to do as a party, comprehensive gun--

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

John, there is not-- a serious economist who would disagree that the six big banks of Wall Street have taken on so much power and that all of us are still on the hook to bail them out on their bad debts. That's not capitalism, Secretary Clinton-- Clinton, that's crummy capitalism.

That's a wonderful business model if you place that bet-- the taxpayers bail you out. But if you place good ones you pocket it. Look, I don't believe that the model-- there's lots of good people that work in finance, Secretary Sanders. But Secretary Clinton, we need to step up. And we need to protect main street from Wall Street. And you can't do that by-- by campaigning as the candidate of Wall Street. I am not the candidate of Wall Street. And I encourage--

BERNIE SANDERS:

No, it's not throwing-- it is an extraordinary investment for this country. In Germany, many other countries do it already. In fact, if you remember, 50, 60 years ago, University of California, City University of New York were virtually tuition-free. Here it's a new (?) story.

It's not just that college graduates should be $50,000 or $100,000 in debt. More importantly, I want kids in Burlington, Vermont, or Baltimore, Maryland, who are in the six grade or the eighth grade who don't have a lot of money, whose parents that-- like my parents, may never have gone to college. You know what I want, Kevin? I want those kids to know that if they study hard, they do their homework, regardless of the income of their families, they will in fact be able to great a college education. Because we're gonna make public colleges and universities tuition-free. This is revolutionary for education in America. It will give hope for millions of young people.

BERNIE SANDERS:

It's not gonna happen tomorrow. And it's probably not gonna happen until you have real campaign finance reform and get rid of all these super PACs and the power of the insurance companies and the drug companies. But at the end of the day, Nancy, here is a question. In this great country of ours, with so much intelligence, with so much capabilities, why do we remain the only (UNINTEL) country on earth that does not guarantee healthcare to all people as a right?

Why do we continue to get ripped off by the drug companies who can charge us any prices they want? Why is it that we are spending per capita far, far more than Canada, which is a hundred miles away from my door, that guarantees healthcare to all people? It will not happen tomorrow. But when millions of people stand up and are prepared to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies, it will happen and I will lead that effort. Medicare for all, single-payer system is the way we should go. (APPLAUSE)

BERNIE SANDERS:

Well-- I had the honor of being chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs for two years. And in that capacity, I met with just an extraordinary group of people from World War II, from Korea, Vietnam, all of the wars. People who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan without legs, without arms. And I've been determined to do everything that I could to make VA healthcare the best in the world, to expand benefits to the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend (UNINTEL).

And we brought together legislation, supported by the American Legion, the VFW, the DAV, Vietnam Vets, all of the veterans' organizations, which was comprehensive, clearly the best (UNINTEL) for veterans' legislation brought forth in decades. I could only get two Republican votes on that. And after 56 votes, we didn't get 60. So what I have to do then is go back and start working on a bill that wasn't the bill that I wanted.

To (UNINTEL) people like John McCain, to (UNINTEL) people like Jeff Miller, the Republican chairman of the House, and work on a bill. It wasn't the bill that I wanted. But yet, it turns out to be one of the most significant pieces of veterans' legislation passed in recent history. You know, the crisis was, I lost what I wanted. But I have to stand up and come back and get the best that we could.

JOHN DICKERSON:

All right, Senator Sanders. We end-- (APPLAUSE) we've ended the evening on crisis, which underscores and reminds us again of what happened last night. Now let's move to closing statements, Governor O'Malley?

MARTIN O'MALLEY:

John, thank you. And to all of the people of Iowa, for the role that you've performed in this presidential selection process, if you believe that our country's problems and the threats that we face in this world can only be met with new thinking, new and fresh approaches, then I ask you to join my campaign. Go onto MartinOMalley.com. No hour is too short, no dollar too small.

If you-- we will not solve our nation's problems by resorting to the divisive ideologies of our past or by returning to polarizing figures from our past. We are at the threshold of a new era of American progress. That it's going to require that we act as Americans, based on our principles. Here at home, making an economy that works for all of us.

And also, acting according to our principles and constructing a new foreign policy of engagement and collaboration and doing a much better job of identifying threats before they back us into military corners. There is new-- no challenge too great for the United States to confront, provided we have the ability and the courage to put forward new leadership that can move us to those better and safer and more prosperous (UNINTEL). I need your help. Thank you very, very much. (APPLAUSE)

BERNIE SANDERS:

This country today has more income and wealth inequality than any major country on earth. We have a corrupt campaign finance system, dominated by super PACs. We're the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee healthcare to all people. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty. And we're the only in the world, (UNINTEL) the only country that doesn't guarantee paid family and medical leave. That's not the America that I think we should be.

But in order to bring about the changes that we need, we need a political revolution. Millions of people are gonna have to stand up, turn off the TVs, get involved in the political process, and tell the big monied interests that we are taking back our country. Please go to BernieSanders.com, please become part of the political revolution. Thank you. (CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)

[Nov 15, 2015] The New Brand of Authoritarianism

Notable quotes:
"... Political Institutions under Dictatorship ..."
"... Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the cold war ..."
"... Journal of Economic Perspectives ..."
"... Political Science Quarterly ..."
"... The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights ..."
"... the US needs to only be mildly interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime. ..."
"... In light of the New American Police State, post 9-11, it is clear to me that the United States has undergone a coup d'etat. ..."
"... Most of us back Chavez, Morales, or Correa for the policies they have followed in their own countries to the benefit of the great masses of the poor and their refusal to put the interests of international capital ahead of their people. ..."
economistsview.typepad.com
From Vox EU:

The new authoritarianism, by Sergei Guriev, Daniel Treisman, Vox EU: The changing dictatorships Dictatorships are not what they used to be. The totalitarian tyrants of the past – such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot – employed terror, indoctrination, and isolation to monopolize power. Although less ideological, many 20th-century military regimes also relied on mass violence to intimidate dissidents. Pinochet's agents, for instance, are thought to have tortured and killed tens of thousands of Chileans (Roht-Arriaza 2005).

However, in recent decades new types of authoritarianism have emerged that seem better adapted to a world of open borders, global media, and knowledge-based economies. From the Peru of Alberto Fujimori to the Hungary of Viktor Orban, illiberal regimes have managed to consolidate power without fencing off their countries or resorting to mass murder. Some bloody military regimes and totalitarian states remain – such as Syria and North Korea – but the balance has shifted.

The new autocracies often simulate democracy, holding elections that the incumbents almost always win, bribing and censoring the private press rather than abolishing it, and replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West (Gandhi 2008, Levitsky and Way 2010). Their leaders often enjoy genuine popularity – at least after eliminating any plausible rivals. State propaganda aims not to 'engineer human souls' but to boost the dictator's ratings. Political opponents are harassed and defamed, charged with fabricated crimes, and encouraged to emigrate, rather than being murdered en masse.

Dictatorships and information

In a recent paper, we argue that the distinctive feature of such new dictatorships is a preoccupation with information (Guriev and Treisman 2015). Although they do use violence at times, they maintain power less by terrorizing victims than by manipulating beliefs. Of course, surveillance and propaganda were important to the old-style dictatorships, too. But violence came first. "Words are fine things, but muskets are even better," Mussolini quipped. Compare that to the confession of Fujimori's security chief, Vladimir Montesinos: "The addiction to information is like an addiction to drugs". Killing members of the elite struck Montesinos as foolish: "Remember why Pinochet had his problems. We will not be so clumsy" (McMillan and Zoido 2004).

We study the logic of a dictatorship in which the leader survives by manipulating information. Our key assumption is that citizens care about effective government and economic prosperity; first and foremost, they want to select a competent rather than incompetent ruler. However, the general public does not know the competence of the ruler; only the dictator himself and members of an 'informed elite' observe this directly. Ordinary citizens make what inferences they can, based on their living standards – which depend in part on the leader's competence – and on messages sent by the state and independent media. The latter carry reports on the leader's quality sent by the informed elite. If a sufficient number of citizens come to believe their ruler is incompetent, they revolt and overthrow him.

The challenge for an incompetent dictator is, then, to fool the public into thinking he is competent. He chooses from among a repertoire of tools – propaganda, repression of protests, co-optation of the elite, and censorship of their messages. All such tools cost money, which must come from taxing the citizens, depressing their living standards, and indirectly lowering their estimate of the dictator's competence. Hence the trade-off.

Certain findings emerge from the logic of this game.

  • First, we show how modern autocracies can survive while employing relatively little violence against the public.

Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently. Dictators win a confidence game rather than an armed combat. Indeed, since in our model repression is only used if equilibria based on non-violent methods no longer exist, violence can signal to opposition forces that the regime is vulnerable.

  • Second, since members of the informed elite must coordinate among themselves on whether to sell out to the regime, two alternative equilibria often exist under identical circumstances – one based on a co-opted elite, the other based on a censored private media.

Since both bribing the elite and censoring the media are ways of preventing the sending of embarrassing messages, they serve as substitutes. Propaganda, by contrast, complements all the other tools.

Propaganda and a leader's competency

Why does anyone believe such propaganda? Given the dictator's obvious incentive to lie, this is a perennial puzzle of authoritarian regimes. We offer an answer. We think of propaganda as consisting of claims by the ruler that he is competent. Of course, genuinely competent rulers also make such claims. However, backing them up with convincing evidence is costlier for the incompetent dictators – who have to manufacture such evidence – than for their competent counterparts, who can simply reveal their true characteristics. Since faking the evidence is costly, incompetent dictators sometimes choose to spend their resources on other things. It follows that the public, observing credible claims that the ruler is competent, rationally increases its estimate that he really is.

Moreover, if incompetent dictators survive, they may over time acquire a reputation for competence, as a result of Bayesian updating by the citizens. Such reputations can withstand temporary economic downturns if these are not too large. This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez). While a major economic crisis results in their overthrow, more gradual deteriorations may fail to tarnish their reputations significantly.

A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative spending on these as the economy crashes. As Turkey's growth rate fell from 7.8% in 2010 to 0.8% in 2012, the number of journalists in jail increased from four to 49. Declines in press freedom were also witnessed after the Global Crisis in countries such as Hungary and Russia. Conversely, although this may be changing now, in both Singapore and China during the recent decades of rapid growth, the regime's information control strategy shifted from one of more overt intimidation to one that often used economic incentives and legal penalties to encourage self-censorship (Esarey 2005, Rodan 1998).

The kind of information-based dictatorship we identify is more compatible with a modernized setting than with the rural underpinnings of totalitarianism in Asia or the traditional societies in which monarchs retain legitimacy. Yet, modernization ultimately undermines the informational equilibria on which such dictators rely. As education and information spread to broader segments of the population, it becomes harder to control how this informed elite communicates with the masses. This may be a key mechanism explaining the long-noted tendency for richer countries to open up politically.

References

Esarey, A (2005), "Cornering the market: state strategies for controlling China's commercial media", Asian Perspective 29(4): 37-83.

Gandhi, J (2008), Political Institutions under Dictatorship, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Guriev, S and D Treisman (2015), "How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression", CEPR Discussion Paper, DP10454.

Levitsky, S, and L A Way (2010), Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the cold war, New York: Cambridge University Press.

McMillan, J, and P Zoido (2004), "How to subvert democracy: Montesinos in Peru", Journal of Economic Perspectives 18(4): 69-92.

Rodan, G (1998), "The Internet and political control in Singapore", Political Science Quarterly 113(1): 63-89.

Roht-Arriaza, N (2005), The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.


Peter K. said...

"A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative spending on these as the economy crashes."

Instead of military Keynesianism, it's "police state" Keynesianism.

More social spending coupled with more social control.

ilsm said...

The corporation runs the governors.....

"Investor State Dispute Settlement" is a new twist where the actions of government, like investor "losses" from shuttering frackers would be compensated by a standing unelected nor appointed by the locals "board" filled with corporate cronies to take sovereignty from governments when foreign investors are denied pillaging "rights".

"Investor State Dispute Settlement" is why you should oppose TPP fast track.

The kleptocarcy is well advanced in the US!

GeorgeK said...

..."This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez"...

Guess your definition of authoritarian leaders depends on who's Ox is being gored. If you were wealthy or upper middle class Chavez was a failure, if you were poor or indigenous he was a savior.

..."Chávez maintains that unlike other global financial organizations, the Bank of the South will be managed and funded by the countries of the region with the intention of funding social and economic development without any political conditions on that funding.[262] The project is endorsed by Nobel Prize–winning, former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said: "One of the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those in the south," and that "It is a good thing to have competition in most markets, including the market for development lending."[263]"...
Guess nobody told Stiglitz about Chavez's authoritarian incompetence.

Julio said in reply to anne...

Seems clear enough to me. Consider "freedom of the press": the US needs to only be mildly interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime.

But in a government attempting left-wing reforms, and where the government is less stable, there is less room for the government to accept the unanimity and hostility of the press; it may need to intervene more strongly to defend itself. Take e.g. Ecuador where Correa has been accused of suppressing press liberties along these very lines.

anne said in reply to Julio...

Seems clear enough to me. Consider "freedom of the press": the US needs to only be mildly interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime....

[ Thinking further, I realize that the United States is wildly aggressive with governments of countries considered strategic and does not hesitate to use media in those countries when our "needs" do not seem met. I am thinking even of the effort to keep allied governments, even the UK, France and Germany, from agreeing to become members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that China has begun. ]

Peter K. said in reply to GeorgeK...

"Guess your definition of authoritarian leaders depends on who's Ox is being gored."

This is how I see it. There are no objective standards.

Lefties criticize Obama for going after whistle blowers. Snowden is treated as a hero. Then guys like Paine and Kervack defend the behaviro of a Putin or Chavez because the U.S. doesn't like them.

Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....

I think a lot of the older left is stuck in a Cold War mind set.

Opposing America is good because you're opposing multinational capitalism. So they'll provide rhetorical support to any nutjob who opposes the West no matter how badly he mistreats his people.

Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....

It's the flipside to the Dick Cheney-Security State rationalizations of torture and police state tactics like warrantless surveillence.

It's okay if we do it, because they're trying to destroy us.

The ends justify the means.

hyperpolarizer said in reply to Peter K....

I am the older left (born right after WW II). I grew up with the cold war, but -- despite its poisonous legacy (particularly the linking of the domestic labor movement to international communism)-- I have assuredly left it behind.

In light of the New American Police State, post 9-11, it is clear to me that the United States has undergone a coup d'etat.

Roger Gathmann said in reply to anne...

Defending Chavez doesn't seem like a bad thing to do. So, Peter K., do you defend, say, Uribe? Let's see - amended constitution so he could run again - Chavez, check, Uribe check. Associated with paramilitaries, Uribe, check, Chavez, demi-check. Loved by the US, Uribe, check, Chavez, non-check. Funny how chavez figures in these things, and Uribe doesn't.
https://www.citizen.org/documents/TalkingPointsApril08.pdf

Peter K. said in reply to Roger Gathmann...

I never said a thing about Uribe. I said there should be single standards across the board for Uribe, America, Chavez, Putin, China, etc...

Roger Gathmann said in reply to Peter K....

Right. Double standard. That is what I am talking about. The double standard that allows US tax dollars to go into supporting a right wing dictator like Uribe. I don't have to piss off. You can piss off. I doubt you will. I certainly won't. It is adolescent gestures like that which make me wonder about your age.

Are you going to slam the door next and saY I hate you I hate you I hate you?
You need to get a little pillow that you can mash. Maybe with a hello kitty sewed on it.

Nietil said in reply to Roger Gathmann...

I don't see how any of these criteria has anything to do with being an autocrat.

Autocracy is an answer to the question of the source of legitimacy (democratic, autocratic, or theocratic). It has nothing to do with either the definition of the sovereign space (feudal, racial or national) or with the number of people running the said government (anarchy, monarchy, oligarchy).

The UK for example was a national and democratic monarchy for a long, long time. Now it's more of a national and democratic oligarchy. And it can still change in the future.

DrDick said in reply to Peter K....

I really do not think that is at all accurate. While there are certainly some like that, it is far from the majority. Most of us back Chavez, Morales, or Correa for the policies they have followed in their own countries to the benefit of the great masses of the poor and their refusal to put the interests of international capital ahead of their people.

Much of that support is also conditional and qualified, for reasons that have been mentioned here. All evaluations of current leaders is conditioned by both past history in the country and region, as well as the available alternatives. By those standards, all of the men I mentioned look pretty good, if far from perfect.

anne said...

http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10454

March, 2015

How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression
By Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman

We develop an informational theory of dictatorship. Dictators survive not because of their use of force or ideology but because they convince the public--rightly or wrongly--that they are competent. Citizens do not observe the dictator's type but infer it from signals inherent in their living standards, state propaganda, and messages sent by an informed elite via independent media. If citizens conclude the dictator is incompetent, they overthrow him in a revolution. The dictator can invest in making convincing state propaganda, censoring independent media, co-opting the elite, or equipping police to repress attempted uprisings -- but he must finance such spending with taxes that depress the public's living standards. We show that incompetent dictators can survive as long as economic shocks are not too large. Moreover, their reputations for competence may grow over time. Censorship and co-optation of the elite are substitutes, but both are complements of propaganda. Repression of protests is a substitute for all the other techniques. In some equilibria the ruler uses propaganda and co-opts the elite; in others, propaganda is combined with censorship. The multiplicity of equilibria emerges due to coordination failure among members of the elite. We show that repression is used against ordinary citizens only as a last resort when the opportunities to survive through co-optation, censorship, and propaganda are exhausted. In the equilibrium with censorship, difficult economic times prompt higher relative spending on censorship and propaganda. The results illuminate tradeoffs faced by various recent dictatorships.

[ This is the discussion paper, which I find more coherent than the summary essay. ]

JayR said...

Wow quite a few countries, maybe even the US with Obama's war on whistle blowers, could fit this articles definition if the authors actually though more about it.

Roger Gathmann said in reply to Peter K....

Yes, the people of Greece can vote to leave the Eurozone, just like the people of Crimea can vote to leave the Ukraine, or the people of Kosovo could vote to leave Serbia. There are many ways, though, of looking at soft dictatorship. I think the EU bureaucrats have been busy inventing new ones, with new and ever more onerous chains. To say Greece can vote to leave the EU is like saying the merchant can always defy the mafioso, or the moneylender. It isn't that easy.

Roger Gathmann said...

and then of course there are the death squads:
https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/wikileaks-on-colombia-uribe-%E2%80%9Cviews-military-success-in-terms-of-kills%E2%80%9D-army-commander-ospina-tried-to-initimidate-witnesses-to-extrajudicial-executions/

[Nov 14, 2015] Iraqi warmonger Ahmad Chalabi dies

Notable quotes:
"... Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi politician accused of providing false information that led to the United States toppling longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion, died on Tuesday of a heart attack, state television and two parliamentarians said. ..."
"... "The neo-cons wanted to make a case for war and he [Chalabi] was somebody who is willing to provide them with information that would help their cause," Ali Khedery, who was the longest continuously-serving American official in Iraq in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, told Al Arabiya News. ..."
Nov 03, 2015 | Al Arabiya News

Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi politician accused of providing false information that led to the United States toppling longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion, died on Tuesday of a heart attack, state television and two parliamentarians said.

Attendants found the controversial lawmaker, 71, dead in bed in his Baghdad home, according to parliament official Haitham al-Jabouri.

... ... ...

During his heyday, the smooth-talking Chalabi was widely seen as the man who helped push the U.S. and its main ally Britain into invading Iraq in 2003, with information that Saddam's government had weapons of mass destruction, claims that were eventually discredited.

... ... ...

Chalabi had also said Saddam - known for his secularist Baathist ideology - had ties with al-Qaeda.

After Saddam's fall by U.S.-led coalition forces, Chalabi returned from exile in Britain and the United States. Despite having been considered as a potential candidate for the powerful post of prime minister in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's 24-year reign, the politician never managed to rise to the top of Iraq's stormy, sectarian-driven political landscape.

His eventual fallout with his former American allies also hurt his chances of becoming an Iraqi leader.

"The neo-cons wanted to make a case for war and he [Chalabi] was somebody who is willing to provide them with information that would help their cause," Ali Khedery, who was the longest continuously-serving American official in Iraq in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, told Al Arabiya News.

[Nov 14, 2015] Why The Neocons Hate The Donald

Notable quotes:
"... The President, as commander in chief, shapes US foreign policy: indeed, in our post-constitutional era, now that Congress has abdicated its responsibility, he has the de facto power to single-handedly take us into war. Which is why, paraphrasing Trotsky , you may not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested in you. ..."
"... PAUL: … How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You can not be a conservative if youre going to keep promoting new programs that youre not going to pay for. ..."
"... Here, in one dramatic encounter, were two worldviews colliding: the older conservative vision embodied by Rand Paul, which puts domestic issues like fiscal solvency first, and the internationalist stance taken by what used to be called Rockefeller Republicans , and now goes under the neoconservative rubric, which puts the maintenance and expansion of Americas overseas empire – dubbed world leadership by Rubios doppelganger, Jeb Bush – over and above any concerns over budgetary common sense. ..."
"... Rubios proposed military budget – $696 billion – represents a $35 billion increase over what the Pentagon is requesting ..."
"... Pauls too-clever-by-half legislative maneuvering may have effectively exposed Rubio – and Sen. Tom Cotton, Marcos co-pilot on this flight into fiscal profligacy – as the faux-conservative that he is, but it evaded the broader question attached to the issue of military spending: what are we going to do with all that shiny-new military hardware? Send more weapons to Ukraine? Outfit an expeditionary force to re-invade Iraq and venture into Syria? This brings to mind Madeleine Albrights infamous remark directed at Gen. Colin Powell: Whats the point of having this superb military youre always talking about if we cant use it? ..."
"... Speaking of Trumpian hot air: Paul showed up The Donald for the ignorant blowhard he is by pointing out, after another of Trumps jeremiads aimed at the Yellow Peril, that China is not a party to the trade deal, which is aimed at deflecting Beijing. That was another shining moment for Paul, who successfully juxtaposed his superior knowledge to Trumps babbling. ..."
"... If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, one-hundred percent, and I cant understand how anybody would be against it. ..."
"... Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the isolationist populism that Rubio and his neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybodys bills? Why are we fighting everybody elses wars? Its a bad deal! ..."
"... This is why the neocons hate Trumps guts even more than they hate Paul. The former, after all, is the frontrunner. What the War Party fears is that Trumps contradictory mixture of bluster – bigger, better, stronger! – and complaints that our allies are taking advantage of us means a victory for the dreaded isolationists at the polls. ..."
"... its election season, the one time – short of when were about to invade yet another country – when the American people are engaged with the foreign policy issues of the day. And what we are seeing is a rising tide of disgust with our policy of global intervention – in a confused inchoate sense, in the case of Trump, and in a focused, self-conscious, occasionally eloquent and yet still slightly confused and inconsistent way in the case of Sen. Paul. Either way, the real voice of the American heartland is being heard. ..."
"... Trump has rocked the boat and raised some issues and viewpoints that none of the other bought and paid for candidates would ever have raised. Has he changed the national discussion on these issues? At least he woken some people up. ..."
"... The sentence of We relied on the stupidity of the American voter resonates. ..."
"... What you did, was you fell for the oldest press trick in the book. Its called: out of context . Thats is where they play back only a segment of what someone says, only a part of what they want you to hear, so you will draw the wrong conclusion. What Trump said {had you listened to ALL of what he said} was that he was going to TAKE ISILS OIL. Oil is the largest source of revenue for them {then comes the CIA money}. If you were to remove their oil revenues from them, they would be seriously hurting for cash to fund their machine. I dont have a problem with that. ..."
"... The thing about understanding the attack on The Donald is understanding what he is NOT. Namely he is not CFR connected ..."
"... The attacks on Trump have been relentless yet he is still maintaining his position in the polls. ..."
"... The goal is to have a CFR candidate in both the GOP and Dem fold. Although Hillary is not a CFR member ostensibly Slick Willie has been for more than 20 years and his Administration was rife with them...Hello Rubin and Glass Steagal!!..as is Chelsea... a newly elected member. ..."
"... [American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant. ..."
"... Yes, I have also seen the new golden boy regaled in the media. Lets see where he goes. I wonder if anyone represents the American people any better than the corrupt piece of dried up persimmon that is Hillary? ..."
"... With JEB polling in single digits and hopelessly befuddled, Rubio is the Great Hispanic Hope of the establishment Republocrats. He is being well-pimped, is all. Paul is clearly more intelligent, more articulate, and more well-informed; Trump is more forceful and popular (but independent!). Neither suits an establishment that wants to hold the reins behind the throne. ..."
Nov 14, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Justin Raimondo via Anti-War.com,

Most Americans don't think much about politics, let alone foreign policy issues, as they go about their daily lives. It's not that they don't care: it's just that the daily grind doesn't permit most people outside of Washington, D.C. the luxury of contemplating the fate of nations with any regularity. There is one exception, however, and that is during election season, and specifically – when it comes to foreign policy – every four years, when the race for the White House begins to heat up. The President, as commander in chief, shapes US foreign policy: indeed, in our post-constitutional era, now that Congress has abdicated its responsibility, he has the de facto power to single-handedly take us into war. Which is why, paraphrasing Trotsky, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested in you.

The most recent episode of the continuing GOP reality show, otherwise known as the presidential debates, certainly gave us a glimpse of what we are in for if the candidates on that stage actually make it into the Oval Office – and, folks, it wasn't pretty, for the most part. But there were plenty of bright spots.

This was supposed to have been a debate about economics, but in the Age of Empire there is no real division between economic and foreign policy issues. That was brought home by the collision between Marco Rubio and Rand Paul about half way through the debate when Rubio touted his child tax credit program as being "pro-family." A newly-aggressive and articulate Rand Paul jumped in with this:

"Is it conservative to have $1 trillion in transfer payments – a new welfare program that's a refundable tax credit? Add that to Marco's plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative."

Rubio's blow-dried exterior seemed to fray momentarily, as he gave his "it's for the children" reply:

"But if you invest it in your children, in the future of America and strengthening your family, we're not going to recognize that in our tax code? The family is the most important institution in society. And, yes…

"PAUL: Nevertheless, it's not very conservative, Marco."

Stung to the quick, Rubio played what he thought was his trump card:

"I know that Rand is a committed isolationist. I'm not. I believe the world is a stronger and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world.

"PAUL: Yeah, but, Marco! … How is it conservative … to add a trillion-dollar expenditure for the federal government that you're not paying for?

"RUBIO: Because…

"PAUL: … How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You can not be a conservative if you're going to keep promoting new programs that you're not going to pay for.

(APPLAUSE)"

Here, in one dramatic encounter, were two worldviews colliding: the older conservative vision embodied by Rand Paul, which puts domestic issues like fiscal solvency first, and the "internationalist" stance taken by what used to be called Rockefeller Republicans, and now goes under the neoconservative rubric, which puts the maintenance and expansion of America's overseas empire – dubbed "world leadership" by Rubio's doppelganger, Jeb Bush – over and above any concerns over budgetary common sense.

Rubio then descended into waving the bloody shirt and evoking Trump's favorite bogeyman – the Yellow Peril – to justify his budget-busting:

"We can't even have an economy if we're not safe. There are radical jihadists in the Middle East beheading people and crucifying Christians. A radical Shia cleric in Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon, the Chinese taking over the South China Sea…"

If the presence of the Islamic State in the Middle East precludes us from having an economy, then those doing their Christmas shopping early this year don't seem to be aware of it. As for the Iranians and their alleged quest for nuclear weapons, IAEA inspectors are at this very moment verifying the complete absence of such an effort – although Sen. Paul, who stupidly opposed the Iran deal, is in no position to point this out. As for the fate of the South China Sea – if we could take a poll, I wonder how many Americans would rather have their budget out of balance in order to keep the Chinese from constructing artificial islands a few miles off their own coastline. My guess: not many.

Playing the "isolationist" card got Rubio nowhere: I doubt if a third of the television audience even knows what that term is supposed to mean. It may resonate in Washington, but out in the heartland it carries little if any weight with people more concerned about their shrinking bank accounts than the possibility that the South China Sea might fall to … the Chinese.

Ted Cruz underscored his sleaziness (and, incidentally, his entire election strategy) by jumping in and claiming the "middle ground" between Rubio's fulsome internationalism and Paul's call to rein in our extravagant military budget – by siding with Rubio. We can do what Rubio wants to do – radically increase military expenditures – but first, he averred, we have to cut sugar subsidies so we can afford it. This was an attack on Rubio's enthusiasm for sugar subsidies, without which, avers the Senator from the state that produces the most sugar, "we lose the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we're at the mercy of a foreign country for food security." Yes, there's a jihadist-Iranian-Chinese conspiracy to deprive America of its sweet tooth – but not if President Rubio can stop it!

Cruz is a master at prodding the weaknesses of his opponents, but his math is way off: sugar subsidies have cost us some $15 billion since 2008. Rubio's proposed military budget – $696 billion – represents a $35 billion increase over what the Pentagon is requesting. Cutting sugar subsidies – an unlikely prospect, especially given the support of Republicans of Rubio's ilk for the program – won't pay for it.

However, if we want to go deeper into those weeds, Sen. Paul also endorses the $696 billion figure, but touts the fact that his proposal comes with cuts that will supposedly pay for the hike. This is something all those military contractors can live with, and so everybody's happy, at least on the Republican side of the aisle, and yet the likelihood of cutting $21 billion from "international affairs," never mind $20 billion from social services, is unlikely to garner enough support from his own party – let alone the Democrats – to get through Congress. So it's just more of Washington's kabuki theater: all symbolism, no action.

Paul's too-clever-by-half legislative maneuvering may have effectively exposed Rubio – and Sen. Tom Cotton, Marco's co-pilot on this flight into fiscal profligacy – as the faux-conservative that he is, but it evaded the broader question attached to the issue of military spending: what are we going to do with all that shiny-new military hardware? Send more weapons to Ukraine? Outfit an expeditionary force to re-invade Iraq and venture into Syria? This brings to mind Madeleine Albright's infamous remark directed at Gen. Colin Powell: "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

In this way, Paul undermines his own case against global intervention – and even his own eloquent argument, advanced in answer to Rubio's contention that increasing the military budget would make us "safer":

"I do not think we are any safer from bankruptcy court. As we go further, and further into debt, we become less, and less safe. This is the most important thing we're going to talk about tonight. Can you be a conservative, and be liberal on military spending? Can you be for unlimited military spending, and say, Oh, I'm going to make the country safe? No, we need a safe country, but, you know, we spend more on our military than the next ten countries combined."

I have to say Sen. Paul shone at this debate. His arguments were clear, consistent, and made with calm forcefulness. He distinguished himself from the pack, including Trump, who said "I agree with Marco, I agree with Ted," and went on to mouth his usual "bigger, better, stronger" hyperbole that amounted to so much hot hair air.

Speaking of Trumpian hot air: Paul showed up The Donald for the ignorant blowhard he is by pointing out, after another of Trump's jeremiads aimed at the Yellow Peril, that China is not a party to the trade deal, which is aimed at deflecting Beijing. That was another shining moment for Paul, who successfully juxtaposed his superior knowledge to Trump's babbling.

This obsession with China's allegedly malign influence extended to the next round, when foreign policy was again the focus. In answer to a question about whether he supports President Obama's plan to send Special Operations forces to Syria, Ben Carson said yes, because Russia is going to make it "their base," oh, and by the way: "You know, the Chinese are there, as well as the Russians." Unless he's talking about these guys, Carson intel seems a bit off.

Jeb Bush gave the usual boilerplate, delivered in his preferred monotone, contradicting himself when he endorsed a no-fly zone over Syria and then attacked Hillary Clinton for not offering "leadership" – when she endorsed the idea practically in unison with him. Bush added his usual incoherence to the mix by averring that somehow not intervening more in the region "will have a huge impact on our economy" – but of course the last time we intervened it had a $2 trillion-plus impact in terms of costs, and that's a conservative estimate.

Oddly characterizing Russia's air strikes on the Islamic State as "aggression" – do our air strikes count as aggression? – the clueless Marie Bartiromo asked Trump what he intends to do about it. Trump evaded the question for a few minutes, going on about North Korea, Iran, and of course the Yellow Peril, finally coming out with a great line that not even the newly-noninterventionist Sen. Paul had the gumption to muster:

"If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, one-hundred percent, and I can't understand how anybody would be against it."

Bush butted in with "But they aren't doing that," which is the Obama administration's demonstrably inaccurate line, and Trump made short work of him with the now undeniable fact that the Islamic State blew up a Russian passenger jet with over 200 people on it. "He [Putin] cannot be in love with these people," countered Trump. "He's going in, and we can go in, and everybody should go in. As far as the Ukraine is concerned, we have a group of people, and a group of countries, including Germany – tremendous economic behemoth – why are we always doing the work?"

Why indeed.

Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the "isolationist" populism that Rubio and his neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybody's bills? Why are we fighting everybody else's wars? It's a bad deal!

This is why the neocons hate Trump's guts even more than they hate Paul. The former, after all, is the frontrunner. What the War Party fears is that Trump's contradictory mixture of bluster – "bigger, better, stronger!" – and complaints that our allies are taking advantage of us means a victory for the dreaded "isolationists" at the polls.

As for Carly Fiorina and John Kasich: they merely served as a Greek chorus to the exhortations of Rubio and Bush to take on Putin, Assad, Iran, China, and (in Trump's case) North Korea. They left out Venezuela only because they ran out of time, and breath. Fiorina and Kasich were mirror images of each other in their studied belligerence: both are aspiring vice-presidential running mates for whatever Establishment candidate takes the prize.

Yes, it's election season, the one time – short of when we're about to invade yet another country – when the American people are engaged with the foreign policy issues of the day. And what we are seeing is a rising tide of disgust with our policy of global intervention – in a confused inchoate sense, in the case of Trump, and in a focused, self-conscious, occasionally eloquent and yet still slightly confused and inconsistent way in the case of Sen. Paul. Either way, the real voice of the American heartland is being heard.

Bumpo

Im not so sure. If you see it in context with Trump's other message to make Mexico pay for the border fence. If you take the Iraq war on the face of it - that is, we came in to rescue them from Saddam Hussein - then taking their oil in payment is only "fair". It's hard to tell if he is playing a game, or actually believes the US company line, though. I think he isn't letting on. At least I hope so. And that goes double for his "Support" of Israel.

Joe Trader

@greenskeeper we get it, you get butt-hurt extremely easily

The thing about Donald Trump and oil - is that a few years ago, he said all that Saudi Arabia had to do was start pumping oil, and down it would go to $25. Guess what sweet cheeks - His prediction is coming true and the presidency could really use a guy like him who knows what he's doing.

MalteseFalcon

Say what you like about Trump. 'He is a baffoon or a blowhard'. 'He can't be elected president'.

But Trump has rocked the boat and raised some issues and viewpoints that none of the other bought and paid for 'candidates' would ever have raised. Has he changed the national discussion on these issues? At least he woken some people up.

illyia

oh.my.gawd. a rational adult series of comments on zero hedge: There is hopium for the world, after all.

Just must say: Raimondo is an incredibly good writer. Very enjoyable to read. I am sure that's why he's still around. He make a clear, concise argument, presents his case with humor and irony and usually covers every angle.

I wonder about people like him, who think things out so well... versus, say, the bloviator and chief?

P.S. don't blame me, i did not vote for either of them...

Oracle of Kypseli

The sentence of "We relied on the stupidity of the American voter" resonates.

TheObsoleteMan

What you did, was you fell for the oldest press trick in the book. It's called: "out of context". That's is where they play back only a segment of what someone says, only a part of what they want you to hear, so you will draw the wrong conclusion. What Trump said {had you listened to ALL of what he said} was that he was going to TAKE ISIL'S OIL. Oil is the largest source of revenue for them {then comes the CIA money}. If you were to remove their oil revenues from them, they would be seriously hurting for cash to fund their machine. I don't have a problem with that.

palmereldritch

The thing about understanding the attack on The Donald is understanding what he is NOT. Namely he is not CFR connected:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/trump-catches-attention-of...

The attacks on Trump have been relentless yet he is still maintaining his position in the polls.

I expected a take out on Ben Carson, his next closest competitor to move up a CFR-aligned Globalist like Shrubio or Cruz given their fall-back JEBPNAC is tanking so bad...but not this early. They must be getting desperate...so desperate they are considering Romney?!

If it becomes 'Reagan/Bush Redux' again with Trump/Cruz, I hope The Donald has enough sense to say NO! or, if elected, be very vigilant knowing you are Reagan and you have the GHW Bush equivalent standing there to replace you...and we know how that unfolded early in Reagan's first term...NOT GOOD

EDIT: The goal is to have a CFR candidate in both the GOP and Dem fold. Although Hillary is not a CFR member ostensibly Slick Willie has been for more than 20 years and his Administration was rife with them...Hello Rubin and Glass Steagal!!..as is Chelsea... a newly elected member.

So that red vote I just got...was that you Hill?

Pure Evil

The point is Justin seems to believe the Iranians have no intention of building a nuclear bomb ever. I've read a lot of this guy's writing ever since he first came out on his own website and when he wrote for AsiaTimesOnline. He's always had the opinion that the Iranians are not building a nuclear bomb and have no intention to do so. He spews the same talking points about how they've never attacked anyone in over two hundred years.

Well that's because previously they were under the control of the Ottoman empire and that didn't break up until after WW1. I think he's got a blind spot in this regard. You can't tell me that even the Japanese aren't secretly building nuclear weapons since China is becoming militarily aggressive. And, stop being a prick. Your micro-aggressing against my safe place LTER and I'm gonna have to report you for "hurtful" speech.

Raymond_K._Hessel

You ignorant slut.

https://theintercept.com/2015/03/02/brief-history-netanyahu-crying-wolf-...

20 years plus of this accusation. Cia and dia both said no mil program.

If you have evidence summon it. Offering your suspicion as evidence is fucking absurd.

And if the israelis werent hell bent on taking the rest of palestine and brutalizing the natives (which, by and large, they actually are) that would sure wet some of the anti isrsel powder.

But no / they want lebensraum and years of war for expansion and regional total hegemony.

Thrn they can ethnically cleanse the historical inhabitants while everyones busy watching white european christisns kill each other, and muslims, as isis keeps not attacking israel or even isrseli interests.

Youre not dumb, you just reached conclusions that are very weakened of not refuted by evidence you wont even consider.

https://theintercept.com/2015/03/02/brief-history-netanyahu-crying-wolf-...

Bazza McKenzie

If you examine the policy detail Trump has provided, there is more substance there than any of the others. Add to that he has a long record of successful management, which none of the others have.

You don't manage successfully without self control. The persona he presents in politics at present may give the impression of a lack of self control, yet that persona and the policies which are/were verboten to the political class have quickly taken him to the top of the pack and kept him there.

If you apply to Trump the saying "judge people by what they do, not what they say", his achievements out of politics and now in politics show he is a more capable person than any of the others and that he is successful at what he sets out to do.

As the economy for most Americans continues to worsen, which is baked in the cake, who is going to look to the public a more credible person to turn it around, Clinton? Trump? one of the others? The answer is pretty obvious.

European American

"I cannot take Trump seriously."

It's not about Trump as President, a year from now. Who knows if he'll even be in the picture by then. It's ALL about Trump, RIGHT NOW. He's exposing the underbelly of a vile, hideous Z-creature that we, here at ZH have seen for some time, but the masses, those who haven't connected enought dots, yet, are getting a glimpse of something that has been foreign in politics, up until now. Everytime Trump is interviewed, or tweets or stands at the debates, another round is shot over the bow, or beak, of the monster creature that has been sucking the life out of humanity for decades, centuries, eons. As long as he's standing and he can pull it off, that is what this phenomenon is all about...one day at a time....shedding light where the stench of darkness has been breeding corruption for the last millenium.

MASTER OF UNIVERSE

Neocons hate because their collective ethos is that of a single misanthrope that crafted their existence in the first place. In brief, neocons are fascist narrow minded automatons not really capable of a level of consciousness that would enable them to think critically, and independently, of the clique orthodoxy that guides their myopic thinking, or lack thereof. Neocons have no history aside from Corporatism, and Fascism.

Escrava Isaura

American Decline: Causes and Consequences

Grand Area (after WW-2) to be under US control: Western Hemisphere, the Far East, the former British empire - including the crucial Middle East oil reserves - and as much of Eurasia as possible, or at the very least its core industrial regions in Western Europe and the southern European states. The latter were regarded as essential for ensuring control of Middle East energy resources.

It means: Africa resources go to Europe. Asia resources go to Japan. South America resources go to US.

Now (2019) the Conundrum: Where will China get the resources needed for its survival? And Russia is not Africa.

"[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant." ? Zbigniew Brzezinski

Bazza McKenzie

Through either ignorance or malice the author repeats Rand Paul's statement about Trump's comments re China and the TPP.

Trump explicitly said the TPP provides a back door opportunity for China, thus noting he understands China is not an initial signatory to TPP.

The backdoor opportunity occurs in 2 ways. The ability for TPP to expand its signatory countries without going back to the legislatures of existing signatory countries AND the fact that products claiming to be made in TPP countries and eligible for TPP arrangements don't have to be wholly made in those countries, or perhaps even mainly made in those countries. China will certainly be taking advantage of that.

The fact that Paul does not apparently understand these points, despite being a Senator, displays an unfortunate ignorance unless of course he was just attempting to score a political point despite knowing it to be false.

Paul at least made his comment in the heat of the moment in a debate. Raimondo has had plenty of time to get the facts right but does not. How much of the rest of his screed is garbage?

socalbeach

I got the impression Trump thought China was part of the trade deal from this quote:

"Yes. Well, the currency manipulation they don't discuss in the agreement, which is a disaster. If you look at the way China and India and almost everybody takes advantage of the United States - China in particular, because they're so good. It's the number-one abuser of this country. And if you look at the way they take advantage, it's through currency manipulation. It's not even discussed in the almost 6,000-page agreement. It's not even discussed."

If China isn't part of the agreement, then what difference does it make whether or not currency manipulation is discussed? Your answer is that Trump meant they could be added to the agreement later, as in this previous quote of his:

"The TPP is horrible deal. It is a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble. It's a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone."

If that's the case, Trump didn't explain himself well in this instance.

Johnny Horscaulk

Johnny Horscaulk's picture

http://www.vdare.com/articles/why-so-much-jewish-fear-and-loathing-of-do...

Neocons should not be used as a synonym for 'militarist.'

That subset was absolutely a Jewish-Zionist movement originating at the U of Chicago whether you know the history or not. Its also obvious just verboden to discuss. Not because its false, but because its true.

Neocons aren't conservative - they are zioglobalists with primary concern for Israel.

There are several groups of militarists in the deep state, but the Israel Firster faction is predominant.

Fucking obviously.

Arthur

Gee I guess we should back Iran and Isis. Must be some great jewish conspiricy that keeps you impovrished, that or maybe you are just a moron.

Johnny Horscaulk

Idiot, the us, and israel ARE backing isis. Go back to watching fox news - this is all way over your willingness to spend time reading about. You clearly have an internet connection - but you utter palpable nonsense.

OldPhart

Arthur

When/where I grew up I'd never met a jew. I think there was one black family in the two hundred fifty square miles of the town, population 2,200 in 1976. I knew jackshit other than they were greased by nazis back in WWII.

Moved out of the desert to Orlando, Flawed?-Duh. Met a lot of regular jews. Good people, best man's dad and mom had tattoo'd numbers on thier arms. To me, their just regular people that have some other sort of religion that christianity is an offshoot from.

What I've learned is that Zionism is lead by a relative few of the jewish faith, many regular jews resent it as an abomination of jewish faith. Zionists are the self-selected political elite and are in no way keepers of the jewish faith. They are the equivalent, in Israel, to the CFR here. Oddly, they also comprise many of the CFR seats HERE.

Zionists do not represent the jews any more than Jamie Diamond, Blythe Masters, Warren Buffet, or Bill Gates represent ordinary Americans. Somehow, over time, Zionists came to wield massive influence within our government and corporate institutions.

Those are the simple facts that I have been able to glean from piles of research that are massively biased in both directions.

It's not a jewish conspiracy that keeps many impoverished, it's the Zionists that keep many impoverished, at war, divided, ignorant, and given bread and circuses. Not jews.

Perhaps you should spend a few years doing a little independent research of your own before belittling something you obviously have no clue about.

Johnny Horscaulk

That rhetorical ballet aside, Israel has far far too much influence on us policy, and that is so because of wildly disproportionate Jewish... As such... Political, financial, media, etc power. And they - AS A GROUP -act in their in-group interests even when resulting policy is not in this country's interest - demanding, with 50 million Scoffield JudeoChristians that Israels interests be of utmost value...

And heres the kicker - as defined by an Israel under likud and shas, parties so odious they make golden dawn look leftist, yet get no msm criticism for being so.

Its never 'all' any group - but Israels influence is excessive and deleterious, and that is due to jewish power and influence, with the xian zios giving the votes. Framed this way, it isnt 'Zionism' - it is simply a powerful minority with deep loyalty to a tiny foreign state warping us policy - and media coverage.

MEFOBILLS

Arthur,

Iran is formerly Persia, and its people are predominantly Shia. Shia's are considered apostates by Sunni's. Isis is Sunni. Sunnis get their funding via the Petrodollar system.

Persians changed their name to Iran to let northern Europeans know they were Aryans. Persians are not Arabs.

Neo-Con's are Jewish and they have fellow travelers who are non jewish. Many of their fellow travelers are Sayanim or Zionist Christians. So, Neo-Con ideology is no longer specifically Jewish, but it certainly has Jewish antecedents.

Your comment is full of illogic, is misinformed, and then you have the laughable temerity to call out someone else as a moron.

I Write Code

The only place "neocons" still exist is at ZH. Whatever Wikipedia says about it, the term had virtually no currency in the US before 2001, and had pretty much ceased to have any influence by about 2005.

Is Rubio sounding like an interventionist? Yes. Does he really know what he's talking about? Unclear. Is Trump sounding like a non-interventionist? Yes. Does he really know what he's talking about? Almost certainly not. Trump is the non-interventionist who wants to bomb the shit out of ISIS.

Rand didn't do anything to embarass himself at the latest debate, but he also didn't stand out enough to make up for many past errors. Give him a few years, maybe he'll grow up or something.

But the harder question is, what *should* the US do about stuff? Should we cowboy on alone, or pull back because none of the other kids want to help us. Can't we make common cause with Russia and France at this point? I mean instead of Iran and Turkey? The biggest problem is of course Obama - whatever various national interests at this point, nobody in the world thinks they can trust Nobel boy as far as they can spit a rat. Would anyone want to trust Rubio or Trump? Would you?

Johnny Horscaulk

Nonsense - read this for background beginning with the philosopher Strauss. It has a fixed meaning that was subjected to semantic drift in the media. It came to be conflated with 'militarist' and the conservative thing was a misnomer they were communists who wanted to use American power for israel.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article178638.html

Only on zh is absolutely absurd to claim.

TheObsoleteMan

After listening to the press for the last week, I have come to a conclusion concerning Mr. Bush: The party big wigs have decided he can not win and are distancing their support for him.

Their new golden boy? Marco Rubio. The press in the last week has barely mentioned Bush, but every breath has been about "the young Latino". "He's rising in the polls".

I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that on radio and the TV. They also had him on Meet The Press last Sunday. Just thought I'd mention it. I can't stand Rubio. When he ran for Senate down here a few years ago, he road to Washington on the Tea Party's back. As soon as he got there, he did what all good politicians do: Dumped their platform and forgot all about them. Scumbag.

neilhorn

Yes, I have also seen the new "golden boy" regaled in the media. Let's see where he goes. I wonder if anyone represents the American people any better than the corrupt piece of dried up persimmon that is Hillary?

Raymond_K._Hessel

Trump picks cruz as veep, offends moderate and lefty independents and latinos on the immigration stuff, kisses Likuds ass (2 million right wing batshit jews out of 8 million israeli voters in asia dominate us foreign policy via nutty, aipac, adl, jinsa, conf of pres, etc etc etc)

And he loses to hillary. The gop can not win this election. Sorry - but admit the direness of our situation - shitty candidates all and one of the very worst and most essentially disingenuous- will win because women and minorities and lefties outnumber right leaning white males.

This is super obviously the political situation.

So - how do we 'prepare' for hillary? She is more wars, more printing, more wall st, more israel just like everyone but sanders who is nonetheless a crazy person and arch statist though I respect his at least not being a hyperinterventionist mic cocksucker.

But fucking hillary clinton gets in.

What does it mean apart from the same old thing?

Red team blue team same thing on wars, banks, and bending the knee to batshit psycho bibi.

cherry picker

I don't think Americans are really ready for Bill to be the First Man, do you? I don't think Americans think about that aspect of Hillary becoming Pres.

Personally, I hope she doesn't get in. There are many other women that are capable who could fit the bill, if the US is bound and determined to have a female president.

neilhorn

"indeed, in our post-constitutional era, now that Congress has abdicated its responsibility, he has the de facto power to single-handedly take us into war. Which is why, paraphrasing Trotsky, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested in you."

The post-constitutional era is the present time. Congress is stifled by politics while the rest of us only desire that the rights of the people are protected. The President has never been granted the right to take our nation to war. Other presidents have usurped that power and taken the power to themseves. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all taken on the right to kill anyone who defied the right of the presidency. However, when the people ever abrogated their right to wage war it was only in response to a police state being established that threatened those who opposed the power of the established authority. Congress, the representatives of the people, has the right to declare war. Congress is also obligated to represent the people who elected them. When will we find a representative who has the backbone to stop the suicidal tendencies of the structures of power?

Captain Obvious.

Don't set store by any politician. They were all sent as a group to suck Israeli dick. Yes, dear Donald too. They will tell you what they think you want to hear.

Raymond_K._Hessel

Ivanka converted to judaism and all - was that for the grooms parents or genuine? Or a dynastic thing?

Wahooo

Another hit piece today in Barrons:

"Donald Trump is trying hard to look presidential these days. Too bad he's using Herbert Hoover as a role model. Hoover, of course, is best remembered as having been president during the stock market crash of 1929 that presaged the Great Depression. What helped turn a normal recession into a global economic disaster was the spread of protectionism, starting with the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which resulted in retaliation even before Hoover signed the bill in 1930."

If I recall my history, in 1927 amidst what everyone knew was already bubble stock market, the Fed dropped rates substantially. This was done against the protests of President Coolidge, his secretary of treasury, and many other politicians and business tycoons at the time. It ushered in a stock market bubble of massive proportions and the coming bust. Protectionism had little to do with it.

Faeriedust

Right. The "protectionism" meme is a piece of corporate persiflage that's been duly trotted out every time someone suggests even SLIGHTLY protecting our decimated economy. According to Wiki: "the general view is that while it had negative results, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was not one of the main causes of the Great Depression because foreign trade was only a small sector of the U.S. economy."

Faeriedust

Well, what REALLY caused the Depression were the bills from WWI. Every nation in Europe had spent years of GNP on the War through debt, all the debts were due, and nobody could afford to pay them. So they loaded the whole pile on Germany, and then screamed when Germany literally could NOT make its payments, and then played extend-and-pretend for a decade. Which eventually caused the Credit-Anstallt collapse, and then everything finally fell like a house of cards.

Very like today, but the current run of bills were run up by pure financial frivolity and corruption. Although one could say that fighting a war that killed 1/4 of all European males of fighting age was an exercise in frivolity and corruption on the part of Europe's senile ruling elites. Nobody was willing to divide a shrinking pie equitably; they all thought it would be better to try grabbing The Whole Thing. Rather like world powers today, again.

CAPT DRAKE

educated, responsible position in a fortune 200company, and yes, will be voting for trump. why? sick to death of the existing elites, and the way they run things. a trump vote is a protest vote. a protest against the neocons and all their types that have caused so much misery around the world.

NoWayJose

If Trump is the Republucan nominee, you can bet that he will point out a lot of things Hillary has done. You know several others in the field will say nothing bad about Hillary. (A la Romney).

Not sure why Rubio still has support - Rand clobbered him on spending, including his new entitlement, and add Rubio's position on amnesty.

Faeriedust

With JEB polling in single digits and hopelessly befuddled, Rubio is the Great Hispanic Hope of the establishment Republocrats. He is being well-pimped, is all. Paul is clearly more intelligent, more articulate, and more well-informed; Trump is more forceful and popular (but independent!). Neither suits an establishment that wants to hold the reins behind the throne.

thesoothsayer

The Military Industrial Complex became entrenched after Eisenhower left office and they murdered Kennedy. Since then, they have taken over. We cover the world to spread our seeds and enrich our corporations. Our government does not protect the people, it protects the corporations, wall street. That is the reality.

dizzyfingers

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/11/trump-was-right-about-tpp-benefitting-china

Trump Was Right About TPP Benefiting China

[Nov 12, 2015] Oil Industry Needs Half a Trillion Dollars to Endure Price Slump

Notable quotes:
"... I agree. Excellent point on the frack log, but at some point with the reduced rate of drilling the frack log will dwindle. Let's take the Bakken where we have the best numbers, Enno estimates around 800 DUC wells (rough guess from memory), to make things simple let's assume no more wells are drilled because prices are so low. If 80 wells per month are completed the DUCs are gone in July 2016. Now the no wells drilled is probably not realistic. If 40 wells per month are drilled (though at these oil prices I still don't understand why) the 800 DUCs would last for 20 months rather than only 10 months, so your story makes sense at least for the Bakken. ..."
"... One thing to be careful with the fracklog, is that not all of these will be good wells. ..."
"... I agree that high cost will be likely to reduce demand. The optimistic forecasts assume there will be low cost supply judging by the price scenarios. For AEO 2013 Brent remains under $110/b (2013$) until 2031 and only reaches $141/b (2013$) in 2040. ..."
"... "Debt repayments will increase for the rest of the decade, with $72 billion maturing this year, about $85 billion in 2016 and $129 billion in 2017, according to BMI Research. About $550 billion in bonds and loans are due for repayment over the next five years. ..."
"... U.S. drillers account for 20 percent of the debt due in 2015, ..."
peakoilbarrel.com

ChiefEngineer , 11/09/2015 at 2:46 pm

Saudi Arabia will not stop pumping to boost oil prices

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/09/

"Mr Falih, who is also health minister, forecast the market would come into balance in the new year, and then demand would start to suck up inventories and storage on oil tankers. "Hopefully, however, there will be enough investment to meet the needs beyond 2017."

Other officials also estimated that it would probably take one to two years for the market to clear up the oil market glut, allowing prices to recover towards $70-$80 a barrel."

Greenbub, 11/09/2015 at 2:54 pm

Chief, that link went dead, this might be right:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/09/reuters-america-update-1-saudi-arabia-sees-robust-oil-fundamentals-as-rival-output-falls.html

Ron Patterson, 11/09/2015 at 4:40 pm

From your link, bold mine:

"Non-OPEC supply is expected to fall in 2016, only one year after the deep cuts in investment," he said.

"Beyond 2016, the fall in non-OPEC supply is likely to accelerate, as the cancellation and postponement of projects will start feeding into future supplies, and the impact of previous record investments on oil output starts to fade away."

I thought just about everyone was expecting a rebound in production by 2017?

AlexS, 11/09/2015 at 7:50 pm
Ron, Dennis

The EIA. IEA. OPEC and most others expect non-OPEC production, excluding the U.S. and Canada to decline in 2016 and the next few years due to the decline in investments and postponement / canceling of new projects. Production in Canada is still projected to continue to grow, but at a much slower rate than previously expected.

Finally, U.S. C+C production is expected to rebound in the second half of 2016 due to slightly higher oil prices ($55-57/bbl WTI). Also, U.S. NGL production proved much more resilient, than C+C, despite very low NGL prices.

Non-OPEC ex U.S. and Canada total liquids supply (mb/d)
Source: EIA STEO October 2015

Dennis Coyne, 11/10/2015 at 9:10 am

Hi AlexS,

Thanks. I don't think oil prices at $56/b is enough to increase the drilling in the LTO plays to the extent that output will increase, it may stop the decline and result in a plateau, it's hard to know.

On the "liquids" forecast, the NGL is not adjusted for energy content as it should be, each barrel of NGL has only 70% of the energy content of an average C+C barrel and the every 10 barrels of NGL should be counted as 7 barrels so that the liquids are reported in barrels of oil equivalent (or better yet report the output in gigajoules (1E9) or exajoules(1E18)). The same conversion should be done for ethanol as well.

AlexS, 11/10/2015 at 9:54 am

Dennis,

Note that not only the EIA, but also the IEA, OPEC, energy consultancies and investment banks are projecting a recovery in US oil production in the later part of next year.

That said, I agree with you that $56 WTI projected by the EIA may not be sufficient to trigger a fast rebound in drilling activity. However there is also a backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells that could be completed and put into operation with slightly higher oil prices.

Most shale companies have announced further cuts in investment budgets in 2016, so I think it is difficult to expect significant growth in the U.S. onshore oil production in 2H16.

If and when oil prices reach $65-70/bbl, I think LTO may start to recover (probably in 2017 ?). I think that annual growth rates will never reach 1mb/d+ seen in 2012-14, but 0.5 mb/d annual average growth is quite possible for several years with oil prices exceeding $70.

Dennis Coyne, 11/10/2015 at 1:33 pm

Hi AlexS,

I agree. Excellent point on the frack log, but at some point with the reduced rate of drilling the frack log will dwindle. Let's take the Bakken where we have the best numbers, Enno estimates around 800 DUC wells (rough guess from memory), to make things simple let's assume no more wells are drilled because prices are so low. If 80 wells per month are completed the DUCs are gone in July 2016. Now the no wells drilled is probably not realistic. If 40 wells per month are drilled (though at these oil prices I still don't understand why) the 800 DUCs would last for 20 months rather than only 10 months, so your story makes sense at least for the Bakken.

I have no idea what the frack log looks like for the Eagle Ford. If its similar to the Bakken and they complete 130 new wells per month, with about 61 oil rigs currently turning in the EF they can drill 80 wells per month, so they would need 50 wells each month from the frack log. If there are 800 DUCs, then that would last for 16 months.

The economics are better in the Eagle Ford because the wells are cheaper and transport costs are lower, but the EUR of the wells is also lower (230 kb vs 336 kb), the well profile has a thinner tail than the Bakken wells. I am not too confident about the EIA's DPR predictions for the Eagle Ford, output will decrease, but perhaps they(EIA) assume the frack log is zero and that only 75 new wells will be added to the Eagle Ford each month. If my guess of 150 new wells per month on average from Sept to Dec 2015 is correct, then decline from August to Dec 204 will only be about 100 kb/d and 255 kb/d from March to Dec 2015 (155 kb/d from March to August 2015).

Toolpush, 11/11/2015 at 12:45 pm

Dennis,

One thing to be careful with the fracklog, is that not all of these will be good wells. It is fair enough that companies like EOG will have some good DUCs, (should there be a "k" in that?) in their fracklogs. But as the fracklog is worked through, I am sure there will be a some very ugly DUCklings, that nobody wants to admit to.
How many fall into this category, will be anybodies guess, but not all DUC, will turn out to be beautiful swans?

Dennis Coyne, 11/10/2015 at 1:57 pm

Hi AlexS,

On the predictions of the EIA and IEA, they also expect total oil supply to be quite high in 2040. For example the EIA in their International Energy Outlook reference case they have C+C output at 99 Mb/d in 2040.

Their short term forecasts are probably better than that, but my expectation for 2040 C+C output is 62 Mb/d (which many believe is seriously optimistic, though you have never expressed an opinion as far as I remember).

So I take many of these forecasts with a grain of salt, they are often more optimistic than me, others are far more pessimistic, the middle ground is sometimes more realistic.

AlexS, 11/10/2015 at 9:08 pm
Dennis,

You said above that estimated URR of all global C+C (ex oil sands in Canada and Venezuela) is 2500 Gb. And about 1250 Gb of C+C had been produced at the end of 2014. So the remaining resources are 1250 Gb.

BP estimates total global proved oil reserves as of 2014 at 1700 Gb, or 1313 excluding Canadian oil sands and Venezuela's extra heavy oil. Their estimate in 2000 was 1301 Gb and 1126 Gb. Hence, despite cumulative production of 419 Gb in 2001-2014, proved reserves increased by 187 Gb, or 400 Gb including oil sands and Venezuela's Orinoco oil. Note that BP's estimate is for proved (not P+P) reserves, but it includes C+C+NGLs. My very rough guess is that NGLs account for between 5% and 10% of the total.

You may be skeptical about BP's estimates, but the fact is that proved reserves or 2P resources are not a constant number; they are increasing due to new discoveries and technological advances.

BTW, the EIA's estimate of global C+C production increasing from 79 mb/d in 2014 to 99 mb/d in 2040 implies a cumulative output of 836 Gb, about 2/3 of your estimate of remaining 2P resources of C+C or BP's estimate of the current proved reserves. Given future discoveries and improvements in technology, I think that further growth of global oil production to about 100 mb/d by 2040 should not be constrained by resource scarcity.

What can really make the EIA's and IEA's estimates too optimistic is not the depleting resource base, but the high cost of future supply, political factors and/or lower than expected demand.

Dennis Coyne, 11/11/2015 at 11:05 am
Hi AlexS,

Thanks.

You are quite optimistic. Note that I add 300 Gb to the 2500 Gb Hubbert Linearization estimate to account for reserve growth and discoveries.

The oil reserves reported in the BP Statistical review are 1312 Gb. Jean Laherrere estimates that about 300 Gb of OPEC reserves are "political" to keep quotas at appropriate levels with respect to "true" reserve levels. So the actual 2P reserves are likely to be 1010 Gb. Some of the cumulative C+C output is extra heavy oil so the cumulative C+C-XH output is 1240 Gb so we have a total cumulative discovery (cumulative output plus 2P reserves) of 2250 Gb through 2014.

My medium scenario with a URR of 2800 Gb of C+C-XH plus 600 Gb of XH oil (3400 Gb total C+C) assumes 550 Gb of discoveries plus reserve growth.

What do you expect for a URR for C+C?

Keep in mind that at some point oil prices rise to a level that substitutes for much of present oil use will become competitive, so oil prices above $175/b (in 2015$) are unlikely to be sustained in my view.

In a wider format below I will present a scenario with what extraction rates would be needed for my medium scenario to reach 99 Mb/d in 2040.

Dennis Coyne, 11/11/2015 at 4:20 pm
Hi Alex S,

I agree that high cost will be likely to reduce demand. The optimistic forecasts assume there will be low cost supply judging by the price scenarios. For AEO 2013 Brent remains under $110/b (2013$) until 2031 and only reaches $141/b (2013$) in 2040.

Depleting resources will raise production cost to more than these prices and demand will be reduced due to high oil prices. There will be an interaction between depletion and the economics of supply and demand. It will be depletion that raises costs, which will raise prices and reduce demand.

AlexS, 11/11/2015 at 4:41 pm
It will be depletion of low-cost reserves that raises marginal costs and prices. High-cost reserves may be abundant, but prices will rise.
AlexS, 11/09/2015 at 7:55 pm
corrected chart:

TechGuy, 11/10/2015 at 10:19 am
Oil Industry Needs Half a Trillion Dollars to Endure Price Slump
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-26/oil-industry-needs-to-find-half-a-trillion-dollars-to-survive

"Debt repayments will increase for the rest of the decade, with $72 billion maturing this year, about $85 billion in 2016 and $129 billion in 2017, according to BMI Research. About $550 billion in bonds and loans are due for repayment over the next five years.

U.S. drillers account for 20 percent of the debt due in 2015, Chinese companies rank second with 12 percent and U.K. producers represent 9 percent."

[These are just the bonds that have yields higher than 10%]

[Its very unlikely that prices will recover in time to save many of the drillers, and even if prices recover, even $75 oil will not help since they need $90 to break even to service the debt. Also not sure who is going to buy maturing debt so it can be rolled over. Even if prices slowly recover, there is likely to be fewer people willing to loan money drillers.]

Watcher, 11/10/2015 at 5:18 pm
Don't bet on it. Probably be even better if the price declines more. Apocalypse will not be permitted.

[Nov 11, 2015] Four US Firms With $4.8 Billion In Debt Warned This Week They May Default Any Minute

Zero Hedge

agent default

It's not just the oil. The oil is convenient to point at because the US can pretend that they got SA to cause the drop in order to stick it to Russia. Makes the US look really smug. Meanwhile the truth is, copper down, zinc down, iron ore down, you name it down.

Baltic Dry almost crashing, soft commodities gone to hell. I guess SA can also influence these markets as well.

[Nov 11, 2015] Questions for Monetary Policy

Notable quotes:
"... Looking at the recent moves in exchange rates based on a simple switch in expectation of whether or not the Fed would raise rates in December or wait one or two meetings its seems obvious that the markets are not very good at anticipation. So I would not put much money on the ability of the markets to anticipate the trajectory and endpoint of raising rates - or the ability of anybody to guess where the exchange rates will go next. ..."
"... The drop in hours worked data in the productivity report is very confusing. ..."
"... I think lower oil prices has lead to a stronger consumption boost than initially thought. ..."
economistsview.typepad.com
James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, says there are five questions for monetary policy:

The five questions

  • What are the chances of a hard landing in China?
  • Have U.S. financial market stress indicators worsened substantially?
  • Has the U.S. labor market returned to normal?
  • What will the headline inflation rate be once the effects of the oil price shock dissipate?
  • Will the U.S. dollar continue to gain value against rival currencies?

I would add:

  • Will wage gains translate into inflation (or something along those lines)?

Anything else?

sanjait said in reply to Anonymous...

Markets move based on expectations of both economic fundamentals and the Fed's reaction function. So both can create surprises.

In this case, a relatively stronger than expected US economy could push the dollar up quite a bit. The central bank would be expected to dampen but not eliminate this effect, even without changing their perceived reaction function.

DeDude said in reply to Anonymous... , November 10, 2015 at 02:35 PM

Looking at the recent moves in exchange rates based on a simple switch in expectation of whether or not the Fed would raise rates in December or wait one or two meetings its seems obvious that the markets are not very good at anticipation. So I would not put much money on the ability of the markets to anticipate the trajectory and endpoint of raising rates - or the ability of anybody to guess where the exchange rates will go next.

What we can say is that the strengthening of the US$ that has happened recently will hurt the economy - whether it will hurt enough to slow the Fed is anybodies guess. Whether those guesses have already been baked into the exchange rates is impossible to predict.

Bert Schlitz said...

On Angry Bear, there is a post about 3rd quarter hours and Spencer's remark:

"The drop in hours worked data in the productivity report is very confusing.

The employment shows several measures of hours worked and they increased in the third quarter from 0.5% to 1,08 for aggregate weekly payrolls.

Something is really change.

The productivity report also had unit labor cost rising more than prices,
This implies falling profits, what the S&P 500 shows."

Basically wages accelerated rapidly in the 3rd quarter. The BLS didn't start catching up to it until October. My guess the hours drop and employment picks up trying to hold down costs. However, this will probably only level off things off for a few quarters, which would be good enough to profits catch back up until the labor market becomes so tight, they simply have no choice but to raise prices and hours worked surge again. Classic mid-cycle behavior (which Lambert should have noticed).

This is what triggered the 3rd quarter selloff and inventory correction. That foreign stuff was for show. I think lower oil prices has lead to a stronger consumption boost than initially thought.

am said...

Clicked on this link for the answers but it is 34 blank pages, so i'll go for:
1. No, they'll just devalue when need be to soften the landing. I think they will do another one before the end of the year.
2. No idea.
3. Near it if you believe the Atlanta Fed. They have a detailed analysis on their blog.
4. 2.2 if you believe the St Louis Fed, end of December for the oil price decline washout from the system. So inflation will creep up by the end of the year.
5. Yes and more so if they raise the rate.
6. No. because it will just be oil led not wages (see 4).
Anything else: the weather with apologies to PeterK.

anne said...

I am really having increasing trouble understanding, how is it that having a Democratic President means making sure appointments from the State or Defense Department to the Federal Reserve are highly conservative and even Republican. Republicans will not even need to elect a President to have conservatives strewn about the government:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neel-kashkari-federal-reserve-minneapolis-20151110-story.html

November 10, 2015

After failed GOP bid to be California's governor, Neel Kashkari will head Minneapolis Fed
By Jim Puzzanghera - Los Angeles Times

anne said in reply to anne...

Neel Kashkari is another Goldman Sachs kid, what would you expect?

anne said in reply to anne...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/business/ex-treasury-official-kashkari-named-minneapolis-fed-president.html

November 10, 2015

Neel Kashkari, Ex-Treasury Official, Named Minneapolis Fed President
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

Neel Kashkari is the third new president of a regional reserve bank named this year, and all three previously worked at Goldman Sachs.

[ Really, well, creepy comes to mind. ]

[Nov 11, 2015] Valentin Katasonov - Banks Rule the World, but Who Rules the Banks (II)

Notable quotes:
"... do not just own shares in American banks, they own mainly voting shares. It these financial companies that exercise the real control over the US banking system. ..."
Strategic Culture Foundation
Financial holding companies like the Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation, FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock, Northern Trust, Capital World Investors, Massachusetts Financial Services, Price (T. Rowe) Associates Inc., Dodge & Cox Inc., Invesco Ltd., Franklin Resources, Inc., АХА, Capital Group Companies, Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO) and several others do not just own shares in American banks, they own mainly voting shares. It these financial companies that exercise the real control over the US banking system.

Some analysts believe that just four financial companies make up the main body of shareholders of Wall Street banks. The other shareholder companies either do not fall into the key shareholder category, or they are controlled by the same 'big four' either directly or through a chain of intermediaries. Table 4 provides a summary of the main shareholders of the leading US banks.

Table 4.

Leading institutional shareholders of the main US banks

Name of shareholder company Controlled assets, valuation (trillions of dollars; date of evaluation in brackets) Number of employees
Vanguard Group 3 (autumn 2014) 12,000
State Street Corporation 2.35 (mid-2013) 29,500
FMR (Fidelity) 4.9 (April 2014) 41,000
Black Rock 4.57 (end of 2013) 11,400

Evaluations of the amount of assets under the control of financial companies that are shareholders of the main US banks are rather arbitrary and are revised periodically. In some cases, the evaluations only include the companies' main assets, while in others they also include assets that have been transferred over to the companies' control. In any event, the size of their controlled assets is impressive. In the autumn of 2013, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was at the top of the list of the world's banks ranked by asset size with assets totaling $3.1 trillion. At that point in time, the Bank of America had the most assets in the US banking system ($2.1 trillion). Just behind were US banks like Citigroup ($1.9 trillion) and Wells Fargo ($1.5 trillion).

[Nov 11, 2015] Friction is Now Between Global Financial Elite and the Rest of Us

Notable quotes:
"... But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs ..."
"... This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment versus establishment. ..."
"... In most cases, international agreements are negotiated by elites that have more in common with each other than with working people in the countries that they represent. ..."
"... when we negotiate economic agreements with these poorer countries, we are negotiating with people from the same class. That is, people whose interests are like ours – on the side of capital ..."
"... Accordingly, the fundamental purpose of the neo-liberal polices of the past 20 years has been to discipline labor in order to free capital from having to bargain with workers over the gains from rising productivity. ..."
"... Moreover, unregulated globalization in one stroke puts government's domestic policies decisively on the side of capital. In an economy that is growing based on its domestic market, rising wages help everyone because they increase purchasing power and consumer demand – which is the major driver of economic growth in a modern economy. But in an economy whose growth depends on foreign markets, rising domestic wages are a problem, because they add to the burden of competing internationally. ..."
"... Both the international financial institutions and the WTO have powers to enforce protection of investors' rights among nations, the former through the denial of financing, the latter through trade sanctions. But the institution charged with protecting workers' rights – the International Labor Organization (ILO) – has no enforcement power. ..."
Economist's View

Friction is now between global financial elite and the rest of us, The Guardian:

... ... ...

But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs. ...

Dan Kervick said...

"This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment versus establishment."

I think this is probably right, but the established parties are doing their best to prevent it. Each of them has an interest in continuing to divide people along various cultural, religious and ethnic identity lines in order to prevent them from achieving any kind of effective solidarity along class lines.

Anyway, I fear we may be headed toward a turbulent and very unpleasant future.

Kenneth D said...

"Rethinking the Global Political Economy" By Jeff Faux April 24, 2002

In most cases, international agreements are negotiated by elites that have more in common with each other than with working people in the countries that they represent. As a retired U.S. State Department official put it to me bluntly a few years ago, "What you don't understand," he said, "is that when we negotiate economic agreements with these poorer countries, we are negotiating with people from the same class. That is, people whose interests are like ours – on the side of capital."

Accordingly, the fundamental purpose of the neo-liberal polices of the past 20 years has been to discipline labor in order to free capital from having to bargain with workers over the gains from rising productivity.

But labor is typically at a disadvantage because it usually bargains under conditions of excess supply of unemployed workers. Moreover, the forced liberalization of finance and trade provides enormous bargaining leverage to capital, because it can now threaten to leave the economy altogether.

Moreover, unregulated globalization in one stroke puts government's domestic policies decisively on the side of capital. In an economy that is growing based on its domestic market, rising wages help everyone because they increase purchasing power and consumer demand – which is the major driver of economic growth in a modern economy. But in an economy whose growth depends on foreign markets, rising domestic wages are a problem, because they add to the burden of competing internationally.

Both the international financial institutions and the WTO have powers to enforce protection of investors' rights among nations, the former through the denial of financing, the latter through trade sanctions. But the institution charged with protecting workers' rights – the International Labor Organization (ILO) – has no enforcement power.

[Nov 09, 2015] Supervising Culture and Behavior at Financial Institutions

Notable quotes:
"... Organizational culture and behavior is a critical factor in the success of any business. The intense emphasis most American businesses place on numbers to the exclusion of almost any other consideration is a major contributor to the vast amount of corporate control fraud we have witnessed in the past decade or so. ..."
"... One of the fundamental tenets of Reaganism/Libertarianism is that "The Ends Justify the Means." The financial sector is not the only institution in our civilization that is failing due to this mind-set. The best form of regulation is simply holding up a mirror to a firm or agency and asking questions such as, "In this organization, when is it OK to lie?" ..."
Nov 09, 2015 | naked capitalism

John Zelnicker, November 7, 2015 at 9:49 am

Fascinating research. Thanks for posting this, Yves.

Organizational culture and behavior is a critical factor in the success of any business. The intense emphasis most American businesses place on numbers to the exclusion of almost any other consideration is a major contributor to the vast amount of corporate control fraud we have witnessed in the past decade or so.

Unfortunately, I don't see any of these executive psychopaths putting themselves through the self-assessment that is one of the necessary steps mentioned in the study. At least, not voluntarily.

Sluggeaux, November 7, 2015 at 11:39 am

Important.

One of the fundamental tenets of Reaganism/Libertarianism is that "The Ends Justify the Means." The financial sector is not the only institution in our civilization that is failing due to this mind-set. The best form of regulation is simply holding up a mirror to a firm or agency and asking questions such as, "In this organization, when is it OK to lie?"

[Nov 08, 2015] Legendary US Army Commander Says Russia Would Annihilate US In Head-To-Head Battle

Notable quotes:
"... And why is the US seeking a battle with Russia anyway? This is completely absurd....are the neo-cons/neo-libs this fucked up? ..."
"... Having said the above, the prevailing view on the ground in Moscow is that it will be NATO that pre-emptively attacks Russia, hence the refurbishing and re-provisioning of their network of Civil Defence shelters, info via Brother in Law (BNP Paribas Moscow). ..."
"... US/EU GDP approaches 40 trillion dollars. Russia has fallen down below 2 trillion due to the drop in oil prices. 25 to 1 disparity. ..."
"... US population 330 million. EU population 504 million. Russian population 142 million. 6-1 disparity. ..."
"... Carter says Russia, China potentially threaten global order. WTF! These idiots really believe America rules the world! Every country should fear us and do as we say. No other country should EVER dare to challenge our oligarchy. Good for Russia and China for finally saying enough. We patrol the South China Sea like it's our own f***ing bathtub. If China did that to us in the Gulf of Mexico we would already be at war. The GLOBAL F***ING ORDER? Who made us kings of the world? ..."
"... If the neocons think they can bring war to soil mere miles away from Russia and not get a nuclear response if they start losing or we breach a russian boder, theyre insane. Unfortunately one look at current policy confirms that yes, indeed, theyre insane. ..."
"... Any negative assessment of US military capability originating from within the military-industrial complex, must necessarily be considered suspect. First, that assessment would be considered highly classified, unless it was pre-approved and deliberately released to scare more money out of already fleeced taxpayers. Second, .Gov used the same propaganda in our decades-long cold war with the USSR to justify massive spending and involvement in global conflicts. Profligate spending and profligate lies leave them with no credibility. ..."
Zero Hedge
Cochore

The Saker wrote a very insightful post on this matter a while back

US political culture and propaganda has deeply ingrained in the minds of those exposed to the corporate media the notion that weapons or technologies win wars. This is not so. Or, not really so.

Yes, when the difference in technologies is very big AND very wide, meaning a full generational change across most key weapon systems, this can help. But not one weapon system alone, and not when the difference in quality is marginal.

Furthermore, a simpler, more "primitive" weapon which totally outclassed on the testing range can suddenly become much better suited to real combat then some techno-marvel. This is, by the way, one of the biggest problems with US weapons. Here is how they are designed:

You take all the latest and most advanced technologies, put them together, then create a new "superior" design, then design a new mission profile to fit that design, then sell (figuratively and literally) the new concept to Congress, especially to those Congressmen who come from the districts where production is planned - and, voilà, you have your brand new top of the line US weapon. And the costs? Who cares?! Just print some more money, and that's it.

Russian weapons are designed in a totally different way:

Take a mission profile, determine a need, then take all the cheapest, simplest and most reliable technologies available and combine them into your weapon system, then have that prototype tested in military units, then modify the weapons system according to the military's reaction and then produce it.

In other words, US weapons are designed my engineers and produced by businessmen and politicians, they are not really designed for war at all. Russian weapons, in contrast, are ordered by the military and created by design bureaus and they have only one objective: real, dirty and ugly warfare.

This is why the good old MiG-29 could fly better with its old fashioned hydraulics then the F-18s with fly-by-wire. It was never that the Russians could not built fly-by-wire aircraft (the SU-27 already had it), but that for the MiG-29 design goals, it was not needed.

What I am getting at here is two things: a) US weapons are not nearly as good as their marketing and b) "older" Russian weapons are often much better for actual warfighting.

Let's say the US delivers large quantities of Javelin's to the junta. So what? All that Russia will have to do in reaction is deliver 9M133 Kornets to the Novorussians. Can you guess which system is both cheaper and better?

When the US gave the junta counter-battery radars what did Russia do? The same thing. Now both sides have them.

Now here comes the key question: which of the two sides relies more on armor and artillery? Exactly - the junta.

When confronted with a problems, Americans love to do to things: throw money at it and throw technological "solutions" at it. This never works, but that is what they are good at.

The fact is that even in the 21st century what wins wars is not money or fancy gear, but courage, determination, moral strength, willpower and the rage which seizes you when faced with brute, ugly evil.

LINK to full article

Occident Mortal

Russia does have some technological advantages over the U.S. though.

Russian missile technology is superior.

The S-400 surface to air defence system is two generations better than anything else in the world.

Russian missiles are superior too. Their ICMB's fly random path trajectories. They are the masters of multiple engine rockets.

Only the Russians have the ability to put a man in space.

America is a little self deluded and they too often extrapolate their warplane technology advantage into a blanket technology advantage. That's just not the case.

Perimetr

"Well now, it seems entirely possible that the US may have to fight a conventional war against the Russians . . ."

Sorry, exactly how long do you think a war with Russia would remain CONVENTIONAL?

As soon a one side or the other started to lose, what do you think would happen? They will surrender?

Demdere

Guys, do not believe anyone who says that any part of any system is managable. Saying "I can win a war" is the same as saying "I can see the future and inside other men's minds". No you an't. You are throwing dice every time, and war is a very negative-sum game, most players don't even break even. Both can easily lose very badly, far more han they ever could have conceviablely won. I believe all modern wars have been of thar variety.

The cost of bad government keeps increasing. The cost of sufficient firepower to cause a 1% loss of GDP is within the budget of a religious cult with intelligence service ties. We spend more than 25$ of our GDP on policing, monitoring, checking, verifying. The overhead of our military is at least 10% of GDP, our industry would kill for that kind of cost advantage. The costs of dishonest are so huge.

runswithscissors

And why is the US seeking a "battle" with Russia anyway? This is completely absurd....are the neo-cons/neo-libs this fucked up?


V for ...

Yep. The new Bolsheviks are criminally insane.

1033eruth

The US? No, Uncle Fraud is trying to get Americans to condone and approve another war through constant media manipulation.

Every major war needs public approval. It doesn't happen until the media maneuvers American zombies into acceptance.

Kent State was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam war. The losses we were incurring were too great for the public to accept. Which also helps to explain why we have switched over to remote control and drone warfare. We can still spend ocean carriers of money which the American public overlooks as a cost for "safety" and the loss of life is minimized therefore less backlash.

Tell me why this hasn't occurred to you?

booboo

More scarey bullshit to whip up more support for spending trillions on another armored up coffin, flying battleship or space shotgun, not that I am under any illusion that the U.S. would win but God Damn, if you don't start a fucking war then you won't have to fight a war.

Blankone

Yes, this. And it works well because all sides lap it up. The MIC has the politicians push the agenda and fear. TPTB have the MSM push it and the sheep eat it up like always. The Putin fan club jumps on the band wagon because its the fantasy they wish was true.

JustObserving
Russia Would "Annihilate" US In Head-To-Head Battle

No wonder the Nobel Prize Winner is pushing Putin into a new world war. CIA created ISIS blows up Russian passenger jet. F-15s sent to Turkey to attack Russian jets. Obama continues to attack oil to bankrupt Russia.

US deploys F-15s to Syria, targeting Russian jets

By Thomas Gaist, 7 November 2015

The US will send a squadron of F-15C fighter jets to Turkey's Incirlik air base, the US Defense Department (DOD) announced on Friday. The nature of the US war planes, which are specifically designed for dogfighting with other highly advanced fighter jets, indicates that the deployment carries a significance far beyond what its small scale would suggest.

The F-15 line of combat jets was developed in response to the unveiling in 1967 of the Soviet Union's MiG-25 "Foxbat" interceptor.

Because they are designed for air-to-air combat against other major powers, the US has, until now, seen no need to deploy the F-15C model to its Middle Eastern and Central Asian war theaters, where the opposing forces have no warplanes.

The sudden deployment, coming less than two months after Russia began sending its own SU-30 fighters to its new airbase at Latakia, makes clear that the jets have been deployed in response to Moscow's air campaign.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/07/syri-n07.html

Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, allegedly struck a deal with King Abdullah in September under which the Saudis would sell crude at below the prevailing market price. That would help explain why the price has been falling at a time when, given the turmoil in Iraq and Syria caused by Islamic State, it would normally have been rising.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/nov/09/us-iran-r...

Dark Daze

I dispute that the F-15 was ever intended as a dogfighter. It is fast, much faster than the SU-30 and it can carry an impressive bomb load, but I believe the original design was rapid penetration of enemy defenses and air to ground, not air superiority. All that of course comes only when the F-15 is loaded down with not only fuselage conformant fuel tanks but drop tanks as well, reducing it's effectiveness. When you compare thrust, aerodynamics, stand off weapons and sheer manoevering capability the SU-30 wins hands down. The only air-to-air weapon the F-15's have been retrofitted with that even comes close to the air-to-air that the Russians have is the British Meteor, but that has never been tested. It is a Mach 4 weapon so the SU-30 couldn't outrun it or out climb it, but I remain to be convinced about it's capabilities.

The larger problem for the Americans is that they are stationing their F-15's at Incirlik, which is only 15 minutes from Latakia. Incirlikk was a poor choice for them to be stationing those units when the stated intention was to fly missions against ISIS. If the Syrians/Russians detect the F-15's coming south instead of going east they will have only a few moments to decide on whether to launch S-400's against them, and in an environment that might have a heigntened level of intensity that is a danger. Needless to say, an S-400 launced against an F-15 will take the later out in seconds and no amount of chaffe of manoevering with change that scenario. Check mate.

Blankone

Check mate? They are moving that close to the Russian bases to squeeze Russia and occupy the area. It is a sign they have no fear of Russia being willng to confront.

Dark Daze

Either that or a sign of sheer stupidity and a willingness to sacrifice men and material.

Talleyrand

Russia is not going to attack the Baltic states. Russia is not going to invade Poland. Russia is not going to attack the anachronism that is NATO.

On the other hand, invading Russia has, historically, proven to be a bad idea.

cowdiddly

Just more of this Russophobia boogeyman bullshit to get more funds appropriated for their sick toys and paychecks so they can continue getting their butt kicked all over the globe by anyone more powerful than Somalia.

Parrotile

Jack, Russia has no reason to "invade Europe" since Europe has nothing of immediate benefit to Russia. Having said that Russia will certainly not "telegraph" their intentions by troop movements, and will certainly use their rather capable missile tech to "soften up" EU defences should the opportunity arise. Air defence needs runways, and armies need reliable bulk transport (motorways / rail), the key locations of which (marshalling yards / major intersections) are well known to Russia.

They will not just "roll over the border" and say "come and get us" to the West.

Having said the above, the prevailing view "on the ground" in Moscow is that it will be NATO that pre-emptively attacks Russia, hence the refurbishing and re-provisioning of their network of Civil Defence shelters, info via Brother in Law (BNP Paribas Moscow).

tarabel

Let's review here...

NATO is larger than it ever was before, and Russia is much smaller and weaker than the USSR/Warsaw Pact.

Soviet armor is not parked in central Germany any more.

Vladimir Putin complains endlessly about NATO forces being forward deployed to his border regions.

Virtually every single member of the US military and many cadres from other NATO nations have years of real world battlefield experience, while only a small number of Russians have been shot at.

US/EU GDP approaches 40 trillion dollars. Russia has fallen down below 2 trillion due to the drop in oil prices. 25 to 1 disparity.

US population 330 million. EU population 504 million. Russian population 142 million. 6-1 disparity.

Russian "breakout" from nuclear treaties that limited weapons to an approximate 1-1 parity means that they are stronger in nuclear weapons than the United States, but the nuclear forces of the UK and France mean that the West still possesses a slight but shrinking superiority here

And now you understand why Russia has officially and unilaterally renounced the solemn old Soviet declaration of "no first use" of nuclear weapons. Any conventional war between the West and Russia will end in ruin for Russia even if they can make some hay early on. The economic and population disparities are far too wide for Putin to prevail or even defend his country-- unless he goes nuclear. It is the only type of warfighting in which the sides are remotely equal.

The West has no need or interest in going nuclear on Russia in the event of hostilities. No matter what sort of initial success Russian armies may achieve in the early stages of a war that starts next door to their depots, the economic power of the West is far too much for him to overcome with conventional means.

Draw your own conclusions as to who needs to light the first Roman Candle.

rejected

"Virtually every single member of the US military and many cadres from other NATO nations have years of real world battlefield experience, while only a small number of Russians have been shot at."

Yes,,, but fighting who? Vietnam, a real war, was too long ago. The veterans are old so their experience will be of no use.

The Iraqi's were surrendering so fast it was slowing down the advance on Baghdad.

Libya,,, bombed into a failed state,,, other than the Marines having to defend the gun running US Ambassador there was no fighting.

In Syria our Ally "moderate terrorists" are / was doing the grunt work against Assad.

And we're still fighting (losing) the cave dwellers of Afghanistan 15 years later. In fact they are now advancing against the puppet US government.

Russia will never attack the West but the West will attack Russia because the West is broke. That GDP your referring to was purchased by central bank printing.

The Russian Army will be defending their nation, Nato/US Armies will be trying to establish an empire.

Who do you think will have the most incentive.

HyeM

This is all propaganda.... they're using words like "Annihilate" to terrify the public and get an even larger budget for the military-industrial complex to benefit them and their friends in the defense industry. For the last 80 years we were going to be "Annihilated", first by the Soviet Army, and now this crap.

rbg81

I remember freshman ROTC lectures back in 1979. The USSR was poised to invade West Germany via the Fulda Gap--they could come over at any minute. Ivan was ten feet tall. Blah, blah, blah. Then, after the Berlin Wall fell, two generations of scary propaganda looked like a big joke. Nothing ever changes.

I Write Code

Anybody interested, please click on the link and read the Politico article yourself.

This ZH posting completely misrepresents what the article says.

The article is really about McMaster and the good news that he's still in the game at the Pentagon.

And in two out of three scenarios the US beats Russia, apparently even in this expeditionary scenario.

Now, the whole thing is absurd. The idea that the US and Russia would end up firing major weapons at each other is a mutual nightmare. And the idea that the US would pit a small force against Russia, right against Russian territory, and expect to win, is doubly absurd.

But the Politico article is actually worth reading anyway, and for that, thank you ZH.

rejected

Great!!! Our team wins!

Could have went any way....

V for ...

Fairness, justice, freedom. These are more than words. They are deeds. That was the pledge of the U.S. Military code before it was overtaken by dual citizens like the Wolfowitz Doctrine, Project for a New American Century; those who declare to be the 'chosen ones', and use my country, my people's blood and treasure.

Get off your knees, US Military Code. I have no interest in the failures of dual citizens, and nor should you. My country, tis of thee. Foreigners should fund their own fight.

This:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces

Then this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKvvOFIHs4k

Temerity Trader

"Carter says Russia, China potentially threaten global order." WTF! These idiots really believe America rules the world! Every country should fear us and do as we say. No other country should EVER dare to challenge our oligarchy. Good for Russia and China for finally saying enough. We patrol the South China Sea like it's our own f***ing bathtub. If China did that to us in the Gulf of Mexico we would already be at war. The GLOBAL F***ING ORDER? Who made us kings of the world?

These guys are sick. We need to pull our fleets and troops out and go home and stay there. Let China and Russia deal with Japan, Taiwan and Syria. Guaranteed these guys will get us into a major war soon. Obama is too weak to fight the MIC. They fill his head with crap about how no country should dare to challenge us.

Americans cannot tolerate large losses. They expect to always kick ass and suffer few losses. The new missile technology has changed all that. Watch the reaction when one of our aircraft carriers goes to the bottom from a dozen simultaneous missile strikes. The oligarchs know they can count on Joe Sixpack believing all their propaganda spewing forth and set his 300lb ass in his living room chair saying, "Let's go kick China and Russia's asses."

seek

If the neocons think they can bring war to soil mere miles away from Russia and not get a nuclear response if they start losing or we breach a russian boder, they're insane. Unfortunately one look at current policy confirms that yes, indeed, they're insane. Just pray they only target political and financial centers when the missiles fly. Might leave us in a better place.

lasvegaspersona

Eisenhower said war is man's greatest folly and those who pursue it or fail to prevent it are a black mark on all of humanity

...wonder if these military geniuses have read THAT military history...

V for ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

Eisenhower warned about a new thing in his time, something called a military industrial complex.

The modern Zionist talks about the MIC being a conspiracy theory, but Eisenhower said it would have 'grave implications', and we 'must guard against ...the military industrial complex...never let it endanger our liberties...'.

Charles Offdensen

What a bullshit article. If the US were to truly go all out war and not give a damn about public opinion, which is media driven for the purpose of tying our hands visa vie Amercan public feeling and emotions, we would by any stretch of the means and definition wipe the floor with any country any where.

The problem is that most people don't realize or care to understand what it takes to win a war. Since when did the enemy give a rats ass about how they killed us. They don't, so why should we care about them or the civilians who have been so brutalized to the point of pure survival who only want the pain to stop no matter who delivers it. And that includes their slave masters which has been discussed ad nausium her at ZH.

Ask yourself. Do you really think people who have been raped and brutalized are going to be better off if we play nice or are they going to do whatever it takes to survive and that means not giving a shit about anyone else but you.

War is hell. There are no two ways about it. But do you sacrifice your objective just to win the hearts and minds of those that would probably shoot you because they can't tell which way is up or down? Especially those from a distinction all third world and seventh century mentality.

To win you have to do what is necessary regardless of judgment because judgment is what defeats us in battle.

The horror!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tV1yfEPTk

For the record I tried!!!

V for ...

Blood is thicker than water. The dual citizens think they have captured the USA. I know they have a tiger by the tail.

'they' serve money first by their hideous Talmud, and 'they' are going to die by it.

'they' enjoyed the protection of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, yet strive to destroy those American ways.

F'ck 'em. Don't worry about them.. Let them die in their desert sandpit.

Dark Daze

There was a time, not so long ago, when the US at least tried to maintain the illusion that they were the 'good guys'. Of course history paints an entirely different picture. As I have written many times, from Latin America, South America, China, South East Asia, Africa and now the middle east, the US has overthrown, bombed, murdered, screwed over, enslaved and otherwise brutalised most of the worlds population. Let's not forget that it was less than 40 years from the American Revolution when the US started it's wars of conquest by trying to invade Canada while Britain was tied up with Napoleon.

Glad to see that there is at leasrt one American who makes no bones about his/her true intentions, which is total world domination. Unfortunately for you, you're economy is wrecked, your banks and government are bankrupt, you have no gold left, your population is seething in it's anger and you're vaunted war machine is phoney. So go ahead, try the Chinese or the Russians on for size and see what happens.

docinthehouse

If Russia and China were smart, they would improve theirr own country's infrastructure and let the West continue to rot of its own accord. You get what you accept Ameirca and the west have becomes slaves to debt and a tolerance of freeloading. You get what you accept.

Setarcos

Er! Russia and China ARE improving their infrastructures, Russia especially since sanctions gave a strong impetus.

Have you seen the new bridge being built to Crimea and what a about Sochi, the new technology centre near Moscow, revitalized Vladivostok and the new Cosmodrom, for instance.

Agricultural production is way up and manufacturing is being ramped up.

marcusfenix

as an aside to this piece there was another interesting disclosure regarding the growing gaps in capabilities the US would have to overcome if Washington ever engaged Russia in a conventional war.

namely the cruise missile strikes from the Caspian flotilla, while they did not make a difference in the course of the battle in Syria they did show that Russia has a capability that the US Navy does not and could put them at a serious disadvantage in any engagement. it wasn't the missiles themselves though they did show a vast improvement in Russian long range guided missile capabilities but how they were delivered that is cause for concern in DC.

unlike the US navy which relies exclusively on larger blue water destroyers for it's long range cruise missile delivery, the missiles fired from the Caspian sea were launched from much smaller, faster and more agile corvettes. long range strike capability from a package that is much harder to find, track, target and hit than the US navy's guided missile and aegis destroyers.

this capability has countless advantages but Washington never pursued it's development and apparently did not expect Moscow to either. but now not only did Moscow do just that they proved to the world that they can use it in combat in essence rendering the entire US navy's carrier fleet obsolete. consider this small of a ship, under 90 tons, can position itself anywhere up to 900 miles away and fire up to 12 LRAS missiles from areas where larger ships and even subs simply can not operate. all while still retaining blue water mission capabilities.

it is simply smaller, faster, more flexible, more cost effective and smarter than anything the US navy has to offer. these corvettes are relatively easy to produce and maintain and can be built in large numbers on short notice, they are hard to hunt and hard to kill and can sink carriers from hundreds of miles away.

instead of investing in practical, usable tech like this DC sinks one trillion dollars in the F-35 which still isn't near production and is already obsolete. as one US air force general testified before congress the Russians have had the ability to overcome the Lightnings stealth capabilities for at least 15 years now and in a dog fight it would get shredded by even a 1960's Mig 21 because it is to under powered to generate attack angels and "turns like a garbage truck".

now I wonder how many guided missile corvettes could one trillion dollars buy?

Flankspeed60

Any negative assessment of US military capability originating from within the military-industrial complex, must necessarily be considered suspect. First, that assessment would be considered highly classified, unless it was pre-approved and deliberately released to scare more money out of already fleeced taxpayers. Second, .Gov used the same propaganda in our decades-long cold war with the USSR to justify massive spending and involvement in global conflicts. Profligate spending and profligate lies leave them with no credibility.

tool

Exactly talking their own book fear mongering to increase their allocated budget and by god they will find away to spend every last cent. Remember the recent Afghan compressed natural gas outlet should have cost 500k actually cost billions!

V for ...

Why? November 22 1963. A coup d'etat.

Jack defied the moneychangers, and Israel's want of nuclear weapons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces

[Nov 07, 2015] Russia and China Victory-by-default

Notable quotes:
"... Actually oil accounts for only about 15% of the Russian economy, which is rapidly diversifying because of the impetus provided by sanctions. ..."
"... Ironically too, because oil is still mainly traded in inflated USD and the ruble devalued, the price drop is not as great as it seems at first glance, and because internal trade, manufacturing, etc. is conducted in rubles, the impact is lessened even more. ..."
"... The USSR collapsed because the people, the foundation of support, were disgusted and disillusioned with a system with pervasive corruption at the top, while the majority suffered deprivation. ..."
"... Actually the Soviet Union was dismantled from above. The ruling (elite) group - in government, managers of large industries, academics, etc. wanted the economic privileges available in capitalist countries. Circa 80% of the population (i.e., working people) supported the Soviet Union and socialism and were the ones whose living standards collapsed following the conversion to capitalism. See- Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System by David Kotz and Fred Weir ..."
Nov 07, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK FOR ORIGNAL)

... ... ...

While the American Empire still exists and has extended its imperialistic reach, it is a very different empire from the days of the Reaganites. Most obviously, the Rule of Law is dead. Saturation corruption permeates this now rancid empire.

Financial criminals (primarily based in the U.S.) commit crimes literally a thousand times larger than anything previously seen in our history, and then repeat these crimes again and again. The U.S. 'Justice' Department spends its time not in prosecuting and incarcerating these criminals (and criminalized "banks"). Rather, it expends its energies explaining why it refuses to prosecute these criminals.

The primary "prey" of this banking crime syndicate is now the American people and the U.S. economy , itself. The United States has not merely become insolvent, it is obviously bankrupt. The Oligarchs who control its puppet government literally shipped the U.S. manufacturing base to the low-wage regimes of Asia, which ironically included China. As a result, the once-envied U.S. Middle Class has been transformed into the Working Poor .

In most respects (outside of economic parameters), the American Empire would be judged to be "stronger than ever". Clearly this is true militarily. Despite having no real "enemies" since the defeat-by-default of the Soviet Union, U.S. Neo-Cons have been busy as beavers inventing Boogeymen (and then destroying them) in order to justify the continued, relentless expansion of its war machine.

Politically, successively more-fascist regimes have rendered the U.S. Constitution essentially obsolete. Legally illegitimate (i.e. null-and-void), fascist laws have been wallpapered over the Constitution, stripping the American people of their rights and liberties.

In legitimate democracies, Constitutions are the ultimate Law of the Land, which serve primarily to protect the People from the State. In fascist regimes, invariably illegitimate governments create endless laws designed to protect the State from the People. The American Empire used to represent the former paradigm. Now it epitomizes the latter .

At one time, the closer that one moved toward the "heart" of the American Empire, the more strict was adherence to the Rule of Law. Today, the closer one approaches to the political cesspool known as "Washington, D.C.", or the financial cesspool known as "Wall Street", the more-overpowering becomes the stench of corruption – and lawlessness.

In a perverse twist of fate, the American Empire now mirrors the Soviet Union, in almost every respect. In the Soviet Union, voters were given the choice of two candidates, in what it called "elections". However both of those candidates represented the Communist Party.

In the American Empire, voters are also given the choice of two candidates, they simply pretend to represent two, different parties. Incredibly, this political charade has managed to persist for at least a century.

"There is no material difference now in the old political parties, except which shall control the patronage."

- (former Congressman/prosecutor) Charles Lindbergh Sr., The Economic Pinch (p.61), 1923

Perhaps more significantly, the American Empire now bears considerable resemblance to the Roman Empire, as well. Historians are in agreement that at the time the Roman Empire was at the absolute peak of its military might that "the decline of the Roman Empire" had already been underway for centuries.

Where the ancient Roman Empire differs from the modern American Empire is that in the 21 st century, events – including the rise-and-fall of empires – progress much, much more rapidly. Roughly speaking, what used to stretch over centuries now takes place in decades. Instant communication, rapid global transportation, computerization, and numerous, other technological advances are responsible for this accelerated pace of political/economic/social evolution.

Morally and economically bankrupt, the American Empire now relies more and more heavily on its Big Stick, which it wields with ever more impunity and recklessness. Statesmen such as Ron Paul and Paul Craig Roberts have regularly warned that the current generation of Neo-Cons (who wield all, real power in the U.S. government) are marching relentlessly toward World War III.

However, while we see Psychopaths on the left/West, we see an entirely opposite political dynamic in the East. The strengthening alliance between China and Russia, represents two, large, global powers which (at least at this point in time) demonstrate no imperial aspirations. But this is only one significant way in which the East differs from the West.

In an essay titled Grandmaster Putin's Trap , Russian writer Dmitry Kalinichenko provides us with aninsightful allegory . Cold War II is not a militarily-oriented confrontation, rather it is a geopolitical chess match. The important point here is that only one "side" understands how to play (and win) a chess match.

How does a skilled chess-player achieve victory? Positioning, positioning, and more positioning. It is only once one's opponent has been completely out-positioned that any thought is given to overt attack. Chess is a game of patience, and (often) a game of simply waiting for one's opponent to self-destruct, via strategic error, or mere impatience.

This brings us back to the current geopolitical stage. In the East, we see Russia and China constantly engaged in improving their position. Unlike the American Empire, they are improving their economies – notcannibalizing them. They are relentlessly adding to their gold reserves ("He who has the gold makes the rules" – The Golden Rule), while the American Empire has squandered most of its own reserves .

While the U.S., and the West, in general, unremittingly alienates the Rest of the World, Russia and China have been rapidly improving their political and economic cooperation with other nations. While the political/economic institutions created or sponsored by the American Empire lose their legitimacy due to corruption, Russia and China are creating parallel, corruption-free institutions – to replace them.

If this was a real chess match, the player on the left would have already 'pushed over his King' (i.e. capitulated). The player on the right now has such superior position that the outcome of the game is no longer in doubt. However, this is not a game, but rather real life – where one side has utterly no respect for anything resembling "rules".

Russia and China are clearly headed for victory-by-default in Cold War II. The psychopaths of the American Empire have demonstrated that they are ready-and-willing to do literally anything to prevent this seemingly inevitable outcome. For this reason, the warnings of people such as Ron Paul and Paul Craig Roberts should be given our most serious consideration.

GreatUncle

Russia & China, you might want to add India too.

It is called mutual support because as each year passes the US becomes more and more aggressive and to be out on your own and a threat to those in power there you will be turned upon to keep you in your place.

If anything I expect this coalition of nations to only get stronger because if any become isolated and seems to be current foreign policy with Russia you are in for a bit of brutality. Then once one side or the other is eliminated and that can be economically too they will turn on the another to keep them in their place.

Top dog is always going to have an inferiority complex against any who may challenge it.

Consequence? In the last decade reckon under its own steam the US has magnificently turned a substantial portion of the global population against it. It might not be in the MSM, it will be undercurrents of all the brutality like killing innocent citizens with drones or a shoot to kill policy by the US military and the if you are not with us you are against us mentality.

laomei

Russia and China are clearly headed for victory-by-default in Cold War II.

Lol, the Russian economy is collapsing, it relies entirely on oil and oil is dirt cheap. Russia gave the EU an out with sanctions to tear up the contracts and will soon be able to turn to alternative sources. That leaves China as their main partner for oil, while Russia buys up cheap Chinese garbage. But, at the same time, China is more or less in the same position as Mexico was, combined with systemic problem that are virtually identical to the Japan bust. It's a ticking time bomb and the government is literally locking up anyone who dares to even suggest that such a thing is even possible now. Purely out of fear that someone might be listening. China is still dealing with record outflows of cash and is rapidly liquidating those vast reserves. Once the economic growth drops (official numbers or not), there will be no choice left but to devale, which is great for exporters, but toxic for all companies that have borrowed USD. It's enough to destroy entirely their advanced sectors, and they do not have the willing labor at competitive rates to rush back to manufacture like they used to.

Setarcos

Actually oil accounts for only about 15% of the Russian economy, which is rapidly diversifying because of the impetus provided by sanctions.

Ironically too, because oil is still mainly traded in inflated USD and the ruble devalued, the price drop is not as great as it seems at first glance, and because internal trade, manufacturing, etc. is conducted in rubles, the impact is lessened even more.

bthunder

If corruption is what brings empires down, then considering level of corruption in China and Russia vs in the US of A, Russia and China will collapse long before USA will.

As far as Putin's "grandmaster" skills supposedly demonstrated by Russia's "positioning, positioning, and more positioning", during 15 years of his rule Russia's economy has been positioned for oil exports, nat gas exports, and more oil exports. That takes some grndmaster-like skills indeed.

Now that he's involved in 2 conflicts and China is refusing to pay previously negotiated prices for oil and nat gas (china demands discounts to reflect current low prices) it will be interesting to see how he can conduct and pay for 2 wars at the same time.

Crash N. Burn

"As far as Putin's "grandmaster" skills..."

Perhaps you should have clicked the link in that paragraph:

"After realizing its failure in Ukraine, the West, led by the US set out to destroy Russian economy by lowering oil prices, and accordingly gas prices as the main budget sources of export revenue in Russia and the main sources of replenishment of Russian gold reserves....

..Putin is selling Russian oil and gas only for physical gold.

Putin is not shouting about it all over the world. And of course, he still accepts US dollars as an intermediate means of payment. But he immediately exchanges all these dollars obtained from the sale of oil and gas for physical gold!..

..in the third quarter the purchases by Russia of physical gold are at all-time high record levels. In the third quarter of this year, Russia had purchased an incredible amount of gold in the amount of 55 tons. It's more than all the central banks of all countries of the world combined"


Grandmaster Putin's Trap

strangewalk

The USSR collapsed because the people, the foundation of support, were disgusted and disillusioned with a system with pervasive corruption at the top, while the majority suffered deprivation. Now things have reversed, it is Americas turn.

Freddie

The USSR was totally corrupt just like the USA today. The USA has been on a slipperly slope since before the Banksters - Civil War. I pretty much expected when Obola was selected by Soros and other zios that the uSA was headed towards an implosion like the old USSR.

Phillyguy

Actually the Soviet Union was dismantled from above. The ruling (elite) group - in government, managers of large industries, academics, etc. wanted the economic privileges available in capitalist countries. Circa 80% of the population (i.e., working people) supported the Soviet Union and socialism and were the ones whose living standards collapsed following the conversion to capitalism. See- Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System by David Kotz and Fred Weir

GC

Now, I'm pretty pro-Russia these days, but..

"Only Mother Russia remained intact."

I suggest checking an atlas, or googlemap. "mother Russia" most certainly included Belarus and, arguably, some if not all of Ukraine. They don't seem to be part of the Russian federation nowadays.

"Unlike the American Empire, they are improving their economies – not cannibalizing them."

That's, unfortunately, very arguable about Russia. Russia lived on the oil price highs of the last 10 years, but its economy is largely unchanged, imports are rampant, agriculture can't keep up with internal demand and infrastructures, in general but in particular in the immense Asian part, has not much changed since the 90s, or maybe even 60s (with the exception of the oil related projects) and corruption is omnipresent.

datura

you don't seem to know much about Russia.

1] Belarus is not technically part of Russia, but in many way it is and still heading for greater integration. Belarus is now part of what is legally called Union State of Russia and Belarus. Interestingly, although economic integration has proved difficult at this point, the two states are integrated militarily. Besides, Belarus is a member of the Eurasian Union, which is a Russian parallel to the European Union. It is perhaps more easy for Russia to have this Union instead of incorporating the former Soviet countries directly into Russia again. Although there are regions, who would very much like to rejoin Russia directly, but cannot do so, because it would provoke fury of the American Empire. So all the integration and rejoining must be done very quietly and under the blanket for now.

2) asian part, has not much changed since the 90s: ummm....this has been true for entire thousands of year long history of Russia. It is incredibly difficult for Russia to develop all its territory, because it is huge. Russia will need help of China and other Asian states to do this. But cities like Vladivostok have changed for better already and are booming. There are plans for greater development of those regions and many projects in place. One of them is the new Russian cosmodrome, which will provide jobs and centre of life for many people, once it is completed. But of course, developing those regions is an enormous effort for generations to come, which Putin can only start and his successors will have to continue.

3) Apart from Far East, Russia is also positioning itself in the Artics, building bases and projects. This is also task for future generations.

4) Russian economy is certainly not unchanged! Russia jumped higher in the ranking of easy to do business chart and the World Bank says that d oing Business in Russia is now easier than in China. Russian debts (both state and external) are still decreasing and gold reserves growing. Agriculture is self-sufficient already (no Russians dying from hunger and import bans still in place). It also has much to improve, but Russians can now feed themselves without the help of the West. For example dairy production has grown 26%. And more than that, for example Russia is now surpassing USA in wheat export. Poorer regions like Africa and Middle-Eastern countries like Egypt and Iran are buying more and more food from Russia, as it is cheaper.

5) Imports rampant? I don't get what rampant means, but imports are much smaller than last year and still dropping. And most imports are now undertandably coming from China. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/imports

6) Corruption is also decreasing and it is nowhere as terrible as in the USA (if only for the simple reason that Russia does not print money and does not increase its debts, so the amount of money to steal from is limited). This should be an example for future Americans. Corruption will always exist, but it will be much less, if you don't print money out of nothing and if you don't increase debts to pass them on to your children.

People tend to forget that Russia, despite being an old civilization, is actually a very young as a state in the current form. Its economy and capitalism have had far less time to develop than USA! The Russian Constitution was created only in 1993, so even its political system is very young. So it is logical that everything is still in its beginnings and evolving. Russia is now where USA was in, say, 1791:-) But that is not necessarily a bad thing, as Russians still have a lot of space for creativity and building of their state - they are in the beginning of a new cycle, while USA is in the end of a cycle.

GC

And you don't seem to understand the arguments made.

1) The writer said that "mother Russi has remained intact". Belarus and Ukraine are part of teh concept of "MOther Russia". ukraine goes without saying, considering that it is where the whole concept of Russia begun (you know, Kievan Rus?). Now, Belarus was part of Kievan Rus and Minsk itself was settled by Russians in the 9th century (the city proper was created in the 11th, still by Russians). yes, it could be argued is that the polonization process that happened once it came under the Polish-Lithuanian union when the Russian state had been conquered by the mongols set belarus culturally and linguistically apart for a few centuries, but ideally, Belarus is undoubtly part of "mother Russia". You seem to know little of the history of the place yourself for accusing othes not to know much of it.

2) yes, indeed... but still, not even you countered my argument that infrastructure is basically what it used to be. of course, not exactly what it used to be.. note that I used "largely the same". there are a few exceptions.

3) true, but artict exploration is like the space age race of the 60s: a show of power and a technological feat, with large upfront costs and with limited impact on the real economy (or rather, a large impact, but on a very long timeframe since the technologies ended up mainstream).

4) saying that doing business in Russia in easier than in China is not saying much, considering how closed to foreigners the Chinese economy is (the fact that it is open to FDI doesn't mean it is an open economy, even if many confuse the two things). Russia can feed itself with grain and potatoes, of course, and it can also export them (as it has done for decades in its history), but it cannot actually produce for a diversified internal demand, forcing people to either pay a large premium for imports (even larger now with sanctions, hence the reduction of imports) or go for second line products via import substitution. the reason why food prices jumped with sanctions is that Russia wasn't able to produce enough to make do for the food it imported and prices raised as goods were to few to meet demand. There's simply no easier evidence than that AND the fact that just last july the ministry of agricolture for Russia promised MASSIVE subsidies to the agricolture sector to stimulate production. So, are we really arguing the insufficiency of Russian agricoltural sector? Which brings as to...

5) ...You confuse the fact that imports are slowing due the economic crisis and ruble depreciation with economic strenght, which is funny. Truth is, if you remove oil from russian exports, the balance of trade of Russia is utterly negative and getting worse. Russia is not Saudi Arabia, of course, where everythign revolves around oil, but most of the economic resurgence of the Putin era is due to oil windfall and not much has been done to improve other sectors of the economy. proof is, there is no major company that is considered a major player which has been born in Russia in the last 20 years. All top russian companies are oil related (Gazprom, Rosnef and Lukoil) or financial (which raised due the financial needs and revenues of oil), while there is a (relative) desert in services and computer technology. Russia has been and largely continue to be, a raw material exporting country with heavy industries tied to raw materials and armaments, not much of an advanced tertiary or high value added items economy. And I add, unfortunately so, as nothing would please me more to see a strong enough Russia to limit the American idiocy around Europe and teh middle East. The world has gone insane since the loss of a counterweight.

6) your understanding of corruption is.. well, not understanding. Corruption isn't tied to money production, it is tied with money transfers within an economy. If you have to pay for a permission or a to move goods around, that is a net loss for the economy. In transpareny international index, Russian CPI was 24 in 2014, ranking it 136 of 175 countries, in 2012 it was 28. It IS improving, but it's still one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

One can be a Russian fan (I am), but denying the limits of the country's economy doesn't help. Putin himself understands the limits and that's the reason why Russian isn't, differently than the US id in Iraq and Afghanistan, going with its army in Ukraine or Syria: they don't have the financial means to sustain a ground war. I wish Russia a bright future, but they have much to improve and their economy has much to diversify to self sustain.

Btw, Russia has another, immense bordering on the catastrophic, problem and that is demography. Between very low natality and, until very recently, a lowering life expectancy (which is still one of the lowest , if not the lowest, of all advanced economies) Russians risk to go extincted to irrilevance by the end of the century (but at least, they are not following the folly of our Europeans to substitute disappearing locals with muslims from the middle east and Africa). I really hope they will manage to reverse the trend.

Lucky Leprachaun

Destruction from within? Undoubtedly. Caused by Americans themselves? More problematical. You see the agents of this destruction - Neocons, banksters, Cultural Marxist degenerates - are largely the 'rootless cosmopolitans' of legend, with at best a transient attachment to the country.

[Nov 06, 2015] Facebook Revenue Surges 41%, as Mobile Advertising and Users Keep Growing

In after Snowden world, is this a testament that most smartphone users are idiots, or what ?
Notable quotes:
"... The company said mobile advertising in the third quarter accounted for a colossal 78 percent of its ad revenue, up from 66 percent a year ago. ..."
"... ... ... ... ..."
Nov 06, 2015 | The New York Time

Facebook is so far defying concerns about its spending habits - a criticism that has at times also plagued Amazon and Alphabet's Google - because the social network is on a short list of tech companies that make money from the wealth of mobile visitors to its smartphone app and website. The company said mobile advertising in the third quarter accounted for a colossal 78 percent of its ad revenue, up from 66 percent a year ago.

... ... ...

Revenue was also bolstered by Facebook increasing the number of ads it showed users over the past year, said David Wehner, the company's chief financial officer. And video advertising, a growth area for Facebook, is on the rise: More than eight billion video views happen on the social network every day, the company said.

Hand in hand with the increased advertising is more users to view the promotions. The number of daily active users of Facebook exceeded one billion for the first time in the quarter, up 17 percent from a year earlier, with monthly active mobile users up 23 percent, to 1.4 billion.

... ... ...

Beyond the properties it owns, Facebook is dabbling in partnerships with media companies that could prove lucrative in the future. In May, the company debuted a feature called Instant Articles with a handful of publishers, including The New York Times, which lets users read articles from directly inside the Facebook app without being directed to a web browser.

[Nov 06, 2015] The C word is a Hidden Tax on Growth

Corruption == inequality: "Corruption is a tax on growth just as inequality is a tax on growth. Money that could be spent on improving conditions overall winds up in the hands of a small wealthy oligarchy. The only real difference is legalistic. Technically corruption involves some type of illegality, but the end results are the same."
Notable quotes:
"... Deregulation, of course. A semantic trick so typical of the IMF. Openness is fair and to manage openness you may need a clear regulatory framework that provides rules and clarity with strong institutions that can ensure compliance. Pushing all the time for deregulation is ideological bias. ..."
"... I like the idea of economist studying the economic effects of corruption. One of the benefits, of course, is that it will bring more to light these rationalizations like the one Ignacio brings up. So if only we didnt have laws against shoplifting then the shoplifter would not have to hide what he was doing or be guilty of a crime ..."
"... Corruption is a tax on growth just as inequality is a tax on growth. Money that could be spent on improving conditions overall winds up in the hands of a small wealthy oligarchy. The only real difference is legalistic. Technically corruption involves some type of illegality, but the end results are the same. ..."
"... This may sound a bit strong, but if you do the math, corruption and relentless upward distribution are the same thing in terms of national accounting. Do the math and youll see. ..."
"... When talking about corruption, everybody focuses on illicit flows of payments, which is of course a primary factor, but I would say the greasing of hands is not the most damaging part, rather it is the associated dereliction of duty and shaping policy and decision making, and initiation, selection, or prioritization of projects not to serve the public benefit (or that of the organizations involved) but to arrange private advantages. ..."
"... the largest problem is not the driving up of the cost though thats bad enough, but the corruption of the very decision making which inevitably leads to not delivering what was needed or requested, but something counterproductive (and not rarely in a way that conveniently enables the next round of graft). ..."
"... In the days of the notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall they used to talk about honest corruption and dishonest corruption. The idea is that honest corruption got the thing built or done, even if the cost was incredibly bloated. Tammany Hall made a point of distributing the loot up and down the line. The big guys would get millions, but every worker on the job got bonus pay, fake overtime and spare parts . ..."
Nov 05, 2015 | Economist's View

From IMF-direct:

The "C word": A Hidden Tax on Growth, by Vitor Gaspar and Sean Hagan: In recent years, citizens' concerns about allegations of corruption in the public sector have become more visible and widespread. From São Paulo to Johannesburg, citizens have taken to the streets against graft. In countries like Chile, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Malaysia and Ukraine, they are sending a clear and loud message to their leaders: Address corruption!
Policymakers are paying attention too. Discussing the "C word" has long been a sensitive topic at inter-governmental organizations like the International Monetary Fund. But earlier this month at its Annual Meetings in Lima, Peru, the IMF hosted a refreshingly frank discussion on the subject. The panel session provided a stimulating debate on definitions of corruption, its direct and indirect consequences, and strategies for addressing it, including the role that individuals and institutions such as the IMF can play. This blog gives a flavor of the discussion. ...

Ignacio said...

Here goes the IMF:

"Openness of the economy through deregulation and liberalization will also help since overly-regulated economies create strong incentives to maintain corrupt practices."

Deregulation, of course. A semantic trick so typical of the IMF. Openness is fair and to manage openness you may need a clear regulatory framework that provides rules and clarity with strong institutions that can ensure compliance. Pushing all the time for deregulation is ideological bias.

djb -> anne...

I like the idea of economist studying the economic effects of corruption. One of the benefits, of course, is that it will bring more to light these rationalizations like the one Ignacio brings up. So if only we didn't have laws against shoplifting then the shoplifter would not have to hide what he was doing or be guilty of a crime

am

Professor Stephenson of Harvard has a very good blog on corruption well worth a look. http://globalanticorruptionblog.com/

kaleberg said...

Corruption is a tax on growth just as inequality is a tax on growth. Money that could be spent on improving conditions overall winds up in the hands of a small wealthy oligarchy. The only real difference is legalistic. Technically corruption involves some type of illegality, but the end results are the same.

This may sound a bit strong, but if you do the math, corruption and relentless upward distribution are the same thing in terms of national accounting. Do the math and you'll see.

cm -> kaleberg...

When talking about corruption, everybody focuses on illicit flows of payments, which is of course a primary factor, but I would say the greasing of hands is not the most damaging part, rather it is the associated dereliction of duty and shaping policy and decision making, and initiation, selection, or prioritization of projects not to serve the public benefit (or that of the organizations involved) but to arrange private advantages.

If it were only about the money, it would be more like being slightly overcharged on the bill, but still getting what you ordered or needed.

cm -> cm...

Of course not to forget the lining of pockets. But my main point still stands - the largest problem is not the driving up of the cost though that's bad enough, but the corruption of the very decision making which inevitably leads to not delivering what was needed or requested, but something counterproductive (and not rarely in a way that "conveniently" enables the next round of graft).

kaleberg -> cm...

In the days of the notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall they used to talk about honest corruption and dishonest corruption. The idea is that honest corruption got the thing built or done, even if the cost was incredibly bloated. Tammany Hall made a point of distributing the loot up and down the line. The big guys would get millions, but every worker on the job got bonus pay, fake overtime and "spare parts".

likbez said...

IMF neoliberal perspective on governance failed to highlight the major source of corruption -- neoliberalism as a social system.

Over recent years, IMF and World Bank have been promoting an artificially constructed discourse on corruption that separates it from its historic narrative -- the neoliberal political system under which it now flourish. They use pretty elaborate smoke screen designed to hide the key issues under the set of fuzzy terms such as "transparency", "accountability", "governance", "anticorruption initiatives". Ignoring the socio-political role of corruption as the key mechanism of the neoliberal debt enslavement of peripheral nations (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Wikipedia )

Privatization might well be the most widespread type of corruption which occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity to sell government property for pennies on the dollar to local oligarchs of international companies. With delayed payment via the "revolving door" mechanism.

If we assume that corruption is 'illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest" then neoliberalism is the most corrupt social system imaginable.
But in neoliberal ideology only the state is responsible for corruption. The private sector under neoliberalism is immune of any responsibility. In reality it is completely opposite and state represents a barrier to private companies especially international sharks to get unfair advantage. And they can use the USA embassy as a source of pressure instead of bribing government officials. Neoliberals argues without any proof that if the market is let to function through its own mechanisms, and the role of state diminished to a minimum regulatory role, "good governance" could be realized and corruption be diminished. As US subprime crisis has shown this is untrue and destroys the stability of the economy.

Actually the term "governance" serves as the magical universal opener in neoliberal ideology. It is ideologically grounded up the narrative of previous mismanagement of economy ("blame the predecessor" trick).

This assumes the ideal economic sphere, in which players somehow get an equal opportunities automatically without regulatory role of the state and in case of peripheral nations without being strong armed by more powerful states. Under neoliberalism ethical responsibilities on players are reduced to the loyalty to contract.

Moreover antisocial behavior under liberalism is explicitly promoted (" greed is good") and the West serves as a "treasure vault" for stolen money and provides "safe heaven" for corrupt officials that face prosecution. At least this is true for Russian oligarchs when each crook automatically became "fighter for freedom" after landing in London airport and stolen money are indirectly appropriated by British state and never returned to Russia.

The USA is very similar. It likes to condemn corruption but seldom returns that money stolen -- for example it never returned to Ukraine money stolen by Ukrainian Prime minister under President Kuchma Pavlo Lazarenko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlo_Lazarenko) .

gunste said...

Applied Republican ideology is operating and legislating in favor of money donors and their businesses. It is America's legalized corruption and bribery.

[Nov 06, 2015] Obama Cracked Jokes While the Rest of the World Mourned

The current American administration will go down in history as one of the most weak and unprofessional with no affinity for etiquette and good manners.
Notable quotes:
"... Where Mr. Obama failed, other Western and world leaders expressed their condolences-British Prime-Minister David Cameron, Polish President Andzej Duda, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping among them. ..."
"... The Kremlin isn't worrying why Barack Obama didn't send condolences, reported Interfax. "Probably, this should not be explained by the Kremlin," said Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary to the Russian President, answering why there was no official telegram from Mr. Obama. Mr. Peskov said there were "a lot" of messages from other world leaders. ..."
"... Russia's national news service Information Agency outed Mr. Obama as "the only world leader that did not express his condolences [to Russia] on the air catastrophe A-321." ..."
"... "This is personal," wrote Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding "the current American administration will go down in history as one of the most weak and unprofessional with no affinity for etiquette and good manners." ..."
11/05/15 | Observer

On November 2, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in New York, President Barack Obama poked fun of the Republicans, joking that if they cannot handle CNBC moderators how could they possibly handle Russia's Vladimir Putin?

"Every one of these candidates says, 'Obama's weak, Putin's kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he's gonna straighten out.' …and then it turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators!" Mr. Obama said.

"I mean, let me tell you: if you can't handle those guys," he continued, laughing, "I don't think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you."

While Mr. Obama had his fun, he neglected to mention more serious matters-the Russian plane crash over the Sinai peninsula on October 31 that took the lives of all 224 passengers on board.

Where Mr. Obama failed, other Western and world leaders expressed their condolences-British Prime-Minister David Cameron, Polish President Andzej Duda, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping among them.

On his Twitter page, Mr. Cameron wrote: "PM expresses condolences to President Putin over Sinai plane crash. Britain shares Russia's pain and grief."

Mr. Hollande wrote: "[A]fter the occurred tragedy [President] sends his condolences to President Putin and expresses his solidarity with the Russian people.."

Even Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko took to Twitter with the following: "I express my personal condolences to all the families of those perished in the catastrophe of the Russian passenger plane over Egypt."

Not Mr. Obama.

The Kremlin isn't worrying why Barack Obama didn't send condolences, reported Interfax. "Probably, this should not be explained by the Kremlin," said Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary to the Russian President, answering why there was no official telegram from Mr. Obama. Mr. Peskov said there were "a lot" of messages from other world leaders.

Secretary of State John Kerry expressed condolences on behalf of "all American people" to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov-that was all, said Putin's press secretary.

Russia's national news service Information Agency outed Mr. Obama as "the only world leader that did not express his condolences [to Russia] on the air catastrophe A-321."

"This is personal," wrote Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding "the current American administration will go down in history as one of the most weak and unprofessional with no affinity for etiquette and good manners."

[Nov 06, 2015] How Firefox's New Private Mode Trumps Chrome's Incognito

11/05/15 | Observer

Comment

Firefox ups its privacy game with version 42.

Mozilla made a bit of a splash this week with the announcement of its updated "private mode" in Firefox, but it's worth spelling out exactly why: Firefox's enhanced privacy mode blocks web trackers.

Users familiar with Chrome's "Incognito Mode" may assume that's what it does as well, but it doesn't. It's no fault of Google or the Chromium Project if someone misunderstands the degree of protection. The company is clear in its FAQ: all Incognito Mode does is keep your browsing out of the browser's history.

'We think that when you launch private browsing you're telling us that you want more control over the data you share on the web.'

Firefox's new "Private Mode" one-ups user protection here by automatically blocking web trackers. Nick Nguyen, Vice President for Product at Mozilla, says in the video announcement, "We think that when you launch private browsing you're telling us that you want more control over the data you share on the web." That sounds right. In fact, most people probably think private modes provide more safety than they do.

Firefox has been working to educate web users about the prevalence of trackers for a long time. In 2012, it introduced Collusion to help users visualize just how many spying eyes were in the background of their browsing (a tool now known by the milquetoast name 'Lightbeam') and how they follow you around.

Privacy nuts might be thinking, "Hey, isn't the new Private Mode basically doing what the Ghostery add-on/extension does already? It looks that way. Ghostery was not immediately available for comment on this story. This reporter started using Ghostery in earnest in the last few weeks, and while it does bust the odd page, overall, it makes the web much faster. As Mr. Nguyen says in the video, Firefox's new mode should do the roughly the same.

The best way to update Firefox is within the 'About Firefox' dialogue. Open it and let it check for updates (if it doesn't say version 42.0 or higher, the browser doesn't have it). On Macs, find "About Firefox" under the "Firefox" tab in the menu bar. On a PC, find it in the hamburger menu in the upper right.

Competition in the browser battles keeps improving the functionality of the web. When Chrome first came along, Firefox had become incredibly bloated.

Notice of what's new in 'Private Mode' when opened in Firefox, after updating. (Screenshot: Firefox)

Notice of what's new in 'Private Mode' when opened in Firefox, after updating. (Screenshot: Firefox)

Then, Chrome popularized the notion of incognito browsing, back when the main privacy concern was that our roommate would look at our browsing history to see how often we were visiting Harry Potter fansites (shout out to stand-up comic, Ophira Eisenberg, for that one).

As the web itself has become bloated with spyware, incorporating tracker blocking directly into the structure of the world's second most popular browser is a strong incentive for web managers to be more judicious about the stuff they load up in the background of websites.

Don't forget, though, that even with trackers blocked, determined sites can probably identify visitors and they can definitely profile, using browser fingerprinting. If you really want to hide, use Tor. If you're mega paranoid, try the Tails OS.

[Nov 06, 2015] Egypt's Dismissal of Terrorism in Russian Plane Crash Creates a Rift

Why western MSM push so hard the version about the bomb ? Investigation just started and there are multiple version including now known far there that were war games by NATO the same day in the same area.
Notable quotes:
"... Egypt faces an economic disaster if tourism and business travel stops, and you don't think they will say it was just a simple accident -- move along now, nothing to see here ..."
"... The reality is the West ruined Libya, abandoned Tunis, and chickened out by backing Sisi in Egypt. Therefore, there are alot of armed Jihadis looking for Westerners to shoot. Its also about to get worse since now its Russia's turn to ruin things even more...... ..."
"... I am in no way a fan of Putin, but recently he explained his issue with the West pretty clearly. Most Russians subscribe to that. Russia does not see West as a threat, but as a trouble maker at large, causing havoc and destabilizing the world. Listen to him if you want to understand the other side ..."
The New York Times

Tom Mariner, Bayport, New York

Egypt faces an economic disaster if tourism and business travel stops, and you don't think they will say it was just a simple accident -- "move along now, nothing to see here".

njglea, is a trusted commenter Seattle

Tension in the Middle East is rising and it is very frightening because it's a no-win situation as it stands now. Everybody loses. I am reminded of a song from the 1960s that addresses this situation perfectly and is a message that should go to every world leader and hater. "One Tin Soldier". Please listen and read the lyrics and, if you agree, forward this message to everyone you know. WE can live in a peaceful world if enough of us take small actions to make it so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKx0tdlxMfY

della, cambridge, ma 52 minutes ago

I just flew back from Istanbul -- four layers of security -- superior to US.

Matthew Abbasi, Los Angeles 52 minutes ago

Why would any Westerner in his/her right mind go to Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya for a vacation? These are unstable nations with ongoing civil wars so Western nations really need to ban tourist for a bit for until things calm down. Its not enough to say that these nations need the tourist money. The risk should not be discounted just because of that. The reality is the West ruined Libya, abandoned Tunis, and chickened out by backing Sisi in Egypt. Therefore, there are alot of armed Jihadis looking for Westerners to shoot. Its also about to get worse since now its Russia's turn to ruin things even more......

Abbas -> Matthew Abbasi, San Francisco, CA 43 minutes ago

Egypt does not have a civil war. Statistically, it is far safer to visit than many places in the U.S.

Rohit, New York

Quoting another poster

"I am in no way a fan of Putin, but recently he explained his issue with the West pretty clearly. Most Russians subscribe to that. Russia does not see West as a threat, but as a trouble maker at large, causing havoc and destabilizing the world. Listen to him if you want to understand the other side"

https://youtu.be/OQuceU3x2Ww

And what is fascinating is that every word spoken by Putin could just as easily have been said by Noam Chomsky or even by President Eisenhower.

PS, Vancouver, Canada

I have little faith in airport security checks in the middle east. Was in Morocco this summer - put my bags on the conveyor belt. Fine - but there was nary a soul manning the monitors. Yes, it was screened (given that it passed through an x-ray machine, but there were no human eyes checking it) . . . also, no one bothered to take my water bottle (which I had inadvertently carried with me.

[Nov 06, 2015] Wikileaks' Hacked Stratfor Emails Shed Light on Feds Using License Plate Readers

Oct 01, 2015 | observer.com

Federal law enforcement began planning to use license plate readers in 2009 to track cars that visited gun shows against cars that crossed the border into Mexico, according to notes from a meeting between United States and Mexican law enforcement, released on Wikileaks. The notes were taken by Marko Papic, then of Stratfor, a company that describes itself as a publisher of geopolitical intelligence.

License plate readers are becoming a standard tool for local and national law enforcement across the country. In 2013, the ACLU showed that state and local law enforcement were widely documenting drivers' movements. Ars Technica looked at license plate data collected in Oakland. In January, the ACLU described documents attained from the Drug Enforcement Agency under the Freedom of Information Act that showed that agency has been working closely with state and local law enforcement. Many of the findings in these latter documents corroborate some of the insights provided by the 2009 meeting notes on Wikileaks.

Wikileaks began publishing these emails in February 2012, as the "Global Intelligence Files," as the Observer previously reported. The documents have to be read with some caution. These were reportedly attained by hackers in December 2011. A Stratfor spokesperson declined to comment on the leaked emails, referring the Observer instead to its 2012 statement, which says, "Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic. We will not validate either."

While it's hard to imagine that such a giant trove could be completely fabricated, there is also no way to know whether or not some of it was tampered with. That said, details about federal license plate reader programs largely square with subsequent findings about the surveillance systems.

The meeting appears to have been primarily concerned with arms control, but related matters, such as illegal drug traffic and the Zetas, come up as well. The focus of the meeting appears to be information sharing among the various authorities, from both countries. Among other initiatives, the notes describe the origins of a sophisticated national system of automobile surveillance.

Here are some findings on law enforcement technology, with an emphasis on tracking automobiles:

  • The program wasn't fully live in 2009. The notes read, "Mr. 147 asked about the License Plate Reader program and Mr. 983 from DEA responded that they were still in the testing phase but that once completed the database would be available for use by everyone." However, an email found by the ACLU from 2010 said that the DEA was sharing information with local law enforcement as of May 2009. (People at the meeting are largely referred to by numbers throughout the notes)
  • Gun shows. The officials in the meeting suspect that a lot of guns that reach Mexico come from American gun shows. The Ambassador from Mexico is cited as believing that shows were the main source of firearms coming into his country. The ATF then says that investigating gun shows is "touchy."
  • Cross-referencing. Despite the sensitivity, the ATF hoped to be able to identify vehicles that visited gun shows and then crossed the border. The notes read, "[Mr. 192] noted that they would do the check once they came into Mexico. Mr. 009 stated part of the new ways that are being looked at is incorporating that type of information into license plate readers for local law enforcement. He added that DEA is going to provide more and more license plate readers especially southbound." This last point squares with ACLU's finding, which found a 2010 document that said the DEA had 41 readers set up in southern border states.
  • ATF and the NRA. Apparently law enforcement checks in with the gun rights advocates. Mr. 123 is identified as an ATF employee in the hacked email. In a conversation about the federal government's gun tracking system, eTrace, the notes attribute to him the following, "He added that they are in constant communication with Mr. Templeton who has the Cross Roads of the West Gun Show as well as NRA attorneys and that there had been no complaints on how things were moving." Bob Templeton is shown as the President of the National Association of Arms Shows on this op-ed and runs the gun show mentioned, according to its site.
  • Other data. The notes also indicate that the ATF was working on ways to identify people who bought more guns at gun shows than their income should allow. It also indicated that the United States' gun tracking system was being translated into Spanish, so that Mexican authorities could check guns against American records.

The notes themselves are not dated, but the email containing them is dated September 4, 2009. It provides no names, but it cites people from the Mexican Embassy, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firerearms, DEA, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and others. The only person named is Marko Papic, who identifies himself in this hacked email. Stephen Meiners circulated Mr. Papic's notes from the summit's morning and afternoon session in one email.

The Supreme Court of California is set to review police's exemption to sharing information on how they use license plate reader data in that state. A court in Fairfax County, Virginia, is set to consider a suit against police there over local law enforcement keeping and sharing of data about people not suspected of a crime.

The DEA and the ATF did not reply to a request for comment for this story.

[Nov 06, 2015] An Entire City Trolled NSA Spies Using an Art Project

Notable quotes:
"... This created an open communication network, meaning that with the use of any wifi-enabled device, anyone could send anything (text messages, voice calls, photos and files) anonymously for those listening to hear. ..."
"... "If people are spying on us, it stands to reason that they have ..."
"... To no surprise, there was a ton of trolling. ..."
observer.com

When it was revealed in 2013 that the NSA and its UK equivalent, GCHQ, routinely spied on the German government, artists Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter came up with a plan.

They installed a series of antennas on the roof of the Swiss Embassy in Berlin and another giant antenna on the roof of the Academy of Arts, which is located exactly between the listening posts of the NSA and GCHQ. This created an open communication network, meaning that with the use of any wifi-enabled device, anyone could send anything (text messages, voice calls, photos and files) anonymously for those listening to hear.

"If people are spying on us, it stands to reason that they have to listen to what we are saying," Mr. Jud said in a TED Talk on the subject that was filmed at TED Global London in September and uploaded onto Ted.com today.

This was perfectly legal, and they named the project "Can You Hear Me?"

To no surprise, there was a ton of trolling. One message read, "This is the NSA. In God we trust. In all others we track!!!!!" Another said, "Agents, what twisted story of yourself will you tell your grandchildren?" One particularly humorous message jokingly pleaded, "@NSA My neighbors are noisy. Please send a drone strike."

Watch the full talk here for more trolling messages and details about the project:

... ... ...

[Nov 06, 2015] Putin Suspends Flights To Egypt As World Blames ISIS For Plane Crash

Is this a replay on MH17? Looks like like was the case on 9/11 and MH17 there were war games the same day in the same air space.
Notable quotes:
"... Conspicuously absent from MSM is the fact that Israel, USA, Poland, Greece were having war game air dogfights 40 miles from where the plane was shot down. ..."
"... I caught that too, and it has gotten no play at all in western media. I heard it mentioned in Russian media. These are regular air superiority exercises. Air to Air combat using air superiority fighters and air to air missiles. Should this be investigated? Of course. It has already done this once before in 1980 during air to air exercises of NATO. ..."
"... On 23 January 2013 Italys top criminal court ruled that there was abundantly clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile ..."
"... Putin has proven in Ukraine that he cannot be goaded into action. This is an attempt to get Russian popular opinion ,to force his hand. ..."
"... The contradictions are getting so massive, even sheeple might begin to notice. ..."
"... Force his hand to do what? I dont exactly understand what youre suggesting. I guarantee you this airliner downing has only made Russians dislike ISIS more...it hasnt made them suddenly think oh we should not mess around there anymore. ..."
"... Something done in rage, rather than his cool, calculating lawyerly approach. Anything that can be portrayed as terrible to the RoW to disuade them from crossing into his camp. Its a Hail Mary pass IMO, but it shows how desperate they are getting. ..."
"... I have not confirmed myself but reports are that Israeli firms supplied the security for that airport. Some reports say the Saudis also have some component of the security or operations. ..."
"... Nope. Not while sportsball is on the teebee they wont. The trough of stupidity is a sweet, intoxicating slurry of false promises, self promotion and uplifting exceptionalism. ..."
"... I just know you voiced equal measures of concern over the 2+ million killed and the countless more driven out, crippled or orphaned by USSA warmongering in the region, not to mention all the noise Im sure you raised about israel killing thousands of civilians in Palestine too? ..."
"... Your lazy sarcasm aside - Russian media comports strangely with independent media, and it is no less trustworthy than the absolute nonsense in the pages of the NYT, Wa Post and other, indeed, Zionist {and Establishment media}. ..."
"... NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine ..."
"... The notion that American media is more trustworthy is absolutely absurd. One simply has to read from as broad an array as possible and assume that everyone has an agenda, everyone is trying to convince you of a *version*. Only its the US and its allies that have gone around the world bombing and killing based on pretext and lies, not the Russians. ..."
"... in Kiev itself it is now public information that most sniper shoots were fired from the Ukraine Hotel that was headquarters to Right Sector Fascists. ..."
"... Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Because this fraud guy in his small house in England has been exposed again and again as a liar and fraud, anyone using him as a source is making themsleves highly suspect. As if a fake source, as long as it says what you one wants, is good enough . ..."
"... ISIS(ISIL) Completely Fabricated Enemy by US: Former CIA Contractor! Socio-Economics History Blog ..."
"... The Russians are asking British Intel after making the statement that if they have some supporting intel they would like to hear it. They refuse to share any intel; For a disaster and possibly a terrorist attack investigation? Hmmmm Wonder why? What are they hiding from? Why would you not want to help an investigation? Why do they want to promote an unproven story? To deflect the blame? Somebody has something to hide. ..."
"... The US/UK has amazingly good information on what IS is doing, n est ce pas? And fantastic surveillance data, right out of the chute, in stark contrast to the seeming complete inattention paid to Malaysian jetliners. ..."
"... If the British and American governments are saying it was a bomb, then you can be sure it was NOT a bomb. I am leaning toward believing that it was an act taken by the US and Israel during their war games from a location nearby the downing. Too much of a coincidence. ..."
"... Lets harken back to MH-17. The instant and coordinated lies across all western media within hours, suggests a link between all Media Corporations and their Editorial Staffs. A German journalist wrote a book about his work for the CIA as a German journalist. He was under the impression that CIA was active across all media corporations and their editorial staff. I think MH-17 proved the fact that CIA does control much of what we read and hear. Otherwise, who can explain the exact same stories in all western media appearing before any of them even had a chance to read each others work! Odds of replication without prior knowledge are zero! ..."
"... Whether or not it was a bomb matters a lot less than who knew when and how they knew it. Like, for instance, if they knew it was a bomb before it blew up. The details and pattern of the media operation are pretty interesting, but more matters of art than fact. ..."
"... Is it not the case that a Russian passenger plane was downed after the Russian air force bombed ISIS for a month, while no US planes were terrorized after the US air force bombed ISIS for a year. ..."
Nov 06, 2015 | Zero Hedge
detached.amusement

Conspicuously absent from MSM is the fact that Israel, USA, Poland, Greece were having war game air dogfights 40 miles from where the plane was shot down.

Jack Burton

I caught that too, and it has gotten no play at all in western media. I heard it mentioned in Russian media. These are regular air superiority exercises. Air to Air combat using air superiority fighters and air to air missiles. Should this be investigated? Of course. It has already done this once before in 1980 during air to air exercises of NATO.

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870

the cause of the crash to a missile fired from a French Navy aircraft, despite contrary evidence presented in Frank Taylor's 1994 report. On 23 January 2013 Italy's top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile.[1] To date, this remains the deadliest aviation incident involving a DC-9-10/15 series."

cougar_w

When everything is a false flag operation then nothing is.

ISIS is perfectly capable to pulling this off, and seems to enjoy the infamy, and they couldn't wait to claim credit. Looks good to me, no need to go any further than that.

... ... ...

Winston Churchill

The gambit is pretty obvious.

Putin has proven in Ukraine that he cannot be goaded into action. This is an attempt to get Russian popular opinion ,to force his hand.

They keep on telling us he's a dictator, so why would that affect him ?

The contradictions are getting so massive, even sheeple might begin to notice.

Glasnost -> Winston Churchill

Force his hand to do what? I don't exactly understand what you're suggesting. I guarantee you this airliner downing has only made Russians dislike ISIS more...it hasn't made them suddenly think oh we should not mess around there anymore.

Winston Churchill -> Glasnost

Something done in rage, rather than his cool, calculating lawyerly approach. Anything that can be portrayed as terrible to the RoW to disuade them from crossing into his camp. Its a Hail Mary pass IMO, but it shows how desperate they are getting.

Blankone

I have not confirmed myself but reports are that Israeli firms supplied the security for that airport. Some reports say the Saudi's also have some component of the security or operations.

Maybe they should focus on that as well.

trulz4lulz

Now the sympathisers are trying to "pass the buck!"... an american tradition. much akin to "indian giving" but better.

dear american gubmit: Who created ISIS?

american gubmit: uhhh uhhhh, they did it!!! yeah! it was them all along, ya see?!

Yttrium Gold Nitrogen

France 2 reports that a sound of an explosion was recorded by the blackboxes, according to official who had access to the recordings.

trulz4lulz -> Winston Churchill

The contradictions are getting so massive, even sheeple might begin to notice.

Nope. Not while sportsball is on the teebee they wont. The trough of stupidity is a sweet, intoxicating slurry of false promises, self promotion and uplifting exceptionalism. The world is an aweful place when there isnt anyone there to tell you how exceptional you are. Murikistanians will NOT look away from the trough. Its just too delicious.


El Vaquero -> trulz4lulz

Having them distracted with bread and circuses is a double edged sword.

Winston Churchill -> El Vaquero

Yep, distraction beats jingo.

It was much easier to whip up a blood frenzy before kim Kardasians ass blocked out the horizon.

trulz4lulz -> Winston Churchill

I agree, but it also helps promote patriotism and consumerism, which also is good for the economy because it focuses on the packadged food sector which is where a lot of jobs data comes from. . The model for the distraction workings is fascinating to me.

forputin

So which sources are credible? Only those russian? Yes, I also thought so. Only those sources that are controlled by Putin can be trusted. All other are controled by Anglo Zion Banking NWO Lizzard People Elite. Thank God Putin protects us from that information!

farflungstar -> forputin

Voactiv uses Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, so yeah it's probably bullshit. Reuters @ Buiness Insider too, more bullshit, Hymie.

I just know you voiced equal measures of concern over the 2+ million killed and the countless more driven out, crippled or orphaned by USSA warmongering in the region, not to mention all the noise I'm sure you raised about israel killing thousands of civilians in Palestine too?

Fuckin dickmouth

Raymond_K._Hessel

the Syrian Observatory is absolutely not credible - its one guy being used as a quote factory.

Your lazy sarcasm aside - Russian media comports strangely with independent media, and it is no less trustworthy than the absolute nonsense in the pages of the NYT, Wa Post and other, indeed, Zionist {and 'Establishment' media}.

NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/06/nyt-still-pretends-no-coup-in-ukra...

The notion that American media is more trustworthy is absolutely absurd. One simply has to read from as broad an array as possible and assume that everyone has an agenda, everyone is trying to convince you of a *version*. Only its the US and its allies that have gone around the world bombing and killing based on pretext and lies, not the Russians.

So the false equivalency ploy makes sense - until you give it a moment's thought.

Cookie?

Jack Burton

30,000 trained, paid and organized fascists appeared on the Madian in the matter of a couple days, armed and outfitted in body armor. But Euro Maidan is not a Coup according to NYT. Every peaceful protest gets a 30,000 man army arrive to help it along. Also, in Kiev itself it is now public information that most sniper shoots were fired from the Ukraine Hotel that was headquarters to Right Sector Fascists.

Jack Burton

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Because this fraud guy in his small house in England has been exposed again and again as a liar and fraud, anyone using him as a source is making themsleves highly suspect. As if a fake source, as long as it says what you one wants, is good enough".

Western Media refuses to expose this guy for what he is. He hides up in his house, claiming people are out to kill him, and puts out posts about war crimes. He hasn't been to Syria for over a decade, and admits No First Hand Knowledge of his Syrian sources, he gets his information second hand from so called friends of friends in Syria. RT caught up to him and made a fool out of him on camera.

Yet he is the West's Top Source on Syrian war crimes.

Johnny Horscaulk

ISIS(ISIL) Completely Fabricated Enemy by US: Former CIA Contractor! Socio-Economics History Blog

alphahammer

Here is an excellent source of what happening there -- down to the minute.

BTW. This nugget jumps out.

----

Big impact of Russia's suspension of Egypt flights

Roland Oliphant, our correspondent in Moscow, writes:

Quote

It's not just the Egyptian economy that will hurt after this. Russia's association of tour agencies says today's decision cuts off their biggest market and sets them on a "direct path to bankruptcy."

"Egypt is the single biggest selling destination on the Russian tourism market, and right now it is peak season. It's the main destination for all the large tour operators," said Irina Tyurina, a spokeswoman for the Russian Union of Tour Operators.

"There's 50,000 Russians there now, and those who have to come home early or have bought tickets but now can't travel, should get their money back from the tour operators. It's a direct path to bankruptcy for many firms."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11978962/Russian...

trulz4lulz

Heavily invested in the tourist industry, are we? America is about to trigger a world warand you people are screeming aout lost vacation revenue? You are either one of the dumbest humans on earth that has learned to word good, or you are just plan software. Im guessing software. Nothiing but a program can be so blatantly stupid.

alphahammer

Dumb?

BBBWWWAAAAHHHAAAA!!!!!

I cut and paste the direct words from Roland Oliphant, our correspondent in Moscow, writes:

If you had a lick of mental capacity, you would understand the comment is about RUSSIAN investment in tourism because Egypt is Russias #1 spot for vacationing Russians.

ITS THE RUSSIANS SCREAMING ABOUT LOST TOURIST REVENUE EINSTEIN...

Dumb? Yes, look it up in the dictionary and there will be your picture...

swmnguy

Oliphant is doing a good job in his role, helping to bait the hook the Zbigniew Brzezinski acolytes are jiggling out there. Oliphant's editorial comments about the Russian people's unwillingness to take casualties suggests he's gotten his Garanimals mixed up. Russians aren't Americans.

farflungstar

Because ISIS, Manischewitz Land, the US and UK "intelligence" agencies said they did it, does this mean it's true? Who would reasonably believe these serial liars at this point in time? Credibility is shot.

I'd like to hear what the Russians have to say after a thorough investigation.

SSRI Junkie

this works out well for obola. he hates egypt for tossing out his muslim brotherhood lackeys and gets putin to cancel their flights in and out of egypt. his bung brothers in saudi arabia keep pumping oil even if it's unprofitable to stomp out our domestic oil production as well as russia's oil production. obola is a plague of unprecendented proportion even if the cdc doesn't recognize it

cowdiddly

Britain and the Us both are trying to say that this was a bomb planted by ISIS. The Russians are saying they will wait for the data.

The Russians are asking British Intel after making the statement that if they have some supporting intel they would like to hear it. They refuse to share any intel; For a disaster and possibly a terrorist attack investigation? Hmmmm Wonder why? What are they hiding from? Why would you not want to help an investigation? Why do they want to promote an unproven story? To deflect the blame? Somebody has something to hide.

Somebody is involved here that is going to reveal a nasty truth and I would not want to be them cause right now the bear is just smiling at you and he is all ears.

THE DORK OF CORK

The Tunisia beech job was very effective.

It inflated the Spanish and Italian economies over the summer.

It seems like part of the banks armoury.

The Dogs of Moar

An update of the Tourney between Langley and Moscow this first week of November.

As you know, on Wednesday the Big Big Three, Barack Obama, President of the US, David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, and Doofus al-Evil, the US appointed Emir of ISIL, tried to co opt the investigation of the crash of the Russian plane in Sinai.


"I don't think we know yet" what caused the crash, Obama said ... But it is certainly possible that there was a bomb on board."

British Prime Minister David Cameron says it's "more likely than not."

ISIS released a message on November 4 with claims that the group was responsible for the Russian plane crash in Sinai, and said its method will be revealed soon.

ISIS first claimed credit for the downing of the Russian passenger jet an hour after the plane went down. Six days later they're telling the world that "their method will be revealed soon."

WHAT THEY ARE REALLY SAYING IS THAT THEIR METHOD WILL BE REVEALED AS SOON AS THE CIA TELLS THEM WHAT METHOD THE CIA USED AND THAT ISIS SHOULD CLAIM THE SAME.

THE CIA'S FEAR IS THAT THE INVESTIGATORS WILL UNCOVER A SOPHISTICATED EXPLOSIVE THAT THE RETARDNIKS IN ISIS COULD ONLY HAVE GOTTEN FROM LANGLEY OR MI6.

But Russian and Egyptian authorities pushed back Thursday on suggestions that a bomb brought down Metrojet Flight 9268 over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, saying there's no evidence yet to support that theory.

Today the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said it deems it necessary to stop all Russian flights to Egypt until the causes of the A321 plane crash are established. Russian experts are taking wipe-samples from the plane fragments and passengers' luggage to trace possible explosives.

If this investigation gets troublesome, there will be a fight in Langley between those who wanted the plane to go down in the drink and those who wanted it down in the desert for the propaganda value.

Atticus Finch

" RETARDNIKS IN ISIS COULD ONLY HAVE GOTTEN FROM LANGLEY OR MI6."...

You forgot Mossad.

trulz4lulz

If this investigation gets troublesome, there will be a fight in Langley between those who wanted the plane to go down in the drink and those who wanted it down in the desert for the propaganda value.

that sums it up right there. arguing over which aspect of treason to commit and cover up. this is whats wrong. exactly.

swmnguy

The US/UK intelligence guys screwed up the timeline this past week, putting out new rules for their people and announcing they had intel proving IS did it before cluing in the Russians.

It was a surprisingly blatant mistake. Let's see, whom do we know in a position of power in Russia who would be intimately familiar with the way this game is played? Who would know immediately exactly what this timeline error signifies?

The US/UK has amazingly good information on what IS is doing, n' est ce pas? And fantastic surveillance data, right out of the chute, in stark contrast to the seeming complete inattention paid to Malaysian jetliners.

Telling.

The Dogs of Moar

On October 27, 1964 -- here's what Ronald Reagan said

"If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars.

Did he realize how prescient he was, in thus describing the United States of America?

Grandad Grumps

If the British and American governments are saying it was a bomb, then you can be sure it was NOT a bomb. I am leaning toward believing that it was an act taken by the US and Israel during their war games from a location nearby the downing. Too much of a coincidence.

The video was not clear enough for me to determine if a missile was involved or the altitude a missile might have originated from.

Jack Burton -> Grandad Grumps

That's a valid thought. We should be asking "why the USA and UK are in such a hurry to claim bomb". It was a Russian plane, and the US and UK have no interest in this, unless they do have a hidden interest in this.

Lets harken back to MH-17. The instant and coordinated lies across all western media within hours, suggests a link between all Media Corporations and their Editorial Staffs. A German journalist wrote a book about his work for the CIA as a German journalist. He was under the impression that CIA was active across all media corporations and their editorial staff. I think MH-17 proved the fact that CIA does control much of what we read and hear. Otherwise, who can explain the exact same stories in all western media appearing before any of them even had a chance to read each others work! Odds of replication without prior knowledge are zero!

swmnguy -> Jack Burton

Whether or not it was a bomb matters a lot less than who knew when and how they knew it. Like, for instance, if they knew it was a bomb before it blew up. The details and pattern of the media operation are pretty interesting, but more matters of art than fact.

farflungstar

The Mockies over at Charlie Hebdo seemed to find it funny that this plane crashed, not so funny when a bunch of their people got killed at work back in January:

http://sputniknews.com/cartoons/20151106/1029698946/JeNeSuisPasCharlie.html

One of the pictures shows a jihadist of the Islamic State (IS) militant group and plane's debris falling around him. The caption says "IS: Russian Aviation intensifies its bombing campaign.

Mocking a plane crash where 224 people were killed, such a rich source of humor hahahaha so fucking hysterical fucking faggot frogs

http://sputniknews.com/world/20151106/1029683872/plane-crash-charlie-heb...

Jack Burton

I saw this yesterday. Honestly, given what we call "Western Values" I fully expected the guardians of culture in France to come up with something like this. When their people die, it's a world wide event. When others die, it is a joke. Let's be clear, this story has made it deep into Russian media. Need I tell you what the mood is now?

The Dogs of Moar

Is it not the case that a Russian passenger plane was downed after the Russian air force bombed ISIS for a month, while no US planes were terrorized after the US air force bombed ISIS for a year.

... ... ...

KashNCarry

Meanwhile off the coast of Libya:

Gaddafis Ghost Laughs In Your Face - YouTube

[Nov 05, 2015] This 19th-Century Invention Could Keep You From Being Hacked

Just typing your correspondence on disconnected from internet computer and pointing it on connected via USB printer is enough. Or better writing letter using regular pen.
observer.com

The most secure and, at the same time, usable, method of creating, sharing and storing information is to write it up on a manual typewriter and store it in a locked filing cabinet

If the CIA's Director John Brennan can't keep his emails private, who can? Sadly, the fact that email and instant messaging are far more convenient than communicating via papers in envelopes or by actually talking on the phone, or (God forbid) face to face, these technologies are far more insecure. Could it be that the old ways protected both secrecy and privacy far better than what we have now?

The men and women in the United States government assigned to protect our nation's most important secrets have good reason to quote Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poet who proclaimed, "The typewriter is holy." For that matter so are pens, pencils, carbon paper and ordinary paper. In the digital age privacy as we once knew it, is dead, not just for ordinary citizens, but for government officials including, apparently, the head of the CIA-not to mention our former Secretary of State. Neither the NSA nor the U.S. military have been able to keep their secrets from being exposed by the likes of WikiLeaks or Edward Snowden.

... ... ...

Given America's failures to protect our own secret information, one hopes and wishes that the U.S. is as successful at stealing information from our potential foes as they are at stealing from us.

In the private sector, hackers steal information from countless companies, ranging from Target to Ashley Madison. The banks rarely let on how badly or how often they are victimized by cybercrime, but rumor has it that it is significant. At least for now, the incentives for making and selling effective cyber security systems are nowhere near as powerful as the incentives for building systems that can steal secret or private information from individuals, as well as from corporations and governments. In the digital age, privacy is gone.

Increasingly, organizations and individuals are rediscovering the virtues of paper. Non-digital media are simply invulnerable to hacking. Stealing information from a typewriter is harder than stealing it from a word processor, computer or server. A physical file with sheets of paper covered in words written either by hand or by typewriter is a safer place to store confidential information than any electronic data storage system yet devised.

[Nov 05, 2015] History That Makes Us Stupid

The American Century's not what most Americans think it is. Historians need to set them straight.
Notable quotes:
"... comforting fantasies go unchallenged and lodge themselves ever more deeply in the public consciousness. So the "Good War" remains ever good, with the "Greatest Generation" ever great. ..."
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Today it's race, class, gender, and sexuality that claim pride of place. The effect, whether intended or not, is that comforting fantasies go unchallenged and lodge themselves ever more deeply in the public consciousness. So the "Good War" remains ever good, with the "Greatest Generation" ever great.

[Nov 04, 2015] Surveillance Q A: what web data is affected – and how to foil the snoopers

Notable quotes:
"... The government is attempting to push into law the ability for law enforcement agencies to be able to look at 12 months of what they are calling "internet connection records", limited to the website domains that UK internet users visit. ..."
"... It does not cover specific pages: so police and spies will not be able to access that level of detail. That means they would know that a person has spent time on the Guardian website, but not what article they read. ..."
"... Information about the sites you visit can be very revealing. The data would show if a person has regularly visited Ashley Madison – the website that helped facilitate extramarital affairs. A visit to an Alcoholics Anonymous website or an abortion advice service could reveal far more than you would like the government or law enforcement to know. ..."
"... In using a VPN you are placing all your trust in the company that operates the VPN to both secure your data and repel third parties from intercepting your connection. A VPN based in the UK may also be required to keep a log of your browsing history in the same way an ISP would. ..."
"... One way to prevent an accurate profile of your browsing history from being built could be to visit random sites. Visiting nine random domains for every website you actually want to visit would increase the amount of data that your ISP has to store tenfold. But not everybody has the patience for that. ..."
The Guardian

Critics call it a revived snooper's charter, because the government wants police and spies to be given access to the web browsing history of everyone in Britain.

However, Theresa May says her measures would require internet companies to store data about customers that amount to "simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill".

Who is right? And is there anything you can do to make your communications more secure?

What exactly is the government after?

The government is attempting to push into law the ability for law enforcement agencies to be able to look at 12 months of what they are calling "internet connection records", limited to the website domains that UK internet users visit.

This is the log of websites that you visit through your internet service provider (ISP), commonly called internet browsing history, and is different from the history stored by your internet browser, such as Microsoft's Edge, Apple's Safari or Google's Chrome.

It does not cover specific pages: so police and spies will not be able to access that level of detail. That means they would know that a person has spent time on the Guardian website, but not what article they read.

Clearing your browser history or using private or incognito browsing modes do nothing to affect your browsing history stored by the ISP.

What will they be able to learn about my internet activity?

Information about the sites you visit can be very revealing. The data would show if a person has regularly visited Ashley Madison – the website that helped facilitate extramarital affairs. A visit to an Alcoholics Anonymous website or an abortion advice service could reveal far more than you would like the government or law enforcement to know.

The logged internet activity is also likely to reveal who a person banks with, the social media they use, whether they have considered travelling (eg by visiting an airline homepage) and a range of information that could in turn link to other sources of personal information.

Who will store my web browsing data?

The onus is on ISPs – the companies that users pay to provide access to the internet – to store the browsing history of its customers for 12 months. That includes fixed line broadband providers, such as BT, TalkTalk, Sky and Virgin, but also mobile phone providers such as EE, O2, Three and Vodafone.

... ... ...

Don't ISPs already store this data?

They already store a limited amount of data on customer communications for a minimum of one year and have done for some time, governed by the EU's data retention directive. That data can be accessed under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa).

The new bill will enshrine the storage of browsing history and access to that data in law.

Can people hide their internet browsing history?

There are a few ways to prevent the collection of your browsing history data, but each way is a compromise.

The most obvious way is the use of virtual private networks (VPNs). They channel your data from your computer through your ISP to a third-party service before immersing on the internet. In doing so they can obfuscate your data from your ISP and therefore the government's collection of browsing history.

Companies routinely use VPNs to secure connections to services when off-site such as home workers. Various companies such as HotspotShield offer both free or paid-for VPN services to users.

Using the Tor browser, freely available from the Tor project, is another way to hide what you're doing from your ISP and takes things a stage further. It allows users to connect directly to a network of computers that route your traffic by bouncing it around other computers connected to Tor before emerging on the open internet.

Your ISP will see that you are connected to Tor, but not what you are doing with it. But not everybody has the technical skills to be comfortable using Tor.

Is there any downside to using a VPN?

In using a VPN you are placing all your trust in the company that operates the VPN to both secure your data and repel third parties from intercepting your connection. A VPN based in the UK may also be required to keep a log of your browsing history in the same way an ISP would.

The speed of your internet connection is also limited by the VPN. Most free services are slow, some paid-for services are faster.

Tor also risks users having their data intercepted, either at the point of exit from the Tor network to the open internet or along the path. This is technically tricky, however. Because your internet traffic is bounced between computers before reaching you, Tor can be particularly slow.

Can I protest-browse to show I'm unhappy with the new law?

One way to prevent an accurate profile of your browsing history from being built could be to visit random sites. Visiting nine random domains for every website you actually want to visit would increase the amount of data that your ISP has to store tenfold. But not everybody has the patience for that.

At some point it will be very difficult to store that much data, should everyone begin doing so.

... ... ...

[Nov 04, 2015] Fifty Shades of Tax Dodging: How EU Helps Support Unjust Global Tax Systems

www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. Tax is a major way to create incentives. New York City increased taxes dramatically on cigarettes, and has tough sanctions for trying to smuggle meaningful amounts of lower-taxed smokes in. Rates of smoking did indeed fall as intended.

Thus the debate about whether corporations should pay more taxes is not "naive" as the plutocrats would have you believe; in fact, they wouldn't be making such a big deal over it if it were. In the 1950s, a much larger percentage of total tax collections fell on corporations than individuals. And the political message was clear: the capitalist classes needed to bear a fair share of the total tax burden. Similarly, what has been the result of the preservation of a loophole that allows the labor of hedge fund and private equity fund employees to be taxed at preferential capital gains rates? A flood of "talent" into those professions at the expense of productive enterprise.

And the result of having lower taxes on companies has been a record-high corporate profit share of GDP, with none of the supposed benefits of giving businesses a break. Contrary to their PR, large companies have been net saving, which means liquidating, since the early 2000s. The trend has become more obvious in recent years as companies have borrowed money to buy back their own stock.

Originally published at the Tax Justice Network

In the past year, scandal after scandal has exposed companies using loopholes in the tax system to avoid taxation. Now more than ever, it is becoming clear that citizens around the world are paying a high price for the crisis in the global tax system, and the discussion about multinational corporations and their tax tricks remains at the top of the agenda. There is also a growing awareness that the world's poorest countries are even harder impacted than the richest countries. In effect, the poorest countries are paying the price for a global tax system they did not create.

A large number of the scandals that emerged over the past year have strong links to the EU and its Member States. Many eyes have therefore turned to the EU leaders, who claim that the problem is being solved and the public need not worry. But what is really going on? What is the role of the EU in the unjust global tax system, and are EU leaders really solving the problem?

This report – the third in a series of reports – scrutinises the role of the EU in the global tax crisis, analyses developments and suggests concrete solutions. It is written by civil society organisations (CSOs) in 14 countries across the EU. Experts in each CSO have examined their national governments' commitments and actions in terms of combating tax dodging and ensuring transparency.

Each country is directly compared with its fellow EU Member States on four critical issues: the fairness of their tax treaties with developing countries; their willingness to put an end to anonymous shell companies and trusts; their support for increasing the transparency of economic activities and tax payments of multinational corporations; and their attitude towards letting the poorest countries have a seat at the table when global tax standards are negotiated. For the first time, this report not only rates the performance of EU Member States, but also turns the spotlight on the European Commission and Parliament too.

This report covers national policies and governments' positions on existing and upcoming EU level laws, as well as global reform proposals.

Overall, the report finds that:

• Although tweaks have been made and some loopholes have been closed, the complex and dysfunctional EU system of corporate tax rulings, treaties, letterbox companies and special corporate tax regimes still remains in place. On some matters, such as the controversial patent boxes, the damaging policies seem to be spreading in Europe. Defence mechanisms against 'harmful tax practices' that have been introduced by governments, only seem partially effective and are not available to most developing countries. They are also undermined by a strong political commitment to continue so-called 'tax competition' between governments trying to attract multinational corporations with lucrative tax reduction opportunities – also known as the 'race to the bottom on corporate taxation'. The result is an EU tax system that still allows a wide range of options for tax dodging by multinational corporations.

• On the question of what multinational corporations pay in taxes and where they do business, EU citizens, parliamentarians and journalists are still left in the dark, as are developing countries. The political promises to introduce 'transparency' turned out to mean that tax administrations in developed countries, through cumbersome and highly secretive processes, will exchange information about multinational corporations that the public is not allowed to see. On a more positive note, some light is now being shed on the question of who actually owns the companies operating in our societies, as more and more countries introduce public or partially public registers of beneficial owners. Unfortunately, this positive development is being somewhat challenged by the emergence of new types of mechanisms to conceal ownership, such as new types of trusts.

• Leaked information has become the key source of public information about tax dodging by multinational corporations. But it comes at a high price for the people involved, as whistleblowers and even a journalist who revealed tax dodging by multinational corporations are now being prosecuted and could face years in prison. The stories of these 'Tax Justice Heroes' are a harsh illustration of the wider social cost of the secretive and opaque corporate tax system that currently prevails.

• More than 100 developing countries still remain excluded from decision-making processes when global tax standards and rules are being decided. In 2015, developing countries made the fight for global tax democracy their key battle during the Financing for Development conference (FfD) in Addis Ababa. But the EU took a hard line against this demand and played a key role in blocking the proposal for a truly global tax body.

Not one single EU Member State challenged this approach and, as a result, decision-making on global tax standards and rules remains within a closed 'club of rich countries'.

A direct comparison of the 15 EU countries covered in this report finds that:

  • France, once a leader in the demand for public access to information about what multinational corporations pay in tax, is no longer pushing the demand for corporate transparency. Contrary to the promises of creating 'transparency', a growing number of EU countries are now proposing strict confidentiality to conceal what multinational corporations pay in taxes.
  • Denmark and Slovenia are playing a leading role when it comes to transparency around the true owners of companies. They have not only announced that they are introducing public registers of company ownership, but have also decided to restrict, or in the case of Slovenia, avoided the temptation of introducing, opaque structures such as trusts, which can offer alternative options for hiding ownership. However, a number of EU countries, including in particular Luxembourg and Germany, still offer a diverse menu of options for concealing ownership and laundering money.
  • Among the 15 countries covered in this report, Spain remains by far the most aggressive tax treaty negotiator, and has managed to lower developing country tax rates by an average 5.4 percentage points through its tax treaties with developing countries.
  • The UK and France played the leading role in blocking developing countries' demand for a seat at the table when global tax standards and rules are being decided.

To read a summary of the report, please click here.

A summary of the report is here.

The full report is here or here.

Stephen Rhodes, November 3, 2015 at 11:00 am

Or try this, kids:

Class Actions vs. Individual Prosecutions
Jed S. Rakoff NOVEMBER 19, 2015 NYRB
Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall, and Future
by John C. Coffee Jr.
Harvard University Press, 307 pp., $45.00

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/nov/19/cure-corporate-wrongdoing-class-actions/

[Nov 02, 2015] Foreign Banks Such as Deutsche Using Variant of Lehman Repo 105 Balance-Sheet Tarting Up Strategy

Notable quotes:
"... Lehman was engaging in blatant misreporting, treating these "repos" (in which a bank still shows them on its balance sheet as sold with the obligation to repurchase) as sales ..."
"... "It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations…." ..."
"... Although I hope the bank's newly appointed CEO is able to implement measures to rectify these problems, if DB "goes Lehman", I suspect it will occur much as Lehman did: quite suddenly. ..."
"... The 5% "fee" referred to in the fourth paragraph of the FT excerpt above is not the interest rate charged on the loan but instead is the over-collateralization amount provided by Lehman in exchange for a short-term cash loan. A normal repo loan is over-collateralized at perhaps 2%. Lehman's and its outside auditors Ernst Young's 'genius' was in discovering some language in 2001 or so in the then recently amended FAS 157 accounting guidance (all such guidance has been revised and renumbered in the meantime) which suggested indirectly that if the rate of over-collateralization was bumped up enough, you could pretend you sold the collateral instead of pledging it as collateral. So instead of pledging the normal 102% of the loan amount in collateral, Lehman asked lenders to please take more than that: 105%, hence "Repo 105." ..."
"... Most of Lehman's lenders wouldn't touch the scam because it was so obvious, but a few non-U.S. banks were happy to oblige Lehman. One was Deutsche Bank, to the tune of many billions of dollars over the years. Not that that had anything to do with ex-Deutsche General Counsel for the Americas Rob Khuzami's decision, once he became Obama's Enforcement Head at the SEC beginning in 2009, to give Lehman, EY, Deutsche and the other lenders a pass on all that. ..."
"... In no way did the drafters of the accounting guidance ever say, here's a way to scam the market, have at it. But then again those drafters are a committee of CPAs from all the big firms and elsewhere, including several from EY. So who knows how deliberate the set up was. ..."
"... Deutsche Bank has hugely profited from the end of the Deutschland AG at which head it once was. Thanks to chancellour Schroeder and his finance minister Eichle (the successor after Lafontaine was kicked who went on to found the left party) Deutsche and the other big German banks got to sell their industry portfolios without paying a penny of tax. It is common knowledge among industry watchers that this money ended up as bonuses for the "masters of the universe" at the Anglo-Saxon part of the bank which basically took over the whole bank. First invisibly and then all to visible when Jain became CEO. German industry is now owned by Blackrock and the like. Homi soit qui mal y pense ..."
"... Geithner's amorality and dereliction of duty has been apparent since his testimony in Starr v USA. Somehow these big names are protected by the supine media. ..."
"... Couldn't the NY State Superintendent of Financial Services pull Deutsche's U.S. Banking License? I thought this is what Ben Lawsky was intimating in this (nearly) one year old interview on Bloomberg, in which he (hints at?) the pulling of Deutsche's license, even though he was not at the time talking about Repo 105 ..."
Nov 02, 2015 | naked capitalism
Deep Thought

Lehman was engaging in blatant misreporting, treating these "repos" (in which a bank still shows them on its balance sheet as sold with the obligation to repurchase) as sales

Thank you for writing this bit. All the explanations I've read of Repo 105 seemed to be missing the step where liabilities were actually reduced – because what's the difference between an asset and an obligation/contract to buy said asset in X hours time?

So I'm glad a more financially astute mind than mind wrote down what I'd suspected, that real liabilities weren't actually reduced by Repo 105 and it's just window dressing to fool the regulators. I'd hazard that it actually makes the situation worse, because it's pretty expensive window dressing and that's real cash that has to head out the door once a quarter.

tawal

Turning all the brokerages into bank holding companies, where now they all have a calendar year end and can't temporarily hide their trash on each other's books, but can all hide it on the Fed's unaudited balance sheet.

Why isn't Deutsche Bank doing this too, and are UBS, Barclays and HSBC the next to fail?

fresno dan

"It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations…."

Upon finding this out, tire squeal, sirens wail, lights flash, and grim faced men rush to take into custody little Timmy Geithner and serve warrants a the New York FED….

LOL – of course not. Most government officials, of BOTH parties, would say Timmy Geithner and his ilk performed fantastically….
After all, he worked hard to prop it up…. If you remove the corruption, the double and self dealing, price fixing, fraud, ad infinitum, and how could the system continue as constituted? And the people at the top of the system thinks it works very well indeed.

Chauncey Gardiner

This issue is unsurprising to me. Many signs over the past couple years of deeply troubling matters at this TBTF: CEO resignations, NY Fed criticisms of systems and financial reporting (as Yves pointed out), participation in market manipulations, billions in writedowns, suicide death of bank's regulatory lawyer, massive derivatives exposures, central bank calls for increased capital, etc.

Although I hope the bank's newly appointed CEO is able to implement measures to rectify these problems, if DB "goes Lehman", I suspect it will occur much as Lehman did: quite suddenly.

Recalling Ernest Hemingway in "The Sun Also Rises":
"How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked.
"Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."

JustAnObserver

  • Deutche Bank = Germany's RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) ?
  • All the Eurozone's nightmares since 2010 have been down to a desperate attempt to postpone DB's "Minsky Moment" ?

I did see a report that DB is withdrawing from a number of countries but Wall Street wasn't on that list. Interestingly the list includes all the Scandinavian countries as well as the usual suspects – Mexico, Turkey, Saudi, etc.

Oliver Budde

The 5% "fee" referred to in the fourth paragraph of the FT excerpt above is not the interest rate charged on the loan but instead is the over-collateralization amount provided by Lehman in exchange for a short-term cash loan. A normal repo loan is over-collateralized at perhaps 2%. Lehman's and its outside auditors Ernst & Young's 'genius' was in discovering some language in 2001 or so in the then recently amended FAS 157 accounting guidance (all such guidance has been revised and renumbered in the meantime) which suggested indirectly that if the rate of over-collateralization was bumped up enough, you could pretend you sold the collateral instead of pledging it as collateral. So instead of pledging the normal 102% of the loan amount in collateral, Lehman asked lenders to please take more than that: 105%, hence "Repo 105."

Most of Lehman's lenders wouldn't touch the scam because it was so obvious, but a few non-U.S. banks were happy to oblige Lehman. One was Deutsche Bank, to the tune of many billions of dollars over the years. Not that that had anything to do with ex-Deutsche General Counsel for the Americas Rob Khuzami's decision, once he became Obama's Enforcement Head at the SEC beginning in 2009, to give Lehman, EY, Deutsche and the other lenders a pass on all that.

The few banks who did dare to help out Lehman of course charged higher than market rates for those loans, even though they held an extra 3% in collateral, which was always made up of high quality Treasury bonds and the like. Those lenders charged more anyway, because they knew what Lehman was up to and knew they could wring out some extra cash in exchange for 'aiding' Lehman in its needs. Lehman gladly paid the higher interest.

In no way did the drafters of the accounting guidance ever say, here's a way to scam the market, have at it. But then again those drafters are a committee of CPAs from all the big firms and elsewhere, including several from EY. So who knows how deliberate the set up was.

The scam began in 2001 or so and while it may not have been what blew up Lehman in 2008, it did importantly mislead a lot of people in 2007 and 2008, when its use was ramped up dramatically. And it put extra bonus money into the Lehman executives' pockets, year in and year out. No wonder others seek to emulate it.

Tom

Deutsche Bank has hugely profited from the end of the Deutschland AG at which head it once was. Thanks to chancellour Schroeder and his finance minister Eichle (the successor after Lafontaine was kicked who went on to found the left party) Deutsche and the other big German banks got to sell their industry portfolios without paying a penny of tax. It is common knowledge among industry watchers that this money ended up as bonuses for the "masters of the universe" at the Anglo-Saxon part of the bank which basically took over the whole bank. First invisibly and then all to visible when Jain became CEO. German industry is now owned by Blackrock and the like. Homi soit qui mal y pense

RBHoughton

Geithner's amorality and dereliction of duty has been apparent since his testimony in Starr v USA. Somehow these big names are protected by the supine media.

Thank Heavens for NC – one of the most important of a handful of sites that fearlessly report. Fingers crossed we can build a new media industry around this nexus of quality.

Pearl

Yves,

Couldn't the NY State Superintendent of Financial Services pull Deutsche's U.S. Banking License? I thought this is what Ben Lawsky was intimating in this (nearly) one year old interview on Bloomberg, in which he (hints at?) the pulling of Deutsche's license, even though he was not at the time talking about Repo 105:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2014-12-11/banks-are-taking-cybersecurity-seriously-lawsky-says-video

I know it may not be likely that Deutsche's U.S. banking license would get pulled, but it is possible, isn't it?

(btw, here is what Lawsky is doing now:)

http://nypost.com/2015/05/20/ny-financial-watchdog-ben-lawsky-leaving-to-start-firm/

If enough folks became vocal (enough) about the issue–couldn't we make a difference this time? ("We," as in ordinary housewives from Roswell, GA and humble bloggers such as the illustrious Yves Smith?".) ;-)

I think you are waaaay more famous than you think you are, Yves. Indeed, you are universally one of the most well-respected and straight-shooting authors/academics/authorities on such subjects. And I think Mr. Lawsky would take your call or reply to an email if written by you.

I spoke with his staff (yes, me–a housewife from Roswell, GA) when he was at DFS during my "Ocwiteration Perseveration" days of yore, and his staff was unusually generous with their time and they seemed genuinely appreciative to get info and feedback from just regular folks.

I think Mr. Lawsky himself would be thrilled to hear from someone like you. And I think the two of you would be an extremely formidable team.

I just don't want to give up on this. It's too important. At the very least, I will forward to him this post of yours.

Thanks again for everything you do, Yves.

[Nov 02, 2015] Dilemmas of Domination The Unmaking of the American Empire

Notable quotes:
"... Dilemmas of Domination contends that the US has entered into a period of decline as the world's hegemon. ..."
"... Because the US dominates international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and most of the regional development banks, their imposition of neo-liberal structural adjustments programs has led to a revolt against their destructive policies as witnessed by the left ferment especially in Latin America but also in the rest of the global South. ..."
"... I've read lots of books about globalization and free trade but none exposes the uneven playing field of free trade as good as Walden Bello. He shows that not only the evenness of playing field but also how the way U.S. is imprudently trying to dominate the world by adapting short sighted policies. These kind of policies have become the distinctive mark of recent American ideology domestically and foreign. ..."
American Empire Project
  • File Size: 854 KB
  • Print Length: 270 pages
  • Publisher: Metropolitan Books (November 19, 2013)
  • Publication Date: November 19, 2013

Tom Mertes - See all my reviews

Dilemmas indeed, April 28, 2005

The problems of the US mount daily from a ballooning deficit to heightened opposition from multiplying points on the globe. Walden Bello's Dilemmas of Domination is a tour de force dissection of the causes of these mounting problems.

He argues from an objective and non-partisan position in the global South. Because he primarily works outside of the US and because his method relies heavily on history, his account is compelling.

Dilemmas of Domination contends that the US has entered into a period of decline as the world's hegemon. Three crises characterize the loss of power and prestige.

  • The first crisis is the problem of manufacturing and raw materials overproduction that leads to a decline in profits, and as wages are squeezed to stabilize profits demand falls further. Added to these problems is the fact that the US, the consumer of last resort, cannot continue to borrow and buy forever. The IOUs to the rest of the world will eventually have to be repaid.
  • A second critical problem is military overextension. According to Bello, the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the US is not invincible. If it were, how could guerillas continue to move about these occupied nations so freely and make nation-building into such a farce? The US military is so strained that it has to hire mercenaries from companies like Blackwater to protect its corporate interests abroad because a draft would undermine all of its imperial adventures.
  • The third crisis, perhaps the most enduring, is legitimacy. Ideologically, the US has lost its currency to lead the world. Because the US dominates international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and most of the regional development banks, their imposition of neo-liberal structural adjustments programs has led to a revolt against their destructive policies as witnessed by the left ferment especially in Latin America but also in the rest of the global South. Furthermore, the US bullying and sometimes insulting treatment of the UN has further sullied the US's reputation. Added to this international delegitimation is the quagmire of domestic politics from the surrender of civil liberties to the patently obvious corporate control of both major parties. For readers looking for a rich and clear formulation of why the US government is detested and feared by much of the earth's population this is the best primer.

Khalid S. Al Khateron October 26, 2005

Free trade as a tool for domination

I've read lots of books about globalization and free trade but none exposes the uneven playing field of free trade as good as Walden Bello. He shows that not only the evenness of playing field but also how the way U.S. is imprudently trying to dominate the world by adapting short sighted policies. These kind of policies have become the distinctive mark of recent American ideology domestically and foreign.

Luc REYNAERT, November 4, 2005

The weak must hang together, otherwise they hang separately

In this stringent view from the South, Walden Bello discerns three different crisis levels beleaguering the US world domination: a military, a judicial and an economical level.

On the military front, the Iraq war shows clearly the limits of interventions: 'today the entire US military is either in Iraq, returning from Iraq or getting ready to go.' The lesson for the South is that the US military supremacy can be brought to a halt with guerrilla warfare. A sledgehammer is useless in swatting flies.

On the judicial front, the US is loosing its legitimacy. In Western societies, enhancement of individual freedom and democratic representation are the ideological cornerstones of the regime. Nationally, recognized human rights (no access to personal information, privacy) are jeopardized in the US by the Patriot Act in the name of the war against terrorism. For Walden Bello, the US government is becoming authoritarian, because it is in the hands of the military-industrial complex, which functions on a risk-free, cost-plus basis and grabs one half of the US budget. He quotes judiciously William Pfaff: 'The military is already the most powerful institution in the US government, largely unaccountable to the executive branch.'

Internationally, consensus and multilateralism are needed through international institutions. However, the US behaves unilaterally. Dealings with the South are subordinated to strategic considerations (R. Zoellick: 'countries that seek free trade agreements with the US must cooperate on its foreign policy goals.') Walden Bello's analysis of the WTO agreements is devastating. He calls them a free trade monopoly in the hands of corporate interests. WTO's agreement on Agriculture is not less than 'Socialism for the Rich'. The result is that the US democratic messianism is seen as sheer hypocrisy by the rest of the world.

Economically, some of Walden Bello's arguments are a little of the mark. Finite natural resources and ecological space are demographic problems. The conflict between a minority in command of assets and the majority of the population is a trade union and an election problem. But some of his arguments are to the point. There is a widening inequality gap in the US: the richest 1% of the population pocketed more than half the benefit of the latest tax reduction. The actual US budget and trade deficits are unsustainable in the long run and certainly if the inflow of foreign capital comes to a halt.

Finally, there is a new hegemon at the horizon: China with its state-assisted capitalism. The author summarizes brilliantly China's behavior: 'nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.'

But what should the South do in the meantime: regional economic blocks, G-20, South-South cooperation, because 'the weak must hang together, otherwise they will hang separately'.

Walden Bello's hard hitting analysis of current events should be a vademecum for all politiciams and laymen. A must read. In this context, I also recommend the works of Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed and Noreena Hertz.

[Nov 02, 2015] The Fatal Blindness of Unrealistic Expectations

Notable quotes:
"... Snowden revealed some outrageous practices and constitutional abuses and the Obama administration - yes the same one that has not managed to bring a single criminal charge against a single senior banker - wants to charge Snowden with espionage. ..."
"... The fact is that Mr Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them." ..."
Peak Prosperity
cmartenson
Speaking of not having a clear strategy or vision

Snowden revealed some outrageous practices and constitutional abuses and the Obama administration - yes the same one that has not managed to bring a single criminal charge against a single senior banker - wants to charge Snowden with espionage.

It bears repeating; US Bankers committed literally hundreds of thousands of serious felonies and *not one* was ever charged by the Justice Dept. under Obama's two terms.

Recently the White House spokesman said "The fact is that Mr Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them."

Well, either you believe serious crimes should be prosecuted or you don't.

Pick one.

But to try and be selective about it all just makes one something of a tyrant. Wielding power when and how it suits one's aims instead of equally is pretty much the definition of tyranny (which includes "the unreasonable or arbitrary use of power")

However, the EU has decided to drop all criminal charges against Snowden showing that the US is losing legitimacy across the globe by the day.

EU parliament votes to 'drop any criminal charges' against whistle-blower

The European parliament voted to lift criminal charges against American whistle-blower Edward Snowden on Thursday.

In an incredibly close vote, EU MEPs said he should be granted protection as a "human rights defender" in a move that was celebrated as a "chance to move forward" by Mr Snowden from Russia.

This seems both right and significant. Significant because the US power structure must be seething. It means that the EU is moving away form the US on important matters, and that's significant too. Right because Snowden revealed deeply illegal and unconstitutional practices that, for the record, went waaaaAAaaay beyond the so-called 'meta-data phone records' issue.

And why shouldn't the EU begin to carve their own path? Their interests and the US's are wildly different at this point in history, especially considering the refugee crisis that was largely initiated by US meddling and warmongering in the Middle East.

At this point, I would say that the US has lost all legitimacy on the subject of equal application of the laws, and cannot be trusted when it comes to manufacturing "evidence" that is used to invade, provoke or stoke a conflict somewhere.

The US is now the Yahoo! of countries; cheerleading our own self-described excellence and superiority at everything when the facts on the ground say something completely different.

Quercus bicolor

cmartenson wrote:

Recently the White House spokesman said "The fact is that Mr Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them."

And this "serious crime" was committed by Snowden because he saw it as the only viable path to revealing a systematic pattern of crimes by none other than our own federal government that are so serious that they threaten the basic founding principles on which our REPUBLIC was founded.


lambertad

Truth is treason

You know how the old saying goes "truth is treason in the empire of lies". I'm a staunch libertarian, but I wasn't always that way. Before that I spent most of my 20's in Special Operations wanting to 'kill bad guys who attacked us' on 9/11. It wasn't until my last deployment that I got ahold of Dr. Ron Paul's books and dug through them and realized his viewpoint suddenly made much more sense than anyone else's. Not only did it make much more sense, but it was based on Natural Law and the founding principals of our country.

A lot has been made of the fact that Snowden contributed money to Dr. Paul's 2008 presidential campaign and that this was an obvious tell that he was really an undercover (insert whatever words the media used - traitor, anarchist, russian spy, etc.). The part that I find troubling is the fact that Snowden revealed to the world that we are all being watched, probably not in real time, but if they ever want to review the 'tapes' they can see what we do essentially every minute of every day. That's BIG news to get out to the citizenry. If you've got access to that kind of data, you don't want that getting out, but here's the kicker - Very few in this country today even care. Nothing in this country has changed that I'm aware of. GCHQ still spies on us and passes the info to the NSA. The NSA still spys on everyone and the Brits and passes the info to GCHQ. Austrialia and NZ and Canda still spy on whoever and pass the info on to whoever wants it. It's craziness.

At the same time, as Chris and others have pointed out, we're bombing people (ISIS/Al Nusra/AQ) we supported ('moderate rebels) before we bombed them (AQ) after we bombed Sadaam and invaded Iraq. Someone please tell me the strategy other than the "7 countries in 5 years plan". Yup, sounds a lot like Yahoo!.

I'm looking forward to Christmas this year because I get to spend 5 days with my wife's family again. My father-in-law is a smart man, but thinks the government is still all powerful and has everything under control. It should make some interesting conversations and debating.

Thanks for the article Adam, interesting parallel between TPTB and Yahoo!.

[Nov 02, 2015] The End of the President Erdogans AKP Era in Turkey – Part I

Notable quotes:
"... By T. Sabri Öncü ( [email protected] ), an economist based in Istanbul, Turkey. ..."
"... Sounds like "Neo-Ottomanism" is of the same genera as "Neo-Liberalism." ..."
November 1, 2015 | naked capitalism
Lambert here: AKP stands for Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi in Turkish, which translates to Justice and Freedom Party. I admit that I don't know much about Turkey's domestic politics - which is why we're very glad to have this very timely post - but Erdogan's newly built palace (images here) seems like a fine operational definition of "wretched excess"; Erdogan's making that Ukrainian dude with the private zoo in his palace, Viktor Yanukovych, look like a mendicant monk.

By T. Sabri Öncü ([email protected]), an economist based in Istanbul, Turkey.

The worst terrorist attack in the history of the Republic of Turkey took place on October 10, 2015 in Ankara. The Ankara massacre. Two suicide bombers killed 102 of the participants in a Peace and Democracy rally and hundreds were wounded.

Why did this happen?

To give some answers, let us go back to 2002.

Turkey's ruling Sunni Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), took power in 2002. From 2002 until 2015, it had won four general elections in a row and secured enough seats in the national assembly to form a single party government in the first three.

Although the AKP won about 50% of the votes in the third of these elections that happened in 2011, it has been in decline since then. And, in the last general election that took place on June 7, 2015, it failed to secure enough seats to form the government on its own. However, the AKP is still the ruling party, at least practically, because it is the only party in the caretaker government until the coming "repeat" election on November 1. The other parties either refused to join the interim government or left it after a while.

A milestone between the 2011 and 2015 general elections was the presidential election of August 10, 2014. Despite the ongoing decline of the AKP, its leader and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won 51.8% of the vote in the first round to become the first elected Turkish President. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the joint candidate for the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Action Party (MHP) received 38.4% whereas Selahattin Demirtaş, the candidate of the mainly Kurdish nationalist People's Democracy Party (HDP), received 9.8%.

However, this election was of very low turnout by Turkish standards, essentially because İhsanoğlu is a known Islamist also. When a devotedly secularist section of the CHP voters resented İhsanoğlu and boycotted the election, the participation turned out to be a measly 74%. This was the lowest turnout since the coup d'état of 1980; even lower than the 79% turnout of the 2002 election that took place after a major economic collapse in 2001.

But the main event of this presidential election was the 9.8% vote the HDP candidate Demirtaş received. The 10% national threshold imposed by the 1980 military junta has been in place since the 1983 general election and no Kurdish party had ever been able to cross that threshold until June 7, 2015.

Indeed, in the 2002 election, that is, when the AKP took power, only three parties (AKP, CHP and MHP) managed to cross the threshold. With the 2007 election, a fourth party started to appear in the national assembly because the Kurdish parties and their leftist allies managed to bypass the threshold through candidates entering the elections as independents and then reassembling a party in the national assembly. However, despite that they usually secured between 5% and 7%, this trick always led to their underrepresentation in the assembly, because a big chunk of the votes on the independents were wasted.

When Demirtaş received 9.8%, indicating a high probability of crossing the 10% threshold, the HDP entered the 2015 general election as a party rather than as a collection of independent candidates. The significance of this was that had they crossed the threshold, they would have had a much larger representation in the national assembly.

And they crossed the threshold in the June 7 general election, receiving an unexpected 13%. When the HDP got 80 representatives and pushed the AKP below 276 by 18 in a 550 member national assembly, the AKP rule was over, at least legally.

This was a defining moment in the history of the Republic of Turkey.

Coming out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, the Republic of Turkey inherited the Empire's diverse identities and added a new one.

A major identity divide in the Empire had been along the religious lines: Muslim versus non-Muslim. However, there has been a conscious cleansing of the country from non-Muslims since the early 20th century and, as a result, this divide is currently about 99% to 1%, although it was more like 70% to 30% in the beginning.

The new identity the Republic added was that of the secular. So the new and more important religious divide in the country is the pious versus secular divide created by the founders of the Republic (although the origins of this goes way back). Of course, the founders were secularists, and their interest was to engineer a secular, capitalist nation-state along the lines of most advanced capitalist states of the West. Named after their charismatic leader, and the first president of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal, their ideology is called Kemalism.

Interestingly, they defined the nation of this nation-state – that is, the Turkish nation – based on religious identities. Who we call Turkish today – if by that we mean the citizens of the Republic of Turkey – are essentially the grandchildren of the (mostly Sunni) Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire, many of whom sought refuge in current-day Turkey from other parts of the Empire to avoid religious persecution. They can be from any of the many ethnicities in the former Empire as long as their grandparents were or became (preferably Sunni) Muslims.

But, the mostly Sunni Kurds (themselves a collection of many ethnicities) have never bought this definition. And, despite that Sunni Islam has been the "unofficial" religion of this "secular" Republic from the beginning, the Alevites – some of whom are Kurdish – remained, although their number decreased some as percentage.

To sum up, the most notable current identity divides include – but are not limited to – Turkish versus Kurdish, Sunni versus Alevite and pious versus secular.

Lastly, there is the military, out of which most founders of the Republic including Mustafa Kemal came. Until recently, the military had been viewed by many as guardian of the secular Republic. It took power three times: in 1960, 1971 and 1980, although there had been a number of other coup attempts also. Seen as an arch-rival, the military had been "attacked" by the AKP government as of 2010 in the courts captured by the Islamists. Many of its high ranking officers got jailed for a variety of (as recently confessed by President Erdogan, mostly made-up) reasons and the institution has been weakened. Despite this, however, whether the military is now fully under the AKP control is debatable for a variety of reasons including that there still are many Kemalists in its ranks.

Although the conflict between Turks and Kurds goes way before the start of the Republic, the most recent armed conflict started in 1984. Since then, the Turkish military and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been fighting on and off (most intensely in the early 1990s) and the total death toll is at the order of tens of thousands. In a nutshell, this is the so-called "Kurdish question" in Turkey

The PKK (founded in 1978) is an armed organization considered by many including the Turkish Government to be a terrorist organization. The HDP (founded in 2013), on the other hand, defines itself as a leftist and anti-nationalist party. Further, there are many non-Kurds in the party. However, many consider the HDP as the political wing of the PKK and whether this perception is reality or not is hotly debated in the country.

Enter President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Davutoğlu.

A darling of the West until about three years ago, Erdoğan and the AKP have evidently been running a programme whose objectives were not so obvious to some. That this had been the case can easily be deduced from the recent confessions of many nationally prominent figures – mostly liberal intellectuals – who had been ardent supporters of Erdoğan and the AKP until recently. Over the last year, it has seemed as though not a single day passed without one such figure coming out and claiming that he or she had been cheated by Erdoğan and/or the AKP.

The existence of the programme became obvious to all shortly after Erdoğan won the presidential election. This was because Erdoğan's handpicked heir – former Foreign and current Prime Minister – Ahmet Davutoğlu publicly named it on August 21, 2014: the "restoration programme." According to Davutoğlu and his aides, the term does not refer to restoring the Ottoman Empire but to repairing the republic, democracy, foreign policy and a model of the economy that had been "injured" for the past 92 years.

But, what did happen 92 years ago?

Well, the Ottoman Empire ended and the Republic of Turkey was founded.

Indeed, in 2001, a year before the AKP took power, the then academic Davutoğlu published a book, "Strategic Depth," that set out the basics of this programme, so why these liberal intellectuals feel cheated is difficult to understand.

According to the Davutoğlu doctrine, Turkey is one of those countries which are "central powers." Because of its Ottoman legacy, Turkey is a Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Balkan, Caucasian, Caspian, Central Asian, Gulf and Black Sea country. It can exercise influence in all these regions and thus become a global strategic player. Or so said Davutoğlu in his "Strategic Depth." And his now badly failed "zero problem policy with neighbours" was about Turkey's capitalising on its soft power potential culminating from its historic and cultural links with all these regions, as well as its "democratic institutions" and "thriving market economy"

Given these and that Davutoğlu appeared to be objecting to the Huntingtonian theory of clash of civilisations, his doctrine had often been labelled as neo-Ottomanism. But this label was incorrect because Ottomanism was a nineteenth-century liberal political movement whose objective was to form a civic Ottoman national identity overarching ethnic, linguistic and religious identities. Any careful reading of Davutoğlu's book could have revealed that his doctrine had nothing to do with any form of Ottomanism. Furthermore, his objection to Huntington's theory was not to that there was a clash of civilisations. He agreed with Huntington there. Where he differed was that Islam was the better civilisation. Put differently, his doctrine was not neo-Ottomanism but pan-Islamism.

It now appears clear even to many of his unquestioning former supporters as well as Western powers such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) that not only Davutoğlu but also Erdoğan agreed with Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis. Except that Erdoğan also believed in superiority of the Islamic civilization. It now appears clear to them also that becoming the leader of the Muslim world and (there are even rumours that) caliph of the Sunni Muslims were two of Erdoğan's three major fantasies.

Of course, these two fantasies have always been beyond Erdoğan's reach, if only for the simple reason that they are based on a third fantasy that Davutoğlu invented: the unifying character of the Ottoman Empire. Ask any Arab or Balkan nation who had lived under the Ottoman rule to see how they feel about the Empire. And there are strong rivals such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and even ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS), and Syria, Iraq and Libya are in shambles, so forth. No doubt, Davutoğlu's "zero problem policy with neighbours" eventually deformed into his current foreign policy of "honourable loneliness."

Erdoğan's third major fantasy was becoming the sultan of Turkey. This was a potentially realizable fantasy because, after his presidency, all he needed was to get the constitution changed to introduce a presidential system which would decorate him with executive powers. Had this happened, he could have become the effective sultan to continue the restoration process through which Turkey would become some sort of repressive Islamic state (which would be even more repressive than Turkey is currently).

For this, the AKP had to win at least 330 deputies in the national assembly.

And Erdoğan had a fear. Had the AKP failed to form a single party government, several legal cases could have been filed against him at the Supreme Council of Judges for a host of reasons with severe criminal consequences.

To avoid this, the AKP had to win at least 276 deputies in the national assembly.

Now, I can offer some answers to the first question I asked, that is, why the Ankara massacre happened. And I will do that in the next part, after the November 1 election.


JTMcPhee, November 1, 2015 at 7:41 am

Sounds like "Neo-Ottomanism" is of the same genera as "Neo-Liberalism."

And given how individual motivations that, for people who actually have the skills and talents and incentives to be actual Power Players in the world, all resolve to "way more for me, and as near as possible nothing for the rest of you," no surprise that the "neo" kleptocratic agenda is everywhere in the ascendant.

Erdoğan's palace, Obama's Presidential Library and Theme Park, the well documented excesses and thieveries and frauds of the ruling class pretty much everywhere - all of a piece. And where's the organizing principle and flag, for the 99% to form up and organize around? Our Betters are all reading out of the same implacable insatiable playbook– where's the book for people who just seek decency, comity, and a "modest competence" for themselves and their children, who diligently and intelligently in the Hope of Change, minimize their "footprints" (so there's more slack for the Few to consume and use up)?


PlutoniumKun, November 1, 2015 at 12:23 pm

There has been a huge boom in Turkey under Erdogan, although its a moot point as to how much he can take credit for it – certainly Turkey was a major beneficiary of QE, etc. My understanding is that he and his party was a major facilitator for the construction industry, including most notoriously of all, pretty much handing over one of the last public parks in Istanbul to a shopping mall developer.


PlutoniumKun, November 1, 2015 at 1:15 pm

Possibly. But Erdogans political base is rural and small town regular folks – the type of people who keep their cards close to their chests. Its entirely possible that this was a classic case of voters being unwilling to admit to pollsters who they will vote for. And also a case that people may reluctantly feel they should vote for a corrupt strongman over the alternative of possible chaos. Reminds me a bit of the UK election where pollsters and commentators got it very badly wrong.

Its interesting though that nobody seems to be alleging fraud (so far) – seems that Turkey has a pretty robust voting system.


susan the other, November 1, 2015 at 1:48 pm

It is clear that politix in Turkey is chaos. God only knows what the freedom and justice freaks are looking to gain. Erdogan is on the outs with everyone; NATO, Russia, the Saudis, the USA and etc. That can only mean one thing: there is no consensus and therefore there is no government. And Erdogan is just vamping around on the stage until he wears out his fishnets and high heels.

Sabri Oncu -> Synoia, November 2, 2015 at 5:55 am

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are not rivals for the new Caliphate. They are rivals for regional hegemony. So, I was combining two things together. Given that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran are rivals of Turkey, Turkey cannot be the leader of the Muslim world. At least these three will not accept Turkey's leadership. As for the Caliphate ISIL is the competitor. But, more importantly, Arabs will not accept a Turkish as their caliph. That was what I had in mind. But, the article is already quite long even as it is so I was economizing, I guess.

Synoia, November 1, 2015 at 4:23 pm

It is not clear that Erdogan and the Saudi's are rivals for the new Caliphate.

The Saudi's will aim for the religious capital (Mecca) and the Turks the Legislative Capital as under the Ottomans, and the Rules will exchange family member in marriage as is common among royalty.

Ergogan's planace looks like it if fit for a Caliph.

Turkish Observer,

When I read articles online about this recent election people keep referring to Erdogan as having "savvy" or making some sort of "gambit".

Perhaps you could say this, if it was in any way a fair competition. But nothing about this election was fair.

Only days before the election, the government appointed trustees to 22 different companies that were part of a holding company that wasn't so keen on the government. This included two television stations and two newspapers. Immediately after seizing control of them, in clear violation of the constitution of Turkey which prohibits the seizing of media regardless of whether or not it helped enable a crime, they fired all employees who had refused loyalty to the new trustees. The next editions of these newspapers did a 180 coming out in full support of AKP and the ruling party.

The amount of media time spent on covering AKP rallies/political events was far greater in all state media than that given to the other three main parties. I believe in previous elections, and most probably this one as well, the ratio is something like 90% of all campaign airtime was given to their party.

In addition, President Erdogan repeatedly abused his power as president. This position is one that is supposed to be unpartisan and ceremonial, but instead he has turned every public appearance into an occasion to gain support for the AKP.

The ruling government has continued to systematically dismantle bastions of opposition: whether they be found in industrial, financial or media sectors. They have attacked academics, fomented assaults of media channels and stations by armed groups, and refused to provide adequate protection for opposition rallies and events.

They continue to spread lies, disinformation and enflame racial hatred on pro-government media outlets. Several weeks ago, the result of this were three or four nights of militant-nationalist rallies across different areas of Turkey including Istanbul. One of the chilling calls heard by myself and others was "we don't want war, we want genocide" while they occasionally destroyed a kurdish-looking business or stabbed/beat a kurdish-looking person to death. These were government sanctioned outbursts. If the opposition tried to rally for peace, within 30min plain clothes police officers and riot police would stop them. But rallies for genocide? Completely acceptable in Erdogan's Turkey – you could even see some of the security forces smiling.

What comes next will be more of the same, but I can only imagine what will happen when the economy here starts to crumble…

I expect all or some of the following to happen in the next year politically:

  • - further attacks on the HDP, perhaps pushing them below 10% and using this as an opportunity to get to the 330 seat level needed to change the constitution
  • - the withering away of the militant nationalist MHP, as supporters and politicians within this party have fewer differences with the policies and positions of the AKP. Perhaps a split, with half of the members crossing the aisle to the AKP.
  • - attacks on media interests/financial interests of the CHP, so that any presidential system becomes a two party one, where one party always wins (guess which). (you can expect some problems to arise with IS Bank, if they want this outcome)

Financially:

  • - continued fall in visitor/tourist numbers
  • - further contraction of industrial production as the sanctity or property rights a revealed to be a farce
  • - a complete collapse of the construction sector, if and only if the FED starts to hike rates
  • - lira reaching 4 to the dollar by May

Socially:

  • - exodus of anyone who can get out of Turkey, a significant brain drain
  • - greater conservatism within society, the imposition of more moral/social controls
  • - a dramatic increase in the breadth and width of the conflict between the Turkish military and PKK. (if and only if the HDP is dismantled as a political outlet)

[Nov 02, 2015] Turkey election Erdo an's AKP wins outright majority – as it happened Discussion

Yes another case of a global trend of resurgence of nationalism in action... Turkey now pretend for the role of of the leader of Islamic world and that paradoxically it is nationalism that stimulates shift toward more militant Islamism.
Notable quotes:
"... The only ones who had anything to gain from the bombings were AKP. That's undeniable. But, its not proof, sadly. ..."
"... The 'play caliphate jibe' was a reference to his support for ISIS and to the growing importance of religious custom in Turkey and its influence everywhere, including on law. ..."
"... BREAKING NEWS: Tonight scenes of joy in Raqqa, Mosul and Palmira...Daesh men are in a good mood...anyone knows the reason? ..."
"... Superstition prevails in some islamic and Christian states nowadays. ..."
"... That would explain why so many AK trolls have mobilised under the comments section of every major news agency. But doesn't quite explain where the AKP got its extra 1 million votes in Istanbul where the CHP took over 280k of the 268k votes lost by the HDP and MHP. ..."
"... Turkey has strong hand, many, many refugees eager to get to Europe. At the same time, it is a country which is not without its own internal problems, not least the old contradiction between Islam and modernization. One thing remains certain, Turkey is the key state in the Near East and will be courted more than ever by the USA and EU. ..."
"... The problem isn't those celebrating, it's the way the AKP party has sold itself as the party that God wants people to vote for. ..."
"... Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sends Erdogan his congratulations from Raqqa ..."
"... Interesting how a country that couldn't count how many were killed in the Ankara suicide attack for 3 days counted 54million votes in 3 hours. ..."
"... http://www.prisonplanet.com/breaking-germanys-dw-reports-isis-supply-lines-originate-in-natos-turkey.html ..."
"... I live in Turkey and I can tell you that here is a culture of submission and complacency about any kind of real change-they will vote out of fear, vote out of intentional ignorance of the reality of things. At least half the nation are happy to live in a cloud of lies and delusion, sadly ..."
"... However it seems like this taking a lot of money from Saudi and somehow Turkish nationalist does not see it as a problems . ..."
"... This is like when Netanyahu's party won the Israeli election that followed after they incited Rabin's murder. Warmonger violence is rewarded by the voters. Unless Erdogan shows unexpected moderation, this is a grave development. ..."
"... I don't think you understand the point I am making, I never said his goal is peace with the Kurds. His goal was to win back the votes he lost in June and he did that. He got the nationalist vote back by bombing the crap out of the PKK and threatening the PYD in Syria. ..."
"... Where in all this do you get the idea that I am an AKP supporter. I am criticizing the man saying he capitalized on the deaths of soldiers to win back the important nationalist vote. Him winning in this fashion is a terrible thing, he will change the constitution and plant himself on his throne. Erdogan now has more power over Turkey than Ataturk ever did. HE is basically Putin with a moustache. ..."
"... Erdogan sweeps to power on the back of security and safety fears. His claim of intervention against Daesh (a shame) and the PKK (real); coupled with his silencing of the media critics (real); made a tremendous difference. Expect Daesh to have the welcome mat out for the black market deals - trucks and weapons and supplies for oil and concentration on the PKK and YPK. ..."
"... Turkey, whether they know it or not, voted for a Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship and ethnic war. The crumbling economic performance and the religious agenda parallel the path of Morsi in Egypt ... but here Erdogan has already neutered any threat from the military with all the treason trials. ..."
"... The war against the PKK was obviously a calculated risk. Voters usually rally behind the status quo in troubled times. The terror attacks reinforced this message. ..."
"... Yes, yet another disaster. The recent farcical goings on in Portugal, the swing to the right in Poland and Denmark and a seemingly ever increasing necessity to deal with despots and dictators. ..."
"... That is cos Erdogan controls the pools in Turkey just as the Tories controlled the polls in Britain. To get the right-wing vote out they have the polls announcing that the election is in doubt. Modern Capitalism doesn't just own the media. It owns the polls too. ..."
"... Because left is so attracted to internationalist and multi cultural garbage that lost its appeal to average people . Left used to stand for workers and better working conditions ,but now stands for pure weirdness! ..."
"... If there has been no ballot rigging, then the Turks are no different from the Americans who voted for Bush the second time or the British who voted Cameron a second time. People will vote for oligarchs and authoritarians when they are fearful or full of hate. ..."
"... I am not so sure about turkey. A country that embrace Kemal attaturk and consider him as national hero but goes against his Reforms. Attaturk changed the Arabic alphabet to Latin and closed many masques to undermine Arabic influence there but turkey now is infested with Isis and Arabic culture. I simply do not get it. ..."
"... This result is a disaster for the EU. Erdogan has Merkel and her acolytes across Europe over a barrel, and will drive a hard bargain for agreeing to help stem the migrant/refugee flood. ..."
"... America has gone along with the strategy of forming ISIS to overthrow Assad, from the very beginning. The goal was to have these mostly criminals do the dying and when they achieve overthrowing Assad, send an army to clean them out and become heroes. But reality has a way of working itself out, then ISIS got out of hand. ..."
"... Indeed. As an ardent, self-enriching neoliberal, Erdogan's hardly a threat to the West. And it probably suits the West's strategic interests better for Turkey to remain a mild Islamist democracy than for it to return to Kemalism. ..."
"... Needless to say the socialist regime of the 50s in Iran taken out by Britain and the US of the time for oil reasons was a much better vehicle for metropolitan aspirations than the shah's conservative and authoritarian regime, because the whole country, including the rural poor outside Tehran had much more of a stake in in it. A tragedy indeed. ..."
"... The west, come on, who are you exactly talking about? The west supports Saudi tyranny and their jihadi underlings, Erdogan is doing the west's bidding in Syria, and played along in Libya. ..."
"... EU supported jihadis to destroy Libya and Syria, I hope you can handle a few chanting God is great. ..."
"... Erdogan: BFF of ISIS, Nemesis of Kurds. Yep, America's ally. Feckin' perfect. Business as usual. ..."
"... Geopolitically, Turkey is an ally and partner in NATO. Turkey is a training ground and safe zone for moderate jihadis. Turkey hates Syria and agrees with Obama that Assad must go . The Guardian agrees with all these positions. Ergo the victory is legitimate . Just ask Portugal ..."
"... There will soon be comments describing AK party supporters as poor, uneducated, religious nutters from enlightened Europeans. With everything going in Turkey, Erdogan is popular because out of all the candidates he is the one the Turks think will offer economic prosperity. I think that is what matters the most to majority of voters I guess. ..."
"... Nationalism is reaction itself. It doesn't need PKK or whatever. Was Lukashenko observing these elections? Balls to them ..."
"... Erdogan was a polarising figure in Turkish politics he won't lose heavily (in fact he actually won more votes through his cynical act of social imperialism) because the political opposition to him is too incompetent and cliquey (ie non are interested in broadening their political support beyond their base, MHP for instance call Alevites heretics and want a death list of all Kurdish activists, CHP are uninterested in courting religious Turks or Kurds, HDP is still a nationalist party despite its liberal pretentions) to beat Erdogan and it seems my predictions have come true. ..."
www.theguardian.com

Candide60 -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 16:29

The institutionalized religion AKP built is a dangerous tool in the hands of those who have absolute power, or any power, and no real pragmatism, nor any desire to govern all citizens fairly and equally. If you research human rights records of Turkey, you will find out how much abuse is perpetrated in the name of religion, in the name of sect, in the name of gender, in the name of party affiliation.

Having superficial knowledge of these matters and claiming to speak for all Turks, what is best for Turks is wrong. Voting for a party formed by thieves, that is perpetrating abuses, corruption, killing its own citizens, and claiming there isn't any alternative is a lame excuse. When there is no alternative, one creates its choices.

Hesham Abdelhafez -> Alfie Silva 1 Nov 2015 16:28

Just like that! where are the democracy of the "civilised" west gone? so all these talks about democracy and human rights that the western media gave us headache are all crap!

AdemMeral -> Alfie Silva 1 Nov 2015 16:25

Erdogan is not Islamist. Erbakan was. Nobody can touch republic in Turkey. Even a hint of it and Erdogan is history.

In fact Gulen was the most dangerous one and he had good people in the army. But he is history now.

missythecat -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 16:13

I agree with you that the the opposition in Turkey isn't doing a great job. But this doesn't justify why one should vote for erdogan. This is really interesting, I always wanted to understand why people vote for him. Are you really not aware that he and his party members are actually breaking the law and acting against the constitution by spending public funds for their personal or the AKP's gain?

Are you really not aware that while people of Turkey suffer from unemployment, poor education and poverty, he can somehow spend our money on a palace, luxury cars, etc. and his wife can close a luxury boutique in Brussels to shop privately?

Are you really not aware that his relatives somehow always manage to land on the government's juicy construction projects? Are you really not aware that everyone who is against him is silenced by force (e.g. journalists)? Are we really talking about the same country and the same person?

Necati Geniş -> laticsfanfromeurope 1 Nov 2015 16:12

"Reports"..? By whom ? You must have followed the news about the co-operation of US an Turkish Air Forces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/world/middleeast/isis-is-target-of-turkish-bombing-raids.html?_r=0

JimMcBride 1 Nov 2015 16:10

they learned elections from the U.S.A. and U.K. The winners are decided before the elections. What Turkey did not learn was to have the patience to make the elections to be a product of the will of the people which would then mean there would be less trouble with the electorate and very little need to control them with harsh measures since they would have more confidence that their votes actually counted and they could make a difference at the next election..

when you remove all hope of voting in a change you create more trouble for yourself.

littlewoodenblock -> Necati Geniş 1 Nov 2015 15:45

So prove him wrong, my friend. I would love to see some definitive evidence. But it is not there. What we have everytime is some AKP jerk atanding up and saying its PKK before the police have even opened the case to investigate! Davutoglu even came up with the stupid suggestion that PKK and ISIS were partners in the Ankara bombing!

The only ones who had anything to gain from the bombings were AKP. That's undeniable. But, its not proof, sadly.

littlewoodenblock -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 15:40

The 'play caliphate jibe' was a reference to his support for ISIS and to the growing importance of religious custom in Turkey and its influence everywhere, including on law.

Whether sharia law is where Turkey arrives is unlikely, i agree, but the country will certainly not become more liberal ...

laticsfanfromeurope 1 Nov 2015 15:39

BREAKING NEWS: Tonight scenes of joy in Raqqa, Mosul and Palmira...Daesh men are in a good mood...anyone knows the reason?

RossNewman -> Gazzy312 1 Nov 2015 15:37

Mein Kampf was also quite popular there not so long ago, where it was a best seller.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/mar/29/turkey.books

As result I don't find this news surprising.

Candide60 1 Nov 2015 15:36

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
Joseph Stalin

Erdogan is a dictator using religion to brainwash masses, a corrupt evil man surrounded by weak, corrupt, ignorant yes men and women.


missythecat -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 15:16

Democracy? Republic? They've already been crushed by Erdogan. He is a lonely lunatic leaving in his something thousand room palace. Please don't troll here. On another note, yes, the only few remaining newspapers which haven't been raided by erdogan yet, do talk about the YSK's dodgy play with the numbers (Cumhuriyet and Sozcu) go and do some reading.

Hesham Abdelhafez 1 Nov 2015 15:10

shut up hypocrite western! you don't open your fucking mouse after what you did to Egypt and supporting a bloody military coup and inviting the criminal in Europe!


andresh -> Alfie Silva 1 Nov 2015 15:07

Superstition prevails in some islamic and Christian states nowadays.

Mmmoke 1 Nov 2015 14:58

Taking in more than 4 million refugees and still getting the same party voted in with a majority, is a testament to the greatness of the Turkish people. Bless them. And Europe, USA who caused the crisis, complain about a few thousand refugees. Shame.

Gazzy312 1 Nov 2015 14:39

Really disgusted with some of the Guardians coverage always trying to imply that Erdogan will try to rig. He is popular in Turkey you need to accept that, this is the reason the Millitary which hate him dare not launch a coup against him.

littlewoodenblock -> Ilker Camci 1 Nov 2015 14:39

Interestingly AKP overtook MHP in the fascist-look-a-like competition. So much so that 4% of its vote increase this election came directly from MHP!

Ozgen Killi -> Necati Geniş 1 Nov 2015 14:26

That would explain why so many AK trolls have mobilised under the comments section of every major news agency. But doesn't quite explain where the AKP got its extra 1 million votes in Istanbul where the CHP took over 280k of the 268k votes lost by the HDP and MHP.

BlueJayWay -> Ilker Camci 1 Nov 2015 14:23

Yeah, the reality of keeping that Islamist clown Erdogan and his fascist goons in power. This election reeks of fraud. How can the votes have been counted that quickly?

andresh 1 Nov 2015 14:21

Erdogan has allowed new recruits to reach IS through the "porous border". He sent supplies for IS. He ordered the security forces to look the other way when young Turkish students from Adiyaman organized the terrorists mass murdres in Sucuk, Ankara and Diyarbakir. At the same time he ordered killing the Kurds in Diyarbakir and tried to precent the YPG from liberating the Kurdish Syria from IS. Erdogan is a criminal.

ID9179442 RJSWinchester 1 Nov 2015 14:19

Turkey has strong hand, many, many refugees eager to get to Europe. At the same time, it is a country which is not without its own internal problems, not least the old contradiction between Islam and modernization. One thing remains certain, Turkey is the key state in the Near East and will be courted more than ever by the USA and EU.

littlewoodenblock Peter Conti 1 Nov 2015 14:18

Dont joke, at the beginning of a football match a minutes silence was held for the victims of the ankara bombings and AKP supporters started chanting "Allah Akbar!"
Sick Fucks

SHA2014 -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 14:06

Just two lines of proof:
1. Turkey has renewed the fight against PKK one of the most effective anti-IS firces in Northern Syria.
2. Instead of assisting civilians in Kobani when it was under siege by IS, Turkey closed the borders to any refugees.
3. Where do you think all these foreigners who go to fight for IS from Europe pass through? It is Turkey of course. There is no apparent attempt to stop this traffic.
There is other evidence also.

YouHaveComment -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 14:05

The problem isn't those celebrating, it's the way the AKP party has sold itself as the party that God wants people to vote for.

That's bad news for democracy. It's also bad news for the secular space and religious freedom that allows people of any faith or none to be members of the same community.

GoloManner Trabzonlu 1 Nov 2015 14:04

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sends Erdogan his congratulations from Raqqa

Abu Al-Izz Hanoun -> killerontheroad 1 Nov 2015 13:56

By the way ISIS consider Erdogan and his party Kafirs and vow to fight them. ..just in case you were wondering.

1ClearSense 1 Nov 2015 13:56

Will US now support both Erdoganite Turks and YPG/PKK Kurds while they fight each other?

andresh -> decisivemoment 1 Nov 2015 13:55

Allah Akbar! Stop fascism! It was the turkish security forces that allowed young supporters of IS from adiyaman to stage the murderes if Sucuk, Ankara and Diyarbakir. Erdogan is a cynical murderer, inciting violence to remain i power.

thatshowitgoes -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 13:54

Put it this way. The bank robbers leave from your house, go to rob the bank with guns you have given them, then come back to your house with the loot - you support the bank robbers. Or perhaps you think Turkey has no control of its borders, in which case I invite you to swan in without a visa next time you go on holiday and see how far you get.

Trabzonlu 1 Nov 2015 13:53

As predicted, HDP and PKK have shot themselves in the foot by backing violence instead of peace and their actions have led to this AKP majority, no one should be surprised by the result. As you can see, free and fair elections seem reason enough for violence in the Kurdish areas as per usual, quite how these people dream of governing a Kurdistan is beyond me. Hopefully this government will finally grow some balls and eliminate these PKK terrorists once and for all - the people have voted, time to shut this threat down unilaterally and with determination.

Super Tramp 1 Nov 2015 13:53

The good have lost by the hands of fraud. Foxy smile of the triumph of ignorance, brutality and lies.. Such a dystopia it is; watching my beautiful country helpless while it's evolving to the 3rd world for the last decade. now this is the end of the way of secularism. me and my bereaved youthfulness lets have another bottle of wine isnt it a perfect day for the losers?


RJSWinchester 1 Nov 2015 13:52

"Democracy" wrapped in Erdogan's iron fist.

Ozgen Killi 1 Nov 2015 13:52

Interesting how a country that couldn't count how many were killed in the Ankara suicide attack for 3 days counted 54million votes in 3 hours.

decisivemoment 1 Nov 2015 13:51

It's not necessarily that bad a result. Under the circumstances it's hardly surprising the party promising law and order would gain seats, but they have not gained enough to amend the constitution and the HDP has made it past Turkey's ridiculously high threshold and secured their place in parliament.

Growing pains, certainly, but not primitivism. With this somewhat conditional seal of approval -- authority to govern without having to form a coalition with crazies, but not so much authority as to silence mainstream opposition and use the constitution to promote authoritarianism -- we'll have to see what Erdogan does.

thatshowitgoes -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 13:48

http://www.prisonplanet.com/breaking-germanys-dw-reports-isis-supply-lines-originate-in-natos-turkey.html

istanbul10 -> siff 1 Nov 2015 13:23

I live in Turkey and I can tell you that here is a culture of submission and complacency about any kind of real change-they will vote out of fear, vote out of intentional ignorance of the reality of things. At least half the nation are happy to live in a cloud of lies and delusion, sadly

Afshin Peyman -> SHA2014 1 Nov 2015 13:22

Was it the sultanate was corrupt and backward ?

That is why young Turks and attaturk tried to change the system and replace it with modern and secular government?

However it seems like this taking a lot of money from Saudi and somehow Turkish nationalist does not see it as a problems .

ChristineH 1 Nov 2015 13:21

Does anyone know how such a huge and populous country as Turkey counts its votes so quickly? Only article I could find was about people counting votes by tractor headlights, having voted at the side of the road, which makes the speed even more surprising.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/villagers-vote-on-road-in-turkeys-northwestern-district.aspx?pageID=238&nid=90576&NewsCatID=341

newageblues 1 Nov 2015 13:17

This is like when Netanyahu's party won the Israeli election that followed after they incited Rabin's murder. Warmonger violence is rewarded by the voters. Unless Erdogan shows unexpected moderation, this is a grave development.

Mr_HanMan -> littlewoodenblock 1 Nov 2015 13:13

I don't think you understand the point I am making, I never said his goal is peace with the Kurds. His goal was to win back the votes he lost in June and he did that. He got the nationalist vote back by bombing the crap out of the PKK and threatening the PYD in Syria. After the Suruc bombing the killing of the two police officers by the PKK wasn't the first time the PKK killed during the supposed ceasefire. They shot and killed soldiers in Diyarbakir last year and the government back then did nothing. The only reason they did something now was to get back the nationalist vote. So it's all one big dirty game and the PKK were in on it, or they are just too stupid to realise this as their actions harmed the HDP.

Where in all this do you get the idea that I am an AKP supporter. I am criticizing the man saying he capitalized on the deaths of soldiers to win back the important nationalist vote. Him winning in this fashion is a terrible thing, he will change the constitution and plant himself on his throne. Erdogan now has more power over Turkey than Ataturk ever did. HE is basically Putin with a moustache.

Edmund Allin -> RayMullan 1 Nov 2015 13:08

186,000 ballot boxes. About 750,000 independent (i.e. opposition) observers. 57m voters, of whom apparently 45mn turned up. 45mn/186,000 = 241 votes per ballot box. Easy enough.

owl905 1 Nov 2015 13:06

Erdogan sweeps to power on the back of security and safety fears. His claim of intervention against Daesh (a shame) and the PKK (real); coupled with his silencing of the media critics (real); made a tremendous difference. Expect Daesh to have the welcome mat out for the black market deals - trucks and weapons and supplies for oil and concentration on the PKK and YPK.

Turkey, whether they know it or not, voted for a Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship and ethnic war. The crumbling economic performance and the religious agenda parallel the path of Morsi in Egypt ... but here Erdogan has already neutered any threat from the military with all the treason trials.

Putin and al-Baghdadi are probably thinking the Cheshire Cat got into their mirror this morning.

Stechginster -> Trancedesk 1 Nov 2015 13:04

Merkel, the architect of one catastrophe, will shortly usher in another, as she promotes the entry of Turkey into the EU, in return for Erdogan's assistance.

I should turn this into a drinking game… no, she won't. She made some positive noise about supporting Turkey in the accession process, what was actually on the table were visa waivers for Turkish travellers visiting the EU and (likely, although unofficially) delaying the publication of a negative report on Turkish human rights violations.


SHA2014 -> Michael Yeovil 1 Nov 2015 13:02

The war against the PKK was obviously a calculated risk. Voters usually rally behind the status quo in troubled times. The terror attacks reinforced this message.

ErnaMsw 1 Nov 2015 12:57

At least Turkey won't become a presidential republic. With 96.48% of votes now counted, HDP stands at 10.47% and is guaranteed to pass the threshold.

ChemicalArif 1 Nov 2015 12:53

Quite hilarious reading the comments from most BTL posters... Simple fact is, the AKP has been a "popular" government in Turkey for the last decade and even won the majority of votes in the last election. Did urbane elite seriously think that they were going to be ousted from power by a fractured, dysfunctional opposition? Beggars belief.

Of course the urbane city dwelling elite can always take to the streets to protest the result, much like the Egyptians did. Democracy is only palatable when the city dweller's preferred candidate is elected to power...

Tim Gray 1 Nov 2015 12:52

A very disturbing result, it is difficult to believe the vote or that the ruling party hasn't had a hand in the unrest across the country since the voters rejected AKP in the last election. Turkey's government will now use this result as a green light to continue its war against the Kurds, attack trade unions, women and those opposed to this conservative, nationalist government.

Stechginster -> jharz15 1 Nov 2015 12:50

The Turkish people I personally know would share that opinion, but young Turkish expats and the young people in the big cities such as Istanbul and Ankara are far more liberal than the average Turkish voter in the east. I don't think it was necessarily rigged, in uncertain times, many people vote for stability (the devil you know..) over anything else.

irem demir 1 Nov 2015 12:44

Majority of Turks are not secular, modern or democratic. But there are still so many open minded people living in Turkey, unlike in other muslim countries. But sadly this didn't really help the future of the country.

Phil Porter Trancedesk 1 Nov 2015 12:42

Yes, yet another disaster. The recent farcical goings on in Portugal, the swing to the right in Poland and Denmark and a seemingly ever increasing necessity to deal with despots and dictators.

TonyBlunt Phoenix9061210 1 Nov 2015 12:41

That is cos Erdogan controls the pools in Turkey just as the Tories controlled the polls in Britain. To get the right-wing vote out they have the polls announcing that the election is in doubt. Modern Capitalism doesn't just own the media. It owns the polls too.

Afshin Peyman gregmitchell87 1 Nov 2015 12:38

Because left is so attracted to internationalist and multi cultural garbage that lost its appeal to average people .
Left used to stand for workers and better working conditions ,but now stands for pure weirdness!

Michael Yeovil 1 Nov 2015 12:35

So six months the AKP Government obtained it's worst ever result to it's best . In that six months, the worst terror attack on the country happened, civil war was resumed with the PKK, inflation rose to it's worse rate since the AKP came to power, unemployment rose, - but then the AKP obtain the best ever result it is obtained !

Make of that what you will !!

GordonBrownStain 1 Nov 2015 12:35

The Poles voted for a shower of ignorant pricks and so did us Brits, that's democracy, the Muslims are no different from us after all

Simon100 1 Nov 2015 12:34

If there has been no ballot rigging, then the Turks are no different from the Americans who voted for Bush the second time or the British who voted Cameron a second time. People will vote for oligarchs and authoritarians when they are fearful or full of hate.

Trancedesk -> studious1 1 Nov 2015 12:34

And to think we were entertaining Turkey joining the EU not that long ago.

Erdogan is now in an even stronger position, and will demand entry in return for helping Merkel deal with the consequences of her idiocy.

Afshin Peyman 1 Nov 2015 12:33

I am not so sure about turkey. A country that embrace Kemal attaturk and consider him as national hero but goes against his Reforms. Attaturk changed the Arabic alphabet to Latin and closed many masques to undermine Arabic influence there but turkey now is infested with Isis and Arabic culture. I simply do not get it.

Trancedesk 1 Nov 2015 12:32

This result is a disaster for the EU. Erdogan has Merkel and her acolytes across Europe over a barrel, and will drive a hard bargain for agreeing to help stem the migrant/refugee flood. Merkel, the architect of one catastrophe, will shortly usher in another, as she promotes the entry of Turkey into the EU, in return for Erdogan's assistance. Western Europe, the cradle of Western civilisation, is doomed and we should probably leave.

glad2baway 1 Nov 2015 12:30

Well, if that is democracy then we have to sometimes accept that this is bad news. I am surprised at the result. What does Turkey do now? Have a revolution just because lots of people don't like the result? As the saying goes, people get the governments they deserve. So something has gone badly wrong somewhere.

1ClearSense -> TeeJayzed Addy 1 Nov 2015 12:29

America has gone along with the strategy of forming ISIS to overthrow Assad, from the very beginning. The goal was to have these mostly criminals do the dying and when they achieve overthrowing Assad, send an army to clean them out and become heroes. But reality has a way of working itself out, then ISIS got out of hand.

djhurley -> SUNLITE 1 Nov 2015 12:27

Indeed. As an ardent, self-enriching neoliberal, Erdogan's hardly a threat to the West. And it probably suits the West's strategic interests better for Turkey to remain a mild Islamist democracy than for it to return to Kemalism.

Mr_HanMan -> littlewoodenblock 1 Nov 2015 12:26

Lets go back, the bombing in Suruc happened, the HDP and PKK blamed the AKP and then went on a killing spree of Turkish police officers and soldiers. Then in cities in the south east HDP members declaring autonomy, trenches being dug in the middle of the streets using machinery owned by the local government authority (HDP).

No matter which way you look at it the PKK is the reason why the HDP lost a lot of votes. To add any operation done against the PYD in Syria is a boost for the AKP when it comes to the nationalist vote.

GreatUncleEuphoria -> GreatUncleEuphoria 1 Nov 2015 12:26

Needless to say the socialist regime of the 50s in Iran taken out by Britain and the US of the time for oil reasons was a much better vehicle for metropolitan aspirations than the shah's conservative and authoritarian regime, because the whole country, including the rural poor outside Tehran had much more of a stake in in it. A tragedy indeed.

1ClearSense -> littlewoodenblock 1 Nov 2015 12:22

The west, come on, who are you exactly talking about? The west supports Saudi tyranny and their jihadi underlings, Erdogan is doing the west's bidding in Syria, and played along in Libya.

GreatUncleEuphoria -> Paul Easton 1 Nov 2015 12:22

Iran is, broadly. split between a metropolitan urban and ( urbane ) group, and a religious rural, provincial and suburban group, like Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. The Islamic revolution traded the influence of the former for the latter, like the brief rule in Egypt of the MBrotherhood.

riceuten64 birdcv 1 Nov 2015 12:20

He's a gradualist. He will make it more and more difficult, say, to drink alcohol, as he has already done. He will put pressure on the few remaining independent news outlets. He will further censor the internet. He will change electoral systems to suit the AKP. He has already made his wish for an Executive Presidency clear.

1ClearSense -> LittleMsGggrrrrr 1 Nov 2015 12:19

EU supported jihadis to destroy Libya and Syria, I hope you can handle a few chanting God is great.

TeeJayzed -> Addy 1 Nov 2015 12:18

Erdogan: BFF of ISIS, Nemesis of Kurds. Yep, America's ally. Feckin' perfect. Business as usual.

DiplomaticImmunity 1 Nov 2015 12:17

Geopolitically, Turkey is an "ally and partner" in NATO. Turkey is a training ground and "safe zone" for "moderate" jihadis. Turkey hates Syria and agrees with Obama that "Assad must go". The Guardian agrees with all these positions. Ergo the victory is "legitimate". Just ask Portugal


littlewoodenblock -> atkurebeach 1 Nov 2015 12:12

Rubbish. AKP reignited the war with Kurds to polarise the nation and it is AKP that locked cities down for days on end, who is killing kurds with out any legal process whatsoever, it is allegedly AKP supporters that are threatening on television opposition journalists with violence. Then when that violence occurs im exactly the way threatened the supporter - a ministerial candidate - is not even questioned by police, by he took the stage with Davutoglu just 2 days ago.

AKP is allegedly courting mercenaries and thugs to achieve its aims ...

AKP is attacking kurds in northern syria and iraq because they are too strong and they are closing the gap across the Euphrates and further west - AKP have made it very clear they will not tolerate that. Why, i wonder. ISIS supply lines allegedly.

And you are still taliking about PKK.

Hilarious

littlewoodenblock -> Paul Easton 1 Nov 2015 12:06

Civil war, terrorism, providing water to Cyprus, making the parliamentary election about him, the President, silencing fully opposition media, blaming the wests fear of a strong turkey to explain economic woes ... When you have complete control you can achieve what you want easily.

The Turks are not fools, they are being lied to blatantly and they are scared

Lathan Ismail 1 Nov 2015 12:04

There will soon be comments describing AK party supporters as poor, uneducated, religious nutters from "enlightened" Europeans. With everything going in Turkey, Erdogan is popular because out of all the candidates he is the one the Turks think will offer economic prosperity. I think that is what matters the most to majority of voters I guess.

Down2dirt -> atkurebeach 1 Nov 2015 11:56

Nationalism is reaction itself. It doesn't need PKK or whatever. Was Lukashenko observing these elections? Balls to them

Newcurrency 1 Nov 2015 11:49

There is no ethnic pressure above Kurds for at least 10 years. You are the ones who turned our country into a bloodbath -- Killing innocent teachers, newly graduated doctors, officer's wifes who's only fault is sitting in their house, know your facts before you talk about peace.

Don't expect people to support a man who talks of peace while his brother is in mountains fighting with states army.

Newcurrency 1 Nov 2015 11:42

I cant believe why major media sites like guardian is backing up a separatist like Selahattin Demirtaş. Do you really think a man who threatens people with violent street acts if hdp cant pass the election threshold is a peace talker ? The Tsipras of Turkey ? Don't mock with peoples intellegence...

KK47 1 Nov 2015 11:42

Few days ago I was berated by some posters for pointing out that though Erdogan was a polarising figure in Turkish politics he won't lose heavily (in fact he actually won more votes through his cynical act of social imperialism) because the political opposition to him is too incompetent and cliquey (ie non are interested in broadening their political support beyond their base, MHP for instance call Alevites heretics and want a death list of all Kurdish activists, CHP are uninterested in courting religious Turks or Kurds, HDP is still a nationalist party despite its liberal pretentions) to beat Erdogan and it seems my predictions have come true.

Now here's my next prediction - watch for a more aggressive/militaristic approach towards Syria by the Turkish government.

[Nov 01, 2015] The Rise and Decline of the Turkish "Deep State": The Ergenekon Case

Notable quotes:
"... The Theory of Distributional Coalitions Mancur Olson's theory of distributional coalitions holds that, as societies establish themselves, group interests become more identifiable, and subsets of the society organize in an effort to secure these interests. ..."
"... This exclusivity factor is of special importance in the way these rent-seeking (or special-interest) groups operate, since, unlike highly-encompassing organizations, exclusive organizations do not have an incentive to increase the productivity of the society. This is due to the disproportion between the sizes of the exclusive organization and the population. To use Olson's idiom, such organizations are in a position either to make larger the pie the society produces or to obtain larger slices for their members. ..."
"... That is still the case even when the organization's cost to the society is significantly more than the benefits it seeks for its members. Such behavior is not at all unexpected of exclusive organizations, since it is the very policy of exclusion itself that enables the group to distribute more to its members.In that respect, disproportional allocation of resources goes hand in hand with barriers to entry into the favored areas of the special-interest group. ..."
"... The genesis of the Turkish deep state is traceable to the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, ttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti ), a secret society founded in Istanbul in 1889 by a group of medical students who had a passion for reform in the Ottoman Empire.3 The CUP organized so extensively that, in less than two decades, it became a revolutionary political organization with branches inside and outside the Ottoman Empire.4 Within the organization existed numerous factions, and the body of membership was ethnically and even ideologically diverse. ..."
"... The CUP used the Fedaiin to have its political opponents assassinated, among other things, and later on, employed the Special Organization in the mass killings of the Ottoman- Armenians in 1915.8 The CUP disbanded in 1918, a year that also marked the beginning of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. ..."
"... "Unionism" ( ttihatç l k ) has persisted in the political culture of Turkey, and has manifested itself primarily in (1) ultranationalism, (2) military involvement/ intervention in politics, and (3) justification of extrajudicial activities and violence in the name of the fatherland ( vatan ). ..."
"... Of particular importance among these clandestine operations were those by the Gendarmarie Intelligence and Counter-terror Unit (J TEM, Jandarma stihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele ), which is allegedly responsible for thousands of extrajudicial executions and assassinations of PKK sympathizers and supporters. ..."
derinsular.com

This paper argues that Mancur Olson's theory of distributional coalitions largely explains this network's raison d'être. The paper first outlines the main tenets of the theory, and then examines the historical roots of the Turkish deep state, as well as the paradigm shift its exposure caused in the public opinion. The network's

  • exclusive character,
  • impacts on the workings of the Turkish society, and finally
  • efforts to sustain its dominating influence, which is manifested especially in its attempts to reverse the country's democratization process,

demonstrate that the emergence, influence, and the incentives of the Turkish deep state confirm the fundamental assumptions of Olson's theory.

The Theory of Distributional Coalitions Mancur Olson's theory of distributional coalitions holds that, as societies establish themselves, group interests become more identifiable, and subsets of the society organize in an effort to secure these interests. Since these interests are best served by coordinated action, institutions emerge. Yet, such institutions tend to be exclusive by nature, and pursue only the interests of their own members, who account to a very small minority.

This exclusivity factor is of special importance in the way these rent-seeking (or special-interest) groups operate, since, unlike highly-encompassing organizations, exclusive organizations do not have an incentive to increase the productivity of the society. This is due to the disproportion between the sizes of the exclusive organization and the population. To use Olson's idiom, such organizations are in a position either to make larger the pie the society produces or to obtain larger slices for their members.

"Our intuition tells us," Olson says, "that the first method will rarely be chosen."2 Because, on the one hand, it is very costly to increase the productivity of society as a whole, and on the other, even if this is achieved, the The Rise and Decline of the Turkish "Deep State": The Ergenekon Case 101 members of the minuscule organization will accordingly reap only a minuscule portion of the benefits.

Therefore, exclusive groups aim to present their own interests as being the interests of their constituencies, and to use all of their organizational power for collective action in that direction.

That is still the case even when the organization's cost to the society is significantly more than the benefits it seeks for its members. Such behavior is not at all unexpected of exclusive organizations, since it is the very policy of exclusion itself that enables the group to distribute more to its members.In that respect, disproportional allocation of resources goes hand in hand with barriers to entry into the favored areas of the special-interest group.

Yet the existence of barriers to entry further damages the society by reducing the economic growth.

When coupled with the interferences of the special-interest groups with the possibilities of change in the existing state of affairs, the level of the reduction in economic growth can be large.

In order to achieve their goals, special-interest groups engage in lobbying activities and collusion – both of which, by creating special provisions and exceptions, further increase not only inefficiency but also (1) the complexity of regulation, (2) the scope of government, and (3) the complexity of understandings.

The Formation and the Evolution of the Turkish Deep State The genesis of the Turkish deep state is traceable to the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti), a secret society founded in Istanbul in 1889 by a group of medical students who had a passion for reform in the Ottoman Empire.3 The CUP organized so extensively that, in less than two decades, it became a revolutionary political organization with branches inside and outside the Ottoman Empire.4 Within the organization existed numerous factions, and the body of membership was ethnically and even ideologically diverse.

Yet it was the commonly-shared goal of changing the regime rather than conformity that bound the members together, and they successfully achieved that goal with the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which restored the Constitution of 1876 (Kanun-ı Esasi) that restricted the powers of the Sultan, and made the Ottoman Empire a constitutional monarchy again after 32 years of absolutism.

The genesis of the Turkish deep state is traceable to the Committee of Union and Progress, a secret society founded in Istanbul in 1889 by a group of medical students who had a passion for reform in the Ottoman Empire SERDAR KAYA 102 What makes the CUP extraordinary as a case is that it never fully transformed into a genuine political party even after the revolution it brought about.

Instead, it continued to operate as the secret committee it always was.5 Back then, in reference to this fact, some of the critics of the CUP had coined the phrase "invisible people" (rical-i gayb).6 In the end, this code of conduct rendered the committee as a clandestine force that exerted influence by informal means in order to change the course of affairs the way it saw fit.

The reflections of that proclivity are traceable in many of the major occurrences of the time.

In what is today commonly referred to as the coup of 1913, for example, a group of CUP operatives broke into the Sublime Porte as the Cabinet was in session, murdered the minister of defense and two prominent government officials, and forced the Grand Vizier, the head of the Cabinet, to resign immediately.

The coup of 1913 is also important in that it set a precedent in the country for military interventions and ultimatums, the latest of which occurred on April 27, 2007.

A second example to the code of conduct of the CUP may be the clandestine activities of the Special Organization7 (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa).

Although the CUP established the Special Organization in 1913, ten months after the coup of 1913, it was in fact the continuation of the Fedaiin, the secret organization the CUP established in 1905 – that is, before the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.

The CUP used the Fedaiin to have its political opponents assassinated, among other things, and later on, employed the Special Organization in the mass killings of the Ottoman- Armenians in 1915.8 The CUP disbanded in 1918, a year that also marked the beginning of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

However, many of its members as well as the political culture it created survived within the Republic of Turkey.

To this day, "Unionism" (İttihatçılık) has persisted in the political culture of Turkey, and has manifested itself primarily in (1) ultranationalism, (2) military involvement/ intervention in politics, and (3) justification of extrajudicial activities and violence in the name of the fatherland (vatan).

Nevertheless, different aspects of this political culture have gained primacy in different periods, and with the influence of the changes in the domestic and international conjuncture, it more or less evolved. For example, during the One Party Era (1925-45), the influence of interwarperiod fascism further radicalized the nationalist ideology of the ruling cadre. Then, in the 1960s, variations of the same Unionist background found expression The Rise and Decline of the Turkish "Deep State": The Ergenekon Case 103 in the rightist and leftist political movements, which, unsurprisingly, entered into violent conflict in the 1970s.

In the mid-1980s, the Kurdish question reemerged with the terrorist activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the separatist guerilla group, which became a source of instability in the southeast region of the country, and in so doing, provided a new fertile ground for the clandestine operations of the Turkish deep state.

Of particular importance among these clandestine operations were those by the Gendarmarie Intelligence and Counter-terror Unit (JİTEM, Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele), which is allegedly responsible for thousands of extrajudicial executions and assassinations of PKK sympathizers and supporters.

Yet the same decade also marked the time period in which Turkey opened its borders and started to integrate with the rest of the world. As a result, after the 1980s, new social, political and economic perspectives started to emerge. However, this new West that Turkey came to closer contact with during and after the 1980s was fundamentally different from the West of the interwar period in that the former was democratic, and the latter fascist.

The increasing interaction with the West did not instantly trigger the demands for democratization in the country. It was the Susurluk scandal and a combination of other events that occurred approximately a decade later that started to dramatically shift the prevalant paradigms. On the one hand, these experiences created a more profound societal cognizance of questioning authority, and on the other, in line with these experiences, people came to attach new meanings to the nature of the state-society relations in Turkey in a manner which provided a more convenient ground for the democratization process in the country.

Apparently, these paradigm shifts also coincided with the developments since the Helsinki European Council of 1999, where the European Union (EU) formally referred to Turkey as a candidate and thus invigorated the country's accession process.

[Nov 01, 2015] Anatomy of the Deep State

Notable quotes:
"... During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya, and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention there. ..."
"... Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not ..."
"... Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ..."
"... The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street. All these agencies are coordinated by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council. Certain key areas of the judiciary belong to the Deep State, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose actions are mysterious even to most members of Congress. ..."
"... The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted , appeared in paperback on August 27, 2013. ..."
"... "These men, largely private, were functioning on a level different from the foreign policy of the United States, and years later when New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan read through the entire documentary history of the war, that history known as the Pentagon Papers, he would come away with one impression above all, which was that the government of the United States was not what he had thought it was; it was as if there were an inner U.S. government, what he called 'a centralized state, far more powerful than anything else, for whom the enemy is not simply the Communists but everything else, its own press, its own judiciary, its own Congress, foreign and friendly governments – all these are potentially antagonistic. ..."
"... The IMF/World Bank scam was working for a while. It doesn't work any more: South American countries simply reject it. And the US has no power to muscle South American countries any more; I'm not quite sure how they managed to become immune to US military intervention, but they have. They have had about 200 years of trial and error in figuring out how. ..."
"... Just before the Civil War, we saw the same dynamic: most of the country was completely disillusioned about the "slavocracy", as they called the corrupt US government dominated by slaveholders. This led to the election of Lincoln, the destruction of the Whig Party, and finally, the Civil War. ..."
February 21, 2014 | billmoyers.com

Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo.

The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (1871)


There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power. [1]

During the last five years, the news media has been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics of Washington. The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become the new normal. That is certainly the case, and I have been among the harshest critics of this development. But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American governmental system. On one level, the critique is self-evident: In the domain that the public can see, Congress is hopelessly deadlocked in the worst manner since the 1850s, the violently rancorous decade preceding the Civil War.

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country…

As I wrote in The Party is Over, the present objective of congressional Republicans is to render the executive branch powerless, at least until a Republican president is elected (a goal that voter suppression laws in GOP-controlled states are clearly intended to accomplish). President Obama cannot enact his domestic policies and budgets: Because of incessant GOP filibustering, not only could he not fill the large number of vacancies in the federal judiciary, he could not even get his most innocuous presidential appointees into office. Democrats controlling the Senate have responded by weakening the filibuster of nominations, but Republicans are sure to react with other parliamentary delaying tactics. This strategy amounts to congressional nullification of executive branch powers by a party that controls a majority in only one house of Congress.

Despite this apparent impotence, President Obama can liquidate American citizens without due processes, detain prisoners indefinitely without charge, conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people without judicial warrant and engage in unprecedented - at least since the McCarthy era - witch hunts against federal employees (the so-called "Insider Threat Program"). Within the United States, this power is characterized by massive displays of intimidating force by militarized federal, state and local law enforcement. Abroad, President Obama can start wars at will and engage in virtually any other activity whatsoever without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress, such as arranging the forced landing of a plane carrying a sovereign head of state over foreign territory. Despite the habitual cant of congressional Republicans about executive overreach by Obama, the would-be dictator, we have until recently heard very little from them about these actions - with the minor exception of comments from gadfly Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democrats, save a few mavericks such as Ron Wyden of Oregon, are not unduly troubled, either - even to the extent of permitting seemingly perjured congressional testimony under oath by executive branch officials on the subject of illegal surveillance.

These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya, and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government was somehow able to commit $115 million to keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay at least £100m to the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over and access to that country's intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During that same period of time, the government spent $1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined. A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive every single trace of your electronic life.

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment." All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude. [2]

How did I come to write an analysis of the Deep State, and why am I equipped to write it? As a congressional staff member for 28 years specializing in national security and possessing a top secret security clearance, I was at least on the fringes of the world I am describing, if neither totally in it by virtue of full membership nor of it by psychological disposition. But, like virtually every employed person, I became, to some extent, assimilated into the culture of the institution I worked for, and only by slow degrees, starting before the invasion of Iraq, did I begin fundamentally to question the reasons of state that motivate the people who are, to quote George W. Bush, "the deciders."

Reactions: Andrew Bacevich on Washington's Tacit Consensus

Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. Government life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00 in the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist. After a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles off steel plate: "You mean the number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew, at least until I had had a couple of years away from the government to reflect upon it.

The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street. All these agencies are coordinated by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council. Certain key areas of the judiciary belong to the Deep State, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose actions are mysterious even to most members of Congress. Also included are a handful of vital federal trial courts, such as the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Manhattan, where sensitive proceedings in national security cases are conducted. The final government component (and possibly last in precedence among the formal branches of government established by the Constitution) is a kind of rump Congress consisting of the congressional leadership and some (but not all) of the members of the defense and intelligence committees. The rest of Congress, normally so fractious and partisan, is mostly only intermittently aware of the Deep State and when required usually submits to a few well-chosen words from the State's emissaries.

I saw this submissiveness on many occasions. One memorable incident was passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008. This legislation retroactively legalized the Bush administration's illegal and unconstitutional surveillance first revealed by The New York Times in 2005 and indemnified the telecommunications companies for their cooperation in these acts. The bill passed easily: All that was required was the invocation of the word "terrorism" and most members of Congress responded like iron filings obeying a magnet. One who responded in that fashion was Senator Barack Obama, soon to be coronated as the presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. He had already won the most delegates by campaigning to the left of his main opponent, Hillary Clinton, on the excesses of the global war on terror and the erosion of constitutional liberties.

As the indemnification vote showed, the Deep State does not consist only of government agencies. What is euphemistically called "private enterprise" is an integral part of its operations. In a special series in The Washington Post called "Top Secret America," Dana Priest and William K. Arkin described the scope of the privatized Deep State and the degree to which it has metastasized after the September 11 attacks. There are now 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances - a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government. While they work throughout the country and the world, their heavy concentration in and around the Washington suburbs is unmistakable: Since 9/11, 33 facilities for top-secret intelligence have been built or are under construction. Combined, they occupy the floor space of almost three Pentagons - about 17 million square feet. Seventy percent of the intelligence community's budget goes to paying contracts. And the membrane between government and industry is highly permeable: The Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, is a former executive of Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the government's largest intelligence contractors. His predecessor as director, Admiral Mike McConnell, is the current vice chairman of the same company; Booz Allen is 99 percent dependent on government business. These contractors now set the political and social tone of Washington, just as they are increasingly setting the direction of the country, but they are doing it quietly, their doings unrecorded in the Congressional Record or the Federal Register, and are rarely subject to congressional hearings.

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Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes. One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity. On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy." This, from the chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically abolished the constitutional right to trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice - certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee. [3]

The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General David Petraeus joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance. General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy. [4]

Petraeus and most of the avatars of the Deep State - the White House advisers who urged Obama not to impose compensation limits on Wall Street CEOs, the contractor-connected think tank experts who besought us to "stay the course" in Iraq, the economic gurus who perpetually demonstrate that globalization and deregulation are a blessing that makes us all better off in the long run - are careful to pretend that they have no ideology. Their preferred pose is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering well considered advice based on profound expertise. That is nonsense. They are deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class, an ideology that is neither specifically Democrat nor Republican. Domestically, whatever they might privately believe about essentially diversionary social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, they almost invariably believe in the "Washington Consensus": financialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labor. Internationally, they espouse 21st-century "American Exceptionalism": the right and duty of the United States to meddle in every region of the world with coercive diplomacy and boots on the ground and to ignore painfully won international norms of civilized behavior. To paraphrase what Sir John Harrington said more than 400 years ago about treason, now that the ideology of the Deep State has prospered, none dare call it ideology. [5] That is why describing torture with the word "torture" on broadcast television is treated less as political heresy than as an inexcusable lapse of Washington etiquette: Like smoking a cigarette on camera, these days it is simply "not done."

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After Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent and depth of surveillance by the National Security Agency, it has become publicly evident that Silicon Valley is a vital node of the Deep State as well. Unlike military and intelligence contractors, Silicon Valley overwhelmingly sells to the private market, but its business is so important to the government that a strange relationship has emerged. While the government could simply dragoon the high technology companies to do the NSA's bidding, it would prefer cooperation with so important an engine of the nation's economy, perhaps with an implied quid pro quo. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary indulgence the government shows the Valley in intellectual property matters. If an American "jailbreaks" his smartphone (i.e., modifies it so that it can use a service provider other than the one dictated by the manufacturer), he could receive a fine of up to $500,000 and several years in prison; so much for a citizen's vaunted property rights to what he purchases. The libertarian pose of the Silicon Valley moguls, so carefully cultivated in their public relations, has always been a sham. Silicon Valley has long been tracking for commercial purposes the activities of every person who uses an electronic device, so it is hardly surprising that the Deep State should emulate the Valley and do the same for its own purposes. Nor is it surprising that it should conscript the Valley's assistance.

Still, despite the essential roles of lower Manhattan and Silicon Valley, the center of gravity of the Deep State is firmly situated in and around the Beltway. The Deep State's physical expansion and consolidation around the Beltway would seem to make a mockery of the frequent pronouncement that governance in Washington is dysfunctional and broken. That the secret and unaccountable Deep State floats freely above the gridlock between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is the paradox of American government in the 21st century: drone strikes, data mining, secret prisons and Panopticon-like control on the one hand; and on the other, the ordinary, visible parliamentary institutions of self-government declining to the status of a banana republic amid the gradual collapse of public infrastructure.

The results of this contradiction are not abstract, as a tour of the rotting, decaying, bankrupt cities of the American Midwest will attest. It is not even confined to those parts of the country left behind by a Washington Consensus that decreed the financialization and deindustrialization of the economy in the interests of efficiency and shareholder value. This paradox is evident even within the Beltway itself, the richest metropolitan area in the nation. Although demographers and urban researchers invariably count Washington as a "world city," that is not always evident to those who live there. Virtually every time there is a severe summer thunderstorm, tens - or even hundreds - of thousands of residents lose power, often for many days. There are occasional water restrictions over wide areas because water mains, poorly constructed and inadequately maintained, have burst. [6] The Washington metropolitan area considers it a Herculean task just to build a rail link to its international airport - with luck it may be completed by 2018.

It is as if Hadrian's Wall was still fully manned and the fortifications along the border with Germania were never stronger, even as the city of Rome disintegrates from within and the life-sustaining aqueducts leading down from the hills begin to crumble. The governing classes of the Deep State may continue to deceive themselves with their dreams of Zeus-like omnipotence, but others do not. A 2013 Pew Poll that interviewed 38,000 people around the world found that in 23 of 39 countries surveyed, a plurality of respondents said they believed China already had or would in the future replace the United States as the world's top economic power.

The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face." "Living upon its principal," in this case, means that the Deep State has been extracting value from the American people in vampire-like fashion.

We are faced with two disagreeable implications. First, that the Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change. Second, that just as in so many previous empires, the Deep State is populated with those whose instinctive reaction to the failure of their policies is to double down on those very policies in the future. Iraq was a failure briefly camouflaged by the wholly propagandistic success of the so-called surge; this legerdemain allowed for the surge in Afghanistan, which equally came to naught. Undeterred by that failure, the functionaries of the Deep State plunged into Libya; the smoking rubble of the Benghazi consulate, rather than discouraging further misadventure, seemed merely to incite the itch to bomb Syria. Will the Deep State ride on the back of the American people from failure to failure until the country itself, despite its huge reserves of human and material capital, is slowly exhausted? The dusty road of empire is strewn with the bones of former great powers that exhausted themselves in like manner.

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But, there are signs of resistance to the Deep State and its demands. In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, the House narrowly failed to pass an amendment that would have defunded the NSA's warrantless collection of data from US persons. Shortly thereafter, the president, advocating yet another military intervention in the Middle East, this time in Syria, met with such overwhelming congressional skepticism that he changed the subject by grasping at a diplomatic lifeline thrown to him by Vladimir Putin. [7]

Has the visible, constitutional state, the one envisaged by Madison and the other Founders, finally begun to reassert itself against the claims and usurpations of the Deep State? To some extent, perhaps. The unfolding revelations of the scope of the NSA's warrantless surveillance have become so egregious that even institutional apologists such as Senator Dianne Feinstein have begun to backpedal - if only rhetorically - from their knee-jerk defense of the agency. As more people begin to waken from the fearful and suggestible state that 9/11 created in their minds, it is possible that the Deep State's decade-old tactic of crying "terrorism!" every time it faces resistance is no longer eliciting the same Pavlovian response of meek obedience. And the American people, possibly even their legislators, are growing tired of endless quagmires in the Middle East.

But there is another more structural reason the Deep State may have peaked in the extent of its dominance. While it seems to float above the constitutional state, its essentially parasitic, extractive nature means that it is still tethered to the formal proceedings of governance. The Deep State thrives when there is tolerable functionality in the day-to-day operations of the federal government. As long as appropriations bills get passed on time, promotion lists get confirmed, black (i.e., secret) budgets get rubber-stamped, special tax subsidies for certain corporations are approved without controversy, as long as too many awkward questions are not asked, the gears of the hybrid state will mesh noiselessly. But when one house of Congress is taken over by tea party Wahhabites, life for the ruling class becomes more trying.

If there is anything the Deep State requires it is silent, uninterrupted cash flow and the confidence that things will go on as they have in the past. It is even willing to tolerate a degree of gridlock: Partisan mud wrestling over cultural issues may be a useful distraction from its agenda. But recent congressional antics involving sequestration, the government shutdown and the threat of default over the debt ceiling extension have been disrupting that equilibrium. And an extreme gridlock dynamic has developed between the two parties such that continuing some level of sequestration is politically the least bad option for both parties, albeit for different reasons. As much as many Republicans might want to give budget relief to the organs of national security, they cannot fully reverse sequestration without the Democrats demanding revenue increases. And Democrats wanting to spend more on domestic discretionary programs cannot void sequestration on either domestic or defense programs without Republicans insisting on entitlement cuts.

So, for the foreseeable future, the Deep State must restrain its appetite for taxpayer dollars. Limited deals may soften sequestration, but agency requests will not likely be fully funded anytime soon. Even Wall Street's rentier operations have been affected: After helping finance the tea party to advance its own plutocratic ambitions, America's Big Money is now regretting the Frankenstein's monster it has created. Like children playing with dynamite, the tea party and its compulsion to drive the nation into credit default has alarmed the grown-ups commanding the heights of capital; the latter are now telling the politicians they thought they had hired to knock it off.

The House vote to defund the NSA's illegal surveillance programs was equally illustrative of the disruptive nature of the tea party insurgency. Civil liberties Democrats alone would never have come so close to victory; tea party stalwart Justin Amash (R-MI), who has also upset the business community for his debt-limit fundamentalism, was the lead Republican sponsor of the NSA amendment, and most of the Republicans who voted with him were aligned with the tea party.

The final factor is Silicon Valley. Owing to secrecy and obfuscation, it is hard to know how much of the NSA's relationship with the Valley is based on voluntary cooperation, how much is legal compulsion through FISA warrants and how much is a matter of the NSA surreptitiously breaking into technology companies' systems. Given the Valley's public relations requirement to mollify its customers who have privacy concerns, it is difficult to take the tech firms' libertarian protestations about government compromise of their systems at face value, especially since they engage in similar activity against their own customers for commercial purposes. That said, evidence is accumulating that Silicon Valley is losing billions in overseas business from companies, individuals and governments that want to maintain privacy. For high tech entrepreneurs, the cash nexus is ultimately more compelling than the Deep State's demand for patriotic cooperation. Even legal compulsion can be combatted: Unlike the individual citizen, tech firms have deep pockets and batteries of lawyers with which to fight government diktat.

This pushback has gone so far that on January 17, President Obama announced revisions to the NSA's data collection programs, including withdrawing the agency's custody of a domestic telephone record database, expanding requirements for judicial warrants and ceasing to spy on (undefined) "friendly foreign leaders." Critics have denounced the changes as a cosmetic public relations move, but they are still significant in that the clamor has gotten so loud that the president feels the political need to address it.

When the contradictions within a ruling ideology are pushed too far, factionalism appears and that ideology begins slowly to crumble. Corporate oligarchs such as the Koch brothers are no longer entirely happy with the faux-populist political front group they helped fund and groom. Silicon Valley, for all the Ayn Rand-like tendencies of its major players, its offshoring strategies and its further exacerbation of income inequality, is now lobbying Congress to restrain the NSA, a core component of the Deep State. Some tech firms are moving to encrypt their data. High tech corporations and governments alike seek dominance over people though collection of personal data, but the corporations are jumping ship now that adverse public reaction to the NSA scandals threatens their profits.

The outcome of all these developments is uncertain. The Deep State, based on the twin pillars of national security imperative and corporate hegemony, has until recently seemed unshakable and the latest events may only be a temporary perturbation in its trajectory. But history has a way of toppling the altars of the mighty. While the two great materialist and determinist ideologies of the twentieth century, Marxism and the Washington Consensus, successively decreed that the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the market were inevitable, the future is actually indeterminate. It may be that deep economic and social currents create the framework of history, but those currents can be channeled, eddied, or even reversed by circumstance, chance and human agency. We have only to reflect upon defunct glacial despotisms such as the USSR or East Germany to realize that nothing is forever.

Throughout history, state systems with outsized pretensions to power have reacted to their environments in two ways. The first strategy, reflecting the ossification of its ruling elites, consists of repeating that nothing is wrong, that the status quo reflects the nation's unique good fortune in being favored by God and that those calling for change are merely subversive troublemakers. As the French ancien régime, the Romanov dynasty and the Habsburg emperors discovered, the strategy works splendidly for a while, particularly if one has a talent for dismissing unpleasant facts. The final results, however, are likely to be thoroughly disappointing.

The second strategy is one embraced to varying degrees and with differing goals, by figures of such contrasting personalities as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle and Deng Xiaoping. They were certainly not revolutionaries by temperament; if anything, their natures were conservative. But they understood that the political cultures in which they lived were fossilized and incapable of adapting to the times. In their drive to reform and modernize the political systems they inherited, their first obstacles to overcome were the outworn myths that encrusted the thinking of the elites of their time.

As the United States confronts its future after experiencing two failed wars, a precarious economy and $17 trillion in accumulated debt, the national punditry has split into two camps. The first, the declinists, sees a broken, dysfunctional political system incapable of reform and an economy soon to be overtaken by China. The second, the reformers, offers a profusion of nostrums to turn the nation around: public financing of elections to sever the artery of money between the corporate components of the Deep State and financially dependent elected officials, government "insourcing" to reverse the tide of outsourcing of government functions and the conflicts of interest that it creates, a tax policy that values human labor over financial manipulation and a trade policy that favors exporting manufactured goods over exporting investment capital.

Mike Lofgren on the Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight

All of that is necessary, but not sufficient. The Snowden revelations (the impact of which have been surprisingly strong), the derailed drive for military intervention in Syria and a fractious Congress, whose dysfunction has begun to be a serious inconvenience to the Deep State, show that there is now a deep but as yet inchoate hunger for change. What America lacks is a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us. Thus disenthralled, the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed.

[1] The term "Deep State" was coined in Turkey and is said to be a system composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services, military, security, judiciary and organized crime. In British author John le Carré's latest novel, A Delicate Truth, a character describes the Deep State as "… the ever-expanding circle of non-governmental insiders from banking, industry and commerce who were cleared for highly classified information denied to large swathes of Whitehall and Westminster." I use the term to mean a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.

[2] Twenty-five years ago, the sociologist Robert Nisbet described this phenomenon as "the attribute of No Fault…. Presidents, secretaries and generals and admirals in America seemingly subscribe to the doctrine that no fault ever attaches to policy and operations. This No Fault conviction prevents them from taking too seriously such notorious foul-ups as Desert One, Grenada, Lebanon and now the Persian Gulf." To his list we might add 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

[3] The attitude of many members of Congress towards Wall Street was memorably expressed by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in 2010: "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

[4] Beginning in 1988, every US president has been a graduate of Harvard or Yale. Beginning in 2000, every losing presidential candidate has been a Harvard or Yale graduate, with the exception of John McCain in 2008.

[5] In recent months, the American public has seen a vivid example of a Deep State operative marketing his ideology under the banner of pragmatism. Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates - a one-time career CIA officer and deeply political Bush family retainer - has camouflaged his retrospective defense of military escalations that have brought us nothing but casualties and fiscal grief as the straight-from-the-shoulder memoir from a plain-spoken son of Kansas who disdains Washington and its politicians.

[6] Meanwhile, the US government took the lead in restoring Baghdad's sewer system at a cost of $7 billion.

[7] Obama's abrupt about-face suggests he may have been skeptical of military intervention in Syria all along, but only dropped that policy once Congress and Putin gave him the running room to do so. In 2009, he went ahead with the Afghanistan "surge" partly because General Petraeus' public relations campaign and back-channel lobbying on the Hill for implementation of his pet military strategy pre-empted other options. These incidents raise the disturbing question of how much the democratically elected president - or any president - sets the policy of the national security state and how much the policy is set for him by the professional operatives of that state who engineer faits accomplis that force his hand.

Mike Lofgren is a former congressional staff member who served on both the House and Senate budget committees. His book about Congress, The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted, appeared in paperback on August 27, 2013.

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  • Anonymous

    Another attribute of the "Deep State" is that is highly nepotistic. Entry into it relies on connections rather than skill. Many positions within it exist simply to provide suitably lucrative work for the children of the ruling class.

  • Nisswapaddy

    Lofgren has certainly provided a good overview of the situation, although what he postulates is by no means original thinking. However, it is particularly heartening to have this analysis come from a fellow who could easily have sold his soul like David Petraeus, to name just one in an endless line of the well connected who have cashed in. Yet I believe our situation is more dire than even Lofgren suggests. As the philosopher John Ralston Saul characterized it, we have undergone a coup d'etat in slow motion and now live, not in a constitutional democracy but 'Democracy Inc.' (described in detail in a book by the same name by Prof. Sheldon Wolin). LIke Lofgren, neither of these thinkers sees some carefully contrived conspiracy at work. It is merely the inevitable result of following a rigid ideology that allows unfettered corporate capitalism to have its way unopposed and essentially unregulated. Now that massive corporation have taken control of all the levers of power (as Lofgren summarizes above) it will be very, very difficult for 'the people' to take them back. Remember what Upton Sinclair observed over 100 years ago:

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him NOT understanding it."

    I give you men like Dave Petraeus, or Jamie Dimon or (fill in the blank) who are subject to this 'lack of understanding'. They are not co-conspirators, at least not in any active, conscious sense. However, the corporations they work for, whose only function is to maximize profits for the benefit of their shareholders and investors and to 'externalize' any and all costs and expenses possible, are, by definition, sociopaths. And those corporations, run by men and women simply doing their jobs and going home to a loving family, also have a 'lack of understanding'. When the corporation you work for has only reason for being, to make a profit 'come heck or high water', and that corporation and hundreds of others with the she mission, control the executive, congress, the judiciary and their regulators (who are now required to call the corporations they supposedly regulate "their customers" ) it doesn't take much imagination to see how we got where we are. Nor how it is that corporations get what they need, the rest of us be dammed. In short, the 'deep state' Lofgren shines a light on is much deeper than he indicates. And it will take more than spats between large corporations to bring it to an end.

  • William Jacoby

    Good essay but everybody should know this by now. In the next elections, in which good candidates will by definition not be viable because they won't be bankrolled by the Deep State, we must use the alternative media to coalesce around a few non-negotiable demands. Things like prosecuting Clapper for lying, immediate prohibition of the intelligence community's revolving door, nationalization of companies like Booz Allen, creation of public banks as suggested by Ellen Brown and nationalization of banks too big to fail, a student loan debt strike, and a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. Failure to grant these demands must be met with withdrawal from the two-party system; go Green or go Libertarian, whichever you prefer, but put a monkey wrench in the system. Keep using the alternative media, defend them from the Deep State, educate yourself, network with the growing numbers of people who are onto the Deep State, or the National Security State, or whatever you want to call it. But get over talking about how the Constitution is in danger; it's dead, and if there's anything you liked about it, you'll have to bring it back from the graveyard. Take action, and support others who do.

  • cross1242

    Unfortunately, I don't see anything changing the Deep State or the government in Washington until there is some kind of revolution. That revolution might be bloodless but nothing guarantees that. If the Deep State ultimately feels threatened, it will defend itself with all the national security forces at its command.

  • Yes. An example. Paper granted PhD's are "promised" suitably lucrative work in academia. So it's not just corporate.

  • http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

    Time for you to read Foucault's Discipline and Punish and all the rest of his work. Include Virilio, Baudrillard and the rest of Continental Philosophy. Lofgren is just catching up with a long way to go. Check out Zizek.

  • Kibik

    Look up "Bohemian Club" too.

  • Peter Michaelson

    The fact that an invisible government of elites is in charge of our democracy is entirely predictable. This political arrangement simply depicts the state of our psychological development. We have a "Deep State" within our unconscious mind. Our thoughts, desires, aspirations, and beliefs are all under the influence of this inner "Deep State." Through our ego we're each like a puppet prince, thinking we're in charge of the show. Both liberals and conservatives have too much invested in self-image and are afraid of facing what amounts to an inner tyranny. We're too egotistical and narcissistic; we don't want to be humbled by inner truth. We've produced superficial psychologies (behavioral, positive, cognitive, etc.) that refuse to face the inner reality. We'll have real democracy in America and the world when we establish inner democracy. It can be done, and it needs to be done soon. Start by tossing out all the so-called "scientific psychology" that academic psychologists are pedaling. Go back to Freud and understand what he's really saying, that we'll go on generating suffering and self-defeat until we become more conscious of our inner conflicts, psychological defenses, and entanglements in negative emotions.

  • Anonymous

    As has been mentioned the greatest power is the people. Without the cooperation of the people none of the pathological behavior described would be possible. The West Coast Strike of 1934 is an example of what can be done. A major way that the 1% control the 99% is through debt. That control could actually be reversed. What would happen if only 10% of the 99% decided to no longer to pay their debts? A movement like that could rapidly escalate once people realize that there is no system that could cope with massive non payment of debt.
    What would happen if the pilots, truck drivers, rail workers and dock workers decided to strike? or the telecommunication workers? All or any of those could be implemented peacefully. No need to hit the streets. Just stay home and contribute nothing to the deep state. Imagine how long it could survive the massive non cooperation of the 99%. There is a multitude of possibilities.

  • Charles Shaver

    'How can I thank thee [Bill Moyers], let me count the ways…' and now, too, Mike Lofgren. For some time I've been thinking that vastly superior aliens from deep space might be holding the U.S. Government hostage and causing all of the recent illegal, immoral, unconstitutional and just plain stupid national self-destruction. What a relief to learn it is only too-typical low IQ humanity that is responsible. Seriously, now, that which gives me the audacity and courage to comment on these things about which I personally know so little, is my lay acquired understanding of the basics. To me, in early 2014, these are mere, obvious, matters of the hierarchy of law, relevant laws and violations thereof.

    Ignoring most of the basics and my personal lack of qualifications, suffice it to say for now that above and beyond the laws of man are those self-evident in nature. Insightfully, since August of 1975, I have observed not only do the higher laws apply to both machine and man but the U.S. Constitution is imbedded with them, intentionally or not. So, to finally get to the point, when Mike Lofgren says 'Groupthink' I think of The Universal Law of Order: "Whenever two or more individuals unite to form an organization the survival of the organization becomes paramount to the survival of the individual." and how the Constitution was ignored again. When someone says 'there's nothing I can do' I think of The Third Rule of Human Behavior: "Self-determination shall prevail." and how the Constitution was ignored again. Deep space, or 'Deep State,' it 'don't look good' for us when a vast majority keeps enabling a selfish minority to impose rule. Now, it will probably take a paradigm shift to fix what's broke but, fortunately, naturally, 'shift happens.'

  • http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy

    Magnificent article-greatly extends the range of my awareness, since I was just starting to get a glimpse of this.

    It should definitely be noted in the article that Senator Barack Obama pledged and promised that he would vote against telecom immunity and then he voted in favor of it. That did not auger well, albeit accurately.

  • http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy

    This is why bloody revolutions happen: the course of last resort would certainly be violence, which hurts everyone. Elections were supposed to allow an orderly way to bring about change without violence, but once that mechanism is jammed and will no longer respond, violence is lapping at our heels.

  • http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy

    I have the same feeling. We thought we had a mechanism that would enable us to respond to the need for revolutionary change in an orderly way, but that mechanism has been deliberately broken. That is very, very bad.

    Although one must allow that much of this is driven by our deep nature: social animals acting as social animals do, with all sorts of social-driven instincts and responses. Biology is destiny?

  • rleighton27

    I am not part of the hallelujah chorus greeting this article. Some, if not most of it, smacks of the apologia of a professional bureaucrat who suddenly has found a conscience. Also, his claim that President Obama was itching to start a war in Syria, but was only held back from doing so by "overwhelming Congressional skepticism"…as if that wasn't a daily occurrence to be dealt with from day one of his tenure. I am convinced that it was part of his strategy from the outset…to rattle sabres loudly enough to frighten a bellicose Putin, who knew his own military prowess was hampered by an ill-trained and poorly equipped manpower pool, into making his lapdog Assad stop playing nasty with his population–and it worked. I agree with much of the article's commentary about the "boys in the back room" who, in fact, have commandeered the running of the country out of the hands of elected officials, but condemn it's tone of "it really doesn't matter who's in charge." It does matter. Articles of this type just encourage voter apathy, and that plays into the schematic laid out by the Powell Memorandum for the usurping of Democracy, placing it into the hands of the ALEC/Koch consortium of Plutocratic traitors.

  • http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy

    This helps me understand why such an intensive effort is underway to destroy our educational system and the low value we seem to place on education. I'm thinking of privatization, charter schools, constant pressure to pay public money to religious schools, defunding of higher education, closures of departments of humanities and non-applied science and art-that sort of thing. And now I get it: the last thing the corporate state wants is people "wasting" time and effort on a bunch of abstract principles and reasoning and critical thinking, especially since it just causes trouble in the workplace and makes people question orders. Better to do away with that: turn the focus to what will make the most money, and your problem's solved. And then you can cut costs-always the imperative-by closing departments that seem to create the most troublemakers. Two birds, one stone.

  • Bob Baldock

    Peter Dale Scott articulated this first, and has it deeper and darker. Check his website.

  • Anonymous

    As I read the final sentence,

    "What America lacks is a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us. Thus disenthralled, the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed."

    I remembered the demise of individuals who fit "figure with serene self-confidence"…..

    John F. Kennedy
    Martin Luther King
    Robert Kennedy
    Malcolm X
    Paul Wellstone

  • Joan Harris

    It's been awhile since I have had anyone refer to Freud. Never mind the "new age" psychology. Defenses have always been the problem. In a perfect world we would all live consciously and greed and prejudices would give way to peace and harmony. In the meantime we must address all the ills, if for no other reason then to prevent us from becoming complacent. I shall retain a little healthy cynicism until the world is healthy.

  • I. Spoke Umbra

    Let's be clear about what the "group-think" means when speaking about the NSA:

    As someone who was once in the bowels of the NSA beast, I observed a number of disturbing traits permeate every nook and cranny of the operation. If those traits were applied to an individual, they would be considered a very serious characterological disorder, perhaps warranting hospitalization:

    1. Paranoid
    2. Obsessive compulsive
    3. Sociopathic
    4. Grandiose
    5. Narcissistic (self-rationalizing)
    6. Uber-patriotic (self-justifying)

    The groupthink scenario in that place is as toxic as it can get for a human enterprise. It is a clear and present danger to the security of Democracy as we know it.

  • Pamela Zuppo

    This was no stroke of genius, this was Greenspan, Reagan, and the Bush clan. The better term for contemporary capitalism is "disaster capitalism" as coined by Naomi Klein. The big question is what are we to do about this? Do what Kiev has done? Due to "group think", or brain-washing of the masses who have lost their own control via their televisions, it seems the zombies outnumber the enlightened. It's clear to me something must be done.

  • SufferinSuccotash,Pivoting

    Randolph "War is the Health of the State" Bourne is also worth a read. Not to mention Jack London's The Iron Heel. These All-American doods had the National Security-Oligarchy State pretty much nailed down a century ago. Why people concerned with our current predicament skip over these Progressive Era radicals in favor of Continental Philosophy (which reminds me of a skimpy breakfast) is beyond me. I've been watching the emancipatory elements in this country floundering around for the past four decades now and it's pretty depressing, especially the seemingly chronic inability to connect with the USA's radical past. No historical knowledge=no sense of history=no political judgement=the Bad Guys keep on winning.
    Ukrainians are my favorite people at the moment and you can bet that their sense of history is pretty sharp.
    This concludes this Sunday morning rant.

  • Joseph Brant

    It is commendable to preserve hope among reformers, but hopes do not solve problems.

    While security agencies can serve democracy when better regulated, the failure to regulate is the result of failed democratic institutions which have not themselves been "vulnerable to a vigilant public." The dark state invisible power corrupts invisibly, but gold is the invisible power which had already corrupted the visible institutions.

    We need more than a "self-confident figure" to tell us that "national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas" so that "the people themselves will unravel the Deep State." The "deep…hunger for change" was deeper in 2008 when so easily destroyed by its self-confident Obama by simply not mentioning what "outworn dogmas" he would change. The hawkish Hillary is not about to "unravel the Deep State" and mere self-confidence will not finance campaigns or buy media support to do more than split the vote of reformers. The media and elections must first be freed of gold, and the people cannot do that without free media and free elections.

    While history is full of surprises, the succession of cold-war fearmongering by global war upon diffuse "terrorist" backlash and political opposition to half-witted right wing imperialism does not suggest a passing reaction, nor that any lesson was learned from three generations of failed military adventures with no relationship to the declared national principles. The cancerous dark state has grown in proportion to the failure of right wing foreign policy, the failure of its own rationales. It is the triumphant institution of right wing tyranny as the immune sovereign over a failed democracy.

    Democracy may make further ultimate progress in China than in the US, or may survive only in micropowers of no interest to the right wing. But we must have faith in the power of the people, or we lose hope and take no action.

  • Barbara Mullin

    I call it vulture capitalism.

  • jrdel

    Since the People of United States overthrew British ruling class government of our country and after the revolution, through wise government, and luck we got out from under the thumb of any rulers whether clerics, nobility, landlords, businessmen, political dictators, banks, etc. etc. these forces have been working to reestablish their control over our lives and by gradual steps have done so. Great Americans turned back the tide here and there for a while, Jackson ended the national bank, T. Roosevelt broke up monopoly corporations, F. Roosevelt supported efforts for economic democracy, etc. but the enemies of liberty never rest and always find new ways to undermine it.
    So every few generations the People are faced with another fight if they are to keep their liberties. This time the odds look particularly bad, Enemies stronger, richer, more devious, more insidious, more corrupt; the People weaker, more divided, confused, distracted. What the hell do we do? Voting just doesn't do much. Big money floods the media with their point of view. The People, relatively poorer than ever; don't have enough money to reply.
    Petitions, reforms, protests, revolution? All impractical, or impossible (imagine a revolution in the streets against the power of the U.S. military.) The days when we can grab our muskets and go out and make a revolution have long gone folks.
    I think humanity will have to wait for another age, and another nation to see real liberty and real democracy in control of the world again.

  • SufferinSuccotash,Pivoting

    Given that back in his day "merchants" were often interchangeable with "bankers" Smith certainly scored a bulls-eye with that one. The perfect Horrible Example in the 1770s was the East India Company, which couldn't govern Bengal without trashing its economy and couldn't keep off the financial rocks either. Eventually the British government put the Company on a shorter leash and still later the Company lost its monopoly over East Indian trade. But one short-term measure to bail out the Company was to give it a monopoly over selling tea to the dumb colonists over in America. Oops. That was a real "tea party", not some bogus affair staged by geezers in funny hats.

  • SufferinSuccotash,Pivoting

    Of course. I spent quite a few years rationalizing and pretending that Everything Was Pretty Much OK In These Here United States myself. The problem with being a history teacher–at least in this case–is that the past, which as William Faulkner famously said wasn't only not dead but not even past, can catch up with you. This country is paying and will continue to pay pretty heavily for decades of folly which anyone with a sense of history could have predicted at least 40 years ago.

  • joanne

    We have had millenia to "cage the beast", tame the beast, train, heal, and/or defang the beast. Predatory behavior is mediated, never extinguished. The Deep State is both institutionalized predation and paradoxically, a grotesque attempt to protect itself from itself.

  • Anonymous

    The ideology is hinted at throughout the article. Capitalism; The premise that money is a form of commodity and the winner is whomever has the most. Unfortunately money is a contract and while such notional promises seemingly can be manufactured to infinity, through the creation of the other side of the ledger, debt, their underlaying value is dependent on the increasingly precarious solvency of those taking on that debt. It is what is referred to in hindsight as a bubble. If you want to see the future of the US in about fifty years, it will likely be in the states and regions.

  • J Timothy

    The US military-intelligence-industrial aparatus is filled with loyal American patriots who love this country and have sworn to uphold the US Constitution. Unfortunately, they don't seem to understand that the system is extremely expensive and is impoverishing the middle class of America. We have nine air craft carrier groups while the next closest military has just two. Air craft carriers are incredibly expensive.

    In my opinion, the next revalation to hit the mainstream media will be that SOME of the covert, clandestine, black budget projects have been financed via securities fraud. They've done it before. Arms for hostages, Hmong drug running in Vietnam, etc, are examples of this. Catherine Austin Fitts has also made a great point that HUD, of all agencies, has funded some black budget procurements.

    Clearly, either the CIA or the NSA are at the center of the cabal. So, what is the justification for all of this secracy? What is soooo important that the adult eagle scout christians of America can't tell us? What could it be? Terrorism? Russians? Soverign citizens? Shoe bombers?

    Here is where i will lose most people over 50 years old. IN MY OPINION, a the core of the military industrial aparatus and its wall street enablers is a desperate race to achieve near technological parity with….(pregnant pause) (dramatic pause) other entities, species, e.t. collectives, etc, who are visiting sol 3 (earth). This effort is extremely expensive and involves spending trillions of dollars covertly to build spacecraft and weapons systems based on both advanced human originated technology and also technology from the reverse engineering of recovered alien vehicles.

    Many people belive that securities fraud funds this effort. It sounds crazy, but, YES, building trillion dollar weapon systems and spaceships is at the core of the secrecy cult. Nothing else makes sense. What else could possibly require siphoning trillions out of the US economy? Many many authors are written on the subject and it is most definitely NOT a joke. Yes, Bill, lets ask the awkward questions.

    Is there a secret space program funded via securities fraud? Have we received help from ET visitors?

    One man who asked the awkward question was Congressman Steve Schiff of New Mexico. He asked the Congressional General Accounting Office to inquire about the alleged Roswell alien craft recovery. He got the USAF to give us a third story – (first was a disc, second a weather baloon and third was project mogul) This all took place in the mid 90's.

    He was only about 50 yrs old when he caught agressive skin cancer. He resigned from congress and was dead soon after. He was 51.

  • aTomsLife

    I disagree that Mr. Lofren's article provokes apathy. It sheds light on the duopoly that is the two-party system and encourages voters to seek an alternative, namely a more libertarian, decentralized form of government.

    "Overwhelming Congressional skepticism" to Syria included party-line Democrats as well: Unlike the usual D vs. R bickering, it was D's and R's forced to contradict the military industrial complex. It was a powerful moment.

    Syria proved the American people - and perhaps only the American people - are capable of muzzling the Deep State. The only reason we didn't intervene there was because constituencies throughout the country stood united, not because of potential international condemnation. The irony of Putin's victory is that he achieved it because he had the backing of the American people. He morphed into our de-facto representative.

    Even for the plutocrats, Putin represented the the lesser of two evils. It would have been a catastrophic loss of face to have to admit that D.C. remains beholden to the American people when, united, we're unwilling to follow the script.

    Until there's meaningful campaign finance reform, "it really doesn't matter who's in charge." That's the simple truth. But it's a reason to become more engaged in politics, not less.

  • J Timothy

    One of the problems with dealing with the intelligence services is that they have people embeded within the media to get their point of view across. So, when Moyers talks about asking "Awkward Questions" he underestimates how difficult this is.

    Ed Bernays and Walter Lippman were the gentleman geniuses who showed us that marketing and propaganda could be used to manage public opinion without limits.

    Yes, lets ask the awkward questions. What is so important to the military-industrial-complex that it needs to siphon, literally, trillions of dollars out of the US economy?

    One man asked an awkward question. His name was Congressman Steve Schiff. After he asked his question, he died of agressive skin cancer. He was 51 years old. Sure. It cold have been coincidence. But he was the only one asking awkward questions at the time and he was the only one who got agressive skin cancer. Meanwhile, the CIA's top spooks like George HW Bush and Kissinger are still alive into their 90's. Go figure.

  • http://daybrown.org Dale H. (Day) Brown

    Mother Nature bats last. When we look at the list of empires crashed because bad weather ruined crops, we see it includes all of them. People will put up with appalling corruption- until they are hungry. The Deep State has not picked up on the risk of unusual weather on agriculture, altho the price of crop insurance rose dramatically. Agribusiness will do fine with govt checks, but people cant eat insurance.

    Part of the problem is that ag policy is set to reduce the cost of the hobby operations of politicians, like Bush's ranch, but failing to support the backbone of American agriculture, the family farm. The average age of farmers now is over 60, and because of land speculation by friends of elected representatives, the next generation cant afford to buy farms. The result is land owned by absent aristocracy and worked by men whose only interest is their immediate benefit and not the condition of land to be inherited by sons.

    Another of the many reasons we need a Gnu Party not run by lawyers.

  • Thomas Milligan

    Can't blame you for feeling ripped off. You have been. We all have been, except for those in the very top income brackets. Lofgren does a pretty good job of detailing the forces that have perpetrated the heist. I've come to call it The Money; it includes the actors Lofgren details, plus billionaire types like the Koch brothers and Richard Mellon Scaife, plus the mainstream media (even much of PBS, unfortunately), which has become the Ministry of Propaganda for The Money. All Is Well. The USA Is Number 1. The Government Is Keeping Us Safe from Terrorism. Buy More Stuff. Whistleblowers Are Traitors. The Economy Is Recovering. Buy More Stuff. If Things Aren't Getting Better for You It's Because You're a Loser. So Buy More Stuff.

    Don't romanticize the '50's too much. The discontent that exploded in the 60's was just under the surface even then. To the extent that it was "better" then it was because the prosperity of the nation *was* more broadly shared. A single "breadwinner" (usually Dad) could feed a family, with enough left over to save for old age, and Mom was available to nurture the kids. Do you know *any* families for whom that could be true today? And the mainstream media was populated by actual journalists rather than mouthpieces for The Money who look good in suits and understand what their owners want said. Bill Moyers, obviously, is an exception to this rule. One of the few.

    I'm surprised you're not angry. You have every reason to be.

  • Thomas Milligan

    Mr. Lofgren does a pretty good job of detailing the forces that have perpetrated the sad parody of self-government into which our nation has devolved, but he left out a couple. I've come to calling the whole thing "The Money." It includes the actors Lofgren details, plus billionaire types like Scaife and the Koch brothers, plus the mainstream media (even much of PBS, unfortunately), which has become the Ministry of Propaganda for The Money and the so-called "Washington Consensus." Where once we had journalists, now we have (with the almost-sole exception of Bill Moyers) pretty people who look good in suits and like to be on TV, reading the scripts they're given.

  • Anonymous

    Well, that's rather a 'rose colored glasses' view of the Tea Party given their current platform position. While I agree there are some redeeming qualities – not because I deem them to be but because they do contribute to the discussion – But, by-n-large the solutions offered by the Tea Party platform will only serve to weaken any hopes of salvaging the Democracy. One such example is this meme that 'all Govt. is bad' which only someone disingenuous would suggest does not prominently inhabit the TP. Another would be the position on so called 'entitlements'. Yet another would be the Tea Party backing of the likes of Ted Cruz or Rand Paul who adopt a position on health care that is antithetical toward a robust Democracy. (And spare me the notion that private enterprise provides better health care etc. – it's simply untrue and there's no evidence to support these fictions.).

    One has to examine a few things about the Tea Party – It is quite clear why individuals such as the Koch brothers have gone to great lengths to fund the Tea Party because it is the entrenched Plutocrats and Corporate elite who benefit the most from a weakened Govt. Many TP members see their quality of life eroding and have chosen to go after the wrong entity why? Well, those reasons are numerous – for some it is fear, for others racism, others an inability to grasp the weight of their decisions, etc. and Irrespective of their reasons the actions of the party, quite ironically, will only strengthen the grasp of the very problems you wish to suggest they will address. While a nice sentiment to feel the Tea Party could work with others the reality is much different.

  • Anonymous

    Wow, how do you create such a canvas of revisionist history? I also found it quite tragic that you espouse 'we need to stop this R vs L' dichotomy but you make every effort to assault the left – exclusively. While that would be with merit if it were true (indeed both parties have played a role in where we now sit) it becomes quite another matter when viewed against, oh idk, the backdrop of reality. A.) Historically it is regulation that keeps corporate interests in check and deregulation promotes the 'crony capitalism' you mention. It's hysterical to assume the inverse. B.) Progressive policies have, again in reality, led to the greatest moments of growth and prosperity in this country. I"m sorry you don't believe those facts. And, why didn't you mention the inequality gap on steroids since Reagan? or the Bush tax cuts that benefitted the richest Americans? Or the subsidization of big pharma. and big oil? Both parties have no interest in representing people without money and every incentive not to. But, don't prattle on this nonsense about the dangers of progressivism. it's ill-thought and smells of ideological belief hungering to trump facts and history; it smells.

  • Anonymous

    It is quite disheartening and the road forward most uncertain. I'm fairly confident those you allude to will not act from a position of reason and evidence that is fact based. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine circumstances in which those guided by fantasy, belief, and hate (one or all) will shift ideological positions and address the problems that inhabit this country by the corporate state. Individuals like Ted Cruz, Jamie Dimon (more subtly), the Koch brothers are gifted in their cunning ability to take advantage of these, what Thom Hartmann calls 'low information voters' – I've little reason for optimism and plenty of evidence for pessimism without hope.

  • Anonymous

    After reading this all I can say God help us. I think I can speak for millions of Americans who grew up in a different country. We use to believe that hard work, play by the rules and everything would work out for the Middleclass American. All could share in the American dream. Those beliefs are not what I hear anymore. Apathy and fear are rampant..I fear for the country my children with inherit.

  • fenway67

    yeah, i don't think that is his main point. it's the corporations and the banks that have infiltrated and that is the fault of both sides of the aisle. The author notes that the bipartisan divide is mostly noise obscuring the bigger picture.

  • fenway67

    i am hopeful that firstlook.org will be a source of honest journalism. Scahill, Poitras, Greenwald and Taibbi are real journalists working toward finding the truth.

  • Anonymous

    Wars forced us into debt slavery to the Big banks that financed them, thus we are slaved to the NWO BANKS and corporations Federal Reserve Banks buys and owns most of our debt, they are international now We are controlled by the bankers and the secret NWO financial network running the governments of the world. Everything trickles down from these taskmasters. Follow the money and everything is controlled by where it leads. Globalization, one financial system running the world into their vision of one world government controlled by their big money. They been ruling us for a long time now. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM would fix us election process and would scare them knowing they can't put their bag men in office anymore.

  • Anonymous

    So you believe the blame for big government lies only with the liberals? Give me a break. Here are just four Presidents who expanded Government. They are named Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush. Flaming liberals to you I would assume.

  • John Gregor

    Looking forward to odering some of those books. Have read all Foucault's books. The author wrote quite a nice essay about contemporay American politics. Our majot export seems to be Dollars, like manure they have some value, but I imagine alot of the people who are getting them are not entirely happy

  • Anonymous

    I saw Mike on c-span Sunday and enjoyed his comments, and now reading this piece I have trouble with a GOP former congressional analysis troubled about how the govt is working or not working beginning in 2009.

    As with many of former GOP legislators or analysts never do they dig deeper into the underlying problems that cause the congress to not work. Mentioning the Deep State reminds me of Washington Post investigation exposing the 2nd govt in DC. It's where all the retired legislators or lost elections legislators, the congressional staff, the retired military generals go. They pop up in media (tv, radio, newspapers) spewing out a talking point for their respective 2nd govt think tank in DC. C-span is a major platform that they use, and 99% of them promote some corporation dealing with the 1st govt.

    Too bad we don't see the name tags of the corporations they represent. Now that we have citizens united we're back into the age of the Robber Barons.

  • Andrew Kloak

    This insightful essay shows that Silicon Valley is not be what it claims to be. Neither is Wall Street or the massive build-up of federal government power around Washington, D.C.

    The article also alludes to the notion that these companies in Silicon Valley are waking and trying to resist Deep State regime. California can't save American society. We are only 12% of the entire population. Plus, they don't want to, they have to answer to shareholders. Profit is the highest good for companies and government. They want influence and money.

    All this is like marionette theatre. James Clapper from the NSA used misdirection when reporters started to zero-in on the scale of the deception and breach of trust last Fall. Enormous change is just ahead but not without enormous turmoil. People intuitively know that national security and corporate power are worn out dogmas.

    There is an urgency to all this. Many of these people in these positions of power have no soul. It doesn't have to be this way, it just is. I think they want it this bad because they profit and garner influence when it is this ineffectual.

    The biggest changes are within anyway. We have to go deeper in ourselves. That shift in consciousness is already underway. The confluence of forces will sweep away these external constructs. The hidden factors not discussed in the article are the unconscious forces (emotion). Once people are more aware of the light and darkness in themselves things will open up. There is dynamic tension (a good thing) in each person. Self-awareness, integrity and connection to others will change everything.

    This article makes interesting connections to something that is hidden in
    plain sight. It will change.

  • richard anderson

    I have been giving the political system another chance since Vietnam. Each time we have an election I hear some good things. But when these people are in office they change. When Ralph Nader ran for office he was kept out by various means and not allowed to debate. The system is rigged. This talk of voting for the right person is not going to cut it. With the problems this deep and the protection that has been set up to keep this system in place there is NOT a way to change it. In other words voting will not work. Something more is needed. Demonstrations don't work either. Just look at how long the Vietnam war was protested and when Bush stumped for invasion of Iraq. They didn't care. Resistance may be the answer.

  • Anonymous

    Rothschild family made their banking trillions beginning from financing Napoleon's wars up until now. Their family owns media houses, governments, etc and their influence knows no bounds. You will never see their family listed on Forbes richest people lists because they own the media and do not want to see their names or advertise their wealth. The Bankers truly own the world and War debt was the fastest way to do it.

  • Anonymous

    lol. good comment and link.

    I will be interested in seeing what First Look does, but I really don't trust the bazillionaire who is starting it up – or at least his motives. Once a plutocrat, always a plutocrat. I predict it will start like Arianna Huffington's HuffPo, initially game changing and valuable, then slowly just another click generating tabloid profit machine with a bubble like mentality forced on contributers, moderators and commentors alike. Time will tell.

  • Ellie

    We have all this information, but nothing ever comes of it! No one goes to jail The laws are changed to help the criminals . We still have a two party system which is a joke. Unless people are hungry and cold and willing to die for a cause nothing is going to change in this country.

  • J.G. Sandom

    We have become almost as much a plutocracy as our former Cold War nemesis, Russia. Tech, Big Oil and Wall Street oligarchs, combined with the military-industrial complex (which Eisenhower tried to warn us against) collude (in spirit, if not in actual boardrooms) to keep the people's power in check via libertarian deregulation, union-busting, Citizens United (and other activist SCOTUS rulings), privatization of the Intelligence Community (IC), the opiate of digital media that pushes the idolatry of money & all things celebrity to distract us, and our collective fear of terrorism (hence our perpetual war footing). This is what my forthcoming novel, 404, is all about-not just how IP tech is invading our lives, but how this invasion is a metaphor for the larger invasion. (HAL2, in my book, IS what Mike Lofgren calls the Deep State.) Wake up, America! Our country is being stolen from us in plain sight. Thank you Bill Moyers, and thank you Mike Lofgren for helping to alert the American public. You are 21st century Paul Reveres! Al Qaeda is less of a threat to America because of some future possible terrorist threat, and more because the collective American fear it engenders helps the Deep State sink its claws more effectively into our national flesh.

  • Anonymous

    What rings clear is we now have a non-elected government operating outside our constitutional government and is purposely gridlocked. Our government and judicial system have been hijacked and steps must be taken to remove Big Hidden money that is controlling our constitutional government. Great interview Bill, thanks as always!

  • Jack Wolf

    Mike forgot something. There is a simple fact that rules the deep state, the reformists, and the declinests, whether they accept it or not: Natural Law. Abrupt climate change can not be controlled now. To suggest that any of these groups are in control or have the ability to make substantial change belies what is really going on. From now on, all these groups can only react and as far as I can tell, today will be the best day of the rest of our lives. It's all downhill from here and there is irreversible.

  • Thomas Milligan

    Oh, I know about those guys and I love what they do. The trouble is, somehow *their* work doesn't, as a rule, get picked up, amplified and developed in the mass media the way, say "Watergate" was back when we had real journalists. Meanwhile every load of BS that comes out of the Heritage Foundation, Cato et. al. somehow becomes received wisdom. I'm also a bit concerned that by going off on their own they're setting themselves up to be marginalized and ignored. Trees may fall, but very few people will hear them.

  • Thomas Milligan

    Somehow your response above… to *my* response… to your original post… got posted under a *separate* post I offered… scroll down far enough, you'll find your original post & my response.

    Can't blame you for wanting to shield your children. The thing is, you can't, neither from the anger nor from global climate change. I have grandchildren and grieve when I look at them for the world they're apparently going to inhabit.

    One last thing: it's possible… theoretically at least… to have anger without hatred. Anger at what's been done can be a spur to action… and effective action could be taken while still treating the perpetrators with the compassion we know all sentient beings deserve. I'm not sure *I* could manage it because truth to tell I'm not a very good Christian… or Buddhist either… but it's at least theoretically possible.

  • Thomas Milligan

    Good point about our old nemesis, The Evil Empire.

    I always found it ironic that as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the United States was moving toward one-party rule. You can write the Nov. 5 headline right now: "Republocrats Win Yet Again!"

  • fenway67

    Agreed, the MSM has a vested interest in having their product on the shelf at eye-level and it's hard for the little guy to buy space in this market. I'll be doing my part by re-posting and tweeting important stories that they cover and I just hope the quality will get them noticed. I'm sure the smear campaign against them will begin soon.

  • fenway67

    I wasn't aware of his motives beyond providing a platform for real journalists. What have you heard? I am hopeful that the high quality work of the people he has hired so far will keep it in the same company as the Moyers people.

  • Kenneth Killiany

    This is an issue that concerns me greatly actually. Both sides have adopted policies that have fed it. I find it interesting that you mention Allen Drury, who was my uncle. Al was a dogged reporter, uncovering, in his day, the Manhattan Project, which he did not report on because of World War II. Should he have? He never doubted his judgment. However, he was very concerned about how the State just grew and operated on its won. You can see mentions of it in ADVISE AND CONSENT and MARK COFFIN, where he discusses the whole public-private daisy chain and how irresponsible it is. It's true, you can't get drama out of it, but he mentions it, but in PENTAGON, he wrote a whole book about a bureaucracy can be diverted from what it is meant to do by concerns for its own prerogatives. A&C and MARK COFFIN have just been re-released, and PENTAGON will follow next year. This kind of reporting in your article is the kind he admired and it is a great service.

  • freelance-writer

    A.k.a.:Ukraine 2014. Though there are many factors and stake-holders at work in the Ukraine issue, it behooves the citizenry of all western nations tainted by the same `deep-state' tyranny to bear witness. It will take bricks against bullets to resolve this global crisis once and for ever.

  • Mary Brown

    The only terrorists we have to face in the USA are our own government and the ones that government is purposely importing to continue their reign of fear. Problem is a large part of America is now well armed and a terrorist would die rather quickly long before any government police forces arrives.

  • Len

    Most of us frogs are in a pot of water that is getting hotter and hotter and we don't feel it. As quoted from this essay "After
    a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another
    context, would be quite remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply
    bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles off steel plate". Replace "a functionary of the state" with "we the people".

    This essay was terrific.

  • Anonymous

    I am worried that the boiling pot will lead to the elimination of Social Security. For years now politicians been saying it will end to each generation. When it does, a very high percentage of Americans will be at poverty level. I don't want to be living in American cities when that happens, crime and robberies will be common place.

  • Anonymous

    Yes, this is not a new development… The funny thing is that Bill Moyers' Iran-Contra era expose entitled "The Secret Government" actually covers this subject better than the piece we are commenting on. And iirc, he interviews Peter Dale Scott about the CIA in that report…

  • Anonymous

    There is a world of difference between bailouts and nationalization. I cannot begin to quantify the folly of calling this system "Marxist" when the party on the left of the two party system has moved so far to the right as to make Eisenhower seem like Trotsky by comparison.

  • Anonymous

    For Gods sake, not this again. What Banking family who made the bulk of their fortune from War debt and being worth $500 Trillion dollars are you referring to? Everybody is afraid to print anything on these influential banking members. Their influence in this world has no bounds. As we all know Bankers always protect their money and are devising new ways to make more money. If you naively think that Bankers in this world are Godly benevolent people, you better look around the state of the world again and formulate a revised opinion. but there you go, I got my opinion and you have yours and we will respectfully leave it as that. Thanks for your comment!

  • Anonymous

    Last time I looked capitalism is buying and bought our election process. In fact, in the past the main focus of our government has been on business priorities and concerns. Doesn't look anything as Marxism to me.

  • Jimmy Solomon

    I read this article and watched your interview. Both are most enlightened. What happened, however, on the eleventh day of the ninth month thirteen years ago was clearly a result of this deep state and it is too bad you won't recognize this glaring example of the corruption of which you write.

  • Anonymous

    "the party on the left of the two party system"

    There is little or no difference between the two faces of the party of state power. They use different words, and then enact the same policies.

    Politics is about power, nothing more. There is no "left" or "right", only power.

  • Antonio Germano

    Again, what filibusters? You have provided no examples. Except for the (unfortunately) pathetic attempts of Cruz, Paul and Lee to derail Obamacare and the recent debt ceiling/government shutdown (I wish) affair, where has there been any effective Republican opposition to any of Obama's agenda?
    You are typical of the person who blames one side for our problems, when it's both sides (i.e., the government) that is the problem. Both sides are playing their respective constituencies like a Stradivarius. get over your obsession with partisanship and see the real issue – the whole system is corrupt and needs to be abolished.
    Your pining for 'majority rules' is a recipe for tyranny. The filibuster rules were put into place to prevent temporary majorities from steam-rolling temporary minorities. I think it should be even harder to pass laws, not easier, so mischief is avoided.
    I repeat – the State is the enemy of us all. get over blaming one side or the other. You are being played.

  • Anonymous

    amazing that such a powerful article was written. too bad its several years too late, and ever so slightly off the mark. you need to let go of the rhetoric of bipartisanship. the DNC and GOP establishments are both operating on the same basic policies. while they offer crumbs to their bases, they are both pushing the agenda of the deep state.they are both to blame, and until people declare that both have no clothes, the powers behind the curtain will continue to rule.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks, well said.

    There's also the "Shallow State" of American campaign consultants like David Axelrod and Mark Penn who make big money in places like Ukraine and Georgia because the locals assume they wield influence over their clients in Washington. If American foreign policy became less aggressive, foreigners wouldn't pay them so much money:

    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-shallow-state.html

  • Auntie Analogue

    "F]inancialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labor."
    Yes, "commodifying of labor" thanks to Teddyquiddick pushing the 1965 Hart-Cellers act that began the importation of million Third World unskilled laborers per year, thanks also to the Deep State paralyzing all efforts of us, the People, to force our so-called "representatives" to close, fortify, and defend our borders – to stop the massive flow of scores of millions of illegal immigrants. Immigration has done more to stagnate and reduce Americans' wages and to destroy what had been our historically unprecedented middle class affluence and economic-political power.
    Objective One for those of us who would dismantle the Deep State and restore our democracy is obvious: Stop All Immigration. Accomplish this by these measures: one, end birthright citizenship (and thus also end birth tourism); two, abolish State Department power to import refugees and government funding of NGO's that "resettle" refugees; deport all illegal aliens; impose massive, draconian fines on employers that hire illegal alien labor. Why are these measures Objective One? Simple: when we allow our Dear Rulers to displace and dispossess us on our own soil, we forfeit – we surrender – our power to control our representatives and their appointees and their wealth transfer from ourselves to foreigners.

  • Mil

    This is just a small list. But it at least provides some of the examples you are asking to see.

    http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/bills-blocked-by-republican-filibusters

  • rgrisham

    This is not a revelation. Noam Chomsky has been pointing this out clearly for the past 40 years… There a couple public documents that might help explain to the educated class exactly what has been going in the U.S. for the past 40 years… The Powell Memo written by Lewis Powell in 71 and the Crisis of Democracy a document publicly published by the Trilateral Commission in the mid 70's these are both damning omissions by powerful groups that control both the business world and governments at all levels of governance. These two documents that we know about are internal look at the dogma of the ruling class.. Neo Liberalism is the term they used but it sure aint new and it sure aint liberal. It just another way for the ruling class to re-institute Feudalism.

  • Anonymous

    What you say is essentially true. Fascism by definition is the merger of corporations and the military. Another amusing quote: "A capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with." Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

    These Deep State proponents will succeed in fully displaying their stupidity when the global environment collapses under the weight and consequence of their actions and humanity becomes extinct. In the meantime, they will be having fun and braying like jackasses as they descend into the abyss.

  • Anonymous

    What about the level of organization required to create the Trilateral Commission and its formal takeover of the US executive branch when Carter took office? The majority of the cabinet (all but one) were Trilateralists in the newly created group of only 300 worldwide members. Trilateralists were placed in high level international corporate and political positions and this paradigm holds today. Scholars Antony Sutton and Patrick Wood wrote extensively on this international power dynamic with its influence now extending to every part of the globe. It was Trilateralist Larry Summers, former US Secretary of Treasury and Goldman Sachs executive, who was sent to Russia when it's economy imploded to advise Putin on how to privatize the Russian peoples' state owned assets leading the to rise of eight powerful oligarchs with internationalist sensibilities, a very deliberate centralization of capital and a means to control Russian political power players. From the beginning of the transfer of the US manufacturing sector to China, it became Brzezinski's model Technocracy, Brzezinski being the a founder of the Trilateralists, Carter's National Security Adviser, and author of The Grand Chessboard. (reference: Patrick Wood's augustforecast.com) These actions and the concomitant level of organization goes beyond the Deep State model.

  • Anonymous

    .. if there were no abuses by the IRS, then why did IRS official Lois Lerner plead the fifth ? If my boss asked me to explain possible abuses of power at my job and I pleaded the fifth, my new office would be on the curb.

  • Anonymous

    The meetings happen in Rancho Mirage and other places for Koch Brothers, and ALEC, etc. They are the ones paying the Pols and they definitely meet and plan conspiracies to disenfranchise voters. And, William Pepper wrote a book that reveals the conspiracies within those security agencies that control pols. It is great the Lofgren is talking about the Deep State. But, to deny the conspiracies within it is naive. The crashing of the Obama garden party by Robert Gates associates is a case in point. The Supreme Court ultimately is the last point of call to stop this Deep State within all the branches. They have judicial oversight, and they are not using it.

  • scratphd

    The great swamp philosopher Pogo got it right. "I have meet the enemy and he is us."
    A complacent America.

  • Christanne

    Lofgren: What America lacks is a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us. Thus disenthralled, the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed.

    This essay echoes Ivan Illich's "Tools for Convivality," which, although written in the '70s is even more applicable today. This is not new. Lofgren is an important wedge to cauterize the deep state and dispell delusions of unending "progress." However, I don't see any evidence for his assertion that the people themselves will unravel the Deep State. What we've done so far is just buy a new toy, both literally and figuratively, even when so many of us are going hungry.

  • Anonymous

    Excellent essay. A very good (semi-) insider's look at happenings within the Beltway. However, my instinct tells me that the real nexus of power doesn't lie there, but that the Deep State operatives are allowed to continue their game-playing at public expense in order to serve a larger agenda–the ultimate bankrupting of the US and the ushering in of a new world order which has been in the making for centuries by the real powers-that-be. Uber-conspiratorial? Maybe, but I just can't shake the feeling.

  • The One

    There is no doubt that the great american experiment has ended in ruin. There is hope on the horizon though. Due to technological progression and its rapid increase in power, the very fabric of society will change. Our social and economic models must change radically due to technological improvements. There is no end in sight to the technological pace we have been blazing at, and if there is an end it seems to be distant. The tremendous benefits of creative AI and the automation of white and blue collar workers must be built into a new social and economic model in which the benefits are distributed evenly and equally among the peoples of planet earth. Even now, if we used our technology wisely, we could unshackle large swaths of the labor markets with automated robots.

    The current state of unimaginable corruption which is inflicting the world, not just the US, is a dying last grasp for air as the oligarchies face a new powerful threat, the connection of all things. The internet has the power to upend these corrupt power structures which lie at the heart of society, and thus at the heart of every human life on this planet. Our current economic model is not situated in reality. I can't say if the market will be up or down tomorrow, but what I know for certain is that earth is 196.9 million square miles. Which is a finite space. Not a good place for an economic model which requires economic expansion for survival. The labor markets will be greatly dis-stressed due to technological displacement. The current scientific revolution is unlike any that has ever happened on the surface of this planet. Even highly skilled workers such as surgeons have the capacity to be replaced by highly advanced robots specializing in surgery. People will see awaken to the fact that this "annoying high unemployment" is actually the new normal and will only get worse. This REQUIRES a new economic model.

    If a business refused to integrate their business with the latest automation technology, a rival that had enough foresight to not oversee this would drive his competitor out of business. Then, in our current economic model, that rival that just won the market would reap all the rewards. BUT, it will also be in the best interest of that company, if in some new economic manner, a portion of those profits would go into a general citizens fund which would provide all humans with a basic income. This type of model will be absolutely necessary due to mass unemployment. This leaves the motive for profit intact which also leads a motive for innovation, creation, and competition that humans need. With scarcity gone, and universal income for all, the future will look very very bright for our young human species. The seas of interstellar space beckon.

  • Anonymous

    "…another thing" – yup – if they changed the rule so they could get what they claimed was their agenda passed, the Reps might have been able to do the same – however the Reps could do that anyway themselves if they regained power –

    In any case, what does that say about a Party that would refuse to advance a decent agenda just so the other party couldn't advance its own at another date – in essence, cutting off our noses to spite the Reps face – they could have done what they knew we sent them there to do, and they refused, hiding behind rules they could have changed – more and more folks are waking up …

    ISTM it oughta be obvious by now that this "struggle" between the Reps and the Dems isn't about principle or ideology and it certainly isn't about representing us – it is about who gets to be in charge of handing out the perks and who gets the perks – those in power are the ones who get both ….

  • Charles Shaver

    Nice to keep learning of a plethora of ambiguous symptoms but, short of too costly general strikes or domestic insurrection, only voting proved corrupt politicians of both major parties out of high office every other November will eventually restore legal functionality to the U.S. Government. So, vote in every general election and vote against those who stray. 'How to know' one might ask? Simply vote 'out with the old; in with the new,' every time, until we have the kind of America the Founders prescribed in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

  • Anonymous

    It only depends on your definition of "the US." Yes, a panel of CEOs famously declined Ralph Nader's invitation to join him in the Pledge of Allegiance, but in the State Department memo that outlined the policy of containment of the USSR, George Kennan said the vast wealth disparity between the US and the rest of the world must be maintained, while civil rights and democracy could be neglected.

    By then, the post-World War One idealists who'd joined calls for socialism and one-world government, to prevent another such catastrophe, had seen things differently once Russia turned Eastrrn Europe into a barricade against further invasions from the West. They could not bring themselves to reb against their banker fathers, but they still believed in a one-world government – it would simply be the government of the United States. The entire world would be brought into the economc system we ran, no matter what citizens and their elected governments wanted.

    During the Cold War, NATO was used to bring European intelligence agencies and militaries under domnance by the CIA and the Pentagon. Putting ordnance, money and men in place to resist a Soviet takeover made perfect sense, but it operated in peacetime to keep left-wingers out of Continental governments. We overthrew an Italian government, for example. Not by ourselves, of course: the secret "stay-behind" troops were nitorious right-wing fanatics, who could be trusted to carry out their missions regardless of law, Constitutionality or morality. False-flag shootings and bombings in public squares and supermarkets killed many innocent civilians and were blamed on leftist radical groups which had been thoroughly penetrated already anyway. This was to win public support for stricter security policies and, perhaps, punish citizens for voting in liberal-to-left governments. This was admitted in the Italian parliament by the Prime Minister in 1990. Operation GLADIO, as it was called, involved every NATO country. Investigations were promised, but were aborted or came to mothing.

    This is what Putin knows will happen if Ukraine joins NATO, for instance, so don't expect him to take it lying down. He operates a Russian version.

    In the US, a group of Wall Street financiers discussed literally overthrowing FDR in order to end the New Deal regulatory state, but didn't get past the talking stage. The Senate held hearings but J. Edgar Hoover declined to investigate becayse "no crime was committed." This is the same FBI director who opened pressure dossiers on citizens who carried protest signs or wrote letters to newspapers or the government opposing our war policies, and tried to get Martin Luthed King to commit suicide.

    Note the secrecy surrounding current trade-agreement negotiations, and accompanying high security. This dates back to the fiaco of the world trade talks in Seattle some years ago, when street protests neatly brought them to a halt. An Italian citizen was killed during protests against trade talks in Genoa yeats later.

  • Anonymous

    This was a superb essay–one I have been awaiting for years. One minor addition: there is another non DOD component to the aforementioned group, which is DOE. Admittedly,
    it's rather easy to forget about them–but one should not. Ever.

  • Anonymous

    But I really wonder if voting is a sufficient tool for the citizenry to tell the government what it thinks.
    Elections are not very frequent, they are deeply manipulated by complex "strategists" (look at the connection between the now-slowly-debunked gay marriage referenda and the re-election of Bush Jr).
    Though I find it tedious and at times inefficient I wouldn't mind being part of a citizenry like France that literally shuts the country down until the government says "uncle".

  • Anonymous

    I believe the fourth estate and the way the US government interacts with it have a lot to do with the opacity of the veil I find floating between myself and whatever happens inside the beltway.

    The US government keeps journalists begging for the tiniest crumbs. No one is willing to leak anything for fear of being caught.

    When I asked a friend in the diplomatic corps what was the most striking about his stint in DC he said the depth at which government officials changed with each new administration compared to other countries. DC's moving business is booming beyond anything imaginable. This is also a tidy way to keep a tight grip on "messaging" – a skill each administration seems to get better and better at.

    There is a reason wikileaks has emerged and parody has replaced the stale format of the evening news.

  • Charles Shaver

    Voting is still an effective tool. Unfortunately, statistically, a majority of manipulated voters will only dirty their hands to install and re-install soluble Democrats and Republicans when seeking water tight integrity; insane, by Einstein's definition. Now is well past the best time to make some real repairs but, perhaps, not yet too late to save a sinking ship. And, shutting the engine down won't plug the leaks.

  • Pat Kittle

    We Americans are already plenty overcrowded, but Israel lobby billionaires want open borders and they've paid big bucks to both Republicans & Democrats. So open borders and endless population growth it is, ecological sustainability be damned.

    And don't give me that "anti-Semitic" hooey, I'm just stating facts.

    Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Soros, Gelbaum, Adelson, etc., etc., Israel lobby, all of them.

    No serious discussion of the "deep state" would ignore that elephant in the living room.

  • Anonymous

    This is not a valid critique. The Deep State serves organized wealth and works to further increase inequality and social stratification. Thus the Deep State represents entrenched right-wing power. It is a matter of state capture. Both parties support this consensus and are thus supremely conservative. The same goes for the media which is owned by these same centers of organized wealth.

  • Matt P.

    It's not a matter of keeping one's mouth shut, but actions speak louder than words. Being angry and contentious all the time is not the same as being productive about the issues you believe in. Whenever I see an inequality in the street, on the subway, or at a party I react. I stand up for the person, I intervene and get involved. The rest of the time I do keep my mouth shut because there's nothing to say. It doesn't help anyone to spread unhappiness around. In fact it drains your energy so you're not ready or as effective for the next opportunity.

  • Sean Kurnow

    I get a laugh at people who yell, whine and complain about politicians and party politics….It's like yelling at a ventriloquist dummy instead of the person controlling it. America became a plutocracy in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created. Since then, we all know that special interest groups control almost every aspect of government policy.

  • Anonymous

    I will assume you simply did not understand what I wrote or what 'slouching' wrote – ironic eh?
    Lets remove Thom Hartmann from the equation, as it seems to be where you flew off the rails…what then is your defense of the idiots we allude to?

  • Anonymous

    I well understand the argument about brainwashing – have heard it a gazillion times ….

    The "idiots" you refer to – who are these folk? And while the corp media was brainwashing them, what were the rest of us doing? Sitting on our hands?

  • Bill Wesley

    well for once I have no comment, its not required in that the writer has made the case with expert precision, I find no flaws, no omissions, no theory or dogma obstructing the writers view. Its nice to see such well presented intellectual compitance, it allows me to feel relief, I can take a break since others are seen to be on the ball

  • FroboseTF

    Charles:
    Voting used to be an effective tool. Unfortunately with the advent of "Electronic Voting Machines" which must be "Programmed", and leave no paper trail to allow a recount; I fear that if the truth be known our elections are probably rigged on a regular basis to reflect the will of those in actual power now.

    I believe it was Joseph Stalin who said "It's not who casts the votes that's important. It's who counts them.

  • Anonymous

    Actually, it was a Mossad (Israeli Intel)/US Intel op. US organized it and funded the Al Qaeda end of it via Paki intel officer General Mahmoud Ahmed, while the Mossad prepped the US targets and ran the anthrax mail op. I'm not sure that Mossad didn't dream it up in the first place, but, whatever the details, Al Qaeda was definitely just a bit player in the op with the real culprits being our own fearless leaders.

  • Reuben_the_Red

    Winner-takes-all elections (as opposed to proportional representation) and the Electoral College are inherently undemocratic and present the illusion of voter participation without the danger of undue voter influence.

  • Reuben_the_Red

    Excellent discussion of the intersection of money, power, and early 21st century technology in the US today. Food for thought, especially paired with Moyer's recent documentary about ALEC.

    One caveat: Paragraph 21 starts out saying, "the Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by
    surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that
    it is almost impervious to change," but in paragraph 22, "there are signs of resistance to the Deep State and its demands." Paragraph 21 has already made the case that resistance is irrelevant and impotent in the face of the Deep State apparatus, power/wealth reserves, and democracy-subverting methodology. And that's probably true. There may be no way to actually extricate the Deep State from The Superficial State.

    We are left in the final few paragraphs with a series of reasons that the Deep State might reverse course voluntarily, or unravel of its own accord, but in the end what we really need is "a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell
    us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are
    outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us": in other words, some kind of charismatic, messianic Jesus-person, to save us from ourselves. I don't object to the author trying to end with a hopeful note of optimism, but how would this person reach us with that message? Are there not already a host of people who have been saying exactly that for decades, from Noam Chomsky to Angela Davis, from Daniel Quinn to Arundhati Roy, from Mark Twain to John Lennon? Have we not managed to ignore and disregard a notable and widely-published list of people trying to tell us that national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that do nothing to elevate humanity nor the human condition?

    "Thus disenthralled,
    the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed." It seems clear that we will be forever enthralled with our credit scores and our televised sporting events and other televised virtual realities until the government of the US actually collapses due to a variety of currently known and unknown factors (economic, ecological, etc). And that's not gonna be pretty either. And even then there is the further possibility that in such an event of complete destabilization (not unthinkable, has happened throughout history, around the world), the Deep State could become simply The State.

  • Reuben_the_Red

    Agreed. Presumably there is no incentive in the Deep State to undermine the omnipotence of the Deep State.

    There are ways to increase voter participation (non-participation fines and penalties as I understand Australians are subject to; make voting day a federal holiday or even better a three-day weekend; give the right to vote back to felons and inmates alike; etc.) but wouldn't we still be left to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

  • Charles Shaver

    I haven't voted for Tweedledee or Tweedledum for President since Ronald Reagan and, since learning of Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 2012, I don't vote for either for Congress. I'd rather take a chance on a third, fourth or fifth party unknown, a blank ballot or a write-in candidate than on another known destroyer from one of the two major parties. Participation alone is not enough; it has to be informed participation, referenced against the clear, plain and simple language of the U.S. Constitution. So, how do we get the word out?

  • Reuben_the_Red

    It would have been a very different election in 2012 if the Republican establishment and the corporate media machine had not colluded to rig the primaries so that Mitt Romney was the nominee, and not the one that the majority of voting Republicans wanted, Ron Paul, who ran on a platform that ironically appealed to many leftists, because of his insistence that foreign military interventions and US global military incursions cease immediately.

    It's possible that the realistic threat of a viable third party candidate on the outer fringe of the left or the right could be enough to force that respective party to yield to those fringe demands, incorporating those demands into a mainstream platform, more or less like the Tea Party did with the Republican party in recent years, threatening to take their votes elsewhere.

    At the same time, more Americans voted for left wing platforms than right wing platforms in 2000, but due to the winner-takes-all elections, we didn't get a government that was 5% Nader, 45% Gore, 45% Bush, majority leftist reflecting the vote. We got 100% Bush. We got corporate welfare, tax cuts for the uber wealthy which did not result in higher employment, we got two decade-long unprovoked foreign wars riddled with war crimes, and we got persistent recession. Some of these things, if not all of them, would not and could not have happened under a Nader/Gore-led government. The Deep State expanded massively with the Bush/Cheney administration's complicity. I wish that it was worthwhile to vote for third-party candidates, but we can expect them to receive no media coverage, few votes overall despite the possibly broad appeal of their platform, and in the end it would be irrelevant because of the Electoral College. If I live in Oregon and vote for Romney my vote is thrown away as surely as if I live in Utah and vote for Obama.

    In answer to your question, how do we get the word out, I think the only answer is media ownership. Our lives are more consumed by media today than ever before in the history of the world, and all of the media is concentrated in fewer hands, with more consensus among those few hands, than ever before.

  • Charles Shaver

    It would be a very different election every time, and nation, if the majority would simply quit believing in the now defunct two-party system, corporate owned media and an extremist capitalist system that values the gains of the uber wealthy over the lives and limbs of workers and the poor. It's okay to question the status quo, ignore corporate media, do independent research, vote totally independent of family tradition and elect questionable strangers (as opposed to proved bipartisan failures) to defund the Deep State. Need a little more direction? Review the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It pretty well sums it all up in rather clear, plain and simple English, if you keep in mind that not just millionaires, billionaires and multi-national corporations (allegedly) are 'people.' Good conversation.

  • jeffries

    Mike Lofgren wrote the essay. Bill Moyers was allowed to interview him. PBS has its hands tied by the "deep state" too. If you doubt this talk ask PBS why they pulled the plug on the Koch Brothers expose.

  • jeffries

    The "deep state," like a parasite, will continue until its host is dead. My guess is they are in a state of panic-their host is on life support. The party is over- the rest of the world has had enough of the U.S. The petro dollar has been broken. The dollar will be dethroned as the world reserve currency and the torch will be passed to China no later than 2018. The players of the "deep state" will not be able to infiltrate and latch onto this new host and so they will fight to the death, more accurately our sons and daughters death, to keep the U.S. in its position. Resist war is all we can do and not buy into the steady stream of propaganda that will be bombarding us at every turn.

  • Hatha Sunahara

    I haven't read all 328 comments so far, but I just wonder if anybody has picked up on the reason the deep state has developed. I think it's development stems from the evolution of the United States from a Republic into an Empire. No empire can exist with restrictions on its power like those put on the United States by the Constitution. So, instead of discarding the Constitution, the United States was subsumed into an 'extra-constitutional government'. Of course, nobody bothered to tell the people of the United States that their power had been usurped by a lawless Imperial overlord. Responsibility for that egregious oversight can be laid to the mainstream media, which is owned by the owners of the extra-constitutional government. These are the global media corporations.

    If you view politics this way, it explains a lot of things. Empire relies on it's military power and the acceptance of its money. Anyone who does not accept the empire's money generates hostility from the empire. The empire wages war without any declaration of war. The extra constitutional government allows that. The empire cannot tolerate privacy because that would allow people to plot against the empire without interference. So the empire puts everyone under surveillance. The empire cannot tolerate resistance or disobedience, so it develops a police state to instil fear and obedience in people. There are many many more examples of how empire rules America and usurps the US government–which exists for the people of the United States. Americans, and the people of the other countries in the world understand this viscerally, but are unable to express this in coherent thought because their language has been corrupted by the forces of empire. Mike Lofgren doesn't make this connection because iit violates the rules of political correctness. Everyone's career is tied to strict adherence to political correctness, and

  • Anonymous

    And many of the voters have been brainwashed by the 5 or 6 corporations that control the media. Fear entertainment.

  • Anonymous

    After I read Top Secret America I came to the conclusion that since 9/11 Homeland Security has become so incredibly humongous and so political it will keep growing until the US is bankrupt. The was the goal of Benladen. Europe did not fall for it be we did.

  • Anonymous

    Some contemporary books Blackwater, Bloodmoney, and especially Confessions if a Economic Hit Man. Also Top Secret America.

  • Charles Shaver

    I think a better name for 'Homeland Security' is 'elitist money addict insecurity.' And, it and treasonous corporate media propaganda will keep growing until we as an injured people finally 'Just say NO!' to the 'perpetraitors.' Thanks for commenting, above and below.

  • Anonymous

    There is a small very readable book written by John Perkins named Confessions of an Economic hit Man. This is the way the Corporatocracy has used the IMF and World Bank to take over the assets of less developed countries. And if their leaders do not agree to go along well then read what happens to them.

  • Anonymous

    In many states felons are legally allowed to vote if they have served their sentences. And if they moved to Florida their vote was legal. But Jeb Bush broke the law and did not allow their vote to count in the Bush/Gore election. The Republicans also paid a fortune to a company named Choice Point to scrub the polls. They also did this in the latest election for Governor. How can they get away with these tactics? The tactics that are being used in North Carolina lately are extremely difficult to counteract.

  • Anonymous

    Funny (not ha ha) when I try to tell friends what is going on within Homeland Security (the redundancy, the extreme size of it and the number of government and private buildings all around the Washington suburbs) they respond by stating that they approve of all this. Homeland security is so political that this state if affairs will be sucking up our tax dollars forever.

  • Neil Kitson

    "These men, largely private, were functioning on a level different from the foreign policy of the United States, and years later when New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan read through the entire documentary history of the war, that history known as the Pentagon Papers, he would come away with one impression above all, which was that the government of the United States was not what he had thought it was; it was as if there were an inner U.S. government, what he called 'a centralized state, far more powerful than anything else, for whom the enemy is not simply the Communists but everything else, its own press, its own judiciary, its own Congress, foreign and friendly governments – all these are potentially antagonistic.

    It had survived and perpetuated itself,' Sheehan continued, 'often using the issue of anti-Communism as a weapon against the other branches of government and the press, and finally, it does not function necessarily for the benefit of the Republic but rather for its own ends, its own perpetuation; it has its own codes which are quite different from public codes.

    Secrecy was a way of protecting itself, not so much from threats by foreign governments but from detection from its own population on charges of its own competence and wisdom.' Each succeeding Administration, Sheehan noted, was careful, once in office, not to expose the weaknesses of its predecessor. After all, essentially the same people were running the governments, they had continuity to each other, and each succeeding Administration found itself faced with virtually the same enemies.

    Thus the national security apparatus kept its continuity, and every outgoing President tended to rally to the side of the incumbent President.

    "Out of this of course came a willingness to use covert operations; it was a necessity of the times, to match the Communists, and what your own population and your own Congress did not know was not particularly important; it was almost better if they did not know…"

    David Halberstam
    The Best and The Brightest

  • Charles Shaver

    Very typically, you appear to be better informed and better read on some aspects of our failed and failing nation-state than I. Admittedly, I don't have all the answers. Briefly, though, respective of all you cite, I find the vast majority of Americans just don't want to be burdened any more with good citizenship (e.g., election statistics). Most recently, another symptom of the underlying problem was highlighted when the billionaire owner of a mere commercial (as opposed to 'professional') basketball team in a society that tolerates abject poverty and illegal war was severely chastised and sanctioned for only elitist, racist remarks. Summarily, let me say that my America took a big turn for the worse when the 'Pied Piper' was bribed to play the National Anthem. Nope, not 'ha ha' funny, at all. And, I don't know whether to dread or rejoice the day when the coerced laughter finally ends, and the music dies.

  • Anonymous

    During the 2nd Bush administration I started to notice all the books listed in the Washington Post book section about his administration. After awhile I thought maybe I should start reading. The first page turner was one by Bob Woodward about the lead up to the Iraq war. It showed me that we were not getting truth from the media so I kept on reading books. First about Iraq-Fiasco, The man who got is into the war Amad Chalabi, Blackwater, Bloodmoney and many others. I keep telling people to read more but they choose not to. They are either working too hard or if retired playing too hard. They just want to be spoon fed and are addicted to outrage entertainment. I continued my reading on economics, finance, climate change and understand much more than I did before. Keynes vs Hyeck explains the history of the two economic theories. Also how the shift to the right happened during The Reagan and Thatcher administrations. Age of Greed explains how a few very greedy men influenced congress to repeal laws and pass laws in their favor. Tim Flannerys book The Weather Makers explains Climate change. And there are too many books written on income disparity and the danger to democracy. What is happening is out of control and a nightmare. I don't think people understand that when a government service for the commons is privatized it becomes a corporation with lobbyists that influence Congress and that we taxpayers must pay their employees at a much higher rate. Like the army contractors, prisons and so on. People do not put on their thinking caps. Sorry for the rant.

  • Charles Shaver

    Interesting, impressive; different paths, one destination; better a rant than a sell-out or surrender. Beware of putting too much faith in the opinions of others, myself included. We all are products of our past and there is a natural tendency for the adult progeny to emulate the parent; the student to mimic the teacher; the reader to quote the author. I find the U.S. Constitution is the best source of information about how America should function but I don't hear or see much of that from any of the so-called 'experts.' If electrical engineers treated Ohm's Law like authors, bankers, government, lawyers and the 'people' treat the U.S. Constitution, you'd be reading this in script on parchment by candlelight, if at all. And, don't let me discourage you; where I fail you may succeed. Let reason prevail. Thanks for the stimulating conversation.

  • Anonymous

    Yes we all have the tendency to read whatever validates our worldview. I read Gretchen Morgensterns book named Reckless Endangerment about Fannie Mae. Saw her talk on Cspan book channel. Needed to get to the bottom of that mess. Jim Johnson was and still is a very shady character. It is strange however that the Republicans reduced the entire 2008 recession down to two sound bites Fannie Mae and the CRA (I think that is the acrynom) for the program to stop the redlining. No one knows anything about the history and purpose of Fannie Mae and it's original purpose until Johnson got his hands on it. If one has critical thinking one can sift out the truth. I just cannot believe that people will believe a sound bite without any hesitation.

  • Charles Shaver

    Been 'deep thinking' a lot more about the Deep State but, without yesterday's lost credentials or celebrity (good or bad), there's not much I can presently do. One clever sound-bite might do the trick but none I've composed and tried so far have caught on. Still, probably, is tomorrow.

  • Anonymous

    I actually thought of a really good sound bite and communicated it to the White House. No one took me up on it. Wish I could remember what it was. If you have any you could try. But they are not very confrontational.

  • Charles Shaver

    I liked candidate Obama's words but never voted for him, because he already belonged to one of two already proved dysfunctional major political parties. Writing the Obama White House and even getting a few generic replies while watching him fail the office, too, I do not regret 'wasting' my vote on a 'green' third party candidate. After rereading The Anatomy of the Deep State, today, I'm sure I could read more and probably phrase things better but am still confident in my decades of working-class experience-based conclusions and suggestions.

  • sorval

    "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave"

    has become

    Land of the "Free", Home of the "Brave".

  • johnnyomaha

    Privatization of the US constitution to serve the elite…..

  • http://www.rrstevens.net/ Robert Stevens

    … OR is it "Land of the Greed, Home of the Knave" -- Let's sing it all together before the next Football Game and Circus: ♫ "o'er the Land of the Greed …" ♫

  • Anonymous

    Where's the who, what, when, where, and why? Collected everyday simple observations will awaken one to the existence of a higher controlling entity. No more problem identification or descriptions, thank you very much. We need 1) facts and 2) solutions.

  • unheilig

    Lofgren gives both. Did you read the article? Confirmation is easy enough too: all you need is a browser and a few hours searching off-off-lamestream information sources.

  • Jocelyn Hawley

    To both dn7904 and Charles Shaver, I read your back and forth discussion and realize that I so crave that type of intelligent, informed and aware discussion within my interactions in my daily life, but none can really exist. Most people are so concerned with the outcomes of the game, or fantasy football, or the latest t.v. series, and how on earth to pay rent and other minutia. The little bit of news comes from prime time networks like Fox, NBC and CNN and they think they know what is happening in the world, but don't actually want to know what is really happening. The trick to an article like this one, is not yet how we change the problem, but how we get people to notice, be aware and to care. That is the real question and the first- most prominent problem to be solved.

  • Anonymous

    I think there are more creative ways for the citizenry to communicate their discontent than to wait four years for the next highly-funded election.
    I remember being in an international conference and the minister of Health from a major developed country came on stage just days after making a very unpopular move. One person stood up and simply turned her back on the Minister, then another, then a dozen, then the whole auditorium of major players in the scientific community.
    It made headlines.
    I resent the fact that a movement like MoveOn now just asks me for money like all the other PAC's. They used to send out flyers and have photos posted of people all over the country holding the same flyer.
    What comes to mind is that we remain the developed country in which the fewest people take vacation. How can we possibly stop and think about creative democracy? Ironically the revolutionary thought that was the spark that set off the flames of this country came from the leisure class who had plenty of time to think and write about things like freedom and liberty.

  • Charles Shaver

    Thank you for prodding me to do some additional 'Deep Thinking.' The harm is done. Thanks to the apathetic and/or ignorant majority of a voting minority, the balance of power in the U.S. has now been transferred from the left hand of organized crime to the right hand, for the next two years. At least the majority is consistent in its failure to self-govern by voting, and voting wisely.

    While (if) still allowed, voting wisely is the only reasonable solution. Creative protesting (e.g., 'occupy' them, pass out flyers, shout them down, turn your back or throw them a shoe) means nothing when the final vote is counted to determine who actually makes and enforces the rules. Not omniscient or perfect, either, I'm open to suggestions but with very little to work with after several decades of too-typical abuse, betrayal, exploitation and oppression, served in the pseudonyms of loyalty, patriotism, sacrifice and service. If mere reasoning worked then Bill Moyers and 'company' would have already solved most of the major problems. Don't let me discourage you, though, keep on with your own deep thinking.

  • John Schoneboom

    Two flaws jump out at me from this otherwise rather good and useful article. The first is that Mr. Lofgren implies that the Deep State is mainly a Republican thing. In the picture he paints, it's the Republicans who want to pay the national security state, while the poor hapless Democrats just want to increase social spending. Similarly, he makes excuses for Obama in footnote 7. (Presidents are surely mostly puppets, but Obama's 2008 FISA vote as Senator betrays his own predilections well enough.) At best, this is the farcical veneer of Deep State Theatre. I suspect Mr. Lofgren knows better and didn't mean to imply otherwise.

    Secondly, government shutdowns and budgetary problems may be an inconvenience to the Deep State, but no accounting of the Deep State is complete without figuring in off-the-books revenue from the global drug trade. International partnerships and oil interests also help diversify the income stream nicely. There are many billions feeding this thing that have nothing to do with the US budget.

    It's also somewhat criminal not to name-check Peter Dale Scott in this subject area. But I'm nitpicking. I'll not bother criticizing the piece for not addressing Deep State ties with terrorism, that kettle of fish deserves its own barrel. Like I said, nice piece, useful, well done, thank you.

  • Douglas Harris

    does no one see there is a reason for the immense defense spending as America becomes #2 in world economy and the dollar might be replaced as the reserve currency?
    The Chinese own enough treasury paper to close the American economy, alone or with several willing partners. BUT…America even as a declining economic dictator will still have the arms to maintain world control…

  • Anonymous

    I had no real a-ha moment reading this well written piece. Nothing jumped out at me as something foreign or unknown. Instead, I had the sense of deja vu, the kind of deja vu I'd rather not have. All these things have been known if the consumer of this good piece has been paying attention to the not-mainline press. What is so exciting about this is the writer put all the information in one place and drew out the connections that weren't always so obvious. Though Mr. Lofgren paints a somewhat plausible picture of how this State may rather suddenly crumble, I'm a bit dubious.

    What seems missing are the global links among many of these actors especially the oligarchs reach and connection to many things terrorism. What I'm saying is that I'm not terribly optimistic that a leader will come along who is sufficiently unbeholden to the state and who can remain un-co-opted and call this state for what it is thus raising our fellow Americans sustained interest and desire to see through the mess it will take to overthrow this Deep State.. In any case, thanks so much for such a thoughtful and creepy picture.

  • Anonymous

    None of this is news. A President who cared could smash the Deep State in, probably, nine months. The key lockhold the Deep State has at the moment is on the nomination process, which is used to filter out any Presidents, and most Congressional nominees, who show signs of independent thought. They've been doing this since Reagan (Carter was the last President with independent thought; Reagan was ideal, being an actor with Alzheimer's and so not thinking much at all.) There are two ways this can play out: either they lose their lockhold on the nomination process, or the entire system is discredited and we get a revolution.

    The Deep State is actually very fragile due to their fundamental incompetence. But they're quite capable of wrecking our existing system, at which point there will be an opening for a Caesar or a Napoleon or a Lenin who *is* competent. That is the true danger moment. The worst scenario is revolving-door coups, such as Mexico suffered for decades in the 18th and 19th century.

  • Anonymous

    The American Empire is, however, in decline phase. You can identify that by the inability to conquer territory and the slow loss of territory from the edges. The peak of the American Empire was actually in the late 19th century… A collapsing empire follows a weird trajectory. Many comparisons have been made to the Roman Empire. That worked out poorly.

  • Anonymous

    You could also read the much older "War is A Racket" by Smedley Butler.

    The IMF/World Bank scam was working for a while. It doesn't work any more: South American countries simply reject it. And the US has no power to muscle South American countries any more; I'm not quite sure how they managed to become immune to US military intervention, but they have. They have had about 200 years of trial and error in figuring out how.

    Now, the rest of the world just needs to copy the South American model and the US IMF/World Bank scam becomes untenable.

  • Anonymous

    Proportional representation is critical, but I haven't figured out how to get anyone to pay attention to it. Even at the local level, where the deep state has no traction because it's paying no attention.

  • Anonymous

    Thankfully the fight against electronic voting machines is already pretty strong. This is something people understand viscerally and this is a key plank for whatever party is going to dethrone the Rs & Ds. Basically, if electronic "voting" machines are delegitimized (as they should be), this means people will actually fight for their paper ballots…

  • Anonymous

    I think you're wrong about how most Americans will react. The levels of disillusionment are very, very high now and you can measure them in polls.

    Just before the Civil War, we saw the same dynamic: most of the country was completely disillusioned about the "slavocracy", as they called the corrupt US government dominated by slaveholders. This led to the election of Lincoln, the destruction of the Whig Party, and finally, the Civil War.

    This is the sort of situation we have now. The Deep State can't win; it will be smashed as Americans unite behind a Lincoln-like figure. The only questions are when this will happen, and more importantly *what comes next*. Things are wide open after that happens: Sun Yat-Sen led (unfortunately) to Mao.

  • jeffries

    Well it will be interesting how the Greece situation plays out. It seems strange we don't hear much or read much in main stream media about it. They are challenging the status quo. At first the banks gave them until the 28th and then cut it to 10 days. It would be in everyone's best interest if this was the beginning of the end for the EU. Diffused power is the best power. If the EU fails we won't be pressured into a union with Canada and Mexico. I think that was the plan of the global deep state. Aggregate nations into regions and then larger regions and then it would not be such a jump to global government.

  • Anonymous

    "….. Americans sustained interest…."
    Lack of interest is the real killer of all empires.

[Nov 01, 2015] Why has American national security policy changed so little from the Bush administration to the Obama

America's "Madisonian institutions," namely, the Congress, the presidency, and the courts have been supplanted by a "Trumanite network" of bureaucrats who make up the permanent national security state. National security policymaking has been removed from public view and largely insulated from law and politics.
Notable quotes:
"... national security policy is determined largely by "the several hundred managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints." The president, congress and the courts play largely a symbolic role in national security policy ..."
"... You can read a Harvard National Security Journal article that outlines Glennon's argument at this link: http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf . The paper is not an especially easy read, but I found it to be well researched and – for me – persuasive. ..."
"... National Security and Double Government ..."
"... "Glennon shows how the underlying national security bureaucracy in Washington – what might be called the deep state – ensures that presidents and their successors act on the world stage like Tweedledee and Tweedledum." ..."
"... "In our faux democracy, those we elect to govern serve largely ornamental purposes, while those who actually wield power, especially in the realm of national security, do so chiefly with an eye toward preserving their status and prerogatives. Read this incisive and richly documented book, and you'll understand why." ..."
"... U.S. national security policy is in fact conducted by a shadow government of bureaucrats and a supporting network of think tanks, media insiders, and ambitious policy wonks. ..."
"... "is that the United States government has enduring institutional interests that carry over from administration to administration and almost always dictate the position the government takes." ..."
"... And now IMO the DEEP STATE is about to DEEP SIX the Career military in the US as it organizes violence and the SURVEILLANCE STATE outside the ARMED FORCES. ..."
"... My short answer is that Government of the people, by the people, and for the people [the Lincoln formulation] probably expired with the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki! ..."
"... I think we could make as much of the supine legislature that lends weight to Glennon's argument as he does the "permanent" executive agency security apparatus. If they're to be properly responsive to public will, executive agencies need better written laws. ..."
January 20, 2015 | Homeland Security Watch

That's the question Michael J. Glennon asks in his book "National Security and Double Government."

His answer: national security policy is determined largely by "the several hundred managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints." The president, congress and the courts play largely a symbolic role in national security policy, Glennon claims.

You can read a Harvard National Security Journal article that outlines Glennon's argument at this link: http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf. The paper is not an especially easy read, but I found it to be well researched and – for me – persuasive.

His book adds more analysis to the argument, using (from Graham Allison's Essence of Decision) the rational actor model, the government politics model, and the organizational behavior model. Glennon extends that framework by discussing culture, networks, and the myth of alternative competing hypotheses. The book is richer, in my opinion. But the core of Glennon's position is in the paper.

This link takes you to a video of Glennon talking about his book at the Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/events/national-security-double-government (the talk starts at the 5:20 mark).

From the Cato site:

In National Security and Double Government, Michael Glennon examines the continuity in U.S. national security policy from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. Glennon explains the lack of change by pointing to the enervation of America's "Madisonian institutions," namely, the Congress, the presidency, and the courts. In Glennon's view, these institutions have been supplanted by a "Trumanite network" of bureaucrats who make up the permanent national security state. National security policymaking has been removed from public view and largely insulated from law and politics. Glennon warns that leaving security policy in the hands of the Trumanite network threatens Americans' liberties and the republican form of government.

Some blurb reviews:

  • "If constitutional government is to endure in the United States, Americans must confront the fundamental challenges presented by this chilling analysis of the national security state."
    Bruce Ackerman
  • "Glennon shows how the underlying national security bureaucracy in Washington – what might be called the deep state – ensures that presidents and their successors act on the world stage like Tweedledee and Tweedledum." John J. Mearsheimer
  • "National Security and Double Government is brilliant, deep, sad, and vastly learned across multiple fields–a work of Weberian power and stature. It deserves to be read and discussed. The book raises philosophical questions in the public sphere in a way not seen at least since Fukuyama's end of history." David A. Westbrook
  • "In our faux democracy, those we elect to govern serve largely ornamental purposes, while those who actually wield power, especially in the realm of national security, do so chiefly with an eye toward preserving their status and prerogatives. Read this incisive and richly documented book, and you'll understand why." Andrew J. Bacevich
  • "…Michael Glennon provides a compelling argument that America's national security policy is growing outside the bounds of existing government institutions. This is at once a constitutional challenge, but is also a case study in how national security can change government institutions, create new ones, and, in effect, stand-up a parallel state…." Vali Nasr
  • "Instead of being responsive to citizens or subject to effective checks and balances, U.S. national security policy is in fact conducted by a shadow government of bureaucrats and a supporting network of think tanks, media insiders, and ambitious policy wonks. Presidents may come and go, but the permanent national security establishment inevitably defeats their efforts to chart a new course…."Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer

I've spoken to three people I consider to be members of the "shadow national security state." One person said Glennon's argument is nothing new. The second told me he's got it exactly right. The third said it's even worse.

William R. Cumming, January 20, 2015 @ 8:38 am

ah! the deep state analyzed correctly imo!

and imo only the nuclear priesthood rivals the deep state but not exactly part of it yet its original source!

like the mayan priests only those in it know how accurate this book is in its analysis!

and a congress marches on in complete ignorance!

Mike Mealer, January 21, 2015 @ 7:48 pm

Great article. Read it a few months ago. I didn't know whether I should feel more secure or afraid. Looking the items I highlighted and a few standout.

"The dirty little secret here," a former associate counsel in the Bush White House, Brad Berenson, explained, "is that the United States government has enduring institutional interests that carry over from administration to administration and almost always dictate the position the government takes."178 P34

Its cohesion notwithstanding, the Trumanite network is curiously amorphous. It has no leader. It is not monolithic. It has no formal structure. P32

The maintenance of Trumanite autonomy has depended upon two conditions. The first is that the Madisonian institutions appear to be in charge of the nation's security. The second is that the Madisonian institutions not actually be in charge. P34

Public opinion is, accordingly, a flimsy check on the Trumanites; it is a manipulable tool of power enhancement. It is therefore rarely possible for any occupant of the Oval Office to prevail against strong, unified Trumanite opposition, for the same reasons that members of Congress and the judiciary cannot; a non-expert president, like a non-expert senator and a non-expert judge, is intimidated by expert Trumanites and does not want to place himself (or a colleague or a potential political successor) at risk by looking weak and gambling that the Trumanites are mistaken. So presidents wisely "choose" to go along. P70

John Comiskey, January 22, 2015 @ 7:14 am

Civic Education 101

Glennon laments as did Justice Souter, the pervasive civic ignorance of the citizenry. Democracy requires an informed and engaged citizenry. The recent and ongoing debates about the role the police in society raise similar question and doubts about our social contract and governance for the 21st century.

Where to from here?

A national conversation about civics and K-12 civic education.

What is the proper role of citizens in society?
What is the proper role of our polity?

William R. Cumming, January 22, 2015 @ 8:53 am

Again interesting thread and comments. The use of the term "Trumanite" is unfortunate and totally inaccurate IMO! Truman reluctantly signed the National Security Act of 1947 to resolve the documented failures of Jointness between the Army and Navy in WWII [the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy--Stimson and King]! Truman was personally opposed to the establishment of the CIA for many good reasons.

What is the real failure is the creation of the Nuclear Priesthood which largely failed to guard its secrets from other Nation-States and individuals and the warping into the DEEP STATE [the better term than DOUBLR GOVERTNMENT]!

And now IMO the DEEP STATE is about to DEEP SIX the Career military in the US as it organizes violence and the SURVEILLANCE STATE outside the ARMED FORCES.

A close study of the overturning of the ALIEN AND SEDITION Acts of 1798 which destroyed chances for a second term for John Adams and created the first real Presidential Election in the USA, the Presidential Election of 1800, which brought into officer Jefferson, but almost brought Aaron Burr to real power.

Study of James Madison so-called VIRGINIA RESOLUTION opposing the ASA is fully warranted. Too bad John Yoo did not know this history.

William R. Cumming, January 22, 2015 @ 2:43 pm

I need to mention that I did read the article and listened to the Cato Institute Panel.

The Panel presentations might lead one to argue that Double or nothing or the DEEP STATE what difference does it make past, present, or future?

My short answer is that Government of the people, by the people, and for the people [the Lincoln formulation] probably expired with the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Perhaps not but until argued and proven otherwise that is my conclusion! Perhaps wrong and hoping so!

Jack, January 24, 2015 @ 2:47 pm

A fascinating and needful argument, though I think we could make as much of the supine legislature that lends weight to Glennon's argument as he does the "permanent" executive agency security apparatus. If they're to be properly responsive to public will, executive agencies need better written laws.

The Critical Infrastructure Protection Act or CIPA, which passed the house in 2014, would, "require the Assistant Secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate to: (1) include in national planning scenarios the threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events…" (emphasis mine). The national planning scenarios were rescinded in 2011, making CIPA either a very easy or very hard law to execute.

Likewise, the Biggert-Waters flood insurance reform act of 2012 altered regulatory definitions for "substantial damage" and "substantial improvement" by misunderstanding the way field damage assessments are performed under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Which means, I suppose, that we need more able legislators…which may be unlikely if more Americans don't know Publius from Curly.

[Oct 31, 2015] No Real Chance of Another Financial Crisis - Silly

Notable quotes:
"... The difficulty we have in the economics profession, I fear, is a great deal of herd instinct and concern about what others may say. And when the Fed runs their policy pennants up the flagpole, only someone truly secure in their thinking, or forsworn to some strong ideological interpretation of reality or bias if we are truly honest, dare not salute it. ..."
"... But it makes the point which I have made over and again, that all of the economic models are faulty and merely a caricature of reality. And therefore policy ought not to be dictated by models, but by policy objectives and a strong bias to results, rather than the dictates of process or methods. In this FDR had it exactly right. If we find something does not stimulate the broader economy or effect the desired policy objective, like tax cuts for the rich, using that approach over and over again is certainly not going to be effective. ..."
"... Economics are a form of social and political science. And with the political and social process corrupted by big money, what can we expect from would be philosopher kings. ..."
"... The interconnectedness of the global system with its massive and underregulated TBTF Banks, the widespread and often fraudulent mispricing of risk, all make cause for a financial system to be fragile. In this thinking Nassim Taleb is far ahead of the common economic thought as a real systems thinker. The Fed is not a systemic thinking organization because they are owned by the financial status quo, and real systemic reform rarely comes from within. ..."
"... So Mr. Baker, rather than looking for the bubble, lets say we have a fragile system still disordered and mispricing risk, with a few very large banks engaging in reckless speculation, mispricing risk for short term profits, manipulating markets, and distorting the processes designed to maintain a balance in the economy. Rather than hold out for a new bubble as your criterion, perhaps we may also consider that the patient is still on full life support after the last bubble and crisis. Why do we need to find a new source of malady when the old one is still having its way? ..."
"... A new crisis does not have to happen. This is the vain comfort in these sorts of black swan events, being hard to predict. But they can be more likely given the right conditions, and I fear little will be done about this one until even those who are quite personally comfortable with things as they are begin to feel the pain, ..."
"... neither Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously. ..."
"... If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario. It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation. This seems like a much more plausible story... ..."
jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

I like Dean Baker quite well, and often link to his columns. On most things we are pretty much on the same page.

And to his credit he was one of the few 'mainstream' economists to actually see the housing bubble developing, and call it out. Some may claim to have done so, and can even cite a sentence or two where they may have mentioned it, like Paul Krugman for example. But very few spoke about doing something about it while it was in progress. The Fed was aware according to their own minutes, and ignored it.

The difficulty we have in the economics profession, I fear, is a great deal of herd instinct and concern about what others may say. And when the Fed runs their policy pennants up the flagpole, only someone truly secure in their thinking, or forsworn to some strong ideological interpretation of reality or bias if we are truly honest, dare not salute it.

Am I such a person? Do I actually see a fragile financial system that is still corrupt and highly levered, grossly mispricing risks? Or am I just seeing things the way in which I wish to see them?

That difficulty arises because economics is no science. It involves judgment and principles, and weighs the facts far too heavily based upon 'reputation' and 'status.' And of course I have none of those and wish none.

But it makes the point which I have made over and again, that all of the economic models are faulty and merely a caricature of reality. And therefore policy ought not to be dictated by models, but by policy objectives and a strong bias to results, rather than the dictates of process or methods. In this FDR had it exactly right. If we find something does not stimulate the broader economy or effect the desired policy objective, like tax cuts for the rich, using that approach over and over again is certainly not going to be effective.

Economics are a form of social and political science. And with the political and social process corrupted by big money, what can we expect from would be 'philosopher kings.'

The housing bubble was no 'cause' of the latest financial crisis. More properly it was the tinder and the trigger event. The S&L crisis was just as great, if not greater. Why then did it not bring the global financial system to its knees?

The interconnectedness of the global system with its massive and underregulated TBTF Banks, the widespread and often fraudulent mispricing of risk, all make cause for a financial system to be 'fragile.' In this thinking Nassim Taleb is far ahead of the common economic thought as a real 'systems thinker.' The Fed is not a systemic thinking organization because they are owned by the financial status quo, and real systemic reform rarely comes from within.

I see the same fragility which existed from 1999 to 2008 still in the system, only grown larger, global, and more profoundly influencing the political processes.

The only question is what 'trigger event' might set it spinning, and how great of a magnitude will it have to be in order to do so. The more fragile the system, the less that is required to knock it off its underpinnings.

And a crisis is not a binary event. There is the 'trigger' and the dawning perception of risks, and the initial responses of the political, social, and regulatory powers.

There is no point in debating this, because the regulators and powerful groups like the Fed are caught in a credibility trap, which prevents them from seeing things as they are, and saying so.

So Mr. Baker, rather than looking for the bubble, let's say we have a fragile system still disordered and mispricing risk, with a few very large banks engaging in reckless speculation, mispricing risk for short term profits, manipulating markets, and distorting the processes designed to maintain a balance in the economy. Rather than hold out for a 'new bubble' as your criterion, perhaps we may also consider that the patient is still on full life support after the last bubble and crisis. Why do we need to find a new source of malady when the old one is still having its way?

I think if one exercises clear and open judgement, they can see that we have stirred up the same pot of witches brew that has made the system fragile and vulnerable to an exogenous shock, and has kept it so.

A new crisis does not have to happen. This is the vain comfort in these sorts of 'black swan' events, being hard to predict. But they can be more likely given the right conditions, and I fear little will be done about this one until even those who are quite personally comfortable with things as they are begin to feel the pain,

The problem is not a 'bubble.' The problem is pervasive corruption, fraud, and lack of meaningful reform. The 'candidate' is the financial system itself, with its outsized hedge funds and the TBTF Banks with their serial crime sprees and accommodative regulators in particular.

And if one cannot see that in this rotten system with its brazenly narrow rewarding of a select few with the bulk of new income, then there is little more that can be said.

Neil Irwin, a writer for the NYT Upshot section, had an interesting debate with himself about the likely future course of the economy. He got the picture mostly right in my view, with a few important qualifications.

"First, his negative scenario is another recession and possibly a financial crisis. I know a lot of folks are saying this stuff, but it's frankly a little silly. The basis of the last financial crisis was a massive amount of debt issued against a hugely over-valued asset (housing). A financial crisis that actually rocks the economy needs this sort of basis.

If a lot of people are speculating in the stock of Uber or other wonder companies, and reality wipes them out, this is just a story of some speculators being wiped out. It is not going to shake the economy as a whole. (San Francisco's economy could take a serious hit.)

Anyhow, financial crises don't just happen, there has to be a real basis for them. To me the housing bubble was pretty obvious given the unprecedented and unexplained run-up in prices in the largest market in the world. Perhaps there is another bubble out there like this, but neither Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously.

If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario. It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation. This seems like a much more plausible story...

Anyhow, a story of slow job growth and ongoing wage stagnation would look like a pretty bad story to most of the country. It may not be as dramatic as a financial crisis that brings the world banking system to its knees, but it is far more likely and therefore something that we should be very worried about."

Dean Baker, Debating the Economy with Neil Irwin, 31 October 2015

[Oct 31, 2015] Another Black Swan? Turkey Holds Snap Elections Amid NATO-Backed Civil War

Notable quotes:
"... Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here . In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities. ..."
zerohedge.com
JustObserving

Supporting the Kurds will lead to more terrorism per Erdogan. But it is fine and dandy to support ISIS terrorists and to be at war with Syria. Turkey will soon be a failed state:

The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:

  • –Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
  • –Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video "Syria: Wolves of the Valley": "Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary."
  • –Turkey's intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria.
  • Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here. In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities.
  • –Turkey's foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.
  • –Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue.
  • –Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

more at:

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/25/turkeys-troubling-war-on-syria/

[Oct 31, 2015] All Knew That This Interest Was Somehow The Cause of the War

Notable quotes:
"... encouraging ..."
"... Wage slavery is VERY different from chattel slavery. The danger of ignoring that difference is that it obscures the intimate connection between the two, which is the legal institution of private property. ..."
"... The Roman law of property derived by analogy from conditions of slave ownership. Owning land is an analog of owning slaves. ..."
"... Born in debt. Live in debt. Die in debt. The one thing they got right: human slavery is so distasteful we can't do it openly anymore. But wage slavery is just fine, especially debt peonage. No one can complain if you get yourself into debt, just if someone else puts you there. ..."
"... I hate my job. I am de facto a day laborer, delivering items as and when my boss tells me to. As a former university professor, this is a hard blow. But to say I and 99.9% of the population are coffled is pure nonsense. My situation is lousy. But comparing what the black slaves went through with what I am going through is like saying the internment camps which held the Japanese-Americans were the same as the death camps in Nazi Germany. One was bad, the other indescribably worse. Not all evils are identical or commensurate. ..."
"... Any adequate reading of the history of the Civil War will show that the 11 Confederate States destroyed themselves out of lust to extend slavery to the northwestern states. They had through "compromises" extended slavery to the states south of Missouri already. The threat of urbanization and immigration creating enough free voters to outvote their 1.6 people gerrymanders terrified the Southern powers-that-be to the point of pre-emptive war. Read the Secession declarations of each state; believe them for what they say, not the subsequent reunion-period histories. ..."
"... The economic benefits of the internal slave breeding industry were matched by the political benefits; they could try to outbreed the Northern increase through immigration and make profits off sales to western states. ..."
"... David Graeber's book (Debt: The first 5000 years) convincingly relates debt directly to slavery, real slavery. Creditors ("masters") rigged the game, took all their debtors assets, and when there was nothing left for them to take, they took them, as slaves. Or their wives, daughters, sons. I know, ancient slavery was different in some respects; slaves could earn their way out or be "redeemed" by a family member or other creditor. (And there was the Jubilee year – I have to read Michael Hudson on that someday.) I can accept that American chattel slavery was distinct and diabolical, but it was an intense form of something that seems to have been with us, humanity, for a long time. ..."
"... The westward expansion after the War of 1812 and the closure of the overseas slave trade in 1808 created the conditions for the internal slave breeding industry with its generation of roving coffles and slave traders, it major slave markets, a good many of which have been preserved, and its new forms of finance and legal entities. ..."
"... Yes, Graeber's book is excellent on this point: "Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all social relationships that make one a human being. Another way to put this is that the slave is, in a very real sense, dead." ..."
"... The important point. The United States of America (Lincoln) did not want to fight. The abolitionists were a minority. The Southern media (newspaper editors) freaked out like to media shock jocks did over the election of Barack Obama. Unlike this time around, at least so far, the Southern states were stampeded by their elites into seceding; the state legislatures and governors were part of those elites. In the midst of the tension Edmund Ruffin, a pro-secessionist rabble-rouser from Virginia went to Charleston SC, and with the help of military school Citadel and Arsenal cadets, and SC militia, conducted a coast artillery attack on the closest military installation – Fort Sumter. And reactions escalated, very much like the diplomatic environment after the the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And they escalated because the Southern hotheads wanted war. ..."
"... Regarding the coffle, it seems this is early capitalism's answer to the "Trail of Tears" and the famous "Bataan Death March". Then again, maybe it's not "early" capitalism at all….I'm thinking of Malaysia and the TPP. ..."
"... Many years ago I visited a small slavery museum out in the cotton fields somewhere around Memphis - I forget which side of the river it was on. It was in an old house that might be found anywhere, but more likely in a suburb than far out in the cotton fields, with no other house in view. Even the nearest line of trees was hundreds of yards away. In the largest room they had a lot of chains with large, heavy links, bigger than you would think would be necessary to hold even a very active human being. ..."
"... Slavery in the US was rather tame and short lived in comparison to the slavery practiced by the Muslims and Africans themselves. ..."
"... It was not until 1960 that slavery was outlawed in Saudi Arabia although it may well continue to this day. To really understand large scale slavery we need to go back to the origins of the Muslim movement. ..."
"... Hi Lambert, the book that first put the scope of the slave trading and breeding industries into context for me was The World That Made New Orleans by Ned Sublette. It's a fascinating and terrible account and if I recall correctly, describes some of the slave breeding operations carried out by Thomas Jefferson. ..."
naked capitalism

… About a quarter of those trafficked southward were children between eight and fifteen, purchased away from their families. The majority of coffle prisoners were male: boys who would never again see their mothers, men who would never again see wives and children. … The only age bracket in which females outnumbered males in the trade was twelve to fifteen, when they were as able as the boys to do field labor, and could also bear children. Charles Bell, forcibly taken from Maryland to South Carolina in 1805, recalled that

The women were merely tied together with a rope, about the size of a bed cord, which was tied like a halter round the neck of each; but the men…. were very differently caparisoned. A strong iron collar was closely fitted by means of a padlock around each of our necks. A chain of iron, about a hundred feet in length, was passed through the hasp of each padlock, except at the two ends, where the hasps of the padlock passed through a link in the chain. In addition to this, we were handcuffed in pairs, with iron staples and chains, with a short chain, uniting the handcuffs and their wearers in pairs.

As they tramped along, coffles were typically watched over by whip- and gun-wielding men on horseback and a few dogs, with supply wagons bringing up the rear… The captives were not generally allowed to talk among themselves as they tramped along, but sometimes, in the midst of their suffering, they were made to sing. The English geologist G. W. Featherstonehaugh, who in 1834 happened upon the huge annual Natchez-bound chain gang led by trader John Armfield, noted that "the slave drivers… endeavour to mitigate their discontent by feeding them well on the march, and by encouraging them" - encouraging them? - "to sing 'Old Virginia never tire,' to the banjo. Thomas William Humes, who saw coffles of Virginia-born people passing through Tennessee in shackles on the way to market, wrote; "It was pathetic to see them march, and to hear their melodious voices in plaintive singing as they went."…

From the first American coffles on rough wilderness treks along trails established by the indigenous people, they were the cheapest and most common way to transport captives from one region to another.

The Federally built National (or Cumberland) Road, which by 1818 reached the Ohio River port of Wheeling, Virginia (subsequently West Virginia), was ideal for coffles. It was the nation's first paved highway, with bridges across every creek. Laying out approximately the route of the future US 40, its broken-stone surface provided a westward overland transportation link that began at the Potomac River port of Cumberland, Maryland. From Wheeling, the captives could be shipped by riverboat down to the Mississippi and on to the Deep South's second-largest slave market at Natchez, or further on to the nation's largest slave market, New Orleans.

I'll stop at the demonstration of how Federal infrastructure improve the slave trade's supply chain.

From my vantage point (starting with my family history and where I live), the coffle seems like a work of fiction, a dystopian nightmare written by a demeted sadist. Imagine a hundred or so slaves chained together and being driven down the main street of my small town by dogs and men with whips. And now imagine this scene was normal, and kids coming home from school walked right past it. When do I wake up? (Sure, Rome. But that was thousands of years ago!)

And yet this is not science fiction stuff, or fantasy. It's history. Here's a list of the Presidents who owned slaves:

  • George Washington (between 250-350 Slaves)
  • Thomas Jefferson (about 200)
  • James Madison (more than 100)
  • James Monroe (about 75)
  • Andrew Jackson (fewer than 200)
  • Martin Van Buren (one)
  • William Henry Harrison (eleven)
  • John Tyler (about 70)
  • James Polk (about 25)
  • Zachary Taylor (fewer than 150)
  • Andrew Johnson (probably eight)
  • Ulysses S. Grant (probably five)[1]

... ... ...

Conclusion

I focused on the long passage from the Sublette's book because it seemed to me to be an objective correlative for living in the midst of a slave power, and that experience is an important - a critical - part of American history, and I believe that getting the history right is important.

And although I've written I prefer human gift to human rental (wage labor), and human rental to human sale (slavery), I don't have any grand policy pronouncements to make. I do think we need to be leery of using slavery as a metaphor; "wage slavery" is not slavery; where's the coffle? Ditto "debt slavery." (That's not to say that wages and debt are not power relations, because of course they are, but the human reality of the power relations is different.)

So all I can do is ask you to get the image of the coffle firmly in your mind, and children watching one go by. The coffle was a thing. That was what was going on. The whole thing makes me want to take a bath. And we're still living with the complicated and painful consequences of slavery today.

NOTE

Title quotation from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.

NOTES

  • [1] On Grant and slaves, see here, here, and here.
  • [2] The twenty-first century word to describe this attribute is "passion."


Eric Patton, October 28, 2015 at 11:33 am

And wage slavery isn't all that different from chattel slavery. The propaganda is much better, though.

Plantation owners: capitalists; overseers: coordinators; slaves: workers.


Sandwichman, October 28, 2015 at 1:46 pm

Wage slavery is VERY different from chattel slavery. The danger of ignoring that difference is that it obscures the intimate connection between the two, which is the legal institution of private property.

The Roman law of property derived by analogy from conditions of slave ownership. Owning land is an analog of owning slaves.

David Wayne, October 28, 2015 at 3:06 pm

The thing that stands out to me in this article is the reference that all this is a function of capitalism. All that we are and all that we know is dictated by the needs of capitalism. We don't run capitalism, it runs us. So much so that it is impossible to conceive past that little box you're in to imagine – is this the only way we can live. Born in debt. Live in debt. Die in debt. The one thing they got right: human slavery is so distasteful we can't do it openly anymore. But wage slavery is just fine, especially debt peonage. No one can complain if you get yourself into debt, just if someone else puts you there.

Synoia, October 28, 2015 at 12:27 pm

he had felt it was his patriotic duty as a Virginian

His patriotism was founded on his state, not his country?

a soldier fights for his country-right or wrong-he is not responsible for the political merits of the course he fights in" and that

Was repudiated at Nuremberg, and enshrined on the concept of "War Crimes." However, the attitude it suits many in Washington, DC today.

James Levy, October 28, 2015 at 4:04 pm

I hate my job. I am de facto a day laborer, delivering items as and when my boss tells me to. As a former university professor, this is a hard blow. But to say I and 99.9% of the population are coffled is pure nonsense. My situation is lousy.

But comparing what the black slaves went through with what I am going through is like saying the internment camps which held the Japanese-Americans were the same as the death camps in Nazi Germany. One was bad, the other indescribably worse. Not all evils are identical or commensurate.

Working for a wage is tough, but the number of workers flogged to death, publically whipped, or who had their thumbs legally broken in thumbscrews last year was pretty low. And the number of American workers last year who got raises or left one job for a better one was pretty high in comparison with your average black slave.

So cut the crap about how your job today is "just as bad" as being a slave in pre-1865 America. I can't tell if you sound more like crybabies or idiots.

Jef, October 28, 2015 at 12:31 pm

Cheap almost free oil effectively gives every american 100 to 1000 slaves. Giving up oil will be as or more difficult than giving up the slaves back then.

TarheelDem, October 28, 2015 at 4:15 pm

Any adequate reading of the history of the Civil War will show that the 11 Confederate States destroyed themselves out of lust to extend slavery to the northwestern states. They had through "compromises" extended slavery to the states south of Missouri already. The threat of urbanization and immigration creating enough free voters to outvote their 1.6 people gerrymanders terrified the Southern powers-that-be to the point of pre-emptive war. Read the Secession declarations of each state; believe them for what they say, not the subsequent reunion-period histories.

The economic benefits of the internal slave breeding industry were matched by the political benefits; they could try to outbreed the Northern increase through immigration and make profits off sales to western states.

The financial system relative to international monetary relations was so different in the ante-bellum period that the creation of Confederate money offered little incentive to punishment. Negotiation with foreign financial centers disputing the credibility of the money, yes. Would you take currency from a putative new country that was engaged in a war of secession? But as a causus belli, not likely.

The attempt to frame the United States with the responsibility for the war was primarily a post-bellum propaganda effort in support of restoring white supremacy.

Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg, October 28, 2015 at 5:47 pm

Yeah- the southern gentlemen were fully aware that even with the stupid 3/5 compromise, they were going to be on the losing end of a demographic shift if they couldn't expand the slave states. Hence the weird plots to annex Cuba and take over Mexico.

Oguk, October 28, 2015 at 2:43 pm

I don't know if I posted about this or not, but David Graeber's book (Debt: The first 5000 years) convincingly relates debt directly to slavery, real slavery. Creditors ("masters") rigged the game, took all their debtors assets, and when there was nothing left for them to take, they took them, as slaves. Or their wives, daughters, sons. I know, ancient slavery was different in some respects; slaves could earn their way out or be "redeemed" by a family member or other creditor. (And there was the Jubilee year – I have to read Michael Hudson on that someday.) I can accept that American chattel slavery was distinct and diabolical, but it was an intense form of something that seems to have been with us, humanity, for a long time.

2nd comment is that slave narratives, like Solomon Northrup's or Frederick Douglass's, really drive the point of this post home. It is a chilling history.

TarheelDem, October 28, 2015 at 7:43 pm

Graeber's book is excellent on the relationship between debt and slavery, a relationship useful to exploring post-bellum country-store and private debt selling and the debt slavery or working off debt for third parties. Part of this examination of debt slavery should pay attention to the way that debt was accounted for and who did the accounting. Company stores in isolated rural areas were notorious in mining, manufacturing. logging, and agriculture for false books in order to keep people in debt bondage.

But chattel slavery in America has origin in war raids, not indebtedness, war raids that were encouraged by the slave traders and in North America involved aboriginal peoples raiding other aboriginal peoples to provide Amerindian slave for transport from North America to the West Indies even into the 1700s. That arose aside and independent of English traders trading European goods on credit for deerskins (in Virginia and Carolina) and slaves. [Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717]

The political triangulation of the sweeping frontier balance this slavery, white indentured servitude, and African chattel slavery as balances of forces to preserve the local aristocracy. So three forms of servitude co-existed until 1717, two persisted until African chattel slavery was dramatically profitable in the Tidewater tobacco plantations and Carolina rice and indigo plantations and internal increase of the plantations caught up with labor demand. And the growth of the political confederations of the "Five Civilized Tribes" in the mid-1700s shut down the Indian slave trade. The westward expansion after the War of 1812 and the closure of the overseas slave trade in 1808 created the conditions for the internal slave breeding industry with its generation of roving coffles and slave traders, it major slave markets, a good many of which have been preserved, and its new forms of finance and legal entities. This industry is even visible in census records. Recording the occupations in the 1850 or 1860 census of slave areas in the Carolinas or Virginia, one comes upon a patter in the vicinity of major plantation slaveowners. There are scattered settlements that comprise an overseer, a number of blacksmiths, a waggonmaker, and a wheelwright in close propinquity in a ratio of about one settlement for ever 150 slaves listed as property of the slaveowner. The blacksmiths made and maintained the coffles. The wagon technicians made and repaired the planters fleet for hauling bales or hogsheads. The census lists free men, who rarely are identified as black or mulatto in these areas, generally not in sensitive occupations, such as blacksmith.

Slave traders are generally listed as "merchant". You have to look from specific ads for slaves to figure out how extensive their trading business was.

Justicia, October 28, 2015 at 9:44 pm

Yes, Graeber's book is excellent on this point: "Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all social relationships that make one a human being. Another way to put this is that the slave is, in a very real sense, dead."

Dead, perhaps, to the slave-owner and the laws that protected his property but very much alive and human to their companions in suffering and to those not blinded by greed, prejudice, propaganda and social convention.

TarheelDem, October 29, 2015 at 9:16 am

The notion of being dead as far as the law is concerned about his person and his property puts a very interesting twist on knowing one's "place". And greed, prejudice, propaganda, and social convention are not as much a primary issue as is the power to plunder and abuse regardless of the particular motive. It is the institutions that defend the behaviors that hold in being the attitudes. Rush Limbaugh, the shock jocks, Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee County, and their like defend the behaviors of abusive police; that is to let black people know that the law is dead to them and to "stay in their place". Focusing on the attitude reduces the issue to an individualist one of "personal responsibility" and the action of one or a few cops instead of a pervasive network of abusive institutions held in place by a seamless nationwide network of racist propaganda, material support for abusers, and legal defenses.

Darthbobber, October 28, 2015 at 11:42 pm

Another take on Graeber's book, from the Brit libertarian (no not those libertarians) Marxists who publish Aufheben. I only agree with a portion of their critique, but its worth a read.
http://libcom.org/library/5000-years-or-debt

nobody

About those textbooks… not those in the state of Texas, but those in use in the other states, Morris Berman's got some interesting insights:

When you think about it, nearly everything in modern American history turns on the Civil War, because the ideology I have been describing (which can be more accurately described as a mythology, or grand narrative) requires us to 'fix' traditional societies and eliminate obstacles to progress. With the Civil War these two goals converged, making it the paradigm case of how we carry out, or attempt to carry out, these two projects. What the North did to the South is really the model of what America in general did and does to 'backward' (i.e., traditional) societies, if it can. You wipe out almost the entire indigenous population of North America; you steal half of Mexico; you bomb Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age' (in the immortal words of Curtis LeMay); you 'shock and awe' Iraqi civilians, and so on. In what follows, then, I want to look at the War Between the States in a completely different way than the one found in the typical American history textbook. This, in fact, is what generated the energy that led to a four-year battle and the death of 625,000 individuals. What follows is an elaboration of this argument.

Let's start with the view of the South as seen from the North. The popular image of the antebellum South, as it was presented in American history textbooks and classes when I went to high school in the North, was pretty much the same then as it is now. That is to say, we were taught that the South, as the home of slavery, was a backward and immoral place, and its refusal to abandon that institution was the cause of the Civil War. Under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln (pretty much depicted as a saint), the virtuous Union armies defeated the evil Confederate ones, and the slaves were finally set free. Mutatis mutandis, this remains the politically correct version, as well as the liberal academic version, of the war down to the present time.

[However…]

All the evidence suggests that the North's 'nobility' in fighting slavery was a long-after-the-fact justification, an attempt to portray the conflict as a victory of morality and equality over depravity. It's a thesis that gets people all worked up, but it finally doesn't wash.

[…]

In reality, the treatment of the South by the North was the template for the way the United States would come to treat any nation it regarded as an enemy: not merely a scorched earth policy, but also a 'scorched soul' policy (the destruction of the Native American population was, of course, a preview of this). From Japan to Iraq, the pattern is the same, to the extant that we have been able to impose it: first destroy the place physically (in particular, murder huge numbers of civilians, as the North did to the South during the Civil War-fifty thousand of them by 1865), and then 'Americanize' it. Humiliation, the destruction of the identity of the defeated party, has always been an important part of the equation.

[…]

Sure, the war was about slavery; it was hardly a minor issue. But it was part of a much larger one about two very different and incompatible civilizations, and a fixation on the moral question of slavery can blind us to the larger (world) context of the Civil War, which was really the American version of the global modernization process. No, I have no wish to live in a slave society; I regard it as an abomination. But the South saw a different type of abomination on the horizon, one that is now with us; and quite frankly, I have no wish to live in that one either.

Bits of chapter 4 from: Why America Filed: The Roots of Imperial Decline

TarheelDem, October 28, 2015 at 7:57 pm

The important point. The United States of America (Lincoln) did not want to fight. The abolitionists were a minority. The Southern media (newspaper editors) freaked out like to media shock jocks did over the election of Barack Obama. Unlike this time around, at least so far, the Southern states were stampeded by their elites into seceding; the state legislatures and governors were part of those elites. In the midst of the tension Edmund Ruffin, a pro-secessionist rabble-rouser from Virginia went to Charleston SC, and with the help of military school Citadel and Arsenal cadets, and SC militia, conducted a coast artillery attack on the closest military installation – Fort Sumter. And reactions escalated, very much like the diplomatic environment after the the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And they escalated because the Southern hotheads wanted war.

The area between the two capitals Washington and Richmond was the cockpit of the war. The first movement was offensive, towards Washington. The Southern planters wanted Lincoln out of there.

JohnnyGL, October 28, 2015 at 3:34 pm

Regarding the coffle, it seems this is early capitalism's answer to the "Trail of Tears" and the famous "Bataan Death March". Then again, maybe it's not "early" capitalism at all….I'm thinking of Malaysia and the TPP.


Anarcissie, October 28, 2015 at 4:24 pm

Many years ago I visited a small slavery museum out in the cotton fields somewhere around Memphis - I forget which side of the river it was on. It was in an old house that might be found anywhere, but more likely in a suburb than far out in the cotton fields, with no other house in view. Even the nearest line of trees was hundreds of yards away. In the largest room they had a lot of chains with large, heavy links, bigger than you would think would be necessary to hold even a very active human being.

The largest chain had been arranged in a spiral on the floor with the collars around it, and there was a picture on the wall showing a coffle, the use to which such chains would have been put. The links of the big chain had a rough, pitted surface, and were a sort of rusty reddish-black. The elderly White woman in charge told me it had been taken from a long-gone barn or shed not far away exactly as it was, where it had probably rested since slavery days. In other words, unless the wind and the rain had washed them off, you could still find the blood and sweat of slaves on the links. There was some other agricultural gear about, like the hand tools the slaves would have used.

There was not a lot of signage and no glossy brochures. Pictures on the walls depicted a plantation house and outbuildings none of which remained, with the exception of the one the museum was in. I wondered who had put the museum together. When I asked how it had come to be, the woman only said, 'It's our history. We think people should know about it.'

Felix47, October 28, 2015 at 9:27 pm

Slavery in the US was rather tame and short lived in comparison to the slavery practiced by the Muslims and Africans themselves. The Somalians enslaved the Bantus etc. etc. The Arabs enslaved everyone and I recall seeing slaves even in 1991 in Saudi Arabia…..doing the labor since descendents of Mohammed avoid physical labor if they can since they see it as demeaning. The big difference was that the Arabs did not seem to see breeding slaves as a business…..they had them castrated in Africa often before they were imported. It was not until 1960 that slavery was outlawed in Saudi Arabia although it may well continue to this day. To really understand large scale slavery we need to go back to the origins of the Muslim movement.

Liz, October 29, 2015 at 6:33 pm

Hi Lambert, the book that first put the scope of the slave trading and breeding industries into context for me was The World That Made New Orleans by Ned Sublette. It's a fascinating and terrible account and if I recall correctly, describes some of the slave breeding operations carried out by Thomas Jefferson.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these titles.

[Oct 31, 2015] Congresswoman Calls US Effort To Oust Assad Illegal, Accuses CIA Of Backing Terroists

Neocon Wolf Blitzer against Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
Notable quotes:
"... This is one incredible person, she stands in a league of her own. The only pol Ive heard in a decade that makes a bit of sense. I now despise only 534 members of CONgress. ..."
"... Former CIA director Allen Dulles ordered JFKs assassination because he was a threat to national security, a new book has claimed. ..."
"... Allen Dulles most certainly was involved with the murder of JFK, and ensuing coverup. Dulles was central in the Warren Commission whitewash as well ..."
"... Elected in 2012, she is the first American Samoan[3] and the first Hindu member of the United States Congress,[4] and, along with Tammy Duckworth, one of its first female combat veterans.[5] ..."
"... She has a lot of guts unlike the shitty little vile NeoCons like McCain and Lindsay Graham and the Neo-Zio-Libs like Feinstein and Schumer who are dual shit-i-zens. ..."
"... fighting against Islamic extremists. ..."
"... What the CIA, et alia, ..."
"... Islamic extremist groups, ..."
"... terrorism, ..."
"... uccessfulness ..."
"... insanities. ..."
"... AFGHAN OPIUM PRODUCTION INCREASES 35-FOLD SINCE U.S. INVASION ..."
"... http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/02/10/afghan-opium-produ... ..."
"... "Hoisted on their own petard" is an apt aphorism. ..."
"... Petard action happens at 6 minutes in, when Tulsi explains how if the U.S. repeats the same action as Iraq and Libya, the results will equal. ..."
"... That seed was already planted ..."
"... not a good interview for zio Wolfe ... ..."
Oct 31, 2015 | Zero Hedge
One point we've been particularly keen on driving home since the beginning of Russian airstrikes in Syria is that The Kremlin's move to step in on behalf of Bashar al-Assad along with Vladimir Putin's open "invitation" to Washington with regard to joining forces in the fight against terrorism effectively let the cat out of the proverbial bag.

That is, it simply wasn't possible for the US to explain why the Pentagon refused to partner with the Russians without admitting that i) the government views Assad, Russia, and Iran as a greater threat than ISIS, and ii) Washington and its regional allies don't necessarily want to see Sunni extremism wiped out in Syria and Iraq.

Admitting either one of those points would be devastating from a PR perspective. No amount of Russophobic propaganda and/or looped video clips of the Ayatollah ranting against the US would be enough to convince the public that Moscow and Tehran are a greater threat than the black flag-waving jihadists beheading Westerners and burning Jordanian pilots alive in Hollywood-esque video clips, and so, The White House has been forced to scramble around in a desperate attempt to salvage the narrative.

Well, it hasn't worked.

With each passing week, more and more people are beginning to ask the kinds of questions the Pentagon and CIA most assuredly do not want to answer and now, US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is out calling Washington's effort to oust Assad both "counterproductive" and "illegal." In the following priceless video clip, Gabbard accuses the CIA of arming the very same terrorists who The White House insists are "our sworn enemy" and all but tells the American public that the government is lying to them and may end up inadvertently starting "World War III."

Enjoy:

https://youtu.be/IHkher6ceaA

For more on how Russia and Iran's efforts in Syria have cornered the US from a foreign policy perspective, see "ISIS In 'Retreat' As Russia Destroys 32 Targets While Putin Trolls Obama As 'Weak With No Strategy'"

aint no fortunate son's

This is one incredible person, she stands in a league of her own. The only pol I've heard in a decade that makes a bit of sense. I now despise only 534 members of CONgress.

Paveway IV

"...Gabbard accuses the CIA of arming the very same terrorists who The White House insists are "our sworn enemy" and all but tells the American public that the government is lying to them and may end up inadvertently starting "World War III."..."

Oh, then you're saying that that's future PRESIDENT Gabbard...

Sergeiab

Damn, you might be right. Look: see the public opinion is totally shifting (Easy when you have access to all the comments of all medias, including the moderated ones). Find someone among the democrats who voice it. Give her/him "random" media exposure (she was on Bill Maher few days ago) "Sudden rise of an outsider". She's a soldier/veteran/surfer 32yo. "Incredible American story". And at some point, she says she's transgender. Instant POTUS. That fits. That fits the "change/let's do something wild for once" that everybody's craving for (Trump). And it can't be random that a dissident voice is given media exposure. And she's beyond democrat/gop... That's a lot.

Is there a closing date for the primaries?

If not, she/he might well be the 45th president.

Sergeiab

Actually she's gonna be 35 in 2016...

And she did it again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSnXtapv9oQ

G.O.O.D

Accuses CIA Of Backing Terroists.

She left out Mossad, mI6, Saudis, Turkey and how many other zionist controlled CUNTries.

Dick Buttkiss

"Accuses CIA Of Backing Terroists."

Backing terrorist? How about being terrorists?

dot_bust

I agree. Good point.

I'd like to add that President John F. Kennedy issued an NSAM forbidding the CIA from conducting an further paramilitary operations and turned those operations over to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

President Truman only intended the CIA to analyze data from the other U.S. intelligence agencies, not to engage in any field operations. Here's his original op-ed piece about that very subject: http://www.maebrussell.com/Prouty/Harry%20Truman's%20CIA%20article.html

In the op-ed, Truman said that the CIA had begun making policy instead of simply analyzing data. He also emphasized his discomfort with the idea of the Agency participating in cloak-and-dagger operations.

SWRichmond

Thanks for the link. Truman says:

I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity-and I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3271482/Did-CIA-Director-Allen-D...

Former CIA director Allen Dulles ordered JFK's assassination because he was a 'threat to national security', a new book has claimed.

Bay of Pigs

Allen Dulles most certainly was involved with the murder of JFK, and ensuing coverup. Dulles was central in the Warren Commission whitewash as well. People forget he was dumped after the Bay of Pigs fiasco with JFK saying at the time that he would "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds".

Author David Talbot interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anYqrPRvhgo

km4

Lookout because Tulsi Gabbard has some impressive credentials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard

Elected in 2012, she is the first American Samoan[3] and the first Hindu member of the United States Congress,[4] and, along with Tammy Duckworth, one of its first female combat veterans.[5]

Military service (2004–present)

https://www.votetulsi.com/tulsi-gabbard

In 2004, when Tulsi's fellow soldiers from the 29th Brigade were called to war in Iraq, Tulsi volunteered to join them. She didn't need to put her life on the line. She could have stayed in the State House of Representatives, but in her heart, she felt it was more important to stand in solidarity with her fellow soldiers than to climb the political ladder.

Her two deployments to the war-torn and dangerous Middle East revealed both Tulsi's natural inclination to self-less service and her ability to perform well in situations demanding confidence, courage, and the ability to perform well as a member of a team. The same maturity and character that served Tulsi well in the Middle East makes her exceptionally effective in the political world.

Freddie

These banksters wars like all wars are total shit but I like her.

She is half Samoan and was a Catholic but became a Hindu.

She has a lot of guts unlike the shitty little vile NeoCons like McCain and Lindsay Graham and the Neo-Zio-Libs like Feinstein and Schumer who are dual shit-i-zens.

SWRichmond

Graham is the quintessential chickenhawk.

Radical Marijuana

While I agreed with your overview, WTFRLY, at the 1:25 mark I think she is seriously mistaken about the priority being fighting against Islamic extremists. The real enemy of the American People has been the international bankers, who have almost totally captured control over the government of the USA, through POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS.

Her basic opinion regarding 9/11 deliberately ignores that 9/11 was an inside job, false flag attack, which was aided and abetted by the Deep State Shadow Government. Everything that the USA has been doing has been actually carrying out the international bankers' agenda. The countries targeted for regime change were obstacles to the consolidation of the globalized hegemony of the international bankers, who are the best organized gangsters, the banksters, that have already captured control over all NATO governments, as is painfully obvious to anyone who thinks critically about how and why those governments ENFORCE FRAUDS by privately controlled banks.

What the CIA, et alia, having been doing, since the overthrow of the government of Iran back in 1953, has been creating "Islamic extremist groups," as the responses of the various Islamic countries having been controlled by the European invasions, and later American invasions, which were always directed at capturing control over the development of the natural resources, through maintaining the control over the monetary systems through which that was done.

The whole of human history has been the exponential growth of social pyramid systems based upon being able to back up lies with violence, becoming more sophisticated and integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which have become globalized systems of electronic money frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs. There is indeed a serious risk of NATO countries, already almost totally controlled by the international bankers, getting into conflicts with the national interests of various countries which no longer are so easy for the banksters to continue to control.

The banksters have been pushing through their agenda of wars based on deceits, in order to back up their debt slavery systems, and those were primarily the reasons for the series of regime changes, which appear to have stalled with respect to Syria. That Russia has decided that it is geopolitically able, along with the propaganda cover of fighting "terrorism," to step in with significant military support of the Syrian regime is indeed in severe conflict with the agenda of the international banksters, who are collectively a group of trillionaire mass murderers.

Human history has become the excessive successfulness of the application of the methods of organized crime to control governments, through the vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS, to develop to the point of runaway criminal insanities. While the Congresswoman above provided more penetrating analysis than one is used to be presented on the mainstream mass media, and she did that fairly well, she still is presenting the political problems only on very superficial levels ...

JLee2027

When a Hindu women who rides a surfboard starts making more sense than the President, and the entire Democratic Party I become speechless.

scrappy

She is an example of integrity standing up for what is right. I see many people of heart doing the same as this unfolds. We are supposed to support the "Underdog" Remember?

UNDERDOG Cartoon Intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHej4ZqZDwo&html5=1

WTFRLY

White House, Media Silent One Year After Murder of US Reporter Who Exposed Western Links to ISIS October 20, 2015

JustObserving

Heroin production up only 3500% since US invaded:

AFGHAN OPIUM PRODUCTION INCREASES 35-FOLD SINCE U.S. INVASION

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/02/10/afghan-opium-produ...

MEFOBILLS

"Hoisted on their own petard" is an apt aphorism.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hoist_by_one%27s_own_petard

To be hurt or destroyed by one's own plot or device intended for another; to be "blown up by one's own bomb"

The beautiful Tulsi Gabbard excerpt from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard

Her father is of Samoan/European heritage and is a practicing Catholic who is a lector at his church, but also enjoys practicing mantra meditation, including kirtan.[7] Her mother is of Euro-American descent and a practicing Hindu.[7] Tulsi fully embracedHinduism as a teenage

At 5 minutes in to video, Wolf B. mentions that Tulsi is a combat veteran. She is also on Senate Arms services committee.

The not so beautiful Wolf Blitzer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Blitzer

Blitzer was born in Augsburg, Germany] the son of Cesia Blitzer (née Zylberfuden), a homemaker, and David Blitzer, a home builder. His parents were Jewish refugees from O?wi?cim, Poland, and Holocaust survivors… While at Johns Hopkins, Blitzer studied abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he learned Hebrew.

Petard action happens at 6 minutes in, when Tulsi explains how if the U.S. repeats the same action as Iraq and Libya, the results will equal.

"Things that are being said right now about Assad, were said about Ghadaffi.., they were said about Saddam Hussein, by those who were advocating for the U.S. to intervene, to go overthrow those regimes and dictators. The fact is, if that happens here in Syria,….far worse situation, persecution of religious minorities and Christians."

Who advocated to start ME wars? Wolf then puts words in her mouth, suggesting that Hezbollah and Russians are doing the U.S. a favor.

To give Wolf full credit, he doesn't explode when Tulsi mentions persecution of the Christians, as said Christians MUST be his enemy and color Wolf's wordview, given his parents refugee history. Oh the web we weave, when we intend to deceive.

rejected

Well, she managed to get in the meme "We were attacked by Al Qaeda on 9/11". They push that meme every chance they get.

The spooks at the CIA know how to push propaganda. She will get all kinds of credibility appearing to oppose the spooks and very few will notice the 9/11 comment but the seed will be fertilized and grow stronger.

ebear

"....very few will notice the 9/11 comment but the seed will be fertilized and grow stronger."

I beg to differ. That seed was already planted. Why are we supporting the people who attacked us? - keeps it nice and simple. Turns the entire narrative against them.

One dragon at a time.

Omega_Man

not a good interview for zio Wolfe ...

I didn't like this girl before, but starting to like her.

She needs a security team... to protect her from the US Gov... no joke

[Oct 30, 2015] Russia Takes Over The Mid-East Moscow Gets Green Light For Strikes In Iraq, Sets Up Alliance With Jordan

A lot of wishful thinking. The USA still remain world only superpower and (in somewhat diminished way) as well as a technological leader. And the USA is still the most powerful (neoliberal) empire (that does not contradict dismal state of the USA infrastructure; that's typical for empire on late stage of development). It just overextended itself due to neocon dominance in the US politics.
And remember that Russia is neoliberal state too. And it was Putin who got Russia into WTO. Putin is a unique leader, but his rule is not eternal. An there is nobody after him to continue defiant course. actually Russia will face crisis of leadership after he is gone. So in a way TINA (or PAX Americana) still hold.
Notable quotes:
"... Zero fucking accountability. Greenspan and Bernanke didnt get it for blowing the Mother of All Bubbles. Clinton didnt get it for NAFTA and tearing down Glass-Steagal. Bush didnt get it for being asleep at the switch for 9/11 and then the wonderful Iraq and Afghan wars. Hilary didnt get it for creating all-terror zones in Libya. And Obama wont get it for destroying health care and doubling the national debt. ..."
"... think some of you are missing the big picture. Say that US Plan-B failed-take over Syria after Iraq. Isis are Sunnis. US have always supported Sunnis. So, Isis controls Iraq, with US and Saudi support (Plan-C). Now, say that in a couple years US, Saudi, and Israel manage a Coup D'état in Syria. ..."
"... As difficult as it is for most westerners to wrap their heads around... we are on the wrong side. Our side is really and truly the dark side. The side that is ruled by the banking cabal and who is hell bent on causing war after war after war in the name of expanding their hold on the entire planet. ..."
"... This is an unending war, if the US and the west pulls out of it and now Russia owns the mess. Russias economy is rather fucked at the moment and they are in no position to be fighting endless wars. ..."
"... ---Thanks to the fact that the Western media has held up ISIS as the devil incarnate........... ..."
"... ......... ..."
"... For now, however, expect ISIS to gradually disappear from the mainstream medias front pages. ..."
"... youve got a whole pentagon full of neocons whose heads are about to pop off; the urge in that building to intervene, er help, and blow shit up has to be extreme; if i was prezzy purple dank, id be maybe a little nervous of the suicide bug if you get it. ..."
"... The US and the House of Saud created, by accident or design, all the gangs of Muslim mass murderers currently terrorizing the planet. You want order restored and something done about Muslim mass murderers in your region, you bring in the Russians. ..."
"... With dirty Saudi oil money removed from the politics of Western nations, maybe something will finally be done to reverse Islamisation in the West. ..."
"... I agree with most of your comment, but Israel has never shown any interest in peace. If anything, they want the same kind of peace the US gave to the Native Americans (in this case, the Palestinians). ..."
"... Jordan? HAHAHA! Will they have their anti-ISIS intelligence center three blocks away from their USA sponsored ISIS training centers, or would that be taboo? What shameless whores those people must be. Its astonishing how quickly the wind can change direction. ..."
"... The US-led rules, which enforces verification of targets, regularly give IS militants time to save their supplies, equipment and fighters, they said. I dont see any similar constraint by US forces when it comes to bombing hospitals and wedding parties... ..."
"... Dont forget ISISs tanker trucks providing both income to ISIS and a increased oil supply to the market to keep prices down and ruin Russia economically. ..."
"... I suppose yesterday you noticed the US Syrian dwarfs came out out of the woodwork to tell the western MSM how many hospitals the Russians had bombed. ..."
"... You really have to hand it to the idiots (neocons) running DC. They totally blew it with the orchestration and training of ISIS to overthrow Assad, all the while having the MSM demonize ISIS as the bogeyman of the Middle East. Personally, I think the Ruskies are a bit slow on the uptake here. Why they didnt pull this off a year ago is beyond me. Maybe they have more patience than I do. ..."
"... Jordan has no choice but to join the Syrian/Russian/Iraq/Iran coalition. ISIS supply lines to and from Turkey will be cut. While the coalition nulifies US backed Anti-Assad moderate opposition , ISIS will be pushed southeast into eastern Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Jordan cant protect itself from US backed ISIS and sees Russia as its only savior. ..."
"... I agree that the Saudis will never ally with Iran, but we should clarify that the conflict you are describing is not Sunni vs Shia. but Wahhabi cultists versus mainstream Sunni and Shia. The Syrian army is 60% Sunni ..."
"... Egypt is also traditional Sunni and will likely move toward Russia and abandon the Saudis. ..."
"... Yes, the sectarian civil war nonsense was created to hide and counter the guerrilla war in Iraq. Iraq never had a civil war before, and there hadnt been a sectarian civil war anywhere. That the heavily intermarried anti-occupation Arabs needed to be fragmented into ghettos (just like the Palestinians naturally) ..."
"... Obama vowed to wage an unrelenting war on ISIL/ISIS. He said it would be a long haul, but terrorists would never hide from the USA. Fast forward to a full year of ISIL advances on the ground backed by a flood of US supplied TOW Anti Tank Guided Missiles, in use by Al-Qaeda and ISIL both. So Russia steps in to the fight. Obama demands they stop their sir strikes, stop arming Assad, and go home. ..."
"... Thats the best part about solving a problem that youve created. The severity of the problem will conveniently wax and wane to suit your needs. Need to scare the sheeple and keep foreign vassals loyal? Step #1 Create a pet bogeyman. Step #2: Defeat the pet bogeyman. Repeat as often as needed to maintain hegemony. ..."
"... I admire Putin for his steadfast defense of his country in the face of covert terrorism from the west. I fear the ME might be a quagmire although surely he better understands it than I do. As for the neocunts, everyone of you should die for the destruction youve sewn ..."
"... List of GCC countries, Gulf countries *Great Data Site-- Note: It is the NGOs belonging to the UAE Qatar that fund the jihadist throughout the *muslim-sunni world... with Saudi Arabia at the helm. The geographic landscape is telling...[Qatar and Bahrain have gargantuan R R military base outpost for USSA military brass] while most jihadist are recruited throughout the worlds muslim-sunni communities and trained in Jordan, and Pakistan etel! ..."
"... It should not be surprising that Putin, who has an excellent grasp of foreign affairs and intellectually far above most, if not all US policy makers, will exploit this situation. Further, ISIS can easily create major problems in Jordan, (where do they go once they are driven out of Syria?) something the King of Jordan, is no doubt well aware. Bottom line- the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq may well go down as the biggest military and economic disaster in world history. ..."
"... And just when are Germans, Italians, French and the Eastern European wanna-bes going to demand that NATO be dissolved and the American MIC permanently removed from their landscape(s) after 70 years of hovering ?... ..."
"... Lay the blame at the feet of those most responsible for this crisis who were coerced, bribed and threatened if they didnt do with impunity what the American IC and military demanded them to do and not the innocent begging for refuge while your government(s) assisted in the looting operation of their sovereign Countries! ..."
Oct 24, 2015 | Zero Hedge

OpenThePodBayDoorHAL

Zero fucking accountability. Greenspan and Bernanke didn't get it for blowing the Mother of All Bubbles. Clinton didn't get it for NAFTA and tearing down Glass-Steagal. Bush didn't get it for being asleep at the switch for 9/11 and then the wonderful Iraq and Afghan wars. Hilary didn't get it for creating all-terror zones in Libya. And Obama won't get it for destroying health care and doubling the national debt.

WTF are you gonna do. The United States of Amnesia.

BTW Turkey is the next Syria, you heard it here first.

jeff montanye

Bush was not asleep at the switch on 9-11. he just played one on teevee.

Escrava Isaura

I think some of you are missing the big picture. Say that US Plan-B failed-take over Syria after Iraq. Isis are Sunnis. US have always supported Sunnis. So, Isis controls Iraq, with US and Saudi support (Plan-C). Now, say that in a couple years US, Saudi, and Israel manage a Coup D'état in Syria.

... ... ...

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived(s).......

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1781680795?refRID=B3QFWNTPC57XETC7CW56&ref_=pd_ybh_a_1

... ... ...

1033eruth

The writer of this comment is really stupid, ignorant and moronic. The middle east isn't ours. Its not our toy. Russia didn't steal our toy. Its not the taxpayers job to fund a global playground for the US military to "exert our will".

Everything in the above article was PURE PROPAGANDA designed to promote some type of kneejerk response to Russia stealing our "toy".

Leave it alone. The middle east is like a big turd pile. We've got to learn to stop playing in it. Apparently readers of ZH think that playing King of the Turd Pile is exactly what taxpayers are supposed to finance.

Pure Evil

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov's saying about selling the capitalists the rope to hang themselves seems almost apropos in this situation.

After 9-11 the Russians allowed the former Soviet Republics to open up forward operating bases for the US to supply its foray into Afghanistan. When we went a bridge to far they then applied the pressure to deny access to these former airfields and our only supply route is now through Pakistan. And, undoubtedly the Pakistanis would more than be willing to sell us out to the Chinese and Russians.

With Iraq they sat back and watched us waste not only men and war fighting material but bleed the US Treasury dry.

They also stood down as we stoked the Arab Spring from Tunisia to Libya to Syria. Now Europe suffers from their own Arab Spring as millions of Sunni with no place to live invade Europe.

We overturn Saddam only to replace him with Shia leaders in control and we can only sit back and wonder why the Iranians control the Iraqi army.

We've spent trillions upon trillions of dollars only to hand over Syria and Iraq on a silver platter to Russia and Iran.

... ... ...

The neocons who consider themselves the best and brightest have totally botched everything and they're about to finish the take down of the US via amnesty, Obamacare, TPP, gun control, more and even higher immigration, and Wall Street corruption.

Can America afford anymore of their hubris?

Albertarocks

I think most of the world can see what's going to happen once Putin is finished putting the pieces all back together again. Peace is going to break out. And that's something that the US admin. just can't comprehend. [And I don't mean 'the American people'. It's the admin. acting as the puppet for the global banking mafia.] Can they accept peace in the Middle East? Hard to say, but when there is peace in the world, the US military industrial complex, the bankers, the fascist corporations, the dark side in general can't rule and make obscene amounts of money robbing the rest of the world.

As difficult as it is for most westerners to wrap their heads around... we are on the wrong side. Our 'side' is really and truly the dark side. The side that is ruled by the banking cabal and who is hell bent on causing war after war after war in the name of expanding their hold on the entire planet.

It's also considered a mortal sin in the west to cheer for the enemy. And maybe that's the proper and loyal stance to have, but cheering for Putin's success is not cheering for the enemy. The dark side, 'our side', is the world's enemy. Your children's enemy. Your grand children's enemy. The enemy of all of humanity and what is 'right'. Then enemy of this entire once-beautiful planet.

So ya, I want to see Putin be left alone to reassemble the god damned mess the bankers have caused. And then I want to see westerners turn our furious gaze inward... at the real cause of all the world's trouble. Our governments' day of reckoning is what westerners should be focusing on.

Paveway IV

"...It's also considered a mortal sin in the west to cheer for the enemy..."

Critical thinking ability is also a mortal sin in the West. Which would quickly lead one to surmise that the term 'enemy' is a neurolinguistic trick used by psychopaths to make you do something against your will, morals or better judgement. Replace 'enemy' with a more succinct term: 'evil'. Is Russia evil? No. Would you cheer for evil? Of course not. See how easy it is to untwist the psychopath's perverted logic?

California Nightmares

Some great comments, here. I'm afraid to thunbs up some of these. Microsoft and Google are probably capturing my every mouse click.

I offer only one thought: were the Russians (God bless 'em) to attain control of most of the Middle East's oil, we zeros in the USA would find ourselves living back in 1850.

ThroxxOfVron

"I think most of the world can see what's going to happen once Putin is finished putting the pieces all back together again. Peace is going to break out. And that's something that the US admin. just can't comprehend. "

I don't think that the War Profiteers are going to just shrug, stop taking our money from us, and find useful productive activities with which to earn honest livings so easily...

It's right about next year that South America should start to disintegrate.

Argentina., Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico: are ALL in serious trouble due to excessive/corrosive mismanagement and corruption, narco trade and human trafficing dynamics, commodities cycle collaps/reversions, resource depletions, etc..

Texas will have it's 'Hungarian' border moment soon enough as large populations finally give up any hope for political order and economic stability in their homelands and migrate north to the relative political stability and economic health ( and the generous social/welfare benefits! ) offered by the political ideologues in the US and Canada...

I expect that the usual political/policy factions the US will each welcome a wave of several millions of migrants, and launch military incursions into convulsing failed or failing South American states, albeit for differently stated reasons or ideological affinities...

IF the South American situation is not a large enough crisis to merit interventions and migrations it will be aggravated/enhanced to the point where it is worth of interventions by the Warfare/Welfare State nexus.

trulz4lulz

This is amazing!! Murikistan totally has lost control of their petrodollar superiority in 5 WEEKS! The rest will just be formalities of setting up the re republics of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan for russia and iran to reside over. This is the best cock-up in the history of the modern era!

Masterclass geopolitical strategy, Russia and Iran. Not like it wasn't handed to you on a silver platter or anything by obombya and his nerry band of mentally retarded sycophants, but still. Well played.

P.S. Murikistan doesn't survive this. Im hoping the great lakes region goes to the canadians though.

chunga

I've been thinking for a while that for USSA to maintain the petro-dollar reserve status it needs it's military to have at least an aura of invinciblity. Without that it would be tough to keep doing tricks like QE. And without the QE financial tricks it would be tough to pay for the giant military so catch-22.

Since USSA has fucked with just about everybody over there, their list of allies is pretty bad mainly just cutthroat Saudi Arabia and Israel. With the Russians giving Uncle Scam the finger it might embolden others to do the same. That's why I fear 'Murika might fly off the handle over this and really escalate the shooting because it has no choice. They've burned up all their goodwill internationally so only tool they have is a hammer.

Albertarocks -> chunga

I couldn't possibly agree with you more. You nailed it. Sam is in such a pickle. The bankers have led the US down the garden path, using it as it's 'bully branch', and this is more or less what I meant by our government being held to account. 90% of Congress should be charged with treason, given a fair trial and be made to suffer the consequences. If any one of them are found 'not guilty', then the judge should be charged with treason as well since it is already 100% obvious that when any one of them who signs bills, unread, at midnight, they have just committed an act of treason in that irresponsible act alone. I mean it's just incredible how evil the admin. has become. It's time to shake that house apart and bring 'rule of law' back into the forefront where it belongs. And then the oversight agencies like the SEC and the FDA... it's time to tear those demonic agencies to shreds and deal with their leaders accordingly. Those are the people who should probably pay the ultimate penalty first.

Freddie

the speed - 5 weeks - makes me think this has all been planned out. The installation of See Eye Aye NWO shit like Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obola makes me wonder. All four are See Eye Aye Moles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTuuPx0hFYM

All four are related. See video above. The USSA is a joke filled with idiots brainwashed by TV and Zollywood.

Omen IV

So the usa circles Russia and China with most of the 700 bases it operates and Iran in motion with Russia's help to circle Saudi Arabia with its own sphere of operation - pushing ISIS / ISIL / Daesh / Free Syrian Army / Al Nusra et al = Sunni's - to recognize the big prize that SA represents to ALL Sunni

The Princes right now have Mecca ???

laomei

I'm failing to see the downside to any of this. The US gets bitched at no matter what it does now. It's always wrong in some way or another, so fuck it I guess. Russia, which is MUCH CLOSER than the US is to this mess now gets to stick their dick into this bee hive and see what comes of it. This is an unending war, if the US and the west pulls out of it and now Russia owns the mess. Russia's economy is rather fucked at the moment and they are in no position to be fighting endless wars.

monk27

Russia's economy is much less fucked than America's economy. Printing USD with abandon (with and without issuing corresponding debt), and stuffing them into your own banks, hardly qualifies as "economy". By any measure you choose, US is in worse shape than Russia, corruption included...

At this point, probably the best thing US could hope for would be to clean up it's act internally (filling the jails with financial crooks would help), and do nothing as foreign policy, at least for a while. Detoxification is essential for survival...

Usurious

Tyler Durden----''Thanks to the fact that the Western media has held up ISIS as the devil incarnate''...........

can somebody make a youtube video montage of the talking heads, retired generals, republican debate freak show contestants, PNAC ZIO-CONs telling us how evil ISIS is/are ..........because ISIS has disappearded from the MSM headlines as Tyler predicted 2 weeks ago.....

Tyler Durden--''For now, however, expect ISIS to gradually disappear from the mainstream media's front pages.''

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-11/end-isis-iraq-air-force-claims-...

pliny the longer -> laomei

re laomei: allow me to take a stab at 'splaining this: the reason it matters is because you've got a whole pentagon full of neocons whose heads are about to pop off; the urge in that building to intervene, er help, and blow shit up has to be extreme; if i was prezzy purple dank, i'd be maybe a little nervous of the suicide bug if you get it.

also, for how long does anyone think israel is going to stand by and let this shit show build? they're playing it cool for now. but so did Putin until about 60 days ago . . .

this all of course is just a guess; WTF do i know, i'm just a dumb sum bitch that pays my bills and half of everyone else's;

Niall Of The Nine Hostages

It's not a "foolproof cover story." It's the truth. The US and the House of Saud created, by accident or design, all the gangs of Muslim mass murderers currently terrorizing the planet. You want order restored and something done about Muslim mass murderers in your region, you bring in the Russians.

On to Riyadh, Doha and Dubai. After the House of Saud and Thani are driven from power and liquidated, you won't hear another word about the war on terror. With dirty Saudi oil money removed from the politics of Western nations, maybe something will finally be done to reverse Islamisation in the West.

And there will be peace in Israel for forty years.

grekko -> Niall Of The Nine Hostages

You really have to eliminate Bibi first, and his whole neocon cadre. He incites the other side to be stupid, so he can reap the votes of the stupid. Then there will be peace.

Caleb Abell

I agree with most of your comment, but Israel has never shown any interest in peace. If anything, they want the same kind of peace the US gave to the Native Americans (in this case, the Palestinians).

Jack's Raging Bile Duct

Jordan? HAHAHA! Will they have their anti-ISIS intelligence center three blocks away from their USA sponsored ISIS training centers, or would that be taboo? What shameless whores those people must be. It's astonishing how quickly the wind can change direction.

smacker

[copied over from previous article]

This looks like it's one of the tactics used by US forces in Syria/Iraq to minimise any bombing damage to its ISIS terrorist friends:

from that article at http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iraq-authorises-russia-strike-islamic-...

" "They [the US-led coalition] refuse to strike private cars, mosques, bridges, schools despite the fact Daesh militants are mainly using these places as headquarters," a senior military officer [...] told MEE."

"The US-led rules, which enforces verification of targets, regularly give IS militants time to save their supplies, equipment and fighters, they said." I don't see any similar constraint by US forces when it comes to bombing hospitals and wedding parties...

bid the soldier

Don't forget ISIS's tanker trucks providing both income to ISIS and a increased oil supply to the market to keep prices down and ruin Russia economically.

smacker

Yep, it'll be good if Putin's bombers locate a few ISIS oil convoys and deal with them. That won't please the Turkish middle-men.

bid the soldier... -> smacker

I suppose yesterday you noticed the US Syrian dwarfs came out out of the woodwork to tell the western MSM how many hospitals the Russians had bombed.

Apparently unnewsworthy until the US bombed the MSF hospital in Afghanistan.

Its hard to say which is more pathetic: the US military or US propaganda.

Lea

"Iraq allows Russia to strike ISIL" is nowhere but on this Turkish site. I call BS. The whole of the Russian media would make this headlines. There is zilch, nada on Sputnik, RT or TASS.

grekko

You really have to hand it to the idiots (neocons) running DC. They totally blew it with the orchestration and training of ISIS to overthrow Assad, all the while having the MSM demonize ISIS as the bogeyman of the Middle East. Personally, I think the Ruskies are a bit slow on the uptake here. Why they didn't pull this off a year ago is beyond me. Maybe they have more patience than I do.

dustyfin

There's a time for everything.

A year ago Russia had other concerns, its military was a year less well prepared and a year ago, I think that Putin and his government still thought that some form of rapprochement could be made with The West.

Also, to get this far has required a whole heap of planning, negotiating, horse trading and arm twisting. Think of this as being the 'overnight success' that took a decade to achieve!

sudzee

Jordan has no choice but to join the Syrian/Russian/Iraq/Iran coalition. ISIS supply lines to and from Turkey will be cut. While the coalition nulifies US backed Anti-Assad "moderate opposition", ISIS will be pushed southeast into eastern Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Jordan can't protect itself from US backed ISIS and sees Russia as its only savior.

Saudi Arabia will have no choice soon but to join the coalition as well.

Get ready to price oil in Rubles or gold as the US is completely forced out of the entire middle east.

PrimalScream

I will differ with you on that one. The Saudis will never join Russia and Iran - that would be a union between Sunnis and Shiites. It is not going to happen. This new power struggle pits Sunni nations directly against the Shiites. It will be big and it will be bloody.

Rhett72

I agree that the Saudis will never ally with Iran, but we should clarify that the conflict you are describing is not Sunni vs Shia. but Wahhabi cultists versus mainstream Sunni and Shia. The Syrian army is 60% Sunni, and the Jordanian Hashemites are traditional Sunnis descended from Prophet Muhammad who were expelled from Mecca by the Saudis. Egypt is also traditional Sunni and will likely move toward Russia and abandon the Saudis.

Zadig

Yes, the sectarian civil war nonsense was created to hide and counter the guerrilla war in Iraq. Iraq never had a civil war before, and there hadn't been a 'sectarian civil war' anywhere. That the heavily intermarried anti-occupation Arabs needed to be fragmented into ghettos (just like the Palestinians naturally), but the pro-occupation Kurds didn't should have made things obvious to everyone.

Jack Burton

Obama vowed to wage an unrelenting war on ISIL/ISIS. He said it would be a long haul, but terrorists would never hide from the USA. Fast forward to a full year of ISIL advances on the ground backed by a flood of US supplied TOW Anti Tank Guided Missiles, in use by Al-Qaeda and ISIL both. So Russia steps in to the fight. Obama demands they stop their sir strikes, stop arming Assad, and go home.

Wanna see what Russia at war looks like? Want to see how they answer ISIL chopping heads off, eating organs etc. Watch the FULL video below of the Syrian Arab Army employ their new Russian supplied TOS-1 thermobaric weapon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SrKZd5tpNo

Zadig

That's the best part about solving a problem that you've created. The severity of the problem will conveniently wax and wane to suit your needs. Need to scare the sheeple and keep foreign vassals loyal? Step #1 Create a pet bogeyman. Step #2: Defeat the pet bogeyman. Repeat as often as needed to maintain hegemony.

Russia jumping in at Step #2 to reap the plaudits (and weapon sales!), is probably what Mordor hates the most about all this.

taopraxis

People who think Russia and China and the USA are enemies probably think Republicans and Democrats are enemies. Step back and it seems fairly obvious that someone behind the scene is moving these pieces around on the global chess board and the political puppets are merely implementing the new policies.

Obama looks like a Marketing Prez. Putin acts more like a COO. Abe is CFO, apparently, a frightening thought. Not sure what the Chinese and Saudi top dogs are all about...real players, maybe. All just conjecture, but the way the USA pulled out and the Russians moved in looked too well coordinated to be anything other than that...coordinated.

rejected

Hopefully President Putin doesn't put too much on his plate. The ussa is setting up fresh arms deliveries to the terrorists as we ponder.

It's going to be tough going for the Russian Federation to clean up the mess the ussa has made of the ME over the last 25 years. The whole damn place is a complete disaster with Arabs killing each other and Israel killing as many Palestinians as they can.

It's astonishing the Arabs, like the Ukrainians, can't seem to understand the ussa modus operandi that is,,, start a bunch of crap then back off and watch the fun. Sort of like the bar fight scenes in movies where the perp that starts the brawl exits once everyone is fighting.

Berspankme

I admire Putin for his steadfast defense of his country in the face of covert terrorism from the west. I fear the ME might be a quagmire although surely he better understands it than I do. As for the neocunts, everyone of you should die for the destruction you've sewn

earleflorida

Why waste valuable resources dividing and conquering in a medieval world, when religion can do the trick without unsheathing a sword? All but[t] for,... only the might being in the hands of the dual-mine'd pen'heads[?], is all one needs as a metaphoric representation of a classical 'Damocles Dilemma' victory? Why tell your right hand what your doing when the left will do it for you in a asymmetric 'syncreticism'!

"Sunni - Shia Split the Mideast new great divide" http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/09/06/sunnishia_split_the_mideasts_new_great_divide.html

"List of GCC countries, Gulf countries' *Great Data Site-- Note: It is the 'NGOs' belonging to the UAE & Qatar that fund the jihadist throughout the *muslim-sunni world... with Saudi Arabia at the helm. The geographic landscape is telling...[Qatar and Bahrain have gargantuan R&R military base outpost for USSA military brass] while most jihadist are recruited throughout the worlds muslim-sunni communities and trained in Jordan, and Pakistan etel!

http://www.dubaifaqs.com/list-of-gcc-countries.php

"Sunnis and Shia in the Middle`East" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25434060

Lastly, a read-between-the-lines of myopic misinformation atavistic Machiavellian protean...[?] "Obams Regime's Support of Al Qaeda and ISIS" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39005.htm

Sandmann

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/10/21/breaking-story-israeli-general-c...

"There is a strong cooperation between MOSSAD and ISIS top military commanders...Israeli advisors helping the Organization on laying out strategic and military plans, and guiding them in the battlefield"

The terrorist organization also has military consultants from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Saudi Arabia has so far provided ISIS with 30,000 vehicles, while Jordan rendered 4500 vehicles. Qatar and United Arab Emirates delivered funds for covering ISIS overall expenditure.

The planes belonging to the aforesaid countries are still landing in the Mosel airport, carrying military aid and fighters, especially via the Jordanian borders.

Phillyguy

Key events in US Iraq campaign

  1. Judy Miller and Michael Gordon publish their piece in the paper of record (NYT) about Sadam Hussein's attempts to obtain parts for nuclear weapons in 2002 (later shown to be nonsense).
  2. Colin Powell uses above "intelligence" in his UN speech, effectively creating a casus belli for Bush II invasion/occupation of Iraq.
  3. Don Rumsfeld claims the Iraq war will cost circa $ 70 billion, paid for with Iraqi oil revenue. Reality check- the Iraq campaign will end up costing US taxpayers $4-6 trillion.
  4. Immediately following the US invasion, US military disbands the Iraqi armed forces, many of whom later join ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

The arrogance, dishonesty and outright incompetence of this campaign is breathtaking. Despite spending significant lives and treasure, the US failed to obtain any imperial rent (oil concessions, etc) from this war.

It should not be surprising that Putin, who has an excellent grasp of foreign affairs and intellectually far above most, if not all US policy makers, will exploit this situation. Further, ISIS can easily create major problems in Jordan, (where do they go once they are driven out of Syria?) something the King of Jordan, is no doubt well aware. Bottom line- the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq may well go down as the biggest military and economic disaster in world history.

Son of Captain Nemo

Regardless of your stance on whether the EU should be receptive to the millions of asylum seekers fleeing the war-torn Mid-East, the simple fact is that if you remain in Syria, you are risking your life on a daily basis, caught in the crossfire between a bewildering array of state actors, rebel groups, and proxy armies, all with competing agendas.

And just when are Germans, Italians, French and the Eastern European wanna-bes going to demand that NATO be dissolved and the American MIC permanently removed from their landscape(s) after 70 years of "hovering"?...

Lay the blame at the feet of those most responsible for this crisis who were coerced, bribed and threatened if they didn't do with impunity what the American IC and military demanded them to do and not the innocent begging for refuge while your government(s) assisted in the looting operation of their sovereign Countries!

P.S.

If PIGIDA were ever to wage that kind of a campaign and align themselves with the "left" that is already anti-American the U.S. will be finished!

[Oct 30, 2015] The Deciders by John Hay

Notable quotes:
"... The cast of characters includes President George W. Bush; L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, the first civilian administrator of postwar Iraq; Douglas Feith, Bush's undersecretary of defense for policy; Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's deputy secretary of defense; I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard B. Cheney (and Cheney's proxy in these events); Walter Slocombe, who had been President Clinton's undersecretary of defense for policy, and as such was Feith's predecessor; Richard Perle, who was chairman of Bush's defense policy board; and General Jay Garner, whom Bremer replaced as the leader of postwar Iraq. ..."
"... Regarding the de-Baathification order, both Bremer and Feith have written their own accounts of the week leading up to it, and the slight discrepancy between their recollections is revealing in what it tells us about Bremer-and consequently about Wolfowitz and Libby for having selected him. At first blush, Bremer and Feith's justifications for the policy appear to dovetail, each comparing postwar Iraq to postwar Nazi Germany. Bremer explains in a retrospective Washington Post op-ed, "What We Got Right in Iraq," that "Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations." For his part, Feith goes a step further, reasoning in his memoir War and Decision that the case for de-Baathification was even stronger because "The Nazis, after all, had run Germany for a dozen years; the Baathists had tyrannized Iraq for more than thirty." ..."
"... Simply put, Bremer was tempted by headline-grabbing policies. He was unlikely to question any action that offered opportunities to make bold gestures, which made him easy to influence. Indeed, another quality of Bremer's professional persona that conspicuously emerges from accounts of the period is his unwillingness to think for himself. ..."
"... What's even more surprising is how Bremer doesn't hide his intellectual dependence on Slocombe. ..."
"... Slocombe that "Although a Democrat, he has maintained good relations with Wolfowitz and is described by some as a 'Democratic hawk,'" a remark that once again places Wolfowitz in close proximity to Bremer and the disbanding order. ..."
October 27, 2015 | The American Conservative

In May 2003, in the wake of the Iraq War and the ousting of Saddam Hussein, events took place that set the stage for the current chaos in the Middle East. Yet even most well-informed Americans are unaware of how policies implemented by mid-level bureaucrats during the Bush administration unwittingly unleashed forces that would ultimately lead to the juggernaut of the Islamic State.

The lesson is that it appears all too easy for outsiders working with relatively low-level appointees to hijack the policy process. The Bay of Pigs invasion and Iran-Contra affair are familiar instances, but the Iraq experience offers an even better illustration-not least because its consequences have been even more disastrous.

The cast of characters includes President George W. Bush; L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, the first civilian administrator of postwar Iraq; Douglas Feith, Bush's undersecretary of defense for policy; Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's deputy secretary of defense; I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard B. Cheney (and Cheney's proxy in these events); Walter Slocombe, who had been President Clinton's undersecretary of defense for policy, and as such was Feith's predecessor; Richard Perle, who was chairman of Bush's defense policy board; and General Jay Garner, whom Bremer replaced as the leader of postwar Iraq.

On May 9, 2003, President Bush appointed Bremer to the top civilian post in Iraq. A career diplomat who was recruited for this job by Wolfowitz and Libby, despite the fact that he had minimal experience of the region and didn't speak Arabic, Bremer arrived in Baghdad on May 12 to take charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA. In his first two weeks at his post, Bremer issued two orders that would turn out to be momentous. Enacted on May 16, CPA Order Number 1 "de-Baathified" the Iraqi government; on May 23, CPA Order Number 2 disbanded the Iraqi army. In short, Baath party members were barred from participation in Iraq's new government and Saddam Hussein's soldiers lost their jobs, taking their weapons with them.

The results of these policies become clear as we learn about the leadership of ISIS. The Washington Post, for example, reported in April that "almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers." In June, the New York Times identified a man "believed to be the head of the Islamic State's military council," Fadel al-Hayali, as "a former lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi military intelligence agency of President Saddam Hussein." Criticism of de-Baathification and the disbanding of Iraq's army has been fierce, and the contribution these policies made to fueling extremism was recognized even before the advent of the Islamic State. The New York Times reported in 2007:

The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents.

This year the Washington Post summed up reactions to both orders when it cited a former Iraqi general who asked bluntly, "When they dismantled the army, what did they expect those men to do?" He explained that "they didn't de-Baathify people's minds, they just took away their jobs." Writing about the disbanding policy in his memoir, Decision Points, George W. Bush acknowledges the harmful results: "Thousands of armed men had just been told they were not wanted. Instead of signing up for the new military, many joined the insurgency."

... ... ...

In his memoir, Bremer names the officials who approached him for his CPA job. He recounts telling his wife that:

I had been contacted by Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and by Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense. The Pentagon's original civil administration in 'post-hostility' Iraq-the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, ORHA-lacked expertise in high-level diplomatic negotiations and politics. … I had the requisite skills and experience for that position.

Regarding the de-Baathification order, both Bremer and Feith have written their own accounts of the week leading up to it, and the slight discrepancy between their recollections is revealing in what it tells us about Bremer-and consequently about Wolfowitz and Libby for having selected him. At first blush, Bremer and Feith's justifications for the policy appear to dovetail, each comparing postwar Iraq to postwar Nazi Germany. Bremer explains in a retrospective Washington Post op-ed, "What We Got Right in Iraq," that "Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations." For his part, Feith goes a step further, reasoning in his memoir War and Decision that the case for de-Baathification was even stronger because "The Nazis, after all, had run Germany for a dozen years; the Baathists had tyrannized Iraq for more than thirty."

Regarding the order itself, Bremer writes,

The day before I left for Iraq in May, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith presented me with a draft law that would purge top Baathists from the Iraqi government and told me that he planned to issue it immediately. Recognizing how important this step was, I asked Feith to hold off, among other reasons, so I could discuss it with Iraqi leaders and CPA advisers. A week later, after careful consideration, I issued this 'de-Baathification' decree, as drafted by the Pentagon.

In contrast, Feith recalls that Bremer asked him to wait because "Bremer had thoughts of his own on the subject, he said, and wanted to consider the de-Baathification policy carefully. As the new CPA head, he thought he should announce and implement the policy himself."

The notion that he "carefully" considered the policy in his first week on the job, during which he also travelled halfway around the globe, is highly questionable. Incidentally, Bremer's oxymoronic statement-"a week later, after careful consideration"-mirrors a similar formulation of Wolfowitz's about the disbanding order. Speaking to the Washington Post in November 2003, he said that forming a new Iraqi army is "what we're trying to do at warp speed-but with careful vetting of the people we're bringing on."

Simply put, Bremer was tempted by headline-grabbing policies. He was unlikely to question any action that offered opportunities to make bold gestures, which made him easy to influence. Indeed, another quality of Bremer's professional persona that conspicuously emerges from accounts of the period is his unwillingness to think for himself. His memoir shows that he was eager to put Jay Garner in his place from the moment he arrived in Iraq, yet he was unable to defend himself on his own when challenged by Garner, who-according to Bob Woodward in his book State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III-was "stunned" by the disbanding order. Woodward claims that when Garner confronted Bremer about it, "Bremer, looking surprised, asked Garner to go see Walter B. Slocombe."

What's even more surprising is how Bremer doesn't hide his intellectual dependence on Slocombe. He writes in his memoir:

To help untangle these problems, I was fortunate to have Walt Slocombe as Senior Adviser for defense and security affairs. A brilliant former Rhodes Scholar from Princeton and a Harvard-educated attorney, Walt had worked for Democratic administrations for decades on high-level strategic and arms control issues.

In May 2003, the Washington Post noted of Slocombe that "Although a Democrat, he has maintained good relations with Wolfowitz and is described by some as a 'Democratic hawk,'" a remark that once again places Wolfowitz in close proximity to Bremer and the disbanding order. Sure enough, in November 2003 the Washington Post reported:

The demobilization decision appears to have originated largely with Walter B. Slocombe, a former undersecretary of defense appointed to oversee Iraqi security forces. He believed strongly in the need to disband the army and felt that vanquished soldiers should not expect to be paid a continuing salary. He said he developed the policy in discussions with Bremer, Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. 'This is not something that was dreamed up by somebody at the last minute and done at the insistence of the people in Baghdad. It was discussed,' Slocombe said. 'The critical point was that nobody argued that we shouldn't do this.'

Given that the president agreed to preserve the Iraqi army in the NSC meeting on March 12, Slocombe's statement is evidence of a major policy inconsistency. In that meeting, Feith, at the request of Donald Rumsfeld, gave a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Garner about keeping the Iraqi army; in his own memoir, Feith writes, "No one at that National Security Council meeting in early March spoke against the recommendation, and the President approved Garner's plan." But this is not what happened. What happened instead was the reversal of Garner's plan, which Feith attributes to Slocombe and Bremer:

Bremer and Slocombe argued that it would better serve U.S. interests to create an entirely new Iraqi army: Sometimes it is easier to build something new than to refurbish a complex and badly designed structure. In any event, Bremer and Slocombe reasoned, calling the old army back might not succeed-but the attempt could cause grave political problems.

Over time, both Bremer and Slocombe have gone so far as to deny that the policies had any tangible effects. Bremer claimed in the Washington Post that "Virtually all the old Baathist ministers had fled before the decree was issued" and that "When the draftees saw which way the war was going, they deserted and, like their officers, went back home." Likewise Slocombe stated in a PBS interview, "We didn't disband the army. The army disbanded itself. … What we did do was to formally dissolve all of the institutions of Saddam's security system. The intelligence, his military, his party structure, his information and propaganda structure were formally disbanded and the property turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority."

Thus, according to Bremer and Slocombe's accounts, neither de-Baathification nor disbanding the army achieved anything that hadn't already happened. When coupled with Bremer's assertion of "careful consideration in one week" and Wolfowitz's claim of "careful vetting at warp speed," Bremer and Slocombe's notion of "doing something that had already been done" creates a strong impression that they are hiding something or trying to finesse history with wordplay. Perhaps Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran provides the best possible explanation for this confusion in his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, when he writes, "Despite the leaflets instructing them to go home, Slocombe had expected Iraqi soldiers to stay in their garrisons. Now he figured that calling them back would cause even more problems." Chandrasekaran adds, "As far as Slocombe and Feith were concerned, the Iraqi army had dissolved itself; formalizing the dissolution wouldn't contradict Bush's directive." This suggests that Slocombe and Feith were communicating and that Slocombe was fully aware of the policy the president had agreed to in the NSC meeting on March 12, yet he chose to disregard it.

♦♦♦

Following the disastrous decisions of May 2003, the blame game has been rife among neoconservative policymakers. One of those who have expended the most energy dodging culpability is, predictably, Bremer. In early 2007, he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the Washington Post reported: "Bremer proved unexpectedly agile at shifting blame: to administration planners ('The planning before the war was inadequate'), his superiors in the Bush administration ('We never had sufficient support'), and the Iraqi people ('The country was in chaos-socially, politically and economically')."

Bremer also wrote in May 2007 in the Washington Post, "I've grown weary of being a punching bag over these decisions-particularly from critics who've never spent time in Iraq, don't understand its complexities and can't explain what we should have done differently." (This declaration is ironic, given Bremer's noted inability to justify the disbanding policy to General Garner.) On September 4, 2007, the New York Times reported that Bremer had given the paper exculpatory letters supposedly proving that George W. Bush confirmed the disbanding order. But the Times concluded, "the letters do not show that [Bush] approved the order or even knew much about it. Mr. Bremer referred only fleetingly to his plan midway through his three-page letter and offered no details." Moreover, the paper characterized Bremer's correspondence with Bush as "striking in its almost nonchalant reference to a major decision that a number of American military officials in Iraq strongly opposed." Defending himself on this point, Bremer claimed, "the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government." And six months later Bremer told the paper, "It was not my responsibility to do inter-agency coordination."

Feith and Slocombe have been similarly evasive when discussing President Bush's awareness of the policies. The Los Angeles Times noted that "Feith was deeply involved in the decision-making process at the time, working closely with Bush and Bremer," yet "Feith said he could not comment about how involved the president was in the decision to change policy and dissolve the army. 'I don't know all the details of who talked to who about that,' he said." For his part, Slocombe told PBS's "Frontline,"

What happens in Washington in terms of how the [decisions are made]-'Go ahead and do this, do that; don't do that, do this, even though you don't want to do it'-that's an internal Washington coordination problem about which I know little. One of the interesting things about the job from my point of view-all my other government experience basically had been in the Washington end, with the interagencies process and setting the priorities-at the other end we got output. And how the process worked in Washington I actually know very little about, because the channel was from the president to Rumsfeld to Bremer.

It's a challenge to parse Slocombe's various statements. Here, in the space of two sentences, he claims both that his government experience has mostly been in Washington and that he doesn't know how Washington works. As mentioned earlier, he had previously told the Washington Post that the disbanding order was not "done at the insistence of the people in Baghdad"-in other words, the decision was made in Washington. The inconsistency of his accounts from year to year, and even in the same interview, adds to an aura of concealment.

This further illustrates the disconnect between what was decided by the NSC in Washington in March and by the CPA in Iraq in May. In his memoir, Feith notes that although he supported the disbanding policy, "the decision became associated with a number of unnecessary problems, including the apparent lack of interagency review."

... ... ...

John Hay is a former executive branch official under Republican administrations.

[Oct 29, 2015] President Carter Rips Cheney Over Iraq: 'His Batting Average Is Abysmally Low'

Notable quotes:
"... If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn't been right on hardly anything and his prediction of what is going to happen, reasons for going over there and obviously this is not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence and destruction over there, to call for a change in policy in Iraq. ..."
"... One measure of the impact of the Iraq War is the precipitous drop in public support for the United States in Muslim countries. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, saw popular approval for the United States drop from 25 percent in 2002 to 1 percent in 2003. In Lebanon during the same period, favorable views of the United States dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent, and in the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia, favorable views plummeted from 61 percent to 15 percent. ..."
"... One of the cell's members, Younis Elian Abu Jarir, a taxi driver whose job was to ferry the group around, stated in a confession offered as evidence in court that they convinced me of the need for holy war against the Jews, Americans, Italians, and other nationalities that participated in the occupation of Iraq. ..."
forums.allaboutjazz.com
Saundra Hummer

February 26th, 2007, 05:07 PM

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^^^^^^^

President Carter Rips Cheney Over Iraq: 'His Batting Average Is Abysmally Low'

Last week, Vice President Cheney attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) for supporting Iraq redeployment. He charged that their plan would "validate the al Qaeda strategy."

Today, former President Jimmy Carter rejected Cheney's charges, stating that calls for a change of policy in Iraq are "not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence and destruction over there." He added, "If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn't been right on hardly anything."

Click on the following URL to view.

Watch it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/carter-cheney/

Digg It!

Transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice President Cheney this week has been very harsh on those kinds of measures in the Congress.

[CHENEY CLIP]: If we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we'll do is validate the al Qaeda strategy. The al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people.

CARTER: If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn't been right on hardly anything and his prediction of what is going to happen, reasons for going over there and obviously this is not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence and destruction over there, to call for a change in policy in Iraq.

^^^^^
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Saundra Hummer

February 26th, 2007, 05:34 PM

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.........

Iraq 101:
The Iraq Effect
The War in Iraq and Its Impact on the War on Terrorism - Pg. 1

All right, no more excuses, people. After four years in Iraq, it's time to get serious. We've spent too long goofing off, waiting to be saved by the bell, praying that we won't get asked a stumper like, "What's the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?" Okay, even the head of the House intelligence committee doesn't know that one. All the more reason to start boning up on what we-and our leaders-should have learned back before they signed us up for this crash course in Middle Eastern geopolitics. And while we're at it, let's do the math on what the war really costs in blood and dollars. It's time for our own Iraq study group. Yes, there will be a test, and we can't afford to fail.

March 01 , 2007

By Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank
Research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law. Bergen is also a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.

"If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people." So said President Bush on November 30, 2005, refining his earlier call to "bring them on." Jihadist terrorists, the administration's argument went, would be drawn to Iraq like moths to a flame, and would perish there rather than wreak havoc elsewhere in the world.

The president's argument conveyed two important assumptions: first, that the threat of jihadist terrorism to U.S. interests would have been greater without the war in Iraq, and second, that the war is reducing the overall global pool of terrorists. However, the White House has never cited any evidence for either of these assumptions, and none appears to be publicly available.

The administration's own National Intelligence Estimate on "Trends in Global Terrorism: implications for the United States," circulated within the government in April 2006 and partially declassified in October, states that "the Iraq War has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists...and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives."

Yet administration officials have continued to suggest that there is no evidence any greater jihadist threat exists as a result of the Iraq War. "Are more terrorists being created in the world?" then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rhetorically asked during a press conference in September. "We don't know. The world doesn't know. There are not good metrics to determine how many people are being trained in a radical madrasa school in some country." In January 2007 Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte in congressional testimony stated that he was "not certain" that the Iraq War had been a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and played down the likely impact of the war on jihadists worldwide: "I wouldn't say there has been a widespread growth in Islamic extremism beyond Iraq. I really wouldn't."

Indeed, though what we will call "The Iraq Effect" is a crucial matter for U.S. national security, we have found no statistical documentation of its existence and gravity, at least in the public domain. In this report, we have undertaken what we believe to be the first such study, using information from the world's premier database on global terrorism. The results are being published for the first time by Mother Jones, the news and investigative magazine, as part of a broader "Iraq 101" package in the magazine's March/April 2007 issue.

<< Breaking The Army << >> The Iraq Effect Pg. 2 >> Iraq Effect (continued)
Our study shows that the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.

We are not making the argument that without the Iraq War, jihadist terrorism would not exist, but our study shows that the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of the Al Qaeda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea.

In our study we focused on the following questions:

Has jihadist terrorism gone up or down around the world since the invasion of Iraq?
What has been the trend if terrorist incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan (the military fronts of the "war on terrorism") are excluded?
Has terrorism explicitly directed at the United States and its allies also increased?
In order to zero in on The Iraq Effect, we focused on the rate of terrorist attacks in two time periods: September 12, 2001, to March 20, 2003 (the day of the Iraq invasion), and March 21, 2003, to September 30, 2006. Extending the data set before 9/11 would risk distorting the results, because the rate of attacks by jihadist groups jumped considerably after 9/11 as jihadist terrorists took inspiration from the events of that terrible day.

We first determined which terrorist organizations should be classified as jihadist. We included in this group Sunni extremist groups affiliated with or sympathetic to the ideology of Al Qaeda. We decided to exclude terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups, as they depend largely on factors particular to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Our study draws its data from the MIPT-RAND Terrorism database (available at terrorismknowledgebase.org), which is widely considered to be the best publicly available database on terrorism incidents. RAND defines a terrorist attack as an attack on a civilian entity designed to promote fear or alarm and further a particular political agenda. In our study we only included attacks that caused at least one fatality and were attributed by RAND to a known jihadist group. In some terrorist attacks, and this is especially the case in Iraq, RAND has not been able to attribute a particular attack to a known jihadist group. Therefore our study likely understates the extent of jihadist terrorism in Iraq and around the world.

Our study yields one resounding finding: The rate of terrorist attacks around the world by jihadist groups and the rate of fatalities in those attacks increased dramatically after the invasion of Iraq. Globally there was a 607 percent rise in the average yearly incidence of attacks (28.3 attacks per year before and 199.8 after) and a 237 percent rise in the average fatality rate (from 501 to 1,689 deaths per year). A large part of this rise occurred in Iraq, which accounts for fully half of the global total of jihadist terrorist attacks in the post-Iraq War period. But even excluding Iraq, the average yearly number of jihadist terrorist attacks and resulting fatalities still rose sharply around the world by 265 percent and 58 percent respectively.

And even when attacks in both Afghanistan and Iraq (the two countries that together account for 80 percent of attacks and 67 percent of deaths since the invasion of Iraq) are excluded, there has still been a significant rise in jihadist terrorism elsewhere--a 35 percent increase in the number of jihadist terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, from 27.6 to 37 a year, with a 12 percent rise in fatalities from 496 to 554 per year.

Of course, just because jihadist terrorism has risen in the period after the invasion of Iraq, it does not follow that events in Iraq itself caused the change. For example, a rise in attacks in the Kashmir conflict and the Chechen separatist war against Russian forces may have nothing to do with the war in Iraq. But the most direct test of The Iraq Effect--whether the United States and its allies have suffered more jihadist terrorism after the invasion than before--shows that the rate of jihadist attacks on Western interests and citizens around the world (outside of Afghanistan and Iraq) has risen by a quarter, from 7.2 to 9 a year, while the yearly fatality rate in these attacks has increased by 4 percent from 191 to 198.

One of the few positive findings of our study is that only 18 American civilians (not counting civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan) have been killed by jihadist groups since the war in Iraq began. But that number is still significantly higher than the four American civilians who were killed in attacks attributed to jihadist groups in the period between 9/11 and the Iraq War. It was the capture and killing of much of Al Qaeda's leadership after 9/11 and the breakup of its training camp facilities in Afghanistan--not the war in Iraq--that prevented Al Qaeda from successfully launching attacks on American targets on the scale it did in the years before 9/11.

Also undermining the argument that Al Qaeda and like-minded groups are being distracted from plotting against Western targets are the dangerous, anti-American plots that have arisen since the start of the Iraq War. Jihadist terrorists have attacked key American allies since the Iraq conflict began, mounting multiple bombings in London that killed 52 in July 2005, and attacks in Madrid in 2004 that killed 191. Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London bombers, stated in his videotaped suicide "will," "What have you witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq." There have been six jihadist attacks on the home soil of the United States' NATO allies (including Turkey) in the period after the invasion of Iraq, whereas there were none in the 18 months following 9/11; and, of course, the plan uncovered in London in August 2006 to smuggle liquid explosives onto U.S. airliners, had it succeeded, would have killed thousands.

Al Qaeda has not let the Iraq War distract it from targeting the United States and her allies. In a January 19, 2006 audiotape, Osama bin Laden himself refuted President Bush's argument that Iraq had distracted and diverted Al Qaeda: "The reality shows that that the war against America and its allies has not remained limited to Iraq, as he claims, but rather, that Iraq has become a source and attraction and recruitment of qualified people.... As for the delay in similar [terrorist] operations in America, [the] operations are being prepared, and you will witness them, in your own land, as soon as preparations are complete."

Ayman al Zawahiri echoed bin Laden's words in a March 4, 2006, videotape broadcast by Al Jazeera calling for jihadists to launch attacks on the home soil of Western countries: "[Muslims have to] inflict losses on the crusader West, especially to its economic infrastructure with strikes that would make it bleed for years. The strikes on New York, Washington, Madrid, and London are the best examples.

One measure of the impact of the Iraq War is the precipitous drop in public support for the United States in Muslim countries. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, saw popular approval for the United States drop from 25 percent in 2002 to 1 percent in 2003. In Lebanon during the same period, favorable views of the United States dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent, and in the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia, favorable views plummeted from 61 percent to 15 percent. Disliking the United States does not make you a terrorist, but clearly the pool of Muslims who dislike the United States has grown by hundreds of millions since the Iraq War began. The United States' plummeting popularity does not suggest active popular support for jihadist terrorists but it does imply some sympathy with their anti-American posture, which means a significant swath of the Muslim population cannot be relied on as an effective party in counter-terrorism/insurgency measures. And so, popular contempt for U.S. policy has become a force multiplier for Islamist militants.

The Iraq War has also encouraged Muslim youth around the world to join jihadist groups, not necessarily directly tied to Al Qaeda but often motivated by a similar ideology. The Iraq War allowed Al Qaeda, which was on the ropes in 2002 after the United States had captured or killed two-thirds of its leadership, to reinvent itself as a broader movement because Al Qaeda's central message--that the United States is at war with Islam--was judged by significant numbers of Muslims to have been corroborated by the war in Iraq. And compounding this, the wide dissemination of the exploits of jihadist groups in Iraq following the invasion energized potential and actual jihadists across the world.

How exactly has The Iraq Effect played out in different parts of the world? The effect has not been uniform. Europe, the Arab world, and Afghanistan all saw major rises in jihadist terrorism in the period after the invasion of Iraq, while Pakistan and India and the Chechnya/Russia front saw only smaller increases in jihadist terrorism. And in Southeast Asia, attacks and killings by jihadist groups fell by over 60 percent in the period after the Iraq War. The strength or weakness of The Iraq Effect on jihadist terrorism in a particular country seems to be influenced by four factors: (1) if the country itself has troops in Iraq; (2) geographical proximity to Iraq; (3) the degree of identification with Iraq's Arabs felt in the country; and (4) the level of exchanges of ideas or personnel with Iraqi jihadist groups. This may explain why jihadist groups in Europe, Arab countries, and Afghanistan were more affected by the Iraq War than groups in other regions. Europe, unlike Kashmir, Chechnya, and Southeast Asia for example, contains several countries that are part of the coalition in Iraq. It is relatively geographically close to the Arab world and has a large Arab-Muslim diaspora from which jihadists have recruited.

European intelligence services are deeply concerned about the effect of the Iraq War. For example, Dame Eliza Mannigham-Buller, the head of Britain's MI5, stated on November 10, 2006, "In Iraq, attacks are regularly videoed and the footage is downloaded onto the Internet [and] chillingly we see the results here. Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. We are aware of numerous plots to kill people and damage our economy...30 that we know of. [The] threat is serious, is growing, and, I believe, will be with us for a generation." Startlingly, a recent poll found that a quarter of British Muslims believe that the July 7, 2005, London bombings were justifiable because of British foreign policy, bearing out Dame Eliza's concern about a new generation of radicals in the United Kingdom.

While Islamist militants in Europe are mobilized by a series of grievances such as Palestine, Afghanistan, the Kashmir conflict, and Chechnya, no issue has resonated more in radical circles and on Islamist websites than the war in Iraq. This can be seen in the skyrocketing rate of jihadist terrorist attacks around the Arab world outside of Iraq. There have been 37 attacks in Arab countries outside of Iraq since the invasion, while there were only three in the period between 9/11 and March 2003. The rate of attacks in Arab countries jumped by 445 percent since the Iraq invasion, while the rate of killings rose by 783 percent. The November 9, 2005 bombings of three American hotels in Amman, Jordan, that killed 60, an operation directed by Abu Musab al Zarqawi's Al Qaeda in Iraq network, was the most direct manifestation of The Iraq Effect in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has seen an upsurge in jihadist terrorism since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There were no jihadist terrorist attacks between 9/11 and the Iraq War but 12 in the period since. The reason for the surge in terrorism was a decision taken by Al Qaeda's Saudi branch in the spring of 2003 to launch a wave of attacks (primarily at Western targets) to undermine the Saudi royal family. These attacks were initiated on May 12, 2003 with the bombing of Western compounds in Riyadh, killing 34, including 10 Americans. While Saudi authorities believe that planning and training for the operation predated the war in Iraq, the timing of the attack, just weeks after the U.S invasion is striking.

The fact that the Iraq War radicalized some young Saudis is underlined by studies showing that more Saudis have conducted suicide operations in Iraq than any other nationality. For instance, Mohammed Hafez, a visiting professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, in a study of the 101 identified suicide attackers in Iraq from March 2003 to February 2006, found that more than 40 percent were Saudi. This jihadist energy was not just transferred over the Saudi border into Iraq. It also contributed to attacks in the Kingdom. The group that beheaded the American contractor Paul Johnson in Riyadh in June 2004 called itself the "Al Fallujah brigade of Al Qaeda" and claimed that it had carried out the killing in part to avenge the actions of "disbelievers" in Iraq. In January 2004 Al Qaeda's Saudi affiliate launched Al Battar, an online training magazine specifically directed at young Saudis interested in fighting their regime. The achievements of jihadists in Iraq figured prominently in its pages. Indeed, a contributor to the first issue of Al Battar argued that the Iraq War had made jihad "a commandment" for Saudi Arabians " the Islamic nation is today in acute conflict with the Crusaders."

The Iraq War had a strong impact in other Arab countries too. Daily images aired by Al Jazeera and other channels of suffering Iraqis enraged the Arab street and strengthened the hands of radicals everywhere. In Egypt, the Iraq War has contributed to a recent wave of attacks by small, self-generated groups. A Sinai-based jihadist group carried out coordinated bombing attacks on Red Sea resorts popular with Western tourists at Taba in October 2004, at Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2005, and at Dahab in April 2006, killing a total of more than 120.

One of the cell's members, Younis Elian Abu Jarir, a taxi driver whose job was to ferry the group around, stated in a confession offered as evidence in court that "they convinced me of the need for holy war against the Jews, Americans, Italians, and other nationalities that participated in the occupation of Iraq." Osama Rushdi, a former spokesman of the Egyptian terrorist group Gamma Islamiyya now living in London, told us that while attacks in the Sinai were partly directed at the Egyptian regime, they appeared to be primarily anti-Western in motivation: "The Iraq War contributed to the negative feelings of the Sinai group. Before the Iraq War, most Egyptians did not have a negative feeling towards American policy. Now almost all are opposed to American policy."

Since the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan has suffered 219 jihadist terrorist attacks that can be attributed to a particular group, resulting in the deaths of 802 civilians. The fact that the Taliban only conducted its first terrorist attacks in September 2003, a few months after the invasion of Iraq, is significant. International forces had already been stationed in the country for two years before the Taliban began to specifically target the U.S.-backed Karzai government and civilians sympathetic to it. This points to a link between events in Iraq and the initiation of the Taliban's terrorist campaign in Afghanistan.

True, local dynamics form part of the explanation for the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the use of terrorism, particularly suicide attacks, by the Taliban is an innovation drawn from the Iraqi theater. Hekmat Karzai, an Afghan terrorism researcher, points out that suicide bombings were virtually unknown in Afghanistan until 2005. In 2006, Karzai says, there were 118 such attacks, more than there had been in the entire history of the country. Internet sites have helped spread the tactics of Iraqi jihadists. In 2005 the "Media Committee of the Al Qaeda Mujahideen in Afghanistan" launched an online magazine called Vanguards of Kharasan, which includes articles on what Afghan fighters can learn from Coalition and jihadist strategies in Iraq. Abdul Majid Abdul Majed, a contributor to the April 2006 issue of the magazine, argued for an expansion in suicide operations, citing the effectiveness of jihadist operations in Iraq.

Mullah Dadullah, a key Taliban commander, gave an interview to Al Jazeera in 2006 in which he explained how the Iraq War has influenced the Taliban. Dadullah noted that "we have 'give and take' with the mujahideen in Iraq." Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who is writing bin Laden's biography, told us that young men traveled from the Afghan province of Khost to "on-the-job training" in Iraq in 2004. "They came back with lots of CDs which were full of military actions against U.S. troops in the Mosul, Fallujah, and Baghdad areas. I think suicide bombing was introduced in Afghanistan and Pakistan after local boys came back after spending some time in Iraq. I met a Taliban commander, Mullah Mannan, last year in Zabul who told me that he was trained in Iraq by Zarqawi along with many Pakistani tribals."

Propaganda circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan about American "atrocities" and jihadist "heroics" has also energized the Taliban, encouraging a previously somewhat isolated movement to see itself as part of a wider struggle. Our study found a striking correlation in how terrorist campaigns intensified in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rate of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan gathered pace in the summer of 2005, a half year after a similar increase in Iraq, and in 2006 the rate of attacks in both countries rose in tandem to new, unprecedented levels.

While the Iraq War has had a strong effect on the rise in terrorism in Afghanistan, it appears to have played less of a role on jihadists operating in Pakistan and India, though terrorism did rise in those countries following the invasion of Iraq. (Of course, neither Pakistan nor India has foreign troops on its soil, which accounts, in part, for the high terrorism figures in Afghanistan.) The rate of jihadist attacks rose by 21 percent while the fatality rate rose by 19 percent. There were 52 attacks after the Iraq invasion, killing 489 civilians, while there were 19 in the period before, killing 182. The local dynamics of the Kashmir conflict, tensions between India and Pakistan, and the resurfacing of the Taliban in eastern Pakistan likely played a large role here. That said, there is evidence that the Iraq War did energize jihadists in Pakistan. Hamid Mir says, "Iraq not only radicalized the Pakistani tribals [near the Afghan border] but it offered them the opportunity for them to go to Iraq via Iran to get on-the-job training."

There is also evidence that the Iraq War had some impact in other areas of Pakistan. In the summer of 2004, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, told followers in Lahore, "Islam is in grave danger, and the mujahideen are fighting to keep its glory. They are fighting the forces of evil in Iraq in extremely difficult circumstances. We should send mujahideen from Pakistan to help them." And Pakistan, inasmuch as it has become Al Qaeda's new base for training and planning attacks, has become the location where significant numbers of would-be jihadists--including some young British Pakistanis such as the London suicide bombers, radicalized in part by the Iraq War--have traveled to learn bomb-making skills.

In Russia and Chechnya, the Iraq War appears to have had less of an impact than on other jihadist fronts. This is unsurprising given the fact that jihadist groups in the region are preoccupied by a separatist war against the Russian military. Whilst following the invasion of Iraq there was a rise in the number of attacks by Chechen groups that share a similar ideology with Al Qaeda, the total rate of fatalities did not go up. The Iraq War does seem to have diverted some jihadists from the Russian/Chechen front: Arab fighters who might have previously gone to Chechnya now have a cause at their own doorstep, while funds from Arab donors increasingly have gone to the Iraqi jihad.

Southeast Asia has been the one region in the world in which jihadist terrorism has declined significantly in the period since the invasion of Iraq. There was a 67 percent drop in the rate of attacks (from 10.5 to 3.5 attacks per year) in the post-invasion period and a 69 percent drop in the rate of fatalities (from 201 to 62 fatalities per year). And there has been no bombing on the scale of the October 2002 Bali nightclub attack that killed more than 200. However, jihadist terrorism in Southeast Asia has declined in spite, not because of, the Iraq War. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was deeply unpopular in the region, as demonstrated by the poll finding that only 15 percent of Indonesians had a favorable view of the United States in 2003. But the negative impact of the Iraq War on public opinion was mitigated by U.S. efforts to aid the region in the wake of the devastating tsunami of December 2004--Pew opinion surveys have shown that the number of those with favorable views towards the United States in Indonesia crept above 30 percent in 2005 and 2006.

However, the main reason for the decline of jihadist terrorism in Southeast Asia has been the successful crackdown by local authorities on jihadist groups and their growing unpopularity with the general population. The August 2003 capture of Hambali, Jemaa Islamiya's operational commander, was key to degrading the group's capacity to launch attacks as was the arrest of hundreds of Jemaa Islamiya and Abu Sayyaf operatives in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore in the years after the October 2002 Bali bombings. Those arrested included most of those who planned the Bali attacks, as well as former instructors at Jemaa Islamiya camps and individuals involved in financing attacks. And in November 2005 Indonesian security services killed Jemaa Islamiya master bomber Azhari bin Husin in a shoot-out. The second wave of Bali attacks in 2005 killed mostly Indonesians and created a popular backlash against jihadist groups in Indonesia, degrading their ability to recruit operatives. And Muslim leaders such as Masdar Farid Masudi, the deputy leader of the country's largest Islamic group, condemned the bombings: "If the perpetrators are Muslims, their sentences must be multiplied because they have tarnished the sacredness of their religion and smeared its followers worldwide."

Iraq Effect (continued)
Our survey shows that the Iraq conflict has motivated jihadists around the world to see their particular struggle as part of a wider global jihad fought on behalf of the Islamic ummah, the global community of Muslim believers. The Iraq War had a strong impact in jihadist circles in the Arab world and Europe, but also on the Taliban, which previously had been quite insulated from events elsewhere in the Muslim world. By energizing the jihadist groups, the Iraq conflict acted as a catalyst for the increasing globalization of the jihadist cause, a trend that should be deeply troubling for American policymakers. In the late 1990s, bin Laden pushed a message of a global jihad and attracted recruits from around the Muslim world to train and fight in Afghanistan. The Iraq War has made bin Laden's message of global struggle even more persuasive to militants. Over the past three years, Iraq has attracted thousands of foreign fighters who have been responsible for the majority of suicide attacks in the country. Those attacks have had an enormous strategic impact; for instance, getting the United Nations to pull out of Iraq and sparking the Iraqi civil war.

Emblematic of the problem is Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman who on November 9, 2005, near the town of Baquba in central Iraq, detonated a bomb as she drove past an American patrol. In the bomb crater, investigators found travel documents that showed that she had arrived in Iraq from Belgium just a few weeks earlier with her Moroccan-Belgian husband Hissam Goris. The couple had been recruited by "Al Qaeda in Iraq." Goris would die the following day, shot by American forces as he prepared to launch a suicide attack near Fallujah.

The story of Muriel Degauque and her husband is part of a trend that Harvard terrorism researcher Assaf Moghadam terms the "globalization of martyrdom." The London suicide bombings in July 2005 revealed the surprising willingness of four British citizens to die to protest the United Kingdom's role in the Coalition in Iraq; Muriel Degauque, for her part, was willing to die for the jihadist cause in a country in which she was a stranger.

This challenges some existing conceptions of the motivations behind suicide attacks. In 2005 University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape published a much-commented-upon study of suicide bombing, "Dying to Win," in which he used a mass of data about previous suicide bombing campaigns to argue that they principally occurred "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland." (Of course, terrorism directed against totalitarian regimes rarely occurs because such regimes are police states and are unresponsive to public opinion.) Pape also argued that while religion might aggravate campaigns of suicide terrorism, such campaigns had also been undertaken by secular groups, most notably the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, whose most spectacular success was the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide attacker in 1991.

Pape's findings may explain the actions and motivations of terrorist groups in countries such as Sri Lanka, but his principal claim that campaigns of suicide terrorism are generally nationalist struggles to liberate occupied lands that have little to do with religious belief does not survive contact with the reality of what is going on today in Iraq. The most extensive suicide campaign in history is being conducted in Iraq largely by foreigners animated by the deeply-held religious belief that they must liberate a Muslim land from the "infidel" occupiers.

While Iraqis make up the great bulk of the insurgents, several studies have shown that the suicide attackers in Iraq are generally foreigners, while only a small proportion are Iraqi. (Indeed, the most feared terrorist leader in Iraq until his death earlier this year, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was a Jordanian.) The Israeli researcher Reuven Paz, using information posted on Al Qaeda-linked websites between October 2004 and March 2005, found that of the 33 suicide attacks listed, 23 were conducted by Saudis, and only 1 by an Iraqi. Similarly, in June 2005 the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute of Washington, D.C. found by tracking both jihadist websites and media reports that of the 199 Sunni extremists who had died in Iraq either in suicide attacks or in action against Coalition or Iraqi forces, 104 were from Saudi Arabia and only 21 from Iraq. The rest were predominantly from countries around the Middle East. And Mohammed Hafez in his previously cited study of the 101 "known" suicide bombers in Iraq found that while 44 were Saudi and 8 were from Italy (!), only 7 were from Iraq.

In congressional testimony this past November, CIA Director General Michael Hayden said that "an overwhelming percentage of the suicide bombers are foreign." A senior U.S. military intelligence official told us that a worrisome recent trend is the rising number of North Africans who have joined the ranks of foreign fighters in Iraq, whose number General Hayden pegged at 1,300 during his November congressional testimony. A Saudi official also confirmed to us the rising number of North Africans who are being drawn into the Iraq War.

The globalization of jihad and martyrdom, accelerated to a significant degree by the Iraq War, has some disquieting implications for American security in the future. First, it has energized jihadist groups generally; second, not all foreign fighters attracted to Iraq will die there. In fact there is evidence that some jihadists are already leaving Iraq to operate elsewhere. Saudi Arabia has made a number of arrests of fighters coming back from Iraq, and Jordanian intelligence sources say that 300 fighters have returned to Jordan from Iraq. As far away as Belgium, authorities have indicated that Younis Lekili, an alleged member of the cell that recruited Muriel Degauque, had previously traveled to fight in Iraq, where he lost his leg. (Lekili is awaiting trial in Belgium.)

German, French, and Dutch intelligence officials have estimated that there are dozens of their citizens returning from the Iraq theater, and some appear to have been determined to carry out attacks on their return to Europe. For example, French police arrested Hamid Bach, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, in June 2005 in Montpellier, several months after he returned from a staging camp for Iraq War recruits in Syria. According to French authorities, Bach's handlers there instructed him to assist with plotting terrorist attacks in Italy. Back in France, Bach is alleged to have bought significant quantities of hydrogen peroxide and to have looked up details on explosives and detonators online. (Bach is awaiting trial in France.)

This "blowback" trend will greatly increase when the war eventually winds down in Iraq. In the short term the countries most at risk are those whose citizens have traveled to fight in Iraq, in particular Arab countries bordering Iraq. Jamal Khashoggi, a leading Saudi expert on jihadist groups, told us that "while Iraq brought new blood into the Al Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia, this was at a time when the network was being dismantled. Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia could not accommodate these recruits so they sent them to Iraq to train them, motivate them, and prepare them for a future wave of attacks in the Kingdom. It is a deep worry to Saudi authorities that Saudis who have gone to Iraq will come back." That's a scenario for which Khashoggi says Saudi security forces are painstakingly preparing.

Several U.S. citizens have tried to involve themselves in the Iraq jihad. In December an American was arrested in Cairo, Egypt, accused of being part of a cell plotting terrorist attacks in Iraq. And in February 2006 three Americans from Toledo, Ohio, were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill U.S. military personnel in Iraq. According to the FBI, one of these individuals, Mohammad Zaki Amawi, was in contact with an Arab jihadist group sending fighters to Iraq and tried unsuccessfully to cross the border into Iraq. However, to date there is no evidence of Americans actually fighting in Iraq so the number of returnees to the United States is likely to be small. The larger risk is that jihadists will migrate from Iraq to Western countries, a trend that will be accelerated if, as happened following the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, those fighters are not allowed to return to their home countries.

Already terrorist groups in Iraq may be in a position to start sending funds to other jihadist fronts. According to a U.S. government report leaked to the New York Times in November 2006, the fact that insurgent and terrorist groups are raising up to $200 million a year from various illegal activities such as kidnapping and oil theft in Iraq means that they "may have surplus funds with which to support other terrorist organizations outside Iraq." Indeed, a letter from Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al Zawahiri, to Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi in July 2005 contained this revealing request: "Many of the [funding] lines have been cut off. Because of this we need a payment while new lines are being opened. So if you're capable of sending a payment of approximately one hundred thousand we'll be very grateful to you."

The "globalization of martyrdom" prompted by the Iraq War has not only attracted foreign fighters to die in Iraq (we record 148 suicide-terrorist attacks in Iraq credited to an identified jihadist group) but has also encouraged jihadists to conduct many more suicide operations elsewhere. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there has been a 246 percent rise in the rate of suicide attacks (6 before and 47 after) by jihadist groups outside of Iraq and a 24 percent increase in the corresponding fatality rate. Even excluding Afghanistan, there has been a 150 percent rise in the rate of suicide attacks and a 14 percent increase in the rate of fatalities attributable to jihadists worldwide. The reasons for the spread of suicide bombing attacks in other jihadist theaters are complex but the success of these tactics in Iraq, the lionization that Iraqi martyrs receive on jihadist websites, and the increase in feelings of anger and frustration caused by images of the Iraq War have all likely contributed significantly. The spread of suicide bombings should be of great concern to the United States in defending its interests and citizens around the world, because they are virtually impossible to defend against.

The Iraq War has also encouraged the spread of more hardline forms of jihad (the corollary to an increase in suicide bombing). Anger and frustration over Iraq has increased the popularity, especially among young militants, of a hardcore takfiri ideology that is deeply intolerant of divergent interpretations of Islam and highly tolerant of extreme forms of violence. The visceral anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Shiism widely circulated among the Internet circles around ideologues such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada (both Jordanian-Palestinian mentors to Abu Musab al Zarqawi) and Al Qaeda's Syrian hawk, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, are even more extreme, unlikely as it may sound, than the statements of bin Laden himself.

Our study shows just how counterproductive the Iraq War has been to the war on terrorism. The most recent State Department report on global terrorism states that the goal of the United States is to identify, target, and prevent the spread of "jihadist groups focused on attacking the United States or its allies [and those groups that] view governments and leaders in the Muslim world as their primary targets." Yet, since the invasion of Iraq, attacks by such groups have risen more than sevenfold around the world. And though few Americans have been killed by jihadist terrorists in the past three years it is wishful thinking to believe that this will continue to be the case, given the continued determination of militant jihadists to target the country they see as their main enemy. We will be living with the consequences of the Iraq debacle for more than a decade.

Special thanks to Mike Torres and Zach Stern at NYU and Kim Cragin and Drew Curiel at RAND.

<< The Iraq Effect Pg.5 << >> The Data: The Iraq War and Jihadist Terrorism >>
Go on-site for sources, charts, etc. Just click on the following URLs:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/iraq_101.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/iraq_effect_1.html [B]

[Oct 28, 2015] US Ground Troops In Syria Is Illegal, Big Mistake, Russia Warns Obama Of Unpredictable Consequences

Zero Hedge

Newbie lurker

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

Manthong

..this should be Lit 101

TheReplacement

More like Modern American History 101.

Escrava Isaura

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

2015 - IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

http://thebulletin.org/clock/2015

Reg Morrison: "The human brain remains a piece of stone-age machinery, however you look at it, and no amount of culture can make it otherwise. Genetically speaking we are a finished product, not a prototype. What you see is what you get-there will be no bright utopian future."- The Spirit in the Gene, page 247.

Haus-Targaryen

So we have Russian soldiers on the ground fighting ISIS & the "moderate" rebels alongside Iran & Syria -- while Russia blows said head choppers to smithereens. While the US will have soldiers on the ground fighting Assad & Hezbollah blowing them up from the air.

What happens when Russia troops take on American troops, thinking they are ISIS and the Americans thinking they are Hezbollah. What happens then? (Then they call air strikes on one another and everyone figures out shit just went real wrong really quickly).

HowdyDoody

"What happens when Russia troops take on American troops, thinking they are ISIS and the Americans thinking they are Hezbollah" That's a feature, not a bug. And that is why the Russians are calling out on it beforehand.

ZippyDooDah

Russia is providing air cover to Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, so that the USAF can't bomb the Shiite ground troops. America is providing ground troops in Syria to embed with "rebels," so that Russia can't bomb the Sunni ground troops. Proxy war at its most insane, cause it just went beyond proxies.

The Sunni-Shiite divide is centuries old, and not a fight we should ever have gotten involved with. Dumbassery at its most insane.

You might think the U.S. military might someday rebel against this kind of wanton waste of its resources. But no, I guess we are just going to grind ourselves away to nothing in the Middle East meat chopper.

TheReplacement

Wikileaks Ukraine has leaked a conversation regarding planning false flag shoot downs that involved a certain sitting US Senator who happens to have met with the Nazis in Ukraine and the terrorists in Syria. I believe the plan is to shoot down a US/NATO jet and then a Russian.

lakecity55

Russia needs to state the legal case before the UN Security Council and force the USG to veto the Resolution, thus making Vichy DC even more in the wrong internationally!

Paveway IV

Russia was already holding the UN's feet to the fire. Things just got a whole lot worse in the last two days.

The Golan Heights is not Israeli territory according to the UN - ever since 1949. They recognize Israel is occupying it, but under international law (such as it were) the Golan Heights are still Syrian soverign territory. Technically, Syria and Israel are still at war. They are only maintaining a cease-fire/truce along a UNDOF neutral zone (= safe zone = no-fly zone) established in 1974. The 1974 truce didnt' 'give' Israel the Golan land. It was simply an agreement that Israel and Syria would stop attacking eachother and stay out of a neutral zone between each country's armies.

Herein lies the problem: Israel has been directly supporting al Nusra and ISIS forces hiding inside that neutral zone. The place is so over-run with head-choppers that the 1300 UN observers LEFT their own camps in that zone and have relocated to the Israeli side of the cease-fire line. They openly acknowledge that they can't do anything about defending the zone because Nusra/ISIS are not parties to the ceasefire, and Israel is covertly supplying them so there's no proof that they are violating the cease-fire.

Israel has repeatedly bombed SAA troops chasing al Nusra/ISIS into the neutral zone. This is a direct violation of the 1974 truce. Russia has always been pissed about that, but on Monday they bitch-slapped Israel without anything but a ridiculous cover story spewed by the MSM (the paraglider thing). Nobody seems to understand the profound implications of RUSSIA flying combat missions IN THE UNDOF ZONE to bomb Israeli's little al Nusra buddies. They just did this in al Qunaitra, which juts out into the occupied Golan Heights in such a way that it would be difficult to bomb anything there without overflying the neurtral zone into the Israeli side. Israel loves to use the word 'border' to suggest some kind of international recognition, but there is none. There is (was) only a UNDOF-maintained cease-fire zone arranged well into Syrian territory in 1974. Israel never left Syrian land and simply claim it as theirs.

Russia keeps reiterating how it is adhering to international law. Something tells me that this is in preparation for chasing any al Nusra/ISIS head-choppers into the Golan Heights as far as they need to. They are not 'violating' Israeli airspace or soverign lands because it is - by international recognition - still Syrian territory.

Everyone is waiting for a false flag, and it's been brewing right under our noses. Al Nusra and ISIS will retreat into the Golan Heights because they think it will offer them immunity from Russian air attacks. Russia recognizes (as does the world) that Syria STILL LEGALLY extends to the Jordan river - the Golan Heights IS SYRIAN SOVERIGN TERRITORY. Russia is not 'provoking' Israel - Israel shouldn't be there according to international law and UN recognition.

I think Russia is going to drive al Nusra and ISIS INTO the Golan Heights to force this issue - an issue that Israel has already LOST in the eyes of the international community. Would the U.S. go nuclear to 'defend' Israel's land-theft? Answer: Who cares. Dick Cheney's oil company just found a huge deposit there - of course the U.S. would go nuclear to protect his money. That's what the U.S. does.

cowdiddly

What's even funnier is Iraq has already said "NO THANKS" to ground troops in Iraq. They have seen enough of your so called help.

Also the little hero raid the other day was a complete farce. The Pershmerga was supposed to lead the raid and do all the dirty work while US troops come in behind. Of the casualties, The one US soldier that got wacked got a little to rambunctious and got out in front.

Yea hero, lead from behind and you Kurds charge the hill and we look like we did the raid and take the credit. WHATEVER.

The US is trying real hard to look relevent here. Just like the single ship to China crap. OOOOHHHHHH SCARY, No one is Intimidated, it makes you look weak ,and they just think your insane.

GO big or GO HOME. But mostly GO HOME WITH SOME DIGNITY LEFT. You can't afford to Play and you look sad and no one wants your help.

palmereldritch

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151028/1029209074/golan-heights-oil-...

We've found an oil stratum 350 meters thick in the southern Golan Heights. On average worldwide, strata are 20 to 30 meters thick, and this is 10 times as large as that, so we are talking about significant quantities," Afek Oil & Gas chief geologist Yuval Bartov claimed in an interview to a local broadcaster as quoted by Engdahl.

"The Netanyahu government [is now] more determined than ever to sow chaos and disorder in Damascus and use that to de facto create an Israeli irreversible occupation of Golan and its oil," the expert stressed.

"Now an apparent discovery of huge volumes of oil by a New Jersey oil company whose board includes Iraq war architect, Dick Cheney, neo-con ex-CIA head James Woolsey, and Jacob Lord Rothschild… brings the stakes of the Russian intervention on behalf of Syria's Assad against ISIS [ISIL], al-Qaeda and other CIA-backed 'moderate terrorists' to a new geopolitical dimension," Engdahl underscored.

Raymond_K._Hessel

Do the Iraqis have a say in this matter?

NOTE: Alphahammer and Yomatti wants everyone to spend a half hour doing some research into the origins of ISIS: http://bfy.tw/2VnO

Raymond_K._Hessel

Iraq to Washington: We Don't Want Your Troops

What a difference a day makes. Just 24 hours ago US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was telling the Senate Armed Services Committee all about the Obama Administration's new military strategy for the Middle East. The headline grabber from his testimony was the revelation that the US military would begin "direct action on the ground" in Iraq and Syria.

"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL (ISIS)," he told the Committee. The new strategy would consist of "three R's," he said: more US action, including on the ground, with Syrian opposition partners to take the ISIS stronghold in Raqqa, Syria; more intense cooperation with the Iraqi army including with US-embedded soldiers to retake Ramadi from ISIS in Iraq; and the beginning of US military raids, "whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground."

That was news to the Iraqis, it turns out. And it wasn't very good news at that. Today Sa'ad al-Hadithi, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said "thanks but no thanks" to a third US invasion of his country. "We have enough soldiers on the ground," he said.

This raises the question of whether the US administration intends to insert US soldiers into Iraq against the wishes of its elected government, as it has done and promises to continue to do in Syria. In that case, the US would be shooting at ISIS and the Iraqi government, as well as the Iran-backed Shi'ite militias who are coming to increasingly control large parts of the Iraqi military. Presumably all these forces would be shooting back at US troops on the ground as well. The US would likely be partnering in this task with the anti-ISIS Sunni fighters highlighted in Defense Secretary Carter's testimony yesterday. In other words, the US would be backing forces closer to those of Saddam Hussein, who they overthrew twelve years ago.

The Iraqi government had requested Russian assistance against ISIS earlier this month, after Russian strikes in Syria appear to have made a significant impact on the battlefield. But Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told the Iraqis if they accept Russian assistance they can forget about any more US aid.

It appears the US threat was not enough to put the Iraqis off asking for Russian help, as earlier this week the Iraqi parliament approved Russian airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq.

So the big roll-out of the new US Middle East military strategy seems to have fizzled, as none of the intended beneficiaries of US assistance seem all that enthused about the partnership. For the moment, the US finds itself backing Iranian militias in Iraq while fighting them next door in Syria, while planning to place US troops in with "moderate" anti-Assad rebels in the path of falling Russian bombs. All the while, of course, the US is aiding the Kurds in Syria and Iraq which are currently being bombed by NATO ally Turkey.

What else could possibly go wrong?

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2015/octob...

Crocodile

Since ISIS, ISIL, IS or the word of the day is a Pentagon formed, trained & funded operation, then the Pentagon is using the US Military, a Pentagon organization, against another Pentagon organization.

Only proves the insanity of it all and the devaluing of life of the ordinary person.

Then again Satan attacks the ordinances of God given to man for the good of all which is not limited to, marriage, family and the sanctity of life and unfortunately most people agree as shown by their personal behaviors.

[Oct 28, 2015] How the U.S. Wrecked the Middle East

Notable quotes:
"... Whatever world order the U.S. may be fighting for in the Middle East, it seems at least an empire or two out of date. Washington refuses to admit to itself that [as a preverse reaction on neoliberalism] the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism resonate with vast numbers of people. ..."
"... No one is predicting a world war or a nuclear war from the mess in Syria. However, like those final days before the Great War, one finds a lot of pieces in play inside a tinderbox. ..."
"... Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in ..."
"... regular he writes about current events at ..."
"... We Meant Well ..."
"... . His latest book is ..."
"... . His next work will be a novel, ..."
October 22, 2015 | The American Conservative

A once stable region descends into chaos thanks to continuing repercussions from the 2003 Iraq invasion. (via TomDispatch)

Whatever world order the U.S. may be fighting for in the Middle East, it seems at least an empire or two out of date. Washington refuses to admit to itself that [as a preverse reaction on neoliberalism] the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism resonate with vast numbers of people. At this point, even as U.S. TOW missiles are becoming as ubiquitous as iPads in the region, American military power can only delay changes, not stop them. Unless a rebalancing of power that would likely favor some version of Islamic fundamentalism takes hold and creates some measure of stability in the Middle East, count on one thing: the U.S. will be fighting the sons of ISIS years from now.

... No one is predicting a world war or a nuclear war from the mess in Syria. However, like those final days before the Great War, one finds a lot of pieces in play inside a tinderbox.

Now, all together: What could possibly go wrong?

Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. A TomDispatch regular he writes about current events at We Meant Well. His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent. His next work will be a novel, Hooper's War.

[Oct 27, 2015] OECD Chief Economist: Its Time To Temper The Frothiness In Markets

www.zerohedge.com
"... if you look at what is supporting equity prices - how much of that support is coming from real economic activity versus from using stock buybacks, using cash on balance sheet for stock buybacks, or mergers and acquisitions, to reduced competition in the marketplace.

These are the sort of stories that if there were a small increase in interest rates, you would temper some of that frothiness.

Eliminating the incentive to engage in that kind of activity seems to me to be a good idea... There would be a proportion of the population that would have less capital gains - but they've been enjoying very big capital gains, and it is a narrow segment of the population."

[Oct 24, 2015] The best lesson China could teach Europe: how to play the long game

Notable quotes:
"... There is a lot that is positive about China's transformation. However, it is quite telling that many of China's new rich cant get their money out of the country quickly enough. ..."
"... It isn't so much a case of whether the UK will become a province, I suspect the whole world will. China is close to the GDP of the USA and will overtake it in about 18 months, with GDP per head only about $8k. If Chinese GDP per head even doubles, it's economy will at least double, and that isn't taking into account population growth. China's economy has already grown by about 1000% since 2002. ..."
"... China is a very fascinating place with a very fascinating history... But this misguided sinophilia is exasperating. Half the time the Chinese government doesn't even know what it's doing. ..."
"... If you talk to Chinese people in private most of them take a pretty dim view of the invasion of Iraq and western interventionist foreign policy in general. Their government, however, don't put out grand press releases about it because that's not the way the Chinese do foreign diplomacy. ..."
"... Gunboat diplomacy, opium wars, putting down mutinies in India and elsewhere, black hole of Calcutta,thrashing the native language out of the Maori and Aborigines-forcing them to speak English, World War One and World War Two, suez, the Falklands. ..."
"... They will have to reject US inspired economic voodoo if they are to ever prosper again. There is little to no chance of a federal state. The cultural, language and political differences are insurmountable. ..."
"... Stopped reading at that point, author is obviously a neoliberal rent-a-mouth. If it's rights against interests there's nothing to balance, to suggest otherwise is agenda setting. ..."
"... The public opinion in France should remember about Frances' real place in the world, and mind its own business avoiding poking its long nose in other peoples' affaires. ..."
"... Bonapartism is an old French mental disorder. ..."
"... I didn't say the US completely controlled Europe, I just said that the US can bend Europe to its will in certain circumstances. For example it currently forces European banks to disclose customer information to the US Treasury and it is trying to get European countries to agree to allow US border control in European airports, so that the US can question UK citizens in London. ..."
"... i want to see a chinese century, at least the chinese wont invade other countries with the excuse of democracy or human rights ..."
"... LOL European democracy was born in Greece which is now under the full control of ECB and IMF The EU is a silly clown at the US court What are you talking about? ..."
"... To be fair to the Chinese, at least they're not evangelical about spreading their 'Authoritarianism with Chinese Characteristics' now are they? In fact, it's quite the opposite with their non-interference mantra. ..."
"... The rise of China is largely a good thing for Europe. The US will not hesitate to use its power to bend Europe to its will where necessary (and who can blame it, all countries do this when they can) and the cultural and political diversity of Europe means the EU is unlikely to rival the US or China anytime soon. But the rise of China allows Europe to play one great power off against the other to resist bullying and extract concessions from one or both. ..."
"... You can have democracy with a long memory see periods before 1970's (neoliberalisation requires a small memory). ..."
"... If Europe continues to have a long term strategy the 'long-term' has not started yet. It is currently in the process of internal devaluation and the morons in charge happily attack labor conditions which weakens spending which further degrades potential GDP increases hidden unemployment and stagnation. Germany did this first and now continues to leverage the small head start it got during the 90's for doing so. ..."
"... It has nothing to do with that reasoning. It was always predicted the West will self destruct. Inventing Globalisation and then closed down places of work for its citizen and export them la, la lands benefiting very few people, the beneficiaries who end up sending their monies to tax havens un-taxed and sponsoring some selected people to power to do their biding was always self defeating. ..."
"... We gave China our jobs and cheap technologies that have taken us centuries to develop in of getting cheap goods. As a result China did not have to pass through the phases we passed through in our early industrial age when Machines were more expensive than humans before the reverse. ..."
"... Who speaks for Europe? No-one is the answer. It is the single largest economy on the plant. Biggest exporter on the planet. Arguably the richest middle class on the planet; combined, possibly the biggest defense budget on the planet, and all this with a central government driving foreign policy, defense, economic strategy, monetary policy, nor any of the other institutions of a Federal State. China knows this, the Americans know this; and Europe keeps getting treated as the "child" on the international scene. It's too bad, because Europe, as a whole, has many wonderful positives to contribute to the world. ..."
Oct 23, 2015 | The Guardian

SystemD -> paddyd2009 23 Oct 2015 23:13

The problem is how do you define civilization? The urban centres were in the Middle East, and long pre-date China. 6,000 years ago, the world's largest towns and cities were in the Balkans - the Tripolye-Cucuteni culture. Because of the conventions of nomenclature, they don't count as a civilization. This raises the question, when does a culture become a civilization? There are certainly well attested archaeological cultures in China going back a long way, but there are equally ancient cultures in Europe. Should we then say that Europe has 4,000 or 5,000 or more years of civilization?

Good records for Chinese history go back about 3,000 years. Anything before that becomes archaeological rather than historical, based on artifacts rather than records. References to different dynasties don't help - there are no records comparable to Near Eastern king lists, or the Sumerian or Hittite royal archives. China set up the Three Kingdoms Project to try to find the 'missing' 2,000 years of Chinese history - i.e. the history that they claim to have, but have no direct evidence. They didn't find it.

Adetheshades 23 Oct 2015 22:52

There is a lot that is positive about China's transformation. However, it is quite telling that many of China's new rich cant get their money out of the country quickly enough.

They obviously know more than the average Guardian reader, and apparently don't feel their cash is safe. This causes problems of its own, when they start splashing this cash in the UK property market, causing further price escalation if any were needed.

There isn't much we can do about the size and wealth of China.

It isn't so much a case of whether the UK will become a province, I suspect the whole world will. China is close to the GDP of the USA and will overtake it in about 18 months, with GDP per head only about $8k. If Chinese GDP per head even doubles, it's economy will at least double, and that isn't taking into account population growth. China's economy has already grown by about 1000% since 2002.

At what point will we drop French from the school curriculum in favour of Mandarin is the question.

To say Beijings influence is growing is a lovely little piece of understatement.

Adamnuisance 23 Oct 2015 21:22

China is a very fascinating place with a very fascinating history... But this misguided sinophilia is exasperating. Half the time the Chinese government doesn't even know what it's doing. Being passive aggressive and claiming to be 'unique' are their real specialties. I have little doubt that China will become even more powerful with time... I just hope their backwards politics improves with their economy.

Thruns 23 Oct 2015 20:44

The first long game was Mao's coup.
The second long game was the great leap forward.
The third long game was the cultural revolution.
The fourth long game was to adopt the west's capitalism and sell the west its own technology.
At last the "communist" Chinese seem to have found a winner.

tufsoft Maharaja -> Brovinda Singh 23 Oct 2015 20:30

If you talk to Chinese people in private most of them take a pretty dim view of the invasion of Iraq and western interventionist foreign policy in general. Their government, however, don't put out grand press releases about it because that's not the way the Chinese do foreign diplomacy.

nothell -> Laurence Johnson 23 Oct 2015 20:16

Your comment about the British Empire must be tongue in cheek.

Gunboat diplomacy, opium wars, putting down mutinies in India and elsewhere, black hole of Calcutta,thrashing the native language out of the Maori and Aborigines-forcing them to speak English, World War One and World War Two, suez, the Falklands.

Anything but peaceful and anything but fair. Europe had the past, let Asia have the future.

slightlynumb -> theoldmanfromusa 23 Oct 2015 20:10

They will have to reject US inspired economic voodoo if they are to ever prosper again. There is little to no chance of a federal state. The cultural, language and political differences are insurmountable.

Rasengruen 23 Oct 2015 20:05

All of this presents well-known dilemmas for Europeans, such as how to balance human rights and economic interests.

Stopped reading at that point, author is obviously a neoliberal rent-a-mouth. If it's rights against interests there's nothing to balance, to suggest otherwise is agenda setting.

philby87 23 Oct 2015 18:50

public opinion in France, which had been shocked by an outbreak of violent repression in Tibet

The public opinion in France should remember about Frances' real place in the world, and mind its own business avoiding poking its long nose in other peoples' affaires. A good example is Japan which is twice larger than France, but never lectures its neighbors about what they should and shouldn't do. Bonapartism is an old French mental disorder.

skepticaleye -> midaregami 23 Oct 2015 18:04

The Yue state was populated mostly by the members of the Yue people who were not Han. The South China wasn't completely sinicized well into the second millennium CE. Yunnan wasn't incorporated into China until the Mongols conquered Dali in the 13th century, and the Ming dynasty eradicated the Mongols' resistance there in the 14th century.

PeterBederell -> Daniel S 23 Oct 2015 17:54

I didn't say the US completely controlled Europe, I just said that the US can bend Europe to its will in certain circumstances. For example it currently forces European banks to disclose customer information to the US Treasury and it is trying to get European countries to agree to allow US border control in European airports, so that the US can question UK citizens in London.

Europe often has to agree to these indignities because it needs access to the US market and to keep the US sweet. But with a strong China, it can use the threat of following China in some way the US doesn't like as a bargaining chip, like joining China's Development Bank, which put the US in a huff recently.

Chriswr -> AdamStrange 23 Oct 2015 17:54
What we in the West call human rights are creations of the Enlightenment and only about 300 years old. As a modern Westerner I am, of course, a big supporter of them. But let's not pretend they are part of some age-old tradition.
sor2007 -> impartial12 23 Oct 2015 17:48
i want to see a chinese century, at least the chinese wont invade other countries with the excuse of democracy or human rights
ApfelD 23 Oct 2015 17:42
China can rightly point out that it was already a civilisation 4,000 years ago – well ahead of Europe – and it uses that historical depth to indicate it will never take lessons on democracy.
LOL European democracy was born in Greece which is now under the full control of ECB and IMF The EU is a silly clown at the US court What are you talking about?

HoolyK BabylonianSheDevil03 23 Oct 2015 17:34

To be fair to the Chinese, at least they're not evangelical about spreading their 'Authoritarianism with Chinese Characteristics' now are they? In fact, it's quite the opposite with their non-interference mantra. When the Chinese see the following:

1. the West preaches democracy and human rights
2. is evangelical about it and spreads it by hook or crook into the Middle East
3. this causes regimes to be changed and instability to spread
4. the chaos causes a massive refugee crisis, washing these poor huddled masses onto the shores of Europe
5. the human rights preached by the West demands that the the refugees receive help
6. the native population is slowly being displaced
7. native population is further screwed, with austerity, financial crisis and now said Syrian refugees
8. Fascist and Nazis parties are elected into office, civil strife ensues

Now, what do you think the Chinese, who ABHOR chaos, think about democracy and human rights ??

PeterBederell 23 Oct 2015 16:47

The rise of China is largely a good thing for Europe. The US will not hesitate to use its power to bend Europe to its will where necessary (and who can blame it, all countries do this when they can) and the cultural and political diversity of Europe means the EU is unlikely to rival the US or China anytime soon. But the rise of China allows Europe to play one great power off against the other to resist bullying and extract concessions from one or both.

HoolyK -> AdamStrange 23 Oct 2015 16:30

Anatolia is inhabited by Turks from Central Asia who settled in the 11th century, Iraq/Syria was overrun by Muslims in the 7th century. China is still Han Chinese, as it was 5000 years ago.

'human rights' really? then do you support the human rights of tens of thousands of refugees from Syria to settle in Britain and Europe then? I ask this awkward question only because I know the Chinese will ask ....

dev_null 23 Oct 2015 16:23

China deploys a long-term strategy in part because it has a very long memory, and in part because its ruling elite needn't bother too much about electoral constraints.

The two are not mutially exclusive. You can have democracy with a long memory see periods before 1970's (neoliberalisation requires a small memory).

China's longest 'strategy' was to leverage its currency artificially lower than it should be in order to net export so many manufactured goods. Nothing else.

If Europe continues to have a long term strategy the 'long-term' has not started yet. It is currently in the process of internal devaluation and the morons in charge happily attack labor conditions which weakens spending which further degrades potential GDP increases hidden unemployment and stagnation. Germany did this first and now continues to leverage the small head start it got during the 90's for doing so.
Eurozone = Dystopia

China can rightly point out that it was already a civilisation 4,000 years ago – well ahead of Europe

No sorry europe contained many advanced cultures going back just as far. This is incompetent journalism. China was not 'china' it was many kingdoms and cultures 4000 years ago, as was Europe at the time. Fallacy of decomposition.

MeandYou -> weka69 23 Oct 2015 16:11

It has nothing to do with that reasoning. It was always predicted the West will self destruct. Inventing Globalisation and then closed down places of work for its citizen and export them la, la lands benefiting very few people, the beneficiaries who end up sending their monies to tax havens un-taxed and sponsoring some selected people to power to do their biding was always self defeating.

We gave China our jobs and cheap technologies that have taken us centuries to develop in of getting cheap goods. As a result China did not have to pass through the phases we passed through in our early industrial age when Machines were more expensive than humans before the reverse. We gave China all in a plate hence the speed neck speed China has risen. The Consumerism society the political class created they were stupid enough to forget people still need money to buy cheap goods. Consumerism does not run on empty purse.

wintpu 23 Oct 2015 15:57

You are preaching a China Containment strategy:
[1] This is racist viciousness, colonial mentality, or white supremacist conspiracy, believing that containment is your moral right. You seem to be wallowing still in the stiff upper lipped notions that you are the betters versus the east. Colonialism is over and still you cling to the notion that the EU should get together and try to destroy China's social system because it is different from yours. Your records on human rights, governance and effectiveness are all droopy examples to be object lessons rather than role models for emulation by developing countries. Your opium war denials [simply by not mentioning it] give you very little high ground to hector China and the Chinese people.

[2] Recent Behavior. Putting aside your opium war robbery, your behavior in the run up to 1997 Hong Kong hand back shows your greedy sneakiness. Chris Patten infamously tried to throw a monkey wrench into an agreed-upon process by trying to steal the Hong Kong treasury, then planting the seeds of British wannabees. You passed a special law to deny the 1.36 million Hong Kong residents who had become British Citizens was one of the most shameful racist acts of your colonial record. Cameron is now bending over backwards post haste in order to side-step the long long memory of the Chinese people.

[3] Crying about getting other EU nations to do aiding and abetting of your vendetta against a rising China? Trying to reduce and contain China does you no good. So it is a simple case of mendacity. But you forget that the Germans have already gone to China honestly and co-operated since the time of Helmut Kohl and the CPC has not forgotten their loyal friends. Today most CPC leaders drive Audis. There is no turning Germany away from their key position in Chinatrade to become enemies of China because of your self-serving wishes. Even now, France has jumped in on the nuclear niche to present you with a package you cannot refuse.

samohio 23 Oct 2015 15:51

Who speaks for Europe? No-one is the answer. It is the single largest economy on the plant. Biggest exporter on the planet. Arguably the richest middle class on the planet; combined, possibly the biggest defense budget on the planet, and all this with a central government driving foreign policy, defense, economic strategy, monetary policy, nor any of the other institutions of a Federal State. China knows this, the Americans know this; and Europe keeps getting treated as the "child" on the international scene. It's too bad, because Europe, as a whole, has many wonderful positives to contribute to the world.

[Oct 24, 2015] Turkish Parliament Members Turkey Provided Chemical Weapons for Syrian Terrorist Attack

Notable quotes:
"... The purpose was to create the perception that, according to speaker, "Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military intervention in Syria." ..."
"... Turkish government ..."
"... 'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.' ..."
"... And as recently as yesterday a State Department flac was stil asserting that Assad was responsible for the Sarin attack. Those boys and girls no longer remember how to tell the truth, even to save their own skins. ..."
"... The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria: ..."
"... –Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades. ..."
"... –Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video "Syria: Wolves of the Valley": "Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary." ..."
"... –Turkey's intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria. ..."
"... – Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here . In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities. ..."
"... – Turkey's foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria . A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding. ..."
"... –Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue. ..."
"... – Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar . ..."
"... "We were some of the first people on the ground –if not the first people – to get that story of…militants going in through the Turkish border…I've got images of them in World Food Organization trucks. It was very apparent that they were militants by their beards, by the clothes they wore, and they were going in there with NGO trucks," ..."
Oct 24, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Two members of the Turkish parliament gave a press conference this week saying that they have wiretapped recordings and other evidence showing that Turkey supplied the sarin used in Syria. As reported by Turkey's largest newspapers, Today's Zaman:

CHP deputies Eren Erdem and Ali ?eker held a press conference in Istanbul on Wednesday in which they claimed the investigation into allegations regarding Turkey's involvement in the procurement of sarin gas which was used in the chemical attack on a civil population and delivered to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to enable the attack was derailed.

Taking the floor first, Erdem stated that the Adana Chief Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into allegations that sarin was sent to Syria from Turkey via several businessmen. An indictment followed regarding the accusations targeting the government.

"The MKE [Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation] is also an actor that is mentioned in the investigation file. Here is the indictment. All the details about how sarin was procured in Turkey and delivered to the terrorists, along with audio recordings, are inside the file," Erdem said while waving the file.

Erdem also noted that the prosecutor's office conducted detailed technical surveillance and found that an al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin, adding: "Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims that it is fighting terrorism," Erdem noted.

Over 1,300 people were killed in the sarin gas attack in Ghouta and several other neighborhoods near the Syrian capital of Damascus, with the West quickly blaming the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Russia claiming it was a "false flag" operation aimed at making US military intervention in Syria possible.

Suburbs near Damascus were struck by rockets containing the toxic sarin gas in August 2013.

The purpose of the attack was allegedly to provoke a US military operation in Syria which would topple the Assad regime in line with the political agenda of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.

CHP deputy speaker spoke after Erdem, pointing out that the government misled the public on the issue by asserting that sarin was provided by Russia. The purpose was to create the perception that, according to speaker, "Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military intervention in Syria."

He also underlined that all of the files and evidence from the investigation show a war crime was committed within the borders of the Turkish Republic.

"The investigation clearly indicates that those people who smuggled the chemicals required to procure sarin faced no difficulties, proving that Turkish intelligence was aware of their activities.

Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh – who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam – previously reported that high-level American sources tell him that the Turkish government carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government.

As Hersh noted:

'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.'

Indeed, it's long been known that sarin was coming through Turkey. And a tape recording of top Turkish officials planning a false flag attack to be blamed on Syria as a causus belli was leaked … and confirmed by Turkey as being authentic. Turkey is a member of NATO. There are previous instances where Turkish government officials have admitted to carrying out false flag attacks. For example:

  • The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.

Turkey has also been busted massively supporting ISIS. And see this.

And other NATO members have also admitted to carrying out false flag terror to stir up war.

Reaper

Cui bono from the sarin attack in Syria? Not Assad. The educational training for American sheeple is to emote first, think way later, maybe.

jeff montanye

once more with feeling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyQ1RoEotPk

"they don't want a population capable of critical thinking" george carlin

Macon Richardson

And as recently as yesterday a State Department flac was stil asserting that Assad was responsible for the Sarin attack. Those boys and girls no longer remember how to tell the truth, even to save their own skins.

JustObserving

Turkey has been at war with Syria for years now.

The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:

–Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.

–Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video "Syria: Wolves of the Valley": "Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary."

–Turkey's intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria.

Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here. In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities.

Turkey's foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.

–Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue.

Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

more at:

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/25/turkeys-troubling-war-on-syria/

Parrotile

Rest assured Russia is fully aware of all the clandestine goings-on.

Interesting that Turkey is keen on snuggling up close with those bastions of civil rights - SA and Qatar, just at the same time as they are making very loud noises re the involvement of what is Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict . . . .

Easy to see which side Turkey's desperately backing.

conscious being

Serena Shim, Shim had been reporting that IS militants had crossed the border from Turkey into Syria in trucks apparently affiliated with NGOs, some of which allegedly bore World Food Organization symbols. She claimed that she had received images from Islamic militants crossing the Turkish border and was one of the few reporters focusing on the matter.

"We were some of the first people on the ground –if not the first people – to get that story of…militants going in through the Turkish border…I've got images of them in World Food Organization trucks. It was very apparent that they were militants by their beards, by the clothes they wore, and they were going in there with NGO trucks," she said.

lakecity55

I also remember the Terrorists taking over a pool supply/industrial supply house of Chlorine gas. They may have manufactured the chlorine at the same facility, so there was no shortage of ways for them to get ahold of poison gas.

The ideation that Assad would gas his own people is absurd. He throws some dissidents inot jail, but so does the USSA.

George Washington

Whistleblower: Powerful Congressman Hastert's Corruption Goes FAR Beyond Sex With a Student

Ms. Edmonds also told me that Hastert and other high-ranking officials helped funnel money for Gladio B false flag operations.

[Oct 24, 2015] Snowden NSA, GCHQ Using Your Phone to Spy on Others (and You)

that's pretty superficial coverage. Capabilities of smartphone mike are pretty limited and by design it is try to suppress external noise. If your phone is in the case microphone will not pick up much. Same for camera. Only your GPS location is available. If phone is switched off then even this is not reality available. I think the whole ability to listen from the pocket is overblown. There is too much noice to make this practical on the current level of development of technology. At the same time I think just metadata are enough to feel that you are the constant surveillance.
Notable quotes:
"... the most part intelligence agencies are not really looking to monitor your private phone communications per se. They are actually taking over full control of the phone to take photos or record ongoing conversations within earshot. ..."
"... According to Snowden, the UK's spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, uses NSA technology to develop software tools to control almost anyone's smartphone. He notes that all it takes is sending an encrypted text message to get into virtually any smartphone. Moreover, the message will not be seen by the user, making it almost impossible to stop the attack. ..."
"... Reprinted with permission from WeMeantWell.com . ..."
Oct 15, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
You are a tool of the state, according to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA in the U.S., and its equivalent in the UK, GCHQ, are taking control of your phone not just to spy on you as needed, but also to use your device as a way to spy on others around you. You are a walking microphone, camera and GPS for spies.

Snowden, in a BBC interview, explained that for the most part intelligence agencies are not really looking to monitor your private phone communications per se. They are actually taking over full control of the phone to take photos or record ongoing conversations within earshot.

According to Snowden, the UK's spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, uses NSA technology to develop software tools to control almost anyone's smartphone. He notes that all it takes is sending an encrypted text message to get into virtually any smartphone. Moreover, the message will not be seen by the user, making it almost impossible to stop the attack.

GCHQ calls these smartphone hacking tools the "Smurf Suite." The suite includes:

  • "Dreamy Smurf" is the power management tool that turns your phone on and off with you knowing.
  • "Nosey Smurf" is the hot mic tool. "For example," Snowden said, "if the phone is in your pocket, NSA/GCHQ can turn the microphone on and listen to everything that's going on around you, even if your phone is switched off because they've got the other tools for turning it on.
  • "Tracker Smurf" is a geolocation tool which allows spies to follow you with a greater precision than you would get from the typical triangulation of cellphone towers.
  • "Paranoid Smurf" is a defensive mechanism designed to make the other tools installed on the phone undetectable.
Snowden said the NSA has spent close to $1 billion to develop these smartphone hacking programs.

Reprinted with permission from WeMeantWell.com.

[Oct 23, 2015] The Devils Chessboard Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of Americas Secret Government

Notable quotes:
"... Talbot focusses extensively on James Jesus Angleton, the shadowy counterintelligence figure at the heart of the domestic assassinations of the 1960s, and examines the inner-workings of Dulles' ambitious (and dastardly) plot to consolidate and control global political power. "The Devil's Chessboard" is a startling and revelatory masterwork. In terms of easy-to-access assassination research, this book is second only to James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable." In terms of biographies of Dulles and Angleton, two of history's most infamous figures, this work is second to none. ..."
"... A heretofore unanswered question about the JFK assassination is what was Allen Dulles was doing between the time he was fired by JFK as Director of the CIA in 1961 until the moment of the assassination on November 22, 1963. A related question is how was it conceivable for Dulles to have been appointed to the Warren Commission that eventually produced the conclusions that are still accepted by mainstream historians and the media? Talbot's intensive research helps to shed on light on those questions by tracing the arc of development of the career of Allen Dulles as a high-powered attorney at the center of the elitist East Coast establishment, his shocking collaboration with the Nazis while working in the OSS, and his career in clandestine activities at the CIA ..."
"... Talbots research probes not merely the activities of Dulles as Director of the CIA, but explores the broader context of his function over three decades as a power broker, whose efforts were directed not against hostile governments but against his own. ..."
"... the more recent book on Dulles covers the broader scope of how the American government was transformed into the national security state in the years following World War II. Talbots goal in preparing this book is to demonstrate the urgency of coming to terms with our past and how it is essential that we continue to fight for the right to own our history. (p. xii) An excellent place to begin that quest is to own this book. ..."
Amazon

J. Roth on October 14, 2015

A Groundbreaking Resource, Second Only to "JFK and the Unspeakable"

A tremendous resource of breathtaking depth and clarity. Talbot builds on the now decades-old body of research - initiated by investigative reporters Tom Mangold ("Cold Warrior") and David Wise ("Molehunt"), and largely developed by assassination researchers James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease ("The Assassinations") - and adds groundbreaking new information.

Talbot focusses extensively on James Jesus Angleton, the shadowy counterintelligence figure at the heart of the domestic assassinations of the 1960s, and examines the inner-workings of Dulles' ambitious (and dastardly) plot to consolidate and control global political power. "The Devil's Chessboard" is a startling and revelatory masterwork. In terms of easy-to-access assassination research, this book is second only to James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable." In terms of biographies of Dulles and Angleton, two of history's most infamous figures, this work is second to none.

Note: Be wary of one-star reviews for this book. Some trace back to commissioned-review services, the same services that give five-star reviews to shady/suspicious health and beauty products. Go figure.

James Norwood on October 14, 2015

The Shadow Government of Allen Dulles: Organized Irresponsibility

To read this magnificent book by David Talbot is to understand how the JFK assassination occurred and how the truth was concealed by officialdom in the Warren Report. Unlike his brother, John Foster Dulles, the younger Allen Welsh Dulles rarely makes it into American history textbooks. In this extremely detailed study, the singular importance of Allen Dulles is demonstrated as being central to a watershed period in the American Century.

First and foremost, "The Devil's Chessboard" is a beautifully written and meticulously researched volume. Talbot drew upon archives at Princeton University, where the Allen Dulles papers are housed. He also conducted research in other archives across the country. The documentary work is buttressed and amplified by interviews with the surviving daughter of Dulles, as well as interviews with the children of Dulles' colleagues and over 150 officials from the Kennedy administration. Nearly forty pages of notes serve to document the author's sources.

One of the most revealing moments about Allen Dulles was when he was ten years old and spending time at the family's lake home in upstate New York. After his five-year-old sister fell into the lake and was drifting away from him, Allen stood stock still, "strangely impassive. The boy just stood on the dock and watched as his little sister drifted away." (p. 19) Fortunately, the child was rescued by the mother. The behavior of young Allen is representative of a lifelong predilection for observing the imponderables of life as an insider while looking to others to "risk their skins." For this little boy, the world was already forming into a chessboard with pawns to manipulate for his self-serving needs. Talbot describes Dulles' rogue actions in allowing Nazi war criminals to avoid prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials in these chilling words: "Even in the life-and-death throes of wartime espionage, Dulles seemed untouched by the intense human drama swirling around him." (p. 120)

In one of the most riveting moments of the book, Talbot describes an interchange between Dulles and researcher David Lifton at a colloquium on the JFK assassination at the campus of UCLA in 1965. Lifton came prepared to challenge Dulles on major deficiencies of the Warren Report. By the end of the evening, the students attending the session were more interested in Lifton's findings than Dulles' unsuccessful attempts to deflect the tough questions. In retrospect, Lifton apparently claimed that he "was in the presence of 'evil' that night." (p. 591)

A heretofore unanswered question about the JFK assassination is what was Allen Dulles was doing between the time he was fired by JFK as Director of the CIA in 1961 until the moment of the assassination on November 22, 1963. A related question is how was it conceivable for Dulles to have been appointed to the Warren Commission that eventually produced the conclusions that are still accepted by mainstream historians and the media? Talbot's intensive research helps to shed on light on those questions by tracing the arc of development of the career of Allen Dulles as a high-powered attorney at the center of the elitist East Coast establishment, his shocking collaboration with the Nazis while working in the OSS, and his career in clandestine activities at the CIA

Talbot's research probes not merely the activities of Dulles as Director of the CIA, but explores the broader context of his function over three decades as a power broker, whose "efforts were directed not against hostile governments but against his own." (p. 3) Talbot cites revelations from the Columbia University sociology professor C. Wright Mills about the secret government of Allen Dulles, which was comprised of a "power elite" and based on the anti-Constitutional premise of "organized irresponsibility."

In many ways, "The Devil's Chessboard" is a companion volume to Talbot's essential study "Brothers," which focuses on the relationship of John and Robert Kennedy, the assassination of JFK, and the aftereffects on RFK. But the more recent book on Dulles covers the broader scope of how the American government was transformed into the national security state in the years following World War II. Talbot's goal in preparing this book is to demonstrate the urgency of coming to terms with our past and how "it is essential that we continue to fight for the right to own our history." (p. xii) An excellent place to begin that quest is to own this book.

[Oct 23, 2015] Putin Just Warned Global War Is Increasingly More Likely Heres Why

Notable quotes:
"... "Why play with words dividing terrorists into moderate and not moderate. Whats the difference?," Putin asked, adding that "success in fighting terrorists cannot be reached if using some of them as a battering ram to overthrow disliked regimes [because] its just an illusion that they can be dealt with [later], removed from power and somehow negotiated with." ..."
"... hypothetical nuclear threat from Iran is a myth. The US was just trying to destroy the strategical balance, [and] not to just dominate, but be able to dictate its will to everyone – not only geopolitical opponents, but also allies. ..."
"... We had the right to expect that work on development of US missile defense system would stop. But nothing like it happened, and it continues. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful for all, including the United States itself. The deterrent of nuclear weapons has started to lose its value, and some have even got the illusion that a real victory of one of the sides can be achieved in a global conflict, without irreversible consequences for the winner itself – if there is a winner at all." ..."
"... the US believes it not only has the capacity to win a war against the nations Washington habitually places on its various lists of bad guys (i.e. Russia, Iran, and China), but that Washington believes America can win without incurring consequences that are commensurate with the damage the US inflicts on its enemies. That, Putin believes, is a dangerous miscalculation and one that could end up endangering US citizens. ..."
"... They did this after the White House ... ... decided to move patriot batteries to E. Europe then blew him off and claimed they were pointed at Iran. Remember the Interview where Putin bust out laughing at the reporter who suggested this? ..."
www.zerohedge.com

Zero Hedge

... ... ...

... Washington, Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha are left to look on helplessly as their Sunni extremist proxy armies are devastated by the Russian air force. The Kremlin knows there's little chance that the West and its allies will step in to directly support the rebels - the optics around that would quickly turn into a PR nightmare.

... ... ...

Speaking today at the International Valdai Discussion Club's 12th annual meeting in Sochi, Putin delivered a sweeping critique of military strategy and foreign policy touching on everything from the erroneous labeling of some extremists as "moderates" to the futility of nuclear war.

"Why play with words dividing terrorists into moderate and not moderate. What's the difference?," Putin asked, adding that "success in fighting terrorists cannot be reached if using some of them as a battering ram to overthrow disliked regimes [because] it's just an illusion that they can be dealt with [later], removed from power and somehow negotiated with."

"I'd like to stress once again that [Russia's operation in Syria] is completely legitimate, and its only aim is to aid in establishing peace," Putin said of Moscow's Mid-East strategy. And while he's probably telling the truth there, it's only by default. That is, peace in Syria likely means the restoration of Assad (it's difficult to imagine how else the country can be stabilized in the short-term), and because that aligns with Russia's interests, The Kremlin is seeking to promote peace - it's more a tautology than it is a comment on Putin's desire for goodwill towards men.

And then there's Iran and its nascent nuclear program. Putin accused the US of illegitimately seeking to play nuclear police officer, a point on which he is unquestionably correct: The "hypothetical nuclear threat from Iran is a myth. The US was just trying to destroy the strategical balance, [and] not to just dominate, but be able to dictate its will to everyone – not only geopolitical opponents, but also allies."

Speaking of nukes, Putin also warned that some nuclear powers seem to believe that there's a way to take the "mutually" out of "mutually assured destruction."

That is, Putin warned against the dangers of thinking it's possible to "win" a nuclear war. Commenting on US anti-missile shields in Europe and on the idea of MAD, Putin said the following:

"We had the right to expect that work on development of US missile defense system would stop. But nothing like it happened, and it continues. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful for all, including the United States itself. The deterrent of nuclear weapons has started to lose its value, and some have even got the illusion that a real victory of one of the sides can be achieved in a global conflict, without irreversible consequences for the winner itself – if there is a winner at all."

In short, Putin is suggesting that the world may have gone crazy. The implication is that the US believes it not only has the capacity to win a war against the nations Washington habitually places on its various lists of "bad guys" (i.e. Russia, Iran, and China), but that Washington believes America can win without incurring consequences that are commensurate with the damage the US inflicts on its enemies. That, Putin believes, is a dangerous miscalculation and one that could end up endangering US citizens.

... ... ...

ZerOhead

Putin is really pushing the "nuclear war" angle hard. I guess his good friend Henry Kissinger must have told him that power is the only thing that NeoCon fucknuts like himself understand...

El Vaquero

For any who want to read it, here is some detailed information on what the USSR's nuclear strategy was during the Cold War:

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb285/

While some things will have changed due to changes in technology, what kinds of targets the Russians would pick is likely much the same as it was when it was part of the USSR. If you live near a target, this might be helpful:

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

sushi

The people of the Falklands voted to remain associated with the UK. The citizens of Quebec, Canada nearly voted themselves out of Canada, the citizens of Scotland nearly voted themselves out of the the UK, Self Determination is respected by the UN as being a fundamental right of all peoples, so of course when the the citizens of Crimea undertake exactly the same process and vote to join Russia it is a Russian imperialist land grab.

Watch more MSM. They will explain it all to you.

Occident Mortal

Russian ICBM's can't be shot down with air defense missiles.

Russian ICBM's constantly recalculate their trajectory following a continually regenerated 'random path' through 3D space all the way to their target. The downside is that the missles need 20% more fuel.

All air defense systems work by tracking a missle and projecting it's trajectory then triangulating an intercept location and launching an interceptor to that location.

But by the time the interceptor reaches the intercept location the Russian ICBM will have changed course several times and is likely to be thousands of meters away.

In order to intercept a Russian ICBM the interceptor needs to travel at over 35,000mph. Good luck with that.

George Bush decided he wanted a Star Wars missle defense system and after spending a boat load of cash.. the Kremlin called in the US amabasador and told them all Russian missle had just received a software upgrade that would render Star Wars obsolete before it was even built. The Star Wars program was scrapped within a month.

Anasteus

A shockingly open Putin's summary of the current situation that every American should hear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQuceU3x2Ww

Mr.BlingBling

They'd be practically useless on this continent because of the decoys accompanying the 'physics packages.' The sine qua non of an effective ABM system is the ability to destroy the missiles during the boost phase. The importance of eastern Ukraine is its proximity to Russian ICBM bases, which is why 'our' government spent $5 billion to foment the coup.

cowdiddly

Oh dont worry it is Carl. That little Caspian missile shoot off the shrimp boats has caused these morons to realize there may be a few gaping ass holes in the curtain has them scrambling. I present you their panic contract to "protect the homeland" just issued to..........Yep. Lockheed Martin. purveyors of the fine F35 aircraft.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/21/lockheed-radar-missile-defense...

I feel safer already

Speaking of military contracts, Last year Russia upgraded and refurbished over 5000 underground atomic bomb shelters built in the old Soviet days that are located in every province of Russia for their people. He knows what kind of nimcompoops he is dealing with. They did this after the White House ... ... decided to move patriot batteries to E. Europe then blew him off and claimed they were pointed at Iran. Remember the Interview where Putin bust out laughing at the reporter who suggested this?

Now ask yourself how many underground shelters has your government provided for us, other than the huge complex in Utah for the President and politicians to move safely too? I certainly don't know where one is in my state unless I was to dig it myself. The only thing I know of that they did to prepare for disaster is Fema built millions of plastic coffin like things that are being stored around everywhere.

They are only worried about protecting themselves and don't give a rats ass about you other than taxes. Their only concern for you is you might lay around to long stinking up the place.


[Oct 22, 2015] The Vineyard of the Saker Putin's speech at the Valdai Club - full transcript

Notable quotes:
"... Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies. ..."
"... International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white. ..."
"... In a situation where you had domination by one country and its allies, or its satellites rather, the search for global solutions often turned into an attempt to impose their own universal recipes. This group's ambitions grew so big that they started presenting the policies they put together in their corridors of power as the view of the entire international community. But this is not the case. ..."
"... The measures taken against those who refuse to submit are well-known and have been tried and tested many times. They include use of force, economic and propaganda pressure, meddling in domestic affairs, and appeals to a kind of 'supra-legal' legitimacy when they need to justify illegal intervention in this or that conflict or toppling inconvenient regimes. Of late, we have increasing evidence too that outright blackmail has been used with regard to a number of leaders. It is not for nothing that 'big brother' is spending billions of dollars on keeping the whole world, including its own closest allies, under surveillance. ..."
"... They once sponsored Islamic extremist movements to fight the Soviet Union. Those groups got their battle experience in Afghanistan and later gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The West if not supported, at least closed its eyes, and, I would say, gave information, political and financial support to international terrorists' invasion of Russia (we have not forgotten this) and the Central Asian region's countries. Only after horrific terrorist attacks were committed on US soil itself did the United States wake up to the common threat of terrorism. Let me remind you that we were the first country to support the American people back then, the first to react as friends and partners to the terrible tragedy of September 11. ..."
"... As for financing sources, today, the money is coming not just from drugs, production of which has increased not just by a few percentage points but many-fold, since the international coalition forces have been present in Afghanistan. You are aware of this. The terrorists are getting money from selling oil too. Oil is produced in territory controlled by the terrorists, who sell it at dumping prices, produce it and transport it. But someone buys this oil, resells it, and makes a profit from it, not thinking about the fact that they are thus financing terrorists who could come sooner or later to their own soil and sow destruction in their own countries. ..."
"... What was the result? Tens of thousands of soldiers, officers and former Baath Party activists were turned out into the streets and today have joined the rebels' ranks. Perhaps this is what explains why the Islamic State group has turned out so effective? In military terms, it is acting very effectively and has some very professional people. Russia warned repeatedly about the dangers of unilateral military actions, intervening in sovereign states' affairs, and flirting with extremists and radicals. We insisted on having the groups fighting the central Syrian government, above all the Islamic State, included on the lists of terrorist organisations. But did we see any results? We appealed in vain. ..."
"... Essentially, the unipolar world is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries. The unipolar world turned out too uncomfortable, heavy and unmanageable a burden even for the self-proclaimed leader. Comments along this line were made here just before and I fully agree with this. This is why we see attempts at this new historic stage to recreate a semblance of a quasi-bipolar world as a convenient model for perpetuating American leadership. It does not matter who takes the place of the centre of evil in American propaganda, the USSR's old place as the main adversary. It could be Iran, as a country seeking to acquire nuclear technology, China, as the world's biggest economy, or Russia, as a nuclear superpower. ..."
"... Sanctions are already undermining the foundations of world trade, the WTO rules and the principle of inviolability of private property. They are dealing a blow to liberal model of globalisation based on markets, freedom and competition, which, let me note, is a model that has primarily benefited precisely the Western countries. And now they risk losing trust as the leaders of globalisation. We have to ask ourselves, why was this necessary? After all, the United States' prosperity rests in large part on the trust of investors and foreign holders of dollars and US securities. This trust is clearly being undermined and signs of disappointment in the fruits of globalisation are visible now in many countries. ..."
"... Of course the sanctions are a hindrance. They are trying to hurt us through these sanctions, block our development and push us into political, economic and cultural isolation, force us into backwardness in other words. But let me say yet again that the world is a very different place today. We have no intention of shutting ourselves off from anyone and choosing some kind of closed development road, trying to live in autarky. We are always open to dialogue, including on normalising our economic and political relations. We are counting here on the pragmatic approach and position of business communities in the leading countries. ..."
"... Ukraine, which I'm sure was discussed at length and which we will discuss some more, is one of the example of such sorts of conflicts that affect international power balance, and I think it will certainly not be the last. From here emanates the next real threat of destroying the current system of arms control agreements. And this dangerous process was launched by the United States of America when it unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and then set about and continues today to actively pursue the creation of its global missile defence system. ..."
"... Once again, we are sliding into the times when, instead of the balance of interests and mutual guarantees, it is fear and the balance of mutual destruction that prevent nations from engaging in direct conflict. ..."
"... Today, many types of high-precision weaponry are already close to mass-destruction weapons in terms of their capabilities, and in the event of full renunciation of nuclear weapons or radical reduction of nuclear potential, nations that are leaders in creating and producing high-precision systems will have a clear military advantage. Strategic parity will be disrupted, and this is likely to bring destabilization. The use of a so-called first global pre-emptive strike may become tempting. In short, the risks do not decrease, but intensify. ..."
vineyardsaker.blogspot.com

... ... ...

What we needed to do was to carry out a rational reconstruction and adapt it the new realities in the system of international relations.

But the United States, having declared itself the winner of the Cold War, saw no need for this. Instead of establishing a new balance of power, essential for maintaining order and stability, they took steps that threw the system into sharp and deep imbalance.

The Cold War ended, but it did not end with the signing of a peace treaty with clear and transparent agreements on respecting existing rules or creating new rules and standards. This created the impression that the so-called 'victors' in the Cold War had decided to pressure events and reshape the world to suit their own needs and interests. If the existing system of international relations, international law and the checks and balances in place got in the way of these aims, this system was declared worthless, outdated and in need of immediate demolition.

Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies.

We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics. International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white.

In a situation where you had domination by one country and its allies, or its satellites rather, the search for global solutions often turned into an attempt to impose their own universal recipes. This group's ambitions grew so big that they started presenting the policies they put together in their corridors of power as the view of the entire international community. But this is not the case.

The very notion of 'national sovereignty' became a relative value for most countries. In essence, what was being proposed was the formula: the greater the loyalty towards the world's sole power centre, the greater this or that ruling regime's legitimacy.

We will have a free discussion afterwards and I will be happy to answer your questions and would also like to use my right to ask you questions. Let someone try to disprove the arguments that I just set out during the upcoming discussion.

The measures taken against those who refuse to submit are well-known and have been tried and tested many times. They include use of force, economic and propaganda pressure, meddling in domestic affairs, and appeals to a kind of 'supra-legal' legitimacy when they need to justify illegal intervention in this or that conflict or toppling inconvenient regimes. Of late, we have increasing evidence too that outright blackmail has been used with regard to a number of leaders. It is not for nothing that 'big brother' is spending billions of dollars on keeping the whole world, including its own closest allies, under surveillance.

Let's ask ourselves, how comfortable are we with this, how safe are we, how happy living in this world, and how fair and rational has it become? Maybe, we have no real reasons to worry, argue and ask awkward questions? Maybe the United States' exceptional position and the way they are carrying out their leadership really is a blessing for us all, and their meddling in events all around the world is bringing peace, prosperity, progress, growth and democracy, and we should maybe just relax and enjoy it all?

Let me say that this is not the case, absolutely not the case.

A unilateral diktat and imposing one's own models produces the opposite result. Instead of settling conflicts it leads to their escalation, instead of sovereign and stable states we see the growing spread of chaos, and instead of democracy there is support for a very dubious public ranging from open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.

Why do they support such people? They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals but then burn their fingers and recoil. I never cease to be amazed by the way that our partners just keep stepping on the same rake, as we say here in Russia, that is to say, make the same mistake over and over.

They once sponsored Islamic extremist movements to fight the Soviet Union. Those groups got their battle experience in Afghanistan and later gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The West if not supported, at least closed its eyes, and, I would say, gave information, political and financial support to international terrorists' invasion of Russia (we have not forgotten this) and the Central Asian region's countries. Only after horrific terrorist attacks were committed on US soil itself did the United States wake up to the common threat of terrorism. Let me remind you that we were the first country to support the American people back then, the first to react as friends and partners to the terrible tragedy of September 11.

During my conversations with American and European leaders, I always spoke of the need to fight terrorism together, as a challenge on a global scale. We cannot resign ourselves to and accept this threat, cannot cut it into separate pieces using double standards. Our partners expressed agreement, but a little time passed and we ended up back where we started. First there was the military operation in Iraq, then in Libya, which got pushed to the brink of falling apart. Why was Libya pushed into this situation? Today it is a country in danger of breaking apart and has become a training ground for terrorists.

Only the current Egyptian leadership's determination and wisdom saved this key Arab country from chaos and having extremists run rampant. In Syria, as in the past, the United States and its allies started directly financing and arming rebels and allowing them to fill their ranks with mercenaries from various countries. Let me ask where do these rebels get their money, arms and military specialists? Where does all this come from? How did the notorious ISIL manage to become such a powerful group, essentially a real armed force?

As for financing sources, today, the money is coming not just from drugs, production of which has increased not just by a few percentage points but many-fold, since the international coalition forces have been present in Afghanistan. You are aware of this. The terrorists are getting money from selling oil too. Oil is produced in territory controlled by the terrorists, who sell it at dumping prices, produce it and transport it. But someone buys this oil, resells it, and makes a profit from it, not thinking about the fact that they are thus financing terrorists who could come sooner or later to their own soil and sow destruction in their own countries.

Where do they get new recruits? In Iraq, after Saddam Hussein was toppled, the state's institutions, including the army, were left in ruins. We said back then, be very, very careful. You are driving people out into the street, and what will they do there? Don't forget (rightfully or not) that they were in the leadership of a large regional power, and what are you now turning them into?

What was the result? Tens of thousands of soldiers, officers and former Baath Party activists were turned out into the streets and today have joined the rebels' ranks. Perhaps this is what explains why the Islamic State group has turned out so effective? In military terms, it is acting very effectively and has some very professional people. Russia warned repeatedly about the dangers of unilateral military actions, intervening in sovereign states' affairs, and flirting with extremists and radicals. We insisted on having the groups fighting the central Syrian government, above all the Islamic State, included on the lists of terrorist organisations. But did we see any results? We appealed in vain.

We sometimes get the impression that our colleagues and friends are constantly fighting the consequences of their own policies, throw all their effort into addressing the risks they themselves have created, and pay an ever-greater price.

Colleagues, this period of unipolar domination has convincingly demonstrated that having only one power centre does not make global processes more manageable. On the contrary, this kind of unstable construction has shown its inability to fight the real threats such as regional conflicts, terrorism, drug trafficking, religious fanaticism, chauvinism and neo-Nazism. At the same time, it has opened the road wide for inflated national pride, manipulating public opinion and letting the strong bully and suppress the weak.

Essentially, the unipolar world is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries. The unipolar world turned out too uncomfortable, heavy and unmanageable a burden even for the self-proclaimed leader. Comments along this line were made here just before and I fully agree with this. This is why we see attempts at this new historic stage to recreate a semblance of a quasi-bipolar world as a convenient model for perpetuating American leadership. It does not matter who takes the place of the centre of evil in American propaganda, the USSR's old place as the main adversary. It could be Iran, as a country seeking to acquire nuclear technology, China, as the world's biggest economy, or Russia, as a nuclear superpower.

Today, we are seeing new efforts to fragment the world, draw new dividing lines, put together coalitions not built for something but directed against someone, anyone, create the image of an enemy as was the case during the Cold War years, and obtain the right to this leadership, or diktat if you wish. The situation was presented this way during the Cold War. We all understand this and know this. The United States always told its allies: "We have a common enemy, a terrible foe, the centre of evil, and we are defending you, our allies, from this foe, and so we have the right to order you around, force you to sacrifice your political and economic interests and pay your share of the costs for this collective defence, but we will be the ones in charge of it all of course." In short, we see today attempts in a new and changing world to reproduce the familiar models of global management, and all this so as to guarantee their [the US'] exceptional position and reap political and economic dividends.

But these attempts are increasingly divorced from reality and are in contradiction with the world's diversity. Steps of this kind inevitably create confrontation and countermeasures and have the opposite effect to the hoped-for goals. We see what happens when politics rashly starts meddling in the economy and the logic of rational decisions gives way to the logic of confrontation that only hurt one's own economic positions and interests, including national business interests.

Joint economic projects and mutual investment objectively bring countries closer together and help to smooth out current problems in relations between states. But today, the global business community faces unprecedented pressure from Western governments. What business, economic expediency and pragmatism can we speak of when we hear slogans such as "the homeland is in danger", "the free world is under threat", and "democracy is in jeopardy"? And so everyone needs to mobilise. That is what a real mobilisation policy looks like.

Sanctions are already undermining the foundations of world trade, the WTO rules and the principle of inviolability of private property. They are dealing a blow to liberal model of globalisation based on markets, freedom and competition, which, let me note, is a model that has primarily benefited precisely the Western countries. And now they risk losing trust as the leaders of globalisation. We have to ask ourselves, why was this necessary? After all, the United States' prosperity rests in large part on the trust of investors and foreign holders of dollars and US securities. This trust is clearly being undermined and signs of disappointment in the fruits of globalisation are visible now in many countries.

The well-known Cyprus precedent and the politically motivated sanctions have only strengthened the trend towards seeking to bolster economic and financial sovereignty and countries' or their regional groups' desire to find ways of protecting themselves from the risks of outside pressure. We already see that more and more countries are looking for ways to become less dependent on the dollar and are setting up alternative financial and payments systems and reserve currencies. I think that our American friends are quite simply cutting the branch they are sitting on. You cannot mix politics and the economy, but this is what is happening now. I have always thought and still think today that politically motivated sanctions were a mistake that will harm everyone, but I am sure that we will come back to this subject later.

We know how these decisions were taken and who was applying the pressure. But let me stress that Russia is not going to get all worked up, get offended or come begging at anyone's door. Russia is a self-sufficient country. We will work within the foreign economic environment that has taken shape, develop domestic production and technology and act more decisively to carry out transformation. Pressure from outside, as has been the case on past occasions, will only consolidate our society, keep us alert and make us concentrate on our main development goals.

Of course the sanctions are a hindrance. They are trying to hurt us through these sanctions, block our development and push us into political, economic and cultural isolation, force us into backwardness in other words. But let me say yet again that the world is a very different place today. We have no intention of shutting ourselves off from anyone and choosing some kind of closed development road, trying to live in autarky. We are always open to dialogue, including on normalising our economic and political relations. We are counting here on the pragmatic approach and position of business communities in the leading countries.

Some are saying today that Russia is supposedly turning its back on Europe - such words were probably spoken already here too during the discussions - and is looking for new business partners, above all in Asia. Let me say that this is absolutely not the case. Our active policy in the Asian-Pacific region began not just yesterday and not in response to sanctions, but is a policy that we have been following for a good many years now. Like many other countries, including Western countries, we saw that Asia is playing an ever greater role in the world, in the economy and in politics, and there is simply no way we can afford to overlook these developments.

Let me say again that everyone is doing this, and we will do so to, all the more so as a large part of our country is geographically in Asia. Why should we not make use of our competitive advantages in this area? It would be extremely shortsighted not to do so.

Developing economic ties with these countries and carrying out joint integration projects also creates big incentives for our domestic development. Today's demographic, economic and cultural trends all suggest that dependence on a sole superpower will objectively decrease. This is something that European and American experts have been talking and writing about too.

Perhaps developments in global politics will mirror the developments we are seeing in the global economy, namely, intensive competition for specific niches and frequent change of leaders in specific areas. This is entirely possible.

There is no doubt that humanitarian factors such as education, science, healthcare and culture are playing a greater role in global competition. This also has a big impact on international relations, including because this 'soft power' resource will depend to a great extent on real achievements in developing human capital rather than on sophisticated propaganda tricks.

At the same time, the formation of a so-called polycentric world (I would also like to draw attention to this, colleagues) in and of itself does not improve stability; in fact, it is more likely to be the opposite. The goal of reaching global equilibrium is turning into a fairly difficult puzzle, an equation with many unknowns.

So, what is in store for us if we choose not to live by the rules – even if they may be strict and inconvenient – but rather live without any rules at all? And that scenario is entirely possible; we cannot rule it out, given the tensions in the global situation. Many predictions can already be made, taking into account current trends, and unfortunately, they are not optimistic. If we do not create a clear system of mutual commitments and agreements, if we do not build the mechanisms for managing and resolving crisis situations, the symptoms of global anarchy will inevitably grow.

Today, we already see a sharp increase in the likelihood of a whole set of violent conflicts with either direct or indirect participation by the world's major powers. And the risk factors include not just traditional multinational conflicts, but also the internal instability in separate states, especially when we talk about nations located at the intersections of major states' geopolitical interests, or on the border of cultural, historical, and economic civilizational continents.

Ukraine, which I'm sure was discussed at length and which we will discuss some more, is one of the example of such sorts of conflicts that affect international power balance, and I think it will certainly not be the last. From here emanates the next real threat of destroying the current system of arms control agreements. And this dangerous process was launched by the United States of America when it unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and then set about and continues today to actively pursue the creation of its global missile defence system.

Colleagues, friends,

I want to point out that we did not start this. Once again, we are sliding into the times when, instead of the balance of interests and mutual guarantees, it is fear and the balance of mutual destruction that prevent nations from engaging in direct conflict. In absence of legal and political instruments, arms are once again becoming the focal point of the global agenda; they are used wherever and however, without any UN Security Council sanctions. And if the Security Council refuses to produce such decisions, then it is immediately declared to be an outdated and ineffective instrument.

Many states do not see any other ways of ensuring their sovereignty but to obtain their own bombs. This is extremely dangerous. We insist on continuing talks; we are not only in favour of talks, but insist on continuing talks to reduce nuclear arsenals. The less nuclear weapons we have in the world, the better. And we are ready for the most serious, concrete discussions on nuclear disarmament – but only serious discussions without any double standards.

What do I mean? Today, many types of high-precision weaponry are already close to mass-destruction weapons in terms of their capabilities, and in the event of full renunciation of nuclear weapons or radical reduction of nuclear potential, nations that are leaders in creating and producing high-precision systems will have a clear military advantage. Strategic parity will be disrupted, and this is likely to bring destabilization. The use of a so-called first global pre-emptive strike may become tempting. In short, the risks do not decrease, but intensify.

The next obvious threat is the further escalation of ethnic, religious, and social conflicts. Such conflicts are dangerous not only as such, but also because they create zones of anarchy, lawlessness, and chaos around them, places that are comfortable for terrorists and criminals, where piracy, human trafficking, and drug trafficking flourish.

Incidentally, at the time, our colleagues tried to somehow manage these processes, use regional conflicts and design 'colour revolutions' to suit their interests, but the genie escaped the bottle. It looks like the controlled chaos theory fathers themselves do not know what to do with it; there is disarray in their ranks.

We closely follow the discussions by both the ruling elite and the expert community. It is enough to look at the headlines of the Western press over the last year. The same people are called fighters for democracy, and then Islamists; first they write about revolutions and then call them riots and upheavals. The result is obvious: the further expansion of global chaos.

Colleagues, given the global situation, it is time to start agreeing on fundamental things. This is incredibly important and necessary; this is much better than going back to our own corners. The more we all face common problems, the more we find ourselves in the same boat, so to speak. And the logical way out is in cooperation between nations, societies, in finding collective answers to increasing challenges, and in joint risk management. Granted, some of our partners, for some reason, remember this only when it suits their interests.

Practical experience shows that joint answers to challenges are not always a panacea; and we need to understand this. Moreover, in most cases, they are hard to reach; it is not easy to overcome the differences in national interests, the subjectivity of different approaches, particularly when it comes to nations with different cultural and historical traditions. But nevertheless, we have examples when, having common goals and acting based on the same criteria, together we achieved real success.

Let me remind you about solving the problem of chemical weapons in Syria, and the substantive dialogue on the Iranian nuclear programme, as well as our work on North Korean issues, which also has some positive results. Why can't we use this experience in the future to solve local and global challenges?

What could be the legal, political, and economic basis for a new world order that would allow for stability and security, while encouraging healthy competition, not allowing the formation of new monopolies that hinder development? It is unlikely that someone could provide absolutely exhaustive, ready-made solutions right now. We will need extensive work with participation by a wide range of governments, global businesses, civil society, and such expert platforms as ours.

However, it is obvious that success and real results are only possible if key participants in international affairs can agree on harmonising basic interests, on reasonable self-restraint, and set the example of positive and responsible leadership. We must clearly identify where unilateral actions end and we need to apply multilateral mechanisms, and as part of improving the effectiveness of international law, we must resolve the dilemma between the actions by international community to ensure security and human rights and the principle of national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of any state.

Those very collisions increasingly lead to arbitrary external interference in complex internal processes, and time and again, they provoke dangerous conflicts between leading global players. The issue of maintaining sovereignty becomes almost paramount in maintaining and strengthening global stability.

Clearly, discussing the criteria for the use of external force is extremely difficult; it is practically impossible to separate it from the interests of particular nations. However, it is far more dangerous when there are no agreements that are clear to everyone, when no clear conditions are set for necessary and legal interference.

I will add that international relations must be based on international law, which itself should rest on moral principles such as justice, equality and truth. Perhaps most important is respect for one's partners and their interests. This is an obvious formula, but simply following it could radically change the global situation.

I am certain that if there is a will, we can restore the effectiveness of the international and regional institutions system. We do not even need to build anything anew, from the scratch; this is not a "greenfield," especially since the institutions created after World War II are quite universal and can be given modern substance, adequate to manage the current situation.

This is true of improving the work of the UN, whose central role is irreplaceable, as well as the OSCE, which, over the course of 40 years, has proven to be a necessary mechanism for ensuring security and cooperation in the Euro-Atlantic region. I must say that even now, in trying to resolve the crisis in southeast Ukraine, the OSCE is playing a very positive role.

In light of the fundamental changes in the international environment, the increase in uncontrollability and various threats, we need a new global consensus of responsible forces. It's not about some local deals or a division of spheres of influence in the spirit of classic diplomacy, or somebody's complete global domination. I think that we need a new version of interdependence. We should not be afraid of it. On the contrary, this is a good instrument for harmonising positions.

This is particularly relevant given the strengthening and growth of certain regions on the planet, which process objectively requires institutionalisation of such new poles, creating powerful regional organisations and developing rules for their interaction. Cooperation between these centres would seriously add to the stability of global security, policy and economy. But in order to establish such a dialogue, we need to proceed from the assumption that all regional centres and integration projects forming around them need to have equal rights to development, so that they can complement each other and nobody can force them into conflict or opposition artificially. Such destructive actions would break down ties between states, and the states themselves would be subjected to extreme hardship, or perhaps even total destruction.

I would like to remind you of the last year's events. We have told our American and European partners that hasty backstage decisions, for example, on Ukraine's association with the EU, are fraught with serious risks to the economy. We didn't even say anything about politics; we spoke only about the economy, saying that such steps, made without any prior arrangements, touch on the interests of many other nations, including Russia as Ukraine's main trade partner, and that a wide discussion of the issues is necessary. Incidentally, in this regard, I will remind you that, for example, the talks on Russia's accession to the WTO lasted 19 years. This was very difficult work, and a certain consensus was reached.

Why am I bringing this up? Because in implementing Ukraine's association project, our partners would come to us with their goods and services through the back gate, so to speak, and we did not agree to this, nobody asked us about this. We had discussions on all topics related to Ukraine's association with the EU, persistent discussions, but I want to stress that this was done in an entirely civilised manner, indicating possible problems, showing the obvious reasoning and arguments. Nobody wanted to listen to us and nobody wanted to talk. They simply told us: this is none of your business, point, end of discussion. Instead of a comprehensive but – I stress – civilised dialogue, it all came down to a government overthrow; they plunged the country into chaos, into economic and social collapse, into a civil war with enormous casualties.

Why? When I ask my colleagues why, they no longer have an answer; nobody says anything. That's it. Everyone's at a loss, saying it just turned out that way. Those actions should not have been encouraged – it wouldn't have worked. After all (I already spoke about this), former Ukrainian President Yanukovych signed everything, agreed with everything. Why do it? What was the point? What is this, a civilised way of solving problems? Apparently, those who constantly throw together new 'colour revolutions' consider themselves 'brilliant artists' and simply cannot stop.

I am certain that the work of integrated associations, the cooperation of regional structures, should be built on a transparent, clear basis; the Eurasian Economic Union's formation process is a good example of such transparency. The states that are parties to this project informed their partners of their plans in advance, specifying the parameters of our association, the principles of its work, which fully correspond with the World Trade Organisation rules.

I will add that we would also have welcomed the start of a concrete dialogue between the Eurasian and European Union. Incidentally, they have almost completely refused us this as well, and it is also unclear why – what is so scary about it?

And, of course, with such joint work, we would think that we need to engage in dialogue (I spoke about this many times and heard agreement from many of our western partners, at least in Europe) on the need to create a common space for economic and humanitarian cooperation stretching all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Colleagues, Russia made its choice. Our priorities are further improving our democratic and open economy institutions, accelerated internal development, taking into account all the positive modern trends in the world, and consolidating society based on traditional values and patriotism.

We have an integration-oriented, positive, peaceful agenda; we are working actively with our colleagues in the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS and other partners. This agenda is aimed at developing ties between governments, not dissociating. We are not planning to cobble together any blocs or get involved in an exchange of blows.

The allegations and statements that Russia is trying to establish some sort of empire, encroaching on the sovereignty of its neighbours, are groundless. Russia does not need any kind of special, exclusive place in the world – I want to emphasise this. While respecting the interests of others, we simply want for our own interests to be taken into account and for our position to be respected.

We are well aware that the world has entered an era of changes and global transformations, when we all need a particular degree of caution, the ability to avoid thoughtless steps. In the years after the Cold War, participants in global politics lost these qualities somewhat. Now, we need to remember them. Otherwise, hopes for a peaceful, stable development will be a dangerous illusion, while today's turmoil will simply serve as a prelude to the collapse of world order.

Yes, of course, I have already said that building a more stable world order is a difficult task. We are talking about long and hard work. We were able to develop rules for interaction after World War II, and we were able to reach an agreement in Helsinki in the 1970s. Our common duty is to resolve this fundamental challenge at this new stage of development.

[Oct 22, 2015] Russians are concerned with the possibility of organizing Maidan in their country by Western intelligence and internal neoliberal fifth column

Looks like color revolutions became less effective in xUSSR space as more and more people started to understand the mechanics and financial source of "pro-democracy" (aka pro-Washington) protesters. BTW what a skillful and shameless presstitute is this Shaun Walker
Notable quotes:
"... The State Department funding of NGOs in Ukraine promoting the right kind of democracy to the tune of $5 billion is a matter of record, courtesy of Fuck the EU Nuland. ..."
"... As for CIA involvement, the director of the CIA has visited Ukraine at least twice in 2014 - once under a false identity. If the head of the equivalent Russian organisation had made similar visits, that would be a problem, no? ..."
"... Just because some Russians are paranoid about US interference, that doesnt mean they are wrong. ..."
"... International Observer: The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs ..."
"... This article contains unacceptable, apparently carefully wrapped up, distortions of what is happening in Russia. A piece of journalism which tell us something about the level of propaganda that most mainstream media in our free west have set up in the attempt to organize yet another coup, this time under the thick walls of the Kremlin. This newspaper seem to pursue this goal, as it shows to have taken sides: stand by NATO and of course the British interests. If this implies misguiding the readers on what is taking place in Russia\Ukraine or elsewhere (Syria for example) well...thats too bad, the answer would be. Goals justify the means...so forget about honesty, fair play and truthfullness. If it needs to be a war (we have decided so, because it is convenient) then... lies are not lies...but clever tools that we are allowed to use in order to destroy our enemy. ..."
"... The patriots are most probably a neurotic sort of reaction to what most Russians now perceive to be an attempt from NSA, CIA..and more in general of the US/EU geo-political strategies (much more of the US, of course, as the EU and Britain simply follow the instructions) to dismantle the present Russian system (the political establishment first and then the ARMY). ..."
"... Contrary to what is happening here in the west (where all media seem to the have joined the club of the one-way-thinking against Russia), some important media of that country do have a chance to criticize Putin and his policies. ..."
"... a minority can express their opinion, as long as they do not attempt to overthrow the parliament, which is an expression of Russian people. ..."
"... I will generalize here - if by those you mean the West you are mistaken. The vast majority of its populace are carrying a huge burden of personal debt - it is the bank that owns their houses and new autos. There is a tiny stratum that indeed is wildly wealthy, frequently referred to as the 1%, but in fact is much less numerous. ..."
"... If you scrap off the BS from this article they do have a point, because it has been a popular tactic of a certain country to change another countries government *Cough* America *Cough* by organising protests/riots within a target country ..."
"... if that doesnt work they escalate that to fire fights and if that doesnt work they move onto say Downing a aeroplane and very quickly claiming its the other side fault without having any evidence or claim they have WMDs well anything to try to take the moral high ground on the situation even thou they caused the situation usual for selfish, arrogant and greedy reasons. ..."
"... Wow, this is quite an assertion that Russians are poorer than Indians. I have been to India and I have been to Russia and I dont like using anecdotes to make a point. I can tell you that I have never seen as much poverty as in India. ..."
"... Also, I doubt youve visited many small and lesser known cities in Russia. Its as if the Soviet Union had just collapsed and they were forgotten. Worse, actually. ..."
"... Werent the Maidan protests anti-democracy since they used violence to remove a democratically elected leader? Just another anti-ruskie hit piece from the Guardian. ..."
"... In the US you only get 2 choices - it may be twice as many as you get with a dictatorship but its hardly democracy. ..."
"... Also the election of the coup government was unconstitutional under article 111 of the Ukraines own Constitution (Goggle - check for yourself). This is an undisputed and uncomfortable fact which the US and the EU never mention (never) when drawn on the issue. ..."
"... Since the day one the West and the GDR used nazis for their laboratories, clandestine and civil services...State owned museums still refuse to give back artwork to their rightful owners that were robbed during 1930-45. ..."
"... A more interesting story would have been the similarities between this anti maidan group in Russia and Maidan in Kiev. Both have have their military arm, are dangerous and violent, and both very nationalistic and right wing. Both appear to have strong links to politicians as well. Such an analysis might show that Russian and Ukrainian nationalist groups have more in common than they would like to believe. ..."
"... A very important difference is the Russians are defending their elected government. The Ukrainians were hired by the West to promote a coup detat against an elected government, this against the will of the majority in Ukraine and only 3 months from general election in the country. The coup was indeed a way of stopping the elections. ..."
"... Oh I see Russia has re-entered the media cross hairs in a timely fashion. I wonder whats going to happen in the coming weeks. ..."
"... And the US will continue to murder innocent civilians in the Middle East, Northern Africa and wherever else it wants to plant its bloody army boots. And will also continue to use its NGOs and CIA to foment colour revolutions in other countries, as it did in Ukraine ..."
"... What kind of democracy is the US when you have a federal agency spying on everything you do and say? Do you think they are just going to sit on what information they think they get? ..."
"... Yes. Decisions should be made in Kiev, but why are they being made in Washington then? ..."
"... Potroshenko was elected with a turnout of 46%. Of this he scored say over half, hardly a majority ..."
"... "Under the slogan of fighting for democracy there is instead total fear, total propaganda, and no freedom." ..."
"... After witnessing what happened during Maidan, and subsequently to Ukraine, I understand some Russians reluctance to see a similar scenario played out in Russia. That being: am also wary of vISISantism. ..."
"... As for the anti-Maidan quotes - of course that was organised. Nuland:, for crying out loud. Kerry and others were there, Brennan was there. Of course the Western powers were partly involved. And it wasnt peaceful protests, it was violence directed against elected officials, throwing Molotov cocktails at policemen. It culminated in the burning alive of 40+ people in Odessa. ..."
"... Professor Gregory has, dishonestly, arrived at his 15% figure by taking the minimum figure for Crimea for both turnout and for voters for union, calling them the maximum, and then ignoring Sevastopol. He has also pretended the report is based on the "real results," when it seems to be little more than the imprecise estimates of a small working group who were apparently against the idea of the referendum in the first place. ..."
"... This is not an unexpected result. EU and US governments are going out of way to stir peoples opinion in the former Soviet republics. ..."
"... There were students from Lviv who were given college credit for being at Maidan. ..."
"... There are specific politicians who rejected participation in normal political process but chosen street riots instead. ..."
"... Is the US training and funding the Ukraine opposition? Nuland herself claimed in December that the US had spent $5 billion since the 1990s on democratization programs in Ukraine. On what would she like us to believe the money had been spent? ..."
"... All of this stems from the stupid EU meddling in Ukraine. We shouldnt get involved in the EUs regime change agenda. Time to leave the EU. ..."
"... Putinbot = someone who has a different opinion to you ..."
"... How about the reporting on the indiscriminate slaughter of Eastern Ukrainians by Kievs government troops and Nazi battalions?? ..."
"... pro-democracy protesters? like ISIL, Right Sector, UÇK? They are right ..."
January 15, 2015 | The Guardian

Patriotic group formed to defend Russia against pro-democracy protesters by Shaun Walker

The group, which calls itself anti-Maidan,: Thursday it would fight any attempts to bring Russians on to the streets to protest against the government. Its name is a reference to the Maidan protests in Kiev last year that eventually led to the toppling of former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych.

"All street movements and color revolutions lead to blood. Women, children and old people suffer first", Dmitry Sablin, previously a long-standing MP from President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, who recently became a senator in Russia's upper house of parliament.

"It is not acceptable for the minority to force its will upon the majority, as happened in Ukraine," he added. "Under the slogan of fighting for democracy there is instead total fear, total propaganda, and no freedom."

jgbg -> RunLukeRun, 16 Jan 2015 06:36

BINGO....well done. You've got Neo Nazi's, US Aid, CIA infiltrators, indiscriminate slaughter and Nazi battalions....all in just 8 sentences. great job

I guess these are exactly the sort of people who will enrich the EU:

Nazis on the march in Kiev this month

Would you like to claim that the Azov and Aidar battalions aren't a bunch of Nazis?

Here's a Guardian article about Azov.

The State Department funding of NGOs in Ukraine "promoting the right kind of democracy" to the tune of $5 billion is a matter of record, courtesy of "Fuck the EU" Nuland.

As for CIA involvement, the director of the CIA has visited Ukraine at least twice in 2014 - once under a false identity. If the head of the equivalent Russian organisation had made similar visits, that would be a problem, no?

TuleCarbonari -> garethgj 16 Jan 2015 06:21

Yes, he should leave Syria to paid mercenaries. Do you really want us to believe you still don't know those fighters in Syria are George Soros' militias? Come on man, go get yourself informed.

jgbg -> Strummered 16 Jan 2015 06:19

You can't campaign for greater democracy, it's dangerous, it's far too democratic.

The USA cannot pay people to campaign in Russia to have the right kind of democracy i.e. someone acceptable to the US government at the helm. Instead of funding anti-government NGOs in other countries, perhaps the USA should first spend the money fixing the huge inequalities and other problems in their own country.

jgbg -> Glenn J. Hill 16 Jan 2015 06:12

What???? Have you been smoking?? Sorry but your Putin Thugs are NOT funded by my country.

I think he is referring the the NGOs which have spent large sums of money on "promoting democracy" in Georgia and Ukraine. Many of these are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the US State Department. Some have funding from organisations which are in turn, funded by George Soros. These organisations were seen to back the Rose Revolution in Georgia and both revolutions in Ukraine. Georgia ended up with a president who worked as a lawyer in a US firm linked to the right wing of the Republican Party. Ukraine has a prime minister who was brought up in the USA and a president whom a US ambassador to Ukraine described as "our insider" (in a US Embassy cable leaked by Wikileaks).

The funding of similar organisations in Russia (e.g. Soldiers' Mothers) has been exposed since a law was brought in, requiring foreign funded NGOs to register and publish annual accounts.

Just because some Russians are paranoid about US interference, that doesn't mean they are wrong.

Anette Mor -> Hektor Uranga 16 Jan 2015 06:09

He was let out to form a party and take part in Moscow mayor election. He got respectable 20%. But shown no platform other than anti- corruption. There is anti-corruption hysteria in Russia already. People asked for positive agenda. He got none. The party base disintegrated. The court against him was because there was a case filed. I can agree the state might found this timely. But we cannot blame on Russian state absence of positive position in Navalny himself. He is reactive on current issues but got zero vision. Russia is a merit based society.

They look for brilliance in the leader. He is just a different caliber. Can contribute but not lead. His best way is to choose a district and stand for a parliament seat. The state already shown his is welcomed to enter big politics. Just need to stop lookibg to abroad for scripts. The list of names for US sanction was taking from his and his mates lists. After such exposure he lost any groups with many Russians.

Anette Mor -> notoriousANDinfamous 16 Jan 2015 05:50

I do not disregard positive side of democracy or negative side of dictatorship. I just offer a different scale. Put value of every human life above any ideology. The west is full of aggressive radicals from animal activists and greens to extremist gays and atheists. There is a need to downgrade some concepts and upgrade other, so yhe measures are universal. Bombing for democracy is equaly bad as bombing for personal power.

Anette Mor -> gilstra 16 Jan 2015 05:41

This is really not Guardian problem. They got every right to choose anti-Russian rant as the main topic. The problem is the balance. Nobody watching it and the media as a whole distorting the picture. Double standards are not good too. RT to stay permitted in the UK was told to interrupt every person they interview expressing directly opposite view. Might be OK with some theoretical conversation. But how you going to interrupt mother who just most a child by argument in favor of the killer? The regulator:C is out of their reach. But guardian should not be. Yet every material is one sided.

Asimpleguest -> romans

International Observer: ''The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs''

PeraIlic

"Decisions should be made in Moscow and not in Washington or Brussels," Nkolai Starikov, a nationalist writer and marginal politician.

Never mind that he's marginal politician. This man really knows how to express himself briefly. An Interview with Popular Russian Author and Politician Nikolai Starikov:

Those defending NATO expansion say that those countries wanted to be part of NATO.

Okay. But Cuba also wanted to house Soviet missiles voluntarily. If America did not object to Russian missiles in Cuba, would you support Ukraine joining NATO?

That would be a great trust-building measure on their part, and Russia would feel that America is a friend.

imperfetto

This article contains unacceptable, apparently carefully wrapped up, distortions of what is happening in Russia. A piece of journalism which tell us something about the level of propaganda that most mainstream media in our 'free' west have set up in the attempt to organize yet another coup, this time under the thick walls of the Kremlin. This newspaper seem to pursue this goal, as it shows to have taken sides: stand by NATO and of course the British interests. If this implies misguiding the readers on what is taking place in Russia\Ukraine or elsewhere (Syria for example) well...that's too bad, the answer would be. Goals justify the means...so forget about honesty, fair play and truthfullness. If it needs to be a war (we have decided so, because it is convenient) then... lies are not lies...but clever tools that we are allowed to use in order to destroy our enemy.

The patriots are most probably a neurotic sort of reaction to what most Russians now perceive to be an attempt from NSA, CIA..and more in general of the US/EU geo-political strategies (much more of the US, of course, as the EU and Britain simply follow the instructions) to dismantle the present Russian system (the political establishment first and then the ARMY).

The idea is to create an internal turmoil through some pretexts (gay, feminism, scandals...etc.) in the hope that a growing movement of protesters may finally shake up the 'palace' and foster the conditions for a coupe to take place. Then the right people will occupy the key chairs. Who are these subdued figures to be? They would be corrupted oligarchs, allowing the US to guide, control the Russian public life (haven't we noticed that three important ministers in Kiev are AMERICAN citizens!)

But, from what I understand, Russia is a democratic country. Its leader has been elected by the voters. Contrary to what is happening here in the west (where all media seem to the have joined the club of the one-way-thinking against Russia), some important media of that country do have a chance to criticize Putin and his policies. That's right, in a democratic republic. But, instead, the attempt to enact another Maidan, that is a FASCIST assault to the DUMA, would require a due response.

Thus, perhaps we could without any Patriots of the sort, that may feed the pernicious attention of western media. There should merely be the enforcement of the law:

a minority can express their opinion, as long as they do not attempt to overthrow the parliament, which is an expression of Russian people.

VladimirM

"The 'orange beast' is sharpening its teeth and looking to Russia,":e Surgeon, whose real name is Alexander Zaldostanov.

Actually, he used a Russian word "зверек", not "зверь". The latter can be rendered as "beast" but what he:s closer to "rodent", a small animal. So, using this word he just stressed his contemptious attitude rather than a degree of threat.

Kondratiev

There is at least anecdotal evidence that Maiden protestors were paid - see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-and-eu-are-paying-ukrainian-rioters-and-protesters/5369316 .

Bosula

These patriotic groups do seem extreme, but probably less extreme and odd than many of the current Ukrainian crop of politicians. Here is an article from the New York Observer that will get you up to speed....

The New York Observer:The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs

Robert Sandlin -> GreenKnighht

Did you forget the people in charge of the Ukraine then were Ukrainian communists.That many of the deaths were also ethnic Russian-Ukrainians.And the ones making policy in the USSR as a whole,in that period were mostly not ethnic-Russians.The leader was Georgian,his secret police chief and many of their enforcers were Jewish-Soviets.And his closest helpers were also mostly non-ethnic Russians.Recruited from all the important ethnic groups in the USSR,including many Ukrainians.It is a canard of the Wests to blame Russia for the famine that also killed many Russians.I'm sick of hearing the bs from the West over that tragic time trying to stir Russophobia.

seventh

Well, you know a government is seriously in the shit when it has to employ biker gangs to defend it.

Robert Sandlin -> seventh

Really? The government doesn't employ them. Defending the government is the job of the police and military. These civilian volunteers are only helping to show traitors in the pay of Westerners that the common people won't tolerate treason like happened in Ukraine, to strike Russia.Good for them,that should let potential 5th columnists know their bs isn't wanted in Russia.

Bulagen

I watch here in full swing manipulation of public opinion of Europeans, who imagines that they have "democracy" and "freedom of speech". All opinions, alternative General line, aimed at all discredit Russia in the eyes of the population of Europe ruthlessly removed the wording that Putin bots hinder communication "civilized public." And I am even more convinced that all this hysteria about "the problems of democracy in Russia" is nothing more than an attempt to sell Denyen horse (the so-called democratic values) to modern Trojans (Russians).

jezzam -> Bulagen

All the wealthiest, healthiest and happiest societies adhere to "so-called democratic values". They would also greatly benefit the Russian people. Putin opposes these values purely because they would threaten his power.

sashasmirnoff -> jezzam

The "wealthiest, healthiest and happiest societies"? That is description of whom?

I will generalize here - if by those you mean the "West" you are mistaken. The vast majority of it's populace are carrying a huge burden of personal debt - it is the bank that owns their houses and new autos. There is a tiny stratum that indeed is wildly wealthy, frequently referred to as the 1%, but in fact is much less numerous.

The West is generally regarded as being the least healthy society, largely due to horrifying diet, sedentary lifestyle, and considerable stress due to (amongst other things) the aforementioned struggle to not drown in huge personal debt.

I'm not certain as to how you qualify or quantify "happiness", but the West is also experiencing a mental health crisis, manifested in aberrant behaviour, wild consumption of pharmaceuticals to treat or drown out depression, suicide, high rates of incarceration etc. All symptoms of a deeply unhappy and unhealthy society.

One more thing - the supposed wealth and happiness of the West is predicated on the poverty and misery of those the West colonizes and exploits. The last thing on Earth the West would like to see is the extension of "democratic values" to those unfortunates. That would totally ruin the World Order.

Robert Sandlin -> kawarthan

Well the Ukrainians have the corner on Black and Brown shirts.So those colors are already taken.Blue,Red,White,maybe those?

Paultoo -> Robert Sandlin

Looking at the picture of that "patriotic" Russian biker it seems that Ukraine don´t have the corner on black shirts!

WardwarkOwner

Why do these uprisings/ internal conflicts seem to happen to energy producing countries or those that are on major oil/gas pipeline routes far more often than other countries?

Jackblob -> WardwarkOwner

I don't see any uprising in Canada, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China, Mexico, the UAE, Iran, Norway, Qatar, etc.

So what exactly is your point?

Petros -> Sotrep Jackblob

Well there is problem in Sudan Iraq Syria Libya Nigeria . you have conflicts made up by USA to change governments and get raw materials . so ward is right . you just pretending to be blind . in Mexico ppl dying pretty much each day from corrupt people .

PullingTheStrings

If you scrap off the BS from this article they do have a point, because it has been a popular tactic of a certain country to change another countries government *Cough* America *Cough* by organising protests/riots within a target country

if that doesnt work they escalate that to fire fights and if that doesn't work they move onto say Downing a aeroplane and very quickly claiming its the other side fault without having any evidence or claim they have WMD's well anything to try to take the moral high ground on the situation even thou they caused the situation usual for selfish, arrogant and greedy reasons.

Jackblob -> PullingTheStrings

For some reason I do not trust you to discern the BS from the truth since your entire comment is an act of deflection.

The truth is most Russians are very poor, more poor than the people of India. This latest economic turmoil will make it even worse. Meanwhile, Putin and a handful of his cronies hold all the wealth. He proved he did not care about his people when he sent the FSB to bomb Moscow apartment buildings to start a war in Chechnya and ultimately to cancel elections.

Now Putin sees the potential for widespread protests and he is preparing to confront any protests with violent vISISante groups like those seen in other repressive countries.

Bob Vavich -> Jackblob

Wow, this is quite an assertion that Russians are poorer than Indians. I have been to India and I have been to Russia and I don't like using anecdotes to make a point. I can tell you that I have never seen as much poverty as in India.

I can also tell you that when I drove through the low income neighborhood of Detroit or Houston, I felt like I was in a post apocalyptic world. Burned out and boarded up houses. Loitering and crime ridden streets. I can go on and on about social injustice. Regardless your comments are even more slanted than the assertion you are making about "Pulling the Strings".

Jackblob -> Bob Vavich

I was just as surprised to learn that Indians earn more than Russians. My source for that info comes from PBS's latest broadcast of Frontline entitled "Putin's Way".

Also, I doubt you've visited many small and lesser known cities in Russia. It's as if the Soviet Union had just collapsed and they were forgotten. Worse, actually.

Hamdog

Weren't the Maidan protests anti-democracy since they used violence to remove a democratically elected leader? Just another anti-ruskie hit piece from the Guardian.

We in the West love democracy, assuming you vote for the right person.

In the US you only get 2 choices - it may be twice as many as you get with a dictatorship but it's hardly democracy.

E1ouise -> Hamdog

Yanukovych was voted out of office by the *elected parliament* after he fled to Russia. Why don't you know this yet?

secondiceberg -> E1ouise

Excuse me, he was forced out of the country at gunpoint before the opposition "voted him out" the next day.

Bosula -> secondiceberg

Yes. That is correct. And armed Maidan thugs (Svoboda and Right Sector) stood around the Rada with weapons while the vote taken.

Also the 'election' of the coup government was unconstitutional under article 111 of the Ukraine's own Constitution (Goggle - check for yourself). This is an undisputed and uncomfortable 'fact' which the US and the EU never mention (never) when drawn on the issue.

Sourcrowd

The soviet union didn't go through some kind of denazification akin to Germany after it disintegrated. Russia today looks more and more like Germany after WWI - full of self pity and blaming everyone but themselves for their own failures.

Down2dirt -> Sourcrowd

I would like to hear more about that denazification of Germany and how did that go.

Since the day one the West and the GDR used nazis for their laboratories, clandestine and civil services...State owned museums still refuse to give back artwork to their rightful owners that were robbed during 1930-45.

I don' t condone Putin's and Russia polity (one of the most neoliberal countries), but you appear to be clueless about this particular subject and don' t know what you are talking about.

Bosula -> Sourcrowd

Are you thinking about Ukraine here, maybe?

Bosula

A more interesting story would have been the similarities between this anti maidan group in Russia and Maidan in Kiev.

Both have have their military arm, are dangerous and violent, and both very nationalistic and right wing. Both appear to have strong links to politicians as well.

Such an analysis might show that Russian and Ukrainian nationalist groups have more in common than they would like to believe.

TuleCarbonari -> Bosula

A very important difference is the Russians are defending their elected government. The Ukrainians were hired by the West to promote a coup d'etat against an elected government, this against the will of the majority in Ukraine and only 3 months from general election in the country. The coup was indeed a way of stopping the elections.

Flinryan

Oh I see Russia has re-entered the media cross hairs in a timely fashion. I wonder what's going to happen in the coming weeks.

MarcelFromage -> Flinryan

I wonder what's going to happen in the coming weeks.

Nothing new - the Russian Federation will continue its illegal occupation of Crimea and continue to bring death and destruction to eastern Ukraine. And generally be a pain for the rest of the international community.

secondiceberg -> MarcelFromage

And the US will continue to murder innocent civilians in the Middle East, Northern Africa and wherever else it wants to plant its bloody army boots. And will also continue to use its NGO's and CIA to foment colour revolutions in other countries, as it did in Ukraine. Kiev had its revolution. Eastern Ukraine is having its revolution. Tit for Tat.

Velska

CIF seems flooded by Putin's sock puppets, i.e. mindless robots who just repeat statements favouring pro-Putinist dictatorship.

To be sure, there's much to hope for in the US democracy, where bribery is legal. I'm not sure whether bribery in Russia is a legal requirement or just a fact of life. But certainly Russia is far from democratic, has actually never been.

Bosula -> Velska

You can take your sock off now and wipe your hands clean.

secondiceberg -> Velska

What kind of democracy is the US when you have a federal agency spying on everything you do and say? Do you think they are just going to sit on what information they think they get?

What will you do when they come knocking at your door, abduct you for some silly comment you made, and then rendition you to another country so that you will not be able to claim any legal rights? Let Russia look after itself in the face of "war-footing" threats from the U.S.

Fight for social justice and freedom in your own country.

cichonio

"All street movements and colour revolutions lead to blood. Women, children and old people suffer first,"

That's why they are ready to use weapons and violence against a foe who hasn't really been seen yet.

Also,

"Decisions should be made in Moscow and not in Washington or Brussels,"

I think decisions about Ukraine should be made in Kiev.

Bosula -> cichonio

Yes. Decisions should be made in Kiev, but why are they being made in Washington then? How much does this compromise Kiev as its agenda is very different from the agenda the US have with Russia. Ukraine is weakened daily with its civil war and the killing its own people, but this conflict benefits the US as further weakens and places Russia in a new cold war type environment.

Why are key government ministries in Ukraine (like Finance) headed by overseas nationals. Utterly bizarre.

secondiceberg -> cichonio

So do I, by the legally elected government that was illegally deposed at gunpoint. Ukraine actually has two presidents. Only one of them is legal and it is not Poroshenko.

Bob Vavich -> cichonio

Yes, if they are taken by all Ukrainians and not a minority. Potroshenko was elected with a turnout of 46%. Of this he scored say over half, hardly a majority. More likely, the right wing Western Galicia came out to vote and the Russian speaking were discouraged. What would one expect when the new government first decree is to eliminate Russian as a second official language. Mind you a language spoken by the majority. Makes you think? Maybe. Probably not.

SHappens

"Personally I am a fan of the civilised, democratic intelligent way of deciding conflicts, but if we need to take up weapons then of course I will be ready,":lia Bereznikova, the ultimate fighting champion.

This quite illustrates Russians way of doing. Smart, open to dialogue and patient but dont mess with them for too long. Once on their horses nothing will stop them.

They are ready to fight against the anti Russian sentiment injected from outside citing Ukraine and Navalny-Soros, not against democracy.

"It is not acceptable for the minority to force its will upon the majority, as happened in Ukraine," he added. "Under the slogan of fighting for democracy there is instead total fear, total propaganda, and no freedom."

ploughmanlunch

After witnessing what happened during Maidan, and subsequently to Ukraine, I understand some Russians reluctance to see a similar scenario played out in Russia. That being: am also wary of vISISantism.

FlangeTube

"Pro-democracy" protests? They have democracy. They have an elected leader with a high approval rating. Stop trying twisting language, these people are not "pro-democracy" they are anti-Putin. That, as much as this paper tries to sell the idea, is not the same thing.

Drumming up odd-balls to defend the elected government in Russia is all well and good, but I would think the other 75% (the ones who like Putin, and aren't in biker gangs) should get a say too.

As for the anti-Maidan quotes - of course that was organised. Nuland:, for crying out loud. Kerry and others were there, Brennan was there. Of course the Western powers were partly involved. And it wasn't peaceful protests, it was violence directed against elected officials, throwing Molotov cocktails at policemen. It culminated in the burning alive of 40+ people in Odessa.

Sergei Konyushenko

Btw, Shaun is always very best at finding the most important issues to raise?

FallenKezef

It's an interesting point, what happened in the Ukraine was an undemocratic coup which was justified after the fact by an election once the previous incumbent was safely exiled.

Had that happened to a pro-western government we'd be crying foul. But because it happened to a pro-Russian government it's ok.

I don't blame Russians for wanting to avoid a repeat in their own country.

Spaceguy1 One

The Crimea referendum "15% for" myth - Human rights investigations. The idea that only 15% of Crimeans voted to join Russia is speeding around the internet after an article was published in Forbes magazine written by Professor Paul Roderick Gregory.

Professor Gregory has, dishonestly, arrived at his 15% figure by taking the minimum figure for Crimea for both turnout and for voters for union, calling them the maximum, and then ignoring Sevastopol. He has also pretended the report is based on the "real results," when it seems to be little more than the imprecise estimates of a small working group who were apparently against the idea of the referendum in the first place.

It appears that Professor Gregory is intent on deceiving his readers about the vote in Crimea and its legitimacy, probably as part of the widespread campaign to deny the people of Crimea their legitimate rights to self-determination and to demonize Russia in the process.

http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2014/05/06/the-crimea-referendum-15-percent-for-myth/

vr13vr

This is not an unexpected result. EU and US governments are going out of way to stir people's opinion in the former Soviet republics. And they also set the precedent of conducting at least two "revolutions" by street violence in Ukraine and a dozen - elsewhere. There are obviously people in Russia who believe the changes have to be by discussion and voting not by street disturbance and stone throwing.

Beckow

Reduced to facts in the article, a group in Russia they will come out and protest in the streets if there are anti-government demonstrations. Their side also needs to be represented, since the protesters don't represent the majority.

That's all. What is so "undemocratic" about that? Or can only pro-Western people ever demonstrate? In a democracy a biker with a tattoo is equal to an urbane lawyer with Western connections. That's the way democracies should work.

About funding for Maidan protesters "for which there is no evidence". This is an interesting point. There were students from Lviv who were given "college credit" for being at Maidan. And how exactly have tens of thousands of mostly young men lived on streets in Kiev with food and clothes (even some weapons) with no support?

Isn't that a bit of circumstantial evidence that "somebody" supported them. I guess in this case we need to see the invoices, is that always the case or just when Russia issues are involved?

rezevici

Very sad news from Russia. If Putin or the government doesn't condemn this project of the "patriots", if he and government doesn't react against announcement of civilian militia's plan to use violence, I'll truly turn to observe Putin as a tsar.

The ethics of Russians will be on display.

Anette Mor -> rezevici

There are specific politicians who rejected participation in normal political process but chosen street riots instead. The door to politics is open, they can form parties and take part in elections. but then there is a need for a clear political and economical platform and patience to win over the votes. These people refuse to do so, They just want street riots. Several years public watch these groups and simply had enough. There is some edgy opposition which attracts minority but they play fair. Nobody against them protecting and demonstrating even when the call for revolutionary means for getting power, like communists or national-socialists. But these who got no program other than violent riots as such are not opposition.

They still have an agenda which they cannot openly display. So they attract public by spreading slander and rising tension. Nothing anti-democratic in forming a group of people who confront these actions. They are just another group taking part in very complex process.

PeraIlic

by Shaun Walker: "Maidan in Kiev did not appear just like that. Everyone was paid, everyone was paid to be there, was paid for every stone that was thrown, for every bottle thrown,":blin, echoing a frequently repeated Russian claim for which there is no evidence.

There is evidence, but also recognition from US officials. That at least is not a secret anymore.

Is the US training and funding the Ukraine opposition? Nuland herself claimed in December that the US had spent $5 billion since the 1990s on "democratization" programs in Ukraine. On what would she like us to believe the money had been spent?

We know that the US State Department invests heavily -- more than $100 million from 2008-2012 alone -- on international "Internet freedom" activities. This includes heavy State Department funding, for example, to the New Americas Foundation's...

...Commotion Project (sometimes referred to as the "Internet in a Suitcase"). This is an initiative from the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative to build a mobile mesh network that can literally be carried around in a suitcase, to allow activists to continue to communicate even when a government tries to shut down the Internet, as happened in several Arab Spring countries during the recent uprisings.

Indeed, Shaun! On what would you like us to believe so much money had been spent?

RandolphHearst -> PeraIlic,

You antipathy against the author speaks volumes about the contents of his article.

susandbs12 , link

All of this stems from the stupid EU meddling in Ukraine. We shouldn't get involved in the EUs regime change agenda. Time to leave the EU.

And also time for us to not get involved in any wars.

daffyddw

Thank you, thank you all, you wonderful putin-bots. I haven't enjoyed a thread so much in ages. Bless you all, little brothers.

susandbs12 -> daffyddw

Putinbot = someone who has a different opinion to you.

Presumably you want a totalitarian state where only your views are legitimate.

Grow up and stop being childish and just accept that there are people who hold different views from you, so what?

LaAsotChayim

Pro democracy protests?? Would that be same protests that Kiev had where Neo-nazis burned unarmed police officers alive, or the ones in Syria when terrorists (now formed ISIS) where killing Government troops? Are these the pro-democracy protests (all financed via "US aid" implemented by CIA infiltrators) that the Guardian wants us to care about?

How about the reporting on the indiscriminate slaughter of Eastern Ukrainians by Kiev's government troops and Nazi battalions?? Hey, guardian??!!

Anette Mor -> Strummered

Democracy is overrated. It does not automatically ensure equality for minorities. In Russia with its 100 nationalities and all world religions simple straight forward majority rule does not bring any good.

A safety net is required. Benevolent dictator is one of the forms for such safety net. Putin fits well as he is fair and gained trust from all faith, nationalities and social groups. There are other mechanisms in Russia to ensure equality. Many of them came from USSR including low chamber of Russian parliament called Nationalities chamber. representation there is disproportional to the number of population but reflecting minorities voice - one sit per nation, no matter how big or small.

The system of different national administrative units for large and small and smallest nationalities depending how much of autonomic administration each can afford to manage. People in the West should stop preaching democracy. It is nothing but dictatorship of majority. That is why Middle East lost all its tolerance. Majority rules, minorities are suppressed.

kowalli -> Glenn J. Hill

US has a separate line in the budget to pay for such "democratic" protests

kowalli -> Glenn J. Hill

U.S. Embassy Grants Program. The U.S. Embassy Grants Program announces a competition for Russian non-governmental organizations to carry out specific projects.

http://moscow.usembassy.gov/democracy.html

and this is only one of them, many more in budget.

MartinArvay

pro-democracy protesters? like ISIL, Right Sector, UÇK? They are right

[Oct 22, 2015] Russia ready to use military intervention to defend Iran and Syria from Israeli, US and Nato attacks

So Russian position was know to US neocons since at least 2012 and still they push forward "regime change" in Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... Former Member of Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov: Russia Is Ready to Use Military Power to Defend Iran and Syria; Attack on Syria or Iran Is Indirect Attack on Russia. ..."
February 23, 2012 | YouTube

Former Member of Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov: Russia Is Ready to Use Military Power to Defend Iran and Syria; Attack on Syria or Iran Is Indirect Attack on Russia.

Falamu445 10 months ago

And what about China? Should China also seek to protect Iran and Syria with military force if they are attacked?

hudzz

Pakistan will be with Russia if they go to war with usa or isreal

Benny Morris 1 year ago

Good thing that arrogant America is going down. America has spent nearly 70 years being a nuisance to Russians. What a bunch of swine they are when they refuse to admit what the whole world has always known that it was the Soviet Union that won WW2 and America only did so in its dreams.

optionrider12 2 years ago in reply to Brian Hynes

No, you don't understand and I'm not going to fall for your quasi-Hegelian dialectic. Communism can be categorized as a utopia and you're kindly advised to find the definition of Utopia by yourself. Fair enough?

Tristan Xavier 1 year ago in reply to Kati Kati

I understand what you mean but I would never wish the horrors of war on anybody. Peace can be done in different ways. Both Americans and Russians should focus on the corrupted governments that they both possess. The previous generations had their time and they chose either to conform or neglect to the systems. Now we see the results. It's us that needs to stand up and stop this. Why are we going to war for governments that are currently at war with it's own people? N.D.A.A,S.O.P.A and drones etc

[Oct 22, 2015] The Secret History of U.S.-Iranian Relations

Notable quotes:
"... Should we invade Iran for the benefit of our foreign policy, for the benefit of our security interests? ..."
ftmdaily.com
Feb 22, 2012 | youtube.com

FTM (Jerry Robinson): Alright, well, joining me on the program today is Stephen Kinzer. He is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has worked in more than 50 countries. He has been a New York Times Bureau Chief in Istanbul, Berlin, and Nicaragua. He's the author of many books, including the best-selling book All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.

He's also a professor of international relations at Boston University. My guest today is Stephen Kinzer. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me on Follow the Money Weekly Radio.

KINZER (Stephen Kinzer): Great to be with you.

FTM: I am looking at your book right now-at the Preface to the 2008 edition: "The Folly of Attacking Iran." And I would say, Stephen, that many of the people who are listening to the program today are…I don't want to assume that they're not familiar with the 1953 event, but I want to assume that perhaps they don't know as much about it as perhaps maybe they should. And especially now, as we take a look at the news cycle, we see that Iran is all over the news: talk about invasion; talk about stopping the nuclear program (whether it's even occurring or not is a debate). But the issue at hand right now is, "Should we invade Iran for the benefit of our foreign policy, for the benefit of our security interests?" And you have written a book here that really peels back the layers about this entire question. Why don't you begin by sharing with our audience why you wrote this book and why this topic is important to you?

KINZER: In the first place, you're right that that 2008 edition of the book, which was the new edition, contains this Foreword, "The Folly of Attacking Iran. Now, in the last couple of years, I've been looking at that new edition and thinking, "Boy, that's kind of out of date now." That was at the end of the Bush Administration when we were being really hyped up that Iran was a mortal threat to the rest of the world, but now that introduction is really kind of outdated. Boy, was I wrong! You're absolutely right that Iran has now emerged as the Number One foreign policy issue in this presidential campaign, as candidates flail around for foreign policy issues to beat each other over the head with, Iran really seems to rise to the top of the list. We are in a situation now where we're looking for a demon in the world. I think this is not just an American impulse, but in many countries, it's almost thought that if you don't have an enemy in the world, you should try to find one. It's a way to unite your population and give people a sense of common purpose.

So, you look around the world and pick some country that you want to turn into your enemy and inflate into a terrible, mortal threat to your own security. Iran seems to be filling that role right now. It's an odd situation, because in a sense, the world looks very different from Iran's point of view than it does from here. Iran has four countries in the immediate neighborhood that are armed with nuclear weapons. That's India, Pakistan, Russia, and Israel. Iran also has two countries on its borders that have been invaded and occupied by the United States: that is, Iraq and Afghanistan. So the idea that Iran might be a little unsure as to its defense and wants to make sure that it can build whatever it needs to protect itself doesn't seem so strange when you're sitting in Iran. But even more interesting than all that, when you're looking at differences between the way the world looks when you see it from the United States and the way it looks when you see it from Iran has to do with history.

Whenever I travel in the world, particularly when I travel to a country that I'm not familiar with, I like to ask myself one question: and that is, "How did this country get this way? So, why is this country rich and powerful?" Or, "Why is this country poor and miserable?" When I was traveling in Iran and getting to know Iran for the first time, I came to realize that there's a huge gap between what Iran should be based on its culture and history and size and the education of its people, and what it is. This is a country that has thousands of years of history. It was the first empire in history-the Persian Empire. It has produced a huge amount of culture over many centuries. Its people are highly educated. Nonetheless, it's isolated from the world; poor; unhappy. And I've always wondered on my first trips there why this was. What happened? And as I began to read more, and talk to Iranians, people told me, "We used to have a democracy here. But you Americans came over here and destroyed it. And ever since then, we've been spiraling down." So I decided, "I gotta find out what really happened. I need to find a book about what happened to Iranian democracy." And then I looked around and found there was no such book.

FTM: Wow.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/pW_Rbka6eZ8?rel=0

KINZER: I finally decided that if I was going to read that book, I was going to have to write it myself. And that's how All the Shah's Men came about.

FTM: Well, I would imagine that many in the listening audience would immediately take issue with some of the things that you've stated, and I want to hit those directly head-on. You state in your book some of the reasons why to attack Iran, at least, some of the reasons that are stated.

Number One: Iran wants to become a nuclear power, and that should not be allowed. Iran poses a threat to Israel. Iran sits at the heart of the emerging Shiite Crescent which threatens to destabilize the Middle East. Iran supports radical groups on nearby countries. Iran helps kill American soldiers in Iraq. Iran has ordered terror attacks in foreign countries. Iran's people are oppressed and need Americans to liberate them.

So there's a plethora of ideas as to why American invasion, or some other type of invasion into Iran would possibly be beneficial, not only to our security interests, but also to Iran's state of health so to speak, and bringing them liberty. So you made a good case against it. What do you say to those who say, "You're crazy, Stephen. We need to go over there; we cannot allow them to have a nuclear weapon.

KINZER: In the first place, we don't have any evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon; in fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency has made clear that it has never seen any such evidence, and those inspectors are all over those plants, the uranium is under seal, the seals are under constant video surveillance. It's not as urgent a problem as we're making it out to be.

Nonetheless, I would add a kind of larger perspective, and it's this. When you look at a map of the Middle East, one thing jumps right out at you and it is that Iran is the big country right in the middle. It's not possible to imagine a stable Middle East without including Iran. It's a little bit comparable to the situation that we faced after the end of World War II when there was tremendous anger at Germany for very good reasons.

There was a great move afoot (in fact, we actually followed this policy for a few months) to crush Germany. We were going to slice Germany into pieces, then we were going to forbid it from ever building another factory or industrial plant again. Fortunately, cooler minds prevailed. And we decided to take the opposite tactic. And that was to realize that this country, Germany, had been stirring up trouble in Europe for a hundred years or more, and that the way to prevent that cycle from continuing was not to isolate Germany and kick it and push it into a corner, but to integrate Germany into Europe, and to make it a provider of security rather than a consumer of security. That's what we need to do with Iran. Iran needs to be given a place at the table that's commensurate with its size, and its tradition, and its history, and its regional role.

Now, the United States doesn't want to do that because when Iran is at that table, it's not going to be saying things that are pro-American. It has an agenda that's different than ours. So we don't want it at the table. We want to crush Iran. It sounds like a tempting option, and in fact, if you could wave a wand and make the regime in Iran go away and make Iran be wonderfully friendly to the United States, I'd be all for that. But bombing Iran is likely to produce the opposite result.

First of all, one thing that really surprises me when I'm in Iran is how unbelievably pro-American the people of Iran are. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that there's no country in the world where the population is so pro-American as in Iran. I have been stopped on the streets by people who are practically shrieking when they find out I'm American and tell me how much they love the United States. You don't even get that in Canada! If we're smart, we're gonna realize that this is the Middle Eastern country with the most pro-American population. And this pro-American sentiment in Iran is a huge strategic asset for us going forward. If we liquidate that asset by bombing Iran, we will be greatly undermining our own strategic power. And this is a pattern we've been following in that part of the world for a long time.

The war in Iraq greatly eroded American strategic power. It had the opposite effect that we thought it would have. And this is the real object lesson that we need to keep in mind. When we intervene in countries, we have enough power to achieve our short-term goal, but then we go away; our attention goes to other places. And the resentment and the anger festers and burns in the hearts and minds and souls of people in these countries, and ultimately, we wind up with backlash that we never anticipated and we can't control. In this rush now in these last months to demonize Iran and set the groundwork for an attack on Iran, we are doing something that Americans, and maybe all human beings do too often, and that is: we think about the short term; we never think about the long-term effects of our interventions.

FTM: You open the book with a quote, a quintessential quote, which is kind of common for a book, and it's by President Harry Truman: "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." And I would probably say that most of us are obviously familiar with the history of September 11th, 2001, and I would go even further and perhaps say that we are familiar with the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and people may remember those days back in the Carter years. But your book goes back to 1953.

In the Preface of your book, you state that the 1953 intervention by the United States into Iran may be seen as a decisive turning point in the 20th Century history from our perspective today. Now I don't know how many people in our listening audience know what happened in 1953. What event are you referring to, and why is it important to what's happening today?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/H8ybj5KULmA?rel=0

KINZER: For most Americans, the history of U.S.-Iran relations begins and ends with the Hostage Crisis. That's all we know, and we know that everything went bad since then. But Iranians don't think that way. For them, the Hostage Crisis is just one of a number of incidents that have happened over the past 50 years. For them, the key moment in the history of U.S.-Iran relations came in 1953. This is an episode that completely defines Iranian history and the Iran-United States relationship. Yet, many people in the United States are not even aware this happened.

Very briefly, this is the story (and I tell it in much more detail in my book): In the period after World War II, Iranian democracy, which had come about at the beginning of the 20th Century through a revolution against a corrupt monarchy, really began to take form. It took on a reality. You had elections; competing parties; parliament. This was something that had not been seen in any Muslim country. So, Iran was truly in the vanguard of democracy. But, because Iran was a democracy, it elected a leader who represented the public will-not the will of outside powers. In Iran, there was one obsession. Iran is sitting, as we know, on an ocean of oil. But all through the 1920's and '30's and '40's, that oil was completely controlled by one British company.

The entire standard of living in Britain all during that period was based on oil from Iran, since Britain has no oil or any colonies that have any oil. Meanwhile, people in Iran were living in some of the most miserable conditions of anyone in the world. Once they had a democracy, they elected a leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who, as prime minister, proceeded to pass a bill in congress in which Iran nationalized its oil industry. This sent the British into a panic. They tried all kinds of things to crush Mosaddegh. Finally, when he closed their embassy and chased out all their diplomats, including all the secret agents who were trying to overthrow him, the British decided, "We're going to ask the Americans to do this for us." So, Churchill asked President Truman to "do this for us. Please go over to Iran and overthrow this guy who took away our oil company. And Truman said, "No." But then, a few years later, when Dwight Eisenhower became president, and John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State, and his brother, Allen Dulles, became Director of the CIA, things changed.

The United States decided that we would work with the British to overthrow Mosaddegh -mainly because he was challenging the fundamentals of corporate globablism, the principle that international companies should be allowed to function all over the world according to conditions that they considered fair. Mosaddegh was saying, "No, we are going to determine the conditions under which foreign companies can function in our country." As a result, the United States sent a team CIA agents into Iran. They went to work in the basement of the American Embassy. They threw Iran into total chaos, and that chaos finally resulted in the overthrow of the Mosaddegh government. That put the Shah back on his peacock throne; he ruled with increasing oppression for 25 years; his repressive rule produced the explosion of the late 1970's, what we call "The Islamic Revolution"; that brought the power, this clique of fanatically anti-American mullahs who are in power now. So, when you do what they call in the CIA "walking back the cat," when you walk back the cat, that is, to see what happened before, and before, and before, you come to realize that the American role in crushing Iranian democracy in 1953 was not only the defining event in the history of U.S.-Iran relations, but it set Iran in the Middle East into turmoil from which it has never recovered.

FTM: In 1953, in the book you point out that democracy was beginning to take root there.

KINZER: It's a remarkable story. This, as I said, is something that had never happened in a Muslim country before. Iran is a remarkable country; very different from the other countries in the Middle East. And I'm not sure that people in the United States realize this. Most of the countries in the Middle East are what you might call "fake countries." They're made-up countries that were invented by some British or French diplomat drawing lines on a map at some men's club after World War I.

Iran is not a fake country by any means. It has lived for thousands of years within more or less the same boundaries, with more or less the same language, and the same kind of population. It's a country with a deep, rich culture and very strong sense of itself. We are treating Iran as if it's Honduras or Barundi or some little place where we can just go and kick sand in people's face and they'll do whatever we want. Iran is not a country like that. And, given its size, and its location, you see that that region will never be stable as long as Iran is angry and ostracized. The only way to stabilize that part of the world is to build a security architecture in which Iran has a place.

The world needs a big security concession from Iran. The world also needs big security concessions from Israel. But countries only make security concessions when they feel safe. Therefore, it should be in interest of those who want stability in the Middle East to try to help every country in the region feel safe. But our goal in the Middle East isn't really stability; it's "stability under our rule…under our dominance." And we realize that when Iran emerges as a strong, proud, independent, democratic country, it's not gonna be so friendly to the United States. So I think there is some feeling that "we prefer it this way" being poor and isolated and unhappy.

FTM: I was looking at a map the other day of the Middle East, just noticing the U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and Iran, if you look at it very objectively, and take a look at the Middle East military base map, you'll discover that Iran is completely surrounded. And as you mentioned, there are four other nations in their general vicinity that have nuclear weapons, and it seems as if pretty much the only way to keep the United States away from your country if you aren't playing by their rules is to have a nuclear weapon. So logically, it does seem to make sense that the Iranians are perhaps seeking a nuclear weapon, but what you point out here again in your book is that the program, to have a nuclear program, was first proposed by the United States to Iran back in the 1970's.

KINZER: We thought it was a great idea for Iran to have a nuclear program-when it was run by a regime that was responsive to Washington. Now that it's a different kind of regime, we don't like this idea. You're absolutely right about the lessons that Iran has drawn about the value of having a nuclear weapon, or the ability to make a nuclear weapon, based on what's happened in the world. Why did the United States attack Iraq, but not attack North Korea? I think it's quite obvious: if North Korea didn't have a nuclear weapon, we would have crushed them already; and if Sadaam did have a nuclear weapon, we probably never would have invaded that country.

An even more vivid example is Libya. We managed to persuade Gaddafi to give up his nuclear program; as soon as he did that, we came in and killed him. I think that the Iranians are acutely aware of this. They would like, if I'm gonna guess, to have the ability to put together a nuclear deterrent, a nuclear weapon-something like Japan has. Japan has something that is in the nuclear business called a "screwdriver weapon." They're not allowed to have nuclear weapons, but they have the pieces and the parts around, so that in a matter of weeks, they could probably put one together. Now, we hear a lot about how the Israelis are terrified that as soon as Iran gets a nuclear weapon, it's gonna bomb Israel. But, in fact, as people in the Israeli security establishment have made clear, none of them really believe that. They fear the Iranian nuclear weapon for a couple of other reasons.

One is, that as Israel well-knows, when you have a nuclear weapon, you don't need to use it. It gives you a certain power; a certain authority. You can intimidate people around you. And second, of course, if there's another nuclear power in that region, it's going to set off perhaps another nuclear race, and other countries like Turkey or Saudi Arabia or Egypt would want to have nuclear weapons, too. But when the Iranians look around, I think the first country they see (and I've heard this from a number of Iranians) is Pakistan. Pakistan is a far more volatile and far more dangerous country than Iran. We have serious Taliban/al-Qaeda types not only running around in Pakistan, but doing so under the egious of the government and they have a prospective to take over that government! This is not going to happen in Iran. Pakistan is far more volatile, yet the United States thought that is was fine that Pakistan should have a nuclear weapon. I'm against all countries having nuclear weapons.

I'd like to see all countries that have them abandon them, and I don't want any more countries to get them. But that's a dream world. The fact is, the most that we can do by attacking Iran (as our own Defense Secretary has said) is to postpone the day when Iran has a nuclear weapon, and in the process, make them a lot angrier. The way to reduce this danger is to build a security system in the Middle East where people don't feel the need to be threatening each other. But that requires dialogue, and dialogue requires compromise, and the United States is not ready to compromise with Iran.

FTM: Interesting. And that's where I want to take this in conclusion: What does that look like? Because obviously, the goal of your book here is to see some sort of peace reached. I mean, no one wants to see war. But the Middle East obviously is just an issue that has been debated for a long time. There are all kinds of geopolitical reasons for being involved in the Middle East-namely, oil. But predominantly, as we look at all of this, the question really boils down to this: What are we going to do? If we don't bomb Iran, then how do we prevent them from potentially becoming an explosive nation in that region? You say "security system" over there and also "dialogue." If you were President, what would you do? How do you start that process?

KINZER: The first place, we have never really tried serious diplomatic overtures to Iran. We've got some of our most senior retired diplomats in the United States now who are chafing at the bit to be sent to Iran. People like Thomas Pickering, who was George Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and ambassador to Moscow, and William Lords, another titan of 20th Century diplomacy. These are people who are itching to go to Iran and see what they can do. We have not even asked Iran the fundamental question, "What would it take from us for you to do what we would like you to do with your nuclear program?"

Forget about deciding whether we want to do it or not; we don't even know what the quid pro quo would be! So, we need first to get into a mindset where we're willing to have a real dialogue on an equal basis with Iran. We are not at that point. We feel that any dialogue with them is only going to legitimize their position in the Middle East and is going to make them feel that they're a powerful country, because we will be making concessions to them-that's what you do when you have negotiated solutions. But the fact is, Iran already is a powerful country. It doesn't need us to legitimize it. We need to understand that in dealing with Iran, we're not going to get everything we want. And we are going to have to concede Iran a measure of power in that region that's commensurate with its size, and its history, and its location. We're not even at that point yet. I think that's the first step. We have to make a psychological transition to realize that we're not going to be able to dictate to Iran if we want to reach a peaceful settlement. We're going to have to compromise. We're going to have to accept some things that Iran wants in order to get things that we want. Before we even get to the point of figuring out what those would be, we need to get over that psychological, political, diplomatic hurdle. And we haven't done that yet.

FTM: My guest today has been Stephen Kinzer. He's the author of the book All the Shah's Men. Very enlightening stuff; very illuminating. Stephen, if the folks would like to learn more about you and your work, how can they do so?

KINZER: I've got a website: stephenkinzer.com. My books are all available on that mass website that I don't want to advertise that it's named after a giant river in South America.

FTM: (laughter)

KINZER: But if you want to support your local independent bookstore, I'm sure it would be happy to order All the Shah's Men for you or any of my other books.

FTM: Very good, Stephen. Thank you so much for coming on our program today, Stephen.

KINZER: It was a great pleasure. Thank you.

(Audio Transcript - Saturday, February 11, 2012)

[Oct 21, 2015] An invitation to Putin regarding Ukraine Do the maths

Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine has given Russia a deadline of October 29 to accept the restructuring offer made to private sector investors; assuming it continues to refuse, Russia is threatening legal action if it is not repaid in full on December 20. So all of this is really coming to a head. It will all end up in the British courts - perhaps offering London it's own pari passu-type saga - unless something like the Lerrick compromise is adopted. ..."
"... Funny , but I have read the notorious IEA energy overview of Ukraine published a few years ago. It promised to add value (collapse the economy) by adding costs..........funny enough but it has. Not a fan of People the Great style centralized capitalism but the objectives of finance capitalism are far from pretty either. ..."
"... Im still not sure how a country can do a deal over bond restructuring with a country that it is at war with when the war is partly causing the need for bond restructuring. ..."
"... This loan assumed that there wouldnt be a coup and that Ukraine would pay its way under Russian subsidies as it had done in the past. Then the Western encouraged coup, and the collapse. And then an IMF loan of a lot more. Go figure... A fine lesson in how instability destroys an economy. I wish the West would not encourage this. Its here they should have to pay. They managed not to do so, so far in Libya. They are paying in Iraq, but in arms not in development which the Iraqis deserve. I wish the West would support stability - things in the world change slowly if it is to be for the benefit of all... ..."
Oct 21, 2015 | FT Alphaville

Martin Wolf was fuming about Russia on Wednesday - incensed specifically about its stance towards Ukraine's attempted debt restructuring. He really doesn't like the fact that Russia's refusal to join August's $18bn deal with private bond holders will block Ukraine's access to IMF money, promising to collapse the country's economy.

Along the way, Wolf notes that there's a solution on the table here, albeit one that Russia is unlikely to accept. It comes from Adam Lerrick of the American Enterprise Institute - a man with some form in coming up with elegant solutions amid sovereign debt crises. (See Iceland, Greece and also Argentina.)

Here's Lerrick's detail on Ukraine, along with a table for Putin and pals…

Ukraine has given Russia a deadline of October 29 to accept the restructuring offer made to private sector investors; assuming it continues to refuse, Russia is threatening legal action if it is not repaid in full on December 20. So all of this is really coming to a head. It will all end up in the British courts - perhaps offering London it's own pari passu-type saga - unless something like the Lerrick compromise is adopted.

The American academic's approach actually accepts a core Russian claim - that the concessional terms of Russia's original loan put it on a different footing from private creditors in that Ukraine signed up to pay a coupon of 5 per cent, at a time when regular bond market investors would have demanded 12 per cent or more. But Lerrick then suggests that Russia be compensated for this concession (in the form of higher interest rates on newly issued replacement bonds), before then accepting the private creditor restructuring terms.

You can read the two options in full below. They look fair to all involved, which probably means there's no chance of Russia accepting the idea at all!

The Dork of Cork.

Funny , but I have read the notorious IEA energy overview of Ukraine published a few years ago. It promised to "add value" (collapse the economy) by adding costs..........funny enough but it has. Not a fan of People the Great style centralized capitalism but the objectives of finance capitalism are far from pretty either.

Upaswellasdown

What exactly will Russia do if it is not repaid? invade?

Pseudonym

I'm still not sure how a country can do a deal over bond restructuring with a country that it is at war with when the war is partly causing the need for bond restructuring.

ukrainewatcher

Really angers me, as this was political loan to finance last dying days of Yanukovich's regime. Probably used to pay towards the violence of the following months and to the cash that was taken out of the country in trucks. Russia consequently cost Ukraine's economy billions of dollars, through invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine against very explicit guarantees provided by most superpowers (including US, Russia and UK) provided in return for dismantling world's third largest nuclear arsenal. Obligations that are in my books pretty much worthless, yet Ukraine continues to fulfil today (still destroying long term missiles as we speak)

And Ukraine still needs to deal with them as though they are normal creditors?

Something very wrong with the world of you ask me.

violet17

It was a political loan...correct! And it is a sovereign loan. And that is what the fuss is about!! This loan assumed that there wouldn't be a coup and that Ukraine would pay its way under Russian subsidies as it had done in the past. Then the Western encouraged coup, and the collapse. And then an IMF loan of a lot more. Go figure... A fine lesson in how instability destroys an economy. I wish the West would not encourage this. Its here they should have to pay. They managed not to do so, so far in Libya. They are paying in Iraq, but in arms not in development which the Iraqis deserve. I wish the West would support stability - things in the world change slowly if it is to be for the benefit of all...
FearTheTree
@ukrainewatcher Isn't the same true of Argentina. How much of its 80B in contested debt was used to support Menem and his cronies, thinking that the dollar-peso peg would hold indefinitely?

[Oct 21, 2015] CIA chief's emails exposed Key things we learned from WikiLeaks' Brennan dump

Notable quotes:
"... A 2007 draft position paper on the role of the intelligence community in the wake of the 9/11 attacks shows that Brennan was already aware that numerous federal agencies – the FBI, CIA, NSA, Defense Department and Homeland Security – "are all engaged in intelligence activities on US soil." He said these activities "must be consistent with our laws and reflect the democratic principles and values of our Nation." ..."
"... Brennan added that the president and Congress need "clear mandates" and "firm criteria" to determine what limits need to be placed on domestic intelligence operations. When it comes to situations beyond US borders, Brennan said sometimes action must be taken overseas "to address real and emerging threats to our interests," and that they may need to be done "under the cover of secrecy." He argued that many covert CIA actions have resulted in "major contributions" to US policy goals. ..."
"... "enhanced interrogation" ..."
"... Some of the techniques Bond suggested that Congress ban included: forcing the detainee to be naked; forcing them to perform sexual acts; waterboarding; inducing hypothermia; conducting mock executions; and depriving detainees of food, water, or medical care. ..."
"... "Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2008." ..."
"... The bill prohibited the use of many of the same techniques listed in the previous document, though it was not passed. Ultimately, President Obama issued an executive order banning officials from using techniques not in the Army Field Manual. ..."
Oct 21, 2015 | RT USA

US government 'engaged' in spying activities on US soil

  • A 2007 draft position paper on the role of the intelligence community in the wake of the 9/11 attacks shows that Brennan was already aware that numerous federal agencies – the FBI, CIA, NSA, Defense Department and Homeland Security – "are all engaged in intelligence activities on US soil." He said these activities "must be consistent with our laws and reflect the democratic principles and values of our Nation."
  • Brennan added that the president and Congress need "clear mandates" and "firm criteria" to determine what limits need to be placed on domestic intelligence operations.
  • When it comes to situations beyond US borders, Brennan said sometimes action must be taken overseas "to address real and emerging threats to our interests," and that they may need to be done "under the cover of secrecy." He argued that many covert CIA actions have resulted in "major contributions" to US policy goals.

Debate over torture restrictions

  • WikiLeaks published two documents related to the CIA's use of so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques, though notably neither was written by Brennan.
  • One was written by then-Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri), vice chairman on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which outlined a proposal to limit the CIA's torture techniques without restricting the development of new techniques complying with the law.
  • The document suggests listing the types of techniques that the CIA is barred from using instead of restricting the agency to only those explicitly listed in the Army Field Manual.
  • Some of the techniques Bond suggested that Congress ban included: forcing the detainee to be naked; forcing them to perform sexual acts; waterboarding; inducing hypothermia; conducting mock executions; and depriving detainees of food, water, or medical care.

Bond's suggestions get a bill

  • The final document appears to show Bond's suggestions making their way into a legislative proposal titled "Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2008."
  • The bill prohibited the use of many of the same techniques listed in the previous document, though it was not passed. Ultimately, President Obama issued an executive order banning officials from using techniques not in the Army Field Manual.

[Oct 21, 2015] The CIA director was hacked by a 13-year-old, but he still wants your data

Notable quotes:
"... With a properly run service provider, neither the helpdesk drones nor the admin staff should be able to see any user's password, which should be safely stored in an encrypted form. ..."
"... This is a turf war between bureaucrats who are born incompetent. The NSA has been increasing its share of budgetary largesse while the CIA and other security units have each been fighting to keep up. Politicians, being bureaucrats themselves, engage in the turf war. To them its all great fun. ..."
"... Lets be clear: it is very hard to see how blanket surveillance of American citizens is beneficial to American citizens. It tips over the power balance between government and citizen - it is undemocratic. It is unAmerican. ..."
"... It would be funny if it wasnt for the fact that the kid will most likely regret this for the rest of his life and nothing will change for Government or Brennan. ..."
"... Ive said it before and Ill say it again: incompetence is the main bulwark against tyranny. So let us be grateful for John Brennan. ..."
www.theguardian.com

Paul C. Dickie 20 Oct 2015 12:32

With a properly run service provider, neither the helpdesk drones nor the admin staff should be able to see any user's password, which should be safely stored in an encrypted form.

AmyInNH -> NigelSafeton 21 Oct 2015 11:59

You seriously underestimate the technical incompetence of the federal government. They buy on basis of quantity of big blue arrows, shown on marketing slideware.

Laudig 21 Oct 2015 05:31

This is great. This man is a serial perjurer to Congress. Which does eff-all about being lied to [they lie to everyone and so don't take offense at being lied to] and now he's hacked by a 13 year-old who, until a few weeks ago was protected by the The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.
Well done, CIA or whatever you are.

So your well constructed career gets collapsed by someone who is still in short pants. The Age of Secrets is over now.

Stieve 21 Oct 2015 02:54

Er, why has no-one mentioned, why has there been no press coverage, why has not a single presidential candidate been asked to comment on the fact that The USA has been the victim of a military coup?

All pretence of government oversight has been dropped. The NSA, CIA and most likely every other arm of the "intelligence service" have simply taken over the elected government, ripped up The Constitution and transformed The US into a police state. Seven thousand people disappeared in Chigaco? Exactly why have there not been massive arrests of these Stasi? Or riots on the streets? Exactly why has there not been an emergency session of The Senate or Congress to find out why Chicago is being run like an Eastern Bloc dictatorship? Exactly why are police departments been given military hardware designed to be used by an occupying army?
I'll tell you exactly why.

Because The US actually has been taken over

Glenn J. Hill 21 Oct 2015 01:28

LOL, the Head of the CIA put sensitive info on an personal AOL ACCOUNT !!!!! What an total idiot. Just proves the " Peter Principle", that one gets promoted to one`s point of incompetent!

Can he be fired ? Locked up for gross stupidity ?? Will he come hunting for me, to take me out for pointing out his asinine stupidity ??

Fnert Pleeble -> Robert Lewis 20 Oct 2015 23:42

Congressmen are self motivating. They want the gravy train to continue. The carrot is plenty big, no need for the stick.

Buckworm 20 Oct 2015 21:51

Those old, tired, incompetent, ignorant, trolls are asking for more and more access to citizens data based on the assumption that they can catch a terrorist or another type of psycho before they act out on something. Don't they realize that so far, after 15 years of violating the citizen's constitutional rights, they HAVE NEVER CAUGHT not even ONE single person under their illegal surveillance.

This is the problem: they think that terrorists are as stupid as they are, and that they will be sending tons of un-encrypted information online- and that sooner or later they will intercept that data and prevent a crime. How many times have they done so? Z E RO . They haven't realized that terrorists and hackers are waaaaayyy ahead of them and their ways of communicating are already beyond the old-fashioned government-hacked internet. I mean, only a terrorist as stupid as a government employee would think of ever sending something sensitive through electronic communications of any kind - but the government trolls still believe that they do or that sooner or later they will!! How super-beyond-stupid is that? Congress??

Don't even talk about that putrid grotesque political farce - completely manipulated by the super-rich and heated up by the typical white-trash delusional trailer park troll aka as the "tea party". We've had many killing in the homeland after 9/11 - not even one of them stopped by the "mega-surveillance" - and thousands committed by irresponsible and crooked cops - and this will continue until America Unites and fight for their constitutional rights. That will happen as soon as their priority is not getting the latest iPhone with minimal improvement, spends endless hours playing candy crush,stand in long lines to buy pot, get drunk every evening and weekends, and cancel their subscription to home-delivered heroin and cocaine. So don't hold your breath on that one.

Wait until one of those 13-yr old gets a hold of nuclear codes, electric grid codes, water supply or other important service code - the old government farts will scream and denounce that they could have prevented that if they had had more surveillance tools - but that is as false as the $3 dollar bills they claim to have in their wallets. They cannot see any further from their incompetence and ignorance.

Robert Lewis -> Giants1925 20 Oct 2015 18:38

Did the FSB cook data so the US would invade Iraq and kill 1,000,000 civilians?

yusowong 20 Oct 2015 18:20

This is a turf war between bureaucrats who are born incompetent. The NSA has been increasing its share of budgetary largesse while the CIA and other security units have each been fighting to keep up. Politicians, being bureaucrats themselves, engage in the turf war. To them it's all great fun.

Triumphant -> George Giants1925 20 Oct 2015 14:41

Are you saying that because you aren't in a concentration camp, everything's pretty good? That's a pretty low bar to set.

Most people probably didn't vote for your current leader. To compare, in the UK, only 37% of the popular vote went for the current government. And once you leader is voted in, they pretty much do as they please. Fortunately, there are checks and balances which are supposed to prevent things getting out of control. Unfortunately, bills like the cybersecurity bill are intend to circumvent these things.

Let's be clear: it is very hard to see how blanket surveillance of American citizens is beneficial to American citizens. It tips over the power balance between government and citizen - it is undemocratic. It is unAmerican.


Red Ryder -> daniel1948 20 Oct 2015 14:16

The whole freakin government is totally incompetent when it comes to computers and the hacking going on around this planet. Hillary needs to answer for this email scandal but currently she is making jokes about it as if nothing happened. She has no clue when she tried to delete her emails. Doesn't the government know that this stuff is backed up on many computers and then stored it a tape vault somewhere. Hiding emails is a joke today.

mancfrank 20 Oct 2015 13:27

It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that the kid will most likely regret this for the rest of his life and nothing will change for Government or Brennan.

Giants1925 20 Oct 2015 12:53

I still don't understand why Russia is allowed to have the FSB but the US is forbidden from having the CIA Who makes these rules again? Because frankly I'm tired of the world being run by popular opinion.


bcarey 20 Oct 2015 12:33

The bill is so bad that the major tech companies like Google and Amazon all came out against it last week, despite the fact that it would give them broad immunity for sharing this information with the government.

The usual show... "We're totally against it, but it's okay."


Donald Mintz 20 Oct 2015 12:02

I've said it before and I'll say it again: incompetence is the main bulwark against tyranny. So let us be grateful for John Brennan.

[Oct 21, 2015] Son of two Australian MH17 victims says Ukraine should have closed airspace

Oct 13, 2015 | The Guardian
www.theguardian.com

The report, even in its highly-politized form, gives the families of the victims the right to file lawsuits against Ukraine for its criminal negligence in complying with flight safety rules. These suits can cost Ukraine billions of dollars.


idance 14 Oct 2015 12:51

Partly repeating my comment to another article here I must admit this POV agrees with today's (but not yesterday's) US standards.

The US has just refused to accept the UNSC statement condemning the shelling of the Russian Embassy in Damascus. They said the responsibility for the security of diplomatic missions lies on the receiving party, that is on Damascus.

Applying this standard it doesn't matter who shot down MH17. The responsibility lies on Ukraine cause it was Ukraine who should have ensured security of the flight.
Yeah! How do you like it!

SHappens 14 Oct 2015 03:31

"Russia's got a role and they haven't been very helpful," he said. "So I blame Russia partially but not completely. There are many other players that are also to blame."

Some people see through. Rightly, as highlighted by the report, Ukraine failed to its obligations, by not closing its airspace, rerouting a flight which casually got shot. They bear the main responsibility in this disaster.

DeConstruct -> Putzik 13 Oct 2015 23:05

You are 100% on the money in relation to shorter route length and air navigation fees. The penny should have dropped when it became obvious from the altitudes of previous military shoot downs that medium range (up to 70,000' +) weapons were being employed and not just low altitude MANPADS.

summaluvva -> Putzik 13 Oct 2015 22:35

Quoting Guardian's article, "Many of the world's best-known airlines – including British Airways, Qantas and Cathay Pacific – had been avoiding Ukrainian airspace due to safety fears for months before the downing of flight MH17.".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/airlines-avoid-ukraine-airspace-mh17

[Oct 19, 2015] The Banksters and American Foreign Policy by Justin Raimondo

Notable quotes:
"... But bankers are inherently inclined toward statism. ..."
"... , engaged as they are in unsound fractional reserve credit, are, in the free market, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence they are always reaching for government aid and bailout. ..."
"... Both sets of bankers, then, tend to be tied in with government policy, and try to influence and control government actions in domestic and foreign affairs. ..."
"... Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy ..."
"... The great turning point of American foreign policy came in the early 1890s, during the second Cleveland Administration. It was then that the U.S. turned sharply and permanently from a foreign policy of peace and non-intervention to an aggressive program of economic and political expansion abroad. At the heart of the new policy were America's leading bankers, eager to use the country's growing economic strength to subsidize and force-feed export markets and investment outlets that they would finance, as well as to guarantee Third World government bonds. The major focus of aggressive expansion in the 1890s was Latin America, and the principal Enemy to be dislodged was Great Britain, which had dominated foreign investments in that vast region. ..."
"... In a notable series of articles in 1894, ..."
"... set the agenda for the remainder of the decade. Its conclusion: if 'we could wrest the South American markets from Germany and England and permanently hold them, this would be indeed a conquest worth perhaps a heavy sacrifice.' ..."
"... Long-time Morgan associate Richard Olney heeded the call, as Secretary of State from 1895 to 1897, setting the U.S. on the road to Empire. After leaving the State Department, he publicly summarized the policy he had pursued. The old isolationism heralded by George Washington's Farewell Address is over, he thundered. The time has now arrived, Olney declared, when 'it behooves us to accept the commanding position… among the Power of the earth.' And, 'the present crying need of our commercial interests,' he added, 'is more markets and larger markets' for American products, especially in Latin America.' ..."
July 15, 2011 | Antiwar.com

In a free economy, the banks that invested trillions in risky mortgages and other fool's gold would have taken the hit. Instead, however, what happened is that the American taxpayers took the hit, paid the bill, and cleaned up their mess – and were condemned to suffer record unemployment, massive foreclosures, and the kind of despair that kills the soul.

How did this happen? There are two versions of this little immorality tale, one coming from the "left" and the other from the "right" (the scare-quotes are there for a reason, which I'll get to in a moment or two).

The "left" version goes something like this:

The evil capitalists, in league with their bought-and-paid for cronies in government, destroyed and looted the economy until there was nothing left to steal. Then, when their grasping hands had reached the very bottom of the treasure chest, they dialed 911 and the emergency team (otherwise known as the US Congress) came to their rescue, doling out trillions to the looters and leaving the rest of America to pay the bill.

The "right" version goes something like the following:

Politically connected Wall Streeters, in league with their bought-and-paid-for cronies in government, destroyed and looted the economy until there was nothing left to steal. Then, when their grasping hands had reached the very bottom of the treasure chest, they dialed BIG-GOV-HELP and the feds showed up with the cash.

The first thing one notices about these two analyses, taken side by side, is their similarity: yes, the "left" blames the free market, and the "right" blames Big Government, but when you get past the blame game their descriptions of what actually happened look like veritable twins. And as much as I agree with the "right" about their proposed solution – a radical cut in government spending – it is the "left" that has the most accurate analysis of who's to blame.

It is, of course, the big banks – the recipients of bailout loot, the ones who profited (and continue to profit) from the economic catastrophe that has befallen us.

During the 1930s, the so-called Red Decade, no leftist agitprop was complete without a cartoon rendering of the top-hatted capitalist with his foot planted firmly on the throat of the proletariat (usually depicted as a muscular-but-passive male in chains). That imagery, while crude, is largely correct – an astonishing statement, I know, coming from an avowed libertarian and "reactionary," no less. Yet my leftist pals, and others with a superficial knowledge of libertarianism, will be even more surprised that the founder of the modern libertarian movement, also an avowed (and proud) "reactionary," agreed with me (or, rather, I with him):

"Businessmen or manufacturers can either be genuine free enterprisers or statists; they can either make their way on the free market or seek special government favors and privileges. They choose according to their individual preferences and values. But bankers are inherently inclined toward statism.

"Commercial bankers, engaged as they are in unsound fractional reserve credit, are, in the free market, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence they are always reaching for government aid and bailout.

"Investment bankers do much of their business underwriting government bonds, in the United States and abroad. Therefore, they have a vested interest in promoting deficits and in forcing taxpayers to redeem government debt. Both sets of bankers, then, tend to be tied in with government policy, and try to influence and control government actions in domestic and foreign affairs."

That's Murray N. Rothbard, the great libertarian theorist and economist, in his classic monograph Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. If you want a lesson in the real motivations behind our foreign policy of global intervention, starting at the very dawn of the American empire, you have only to read this fascinating treatise. The essence of it is this: the very rich have stayed very rich in what would otherwise be a dynamic and ever-changing economic free-for-all by securing government favors, enjoying state-granted monopolies, and using the US military as their private security guards. Conservatives who read Rothbard's short book will never look at the Panama Canal issue in the same light again. Lefties will come away from it marveling at how closely the libertarian Rothbard comes to echoing the old Marxist aphorism that the government is the "executive committee of the capitalist class."

Rothbard's account of the course of American foreign policy as the history of contention between the Morgan interests, the Rockefellers, and the various banking "families," who dealt primarily in buying and selling government bonds, is fascinating stuff, and it illuminates a theme common to both left and right commentators: that the elites are manipulating the policy levers to ensure their own economic interests unto eternity.

In normal times, political movements are centered around elaborate ideologies, complex narratives that purport to explain what is wrong and how to fix it. They have their heroes, and their villains, their creation myths and their dystopian visions of a dark future in store if we don't heed their call to revolution (or restoration, depending on whether they're hailing from the "left" or the "right").

You may have noticed, however, that these are not normal times: we're in a crisis of epic proportions, not only an economic crisis but also a cultural meltdown in which our social institutions are collapsing, and with them longstanding social norms. In such times, ideological categories tend to break down, and we've seen this especially in the foreign policy realm, where both the "extreme" right and the "extreme" left are calling for what the elites deride as "isolationism." On the domestic front, too, the "right" and "left" views of what's wrong with the country are remarkably alike, as demonstrated above. Conservatives and lefties may have different solutions, but they have, I would argue, a common enemy: the banksters.

This characterization of the banking industry as the moral equivalent of gangsters has its proponents on both sides of the political spectrum, and today that ideological convergence is all but complete, with only "centrists" and self-described pragmatists dissenting. What rightists and leftists have in common, in short, is a very powerful enemy – and that's all a mass political movement needs to get going.

In normal times, this wouldn't be enough: but, as I said above, these most assuredly aren't normal times. The crisis lends urgency to a process that has been developing – unfolding, if you will – for quite some time, and that is the evolution of a political movement that openly disdains the "left" and "right" labels, and homes in on the main danger to liberty and peace on earth: the state-privileged banking system that is now foreclosing on America.

This issue is not an abstraction: we see it being played out on the battlefield of the debt ceiling debate. Because, after all, who will lose and who will win if the debt ceiling isn't raised? The losers will be the bankers who buy and sell government bonds, i.e. those who finance the War Machine that is today devastating much of the world. My leftie friends might protest that these bonds also finance Social Security payments, and I would answer that they need to grow a spine: President Obama's threat that Social Security checks may not go out after the August deadline is, like everything out that comes out of his mouth, a lie. The government has the money to pay on those checks: this is just his way of playing havoc with the lives of American citizens, a less violent but nonetheless just as evil version of the havoc he plays with the lives of Afghans, Pakistanis, and Libyans every day.

This isn't about Social Security checks: it's about an attempt to reinflate the bubble of American empire, which has been sagging of late, and keep the government printing presses rolling. For the US government, unlike a private entity, can print its way out of debt – or, these days, by simply adding a few zeroes to the figures on a computer screen. A central bank, owned by "private" individuals, controls this process: it is called the Federal Reserve. And the Fed has been the instrument of the banksters from its very inception [.pdf], at the turn of the 19th century – not coincidentally, roughly the time America embarked on its course of overseas empire.

There is a price to be paid, however, for this orgy of money-printing: the degradation, or cheapening, of the dollar. Most of us suffer on account of this policy: the only beneficiaries are those who receive those dollars first, before it trickles down to the rest of us. The very first to receive them are, of course, the bankers, but there's another class of business types who benefit, and those are the exporters, whose products are suddenly competitive with cheaper foreign goods. This has been a major driving force behind US foreign policy, as Rothbard points out:

"The great turning point of American foreign policy came in the early 1890s, during the second Cleveland Administration. It was then that the U.S. turned sharply and permanently from a foreign policy of peace and non-intervention to an aggressive program of economic and political expansion abroad. At the heart of the new policy were America's leading bankers, eager to use the country's growing economic strength to subsidize and force-feed export markets and investment outlets that they would finance, as well as to guarantee Third World government bonds. The major focus of aggressive expansion in the 1890s was Latin America, and the principal Enemy to be dislodged was Great Britain, which had dominated foreign investments in that vast region.

"In a notable series of articles in 1894, Bankers' Magazine set the agenda for the remainder of the decade. Its conclusion: if 'we could wrest the South American markets from Germany and England and permanently hold them, this would be indeed a conquest worth perhaps a heavy sacrifice.'

"Long-time Morgan associate Richard Olney heeded the call, as Secretary of State from 1895 to 1897, setting the U.S. on the road to Empire. After leaving the State Department, he publicly summarized the policy he had pursued. The old isolationism heralded by George Washington's Farewell Address is over, he thundered. The time has now arrived, Olney declared, when 'it behooves us to accept the commanding position… among the Power of the earth.' And, 'the present crying need of our commercial interests,' he added, 'is more markets and larger markets' for American products, especially in Latin America.'"

The face of the Enemy has long since changed, and Britain is our partner in a vast mercantilist enterprise, but the mechanics and motivation behind US foreign policy remain very much the same. You'll note that the Libyan "rebels," for example, set up a Central Bank right off the bat, even before ensuring their military victory over Gadhafi – and who do you think is going to be selling (and buying) those Libyan "government" bonds? It sure as heck won't be Joe Sixpack: it's the same Wall Streeters who issued an ultimatum to the Tea Party, via Moody's, that they'll either vote to raise the debt ceiling or face the consequences.

But what are those consequences – and who will feel their impact the most?

It's the bankers who will take the biggest hit if US bonds are downgraded: the investment bankers, who invested in such a dodgy enterprise as the US government, whose "full faith and credit" isn't worth the paper it's printed on. In a free market, these losers would pay the full price of their bad business decisions – in our crony-capitalist system, however, they win.

They win because they have the US government behind them - and because their strategy of degrading the dollar will reap mega-profits from American exporters, whose overseas operations they are funding. The "China market," and the rest of the vast undeveloped stretches of the earth that have yet to develop a taste for iPads and Lady Gaga, all this and more will be open to them as long as the dollar continues to fall.

That this will cripple the buying power of the average American, and raise the specter of hyper-inflation, matters not one whit of difference to the corporate and political elites that control our destiny: for with the realization of their vision of a World Central Bank, in which a new global currency controlled by them can be printed to suit their needs, they will be set free from all earthly constraints, or so they believe.

With America as the world policeman and the world banker – in alliance with our European satellites – the Washington elite can extend their rule over the entire earth. It's true we won't have much to show for it, here in America: with the dollar destroyed, we'll lose our economic primacy, and be subsumed into what George Herbert Walker Bush called the "New World Order." Burdened with defending the corporate profits of the big banks and exporters abroad, and also with bailing them out on the home front when their self-created bubbles burst, the American people will see a dramatic drop in their standard of living – our sacrifice to the gods of "internationalism." That's what they mean when they praise the new "globalized" economy.

Yet the American people don't want to be sacrificed, either to corporate gods or some desiccated idol of internationalism, and they are getting increasingly angry – and increasing savvy when it comes to identifying the source of their troubles.

This brings us to the prospects for a left-right alliance, both short term and in the long run. In the immediate future, the US budget crisis could be considerably alleviated if we would simply end the wars started by George W. Bush and vigorously pursued by his successor. Aside from that, how many troops do we still have in Europe – more than half a century after World War II? How many in Korea – long after the Korean war? Getting rid of all this would no doubt provide enough savings to ensure that those Social Security checks go out – but that's a bargain Obama will never make.

All those dollars, shipped overseas, enrich the military-industrial complex and their friends, the exporters – and drain the very life blood out of the rest of us. Opposition to this policy ought to be the basis of a left-right alliance, a movement to bring America home and put America first.

In the long term, there is the basis for a more comprehensive alliance: the de-privileging of the banking sector, which cemented its rule with the establishment of the Federal Reserve. That, however, is a topic too complex to be adequately covered in a single column, and so I'll just leave open the intriguing possibility.

"Left" and "right" mean nothing in the current context: the real division is between government-privileged plutocrats and the rest of us. What you have to ask yourself is this: which side are you on?

[Oct 19, 2015] An alliance of Russian liberasts Western pundits and putinslivsiks

Notable quotes:
"... It was predictable that by going to Syria Russia will make itself more of a target for terrorist attacks than before, as Russia now has a lot more enemies than it did before. ..."
"... They fail to understand one simple fact – Russia already was a target of these groups. ..."
"... I would also add, that Russian does NOT have more enemies than before. Russia has the same number of enemies, in the exact same quantity and quality as before. The only difference is that Russia was warned in advance this time, by one of Americas poodles. Remember Gerashchenkos warning, on Mirotvorec ? ..."
"... On Wednesday A. Piontkovskiy, D. Bykov and I shall represent Russia at a meeting in Kiev entitled Slavs Against the Moscow terror . It will be a live transmission. ..."
"... – I was sitting in a cafe last night, right across the Montparnasse station. Suddenly I saw, from the side of the hall came out a lot of elderly Jews speaking in Russian. Im interested in, stopped one of them and asked what was it … And it turns out, there was a meeting of young Russian poets. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com
Lyttenburgh, October 12, 2015 at 3:23 am
It was predictable that by going to Syria Russia will make itself more of a target for terrorist attacks than before, as Russia now has a lot more enemies than it did before.

Indeed it was Nostradamized from the day 1 by the unlikely common opinion alliance of:

1) Russian liberasts.
2) Western pundits.
3) "Russian" patriotic putinslivsiks

They fail to understand one simple fact – Russia already was a target of these groups. And the fact that terract was prevented is a reason not for concern but for a sense of pride of one's Security Services doing their job. For Russia "not to have any enemies" means to curl up and give up on any foreign policy, allowing "the adults" to run their freak show of "Here comes the Freedom and 'Mocracy. bitches!".

yalensis, October 12, 2015 at 7:35 am
I would also add, that Russian does NOT have more enemies than before. Russia has the same number of enemies, in the exact same quantity and quality as before. The only difference is that Russia was "warned" in advance this time, by one of America's poodles. Remember Gerashchenko's warning, on "Mirotvorec" ?
Patient Observer, October 12, 2015 at 10:50 am
Yes, the only difference now is that the masks are slipping revealing the truly hideous face of the Western empire. Other than that, business as usual.
Moscow Exile, October 12, 2015 at 2:26 am
Guardian accused of passing off terrorist "hell cannon" as "barrel bombs"

Please share this as widely as possible and feel free to write your own emails or letters to the Guardian if you feel it is appropriate.

So iIhave done.

Warren, October 12, 2015 at 3:50 am

Published on 10 Oct 2015
Article here – http://ukrainewarlog.blogspot.com/p/b

Warren, October 12, 2015 at 3:51 am
British Citizen Exposed as a Tool of Russia's FSB

http://ukrainewarlog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/british-citizen-exposed-as-tool-of.html

Moscow Exile, October 12, 2015 at 4:05 am
"Exposed" and then there follows a string of allegations.

"Russia's FSB and GRU (military intelligence) are mostly likely assigning Phillips 'mini-ops' to attack western organizations, journalists, reporters and researchers who debunk the Kremlin's propaganda narrative."

Case proven, m'lud?

marknesop, October 12, 2015 at 7:17 pm
Sad. So young – I'm assuming – and his mind already gone. Only in such an oxygen-deficient atmosphere could the FSB deliberately recruit somebody because they are "bumbling and incompetent" and speak Russian at the third-grade level or less. Lots of good press for Graham, though.
Pavlo Svolochenko, October 12, 2015 at 7:53 pm
It's even funnier because if the Ukrainians weren't the Goddamned barbarians they are, Philips would almost certainly have ended up on their side.
Moscow Exile, October 12, 2015 at 4:39 am
Remember this kreakl?

Dmitry Bykov.

Know this bloke?

He's Andrei Piontkovskiy, former member of that very short-lived Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition, you know – Navalny's parliament in waiting that met a couple of times in kreakl cafés: even Udaltsov (remember him?) called its members a "committee of wankers".

Well lookeee here:

On Wednesday A. Piontkovskiy, D. Bykov and I shall represent Russia at a meeting in Kiev entitled "Slavs Against the Moscow terror". It will be a live transmission.

The Tweet is off a certain Sasha Sotnik of Sotnik TV.

Sotnik TV is not a typical Russian television channel: It is only available on the web, not on television screens. It has no live broadcasts. And it is run primarily by just two people: husband and wife Sasha Sotnik, the reporter, and Mariya Orlovskaya, the camera operator (both pictured above).

But what's most different about Sotnik TV is its outspoken criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has led to Sotnik and Orlovskaya being arrested briefly and accused of possessing explosives.

Strong views

Sasha Sotnik is a believer in the liberal "European values" that Putin has forcefully rejected in recent months, and does not flinch from expressing strong views in his videos, which are mainly distributed through the couple's YouTube channel.

Bet they love Sasha at Auntie BBC.

If he likes liberal "European values" so much, then why doesn't he stay in Banderastan?

After all, the Ukraine is Europe, is it not?

Moscow Exile, October 12, 2015 at 4:53 am
Do you think Sotnik and Piontkovskiy and Bykov will be shot dead in the street when they return to Mordor, thereby becoming yet more tragic statistics attributed to the Dark Lord's reign of terror?

After all, Lord Putin's ever watchful eye not only knows what everyone is thinking, but also of what they are going to think and plan and usually punishes his enemies before they even think of doing something that he will not like, such is his awesome power and majesty that holds this once mighty nation in sway ….

These brave opposition souls must live a life of perfectly abject terror and despair.

I mean, look at Bykov: he looks like a really worried man – doesn't he?

I believe he's lost pounds since Putin seized control of the state, such has been his worry and concern over what has been going on here since 2000.

marknesop, October 12, 2015 at 7:26 pm
Too late, probably. Their personal addresses and the names of family members are probably all over whatyoucallem, that Russian squealer database that encourages people to inform on other people for anti-government views. There was a name for it…separatist! That's it, separatists who harbor anti-government attitudes!! I read all about it a while ago, but I forget the name of it. You could go there and rat out people for their personal views and then some wet-man from Putin's personal kill squad would go round to his house, make some excuse to get him outside and then cap him right there in the street. Poor Sotnik and Bykov and Piontkovskiy: they're as good as done for, like that murdered martyr Yulia Latynina.
Lyttenburgh, October 12, 2015 at 4:56 am
"On Wednesday A. Piontkovskiy, D. Bykov and I shall represent Russia at a meeting in Kiev entitled "Slavs Against the Moscow terror". It will be a live transmission."

During her emigration in Paris, famous pre-Revolutionary satirical writer Nadezhda Teffi (nee Lokhvitskaya, in marriage – Buchinskaya) once became a witness to such a scene:

"- Сижу я вчера вечером в кафе, против монпарнасского вокзала. Вдруг вижу, из бокового зала выходят много пожилых евреев, говорят по-русски. Я заинтересовалась, остановила одного и спрашиваю, что это было такое… А это, оказывается, было собрание молодых русских поэтов"."

– I was sitting in a cafe last night, right across the Montparnasse station. Suddenly I saw, from the side of the hall came out a lot of elderly Jews speaking in Russian. I'm interested in, stopped one of them and asked what was it … And it turns out, there was a meeting of young Russian poets. "

[Oct 19, 2015] John Helmer US Strategy In The Middle East Is Dying, Along With Its Authors, Carter And Brzezinski; Putin, Al-Assad Get To Dan

Notable quotes:
"... This. The most infuriating part about Obomba is the smug "smarter-than-you" certainty he has. He was a community organizer and one-term state Senator but somehow he started sniffing all the farts the sycophants were wafting his way about just how clever he really was. Then he installed a bunch of also-smart groupthinker Berkeley-ites from the "duty to protect" and "humanitarian bombing" crowd, Chanel-suited exceptionalist egomaniacs who thought they were Kissinger (Samantha Powers, Hilary, Susan Rice et al.) ..."
"... BHO thought he could triangulate and "out-clever" everyone on everything, from health care, where he managed the worst of all worlds that fattened Big Insurance AND screwed up the cost of care…to Wall St where he fattened TBTF AND screwed up Dodd-Frank. In the ME he thought he could cleverly play all sides off against each other, the Turks, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Israelis, the Saudis... and stunningly also al-Qaeda themselves were just another co-optable pawn. ..."
"... But as Warren Buffet says "when the tide goes out you can see who's swimming naked". Tide's heading out…and as far as I can see the Russia/Iran/Iraq/Israel/Syria/Kurd team, with Brother China, fed-up Pakistan and resurgent India backing things up, is looking pretty good. Sclero-Europe has long ago ceded their sovereignty and relevance, LatAm as usual is absent from consideration…what am I missing? ..."
"... Interesting things are happening with Russian involvement in Syria. Are we seeing the global balance of power tip before our eyes? The U.S. is losing it's sole hegemony status and that could be a good thing if Washington can realize this and accept that and adopt diplomacy and cooperation to maintain what position it still has instead of denial followed by escalating aggression. ..."
"... The FSA = al Nusrah = al Qaeda in Syria. The re-labeling was invoked so that BHO could send weapons to al Nusrah… the player that currently has snapped up EVERY weapon the President sent into the fight. Most recently that's meant TOW missiles. ..."
"... Good lord. Stratfor is well-known as politicized propaganda machine that works in concert with large multinational corporations to further their interests in foreign countries. It's not a secret. ..."
"... Stratfor is Neocon central, I should think. They stock gasbags in quantity. ..."
"... The question I must ask: what happens to all these Islamic fighters after they are run out of Syria and Iraq? Only safe territory for them – away from the Russian air force – will be US allies, like Jordan and Arabia. ..."
"... Israel, with its excuse of no peace partners, may end up with enemies from hell. ..."
"... Suppose that Obama just decides to flood Syria with weapons? Anti-tank, anti-air, medium-range missiles with cluster bombs that can hit the Russian bases… America may not have any sense of long-range strategy but we are very good at breaking things, and our leaders throw fits and take it personally when their plans go awry… ..."
"... Of course giving all sorts of advanced weapons to the mostly jihadist Syrian 'rebels' would in the long run certainly cause a lot of blowback to the United States, but that's never stopped us before… ..."
"... U.S. air superiority is based on air superiority, not anti-aircraft weaponry. Afghanistan and Syria are radically different much like Vietnam and Iraq were different. It's much easier for the Russians to supply their bases than in Afghanistan where they had to rely on helicopters flying around mountain valleys. ..."
"... Advanced weaponry will be seen by Russian eyes in the sky and can be hit by missiles from the Caspian apparently. I hate to break it to you, but the U.S. R D budget has been wasted on projects like F-35 and contracting fraud. ..."
"... Why does my Spidy Sense tell me that the foundation of the Saudi oil ministry policy of continuing to flood a depressed market with low cost oil was a secret agreement between Obomber and the Saudi ruling family? The plan was to bankrupt Russia by a two-pronged attack- the fraudulent US sponsored sanctions based upon manufactured reality events in Ukraine and the Saudi capacity to control the marginal price of oil. The carrot offered by the US was a piece of the action in the trans Syrian gas pipeline- and continued protection against internal opposition. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia wants Putin to suffer - as he's the patron of Assad - of whom they hate the most. Low crude pricing has pounded the Russian ruble. Putin's crew is also going insolvent. The flight capital out of Russia is relentless. ..."
"... Contracting fraud, where the real money is made. It was never about oil, just contracts and egos. Oil has to be sold at an honest price for a variety of reasons, but I can't judge a cruise missile's price behind a veil of secrecy. ..."
"... Then there is the natural failing of leaders domestically who search for scapegoats. Half of the foreign policy pronouncements are full of whispered hisses of "China." Don't pay attention to me. It's those red Chinese and their currency manipulation. ..."
"... The Russian expeditionary force in Syria is indeed highly vulnerable, but only if the Western Bloc wants to risk a major war. Now the Western Bloc can prevail against Russia, at any level of escalation, albeit at mounting risk. Nobody should expect today's Russia to be able to match the might of the Western Bloc. ..."
"... I expect the Western Bloc will presume that they can prevail through politico-economic attrition against Russia. They probably can. However, the longer this complex regional war in the Middle East continues, the more likely things are to veer off unpredictably. ..."
"... "In my read, Russia and Iran have just popped open the door to a solution in Syria. All the pieces are in place but one: Washington's capacity to acknowledge the strategic failure now so evident and to see beyond the narrowest definition of where its interests lie. This brings us to the paradox embedded in those questions Putin and Zarif and a few others now pose: American primacy is no longer in America's interest. Get your mind around this and you have arrived in the 21st century." ..."
"... The CIA began a covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition to Assad. Over that time, the CIA has trained an estimated 10,000 fighters, although the number still fighting with so-called moderate forces is unclear. ..."
"... No kidding -- Both involved CIA proxy armies that had no operational security to speak of. Both were authorized by the Oval Office. And we know how much BHO admires JFK. ..."
"... It is important to get Russian viewpoint especially since most Americans are monolingual. Also, it is hard for us not to root for the home team. Still Syria is a gigantic SNAFU. It is so far beyond incompetence it has to be purposeful. This is the ultimate expression of the Shock Doctrine. Collapse Russia and gain control its energy resources ..."
"... There are 1.6 billion Sunni Muslims. Want-to-be Jihadists will flock to Syria to fight the Russian Crusaders. Barrack Obama has already warned Vladimir Putin of a quagmire. His continued arming the Sunnis is a purposeful act to ensure this. World War III starts when Russia shoots down an American aircraft on a combat mission over Syria. ..."
"... Give the Russians some credit for finesse. All they need do is shoot down an Israeli jet attacking a Syrian government position in support of some Syrian "Moderates" near Damascus. I'll be watching for a Russian campaign to rid the Syrian skies of 'Western' drones. That would be a sign of serious intentions on the part of Russia. ..."
www.nakedcapitalism.com

Russia has established a no-fly zone on every one of Syria's frontiers, and will make an Alawite fortress along the coastal plain. As for what happens in the northern and western deserts, that's up to the Shiite armies of Iran and Iraq to decide, with or without Russian air cover, but with the assurance of no American, NATO, Turkish, Saudi, Jordanian or Emirati air cover.

Gennady Nechaev, a military analyst at Vzglyad in Moscow, explains: "There is airspace, but either it is controlled by the US or by our Air Force. But today there is no issue of control of air space. We are talking about control of ground space. There operations can be of two types: direct destruction from the air and from insulation of the area of operations by air in order to avoid movements of the enemy and incoming reserves. In this case, the task is hardly feasible, as there is an open border with Iraq on the side of Turkey. The boundaries are not controlled. The problem could be solved [by Russia] if a blow can be dealt along the entire depth of the space under the control of ISIS. At the moment there is an operation against the infrastructure of ISIS. Infrastructure is a fairly loose concept, because they don't have civilian infrastructure. There are military links and connexions which must [operate] to supply weapons. For these purposes Russia is now applying its strokes."

... ... ...

What if the Saudis shift their forces from bombing southward and eastward in the Yemen towards the west, and they invite US forces to defend their sorties from Saudi airfields or from carriers in the Persian Gulf? An Egyptian military source comments: "The king [Salman] has Alzheimer's, and his son [Mohammad bin Salman], the real ruler of the kingdom, is too young; too insecure in the royal succession; and too vulnerable domestically. If either of them makes so much as a nervous twitch towards the Syrian frontier, the oil price will return to the level Russia wants, and needs. There will be no support for the Saudis against the Russians from their only real Arab guarantor, [Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-] Sisi. And long ago, when Obama installed the Moslem Brotherhood in Cairo, [Sisi] realized the American strategy, Obama's promises, are the gravest threat to Egyptian and Arab security there is. That's because he can't control the Washington Amazons who run his warmaking machine, or the jihadists he employs to fight. Without air cover, supply lines, and dollars, they are doomed. The Saudi sheikhs won't risk trying to save them."

For more on Putin's management of the Saudi relationship, read this.

London sources familiar with Israeli politics add that Russian strategy has the tacit backing of Israel. "This is because [President Vladimir] Putin has told [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that Israel can count on a no-threat zone running from Damascus south and east to the Golan. No threat means no Syrian Army, no jihadists. Russia and Israel will now have what [Israeli Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion once explained was Israel's long-term objective – the breakup of the large, potentially powerful secular Arab states into small sectarian territories too weak to do anything but threaten each other."

blert October 10, 2015 at 5:38 am

Dr. Zbig. must be totally off his medication.

There is not the slightest chance that BHO has any interest in squaring off with Putin.

What the President has been doing is to support al Qaeda fronts - most particularly al Nusrah.

Both al Nusrah and IS are joined at the hip and do not fight each other - much. Dr. Zawahiri is their mutal mediator, with plenty of correspondence to his credit.

ISIS // ISIL // IS wouldn't be a serious factor if it was not for the UK, US, and Jordan. These three patron powers trained the core block of al Baghdadi's boys - in the northern Jordanian desert - just a few years back - remember ?

It was all over the news - particularly in the Arab Middle East.

They graduated - and promptly went rogue - taking out Mosul - probably by simply phoning ahead. For the US had given them first class communications gear - that they were supposed to be using in Syria. It, however, worked its magic even better - intercepting Iraqi cell phone frequencies - so that al Baghdadi could threaten the generals and their families quite directly.

In this, they were entirely aping the USAF's gambit in Libya. Remember Commando Solo ? It was exactly such phone calls to Libyan generals that broke up Kaddafy's entire army. We admitted that we'd called just about everyone in the dictator's immediate family, to boot.

Well, the fanatics in Libya couldn't miss any of that.

And our Pentagon gave them the same tools// toys that the big boys have.

Without this communications gear, ISIS would never have been able to roll fast, roll large, and co-ordinate everything - pretty much without a hitch.

The FSA is a fictive fig leaf dreamed up by the spin smiths at the White House. There never has been a Free Syrian Army. There are NO secular fighters in the field. This is a flat out religious war. One has to be deliberately dense to repress that reality.

Every single item ever given to the so called FSA has been deeded over to the fanatics - probaly with kisses, too.

All of the above is idiot obvious. The only place that reality has no traction is in the West.

When it can't be denied, the public will come to know that BHO has treasonously enabled al Qaeda in war time.

That both of these fronts have direct AQ connections is out on the open record. Both are still in communication with Dr. Zawahiri. The only split is that al Baghdadi wants to be the caliph and run the ever expanding caliphate… a Napoleon, a Hitler for our time.

BHO has been vectoring weapons to al Nusrah - by the flimsy pretext that they were intended for moderate rebels. That lie won't hold water.

The TOW missiles that al Nusrah has received were entirely responsible for the massive reverses that Assad suffered of late. Go to YouTube to see the jihadi footage. It's a pretty good bet that the Russians have targeted the ammo dumps most likely to have these missiles. The Russians have put their hits up on YouTube, too.

The only player that's going to be backing down: BHO. That's who.

BTW, at any time Putin can pull the President's card house flat. I suspect Putin is going for maximum embarrassment. His treasonous support of AQ could finally lead to impeachment and conviction… throwing Biden into the Oval Office. Such a travail would be triggered indirectly - so that Putin's fingerprints would not be at all obvious.

In the meantime, Putin likes the fool right where he sits.

TedWa, October 10, 2015 at 11:58 am

I must say, nice lay out of the facts. There's so many things O should be impeached and jailed for and if you think this one has him dead to rights, well…. cumbaya bro

James Levy, October 10, 2015 at 12:28 pm

I would bet the farm that the leadership in the House and Senate are, at this moment, unindicted co-conspirators and Obama can prove it. There will be no impeachment over any of this. It would bring down the whole system.

ohmyheck, October 10, 2015 at 2:13 pm

Not necessarily…

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Putin-s-Endgame-in-Syria-by-Mike-Whitney-Assad_Isis_NATO_Obama-151009-339.html

"Turkish officials claimed a third incident on Monday, when an unidentified MiG-29 fighter jet locked its radar for four and a half minutes on eight Turkish F-16 jets that were on patrol on their side of the border, in apparent preparation to open fire."…

This is a wake-up call. Moscow is indicating that there's a new sheriff in town and that Turkey had better behave itself or there's going to be trouble. There's not going to be any US-Turkey no-fly zone over North Syria, there's not going to be any aerial attacks on Syrian sites from the Turkish side of the border, and there certainly is not going to be any ground invasion of Turkish troops into Syria. The Russian Aerospace Defence Forces now control the skies over Syria and they are determined to defend Syria's sovereign borders. That's the message. Period."

My guess is the Russian Air Force has a few more "messages" up its sleeve…

OIFVet, October 10, 2015 at 2:20 pm

There are no Russian Mig-29s in Syria.

blert, October 10, 2015 at 2:33 pm

The 'mistaken' Russian penetrations into Turkish air space are designed to 'brush back' the Turks. ( Baseball term: a pitch is thrown very close by the batter to get him to inch away from the plate. )

And it has suceeded. While not given much publicity in the Western press Erdogan has been injecting his air force directly over Syria - about 30 kilometers - give or take.

He has also deployed SAMs rather foreward, too.

The net effect has been to drive Assad's air force out of the skies all along the border.

But, much further south, Syria is a total desert with but one river running through it, the Euphrates.

So Erdogan's play has been effectively shielding ISIS from Assad's pitiful air force. ( All downed pilots are assassinated via torture by the fanatics.

Putin is terminating Erdogan's gambit.

Putin is simultaneously protecting the Kurds - as Erdogan can't beat them up any more with his air force. One can reasonably expect that 'somehow' the Kurds will experience a shift in fortunes - as Putin becomes their devious patron. He'll want to arm them in such a manner that Iran and Iraq don't 'kick.'

That should now be easy. He can over fly ISIS turf from the Caspian sea - spitting weapons out the back window like Zardoz, when over Kurdish positions. (1974, Sean Connery)

Jesper, October 10, 2015 at 8:29 am

The US has stopped doing strategy so while short term victories can be had the long-term is only obtained by chance…. The ones in US with strategies are the ones who are pursuing personal strategies, those strategies sometimes happen to align with US interests.

& to be seen as a reliable ally (and therefore an ally wished for) then a country needs to back up their allies even(!) when times get tough. Russia is doing that in Syria. France is doing that in Mali:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13881978

UK & the US has been doing the same numerous times throughout history, Maybe even the backing of the current regimes in Afghanistan & Iraq would fall into the category of backing up an ally, or maybe those are more 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.


blert, October 10, 2015 at 2:50 pm

Both Obama and Clinton are big into 'triangulation.'

Meaning that they are too clever by half - and ALWAYS mistake domestic political tactics and tricks for viable gambits in international affairs.

With Bill Clinton you had a president that spun on a dime, famously flip-flopping four times in a single day on this or that domestic issue.

With Obama you have a president that just CAN'T accept and adopt - straight out - ANY recommended policy suite proferred by his own professionals. Instead, he runs it by Axelrod and the other spin smiths - gauging it for domestic and media impact.

He really thinks that he's the smartest man in Washington, and that his 'play' has been brilliant. He is a bit perturbed that the rest of the world is not following his scripts.

His 'clever' scheme to use the CIA (et. al.) to sustain a proxy anti-Assad army has blown up like a Roadrunner gag.

The jibes from Putin and others are particularly irritating.

No-one now is kissing his Islamic ring.

( Yes, his marriage ring is ornately inscribed with Islamic iconography. Google around for it. He's worn it since Harvard, long before Michelle.)

binky Bear, October 10, 2015 at 3:45 pm

Not only deeply informed but a telepath to boot. How fortunate to be near-omniscient, and to support so deeply such complex arguments with provable facts.

blert, October 10, 2015 at 6:01 pm

Where have you been ?

Clinton's 'triangulation' was a term of art brought up largely by himself.

As for the proxy army… Now even the AP is willing to 'fess up.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dfe1547ba36f4f968deee227d467dc08/officials-russian-bombs-cia-rebels-had-syrian-gains

The big error in the AP article is dating it to 2013. The project was started even earlier.

Telepath ?

Reading their local press did the trick. You will find Indian and Pakistani English language publications hitting right on target - realities that 'elude' the NY Times.

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL October 10, 2015 at 6:14 pm

This. The most infuriating part about Obomba is the smug "smarter-than-you" certainty he has. He was a community organizer and one-term state Senator but somehow he started sniffing all the farts the sycophants were wafting his way about just how clever he really was. Then he installed a bunch of also-smart groupthinker Berkeley-ites from the "duty to protect" and "humanitarian bombing" crowd, Chanel-suited exceptionalist egomaniacs who thought they were Kissinger (Samantha Powers, Hilary, Susan Rice et al.)

BHO thought he could triangulate and "out-clever" everyone on everything, from health care, where he managed the worst of all worlds that fattened Big Insurance AND screwed up the cost of care…to Wall St where he fattened TBTF AND screwed up Dodd-Frank. In the ME he thought he could cleverly play all sides off against each other, the Turks, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Israelis, the Saudis... and stunningly also al-Qaeda themselves were just another co-optable pawn.

But as Warren Buffet says "when the tide goes out you can see who's swimming naked". Tide's heading out…and as far as I can see the Russia/Iran/Iraq/Israel/Syria/Kurd team, with Brother China, fed-up Pakistan and resurgent India backing things up, is looking pretty good. Sclero-Europe has long ago ceded their sovereignty and relevance, LatAm as usual is absent from consideration…what am I missing?

Unfortunately after the Hilary coronation we'll have another serial "third way" triangulator in charge who never saw a war, arms program, or covert adventure she didn't like. Except when she didn't like it, which was right after she did like it, and right before the previous time she didn't like it.

Jim McKay October 10, 2015 at 8:53 am

Good article… gives (from all I've read elsewhere) good, accurate context to what's going on now, and why (IMO) Putin's actions make sense. That is, if "solutions" (eg. ending blood shed, restore sustainable stability) in Syria is the objective.

I'm also struck by some retrospective considerations, beyond what author (with limited space) hits very generally (eg: Brzezinski/Carter). In particular, all the secret prisons and indiscriminate detentions by BushCo (torture), much of it seemingly continued by BO. And, the "unintended" consequences of that.

Reading Wikipedia's bio on al-Baghdadi this morning, seems he was a very well educated cleric (doctorate in both Islamic Studies and Education) even well after Bush's Iraq adventure began. He was non-descript, low key… seems little evidence he had violtent inclinations:

"I was with Baghdadi at the Islamic University. We studied the same course, but he wasn't a friend. He was quiet, and retiring. He spent time alone. Later, when he helped found the Islamic Army, Mr Dabash fought alongside militia leaders who were committing some of the worst excesses in violence and would later form al-Qaeda… [but] Baghdadi was not one of them, I used to know all the leaders (of the insurgency) personally. Zarqawi (the former leader of al-Qaeda) was closer than a brother to me… But I didn't know Baghdadi. He was insignificant. He used to lead prayer in a mosque near my area. No one really noticed him."

This bio also says this (which I didn't know):

Bakr al-Baghdadi was arrested by US Forces-Iraq on 2 February 2004 near Fallujah and detained at Camp Bucca detention center under his name Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry[22] as a "civilian internee" until December 2004, when he was recommended for release by a Combined Review and Release Board.[24][29][30] In December 2004, he was released as a "low level prisoner".[22]

A number of newspapers and cable news channels have instead stated that al-Baghdadi was interned from 2005 to 2009. These reports originate from an interview with the former commander of Camp Bucca, Colonel Kenneth King, and are not substantiated by Department of Defense records.[31][32][33] Al-Baghdadi was imprisoned at Camp Bucca along with other future leaders of ISIL. (emphasis added)

Would be hugely informative to have a means of cross checking records (if they exist?) of U.S. detainees as "illegal combatants", their violent "proclivities" prior to incarceration, and how many of them became Jihadists after release. The utter injustice of this, in the face of nothing more then an invasion and occupation of Iraq… this cause & affect is ignored and unacknowledged by leadership/policy makers on our shores. And making "exception" for these policies guarantees the continued disastrous results, ad infinitum.

Global conventions against torture have stood for a long time, with a strong moral grounding… based on understanding, that abrogating them WILL produce the kinds of results we've seen, expanding like dominoes.

Somehow, someway… if U.S. is ever to get on a course other then collapsing from within, this stuff needs to be examined thoroughly and cut out of public and official "acceptance" like the cancer that it is.

blert October 10, 2015 at 2:59 pm

The problem with any bio on al Baghdadi is that the CIA// Pentagon has re-used that name// title over and over. This is topped off by the fact that the Muslims use that nome-de-guerre over and over, too.

So one is always left puzzling over whether this or that reference is getting crossed over with yet another al Baghdadi. The Pentagon, itself, admits that they have made that exact error many, many, times. They've 'killed' al Baghdadi numerous times - only for another elusive al Baghdadi to pop up.

Some analysts contend that the name is really more towards a title - just like Caesar. After he died, all of his successors were so labeled. The only folks that seem to have the slightest clue about what's up are the desert Arabs. (Jordan, KSA, Kuwait - and the Awakening Movement in Iraq.)

Everyone else is 'stupid' - counter-informed - like Dr. Zbig. What a gas bag. Dangerous, too.

Procopius October 10, 2015 at 8:07 pm

I don't think it's useful to refer to "al Baghdadi" as a "nom de guerre." It's a nickname, "the guy from Baghdad," in a culture where names are rather indeterminate. OK, I'm not an Arabic linguist, but I know that a guy may be known by some of his friends as "Son of X," by others of his friends as "Father of Y," and by others as "Abdu al [insert attribute of Allah]." I think this makes it problematic for many Americans, who are not known for language ability.

blert October 11, 2015 at 8:08 pm

Actually, adopting a 'nom de guerre' is extremely popular for the fanatics.

1) Like all super heros, they don't want blow back upon their non-combatant family members. This is especially evident with their infamous executioners. But the tic is not at all limited.

2) The fake persona permits the jihadist easy travel when outside the war zone. Many of the fanatics are claiming to flit to and fro - from America to Syria - with grace and ease. This ease of travel was confirmed by an elderly German journalist, (75) who visited ISIS. They scared the Hell out of him. It also terrified him that he could, himself, flit from Germany to Syria, with little to inconvenience him. (!) It was all too easy. Yikes !

In his opinion, the fanatics are shuttling all over the place. Current border controls are wholly ineffective with these players. If a slow moving retiree can make the transit, that's telling.

timbers October 10, 2015 at 8:58 am

Interesting things are happening with Russian involvement in Syria. Are we seeing the global balance of power tip before our eyes? The U.S. is losing it's sole hegemony status and that could be a good thing if Washington can realize this and accept that and adopt diplomacy and cooperation to maintain what position it still has instead of denial followed by escalating aggression.

A reborn Russia/Iran/Iraq/Syria alliance could check the brutality of the current U.S./Israel/Saudi Arabia/Turkey axis. Have seen articles that Iraq is impressed with Russian effectiveness against U.S. funded ISIS that is creating chaos in Iraq, and they may ask Putin to do the same thing there he is doing in Syria. Wonder if O's ego can handle that?

Even signs that some in Europe see Russia is helping them by intervening in Syria and connecting the dots, as in "WTF are we doing hurting ourselves pissing off Russia in service of U.S.?"

With all that going on, I was dumbfounded seeing headlines that the U.S. is preparing a major naval challenge to China's islands, as if we don't have enough conflict on our hands already.

Steve H. October 10, 2015 at 9:08 am

"If either of them makes so much as a nervous twitch towards the Syrian frontier, the oil price will return to the level Russia wants, and needs."

""This is because [President Vladimir] Putin has told [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that Israel can count on a no-threat zone running from Damascus south and east to the Golan."

Those are a couple of very interesting points that look win-win for Russia. Especially with the Saudi and Turkish regimes having internal problems as well.

Here's an analysis from the other side of the aisle:

stratfor.com/analysis/syria-loyalist-offensive-begins

The bone I'll pick with it is that the 'far' position taken is "negotiated settlement". The U.S. and Saudis appear over-extended and thus under-committed. Russia has advanced a Knight, and S-400's and cruise missiles are discomforting if NATO tries to advance the Queen of overwhelming air power (see the Stratfor map of U.S. vs Russian air strikes). When the BATNA is a win-win, all negotiations are just plays for time.

blert October 10, 2015 at 3:05 pm

Stratfor totally lost me with their fantasy Free Syrian Army schtick. It does not exist.

That scribe is pipe dreaming. Absolutely no-one in the field identifies with the FSA. Not. A. One.

The FSA = al Nusrah = al Qaeda in Syria. The re-labeling was invoked so that BHO could send weapons to al Nusrah… the player that currently has snapped up EVERY weapon the President sent into the fight. Most recently that's meant TOW missiles.

Go to YouTube to see countless jihadi videos uploaded showing how al Nusrah has been driving Assad into retreat.

The rest of the article is pure jibberish… counter-factual… aka lies.

ltr October 10, 2015 at 10:19 am

This is an especially important post, as it is all but impossible to gain a balance in analysis or reporting from the press in the United States on the Russian initiative and engagement in Syria.

Mel Fish October 10, 2015 at 10:56 am

Stratfor is great reading…polished and confident, always written with a hint of being' in the know' , and yet is less useful as a forecasting tool than a dart board (without any darts). Also amusing is to wonder about the irony of the president's Nobel peace prize and what effect the fear of the resurfacing of the irony/hypocrisy each time the president engages the country in yet another "conflict". If you imagine the president being issued a certain number of conflict cards at the beginning of terms, well, they must be used judiciously….especially when one has that damned prize to think about. Wonder if that's another reason the Russians got to go Russian in Syria first.

sd October 10, 2015 at 4:09 pm

Good lord. Stratfor is well-known as politicized propaganda machine that works in concert with large multinational corporations to further their interests in foreign countries. It's not a secret.

Lambert Strether October 11, 2015 at 1:12 am

I don't see how that contradicts Fish's comment. We expect the elites to be polished and confident, do we not?

blert October 11, 2015 at 8:12 pm

Stratfor is Neocon central, I should think. They stock gasbags in quantity.

EoinW October 10, 2015 at 1:01 pm

Russian operations in Syria began right before Bibi was due to visit Moscow. Now it's a nice, neat package to assume Russia made Israel an offer it couldn't refuse, however Putin can't make deals with everyone. After all, he's not Donald Trump.

My guess would be that Hizbollah will be rewarded for their support and be able to keep the arms they get from Russia. Israel will simply have to stay out of southern Lebanon for good. That's going to be a tough one for the Jewish Taliban, with their Greater Israel project, to swallow. Ben-Gurion may have wanted peaceful borders but it is the last thing modern Israel wants. The Assads kept the peace on the Golan border for 40 years – fat lot of good that did them. Peaceful borders means no excuse for Israel to avoid making peace with the Palestinians.

The question I must ask: what happens to all these Islamic fighters after they are run out of Syria and Iraq? Only safe territory for them – away from the Russian air force – will be US allies, like Jordan and Arabia. Hamas is not as extreme as ISIS, however the Palestinian situation becomes more extreme every day. Could ISIS end up working with the Palestinians? Israel, with its excuse of no peace partners, may end up with enemies from hell. Even if ISIS doesn't take up the Palestinian cause, it still has to go somewhere. Seems the chickens will come home to roost.

OIFVet October 10, 2015 at 1:10 pm

Russian operations in Syria began right before Bibi was due to visit Moscow. Wrong, Bibi visited on September 20th.

blert October 10, 2015 at 3:09 pm

Bibi and al Sisi romanced Putin once Obama showed his colors. The President intended to take America down a peg… okay… many pegs. Instead, the down-pegging has occurred to himself.

He's now totally ineffective in foreign affairs. He is scorned and ridiculed… universally.

TG October 10, 2015 at 2:09 pm

Interesting. But I wouldn't hand Putin the victory cup just yet.

Suppose that Obama just decides to flood Syria with weapons? Anti-tank, anti-air, medium-range missiles with cluster bombs that can hit the Russian bases… America may not have any sense of long-range strategy but we are very good at breaking things, and our leaders throw fits and take it personally when their plans go awry…

Of course giving all sorts of advanced weapons to the mostly jihadist Syrian 'rebels' would in the long run certainly cause a lot of blowback to the United States, but that's never stopped us before…

OIFVet October 10, 2015 at 2:18 pm

I suspect that the Kurds and Houthis, as well as the Shia in KSA's oil producing regions will suddenly find excellent source of weapons, plunging Turkey, KSA, and the emirates in quite the chaos.

NotTimothyGeithner October 10, 2015 at 3:13 pm

The issue is moving the weapons. Jordan's border is open desert. Iraq is warming to the Russians with an active war zone along the border. Israel doesn't want weapons running through their territory without control. The water is locked up, and Lebanon is full of Hezbollah.

After today's events, who knows where Turkey is?

Where is the money coming from? Americans aren't brining up Syria on the campaign trail except to note they were opposed to intervention. The Saudis are suffering from low oil prices and their own quagmire.

U.S. air superiority is based on air superiority, not anti-aircraft weaponry. Afghanistan and Syria are radically different much like Vietnam and Iraq were different. It's much easier for the Russians to supply their bases than in Afghanistan where they had to rely on helicopters flying around mountain valleys.

Advanced weaponry will be seen by Russian eyes in the sky and can be hit by missiles from the Caspian apparently. I hate to break it to you, but the U.S. R&D budget has been wasted on projects like F-35 and contracting fraud.

OIFVet October 10, 2015 at 3:28 pm

It's Time for the United States to Start Worrying About a Saudi Collapse. I thought the plunge in oil prices would bring down the Ruskies?

Besides the shale operations, the overextended KSA is now in trouble, particularly with rising domestic oil consumption and internal Al-Saud family dissent growing.

Then there is the appalling poverty that may no longer be alleviated with oil revenue subsidies. In the 1980s the Saudis matched CIA spending for the mujaheddin 1:1, which really made a huge difference. If the US wants to launch a proxy war on Russia in Syria, and wants the Saudis to help pay for it, it may find itself with a disintegrating KSA, one where the oil fields are in predominantly Shia areas. Blowback might be putting it quite mildly.

NotTimothyGeithner October 10, 2015 at 4:09 pm

There are only 10,000 non-wealthy Saudi men and only half are of fighting age. The House of Saud doesn't have a great faction to stand for the regime if anything were to go to South. I'm sure the Hajj stampede and crane collapse aren't sitting well with the king in the hospital. From the rumors, King Fahd's party are trying get to retake power. Fahd was pals with the old man Assad.

The Royal Guard is roughly the size of the national army, so there are two separate armies in Saudi Arabia with separate Com and structures which demonstrates the lack of faith in the army. Costs aside, I wonder if the real aim is to keep much of the Saudi military as possible occupied I stead of at home where they can cause trouble. With only 30,000 or so members, the House of Saud can be replaced at any old time.

Crazy Horse October 10, 2015 at 10:56 pm

Why does my Spidy Sense tell me that the foundation of the Saudi oil ministry policy of continuing to flood a depressed market with low cost oil was a secret agreement between Obomber and the Saudi ruling family? The plan was to bankrupt Russia by a two-pronged attack- the fraudulent US sponsored sanctions based upon manufactured reality events in Ukraine and the Saudi capacity to control the marginal price of oil. The carrot offered by the US was a piece of the action in the trans Syrian gas pipeline- and continued protection against internal opposition.

Worked about as well as most US foreign policy "initiatives". Wouldn't it be ironic if the end game was the overthrow of the decadent Saudi ruling family and a post revolutionary Saudi Arabia in the Russian/Chinese axis?

OIFVet October 10, 2015 at 11:06 pm

It is amusing to contemplate, up to a point. I am not sure that potential Saud family collapse is necessarily good for peace.

ambrit October 11, 2015 at 8:37 am

What I fear from all this is a 'Caliphate' extending from Mosul down around Basra (got to give those Sixers credit,) and on into The (Former) Kingdom. Ben-Gurions' Arab 'splintered' states could come back to bite his successors as one big confederation of "The Faithful."

blert October 11, 2015 at 8:30 pm

The Saudi royal house is furious with Obama.

It's the Iran deal. After that, nothing else really matters to the Saudis.

The low oil price was never co-ordinated with anybody.

It's targets are - in no particular order:

Assad
Iran
Russia
American frackers

The Saudis have been disrupting Iranian oil exports to Asia - by under cutting them on price and quality.

Until Obama released the Shah's old deposits ( my how they have compounded into real money ) Iran was going insolvent.

Saudi Arabia wants Putin to suffer - as he's the patron of Assad - of whom they hate the most. Low crude pricing has pounded the Russian ruble. Putin's crew is also going insolvent. The flight capital out of Russia is relentless.

American frackers represent a dire strategic threat to the Saudi clan. Such methods have every prospect of making Saudi oil an insignificant resource.

For, on the math, fracking ( like flotation cells a century ago ) figure to increase the resource base – – crude recoveries - by a factor of one-hundred.

That last figure may astonish, but it's true. All this time drillers have discovered vast oil deposits - that were too thin to work - with vertical bore holes. Some of these thin deposits don't actually need fracking, per se. They just need the super accurate aimable drilling tips America now produces.

The kicker - on the economics - is that such thin deposits are extensive. So if you punch down - you are sure to hit the strata - to strike oil - about 100% of the time. Your only risk is if this or that effort is not quite what you hoped for.

Such resource economics are entirely upside down from conventional drilling. They strongly resemble the economics of coal mining. Everybody is uniformly 'lucky.'

The total amount of 'thin strata' oil in the ground is staggeringly larger than all conventional deposits. The Saudi royals know this. The general public does not.

It's against the economic interests of any of the players to level with the press or the public. Everybody is lying about everything to everybody else. This behavior is classic - typical of mining everywhere. When was the last time you heard a gold miner telling all where he'd found a massive strike ?

Heh.

Medon October 10, 2015 at 3:15 pm

Why does the US need to be in the Middle East at all. We can just buy oil from the lowest cost supplier and have it shipped over. What am I missing here?

NotTimothyGeithner October 10, 2015 at 3:32 pm

Contracting fraud, where the real money is made. It was never about oil, just contracts and egos. Oil has to be sold at an honest price for a variety of reasons, but I can't judge a cruise missile's price behind a veil of secrecy.

cwaltz October 10, 2015 at 3:53 pm

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/house-votes-to-lift-oil-export-ban/ar-AAfhPdk

Heck if we wanted to we wouldn't even have to ship it over. What's the fun in that though? Yay, capitalism where no one ever gets to lift the stupid veil!

NotTimothyGeithner October 10, 2015 at 4:21 pm

Then there is the natural failing of leaders domestically who search for scapegoats. Half of the foreign policy pronouncements are full of whispered hisses of "China." Don't pay attention to me. It's those red Chinese and their currency manipulation.

It's not that much different than medieval kings who blamed jews for the ills of society. Oh sure, we have tablets and Facebook, but we are still the same people after all these years.

cwaltz October 10, 2015 at 4:43 pm

The currency manipulation thing always makes me laugh. Good Lord, what do they think the Fed does when it lowers and increases interest rates and what QE did to the dollar?

People WANT a scapegoat though. They want to believe that it's someone else's fault. Our domestic leaders are giving the people what they want, a culpable body, when playing the blame game.

optimader October 10, 2015 at 5:28 pm

Why does the US need to be in the Middle East at all
It doesn't
What am I missing here?
stock in http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Top-100-Defense-Contractors-2014.html
ill admit, the relative positions of 11-13 surprised me, but then not.

Roland October 10, 2015 at 4:28 pm

The Russian expeditionary force in Syria is indeed highly vulnerable, but only if the Western Bloc wants to risk a major war. Now the Western Bloc can prevail against Russia, at any level of escalation, albeit at mounting risk. Nobody should expect today's Russia to be able to match the might of the Western Bloc.

But the Russian government indicates that they are willing to go to war, even if they know in advance that they will lose that war. Willingness to lose means willingness to fight, and the willingness to fight is a crucial element in deterrence.

In both Georgia and Ukraine, the Russians have physically demonstrated their willingness to go to war wherever NATO tries to expand into any more of the former Soviet republics. There is no question of Russian credibility as far as NATO expansion into former SR's is concerned. That means war, period.

Syria's importance to Russia lies in the fact that it's Russia's only ally that is not territorially contiguous to Russia. If Russia is to retain any real sovereign capacity to make or preserve meaningful alliances abroad, then they must support the Syrian government, even if a military deployment there is precarious.

Russia was very slow to engage in direct intervention in Syria. For years, Russia confined its efforts to political support, technical advice, and resupply of the existing Syrian arsenal. Russia even disarmed Syria of its chemical weapons, in a failed effort to mediate the conflict.

However, Russia's long reluctance also means that their current action is long-considered. A government that is slow to go to war is usually a government that will fight hard in that war.

I expect the Western Bloc will presume that they can prevail through politico-economic attrition against Russia. They probably can. However, the longer this complex regional war in the Middle East continues, the more likely things are to veer off unpredictably. The real God of war is neither Athena nor Mars. It's Tyche.

Chauncey Gardiner October 10, 2015 at 4:28 pm

Patrick Smith wrote an interesting article that was published in Salon on October 6th, I recommend it as worthwhile reading and food for thought. An extract:

"In my read, Russia and Iran have just popped open the door to a solution in Syria. All the pieces are in place but one: Washington's capacity to acknowledge the strategic failure now so evident and to see beyond the narrowest definition of where its interests lie. This brings us to the paradox embedded in those questions Putin and Zarif and a few others now pose: American primacy is no longer in America's interest. Get your mind around this and you have arrived in the 21st century."

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/06/thomas_friedman_read_your_chomsky_the_new_york_times_gets_putinobama_all_wrong_again/

Hmmm… A multi-polar world?

blert October 10, 2015 at 5:49 pm

"The CIA began a covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition to Assad. Over that time, the CIA has trained an estimated 10,000 fighters, although the number still fighting with so-called moderate forces is unclear.

The effort was separate from the one run by the military, which trained militants willing to promise to take on IS exclusively. That program was widely considered a failure, and on Friday, the Defense Department announced it was abandoning the goal of a U.S.-trained Syrian force, instead opting to equip established groups to fight IS."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dfe1547ba36f4f968deee227d467dc08/officials-russian-bombs-cia-rebels-had-syrian-gains

Even this AP story is largely inaccurate. The CIA had been active even before 2013. It's original proxy army went rogue and is the cadre for al Baghdadi's ISIS horror show. ONLY NOW is the MSM breaking the story that is idiot obvious across the Middle East. ZeroHedge is comparing this to Bay of Pigs II.

No kidding -- Both involved CIA proxy armies that had no operational security to speak of. Both were authorized by the Oval Office. And we know how much BHO admires JFK.

Stefan October 10, 2015 at 6:31 pm

This article's quotes from various foreign quarters are informative, but its characterization of American strategy is a bit "breathless."

The US maintained a fairly hands off approach to Syria over the past few years on the advice of Israel. In essence, the US didn't have a dog in that fight, and the general intention was to allow the regime and its enemies to weaken each other interminably.

Obama's empty threats about chemical weapons were a mistake, of course. But the Russians helped him out of that one. And in some way, they are helping him out again. The blitzkrieg success of Sunni/ISIS took observers by surprise, and all those gruesome beheadings seem to call for something. But again where is the real strategic value of Syria? Every sensible Syrian who can is on his way to a new life in Europe.

While the article's author seems to wish to ridicule him, Brzezinski is right. The US has stupendous firepower, more than the rest of the world combined. But as we have seen, that does not guarantee success in every situation, and is hardly effective if half-hearted.

By the way, the Israelis could "take out" Assad any time they wish to. They could as well probably cripple the Russian force in Syria in a day, if they chose. But they do not prefer the consequences.

VietnamVet October 10, 2015 at 9:58 pm

It is important to get Russian viewpoint especially since most Americans are monolingual. Also, it is hard for us not to root for the home team. Still Syria is a gigantic SNAFU. It is so far beyond incompetence it has to be purposeful. This is the ultimate expression of the Shock Doctrine. Collapse Russia and gain control its energy resources at the risk of exterminating Homo sapiens. Russia will do well for a while carving out enclaves for the minority Shiites, Christians and Alawites then they will in a tough slog of fighting Sunni Arabs in a regional Holy War.

There are 1.6 billion Sunni Muslims. Want-to-be Jihadists will flock to Syria to fight the Russian Crusaders. Barrack Obama has already warned Vladimir Putin of a quagmire. His continued arming the Sunnis is a purposeful act to ensure this. World War III starts when Russia shoots down an American aircraft on a combat mission over Syria.

ambrit October 11, 2015 at 8:48 am

Give the Russians some credit for finesse. All they need do is shoot down an Israeli jet attacking a Syrian government position in support of some Syrian "Moderates" near Damascus. I'll be watching for a Russian campaign to rid the Syrian skies of 'Western' drones. That would be a sign of serious intentions on the part of Russia.

Another possibility is a peaceful change of leadership within Assad's Syrian government. Does anyone know if there is a suitable successor to Assad Jr. in the 'family?' Such an event would remove even the fig leaf presently being waved in front of the West's attempted rape of Syria.

Russell Scott Day/Transcendia October 11, 2015 at 1:02 am

So I was hoping that the Russians would go in there and kill ISIS and then they turn around and start killing the rebels trying to kill Assad, who ISIS wouldn't mind killing as well. So much for wishful thinking which last I noted hasn't worked well in war except when called dumb luck, which is fortunate weather events never anticipated by anyone.

Well it sort of makes sense that if you have an enemy with an army and they threaten you, enough, you kill them. Unfortunately for allies of the US, it doesn't really matter that much for the US long as the Petrodollar, the gift of Nixon and Kissinger is the reserve currency. If all the Syrian draft dodgers go to Germany, well that will serve Volkswagen right, not to mention make Greece and Hungary thinking so while any minute I'll look good telling the Netherlands to go for it with my Insurodollar.

Well it sure did work out well about that Euro. And things would be great if it was actually oil coming from the 3,900 drill rigs, if it was oil instead of leaky ass methane wrecking the climate even more than oil getting burned things would be better. A 4,000 dollar CNG gas tank that takes up the trunk makes batteries look good.
But who knows what all since piddling around has halfway or a third worked out, so far.

It's not how many nukes you have, but who uses them first, if you have them see. They didn't really have them till the end of the second world war, which was a war, still, and why I call what's in store next for us an apocalyptic riot.

If only capitalism was working and Russia was just offered a land transit corridor for a price to Sevastopol? So what if they get to access more better in the Black Sea, It's Black right?

Remember the Zaporizia! Remember that Hunter Biden! Remember Antares! Remember Christophe de Margerie and the drunk that got there just in time for a plane that never crashes except for the other one that was shot down! And remember thinking too much, since what you know is lots of lies, and the rest is cowardly, or stupid.

[Oct 19, 2015] Syrian Gambit: US at Pains to Create 'Another Afghanistan' for Russia

This is a very dangerous gambit for Russia. The USA and allies represents overwhelmingly stronger alliance economically, politically and technologically.
Notable quotes:
"... And finally, overall tribalism and chaos in the region helps the US, and particularly Israel gain strength in the region by weakening neighbors, ..."
"... We will see fewer conventional offensives in the future, and far more localized attacks, the Pentagon will try and create another Afghanistan ..."
"... While US military doctrine these days is set to avoid direct confrontation, on the other hand America and citizens in the West have been primed for it. Consider that most Americans, have been brainwashed substantially to believe Vladimir Putin has already invaded half a dozen countries. As crazy as this sounds, pretend you live in small American town and you listen to CNN or Fox before bed every night. This potential, to be dragged into a wide conflagration set up by Washington, is why you see Vladimir Putin making very conservative and precise moves on the stage, he told Sputnik. ..."
"... given all we have seen since 9/11, it would take a fairly major incident to excuse such a confrontation ..."
Oct 18, 2015 | sputniknews.com

In September 2014, Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA intelligence analyst, proposed a plan entitled "An Army to Defeat Assad." The CIA analyst envisaged the creation of a US Syrian proxy army that would take over the Syrian government forces (and deal a blow to Islamic State). However, the toppling of Bashar al-Assad was marked by Pollack as the overriding priority.

"Once the new army gained ground, the opposition's leaders could formally declare themselves to represent a new provisional government. The United States and its allies could then extend diplomatic recognition to the movement, allowing the US Department of Defense to take over the tasks of training and advising the new force – which would now be the official military arm of Syria's legitimate new rulers," Pollack elaborated.

In January 2015, the Pentagon announced that it kicked off a plan aimed at training Assad's opposition fighters, strikingly similar to that offered by Pollack in September 2014. So, nothing hinted at any trouble until September 30, when Russia suddenly threw a wrench in Washington's ingenious plan.

"To get to the root of the current crisis in Syria and the Middle East overall, we must look at US policy overall," Germany-based American political analyst Phil Butler explained in an exclusive interview to Sputnik.

"The current divisions within Syria and Northern Iraq are to a degree fabricated. Secular, religious, and even tribal differences in this region have been leveraged for centuries to divide Syria, as well as other nations in the region. You've mentioned Ken Pollack, and appropriately, I might add. Pollack, who's held many official positions within the Washington policy making establishment, is actually one of the authors of chaos in this region. Discussing such "bred" academics is a deep well, but suffice it to say the division of Yugoslavia, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring overall, the Georgia war, and the current Ukraine mess are all facets of the same flawed gem of US hegemony," the analyst told Sputnik.

According to Butler, the current mission in Syria is not intended to be a splintering as we saw with Kosovo, in the Balkans.

"As for the 'plan' in Syria, I believe there were 'contingencies' mapped out. As amoral as these schemes may be, they are not concocted by idiots. Contingency 1, in my view, was the literal overthrow of Assad. Vladimir Putin's moves, Russia's, have thwarted this potential at every turn. Contingency number two obviously involves another Yugoslavia in the making. And finally, overall tribalism and chaos in the region helps the US, and particularly Israel gain strength in the region by weakening neighbors," the political analyst stressed.

Meanwhile, Western reputable media sources have reported of an upcoming offensive on Raqqa, ISIL's "capital," the Pentagon is preparing to launch along with its Arab and Kurdish military allies.

However, Middle East Eye reported on October 14 that there is no sign of such preparations on the ground: "The US-led anti-IS coalition dropped 50 tons of weapons to the newly created Syrian Arab Coalition on Monday in the Hasakah province, in order to avoid angering Turkey. But so far, no US weapons can be seen on the frontlines close to Raqqa, nor any sign of rebel troop preparations."

"The reason we have not seen these latest weapons shipments being used, is the complexity of strategy on the ground has changed. No standing force, Al-Nusra, ISIL, or other jihadists put together, could withstand Russian air power. I believe we are about to see Assad's opposition morph their strategy to full guerrilla warfare as was the case in Afghanistan. We will see fewer conventional "offensives" in the future, and far more localized attacks, the Pentagon will try and create another Afghanistan," Butler explained commenting on the issue.

However, in contrast to the US' covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan, there were no US jet fighters in the region and thus far, no threat of a direct confrontation between the two global powers.

Today, there are many military "actors" in the skies of Syria and Iraq. Does it mean the Pentagon's Afghani strategy may unexpectedly transform into a direct confrontation between US/NATO and Russia?

"As for the threat of direct confrontation between the US and Russia in Syria, the possibility does exist. In this case however, I believe such a confrontation is actually another contingency for Washington," the American political analyst underscored.

"While US military doctrine these days is set to avoid direct confrontation, on the other hand America and citizens in the "West" have been primed for it. Consider that most Americans, have been brainwashed substantially to believe Vladimir Putin has already invaded half a dozen countries. As crazy as this sounds, pretend you live in small American town and you listen to CNN or Fox before bed every night. This potential, to be dragged into a wide conflagration set up by Washington, is why you see Vladimir Putin making very conservative and precise moves on the stage," he told Sputnik.

"Having said this, given all we have seen since 9/11, it would take a fairly major incident to excuse such a confrontation," Phil Butler concluded.

[Oct 19, 2015] After failing to set new Afghanistan for Russia in Ukraine

After failing to set new Afghanistan for Russia in Ukraine, it looks like Syria is on the mind of Washington strategists as a suitable replacement. The problem is that ground forces are not Russian.
"... From one fiasco to another: Washington has failed to change the regime in Syria, failed to effectively fight ISIS, and now wants Russia to fail. At the same time, Obama appears to be willing to arm any anti-regime fighter who can carry a gun. What could possibly go wrong with that? ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com
Warren, October 18, 2015 at 12:27 pm

Published on 16 Oct 2015

From one fiasco to another: Washington has failed to change the regime in Syria, failed to effectively fight ISIS, and now wants Russia to fail. At the same time, Obama appears to be willing to arm any anti-regime fighter who can carry a gun. What could possibly go wrong with that?

CrossTalking with Philippe Assouline, Marcus Papadopoulos, and Roshan Muhammed Salih.

[Oct 18, 2015] US and Russia Should Form Coordinated Coalition in Syria – Stephen Cohen

Notable quotes:
"... The professor noted that some analysts are convinced that Vladimir Putin is about to sell out Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in return for Syria. According to Cohen, it is naïve to believe that Moscow would give up ethnic Russians suffering from Kiev's hostilities in return for protecting Assad ..."
"... [Ukrainian authorities are worried] that Washington may kind of forget Ukraine or lessen its commitment to the Kiev government. So, I would not be surprised if Kiev stages a provocation to inflame the crisis which is at a very low level at the moment in Ukraine, ..."
"... if Washington continues to indulge the neocons' plan to arm Ukraine and encourage Kiev's warmongering against Russia, the United States will finally face an equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Eastern Europe. ..."
sputniknews.com

"My hope is that [US President] Obama and [Russian President] Putin will rise above themselves and form a substantial coalition in Iraq and in Syria. But let's be realistic… There are enormous obstacles," Professor Cohen noted in an interview with US progressive political commentator Thomas Carl "Thom" Hartmann.

The professor noted that some analysts are convinced that Vladimir Putin is about to sell out Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in return for Syria. According to Cohen, it is naïve to believe that Moscow would give up ethnic Russians suffering from Kiev's hostilities in return for protecting Assad. "That won't happen," the professor underscored.

... ... ...

"It [the Ukrainian crisis] could flare up at any moment in a way that could disrupt any fragile agreement between Putin and Obama," the professor stressed.

According to Cohen, the US-backed regime in Kiev is sweating bullets about the possibility of close cooperation between Moscow and Washington in the Middle East.

"[Ukrainian authorities are worried] that Washington may kind of forget Ukraine or lessen its commitment to the Kiev government. So, I would not be surprised if Kiev stages a provocation to inflame the crisis which is at a very low level at the moment in Ukraine," Cohen warned.

Meanwhile, the grim specter of World War III is prowling across Europe and the Middle East. Professor Cohen has repeatedly stressed that if Washington continues to indulge the neocons' plan to arm Ukraine and encourage Kiev's warmongering against Russia, the United States will finally face an equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Eastern Europe.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151003/1027976725/us-russia-syria-coalition-cohen.html#ixzz3oz03EHB3

[Oct 18, 2015] A journal of the Ukrainian National Academy of Science publishes the truth about Donbass. Panic ensues

Notable quotes:
"... Huge amounts of money were spread around in it, and not just those Nuland cookies ... Its main participants were outcasts from across the country, who, in fact, had nothing to lose. The outcasts very much wanted to take the property not just from Donetskis , but also from Kievskis , Lvivskis , Rivnenskis and others, wrote, in particular, the author of the scientific publication. ..."
"... Today, the population of Donbass en masse is being systematically, and brutally destroyed by the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine, including through means and methods of warfare that are prohibited by international law ..."
Fort Russ
Enrique Ferro's insight:

"Today, the population of Donbass en masse is being systematically, and brutally destroyed by the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine, including through means and methods of warfare that are prohibited by international law," - wrote A. Lopata.

... ... ...

According to the scientist, this revolution was nothing more than a coup.

"Huge amounts of money were spread around in it, and not just those Nuland cookies ... Its main participants were outcasts from across the country, who, in fact, had nothing to lose. The outcasts very much wanted to take the property not just from "Donetskis", but also from "Kievskis", "Lvivskis", "Rivnenskis" and others," wrote, in particular, the author of the scientific publication.

In addition, Lopata qualified the war in the Donbass as the genocide of the people in the east of the country by the army of Ukraine. "Today, the population of Donbass en masse is being systematically, and brutally destroyed by the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine, including through means and methods of warfare that are prohibited by international law," - wrote A. Lopata.

The author also points out that "the authorities of the country have made a decision to urgently direct the entire Maidan "fuel" material to Eastern Ukraine;" and that "there is no aggression of Russia against Ukraine, but instead there is a US war with Russia in Donbass "to the last Ukrainian."

[Oct 18, 2015] Irrational Unrequited Love of Ukrainians for the West

This is how neocolonialism works: "global village' wants to move to "global town", while global town mercilessly exploits it.
Notable quotes:
"... There is also an important factor: several million Ukrainians work in Russia and in Europe. Comparing, they see that life in the European Union is more comfortable. And this also affects their geopolitical preferences . Finally, most of the residents of Ukraine, especially in the center and the west of the country perceived the reunion of the Crimea with the Russian Federation as an occupation of part of their country. And in relation to the events in Donbass the propaganda has convinced many people that it was not a rebellion against the new regime in Kiev, but Russia's aggression. Unfortunately, revanchist sentiments towards our country in Ukraine can last for a long time. I would even say that it is impossible to exclude the possibility of war between Russia and Ukraine. At least today it is bigger than zero. And even 2 years ago this assumption might seem an absurd fantasy. ..."
"... Yes, there are still strong illusions of average Ukrainians in relation to Europe. Many people think that joining the EU and NATO would quickly help Ukraine improve the living standards of the population, to solve social problems and so on. Others, more realistically minded Ukrainians, think like this: yes, we know that Europe will not solve our problems, but we have no other choice. Now, Russia, if not an enemy, is at least an unfriendly state. And they do not believe in the economic prospects of the alliance with us. ..."
"... public consciousness in Ukraine is largely irrational. Ive already talked about the persisting illusions of Ukrainian men from the street. It seems to him that only the West is able to protect Ukraine from the Russian aggression . This explains such a persistent and irrational focus on Europe. ..."
"... it seems to me that the real percentage of Ukrainians who are in favor of strengthening cooperation with Russia on the territories controlled by Kiev is not much higher than what was revealed by the survey. ..."
Oct 15, 2015 | Fort Russ
Most citizens of "independent" Ukraine are disappointed with Maidan, but they still believe in Europe

The public consciousness in Ukraine continues to amaze with its irrationality. This is confirmed by the poll conducted by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

Despite the fact that the majority of Ukrainians acknowledge that Euromaidan did not meet their expectations, a dominant sentiment in Ukraine is in favor of the pro-Western geopolitical course.

49% of respondents are of the opinion that Ukraine should better strive to deepen relations with Europe, while the percentage of those who prefer a closer relationship with Russia is only 8%.

At the same time 56% of Ukrainians believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction, and only 20% hold the opposite opinion. The notion that the country is moving in the wrong direction is spread across the country and is shared by the majority of citizens in each region.

The survey was conducted on the territory of Ukraine, controlled by the Kiev government, without regard to the views of some four million people living in the LPR and the DPR.

It would seem that in the last eighteen months Europe has demonstrated that it is in no hurry to recognize Ukraine as its "own". Western aid is given precisely in those volumes that prevent the final collapse of Ukraine's statehood. At the same time, due to the influx of Western goods and severance of economic ties with Russia hundreds of Ukrainian enterprises are closed. The latest news in this regard: in Ukraine it has become unprofitable to produce even sugar leading to the closing of 15 sugar mills.

The situation in the post-Maidan economy of Ukraine is much worse, however it has not affected the unrequited love of Ukrainians to the West. Why is this the case and what will be the outcome?

- We must understand that the process of Ukraine's reorientation to the West began long before the Maidan, - says the Head of the Center for Political Research of the Institute of Economics, Head of the Department of International Relations of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation Boris Shmelev. - For a quarter century that has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than one generation of Ukrainians has grown who are convinced that it is necessary not to be friends with Russia, but with Europe. That only this friendship with the West will ensure the prosperity of Ukraine.

There is also an important factor: several million Ukrainians work in Russia and in Europe. Comparing, they see that life in the European Union is more comfortable. And this also affects their "geopolitical preferences". Finally, most of the residents of Ukraine, especially in the center and the west of the country perceived the reunion of the Crimea with the Russian Federation as an occupation of part of their country. And in relation to the events in Donbass the propaganda has convinced many people that it was not a rebellion against the new regime in Kiev, but Russia's aggression. Unfortunately, revanchist sentiments towards our country in Ukraine can last for a long time. I would even say that it is impossible to exclude the possibility of war between Russia and Ukraine. At least today it is bigger than zero. And even 2 years ago this assumption might seem an absurd fantasy.

"SP": - Why a year and a half since the "February coup" have not convinced Ukrainians that the EU is not going to make Ukraine a member state and that the West is helping Kiev only to the extent that the pro-Western regime does not collapse?

- Yes, there are still strong illusions of average Ukrainians in relation to Europe. Many people think that joining the EU and NATO would quickly help Ukraine improve the living standards of the population, to solve social problems and so on. Others, more realistically minded Ukrainians, think like this: yes, we know that Europe will not solve our problems, but we have no other choice. Now, Russia, if not an enemy, is at least an unfriendly state. And they do not believe in the economic prospects of the alliance with us.

"SP": - But it is impossible to escape the logic: as long as Ukraine maintained relatively good relations with Russia, the situation in the Ukrainian economy was more or less tolerable. And as soon as Kiev finally turned towards the West, the economy began to crumble ...

- All this is true. But public consciousness in Ukraine is largely irrational. I've already talked about the persisting illusions of Ukrainian men from the street. It seems to him that only the West is able to protect Ukraine from the "Russian aggression". This explains such a persistent and irrational focus on Europe.

"SP": - And can we explain such a low percentage of Russian sympathizers by the fact that some respondents, especially in the South-East of Ukraine are afraid to openly express their opinions?

- Yes, it is possible. Although, it seems to me that the real percentage of Ukrainians who are in favor of strengthening cooperation with Russia on the territories controlled by Kiev is not much higher than what was revealed by the survey.

[Oct 18, 2015] MH17 downed by outdated BUK missile fired from Kiev-controlled area – Defense system manufacturer

Notable quotes:
"... if you can explain any single interest of Russia to destroy civilian plane and kill 300 innocent people to gain public support from world, then I am curious to know it; sure, in totally crazy scenario, somebody can orchestrate it all and motivate somebody to target 777 by mistake or there can be some special services for false flag, but I am sure that this is absolutely risky business with the same bad PR as first case; far more, I can imagine, that somebody stupid tried to modulate it upon MH370 case media wave while escalating warfare and hate of somebody else; truth will be known, soon or later, be sure ..."
Oct 13, 2015 | RT News

In October, the BUK manufacturer conducted a second full-scale experiment using the missile and a decommissioned Ilyushin Il-86 passenger airliner. The simulation of the attack on the Boeing "unequivocally proved that if the plane was brought down by a BUK system, it was done with an outdated 9M38 missile from the village of Zaroshchenskoye," in Ukrainian military-controlled territory.

The company also said that the last missile of this type was produced in the Soviet Union in 1986, that its life span is 25 years including all prolongations, and that all missiles of this type were decommissioned from the Russian Army in 2011.

According to Almaz-Antey experts, the Dutch side does not explain why the investigation insists that the possible launch of the surface-to-air missile was executed from the settlement of Snezhnoye, controlled by rebel forces.

A missile launched from Snezhnoye could not have inflicted damage to Boeing's left side and not a single element would have hit the aircraft's left wing and engine, insist the Almaz-Antey experts.

... ... ...

The main proof that the aircraft was shot down from the direction of Snezhnoye was [the Dutch commission's] modeling of that process and interpretation of the damage to the fuselage. It does provide a quite visual imagery of how a missile on a head-on course could damage certain areas, yet this kind of modeling does not explain at all the real-incidence angles of striking elements [hitting the aircraft]," Novikov said.

Analysis of the photos of MH17 debris led the company's experts to believe that the blast of the warhead damaged not only the cockpit of the Boeing 777 that crashed in Ukraine, but also the left wing and stabilizer.

The detonation of the missile occurred at a distance of more than 20 meters from the left-wing engine and most of the strike elements were moving along the fuselage of the aircraft.

... ... ...

The left wing and stabilizer also bear traces of damage, the size of which provides an opportunity to define them as inflicted by the strike elements of a BUK missile complex," adviser of the general constructor of Almaz-Antey, Mikhail Malyshevsky, said.

The Almaz-Antey experts paid special attention to the fact that some of the damage registered on the MH17 debris was caused by disruption of the aircraft's structural components and not by the striking elements of the missile.

The experts of Almaz-Antey also said that Ukraine possesses 9M38 missiles, but fell short of accusing either the Kiev authorities or the rebels in the east of Ukraine of causing the catastrophe.

... ... ...

Simultaneously with the investigation of the Dutch Safety Board, the Dutch prosecutor's office is conducting a separate criminal investigation of its own aimed at establishing the perpetrators of the attack on passenger aircraft.

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 flight MH17 passenger aircraft left from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The airliner was shot down and fell to Earth over the Donetsk Region in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people, 283 passengers and 15 crew, on board were killed. There were 80 children among the passengers. Most, 193 people, were Dutch nationals; altogether the airliner was carrying citizens from 10 countries.

djajakondomis 4 days ago 06:12

As I said. Just read the report and supplements! The specified area consists mainly out of Rebel area...

Almaz-Antei director Yan Novikov was involved during the investigation. There were even three main/big meetings, and every meeting took three days!
At the second meeting Almaz-Antei director Yan Novikov even presented the 9N314M warhead himself. The investigation team was even happy that there was consensus. On the third meeting Yan Novikov suddenly said; well, it was only an example we presented.

However, based for instance on the butterfly shape, the whole research team (of all countries) were convinced it was a 9N314M warhead, except suddenly the Russian delegation.

This investigation was based on the parts found within the bodies!! Not something found on the ground or whatsoever...
Read the report!

Sergio Teixeira 4 days ago 02:05

hanspy

Show me the video from the blast and ad a speed of let us say 2000 kmh from the rocket(probably

higher speed) plus 700 kmh from the plane and tell me than again how it looks. A blast with zero kmh speed looks totally different than a blast patron with 2700kmh or more. You Russians know exactly who did it and with what rocket and from where. So stop playing around and start to be real journalists and not some propaganda machine from Putin or Almaz-Antey .

next they will say Sadam did it.

Sergio Teixeira 4 days ago 02:04

Af Veth
Whatever, anyway Russian Forces downed MH17. Thats was it counting.
not Russian but CIA to justify they needs.

Sergio Teixeira 4 days ago 02:03

Message deleted

EU is slave from USA

vladffff 4 days ago 01:03

Took these rats 1 year to find this out?

alrobigglesworth 5 days ago 21:01

"[Almaz-Antey] added that among the materials received and examined by their experts were heavy fraction sub munitions, which only the older 9M38M1 missile modification is equipped with."

That's a direct quote from the RT article from June 2015 regarding Almaz-Antey's first test.

alrobigglesworth 5 days ago 20:32

After their first "experiment" in June, Almaz-Antey said that "If a surface-to-air missile system was used [to hit the plane], it could only have been a 9M38M1 missile of the BUK-M1 system." Why is he changing his story, especially now that the Dutch Safety Board reached the same conclusion? Seems fishy.

Petr Antoš 5 days ago 17:45

hanspy

Show me the video from the blast and ad a speed of let us say 2000 kmh from the rocket(probablymore...

ummm, ok, they even offered to buy old 777 a let it be downed while flying on AP over military area to proof their analysis; if you can explain any single interest of Russia to destroy civilian plane and kill 300 innocent people to gain public support from world, then I am curious to know it; sure, in totally crazy scenario, somebody can orchestrate it all and motivate somebody to target 777 by mistake or there can be some special services for false flag, but I am sure that this is absolutelly risky business with the same bad PR as first case; far more, I can imagine, that somebody stupid tried to modulate it upon MH370 case media wave while escalating warfare and hate of somebody else; truth will be known, soon or later, be sure

hanspy 5 days ago 17:28

Show me the video from the blast and ad a speed of let us say 2000 kmh from the rocket(probably higher speed) plus 700 kmh from the plane and tell me than again how it looks. A blast with zero kmh speed looks totally different than a blast patron with 2700kmh or more. You Russians know exactly who did it and with what rocket and from where. So stop playing around and start to be real journalists and not some propaganda machine from Putin or Almaz-Antey .

Norma Brown 5 days ago 15:04

this is a good result for Russia, as the only government involved that can be sued for criminal stupidity is Kiev, for allowing the flight into a war zone.

[Oct 18, 2015] Zaroshchenske vs Snizhne as a launch point: early controversy

After MH17 was shot done all intelligence services of NATO (with a lot of high tech) as well as Ukrainian SBU (with a lot of people on the ground; enough to monitor all major roads) were on alert. So the hypothesis that they were unable to locate the launch platform is a very weak hypothesis. It was next to impossible for rebels to move it from Snizhne to, say, Russia. This is a serious problem with version that it was BUK, unless it was a Ukrainian BUK.
Looks like Snizhne was pushed as a smoke screen to deflect attention from Ukrainians.
Notable quotes:
"... The US release of this illustration (below) of the area lacks resolution and scale, so no launcher can be seen. The firing location and the green line of trajectory are unverified guesswork. The US has not presented evidence that on July 17 a Buk-M1 battery was in Snizhne. ..."
"... the Russian evidence for a Ukrainian military launcher at Zaroshchenske puts the distance between this pre-firing location and the purported Snizhne launch position at less than 25 kilometres. ..."
July 23, 2014 | Dances With Bears
Russian generals Andrei Kartapolov (Army) and Igor Makushev (Air Force) have presented satellite pictures showing that on or before July 17 the Ukrainian military moved at least three Buk-M1 missile batteries – comprising a tracked launcher and a target acquisition radar van – out of their depot north of Donetsk, and into positions, all of which were within 30 kilometres of the Boeing's flight path; the SA-11's range is 30 kilometres. One unit in particular was photographed at the village of Zaroshchenske, south of the bigger settlement of Shakhtarsk, and south of the main road H21. This position is about 15 kilometres from the M17 flight path and from the impact site.

The Russian location evidence can be seen on this Google map:

ua_map
Click for wider view of locations: https://www.google.co.uk/

The US release of this illustration (below) of the area lacks resolution and scale, so no launcher can be seen. The firing location and the green line of trajectory are unverified guesswork. The US has not presented evidence that on July 17 a Buk-M1 battery was in Snizhne. But the Russian evidence for a Ukrainian military launcher at Zaroshchenske puts the distance between this pre-firing location and the purported Snizhne launch position at less than 25 kilometres. There is also a gap of several hours between the time of the Russian photograph and the confirmed firing time at 1720. Between the two locations, highway H21 would allow a mobile launcher unit and radar van to redeploy within 45 to 60 minutes.

surface_map

The Russian radar tracks identify the presence of a small Ukrainian aircraft with Su-25 identifiers on the Boeing flight path, and within range of the ground missile launcher within minutes of the shoot-down. The US intelligence briefing neither confirms nor denies the presence in the air of the Su-25; no US satellite or radar records have been released to corroborate the point. Instead, the US briefing denies the Su-25 fired rockets at the Boeing.

Responding to the Russian radar presentation, President Petro Poroshenko told CNN the presentation was the "irresponsible and false statement of the Russian [defense] minister". Poroshenko appeared not to be familiar with the Russian radar evidence. He said: "When the Russian [Defense] ministry makes such a statement, it must provide proof. The sky over Ukraine is monitored by many satellites and air defense systems. Everyone knows that all Ukrainian planes were on the ground several hundred kilometres away [from the crash site]

[Oct 17, 2015] Assad thinks that an independent state working for the interests of people is better then the state working for the interests of the West

"... The Syrian government maintains a commitment to a strong welfare state, for example ensuring universal access to healthcare (in which area its performance has been impressive) and providing free education at all levels. It has a long-established policy of secularism and multiculturalism, protecting and celebrating its religious and ethnic diversity and refusing to tolerate sectarian hatred …" ..."
"... Yes, Walter Cronkite remarked in his autobiography on the harmonious secularism of Syria from an actual visit, in which he said he noted various religious denominations living in one another's neighbourhoods with no apparent religious acrimony or intolerance at all. ..."
"... The USA is determined to get control of the gas supply to Europe because it perceives that Russia has too much influence there because of said supply, as well as the popular trope that Russia has nothing but oil and gas and if the USA could capture their markets, they'd be paupers in a year. ..."
"... 12 headline stories listed. None about the Ukraine, MH17 and Syria. ..."
"... Parubiy, who founded the Social National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok (the current leader of the far-right Svoboda party), will be speaking at RUSI whilst visiting London. ..."
"... I remain convinced that the army of humanitarian interventionists fetishise 'democracy promotion' abroad largely to avoid looking at how it's playing out at home. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com
Jen, October 15, 2015 at 9:54 pm

BTW for anyone who is interested, here is a June 2015 article by Jay Tharappel on political reforms made in Syria in 2012 and the new constitution that was approved by the Syrian public via referendum in that year:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/tharappel-how-has-syrias-political-system-changed-over-the-course-of-the-war/#_blank

What Tharappel says:

" … The new constitution introduced a multi-party political system in the sense that the eligibility of political parties to participate isn't based on the discretionary permission of the Baath party or on reservations rather on a constitutional criteria.

As such, the new constitution forbids political parties that are based on religion, sect or ethnicity, or which are inherently discriminatory towards one's gender or race (2012: Art.8) – this means the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is still banned.

What hasn't changed is the constitutional requirement that half the People's Council be comprised of 'workers and peasants' (1973: Art.53 | 2012: Art.60), which in practice means that the ballot paper contains two lists, one with candidates who qualify as 'workers and peasants', and another one with other candidates …

… The Baath party no longer enjoys constitutional privilege. Presidential elections are contested between multiple candidates, and are no longer referendums seeking the electorate's binary (yes or no) approval for the Baath party's internally nominated candidate.

The participation of political parties is based on an objective constitutional criteria [sic], not on the arbitrary powers of the executive to permit or exclude them.

Finally, the Supreme Constitutional Court is significantly more independent."

Another interesting article on Syria, this one by Carlos Martinez in 2013:

http://www.invent-the-future.org/2013/09/decriminalising-bashar/#_blank

" … In the words of its president, Syria is "an independent state working for the interests of its people, rather than making the Syrian people work for the interests of the West." For over half a century, it has stubbornly refused to play by the rules of imperialism and neoliberalism … [In] spite of some limited market reforms of recent years, "the Ba'athist state has always exercised considerable influence over the Syrian economy, through ownership of enterprises, subsidies to privately-owned domestic firms, limits on foreign investment, and restrictions on imports. These are the necessary economic tools of a post-colonial state trying to wrest its economic life from the grips of former colonial powers and to chart a course of development free from the domination of foreign interests."

The Syrian government maintains a commitment to a strong welfare state, for example ensuring universal access to healthcare (in which area its performance has been impressive) and providing free education at all levels. It has a long-established policy of secularism and multiculturalism, protecting and celebrating its religious and ethnic diversity and refusing to tolerate sectarian hatred …"

So in other words, there is now no longer any justification for the US-led overthrow of Bashar al Assad because he is a "dictator".

marknesop , October 16, 2015 at 7:35 am
Yes, Walter Cronkite remarked in his autobiography on the harmonious secularism of Syria from an actual visit, in which he said he noted various religious denominations living in one another's neighbourhoods with no apparent religious acrimony or intolerance at all.

I have suggested before that Assad doomed himself when he refused Qatar's offer to run a gas pipeline across Syria and so to Turkey and Europe, for the expressed reason that he would not stab Russia in the back, and double-doomed himself when he accepted a similar offer from Iran, with whom Russia has no issues because it is not under American control.

The USA is determined to get control of the gas supply to Europe because it perceives that Russia has too much influence there because of said supply, as well as the popular trope that Russia has nothing but oil and gas and if the USA could capture their markets, they'd be paupers in a year.

Moscow Exile , October 16, 2015 at 4:35 am

An alleged experiment in cutting off Russia from the Internet as part of "preparations for an information blackout in the event of a domestic political crisis". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11934411/Russia-tried-to-cut-off-World-Wide-Web.html

A domestic political crisis?

In your wet dreams, arseholes!

Unbeknown to Western know-nothings about matters Russian, very many Russians are well aware of the lies spewed out by the Western mass media: the same cannot be said of Westerners and their knowledge of what Russians read in their media.

See: inoСМИ.Ru

I notice that in the British lying rags, the Ukraine has been pushed off the front page, as has the MH17 story and now Syria is being shunted to the sidelines.

Nothing to see here! Move along now!

In today's Telegraph, a German big-game hunter's shooting of a massive bull elephant overrides a Syria story on the front online page. MH17 and the Ukraine gets no mention at all.

Today's headlines:

Scenes of devastation as huge mudslide strikes California leaving thousands stranded
Hatton Garden raider 'shows police where he hid jewels'
'Half empty' private jets carry failed asylum seekers home
SNP accused of 'happy clappy smothering' of second Scottish independence referendum debate
Pc Dave Phillips murder: two women and a man charged with assisting offender

12 headline stories listed. None about the Ukraine, MH17 and Syria.

Jeremn, October 16, 2015 at 7:57 am

Parubiy, who founded the Social National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok (the current leader of the far-right Svoboda party), will be speaking at RUSI whilst visiting London.

https://www.rusi.org/events/ref:E5617D97483FB3/

Moscow Exile , October 16, 2015 at 11:12 am

How the number of Ukrainians in Russia has grown:

Всего в период с 1 апреля 2014 г. на территорию Российской Федерации въехало и не убыло по состоянию на указанную дату 1 089 618 граждан юго-востока Украины.

Just in the period starting 1 April 2014, into the territory of the Russian Federation have entered and not left as of a specified date 1,089,618 citizens of South-East Ukraine.

Fern , October 16, 2015 at 7:39 pm

I remain convinced that the army of humanitarian interventionists fetishise 'democracy promotion' abroad largely to avoid looking at how it's playing out at home.

[Oct 17, 2015] Russia's 'Import Substitution' Isn't Working

Mark Adomanis became a turncoat and defected to the "dark side". Some problems for Russia are given. Still it is pretty valiant attempt in view of the dominance of the USA in world economy and, especially, finance. Also this is form of economic attack of EU: some European firms lost Russian market "forever". So far American firms are fared better but Coca-cola, Pepsi, chicken producers, and McDonalds might suffer.
Oct 15, 2015 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/10/15/russias-import-substitution-isnt-working/

Some very intelligent people saw this coming a long way off, accurately predicting that heightened tensions with America and the European Union would empower precisely those areas of the Russian economy that the West wants to see weakened

... ... ...

From the second quarter of 2014 through the second quarter of 2015, the ruble value of Russia's imports decreased by almost 30% (the ruble value of exports, meanwhile, actually increased). That's actually not terribly surprising. When a currency depreciates as much as the ruble has over the past year you would expect imports to take a significant hit.

But what has happened to domestic manufacturing? Has Russian business stepped into the space vacated by Western goods that are no longer affordable to many Russian consumers?

So far, at least, the answer is a definite no. Official Rosstat data show that through the first half of 2015, Russian manufacturing actually shrunk by about 2.8%. The only sectors of the economy to show any growth were agriculture (up 2.4%), natural resource extraction (up 2.4%), and public administration (up 0.7%). The areas of the Russian economy where private business predominates, particularly consumer retail, have been absolutely walloped, with the overall retail sector shrinking by almost 9% over the past six months.

... ... ...

Victor Lar 2 days ago

Russian Cheese Production Surges 30% After Ban on Western Imports: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russian-cheese-production-surges-30-after-ban-on-western-imports/521891.html

[Oct 16, 2015] Just three pieces of shrapnel supposedly points to BUK by John Helmer

For some reason they investigate only version of surface to air missile. Possibility of air to air missile was not investigated. Dutch reps could attend Almaz-Antey experiments and collect shrapnel from them. They did not do this. Also they demonstrated provable negligence in collecting evidence (Ukraine at this point was EU vassal state and one phone call from Brussel would exclude any shelling of the area). The question why the plane was brought to the particular area was answered "to avoid thunderstorms". I doubt that at this altitude they can affect the plane. All this points to a cover up of Ukrainian false flag operation.
"... According to the DSB, "no unalloyed steel fragments were found in the remains of the passengers". ..."
"... 20 were found on analysis to include layers of aluminium or glass. The DSB's explanation is that the external explosion of a missile warhead had propelled these fragments through the cockpit windows and aluminium panels of the fuselage, fusing with the glass and aluminium before striking the three crew members in the cockpit at the time. ..."
"... The DSB conclusion is that these fragments came from a missile warhead, but not conclusively from a Buk missile warhead type 9N314M. The evidence for this Buk warhead comes, the DSB reports, from 4 – repeat four – fragments. ..."
"... Because Buk shrapnel is understood to have such cubic and bow-tie shapes, there are just four fragments to substantiate it. If the autopsy evidence is regarded as the only source that could not have been contaminated on the ground, or in the interval between the crash and the forensic testing in The Netherlands, there are just three fragments which fit the Buk bill. ..."
"... By failing to identify the location of these parts, the finders, or the dates on which they were sent to Holland, the DSB does not rule out that this evidence may have been fabricated. ..."
johnhelmer.net

AUTOPSY OF THE MH17 CRASH - DUTCH SAFETY BOARD REVEALS 3 POSSIBLE PIECES OF BUK SHRAPNEL IN THE BODIES OF THE COCKPIT CREW, AND CHEMICAL EVIDENCE IT CANNOT SUBSTANTIATE - AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ISSUE PUBLIC REJECTION OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ALLEGATIONS

Eight pages of the DSB report – pages 88 to 95 - focus on the metal fragments. The number of these starts at "over 500 recovered from the wreckage of the aeroplane, the remains of the crew members and passengers." Many, apparently most, of these fragments turned out to be "personal belongings, aeroplane parts or objects that originated from the ground after impact." According to the DSB, "many were metal fragments that were suspected to be high-energy objects." Of these just 72 were investigated further because they were "similar in size, mass and shape." 43 of this 72 were "found to be made of unalloyed steel". The term "shrapnel" may be a synonym for "unalloyed steel fragments", but the word doesn't appear at all in the DSB report. According to the DSB, "no unalloyed steel fragments were found in the remains of the passengers".

Of the 43 steel fragments investigated thoroughly - all of them recovered from the bodies of the cockpit crew or in the wreckage of the cockpit - 20 were found on analysis to include layers of aluminium or glass. The DSB's explanation is that the external explosion of a missile warhead had propelled these fragments through the cockpit windows and aluminium panels of the fuselage, fusing with the glass and aluminium before striking the three crew members in the cockpit at the time.

The DSB conclusion is that these fragments came from a missile warhead, but not conclusively from a Buk missile warhead type 9N314M. The evidence for this Buk warhead comes, the DSB reports, from 4 – repeat four – fragments. These, "although heavily deformed and damaged, had distinctive shapes; cubic and in the form of a bow-tie". The DSB's exact count is two cubic shapes, two bow-ties. One bow-tie was recovered from the cockpit wreckage; one from the body of a cockpit crew member. Both cubic fragments were found in the bodies of the crew members.

Because Buk shrapnel is understood to have such cubic and bow-tie shapes, there are just four fragments to substantiate it. If the autopsy evidence is regarded as the only source that could not have been contaminated on the ground, or in the interval between the crash and the forensic testing in The Netherlands, there are just three fragments which fit the Buk bill.

Source: http://cdn.onderzoeksraad.nl/documents/report-mh17-crash-en.pdf -- page 92

In addition, the DSB says it has examined chemical residues of the warhead explosive, and paint particles from the surface of missile parts reportedly recovered from the ground. Exactly where, when, and by whom the purported missile parts were found the DSB does not identify. In Section 2:12:2:8 of the report, the DSB says that "during the recovery of the wreckage, a number of parts that did not originate from the aeroplane and its content were found in the wreckage area. The parts found appeared to be connected with a surface-to-air missile. The parts that were suspected to be related to a surface-to-air missile were transported to the Gilze-Rijen Air Force Base [in The Netherlands; also reported as the Hilversum Army Base] in the same way as the aeroplane wreckage was. On arrival the parts underwent the same examination as the pieces of aeroplane wreckage." By failing to identify the location of these parts, the finders, or the dates on which they were sent to Holland, the DSB does not rule out that this evidence may have been fabricated. At page 53 the DSB admits that "many pieces of the wreckage" were either not examined physically "until four months after the crash", or not recovered for examination for up to nine months after the July 17, 2014, downing.

Source: http://cdn.onderzoeksraad.nl/documents/report-mh17-crash-en.pdf -- page 81

[Oct 16, 2015] "Almaz-Antey" have accused the Netherlands of falsifying the map of where the Boeing crashed

"... Even though "Almaz-Antey" had informed the Netherlands board in advance that the "Buk" SAM could have only been launched at the Boeing from the area of the village of Zaroshchenskoe (which at the time was under the control of the Ukrainian military) and that this had been confirmed by field tests, the Dutch coloured the launch area of the missile in a very different place on the map. (see map). ..."
www.kp.ru
Moscow Exile, October 15, 2015 at 9:37 pm

"Almaz-Antey" have accused the Netherlands of falsifying the map of where the Boeing crashed

This time the Netherlands Commission of Inquiry has been caught lying red-handed about the Russian concern "Almaz-Antey", which developed the "Buk" anti-aircraft missile systems. "Almaz-Antey" has announced that a map covering the 320 square kilometer area from where a missile targeted against the Boeing could have been launched is not only erroneous but also that the Dutch in their report had indicated that their data were supposedly consistent with "Almaz-Antey"calculations. That is, they covered up their concoctions with the authoritative report of the Russian company.

Even though "Almaz-Antey" had informed the Netherlands board in advance that the "Buk" SAM could have only been launched at the Boeing from the area of the village of Zaroshchenskoe (which at the time was under the control of the Ukrainian military) and that this had been confirmed by field tests, the Dutch coloured the launch area of the missile in a very different place on the map. (see map).

[Oct 16, 2015] Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 'most likely' it was shot down from ground Discussion

The US key strategy is the same as British -- to cut Europe from Russia. This time it again work brilliantly... The fact the USA are withholding evidence implicates Kiev.
"... Because it was supposed to clearly show that rebels did it . No need to rely on social media and other unreliable sources. Plus it was classified before ut was mentioned about. So you fake democrat and liberal really wasn't to live in the world where you will be prosecuted on sure information that is so secret that nobody can know about it ;) ..."
"... How guys like you can pretend to love Orwell so much? Don't you realize today the joke is on you? ..."
"... Do you understand that this is not a regular crash incident? Based on the unsupported assumptions there are already economic sanctions imposed and the world is gearing up for the WW3. How dumb can you be not to notice the difference? ..."
"... Ukies shot the plane down stupidly hoping the blame will fall on Russia and NATO will declare war on Putin amidst worldwide uproar and indignation. They now may realize they had committed murder most foul for nothing. This kinda reminds of the play 'Macbeth'. What's done cannot be undone. ..."
"... Almost all the damage concentrated in cockpit/front fuselage. Now how does that tie to the BUK scenario exactly? how does the damage from High energy objects conform to sharpnel from BUK especially as there are both entry and exit holes? ..."
"... "The specific area where the fatal missile was fired is not in fact under control of the "pro-Russia rebels". It is run by a neo-nazi private mercenary army, raised by Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky. ..."
"... Kolomoisky stinks of being an asset of the US and Israeli intelligence services, at minimum. ..."
"... Dutch Prime Minister Rutte had to acknowledge on TV on September 12th that the Netherlands had refused to even communicate with the Separatist. This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government disqualifies it from leading the investigation and has obviously hampered the investigation up till now. ..."
"... This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government also clarifies why the role of UkSATSE isn't questioned. ..."
"... the question 'who launched a missile' is actually less relevant than 'who created the situation by allowing MH17 to fly there'. ..."
"... UkSATSE failed to close that airspace after july 14 whena AN-24 was downed from 6500m and only restricted up to 10km. 6500m is beyond the man portable system range. ..."
"... The report section 2.4.3 issued by the investigation simply stated that MH17 complied to the restrictions issued by UkSATSE. By ignoring the most obvious question the investigation was now under serious doubt but the extreme partisan positioning as revealed by the Dutch minister put that report in the 'beyond doubt partisan category'. ..."
"... On the other hand, if Kiev can shoot down the airliner and blame the separatists, or even better, Russia, then they would be backed by the west. Who has the most to gain? ..."
"... Then we have an investigation where all members have to agree with the report or a single member can veto the release, which is why they are not allowed to assign blame, and why they have not been allowed to state anything more than they have. ..."
"... I doubt any hard evidence will ever come out, and we will have to settle for innuendo and finger pointing, allowing the west to isolate Russia even further till the missile shield network sits right on their borders. ..."
"... What I find a bit troubling is that the obvious conclusion -- that the plane was hit by a ground fired missile -- isn't backed up by any intelligence. Its reasonable to think that the US's NRO is watching the Ukraine closely so they should have been able to get almost real time confirmation of the launcher's position and use. ..."
"... Nobody willingly takes down an airliner unless there's serious propaganda to be made from it. So its either a serious screwup by the rebels or something rather more evil by the blackops types. (I'd regard the latter as a tinfoil helmet theory except that we've found out time and again that these people are capable of doing anything provided it achieves their goal.) ..."
"... Yes indeed, US satellite data is highly secret unless it backs up the US Government's claims. I don't suppose you're old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis and the release of all sort of reconnaissance on the matter. ..."
"... Some suggest that an air to air missile might then be the cause of the fragmentation...but this also is problematic, most AA missiles are not powerful enough to take out a large civil aircraft. Many instances of smaller less well built passenger planes surviving AA strikes have been recorded...But 2 or 3 might do it..but the pilots would surely called Mayday.. They didn't, suggesting they had no idea what hit them, ..."
"... Conclusion: Still no closer to knowing which side brought it down, whether it was just a cock up, or a black flag. Plenty of propaganda, accusations, denials, but any real evidence so far is very thin on the ground. ..."
"... It's funny how the press are falling over themselves to say it was definitely Russians, the EU are desperate for it to be Russians, the Americans are desperate for it to be Russians - so when something factual comes out that doesn't toe the expectant line they have to drop in the odd implication and suggested line. ..."
"... the heavy coat of varnish that's clearly been applied to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report. ..."
"... It's clear that Kiev benefited the most from the event, and the US exploited is to the fullest to impose sanctions on Russia before any investigation was even initiated. The reluctance of both Kiev and the US to provide evidence required for the investigation is bound to raise questions. ..."
"... This horrible tragedy has been and no doubt will be exploited for petty political gains. I am sorry to see even the Dutch entering this shameful game by signing that non-disclosure agreement with one of the suspects, the Kiev government. ..."
"... Sadly this 100-year old British company has been compromised being taken over by a Canadian company belonging to zionists. Canadian PM Harper is a blind follower of Israeli extremists. So V Putin is enemy number one and you can't use Reuters as an unbiased source once more. Russia has had to up its game recently in the Arctic purely because Harper has become aggressive to please the US. ..."
"... Kiev Russian-speaking soldiers disguised as Donbass security forces ( rebels ) could have driven a Buk into the Donbass, fired the missile and then driven back, making sure to be seen by foreign journalists ( Ukraine is a huge country, how come the journalists were on the same spot at the right moment to see the Buk driving around ? very convenient..) ..."
"... The US and Israel both have motives to shoot the plane down. They had been convicted of war crimes in KL last year and their cases sent to the ICC in Holland. MH17 was also full of Dutch passengers - right ..."
"... Plus, the ukraine airforce is in a bad state due to lack of funds. So the US and Israelis were providing assistance, also Poland and Lithuania, of pilots and equipment. No-one knows who was piloting the two Su-25s detected by Russian radar. ..."
"... I did not speculate on why the pilot did not want to climb. It make no difference. By refusing the order the pilot assumed responsibility for the fate of the plane. Civil aviation pilots have no right to refuse orders of competent ground authorities and still enjoy the protections granted by international treaties to civil aviation. ..."
"... I don't understand your statement about the report says there was no abnormal communication . Are you contesting my claim that the pilot refused an order to climb up just minutes before being hit? I'm basing my claim on what I read in previous articles in the Guardian on this. It could be wrong. I wasn't there personally. ..."
"... Since the Ukraine has veto power over publication of the findings, this whole investigation is a whitewash. Why isn't Russia part of the investigation with veto power? Giving one of the suspects in a crime the ability to block publication of the findings is ludicrous. ..."
"... I am quite sure that bullets are high energy objects but the Western media seems to ignore that possibility, as it would implicate Ukraine, which has veto power over any publication of findings. ..."
"... Just a little tip. Don't ever use anything that comes out of the Kiev offices. It is all 100% unbelievable. All of it. ..."
"... All of this is just speculation. Question 1: where are the Satellite images of that area at that exact time? Question 2: where are the audio transmissions between the crew and the flight towers? Question 3: why did the BBC remove its own segment that was done shortly afterwards where they had people on record stating that they had seen a jet flying behind if? Question 4: who ordered the BBC remove its own segment? Question 5: If the pilots where shot at by a 'jet' as is believed by many - what about the autopsies of the pilots? Were any done? What did they find. Question 6: if a BUK missile had taken it down how come there was not a trail from the missile? These missiles do leave a rather distinctive trial behind them that is seen for kilometers. Question 7: who ordered the plane to fly lower than was deemed safe for that area? So many questions and so little facts… Perhaps they questions do not fit the narrative? ..."
"... The mere fact that the United States MSM has dropped this topic like a hot potato (compare CNN coverage of MH17 with the endless coverage of MH370) and the complete lack of verified NATO or US or CIA satellite data implies that the Russians were not at fault here. ..."
Oct 16, 2015 | The Guardian
Antidyatel -> DELewes 15 Sep 2014 06:41

Because it was supposed to "clearly show that rebels did it". No need to rely on social media and other unreliable sources. Plus it was classified before ut was mentioned about. So you fake democrat and liberal really wasn't to live in the world where you will be prosecuted on sure information that is so secret that nobody can know about it ;)

How guys like you can pretend to love Orwell so much? Don't you realize today the joke is on you?

Shaneo -> DELewes 15 Sep 2014 04:55

Ok, but John Kerry claimed to have seen the imagery of the launch, so you don't need to say 'likely' launch site.

Ask to see this imagery and we will know where the launch site is.

Will you do this?

And does it not make you suspicious that this imagery is being withheld?

Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 15 Sep 2014 03:46

Do you understand that this is not a regular crash incident? Based on the unsupported assumptions there are already economic sanctions imposed and the world is gearing up for the WW3. How dumb can you be not to notice the difference?

I will give you a better example. The PRELIMINARY report by FEMA on 9/11 was released in May 2002 - that was very heavy in terms of pages and released in May 2002 (8 months after the event). It was heavy in terms of pages and contained data not only about 4 planes and 3 buildings. It was quite detailed in terms of TECHNICAL data.

There is absolutely no reason to withheld the factual data for public analysis. Particularly in this situation. The facts about the event will not change. Or should I stress on it - the already available facts SHOULD not change no matter how commission will later interpret them.

Antidyatel 2meters 15 Sep 2014 03:19

Calm down with Su-25 theory. Even if Russian MoD was implying possible culpability of that plane, they didn't make the direct accusation. The whole mentioning was less than a minute out of the whole 30 min presentation, in which the main focus was on 4 Ukrainian BUKs in the area. Just from this proportion one can asses the priority of the versions that Russian MoD was considering.

So stop fighting windmills, my Don Quixote!

Antidyatel 2meters 15 Sep 2014 03:12

First of all, where did you get the data about 55 km?

Even the latest modification of BUK-M2. While everyone is talking about BUK-M1. More to this, it is mainly claimed that a stand alone 9A310 unit was witnessed. It has FIRE DOME radar with max engagement range of 35 km (some sources limit it to 32 km)

So your convinced part goes down the drain!

Second, do you understand that the maximum radar range represents a radius of a 3D sphere? For the target flying at 10 km the relevant projection on the 2D map will be 33.5 km.

Let's stop at this for now.

2meters Antidyatel 15 Sep 2014 02:19

And NO. And SU-25 fighter jet cannot "gain an altitude of 10km" as the Russian Defense Ministry asserted on July 21.

According to its specification its altitude ceiling is 7 km, even though someone working Kremlin servers changed that to 10 km on Russian Wikipedia, hours after the Russian Defense Ministry's press conference.

http://gawker.com/did-russian-officials-edit-wikipedia-to-back-up-a-bogus-1609071757

2meters Antidyatel 15 Sep 2014 02:03

No it is not what they were telling.

What I put in quotes is EXACTLY what the Russian Defense Ministry was telling us.

MoD didn't accuse that the plane was involved.

You are not getting this, are you ?
Let me spell it out :

That SU-25 DID NOT EXIST !

Radar would have shown it, and it did not.
Even General Peter Deinekin states that probably what the Russian Defence Ministry showed on their radar image was probably a part of MH-17 breaking off.

If the Russian Defense Ministry would have actually shown the radar timelap (video) of when and where that dot on their radar actually appeared, then we could have all seen that for ourselves.

But they did not, since it was no SU-25. It was a part of MH-17 breaking off.

Instead they used the radar images of the PIECES of a civilian airliner that killed 298 innocent people to create a SU-25 conspiracy and point the finger at Ukraine.

Despicable.

Antidyatel -> jimbuluk 15 Sep 2014 01:30

Is there any original source that explains the meaning behind "transponder data became unreliable at 13:18Z"?
Where did the Aviation Herald got this data from?

2meters -> Antidyatel 15 Sep 2014 01:27

Antidytel, yes, MH-17 was probably about 35 km away from the BUK launch site south of Snizhne when the crew pressed the launch button.

The radar range of a single BUK TELAR is at least 55 km.

At 250 m/sec, MH 17 will thus have been on the BUK search radar something like 80 sec before they launched the missile.

Even with conservative estimates of missile flight time and path, the Snizhne BUK launch crew had about a minute to lock on their radar, and wait for the 'target' to come into range.

Convinced now ?

Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 23:59

I have to disagree with you. Even preliminary technical report should contain the technical data already available. There is no justifiable reason for withholding any information. The next report can just add new information.

So the preliminary report should have provided:

1) Civil and military radar data from Ukraine. It is very unprofessional for them not to at least request it from Ukraine side. If Ukraine refused to provide it, it should have been clearly stated

2) ATC communications along the whole route of MH17

3) full transcript from voice recorder. You can't possible believe that pilots were flying in total silence

4) Technical data from the second black box on plane parameters. Particularly the data from gyroscope that would give the most precise data on the plane actual route

5) other critical parameters.

Seriously it is not a herculean task for a 2 months of job. They have a whole team to do it. How unprofessional can they be to fail with such simple task?

The purpose of the preliminary report is not to give the abridged/filtered version of the data. The purpose should be tor provide the available data but to make only PRELIMINARY conclusions. Only in this sense it can be called preliminary.

The current report can only be described by words SELECTIVE, EDITED, FILTERED and BIASED!!!

Antidyatel -> notherLex21 14 Sep 2014 22:36

4 different BUKs in the vicinity of the crash site were detected by Russians based on these BUKs' outgoing radar signal.

Let's consider your points:
1) BUK system captured by rebels in Luhansk region, was incomplete so the maximum radar range was 22 km. But we can first consider the improbable scenario that Russians first sneaked in and then sneaked our the complete set for the BUK system. Ok we can exclude the loader. So let's just say 2 units (actual launcher and radar unit), hence temporally I can agree on 35 km.
2) If you go to google maps and estimate the distance from Snizhne (proposed location for rebel BUK) to Krasiy Luch (FDR point) it is approximately 24 km. (version of incomplete BUK system can already be discarded). BUK max missile speed 850 m/s. 24 km it will travel in 28 sec. BUK requires minimum 15 sec to lock on target. So even if we assume that "best" scenario, Boeing was traveling for minimum 43 sec before it's first appearance on BUK radar and rocket hitting it. Cruise speed of Boeing 777 ~ 900 km/h. So we get roughly 11 km. Just nice 35 km. But this is minimum. For example, the rocket doesn't reach 850 m/sec immediately.
The point is that it would have been an extremely "lucky" coincidence for this scenario to work. And again I repeat, it will require the full set of BUK units, not just the launcher. The so named "proofs" of Russians sneaking in and out such a system are so laughable that I can't understand how people can talk seriously about it.
4) The reference to the territory held by rebels is also laughable. The total number of rebels on that moment was ~5000. But even if we take 10,000, you will get a fraction of a rebel per square kilometre, if we assume that they are distributed equally. In reality majority of them were concentrated in fixed positions around Lughansk, Donetsk and Saur Mogila. also large portion of them was involved is annihilating surrounded UA units. If UA wanted to bring in BUKs into so named rebel controlled area there would be no problem with it.

SirDeadpool 14 Sep 2014 22:31

Ukies shot the plane down stupidly hoping the blame will fall on Russia and NATO will declare war on Putin amidst worldwide uproar and indignation. They now may realize they had committed murder most foul for nothing. This kinda reminds of the play 'Macbeth'. What's done cannot be undone.

bobby_fisher ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 18:14

ShermanPotter -- Antidyatel
14 Sep 2014 16:09
The key is in the title it's a preliminary report...

So you basically agree that presented data is incomplete....I also hope your level of English language comprehension will allow you to distinguish black box recordings and conversations between civilian ATC and military command that is not in the report, and according to Ukrainian reports was confiscated from civilian controllers.

notherLex21 jimbuluk 14 Sep 2014 16:46

when the transponder data became unreliable at 13:18Z (position N48.28 E38.08)"

The DSB rapport-mh-17-en-interactief.pdf shows the transcript (page 15) where MH17 pilots last reply is at 13:19:56.
Sorry, but the Aviation Herald is inaccurate.

jimbuluk 2meters 14 Sep 2014 11:51

I said "The Aviation Herald says problems with MH-17 started over N48.28 E38.08" Just read from avherald.com http://avherald.com/h?article=47770f9d&opt=0

"was enroute at FL330 about 20nm northeast of Donetsk (Ukraine) when the transponder data became unreliable at 13:18Z (position N48.28 E38.08)"

Transponder data can't become unreliable without reason. And that reason led to the crash within two minutes. The distance between the point the transponder data became unreliable and Snizhne is approx 65 km, that's way beyond the range of BUK's missile, not to say about it's radar, - less than 9 km.

ShermanPotter -> Antidyatel 14 Sep 2014 11:09

The key is in the title it's a preliminary report, that examines the technical reasons for the crash of MH-17. In tandem is a criminal investigation.

The Preliminary report, has established that MH-17 was shot down and that immediately before that event was operating normally with normal crew communications with ATC. The rest of what you are talking about is for the criminal investigative team to examine and report to the Court.

Antidyatel -> 2meters 14 Sep 2014 09:46

No it is not what they were telling.

MoD didn't accuse that the plane was involved. They only stated yhe facts that there was a potential for it to be involved. That is why additional data was requested from Ukraine to clarify. Stark difference to blanket accusations based on tea leaves in a cup that were loaded by the list of discredited a-holes in the beginning of your post

Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 08:27

For example, the missing part is the primary surveillance radar recordings. It would be expected that if Ukraine wanted to help with investigation. it would supply not only civilian traffic data but also the data of all military radars on that day. Not such a hard task. Report doesn't stress on it but clearly indicates that even civil traffic data was not submitted. They could easily reveal that data in the first few days after the incident or after the Russian MoD report and clarify the issue with military planes in the air at that time. What prevents them from doing it after 2 months?

Out of the whole page of those recordings only 3 lines are with MH17. Nothing of an essence. There was absolutely no reason why not to provide the data from the moment MH17 entered Ukrainian airspace or even from start of the flight. It would take 2-3 hours max to compile the communication with ground control along the whole route. And they didn't need to wait even for black boxes to do it. How unprofessional your professionals can be?

Most of the communication, that was revealed is related to communication between Dnepropetrovsk and Rostov. No point withholding that information as Russians have the same transcript, I guess. For MH17 the only portion of interest is 11 seconds before the disaster. This is bogus. And still there is absolutely no excuse not to release the whole transcript of the black box, in the situation which potentially can bring the world to the WW3. You don't joke with such things.

ShermanPotter -> Antidyatel 14 Sep 2014 05:22

So what information are you claiming is missing?

As well as that you list Page 14 also describes that Ukrainian ATC supplied radio and telephone recordings and transcripts relating to MH-17.

The transcript in the preliminary report is just of the last few minutes of its flight before being shot down, what more do you expect from a Preliminary report?

Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 04:18

Actually if you look strictly at the report specifies only 3 sources of ATC data:
1. Primary surveillance radar recorded by the Russian surveillance aids
2. Secondary surveillance radar
3. Automatic Dependant Surveillance

The explanation of the last 2 are given at the end of page 14 of the report. Which shows that primary data from Ukrainian radars is still withheld.

The transcript provided is appearing to be incomplete. It is not like they were afraid of the page limit. Why not to give the whole transcript? Also this transcript is strangely different from the one given in BBC web-site

snowdogchampion snowdogchampion 14 Sep 2014 03:47

Without speculating on who did it, here figures from the markets & background info. Key term: foreknowledge.
The Malaysian Airlines MH17 Crash: Financial Warfare against Russia, Multibillion Dollar Bonanza for Wall Street

2meters -> notherLex21 14 Sep 2014 03:07

Isn't that exactly what western media and blogger and US intelligence had been telling us all along ?

Interesting how this works with Kremlin war propaganda.

For starters, please note that General Peter Deinekin with his statement directly contradicts the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia's military forces, Lieutenant-General Andrey Kartopolov, who started this whole SU-25 conspiracy theory on July 21 :

The Russian military detected a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet gaining height towards the MH17 Boeing on the day of the catastrophe. Kiev must explain why the military jet was tracking the passenger airplane, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

and

"The SU-25 fighter jet can gain an altitude of 10km, according to its specification," he added. "It's equipped with air-to-air R-60 missiles that can hit a target at a distance up to 12km, up to 5km for sure."

Which opened up the floodgates for SU-25 conspiracy theorists and their accompanied anti-Ukraine comments here in the Guardian comment sections and around the MSM.

While in fact there was no Ukrainian or any other fighter jet around.

Now, of course, the pro-Russian trolls will drop the SU-25 conspiracy theory and switch to the next one : that Ukrainians fired that SA-11 missile.

Forgetting to look at the big picture : If the Russia or the Russian military had nothing to do with this BUK, then why the heck were they lying through their teeth on July 21 ?

jimbuluk 14 Sep 2014 02:29

US says BUK was launched at Snizhne
https://www.facebook.com/usdos.ukraine/photos/a.431664811935.225869.43732151935/10152288664556936/?type=1

The Aviation Herald says problems with MH-17 started over N48.28 E38.08
http://avherald.com/h?article=47770f9d&opt=0

The distance between these two points is approx 65 km. Book's missile could reach 30 km. The Book's radar reaches even less - under 9 km, That's it.

Antidyatel notherLex21 14 Sep 2014 02:25

Probably true. Which narrows down to the simple choice: was it one of the 4 Ukrainian BUKs that were known to be in the area or an imaginary rebel's BUK.

If we go strictly and watch the 30 min presentation by Russian MoD, they never accused Su-25 to be responsible for downing the plane. They only stated the fact that the plane was detected at that time and at that place. If they really wanted to falsely accuse ukie plane they would not state that it was Su-25.

ShanghaiGuy -> Dunscore 13 Sep 2014 22:11

Crap, 30mm cannon fire would require a sustained burst to cause catastrophic structural failure, audible on recorders. 30mm cannon is not typical air to air ordance, ground attack on slower aircraft , taken some chase at high altitude. Sorry your apologists bs is a fairy story.

Ground launched AAM destroyed the airliner.

Antidyatel Hektor Uranga 13 Sep 2014 22:02

My dear Huylo Hector, immediately after the crush every theory was plausible. Each of them had to be eliminated based on facts. The fairy tail about rebels downing MH17 had an upper habd in first week because Kerry promised satellite images that clearly prove rebels' s culpability.

After such images didn't materialise, the statement by Kerry became discredited. He had to be responsible for his words.

So after that any other theory gets the same footing. The assertion that UA downed the plane became more probable after the data presented by Russian MoD. The quality difference to USA/EUROPE/Ukraine garbage comes from first presenting all the known fact and then letting everyone else to make a conclusion. Instead of giving a theory first and then ask to just believe. This stupid idol-worshiping by westerners will never stop amusing me.

notherLex21 13 Sep 2014 17:17

This Russian expects it was a BUK.

Former Air Force Commander of the USSR and the Russian Army General Peter Deinekin:

"Assault can not hit the plane with their weapons, he is a slow, low-altitude. Besides his actions could be seen on radar. And striking effect aircraft missiles are not as powerful as in" Buck "

Shoot down the plane could altitude fighter MiG-29 or Su-27, but it at the time in that area was not, said the expert.

http://ria.ru/mh17/20140910/1023539819.html

google translated:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fria.ru%2Fmh17%2F20140910%2F1023539819.html&edit-text=

merlin2 Karl Brandt 13 Sep 2014 16:47

karl - entrusted with propagating the disinformation campaign?

based on facts alone, there is not a single shred of evidence typing BUK launced by supposed "rebels" to the downing of MH17. There are, OTOH< quite a few pieces pf evidence pointing to cannon fire from an aircraft. Funny how the disinformation agents never want to draw attention to evidence that in any way points away from their favorite scenarios.

Example: Almost all the damage concentrated in cockpit/front fuselage. Now how does that tie to the BUK scenario exactly? how does the damage from High energy objects conform to sharpnel from BUK especially as there are both entry and exit holes?

And what of the US intelligence evidence showing people on the ground manning a BUK and wearing UK uniforms?

I am not suggesting that it's air-to-air or surface to air only. what we know so far may well conform both were in action. As sedman above mentions.

As for this preliminary report it is quite a piece on work in how hard it strives NOT to point out some pretty obvious facts.

bobby_fisher ShermanPotter 13 Sep 2014 16:42

Not so fast, you do not need records to be provided that are recorded by the black boxes
It is conversations between civilian and military ATC's that are of interest and there is no mention of that in your link.

Secr3t krislej 13 Sep 2014 16:34

Are you still trying to convince people of this idea that an SU-25 shot down MH-17.

Maybe the Former head of the Russian Airforce and Army can convince you then?

He states quite clearly that the idea that MH-17 was shot down by an SU-25 as completely untenable, he goes on to state that it is possible an SU-27 or Mig-29 would be capable but none were in the area.

He also says that MH-17 broke apart in the air as a result of multiple sharpnel strikes and that it was likely from a BUK.

And before you cry western conspiracy he stated this in Russian media.

http://ria.ru/mh17/20140910/1023539819.html

MrHMSH MoneyCircus 13 Sep 2014 16:03

Firing a cannon from the side (the holes show entry from the side) would not get the spread of damage that you see, and it's unlikely that you could get that many hits in at all given how quickly you are closing.

A SAM burst (from the kind of missile under suspicion) close to the front left side of the aircraft would yield a somewhat evenly spaced pattern of holes, as the fragments originate from one point and spread outwards.

The gun fires 50 rounds per second, at the closing speed, the pilot would have had perhaps 2 seconds to fire, and he got around 30% of them hitting a target moving across him at 500mph? This theory belongs in Hollywood.

Mrg Billman 13 Sep 2014 14:19

If the Kiev regime can fire and destroy their own APC column like we seen at the begining of the conflict I have no doubts that they are capable of somehow orchestrating a downing of a civilian airliner.

Realworldview ShanghaiGuy 13 Sep 2014 14:10

ShanghaiGuy you need to keep up with the evidence, its not my opinion that it was shot down by a military aircraft, but that of US Intelligence analysts, as reported in US analysts conclude MH17 downed by aircraft .

The conclusion was that it was damaged by an air to air missile that shreds its target with flechettes, and then finished off with 30mm cannon fire that was responsible for the circular holes in fragments of the airframe, as these extracts show:

KUALA LUMPUR: INTELLIGENCE analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government had had something to do with it.

This corroborates an emerging theory postulated by local investigators that the Boeing 777-200 was crippled by an air-to-air missile and finished off with cannon fire from a fighter that had been shadowing it as it plummeted to earth.

In a damning report dated Aug 3, headlined "Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts", Associated Press reporter Robert Parry said "some US intelligence sources had concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame".

Yesterday, the New Straits Times quoted experts who had said that photographs of the blast fragmentation patterns on the fuselage of the airliner showed two distinct shapes - the shredding pattern associated with a warhead packed with "flechettes", and the more uniform, round-type penetration holes consistent with that of cannon rounds.

Parry's conclusion also stemmed from the fact that despite assertions from the Obama administration, there has not been a shred of tangible evidence to support the conclusion that Russia supplied the rebels with the BUK-M1 anti-aircraft missile system that would be needed to hit a civilian jetliner flying at 33,000 feet.

bobby_fisher Asimpleguest 13 Sep 2014 12:32

The plane was directed in to the war zone, specifically in to the small area, where 13 aircraft were already blown out of the sky in just a few weeks.
It could not have happened without some interaction between civilian and military ATC's.....and these records are completely missing, in fact confiscated by SBU"

http://www.nst.com.my/node/21260

https://twitter.com/wavetossed/status/491468216909053952

snowdogchampion snowdogchampion 13 Sep 2014 08:15

isn't shooting down a civilian plane & blaming Putin for it a wonderful way for justifying sanctions against Russia? venturing far into speculations (quoted journalists have done, so I follow even if everyone here calls me an idiot).. what if someone decided to bring down a civilian plane, to make people very angry, cause everything (the West presents) points his way? then the result arre sanctions, and yuppie, USA can soon replace Russia as the main natural gas providor.. it's been all over the news.. and in the end, it's always about profits for the big multinationals

snowdogchampion 13 Sep 2014 08:01

So who did shoot the plane down? if you lost a relative on MH17, pls read
http://journal-neo.org/2014/08/19/another-journalist-exposes-mh17-false-flag/

"The specific area where the fatal missile was fired is not in fact under control of the "pro-Russia rebels". It is run by a neo-nazi private mercenary army, raised by Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky.

"Kolomoisky stinks of being an asset of the US and Israeli intelligence services, at minimum. He holds both Ukrainian and Israeli passports and runs his business empire from Switzerland, not Kiev, despite being Governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast in eastern Ukraine. His mercenary army does possess the BUK missiles allegedly used in the shootdown of MH-17, and he has threatened terrorist attacks on Russian-speaking officials in his oblast, and even assassinations.

"Estimated to be the second-richest person in Ukraine, Kolomoisky also has strong connections inside Kiev's Borispol International Airport, whose air traffic control tower Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops reportedly stormed shortly before MH-17 was shot down. New Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, formerly wanted by Interpol for fraud, was the man who first designated the east Ukraine rebels as "terrorists," which ostensibly allows him to commit any atrocity against innocent civilians very much as Israel is doing in Gaza today.

"Furthermore, in a personal interview with the Veterans Today Tbilisi Georgia bureau chief Jeffrey Silverman pointed shared with Engdahl the possible complicity of the Inmarsat Company in the MH17. Inmarsat, which lists the Pentagon and US Government as major clients, controls most international air traffic control communications systems. According to Silverman, during the earlier disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 the flight was "lost" due to Inmarsat turning off their signals, and it still refuses today to release the data it has about this flight.

one more article http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20140909/192783966/Journalist-MH17-Preliminary-Report-Says-Nothing-Leaves-Questions.html

MoneyCircus -> nemossister 13 Sep 2014 06:26

Look what The Guardian left out of its report - just found a more complete report of what the Dutch chief investigator said:

ROTTERDAM: Dutch prosecutors said today they need to know where a missile that may have shot down flight MH17 was fired from in eastern Ukraine before criminal charges could be laid.

"When we know from where it was fired, then we can find out who controlled that area," and possibly prosecute, Dutch chief investigator Fred Westerbeke told journalists in Rotterdam.

Westerbeke said that they had not yet obtained US satellite photos of areas from which a missile might have been launched.

"We will get them," Westerbeke said, adding that it was a "long process."

errovi 13 Sep 2014 03:07

Dutch Prime Minister Rutte had to acknowledge on TV on September 12th that the Netherlands had refused to even communicate with the Separatist. This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government disqualifies it from leading the investigation and has obviously hampered the investigation up till now.

This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government also clarifies why the role of UkSATSE isn't questioned. In the chain of events leading to the downing of the aircraft still assuming it was a mistake the question 'who launched a missile' is actually less relevant than 'who created the situation by allowing MH17 to fly there'.

UkSATSE failed to close that airspace after july 14 whena AN-24 was downed from 6500m and only restricted up to 10km. 6500m is beyond the man portable system range. So why didn't UkSATSE did not close that air space and waited till after the downing of MH17. The report section 2.4.3 issued by the investigation simply stated that MH17 complied to the restrictions issued by UkSATSE. By ignoring the most obvious question the investigation was now under serious doubt but the extreme partisan positioning as revealed by the Dutch minister put that report in the 'beyond doubt partisan category'.

Antidyatel -> Karl Brandt 13 Sep 2014 05:39

The same AP journalist claimed to see the BUK himself and even the treads inn asphalt tgat this heavy system had left. But surprisingly he forgot to rake a photo not only of BUK but also of treads that ge has described so vividly. Spanish traffic controller story actually less contradictory.

Shaneo -> ShiresofEngland 13 Sep 2014 03:06

Immediately after, John Kerry claimed that the US witnessed the rocket launch on 'imagery'.

So let's see it then.

sedman -> ruffsoft 13 Sep 2014 01:15

The BUK system is designed to deliver the payload from above, yes it avoids the target to get above it, then comes down and explodes above where the cockpit would be... This doesn't explain videos of MH17 descending intact with its right engine ablaze.

sedman 13 Sep 2014 00:52

Ukraine fighter shoots MH17 with air-to-air missile, takes out right engine. MH17 does not break up, but heads for a forced landing. Ukraine fighter finishes it off MH17 on its way down.

But, we are lead to believe that the separatists were operating a BUK system made up of 5 separate mobile installations, 3 radar, 1 launcher and 1 control vehicle, which is capable of identifying B777 aircraft accurately (two transponders), then decided it would be in their interests to take out a civilian airliner, which would, even in an idiots assessment, bring the wrath of the world opon it. They are not terrorists, they are rebels, they are not using IEDs to blow up civilians, they just dont want to have Kiev taking their taxes and telling them what to do.

On the other hand, if Kiev can shoot down the airliner and blame the separatists, or even better, Russia, then they would be backed by the west. Who has the most to gain?

Then we have an investigation where all members have to agree with the report or a single member can veto the release, which is why they are not allowed to assign blame, and why they have not been allowed to state anything more than they have. The facts that are being released in this report is evidence enough that the investigation is being manipulated and directed to ensure that conclusions can not be drawn from facts, all we can rely on is speculation from the press and comments. I doubt any hard evidence will ever come out, and we will have to settle for innuendo and finger pointing, allowing the west to isolate Russia even further till the missile shield network sits right on their borders.

martinusher 12 Sep 2014 23:35

What I find a bit troubling is that the obvious conclusion -- that the plane was hit by a ground fired missile -- isn't backed up by any intelligence. Its reasonable to think that the US's NRO is watching the Ukraine closely so they should have been able to get almost real time confirmation of the launcher's position and use.

Nobody willingly takes down an airliner unless there's serious propaganda to be made from it. So its either a serious screwup by the rebels or something rather more evil by the blackops types. (I'd regard the latter as a tinfoil helmet theory except that we've found out time and again that these people are capable of doing anything provided it achieves their goal.)

ThreeCents JCDavis 12 Sep 2014 20:56

"Everything coming from the UK and US governments is a lie at one level or another and should be carefully investigated."

I agree very strongly. And I think the key word here is "investigation".

Ah, but who is going to do the investigating?

Well, I would favor an "Investigation Party" -- which would push hard on investigating all manner of corruption and conspiracy, and which would campaign on that basis.

And I would favor an "Investigation Branch" of government, on the same level as the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches of government. It would be dedicated to making everything in government NOT secret! Secrecy = Tyranny. Truth = Liberty. Click here for more.

UncleSam404 Karl Brandt 12 Sep 2014 20:48

Whatever happened to Carlos anyway lol? I guess they couldn't locate this guy.

tanyushka 12 Sep 2014 20:12

why isn't the International Civil Aviation Organization in charge of the investigation as is custommay in these cases?

why isn't in charge an international comission as the UN demanded unanimously?

now, if we talk about chances... the Ukranian army had six BUK systems operative at the time of the incident while the DPR forces deny having a single one but... let's accept Kiev's claims that there was one, the chances are 6 to 1 that the Ukraninas shot...

on the other hand, Russia claims that there was an Ukranian jet fighter close to the plane & it isn't even mentionedin the investigation

BMWAlbert 12 Sep 2014 18:01

This seems the most likely possibility, but I wonder at the release without any backing detail, it sounds like intended innuendo also.

William J Rood EnviroCapitalist 12 Sep 2014 17:55

Yes indeed, US satellite data is highly secret unless it backs up the US Government's claims. I don't suppose you're old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis and the release of all sort of reconnaissance on the matter.

If the US government had any real evidence whatsoever, you'd have seen that rather than all the photo-shopped social media stuff that's been going around. Lack of evidence is why CIA analysts have refused to support the State Department's lies. They learned their lesson from the Iraq War. Did you?

Rob711 12 Sep 2014 17:35

The shooting down scenario. Obviously they haven't picked up on some of the perfectly round holes in some of the debris. Never mind the question of why the unfortunate plane and it's passengers were flying over an area where 5 planes had been downed in the preceding two weeks

ShiresofEngland 12 Sep 2014 17:22

http://www.just-international.org/articles/flight-mh17-what-youre-not-being-told/

More propaganda, but something which hasn't been answered to my satisfaction.

So let's tread carefully and just ask a few more questions that these so-called journalists in the mainstream media are neglecting to ask. For example: Why hasn't the US government released its satellite pictures of the area right after the event?

Obviously the USA would have satellites watching, and did expect after it happened that the White House would do some sort of presentation after a few days to prove who shot down MH17. They were quick to accuse and had hoped they had the evidence which would be damning, but they haven't.

ShiresofEngland Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 16:43

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-21/russia-says-has-photos-ukraine-deploying-buk-missiles-east-rader-proof-warplanes-mh1

Yes, and that is disputed. Each side keeps coming up with propaganda where not one of us knows the truth.

ps the the poster below. It isn't 'lazy self indulgence'. Saying that I do not know who done it is a valid position, and more honest than most on here. Like everyone with any compassion I believe that the relatives of the victims of MH17 deserve the truth, something they have thus far not got.

Luminaire ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 16:33
That would mean a Ukrainian jet yes? Which the russian's showed radar data proving? Just before MH17 vanishes you can see a second trace, which the RU MOD say is a fighter jet.

Except it doesn't. The MH17 trace splits in two, because one part is the 'supposed' location (based on the flightplan and predicted path), and the supposed SU-25 is actually MH17 as it breaks up.

The reason this is obvious to anyone who actually does any research is that 'MH17' becomes a square, and the 'SU-25' is a circle. In that software the circle represents a 'real' radar contact, and the square is a predicted path - as squares always are.

If there was a jet as well there would be 2 circles and a square, because MH17 did just VANISH so there would have been 2 'real' radar contacts.

So there was no SU-25 - but hey dont let that stop you literally making stuff up and being 'quite sure' about it.

Nicole Bresht -> krislej 12 Sep 2014 16:13

A ground missile would have caused the MG17 to explode in a fireball... seems as if the cockpit had been shot out with an airborne cannon... not sure an SU fighter could reach needed speed/ height to pull this off.. more likely a MIG

ide000 -> ShermanPotter 12 Sep 2014 16:05

So far today we've had the SU25 shot down MH-17, and now this. You seem to be absolutely desperate to hang this onto anybody other than Russia. Even coming up with ridiculous scenarios to try and prove your case.

Lets be precise, Russian ministry of defense didn't reliably identify plain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKhA50erngk at 14:04). They claim the plain was supposed to be SU-25.

Actually I expected of Dutch experts at least to clarify whether they confirm or do not confirm presence of military jet in vicinity of MH17.

Brian Beuken LeWillow 12 Sep 2014 15:50

I very much doubt it was a deliberate act, possibly incompetence on the part of the BUK operators...

But it was a BUK, the problem is while we can all spot the smoking gun we can't find enough of the "bullet" to silence the doubters...so lets lay out some facts and let them make up their own minds.

Fragmentation patterns can contain a large number of holes that appear to look like "bullet" holes, but they are simply penetration holes

However there are a lot of holes in a small area in the MH17 pics, this is highly indicative of a fragmentation warhead which can also explain some of the more isolated holes in other parts of the fuselage, the fragments can spread out from the nose to the tail but the concentration will be where the missile was closest where it exploded

Also the holes are fairly small, bullet size some may say.. But modern warplanes do not fire bullets, they fire 30mm shells...quite devastating weapons which when fired from a moving target at a moving target leave a very clear trail, and a normally short burst of fire.

Its logistically highly improbably that a ground attack aircraft, without a pressurised cockpit and not designed to take out air targets, with a max ceiling of 23k ft (unloaded) could get to a 33K ft airliner at cruising speed which is faster than the Su25's top speed..... But that's what some want us to believe...but if it did... it has a 30mm cannon...not itty bitty machine guns....and it would be one hell of a pilot who could get of dozens of shots in the same basic area... (lets also not ignore the fact that the pilot would know he was attacking a civil aircraft...pilots are generally pretty clever people, and know when they are committing war crimes)

It could have been another aircraft, Ukraine and Russia both operate high speed interceptors...but again there's the problem with the gun.....they use cannons, not shotguns or itty bitty machine guns.

Some suggest that an air to air missile might then be the cause of the fragmentation...but this also is problematic, most AA missiles are not powerful enough to take out a large civil aircraft. Many instances of smaller less well built passenger planes surviving AA strikes have been recorded...But 2 or 3 might do it..but the pilots would surely called Mayday.. They didn't, suggesting they had no idea what hit them,

Of course, there's always the lucky shot..but I doubt that...

Iron has been recovered, many SAM's use Iron, some use steel bearings some use both....but shells are depleted uranium....so no shells....no bullets...(bullets are not iron).

So these are facts....
Make of them what you wish...but I'm struggling to see anything other than a large SAM....I don't know from who, or why, that's a different question...

ShiresofEngland 12 Sep 2014 15:47

The plane went down over territory held by pro-Russia rebels, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

Oh I get it so the implication is........
Actually nothing as the launch site isn't known, and could just as easily been fired from Ukrainian or rebel held territory.

A rebel officer told AP after the disaster that the plane was shot down by a mixed team of rebels and Russian military personnel who believed they were targeting a Ukrainian military plane. Intercepted phone conversations between the rebels released by the Ukrainian government support that version of events.

Which might be true, but there again might not and hasn't been verified. Might be propaganda and the source is hardly impartial.
So what do we know? Highly probable that it was a BUK which brought down MH17. Ukraine has these weapon systems, the rebels may have captured one but how serviceable is questionable, and the Russians may have lent one with a crew but that hasn't been definitely verified. All of them could have been in the area, or maybe not.

Conclusion: Still no closer to knowing which side brought it down, whether it was just a cock up, or a black flag. Plenty of propaganda, accusations, denials, but any real evidence so far is very thin on the ground.

madjens1 12 Sep 2014 15:28

It's funny how the press are falling over themselves to say it was definitely Russians, the EU are desperate for it to be Russians, the Americans are desperate for it to be Russians - so when something factual comes out that doesn't toe the expectant line they have to drop in the odd implication and suggested line.

Then the idiots who read the guardian (who otherwise reject foreign countries being bismirched) swallow it all up

KeloCote Mrg Billman 12 Sep 2014 14:54

That would be true had the Ukrainians not warned the plane to stay away. In fact, ground control ordered the plane to climb to a higher altitude, and the pilot disobeyed.
During its recent war on Gaza, Israel kept insisting that it's perfectly safe for civil aviation to continue landing in its airport near Tel Aviv. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rockets were flying near the whole path that a plane would take to land - at a time of Hamas's choosing. Israel was firing even more dangerous missiles at those rockets. Any claim that it's safe for civilian airlines to fly under such conditions is fundamentally dishonest. But Israel does not want to admit they've lost control over their 'sovereign' airspace. Similarly, Ukraine did not want to admit they're lost control over their 'sovereign' airspace, because there's a war going on. However, in this particular instance, ground control warned the pilot to divert to a higher altitude using a false pretext. Regardless of the false pretext, the pilot should have diverted - and by not doing so - is responsible.

Realworldview 12 Sep 2014 14:36

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17: 'most likely' it was shot down from ground

Since when did a ground to air anti-aircraft missile use 30mm cannon shells to destroy its target. The evidence strongly points to it being a military aircraft that downed MH17 as Dutch Safety Board (DSB) Report: Malaysian MH17 was Brought Down by "A Large Number of High Energy Objects", Contradicts US Claims that it Was Shot Down by a "Russian Missile" argues, despite the heavy coat of varnish that's clearly been applied to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report.


EugeneGur Dunscore 12 Sep 2014 14:18

This scenario is just as unproved and likely unprovable as all the others. It's clear that Kiev benefited the most from the event, and the US exploited is to the fullest to impose sanctions on Russia before any investigation was even initiated. The reluctance of both Kiev and the US to provide evidence required for the investigation is bound to raise questions.

One would think given how fiercely the US accused Russia they'd be happy to provide evidence against Russia if they had any. Could that be that the evidence they have point the other way? And, of course, that non-disclosure agreement, which looks like an attempt at a coverup. Otherwise, why?

This horrible tragedy has been and no doubt will be exploited for petty political gains. I am sorry to see even the Dutch entering this shameful game by signing that non-disclosure agreement with one of the suspects, the Kiev government.


DownSouth77 Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 13:32

Your maximum altitude is generally restricted by 2 factors. The first being that the maximum altitude is reached when all power produced by the engines is going into maintaining the altitude. Thus no more power is left available for the aircraft to climb any further. The second factor is pressurization. Thus the max psi differential between the atmosphere and cabin. When the airframe can't withstand the differential value between the cabin and the atmosphere the consequences can and will probably be very bad. This should not be a factor on the SU-25...as its more applicable to airliners (which in turn can reach roughly 40,000' before this becomes a factor)

Thus back to the maximum altitude and the power produced by the engines. Thats btw also the reason why when they strip armament from an aircraft they reduce the weight etc and in turn can reach a heigher altitude with the same engines. Now the first problem here is that everybody assumes the stock version of the SU-25 (which has a max operating altitude of 7km) is the SU-25 the ukrainians used. Thus its impossible for it to reach an altitude of 10km etc.

However...lets look at the SU-39...which is in fact a SU-25 which is upgraded...the max altitude for this aircraft is 10km. Furthermore...the Sukhoi lists its export model the SU-25K as having a max altitiude of 7km...that specific variant. We dont know for sure that Ukraine has any SU-25 variant that are upgraded enough to reach an altitiude of 10km. However we do know it is definitely possible for a SU-25 (depending on engines etc) to reach 10km. In short...its useless to quote the wiki or generic version of the SU-25 max altitiude as reference in saying its impossible to reach 10km.

In the late 90's Sukhoi 25''s could already reach altitiudes in excess of 8.5km's.

Hope all this makes sense :)

Dunscore Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 13:29

Thanks for the information !

1) Reuters. Sadly this 100-year old British company has been compromised being taken over by a Canadian company belonging to zionists. Canadian PM Harper is a blind follower of Israeli extremists. So V Putin is enemy number one and you can't use Reuters as an unbiased source once more. Russia has had to up its game recently in the Arctic purely because Harper has become aggressive to please the US.

2) Obviously the incidents are in Crimea etc are orchestrated by Kiev.
Any other explanation is nonsense. The nazi volunteers are the usual suspects. Let's hope that Mr Nuizmieks is given a chance to see the truth. We should prepare for the McCain trolls to try to blame any social problems on V Putin.


Dunscore EugeneGur 12 Sep 2014 13:16

I agree with all your thoughts.

Kiev Russian-speaking soldiers disguised as Donbass security forces ("rebels") could have driven a Buk into the Donbass, fired the missile and then driven back, making sure to be seen by foreign journalists ( Ukraine is a huge country, how come the journalists were on the same spot at the right moment to see the Buk driving around ? very convenient..)

The US and Israel both have motives to shoot the plane down. They had been convicted of war crimes in KL last year and their cases sent to the ICC in Holland. MH17 was also full of Dutch passengers - right
www.criminisewar.org

Plus, the ukraine airforce is in a bad state due to lack of funds. So the US and Israelis were providing assistance, also Poland and Lithuania, of pilots and equipment. No-one knows who was piloting the two Su-25s detected by Russian radar.

Russia asked Ukraine 12 crucial questions a month ago - still no answer.

US produced absolutely no professional evidence for the enquiry, nothing except boasting trolls.

Retired veteran CIA secret data analysts wrote a group letter to Obama and Merkel to condemn US for bringing their profession into disrepute.

Russia provided comprehensive data and evidence to the investigation.

KeloCote Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 13:15

I did not speculate on why the pilot did not want to climb. It make no difference. By refusing the order the pilot assumed responsibility for the fate of the plane. Civil aviation pilots have no "right" to refuse orders of competent ground authorities and still enjoy the protections granted by international treaties to civil aviation.

I don't understand your statement about the "report says there was no abnormal communication". Are you contesting my claim that the pilot refused an order to climb up just minutes before being hit? I'm basing my claim on what I read in previous articles in the Guardian on this. It could be wrong. I wasn't there personally.

Rudeboy1 DownSouth77 12 Sep 2014 12:32

The SA-11 has a proximity fused warhead. The missile detonates when it senses it is close to the target (proximity fuses then called Variable Time Fuses were used as far back as WW2 by the US and UK) . Fragmentation at the front end of the aircraft would indicate that the warhead detonated at the front of the aircraft. Damage from the warhead would be localised. Most SAM's (except the most modern) rely on prox fuses as the massive speeds they work at mean a direct impact isn't always possible (particularly on a manoeuvering target).

But you're wrong on the SU-25. There is no way an SU-25 can intercept an airliner at 30,000 travelling at >500kn when that is above the height and speed that the SU-25 can operate at. If you know why it could please let us all know why.


fragglerokk 12 Sep 2014 12:19

of course he says that, the Dutch people would go nuts if they knew that Shell have signed a $10 billion fracking deal with the Ukraines who shot down a load of their citizens, it would be really bad for business especially since they have already started fracking Slavyansk after the Ukie artillery bombed it out of existence and created 1000s of refugees. The truth will out, the problem is they are all in it together, money, oil, gas, failed coups, up to their necks in it. The non disclosure agreement signed by the Dutch, the belgians, the Ukraines and Australians says it all, no facts, no figures and no details.. total fit up.


Malkatrinho -> LeWillow 12 Sep 2014 12:19

As the bookmaker William Hill once said "Believe nothing of what you hear, and believe only 5% of what you see, and be very suspicious of that 5%."

That's got to be one of the most random quotes I've read.

EugeneGur 12 Sep 2014 12:13
Typical Guardian, impartial and objective as ever. Do these conclusions point to the hand that launched these "high energy objects"? No, they do not. Even if it is proven beyond any doubt that the airplane was shot down by ground-to-air missile or even specifically by Buk, does it prove who did the shooting? No, it does not.
However, pro-Russian rebels are mentioned more than once, so there is no chance to forget who is supposed to be blamed.

It is possible that Donbass fighters shot down that plane by mistake thinking that was Kiev's plane coming to bomb their cities. Kiev could've done that as well, in its case likely deliberately. For some reason, they did have Buks in that area, although separatists do not have airplanes. Proving which scenario is correct would be difficult. Connecting Russia to this would be even harder if not impossible. Nobody would bother, though. If "Russia" is repeated often enough, some dirt will stick no matter what. It's been done already quite successfully.

maico ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 12:13

The report says there was no shrapnel damage bellow the cockpit floor. This means we can discount an air to air missile which is heat seeking and would hit the engine. The engine is of course well bellow the cockpit level.

The shrapnel holes are various sizes and shapes pointing strongly to a proximity air-burst from a radar guided SAM. Obviously once most of the wreckage is recovered and reassembled in a hanger a definitive answer can be given. Shell casing and powder burn evidence may still be recoverable although I expect Russian security services have tampered with the wreckage.

Robert Looren de Jong -> Trabecula 12 Sep 2014 12:12

http://www.nst.com.my/node/21682

BERA: Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today denied reports in the social media that Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH17 was shot down by fighter jets.
He said intelligence and evidence gathered from the fragments of the ill-fated aircraft clearly showed it was shot down by missiles that were launched to the air from the ground.
"Based on military intelligence and evidence from a portion of fragments found, it is not likely the bullets were used from air to air but from surface to air. "Whether these were owned by Ukraine or the rebels who supplied by Russia. the bullets must have come from BUK System and this matter cannot be denied by Europe, Nato or Russia," he told reporters after officiating the Bera Umno's Wanita, Youth and Puteri wing division meeting here today. still trying to recycle that old debunked and proven wrong narrative?

KeloCote 12 Sep 2014 12:10

The pilot is responsible. He was ordered by Ukrainian air-traffic control to fly to higher altitude, and refused the order. Formally they told him it's because of other planes in the area, but more likely they knew it was unsafe to fly it being a war zone - and simply didn't want to admit they don't have control over territory they claim as their own. By refusing the order to fly higher - the pilot assumed responsibility for flying in a dangerous path. Since the pilot is dead - the airline is responsible.

Trabecula Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 12:05

Also, the next day the extremely competent and knowledgable Malay minister said:

"Hishammuddin said he was personally confident that flight MH17 was shot with a BUK missile based on his experience and knowledge as a defence minister. Hence, he advised the people not to be easily influenced by speculation and rumours being spread in the media social."

I would like to put the emphasis on "personally confident" as well as on the title: "unlikely shot down by jet fighter".
It's probably jut another "hunch" he had, like the one of MH370 having crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean... Or in Bangladesh... Or having landed in Pakistan... Or maybe a few miles closer to Australia. Well done Sir!

Trabecula Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 11:58

Is this Russian, Malay or US propaganda:

NST 7th August:

"KUALA LUMPUR: INTELLIGENCE analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government had had something to do with it"

http://www.nst.com.my/node/20925

Do you really expect anyone sane and humane to believe any news coming from Israeli media?! Gosh...

SHappens 12 Sep 2014 11:27

What a timely article and what an empty statement. Most likely, probably, it seems, could be, looks like.

Conclusion: "It is going to be a long investigation," he said, while remaining cautious about what results the international investigation might achieve.

Trabecula 12 Sep 2014 11:25

De Jong and his mates: you should read the news straight from NST, not any other "repost" or reference, be it RT.com or ET.mars. Go back to early August news (4th or 7th, if not mistaken) and check out their official opinion on the subject. I've been in Malaysia for 2 weeks last month and though they're pretty careful with what they say - because of they western counterparts - and they truly blame both sides (this is subject is overhelming there), they have little doubt that it was shot down by a jet fighter. And this is supported by german and american experts so be careful with what you are being "fed".

Western media never reported this though western countries only needed a few hours to "choose" who to blame for this tragic war crime.

DownSouth77 Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 11:08

Firstly a Su-25 could have shot it down...no doubt about that. Its just a matter of if it happened that way.

I have a question...something I haven't seen mentioned really. while I know aviation (work in the industry) I have very little knowledge of the BUK missle system...therfore the question.

Why is the cockpit riddled with holes...yet other pieces of the aircraft as almost no holes in it. Wouldn't it be that if a BUK did it that the COMPLETE body of aircraft would have had similar amount of damage caused by projectiles? Yet I haven't seen one other piece of the wreckage that had near the type of projectile damage than the cockpit section. Why is that...for those saying it was a BUK missile that caused that damage to the cockpit section?

Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 11:06

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.615512?

REUTERS - The United States announced more sanctions against Russia on Friday, affecting oil and defense industries and further limiting the access of major Russian banks to U.S. debt and equity markets to punish Russia for its intervention in Ukraine.

The sanctions, which for the first time targeted Russia's Sberbank, were timed to coincide with new European Union economic penalties that included restrictions on financing for some Russian state-owned companies and asset freezes on leading Russian politicians.

The sanctions could be rolled back if Moscow withdrew its forces from Ukraine and established a buffer zone along the border among other conditions, a senior U.S. official said.

SocialistPig 12 Sep 2014 11:00

retired Russian army Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok believes the fact that international investigators have thus far failed to provide conclusive evidence suggests that they have something to hide.

"You can find out what kind of missile was used against a downed plane one day after it was crashed," the retired colonel told The Moscow Times. During his career, Khodarenok operated S-75 and S-200 air defense systems.

"Each missile type has its own shrapnel imprint. The shrapnel should have been preserved in the elements of the aircraft itself as well as in the bodies of the victims," he said.

zelazny fintan 12 Sep 2014 10:54

The Malaysian government disagrees with you and has reported that its experts say a fighter jet brought the plane down by first hitting it with a missile and then firing 30mm bullets into both sides of the fuselage.

Photos of the fuselage contain unmistakable bullet holes. Anti-Putin people can deny the evidence and ignore the opinions of the Malaysian experts, but the fact remains that bullets can't travel 30,000 feet into the air and they must have come from a fighter jet.

The USA certainly has known this fact from day 1, as have all of the Nato governments. They just can't figure out any positive spin, so they have decided to delay the release of the report for a year or so in the hope the public will forget.

I wonder how much it will cost to make the family members of the dead forget?

Jiri 12 Sep 2014 10:54

If there was any evidence that the Russians or the East Ukrainians were responsible for the downing of MH17 it would have been made widely available and the maximum political mileage extracted from it.

Standupwoman -> daveydor 12 Sep 2014 10:53

On this scale, and with so few voices to speak against it - yes. This is the first time I'm aware of where the US has effectively dictated the script for the entire western msm without even the Guardian offering a dissenting view.

Since you find my massive 2.26 posts a day so disconcerting, I assume you'd like to drive all dissent from the comments too.

zelazny -> RoyalBludger 12 Sep 2014 10:50

Those look like large caliber bullet holes to me, and I have seen a lot of bullet holes in sheet metal.

And I don't know of any rifle in the world, large caliber or small, that can shoot 30,000 feet or more. None can fire accurately even with the most skilled shooter at more than 2475 meters, the longest confirmed sniper kill.

So if bullets hit the plane, they must have come from a fighter jet's 30mm cannon.

The Malaysian government thinks this happened, but of course their opinion has no role in the Nato cover up.

zelazny -> EnviroCapitalist 12 Sep 2014 10:44

Obama has Guantanamo? What equivalent does Putin have?

Obama tortures people and doesn't allow them to have a trial at all in most cases, and if they get one, they get a secret, military tribunal, in violation of the US constitution.

In his 6 years in office, Obama has pardoned 52 people, despite the fact that US prisons hold over 2 million.

Putin has pardoned thousands, including his billionaire political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The comments threads on western sites show the massive love of war and mass murder among ordinary citizens like you, deceived by a life time of high tech propaganda. Western citizens like to compare those they fear to Hitler, not realizing that the victors in WWII deliberately slaughtered German and Japanese civilians by the millions. War criminals fought WWII, and some lost and some won.

But all decent people lost in WWII, because since then the US and Nato have turned the world into a charnel house of war.

flyingdutchman Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 10:43

More usually SU25's carry armour piercing or APHE rounds. These will explode on impact even with a soft structure. Even allowing a slight delay after encountering an aircraft's skin these will then detonate leaving a much larger hole.

Simple armor piercing rounds will not explode. APHE rounds will, but with a delay of around one millisecond or slightly less. Since the round travels at several thousand feet per second (and won't be slowed down significantly by anything in the aircraft's structure since the rounds are designed to punch through half an inch of hardened steel with ease) the explosion will only take place a few feet beyond the aircraft's skin. Also, fragments from the explosion will tend to be projected forward.

Although aluminium isn't massively strong, it is stressed on an airliner. It's also not usually followed by empty air.

Beneath the aircraft's skin there are structural parts (stringers and frames) with insulation in between. The structure is all aluminum, except for very few parts at the front that are reinforced with titanium in order to better resist bird strikes. Anyway, nothing compared to the stuff the average 30mm projectile is designed to deal with.

OpiumAddict Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 10:41

no evidence the rebels ever had a working Buk or anyone trained to use it.

definite proof that Ukraine had several working Buks in the area with crews.

dion13 zelazny 12 Sep 2014 10:37

On 13 August, Pravda published a highly plausible version of the tragedy:

"Boeing-777 was downed by Ukrainian MiG-29, expert says"

http://english.pravda.ru/world/ussr/13-08-2014/128268-boeing_crash_ukraine-0/

Just one excerpt:

[...] the Romanian expert believes that it was not a Ukrainian Su-25, as the plane could not reach the altitude of 10,300 meters and strike the Boeing due to the poor level of training of Ukrainian flight personnel and technical imperfection of old Su-25. Vasilescu indicates that radars show Su-25 identically to MiG-29 fighter jet, as the planes have identical reflective surface area [...] The fleet of the Ukrainian Air Force has fighter aircraft MiG-29 that are capable of intercepting Boeing-777. The fighters are based near Kiev and in Ivano-Frankivsk.

ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 10:23

An exploding missile would hit the bottom of the plane as it approached and would scatter shrapnel over the entire plane. The fact is that only the cockpit is heavily penetrated, and from the sides, both sides (entrance and exit holes are not hard to distinguish), which points to an air assault targeting the cockpit to disable the pilots.

Since the Ukraine has veto power over publication of the findings, this whole investigation is a whitewash. Why isn't Russia part of the investigation with veto power? Giving one of the suspects in a crime the ability to block publication of the findings is ludicrous.

Can someone explain how a missile from the ground would produce both exit and entrance punctures in the cockpit on the sides? That seems impossible.

This is just a phony investigation, with the lead suspect having veto power.

High resolution photos from the following link show clearly holes which are pushed out and in. I am not forensic expert but I can tell in from out.

A missile with exploding shrapnel would not produce in and out holes; the only way to get that result is to shoot from both sides. And a missile exploding would effect the bottom of the plane, in a random pattern; the holes in the plane are in the cockpit from the sides, both sides.

http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/08/the-israeli-photo-of-mh17-who-is-yaron.html

Take a look: holes punched out, holes pushed in: draw your own conclusions because the investigation will never reveal this fact, since Ukraine has veto power over the findings being published.

The photos provided show the pilots were targeted, something an ground to air missile could not do. Also the holes across one of the wings are in a line, such as a machine gun would produce, not a random explosion. The theory of a missile from the ground cannot explain the photographic/physical evidence.

Only an assault from the air makes sense once you examine the evidence provided by the photos Please take a look, especially at the closeup at
http://www.anderweltonline.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/Cockpit-MH017.pdf
which shows holes with raised edges (exit) and holes with pushed in edges (entrance).

ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 10:04

The nations investigating have signed an agreement not to publish results unless all parties reach a consensus. If the parties found evidence of Ukrainian responsibility, Ukraine would veto and it would not be published. This form of censorship makes an independent investigation impossible, as well as its publication if it were.

I am quite sure that bullets are "high energy objects" but the Western media seems to ignore that possibility, as it would implicate Ukraine, which has veto power over any publication of findings.

For me, the clincher is that only the front part (cockpit) of the plane was penetrated----a missile that exploded would not target the cockpit---and that the holes in the cockpit show both exit and entrance punctures---something compatible only with being fired on from both sides. A missile would only penetrate from one side. It is not hard to distinguish an entrance and an exit hole, as one is push in, the other out.

This investigation is, by agreement, not independent or impartial, since the Ukraine can block publication of any findings it does not like.

It's just one more piece of the propaganda effort to demonize Russia and thus cover up the crimes of the Kiev regime

Dunscore -> Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 10:02

However, Russian mass media information proved to be a fake. On September 9, the Dutch Safety Board published the report, the paragraph 2.5.4 of which says that Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise provided the recording and a transcript of the radio and telephone communications regarding flight MH17

Just a little tip. Don't ever use anything that comes out of the Kiev offices. It is all 100% unbelievable. All of it. There are so many different agendas by so many groups fighting each other like cats and dogs, all in the same buildings, that it is no wonder that so much confusion reigns there.

dhammaguy 12 Sep 2014 09:57

Shocking Analysis of the 'Shooting Down' of Malaysian MH17 http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/

Dunscore -> Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 09:44

John McCain has taught you well.
You and he are obviously students of the "Shout it loud and shout it again and again" Goebbels doctrine -- If you are so desperate to put your case, go and join the police investigative team. You're such a cut and paste expert with carefully selected bits from wikipedia, they will find you useful somewhere.

There's a flood of misinformation this morning. Much more than normal.
You're louder than you normally are.

Usually McCain orders the whole team out when the yanks have got something that they particularly want to distract from the public gaze.

Most of your team is talking about the Buk again, sticking to the same old story, so obviously you are worried that the Dutch will latch onto the truth. Well they have nine months to find it, so you and your team of parrots will have to work very hard to keep them distracted. Best of luck !

Given the fact that the steady level flight (in kilometers) above the ceiling is impossible,
How do you KNOW that is true? Do you know every single situation where it might not be true. Are you an expert ? I don't mean a cut and paste expert..

Keep writing, keep writing... you and your mates have got to keep the dutch police distracted. !

Keep writing Keep writing !

Bye...

medievil -> Yatvyag 12 Sep 2014 09:38

shot down over the Persian Gulf in 1988 by the SM-2 surface-to-air missile launched from the USS Vincennes. As a result of the Iranian Flight 655 catastrophe 290 passengers were killed including 60 children. The author emphasizes that after the incident American top officials not only dismissed all the accusations but blamed the Iranian pilot. However, nearly seven weeks after the tragedy the Pentagon had to recognize that all the "facts" the American top officials were referring to in order to shift the burden of responsibility on the Iranians were wrong. Strangely enough, the Pentagon's 53-page report on the incident "still concluded that the captain and all the other Vincennes officers acted properly."

Although Fred Kaplan, the defense correspondent of the Boston Globe at that time, pointed repeatedly to the numerous embarrassing discrepancies in the Pentagon's narrative, the US senior officers qualified them as inessential. The most shocking fact, revealed in 1992 was that the USS Vincennes was in the Iranian waters when it shot down the Iranian Flight 655, not in international as the Pentagon reported in 1988.

"Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was running to succeed Ronald Reagan as president, said on the campaign trail, "I will never apologize for the United States - I don't care what the facts are," cites Fred Kaplan and adds bitterly, "Not until eight years later did the US government compensate the victims' families, and even then expressed "deep regret," not an apology." Medals awarded While issuing notes of regret over the loss of human life, the U.S. government has, to date, neither admitted any wrongdoing or responsibility in this tragedy, nor apologized, but continues to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident. The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, even won the navy's Commendation Medal for "heroic achievement", his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire" having enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure." According to a 23 April 1990 article printed in The Washington Post, the Legion of Merit was presented to Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Commander Lustig for their performance in the Persian Gulf on 3 July 1988. The citations did not mention the downing of the Iran Air flight at all.

Денис Панкратов -> fintan 12 Sep 2014 09:31

If you're interested, I would say. And in Washington and in the Netherlands have long known who shot down the "Boeing". But will hide the truth to the end. Because this really does not fit into the ongoing today geopolitics.

Geopolitics, as a rule, the subject is extremely pragmatic and cynical. For it not only 200 dead, for her and 200 thousand dead - empty words ...

Dunscore 12 Sep 2014 09:26

A rebel officer told AP after the disaster that the plane was shot down by a mixed team of rebels and Russian military personnel who believed they were targeting a Ukrainian military plane.

This is the ENTIRE source for the western case that a Buk shot MH17 down. It is a complete lie. The officer was never named, the story was never verified. The officer does not exist. Evidence please, if you disagree?

Canonman -> Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 09:17

That area has been under satellite surveillance for a long time by various US, NATO and Russian satellites - after all it is a war zone. Rest assured that there will be coverage of that area by various satellites.

Perhaps you should lay off the personal insults? Or do you get off on being rude or a dick - 'Rudeboy-1'?

Hansueli LeWillow 12 Sep 2014 09:16

Well, before engaging in wild speculation, why not start from a simple possibility, like a simple fuck-up by the guys on the trigger? Seems far more likely than any hypothetical planned shoot down by CIA or anybody else, including Russia.

Dunscore Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 09:16

Of course the utter idiots that gave a highly advanced surface to air missile system to a bunch of idiots are not responsible at all.....it was just a mistake. I'm sure the relatives will understand.

Your master McCain taught his baby trolls well -- But why do we always get the uneducated ones.

Where is all your written evidence for your silly story ? Let's see something on paper and not just oral bullshit...

JCDavis mraak 12 Sep 2014 09:09

Since it hit the cockpit and not the tail, it had to be fired from the direction where the plane was headed.

Not true. If it was fired from an aircraft well below the 777, the impact could have had the same signature. And depending on the guidance system, it could have hit the same area no matter where it was fired from--

Electro-optical seekers can be programmed to target vital area of an aircraft, such as the cockpit.

Dunscore Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 09:08

nd as such it is consitant with a buk missile

If you can't even spell consistent, why should we pay any attention to wha you say ?

Everyone is suddenly an expert on missile ballistics.
Tell your audience please the source of all your qualifications.
A PhD from Ronald McDonald's University ?

Two german military pilots saw all the wreckage on the crash site and with 30 years experience, they made a careful detailed explanation over several A4 sides explaining why it was NOT a Buk. Have you read that ? Why do you contradict that ? Come on, let's have your knowledge on the table --
McCain would be proud of you, you follow his script so well.

What will you do when your master loses his job at the next US election?

Canonman 12 Sep 2014 08:31

All of this is just speculation.
Question 1: where are the Satellite images of that area at that exact time?
Question 2: where are the audio transmissions between the crew and the flight towers?
Question 3: why did the BBC remove its own segment that was done shortly afterwards where they had people on record stating that they had seen a jet flying behind if?
Question 4: who ordered the BBC remove its own segment?
Question 5: If the pilots where shot at by a 'jet' as is believed by many - what about the autopsies of the pilots? Were any done? What did they find.
Question 6: if a BUK missile had taken it down how come there was not a trail from the missile? These missiles do leave a rather distinctive trial behind them that is seen for kilometers.
Question 7: who ordered the plane to fly lower than was deemed safe for that area?
So many questions and so little facts… Perhaps they questions do not fit the narrative?

michaelantony 12 Sep 2014 08:19

This investigation is a colossal waste of time and money and European taxpayers should demand an end to it. We all know what happened to the plane: it was shot down by accident while flying over a war zone where surface to air missiles were in constant use over previous days. None of the belligerents had an interest in shooting in down: whoever did it mistook it for a military craft belonging to the enemy. To try to find out which group to pin the blame on serves no purpose whatever except to further the warmongering agenda of NATO, which is trying to provoke the 3rd World War with Russia or justify even more crushing sanctions to grind Russia's population into further poverty. The real culprits for this horrible accident were Malaysia Airlines for flying over a war zone to save money and the aviation authorities for allowing them to do so. Those are the heads that should roll.

LeWillow -> psygone 12 Sep 2014 08:07

But you have to ask the question 'why would Putin shoot down a Malaysian passenger plane?
It make no sense and would be completely stupid, and I don't think Putin is stupid somehow.
The CIA on the other hand (and US Govt) would have a lot to gain from shooting down a plane and blaming it on Putin. They also have previous form when it comes to blowing planes out of the air.

Standupwoman -> daveydor 12 Sep 2014 08:05

Correct. I joined in 2012 to participate in the Bradley Manning conversation. I have an abhorrence of evil, and the silence of mass media regarding its victims.

What world do you inhabit where such an attitude makes a person 'unreal'?

LeWillow -> daveydor 12 Sep 2014 08:02

"Actually what I find shocking is the bizarre pretence of you people to be real."

By being 'real' do you mean believing everything the Western media tell us and everything the US Government. Is that what being 'real' involves?
If it is, then you can keep it for yourself.

jdanforth -> Martin Adams 12 Sep 2014 08:01
Apparently it was an entire year before Libya was blamed -first it was Iran. Al Megrahi's alleged accomplice was found not guilty, and when al Megrahi was granted a chance to appeal his case in court, he was abruptly released instead.

In the case of Lockerbie, satellite imagery was immediately provided by both France and the US, and that was in the 1980s!

ChristopherMyers 12 Sep 2014 08:01
They are sooo hoping it was East Ukrainian fighters supplied by Russia, sounding more like a witch hunt all the time. I wouldn't rule out the Azov Battalion, they were in the area, they have Russian accents, and BUK's, they murder civilians because they are Russian, like in Odessa. They still don't know if it was a missile, or if it was an air to air or surface to air, or bullets from a Ukrainian fighter jet (which would be intent on targeting the cockpit). Forensics though, will reveal what struck it, then place the blame. Why not wait until then to burn the witch?
Carl Jones 12 Sep 2014 08:00

The preliminary report suggests MH17 was hit by multiple impacts. There are pictures on the alternative media that shows a section of the plane near the cockpit that was strafed by machine gun fire after it had been hit by an air to air rocket[s]. The preliminary finding are inconsistent with a ground to air rocket and their is no evidence to this effect.

Quite simply, this is a cover up.

SaoPaulo 12 Sep 2014 07:56

The mere fact that the United States MSM has dropped this topic like a hot potato (compare CNN coverage of MH17 with the endless coverage of MH370) and the complete lack of verified NATO or US or CIA satellite data implies that the Russians were not at fault here.

JCDavis -> palindrome 12 Sep 2014 07:55

Everything coming from the UK and US governments is a lie at one level or another and should be carefully investigated. But of course there is no one to do that as the press is almost totally subverted.


palindrome 12 Sep 2014 07:50

he drew comparisons with the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing that took years to identify suspects.

Excellent comparison, the Lockerbie investigation is a great example of how investigators dismissed obvious clues as to the true perpetrators and used circumstantial evidence to "prove" that the Bond villains of the day (Libya) were the culprits.

John Ashton's book lays the evidence for all to see of how everything can


JCDavis JCDavis 12 Sep 2014 07:44

Herbert E. Meyer, Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence under the Reagan administration--

"If Putin is too stubborn to acknowledge that his career is over, and the only way to get him out of the Kremlin is feet-first, with a bullet hole in the back of his head - that would also be okay with us."


krislej Daniel Brown 12 Sep 2014 07:35

You're clearly someone who doesn't have a clue:

SU-25's carry the R-60 air to air missile with a range of 5 miles, they also have a 30mm auto-cannon. The wreckage of MH17 is strewn with what are more than likely 30mm shell holes, perfectly rounded and highly unlikely to be fragmentation from a rocket.
SU-25's can also climb to the height of MH17 and stay there for a short period of time before having to descend.

Martin Adams 12 Sep 2014 07:33

The Lockerbie investigation was subverted for political reasons and the enemy of convenience was then Libya. Abdelbasset al Megrahi who served 8 years in prison had nothing to do with Lockerbie and they know it.

GoodmansParadox 12 Sep 2014 07:23

...he drew comparisons with the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing that took years to identify suspects.

An interesting analogy, considering the suspects identified were fabricated in order to frame Libya. Considering the case against the two Libyan suspects required they work together, it was even more notable that only one of them was convicted. So a fabricated prosecution was delivered a perverse verdict, yet the media still lapped it up and ran with the lie.
Funny how, with the toppling of Gaddafi, we were supposed to be provided with the evidence of Libyan involvement. Three years and counting...

And now, the same cheerleaders for blaming Gaddafi are blaming Putin. Plus ca change.

kaptenemo 12 Sep 2014 07:20

Could investigators and journalists please also consider the possibility that the Kiev troops did it? Right now, they should be investigating all leads, not only those pointing to the Eastern Ukrainians. After all, the Ukrainian military did shoot down a commercial plane in 2001, so another mistake cannot be excluded out of hand.

fintan -> DrHandley 12 Sep 2014 07:18

The Dutch are under orders to ensure that all the data and any media release places blame of the Rebels

The Dutch "under orders"? From whom? Have some respect for a democratic, sovereign state that has lost nearly 200 of its citizens to a murderous attack by vicious terrorists and, I have no doubt, very much wants to find the truth about how and why it happened.

Standupwoman 12 Sep 2014 07:14

What's possibly most shocking about this is the reiteration of discredited information - the supposed 'confession' of a rebel (taken massively out of context and heavily denied by the speaker) and the ludicrous fake audio of the rebel conversation which turned out to have been uploaded the day before the crash, then taken down again for editing.

I wouldn't be surprised by this promulgation of lies if I found it on social media, but this is the Associated Press and I'm reading this in a once respected British newspaper. How in the name of any kind of decency did we come to sink as low as this?

DrHandley 12 Sep 2014 07:12

The Dutch are under orders to ensure that all the data and any media release places blame of the Rebels. We may talk about conspiracy theories - but in this case it smells like a cover up. The explosive residue left of the surface of the aircraft would surely indicate the type of weapon used as most explosives have a set 'signature'.

Standupwoman 12 Sep 2014 07:06

There's no surprise in the fact the solution 'getting most attention' is the one most likely to discredit the rebels. I'd be more interested to know if they were giving any attention to anything else.

[Oct 16, 2015] Wolf Richter Debt Fueled Stock Buybacks Now Eating into Earnings

"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 329 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in financial realm. Please join us and participate via our Tip Jar , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser , what we've accomplished in the last year , and our second target , funding for travel to conferences and in connection with original reporting. ..."
"... These companies – according to JPMorgan analysts cited by Bloomberg – have incurred $119 billion in interest expense over the 12 months through the second quarter. The most ever. ..."
"... last thing ..."
"... As recently as 2012, companies were refinancing at interest rates that were 0.83 percentage point cheaper than the rates on the debt they were replacing, JPMorgan analysts said. That gap narrowed to 0.26 percentage point last year, even without a rise in interest rates, because the average coupon on newly issued debt increased. ..."
"... "Increasingly alarming" is what Goldman's credit strategists led by Lotfi Karoui called this deterioration of corporate balance sheets. And it will get worse as yields edge up and as corporate revenues and earnings sink deeper into the mire of the slowing global economy. ..."
"... But it isn't working anymore. Bloomberg found that since May, shares of companies that have plowed the most into share buybacks have fallen even further than the S P 500. Wal-Mart is a prime example. Turns out, once financial engineering fails, all bets are off. Read… The Chilling Thing Wal-Mart Said about Financial Engineering ..."
"... It spelled out in Micheal Hudson's – Killing the Host. Economics and investment banking wraps itself in the persona as the engine of growth when, in fact, it is the engine of dis-employment, stagnate wages, declining manufacturing, inflated property prices which raise the cost of food production and everything else including forcing a majority to spend more of their income on debt service leaving less for anything beyond subsistence living. ..."
"... "trillions are wasted and misdirected into useless financial "engineering" as opposed to real world engineering" ..."
"... I read yesterday that less than 6% of Bank financing is now going to real tangible assets – the balance goes in various forms to intangible goodwill ..."
"... Tony Soprano called it a "bust up" – take over a business and use the brand to skim the profits, buy goods and services and roll them out the backdoor and declare BK and then buy it back for pennies on the dollar. ..."
"... 35 years ago, I spent a day at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania with a driver in a rover by myself watching the Hyenas take down a sick Buffalo culling him out in a gang, working the animal for hours, as he shuffled along until he fell and ten….. finally ate him in a ferocious climax. The most fascinating part of the entire trip. ..."
"... Now there is a big fat tax deductible expense, and down the road, "value" is created when companies are bought for the tax carry forward losses. Win, win win. ..."
"... Is a company that eliminates thousands of jobs via automation or outsourcing worthy of the public's credit? ..."
Oct 16, 2015 | naked capitalism
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 329 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in financial realm. Please join us and participate via our Tip Jar, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser, what we've accomplished in the last year, and our second target, funding for travel to conferences and in connection with original reporting.

Yves here. As anyone who has been in finance know, leverage amplifies gains and losses. Big company execs, apparently embracing the "IBG/YBG" ("I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone") school of management, apparently believed they could beat the day of reckoning that would come of relying on stock buybacks to keep EPS rising, regardless of the underlying health of the enterprise. But even in an era of super-cheap credit, investors expect higher interest rates for more levered businesses, which is what you get when you keep borrowing to prop up per-share earnings. As Richter explains, the chickens are starting to come home to roost.

Companies with investment-grade credit ratings – the cream-of-the-crop "high-grade" corporate borrowers – have gorged on borrowed money at super-low interest rates over the past few years, as monetary policies put investors into trance. And interest on that mountain of debt, which grew another 4% in the second quarter, is now eating their earnings like never before.

These companies – according to JPMorgan analysts cited by Bloomberg – have incurred $119 billion in interest expense over the 12 months through the second quarter. The most ever. With impeccable timing: for S&P 500 companies, revenues have been in a recession all year, and the last thing companies need now is higher expenses.

Risks are piling up too: according to Bloomberg, companies' ability pay these interest expenses, as measured by the interest coverage ratio, dropped to the lowest level since 2009.

Companies also have to refinance that debt when it comes due. If they can't, they'll end up going through what their beaten-down brethren in the energy and mining sectors are undergoing right now: reshuffling assets and debts, some of it in bankruptcy court.

But high-grade borrowers can always borrow – as long as they remain "high-grade." And for years, they were on the gravy train riding toward ever lower interest rates: they could replace old higher-interest debt with new lower-interest debt. But now the bonanza is ending. Bloomberg:

As recently as 2012, companies were refinancing at interest rates that were 0.83 percentage point cheaper than the rates on the debt they were replacing, JPMorgan analysts said. That gap narrowed to 0.26 percentage point last year, even without a rise in interest rates, because the average coupon on newly issued debt increased.

And the benefits of refinancing at lower rates are dwindling further:

Companies saved a mere 0.21 percentage point in the second quarter on refinancings as investors demanded average yields of 3.12 percent to own high-grade corporate debt – about half a percentage point more than the post-crisis low in May 2013.

That was in the second quarter. Since then, conditions have worsened. Moody's Aaa Corporate Bond Yield index, which tracks the highest-rated borrowers, was at 3.29% in early February. In July last year, it was even lower for a few moments. So refinancing old debt at these super-low interest rates was a deal. But last week, the index was over 4%. It currently sits at 3.93%. And the benefits of refinancing at ever lower yields are disappearing fast.

What's left is a record amount of debt, generating a record amount of interest expense, even at these still very low yields.

"Increasingly alarming" is what Goldman's credit strategists led by Lotfi Karoui called this deterioration of corporate balance sheets. And it will get worse as yields edge up and as corporate revenues and earnings sink deeper into the mire of the slowing global economy.

But these are the cream of the credit crop. At the other end of the spectrum – which the JPMorgan analysts (probably holding their nose) did not address – are the junk-rated masses of over-indebted corporate America. For deep-junk CCC-rated borrowers, replacing old debt with new debt has suddenly gotten to be much more expensive or even impossible, as yields have shot up from the low last June of around 8% to around 14% these days:

US-junk-bonds-CCC-2014_2015-10-15

Yields have risen not because of the Fed's policies – ZIRP is still in place – but because investors are coming out of their trance and are opening their eyes and are finally demanding higher returns to take on these risks. Even high-grade borrowers are feeling the long-dormant urge by investors to be once again compensated for risk, at least a tiny bit.

If the global economy slows down further and if revenues and earnings get dragged down with it, all of which are now part of the scenario, these highly leveraged balance sheets will further pressure already iffy earnings, and investors will get even colder feet, in a hail of credit down-grades, and demand even more compensation for taking on these risks. It starts a vicious circle, even in high-grade debt.

Alas, much of the debt wasn't invested in productive assets that would generate income and make it easier to service the debt. Instead, companies plowed this money into dizzying amounts of share repurchases designed to prop up the company's stock and nothing else, and they plowed it into grandiose mergers and acquisitions, and into other worthy financial engineering projects.

Now the money is gone. The debt remains. And the interest has to be paid. It's the hangover after a long party. And even Wall Street is starting to fret, according to Bloomberg:

The borrowing has gotten so aggressive that for the first time in about five years, equity fund managers who said they'd prefer companies use cash flow to improve their balance sheets outnumbered those who said they'd rather have it returned to shareholders, according to a survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

But it's still not sinking in. Companies are still announcing share buybacks with breath-taking amounts, even as revenues and earnings are stuck in a quagmire. They want to prop up their shares in one last desperate effort. In the past, this sort of financial engineering worked. Every year since 2007, companies that bought back their own shares aggressively saw their shares outperform the S&P 500 index.

But it isn't working anymore. Bloomberg found that since May, shares of companies that have plowed the most into share buybacks have fallen even further than the S&P 500. Wal-Mart is a prime example. Turns out, once financial engineering fails, all bets are off. Read… The Chilling Thing Wal-Mart Said about Financial Engineering

Wolf Richter is a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street.


TomDority, October 16, 2015 at 8:01 am

One wonders where all that "investment" goes…pretty much into the CEO's pockets and investors pockets because banks do not create money by investing in real legitimate capital formation or producing anything tangible…..i

It spelled out in Micheal Hudson's – Killing the Host. Economics and investment banking wraps itself in the persona as the engine of growth when, in fact, it is the engine of dis-employment, stagnate wages, declining manufacturing, inflated property prices which raise the cost of food production and everything else including forcing a majority to spend more of their income on debt service leaving less for anything beyond subsistence living.

These trillions are wasted and misdirected into useless financial "engineering" as opposed to real world engineering….at the expense of a habitable peaceful planet. Soon, I hope, this dislocation will be corrected. As I have said before, a good start would be to tax that which is harmful (unearned income and rent seeking) and de-tax that which is helpful – real capital formation, infrastructure and maintenance of a habitable planet and the absolutely necessary biodiversity that sustains us.


david, October 16, 2015 at 8:57 am

"trillions are wasted and misdirected into useless financial "engineering" as opposed to real world engineering"

I read yesterday that less than 6% of Bank financing is now going to real tangible assets – the balance goes in various forms to intangible goodwill

this is not "useless" from the standpoint of those who direct this game.

Tony Soprano called it a "bust up" – take over a business and use the brand to skim the profits, buy goods and services and roll them out the backdoor and declare BK and then buy it back for pennies on the dollar.

the money is used for dividends and buybacks all that money is accumulated by the LBO firms and management to maneuver the situation / process to the point of the bust up – this time they are all going simultaneously for the exit even the most high end S&P firm – the HY prices are deteriorating quickly beyond energy related as % LTV goes higher – before 82′ the LTV of Fortune Cos. was way below 20% – 35% was considered max –

the same characters / groups will be formed to get to 51% to buy and control the bonds at 20-30% on the dollar in BK and take the assets.

35 years ago, I spent a day at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania with a driver in a rover by myself watching the Hyenas take down a sick Buffalo culling him out in a gang, working the animal for hours, as he shuffled along until he fell and ten….. finally ate him in a ferocious climax. The most fascinating part of the entire trip.

USA, USA, USA !

cnchal, October 16, 2015 at 9:38 am

. . .Now the money is gone. The debt remains. And the interest has to be paid,. . .

Now there is a big fat tax deductible expense, and down the road, "value" is created when companies are bought for the tax carry forward losses. Win, win win.

Just Ice, October 16, 2015 at 10:53 am

"Companies with investment-grade credit ratings …"

With government-subsidized private credit creation, the whole concept of "creditworthiness" is suspect. Example, is Smith-Wesson "credit-worthy" to many Progressives? Yet, it's their credit, as part of the public, that would be extended should S&W take out a bank loan.

Is a company that eliminates thousands of jobs via automation or outsourcing worthy of the public's credit?

[Oct 16, 2015] ISIS on verge of defeat as Russian jets cut off arms supplies

World News Daily Express

Earlier this week Putin accused US official of having "mush for brains" after they refused hand over intelligence about ISIS targets.

He said: "We asked on the military level to give us the targets which they consider to be the terrorist ones for sure, 100 per cent. But the answer was: 'No, we are not ready to do that'.

"Then we thought and asked another question: 'Then could you tell us where we should not hit?' Again, no answer. So, what should we do?"

Washington and its allies have suggested Russia is seeking to prop up Bashar al-Assad's regime rather than defeat ISIS.

But Putin hit back, saying his country wants to "contribute to the fight against terrorism" which threatens "the whole world".

[Oct 16, 2015] MH17 field Experiment done by Almaz-Antey

"... The Spanish ATC guy's posts were real, but he said the trailing fighters left shortly before MH17 vanished. Presumably they'd been told to get clear. ..."
"... So… the official Ukrainian ministry of the interior had released via their own web site a fake video-audio product, pretending the downing was done by separatists and it was an after-the-event conversation… but the Interior Ministry had produced the video file the day before the downing. ..."
"... The Spanish ATC guy's real-time tweets are consistent with this story. He said ordinary military arrived at ATC first, but then Interior Ministry guys arrived and took over, removing all evidence tapes. ..."
"... The Kiev government absolutely and provably self-incriminated. ..."
"... All Western and Kiev claims (official, leaked and 'expert comments') to the contrary since, have been orchestrated to bury and obfuscate that key evidence. ..."
"... MH17 was downed by a BUK fired by Kiev government forces, intending to down MH17 and claim the Russians were responsible. US fingers in this scheme can be seen in the selection of an Air Malaysia plane. ..."
"... Other points: – right after the event, Russian sources reported their military signals intelligence in the E-Ukraine conflict area had detected a BUK systems targeting radar activation at the time of the downing. That would be rather unlikely to admit, if they fired it. ..."
"... Many other points all indicate Ukie government responsibility for this war crime. And the nature of the Western 'investigation' also shouts of high level awareness of Western guilt. ..."
"... and what about the testimony of a Ukrainian army soldier that he'd seen a pilot return on the day and time of the downing of MH17, confirming that the boeing had been shot by a Ukrainian fighter plane? ..."
"... the fact that russia is now conceding that the MH17 was hit by a BUK missile completely changes the equation for me. we've either been lied to with the expert opinion and the eye witness account, or the BUK story is a fake. ..."
"... Please note that this Almaz-Antey MH17 field Experiment was done to support their commercial interests in a court battle to recover damages for reputation and sanctions. It does not necessarily reflect Russian government position (although it could hardly counter it either). ..."
"... It is a well timed PR 'Buk' at the corrupt and cynical 15-month Dutch insult to their own MH17 dead citizens and the wider global traveling public. ..."
"... I suspect a lot is calibrated end with the fall of Ukraine's nazi Poreshenko regime. One long cold winter (on a month-by-month pre-payment plan) coming up! ..."
"... Who is conceding? All I have heard in the Almaz-Antey press conference was based on an "if", without any definite "it was". So, if it was a BUK, then it was an old one, out of use in the Russian army already 2011. If it was a BUK, it started in the region of Zaroshenskoje, not near Snezhnoje. ..."
The Vineyard of the Saker
TerraHertz, October 15, 2015
"We all know" – Speak for yourself. As soon as I saw the high-res image of that cockpit side panel, I knew it had been a missile. There's clear results of a shock wave loaded with fine (down to dust size) particles. Also those holes were not bullet holes, and they all came from the left side of the plane. Metal edges bent outwards are due to the shockwave gases arriving just after the larger penetrators, forcing between the skin layers, and blowing the outer layer outwards around holes.

The Spanish ATC guy's posts were real, but he said the trailing fighters left shortly before MH17 vanished. Presumably they'd been told to get clear.

All the "fighter planes shot up and/or fired an air to air missile at it" rubbish has been disinformation, designed to bury that one damning and war-crimes trial worthy proof the Kiev Junta (and US puppetmasters) preplanned the event. That was the video released on the Kiev Ministry of Interior's official web site right after MH17's downing. The video was the 2nd released from the same source, in a common style. It purported to be an intercepted communication between separatists and a Russian general, in which they discussed having downed the plane with a missile fired by separatists.

Analysis of the video's audio (the alleged 'conversation') revealed it was an collage edited together using short word sequences. A fake. But also a massive mistake – it was reported that analysis also found the video still contained timestamps from the editing process. It had been constructed the DAY BEFORE the downing.

So… the official Ukrainian ministry of the interior had released via their own web site a fake video-audio product, pretending the downing was done by separatists and it was an after-the-event conversation… but the Interior Ministry had produced the video file the day before the downing. Proof of prior knowledge of an 'accident' (or act supposedly by someone else) is proof of planning it.

The Spanish ATC guy's real-time tweets are consistent with this story. He said ordinary military arrived at ATC first, but then Interior Ministry guys arrived and took over, removing all evidence tapes.

This is real, but it has been flushed down the memory hole. The Kiev government absolutely and provably self-incriminated. And by extension, their masters in the US government were certainly involved in planning too.

All Western and Kiev claims (official, leaked and 'expert comments') to the contrary since, have been orchestrated to bury and obfuscate that key evidence.

MH17 was downed by a BUK fired by Kiev government forces, intending to down MH17 and claim the Russians were responsible. US fingers in this scheme can be seen in the selection of an Air Malaysia plane. More payback to Malaysia for their Trial of Israel for war crimes, and also trying to ship that stolen US military drone control system to China, on MH370.

TerraHertz

eimar, October 15, 2015
@Terrahertz

Of course there is no unanimity about how MH-17 was brought down.

But 'none' is not just speaking for him/herself.

Check out this RT doc at 12.40: a local witness to a jet directly approaching the plane from below, followed by a blue flash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W3Ai0nUxKE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This does not exclude the BUK hypothesis. The pilot may have been instructed to obscure the real cause, or told to deliver a payload too. Or simply act as a lure to divert the plane into the missile path.

Or it was a coincidental presence.

But a Ukrainian fighter jet was on the scene.

TerraHertz, October 15, 2015
@eimar That's an interesting documentary, however you should exercise a little more discernment. These witnesses are not credible, or are speaking of unrelated events. MH17 was flying at 33,000 feet. At that height an airliner is little more than a dot, and a fighter plane may not be visible at all. No chance of telling which one is 'below' the other if they are near each other. How about that guy who says he "ran outside to see" then claims he saw the entire sequence? Yeah, so what made him run outside? As for the lack of sightings of a BUK smoke trail, I'd put that down to the rainy, cloudy weather. And what was the cloud height anyway? Lower than 33K feet seems likely. Also the site the Russians claim the missile was launched from is unpopulated fields. Could easily be no witnesses, especially since the Ukraine military would want to make sure no one saw them (or lived to speak of it.)

Other points: – right after the event, Russian sources reported their military signals intelligence in the E-Ukraine conflict area had detected a BUK systems targeting radar activation at the time of the downing. That would be rather unlikely to admit, if they fired it.

Plus, MH17 flight path would have put it over Russian territory in a few more minutes, and Russian ATC expected it. Why on earth shoot it down over Ukraine, if they wanted it down? From the Russian side there's no conceivable practical motive. The Separatists would have no motive either, since at that altitude MH17 couldn't possibly be mistaken for a Ukie military flight.

Many other points all indicate Ukie government responsibility for this war crime. And the nature of the Western 'investigation' also shouts of high level awareness of Western guilt.

Just for reference, my collected chronology of media reports here: http://everist.org/archives/links/__Flight_MH17_shootdown_info.txt
(and lots more in the same folder.)

SunLion, October 14, 2015 · at 10:22 pm UTC

What a fantastic summary. Chapeau to Russia. The level of expertise and competence of the Russian team is incredible. And this video is so well made…

I knew from the beginning that the UkroNazi were behind this false flag. The purpose was to accuse Russia and support the sanctions. In fact, some of the "evidence" was made-up prior to the "accident". I also believe that the US was part of it. They may plead "Plausible deniability" but their game is well known and for one I am not fooled. If it look like a duck…

If the US wants to fight the Russians, I have bad news for the psychopaths.

mbotta on October 15, 2015 · at 4:32 am UTC

guys, so what happened to the expert opinion that the way the boeing was damaged
1) could in no way be done by a BUK missile, and
2) indicated that it had been shot at by a fighter plane?

and what about the testimony of a Ukrainian army soldier that he'd seen a pilot return on the day and time of the downing of MH17, confirming that the boeing had been shot by a Ukrainian fighter plane?

the fact that russia is now conceding that the MH17 was hit by a BUK missile completely changes the equation for me. we've either been lied to with the expert opinion and the eye witness account, or the BUK story is a fake.

Anonymous on October 15, 2015 · at 9:29 am UTC

Re: "… the fact that russia is now conceding that the MH17 was hit by a BUK missile completely changes the equation for me."

Please note that this Almaz-Antey MH17 field Experiment was done to support their commercial interests in a court battle to recover damages for reputation and sanctions. It does not necessarily reflect Russian government position (although it could hardly counter it either).

It is a well timed PR 'Buk' at the corrupt and cynical 15-month Dutch insult to their own MH17 dead citizens and the wider global traveling public.

Where the MH17 project goes from here is anyone's guess - but in the reputation and credibility stakes Russian share value is rising and EU/Nato is dropping fast. What is clear, is, any 'win' by the usual suspects will be slow and at a very high cost.

I suspect a lot is calibrated end with the fall of Ukraine's nazi Poreshenko regime. One long cold winter (on a month-by-month pre-payment plan) coming up!

Max on October 15, 2015 · at 11:21 am UTC

Who is conceding? All I have heard in the Almaz-Antey press conference was based on an "if", without any definite "it was". So, if it was a BUK, then it was an old one, out of use in the Russian army already 2011. If it was a BUK, it started in the region of Zaroshenskoje, not near Snezhnoje.

[Oct 14, 2015] The JIT report could catalyze an official response from Russia

Notable quotes:
"... A 9M38M1 uses what is called proportional navigation. Basically it means it does not tail chase the target but constantly calculates the future route of the target. By doing so the missile is able to cut corners and approach the target using the shortest route and thus saving as much fuel as possible. ..."
"... I'm looking forward to the release of the JIT report and I think it will catalyze an official response from Russia. Comparing the different versions of events should be indicative of who is swimming naked. ..."
Oct 10, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com/

John Helmer US Strategy In The Middle East Is Dying, Along With Its Authors, Carter And Brzezinski

optimader, October 10, 2015 at 6:20 pm

Blert,
And BUKs use heat seeking missiles. refers to you post yesterday regarding engine heat of a B-777

BUK missile are radar guided.. period.

You can go find the link..
Target detection

The TELAR radar automatically categorizes targets by 3 types: aerodynamics;

  • aircraft with moving engines with an airspeed of over 100 m / s
  • ballistic missiles
  • helicopters

The info is needed for calculation of the trajectory of the missile. The commander can recognize the unique footprint of a target and when agreed with that this is the target he presses a button for launch. The onboard computer will do the calculations for guiding the missile.

This article in Russian language has a lot of detailed information on target recognition.

The missile guiding

Once the missile has been launched it is guided by the radar to the target using radar signals. The radar illuminates the target. The radar return is picked up by the missile. The missile receives control guidance from the ground using radio signals. This system is called a semi active homing radar.

Buk, Buk-M1 and earlier versions of Buk-M1-2 and Buk-M2 missile systems uses an Argon-15 type of the onboard computer. The Argon-15 is able to detect target radar signal (shape, length, reverberations, envelope and videosignal). Argon-15 does not give to the crew the ability to change target. The commander must choose target on stage Search, then Argon-15 calculate algorithm Meet Zone, then indicate Target in zone, commander open fire it all. More information on the Argon-15 here.

When close to the target the seeker head (radar in the missile) will take over from the guidance of the TELAR and will continue its route towards the target.

The missile has a proximity fuse. This is fed by the radar. When the missile is within range the proximity fuse will detonate the explosive in the warhead. That will be around 17 meters from the target.

Proportional navigation

A 9M38M1 uses what is called proportional navigation. Basically it means it does not tail chase the target but constantly calculates the future route of the target. By doing so the missile is able to cut corners and approach the target using the shortest route and thus saving as much fuel as possible.

To intercept high-speed targets like aircraft and missiles, a semi active homing missile must follow a lead (collision) course. The intercept point is at the intersection of the missile and target flight paths. The best collision or lead course happens when the missile heading keeps a constant angle with the line of sight to the target. This course requires missile accelerations to be only as great as target accelerations. Specifically, if the target flies a straight-line, constant-velocity course, the missile can also follow a straight-line collision course if its velocity does not change. But in practice, this ideal situation does not exist. Missile velocity seldom stays constant. Irregular sustainer propellant burning changes thrust, and therefore affects speed…

low_integer, October 11, 2015 at 2:40 am

I'm looking forward to the release of the JIT report and I think it will catalyze an official response from Russia. Comparing the different versions of events should be indicative of who is swimming naked.

[Oct 14, 2015] In Australia the news the Dutch investigation last night was immediately followed with coverage of the Russian points refuting some of Dutch claims

"... which are a mix of bow-tie shaped pieces and diamond shaped pieces, indicate that it is an older type of BUK missile that their military has not used for a long time ..."
"... Russia has also claimed that the Ukraine military did possess the older type of BUK missile that corresponds to the fragments found. ..."
"... here in Australia, the news coverage I saw (SBS channel) of the Dutch (JIT) investigation last night was immediately followed with coverage of the Russian points noted above, with the manufacturer of the BUK missiles refuting some of the JITs claims after apparently having done some tests. It was fairly brief however I was surprised to see both sides get airtime. ..."
Jun 16, 2003 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
low_integer October 13, 2015 at 10:50 pm

It is not just whether or not it was a BUK missile, it is also what type of BUK missile it was, if it was in fact a BUK that brought the plane down. Russia's contention is that the shape of the fragments found, which are a mix of bow-tie shaped pieces and diamond shaped pieces, indicate that it is an older type of BUK missile that their military has not used for a long time. I'm assuming the new type they use also has a distinctive fragmentation pattern, and I'm not sure how long it has been since they have phased out use of the old type, or if that information has been made available.

Russia has also claimed that the Ukraine military did possess the older type of BUK missile that corresponds to the fragments found.

Interestingly, here in Australia, the news coverage I saw (SBS channel) of the Dutch (JIT) investigation last night was immediately followed with coverage of the Russian points noted above, with the manufacturer of the BUK missiles refuting some of the JIT's claims after apparently having done some tests. It was fairly brief however I was surprised to see both sides get airtime.

I have also been hearing that it was reported that passengers may have remained conscious for up to 90 seconds.

Still very unclear who is responsible, imo.

[Oct 14, 2015] Russia states that their military no longer use older type of BUK missile which supposly hit MH17

"... Why divert that MH-17 to that routes, while previous planes before MH-17, directed to other southern routes? ..."
"... Where is the traffic conversations records between the ATC and the MH17? ..."
"... Where is the radar plot of the MH17? ..."
"... Where is the sworn testimonies from the ATC guy in charge of taking care the MH17? ..."
"... The Buk left some nice t-shaped holes in the test fusilage. None of those were witnessed on MH-17 wreckage and the holes were primarily round. The missile that hit was closer than the suspended Buk they were testing and was likely an air to air weapon. You can see the burn marks on MH-17 wreckage... ..."
"... The news today was a joke. Ukraine ordered the plane to fly the course , altitude and speed. And yet no transcripts from the Ukraine Aviation authority ? why ? ..."
"... and what happened to Carlos the air traffic controller who sent word about military interference at ATC? ..."
Oct 13, 2015 | Zero Hedge
kaboomnomic

About that MH-17. Here's the manufacturer version.
https://www.rt.com/news/318531-mh17-experiment-almaz-antey/

Here's the video of the experiment.
https://youtu.be/EU-weRmf29c

The MH-17 shot down by BUK-M1. Almaz-Antey have long discontinued this model. Russian troops use BUK-M2. It is a known fact. Even in the western military site.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/buk-m2e-air-defence-missile-system/

Russian troops use this new BUK-M2 back in 2008. You can check this if you have the DU (depleted uraniums) fragmented casing, and test them with isotopes methodes. Which for some reasons, the dutch teams refused to do.

- - -

Again. Russian haters fails to mentioned this.

As of the questions of:

1. Why the ATC not closing the route?

2. Why divert that MH-17 to that routes, while previous planes before MH-17, directed to other southern routes?

3. Where is the traffic conversations records between the ATC and the MH17?

4. Where is the radar plot of the MH17?

5. Where is the sworn testimonies from the ATC guy in charge of taking care the MH17?

There are alot of questions unanswered. And yet the dutch investigation still release the report.

Why??

The Indelicate ...

The New York Times' clumsiness as to its pro-Israel/anti-Russian {and for that matter anti-constitutionalist and anti-libertarian} propaganda is stunning.

They're either that stupid or that brazen - knowing that Americans are too stupid to parse misleading rhetoric.

Of course, that's older Americans.

Had I time and inclination, before absurd TPP copyright laws prevent it {from what I gather}

a great web site would be unmoderated, space limited comments on ny times stories.

Because imagine what doesnt get through...

PrimalScream

good questions. why the report? - So companies and citizens can claim financial damages. you seem to be implying that the BUK-M1 could have been sold on the black market, or provided by clandestine means. By who? To who? Those are questions that a lot of people hoped would be answered.

ZerOhead

The Buk left some nice t-shaped holes in the test fusilage.

None of those were witnessed on MH-17 wreckage and the holes were primarily round. The missile that hit was closer than the suspended Buk they were testing and was likely an air to air weapon. You can see the burn marks on MH-17 wreckage...

eurogold

The news today was a joke. Ukraine ordered the plane to fly the course , altitude and speed. And yet no transcripts from the Ukraine Aviation authority ? why ?

FixItAgainTony

and what happened to Carlos the air traffic controller who sent word about military interference at ATC?
http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com/2014/07/carlos-spanish-kiev-ai...

[Oct 14, 2015] The Financial Sector is Too Big

October 9, 2015 | naked capitalism

By Philip Arestis Professor and Director of Research at the Cambridge Centre for Economic & Public Policy and Senior Fellow in the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Professor of Economics at the University of the Basque Country and Malcolm Sawyer, Professor of Economics, University of Leeds. Originally published at Triple Crisis

Has the financial sector become too large, absorbing too many resources, and enhancing instabilities? A look at the recent evidence on the relationship between the size of the financial sector and growth.

There has been a long history of the idea that a developing financial sector (emphasis on banks and stock markets) fosters economic growth. Going back to the work of authors such as Schumpeter, Robinson, and more recently, McKinnon, etc., there have been debates on financial liberalisation and the related issue of whether what was relevant to financial liberalisation, namely financial development, "caused" economic development, or whether economic development led to a greater demand for financial services and thereby financial development.

The general thrust of the empirical evidence collected over a number of decades suggested that there was indeed a positive relationship between the size and scale of the financial sector (often measured by the size of the banking system as reflected in ratio of bank deposits to GDP, and the size of the stock market capitalisation) and the pace of economic growth. Indeed, there have been discussion on whether the banking sector or the stock market capitalisation is a more influential factor on economic growth. The empirical evidence drew on time series, cross section, and panel econometric investigations. To even briefly summarise the empirical evidence on all these aspects is not possible here. In addition, the question of the direction of causation still remains an unresolved issue.

The processes of financialisation over the past few decades have involved the growing economic, political and social importance of the financial sector. In size terms, the financial sector has generally grown rapidly in most countries, whether viewed in terms of the size of bank deposits, stock market valuations, or more significantly in the growth of financial products, securitisation, and derivatives as well as trading volume in them. This growth of the financial sector uses resources, often of highly trained personnel, and inevitably raises the question of whether those resources are being put to good use. This is well summarised by Vanguard Group founder John Bogle, who suggests, "The job of finance is to provide capital to companies. We do it to the tune of $250 billion a year in IPOs and secondary offerings. What else do we do? We encourage investors to trade about $32 trillion a year. So the way I calculate it, 99% of what we do in this industry is people trading with one another, with a gain only to the middleman. It's a waste of resources" (MarketWatch, Aug. 1 2015).

Financial liberalisation and de-regulation were promoted as ways of releasing the power of the financial sector, promoting development of financial markets and financial deepening. The claims were often made by the mainstream that financial liberalisation had removed "financial repression" and stimulated growth. Yet, financial liberalisation in a country often led to banking and financial crises, many times with devastating effects on employment and living standards. Financial crises have become much more frequent since the 1970s in comparison with the "golden age" of the 1950s and 1960s. The international financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the subsequent Great Recession were the recent and spectacular crises (though the scale of previous crises such as the East Asian ones of 1997 should not be overlooked). The larger scale of the financial sector in the industrialised countries has been accompanied (even before 2007) with somewhat lower growth than hitherto. As the quote above suggests there has not been an upsurge of savings and investment, and indeed many would suggest that the processes of financialisation dampen the pressures to invest, particularly in research and development. Has the financial sector become too large, absorbing too many resources, and enhancing instabilities?

An interesting recent development has been a spate of research papers coming from international organisations and many others, which have pointed in the direction that indeed the financial sector in industrialised countries have become too big-at least when viewed in terms of its impact on economic growth. (See Sawyer, "Financialisation, financial structures, economic performance and employment," FESSUD Working Paper Series No. 93, for a broad survey on finance and economic performance.) These studies rely on econometric (time series) estimation and hence cover the past few decades-which suggests that their findings are not in any way generated by the financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the Great Recession that followed.

A Bank of International Settlements study concluded that "the complex real effects of financial development and come to two important conclusions. First, financial sector size has an inverted U-shaped effect on productivity growth. That is, there comes a point where further enlargement of the financial system can reduce real growth. Second, financial sector growth is found to be a drag on productivity growth." Cournède, Denk,and Hoeller (2015) state that "finance is a vital ingredient for economic growth, but there can also be too much of it." Sahay, et al. (2015) find a positive relationship between financial development (as measured by their "comprehensive index") and growth, but "the marginal returns to growth from further financial development diminish at high levels of financial development―that is, there is a significant, bell-shaped, relationship between financial development and growth. A similar non-linear relationship arises for economic stability. The effects of financial development on growth and stability show that there are tradeoffs, since at some point the costs outweigh the benefits."

There are many reasons for thinking that the financial sector has become too large. Its growth in recent decades has not been associated with facilitating savings and encouraging investment. It has absorbed valuable resources which are largely engaged in the trading in casino-like activities. The lax systems of regulation have made financial crises more likely. Indeed, and following the international financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the great recession a number of proposals have been put forward to avoid similar crises. To this day, nonetheless, the implementation of these proposals is very slow indeed (see, also, Arestis, "Main and Contributory Causes of the Recent Financial Crisis and Economic Policy Implications," for more details).

See original post for references

MartyH, October 9, 2015 at 10:28 am

Now that Michael Hudson's Killing the Host has been available for a while, one suspects a Picketty-like effect with folks "discovering" that Taibbi's Giant Vampire Squid characterization of Goldman-Sachs (one of many) wasn't funny.

blert, October 9, 2015 at 5:24 pm

It's a squid that squirts RED INK - onto everyone else.

susan the other, October 9, 2015 at 11:03 am

This is a great and readable essay. Sure sounds like Minsky. And even Larry Summers when he advocates for more bubbles. And Wolfgang Schaeuble said repeatedly that "we are overbanked." We just don't know how to do it any other way. When everything crashes it's too late to regulate. Unless Larry knows a clever way to regulate bubbles.

JTMcPhee, October 10, 2015 at 8:40 am

The Banksters' refrain:

"Don't regulate you,
Don't regulate me!
Regulate that guy over behind that tree…"

MY scam is systemically important!

Just Ice, October 10, 2015 at 3:34 pm

"We just don't know how to do it any other way. " STO

Yet there is another way, an equitable way :) Dr. Michael Hudson himself says that industry should be financed with equity, not debt.

Leonard, October 10, 2015 at 3:53 pm

Susan
There is way to manage bubbles before they get out of control. This article explains how. Go to wp.me/WQA-1E

ben, October 9, 2015 at 11:17 am

Wasted resources are way higher than the Vanguard example. They misdirect resources especially into land and issue new money as debt.

RepubAnon, October 10, 2015 at 11:29 pm

They think that they make their living by "ripping the eyes out of the muppets" – so they're opposed to regulations which would protect the muppets' eyes.

I look at the financial industry as sort of like sugar for the economy – the right amount is good for you, but too much will kill you.

Just Ice, October 9, 2015 at 12:35 pm

"The lax systems of regulation have made financial crises more likely."

Actually, it's the near unlimited ability of the banks to create deposits ("loans create deposits" but also debts) that causes large scale financial crises. And what is the source of this absurd ability of the banks? ans: government privileges including deposit insurance instead of a Postal Savings Service or equivalent and a fiat (the publics' money) lender of last resort.

Besides, regulations typically do not address the fundamental injustice of government subsidized banks – extending the publics' credit to private interests.

Synoia October 9, 2015 at 12:53 pm

There is something very wrong about money creation from loans. I'm not arguing that this is incorrect, I'm looking at money creation being a burden on the citizenry. I cannot see how this will end well, because of the asymmetric nature, money creation only benefits the banks, of the burden of money creation.

Just Ice October 9, 2015 at 1:40 pm

"There is something very wrong about money creation from loans."

More precisely, there is something very wrong about being driven into debt by government-subsidized private credit creation. Source of the rat race? Look no further.

zapster October 10, 2015 at 9:32 am

It's the bank-money vs. government money situation. The hysteria over "The Deficit (gasp)" insures that none of us have cash and must borrow to live. The bankers won.

Just Ice October 10, 2015 at 1:56 pm

"It's the bank-money vs. government money situation." zapster

More precisely, who gets to create the government's money since it is taxation* that drives the value of fiat. But it's an absurd situation since obviously the government ALONE should create fiat, not a central bank for the benefit of banks and other private interests, especially the wealthy.

As for the private sector, let it create its own money solutions and my bet is that we'll have a much more equitable (pun intended) society as a result.

The problem then is taxation. How does one tax someone's income in Bitcoins, for example? How does one preclude tax evasion? Unavoidable taxes such as land taxes (except for a homestead exemption) are one possibility.

*As well as the need to pay the interest on the debt the government subsidized banking cartel drives us into.

Yves Smith Post author October 10, 2015 at 5:17 pm

*Sigh*. The government alone does control the money supply in a fiat currency issuer. The government hasn't bothered to do so actively because the only time it DID try doing that (under Reagan and Thatcher) they found out, contra Friedman, that money supply growth bore no relationship to any macroeconomic variable. Monetarism was a failed experiment.

readerOfTeaLeaves October 9, 2015 at 10:58 pm

I happened upon a great link - about the probable origins of interest. Here's the link: http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/finciv/chapter1.htm

Scroll down to "The Idea of Interest". This author posits that back in the (ancient, herding) day, people lent cattle. I lend you my cow, your bull impregnates her, and I get a part of the calf.

What the author probably didn't understand, but is known to those of us interested in the history of metallurgy, is that there was a belief that metals 'grew' - after all, plants grew from the ground, vines grew from the ground, trees and bushes also grew from the ground. It was not a great stretch to suppose that metals also grew within the ground, and back in those ancient days they expected the same kind of 'growth' from metals that happened with agricultural products.

Perhaps if I ever get to retire, I can read Hudson's entire work, and possibly he covers this topic. But I do think that it is time for the rest of us to rethink the nature of money - particularly in an emerging digital era.

cnchal October 10, 2015 at 10:42 am

Thanks for that link. Here is a little nugget that relates to today.

The legal limit on interest rates for loans of silver was 20% over much of Dumuzi-gamil's life, but Marc Van De Mieroop demonstrates how Dumuzi-gamil and other lenders got around such strictures - they simply charged the legal limit for shorter and shorter term loans! Curiously, while mathematics during this era was extraordinarily advanced, the government failed to understand, or at least effectively regulate the close link between time and money.

Sound familiar. It's more like the banksters regulate government.

As for compound interest, it seems to be the most diabolical human invention yet, as it infers exponential growth without limits.

Here is Keynes discussing compound interest in his speech "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (1930)

From the earliest times of which we have record – back say to two thousand years before Christ – down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was no very great change in the standard of life of the average man living in the civilized centres of the earth. Ups and downs certainly. Visitations of plague, famine, and war. Golden intervals. But no progressive, violent change. Some periods perhaps 50 per cent better than others – at the utmost 100 per cent better – in the four thousand years which ended (say) in A.D. 1700.

This slow rate of progress, or lack of progress, was due to two reasons – to the remarkable absence of important technical improvements and to the failure of capital to accumulate.

The absence of important technical inventions between the prehistoric age and comparatively modern times is truly remarkable. Almost everything which really matters and which the world possessed at the commencement of the modern age was already known to man at the dawn of history. Language, fire, the same domestic animals which we have today, wheat, barley, the vine and the olive, the plough, the wheel, the oar, the sail, leather, linen and cloth, bricks and pots, gold and silver, copper, tin, and lead – and iron was added to the list before 1000 B.C. – banking, statecraft, mathematics, astronomy, and religion. There is no record of when we first possessed these things.

At some epoch before the dawn of history – perhaps even in one of the comfortable intervals before the last ice age – there must have been an era of progress and invention comparable to that in which we live today. But through the greater part of recorded history there was nothing of the kind.
The modern age opened, I think, with the accumulation of capital which began in the sixteenth century. I believe – for reasons with which I must not encumber the present argument – that this was initially due to the rise of prices, and the profits to which that led, which resulted from the treasure of gold and silver which Spain brought from the New World into the Old. From that time until today the power of accumulation by compound interest, which seems to have been sleeping for many generations, was reborn and renewed its strength. And the power of compound interest over two hundred years is such as to stagger the imagination.

Let me give in illustration of this a sum which I have worked out. The value of Great Britain's foreign investments today is estimated at about £4,000 million. This yields us an income at the rate of about 6 1/2 per cent. Half of this we bring home and enjoy; the other half, namely, 3 1/2 per cent, we leave to accumulate abroad at compound interest. Something of this sort has now been going on for about 250 years.

For I trace the beginnings of British foreign investment to the treasure which Drake stole from Spain in 1580. In that year he returned to England bringing with him the prodigious spoils of the Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth was a considerable shareholder in the syndicate which had financed the expedition. Out of her share she paid off the whole of England's foreign debt, balanced her budget, and found herself with about £40,000 in hand. This she invested in the Levant Company – which prospered. Out of the profits of the Levant Company, the East India Company was founded; and the profits of this great enterprise were the foundation of England's subsequent foreign investment. Now it happens that £40,000 accumulating at 3 1/2 per cent compound interest approximately corresponds to the actual volume of England's foreign investments at various dates, and would actually amount today to the total of £4,000 million which I have already quoted as being what our foreign investments now are. Thus, every £1 which Drake brought home in 1580 has now become £100,000. Such is the power of compound interest !

From the sixteenth century, with a cumulative crescendo after the eighteenth, the great age of science and technical inventions began, which since the beginning of the nineteenth century has been in full flood – coal, steam, electricity, petrol, steel, rubber, cotton, the chemical industries, automatic machinery and the methods of mass production, wireless, printing, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, and thousands of other things and men too famous and familiar to catalogue.

What is the result? In spite of an enormous growth in the population of the world, which it has been necessary to equip with houses and machines, the average standard of life in Europe and the United States has been raised, I think, about fourfold. The growth of capital has been on a scale which is far beyond a hundred-fold of what any previous age had known. And from now on we need not expect so great an increase of population.

This reminds me of the huge fortunes growing at compound interest today.

Take the Gates Foundation as an example.

From Wikipedia: It had an endowment of US$42.3 billion as of 24 November 2014.

If this were to grow at a compound interest rate of 7.2% annually, it would double every ten years, and in one hundred years would be $43 trillion dollars and in two hundred years $44,354 trillion or $44.354 quadrillion. It's as if Bill and Warren are playing a practical joke on the world, as their compound interest monster swallows every available dollar.

I wonder what a loaf of bread will cost in two hundred years?

nigelk October 9, 2015 at 3:20 pm

Fractional-reserve banking is anathema to human dignity itself. What was it Gandhi said about "wealth without work"…?

griffen October 9, 2015 at 12:56 pm

Top heavy might be the marginally better angle to take here. Although I recently left the state (N Texas, Dallas), Texas banks are being merged or acquired left and right. On some occasions it is necessary if very small institutions are unable to compete, unable to meet a decent ROE bogey (6.0% ROE is sorta low), or just unable to fend off progress.

Other occasions the larger regional and national banks can just win on scale.

Noni Mausa October 9, 2015 at 1:10 pm

I have long thought about the banking system as a beating heart. Of course it needs fuel, like the rest of the body, but when a heart gets larger and larger, and contains more and more blood, and uses more and more fuel, the rest of the body never fares well.

"Surging bank profits" is never a headline that makes me happy.

Carla October 9, 2015 at 11:43 pm

Yes, congestive heart failure kills the host - this is a great analogy - Thanks!

anders October 9, 2015 at 2:01 pm

The real question is: why was it that the "creation of wealth" had to turn to the financial sector. IMHO it's because the productive sector is lesser and lesser able to produce surplus value. So that free capital istn't attracted to it. Of course in the financial sector there isn't any value created at all.

Just Ice October 9, 2015 at 3:33 pm

" IMHO it's because the productive sector is lesser and lesser able to produce surplus value. "

Yes, because of unjust wealth distribution; the host has finally been exhausted. With meta-materials, nano-technology, genetic engineering, better catalysts, etc. and with practical nuclear fusion on the horizon (because of new superconducting materials) mankind has probably never been on the verge of creating so much value as now but can't because of lack of effective demand, not for junk but for such things as proper medical and dental care while the wealthy have more than they know what to do with.

blert October 9, 2015 at 5:22 pm

Is the sky blue ?

Decades of 'political – solvency' insurance has permitted 'the blob' to overwhelm all.

&&&

If all of society played Poker … would anything be produced ? THAT'S the aspect that has metastasized. It's not proper to term it the 'financial sector' - gambling// speculation emporium… now you're talking. When the government chronically intervenes to bail out highly sophisticated fools…. Jon Corzine is the result. - And he's not even the target of law enforcement !!!!

equote October 10, 2015 at 7:40 am

"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business." -- Henry Ford

sd October 10, 2015 at 4:18 pm

Financial liberalisation and de-regulation were promoted as ways of releasing the power of the financial sector, promoting development of financial markets and financial deepening.

Release the Kraken comes to mind.

[Oct 14, 2015] Putin Calls US and Allies Oatmeal Heads On Syria

Oct 13, 2015 | Zero Hedge

To be sure, there are a lot of absurd things about what Washington has done and is currently doing in Syria.

There's the support for Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, who has used ISIS as an excuse to wage war on his own people. Then there are the various efforts to arm and train a hodgepodge of different anti-regime rebel groups (with more embarrassing results each and every time). And just yesterday we learned that the best idea the Pentagon can come up with now is to literally paradrop "50 tons" of ammo on pallets into the middle of the desert and hope the "right" people pick it up.

Of course when it comes to absurd outcomes in Syria, it's difficult to top the fact that at some point - and you don't have to go full-conspiracy theory to believe this anymore - either the West or else Qatar and Saudi Arabia provided some type of assistance to ISIS, which then proceeded to metamorphose into white basketball shoe-wearing, black flag-waving, sword-wielding desert bandits hell bent on establishing a medieval caliphate.

Having said all of that, things took an even more surreal turn late last month when, after Russia stormed in via Latakia and started bombing anti-regime targets, Washington was forced to claim that somehow, Moscow's efforts would be detrimental to the war on terror.

To be sure, there really wasn't much else the US could say. After all, you can't simply come out and say "well, we need to keep ISIS around actually and we'd much rather them then Putin and Assad, so no, we're not going to help the Russians fight terror." The only possible spin to avoid blowing the whole charade up was to claim that somehow, The Kremlin is helping terrorists by killing them (and not in the whole 72 virgins kind of way).

Now as we've said before, Putin is there (along with Iran) to shore up Assad. There's no question about that and Moscow hasn't been shy about saying it. But at the end of the day, when you are trying to wipe out your friend's enemies and some of those enemies are terrorists, well then, you are fighting a war on terror by default and that's not good for terrorists by definition. By denying this, the US is effectively arguing against a tautology which is never a good idea, and we're running out of ways to describe the ridiculousness of it.

Fortunately, Vladimir Putin is not running out of colorful descriptors.

Here's Bloomberg with some amusing excerpts from a speech he gave at an annual conference organized by VTB Capital in Moscow on Tuesday:

Some of Russia's international partners have "oatmeal in their heads" because they don't understand clearly that its military campaign in Syria seeks to help the fight against terrorism, President Vladimir Putin said.

Russia notified the U.S. and the European Union in advance "out of respect" that it intended to begin airstrikes against Islamic State and other militants in Syria, Putin said at an annual conference organized by VTB Capital in Moscow on Tuesday. This showed Russia's ready to cooperate on Syria, while nobody ever warned the authorities in Moscow about their operations, he said.

Putin's colorful phrase, normally used to describe someone as confused, to characterize relations with the U.S. and its allies on Syria comes amid deep tensions over the Russian bombing campaign and cruise-missile strikes that began Sept. 30. The EU demanded on Monday that Russia stop targeting moderate groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned that Russia's actions "will have consequences" and the bombing "will only inflame" Syria's four-year civil war.

Russia "received no answer" when it asked its international partners to provide information on terrorist targets in Syria, or to say at least where its planes shouldn't bomb, Putin said. "It's not a joke, I'm not making any of this up," he said.

And while the US insists on says things like this (out just hours ago):

EARNEST: SOME RUSSIAN STRIKES IN SYRIA ARE HELPING ISLAMIC STATE

Put makes a more logical argument. Namely that when one drops 50 tons of ammo from the sky into the most dangerous place on earth, there's absolutely no way to know for sure where it will ultimately end up:

U.S. air drops of weapons and ammunition intended for the Syrian Free Army, which is fighting Assad's regime, could end up in the hands of Islamic State instead, Putin said.

Yes, they might "end up in the hands of Islamic State" which we're sure wasn't what Washington had in mind. Oh ... wait...

Silky Johnson

That's kind of shit that happens when you lie to everyone and pretend to be all chivalrous an shit, but you're really a cuntface that arms monsters.

CClarity

In Ruski it means "mush for brains?

NoDebt

Yeah, I'm guessing it makes more sense in Russian. Where's Boris when we need him for translation?

KungFuMaster

I am not Boris, but the second best thing. This is what Putin said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8CGyFM2Q4

So this an idiom which should be translated: They have mess/chaos in their head. Oatmeal is typical Russian food, but in this case the main characteristic is that oatmeal looks all the same and this implies that subject cannot differentiate and separate concepts, has a fuzzy filling in his head when he does not know what he is talking about.

tc06rtw

… I think we must realize politics influenced Mr. Putin's statements; He must be forgiven for his overly charitable description of the US and its allies.

BALANDAS

Here is my reliable information --- Putin fears that US arms terrorists in Syria.

10/13/2015 14:12:30

Moscow. October 13. Interfax-AVN - Moscow fear that the weapons and uniforms, which the United States supplied "Free Syrian Army" could fall into the hands of terrorists, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Who said that the aircraft" Free Syrian Army "deliver ammunition and ammunition. Where is the" Free Syrian Army "? Do not fall if it all again as it was in the training of personnel in the hands LIH? Where is the guarantee?" - Putin said at an investment forum "Russia Calling".

"It is only that all this was done, only that it happened just in the United States recognized that action failed, and now just somewhere to throw ammunition and ammunition. This? This is not a rhetorical question," - concluded the president.


Paveway IV

The U.S. oatmeal head's psychopathic plan is, was, and always will be to overthrow Assad.

  • Failure #1: To convince enough Syrians to die for the replacement U.S.- and Israeli-puppet Syria. Solution: outsource.
  • Failure #2: Rebrand unemployed al Qaeda head-choppers under the al Nusra banner from Iraq. Qatar and Saudi Arabia provided the funding, and Turkey and Jordan the training and staging points. Expect obedience.
  • Failure #3: Expecting said head-choppers to share your vision of a free, democratic U.S./Israeli puppet Syria. The head-choppers didn't give a damn about the U.S. plans because they were just going to keep Syria for themselves. But, hey - if the nut-jobs in the U.S. wanted to set them up with training and weapons, why not? Uh... 'moderate' rebels? Yeeaaaahh... that's right. We're 'moderate'. Free, democratic Syria? ...yeah, whatever.
  • Failure #4: Give the FSA TOW-2As for their unwinnable war. Al Nusra reaction: how about some TOW-2As for US? No? OK... I guess we'll just convince the FSA that have them that they really need to be in our 'joint opeations room' with the rest of our alliance (or lose their fucking heads). So, yeah... just keep giving TOWs to THEM.
  • Failure #5: Expecting the demoralized, crumbling, corrupt FSA left-overs (now effectively Shanghai'd by al Nusra and various other takfiri head-choppers) to make military progress with their criminal amphetamine-crazed, civilian-looting head-chopper buddies. At the same time, even more fanatical head-choppers ISIS evolves and secures a lot of the previous al Nusra funding and arms, pissing off THEM.
  • Failure #6: Coming up with the clownishly-stupid plan of USING ISIS to fight Assad since the FSA and al Nusra plan fell to shit. You would simple bomb ISIS if they attacked a non-approved target (al Nusra or the FSA) and steer them to desirec targets (Assad and Syrian infrastructure and oil wells) with ammo, equipment drops and intel. It actually worked for a few months, but ISIS knew what was going on all along. They've grown tired of the game and have plenty of weapons and ammo now (between U.S. airdrops and all the shit they seized whenever they roll over another Syrian army position).
  • Failure #7: Keeping ISIS financially strong enough to serve as your third army against Assad: Bomb the shit out of Assad's forces guarding oil and gas installations, then airdrop arms, ammo and equipment to ISIS so they can take them over and sustain their operations through black-market means. At least not as blatant as Iraq, where you transfer several hundred tons of gold to your new central bank in Mosul - days before ISIS simply walks in and takes it without a shot (almost like it was a planned gold transfer to ISIS).
  • Failure #8: Failing to anticipate that Putin would do the same thing for now: steer ISIS towards your FSA/head-chopper forces to kill them FOR you. He's done this north of Aleppo and decimated Jabha Shamiya, who is now scurrying back to more al Nusra-safe turf. Putin and Solemani have no plans to enable ISIS long term - just use them for a little short-term al Nusra meat-grinding until they, themselves are annihilated by Syria and allies.
  • Failure #9: Failing to understand how quickly the supply lines to Aleppo could be interdicted by a Russian air campaign. It turns out the resolve of both the Aleppo FSA (for a U.S. democratized and freedomized Syria) and the Aleppo head-choppers (for their caliphate) are directly dependent on a continuous supply of amphetamines, USD, weapons and ammo. Interferene with that opposition Wal*Mart drug and explosives logistics network has created quite a bit of consternation in Aleppo. The second in command of the opposition coalition there just quit, head-choppers are leaving for paying jobs and the few FSA left there are heading for Turkey. Aleppo might fall in a matter of weeks, maybe days - without much opposition at all.

More to come. Waaayyy more to come.

ZerOhead

That's a lot of failures even for a completely inept Obama Administration. Too many failures perhaps?

Paveway IV

Not NEARLY enough. The next step of the Oded-Yinon (or whatever the clownfuckery is called) plan calls for a civil war in Turkey (Turks vs. Kurds), partitioning it and splitting off of a corrupt and psychopathic U.S./Israeli-puppet-led unified Kurdish nation. ZATO has hijacked Kurdish nationalism to force an artificial Kurdistan well before it's time.

The purpose isn't to unify Kurds, it's to create a weak and corrupt Kurdish corridor from the Mediterranean to Iran. Guess why? Hint: Israel's U.S.-staffed war with Iran, discount stolen Iraqi oil from Kurdish Iraq for Israel, and the alternative northern route for Qatari gas lines (avoiding Syria altogether).

See how that all works out? Russian soldiers die in Syria to clean up the U.S./Israeli mess they created there. At the same time, the Kurds will lose their long sought-after Kurdish nation to a Ukraine-like Jewish oligarch controlled, chaotic and eternally-squabbling hell-hole of a country (probably eternally at war with the Turkish partition next to them) kept barely alive by stolen Iraqi oil (who will also be trying to kill them).

Psychopathy 101: Manufactured death and destruction is like a welcome mat to come in and fuck over the victims even more.

Poundsand

The hypocrisy is staggering and the entire world knows it. Assad has to go because of what? They say bombing his own people. Yet across the border Erdogan is actually bombing his own people and no one says boo. But I guess duly elected minority representation in a democratic country doesn't really count if you're Kurdish.

The US is losing it's standing in the world and has become a corrupt sheriff in town and don't think that everyone except those here in America don't know it. As our military and moral authority wane, it will be picked up by someone else. It always is because there is nothing new under the sun.

Son of Loki

Neither the Law nor Morality stand in the way of The POTUS!

SofaPapa

Increasingly, even those here in America know it. The US government has minimal popular support for their actions of the past 15 years in the international stage. They are playing with fire both at home and abroad.

McMolotov

The establishment wants Hitlery but is quickly realizing she is likely unelectable. Bernie is a wildcard and uncontrollable, so they need to swing the electorate over to the GOP. Piling on Obama will accomplish just that. After they find a way to torpedo Trump, look for someone like Rubio to become the front-runner.

Elections are nothing more than selections by the power elite at this point, but there still has to be a thin veneer of plausibility to the whole charade.

Squid-puppets a-go-go

lol very good mcmolotov - i think now it is a fulsome measure of the decay and corruption of the american republic that they need such monumental lengths to provide that thin veneer of plausibility to any of the available candidates.

Raging Debate

Obama is a disposable puppet. He reminds me of Ensign Benson, that black extra in Star Trek they send down to that scary, uknown planet. Kirk and Spock go down there afterward.

WillyGroper

PCR's take is O has come to his senses on neoCON fail from that interview.

REALLY? Eye don't think so.

bunnyswanson

USA/Israel having been bombing Syria for years. Why continue now when Russia is on it? Especially since ISIS is Israel stealing land again, gas more specfically. Like O said, why bankrupt your nation for one ally.

Yttrium Gold Nitrogen

By "oatmeal" he (Putin) probably meant Russian "kasha", which when used figuratively means something like "unordered mess", when things are so intermixed as to be indistinguishable from each other. It also can be used to describe a messy, unclear, volatile situation. I believe that correct translation would be "muddleheaded", someone who is unable to think with clarity or act intelligently.

gregga777

For more than two decades the politicians and bureaucrats, holding elected and appointed offices, in Washington have uniformly despised military service and wouldn't be caught dead wearing a real uniform in the U. S. Armed Forces. [They had "better" things to do for their lives than serving in the military, to quote one former V. P.]. They uniformly lack the personal military experience, to create the necessary context needed for understanding, to judge the desirability of diplomacy where the use of military force is the last resort, not the first resort.

kaboomnomic

Don't trust bloomberg words? Use this YT video.

https://youtu.be/OWBbyZ_sjHo

Putin speech in 2011 about ASSMEEREEEKKAAAA intention. And what Russian would do.

https://youtu.be/932K6tZ5Ea4

Putin laugh when idiot german's reporter saying assmeerrreeekkaaa ABM missiles placed in EU are for intercepting Iran's missiles.

https://youtu.be/Lewkw6-d-Wc

Haha.. Hahaha.. Hahahahahahaha...

spyware-free

For those that doubt Qatari gas is not a component (if not the primary reason) for removing Assad we have this from Erdogan...
"Assad, refusing the transit of Qatari gas and becoming a potential competitor in the European market, would have to be be eliminated."

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/10/erdogan-sheds-light-on-syria-blue-f...

That doesn't dismiss Isreal's goals of weakening a regional enemy and grabbing more land as a catalyst as well.

The Indelicate -> spyware-free

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.

You don't build a pipeline through a war zone. You certainly don't spend billions in lieu of working around [look at a map]. And the US and Israel are not helping fucking Qatar send gas to Europe. That's Israel's job.

spyware-free -> The Indelicate

Each regional player has their own motivations behind attacking Assad. Turkey & KSA could care less about Isreal's intentions but the removal of Assad serves all their needs.

The Indelicate ...

"The great danger of faking your ability to do something in the public square is that someone with an actual desire to the job you are pretending to do might come along and show you up." This is what has just happened to the US in Syria with the entrance of Russia into the fight against ISIL. And as is generally the case with posers caught with their pants down, the US policy elites are not happy about it.

You see, the US strategic goal in Syria is not as your faithful mainstream media servants (led by that redoubtable channeler of Neo-Con smokescreens at the NYT Michael Gordon) might have you believe to save the Syrian people from the ravages of the long-standing Assad dictatorship, but rather to heighten the level of internecine conflict in that country to the point where it will not be able to serve as a regional bulwark against Israeli regional hegemony for at least another generation.

How do we know? Because important protagonists in the Israelo-American policy planning elite have advertised the fact with a surprising degree of clarity in documents and public statements issued over the last several decades.

The key here is learning to listen to what our cultural training has not prepared us to hear.

In 1982, as the Likud Party (which is to say, the institutional incarnation of the Revisionist Zionist belief, first articulated by Jabotinsky in the "Iron Wall" that the only way to deal with "the Arabs" in and around Israel was through unrelenting force and the inducement of cultural fragmentation) was consolidating its hold on the foreign policy establishment of Israel, a journalist named Oded Yinon, who had formerly worked at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, published an article in which he outlined the strategic approach his country needed to take in the coming years.

What follows are some excerpts from Israel Shahak's English translation of that text:

"Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon…."

{continues}

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/10/us-russia-syria-problem-fak...


IndianaJohn

Indelicate, -- that's really quite a load of indelicate deceit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ

justdues

Indelicate, look at his youtube , no need for sarc you,re on the same page

jtg

"Oatmeal in their heads", an apt description of the 'indispensable and exceptional' lunatics in the West. Why is it that to find a clear thinking leader I have to listen to Putin? Why is it that the West is now the axis of evil?

The Indelicate ...

he didn't literally say oatmeal - he basically said 'mush for brains'. Of course, he's calling them stupid, but he knows they are deliberately evil. But it is easier to fool people about America the white knight than it is to convince them they've been fooled. No matter how much evidence there is that this war was planned long ago.

css1971

Actually you often find that evil people are also stupid. Psychopaths are not generally noted for their intelligence. They're often charming, manipulative and great liars with enormous egos, but intelligent is not a requirement. Which is a problem where you have an electoral and corporate governance systems which consistently puts people who are narcissists and socialized psychopaths into positions of power. They don't have the real intellectual horsepower to do the job, though of course they think they do, and often their sycophants do also.

The Indelicate ...

'Psychopaths are not generally noted for their intelligence.'

But serial killers are.

http://allnewspipeline.com/Putin_Rips_Obama_NATO_West.php

[Oct 13, 2015] MH17 Report Reveals Shocking Details of Jet's Last Moments

Notable quotes:
"... Investigators estimated it took the center and rear parts of the airplane 60 to 90 seconds to reach the ground after the blast. Other, lighter parts would have taken longer, the report said. ..."
Oct 13, 2015 | www.nbcnews.com

The warhead - launched 33,000 feet below in the Ukrainian countryside - exploded less than one yard from the aircraft's cockpit, the Dutch report said.

A split-second later, hundreds of "high-energy" fragments pierced the fuselage and the shrapnel instantly killed the two pilots and one crew member inside.

There was no mayday call or attempt to maneuver, the report noted. The cockpit voice recorder stopped abruptly at the point of impact.

Image: Dutch Safety Board Issue Their Findings On The MH17 Air Disaster

The explosion also caused the cockpit to instantly separate from the rest of the aircraft. After that "instantaneous separation," the rest of the plane continued to fly for more than five miles before breaking into further pieces, according to the report.

The center part of the airliner traveled beyond the rear section and came to rest upside down after hitting the ground. "Parts of the wreckage caught fire," the report added.

Investigators estimated it took the center and rear parts of the airplane 60 to 90 seconds to reach the ground after the blast. "Other, lighter parts would have taken longer," the report said.

The debris field was more than 20 square miles.

... ... ...

Investigators used paint to trace the missile

Ukraine and its Western allies have long alleged that pro-Russian rebels fighting in eastern Ukraine brought down MH17 using a Russian-made missile system - a claim Moscow staunchly denies. While Tuesday's report apportioned no blame, it was the first confirmation that the airliner was shot down using the BUK missile launcher - a Russian-made system.

Investigators came to this conclusion by analyzing a number of minute details.

A 2.3-millisecond noise was recorded on the cockpit's voice recorders before the system stopped working. By triangulating the signal, experts were able to show that it originated outside the aircraft.

Their conclusion was also based on "bow-tie"-shaped fragments found inside the bodies of the flight's crew members that were consistent with a 9N314M missile launched as part of the BUK system.

The Dutch team that compiled the report also based this conclusion on "explosive residues and paint" that were found on some of the fragments

[Oct 13, 2015] What's a Buk What to Know About the Cold War Missile That Downed MH17

Oct 13, 2015 ] NBC News

The Dutch board's Tuesday announcement followed a report by Buk's Russian manufacturer, Almaz-Antey, that contradicted the findings. The company said the damage patterns on MH17 did not match those it found in its own blast tests, Reuters reported.

[Oct 12, 2015] MH17 What we know on eve of Dutch Safety Board report

Notable quotes:
"... At the same time Russias Defense Ministry made public satellite images of the area, taken several days prior to the crash. The satellite pictures showed Ukrainian army positions on three days before the crash, and a BUK missile launcher could be spotted there. But on the day of the crash, it had moved somewhere else. The question is why – and where it had gone? ..."
"... In June 2015, Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey presented the results of its own probe into the causes of the MH17 crash. Looking into the option of a surface-to-air missile downing the Boing-777, experts stressed that it could only have been caused by one of the missiles from an older modification of the BUK missile system, namely the Buk-M1 - the type of the weapon the Ukrainian army is equipped with. The Russian army uses modern and later BUK missile systems. ..."
"... "the Sukhoi jet brought down the civilian plane and ours brought down the fighter jet." ..."
"... "They decided to do it this way, to look like we have brought down the plane." ..."
"... a documentary crew making a film about the MH17 catastrophe has actually proven them wrong, staging an experiment and taking an Su-25 to a height of 11,880 meters – with a pilot wearing an oxygen mask. ..."
Oct 12, 2015 | RT News
  • Theory #1: 'Russian BUK Missile'

    The Dutch Safety Board delivered a preliminary report about a year ago, concluding that flight MH17 broke up in mid-air and came down after being hit by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the plane from the outside and ruptured the fuselage. The report did not mention where those high-energy objects came from.

    The first theory maintains that the MH17 flight was downed by a surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile. It is considered by many as the most likely theory and one that's been widely cited in the media. The only question is who did it.

    The West and Ukraine claim the rebels shot the plane with a Russian BUK missile. In the framework of this theory, a YouTube video of a BUK weapons system with one rocket missing being transported somewhere in Ukraine just hours after the crash was presented as a smoking gun, claiming that the missile system was sneakily cleared out of Ukraine into Russia.

    But some local bloggers identified the location as the Ukrainian town of Krasnoarmeysk, which was under control of the Kiev forces at the time.

    The fact that the video emerged online suspiciously quickly, was followed by lots of so-called social media evidence, and is almost impossible to authenticate, only fueled suspicions.

  • Theory #2: 'Ukrainian BUK missile'

    At the same time Russia's Defense Ministry made public satellite images of the area, taken several days prior to the crash. The satellite pictures showed Ukrainian army positions on three days before the crash, and a BUK missile launcher could be spotted there. But on the day of the crash, it had moved somewhere else. The question is why – and where it had gone?

    In June 2015, Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey presented the results of its own probe into the causes of the MH17 crash. Looking into the option of a surface-to-air missile downing the Boing-777, experts stressed that it could only have been caused by one of the missiles from an older modification of the BUK missile system, namely the Buk-M1 - the type of the weapon the Ukrainian army is equipped with. The Russian army uses modern and later BUK missile systems.

  • Theory #3: 'Air-to-Air Missile'

    Another theory is that Flight MH17 may have been shot down from the air.

    Russia's Investigative Committee (IC) has been conducting its own investigation into the crash. On June 3, the Committee identified the key witness to the MH17 crash as Evgeny Agapov, an aviation armaments mechanic in the Ukrainian Air Force. Agapov testified that on July 17, 2014 a Ukrainian Sukhoi SU-25 jet aircraft piloted by Captain Voloshin "set out for a military task" and returned without ammunition. Agapov implied that an air-to-air missile was missing and claimed he overheard Voloshin say to his colleagues that some plane was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

    Also, in a video shot by Ukraine's anti-government militia when they arrived at the crash site immediately after the catastrophe and released by an Australian broadcaster almost a year after the tragedy, one important part was largely ignored.

    The video, shown by News Corp Australia, is a short, 5-minute clip made from an original video 17 minutes long, but the channel published online a full transcript of the original version.

    The transcript cited the rebel commander as saying "the Sukhoi jet brought down the civilian plane and ours brought down the fighter jet."

    Later, the same person says once again that there were two planes shot down, and another voice in the background says, "They decided to do it this way, to look like we have brought down the plane."

    Those who oppose the theory say the Sukhoi Su-25 close support fighter jet spotted in the skies at the time of the incident cannot reach a height of 10,000 meters, where the Malaysian airliner was at cruising altitude. But a documentary crew making a film about the MH17 catastrophe has actually proven them wrong, staging an experiment and taking an Su-25 to a height of 11,880 meters – with a pilot wearing an oxygen mask.

    The report coming out Tuesday will be technical in nature. Its goal is to specify how the plane was brought down, not to place blame on any side. This is the responsibility of the criminal probe, which is still ongoing.

    READ MORE:

[Oct 12, 2015] Could The Syrian Conflict Change Global Geopolitics

naked capitalism

Few meetings ever started with dimmer prospects for success than the recent meeting between Presidents Obama and Putin.

The real call for the meeting stemmed from the EU refugee crisis. With a human catastrophe brewing in Europe and the Middle East, EU leaders are urgently demanding that the U.S. and Russia set aside their differences and begin to work together in an effort to resolve the Syrian conflict, the major cause of the massive movement of people seeking sanctuary.

Now, U.S./EU leaders are no longer insisting on the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from office as a pre-condition to negotiations over a new government, although the U.S. continues to insist that al-Assad's removal become part of any final settlement.

But how can such fundamental differences be set aside when the two sides can't even agree on the enemy they're fighting? The U.S. and its allies have defined the Syrian conflict as a civil war against a despotic regime. The Russians define the conflict as an invasion by foreign Islamic radicals, paid and supported by U.S.' Middle Eastern allies.

The EU has made its demands clear: solve the problem, we don't particularly care how, but it has to be done quickly. From that point of view, the U.S. and Russian leaders have little choice but to answer the call.

Russia is attempting to form and lead a UN authorized coalition against ISIL, the radical jihadists' adversaries that conquered large parts of Syria and Iraq, while threatening to engulf the entire region.

Obama has stated publicly that he welcomes help from Russia and Iran in the fight against radical jihadists, ISIL, in Syria, while still insisting that al-Assad must go. On their side, the Russians have made no secret of their strong objections to NATO-led regime change, citing the results of failed states in Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.

In a recent New York Times article, an Administration insider stated that the President believes Syria is a lost cause, one that U.S. military presence could only worsen.

Obama has also shown little reluctance to lead from behind, when supporting NATO partners, particularly with a U.S. public largely opposed to America's military engagement in any further Mideast wars.

But Russia is not NATO, and it's clear that the U.S. has no intention of following the Kremlin's lead in Syria, as its veto of the Russian coalition proposal at the UN Security Council clearly shows. Adding to that was the United States'strong condemnation of the Russian air attack on its first day of operations in Syria.

The urgency of the moment favors cooperation, while geography gives Russia major advantages in leading the fight. Russia's relationship with Iran, already fighting on the ground in Iraq, with its ally Hezbollah fighting in Syria, provides Russia with a readymade army to complement its air attacks.

With the Russians initiating air strikes against ISIL in Syria, the great fear of world leaders is that an accidental collision between opposing U.S. and Russian forces raises the risks of war between the two nuclear powers.

While both sides deny any intent at military collaboration or sharing of military intelligence in Syria, the two Presidents have agreed to meetings of their military leaders, ostensibly aimed at reducing the risk of accidental conflicts between them. How that can be done without shared military intelligence about troop movements, and planned air attacks remains a mystery.

Adding to the confusion is the increasingly cordial meetings between Russian and Saudi leaders.

Many believe that the Saudis, and their Gulf Kingdom partners, hold the key to resolving the conflict, as the major backers of the 'moderate Islamic' rebels fighting the Syrian Government forces.

The Saudis have largely refrained from criticizing the Russian military buildup in Syria, even though it bolsters the Assad regime, and the Kingdom continues to hold its cards close to its vest regarding their position on the new Russian military initiative in Syria.

At the same time, there were conflicting signals in regards to the relationship between Iran and Russia. Reports surfaced in late September that the two countries, along with Syria and Iraq, were coordinating military efforts against the ISIL. But at the UN meeting, Iran's President Rouhani made the surprising statement that Iran saw no need to coordinate military efforts in Syria, with the Russian goal to support its embattled ally in Syria, while Iran's goal is eradicate ISIL.

It's widely recognized that since the Iran nuclear deal, Iran and the U.S. have sought to move closer in other important areas. Still, Rouhani's UN statement seemed to belie the recent agreements between Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria to build an information center in Baghdad to share battlefield reconnaissance against ISIL.

That also falls in line with the new agreement with Iran, Iraq, and Syria to provide an air corridor for Russian military flyovers to Syria for Russian fighter planes and transport aircraft.

To observers, these agreements certainly smack of military coordination with Russia. Iran's need to distance itself from Russia seems to be made with an eye on the U.S., where hardline Presidential candidates threaten to tear up the nuclear agreement.

The highly charged political atmosphere in the U.S., in the midst of a Presidential election, only adds to the fog of war in Syria, forcing public denials and secret agreements where there needs to be utmost clarity, making military cooperation in Syria almost impossible, while raising the risks of accidental conflicts between so-called partners.

What then of western sanctions against Russia? In the eyes of the west, the Syrian conflict is beginning to eclipse Ukraine in importance. The U.S. seems satisfied to leave the Ukraine issue to Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine for settlement.

The EU is most likely to be the first mover to ease sanctions, realizing, as a number of EU leaders have stated, that it is fundamentally incompatible to rely on Russia's military might while starving the Russian economy.

In January, the EU sanctions are set to expire, requiring a unanimous vote of all member states for extension. The odds are rising that the EU will allow sanctions to expire.

If so, major global business will once again flock to Russia. That would include the return of major western energy companies that have played a critical part in Russian energy development. Once that starts, it will become far more difficult to reverse the momentum or re-impose sanctions.

Given the political atmosphere in Washington, it's clear the U.S. will leave its sanctions in place.


Sam Kanu, October 7, 2015 at 5:31 am

Given the political atmosphere in Washington, it's clear the U.S. will leave its sanctions in place.

Here you mean "Given the political instructions to Washington from Tel Aviv". I don't see any general feeling in the American people that demands ongoing conflict with Iran. This is not politics at all – just pure old tail wagging the dog.

JeffC -> Sam Kanu, October 7, 2015 at 11:18 am

Sanctions against Russia, not Iran.

Older & Wiser, October 7, 2015 at 6:48 am

The un-named 1800 lb Mr. and Mrs. Gorilla couple in the room are oil & gas.
Pipelines anyone ?

Massinissa, October 7, 2015 at 2:56 pm

Are there really pipelines in Syria? I thought it was through Iraq and Turkey.

ambrit, October 7, 2015 at 7:13 am

Given Russias' long term relationship with Syria, I'm bemused that any Neo of any stripe could with a straight face suggest that the Russians would abandon the Syrian Government to a bunch of Western backed wreckers.

Maintaining a foothold in the Middle East is basic Grand Strategy. America does it with Israel, so Russia does it with Syria.

In the long run, the Middle East is beginning a shake up. The post WW1 borders were incompatible with the ethnic groupings of the region. Now those old 'drawn on a map' borders are being broken apart and the pieces reassembled. This process can take years or decades to work out. The time frame depends on how 'responsible' the Great Powers are in dealing with the realignment process.

Do notice the framing of the issue in the MSM. "Irresponsible Russia" and "Assad Must Go" are everywhere proclaimed. Like the magicians they are, the MSMs rely on misdirection to try to pull off the 'trick.' While the West tries to browbeat the Russians, the Russians are persistently acting in their, and in the Syrian Governments, perceived best interests.

On the air front, the Russian "incursions" look to be standard battlefield intelligence work. Send a plane or two 'over the border' and see what sorts of anti air radars 'lock on' to your aircraft. This is something any competent air commander would want to discover. This is also a thinly veiled threat to the West; "Look! Anyone can play this game!" The basic point being; there is no such thing as a 'no fly zone,' if you are willing to fight.

The Russian message is basic; "Put up, or shut up."

NotTimothyGeithner, October 7, 2015 at 9:05 am

The post WWI borders are fairly similar to Ottoman administrative districts. The Kuwait city-state answered to the governor of Baghdad within their framework. The issue has been foreign powers using sectarian ties to divide the little people from cooperation which was achievable under the Sultan for 500 years. Even Hussein found the Shiites to be exceptionally loyal during the Iran-Iraq War.

The rise of the Saudis, allowing the Israelis to knock over Lebanon and run an apartheid state, and supporting oppressive regimes which would have fallen or reformed (pretty much all the Gulf states which also have ancient borders) are major issues. There have always been states centered around the modern cities (Ur and Babylon were replaced by Baghdad) or provinces. I believe the creative borders argument was always a "White Man's Burden" excuse to justify control. "Professor Scott, why do they fight in the Middle East?" Excuses about unfortunate cartography sound better than "I needed to build a railroad and did the want to pay the locals, so I cooked up a rape story in one village, handed out guns, and slaughtered the adult males in the other village."

On the other hand, Africa was carved up bizarrely based on rail and ship movements.

todde, October 7, 2015 at 8:11 am

KSA claims Assad must go and I doubt they will support Russia.

Who is supporting IS? I find it hard to believe they can maintain armed conflict on several fronts without a state backer.

Where are the 10s of billions of dollars in turkeys central bank in accounts called unknown foreign sources and errors and adjustments?

Iran will support Assad regardless of American actions.

blert, October 7, 2015 at 5:54 pm

Two factors.

Iran was using Turkey as a front, Ankara collected its 'cut.' Turkey was laundering monies from the Gulf, too, probably Golden Chain funding for the fanatics in Syria. Erdogan has more side action than Rick's Cafe American.

Eureka Springs, October 7, 2015 at 9:02 am

Madness R U.S. US, Saudi, Turks and Israeli's must be held at bay at the very least. It's (Russia, Iran, Syria) who are the only entities resembling a possible humanitarian, rule of law base of action now or possibly working towards that kind of end game.

That's how low we are, R or D, … the creators and perpetrators of al Q and all of their newly named lackeys doing our dirty work continuously since the 1980's. It's not impossible to know who we are and what we have long done… Reading Obama's words and Putin's it is clear Putin is being far more honest and consistent in both action and words.

Maybe we should stop blowing up hospitals and imprison leaders who order or even allow it to happen. Nah, there are too many unarmed citizens in wheelchairs who must be shot.

blert, October 7, 2015 at 6:02 pm

Bin Laden has gone on record - time and time, again - denouncing your thesis. He never needed American funding - ever. He would never, ever, grovel to the kafir.

It's only recently that 0bama started funding AQ's front organs, al Nusrah inparticular. BOTH ISIS and al Nusrah are joined at the hip and are al Qaeda fronts. They only had a falling out, circa 2011.

The FSA is a total fiction. It's a Western media construct. Syria is a fight between brutal Assad and two feral al Qaeda fronts… that can't be controlled. The UK, US and Jordan trained most of ISIS' cadres in the Jordanian desert back in 2011-12. They then went rogue. That (mostly Jordanian) force is still the dominant core of ISIS. Our crass media is complicit in covering up a reality that the rest of the planet is hip to.

Eureka Springs , October 7, 2015 at 8:07 pm

Agree with you after your first three lines. I guess those shoulder fired missiles which al Q used to take out Russian helicopters in Afghanistan during the '80's were Costa Rican made and supplied.

Massinissa, October 7, 2015 at 8:29 pm

So Bin Laden was actually giving money and guns to Zbigniew Brzezinski instead of the other way around?

You have seen that famous photo of Bin Laden and Zbigniew Brzezinski right? Just google it.

Stephen V, October 7, 2015 at 10:44 am

Never expected to hear this re: Iran– https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/317844-oily-mess-tax-us/

A retired Army Colonel who served under Colin Powell actually says he's afraid of a future Israeli false-flag operation that will start a US war with Iran
– move the cursor to 15 mins...

Steven, October 7, 2015 at 11:10 am

Somewhere I remember reading an analysis of the Syrian conflict along the following lines:

  1. It does indeed involve geopolitics – with the aim being to replace Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas with that from U.S. Middle-eastern 'allies'. To do that it is necessary to build a pipeline across Syria – and insure the Syrian government is firmly in the pocket of the U.S. and its allies.
  2. Without wishing to denigrate the influence of AIPAC, this conflict has far more to do with preserving and possibly extending US global hegemony (with a continuing full-employment program for the country's Congressional military-industrial complex) than it does Israel's inordinate control over US foreign policy. All the blather about democracy vs. dictatorship and/or Sunni vs. Shia vs. Sunni is just offal fed to the cannon fodder used by powers great and small to get it to sacrifice itself for their ambitions.
  3. Like ambrit said, this is just "basic Grand Strategy". It is way past time for US 'leaders' to recognize the full spectrum dominance they enjoyed in the aftermath of WWII was (charitably) an accident of history and come to terms with a multi-polar world and the concept of collective security to which they gave so much word of mouth to a population disgusted with the carnage and destruction of the second "war to end all wars".

Hespeler1, October 7, 2015 at 4:19 pm

Steven, Pepe Escobar has written extensively about the "pipeline wars" ("pipelinestan"), the Empire is trying to starve Russia's finances in part by bypassing Russia's pipelines. Greece was pressured into refusing to be the Turkish Stream's terminus and distribution hub for Southern Europe. We all know how much they needed the revenue from that, but TPTB said no. Grand Strategy=break up Russia, steal her resources, put pressure on China. I fear that the Empire won't stop until they accomplish this, or are buried.

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL, October 7, 2015 at 12:11 pm

Sometimes things are just so obvious. US "veto of the Russian coalition proposal at the UN Security Council". Could be because the US wants to lead a bigger, better coalition, maybe ours will include Samoa or something. Or, um, duh, could be because US doesn't really want to fight ISIS since that's our dog in this fight. Funny how a few days bombing by Russia has had a real impact on actual ISIS fighters…whereas US bombing tends to be on stuff like bridges and power plants and hospitals that hurt Assad more than they hurt ISIS.

I mean how bleeding obvious when we get John McCain high fiving ISIS…and our grand plan was to find "moderate" maniacs that would do our bidding. "OK everybody, form a line, if you're an extremist take the T-shirt on the left, if you're a moderate take a T-shirt on the right". That strategy has worked out so well for us in the past, we spent $500M and trained precisely "4 or 5" guys.

Yankee go home.

sid_finster, October 7, 2015 at 12:32 pm

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-07/russian-warships-launch-missile-attack-syrian-targets-clearing-way-iran-ground-invas

Is it not most edifying that Iraq is now apparently allowing Russian cruise missiles to fly over its territory, or at least not objecting? (Not that Iraq could do much about it…)

Harry, October 7, 2015 at 5:20 pm

Iraq is part of the Russian coalition as well as China and you probably do know that Iraqi prime-minister already made a statement that he would not object against Russians decimating ISIS on the Iraqi territory. And look, oil prices are already going up – that's what Putin really needed and this is one of the eight reasons why he started a war in the Middle East.

NotTimothyGeithner, October 7, 2015 at 8:52 pm

Started a war? You do realize training a day arming rebels is an act of war even if Congress hides the funding in the classified budget or if it's done by the CIA instead of corporate approved soldiers. The U.S. government has started numerous wars without Congressional approval, mostly because Congress is still afraid of elections. Russia is allied with Syria. If anything Putin has shown remarkable constraint.

Synoia, October 7, 2015 at 1:06 pm

There are three sides to Syria:

1. New Caliphate – Includes Turkey & Saudi Arabia – Look at a map and think contiguous empire -ISIS is their tool.

2. US dislike of Assad, and allied with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but dislikes New Caliphate and ISIS.

3. Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah etc, dislike New Calipahe, becue of potential threat to Russia from Muslim arc from Iran through to China (the Stans).

Which leaves the US's allies in direct opposition to the US' goals, and leads to lies, deceit and deception from parties (1) and (2).

The role of ISIS is to destabilize Syria and Iran, to create an opportunity for Turkish Troops (500,000 man army), and Saudi money to enter, the region "to keep the peace," thus furthering their imperial ambitions.

The US is trying to eliminate Assad, but not enable a new Caliphate, and undermine Russia's and Iran's influence in the area, because Oil and exceptionalism (for exceptionalism see collective ego, or stunning arragance).

Russia and Iran see the solution to a New Caliphate as Assad in power, and a weakening of US influence.

aka: Quagmire

NotTimothyGeithner -> Synoia, October 7, 2015 at 8:56 pm

The U.S. government's side* is childish at best. The only real plan was Sunni elements of the army would assume power when Assad was removed from power with a little Saber rattling much like Libya with the GNC. Obama's ego prevents him from recognizing what a stupid idea this was and how radically different types Assad a day Gaddafi's power bases were.

*They are hiding behind the war powers act and approval from post 9/11 legislation. Congress an otherwise President are too cowardly to call our actions acts of war which is what they are.

washunate, October 7, 2015 at 1:40 pm

No.

But seriously, it is interesting seeing what the Oilprice guys think their audience wants to hear. They are clearly inside the MSM echo chamber. You have everything from dichotomous balance (because truth has two sides) to the charged political atmosphere (which sadly forces otherwise honest and transparent leaders to engage in secrecy and deception against their will).

I particularly love how casual the author is with the notion that the President of the United States has an explicit policy goal of deposing the leader of a sovereign nation. Ho hum, just another head of state that must go.

susan the other, October 7, 2015 at 2:15 pm

This summary by Berke also reflects my puzzled observations. It wasn't that long ago that we worried about a fundamentalist insurrection in SA and so we politely made ourselves scarce to help the Saudis out.

There's probably now a pre-arranged trade off for the Saudis and Iran: SA gets to take over Yemen; Iran gets to create a corridor through Syria. Who knows. I thought the meeting at the UN between Obama and Putin was such thinly disguised cooperation that surely some MSM would comment – but none did.

And the EU has stated (above) that sanctions against Russia are incompatible because the EU is "relying on Russia's military might" and shouldn't therefore starve the Russian economy. Wow, let's hear the story on that please.

So did Holland send in the French bombers to help out Russia? Maybe SA and RU are chummy because Russia is going to get the contract to build the new pipeline from the Gulf to Europe.

blert, October 7, 2015 at 6:08 pm

Actually all of the load growth, for OPEC, is towards India and points east. American fracking has released a glut of oil into the Atlantic Ocean market space.
Nigeria essentially lost North America as a customer - all together. If Libya and Venezuela get their act together, the glut becomes even more pronounced. Then toss in Brazil's new out put.

Brian M, October 7, 2015 at 8:10 pm

many of the fracked wells will fail amazingly quickly. So, this may not be true for long...

skippy, October 7, 2015 at 8:14 pm

A giddy operator with the rights to a gas-rich parcel of land can't just drill willy-nilly. Well design considerations are very complex and attention to detail must span the construction, testing phase, and decommissioning of the well post-production. Moreover, drilling wells are often constructed uniquely with regard to the geology and geography of the specific location. For instance, because much of the shale formation in Pennsylvania lies beneath a shallower gas formation, it is easier for the shallower gas to escape during the initial drilling process. This in turn has made it difficult for drillers to design failproof wells that can be sealed off from the younger deposits completely.

http://frackwire.com/well-casing-failure/

Jim, October 7, 2015 at 2:26 pm

At this point in the Syrian crisis it appears that the national security network (several hundred high-level military, intelligence, diplomatic and law enforcement agencies) are still debating among themselves what the U.S. response will be to Russian military initiatives in Syria and potentially Iraq.

For all Bernie Sanders supporters, it will be interesting to see what his stance on Syria will be. Will he break( at least rhetorically) with these national security elites( who since WWII have basically dictated Presidential moves in the national security arena) or will he cave to this present structure of networked power despite his "democratic socialist" credentials.

Will Sanders maintain this continuity of American foreign policy that so shocked Obama supporters?

Will the United State continue on its path of greater centralization, less accountability and emergent autocracy despite whoever wins the increasingly powerless Presidencyj?

RUKidding, October 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm

Here's my bet for the answer to your last 2 Q:

1. Yes
2. Yes

James Levy, October 7, 2015 at 3:00 pm

Unfortunately, I concur.

The amazing thing is watching the utter horror and confusion of the MSM and the Talking Heads as the Russians do things (bombing ISIS! Firing cruise missiles!!!) that the US does just about every other Tuesday, as if these things are some kind of massive breach of the peace on the order of Hitler invading Poland. The lack of any self-awareness is stunning.

Oregoncharles, October 7, 2015 at 2:55 pm

"Russia is attempting to form and lead a UN authorized coalition against ISIL"

The obvious solution, especially if it does not include the US. I'm anti-interventionist in general, but ISIL poses us the problem the Nazis did: this cannot be allowed to stand. They're actually taking us back to the 7th Century, morally, and for that matter doing things Mohammed probably wouldn't have stood for. Except in degree, most of their actions are not unprecedented, even in modern times; what's unprecedented is their extreme openness about it. Hypocrisy is an acknowledgment of morality; these people are trying to CHANGE morality, reversing hundreds of years of hard-won progress. They're a kind of monster we thought we were rid of. And they've been successful enough militarily, at least in that deeply destabilized region, to present a real threat.

Ultimately, they will have to be suppressed; it won't be easy or bloodless. The Russians' proposal may be self-interested, but it's the only approach likely to work. American bombing certainly won't.

ISIL's PR skills bother me on another level: they're extremely convenient for the interventionists. They've even got me going. And there are real connections between it and the US authorities, especially in Iraq, to say nothing of the Saudis. I can't help but wonder whether it's a CIA operation, either run amok or conceivably still under control. (If you aren't paranoid, you aren't paying attention.)

Steven, October 7, 2015 at 4:17 pm

I keep wondering how much of what goes on here in the commentariat of Naked Capitalism is just preaching to the choir and how much represents (well deserved) contempt for the official government / MSM (but I repeat myself) line among the population at large. That contempt – if it exists – is in my humble opinion – a national security issue / crisis.

JTMcPhee, October 7, 2015 at 7:46 pm

Quoting the captain of the Titanic, "More steam! Full speed ahead! We gotta show the world what this baby will do!"

[Oct 12, 2015] In Midst of War, Ukraine Becomes Gateway for Jihad

A new player among far right forces in Ukraine...
"... Photos: Tomasz Glowacki ..."
"... Next: The Life and Death of a Chechen Commander ..."
"... At the request of the writer, "Ruslan" is identified by a pseudonym. ..."
Feb. 26 2015 | theintercept.com
"OUR BROTHERS ARE there," Khalid said when he heard I was going to Ukraine. "Buy a local SIM card when you get there, send me the number and then wait for someone to call you."

Khalid, who uses a pseudonym, leads the Islamic State's underground branch in Istanbul. He came from Syria to help control the flood of volunteers arriving in Turkey from all over the world, wanting to join the global jihad. Now, he wanted to put me in touch with Ruslan, a "brother" fighting with Muslims in Ukraine.

The "brothers" are members of ISIS and other underground Islamic organizations, men who have abandoned their own countries and cities. Often using pseudonyms and fake identities, they are working and fighting in the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus, slipping across borders without visas. Some are fighting to create a new Caliphate - heaven on earth. Others - like Chechens, Kurds and Dagestanis - say they are fighting for freedom, independence and self-determination. They are on every continent, and in almost every country, and now they are in Ukraine, too.

In the West, most look at the war in Ukraine as simply a battle between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian government. But the truth on the ground is now far more complex, particularly when it comes to the volunteer battalions fighting on the side of Ukraine. Ostensibly state-sanctioned, but not necessarily state-controlled, some have been supported by Ukrainian oligarchs, and others by private citizens. Less talked about, however, is the Dudayev battalion, named after the first president of Chechnya, Dzhokhar Dudayev, and founded by Isa Munayev, a Chechen commander who fought in two wars against Russia.

Ukraine is now becoming an important stop-off point for the brothers, like Ruslan. In Ukraine, you can buy a passport and a new identity. For $15,000, a fighter receives a new name and a legal document attesting to Ukrainian citizenship. Ukraine doesn't belong to the European Union, but it's an easy pathway for immigration to the West. Ukrainians have few difficulties obtaining visas to neighboring Poland, where they can work on construction sites and in restaurants, filling the gap left by the millions of Poles who have left in search of work in the United Kingdom and Germany.

You can also do business in Ukraine that's not quite legal. You can earn easy money for the brothers fighting in the Caucasus, Syria and Afghanistan. You can "legally" acquire unregistered weapons to fight the Russian-backed separatists, and then export them by bribing corrupt Ukrainian customs officers.

"Our goal here is to get weapons, which will be sent to the Caucasus," Ruslan, the brother who meets me first in Kiev, admits without hesitation.

WITH HIS WHITE hair and beard, Ruslan is still physically fit, even at 57. He's been a fighter his entire adult life. Born in a small mountain village in the Caucasus, on the border between Dagestan and Chechnya, Ruslan belongs to an ethnic minority known as the Lak, who are predominantly Sunni Muslim.

The world that Ruslan inhabits - the world of the brothers - is something new. When he first became a fighter, there wasn't any Internet or cell phones, or cameras on the street, or drones. Ruslan joined the brothers when the Soviet Union collapsed, and he went to fight for a better world, first against the Russians in Chechnya and Dagestan during the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s. He then moved to Azerbaijan, where he was eventually arrested in 2004 on suspicion of maintaining contact with al Qaeda.

Even though Ruslan admits to fighting with Islamic organizations, he claims the actual basis for the arrest in Azerbaijan - illegal possession of weapons - was false. Authorities couldn't find anything suspicious where he was living (Ruslan was staying at the time with his "brothers" in the jihad movement) but in his wife's home they found a single hand grenade. Ruslan was charged with illegal weapons possession and sent to prison for several years.

In prison, he says he was tortured and deliberately housed in a cell with prisoners infected with tuberculosis. Ruslan took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, accusing the authorities in Azerbaijan of depriving him of due process. The court eventually agreed, and asked the Azerbaijani government to pay Ruslan 2,400 euros in compensation, plus another 1,000 euros for court costs.

But when Ruslan was released from prison, he didn't want to stay in Azerbaijan, fearing he would be rearrested, or even framed for a crime and again accused of terrorism. "Some of our people disappear and are never found," he says. "There was one brother [who disappeared], and when he was brought for burial, a card was found showing that he was one of 30 people held in detention in Russia."

In Russia, a warrant was issued for Riuan's arrest. Returning to his small mountain village was out of the question. If he goes back, his family will end up paying for what he does, anyhow. "They get to us through our families," he says. He condemns those who refused to leave their own country and fight the infidels. This was the choice: either stay, or go abroad where "you can breathe freedom."

"Man is born free," Ruslan says. "We are slaves of God and not the slaves of people, especially those who are against their own people, and break the laws of God. There is only one law: the law of God."

After his release from prison in Azerbaijan, Ruslan became the eternal wanderer, a rebel - and one of the brothers now in Ukraine. He came because Munayev, now head of the Dudayev battalion, decided the brothers should fight in Ukraine. "I am here today because my brother, Isa, called us and said, 'It's time to repay your debt,'" Ruslan says. "There was a time when the brothers from Ukraine came [to Chechnya] and fought against the common enemy, the aggressor, the occupier."

That debt is to Ukrainians like Oleksandr Muzychko, who became one of the brothers, even though he never converted to Islam. Muzyczko, along with other Ukrainian volunteers, joined Chechen fighters and took part in the first Chechen war against Russia. He commanded a branch of Ukrainian volunteers, called "Viking," which fought under famed Chechen militant leader Shamil Basayev. Muzychko died last year in Ukraine under mysterious circumstances.

Ruslan has been in Ukraine for almost a year, and hasn't seen his family since he arrived. Their last separation lasted almost seven years. He's never had time to raise children, or even really to get to know them. Although he's a grandfather, he only has one son - a small family by Caucasian standards, but better for him, since a smaller family costs less. His wife calls often and asks for money, but Ruslan rarely has any to give her.

IN THE 17th century, the area to the east of the Dnieper River was known as the "wilderness," an ungoverned territory that attracted refugees, criminals and peasants - a place beyond the reach of the Russian empire. Today, this part of Ukraine plays a similar role, this time for Muslim brothers. In eastern Ukraine, the green flag of jihad flies over some of the private battalions' bases.

For many Muslims, like Ruslan, the war in Ukraine's Donbass region is just the next stage in the fight against the Russian empire. It doesn't matter to them whether their ultimate goal is a Caliphate in the Middle East, or simply to have the Caucuses free of Russian influence - the brothers are united not by nation, but by a sense of community and solidarity.

But the brothers barely have the financial means for fighting or living. They are poor, and very rarely receive grants from the so-called Islamic humanitarian organizations. They must earn money for themselves, and this is usually done by force. Amber is one of the ideas Ruslan has for financing the "company of brothers" fighting in eastern Ukraine - the Dudayev battalion, which includes Muslims from several nations, Ukrainians, Georgians, and even a few Russians.

The brothers had hoped the Ukrainian authorities would appreciate their dedication and willingness to give their lives in defense of Ukrainian sovereignty, but they miscalculated. Like other branches of fighters - Aidar, Azov and Donbass - the government, for the most part, ignores them. They're armed volunteers outside the control of Kiev, and Ukraine's politicians also fear that one day, instead of fighting Russians in the east, the volunteers will turn on the government in Kiev. So ordinary people help the volunteers, but it's not enough. The fighters associated with the Ukrainian nationalist Right Sector get money, cars and houses from the rich oligarchs.

Ruslan has a different plan. He's afraid that if they begin stealing from the rich, the Ukrainian government will quickly declare their armed branch illegal. He's decided to work in the underground economy - uncontrolled by the state - which the brothers know best.

Back in the '90s, the amber mines in the vast forests surrounding the city of Rivne were state-owned and badly run, so residents began illegally mining; it was a chance at easy money. Soon, however, the mafia took over. For the right daily fee, miners could work and sell amber to the mafia at a fixed price: $100 per kilogram. The mafia conspired with local militia, prosecutors and the governor. That was the way business worked.

As a result, although Ukraine officially produces 3 tons of amber annually, more than 15 tons are illegally exported to Poland each year. There, the ore is processed and sold at a substantial profit. The Rivne mines operate 24 hours a day. Hundreds of people with shovels in hand search the forest; they pay less to the mafia, but they extract less amber and earn less. The better off are those who have a water pump. Those people pump water at high pressure into the earth between the trees, until a cavity 2 to 3 meters deep forms. Amber, which is lighter than water, rises to the surface.

At one point, Ruslan disappeared in Rivne for several weeks. When he returned, he was disappointed; he'd failed to convince the local mafia to cooperate with the brothers' fight for an independent Ukraine. But now, he has other arguments to persuade them. His men are holding up the mines, by not allowing anyone into the forest. Either the local gangsters share their profits, or no one will get paid.

Ruslan doesn't like this job. He knows it won't bring him any glory, and could land him in prison. He would have preferred to be among the fighters at the front lines, where everything is clear and clean. He says he can still fight, but he's already too old to really endure the rigors of battle, even if he doesn't want to admit it. He may still be physically fit, but fighters don't usually last longer than a few years. Then they lose their strength and will to fight.

He has other orders from Munayev: he's supposed to organize a "direct response group" in Kiev. The group will be a sort of rear echelon unit that take care of problems, like if someone tries to discredit the Dudayev battalion. It will also collect debts or scare off competition. There's no doubt the new branch will work behind the lines, where there isn't war, but there is money - as long as you know where to get it. If need be, the direct response group volunteers will watch over the mines in Rivne, or "will acquire" money from illegal casinos, which operate by the hundreds in Kiev.

Ruslan sends me photos of the group's criminal exploits: they came into the casinos with weapons, and broke into the safes and slot machines. They disappeared quickly, and were never punished. The money went to food, uniforms, boots, tactical vests and other equipment necessary for the fighters. The mafia knows they can't beat them at this game. The brothers are too good, because they are armed and experienced in battle. The police aren't interested in getting involved either. In the end, it's illegal gambling.

I told Ruslan that it's a dangerous game. He laughed.

"It's child's play," he says. "We used to do this in Dagestan. No one will lift a finger. Don't worry."

RUSLAN FINALLY DROVE me to see his "older brother," to Isa Munayev, and his secret base located many miles west of Donetsk.

Riding in an old Chrysler that Ruslan bought in Poland, we drove for several hours, on potholed and snowy roads. Ruslan had glued to the car one of the emblems of Ukraine's ATO, the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation, which includes both soldiers and volunteers in the fight against separatists.

The bumper sticker allows him to drive through police traffic stops without being held up - or if he is stopped, they won't demand bribes as they do from other drivers. The ATO sticker, Ruslan's camouflage uniform, and a gun in his belt are enough to settle matters. Policemen salute him and wish him good luck.

He drives fast, not wanting to rest, sleep or even drink coffee. If he stops, it's to check the compass on his belt to check the direction of Mecca. When it's time to pray, he stops the car, turns off the engine, places his scarf in the snow and bows down to Allah.

Asked whether - after so many hardships, after so many years, and at his age, almost 60 now - he would finally like to rest, he answered indignantly, "How could I feel tired?"

There's much more work to do, according to Ruslan. "There's been a small result, but we will rest only when we've reached our goals," he says. "I'm carrying out orders, written in the Holy Quran. 'Listen to God, the Prophet.' And I listen to him and do what I'm told."

On the way into the city of Kryvyi Rih, we met with Dima, a young businessman - under 40 - but already worth some $5 million. He's recently lost nearly $3 million from his business in Donetsk, which has been hit hard by the war. Dima worked for Igor Kolomoisky, one of the oligarchs who had been funding Ukraine's volunteer battalions. Dima and Ruslan have only known each other for a short time. Ruslan claimed Dima owed him a lot of money, although it's unclear from what. Ruslan kept bothering him, threatening to blackmail him. Finally, he got $20,000 from Dima.

That's not nearly enough to support the Dudayev battalion. But Ruslan had something bigger to offer Dima: amber. Now, Dima was ready to talk. He came up with the idea to find buyers in the Persian Gulf, including wealthy sheikhs. They would like to sell an entire house of amber: furniture, stairs, floors, and inlaid stones. It only takes contacts, and Ruslan has them. The brothers from Saudi Arabia like to help the jihad in the Caucasus and the Middle East.

The next day, Ruslan was behind the wheel again. The old Chrysler barely moved, its engine overheated. A mechanic with an engineering degree and experience working in Soviet arms factories connected a plastic bottle filled with dirty water to the radiator using a rubber hose.

"I don't know how long I'll last," Ruslan says suddenly. "It depends on God. I'll probably die on this road. But I don't have any other road to take."

Photos: Tomasz Glowacki

Next: The Life and Death of a Chechen Commander

* At the request of the writer, "Ruslan" is identified by a pseudonym.

The material for this story is part of BROTHERS, a documentary film being developed for Germany's broadcaster WDR – Die Story and Autentic, produced by Propellerfilm, broadcast date May 18th, 10pm (MET).

[Oct 11, 2015] What Ambulance-Chasing Lawyers Reveal About the MH17 Shoot-Down

Insufficient evidence for prosecution to declare shooting of MH17 a terrorist act..
Notable quotes:
"... The refusal of the Australian officials to make the statutory declaration that they have the evidence under Australian law to declare a terrorist act suggests they don't have the evidence at all. Until now, none has noticed the convergence of the Australian autopsy evidence in the Coroners Court in Melbourne, and the revelation in the Brisbane court that the government is refusing to declare a terrorist act. ..."
"... Dutch media report Australian lawyers for kin of victims have filed a complaint with the ICC in the Hague seeking to indict several Dutch government ministers as well as Eurocontrol and others for 'gross negligence'. ..."
"... If I'm right, the Russians have the evidence that proves whodunnit. They're just waiting until the Dutch put out their report. Shot from the sky by military (whose is a guess) planes, not BUK missiles. If they had one atom from a BUK, we'd know about it. ..."
"... It now appears that the likelihood 'on balance' is that it was the Ukrainian government that shot down the plane. Establishing the case on a balance of probabilities would be good enough in a civil jurisdiction. ..."
"... Obviously we westerners cannot tolerate that result otherwise everything we have said about the accident will be thought to be intentionally misleading. It would be far far better to obfuscate the investigative results and say it was inconclusive. Then our newspapers can say those crafty Russians got away with it. ..."
"... Fingers crossed. Its not impossible that the truth will out. ..."
www.nakedcapitalism.com

Fifteen weeks later, by the time Abbott spoke in November, he had been briefed on the evidence gathered by Australian pathologists and the Victorian State Coroner from the bodies of MH17 victims. No evidence of shrapnel from a Buk missile warhead had been found. For that story, read on.

... ... ...

The refusal of the Australian officials to make the statutory declaration that they have the evidence under Australian law to declare a terrorist act suggests they don't have the evidence at all. Until now, none has noticed the convergence of the Australian autopsy evidence in the Coroners Court in Melbourne, and the revelation in the Brisbane court that the government is refusing to declare a terrorist act.

... ... ...

For the Dutch Government's compilation of its official statements on the MH17 crash, open this file. According to van der Goen, none of the investigating countries has legitimate authority to prosecute, "if only because the Netherlands and the other countries mentioned are possible suspects themselves - and they refuse to see this. So the case will be endlessly shelved. Eventually, it will be adopted at a parliamentary inquiry that mistakes were made, but then noone will still be awake. Excellent solution."

Ilargi, October 8, 2015 at 1:53 am

Dutch media report Australian lawyers for kin of victims have filed a complaint with the ICC in the Hague seeking to indict several Dutch government ministers as well as Eurocontrol and others for 'gross negligence'.

Chris Williams, October 8, 2015 at 2:35 am

I don't know how our clever governments (US, Australia, Netherlands, UK etc) are going to get out of this one. Perhaps, as JH suggests, they will continue to defer and prevaricate, keeping their 'evidence'… until know one cares.

If I'm right, the Russians have the evidence that proves whodunnit. They're just waiting until the Dutch put out their report. Shot from the sky by military (whose is a guess) planes, not BUK missiles. If they had one atom from a BUK, we'd know about it.

JTMcPhee, October 8, 2015 at 9:09 pm

For a different and more complete view, one might read here:

America's Flight 17: The time the United States blew up a passenger plane-and tried to cover it up. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/07/the_vincennes_downing_of_iran_air_flight_655_the_united_states_tried_to.html

And here: Sea of Lies, http://alt-f4.org/img/seaoflies.html

Not some "itchy radar operator," it would seem. But the Narrative must be protected…

low_integer, October 9, 2015 at 6:22 am

So the damage to the body would come from the exploding engine. It's so big, spinning so fast, that the energy released is far, far, greater than the warheads. !!!

So, you can't tell either way based on the plane's body. You'd have to have microscopic analysis of the engine components - which would be very challenging and take just about forever.

Obfuscation. The parts in a passenger aircraft's jet engine that are moving, the turbine blades, are made of nickel-based superalloys and I believe they are single 'grain' components, which means they have consistent strength throughout and would be very unlikely to fracture. Also, damage to the fuselage of a passenger jet from turbine blades would be easily identifiable due to their shape and position as the energy of the turbine blades would be dispersed at right angles to the direction of thrust. Lastly, the casing around these blades would, at the very least, absorb a significant amount of this energy.

Are you the guy who replied to one of my posts that Cthulu caused 9/11?

RBHoughton, October 8, 2015 at 9:17 pm

It now appears that the likelihood 'on balance' is that it was the Ukrainian government that shot down the plane. Establishing the case on a balance of probabilities would be good enough in a civil jurisdiction.

Obviously we westerners cannot tolerate that result otherwise everything we have said about the accident will be thought to be intentionally misleading. It would be far far better to obfuscate the investigative results and say it was inconclusive. Then our newspapers can say those crafty Russians got away with it.

If not, eastern Ukraine and Russia will score a huge win and we will have even more egg on our faces than usual. Its bad enough that fewer people believe us but its far worse that they begin to prefer Putin's version.

The hopeful thing here is the lawyers. Older readers will recall people used to study law because they respected the concept of a law-based society. It was not just about the money. Some of these vocational lawyers can still be found and it is my hope that they get fully involved in this case. Fingers crossed. Its not impossible that the truth will out.

Thanks again Naked Capitalism for reporting important news that is neglected by others.

[Oct 11, 2015] Russia's Move In Syria Threatens Energy Deals With Turkey

In 2014, Gazprom delivered 27.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Turkey via its Blue Stream and Trans-Balkan pipelines. Gas exports from Russia are up some 34 percent since 2010, and Turkey – now Russia's second largest market after Germany – is only getting hungrier. By 2030, gas demand in Turkey is expected to expand 30 percent, reaching 70 bcm per year.

... ... ...

With European demand projected to grow by just over 1 bcm per year in the same period, Russia's South Stream pipeline proposal was as misguided as it was non-compliant with the EU's Third Energy Package. Routed through Turkey however, Russia's newest pipeline, TurkStream, promised to add greater utility. Turkey gets its gas and partly fulfills its transit aspirations; Russia bypasses Ukraine while opening windows to Europe and the Middle East; and Europe, if it wants it, will have gas on demand.

It sounds good – okay, at least – but as so often happens in Russia, the tale has taken a turn for the worse. TurkStream has stumbled out of the gates and larger happenings in Syria look to significantly damage Russia-Turkey relations.

Originally intended as a four-pipe 63-bcm project, TurkStream will now top out at 32 bcm, if it gets off the ground at all. As it stands, the parties have agreed to draft the text of an intergovernmental agreement, with a targeted signing date of early next year, following Turkey's general election. And that's it.

[Oct 11, 2015] Russian maker of missile that destroyed MH17 to explain disaster

ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine - How do you prove you didn't blow up a plane? In Russia, you blow up a plane.

A Russian missile manufacturer said Friday that it had exploded a missile beneath a decommissioned Boeing airliner similar to that of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine last year, proving the passenger jet was not downed by one of its missiles.

"The company will present the results of a real-time simulation of a Buk missile hitting a passenger jet which we hope will help us understand what exactly caused the July 17, 2014 crash of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in Ukraine's Donetsk region," Almaz-Antey said in a statement.

The company did not say when the experiment took place or how it was conducted, and it did not immediately reply to Mashable's request for comment. Its report will be released on Tuesday, Oct. 13, the same day a joint international investigation led by the Dutch Safety Board will release its full report into the causes of the downing.

At a press conference in Moscow in June, Almaz-Antey said it was prepared to carry out such an experiment to prove MH17 was downed by an older version of their missile that isn't in service with the Russian military, but is in Ukraine's arsenal.

Company officials at the time did not say whether the aircraft would be in flight during the experiment.

MH17 was downed over the village of Hrabovo, eastern Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpa on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers and crew on board the jetliner were killed and their remains scattered over the battlefields in war-torn Donetsk region.

Western governments and Kiev have accused Russian-backed separatists of shooting down the passenger jet, mistaking it for a Ukrainian military aircraft, with a Buk SA-11 missile provided by Moscow. Their accusations are supported by preliminary evidence gathered by open source sleuths Bellingcat, as well as investigators and Mashable's own investigation.

On Wednesday, Vasyl Vovk, a senior officer of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) who has been involved in the investigation into the downing, told Dutch news site NOS that the fragments found in the aircraft wreckage and in victims' bodies matched pieces from two Buk missiles that investigators examined for comparison.

The Kremlin and separatist leaders have blamed Kiev for the disaster, insisting it was downed either by a Ukrainian Buk missile or a government jet fighter.

While the Dutch report due next week will shine a light on what caused the plane to crash and burn, it will not lay blame.

A separate criminal investigation headed by Dutch detectives and involving investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine is still pending.

Attempts by the United Nations Security Council to create a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the crime was vetoed by Russia, a permanent member of the council, in July. Moscow has called the move "premature" and decried the Dutch-led investigation as biased.

[Oct 10, 2015] Obama Launches A Proxy War On Russia

Notable quotes:
"... Russia bombed some of the CIAS trained, armed and paid groups. It had earlier asked the U.S. to tell it who not to bomb but didnt receive an answer. As the CIA mercenaries are fighting against the Syrian government and are practically not distinguishable from al-Qaeda, ISI or other terrorists they are a legitimate targets. But not in the eyes of the CIA which nevertheless finds Russian attacks on them useful: ..."
"... Erdogans AK-Party and his government have supported the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Syria. It sees the HDP party and the Kurds in general as its enemies. As one Turkish non-AKP politician said today, the bloody incident in Ankara was either a total Turkish intelligence failure or a Turkish intelligence operation. ..."
"... Today the Russian President Putin will meet the Saudi young leader deputy crown-prince Mohammed Salman-un. Can Putin read him the riot act and tell him to stop being a proxy in the U.S. war on Syria? One hopes so. ..."
www.moonofalabama.org
But instead of building on that agreement and of further working with the Russians, the U.S. is now slipping into a full war by proxy against the Russian Federation and especially with its contingent in Syria. Obama had claimed that he would not get drawn into a proxy war with Russia in Syria but his administration, the Pentagon and the CIA, is now doing all it can to create one. The Russian support for Syria is not limited. With the U.S. administration now moving into a position where war on Russia in Syria becomes the priority the fighting in and around Syria will continue for a long time.

The official Pentagon program to train Syrian insurgents will cease to vet, train, arm and support those mercenaries. But the program will not end. The Pentagon will simply shorten the process. It skips the vetting and training part and will arm and support anyone who proclaims to want to "fight ISIS":

The move marks an expansion of U.S. involvement in Syria's protracted ground war and could expose the Obama administration to greater risks if weapons provided to a wider array of rebel units go astray, or if U.S.-backed fighters come under attack from forces loyal to Assad and his allies.
...
Under the new plan, leaders of groups already battling the Islamic State undergo vetting and receive a crash course in human rights and combat communications. Many of them have already received that training outside Syria, officials said.

Eventually the Pentagon plans to provide ammunition and basic weapons to those leaders' fighters and would carry out airstrikes on targets identified by those units.

We know how well things go when some rogue proxies identify targets they want the U.S. air force to hit. The destroyed MSF hospital in Kunduz and the 50 something killed in the U.S. attack on it, on request of Afghan special forces, tell the story.

Significant military aid to those fighters, in an area where Islamist extremist groups are mixed with and often fighting beside moderate opposition rebels, would mark a departure from previous U.S. policy. A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, declined to give specifics on any new aid that might arrive in northwest Syria. But the official said that "these supplies will be delivered to anti-ISIL forces whose leaders were appropriately vetted," and described them as "groups with diverse membership."

That would be these diverse groups which all include al-Nusra/al-Qaeda, Ahrar al Shams and other Jihadis. Even if not directly given to them the fact that al-Qaeda demands a "toll" of 1/3 of all weapons going through its controls, and sometimes takes all, shows that this program is effectively a direct, though unacknowledged, armament program for al-Qaeda.

The new program is separate from a CIA-led effort to aid rebel factions in Syria. It was not immediately clear how Friday's announcement might affect the CIA program.

The CIA runs a similar but much bigger program since 2012. Weapons are handed out to everyone who wants to take down the Syrian government. Most of those weapons have landed in the hands of the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

Indeed it is the CIA, under its torture justifying chief Brennan, which has pushed the Obama administration away from Kerry's conceding statement and into a full blown proxy war with Russia.

Russia bombed some of the CIA'S trained, armed and paid groups. It had earlier asked the U.S. to tell it who not to bomb but didn't receive an answer. As the CIA mercenaries are fighting against the Syrian government and are practically not distinguishable from al-Qaeda, ISI or other terrorists they are a legitimate targets. But not in the eyes of the CIA which nevertheless finds Russian attacks on them useful:

Reports indicate that CIA-trained groups have sustained a small number of casualties and have been urged to avoid moves that would expose them to Russian aircraft. One U.S. official who is familiar with the CIA program - and who like other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters - said the attacks have galvanized some of the agency-equipped units. "Now they get to fight the Russians," the official said. "This improves morale."
...
Brennan departed for the Middle East last week as the Russian strikes intensified. U.S. officials said that the trip was previously planned and not related to the bombings but acknowledged that his discussions centered on Syria.

...
The decision to dismantle the Pentagon's training program - whose small teams of fighters were often quickly captured or surrendered their weapons to rival rebel groups in Syria - may force Obama to weigh ramping up support to the CIA-backed groups.

U.S. officials said those involved in the agency program are already exploring options that include sending in rocket systems and other weapons that could enable rebels to strike Russian bases without sending in surface-to-air missiles that terrorist groups could use to target civilian aircraft.

The person who told the Saudis to deliver 500 TOW missiles to Syria ASAP was likely CIA chief Brennan. He also ordered to plan for attacks on the Russian base.

So instead of a calming down and cooperation with Russia to fight the Islamic State the Pentagon was told to shorten its program and to hand out weapons to everyone who asks. The CIA is feeding more weapons to its mercenaries via its Gulf proxies and is planning for direct attacks on Russians.

The war on Syria, and now also on Russia, is unlikely to end in the near future. With the U.S. throwing more oil into the fire the war will burn not only in Syria but in every other country around it.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up today at a rally of the Kurd friendly HDP party in Ankara. Some 90 people were killed and some 200 wounded. This is the biggest terrorist attack modern Turkey has ever seen. The Turkish government disconnected the country from Twitter and forbid any reporting about the terror attack. The HDP party is leftist and supports a peaceful struggle for Kurdish autonomy. The militant Kurdish PKK in Turkey is currently fighting skirmishes with Turkish security forces in the east of the country. It has now announced that it will stop all attacks unless when it is attacked first. The sister organization of the PKK in Syria, the YPK, is currently fighting against the Islamic State. Erdogan's AK-Party and his government have supported the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Syria. It sees the HDP party and the Kurds in general as its enemies. As one Turkish non-AKP politician said today, the bloody incident in Ankara was either a total Turkish intelligence failure or a Turkish intelligence operation.

Whatever else it was, the bombing, very likely by Islamic State suicide bombers, is a sign of an ongoing destabilization of Turkey. The instability will increase further until there is a major policy change and a complete crackdown on any support for the Jihadis in Syria as well as a complete closure of the Turkish-Syrian border.

Today the Russian President Putin will meet the Saudi "young leader" deputy crown-prince Mohammed Salman-un. Can Putin read him the riot act and tell him to stop being a proxy in the U.S. war on Syria? One hopes so.

[Oct 10, 2015] Three main reasons for which NATO is not attacking Russia right now

Notable quotes:
"... The second reason, is that NATO is facing problems, the alliance is weakening and its credibility has been damaged a lot. Essentially, the members which are fully aligned behind US imperialism right now are the Baltic countries, the former eastern bloc countries and the traditional US ally, United Kingdom. ..."
"... One of the 3 reasons it gives for US not attacking Russia is that Russia is needed to clean up the US mess in Syria. ..."
"... Did you know that CIA has NO Congressional oversight now? With no threat of hearings, theyre running free. ..."
"... It seems that most of the military/foreign policy establishment is actively pushing the neocon unipolarist adventurism. More like those who are active in trying to dilute its actions are the rogue element. Obama, I am convinced, is trying even while covering himself w a milder version of neocon rhetoric. I never thought I wd approve anything about such a liar. ..."
"... Its a real study to read the articles from the NYT and other big media outlets here on the subject of Syria and particularly the rebels . The concoction of terms that have been used over the past couple of years and especially since ~ June is mind boggling. At one point I had started collecting them. Moderate rebels morphed into relatively moderate insurgents and all kinds of other permutations. ..."
"... McCain, Lindsey, Rubio, Cotton and other unstable personalities decide grand total of nothing in US foreign policy. They are encouraged to talk tough only insofar as it softens up the foreign interlocutors for the responsible players like Obama and Kerry. The responsibles can always point to the lunatics and extract concessions from frightened opposite side. ..."
"... On another note, Erdogan is setting himself up for a landslide defeat at the polls or a military coup detat, hes made so many enemies in the Turkish army and body politic, that combined with his erratic personal behavior and foreign/internal policies, and his delusions of grandeur, are not a good omen for his future. If Turkey still had any illusions re: membership in the EU, Erdogan and the recent suicide bombings just kill them for time to come, and la Merkel now has more ammunition to throw at Turkeys EU aspirations. ..."
"... Russians are far more cautious than Americans, because they have had more 1000 years to hone their diplomacy, and are acutely aware that blowback is an inevitable consequence of any poorly though-out action and/or overreach. Americans are still learning the a , b and c of the craft, and maybe even regressing since the end of the Cold War. ..."
"... The US plan (export ISIS and Al Qaida to balkanize) is extremely defective because it also threatens the stability and even existence of traditional US stooges like Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, etc, and it also inflicts massive economic pain and an immigration crisis upon Europe. ..."
"... Saudi, Qatar, and UAE have exported terrorism with complete impunity for decades now. Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, etc need to do something rather direct about that or it will continue. The American people should do something as well but were brainwashed idiots. ..."
"... We have become a Propaganda Wonderland. ..."
"... Believing John Kerry in saying that he agrees to a secular stable Syria was bullshit from the first breath that came out of his mouth. ..."
"... The Empire is scrambling for answers and actions due to Russias surprise intervention in Syria and its a simple as that. Read my post from yesterday. Once they decide on a course of despicable action, it will become much clearer in the next few weeks or months. ..."
"... Weeks ago I mentioned that this Russian in intervention is not a riskless, easy program thats so many Putin-bots were desperate for. One can either describe reality, or be a biased self-credibility eviserator. The evil US Empire is super pissed and they are going to double down instead of retreat. ..."
"... The empire will not cede an inch of their unipolar delusion, and will fight to defeat Russia/China/Iran aspirations for a multipolar world. ..."
"... excellent article up at zerohedge... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-10/carpe-chaos-isis-israel-iraq-syria-its-all-part-plan ..."
the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

by system failure

The first, and probably most important reason for which NATO is not attacking Russia for the moment, is the upgraded Russian nuclear arsenal. As in the Cold War 1.0 era, the nuclear strength of both superpowers, capable to destroy the planet many times, was a key preventing factor against a direct conflict between the USA and the former Soviet Union.

Moreover, the US indirect aggression against China lately, a stupid strategy coming from the neocon agenda, brought China closer to Russia, building an even stronger alliance between them. They are both now in a race of developing further their nuclear arsenals and this is a key deterrent which prevents NATO to confront them openly.

The second reason, is that NATO is facing problems, the alliance is weakening and its credibility has been damaged a lot. Essentially, the members which are fully aligned behind US imperialism right now are the Baltic countries, the former eastern bloc countries and the traditional US ally, United Kingdom.

The relations between the United States and other major countries inside the alliance appear to be in a quite bad shape, especially those with Germany and Turkey. The recent Volkswagen emission scandal confirmed that, indeed, there is an underground fierce economic war between the United States and Germany. Besides that, the relations between the two countries started to worse rapidly after the known revelations of the NSA interceptions.

Concerning Turkey, it is known that the US promote the creation of a Kurdish state because it serves better their interests. This is totally unacceptable for Erdoğan,who is occupied by the illusion of the Turkish expansionism. Washington is not very happy seeing ISIS being used by Turkey to fight Kurds, instead of operating in full force against Assad regime.

Other key allies like France, are not very happy with the sanctions, imposed by the US, against Russia. The economic damage is not insignificant. The most characteristic example concerning France, is the cancellation of the deal concerning the Mistral warships, by Russia.

The third reason, is that the US need Russia and even Iran to clean up the mess in Middle East. A mess which was created by the US and their allies in Middle East when they started to arm anti-Assad forces to confront the Assad regime. Now, ISIS is out of control.

However, the Americans had enough troubles with the attrition wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They wouldn't risk further mess by bringing 'boots on the ground' to confront ISIS. The recent deal with Iran, concerning its nuclear program, is not accidental. Besides, Pentagon announced that will stop training new militant forces in Syria, which is actually an admission of failure of its so far strategy.

shadylady | Oct 10, 2015 1:05:32 PM | 9

Beware bloggers:

Cold War II to McCarthyism II, June 8, 2015

Exclusive: With Cold War II in full swing, the New York Times is dusting off what might be called McCarthyism II, the suggestion that anyone who doesn't get in line with U.S. propaganda must be working for Moscow, reports Robert Parry.

snip

Perhaps it's no surprise that the U.S. government's plunge into Cold War II would bring back the one-sided propaganda themes that dominated Cold War I, but it's still unsettling to see how quickly the major U.S. news media has returned to the old ways, especially the New York Times, which has emerged as Official Washington's propaganda vehicle of choice.

What has been most striking in the behavior of the Times and most other U.S. mainstream media outlets is their utter lack of self-awareness, for instance, accusing Russia of engaging in propaganda and alliance-building that are a pale shadow of what the U.S. government routinely does. Yet, the Times and the rest of the MSM act as if these actions are unique to Moscow.

BIG SNIP

USAID, working with billionaire George Soros's Open Society, also funds the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which engages in "investigative journalism" that usually goes after governments that have fallen into disfavor with the United States and then are singled out for accusations of corruption. The USAID-funded OCCRP also collaborates with Bellingcat, an online investigative website founded by blogger Eliot Higgins.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/08/cold-war-ii-to-mccarthyism-ii/

Soros is coming to get us. :) Look for uptick in trolls. Hope Operation Summer Rains trolls have retired.

Lysander | Oct 10, 2015 1:16:14 PM | 14

Best defense for Russia is the ability to retaliate in kind. Yemen against KSA and PKK against Turkey. It doesn't mean they won't arm the terrorists, but it does mean it will be costly for them. And the Russians can always play the "gee it looks like your manpads fell into the wrong hands and they went and shot down an Aapache in Iraq."

james | Oct 10, 2015 1:26:51 PM | 18

what is the disconnect between the us admin and the cia? is this some sort of good guy, bad guy routine that they like to have going? are they supposed to make out like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing too? looks like the cia is calling the shots... so much for that friggin' democracy joke under the nobel peace prizer's command..

actually i think skipping the vetting and training of those working for the usa administration and the cia is a huge problem.. they can do that when they want to put weapons in isis's hands to overthrow assad, but they need to stop doing it to their own country as it's doing to blow up in their face..on 2nd thought maybe they are hoping for regime change in the usa! that's one way to get an amerikkkan regime change in your own country - destroy it..

i am sorry to hear of the horrible event in ankara.. i can't imagine sultan erdogan being happy about it either..who advises this dipstick? or, is that an example of how things will go better with isis?

Virgile | Oct 10, 2015 1:45:51 PM | 19

This is where Iran comes in...

It is clear that if the USA starts a proxy war in Syria against Russia, Iran will retaliate by hitting the USA ally, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen.

In parallel to Saudi Arabia arming Syrian rebels, we will see Iran (and Russia) arming the Houthis in Yemen. I expect heavy military escalation on the Saudi Yemeni border soon

MMARR | Oct 10, 2015 1:51:14 PM | 21

@17 shadylady
Impotence is an unfamiliar feeling in DC, so they are all "pissed" right now. Generals, politicos, arms merchants, lobbyists, think tankers, all of them. They are scrambling for a response, but can't find a single one that wouldn't lead to a worsening of their position.
We are witnessing the last gasp of American hegemony, and the process is natural and irreversible.

Penelope | Oct 10, 2015 2:00:19 PM | 22

nmb @2, Thanks for the link. One of the 3 reasons it gives for US not attacking Russia is that Russia is needed to clean up the US mess in Syria. I agree and evidently some faction in the US with Obama as its point-man agrees. However this faction is so weak that it cannot even seem to speak out forthrightly, but relies on undermining the neocon strategy, which remains the same. The unipolarists are still determined upon absolute rule generally-- and destruction of Syria and its govt specifically.

shadylady | Oct 10, 2015 2:04:53 PM | 23

@ MMARR @ BOG @ James, I love reading Pepe Escorbar and M.K. Bhadrakumar

NATO all dressed up, nowhere to go in Syria

Neither Erdogan nor Russian President Vladimir Putin is spoiling for a fight. By the way, what actually happened over the weekend on the Turkish-Syrian border too is shrouded in mystery and increasingly it seems Ankara and Moscow are in some foreplay over new ground rules for the non-existent Turkish-Syrian border.

From Erdogan's latest remarks, he seems to be tapping down tensions.

snip
The European Union's proposal to 'assist' Turkey in handling the refugee flow from Syria is a case in point. The EU offers to subsidize Turkey financially provided Ankara kept custody of the Syrian refugees. Ankara has an open mind – everything depends on how generous the EU funding will be. Clearly, $1.5 billion is 'peanuts'.

Turkey does not want foreign troops to come and defend it. Its preference is that the US and Germany would change their mind and allowed the Patriot batteries to remain in Turkey. (Alas, they are not agreeable.)
snip

A broad Turkish-Russian understanding over Syria may even emerge out of it. Erdogan will most certainly expect Putin not to arm the Syrian Kurds.

MORE: http://atimes.com/2015/10/nato-all-dressed-up-nowhere-to-go-in-syria/

Always love Escobar, waiting for his next article:
http://atimes.com/category/empire-of-chaos/

Penelope | Oct 10, 2015 2:16:15 PM | 25

Shady Lady @3, "Do we have a rogue CIA now?"

Did you know that CIA has NO Congressional oversight now? With no threat of hearings, they're running free.

It seems that most of the military/foreign policy establishment is actively pushing the neocon unipolarist adventurism. More like those who are active in trying to dilute its actions are the rogue element. Obama, I am convinced, is trying even while covering himself w a milder version of neocon rhetoric. I never thought I wd approve anything about such a liar.

He weakened the Pentagon's program to send in fighters, but I don't think there's anything he can do against the CIA I guess he still appoints the director, but making that change wd be an awfully dangerous move.

Does anyone know if there are elements in the military who resist the military adventurism for whom McCain and the neocons are the point-men?

gemini33 | Oct 10, 2015 2:35:41 PM | 30

@11 Penelope

It's a real study to read the articles from the NYT and other big media outlets here on the subject of Syria and particularly the "rebels". The concoction of terms that have been used over the past couple of years and especially since ~ June is mind boggling. At one point I had started collecting them. "Moderate rebels" morphed into "relatively moderate insurgents" and all kinds of other permutations.

It's also interesting to note the way they refer to their numerous anonymous sources. We have become a Propaganda Wonderland.

MMARR | Oct 10, 2015 2:42:38 PM | 33

@25 Penelope

McCain, Lindsey, Rubio, Cotton and other "unstable" personalities decide grand total of nothing in US foreign policy. They are encouraged to talk tough only insofar as it softens up the foreign interlocutors for the "responsible" players like Obama and Kerry. The "responsibles" can always point to the "lunatics" and extract concessions from frightened opposite side.

People who take their bluster seriously are making a mistake, because that's exactly their goal. Yet it's simply a bluster, a theater, and nothing more.
Therefore, nobody in the US military "resists their adventurism", because they are all part of the same team, only with different roles.

Lone Wolf | Oct 10, 2015 2:49:58 PM | 35

Proxy wars were how the Cold War 1.0 was fought, and after a brief hiatus, that's how the new Cold War 2.0 will be fought, what has changed is the weaponry and the type of warfare, mainly from guerrilla wars of liberation in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, to hybrid and asymmetrical warfare. The empire will not cede an inch of their unipolar delusion, and will fight to defeat Russia/China/Iran aspirations for a multipolar world.

On another note, Erdogan is setting himself up for a landslide defeat at the polls or a military coup d'etat, he's made so many enemies in the Turkish army and body politic, that combined with his erratic personal behavior and foreign/internal policies, and his delusions of grandeur, are not a good omen for his future. If Turkey still had any illusions re: membership in the EU, Erdogan and the recent suicide bombings just kill them for time to come, and la Merkel now has more ammunition to throw at Turkey's EU aspirations.

Welcome to the, now official, Cold War 2.0!

MMARR | Oct 10, 2015 3:11:58 PM | 39

@27 Penelope

Russians are far more cautious than Americans, because they have had more 1000 years to hone their diplomacy, and are acutely aware that blowback is an inevitable consequence of any poorly though-out action and/or overreach. Americans are still learning the "a","b" and "c" of the craft, and maybe even regressing since the end of the Cold War.

So, Moscow will definitely refrain from any preemptive action with regard to undermining Saudis or Turks. They usually prefer to sit and watch, to talk and to calculate the odds, and only then move a figure on a chessboard. Americans move first and think later, believing they can always kill the opponent, if the game develops not to their liking.

As for Russia not supplying Syria or Iran with S-300, I think that was done mostly in order not to alarm and antagonize the West prematurely, while Russia's military was moving swiftly on the path of wholesale reorganization and modernization. In Putin's world, it seems, everything has its own time and its own place.

ToivoS | Oct 10, 2015 3:34:37 PM | 42

The Russians must have had a very clear understanding that when they attacked those "al Nusra" and other "moderate" targets in Northern Syria that they that these forces were being supplied and encouraged by the CIA Russia knowingly attacked US backed forces. Perhaps Obama and Kerry are too stupid to realize what that means. What it means is that there are very powerful forces inside the US government and military that will see this as an attack on the United States of America and that we must respond to that aggression. I hope that Obama is starting to understand what he is up against. He should be trying to bring those agencies under control. Any tiny efforts to neutralize those War Party forces with compromise will only make matters worse. It is time exert executive control over these groups and execute top level purges if they resist. Somehow this seems unlikely.

I hope Putin and Lavrov thought this through before they acted. The outcome could be very dangerous indeed. I was terribly worried last week when the Russian attack began that it would produce a strong reaction inside the US government among all of those war monger plants inside State, the military and intelligence agencies that have been slowly gaining power for the last decade. All of that cheering we have been hearing over the last week here at MOA has been serious -- representatives of the US hegemon do not like to be ridiculed.

Penelope | Oct 10, 2015 3:36:53 PM | 43

BOG @ 13, I don't think it's a divide between the executive & military. I think the majority of each is committed to an aggressive foreign policy. Obama I think is resisting it and only giving rhetorical agreement. I'm not sure who else is in the resistors' faction.

Thanks for posting about the withdrawal of the USS Theodore Roosevelt "just one day after Russian missile strikes from the Caspian. Didn't make sense to me, cuz Russians aren't threatening ships.

In fact, departure was well telegraphed in advance: In April, June & July. Announcement was that for first time since 2007 there wd be a two month gap in the Fall w/o an aircraft carrier in the Gulf. Replacement in December. Reason: Only 10 active now, stead of 11 & ideal maintenace schedule is 7 months deployment; as it is we're deploying for 8 months. Oct 5 announced imminent departure, day before Rusian missiles.

This was potentially important; thanks for posting it. The links are boring. Don't bother; I only posted them for completeness.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/assessing-the-u.s.-aircraft-carrier-gap-in-the-gulfTh Oct 5, announcing imminent departure
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/06/carrier-gap-in-gulf-is-a-symptom-not-a-crisis/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/30/navy-admiral-confirms-us-pulling-aircraft-carrier-from-persian-gulf-this-fall/

GoraDiva | Oct 10, 2015 3:51:04 PM | 46

A good update on the Syrian ops - http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/john-helmer-us-strategy-in-the-middle-east-is-dying-along-with-its-authors-carter-and-brzezinski-putin-al-assad-get-to-dance-on-their-graves-david-ben-gurion-too.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

alaric | Oct 10, 2015 4:04:07 PM | 50

The Russians surely anticipated such a move from the US so i assume Putin has a counter move for the US. China's participation would certainly supply that but there are lots of things Putin can do, many are mentioned above.

The US plan (export ISIS and Al Qaida to balkanize) is extremely defective because it also threatens the stability and even existence of traditional US stooges like Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, etc, and it also inflicts massive economic pain and an immigration crisis upon Europe.

I doubt US allies will be able to endure this US push to implement Brzezinki's nefarious plot and Israel's similar plan for the ME. I expect some major defections from the US camp.

Saudi, Qatar, and UAE have exported terrorism with complete impunity for decades now. Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, etc need to do something rather direct about that or it will continue. The American people should do something as well but we're brainwashed idiots.

zedz | Oct 10, 2015 4:06:51 PM | 51

IMO the lack of western reaction is due to two things - 1) Russians have some toys that the west can't neutralize and 2) Europe wants to survive and wants no war anyway

I think the arab statements are pure posturing, they'll basically trade Syria for Yemen in the end.

Erdogan played both east and west and betrayed both. He has no future, this way or the other. The current chaos there could come from both sides just as well.

Vintage Red | Oct 10, 2015 4:12:00 PM | 53

gemini33 @30:

"We have become a Propaganda Wonderland."

The US has become Humpty-Dumpty, claiming "words mean what I want them to mean." We all know what happened to Humpty-Dumpty...

tom | Oct 10, 2015 5:30:31 PM | 59

Please don't hate me because I was right, once again.

Believing John Kerry in saying that he agrees to a secular stable Syria was bullshit from the first breath that came out of his mouth.

Like I said weeks ago when b and others here gave Kerry the benefit of the doubt, which was never deserved. How could Kerry be a proven unreliable liar in regards to Ukraine, but he's capable of telling the truth in Syria ?! it makes no sense. Desperate, wishful thinking.

The Empire is scrambling for answers and actions due to Russia's surprise intervention in Syria and it's a simple as that. Read my post from yesterday. Once they decide on a course of despicable action, it will become much clearer in the next few weeks or months.

And when Russia inevitably becomes Iraqs foreign helpful power, replacing the US there, then expect far more US support for jihadi terrorists. If the US is left out of the loop in Iraq, they will counter that with more jihadis and more weapons. It's why they are the evil empire and the Great Satan.

Oh, and that time frame of the Russian involvement in Syria will be only four months, like I said was bullshit yesterday, guess what, it's time to hate tom again, because I was spot on there too.

Weeks ago I mentioned that this Russian in intervention is not a riskless, easy program that's so many Putin-bots were desperate for. One can either describe reality, or be a biased self-credibility eviserator. The evil US Empire is super pissed and they are going to double down instead of retreat.

MMARR | Oct 10, 2015 5:50:11 PM | 62

@57 Penelope

In geopolitics the words of intent almost always hide the real intent. They are meaningless.

All of this verbal saber-rattling is nothing more than psy-ops, the lowest cost form of warfare. People are simply trying no nudge the Russians to engage in talks, as well as enhance their own position at the negotiating table. US government also has to calm down the viewers of FOX News. Moscow understands that.

My prediction - neither the West nor the Gulf Arabs (who operate some of the world's biggest and fines airlines) will supply high-tech anti-aircraft weapons to head choppers. Russians produce the best such toys in the world, and the blowback for this "act of war" could be vicious.

harry law | Oct 10, 2015 6:06:25 PM | 66

"On Friday, Russian air power "destroyed two command centres of the militants, an ammunition depot in the Hama Province, 29 field camps, 23 fortified stations and positions with ammunition and equipment."

Radio intercepts revealed ISIS now faces a shortage of fuel, weapons, ammunition and increasingly the will to fight in the face of an onslaught against which they're defenseless.
Thousands "are demoralized and are actively leaving the battle zone, moving in eastern and northeastern directions," Konashenkov explained.

Areas targeted in the last 24 hours included Raqqa (the main ISIS stronghold), Hama, Idlib, the Damascus countryside and Aleppo." http://sjlendman.blogspot.co.uk/ Not bad for a start, won't do McCains health any good.

Satellite images located a hidden Idlib province command center. "After analysis of pictures from space and after air reconnaissance by drones," Russian air strikes destroyed it.

Wayoutwest | Oct 10, 2015 7:33:26 PM | 73

HL@66

The Russians are certainly good at self-promotion and propaganda bombing. Reading this detailed report you would think they face a conventional army in the Islamic State who sit in buildings waiting for orders while the bombs fall.

The IS is a nonconventional force an Urban Guerilla force dispersed across the country in small groups and if there was a command center it was evacuated and empty when bombed just as the training facilities/ school yards were empty.

The IS fighters were running during this bombing spree but they were running to capture new territory from other rebel groups that the Russians softened up for them.

ben | Oct 10, 2015 7:56:14 PM | 77

LoneWolf @35 said: " The empire will not cede an inch of their unipolar delusion, and will fight to defeat Russia/China/Iran aspirations for a multipolar world."

Yep, and as long as the dollar reins, they'll create all they need to meet their goals.

nmb @ 38 said: "I'm afraid things can get worse with the 2016 US elections. Any GOP will certainly promote the neocon agenda, but also Hillary will adopt such policies. I doubt that the US deep state will let any chance for Sanders."

Agreed. It's the money people, til' that changes, nothing changes. Go BRICS, go!

Lone Wolf | Oct 10, 2015 11:21:16 PM | 83

@Wayoutwest@73

The Russians are certainly good at self-promotion and propaganda bombing.

I don't think the takfiris you so much defend would have the same opinion. They are being blown to bits, and that according to your buddy-buddy at the Syrian "Observatory for Human Rights" (sic!).

Islamic State loses 132 members, 70 villages and farmlands in the northeast of Syria

Reading this detailed report you would think they face a conventional army in the Islamic State who sit in buildings waiting for orders while the bombs fall. The IS is a nonconventional force an Urban Guerilla force dispersed across the country in small groups and if there was a command center it was evacuated and empty when bombed just as the training facilities/ school yards were empty.

Wrong again. IS performs and behaves like a conventional army, with entire regions, cities and territory under their control, some of them for years now, with a functioning economy, bureaucracy, the entire infrastructure of a state. They are not a rag-tag guerrilla group, they have ties to the infrastructure they have stolen, gas and oil fields to defend, training grounds, C&C centers, etc. IS might use non-conventional, guerrilla tactics in their fighting, as many armies do, that doesn't turn them into a non-conventional force. A guerrilla moves to fight another day, does not engage in attrition tactics.

The IS fighters were running during this bombing spree but they were running to capture new territory from other rebel groups that the Russians softened up for them.

You pretend to be so well informed. How would you know those details? Your takfiri rats are running all over because their time for reckoning is up, now they have to pay for their crimes, and are being sent to hell in bits and pieces so their master can use them for fuel.

crone | Oct 10, 2015 11:47:30 PM | 86

excellent article up at zerohedge... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-10/carpe-chaos-isis-israel-iraq-syria-its-all-part-plan

comment section informative also

[Oct 09, 2015] Dutch media sue govt, demand it release full info on MH17 crash

Notable quotes:
"... "frustrated" ..."
"... "black marker policy." ..."
"... "It seems to me that [such actions] are unworthy of an open, democratic society," ..."
"... "some countries and international organizations," ..."
"... "some persons." ..."
"... "Given the social impact of the MH17 plane crash as well as many questions raised by the relatives [of the victims of the catastrophe], it is vital that the government's actions and efforts in the aftermath of this disaster should be transparent," ..."
"... For journalists, this openness is essential for monitoring the activities of the government, ..."
"... "It is not just about the families of the victims but also about the actions of the Dutch government and the political situation in Europe." ..."
"... "Finding out the causes [of the MH17 crash] and bringing the perpetrators of the attack on the plane to justice is a top priority," ..."
"... "However, it is also important that the actions of politicians and government officials in the aftermath of the catastrophe could be accurately reconstructed," ..."
Oct 09, 2015 | RT News
Three Dutch media companies have filed a joint lawsuit against the country's Security and Justice Ministry, demanding that it disclose more documents relating to the MH17 catastrophe investigation after the ministry's refusal to release the information.

The Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation (NOS); the Dutch subsidiary of the European TV, radio and production company RTL Group; and the Dutch daily Volkskrant have joined forces to appeal the Netherlands Security and Justice Ministry's refusal to make public "many documents" concerning the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash in Eastern Ukraine last year, NOS said in a press release.

The three media companies had previously appealed to the ministry separately, asking it to disclose MH17 investigation data based on the Freedom of Information Law (WOB). The aim of the companies was to bring to light the details of the tragedy, as well as to reconstruct the actions of Dutch officials after the catastrophe.

READ MORE: E. Ukrainian self-defense hands over MH17 debris to Dutch investigators, following RT documentary

The three media companies asked for the reports of ministerial and other official committees that were involved in the MH17 investigation to be released. In response to the media outlets' request, the ministry reportedly released about 575 documents related to the MH17 case, including the correspondence of the members of the national crisis group that was formed immediately after the tragedy.

... ... ...

Peter Klein, deputy senior editor of Dutch RTL News, said he was "frustrated" with the government's attempts to blur over the truth with the "black marker policy."

"It seems to me that [such actions] are unworthy of an open, democratic society," he said in the RTL press release.

The Netherlands National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, Dick Schoof, who released the documents after the request of the media companies, said that the disclosure of the documents that had not been made public could lead to deterioration of relations with "some countries and international organizations," as well as damage the reputation of "some persons."

Even the objection procedure launched by the media outlets has changed nothing in the ministry's decision. NOS, RTL and Volkskrant have now undertaken joint legal action, asking the Utrecht District Court to launch an appeal for all of them within a single lawsuit, according to NOS press release.

READ MORE: MH17 investigators to RT: No proof east Ukraine fragments from 'Russian' Buk missile

The three companies have launched the joint appeal procedure as they claim they want to emphasize that transparency is of crucial importance in the MH17 case.

"Given the social impact of the MH17 plane crash as well as many questions raised by the relatives [of the victims of the catastrophe], it is vital that the government's actions and efforts in the aftermath of this disaster should be transparent," Philippe Remarque, editor-in-chief of De Volkskrant, said in the company's press release.

"For journalists, this openness is essential for monitoring the activities of the government," he said.

READ MORE: MH17 probe not truly independent and intl tribunal aimed at hiding its ineffectiveness – Lavrov

Marcel Gelauff, editor-in-chief at NOS, said the wider public interest would be served by the publication of the documents: "It is not just about the families of the victims but also about the actions of the Dutch government and the political situation in Europe."

"Finding out the causes [of the MH17 crash] and bringing the perpetrators of the attack on the plane to justice is a top priority," Peter Klein said in the RTL press release.

"However, it is also important that the actions of politicians and government officials in the aftermath of the catastrophe could be accurately reconstructed," he added.

William Rollinson 10.10 11:01

OO Billy
USA hasnt released any of their satellite imagery or the AWACs radar tapes... I wonder why? Maybe they only havemore...
No but they could get a nice clear image of Russian planes on the ground in Syria?
When it suits them they release information, when it suits them, they with-hold information.

William Rollinson 10.10 10:58

Yuri Ivanovich
The government is still waiting for the US to find a way to blame it on Russia. So far,more...
"Russia would've been blamed right after the downing."

It was, about 95 minutes after, if memory serves me well. The US couldn't wait to blame Russia, just as they blamed her for 'civilian' deaths in Syria, before their planes had even left the ground?

Then when Russia fire missiles from the Caspian Sea, the US say one fell short on Iran and killed people, wouldn't we expect Iran to inform of this?
The fact that the US and their Oligarch media owners completely own western media, what the people read or see is controlled!

Yorky 09.10 07:06

Unfortunately the outcome of this enquiry is a foregone conclusion. There is no way the US will allow the investigating countries prove the US wrong. The pressure on the investigating countries will be enormous. Kerry will never be forced to say he was wrong. All the sanctions that were imposed by US and EU because of MH17 would have to be questioned. That will not be allowed to happen

Derek Maher 09.10 06:40

Judgeing by the actions of Kiev and the shambles of the on the ground crash site inspections,Plus the secretcy and long delay by the Dutch one would assume the findings will produce some very shady results.The victims families have not been served well in this tragic case.

Patricia Histed 09.10 03:57

The truth would make it impossible for EU national leaders to support Kiev. Wonder if they have developed a scapegoat plan to dump all the blame on someone in Kiev? After all, it will not do to show how multiple EU leaders were in on the lies and attempted resource grab. If the Dutch media outlets can make this happen it could be a game changer and prevent escalation in the Ukraine just when America plans to draft a bill that seeks to pour fuel on the weakening fires in the Ukraine. Supplying neo-Nazis with millions in arms does the trick. The poor US-Saudi petrol dollar...it needs war...it needs to destabilise the EU and Russia and wipe out all non-OPEC oil nations as well as any that threaten Saudi control of the region. The EU would be wise to side with Russia. America is not its friend. The sweet talking American politicians can say all they want but the refugee crisis speaks volumes. Russia's decisive actions could mean Syrians could return home and rebuild but what does America want to do...send more arms into the area...create more refugees. Whether this is a side effect or a desired effect is irrelevant. It is destabilising the EU's economy. Personally, I think it is a desired side effect. If the US can take the EU dollar down the US-Saudi petrol dollar is the last man standing and will be what people flee to propping it up as it gasps for breath.

[Oct 09, 2015] A proxy cold war in Syria

Oct 07, 2015 | Peak Prosperity
President Obama recently assured that we're not engaging in a proxy war in Syria. Well this latest news doesn't help sell his story. Boy, the players are getting me nervous. Let's hope things don't escalate and false flags are raised even higher.

Russian Airstrikes In Syria Hit CIA-Trained Rebel Weapons Depot

"Russian airstrikes late Tuesday have destroyed the central weapons depot of a U.S.-trained rebel group, according to its commander. The Liwa Suqour al-Jabalpur rebel group, which opposes Syria President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime, was trained by the CIA at training camps in Saudi Arabia and Qatar."

sand_puppy

NATO Threatens to send ground troups to Syria

NATO Threatens To Send In Troops After Russia Stations Ground "Battalion" In Syria

Thanks to the fact that the West selected Islamic militants (ISIS) as its anti-Assad weapon of choice, Putin gets to pitch his efforts to defend Assad as a "war on terror."

ZH predicted:

..."the Pentagon will use the gambit of a Russian ground campaign, credible or not, to get permission from Congress to send a 'small', at first, then bigger ground force of US troops in Syria to, you guessed it, 'fight ISIS'....

A commenter after the ZH article notes:

A recently released classified document obtained by WikiLeaks establishes that active US planning for regime-change predated the outbreak of the Syrian civil war by at least five years.

From another article:

The question today is merely one of timing. .... How long before Israeli planes come into contact with Russian or Iranian fighters? How long before U.S. troops come into contact with Russian troops? How long before Israel or Saudi Arabia strike Iran? And if the U.S. backs out completely, how long before the entire dynamic of the Middle East is flipped and America loses petro-status for the dollar? With the speed of events forming a fiscal-political riptide, it is hard to imagine we will be waiting very long to find out.

[Oct 07, 2015] Chris Hayes and Paul Wolfowitz, Amazing Interview

YouTube

OldPhart

Here's a full taste of Wolfowitz as he was interviewed by some metro-sexual I've never heard of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0-wwFE_DaM

The faggot's got some solid points over Wolfowitz.

[Oct 04, 2015] Wake-up call on Syrian army weakness prompted Russian intervention

Notable quotes:
"... If the USA has not intervened covertly, Russia would not have intervened overtly. ..."
"... The basic rational always seems to be that US targets, including the bombing targets and civilian deaths, are legitimate, while Russia involvement is nefarious a priori. Russian reporting is usually termed ' Russian propaganda', while US reporting, which is as unified and unanimous in its judgement, just reversed, is seen as telling the truth. ..."
"... "......British soldiers have been caught posing as Arabs and shooting Iraqis in the occupied city of Basra in southern Iraq. A group of them was caught yesterday by Iraqi police. They were driving an Iraqi car, wearing Arab clothing, and carrying weapons and explosives........police and civilians have been targeted and killed by "terrorists" or "insurgents. .........But this is the first time that any of those responsible have been caught in the act, and it is now clear that at least some of them are working directly for the occupying forces ..."
"... USA is wining by sophisticate wide 'divide and rule' policy; so it remains very strong at influencing, manipulating and weakening its competitors. ..."
"... It was America and its proxies which turned Syria from a relatively secular, functioning State into the mess we have there today by supporting those opposed to the government. ..."
"... It's hard not to conclude that the US would rather have countries unstable and in ruins that under control of a leader that isn't one of their puppets. ..."
"... The petulant warmongers in USA and NATO are now coordinating a major disinformation campaign. According to the President of the Russian Federation the lies about civilian deaths were even reported BEFORE the Russian airstrikes were launched. ..."
"... Step down and - then what? What the hell's wrong with you people? How about the Russians are simply sickened to fuck by the spectacle of the psychos you propagandize for playing their little games? Dirty, dirty, weasly words. ..."
"... whether its goal is to strike at Islamic State or, more likely, to take on any rebel force fighting Bashar al-Assad in order to prevent the final and complete descent of Syria into the pit of total bloody anarchy and slavery at the hands of a myriad lunatic death cults. ..."
"... the root cause of terrorism is the original arming of ISIS by your US bosses (to fight Assad) and of AlQaida and the Taliban ( to fight the Russians), in addition to the prolific funds provided by the gulf monarchist dictatorships allied to the USA. ..."
"... The US coalition is limited to preventing the Caliphate from spreading into forbidden territory but leaving it free to act in Syria. The columns of trucks and pick-up of Daesh which took Palmyra on May 21st circulated uncovered in the desert without being worried by the US Air Force. ..."
"... The US strategy, the long term strategic vision, was to bring down Assad under the blows of ISIS. And when the thugs will be in Damascus and attack the Russians in Tartus, the americans will support them until the Russians will withdraw, finally the US will bomb and destroy in half a day all the Califat's army which they contributed to create (the good guys). ..."
Oct 01, 2015 | The Guardian


Normin 2 Oct 2015 13:16

Russia had to step in and bring attention to the proxy groups operating in Syria under US support. After years of lies the divide and conquer, regime change to puppet government plan has been exposed.

The US support of these groups against Assad coincides with Israeli security concerns which deem a destabilized Middle East a boost to Israel's security. This unprecedented foreign state influence starts in Washington with Congress, various advisers, think tanks, lobby groups, and full media support.

It's interesting to see how Russia acts to pursue state interests without being hobbled by the concerns and questionable influence of another country that does not have similar foreign policy interests as the USA. Time for a change in US policy, it's long overdue.

mgeary 2 Oct 2015 12:56

Sadly, as always in war the truth is amongst the first victims.

This conflict is another product of the old "divide and conquer" tactic, adapted to the current reality. When you do not like a nation`s leadership, you find a group of dissidents, train them, arm them and let them loose.

The civilians, women and children killed, the lives ruined and the homes lost are just collateral damage.

The situation in Syria is by the making of the powers involved, so complicated, with so many factions involved, that we should be very careful when we pass judgement.
Several of the people commenting here and some reporters have already done so with bias, according to their interests.

Thomas Hood -> eelolondon 2 Oct 2015 12:44

If the USA has not intervened covertly, Russia would not have intervened overtly.

Glauber Brito 2 Oct 2015 11:25

It is difficult to criticize Russian involvement in the Syria, when considering that it has been the US invasion and occupation in Iraq, which incidentally claimed well over 100,000 civilian lives, that sent the entire Middle East into turmoil.

The basic rational always seems to be that US targets, including the bombing targets and civilian deaths, are legitimate, while Russia involvement is nefarious a priori. Russian reporting is usually termed ' Russian propaganda', while US reporting, which is as unified and unanimous in its judgement, just reversed, is seen as telling the truth.

Which is exactly what the Russians are telling their viewers and listeners. It would be utterly refreshing, if the media would start demonstrating the same critical bias towards the government and the use of language, as they do of the Russians.


Madranon LaterNow 2 Oct 2015 09:16

I suspect that this is all about the House of Saud's internal war manifesting in proxy wars destabilising the region in some sick power struggle between the royal families.
Besides, the only real victims in this are the non Sunnis, the groups that Saudi Arabia has long persecuted within its own borders for decades. The aim, i believe is a totally Sunni middle east with all other sects and religions driven out or exterminated. With the help of western weapons, Britain likes to make a few bob out of any civil war and regional horror.

WhetherbyPond -> diddoit 2 Oct 2015 03:13

"the term Ziocons is offensive."

I meant to give offence. Being violently nationalistic, expansionist, racist and corrupt is offensive. If the apartheid state of Israel was any other country the west would be up in arms and calling for sanctions and regime change; however, because of the vile actions of the Nazi's and others, and the fact that the west did very little to help the poor souls who were being persecuted and murdered, the Ziocons use the guilt that is rightly felt in the west as a shield to cover their actions and silence their critics.


SHappens 123dcp 2 Oct 2015 02:16

US journalist Nir Rosen wrote in 2012, "every day the opposition gives a death toll, usually without explanation ... Many of those reported killed are in fact dead opposition fighters ... but described in reports as innocent civilians killed by the security forces ."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/21/the-douma-market-attack-a-fabricated-pretext-for-intervention/

The figures about casualties comes from The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) is an agency close to the rebels financed by Arab monarchies and Western states and headquartered in London. It publishes its toll of months of war Syria. These macabre figures reveal surprising dishonesty of traditional media and contradict the pro-interventionist propaganda. Note that Reuters was not allowed to check their figures.

The OSDH announced that there would have been 220,271 deaths.

Nearly half of the victims of war are soldiers and loyalist militiamen.

The number of "Bashar soldiers" killed is higher than the number of civilians killed. On the other hand, the Syrian Arab army is essentially composed of conscripts, that is to say citizens who defend their country, their institutions and their government, we can say that the army is inseparable from the Syrian people.

Therefore, it is also dishonest to hold Assad responsible for the deaths of more than 220,000 Syrians as do the media and provocative militants since the first victim of the war in Syria is the army, so the people in uniform, so the "people pro-Assad".

Let us turn now to the number of civilian casualties. The OSDH counted 104,629 killed.

This figure does not distinguish the Syrians that could be broadly described as "pro-government" or "pro-rebellion".

The number of civilians, including women and children, which can be in the pro-Assad camp of anti-rebel or neutral is probably extremely high especially if one takes into account the mass killings which occurred by terrorist groups in the Kurdish areas of the north of the country, in neighborhoods and Shiite villages and Christian and among the Sunni patriots all over the country.

The anti-government armed groups have also claimed hundreds of executions of civilians including children, suspected of sympathy with the Syrian regime.

As for victims of the armed opposition, the OSDH recorded 37,336 killed, twice less than killed Syrian soldiers (90,000) and one fifth of the total number of victims of war (220,271).

These armed groups are themselves engaged in wars that cause the death of many pro-rebel fighters and their families. Thus among the 104,629 civilian victims of the Syrian confit, it should take into account hundreds of rebels killed by pro-rebel civilians.

On reading the tragic toll of the OSDH, the Syrian situation shows that this is not Bashar, but the rebellion that is killing the Syrian people. Therefore, the Syrian state is right to fight against terrorism to restore peace in the country like any other state in the world

Which leads us to defend the non-interference and peace in Syria, with Assad.
http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/04/310000-people-killed-since-the-beginning-of-the-syrian-revolution/


GERALD710 -> eelolondon
2 Oct 2015 00:47

I agree and disagree.
The protests began in Daraa. Where the protesters did an idiotic thing. The region was suffering from a severe drought. Now instead of protesting for relief aid, they were protesting for the downfall of the regime?????

There was nothing at all peaceful in the protests of Hama and Homs in 2011 where protestors deliberately murdered policemen and women and the Muslim Botherhood was busy already chanting 'Alawites in Coffins and Christians to Beirut'. A very dangerous chant in the two cities where minorities made up more than a third of the population.

I am sorry, if a bunch of Islammist nutjobs start talking of putting my people in coffins and deporting my allies to Beirut, I would have leveled them to the Ground. Have you seen the Old City of Homs? That would have been anyone's reaction.

Sparingpartner 1 Oct 2015 20:45

If you can't own the economy, fuck the place up! Great policy in the so called propagation of democratic freedoms... and while you are at it, explain to me once gain why Australia needs to not only be involved in this inglorious cluster-fuck but want to urge the Americans to step it up - like they're not doing enough?

Sweet Jesus in heaven save me from the do-gooders in this world!

buildabridge -> Clark8934 1 Oct 2015 20:34

Or a deliberate cunning foreign policy to divide and create chaos?

Back in 2005 Bashra under occupation by British forces:

"......British soldiers have been caught posing as Arabs and shooting Iraqis in the occupied city of Basra in southern Iraq. A group of them was caught yesterday by Iraqi police. They were driving an Iraqi car, wearing Arab clothing, and carrying weapons and explosives........police and civilians have been targeted and killed by "terrorists" or "insurgents. .........But this is the first time that any of those responsible have been caught in the act, and it is now clear that at least some of them are working directly for the occupying forces"

http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=1556

buildabridge -> ComradeFunk 1 Oct 2015 20:15

Not so sure. USA is still the strongest military power with the furthest reach by miles. It has the smartest and best funded Foreign Offices and Spy Networks, human and electronic. This chaos in the Middle East, any slowly further North, is US foreign policy firing on all cylinders, to create chaos in Eurasia to prevent Eurasia from settling down and trading peacefully with each other, and so USA becoming sidelined. USA is succeeding and winning with minimal loss, far away from Eurasia. USA remains strong and Eurasia becomes weaker fighting with itself, just like WW1 and WW2.

USA is wining by sophisticate wide 'divide and rule' policy; so it remains very strong at influencing, manipulating and weakening its competitors.

mandzorp -> eelolondon 1 Oct 2015 18:06

Russia are bombing in support of the government of Syria. It was America and its proxies which turned Syria from a relatively secular, functioning State into the mess we have there today by supporting those opposed to the government.

cherryredguitar -> tubes99 1 Oct 2015 17:47

Just making the point that the US/UK are on the same side as Islamic nutters who eat dead people's internal organs.

TheChillZone -> LoveisEternal 1 Oct 2015 17:26

Yeah, whereas the West's nation building in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc has gone soon well. Russia can't do any worse than us....and at least hey are doing something to fight isis and the legions of terrorsst groups that are lining up to take control of Syria. It's hard not to conclude that the US would rather have countries unstable and in ruins that under control of a leader that isn't one of their puppets.

KriticalThinkingUK 1 Oct 2015 15:07

As a matter of fact the Russian intervention at Syria's invitation was necessary because of the failure of the US to halt ISIS. Yes, the same ISIS that the USA originally armed ( to fight Assad). Syrian Government forces currently control territory that holds 80% of the Syrian population and you can be sure that ISIS are now doomed by the coalition of Syria, Russia, Iran, Iraq and others, with or without the support of the outmaneuvered (again) USA.

The petulant warmongers in USA and NATO are now coordinating a major disinformation campaign. According to the President of the Russian Federation the lies about civilian deaths were even reported BEFORE the Russian airstrikes were launched.

Politicians across Europe are welcoming Russia's intervention as the only long term solution to the refugee crisis and literally hundreds of millions of Europeans are supporting Russia's attack on ISIS, whatever lies you may read from the old cold warriors and their oligarch's press in the US and UK.


retsdon 1 Oct 2015 17:20

whether its goal is to strike at Islamic State or, more likely, to take on any rebel force fighting Bashar al-Assad in order to shore up his position and stave off demands that he step down.

Step down and - then what? What the hell's wrong with you people? How about the Russians are simply sickened to fuck by the spectacle of the psychos you propagandize for playing their little games? Dirty, dirty, weasly words.

Here, try the truth.

whether its goal is to strike at Islamic State or, more likely, to take on any rebel force fighting Bashar al-Assad in order to prevent the final and complete descent of Syria into the pit of total bloody anarchy and slavery at the hands of a myriad lunatic death cults.

You just can't bring yourselves to admit that your neo-liberal masters have cocked their little adventure up completely this time, can you? Eh?


Realworldview 1 Oct 2015 17:04

Wake-up call on Syrian army weakness prompted Russian intervention

Very true, the collapse of the Syrian army was looking increasingly likely. This interesting article on the Saker website adds further clarity, by discussing what will not happen, what will happen, what has already happened, and what might happen. Finally some clarity about the Russian plans about Syria that ends with this paragraph, which raises the prospect of some "interesting times" in Syria and the wider Middle East:

Of course, I am under no illusions about any real change of heart in the imperial "deep state". What we see now is just a tactical adaptation to a situation which the US could not control, not a deep strategic shift. The rabid Russophobes in the West are still out there (albeit some have left in disgust ) and they will now have the chance to blame Russia for anything and everything in Syria, especially if something goes really wrong. Yes, Putin has just won another major victory against the Empire (where are those who claimed that Russia had "sold out" Syria?!), but now Russia will have to manage this potentially "dangerous victory".

If nothing else, it explains the wall to wall media propaganda blitz that started with the first Russian air strikes.

KriticalThinkingUK -> psygone 1 Oct 2015 16:45

Wake up psygoon...

the root cause of terrorism is the original arming of ISIS by your US bosses (to fight Assad) and of AlQaida and the Taliban ( to fight the Russians), in addition to the prolific funds provided by the gulf monarchist dictatorships allied to the USA. Its a fact whether you like it or not...the US propaganda offensive to try and cover up their stupidity will go nowhere. The truth will out and the terrorists will be destroyed by the coalition of Syria, Russia, Iran and Iraq etc, with or without the support of the USA. The Russian intervention against ISIS has massive support in Europe, who can take no more refugees. Europe, the whole of the middle east, Russia and above all the Syrian people (especially the Kurd and Christian minority communities) all need a stable government in Syria, not another failed state like Libya and Iraq.


Abiesalba -> Jack Seaton 1 Oct 2015 16:02

As for ISIS being a threat to Russia, does anyone seriously believe that ISIS are going to get anywhere near those maps you linked to?

Yes. The media in the European countries which are on the ISIS map reported about this map with concern already when it was published a year ago. (One of the links to ISIS maps in my previous post goes to Slovenia's national broadcaster, the other to an Austrian newspaper - both Slovenia and Austria are on the ISIS map).

Because unlike you, we understand that ISIS does not have to physically occupy all these countries. Its strategy is to first have groups pledging allegiance to ISIS in these countries. And in this respect, ISIS is VERY successful and has in only one year spread its influence into rather many countries. Besides, it has also claimed incredibly much territory in Syria and Iraq, while the US-led coalition (comprising very mighty armies) claim they are fighting against them!

And ISIS is already in the Russian Federation!!!! See for example:
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8 ISIS supporters killed in N. Caucasus special op

(2 August 2015)

Russian security forces have foiled a terrorist group that recently pledged allegiance to ISIS in Ingushetia, in the Northern Caucasus, according to the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAC). Security forces seized explosives, weapons and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
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How Russian Militants Declared A New ISIS 'State' In Russia's North Caucasus

(26 June 2015)

The Islamic State group announced the creation of its northernmost province this week, after accepting a formal pledge of allegiance from former al Qaeda militants in the North Caucasus region of Russia.

Clark8934 1 Oct 2015 16:01

The west is physiologically defunct. Fact. Their fragile idealistic bits-and-pieces approach to having a belief system, full of irrational claptrap is being so painfully allowing the Syrian conflict to run and run.

However terrifying the reality becomes the west withdraws into a sort of elitist denial and always seem to have international law on their side however many times they break it!

It seems a long time ago now that anyone in the West thought and articulated with such clarity, realism, and sense as the Russians. The political correct bigots in the West created this situation , one where no-one dare talk sense for fear of ridicule. Long live Putin.


AgeingAlbion 1 Oct 2015 15:30

Putin at least has been consistent throughout. He has backed Assad from day one.

The west first thought it was going to be another wonderful Arab Spring, then thought they could manage to back the "right" rebels as opposed to Isis, then said chemical weapons were a "red line" them failed to do anything when the red line was crossed then said Assad must go before negotiations and now meekly accept he might have to be part of the solution.

How much has that dithering achieved and how many lives has it cost? If Russia moves in directly and uses the Red Army to destroy Isis will it really be worse than our messing around?

SHappens 1 Oct 2015 15:26

Good summary. As an add on from Dr Bachar al-Jaafari, permanent syrian UN delegate 16/09/2015

- In the North, there are outlawed groups of called armed terrorists " Armed with the conquest " [Jaïch al-Fath], financed by Qatar and Turkey, that sends every day thousands of shells on Aleppo, killing hundreds and mutilating thousands of our citizens, preventing them from meeting their elementary needs on a daily basis.

In the South, rages another terrorist army financed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan, member state of this organization, country brother and neighbor of Syria. An army which proceeds in the same way by despicable terrorist acts against our citizens in this region.

In the suburbs of Damascus(damask), rages another army from the city of the Duma, a group of terrorists financed by Saudi Arabia, called up " Armed with the Islam " [Aich al Islam].

There are three terrorists groups who are armed, the first under the command of Turkey, the second in command of the Jordan, the third under the command of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Backed up by the US, UK and France.

The US coalition is limited to preventing the Caliphate from spreading into forbidden territory but leaving it free to act in Syria. The columns of trucks and pick-up of Daesh which took Palmyra on May 21st circulated uncovered in the desert without being worried by the US Air Force.

The US coalition's airstrikes look like at best a gesture, at worst a smokescreen for future bombing campaign against Syria. The war prevented on September 2013 would be triggered under a new guise. But Russia took the ground. The priority is the fight against jihadism, associated with integrating the power of the political opposition, elections and a regional peace conference.

The US strategy, the long term strategic vision, was to bring down Assad under the blows of ISIS. And when the thugs will be in Damascus and attack the Russians in Tartus, the americans will support them until the Russians will withdraw, finally the US will bomb and destroy in half a day all the Califat's army which they contributed to create (the good guys).

Russia is about to put an end to this circus, hopefully with little collateral damage (thus beware of western propaganda on civilians toll) having high weapons tech to select targets accurately as mentioned in this article.


Abiesalba -> KriticalThinkingUK 1 Oct 2015 15:22

Politicians across Europe are welcoming Russia's intervention as the only long term solution to the refugee crisis and literally hundreds of millions of Europeans are supporting Russia's attack on ISIS, whatever lies you may read from the old cold warriors and their oligarch's press in the US and UK.

Very true. Here is Slovenia, the public opinion seems to be very strongly siding with Russia and against the insane US (judging from comments on forums).

And the US/UK media are truly an amazing brainwashing propaganda machine, straight from Orwell's 1984.


Jan Burton 1 Oct 2015 14:47

Russia isn't dumb or dishonest enough to make the meaningless distinctions between ISIS and other Islamist groups that the west insists on making. They're all out for the same thing and only differ on the details.

Putin in merely doing what needs to be done.

cherryredguitar 1 Oct 2015 14:48

Given that the so-called moderate rebels have a leader who videoed himself cutting a dead person's body open and eating one of the guys internal organs, the Russians are right not to differentiate between them and Isis.

Destroy all the extremists, even the ones that the Americans and Saudis like.

Abiesalba -> RobertNeville 1 Oct 2015 14:46

the Russians are allowed to fly the skies of Syria and the US is not.

Yes. Because the Syrian government asked Russia for a military intervention, whereas the US apparently have some superior right to illegally breach international borders as they wish and bomb whomever they like (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan).

By the way, the very fact that Iraqi government asked for a military intervention is used by the US-led coalition to justify their strikes in Iraq.

jvillain -> Mr Russian 1 Oct 2015 14:44

The US, France and finally to a slightly lesser degree the UK want Assad gone more than they want ISIS, Al Quaida or the Army of God gone. If Assad falls all his weapons will belong to ISIS and crew as well as having total control of a state. The so called rebels are only 5% or so of the people fighting. All the other opposition groups have either merged with ISIS or been eliminated.

If Assad falls there will no longer be a choice but to put western boots on the ground in Syria in a big way.

WhetherbyPond 1 Oct 2015 14:43

The Ziocons in the US are very upset that their geopolitical game is being thwarted by Russia.


Abiesalba -> Mr Russian 1 Oct 2015 14:41

It surely is interesting how the Anglo-American media today went all hysterical about the alleged civilian casualties in Russian air strikes.

Well, how about some hysteria about this then:
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About 3000 people, including 162 civilians, killed in US- coalition airstrikes on areas in Syria

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, June 2015
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SOHR documented the death of 2896 people at least since the beginning of the U.S led coalition air strikes on Syria in 23/Sep until this morning, while hundreds others were wounded, vast majority IS extremists.

The number of civilians who were killed in the coalition airstrikes on oil areas, where there are oil refineries, oil wells, building and vehicles, in the provinces of al- Hasakah, Deir Ezzor, al- Raqqa, Aleppo and Idlib has risen to 162, including 51 children and 35 women.

Among the deaths, there are a family of a man, his wife and their 5 children killed due in US- led coalition airstrikes on the village of Dali Hasan in east of the town of Serrin in northeast of Aleppo and 64 civilians killed by a massacre committed by the U.S led coalition warplanes on Friday's night in 04/30/2015 when they targeted Bir Mahli village near the town of Serrin in Aleppo with several air strikes, and the death toll of this massacre includes:

– 31 children under the age of 16 including ( 16 females and 15 males ).
– 19 women above the age of 18.
– 13 men above the age of 18.
– A 18 years old boy.
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For more about civilian casualties due to the US-led coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq, see the Airwars website:

584 – 1,720 civilians killed:

To date, the international coalition has only conceded two "likely" deaths, from an event in early November 2014. It is also presently investigating seven further incidents of concern; is carrying out credibility assessments on a further 13; and has concluded three more investigations – having found no 'preponderance of evidence' to support civilian casualty claims.

[Oct 04, 2015] Saudis Mull Launch Of Regional War As Russia Pounds Targets In Syria For Fourth Day

Notable quotes:
"... Yes it is more about water rights than oil. ..."
"... Overthrowing Assad cuts Hezbollahs supply lines, which is THE point of the excercise. ..."
"... Now WATER and Israel. You are barking up the right tree. Much of all of this is about Greater Israel. If you were old like me, you would remember back when secular Arab states actually possed a real threat to Israel. All those state are now torn to pieces by US policy. So, see the connection? ..."
"... I maintain most of this is Israeli based. With the US doing Israeli bidding. ..."
"... You know most Americans are clueless as all they get is overwhelming propaganda from cradle to grave. It is the US policy makers that know they can use the American people's labor to continue with their nefarious plans. ..."
"... The neocons love death and killing, and it will come home. Ask Imperial Rome. The hubris is absolutely breathtaking." ..."
"... And once again we see who is driving American foreign policy in the Middle East -- our good friends the Royal family of Saudi Arabia. Putin really made a brilliant play on this one. Most Americans are cheering for him as he destroys the CIA created boggie man ISIS, and the CIA controlled US media doesn't know what the fuck to say about it because they've already convinced the public that ISIS is the real reason we're screwing around in Syria. Check mate unless the US decides to go full retard and start bombing the Russians based upon some false flag like the Russians bombing a hospital or something -- oops, can't really do that now either. ..."
"... The US has launched 6700 airstrikes on ISIS while the Russians have apparently degraded ISIS in just 60 airstrikes. ..."
"... The US and its allies have carried out 6700 airstrikes at an expense of nearly $4 billion in the year since President Barack Obama ordered a campaign against Islamic State. Yet the terror group shows no sign of defeat and has even expanded its reach. ..."
"... Sure a lot of ISIS fighters are probably true believers but those are the ones who will stand, fight, and be killed (blind pawns). However, seeing this is as much a covert operation as an overt operation then one has to think that the brains of the operation is made up of state operatives or mercenaries. These will not stand, fight, and die but run, re-arm, and redeploy elsewhere (Afghanistan->Stans->Russia or Afghanistan->China?). ..."
"... McCain is implicitly-and sections of the media are explicitly-pointing to a change in the Pentagon's rules of engagement in Syria announced by the Obama administration last spring that allows US forces to combat Syrian government forces or any other group or country that attacks US-backed "rebels." This is meant to put pressure on the White House to initiate attacks not only against Damascus, but also against Moscow. ..."
"... America's elites are as Trump says : a nation of neo-con elites whose mantra breeds --as incarnated by the NRA lobby --psychopathic mad shooters who have the genius of the devil. ..."
"... For some reason, nobody in the US-Saudi-Turkish-Israeli nexus thought Russia would actually intervene. I don't know why. Russia went to the mat over Syria a few years back when Obama, fresh off the triumph of turning Libya into a dumpster fire, shipped the same mercenaries who did the Gadhafi hit-job to Syria, freshly re-armed. Remember, those guys' presence was the real reason for the Benghazi fiasco; a fact HRC and the Obama Administration can't speak out loud and the GOP knows full well, making Benghazi the perfect political football. ..."
"... The US strategy of sparking and fueling a Sunni vs. Shi'a world sectarian war has taken a brutal hit. The Shi'a are in the extreme minority of Islam, but not in the Middle East, between Iran and the Mediterranean. ..."
"... But I'm keeping an eye on the Uighurs in China's Xinjiang Province, and the various -Stan nations. It will take a little while, but I'm guessing there will be "Mysterious", "Spontaneous" uprisings of extremist Sunni violence there. And "Mysterious" newcomers with beards and Saudi accents. ..."
"... Brilliantly, the Russians have stolen the "War on Terror" narrative. The US psychotics, psychopaths and megalomaniacs have proven incredibly stupid. Russia asks the US to join them in fighting the war on terror. Hilarious. ..."
Oct 04, 2015 | www.zerohedge.com

Looney

Lemme get it straight… Saudi Arabia and Qatar can't handle the Houtis in Yemen, but they think they can take on Russia? Oh, boy! I need a bigger popcorn bucket! ;-)

strannick

Like the US, these vile medieval "regional allies" try to frame their propaganda to show that this is about removing the dictator Assad, who actually is one of the most benign in that demented region. Its not.

They want him out because he opposed their pipeline, favoring instead the Iraqi Iran Shiite pipeline, which all three nations agreed to create. So much for national self determination. Otherwise they wouldnt give a shit what deranged lunatic ran Syria, or if Syria was ruled by some king as demented and tyranical and genocidal as they, -the Saudis and Qataris- are themselves.

Winston Churchill

Its not about an indefencible gas pipline at all.

By deception we wage war.

Its about potable water in south Lebanon.

Without that Israel is a failed desert state within ten years.

Go do the research yourself, all the data has been out there for nearly fifty years.

Hidden in plain sight.

swmnguy

Israel has to have the Litani river from source to outlet.

The pipeline from Qatar is a real project too, though.

Captain Debtcrash

Saudis' won't mess with Russia because they know the US probably wouldn't intervene on their behalf, we don't want to mess with Russia either and vice versa. It was already agreed we would let them do what they want and talk a good game in opposition.

That said, if I'm wrong, I don't think we will have to worry about low oil prices any more.

Oracle of Kypseli

Desal water is much more expensive than oil.

And... Yes it is more about water rights than oil. The Jordan river is now a small slow moving creek.

Winston Churchill

The Litani is part of the headwaters of the river Jordan.

The Golan overlooks the Jordan.Whick looks like a stream in comparison to what is was fifty ago, and a dried up mud hole relative to 150yrs ago. I wish I could post a photo from the 1860's I have of the Jordan, its a glass plate negative taken by my great grandfather.

Overthrowing Assad cuts Hezbollahs supply lines, which is THE point of the excercise.

If, as reported yesterday, Putin is going to supply Hezbollah direct with armaments, Putin will have a Israels balls in a vice, no wonder Nutjob is going apeshit..

Jack Burton

Good point Winston. I have always been dubious about the Pipeline argument. As you say, even if built, this pipeline would run through very hostile places, sure to be hit over and over again.

Now WATER and Israel. You are barking up the right tree. Much of all of this is about Greater Israel. If you were old like me, you would remember back when secular Arab states actually possed a real threat to Israel. All those state are now torn to pieces by US policy. So, see the connection?

Israel must, with in a decade take and hold souther Lebanon of perish. The only water left is there, Israel must have it. So they will take it, to hold it, they need Syria dead and Lebanon a failed stated.

I maintain most of this is Israeli based. With the US doing Israeli bidding.

The Indelicate ...

the Qatar pipeline argument never made any sense because:

1] you don't build a pipeline through chaos which will last years, which is precisely what Israel, most of all wants - a bloodletting that destroys another regional economic, and to an extent military rival.

2] Cost/benefit wise it doesn't make sense to spend this sort of money and time to go through Syria - look at a map.

3] Israel's Leviathan find, it's plans to ethnically cleanse the remainder of Palestine, and find/create pretexts to attack and invade more of Lebanon, Syria, and Sinai. It's plans to steal the gas that, if international law applied to the Jewish State, Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon.

Early Zionist Interest In Lebanon - Laura Zittrain Eisenberg
http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/history/zionism.html

Israel Wants The Litani River Desperately
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2010/08/israel-wants-litani-rive...

HOORAY FOR HEZBOLLAH!
http://www.tomatobubble.com/id775.html

flysofree

This is a load of crap. I lived in the Caribbean and our source of water was desalinization plant. It wasn't as expansive as you say, even the poorest locals could easily afford it. The problem with desalinization plants was that intake valves would clog up with seaweed during storms!

There is no evidence whatsoever that Israel is planning any aggression towards its neighbors. It's also no secret that ALL of Israel air strikes into Syria involved intercepts of weapons shipments from Iran; that's clearly stated in mainstream media reporting!

You must be a deluded old twig, if you even attempt to compare Nazi Germany Lebensraum policies of total liquidation of local populations to modern Israeli politics of settler land grab in the West Bank.

Winston Churchill

I'm old like you Jack, but travelled extensively throughout the MENA, a family tradition you could say, my great grandfather and grandfather were involved in opening up tourism/biz to a lot of the area.Long before oil was discovered. Have some 'wrong side of the blanket' relatives who I keep in contact with as well.

SWRichmond

Lemme get it straight… Saudi Arabia and Qatar can't handle the Houtis in Yemen, but they think they can take on Russia? Oh, boy! I need a bigger popcorn bucket! ;-)

Putin is confident in his backing at home. Russian people are, for lack of a better way to put it, accustomed to "doing without" while supporting the motherland. Saudi, on the other hand, has completely spoilt their home population with their temporary wealth (now in doubt), paying them just to live, making them soft and expectant, petulant, self indulgent (sound familiar?). Putin is quite obviously "going for it", pressing his position, because he believes he will prevail. The gloves are off. USA is broke, and Putin knows it. Petrodollar is on its death bed, and he knows it, and he is willing to overtly hasten its death.

Final question, for bonus points: how do nations traditionally finance wars?

Answer: BY DEBASING THEIR CURRENCIES.

PacOps

Didn't someone pull some kind of shit like that on the Soviet Union a few decades back? ;-)

Sun, 10/04/2015 - 11:48 | 6628206 swmnguy

The Russian people can feed themselves. Not lavishly; cabbage and "cole" vegetables; potatoes; a little meat, fish and poultry; cold-weather grains; but they can feed themselves. Not so much for the Saudis and Qataris etc. Also, the Russians make their own stuff. They don't have to import slaves who outnumber them.

Yes, if the luxury is suddenly removed from their lives, the Russian people wouldn't notice, never having had much in the first place. But the Saudis and Qataris can't survive in their current arrangements.

kananga

"So, millions of Saudi refugees invading Europe?"
More like, 100 Saudi Royals invading Monaco.

lincolnsteffens

You know most Americans are clueless as all they get is overwhelming propaganda from cradle to grave. It is the US policy makers that know they can use the American people's labor to continue with their nefarious plans.

Sir Edge

Yes...

Plus One Kabillion SWR... Perfectly Said...

"USA is preparing to rip itself apart. For some reason Americans believe they can foist death, destruction, mayhem and hopelessness upon the entire rest of the planet, while somehow remaining immune from it themselves. The neocons love death and killing, and it will come home. Ask Imperial Rome. The hubris is absolutely breathtaking."

strannick

Exactly.

How dare Russia and Iran tinker with America and Suadis bombed out, fucked up Shangrala that is their legacy in the Middle East.

researchfix

They know what´s coming. Iran and Russia will chase ISIS to the Saudi border. And then they stop the chase. And then the next chapter enfolds.

cosmyccowboy

Stick with the small bucket, I do not believe that the Saudi little boy lovers and women beaters sill last long against the Russians, Syrians and Iranians. Their mercenaries will flee from a real fighting force!

HowdyDoody

Saudi are being setup as Zion's stooges. If they win - ZIon gets lebensraum to the north of Israel, if they lose - lebensraum to the south. The inevitable public reason for the land grab - poor defenseless little Israel needs a buffer zone between it and the Muslims.

LetThemEatRand

And once again we see who is driving American foreign policy in the Middle East -- our good friends the Royal family of Saudi Arabia. Putin really made a brilliant play on this one. Most Americans are cheering for him as he destroys the CIA created boggie man ISIS, and the CIA controlled US media doesn't know what the fuck to say about it because they've already convinced the public that ISIS is the real reason we're screwing around in Syria. Check mate unless the US decides to go full retard and start bombing the Russians based upon some false flag like the Russians bombing a hospital or something -- oops, can't really do that now either.

Bendromeda Strain

And once again we see who is driving American foreign policy in the Middle East -- our good friends the Royal family of Saudi Arabia.

Do not fail to miss the "go to" interview with the demon worshipper at The European Council of Foreign Relations. Saudi Arabia's interest just happens to *currently* align with the globalists. Convenient for them - for now.

TheReplacement

I disagree. I think the drivers are unnamed and the royals of KSA are both a faction and a pawn. They would look at themselves and see a faction. When looked down upon by TPTB they are pawns (like 99.999999% of humanity).

I also do not see most Americans cheering for Putin. I see most Americans are absolutely ignorant and clueless as per usual. Some think they are informed and think evil Putin grasping at empire. I cannot speak to Putin's motives and I do hold suspicion of anybody who has maintained power like his as long as that man. Still, I have to ask them what exactly Putin has done.

"Invaded Ukraine."

Really? Show me pictures and video that isn't years old and taken from a completely different country while I show you pictures and video of the US State Department funding and fomenting a violent uprising by neo nazis against a constitutionally elected government (this is not to say that I disagree in any way with Ukrainians taking action of their own volition but that isn't what happened).

"Well, he shot down that jetliner."

Proof? The west has all the evidence and we have no proof. You do realize the official report only confirmed that the jet was in fact shotdown. They have presented no evidence that either confirms nor denies any particular faction did in fact shoot it down.

"He's invading Syria."

Putin was invited by the Syrian government because ISIS and their allies were starting to win the war despite our forces supposedly bombing them all year. If we were bombing and droning them, in addition to the fighting by the Iraqis, Syrians, and Kurds, then why were they still winning? If Russia, Syria, and Iran all want to defeat ISIS then who is it that wants ISIS to win - who is supporting the bad guys in black if all the other bad guys are trying to kill them?

"I don't know. You wanna watch the Redsox?"

JustObserving

The corrupt, criminal, cruel cabal that rules Saudi Arabia should have collapsed years ago. So let them start another war and collapse now. Karma is a bitch. Hope ISIS are pushed into Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The US has launched 6700 airstrikes on ISIS while the Russians have apparently degraded ISIS in just 60 airstrikes. Was the US dropping care packages and videos made in Langley?

The US and its allies have carried out 6700 airstrikes at an expense of nearly $4 billion in the year since President Barack Obama ordered a campaign against Islamic State. Yet the terror group shows no sign of defeat and has even expanded its reach.

http://www.rt.com/news/314885-isis-usa-anniversary-campaign/

TheReplacement

I question that narrative. Sure a lot of ISIS fighters are probably true believers but those are the ones who will stand, fight, and be killed (blind pawns). However, seeing this is as much a covert operation as an overt operation then one has to think that the brains of the operation is made up of state operatives or mercenaries. These will not stand, fight, and die but run, re-arm, and redeploy elsewhere (Afghanistan->Stans->Russia or Afghanistan->China?).

JustObserving

Does the Doomsday clock have a seconds hand ?

Does it have a nanosecond hand?

Threat of wider war mounts as Russia continues airstrikes in Syria

More prominent are voices calling for an even more reckless US policy of escalation against both Assad and Putin. They speak for powerful sections of the foreign policy and military-intelligence establishment that are implacably hostile to the nuclear deal with Iran and bent on war with Russia and China.

John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke for this faction Wednesday. He declared from the Senate floor, "Into the wreckage of this administration's Middle East policy has now stepped Putin. As in Ukraine and elsewhere, he perceives the administration's inaction and caution as weakness, and he is taking advantage."

On Thursday, McCain told CNN that he could "absolutely confirm" that the initial Russian strikes were "against our Free Syrian Army or groups that have been armed and trained by the CIA…"

McCain is implicitly-and sections of the media are explicitly-pointing to a change in the Pentagon's rules of engagement in Syria announced by the Obama administration last spring that allows US forces to combat Syrian government forces or any other group or country that attacks US-backed "rebels." This is meant to put pressure on the White House to initiate attacks not only against Damascus, but also against Moscow.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/02/syri-o02.html

falak pema

That the Sunni clans find the Russian Iran entente a threat to their creationist minded ideology is understandable--to the extent that Turkey has reverted to obscurantist logic and effaced Ataturk's legacy from its current political inclination-- and that Saud and Qatar, as inheritors of the Pax Americana Oil protected legacy, have reverted to the same ideological stance in a regressional spiral that shocks the word-- is one thing ; that the West adheres to this same logic is another. The history of the wahhabist arabs monarchies is diametrically opposed to that of the West in terms of political priorities.

The latter trend, of regression to neo-feudal ideology, is a betrayal of western values that are the bedrocks of our society.

There is no excuse for this regression, now brought out to the open by a Shia theocracy aligned with a autocratic Russia, which make the so called democratic West look like the new Evil Empire.

We are now in a spiral in West that will bring down democracy and replace it by a neo-feudal autocracy that will have nothing to envy the most evil traits of the Spanish Inquisition.

America's elites are as Trump says : a nation of neo-con elites whose mantra breeds --as incarnated by the NRA lobby --psychopathic mad shooters who have the genius of the devil.

Even Putin and Khameini look like moderates!

ThroxxOfVron

Russia is not allied with Iran.

That both Russia and Iran perceive that it is in their individual interestes to intervene in Syria does not make them allies.

The only reason that Russia and Iran welcome the others intervention is that it temporarily relieves each of them of the full weight of the financing costs of their respective interventions which would be higher if undertaken alone, and relieves both of some amount of the international political pressures being manifest by the US/Zio powers opposed to their interventions.

Russia and Iran do not share the same goals and will not employ the same methods.

Any appearance of mutual support is tangenital and temporary. It will dissipate rapidly when their true divergent interests become apparent in due course and as their opportunities in the Trans-Syrian theater evolves.

Likely the two will immediately become opponents in Syria as other forces are ejected from the theater in much the same manner as Russia and the British/US did in Germany when Berlin fell at the end of the WW2.

What I do not think is being spoken of publicly is the fact that Iraq is effectively being carved up while the focus is on Syria.

I do not think Iraq will exist, or certainly will not exist with the same territorial boundaries, when the Trans-Syrian ( Great Sunni/Shia ) War is concluded.

swmnguy

I would guess Kurdish leaders are doing everything they can to get an audience in the Kremlin about now. This is their best chance ever at an independent Kurdistan, protected by Iran and Russia. There won't ever be a better moment for them. The US has been using them as we used the Hmong in Laos in the Vietnam War. Time for the Kurds to get out of the firing line and into an arrangement with local regional powers who will actually pay them in the coin of their choosing in return for their services.

swmnguy

I don't think Saudi Arabia can do anything more than transfer some ancient handheld anti-arcraft missiles to their Syrian proxies, through third-parties. I can't imagine the Saudis openly attacking the Russians. I doubt they'd ship anything directly traceable back to them.

For some reason, nobody in the US-Saudi-Turkish-Israeli nexus thought Russia would actually intervene. I don't know why. Russia went to the mat over Syria a few years back when Obama, fresh off the triumph of turning Libya into a dumpster fire, shipped the same mercenaries who did the Gadhafi hit-job to Syria, freshly re-armed. Remember, those guys' presence was the real reason for the Benghazi fiasco; a fact HRC and the Obama Administration can't speak out loud and the GOP knows full well, making Benghazi the perfect political football.

But if you look at the atlas, and at Russian behavior since the 1970s, it's pretty obvious why they aren't going to tolerate radical insane Sunni mercenary armies running around in their backyard. In Syria, different from Ukraine, the local recognized government can invite them in. Now it looks like the local recognized government in Iraq has invited them in, too.

The US strategy of sparking and fueling a Sunni vs. Shi'a world sectarian war has taken a brutal hit. The Shi'a are in the extreme minority of Islam, but not in the Middle East, between Iran and the Mediterranean.

The Saudis will whine and cry, but not do much. Israel is going to get real quiet. I'd guess the US will cut bait on their proxies. But I'm keeping an eye on the Uighurs in China's Xinjiang Province, and the various -Stan nations. It will take a little while, but I'm guessing there will be "Mysterious", "Spontaneous" uprisings of extremist Sunni violence there. And "Mysterious" newcomers with beards and Saudi accents.

45North1

All this crap really ramped up about the time Libya was destroyed by NATO. Civilian deaths certainly have soared from 2011 to now.

Not saying there is a coincidence with respect to Libya being destroyed , but I can't help but think there is some link between liberated Libyan weapon staches and the accelerated actions of the various iterations of Syrian Rebels and re-labeled Terrorists in Syria. Syrian People have subsequently suffered. Infrastructure has been destroyed, Syria risks a future as a failed state (ala Libya) if overrun. I am sure Syria can take some comfort in knowiing that Libya got a new Central Bank as NATO munitions were still landing.)

Hopefully Policies of other players in the Syrian mess don't adopt the in for a penny , in for a pound approach to this debacle.... but I have my doubts.

Islam needs to get itself together if there is ever to be peace in the Middle East.

Pigs will probably fly first.

Atticus Finch

Brilliantly, the Russians have stolen the "War on Terror" narrative. The US psychotics, psychopaths and megalomaniacs have proven incredibly stupid. Russia asks the US to join them in fighting the war on terror. Hilarious.

Paracelsus

Correct. Gaddafi would have had tons of munitions.These were transported with US help thru Turkey into Syria.With the Iraq war destabilizing the entire region,

The Kurds were able to establish there own mini-state with the bonus of oil in the ground. Turkey has always been the weak man in the area politically, and has always opposed an
independent Kurdish nation.

I am waiting for the first Russian warplane to be brought down and the pilot roasted in a cage (on video). I can't see where the Russkies would be very happy with the CIA/Mercs who provided the ManPads for this event. The Russkies are very good at the airpower thing. The Iranians are tough on the ground. The Russkies seem to want to get this over in months or less.

Funny how they don't seem to worry about any UN Security Council condemnation. Chinese Veto?

Well, death of the PetroDollar system. History in front of our eyes.. The only wildcard is the Israelis threat to use nukes if they don't get their way. Aside from the PetroDollar collapse, there exists a strong threat of China and others dumping Treasuries on the finance markets (if they are unhappy with US foreign policy).

"May you live in interesting times".....

Truly Inspiration

You really raise serious questions about just how "intelligent" US intelligence actually is??

Why shall US target their own people when the ISIS top commander is an AMERICAN! You don't believe it?

Nada a 19 year old woman just escaped from hell,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3253107/Is-ISIS-commander-AMERIC...


sudzee

SA worried that the "coalition of the good and honest" Russia/Syria/Iran and Iraq will corner ISIS and force them south thru western Iraq/eastern Jordan into Saudi Arabia itself. The Royal Family, beheaders in chief, will receive the goes around.

AlfredNeumann

Hillary Clinton : We created Al-Qaeda
Hillary Clinton : We created Al-Qaeda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqn0bm4E9yw

Gregor Samsa

This cartoon says it best: http://sputniknews.com/cartoons/20151002/1027919479/us-russia-syria-cart...

forgotten in th...

Here some social media statements by members of the "moderate islamic opposition" that Barack Obama and his two piece of shit (Cameron and Hollande) are supporting.

From wikipedia

In response to reports of Russian intervention, the Army of Conquest's Liwa al-Haqq commander Abu Abdullah Taftanaz posted a tweet addressing the "infidel Russians", inviting them to send troops to Syria and saying that "we have thousands like Khattab" who would "slaughter your pigs".[76][77] Abu Abdullah Taftanaz also tweeted Russian military terms for Syrian rebels to familiarize themselves with if they intercepted Russian radio chatter.[78][79][80][81][82] Reportedly Chechen and Caucasian foreign fighters have begun flocking to the coastal regions of Syria where the Russians are based in order to seek them out.[83]

Ahmad Eissa al-Sheikh, a commander in Turkish/Saudi-backed Ahrar ash-Sham,[84] threatened to bring upon "Russian hell in a Levantine flavor" if they encountered the Russians.[85][86] Harakat Fajr ash-Sham al-Islamiya leader Abu Abdullah ash-Shami tweeted about the "globalization" of the "Levantine Jihad".[87][88] He also tweeted that on the Russians and said that "The Levant will become their graveyard, with the permission of Allah".[89] The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front[90] has set a reward for the seizure of Russian soldiers of 2,500,000 Syrian pounds (approximately US$13,000).[91][92]

The Syria based, Al-Qaeda linked Saudi cleric Abdallah Muhammad Al-Muhaysini threatened that Syria would be a "tomb for its invaders" or "graveyard for invaders" in response to the Russian intervention and brought up the Soviet war in Afghanistan.[93][94][95]

AlfredNeumann
Syria Update# Air Duel between the Sukhoi Su - 30 Russian SM and Israeli F-15 Tags:
Six Russian fighter jets type Multirole Sukhoi SU - 30 SM have intercepted 4 Israeli McDonnell Douglas F-15's fighter bombers attempting to infiltrate the Syrian coast.The Israeli F 15 warplanes have been flying over Syrian airspace for months and in particular the coast of Latakia, which is now the bridgehead of the Russian forces in Syria.

The Israeli jets would generally follow a fairly complex flight plan and approach Latakia from the sea

On the night of 1 October 02, 2015, six Sukhoi SU-30 Russian SM fighters took off from the Syrian Hmimim airbase in the direction of Cyprus, before changing course and intercepting the four Israeli F-15 fighters off the coast of Syria, that were flying in attack formation.

Surprised by a situation as unexpected and probably not prepared for a dogfight with one of the best Russian multipurpose fighters, Israeli pilots have quickly turned back South at high speed over the Lebanon.

The mighty Israeli military doesn't do so well against opponents who can actually fight back! They'll probably bomb Gaza again so they can feel butch about themselves!

Read more: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED | The History The US Government HOPES You Never Learn! http://whatreallyhappened.com/#ixzz3ncnOMUxV

Amun

"on November 2, 1917, British imperialism in Palestine began when Lord Balfour, the then British foreign secretary and former prime minister, sent a letter to Baron Rothschild, one of the leaders of the Zionist movement. This letter became known as the "Balfour Declaration".

In that letter, Balfour promised British support for the Zionist programme of establishing a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. This pledge of support was made without consulting the indigenous Christian and Muslim inhabitants of Palestine, the Palestinian people. And it was made before British troops had even conquered the land.

Balfour, on behalf of Britain, promised Palestine – over which Britain had no legal right – to a people who did not even live there (of the very small community of Palestinian Jews in Palestine in 1917, very few were Zionists). And he did so with the worst of intentions: to discourage Jewish immigration to Britain. No wonder Lord Montagu, the only Jewish member of the Cabinet, opposed the declaration.

And yet, just two years earlier, Britain had committed herself to assisting the Arab nations in achieving their independence from the Ottoman Empire. Arab fighters all over the region, including thousands of Palestinians, fought for their freedom, allowing Britain to establish her mandate in Palestine. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/9645925/Britain-must-atone-for-its-sins-in-Palestine.html

Abiesalba 1 Oct 2015 14:29

With respect to the total mess in Syria, to my knowledge there has been only one recent poll conducted across Syria (see below). The pollsters say that the poll is representative of the people of Syria. A similar poll was also conducted in Iraq. Both polls were conducted in June-July 2015:
-
82% of Syrians agree that ISIS was foreign-created by the US (17% disagree).

85% of Iraqis agree that ISIS was foreign-created by the US (10% disagree).
-
-
Among the warring sides in Syria, Assad has the highest (!) support – 47% of Syrians think he has a POSITIVE influence (50% negative) .

Compare to the groups which the US 'coalition' and the Anglo-Americans media claim we should all support:

Free Syrian Army – 35% positive, 63% negative

Syrian Opposition Coalition – 26% positive, 72% negative
-
Considering the polling results, anyone claiming that Assad should be removed is working AGAINST half of the Syrians. Putin is right – Assad has to be included in any solution to the war. Else, there will immediately a rebellion of half of Syrians against FOREIGN powers toppling Assad.

Assad will not come to the negotiating table without Putin.

Besides, it is clear that for Syrians (and Iraqis), the truly BAD guys are the Americans.
-
-
PUBLIC OPINION IN SYRIA
-
Fieldwork: June 10 to July 2

Respondents: 1,365 Syrians from all 14 governorates of the country
-
-
Thinking about the persons and the groups which are working now in Syria, Generally, do you think that their influence is negative or positive on the matters in Syria
-
Positive … Negative
-
47% … 50% … Bashar al-Asad
43% … 55% … Iran
37% … 55% … Arab Gulf Countries
35% … 63% … Nusra Front
35% … 63% … Free Syrian Army
26% … 72% … Syrian Opposition Coalition
21% … 76% … Islamic State
-
-
There are many reasons around to explain the presence of ISIL in Iraq/Syria, please tell me if strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or a strongly disagree for the reason that explains the presence of ISIL?
-
Agree … Disagree
-
82% … 17% … ISIL is foreign made by the US

59% … 40% … As a result of widespread sectarian politics in the Arab countries and in Turkey

55% … 44% …ISIL is made by some Arab regimes

50% … 48% … ISIL is created by foreign countries to find a balance with Iran

44% … 55% … Wrong policies pursued by the Syrian government

42% … 56% … Syrian regime made ISIL for marking the opposition to terrorism

39% … 57% … Iran is supporting this organization to weaken Iraq and take it under its control

22% … 76% … Sectarian congestion that has arisen in Syria
-
-
Do you support or oppose the international coalition airstrikes in Syria?
-
Support … Oppose

47% … 50%
-
-
According to your view, which of the following represent the best solution for the crisis which Syria is in today?
-
51% … Political solution
37% … Military solution
-
-
Note: The poll has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points.

Sources:

Polls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS (16 September 2015)

Full polling reports by the British ORB International (affiliate of WIN/Gallup International):

* Syria http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/syriadata.pdf

* Iraq http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/iraqdata.pdf

[Oct 04, 2015] Gulf states plan military response as Putin raises the stakes in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... The Russian intervention is a massive setback for those states backing the opposition, particularly within the region – Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – and is likely to elicit a strong response in terms of a counter-escalation ..."
"... Saudi Arabia and Qatar are already embroiled in an expensive and bloody war in Yemen that may limit both their military and financial resources. ..."
Oct 04, 2015 | The Guardian

Regional powers have quietly, but effectively, channelled funds, weapons and other support to rebel groups making the biggest inroads against the forces from Damascus. In doing so, they are investing heavily in a conflict which they see as part of a wider regional struggle for influence with bitter rival Iran.

In a week when Russia made dozens of bombing raids, those countries have made it clear that they remain at least as committed to removing Assad as Moscow is to preserving him.

"There is no future for Assad in Syria," Saudi foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir warned, a few hours before the first Russian bombing sorties began. If that was not blunt enough, he spelled out that if the president did not step down as part of a political transition, his country would embrace a military option, "which also would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power".

... ... ...

"The Russian intervention is a massive setback for those states backing the opposition, particularly within the region – Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – and is likely to elicit a strong response in terms of a counter-escalation," said Julien Barnes-Dacey, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

... ... ...

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are already embroiled in an expensive and bloody war in Yemen that may limit both their military and financial resources.

[Oct 04, 2015] Nonsense on data revisions

"... I was surprised how well the BBC political correspondent and ex-Tory Party student Nick Robinson came out in his economic reporting compared to the woeful stuff that those BBC correspondents claiming some sort of economic expertise faired. ..."
"... they are all of the neo-liberal religion; group-thinkers ..."
Oct 04, 2015 | mainlymacro.blogspot.com
mainly macro
Anonymous, 1 October 2015 at 01:04
When I reread my collection of BBC articles for the period 2008-15, some of which I have reposted on this blog in the past, I was surprised how well the BBC political correspondent and ex-Tory Party student Nick Robinson came out in his economic reporting compared to the woeful stuff that those BBC correspondents claiming some sort of economic expertise faired.

Since 2008, Robert Peston, Stephanie Flanders, Hugh Pym, and Andrew Neil have had terrible economic crises, and it must be more than just governmental pressure that has produced such concentrated ineptitude.

acorn, 1 October 2015
Alas, they are all of the neo-liberal religion; group-thinkers. Peston has never understood the difference between a currency issuing government and a currency using non-government sector. Hence, government financial accounts are totally different to a households financial accounts.

They all think that the government has to tax and/or borrow "money", before it has any to spend. Never stopping to think where the people it taxed or borrowed from, got such "money" in the first place.

Politicians and the IFS peddle the same myth. Liars and fakers the lot of them. Stick with the accountants.

http://www.icaew.com/en/about-icaew/newsroom/press-releases/2015-press-releases/fall-in-tax-receipts-hinders-progress-in-deficit-reduction-says-icaew

[Oct 03, 2015] Moscow and Kiev in positive mood over talks to end east Ukraine conflict

Notable quotes:
"... The EU cannot do anything about Ukraine Right Sector radicals and its other nutters in the Mafia. ..."
"... But the Donbas situation is more mixed, however, even before the trouble in 2014, what I DID encounter in Kiev in particular (not so much Galycnya) was a regard of the SE UA citizens as second-class citizens, as well as attitudes that could be accurately be described as quasi-facist, ..."
"... I wonder why you call Western airstrikes "tactical". The coalition launched >7,000 military aircraft sorties in over a year, apparently carefully "missing" ISIS targets, killing on average ~0.4 terrorist per sortie and freeing up as much as 15 square kilometers of territory from ISIS. As you can easily imagine, a lot of people made huge amounts of money in the process. So we should call this a resounding success, on par with $10 billion no-bid Halliburton contract in Iraq. Wouldn't you agree? ..."
"... Does it really matter if they have ? We know the West has been involved so it would be pretty much par for the course if Russia was involved. The main thing is Ukraine becomes a peaceful nation for the benefit of its citizens, not for the benefit of either the West or Russia. ..."
Oct 02, 2015 | The Guardian

Елена Соловьева -> BMWAlbert 3 Oct 2015 20:37

Dear, you refer to "one blonde said!". On some vague feelings, assumptions... Enough speculation about Crimea, please! Let's stick to facts! Crimea 80% of the population - Russian. Not only Pro-Russian, and ethnic Russians. Russia does not need were the little green men of Crimea! But for drunk and scared of the Ukrainian military in the Crimea, for the Wahhabis, who through the streets went to the cars with black flags for Ukrainian neo-Nazis, importing explosives and suitable for shooting on the streets, probably Yes. Crimea was similar to the Autonomous Republic, until authonomy has destroyed by abandoning the Constitution. It was abolished by the President! Crimea held a referendum for secession from Ukraine long before the coup in Ukrainein 2014 .

Note that the Americans tried to seize Crimea under the guise of NATO exercises! Was absolutely illegal attempt to build an American military base in Crimea for the U.S. Navy landed the Marines on may 26, 2006, of which the citizens of Crimea dishonorably discharged. And during the state coup in Ukraine in the Black Sea suddenly a us warship.

In Debaltsevo the Ukrainian neo-Nazis fought with men that were deprived of the government, the President, sovereignty, language, external management is introduced, destroyed the economy. Take away the right to life. Whose wives, parents and children every day are killed by shells from anti-aircraft weapons in schools, hospitals, shops, bus stops, fill up with planes of white phosphorus, the water is shut off and the light stopped issuing wages and pensions, imposed humanitarian blockade.

To fight with desperate men, defending their home, or engage in rape and looting among the civilian population, where the majority of the elderly, women, children - different things.

Sarah7 -> Sarah7 3 Oct 2015 19:58

One more thing:

Actually, the first photograph accompanying this piece by Shaun Walker shows Poroshenko looking particularly angry and miserable -- if looks could kill, Merkel would be in big trouble!

That said, in the same photo, Putin appears calm, sanguine, and in a very 'positive mood' compared to his counterparts. Go figure.

Sarah7 3 Oct 2015 19:49

Moscow and Kiev in 'positive mood' over talks to end east Ukraine conflict

If you look at the photographs that accompany the following piece, Poroshenko does not appear to be in a 'positive mood' over the recent meeting of the Normandy Four, and Merkel looks like she is going to spit nails. Perhaps this explains their dour faces:

Checkmate!

3 October 2015

Finally the Penny Drops: Merkel Admits Crimea is Part of Russia
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151003/1027980523/merkel-admits-crimea-is-part-of-russia.html

German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the first time publically accepted the fact that Crimea doesn't belong to Ukraine and that the peninsula will stay as part of Russia, Alexei Pushkov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma, said on his Twitter account, according to Gazeta.ru. (Emphasis added)

"Important: After a meeting in Paris, Merkel for the first time admitted that Crimea won't return to Ukraine. That means the crisis is only about the east of the country," Pushkov wrote. (Emphasis added)

The Normandy Four talks on Ukraine reconciliation concluded in Paris on Friday.

The leaders of the Normandy Quartet countries managed to agree on the procedure of the withdrawal of heavy weapons in eastern Ukraine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday.

"We were able to agree on the withdrawal of heavy weapons," Merkel said following the Normandy Four talks in Paris. "There is hope for progress. We are moving toward each other."

On the whole, the results of Friday's Normandy Four talks in Paris set a positive tone, Angela Merkel said, adding that she was satisfied with what the participants achieved during the meeting.

The Normandy Four are planning to meet for a followup in November, presumably to keep Poroshenko in compliance and moving head with the implementation of Minsk II.

PS -- It was the evil Putin wot done it!

HollyOldDog -> Laurence Johnson 3 Oct 2015 18:55

The EU cannot do anything about Ukraine Right Sector radicals and its other nutters in the Mafia. This mess is for Ukraine alone to sort out and Mikheil Saakashvilli is not the man for the job - his corruption runs far to deep for any action that is more than cosmetic.

BMWAlbert -> Елена Соловьева 3 Oct 2015 18:38

IDK the number of Russian nationals in the Donbas forces, something between 1-10K as a rough guess, these are not formal formations (some are organized at the battalion level as all-Russian units, just an observation from the Russian language news coverage of the closing of Debaltsevo earlier this year, e.g. so called "Khan" battalion, this is just televised news, but there must be more than one such unit, hence the estimate-there are enough weapons captures from UAF in the earlier battles also to arm a small army in Donbas, but this does not rule-out direct supplies (I would imagine something low-key and NOT the big white convoys), this would be the natural minimal level of support I would infer/expect in this case and seems a fair inference. I am not replicating mindless statements from ATO leaders, and remember that Rada twice tried

Crimea was an autonomous region in UA and with rights to hold a referendum under the early 2014 UA Constitution and an earlier legal attempt in 1993 was surprised, also that RU had large forces already legally stationed in Crimea/Krim according to the Kharkov treaty and that in some cases, civic authority, Sebastopol by the RU naval command being a case in point-a continuation of old practices. My sense from personal friends is that among the young, and old generally, the pro-RU sentiment in Krim is strong (incl. one girl with whom I have lost contact, who works there in what is now RU, due to current conditions).

But the Donbas situation is more mixed, however, even before the trouble in 2014, what I DID encounter in Kiev in particular (not so much Galycnya) was a regard of the SE UA citizens as second-class citizens, as well as attitudes that could be accurately be described as quasi-facist, this includes well-educated people, ibcl. in one case (a blonde) the desire to 'exterminate' the Russians-but I would not count the opinions in Donbas as only those enduring the bombardments, there are also many refugees, many in RU itself of course, whose opinions vary from those expressed sometimes here with all due respect, so yes it is complicated.


HollyOldDog -> William Snowden 3 Oct 2015 18:13

Putin wants Ukraine to succeed but the only way it can do this is for the Ukrainian citizens to take over its government and boot out the Self-serving Oligarchs. The Oligarchs have their place in Ukraine but that is to stay out from forming Government decisions and confine their endeavors to modernizing and improving the infrastructure of Ukraine Industrial base which would improve the finance and conditions for all of Ukrainian citizens. It's going to be a difficult road but Russia and the EU can help, though clinging on to the influences of the USA would surely be a retrograde step.

Елена Соловьева -> BMWAlbert 3 Oct 2015 18:07

What's so complicated? The war is real or not! Evidence of finding the 200 000 Russian soldiers in Lugansk and Donbass, or have or not! Crimea after the collapse of the USSR was a disputed territory, which Ukraine annexed unilaterally, without considering the opinion of the Russian Federation and, more IMPORTANTLY, against the wishes of the citizens of the Crimean Republic, which, actually, was constitutional and presidential, while Ukraine did not destroy this status! It is Ukraine annexed the Crimean Republic, and the Russian city Sevastopol, which is in the Republic even geographically not part of, Mr. specialist on Ukraine! Demarcation implies the absence of territorial disputes. And, by the way! Another monstrous stupidity of your media! Poor Ukraine after the coup d'état, followed by the external management of the country by the EU and the US are terrorized by the evil Russian, because it is weak and has no nuclear weapons because of the Treaty of non-aggression from the Russian Federation? Really? Ukraine did not pay its portion of external debt of the USSR and the Russian Empire, therefore, is not the successor,and cannot claim to nuclear power status! Ukraine is a priori not have a right to this weapon, because it was not the owner initially, as the successor! The coup in Kiev was held under the slogan "Cut all Russians!", which in Ukraine 2 years ago, it was a few million, and that is what they are doing throughout the Ukraine, especially in Eastern Ukraine and was planning to do in Crimea. The burning of people in Odessa - a vivid example.

Beckow -> Bart Looren de Jong 3 Oct 2015 17:11

You cannot survey people in the middle of a civil conflict on how much they like or dislike what is described as the "enemy". It simply cannot be done, the numbers are meaningless.

Look at Ukraine's economy and you will see the future of this conflict. The living standards are down so low that all else will become meaningless - people actually care about their incomes and living standard.

Your slogans about "illegal", "privileged sphere" are not what any of this is about, they are not what people in Ukraine think about or what matters to them. But if you insist on slogans, there is one simple answer: Kosovo. West bombed Serbia, killing about a thousand civilians, to force Albanian separation in Kosovo. All talk about "international law" is kind of meaningless after that.

Informed17 -> Laurence Johnson 3 Oct 2015 15:53

I wonder why you call Western airstrikes "tactical". The coalition launched >7,000 military aircraft sorties in over a year, apparently carefully "missing" ISIS targets, killing on average ~0.4 terrorist per sortie and freeing up as much as 15 square kilometers of territory from ISIS. As you can easily imagine, a lot of people made huge amounts of money in the process. So we should call this a resounding success, on par with $10 billion no-bid Halliburton contract in Iraq. Wouldn't you agree?

Manolo Torres -> Bart Looren de Jong 3 Oct 2015 15:49

I have condemned the actions of the Russian government in chechnya many times, if you are going to speak about anyones hypocrisy, you should at least know with whom are you talking.

Manolo Torres
9 Sep 2014 09:42
0 Recommend
Look, I already replied, I wasn´t careful with my question. Of course the Russians have committed many abuses, namely the war in Chechnya. I also explained the differences between that war and the wars by US/NATO that have simply no justification on grounds of self defense.


My concern with human life was shown by my condemnation of every violent act: the massacre in Odessa, the airstrikes and shelling that killed thousands in Ukraine, the war in Iraq and Syria, the war in Chechnya or the neo-nazi movement inside Russia (as we were discussing yesterday before you started shouting and got overwhelmed by the numbers I showed you).

As for the Ukrainians I don´t you are as stupid as to blame Putin for the Ukrainian governments shelling of residential areas. And perhaps you know that there is an investigation for MH17.

i am not like you Rob, I am not a fanatic and I only make judgements when I think I know the facts. You are just shouting and looking every time more ridiculous.

A good start for you would be to say that you stand corrected for the Amnesty report. Do it, I have done it, feels good.

Can I do anything else for you?

Laurence Johnson -> gimmeshoes 3 Oct 2015 14:15

Poroshenko is in a bit of a legal quagmire as his government has not at any stage controlled the entire nation and its borders at any time. His current claim on Eastern Ukraine in legal terms is more a wish list than a legal document of fact.

His only path is partition to legalise his government to govern what they have today, or to negotiate the handing over of East Ukraine to his governments control in order that he can legitimately govern the entire nation and its borders. An invasion of East Ukraine is probably not going to work legally, or on a more practical basis.

Informed17 -> Worried9876 3 Oct 2015 14:10

This is too categorical. Chocolate man wants anything that allows him to keep cashing in on his "president" title. The only thing that's unacceptable to him is if his masters try to prevent his thievery. Then he is likely to become angry and unpredictable. Might even remember about Ukraine, although that's highly unlikely.

elias_ 3 Oct 2015 14:04

Looks to me like Putin wins. Crimea in the bag, the eastern regions stay in Ukraine with enough clout to prevent nato membership and keep the nazis at bay. And stupid EU and US get to pay the bill for reconstruction. The sanctions hurt all sides but are forcing much needed reforms in his country, he may even become a net exporter of food products instead of importing from the eu. He gets a refund for the Mistrals and makes the poodle French look untrustworthy. Oh well, serves the sneaky bastards right (you know who i mean "fuxx the eu").

Laurence Johnson -> Alexzero 3 Oct 2015 14:03

Does it really matter if they have ? We know the West has been involved so it would be pretty much par for the course if Russia was involved. The main thing is Ukraine becomes a peaceful nation for the benefit of its citizens, not for the benefit of either the West or Russia.

[Oct 03, 2015] Oil Bulls Lose Faith in Recovery as Russia Adds to Global Glut

Looks like Bloomberg is becoming Fox of economic and financial news...
"Other countries, such as Russia, are pumping at full tilt" looks like a lie. Russia production might be cur if additional tax on oil producers is restored by government.
I also like ""The U.S. producers are the only ones doing their part to reduce the global glut," -- another lie. shale producers are uncompetitive at this level f prices and some can't even serve their debt. the same is true for oil sands. They are cutting all corners, endangering the environment.
There is no return to "cheap oil" regime despite period of overinvestment that was bright by prices above $80 per barrel.
The fact that "Retail investors which pulled $393 million in September" just confirm that they are a food for Wall Street sharks... Moreover investment in oil ETFs with their complex "futures based" algorithms of matching oil price is in itself probably a sign of not being too intelligent. The game on this table of Wall Street casino is a for professionals and HFT robots, not for lemmings (aka retail investors).
"... U.S. crude output is down 514,000 barrels a day from a four-decade high reached in June, Energy Information Administration data show. The number of rigs targeting oil in the U.S. dropped to a five year low, Baker Hughes Inc. said Oct. 2. ..."
Oct 03, 2015 | Bloomberg Business

Hedge funds trimmed bullish oil bets for the first time in six weeks, losing faith in a swift recovery as Russia boosted output to the highest since the Soviet Union collapsed.

Speculators reduced their net-long position in West Texas Intermediate crude by 9.1 percent in the week ended Sept. 29, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Longs dropped from a 12-week high while shorts increased.

U.S. crude output is down 514,000 barrels a day from a four-decade high reached in June, Energy Information Administration data show. The number of rigs targeting oil in the U.S. dropped to a five year low, Baker Hughes Inc. said Oct. 2. WTI traded in the tightest range since June last month as China's slowing economy and the highest Russian output in two decades signaled the global glut will linger.

"The U.S. producers are the only ones doing their part to reduce the global glut," John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund, said by phone. "Other countries, such as Russia, are pumping at full tilt. The cutbacks by shale producers here aren't going to have much impact, especially given the slowing global economy."

... ... ...

Russian oil output rose to a post-Soviet record last month as producers took advantage of the weak ruble to push ahead with drilling. The nation's production of crude and condensate climbed to 10.74 million barrels a day, 1 percent more than a year earlier and topping a record set in June, according to data from the Energy Ministry's CDU-TEK unit.

... ... ...

Investors pulled $393 million in September from United States Oil Fund, the largest U.S. exchange-traded product that tracks crude futures, the biggest withdrawal since April.

See also:

[Oct 02, 2015] The pretense that it was a Russian invasion in Donetsk is exactly that, a pretense.

At fist I thought that Twaddleradar, member since Aug 9, 2015A is a new NATObot. It it looks like he is a regular Russophob... Still amazingly prolific spamming the whole discussion. It's definitly not enough for him to state his point of view and voice objection. Such commenting incontinence is very disruptive in Web forums.
Notable quotes:
"... WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE!?!? After 2 weeks in syria you have loads of satellite pictures of the Russian base/troops, but after a year + in Ukraine all your evidence is taken from social media posts? Good thing more and more people are refusing to swallow your daily dose of bullshit. ..."
"... The pretense that this was a Russian invasion is exactly that, a pretense. ..."
"... Something tells that it's easy to say but hard to implement. Far right powers in Ukraine would resist such a law very much. ..."
Oct 02, 2015 | The Guardian

ID075732 2 Oct 2015 22:51

Russia has denied military involvement in the conflict despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This old chestnut again... Evidence please of this sweeping claim?

No mention of Putin drafting the Minsk agreement, this is what happened. Then presenting it as a road map for a resolution to the Ukrainian Civil war? As I recall it was Merkell and Holland who rushed to Moscow in February to meet with Putin and thrash out a solution which was then presented to Poroshenko.

As the USA is now in an election cycle and with the Syrian War on Isis takes centre stage with Russian involvement, it looks like the their sock puppet, Petro Poroshenko has been hung out to dry. Finally being told to get back in his box... for now, probably as no more funds via the IMF will be directed into this proxi-conflict if it continues (well they were breaking their own rules giving Ukraine money when it's at war with itself).

Finally, this made me smile...

It has been a busy diplomatic week for Putin, who has not been a frequent guest in western capitals over the past year

Actually Putin has had a very busy diplomatic year building international partnerships across Asia and the BRIC's, Trade agreements with China and Saudi Arabian investment into Russia. The Silk Route project and much more. It seems to me some of the Graun's journalists should get out more, like Putin has been doing!

PrinceEdward -> Twaddleradar 2 Oct 2015 21:12

Meanwhile every Ukrainian male is so full of patriotism, there is no need for a 5 draft rounds in Ukraine because they're flooding with so many volunteers, they turn them away. Stories of parents paying $1000 to get their kids out of the draft, or countless thousands of 20-something Ukrainians running away to Russia and Poland to get student visas, is just propaganda.

MrJohnsonJr 2 Oct 2015 21:07

Ukraine has a fucking nerve to require a diplomatic effort to have it explained to them what a murderous losers the turned out to be and that another of their "revolutions" brought nothing but a major waste of human life and EU and Russian taxpayer money.

KriticalThinkingUK 2 Oct 2015 20:39

Its great isnt it what can be achieved when Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine get together for serious negotiations. Just like in Minsk 1 and 2 when the same group first established peace in Ukraine, behind the backs of the USA and UK who were pointedly not invited to those talks either.

What is the key to this progress? Simple. Dont invite the rightwing cold war loonies to attend. Keep them out at all costs. That is to say exclude from all talks USA, UK, NATO, Poland and the rest of the crazy warmongers who have worked so hard to encourage conflict.

If these negotiations are successful expect further progress over the next decade in other spheres between Germany and Russia. In fact objectively by all measures it is in the long term interests, both economic and political, for these two major European powers to co-operate as natural trading partners....the US warmongers worst nightmare!

Interesting times................

Mazuka 2 Oct 2015 20:35

" Russia has denied military involvement in the conflict despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE!?!? After 2 weeks in syria you have loads of satellite pictures of the Russian base/troops, but after a year + in Ukraine all your evidence is taken from social media posts? Good thing more and more people are refusing to swallow your daily dose of bullshit.

NotYetGivenUp -> HHeLiBe 2 Oct 2015 19:18

You confuse Crimea, which voted for secession after Russian forces ensured Kiev military didn't engae in anti-secessionist reprisals (as stated by Putin), with East Ukraine, in which Kiev generals admitted they were fighting Donbass forces, not Russian forces.

The pretense that this was a Russian invasion is exactly that, a pretense. But any honest appraisal of the facts on the ground, through observation of events as they happened, show that the rejection of the Kievan coup was by the people of Donbass, and is a popular rejection, not the nonsense Russian invasion peddled by the media in the west.

Mr Russian 2 Oct 2015 19:13

The compromise plan would involve the Ukrainian parliament passing a law stating these elections were indeed legal, but they would be organised by the rebels.

Something tells that it's easy to say but hard to implement. Far right powers in Ukraine would resist such a law very much.

[Sep 29, 2015] World set for emerging market mass default, warns IMF - Telegraph

"... Exactly what was engineered, the oligarchs of the US Neoliberal Empire will now be able to pick up "emerging market" assets for pennies on the dollar increase their already vast holdings and secure Neoliberalism - or more correctly Neo-feudalism in fancy dress. ..."
"... We have seen the Neoliberals do this kind of empire building for the last 30 years first the Savings and Loan "crisis" in the 1990s which transferred over 300 billion in middle class assets into the hands of the Bass brothers and a few other oligarchs including the Cargill family at the time the largest transfer of wealth in peace time. ..."
"... The Great Neoliberal Empire of the Exceptionals has a big big appetite which will not be satisfied until the own the entire planet and rather than 4 billion people living on $2 a day it will be 7.3 billion. The Neoliberal world view [is one] of a few thousand oligarchs and Bangladesh as the rest of the world. ..."
Sep 29, 2015 | telegraph.co.uk

TheBoggart

"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued a double warning over higher US interest rates, which it said could trigger a wave of emerging
market corporate defaults"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

blueba • 7 hours ago

Exactly what was engineered, the oligarchs of the US Neoliberal Empire will now be able to pick up "emerging market" assets for pennies on the dollar increase their already vast holdings and secure Neoliberalism - or more correctly Neo-feudalism in fancy dress.

We have seen the Neoliberals do this kind of empire building for the last 30 years first the Savings and Loan "crisis" in the 1990s which transferred over 300 billion in middle class assets into the hands of the Bass brothers and a few other oligarchs including the Cargill family at the time the largest transfer of wealth in peace time. Then a few more small transfers and the the big "crisis" of 2007-8 which is ongoing and where close to a trillion in assets were consolidated in the hands of oligarchs.

First load on the debt with money created out of thin air by banks, then foreclose after the phony "bubble" bursts. Then walk away Scott free with the assets.

The Great Neoliberal Empire of the Exceptionals has a big big appetite which will not be satisfied until the own the entire planet and rather than 4 billion people living on $2 a day it will be 7.3 billion. The Neoliberal world view [is one] of a few thousand oligarchs and Bangladesh as the rest of the world.

[Sep 28, 2015] Violence instead of democracy: Putin slams policies of exceptionalism and impunity in UN speech

"Do you realize what you've done?" -- Putin about recent US sponsored color revolutions.
Notable quotes:
"... instead of reforms and the triumph of democracy and progress "we've got violence, poverty and social disaster, and human rights, including the right to life, to which no weight is given." ..."
"... "Rather than bringing about reforms, aggressive foreign interference has resulted in the brazen destruction of national institutions and the lifestyle itself," ..."
"... "Therefore they do not have to reckon with the UN, which instead of automatically authorizing, legitimizing the necessary decisions often creates obstacles or in other words 'stands in the way'." ..."
Sep 28, 2015 | RT News

The export of so-called 'democratic' revolutions has continued, but has unleashed poverty and violence instead of the triumph of democracy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said addressing the UN General Assembly.

Attempts to push for changes in other countries based on ideological preferences have led to "tragic consequences and degradation rather than progress," said Putin in his speech to world leaders and policy makers gathered at the UN General Assembly's anniversary 70th session in New York on Monday.

"We should all remember what our past has taught us," Putin said. "We, for instance, remember examples from the history of the Soviet Union."

It seems however that some are not learning from others' mistakes, but keep repeating them, he said, adding that "the export of so-called 'democratic' revolutions continues."

"I cannot help asking those who have caused this situation: Do you realize now what you have done?" he asked. "But I am afraid the question will hang in the air, because policies based on self-confidence and belief in one's exceptionality and impunity have never been abandoned."

He cited the example of revolutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa, where people have wished for change. However, instead of reforms and the triumph of democracy and progress "we've got violence, poverty and social disaster, and human rights, including the right to life, to which no weight is given."

"Rather than bringing about reforms, aggressive foreign interference has resulted in the brazen destruction of national institutions and the lifestyle itself," he said.

... ... ...

A single center of domination emerged in the world after the Cold War era ended, Putin stated. Those who were at the "top of this pyramid" were tempted to think that "if they were so strong and exceptional, they knew what to do better than others."

"Therefore they do not have to reckon with the UN, which instead of automatically authorizing, legitimizing the necessary decisions often creates obstacles or in other words 'stands in the way'."

[Sep 28, 2015] Obama America Has Few4 Economic Interests In Ukraine... And This Very Big One

Sep 28, 2015 | Zero Hedge
As part of his UN speech seeking to restore a crumbling Pax Americana, president Obama, eager to cover up US involvement in the Ukraine presidential coup of early 2014 (who can forget Victoria Nuland "strategy" interception in which she laid out the post-coup lay of the land, while saying to "fuck the EU"), just said that "America has few economic interest in Ukraine."

Herdee

Where and what did they do with Ukraine's gold bullion reserves and who is in possession of them right now and why is it such a big secret to everyone that overthrew the Government there?

directaction

Who cares? The Ukraine gold and all the rest of their resources are legitimate wartime plunder, booty, if you will. If the Ukrainians are stupid enough to happily allow the USA to barge in and take everything of value from them why should we weep?

viator

"George Soros has long called for the West to pump billions into Ukraine. Now he says he's ready to walk the talk.
The veteran hedge fund investor told an Austrian newspaper he was prepared to invest $1 billion in the collapsing war-ravaged economy under certain circumstances.

"There are concrete investment ideas, for example in agriculture and infrastructure projects. I would put in $1 billion," he told Der Standard. "This must generate a profit. My foundation would benefit from this, not me personally."

The Hungarian-born billionaire said Europe and the U.S. must show strong political leadership over Ukraine -- that would make it more attractive to private investors. The West could provide finance at European interest rates close to zero, for example.

A spokesman for Soros said his investment would depend on the West doing "whatever it takes" to rescue Ukraine."

http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/investing/ukraine-soros-billion-russia/

The Indelicate ...

What do you figure, LL - is the "New Khazaria" theory in any way legit, or is it bullshit?

Israel's Secret Plan for a "Second Israel" in Ukraine
http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/12/03/israel-secret-plan-for-se...

Notwithstanding the heavy presence of dual citizens yadda yadda, I kinda think the "secret report" was tongue-in-cheek and that this is basically bullshit. But in this messed up crazy world... stranger things....

I don't see Crimea going back to Ukraine though.

Latina Lover

Since the discussion is now academic (Crimea is not leaving Russia unless Russia itself is destroyed), I will be brief.

Kolomoysky is the president of a European Jewish Group, and active in Chabad. He was promoting Crimea as an alternate Jewish homeland until Crimea rejoined Russia. Kolomoysky then lost his real estate holdings, and Chabad the ability to dominate the Crimea.

If you are interested in further background, check out the following link:

http://www.inss.org.il/uploadImages/systemFiles/The%20Jewish.pdf

[Sep 27, 2015] US On The Ropes China To Join Russian Military In Syria While Iraq Strikes Intel Deal With Moscow, Tehran

Sep 27, 2015 | Zero Hedge
What appears to have happened here is this: Vladimir Putin has exploited both the fight against ISIS and Iran's need to preserve the regional balance of power on the way to enhancing Russia's influence over Mid-East affairs which in turn helps to ensure that Gazprom's interests are protected going forward.

Thanks to the awkward position the US has gotten itself in by covertly allying itself with various Sunni extremist groups, Washington is for all intents and purposes powerless to stop Putin lest the public should suddenly get wise to the fact that combating Russia's resurgence and preventing Iran from expanding its interests are more important than fighting terror.

In short, Washington gambled on a dangerous game of geopolitical chess, lost, and now faces two rather terrifyingly disastrous outcomes: 1) China establishing a presence in the Mid-East in concert with Russia and Iran, and 2) seeing Iraq effectively ceded to the Quds Force and ultimately, to the Russian army.

[Sep 26, 2015] Full text of Pope Francis speech before Congress

Notable quotes:
"... A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. ..."
"... All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. ..."
"... We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. ..."
"... If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. ..."
"... At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family ..."
Sep 26, 2015 | UPI.com

... ... ...

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

... ... ...

All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.

...We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.

In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.

...If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.

... ... ...

The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.

It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. "Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good" (Laudato Si', 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to "enter into dialogue with all people about our common home" (ibid., 3). "We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all" (ibid., 14).

In Laudato Si', I call for a courageous and responsible effort to "redirect our steps" (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a "culture of care" (ibid., 231) and "an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature" (ibid., 139). "We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology" (ibid., 112); "to devise intelligent ways of . . . developing and limiting our power" (ibid., 78); and to put technology "at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral" (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America's outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.

... ... ...

...At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.

... ... ...

[Sep 26, 2015] Full text of Pope Francis speech before Congress

Notable quotes:
"... A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. ..."
"... All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. ..."
"... We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. ..."
"... If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. ..."
"... At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family ..."
Sep 26, 2015 | UPI.com

... ... ...

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

... ... ...

All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.

...We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.

In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.

...If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.

... ... ...

The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.

It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. "Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good" (Laudato Si', 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to "enter into dialogue with all people about our common home" (ibid., 3). "We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all" (ibid., 14).

In Laudato Si', I call for a courageous and responsible effort to "redirect our steps" (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a "culture of care" (ibid., 231) and "an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature" (ibid., 139). "We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology" (ibid., 112); "to devise intelligent ways of . . . developing and limiting our power" (ibid., 78); and to put technology "at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral" (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America's outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.

... ... ...

...At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.

... ... ...

[Sep 26, 2015] The Table Is Set For The Next Financial Crisis

"... The $3.5 trillion of QE, six years of 0% interest rates for Wall Street (why are credit card interest rates still 13%?), and $8 trillion of deficit spending by the Federal government have provided the outward appearance of economic recovery, as the standard of living for most Americans has declined significantly. ..."
Sep 26, 2015 | Zero Hedge
The housing market peaked in 2005 and proceeded to crash over the next five years, with existing home sales falling 50%, new home sales falling 75%, and national home prices falling 30%. A funny thing happened after the peak. Wall Street banks accelerated the issuance of subprime mortgages to hyper-speed. The executives of these banks knew housing had peaked, but insatiable greed consumed them as they purposely doled out billions in no-doc liar loans as a necessary ingredient in their CDOs of mass destruction.

The millions in upfront fees, along with their lack of conscience in bribing Moody's and S&P to get AAA ratings on toxic waste, while selling the derivatives to clients and shorting them at the same time, in order to enrich executives with multi-million dollar compensation packages, overrode any thoughts of risk management, consequences, or the impact on homeowners, investors, or taxpayers. The housing boom began as a natural reaction to the Federal Reserve suppressing interest rates to, at the time, ridiculously low levels from 2001 through 2004 (child's play compared to the last six years).

... ... ...

Greenspan created the atmosphere for the greatest mal-investment in world history. As he raised rates from 2004 through 2006, the titans of finance on Wall Street should have scaled back their risk taking and prepared for the inevitable bursting of the bubble. Instead, they were blinded by unadulterated greed, as the legitimate home buyer pool dried up, and they purposely peddled "exotic" mortgages to dupes who weren't capable of making the first payment. This is what happens at the end of Fed induced bubbles. Irrationality, insanity, recklessness, delusion, and willful disregard for reason, common sense, historical data and truth lead to tremendous pain, suffering, and financial losses.

Once the Wall Street machine runs out of people with the financial means to purchase a home or buy a new vehicle, they turn their sights on peddling their debt products to financially illiterate dupes. There is a good reason people with credit scores below 620 are classified as sub-prime. Scores this low result from missing multiple payments on credit cards and loans, having multiple collection items or judgments and potentially having a very recent bankruptcy or foreclosure. They have low paying jobs or no job at all. They do not have the financial means to repay a large loan. Giving them a loan to purchase a $250,000 home or a $30,000 automobile will not improve their lives. They are being set up for a fall by the crooked bankers making these loans. Heads they win, tails the dupe gets kicked out of that nice house onto the street and has those nice wheels repossessed in the middle of the night.

The subprime debacle that blew up the world in 2008 was created by the Federal Reserve, working on behalf of their Wall Street owners. When interest rates are set by central planners well below levels which would be set by the free market, based on risk and return, it creates bubbles, mal-investment, and ultimately financial system disaster. Did the Fed, Wall Street, politicians, and people learn their lesson? No. Because we bailed them out with our tax dollars and have silently stood by while they have issued $10 trillion of additional debt to solve a debt problem. The deformation of our financial system accelerates by the day.

The $3.5 trillion of QE, six years of 0% interest rates for Wall Street (why are credit card interest rates still 13%?), and $8 trillion of deficit spending by the Federal government have provided the outward appearance of economic recovery, as the standard of living for most Americans has declined significantly. With real median household income still 6.5% BELOW 2007 levels, 7.3% BELOW 2000 levels, and about equal to 1989 levels, the only way the ruling class could manufacture a fake recovery is by ramping up the printing presses and reigniting a housing bubble and an auto bubble. They even threw in a student loan bubble for good measure.

... ... ...

The entire engineered "housing recovery" has had a suspicious smell to it all along. The true bottom occurred in 2009 with an annual rate of 4 million existing home sales. An artificial bottom of 3.5 million occurred in 2010 after the expiration of the Keynesian first time home buyer credit that lured more dupes into the market. The current rate of 5.31 million is at 2007 crash levels and on par with 2001 recession levels. With mortgage rates at record low levels for five years, this is all we got?

What really smells is the number of actual mortgage originations that have supposedly driven this 35% increase in existing home sales. If existing home sales are at 2007 levels, how could mortgage purchase applications be 55% below 2007 levels? If existing home sales are up 35% from the 2009/2010 lows, how could mortgage purchase applications be flat since 2010?

New home sales are up 80% from the 2010 lows, but before you get as excited as a CNBC bimbo over the "surging" new home sales, understand that new home sales are still 60% BELOW the 2005 high and 25% below the 1990 through 2000 average. So, in total, there are 1.5 million more annual home sales today than at the bottom in 2010. But mortgage originations haven't budged. That's quite a conundrum.

As you can also see, the median price for a new home far exceeds the bubble highs of 2005. A critical thinking individual might wonder how new home sales could be down 60% from 2005, while home prices are 15% higher than they were in 2005. Don't the laws of supply and demand work anymore? The identical trend can be seen in the existing homes sales market. The median price for existing home sales of $228,700 is an all-time high, exceeding the 2005 bubble levels. Again, sales are down 30% since 2005. I wonder who is responsible for this warped chain of events?

AlaricBalth

This FRED chart I have posted, which corresponds with the effective Fed Funds Rate chart in the article, will show exactly what a daunting problem the the US and the Federal Reserve is being forced to deal with. I have overlaid the Labor Force Participation Rate with M2 Velocity of Money, each beginning in 1960. M2 velocity refers to how fast money passes from one holder to the next. The labor force participation rate is a measure of the share of Americans at least 16 years old who are either employed or actively looking for work. If money demand is high, it could be a sign of a robust economy, with the usual corresponding inflationary pressure.

As you can see, each peaked around 1997-98 and have been in slow decline ever since. Unless the Fed has a plan to increase the LFPR, people are not going to be spending money they just do not have.

Demographically, this is not going to happen. Baby boomers will still be retiring at a rate of 10,000 per day and manufacturing is never coming back to the US until we are a third world country with a cheap labor force.

This is not an issue that can be fixed by political promises. So no matter which political party is in control, this will not be repaired with platitudes. This is a structural macro-economic phenomenon which is caused by demographics and poor long term fiscal planning.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1Vst

TeethVillage88s

Anyone have this video?

Elizabeth Warren Video, Late Night with Steven Colbert, 23 Sept 2015.

Defends Dodd-Frank and gave stats to prove the value of CFPB formed, like 650,000 complaints handled, and many changes forced on corporations.

Edit: Looks like CBS didn't release the segment of Elizabeth Warren only, so you have to go through whole show or just the 2:00 minute segment that only shows her saying she is not running for President.

Shame on CBS, as usual.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/jUNG_y...

Apparently I don't have the computer configured to play it anyway.

FreedomGuy

I do not think Wall Street and your local bankers or mortgage brokers are the bad guys here. Frankly, they look at the rules and try to make a living in the mortgage business. They are not angels but neither are they demons and I do not think they purposely write bad business.

I think the Wizard of Evil behind the curtain is first and last the government including a GSE like the Fed. They set this stuff up. You know you can load up Freddie and Fannie with smelly stuff and off-load risk. They hold rates near historic lows so people can buy more.

This drives prices and all the flipping crap and related stuff I hate.

I am in the middle of this. Being an avid reader of ZH I have become a proper pessimist. I did a cash-out refi and am paying off virtually all other loans...or more properly moving them to the tax deductible home loan. I was going to rent and move north because of work but after lots of research, breathtaking price increases and a few other cautions I decided to sit it out.

I am going to see what the economic terrain looks like in 6 months or more.

The thing is you have to play the game as it is, today, not as you think it should be.

marts321

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

TeethVillage88s

Check out the growth of Holding companies.

Financial Business; Credit Market Instruments; Liability, Level
2015:Q1: 14,104.57 Billions of Dollars (+ see more)
Quarterly, End of Period, Not Seasonally Adjusted, TCMDODFS,

Holding Companies; Credit Market Instruments; Liability, Level
2015:Q1: 1,380.52 Billions of Dollars (+ see more)
Quarterly, End of Period, Not Seasonally Adjusted, CBBHCTCMDODFS,
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CBBHCTCMDODFS

U.S.-Chartered Depository Institutions; Credit Market Instruments; Liability, Level
2015:Q1: 669.90 Billions of Dollars (+ see more)
Quarterly, End of Period, Not Seasonally Adjusted, CBTCMDODFS,

Now, we know that in 2007 the Biggest Wall Street banks wanted access to Deposits in the USA. So maybe I don't have the date, could have been planned from Lehman Request date to become a Deposit Bank while an Investment Bank.

So today we have Holding Companies that are allowed to have Deposits while doing commercial and investment work and proprietary trading... and now are 30% Bigger after all the Bailouts and transfer of Taxpayer and Retirement Funds to them.

Holding Companies have Doubled Liability since 3QTR 2007

Wow

TeethVillage88s

Too Bad we don't have Honest Brokers in DOJ, FBI, SEC, FINRA, FTC, GAO, CBO, FED, Treasury, OCC, FSOC, BCFP, CFTC, FDIC, FHFA, SIPC

I'm not sure how you can isolate or focus your condemnation or fault.

  • - Private & Public Pensions, Retirement Funds, Deposit Insurance, The Fact that our Wall Street Banks are Borg connecting to AI Technology,... and Complexity is increasing at an Exponential Rate meaning Risk is Exponential as well
  • - Big Concern -- pay outs for Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (federal Trust Fund), 1999 = $1.23 Billion, 2000 = $1.35 Billion, 2001 =$1.37 Billion. Okay, but today 2010 = $5.59 B, 2011 = $5.89 B, 2012 = $5.86 B, 2013 = $5.89 B. There is a continual need to supplement Pensions. 2010 PBGC's deficit increased 4.5 percent to $23 billion (Liabilities beyond assets)
  • - Federal direct student loan program 1999 = $52 Billion, INCREASED to 2013 = $675 Billion. (Risky)
  • - 2013 Total FDIC Trust Fund in Treasuries = $36.9 Billion + $18 billion in the DIF (Risky)
  • - 2013 Total National Credit Union Trust in Treasuries = $11.2 Billion

Edit: This applies, $8.16 Trillion in US Deposits

Total Savings Deposits at all Depository Institutions
2015-09-07: 8,164.3 Billions of Dollars (+ see more)
Weekly, Ending Monday, Not Seasonally Adjusted, WSAVNS,
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/WSAVNS

dizzyfingers

"Sociopaths" (psychopaths) rise to the top. They are not like others. http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15850/1/Characteristics-of-a-Sociopath.html

EndOfDayExit

To all hysterical critics of the FED, what do you suggest they do instead? The rich can do nothing, sit it out, the poor meanwhile will starve and die (and probably riot before they die).

The poor need jobs. Now almost at any cost, because those jobs are few and far in between as we are competing with China. So they do ZIRP, NIRP whatever, something, anything to at least marginally force the rich to spend. For, if people do not spend there will be even less jobs…and less tax revenue collected for the government to run and distribute around… and it all starts going downhill.

The FED is just trying to keep the system at the higher spending point. It does not seem to work very well, but the next option is a direct confiscation and redistribution of assets (to keep those poor jobless souls content). Nobody gives a f* about inequality until it becomes a riot-provoking problem itself. Ugly as it is there is actually logic in what the FED is doing.

Batman11

The globalists rush to take the profits in the good times but run and hide in the bad.

Where is the profit in sorting out the bad times? In the bad times national institutions, Governments and Central Banks, get left to sort out the mess loading the costs onto national tax payers.

When things go wrong nationalism rises as each nation is left to fend for itself. We should know how it works by now, this isn't the first time.

  • 1920s/2000s - high inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless bankers, globalisation phase
  • 1929/2008 - Wall Street crash
  • 1930s/2010s - Global recession, currency wars, rising nationalism and extremism
  • 1940s/? - Global war

We are nearly there with the Middle East on fire and the two nuclear super-powers at each other's throats.

Maybe next time we will know better, third time lucky.

mianne

Cherry picker, I agree with you : " All our government up here has to do is get out of NATO, disband our version of the CIA, divorce Homeland Security, duty and tax all imports to the hilt, keep our water, electricity and natural resources to ourselves and manufacture our own products... Then you can have all the wars you want in the middle east and we will watch it on television without worrying about whether to be part of the murder brigade or not."

But as for ourselves, as governed by the totalitarian EU whose representatives are non elected by people, but were chosen by the international finance tycoons ( our elected presidents deprived of any power by the supranational non elected entity, US- OTAN driven European Union), we are just powerless slaves .

However we won the referendum ( 52 % ) against the content of the Maastricht-Lisbon European Constitution, but they do not take it into account, submitting us to the ignominious treaty . Democracy ?

[Sep 26, 2015] Paul Krugman Dewey, Cheatem Howe

"... That is brilliant - so Turing Pharmaceuticals is a classical - wait for it - parasitic infection! ..."
"... The point is we should be trying to make our regulation more intelligent (making it encourage not discourage innovation - cheaper and easier to police - less subject to regulatory capture etc.). ..."
Sep 26, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com

Economist's View

Republicans can't help but side with business, but there are very good reasons for the recent increase in regulatory oversight:
Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Item: The C.E.O. of Volkswagen has resigned after revelations that his company committed fraud on an epic scale, installing software on its diesel cars that detected when their emissions were being tested, and produced deceptively low results.
  • Item: The former president of a peanut company has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for knowingly shipping tainted products that later killed nine people and sickened 700.
  • Item: Rights to a drug used to treat parasitic infections were acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which specializes not in developing new drugs but in buying existing drugs and jacking up their prices. In this case, the price went from $13.50 a tablet to $750. ...

There are, it turns out, people in the corporate world who will do whatever it takes, including fraud that kills people, in order to make a buck. And we need effective regulation to police that kind of bad behavior... But we knew that, right?

Well, we used to know it... But ... an important part of America's political class has declared war on even the most obviously necessary regulations. ...

A case in point: This week Jeb Bush, who has an uncanny talent for bad timing, chose to publish an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal denouncing the Obama administration for issuing "a flood of creativity-crushing and job-killing rules." Never mind his misuse of cherry-picked statistics, or the fact that private-sector employment has grown much faster under President Obama's "job killing" policies than it did under Mr. Bush's brother's administration. ...

The thing is, Mr. Bush isn't wrong to suggest that there has been a move back toward more regulation under Mr. Obama, a move that will probably continue if a Democrat wins next year. After all, Hillary Clinton released a plan to limit drug prices at the same time Mr. Bush was unleashing his anti-regulation diatribe.

But the regulatory rebound is taking place for a reason. Maybe we had too much regulation in the 1970s, but we've now spent 35 years trusting business to do the right thing with minimal oversight - and it hasn't worked.

So what has been happening lately is an attempt to redress that imbalance, to replace knee-jerk opposition to regulation with the judicious use of regulation where there is good reason to believe that businesses might act in destructive ways. Will we see this effort continue? Next year's election will tell.

reason

"Item: Rights to a drug used to treat parasitic infections were acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which specializes not in developing new drugs but in buying existing drugs and jacking up their prices. In this case, the price went from $13.50 a tablet to $750. ..."

That is brilliant - so Turing Pharmaceuticals is a classical - wait for it - parasitic infection!

reason

"So what has been happening lately is an attempt to redress that imbalance, to replace knee-jerk opposition to regulation with the judicious use of regulation where there is good reason to believe that businesses might act in destructive ways. Will we see this effort continue? Next year's election will tell."

Personally, I don't think this is really addressing the key point. You can't actually avoid regulation (the alternative to public regulation - as pushed by say Milton Friedman - ends up being private regulation - which is just as subject to regulatory capture). The point is we should be trying to make our regulation more intelligent (making it encourage not discourage innovation - cheaper and easier to police - less subject to regulatory capture etc.). The policy discussions about this a difficult enough with good faith - but bad faith politics makes this impossible. We need to throw the Gingrich revolution in the dustbin as soon as possible.

[Sep 25, 2015] Paul Krugman Dewey, Cheatem Howe

The point is we should be trying to make our regulation more intelligent (making it encourage not discourage innovation - cheaper and easier to police - less subject to regulatory capture etc.
"... So what has been happening lately is an attempt to redress that imbalance, to replace knee-jerk opposition to regulation with the judicious use of regulation where there is good reason to believe that businesses might act in destructive ways. Will we see this effort continue? Next year's election will tell. ..."
"... That is brilliant - so Turing Pharmaceuticals is a classical - wait for it - parasitic infection! ..."
"... The point is we should be trying to make our regulation more intelligent (making it encourage not discourage innovation - cheaper and easier to police - less subject to regulatory capture etc.). ..."
"... The reality is that, in the absence of effective regulation with substantial penalties, all of the incentives are to lie, cheat, and steal. In consequence, it really is the norm, if only in more minor ways than the ones that make the headlines. Wage theft, fraud, knowingly selling defective merchandise, and many other abuses are clearly rampant. This is exactly why markets cannot exist in the absence of effective government regulation to provide trust. ..."
"... Economic idealists have popularized the notion that the world can work without much regulations because their models tell them so. Unless they are behavioral economists, they often fail to include fraud, scams & information asymmetry into their models. This produces garbage like efficient markets that only exist in an idealistic dream world. The real world markets are filled with fraud, scams and disreputable agents. Failure to account for bad behavior is the bane of many a model. ..."
"... But I love Obama because he has created a wonderland of money for lawyers and consultants, a river of chocolate and honey to make Willy Wonka jealous. Go Barry go! ..."
"...


..."

Sep 25, 2015 | Economist's View
Republicans can't help but side with business, but there are very good reasons for the recent increase in regulatory oversight:
Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Item: The C.E.O. of Volkswagen has resigned after revelations that his company committed fraud on an epic scale, installing software on its diesel cars that detected when their emissions were being tested, and produced deceptively low results.

Item: The former president of a peanut company has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for knowingly shipping tainted products that later killed nine people and sickened 700.

Item: Rights to a drug used to treat parasitic infections were acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which specializes not in developing new drugs but in buying existing drugs and jacking up their prices. In this case, the price went from $13.50 a tablet to $750. ...

There are, it turns out, people in the corporate world who will do whatever it takes, including fraud that kills people, in order to make a buck. And we need effective regulation to police that kind of bad behavior... But we knew that, right?

Well, we used to know it... But ... an important part of America's political class has declared war on even the most obviously necessary regulations. ...

A case in point: This week Jeb Bush, who has an uncanny talent for bad timing, chose to publish an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal denouncing the Obama administration for issuing "a flood of creativity-crushing and job-killing rules." Never mind his misuse of cherry-picked statistics, or the fact that private-sector employment has grown much faster under President Obama's "job killing" policies than it did under Mr. Bush's brother's administration. ...

The thing is, Mr. Bush isn't wrong to suggest that there has been a move back toward more regulation under Mr. Obama, a move that will probably continue if a Democrat wins next year. After all, Hillary Clinton released a plan to limit drug prices at the same time Mr. Bush was unleashing his anti-regulation diatribe.

But the regulatory rebound is taking place for a reason. Maybe we had too much regulation in the 1970s, but we've now spent 35 years trusting business to do the right thing with minimal oversight - and it hasn't worked.

So what has been happening lately is an attempt to redress that imbalance, to replace knee-jerk opposition to regulation with the judicious use of regulation where there is good reason to believe that businesses might act in destructive ways. Will we see this effort continue? Next year's election will tell.

reason

"Item: Rights to a drug used to treat parasitic infections were acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which specializes not in developing new drugs but in buying existing drugs and jacking up their prices. In this case, the price went from $13.50 a tablet to $750. ..."

That is brilliant - so Turing Pharmaceuticals is a classical - wait for it - parasitic infection!

reason

"So what has been happening lately is an attempt to redress that imbalance, to replace knee-jerk opposition to regulation with the judicious use of regulation where there is good reason to believe that businesses might act in destructive ways. Will we see this effort continue? Next year's election will tell."

Personally, I don't think this is really addressing the key point. You can't actually avoid regulation (the alternative to public regulation - as pushed by say Milton Friedman - ends up being private regulation - which is just as subject to regulatory capture). The point is we should be trying to make our regulation more intelligent (making it encourage not discourage innovation - cheaper and easier to police - less subject to regulatory capture etc.). The policy discussions about this a difficult enough with good faith - but bad faith politics makes this impossible. We need to throw the Gingrich revolution in the dustbin as soon as possible.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to reason...

YEP!

What politicians can get away with is an artifact of the limited toolset that the electorate has to express its informed will. We need a well educated democracy and the democratic part of that requires Constitutional electoral reforms (e.g., gerrymandering, campaign finance). A bit of the educational aspect of a voting actually democratic republic would naturally work itself out with a more engaged and empowered electorate participating ACTIVELY.

With the system as it is then it takes a shock wave through the electorate for them to throw the bums out, but there is no follow through. There is a failsafe reaction function, but no more than that except on specific social issues that get overwhelming support where politicians can move with the electoral majority at zero cost while reactionary politicians can triangulate and pander some votes from the minority opinion of those too old or set in their ways to participate in the social sea change.

ilsm said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

The threat is "faith voters", dogma developed by billionaires' propaganda to plunder the world.

DrDick said in reply to reason...

Krugman is far too kind to the businessmen. The reality is that, in the absence of effective regulation with substantial penalties, all of the incentives are to lie, cheat, and steal. In consequence, it really is the norm, if only in more minor ways than the ones that make the headlines. Wage theft, fraud, knowingly selling defective merchandise, and many other abuses are clearly rampant. This is exactly why markets cannot exist in the absence of effective government regulation to provide trust.

DeDude said in reply to reason...

Exactly; what we need is a detailed debate on each specific regulation. What it intends to accomplish, whether that could be accomplished in a less burdensome way, and whether the accomplishment is sufficient to justify the burden. However, that is not something that can happen in the 15 second soundbite that appears to be the attention span of the average voter.

Lee A. Arnold said in reply to Second Best...

Second Best: "Markets work if allowed to self regulate."

No. Never happened, except in local instances. For self-regulation you need proper prices, and for proper prices you need proper supply and demand.

For proper supply you need perfect competition, so there must be numerous competitors entering the same market, and this requires, among other things, almost no intellectual protection.

For proper demand, you need perfectly informed consumers, and this is not only impossible, but it is getting far far worse, because the complexity of the world is increasing.

The problem with state regulation is that it also falls prey to the same objections, although at a slower rate. We use votes not prices, but the same imperfection of information and lack of flexibility causes problems with the voting system.

When you combine this problem with the increase in inequality (which was masked temporarily by World War II and the subsequent spurt of blue-collar jobs productivity), we are headed into an accelerated amelioration of the market system by greater public ownership.


RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Lee A. Arnold...

"Peanut butter does not kill people, people kill people."

[If you can read a opening sentence like that and not recognize it as satirical parody, then you might want to look around to find the sense of humor that you lost. When the will of the people is no more than a euphemism for dollar democracy then parody, satire, sarcasm, and a healthy dose of cynicism are called for.]

JF said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron..

Lee A Arnold - Think Jonathan Swift and his piece about the way to reduce subsidies for the orphaned poor infants, it is to reduce their number so we feel good about the fact that we help the few poor infants left alive.

I reacted a few times to Second Best's comments before I recognized the satire.

But I also have used his comments as a way to bring out the more logical, real-world of facts and rationality - so commentary helps either way. I suppose that serves 2nd Best's interests too.

JF said in reply to JF...

I believe the Jonathan Swift recommendations are the preferred republican-party approach to Social Security too. Really need fewer claimants, that will solve the accounting problems.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Second Best...

"Peanut butter does not kill people, people kill people. Car emissions do not kill people ... high drug prices do not kill people ... people do."

[This is an economics blog. You cannot be that "subtle (???)" and expect people to recognize your satire. Maybe there is a humorous math equation that economists can understand. I guess economics graduate school is so boring that most people lose all sense of humor. I am glad that Krugman has kept his.]

Richard H. Serlin said...

"Then there's for-profit education, an industry wracked by fraud - because it's very hard for students to assess what they're getting - that leaves all too many young Americans with heavy debt burdens and no real prospect of better jobs. But Mr. Bush denounces attempts at a cleanup."

And worse, wasting their incredibly valuable and rare young years, quite possibly their only chance before age and children make it extremely hard, not getting an education. Such a big thing. You don't do it when you're young, with the power and freedom and lack of dependents of youth, the opportunity may easily be gone forever. Such a brutal cost these predators and their Republican allies extract.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Richard H. Serlin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_States

Cost shifting and privatization

One cause of increased tuition is the reduction of state and federal appropriations to state colleges, causing the institutions to shift the cost over to students in the form of higher tuition. State support for public colleges and universities has fallen by about 26 percent per full-time student since the early 1990s.[10] In 2011, for the first time, American public universities took in more revenue from tuition than state funding.[9][11] Critics say the shift from state support to tuition represents an effective privatization of public higher education.[11][12] About 80 percent of American college students attend public institutions...

bakho said...

Economics Professors of the "free market" bent for years have indoctrinated youth with the misguided notion that "regulations are bad" and market methods, no matter how RubeGoldberg, are always better. " You don't need to regulate pollution, just put a tax on it," as an example. Even cap and trade would not work without stiff emissions regulations.

Economic idealists have popularized the notion that the world can work without much regulations because their models tell them so. Unless they are behavioral economists, they often fail to include fraud, scams & information asymmetry into their models. This produces garbage like efficient markets that only exist in an idealistic dream world. The real world markets are filled with fraud, scams and disreputable agents. Failure to account for bad behavior is the bane of many a model.

ilsm said in reply to bakho...

Sanctity of the "market"......

I got a jar of this snake oil here too!

The market they sell is the one that runs in Honduras

Tom aka Rusty said...

A couple of random observations:

Last time I looked about 150 Dodd-Frank regs had not been written yet, some of the key ACA regs are three years late.

Obama-ites have written some of the most complex, convoluted regs of the past 40 years, the health EMR regs have practically guaranteed a windfall for IT companies and a failure for EMR/EHR.

No mention of the Obama-Holder "too big to prosecute doctrine."

The new overtime regs will likely be in the "driving thumb tacks with a sledge hammer" mode.

But I love Obama because he has created a wonderland of money for lawyers and consultants, a river of chocolate and honey to make Willy Wonka jealous. Go Barry go!

pgl said in reply to kthomas...

Rusty wants us to believe he is the only one who understands health care so he is a persistent critic of ObamaCare. But now he wants to pretend he's the expert on financial markets too? Seriously? Dodd-Frank is complicated only because the Jamie Dimons of the world milk every opportunity to game financial markets. If Rusty thinks letting Jamie Dimon evade any financial market regulation is a good idea - he is the most clue person ever.

DrDick said in reply to pgl...

He was just trying to do us a favor and demonstrate exactly what is meant by "knee-jerk opposition to regulation ."

JF said in reply to Tom aka Rusty...

Have you ever looked at the multi-party derived hedging instruments in play now - they can hardly get more complex, and indeed most didn't understand them when they were made, and these are still complex now.

So I have to say, that the 'marketplace' makes Krugman's point about complexity. It comes from humans cunningly doing stuff that serves their interests at the time as they see it. Not always wisdom at work here.

But it is complex, and so regulation of such complexity, if the generally applicable rules seek some fairness (classes of people are usually affected differently) and stands a test of due process too - the regulations will also need to be complex. The complexity came first, the regulations come afterwards (after society learns of the stupidity the hard way).

Railing about this is a form of misleading sophistry, a rhetorical device to reverse the causality.

We can think with more foresight and regulate before the stupid complexity arises, but it does take a rational policy making environment for this exploration, discussion and policy-making to occur with good foresight - I am waiting for the new Congress in 2017.

If the Warren-Sanders people have any influence then, we may see a whole lot less complex financial system (it's a riot when you think how the Efficient Market Hypothesis, a theoretical justification for the marketplace's range of instruments in fact led to more complexity, less real efficiency and effectiveness, and ossification of the system when it needed to be resilient but stable as a well-behaved system can be).

We will probably be better off after the 2017 debates. After all, this community of actors are only intermediaries on behalf of real productive outcomes truly needed by society - right, they are just intermediaries? How much inter-mediation does the economy need?

david s said...

The Obama Administration has been friendlier to corporate America than W's was.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/454963/matt-taibbi-bush-far-tougher-than-obama-corporate-america

im1dc said...

While it was Ronald Reagan and his Republican Party that called for deregulation not much was done until Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, gave federal deregulation his blessing in speeches from NY to Aspen to California in which he said "the market" will reign in excesses and regulate itself b/c of competition acting egregiously would create.

Oopsie, Old Alan got it ALL WRONG again!

I thought a little history would help in this thread.

likbez said...

My impression is that regulation always reflects the needs of who is in power today. One the key ingredients of political power is the ability to push the laws that benefit particular constituent. And to block laws that don't.

If we assume that financial oligarchy is in power today, then it is clear that there can be no effective regulation of financial services and by extension regulation of derivatives. And if on the wave of public indignation such regulation is adopted, it will be gradually watered down and then eliminated down the road.

And you can always hire people who will justify your point of view.

In this sense neither Milton Friedman nor Greenspan were independent players. They sold themselves for money and were promoted into positions they have for specific purpose. I am not sure the either of them believed the crap they speak or wrote.


[Sep 25, 2015] Big Business Is Economic Cancer, Part I Zero Hedge

It is under state capitalism that TBTF can't exists. Under neoliberalism they rule the country, so the question about cutting their political power of dismantling them is simply naive. Nobody give political power without a fight.
"... Today, with governments which are nothing but literally the junior partners (of Big Business) in government-by-crime-syndicate, these laws might as well no longer exist, as they are practically never enforced. Indeed, an entity must be a political/economic pariah, or simply lacking "connections" if it is unable to sneak some merger or take-over past our totally compliant governments, and their fast-asleep "regulators". ..."
"... There could never be an economic system, or economic argument where "too big to fail" could ever be a rational/legitimate policy. Put another way, no level of short-term economic harm or shock could possibly equal the long-term harm (and insanity) of institutionalized blackmail – which is all that "too big to fail" ever was/is. You must protect us, no matter what we do, no matter what the cost. Utter insanity. Utter criminality. ..."
"... An oligopoly is where a small group of companies dominate/control an entire market or sector. Here it is important to understand that oligopolies are every bit as "evil" as monopolies (in every way), but the oligopoly puts a happy-face on this evil. Oligopolies represent pretend competition. ..."
"... But such corporate extortion via oligopolies/monopolies is certainly not confined to the banking sector. The Oligarchs engage in such extortion (against corrupt governments which require absolutely no arm-twisting) in virtually every sector of our economies, but generally in not quite as extreme a form as what is perpetrated by the Big Banks. ..."
"... Read Schumpeter beginning to end. He recognized the evolution of increasingly larger-scale, boom-and-bust "capitalism" from free-enterprise, entrepreneurial capitalism to industrial capitalism and eventually to various forms of state-capitalism, corporate-statism, or quasi-fascism we have today, or what I refer to as militarist-imperialist, rentier-socialist, or Anglo-American corporate-state. ..."
Sep 25, 2015 | www.zerohedge.com

Today, with governments which are nothing but literally the junior partners (of Big Business) in government-by-crime-syndicate, these laws might as well no longer exist, as they are practically never enforced. Indeed, an entity must be a political/economic pariah, or simply lacking "connections" if it is unable to sneak some merger or take-over past our totally compliant governments, and their fast-asleep "regulators".

Today we have corporate monoliths which are literally orders of magnitude larger than any remotely "optimal" size, with the ultimate and most-obvious examples being those hideously bloated financial behemoths which we now know as "the Big Banks". How ridiculously too-big have the Big Banks gotten?

Even the most-ardent admirer of the Big Banks in the entire media world, Bloomberg, couldn't stop itself from openly salivating about how much "profit" could be had, just by beginning to chop-down the financial fraud-factory which we know as JPMorgan Chase & Co.:

JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, would be worth 30 percent more if broken into its four business segments, an unlikely scenario, an analyst at Stifel Financial Corp.'s KBW unit said.

Note that there is not one word in the article indicating that there couldn't be a lot more profit to be made, by then smashing those pieces into much smaller pieces still. This article simply pointed to the instant profit of 30% which would be available just by beginning to chop-down this obscenely large behemoth, and in the simplest manner possible.

Why would "smaller" be much more valuable, in our forward-looking markets, in the case of smashing JPMorgan down-to-size (or at least beginning that process)? Obviously a major portion of that profit quotient would have to be derived from greater efficiency. Smaller is better.

However, pointing out that even the greatest admirer/biggest cheerleader of the Big Banks has observed how we would all be better off if the Big Banks were smaller is only a start. We then come to the heinous propaganda which the cheerleaders (including Bloomberg) have dubbed "too big to fail".

This is a very simple subject. "Too big to fail" is a pseudo-concept which is entirely antithetical to any economic system which even pretends to adhere to the principles of "free markets". Free markets demand that insolvent entities fail, it is the only way for such free markets to heal, when weakened by the misallocation of assets (such as in the case of insolvent enterprises). No business, or group of businesses could ever be "too big to fail".

There could never be an economic system, or economic argument where "too big to fail" could ever be a rational/legitimate policy. Put another way, no level of short-term economic harm or shock could possibly equal the long-term harm (and insanity) of institutionalized blackmail – which is all that "too big to fail" ever was/is. You must protect us, no matter what we do, no matter what the cost. Utter insanity. Utter criminality.

Understand that our own, corrupt governments embarked upon this criminal insanity long after the equally criminalized government of Japan already proved that too-big-to-fail was a failed policy. Not only could there never be an argument in favor of this criminality, our governments knew it would fail before they ever rubber-stamped this systemic corruption.

But all of these arguments against the insanity of perverting and skewing our economies in favor of Big Business, and against Small Business pale into insignificance compared to the principal condemnation of too-Big Business: the economic "cannibals" known as monopolies and oligopolies.

For readers unfamiliar with these terms because the Corporate media and charlatan economists try to pretend that these words don't exist, a brief refresher is in order. As most readers know, a monopoly is where a single enterprise effectively controls an entire market or sector. While a "monopoly" may be desirable when playing a board-game, in the real world these parasitic entities do nothing but blood-suck, from any/every economy they are able to "corner".

However, the majority of people, even today, are at least partially familiar with the evils of monopolies, thus the ultra-wealthy Oligarchs rarely attempt to perpetrate their systemic theft via these corporate fronts. Instead, they perpetrate most of their organized crime via oligopolies.

An oligopoly is where a small group of companies dominate/control an entire market or sector. Here it is important to understand that oligopolies are every bit as "evil" as monopolies (in every way), but the oligopoly puts a happy-face on this evil. Oligopolies represent pretend competition.

These corporate fronts cooperate as closely as possible in systemically plundering economies. How do monopolies/oligopolies rob from us? The "old-fashioned" way for these blood-suckers to do so was via simple price-gouging. When you have complete control over a sector/market, you can charge any price you want.

However, not surprisingly, the Little People tend to notice when the Oligarchs use their corporate fronts to engage in simple price-gouging. They actually begin to notice the general evil which oligopolies/monopolies represent, and that is "bad for business" (i.e. crime).

Instead, the Oligarch Thieves of the 21st century engage in their robbery-by-corporation in a different, more sophisticated/less-visible manner: via corporate welfare. What other crime can monopolies and oligopolies perpetrate, with overwhelming success? Naked extortion.

As previously explained; "too-big-to-fail" (and now even "too big to jail") is nothing but the most-obvious and most-despicable form of corporate extortion (or simply economic terrorism): give us all the money we want, or we'll blow up the financial sector. Small banks could never perpetrate such a crime (terrorism).

But such corporate extortion via oligopolies/monopolies is certainly not confined to the banking sector. The Oligarchs engage in such extortion (against corrupt governments which require absolutely no arm-twisting) in virtually every sector of our economies, but generally in not quite as extreme a form as what is perpetrated by the Big Banks.

Typically, the extortion which precedes even more Corporate welfare, occurs in this form: give us everything we want, or we will close our factory/business, and you will (temporarily) lose those jobs. Here we don't need to imagine this in the hypothetical, as we have a particularly blatant example of such Corporate extortion/welfare, courtesy of U.S. Steel:

U.S. Steel Canada Inc. is threatening to cease operations in Canada by the end of the year if an Ontario Superior Court judge rejects its request to stop paying municipal taxes, halt payments into pension funds, and cut off health care and other benefits to 20,000 retirees and their dependents. [emphasis mine]

... ... ...

kanoli

Like most of Jeff Nielson's rants, this one is nonsensical. If small business hires more people to produce the same product or service as a big business, they cannot do so at the same or lower price unless they are paying a lower wage.

The problem with big business isn't that it is big - it is their tendency to lobby government for regulations that stifle small business competitors.

If politicians were not for sale, it wouldn't matter whether a business is big or small. Neither would have undue influence on the law.

The problem is regulatory democracy where all laws are constantly subject to fiddling by an elected legislature.

Element

In practice a balanced mix of all sized businesses are necessary in a planetary civilization that trades products globally. Getting the mix 'right' and not having big business get away with preventing competition, or of govt throttling to skim and micro-control is most of the deleterious effect on business, and on human beings in general.

Unfortunately humans have been trained to like Logos, and to buy 'wants' accordingly.

iDroned on a bit,

2c

newnormaleconomics

Read Schumpeter beginning to end. He recognized the evolution of increasingly larger-scale, boom-and-bust "capitalism" from free-enterprise, entrepreneurial capitalism to industrial capitalism and eventually to various forms of state-capitalism, corporate-statism, or quasi-fascism we have today, or what I refer to as militarist-imperialist, rentier-socialist, or Anglo-American corporate-state.

The current state of the evolution of "capitalism" is its advanced, late-stage, financialized, globalized phase.

With Peak Oil, population overshoot, unprecedented debt to wages and GDP, Limits to Growth, climate change, a record low for labor share, decelerating productivity, OBSCENE wealth and income inequality, and increasing geopolitical tensions, growth of real GDP per capita is done, which means that growth of profits, investment, and capital formation/accumulation is done, which in turn means "capitalism" is done.

... ... ...

[Sep 24, 2015] Don Quijones: Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects TISA and Global Corporatocracy

Notable quotes:
"... 1.TiSA would "lock in" the privatization of services – even in cases where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other services to public hands. ..."
"... 2.TiSA would restrict signatory governments' right to regulate stronger standards in the public's interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses. ..."
"... 3.TiSA would limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry, at a time when the global economy is still struggling to recover from a crisis caused primarily by financial deregulation. More specifically, if signed the trade agreement would: ..."
"... 4. TiSA would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and localization requirements for ICT service providers. A provision proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for the transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place in EU data protection law. In other words, multinational corporations will have carte blanche to pry into just about every facet of the working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the world's 200-or-so nations. ..."
"... 5. Finally, TiSA, together with its sister treaties TPP and TTIP, would establish a new global enclosure system, one that seeks to impose on all 52 signatory governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial risk and social and environmental responsibility. In short, it would hammer the final nail in the already bedraggled coffin of national sovereignty. ..."
"... So, not to be snarky or anything but when does the invasion of Uruguay begin. ..."
"... In the US, corporations largely have replaced government since WWII or so, or at least pretend to offer the services that a government might provide. ..."
"... Neoliberalism that we have now as a dominant social system is a flavor of corporatism. If so, it is corporations which now represent the most politically powerful actors. They literally rule the country. And it is they who select the president, most congressmen and Senators. Try to ask yourself a question: to what political force Barak "change we can believe in" Obama serves. ..."
"... "And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place" ..."
"... This is such a huge, huge, vital issue. Privatisation of public assets has to rank as one of the highest crimes at the government level. It is treason, perhaps the only crime for which i wouldn't object capital punishment. ..."
"... What's more, we now have some 40 years of data showing that privatisation doesn't work. surely, we can organise and successfully argue that privatisation has never worked for any country any time. There needs to be an intellectual assault on privatisation discrediting it forever. ..."
Sep 24, 2015 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Posted on September 23, 2015 by Lambert Strether

Lambert here: A little good news on the trade front, and a victory for open discussion and critical thinking.

By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street.

Often referred to as the Switzerland of South America, Uruguay is long accustomed to doing things its own way. It was the first nation in Latin America to establish a welfare state. It also has an unusually large middle class for the region and unlike its giant neighbors to the north and west, Brazil and Argentina, is largely free of serious income inequality.

Two years ago, during José Mujica's presidency, Uruguay became the first nation to legalize marijuana in Latin America, a continent that is being ripped apart by drug trafficking and its associated violence and corruption of state institutions.

Now Uruguay has done something that no other semi-aligned nation on this planet has dared to do: it has rejected the advances of the global corporatocracy.

The Treaty That Must Not Be Named

Earlier this month Uruguay's government decided to end its participation in the secret negotiations of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). After months of intense pressure led by unions and other grassroots movements that culminated in a national general strike on the issue – the first of its kind around the globe – the Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez bowed to public opinion and left the US-led trade agreement.

Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay's historic decision has been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the country's borders, mainstream media has refused to cover the story.

This is hardly a surprise given that the global public is not supposed to even know about TiSA's existence, despite – or again because of – the fact that it's arguably the most important of the new generation of global trade agreements. According to WikiLeaks, it "is the largest component of the United States' strategic 'trade' treaty triumvirate," which also includes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).

TiSA involves more countries than TTIP and TPP combined: The United States and all 28 members of the European Union, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.

Together, these 52 nations form the charmingly named "Really Good Friends of Services" group, which represents almost 70% of all trade in services worldwide. Until its government's recent u-turn Uruguay was supposed to be the 53rd Good Friend of Services.

TiSA Trailer

TiSA has spent the last two years taking shape behind the hermetically sealed doors of highly secure locations around the world. According to the agreement's provisional text, the document is supposed to remain confidential and concealed from public view for at least five years after being signed. Even the World Trade Organization has been sidelined from negotiations.

But thanks to whistle blowing sites like WikiLeaks, the Associated Whistleblowing Press and Filtrala, crucial details have seeped to the surface. Here's a brief outline of what is known to date (for more specifics click here, here and here):

1.TiSA would "lock in" the privatization of services – even in cases where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other services to public hands.

2.TiSA would restrict signatory governments' right to regulate stronger standards in the public's interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses.

3.TiSA would limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry, at a time when the global economy is still struggling to recover from a crisis caused primarily by financial deregulation. More specifically, if signed the trade agreement would:

  • Restrict the ability of governments to place limits on the trading of derivative contracts - the largely unregulated weapons of mass financial destruction that helped trigger the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis.
  • Bar new financial regulations that do not conform to deregulatory rules. Signatory governments will essentially agree not to apply new financial policy measures which in any way contradict the agreement's emphasis on deregulatory measures.
  • Prohibit national governments from using capital controls to prevent or mitigate financial crises. The leaked texts prohibit restrictions on financial inflows – used to prevent rapid currency appreciation, asset bubbles and other macroeconomic problems – and financial outflows, used to prevent sudden capital flight in times of crisis.
  • Require acceptance of financial products not yet invented. Despite the pivotal role that new, complex financial products played in the Financial Crisis, TISA would require governments to allow all new financial products and services, including ones not yet invented, to be sold within their territories.

4. TiSA would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and localization requirements for ICT service providers. A provision proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for the transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place in EU data protection law. In other words, multinational corporations will have carte blanche to pry into just about every facet of the working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the world's 200-or-so nations.

As I wrote in LEAKED: Secret Negotiations to Let Big Brother Go Global, if TiSA is signed in its current form – and we will not know exactly what that form is until at least five years down the line – our personal data will be freely bought and sold on the open market place without our knowledge; companies and governments will be able to store it for as long as they desire and use it for just about any purpose.

5. Finally, TiSA, together with its sister treaties TPP and TTIP, would establish a new global enclosure system, one that seeks to impose on all 52 signatory governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial risk and social and environmental responsibility. In short, it would hammer the final nail in the already bedraggled coffin of national sovereignty.

A Dangerous Precedent

Given its small size (population: 3.4 million) and limited geopolitical or geo-economic clout, Uruguay's withdrawal from TiSA is unlikely to upset the treaty's advancement. The governments of the major trading nations will continue their talks behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the people they are supposed to represent. The U.S. Congress has already agreed to grant the Obama administration fast-track approval on trade agreements like TiSA while the European Commission can be expected to do whatever the corporatocracy demands.

However, as the technology writer Glyn Moody notes, Uruguay's defection – like the people of Iceland's refusal to assume all the debts of its rogue banks – possesses a tremendous symbolic importance:

It says that, yes, it is possible to withdraw from global negotiations, and that the apparently irreversible trade deal ratchet can actually be turned back. It sets an important precedent that other nations with growing doubts about TISA – or perhaps TPP – can look to and maybe even follow.

Naturally, the representatives of Uruguay's largest corporations would agree to disagree. The government's move was one of its biggest mistakes of recent years, according to Gabriel Oddone, an analyst with the financial consultancy firm CPA Ferrere. It was based on a "superficial discussion of the treaty's implications."

What Oddone conveniently fails to mention is that Uruguay is the only nation on the planet that has had any kind of public discussion, superficial or not, about TiSA and its potentially game-changing implications. Perhaps it's time that changed.

The timing could not have been worse.

Read Is Brazil About to Drag Down Spain's Biggest Bank?

Selected Skeptical Comments

ella, September 23, 2015 at 9:28 am

So, not to be snarky or anything but when does the invasion of Uruguay begin. Wondering: don't they want to pay $750.00 per pill for what cost $13.85 the day before? Aren't they interested in predatory capitalism? What is going on down there?

Jim Haygood, September 23, 2015 at 12:17 pm

Most symbolic is that the eighth round of multilateral trade negotiations under GATT (now WTO) kicked off in Punta del Este, Uruguay in Sep. 1986.

It went into effect in 1995, and is still known as the Uruguay Round.

susan the other, September 23, 2015 at 1:21 pm

And will international corporations issue their own fiat; pass their own laws; and prosecute their own genocide? Contrary to their group hallucinations, corporations cannot replace government. And clearly, somebody forgot to tell them that capitalism, corporatism, cannot survive without growth. The only growth they will achieve is raiding other corporations. They are more powerless and vulnerable than they ever want to admit.

hunkerdown, September 23, 2015 at 8:13 pm

And will international corporations issue their own fiat; pass their own laws; and prosecute their own genocide?

Sure. There's prior art. Company scrip, substance "abuse" policies, and Bhopal (for a bit different definition of "prosecute").

In the US, corporations largely have replaced government since WWII or so, or at least pretend to offer the services that a government might provide.


likbez, September 24, 2015 at 10:54 pm

They are more powerless and vulnerable than they ever want to admit.

You are dreaming. Neoliberalism that we have now as a dominant social system is a flavor of corporatism. If so, it is corporations which now represent the most politically powerful actors. They literally rule the country. And it is they who select the president, most congressmen and Senators. Try to ask yourself a question: to what political force Barak "change we can believe in" Obama serves.

As Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) aptly noted:

"And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place"

gordon, September 23, 2015 at 9:03 pm

The TISA has a history. It's really just a continuation of the MAI treaty which the OECD failed to conclude back in the 1990s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateral_Agreement_on_Investment

Joe, September 24, 2015 at 2:38 am

What I don't get is why all those countries want to sign up to these agreements. I can see what is in it for the US elites, but how does it help these smaller countries?

likbez, September 24, 2015 at 10:43 pm

Elites of those small countries are now transnational. So in a way they represent the fifth column of globalization. That explains their position: own profit stands before interests of the country.

vidimi, September 24, 2015 at 4:19 am

This is such a huge, huge, vital issue. Privatisation of public assets has to rank as one of the highest crimes at the government level. It is treason, perhaps the only crime for which i wouldn't object capital punishment.

What's more, we now have some 40 years of data showing that privatisation doesn't work. surely, we can organise and successfully argue that privatisation has never worked for any country any time. There needs to be an intellectual assault on privatisation discrediting it forever.

[Sep 24, 2015] Central Banks Have Made the Rich Richer

Sep 24, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com
Economist's View
Paul Marshall, chairman of London-based hedge fund Marshall Wace, in the FT:
Central banks have made the rich richer: Labour's new shadow chancellor has got at least one thing right. ... Quantitative easing ... has bailed out bonus-happy banks and made the rich richer. ...

It is no surprise that the left is angry about this, nor that they are looking for other versions of QE that do not so directly benefit bankers and the rich. Instead of increasing the money supply by buying sovereign bonds from banks, central banks could spread the love evenly by depositing extra money in every person's bank account..., it might have been fairer.

Mr McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader, advocate a second approach: targeting QE at infrastructure projects. The central bank would buy bonds direct from the Treasury on the understanding that the funds would be used to improve housing and transport infrastructure. ...

QE had clear wealth effects, which could have been offset by fiscal measures. All political parties should acknowledge this. So should those of us who want free markets to retain their legitimacy.

[Sep 24, 2015] The Oligarch Recovery 30 Million Americans Have Tapped Retirement Savings Early In Last Year

Sep 24, 2015 | www.zerohedge.com

Zero Hedge

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The ongoing oligarch theft labeled an "economic recovery" by pundits, politicians and mainstream media alike, is one of the largest frauds I've witnessed in my life. The reality of the situation is finally starting to hit home, and the proof is now undeniable.

Earlier this year, I published a powerful post titled, Use of Alternative Financial Services, Such as Payday Loans, Continues to Increase Despite the "Recovery," which highlighted how a growing number of Americans have been taking out unconventional loans, not simply to overcome an emergency, but for everyday expenses. Here's an excerpt:

Families' savings not where they should be: That's one part of the problem. But Mills sees something else in the recovery that's more disturbing. The number of households tapping alternative financial services are on the rise, meaning that Americans are turning to non-bank lenders for credit: payday loans, refund-anticipation loans, pawnshops, and rent-to-own services.

According to the Urban Institute report, the number of households that used alternative credit products increased 7 percent between 2011 and 2013. And the kind of household seeking alternative financing is changing, too.

It's not the case that every one of these middle- and upper-class households turned to pawnshops and payday lenders because they got whomped by an unexpected bill from a mechanic or a dentist. "People who are in these [non-bank] situations are not using these forms of credit to simply overcome an emergency, but are using them for basic living experiences," Mills says.

Of course, it's not just "alternative financial services." Increasingly desperate American citizens are also tapping whatever retirement savings they may have, including taking the 10% tax penalty for the privilege of doing so. In fact, 30 million Americans have done just that in the past year alone, in the midst of what is supposed to be a "recovery."

From Time:

With the effects of the financial crisis still lingering, 30 million Americans in the last 12 months tapped retirement savings to pay for an unexpected expense, new research shows. This undercuts financial security and underscores the need for every household to maintain an emergency fund.

Boomers were most likely to take a premature withdrawal as well as incur a tax penalty, according to a survey from Bankrate.com. Some 26% of those ages 50-64 say their financial situation has deteriorated, and 17% used their 401(k) plan and other retirement savings to pay for an emergency expense.

Two-thirds of Americans agree that the effects of the financial crisis are still being felt in the way they live, work, save and spend, according to a report from Allianz Life Insurance Co. One in five can be called a post-crash skeptic-a person that experienced at least six different kinds of financial setback during the recession, like a job loss or loss of home value, and feel their financial future is in peril.

So now we know what has kept meager spending afloat during this pitiful "recovery." A combination of "alternative loans" and a bleeding of retirement accounts. The transformation of the public into a horde of broke debt serfs is almost complete.

Don't forget to send your thank you card to you know who:

Screen Shot 2015-08-20 at 3.21.02 PM

* * *

For related articles, see:

[Sep 24, 2015] Is Goldman Preparing To Sacrifice The Next Lehman

Sep 24, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Wow, talk about a nice fit! The following image describes a speed wobble when going too fast on a bicycle.

Bay Area Guy

Paulson should most definitely be in prison. I was no fan of Lehman, but what happened to them was nothing short of a criminal conspiracy.

Thorny Xi

He's suffered so much though.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/06/05/billionaire-john-pa...

RopeADope

Hank not John.

John is the colossal failure that could not come up with a good trade idea on his own if his life depended on it.

Debt-Is-Not-Money

I was fascinated that Bear Stearns was the first to go as Bear was the only large company that failed to respond to the Fed's calls when LTCM almost brough down the house in 1998.

Not if_ But When

Well, you know........he also lied to Congress. (but that's small potatoes).

froze25

Very true, let them fall and then bailout the rest. Well played Goldman.

KnuckleDragger-X

Lehman had to die to save GS since GS were actually in more trouble......

Bay of Pigs

What ever happened to Douche Bank anyway?

Edit: Damn, good ole Marty beat me to the punch.

Deutsche Bank – the New Lehman Brothers?

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/37443

jeff montanye

the greatest control fraud in history, the 2008 seizure of the u.s. government's financial/regulatory apparatus by wall street's banks and trading houses to recapitalize themselves and avoid prosecution for their enormous crimes, is tremendously evil. it will never be prosecuted or its errors corrected until the psychopaths at the head of our society are neutralized.

only 9-11 can do this. it is the crime that is clear-cut, unambiguously wrong, provable, without a statute of limitations (treason/murder/kidnapping), sufficiently inflammatory (very important) and really comprehensive in its list of perps, especially after the fact (the editors of the new york times don't actually have to go to jail; just most people have to think they should).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsoY3AIRUGA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GNww9cmZPo

http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticl...

mind by mind. do your part.

Divine Wind

Bullish for PMs, right?

HardlyZero

After MF Global, it is not clear how the markets are safe for buyers, sellers, brokers, banks, etc.

But as always, have your physical setup and safe first before going out to see what's going on.

NoDebt

"If a counterparty liquidates, net exposure becomes gross [emphasis added by me], and suddenly everyone starts wondering where all those "physical" commodities are."

For those who may not quite grasp this, it means all your "hedging" against falling prices is null and void and you are left with full-in-the-face long exposure PLUS entities dealing in the physical commodity can suddenly be looking down a long tunnel of "failure to timely deliver" on contracts they've signed.

But, then again, 2016 is the last year for a lame duck president... traditionally a very good year to "clean house" and get the government to bail you out.

[Sep 09, 2015] What spawned Russia's 'troll army'? Experts on the red web share their views

What is funny that Havingalavrov, and Alderbaran participated in the discussion ;-).
Sep 08, 2015 | The Guardian

Is the Guardian disproportionately targeted?

Havingalavrov, 08 September 2015 12:23pm

Judging by the amount of comments on articles about Russia I see on the Guardian website , it seems to me that it holds more importance over others in being targeted. Is this true ? If so why ?

Which western news outlets do you believe the Kremlin is most interested in targeting with its campaign ?

Yes, of course the Guardian is a prominent target. Mostly because others British papers are not so popular in Russia. Stories from the Guardian are translated on daily basis, and foreign correspondents are well known, especially among Moscow's liberal intelligentsia.

Can we learn anything about Russian foreign policy?

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

Alderbaran, 08 September 2015 7:07am

A question: Do you think that by watching trends in coordinated comments, you can gain insights into what is sometimes a very hard to judge Russian foreign policy?

You might understand what is trending right now, but you can't predict the next one. Russian foreign policy is notorious for sudden turns, and trolls would be told afterwards, not in advance.

They are not spin-doctors, close to the Kremlin, Putin or his advisers. They are given very simple directives by people who have no real access to the Kremlin decision-makers.

[Sep 07, 2015] The Thirty-Year Boom

September 06, 2015 | Economist's View

Part of an essay by David Warsh:

... For the old lions, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman, the '80s meant a bittersweet departure from the center stage of economics after forty years of dominating the scene. The two had entered their sixties; neither was out of steam. But the leaders of the next generation had become apparent: Lucas, in macroeconomics; Kenneth Arrow in nearly everything else.

The election of Ronald Reagan was a triumph for Friedman; they had known each other since Friedman spent a quarter at the University of California at Los Angeles, shortly after Reagan had been elected Governor of California.He was invited to lecture in China. And the international success of Free to Choose kept Friedman in the public eye.

But Paul Volcker took a different approach to monetary policy from the one Friedman advocated, and Friedman's forecasts became markedly worse. The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal adopted as its champion Friedman's long-time rival in currency matters, Robert Mundell, now teaching at Columbia University, and went all in for Mundell's young associate, consultant Arthur Laffer. A research appointment at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco was not the same platform as the University of Chicago. Friedman still had his membership on the President's Economic Policy Board, but after he "savaged" Volcker to his face before the president in a meeting in 1983, both men lost influence. Pointing a finger at Volcker, Friedman said (according to Newsweek's account), "because of the policies of the Fed under that man we have had an inflationary surge in the money supply that is going to have to be corrected." Volcker was not reappointed. Edward Nelson, of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is writing a scientific biography of Friedman. It will make interesting reading when it is done.

In March 1981, Friedman wrote his Newsweek column in the form of a letter to Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences, advocating major cuts in the budget of the National Science Foundation, as a step towards the abolition of the NSF. The Reagan administration had proposed sharp cuts in the economics program. Friedman argued the government shouldn't pay for any scientific research. True, the NSF had funded much good science; but it had paid for much bad science, too, including, he wrote, overmuch mathematical economics. The great scientists of the past had done without NSF funding. Einstein did his work in a government patent office; general relativity might never have made it past a peer-review panel. "The innovative ideas that have stirred controversy in economics since NSF funding of economics began two decades ago owe little or nothing to NSF funding," he wrote.

Thus did Friedman dismiss the agency that Paul Samuelson had brought to life in 1945. Perhaps more important, by extension he dismissed the program of government fellowships, awarded by competitive exam, that had sent Samuelson to graduate school in 1935, all expenses paid – and countless others since, many of them as impecunious as Friedman had been in 1932. The NSF ran similar programs in mathematics and many ciences, and the principle had been extended, by Sen. Jacob Javits (R-NY) to humanities. NSF research grants funding had helped build the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into a powerhouse to rival Harvard, and played a similar role at many other public and private universities.

No Samuelson column followed Friedman's. Samuelson never wrote again for Newsweek . He resigned the column he written for fifteen years. When, many years later, I asked him about his timing, he firmly denied that it had anything to do with Friedman's column, and wrote me a letter for the file the next day repeating what he had said. I have always wondered if he sought to defuse the matter out of habit. That he and Friedman had remained on civil terms for seventy-five years was clearly a source of pride, though privately he grew less tolerant of his rival after 1980.

Samuelson, too, was in mild recession in the '80s. Keynesian economics hadn't yet rebounded from the biting criticism of the New Classicals in the '70s. Tensions were growing within the MIT department over appointments and the direction of future research. Samuelson formally retired in 1985, at 70, to make room for others. He had plenty to engage his professional attention. Commodities Corp., which had discovered such natural traders as Paul Tudor Jones and Bruce Kovner, was winding down, but Samuelson's interest in Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway was gearing up. The Vanguard Group, whose godfather he had been ever since founder John Bogle introduced the first index fund, was thriving. Samuelson's friends and colleagues James Tobin, Franco Modigliani, and Robert Solow received Nobel Prizes.

Young Lions at Large

To the young lions of Keynesian economics in the '80s, rational- expectations macroeconomics and real business cycle theory posed a considerable bar. To work in the new traditions required a considerable investment in new tools and mathematical techniques, and, even fully teched-up, didn't seem to speak very directly to policy. A strong corps of economists went to work to fashion a "new Keynesian" version of the latest general equilibrium economics. But gradually one rising star of saltwater economics after another left academia for a policy job.

Martin Feldstein, of Harvard University, was the first. As something of an acolyte of Milton Friedman, Feldstein was never very high in salinity, but he demonstrated plenty of professional backbone as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ronald Reagan for two years in the early days of the controversies over deficits before returning in 1984 to Harvard and his position as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Stanley Fischer, of MIT, was next, wrapping up a highly successful research career in order to serve as chief economist of the World Bank (a path that led to leadership positions in the International Monetary Fund, governor of the Bank of Israel and, currently, vice chairman of the Fed). Lawrence Summers, Feldstein's student, served as campaign economist to Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign and succeeded Fischer at the World Bank before joining the Clinton administration, where he advanced to Secretary of the Treasury.

Soon the flood was on: Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Olivier Blanchard, Kenneth Rogoff, Gregory Mankiw, Glen Hubbard, and Christina Romer were among those MIT- or Harvard-trained economists who served in government jobs or NGO positions. Paul Krugman retooled as a journalist. Lists of MIT and Harvard graduates in high positions in European, South American, and Asian governments were even longer. Did this differ in kind, and not degree, from the trajectory of academic economists dating back to to the New Frontier, if not the New Deal? I think so.

In 2006, Harvard's Mankiw, in an article for the Journal of Economic Perspectives argued, as I did in a book, that the differences in interests among economists were best understood as being similar to those between scientists and engineers. The early macroeconomists, led by Samuelson and Friedman, had resembled engineers seeking to solve practical problems, Mankiw wrote; macroeconomists of the past several decades, led by Tjalling Koopmans, Jacob Marschak, Kenneth Arrow, and others had been more interested in developing analytic tools and establishing theoretical principles. Their students the '80s had joined teams along similar lines. "Recently Paul Romer, of New York University, introduced a different distinction to elucidate some of the controversies in present-day macro – between bench science and clinical medicine. Both analogies will get plenty of elaboration in future years, for this is what changed in kind in the '80s: economics developed a clinical/engineering wing.

... ... ...

likbez said...

Due to his role in neoliberal transformation of Chile after Pinochet coup of 1973, Friedman can be viewed as a one of the first economic hitman for multinationals, member of organized crime disguised as an economist. According to the 1975 report of a United States Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, the Chilean economic plan was prepared in collaboration with the CIA. In 1987 45% of Chile's population was below poverty line. From Wikipedia:

==Start of quote ===
Milton Friedman gave some lectures advocating free market economic policies in Universidad Católica de Chile. In 1975, two years after the coup, he met with Pinochet for 45 minutes, where the general "indicated very little indeed about his own or the government's feeling" and the president asked Friedman to write him a letter laying out what he thought Chile's economic policies should be, which he also did.[26] To stop inflation, Friedman proposed reduction of government deficits that had increased in the past years and a flat commitment by government that after six months it will no longer finance government spending by creating money. He proposed relief of cases of real hardship among poorest classes.[2] In October 1975 the New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis declared that "the Chilean junta's economic policy is based on the ideas of Milton Friedman…and his Chicago School".[26]
=== End of quote ===

In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein criticized Friedman's recipe for neoliberal scheme of the economic rape of the countries under disguise of transformation toward "free" market economics -- the neoliberal restructuring that followed the military coups in several countries using suspiciously similar schemes. She suggested that the primary role of neoliberalism was to be an ideological cover for capital accumulation by multinationals. Chilean economist Orlando Letelier considered that the main driving force behind Pinochet's dictatorship violence toward opponents was the level of opposition to Chicago School policies in Chile.

And Friedman himself was a coward who never personally acknowledged his role in the events. After a 1991 speech on drug legalization, Friedman answered a question on his involvement with the Pinochet regime, saying that he was never an advisor to Pinochet (also mentioned in his 1984 Iceland interview), but that only his students (Chicago boys) were involved.

He was followed by Harvard mafia with their economic rape of Russia in early 90th. Probably also prepared in collaboration with the CIA...

It is interesting that the paper does not mention Galbraith who was important opponent of Friedman (see "Friedman on Galbraith, and on curing the British disease", 1977) . In those two lectures Friedman disagrees with Galbraith's four most popular works: "Countervailing Power," "The Great Crash of 1929," "The Affluent Society," and "The New Industrial State". Friedman consistently repeats the neoliberal dogma that it is unfettered free market, with minimal rules and regulations, is the best economic system.

So it might be useful to distinguish between two instances of Friedman: the first is Friedman before "Capitalism and Freedom" and the second is after. Friedman after Capitalism and Freedom is a pitiful figure of a prostitute to power that be.

chris herbert said...

The best observation was the one by Wojnilower that the animals in the zoo were let out of their cages.. They are still roaming around, not yet put back in their regulatory cages. The list of financial crises beginning in the 1980s looks as bad and as frequent as those of the 1800s. Technology gives a sheen to the past 35 years or so, but underneath there's been immense intellectual damage. A degradation of morals and honesty. Today, greed is good. I'll be gone, you'll be gone (IBGUBG), rules politics and finance today. The animals are still lose, more trouble will visit the Kingdom.

bakho said...

Interesting history lesson.
Needs more links.
Friedman's spat with Volcker:

In Friedman's view, Volcker was too vulnerable to political pressures from Congress and the White House, Condemned by liberals and conservatives for plunging the country into recession and worried that continued high interest rates would cause massive default by Third World debtors, Volcker in mid-1982 shifted his sights away from the monetarist approach, loosening the Fed's targets for money growth and restoring interest-rate manipulation as a policy tool. In the five months before the November 1984 elections, the Fed increased the money supply to bring down interest rates and thus fuel the recovery to better Reagan's chances at re-election. After Reagan's reelection victor in November, the Fed again tightened the money supply, "This is not monetarist policy," Friedman says, "The key element of monetarism is to define what you are going to do and then stick with it."

For any Fed chairman, Friedman thinks, the temptation to linker with money-supply targets is probably irresistible. According to the monetarist doctrine, the Fed chairman's job is purely technical, "a matter of every month looking at the money base and making sure it increases by about a quarter of one percent," Friedman explains, "If the Fed chairman were to do a good job, he would become an unknown, a faceless bureaucrat."

Cooper, M. H. (1987). Economics after Reaganomics. Editorial research reports 1987 (Vol. II). Washington, DC: CQ Press. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1987082100

I wonder if so many of the young economist went into policy because the people involved: Volcker, Friedman, Laffer etc were pretty clueless and made bad predictions.

bakho said...

Just how wrong was Friedman?
DARPA turned the internet over to NSF and NSF spun it off into a large commercial engine.

NSF funds high risk investment, the kind that most corporations cannot. High risk research means many projects that don'r pan out, a small pool of winners and a handful that hit jackpot. It takes a large organization with very deep pockets to fund enough high risk research over long periods to have a good likelihood of getting a large hit. Industry cannot fund at that level, government can.

Another example: NSF funded obscure biochemistry into esoteric research on enzymes that could degrade DNA. That research became the foundation of genetic engineering. Who could have known?

pgl said in reply to Paine ...

Warsh did write an incredible amount of BS in this silly essay. I didn't think Mundell ever endorsed Laffer's stupid cocktail napkin.

Lafayette said...

REAGANOMICS

From WikiP: {According to Keynesian economists, a combination of deficit spending and the lowering of interest rates slowly led to economic recovery. However, conservatives insist that the significantly lower tax rates caused the recovery. From a high of 10.8% in December 1982, unemployment gradually improved until it fell to 7.2% on Election Day in 1984.}

Even Reagan, a good friend of Friedman, when push-came-to-shove, indulged is stimulus spending to get his presidency out of the deep-doodoo.
Which the Replicants stonewalled in 2010 when a Great Recession was in full sway, but the PotUS was a Democrat ...

pgl said in reply to Lafayette...

Wikipedia gets another wrong. It was Reagan's 1981 tax cut (deficit spending) that led Volcker to do round 2 of his tight money. Volcker kept trying to make a deal withe White House - reverse the fiscal stimulus in exchange for lower interest rates. The White House did not even know what was going on. And Wikipedia does not either.

[Sep 04, 2015] What Happened to the Moral Center of American Capitalism?

"...The fact that he believes that capitalism has or ever had a "moral center" (other than "greed is good!") is absolutely touching in its naivete."
.
"...The prototype and kickstarter for capitalist industry was sugar plantation slavery (15th century, Madeira, Canary Islands)"
The latest from Robert Reich begins with:
What Happened to the Moral Center of American Capitalism? : An economy depends fundamentally on public morality; some shared standards about what sorts of activities are impermissible because they so fundamentally violate trust that they threaten to undermine the social fabric.

It is ironic that at a time the Republican presidential candidates and state legislators are furiously focusing on private morality – what people do in their bedrooms, contraception, abortion, gay marriage – we are experiencing a far more significant crisis in public morality.

We've witnessed over the last two decades in the United States a steady decline in the willingness of people in leading positions in the private sector – on Wall Street and in large corporations especially – to maintain minimum standards of public morality. They seek the highest profits and highest compensation for themselves regardless of social consequences.

CEOs of large corporations now earn 300 times the wages of average workers. Wall Street moguls take home hundreds of millions, or more. Both groups have rigged the economic game to their benefit while pushing downward the wages of average working people.

By contrast, in the first three decades after World War II – partly because America went through that terrible war and, before that, the Great Depression – there was a sense in the business community and on Wall Street of some degree of accountability to the nation.

It wasn't talked about as social responsibility, because it was assumed to be a bedrock of how people with great economic power should behave.

CEOs did not earn more than 40 times what the typical worker earned. Profitable firms did not lay off large numbers of workers. Consumers, workers, and the community were all considered stakeholders of almost equal entitlement. The marginal income tax on the highest income earners in the 1950s was 91%. Even the effective rate, after all deductions and tax credits, was still well above 50%.

Around about the late 1970s and early 1980s, all of this changed dramatically. ...[continue]...

Peter K. said...
Krugman speculated it started when sports fans began discussing star baseball players' salaries. CEOs went Galt and asked why not us also?

Workers are just inputs like fixed capital nothing more.

What's good for GE and Goldman Sachs - profits - is good for America.

DeLong asks the more central question. When did business leaders decide that growth, aggregate demand and full employment wasn't in the interest of their companies?

In the 1950 and 1960s they were in favor of a high-pressured economy. That changed.

Maybe it was the 1970s and "take this job and shove it."

Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....

They also forget about the Great Depression as it faded from memory.

And the Cold War ended. Would they risk Western nations like Greece and Spain going to the other side because of sky high unemployment? No they'd govern them with military dictatorships.

Ben Groves said in reply to Peter K....

US investment/capital markets were semi-nationalized from WWII into the mid-70's. The whole basis was to fight the Nazis then Soviets. The economic crisis of the mid-70's, detente and excessive growth beyond cohort changed things. For all the 79-89 hype, the cold war died with that global economic crisis of the 1970's as the Soviet Union never recovered and China bailed.

Business view was that the pre-WWII order needed to be restored. I think many people mistake the 50's and 60's as "normal", but they weren't. They were a time of war.

Peter K. said in reply to Ben Groves...

"War is the health of the state."

We need an invasion from aliens.

mulp said in reply to Ben Groves...

Well, given the US has been at war since Reagan, elected because Carter would not go to war, how do you explain the punishment of workers to reverse the glorifying of workers from the 30s through even the 70s??

It was not war that made the period before 1980 better over all, but the understanding that consumers could only spend as much as they were paid, and the problem for a corporation seeking to grow was making sure all the other corporations paid their employees well.

By the end of the 80s, the iconic corporations of the 60s in terms of growth and loyalty to employees were criticized by free lunch MBAs for sticking with the old ways of treating employees as assets because they were being creamed by competitors who treated employees as liabilities. Eg, IBM was badly managed because it was not screwing its workers like Dell, HP was doomed because it was not firing all its US factory workers and contracting with Asia factories.

You see, the MBAs were teaching that US workers are liabilities to replaced with the cheapest non US workers and the US consumer needs to be mined for ever more dollars of spending. And if consumers were not spending enough, the problem was they were taxed too much, so the calls for tax cuts to put money in consumer pockets so consumers could shop 24 by 7.

Before 1980, everything was zero sum. If you want that $1000 car or boat, you had to first earn $1000, unless the manufacturer float you a loan with a threat of the repo man. That meant manufacturers needed every consumer to have a job. And every dollar paid to workers came back to them in consumer spending. And government was the same way - if you wanted better roads, you first had to agree to taxes to pay for it.

After 1980, the idea economies were zero sum were thrown in the trash can. Want something, borrow and spend. Republicans would get government out of the way of the loan sharks. The loan sharks became bank owners and got rid of their enforcers, turning that over to Congress. Think of all the debt you can not shed but that government collects by force by the IRS and attaching your Social Security benefit.

Once consumers could borrow and spend, workers are now purely liabilities. Get rid of them.

In the real world, the ivory tower of business and economics is not able to be applied 100% or even 20%, but that even 20% of the connection between payroll and business sales is lost means an ever deepening pit of debt.

Federal debt declined from before the end of WWII as a burden on GDP until Reagan and then it grew as if the US were waging a war larger than the Korean war or Vietnam war or WWI or maybe the Civil war.

With the exception of the Clinton years which were not free of war, the budget has looked like a major war was going on.

DrDick said...

The fact that he believes that capitalism has or ever had a "moral center" (other than "greed is good!") is absolutely touching in its naivete.

Paine said in reply to DrDick...

Sweet bobby

bakho said in reply to DrDick...

Indeed. Greedy "Malefactors of Great Wealth" don't become wealthy by fair play. Nothing obtained by workers was ever got without a fight. Many bloody union battles over dead bodies won worker's rights. Once the unions lost power, workers went backward.

mulp said in reply to bakho...

And union leaders were all choir boys....

raping their members like priests.

As a liberal, I can play the game of name calling, character assassination, etc.

How do you think it is that there are capitalists with loyal workers? Do you think there are capitalists who understand that economies are zero sum and that you can't have customers wealthier than employees are wealthy?

I see lots of worker advocates who seem to think that every worker can be paid $1000 and only pay $500 for everything produced.

Paine said in reply to mulp...

Reading this is like chewing glue

DrDick said in reply to Paine ...

Which he was obviously huffing while writing it.

Paine said in reply to Paine ...

A system is not judged by its functioning components but by its malfunction components and the emergent failures of the system of components
U know that

Social production systems often grow and develop

they re not zero sum !


They produce a social surplus when functioning well

That social surplus gets ex appropriated by an exploiter class in class systems

The primary producers may add 1000 in value and receive only 600 of that value as compensation

Suggesting radicals or at least some radicals want more then one hundred percent of the social product for the producers themselves is blatant Tom foolery

bakho said in reply to mulp...

"How do you think it is that there are capitalists with loyal workers?"

The same way plantation owners had "loyal slaves". Loyalty lasted until Sherman's boys came and said, "You are free and if you show us where the silverware is hid, we'll split it with you."

Loyalty only goes as far as the next better offer.

anne said...

Assuming there was at least a superficial acknowledgement of a "moral center of American capitalism," that surface acceptance was methodically worn away from the 1970s on. An early sign of the wearing away and the need to turn away from a moral center of capitalism came with this article in 1970:

http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html

September 13, 1970

The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
By Milton Friedman - New York Times

The carefully cultivated "Chicago Boys" not long after the article in the New York Times even gained a country to play with, Chile.

anne said in reply to anne...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/opinion/paul-krugman-the-mit-gang.html

July 23, 2015

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the term "Chicago boys" was originally used to refer to Latin American economists, trained at the University of Chicago, who took radical free-market ideology back to their home countries. The influence of these economists was part of a broader phenomenon: The 1970s and 1980s were an era of ascendancy for laissez-faire economic ideas and the Chicago school, which promoted those ideas....

-- Paul Krugman

Paine said in reply to anne...

A charming little toad that Milty

Swallow him and die of his poisons

Paine said in reply to Paine ...

Street value of milty's elixir: Oligopolistic Corporate free range capitalism

Sandwichman said...

1. The prototype and kickstarter for capitalist industry was sugar plantation slavery (15th century, Madeira, Canary Islands)

2. Slavery was extolled by Southern slaveowner aristocratic "ethics and theology" as the pinnacle of bible-based Western Civilization.

3. After defeat of the Confederacy, the neo-Confederate heirs of the old slaveowner plutocrats rewrote history to deny that the South fought the Civil War to retain slavery.

4. The big lie of "Lost Cause" neo-Confederacy is the secret sauce of the Republican Party "Southern strategy" emulated by the "centrism" of the Democrats.

5. What happened to the "moral center" of American Capitalism?

6. Just what "moral center" are you referring to, Bob?

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

John Cairnes, 1862:

"in spite of elaborate attempts at mystification, the real cause of the war and the real issue at stake are every day forcing themselves into prominence with a distinctness which cannot be much longer evaded. Whatever we may think of the tendencies of democratic institutions, or of the influence of territorial magnitude on the American character, no theory framed upon these or upon any other incidents of the contending parties, however ingeniously constructed, will suffice to conceal the fact, that it is slavery which is at the bottom of this quarrel, and that on its determination it depends whether the Power which derives its strength from slavery shall be set up with enlarged resources and increased prestige, or be now once for all effectually broken."

Ben Groves said in reply to Sandwichman...

Don't forget about 1600's Amsterdam. That was the kickstarter for finance capitalism. William the Orange exported it to the Brits and the rest is history. The link between the 2 is indeed "bible based".

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

James Henley Thornwell:

"The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders - they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground - Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake."

Ben Groves said in reply to Sandwichman...

Thornwell was a Rothschilds bagman fwiw. The whole basis of the planters was slaves. They couldn't make it without them. Without the production, Europe would be in shortage. Hurting the Rothschilds business interests.

That is why quotes never workout. You create a dialect when it is all personal motive. Not all socialists were against slavery. Many thought it was better than capitalist production cycles.

anne said in reply to anne...

Not all socialists were against slavery. Many thought it was better than capitalist production cycles.

[ I am waiting for the documentation of the many socialists who thought.... ]

Paine said in reply to anne...

Socialist is a very eclectic catch all term Anne

Some socialist by self description probably believed in human sacrifice

Oh ya that was us Stalinists

anne said in reply to Paine ...

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2015/09/what-happened-to-the-moral-center-of-american-capitalism.html#comment-6a00d83451b33869e201b7c7c9199f970b

September 4, 2015

Ben Groves said in reply to Sandwichman...

Not all socialists were against slavery. Many thought it was better than capitalist production cycles.

[ I know precisely what I have been asking for. I am still waiting for the documentation of the many socialists who thought.... ]

anne said in reply to Ben Groves...

Thornwell was a ----------- bagman for what it's worth. The whole basis of the planters was slaves. They couldn't make it without them. Without the production, Europe would be in shortage. Hurting the ----------- business interests.

[ Again, where is the documentation, the "----------- bagman" documentation, to what I consider simply calumny? ]

Sandwichman said in reply to Ben Groves...

Wikipedia:

James Henley Thornwell (December 9, 1812 – August 1, 1862) was an American Presbyterian preacher and religious writer from the U.S. state of South Carolina. During the American Civil War, Thornwell supported the Confederacy and preached a doctrine that claimed slavery to be morally right and justified by the tenets of Christianity.

"Thornwell, in the words of Professor Eugene Genovese, attempted "to envision a Christian society that could reconcile-so far as possible in a world haunted by evil-the conflicting claims of a social order with social justice and both with the freedom and dignity of the individual."

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

The "cornerstone speech"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

"The ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old Constitution," says the Vice President of the Southern Confederacy [Alexander Stephens],

"...were that the enslavement of the African race was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. Our new government is founded on exactly opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery-subordination to the superior race-is his natural and moral condition. This our Government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. It is upon this our social fabric is firmly planted, and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of the full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.... This stone which was rejected by the first builders 'is become the chief stone of the corner' in our new edifice."

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

Harry Jaffa: "this remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but also of that Jim Crow South that arose from the ashes of the Confederacy."

But not just the Jim Crow South, also the enduring white supremacy that permeates and dominates the American (incarceration nation) political discourse under code word dog whistles like "law and order" and orchestrated abhorrence of "political correctness".

Where is the "moral center" of a cesspool whose "cornerstone" is hatred? Ask Dante.

Mike Sparrow said in reply to Sandwichman...

True, but accepting Jim Crow allowed the capitalists to expand down south slowly but surely. By 1950 the south was becoming industrialized and Jim Crow was under attack. Their agriculture had been automated. Jim Crow just delayed history.

The problem I think people have with white neo-confeds is not so much "black slavery", but that white's were basically being starved and living standards reduced by the same system. The 1% of white's made it big with a global system at the expense of country. The anti-confeds are basically in a race war against what they see as foreign invasion. While the neo-confeds think they are protecting white "traditions" that really aren't really traditional to the white population as a whole. It is a good reason why socialists who patriot nationalism and organic unity can't unite with them. What they view as "white" is different. It leads toward political divide and conquer.

Paine said in reply to Mike Sparrow...

Jim crow delayed southern development

Only if you abstract from the northern social formation that hatched and husbanded it. For 100 years
Much as the slave system was husband by unionist northerns for 80 years

Paine said in reply to Paine ...

One could talk of a moral core to capitalists like thadeus Stevens
But the north ended reconstruction not because of southern white resistance
But because nothing more was need at that time and level of development
Of the north and of the union

Paine said in reply to Paine ...

The Grant years were like a sign in the sun and a sign in the moon

The sympathetic nations of Ameriika would remain in mortal struggle

Race Injustice would rule to the horizon of time and space

Paine said in reply to Paine ...

We would and will live side by side and yet turn away from each other
One side in torment the other in wrath

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

I think it would be useful to cite the whole paragraph of Harry Jaffa's comment on the cornerstone speech. Who was Harry Jaffa, anyway? Some politically correct Marxist America hater? Jaffa was the guy who wrote Barry Goldwater's 1964 Republican nomination acceptance speech. You know, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." That's who.

"This remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but also of that Jim Crow South that arose from the ashes of the Confederacy. From the end of Reconstruction until after World War Il, the idea of racial inequality gripped the territory of the former Confederacy-and not only of the former Confederacy-more profoundly than it had done under slavery. Nor is its influence by any means at an end. Stephens's prophecy of the Confederacy's future resembles nothing so much as Hitler's prophecies of the Thousand-Year Reich. Nor are their theories very different. Stephens, unlike Hitler, spoke only of one particular race as inferior. But the principle ot racial domination, once established, can easily be extended to fit the convenience of the self-anointed master race or class, whoever it may be."

Paine said in reply to Sandwichman...

The battle between the declaration of independence and the constitution

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

A MEASURING ROD FOR TEXT-BOOKS

"The Committee respectfully urges all authorities charged with the selection of text-books for colleges, schools and all scholastic institutions to measure all books offered for adoption by this "Measuring Bod" and adopt none which do not accord full justice to the South. And all library authorities in the Southern States are requested to mark all books in their collections which do not come up to the same measure, on the title page thereof, "Unjust to the South."

Reject a book that says the South fought to hold her slaves.

Reject a book that speaks of the slaveholder of the South as cruel and unjust to his slaves.

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

"How the Negroes Lived Under Slavery

"Life among the Negroes of Virginia in slavery times was generally happy. The Negroes went about in a cheerful manner making a living for themselves and for those for whom they worked. They were not so unhappy as some Northerners thought they were, nor were they so happy as some Southerners claimed. The Negroes had their problems and their troubles. But they were not worried by the furious arguments going on between Northerners and Southerners over what should be done with them. In fact, they paid little attention to these arguments."

What's a "coffle"? http://tinyurl.com/pkdxuvq

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

Excellent series of posts.

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/books/review/the-half-has-never-been-told-by-edward-e-baptist.html

October 4, 2014

A Brutal Process
By ERIC FONER

THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD
Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
By Edward E. Baptist

For residents of the world's pre-­eminent capitalist nation, American historians have produced remarkably few studies of capitalism in the United States. This situation was exacerbated in the 1970s, when economic history began to migrate from history to economics departments, where it too often became an exercise in scouring the past for numerical data to plug into computerized models of the economy. Recently, however, the history of American capitalism has emerged as a thriving cottage industry. This new work portrays capitalism not as a given (something that "came in the first ships," as the historian Carl Degler once wrote) but as a system that developed over time, has been constantly evolving and penetrates all aspects of society.

Slavery plays a crucial role in this literature....


Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia.

DrDick said in reply to Sandwichman...

As Sydney Mintz showed, capitalism was founded on and made possible by slavery.

Paine said in reply to DrDick...

Marx sounds this theme powerfully in his chapter in Kap I
on primitive or primal accumulation

Sandwichman said in reply to Paine ...

Sounded the theme... but then failed to develop it. Maybe it was too obvious in those days, soon after the Civil War and before the "measuring rod" of neo-Confederate censorship rewrote history.

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

http://www.common-place.org/vol-10/no-03/baptist/

April, 2010

Toxic Debt, Liar Loans, and Securitized Human Beings
The Panic of 1837 and the fate of slavery
By Edward E. Baptist

Early in the last decade, an Ayn Rand disciple named Alan Greenspan, who had been trusted with the U.S. government's powers for regulating the financial economy, stated his faith in the ability of that economy to maintain its own stability: "Recent regulatory reform coupled with innovative technologies has spawned rapidly growing markets for, among other products, asset-backed securities, collateral loan obligations, and credit derivative default swaps. These increasingly complex financial instruments have contributed, especially over the recent stressful period, to the development of a far more flexible, efficient, and hence resilient financial system than existed just a quarter-century ago."

At the beginning of this decade, in the wake of the failure of Greenspan's faith to prevent the eclipse of one economic order of things, Robert Solow, another towering figure in the economics profession, reflected on Greenspan's credo and voiced his suspicion that the financialization of the U.S. economy over the last quarter-century created not "real," but fictitious wealth: "Flexible maybe, resilient apparently not, but how about efficient? How much do all those exotic securities, and the institutions that create them, buy them, and sell them, actually contribute to the 'real' economy that provides us with goods and services, now and for the future?" ...

chris herbert said...

I don't think Capitalism has much to do with morality. Capitalists employed 8 year olds and a workweek of 60 hours at subsistence pay was the norm. Even today, look what American capitalists do to their employees in the Far East! Adam Smith figured that capitalism improved people's lives unintentionally. Not much of a moral statement, that one. That's why capitalism fails so miserably if not tightly regulated. Democracy, on the other hand, has pretty well defined moral foundations; Liberty, rights, equality etc. etc. Social democracies, in my opinion, have a stronger tether to the moral side of Democracy than we currently have here in the U.S. Our moral tether was shredded by the political right turn accomplished in the 1980s under Reagan. A similar degradation began in the U.K. about the same time under Thatcher. Oddly enough, that 30 plus year period between the end of WWII and 1980, was a period of strong progressive policy making. Pro labor laws, steeply progressive tax rates, voting rights, sensible retirement funding and Medicare for the elderly were all products of that time period. Maybe it was all an anomaly. A brief period of egalitarian ideals that created a middle class and produced a manufacturing hegemon. No longer. We are a military hegemon now. We are no longer a Democracy either. Most people haven't realized it; most especially working men and women who freely give up their rights and protections by voting for Republicans. We have the government we deserve. We are the most entertained and least informed citizens of any of the rich countries.

Paine said in reply to chris herbert...

Exploitation has a morality

All that exists must be torn apart
Rest is sin
The future is blocked only by the present

Faust

Peter K. said...

Off topic but everyone's favorite subject: monetary policy.

http://macromarketmusings blogspot.com/2015/09/revealed-preferences-fed-inflation.html

http://tinyurl.com/povj6qe

Friday, September 4, 2015

Revealed Preferences: Fed Inflation Target Edition
by David Beckworth

Over the past six years the Fed's preferred measure of the price level, the core PCE, has averaged 1.5 percent growth. That is well below the Fed's explicit target of 2 percent inflation. Why this consistent shortfall?

Some Fed officials are asking themselves this very question. A recent Wall Street Journal article reporting from the Jackson Hole Fed meetings led with this opening sentence: "central bankers aren't sure they understand how inflation works anymore". The article goes on to highlight some deep soul searching being done by central bankers in the Wyoming mountains. It is good to see our monetary authorities engaged in deep introspection, but let me give them a suggestion. Dust off your revealed preference theory textbooks and see what they can tell you about the low inflation of the past six years.

To that end, and as a public service to you our beleaguered Fed officials, let me provide some material to consider. First consider your inflation forecasts that go into making the central tendency consensus forecasts at the FOMC meetings. The figures below show the evolution of these forecasts for the current year, one-year ahead, and two-years ahead. There is an interesting pattern that emerges from these figures as you expand the forecast horizon: 2 percent becomes a upper bound.

....

So rest easy dear Fed official. No need for any existential angst. According to revealed preferences, you are still driving core inflation--which ignores supply shocks like changes in oil prices--it is just that you have a roughly 1%-2% core inflation target corridor rather than a 2% target. So even though you may not realize it, you are doing a bang up job keeping core inflation in your target corridor."

Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....

Our Neo-Classsical single equilibrium friend Don Kervack says the economy "naturally" healed itself despite unprecedented fiscal austerity, a trade deficit and strong dollar.

I don't buy it. Economics isn't broken. Politics is.

The center-left party for the job class should be calling up the Fed and asking "WTF?"

SomeCallMeTim said...

In the mid-1970s, at some universities economics was still called 'political economy', micro began with consideration of equity vs. efficiency, and the legitimacy of countercyclical social programs wasn't so widely questioned.

Was there a loss of nerve, at least in the U.S., following the Vietnam War, the 1973 oil shock, and the following recession that led to a quantum shift in generosity of spirit / belief in children exceeding their parents material well-being (or as politicians would later put it, voting one's fears instead of one's hopes)?

Second Best said...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/21/the-plague-of-american-authoritarianism/

The Plague of American Authoritarianism

by Henry Giroux

Authoritarianism in the American collective psyche and in what might be called traditional narratives of historical memory is always viewed as existing elsewhere.

Viewed as an alien and demagogic political system, it is primarily understood as a mode of governance associated with the dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s and, of course, in its most vile extremes, with Hitler's poisonous Nazi rule and Mussolini's fascist state in the 1930s and 1940s. These were and are societies that idealized war, soldiers, nationalism, militarism, political certainty, fallen warriors, racial cleansing, and a dogmatic allegiance to the homeland.[i] Education and the media were the propaganda tools of authoritarianism, merging fascist and religious symbols with the language of God, family, and country, and were integral to promoting servility and conformity among the populace. This script is well known to the American public and it has been played out in films, popular culture, museums, the mainstream media, and other cultural apparatuses. Historical memory that posits the threat of the return of an updated authoritarianism turns the potential threat of the return of authoritarianism into dead memory. Hence, any totalitarian mode of governance is now treated as a relic of a sealed past that bears no relationship to the present. The need to retell the story of totalitarianism becomes a frozen lesson in history rather than a narrative necessary to understanding the present

Hannah Arendt, the great theorist of totalitarianism, believed that the protean elements of totalitarianism are still with us and that they would crystalize in different forms.[ii] Far from being a thing of the past, she believed that totalitarianism "heralds as a possible model for the future."[iii] Arendt was keenly aware that the culture of traditionalism, an ever present culture of fear, the corporatization of civil society, the capture of state power by corporations, the destruction of public goods, the corporate control of the media, the rise of a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, the dismantling of civil and political rights, the ongoing militarization of society, the "religionization of politics,"[iv] a rampant sexism, an attack on labor, an obsession with national security, human rights abuses, the emergence of a police state, a deeply rooted racism, and the attempts by demagogues to undermine critical education as a foundation for producing critical citizenry were all at work in American society. For Arendt, these anti-democratic elements in American society constituted what she called the "sand storm," a metaphor for totalitarianism.[v]

Historical conjunctures produce different forms of authoritarianism, though they all share a hatred for democracy, dissent, and human rights. It is too easy to believe in a simplistic binary logic that strictly categorizes a country as either authoritarian or democratic and leaves no room for entertaining the possibility of a mixture of both systems. American politics today suggests a more updated if not different form of authoritarianism or what some have called the curse of totalitarianism. In this context, it is worth remembering what Huey Long said in response to the question of whether America could ever become fascist: "Yes, but we will call it anti-fascist." [vi] Long's reply indicates that fascism is not an ideological apparatus frozen in a particular historical period, but as Arendt suggested a complex and often shifting theoretical and political register for understanding how democracy can be subverted, if not destroyed, from within.

(more at link above)

Anonymous said...

1) Gut all regulation in the name of free markets.
2) Sprinkle with the fairy dust of zero or negative real interest rates.
3) Let it rip.

I mean the moral fiber of society. this had a big hand in it.

Anonymous said in reply to Anonymous...

If anyone thinks incentives have nothing to do with deteriorating moral fiber, you are delusional.

ezra abrams said...

Is this the same RR who crossed a picket line at huff post, or someplace like that ?
cause ya know, his views are just so critical...
as my dad use to say, a scab never has to worry bout getting by, he can always steal from blind mens cups

and liberals wonder why blue collars hate hi falutin people

anne said in reply to ezra abrams...

Where is the precise reference to this nastiness?

Since Robert Reich provides his essays to any publication through a Creative Commons license, I cannot imagine how he could have crossed any picket line. Any essay by Reich can be used on any Internet site.

Returning now to the nastiness....

ilsm said...

Thuglican Jesus, thuglican God......

Factitious values based on thuglican God ordained "lesser people" should be property and the 98% exploited for the chosen .01%.......

See Sandwichman at Angry Bear.

cm said...

I suspect the moral center has been declared as a cost center, and not only yesterday.

[Sep 03, 2015] Kievs week of violence is a crisis of its own making

Both countries are US clients and US has no use anymore for the nazi dogs of war, i.e. they can protest all they want - they are getting nothing and if they become too obstructive, they will start to disappear one by one.
They might be dangerous but they are nothing compared to money men running the show."
.
"...Occam's razor: the fascist nationalist nutters orchestrated the whole thing, because they don't want any concessions given to the objects of their hatred."
.
Some people think the challenges faced by Ukraine's Poroshenko are now too big to overcome. But those who would like to take his place have not shown themselves capable of doing even half of what he has achieved.
.
Wait...Poroshenko has achieved something? He has done nothing but what he was told. He waged war in the east because John Brennan told him to. And then stopped when Merkel told him to. He is a non-entity."
.
"...Here is two examples of Porkoshenko being a head of occupational government: (1). He destroyed Ukraine's military industrial complex, for it's ties (very profitable by the way) with Russian military, as any obedient CIA stooge will do. (2). He flipped the country geo-politically, from the state that should have benefit from it's position in the middle of the Europe, in to some sort of final frontier, protecting Europe from the hordes of those crazy Russians, all by himself , only crazy person could have come up with this, or an obedient CIA stooge again."
.
"...Let's face it, straight reporting on The Ukraine is hard to come by, given that it's labouring under the 3-line whip of the CIA, MI6 and another global I.S. best not to mention."
.
"...When you back hard right elements (to further your personal political goals, when both parties share a common antagonist) who are prone to violence. Don't cry victim when they disagree with your political overtures & decisions. Acting out that disagreement the only manner they know how to which is through violence. I have no sympathy Poroshenko, for the backlash his government is now facing re: his government's constitutional proposals."
.
"...I chortled with laughter, almost choked, when he suggested that the Kremlin agents are organising the far right nationalists in Ukraine, deliberately causing an outbreak of peace in order to show up the Kiev parties in a bad light! Believe me, Kiev parties can show themselves up all by themselves!"
.
"...I wondered how long it would be for poroshenko to blame putin for the grenade attack. Russia has been a convenient scapegoat for Ukraine to blame for its own failings since the overthrow of yanukovic.
The right wing activists who carried out the grenade attack were at the heart of the maidan protests which also involved violent confrontations with the police. They were also those who tarrgetted ethnic Russians following the overthrow of yanukovic so their actions in opposition to granting extra powers to eastern territories is hardly surprising."
Notable quotes:
"... I talk about the media coverage. At that time "the right wing Party" was just a Putin lie, troubles were cause by Putin, protesters were peaceful and policemen were killed not in terror attacks but were killed democratically. ..."
"... - Ehhh... was it a terrorist attack? Not a peaceful protest democratically fighting bad and corrupt police prohibiting them to freely take the parliament? Because at the Euromaidan 17 policemen were killed and more than 200 injured when peaceful protesters were democratically fighting bad and corrupt police prohibiting them to freely take the parliament... and there were no terror attacks... ..."
"... "Corporatism was one of the ideals of both German Nazism and Italian fascism. They held it as a carrot before the people, as a 'solution' to the class problem. They used it as their 'revolutionary' credentials and in both cases, ditched it completely soon after taking power. The idea of each sector of society being organized to take its place at the high table of the state was always "jam tomorrow." Today's agenda was always "war." ..."
"... It should also be understood that fascist 'corporatism' has nothing to do with the global corporations that are not often bigger than nation states. Modern 'corporatism' only shares a name with the fascist 'ideal.' Not that it any better. ..."
"... Princesss Nuland of the neocons is a nasty murderous piece of work. One to watch. Hopefully somebody will 'putsch' her and her equally loathsome husband. Have they spawned any more little evils? ..."
"... A neo-neocon organised and paid for putsch is hardly "democratic", same as any other US sanctioned regime change i.e Mega Nation Theft. ..."
"... In all matters relating to Eastern Europe the Guardian has pinned its colours to the mast of the "New East Network." Which is essentially controlled by a Mr George Soros, Radio "Free Europe" and the National Endowment for Democracy." All mouthpieces of the state department. Its safest to believe the opposite of everything they tell us. ..."
"... It is very hard to enter EU from the East without visa (and rules for visa application were hardened for Ukrainians). It is very hard to get job without working permit, and for money you need to register. Notice, that all these points are not present in case of refugees traveling to Russia/Belarus. ..."
"... Fast forward to the neo-neocon putsch and princess Nuland boasting of the death and destruction that all those humanitarian $5 billion had purchased as she dispensed biscuits in Maidan, just prior to both sides being shot up by putschist snipers (likely from outside and/or Svoboda, or the Social Nationalists (don't say Nazis don't have a sense of humour!). ..."
"... Its not really a zero-sum game. Russia always maintained that the coup was engineered by the West by encouraging right wing elements and this is just one of a number of incidents that prove that their view was correct. This makes our life difficult in the West because we only think in polar terms -- if Russia is right then they 'win'. Since we cannot allow any situation where Russia 'wins' we go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to try to prove black is really white. It would be better to ignore Russia's comments and commentaries and just look dispassionately at who the actors are and what they're up to. The answers are staring us in the face. ..."
"... February 24, 2014, right extremist forces (Banderists, Right Sector and neo-Nazis Svoboda) implemented a coup during the Maiden. At the time the US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these 'pro-democracy protestors' even if, according to the pictures we saw, some of them were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails and other things at the police and smashing up statues and setting fire to buildings. ..."
"... These militias became the spearhead of Ukrainian forces in the East and on them falls much of the war effort in the Civil War. But these militias can not yet be lifted, because otherwise the war in the East could not continue. ..."
"... History always repeats itself. Use low ignorant, racist and violent manpower to take power by force but also to maintain it, but then to dump it as soon as possible because they rare considered, rightly, unpresentable or otherwise dangerous even for those who have instigated, financed and exploited them. Of course, sometimes such situations go out of hand, see the Afghan Mujahidin or ISIS. ..."
"... Now Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk are receiving their own coin back. They supported and reinforced those they now pretend to discover to be thugs. The real puppets are and remain in power while their useful barbarians have become bothersome: infamous, resistant to the point that one can wonder if the latest riot would not be a false flag from Yats and Poro who used the skills of these criminal thugs. Because the latter are not mere free electrons who just decided to meet that day. There is money, people that structure this, a hierarchy, an efficient network and money at will, in which Russia has no involvement. ..."
"... The far right have done all the dirty work during the coup and still doing it on the frontline and have not got enough in return, in their view. Croatia had a similar problem with their extremist veterans who were used by the Croatian right wing HDZ to destabilize social-democrat government. ..."
"... Both countries are US clients and US has no use anymore for the nazi dogs of war, i.e. they can protest all they want - they are getting nothing and if they become too obstructive, they will start to disappear one by one. ..."
"... Occam's razor: the fascist nationalist nutters orchestrated the whole thing, because they don't want any concessions given to the objects of their hatred. ..."
"... The director of Centre of Eurasian researches Vladimir Kornilov noted: "Everybody perfectly understands where the HR department of Ukrainian policy is. It is in the American Embassy". ..."
"... Let's face it, straight reporting on The Ukraine is hard to come by, given that it's labouring under the 3-line whip of the CIA, MI6 and another global I.S. best not to mention. ..."
"... Disgusting man hailing from a disgusting class of politician/businessmen trained by the US to bring death and chaos to any part of the globe that the powers behind the US Government see fit. Prepare for our own Maidan should this class of parasite-sans-frontieres, (read Mikheil Saakashvili), succeed in bringing The Ukraine under the NATO umbrella. ..."
"... I chortled with laughter, almost choked, when he suggested that the Kremlin agents are organising the far right nationalists in Ukraine, deliberately causing an outbreak of peace in order to show up the Kiev parties in a bad light! Believe me, Kiev parties can show themselves up all by themselves! ..."
"... idan 2014 edition? He doesn't ask who armed them in the first place. The author is giving a good impression of being one very confused bloke. ..."
Sep 03, 2015 | The Guardian

Another version has it that the explosion outside parliament was orchestrated by the president's administration or the Ukrainian special services in order to discredit Svoboda and other radical nationalists and to "tighten the screws" on the political life of the country thus justifying control over opposition forces.

This version hardly stands up to criticism. The demonstration was led by MPs who are members of Svoboda but got into parliament as independent candidates. In the 2014 elections Svoboda did not win the 5% of the vote necessary to enter parliament. Four months earlier, in the presidential election, the party's leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, won only a little over 1% of the vote. This week he was photographed, together with other Svoboda activists, trying to drag a soldier out of the human chain formed around parliament into the crowd of protesters. It was a moment very reminiscent of the Maidan days, only that then Svoboda members and their leader were inside parliament. Since then the party has found itself increasingly marginalised.

However, there were other groups represented in the demonstration , among them two that deserve special attention: Oleg Lyashko's radical party and Igor Kolomoisky's Ukrop party. T-shirts with the latter party's emblem were given out free at the demonstration, and those willing to take part were paid to protest. Kolomoisky is considered to be an enemy of President Poroshenko since he was sacked from his position as governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Kolomoisky's man in Odessa, Igor Palitsa, also lost his job as governor and was replaced by the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Immediately after the blast, Lyashko, who is a radical populist with little in common with the radical nationalists, announced the establishment of a campaign to save the nation. Only three or four hours after the explosion, his party had already registered a bill that would block changes to the constitution at times when the country is under military attack. Lyashko came second in the presidential elections, and over the last year his Radical party has gone up in the ratings. It is interesting that articles in the press regularly claim to have evidence that both the Svoboda party and the Radical party have been financed by the same oligarchs, the above mentioned Kolomoisky, Sergey Levochkin – who was head of the presidential administration under Yanukovich and who fled to Moscow after the Maidan – and Dmitry Firtash, who is now being investigated on corruption charges in Austria.

Still, the violence could have a far more banal explanation. To begin with, volunteers who went off to fight in the Donbass for the sake of maintaining Ukraine's unity were radicals from militant groups such as the Right Sector, which sprang up during the Maidan. There were also volunteers who had no affiliation to any party who went to fight. When the Ukrainian army took over the main role in the fighting, many of the volunteers returned home, taking weapons with them.

nnedjo 3 Sep 2015 16:18

Well, the purpose of the constitutional changes in Ukraine should be that rebels in the southeast stop fighting and accept Ukraine as his country, and not Ukrainian nationalists to stop throwing grenades at the police in Kiev. However, these laws passed by the Ukrainian parliament, can contribute very little that the main objective. Their main goal is just to create the illusion that Ukraine really is trying to comply with the requirement of Minsk 2 agreement, and thus to meet the expectations of their Western friends, which means to prevent lifting of sanctions against Russia. And, on the other hand, these laws need to be completely contrary to the expectations of the rebel peoples in Donbas, or in other words to achieve the same thing that the Ukrainian government unsuccessfully tried to achieve with weapons.

It is particularly interesting that the President of Ukraine Poroshenko himself makes no secret at all that it is true what I've previously written, as can be understood, among other things, also from those of his statements:

According to the president, "the threat of break-up of the international pro-Ukrainian coalition" would have increased if the Verkhovna Rada had not voted in favor of decentralization amendments to the constitution on Monday.

It could also lead to the lifting of sanctions, which "are very painfully hitting the aggressor," he said, apparently, referring to Russia, which Kiev blames for sending troops to war-torn eastern Ukraine....

...But what they [Donetsk and Lugansk Regions] have got instead is a lean line about the features of local self-governance," Poroskenko stressed.
So, even though the law that caused the protests in front of parliament has the name of "decentralization", in fact it needs to further strengthen the competence of the central government. Based on this law, the Presidency received the right to appoint a prefect, who with his hand has the discretionary right to dismiss officials elected at the local elections in certain regions. And if they do not like it, they can appeal to the constitutional court in Kiev, where were apparently is known in advance what may be the decision of the constitutional court.

On the other hand, the law on the special status of Donetsk and Lugansk, which was passed earlier, is practically suspended at this point by the recent decision of the President Poroshenko.

In this respect, it is necessary to emphasize two things.

Although according to the Minsk 2 arrangement, the special status of the Donbas region should have been incorporated as an integral and permanent part of the Ukrainian Constitution, the law, which is now suspended, does not meet any of these two demands.

This law therefore is attached only as an annex to the Ukrainian constitution, and its validity is limited to just three years. And, according to the idea of Ukrainian legislators, the law can come into force only after the local elections in Donbass which would be held under the previous Ukrainian legislation, and when Ukrainian forces take control over the whole territory of Ukraine, including its entire border with Russia.

Until then, they will be consider that Donbas region is temporarily occupied part of Ukrainian territory, and officials of the People's Republic of Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republic will be considered as terrorists. And since with the terrorists must not be negotiations, leaders of the LNR and DNR were completely excluded so far from discussions about the law on the special status, which is also contrary to the Minsk 2 agreement, given that it explicitly requires just that.
All in all, they are asking the pro-Russian rebels that lay down their arms voluntarily, without getting anything in return. Or more accurately, to get just a little bit of what they are looking for and only for a period of three years. So, congratulations on wishful thinking, but the question is whether it is achievable at all.

LimaCPapa -> ridibundus 3 Sep 2015 15:48

I first learned about this when a new Ukrainian student introduced himself, and we asked why the name he gave was not the name on his papers. He explained (with clear annoyance) that he had to use a Ukrainian name. He had to keep it while he was here as well, because it was the name in his passport. Now he's free of all that and uses his Russian name. Needless to say, he did not return to Ukraine. Another Ukrainian has since confirmed that the same thing was true for her passport. In both cases, issued in the early 2000s. So who's lying then?

beakybloom -> gablody 3 Sep 2015 13:34

What's inherited??.. The bankrupt economy, loss of Crimea, loss of Donbass, 6000 dead, civil war, downing of Malaysian airliner with 300 souls on board, Odessa massacre, murders of political opponents, the nazi parliament, stupid laws glorifying Ukraine's nazi past, no visa-free access to EU, Nazis throwing grenades at the police???..

Nothing here is inherited except the absence of visa-free access to EU

a "show on the road" ? On IMF funny money? For how long? It's a shitshow, and unsustainable to boot.


nnedjo -> Chirographer 3 Sep 2015 13:28

The putinposters are still reeling with the news that the Ukrainian government is fighting "Nazis" in Kiev,...

It will be possible to say just when the news arrives that the organizers of these demonstrations were sentenced to a few tens of years in prison, and that guy who threw this grenade from which the Guardsmen killed, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

What is quite unbelievable judging by the past behavior of government from Kiev.

Chillskier -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 10:43

Georgia tried:
http://agenda.ge/news/26188/eng
Apparently Interpol red notices cannot be issued against US stooges.

Chillskier -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 10:20

The piece of shit she CHOSE to work with.
Jewish neo-con skunk and neo-Nazi thug seems like a match made in heaven.

jezzam -> Chillskier 3 Sep 2015 10:19

Go ahead then. I can't wait. Neither can Poroshenko. His best option is passive resistance when Putin launches his next land grab. Russia will be forced to give it back eventually when they are totally bankrupt

Bosula -> RVictor 3 Sep 2015 08:55

The congregation is mostly made up of ethnic Ukrainians, members of a community that numbers hundreds of thousands and has been growing rapidly since the start of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.


This is what the Guardian reported on 13 May 2015 - this was JUST for Poland:

"Last year Poland issued 331,000 permits for short-term work to Ukrainians, up 50% on 2013, says Marta Jaroszewicz, a migration expert at the Centre For Eastern Studies (OSW), an independent Warsaw thinktank funded by the Polish government.

She estimates that there are now 300,000-400,000 Ukrainians in Poland, as many as twice the officially recognised number. In January and February, the number of residence applications by Ukrainians in the Mazovian voivodeship – the province which includes Warsaw – was up 180% on the same months of 2014."

There are other articles for other neighbouring countries bordering Ukraine, but the Guardian is a pretty authoritative source.

Since this story the number crossing the border to leave Ukraine has increased significantly.


FlappyCat 3 Sep 2015 08:20

Poroshenko to Transnistria..
Yats to Macedonia and
Saakishwilly to Tajikistan.


oleteo -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 08:12

I read the Gorby's interview where he said 'Yes' about the NATO promises.But he's a fool nevertherless to beleive the promises,written or verbal from his enemy.


elias_ -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 08:07

>>He's trying to provoke Putin.

Hmm in that case you have proved Poroshenko is a fu##ing idiot. Only an idiot would set out to provoke the leader of a neighbouring country into invading. Is that what you lot voted him in for? No, it isn't. He should be making peace and securing the future for his people. Face it, your leader is taking orders from Pyatt and you know it.

BigBanana 3 Sep 2015 07:50

"Kolomoisky's man in Odessa, Igor Palitsa, also lost his job as governor and was replaced by the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili"

Jeez, Saakashvili is a stupid appointment for a very long list of reasons. He's the idiot who got Georgia dismembered after misjudging the situation terribly.

It's as if Poroshenko is deliberately trying to fuck things up.

HuffingHume -> normankirk 3 Sep 2015 07:41

All of the ex-Soviet Union, with the exception of the Baltic states, are horribly corrupt dysfunctional kleptocracies run by Soviet era bigwigs who carved up their state's assets up for themelves, leaving most of their fellow countrymen in poverty. This is the reason why many Ukrianians want to be more 'European'; because they want to be more like Poland and the Baltic States, rather than in the Russian orbit, in which every state has barely made it out of the 80's.


Dimmus -> Alex Hughes 3 Sep 2015 07:15

"It was the right wing Svoboda Party that started the trouble, definitely not a 'peaceful protest' as you make out. "

I talk about the media coverage. At that time "the right wing Party" was just a Putin lie, troubles were cause by Putin, protesters were peaceful and policemen were killed not in terror attacks but were killed democratically.

RVictor -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 07:14

Putin has a record of false flag operations, starting with the Moscow apartment block bombing performed by the FSB when he was head and which brought him to power.

And the proof is ... o, yes, - something written by oligarch in exile! Btw., here is a short list of admitted FF operations be US and it's vassals. Remember "Iraq WMD"?

oleteo -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 07:10

Why being invaded by Putin, Ukraine is trading a discount for gas, [and asks for ] deferral of loan?

irishinrussia -> Alex Hughes 3 Sep 2015 07:03

It's irony. He is implying that when protesters the west likes kill policemen then they at peaceful demonstrators, perhaps defending themselves against brutal security forces, at worst any violence is the action of a few hotheads or extremists among overwhelmingly peaceful, democratic victims of the state. However, when the very same protesters attack our guys (Poroshenko), they are radicals, extremists and terrorists, perhaps abetted by shadowy enemies of freedom and democracy (FSB).

PanoptikonicallyKool -> Briar 3 Sep 2015 06:15

Shhh!!!! You are not supposed to say things like that! 'US backed coup'? That is not part of the story. And it's ancient history history, no connection to current events. In fact it didn't even happen, according to repectable news sites. Or they don't mention it, so it must not have happended . The US, as the article states, or rather doesn't state, or rather doesn't even mention, has nothing to do with political events inside Ukraine, that's why we never read anything about it. Did Russia do it or not do it? That's the only serious question for anything that happens in Ukraine.

US involvement in Urkaine? Harrruuumph! Conspiracy theory! And don't bring it up again!

Dimmus 3 Sep 2015 06:15

"But the media has been busy throwing up theories about who has most to benefit from this terrorist attack. "

- Ehhh... was it a terrorist attack? Not a peaceful protest democratically fighting bad and corrupt police prohibiting them to freely take the parliament? Because at the Euromaidan 17 policemen were killed and more than 200 injured when peaceful protesters were democratically fighting bad and corrupt police prohibiting them to freely take the parliament... and there were no terror attacks...


ositonegro -> BastaYa72 3 Sep 2015 06:11

"Corporatism was one of the ideals of both German Nazism and Italian fascism. They held it as a carrot before the people, as a 'solution' to the class problem. They used it as their 'revolutionary' credentials and in both cases, ditched it completely soon after taking power. The idea of each sector of society being organized to take its place at the high table of the state was always "jam tomorrow." Today's agenda was always "war."

It should also be understood that fascist 'corporatism' has nothing to do with the global corporations that are not often bigger than nation states. Modern 'corporatism' only shares a name with the fascist 'ideal.' Not that it any better.

RVictor -> oleteo 3 Sep 2015 06:01

Poroshenko Blames Russia For Police Deaths

paulrou -> kennyboy 3 Sep 2015 05:21

How can anyone not take the US state department's line. It is the truth. Ergo, everyone else is paid by the Russians.

Калинин Юрий -> elias_ 3 Sep 2015 04:59

He does not answer the questions, he blames Putin in all the world's sins and universe disasters. Global warming - Putin, extreme heat in the EU - Putin, police conflicts in the USA - Putin. Ask him, wh has scratched a car by a shopping mall last month - Putin!

RVictor -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 04:53

The West has not broken international law since the Iraq invasion.

Support and organization of governments overthrow all around the world? War in Libya? Killing with drones on foreigns territories? Bombing of Syria territory?

Theo Humbug -> normankirk 3 Sep 2015 04:52

Princesss Nuland of the neocons is a nasty murderous piece of work. One to watch. Hopefully somebody will 'putsch' her and her equally loathsome husband. Have they spawned any more little evils?

RVictor -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 04:49

Why does Georgia not get Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for Saakashvili? Ukraine would have to comply. The answer is obvious. They would not get one because the charges against Saakashvili are politically motivated, like most of the corruption charges in Russia.

Right - like any West institution Interpol is so-o-o independent, exactly like International Court!

Theo Humbug -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 04:49

I have come to realise that Jizzem is just a Turing Bot.

Theo Humbug -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 04:48

HAHAHAHAHA... Are you serious? Which planet are you on? Do you think people forget that quickly? A neo-neocon organised and paid for putsch is hardly "democratic", same as any other US sanctioned regime change i.e Mega Nation Theft.

jonsid -> Mark Elliott 3 Sep 2015 04:46

In all matters relating to Eastern Europe the Guardian has pinned its colours to the mast of the "New East Network." Which is essentially controlled by a Mr George Soros, Radio "Free Europe" and the National Endowment for Democracy." All mouthpieces of the state department. Its safest to believe the opposite of everything they tell us.

Theo Humbug -> Chirographer 3 Sep 2015 04:41

You clearly have a very bad memory. The Russian offer of cancelling debt and very reasonable prices for fuel was very attractive to the ELECTED government of Victor Yanukovych and far far better than the EU offer, which was why they were all for accepting the Russian offer and aligning more with Moscow..

But the USA can't have any country deciding it's own fate if it is not in accord with the Lords of this Universe.

The neocon organised and paid for putsch, Maidan Shootings, Odessa burnings, put a stop to any agreement beneficial to the Ukrainians and opened the way for the IMF to come in and steal the wealth of yet another country.

There is no excuse for anybody not to know these recorded and verifiable FACTS.

elias_ -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 04:36

You are fixated on Putin - you must be a not so secret admirer. Why don't you answer Tomov's question. What has Poroshenko achieved since becoming President?

RVictor -> careforukraine 3 Sep 2015 04:34

It is very hard to enter EU from the East without visa (and rules for visa application were hardened for Ukrainians). It is very hard to get job without working permit, and for money you need to register. Notice, that all these points are not present in case of refugees traveling to Russia/Belarus.

So I show you official numbers of registered refugees in EU - and amount of unregistered cannot be high due to immigration laws and functioning police system.

On over side, number of 400000 is taken from nowhere - go on and proof it.

Salut_Salut -> jezzam 3 Sep 2015 04:32

If you are such a hard-core proponent of sanctions policy, then may be you can name the beneficiaries of it in EU? Farmers? Businesses? Common people? Methinks - only politicians following in the wake of Uncle Sam's guidelines. The President of Russia is no way a role model or a paragon country leader, but seeing him behind every corner is nothing but a bout of anti-Russian paranoia. People of that long-suffering country aren't actually represented by him only.

Theo Humbug 3 Sep 2015 04:29

How far back does history go?

Lat week, last month, Maidan Square, the fall of the Soviet Union?

If taken that far back, then people will surely remember Ronnie Raygun's promises to Gorbachev that no NATO forces would encroach on former Soviet territory. Ehh?? What??

Fast forward to the neo-neocon putsch and princess Nuland boasting of the death and destruction that all those humanitarian $5 billion had purchased as she dispensed biscuits in Maidan, just prior to both sides being shot up by putschist snipers (likely from outside and/or Svoboda, or the Social Nationalists (don't say Nazis don't have a sense of humour!).

So called separatists voted to stay with Russia, with whom they identified, despite the lies and propaganda from the US/West/Nato including premature accusations of responsibility fro the shooting down of MH17 .. funny how 1) the US never released it's data (another Pentagon "plane"?) 2) that has all gone very quiet... Wonder what they found?

Perhaps the putschist regime and/or their neo-neocon pay/puppet-meisters have woken up to the very real danger of putting nazties withing 'Cooee' of nuclear weapons?

Of course, one does not need to be a nazti to call for nuclear mass murder. The blond plaited heroine of the right, the ex jailbird, ex Prime Minister (for ganesh sake!!) Tymoshenko called for the nuking of Donbass, if I remember correctly.

Russian now has the major Western forces and neonazis on their border. President Putin has to deal with these murderers and the great unwashed, living in their encapsulating bubbles of Newspeak and reality cooking shows, are told by the Mudorc press and other propagandists that it is Russia that is pure evil.

I wish there were a god.

Tony Cocks -> danhudders 3 Sep 2015 03:59

" The airliner was almost certainly downed by a Russian crew "

But of course you have not one shred of evidence to support your statement in which case would you agree it is valueless and was a waste of your time posting it in the first place.

RVictor -> careforukraine 3 Sep 2015 03:49

I think he said refugees crossed the border ........i am not sure that all refugees fill out the application form?

400000 ? Look on the current 100000's refugees wave from the Asia/Africa to get an expression how it looks like. Or on the last year summer wave of Ukrainian refugees in Russia - with large refugee camps for temporary placements etc. You cannot get 400000 refugees to go "unseen" - especially in case of relatively good-maintained land border.

martinusher 3 Sep 2015 03:09

Its not really a zero-sum game. Russia always maintained that the coup was engineered by the West by encouraging right wing elements and this is just one of a number of incidents that prove that their view was correct. This makes our life difficult in the West because we only think in polar terms -- if Russia is right then they 'win'. Since we cannot allow any situation where Russia 'wins' we go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to try to prove black is really white. It would be better to ignore Russia's comments and commentaries and just look dispassionately at who the actors are and what they're up to. The answers are staring us in the face.

(If you need any indication that something's not quite right in Ukraine then you only have to look to the appointment of Saakashvili as the governor of Odessa last summer. He's best known for his role as a Georgian politician, someone who, among other things, provoked a disastrous confrontation with Russia.)

SHappens 3 Sep 2015 03:07

To begin with, volunteers who went off to fight in the Donbass for the sake of maintaining Ukraine's unity were radicals from militant groups such as the Right Sector, which sprang up during the Maidan.

February 24, 2014, right extremist forces (Banderists, Right Sector and neo-Nazis Svoboda) implemented a coup during the Maiden. At the time the US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these 'pro-democracy protestors' even if, according to the pictures we saw, some of them were neo-Nazis who were throwing Molotov cocktails and other things at the police and smashing up statues and setting fire to buildings.

These forces were subsequently beaten in the elections, thus rejected by the Ukrainian people. However the first act of Poroshenko was to legitimate these irregular and illegal militias which, absent in Parliament, have received the far more important power of arms, courtesy of the new mixed Ukrainian-American government. Basically the only difference between the parliamentary majority and the far-right groups is that the first take orders from the West, the latter don't.

These militias became the spearhead of Ukrainian forces in the East and on them falls much of the war effort in the Civil War. But these militias can not yet be lifted, because otherwise the war in the East could not continue.

History always repeats itself. Use low ignorant, racist and violent manpower to take power by force but also to maintain it, but then to dump it as soon as possible because they rare considered, rightly, unpresentable or otherwise dangerous even for those who have instigated, financed and exploited them. Of course, sometimes such situations go out of hand, see the Afghan Mujahidin or ISIS.

Now Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk are receiving their own coin back. They supported and reinforced those they now pretend to discover to be thugs. The real puppets are and remain in power while their useful barbarians have become bothersome: infamous, resistant to the point that one can wonder if the latest riot would not be a false flag from Yats and Poro who used the skills of these criminal thugs. Because the latter are not mere free electrons who just decided to meet that day. There is money, people that structure this, a hierarchy, an efficient network and money at will, in which Russia has no involvement.

Still, Poroshenko and Yatsenuk want more war and call for lethal arms supply. All this while the rating of Ukrainian is now CC with negative outlook.

RVictor -> Bosula 3 Sep 2015 03:02

400,000 refugees crossed the borders from Ukraine into the EU over the past year.

You are lying (surprise, surprise!):

"There were 4,603 applications for international protection in Germany, 3,600 in Poland, 2,956 in Italy, 1,962 in Sweden, 1,763 in France, 200 in Moldova, 60 in Romania, 60 in Hungary and 20 in Slovakia," the UNHCR findings highlighted.

vr13vr 3 Sep 2015 02:16

"Russian TV focused on the events outside the Ukrainian parliament to prove to viewers that chaos reigns in Ukraine. "

And doesn't chaos indeed reign in Ukraine? I thought that was beyond obvious and doesn't need any additional proof.

vr13vr 3 Sep 2015 02:13

How about the more obvious explanation that Maidan, so much encouraged and celebrated by the West, had taught Ukrainians that it is Ok to attack the police, try to pull away their shields (see the photo above), through molotov cocktail at them (there was a picture on Monday) and grenades in order to pass certain laws in their Rada.

vr13vr 3 Sep 2015 02:11

How exactly Russia is "profiting" from this? is this author just throwing the sentences around or is he required to fulfill some anti-Russia quota in his article?

ArtofLies -> Jonathan Stromberg 3 Sep 2015 02:09

There are undoubtedly going to be further problems with these nationalists, oh come on, we can call the neo-nazi's or neo-fascists here, just because the journalists above the line cant be seen to be propagandising for fascists does not mean that we have to play those semantic games.

the fact is this is the second time these fascists have attacked the police, this time with grenades, the last time it was molotov cocktails, but the media wont criticise them because there is money to be made in the ukraine, not everything is privatised yet and i hear there are still dreams of fracking ukraine to prosperity.

nishville -> Jonathan Stromberg 3 Sep 2015 01:43

The far right have done all the dirty work during the coup and still doing it on the frontline and have not got enough in return, in their view. Croatia had a similar problem with their extremist veterans who were used by the Croatian right wing HDZ to destabilize social-democrat government.

Both countries are US clients and US has no use anymore for the nazi dogs of war, i.e. they can protest all they want - they are getting nothing and if they become too obstructive, they will start to disappear one by one.

They might be dangerous but they are nothing compared to money men running the show.

drrust 3 Sep 2015 01:38

Again you are instigating that the Minsk agreements were reached by western or international powers in general, implying that angloamerica was part of this. The agreement was a sole and very sucsessful initiative of Mrs Merkel, who took a reluctant Holland with her who solely sensed a chance to be viewed as a statesman. The UK had already transports of war material underway.

elias_ -> Bosula 3 Sep 2015 01:14

There's million in Russia although many of them may be hiding to avoid military service. Look on the bright side, there's another 40 million of them and I bet most will want to move into the land of milk and honey which is Europe.

MaoChengJi 2 Sep 2015 23:31

"But despite profiting from it, Russia is very unlikely to have perpetrated it"

Oh no, say it ain't so! How can any trouble in this world be caused by something that is not The Dark Lord Putin?

And how is Russia 'profiting' from this, I'd like to know? Isn's this rather a case of the western Russophobe industry suffering a loss?

Well, for sure the Russophobe industry suffering a loss is an undeniable victory for all humanity, but putting it as 'Russia profiting'?.. Oh well, russophobes are weird creatures, I've noticed it a long time ago.

retarius 2 Sep 2015 22:47

Occam's razor: the fascist nationalist nutters orchestrated the whole thing, because they don't want any concessions given to the objects of their hatred.

eric lund 2 Sep 2015 20:43

How the USA rule sway the destinies of Ukraine flooding it with blood

One can get an impression that authorities of Ukraine, totally dependent on State Department of USA, are doing anything – searching for spies, begging for money, getting weapons from USA and Europe, suppressing dissidence, self-advertising and desperate propaganda, but not taking the steps to peaceful regulation of conflict in South-East of the country and its economic rise.

According to the last research of Kiev international institute of sociology the rating of president Petr Poroshenko has fallen three times, down to 13,6%, other candidates don't even get 5%. When authorities are so unpopular, it is only left for them to turn the screws and continue witch hunting at full throttle.

The director of Centre of Eurasian researches Vladimir Kornilov noted: "Everybody perfectly understands where the HR department of Ukrainian policy is. It is in the American Embassy".

In order to strengthen his worthless power Poroshenko fired seemingly over powerful chief of Service of Safety Valentin Nalivaychenko, who had been transmitting information which often put Poroshenko himself in not very bright light, to representatives of USA. And new chief of Service of Safety Vasiliy Gritsak, who is very close to Poroshenko and was the head of his own service of safety, at one dash arrested 40 colonels and generals allegedly for dissidence in his department.
Danger is getting closer for Home Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov. The chief military prosecutor Of Ukraine Anatoliy Matios claimed that members of criminal organization 'Tornado', made on the base of militia and appointed by Avakov from former criminals, had organized secret place in basement floor of school to torture illegally captured people. The Ukrainian patriarch Filareth presented a medal for sacrificing and love for Ukraine, so to say for perverted sadism while torments, which are unofficially legalized by Ukrainian authorities.

At the same time the level of aggression of Ukrainian militaries is only picking up speed. Thus, the Ambassador of Ukraine in USA Valeriy Chalykh without any scruples stated: We are getting weapons, including lethal, and nobody can prohibit it to independent Ukraine. The other thing is that it is not common to disclose these countries, but they are more than 10, only from Europe. We have different level of technical and military cooperation, and at this stage it is only going further.

Chillskier -> Paul Moore 2 Sep 2015 20:42

Here is two examples of Porkoshenko being a head of occupational government:

  1. He destroyed Ukraine's military industrial complex, for it's ties (very profitable by the way) with Russian military, as any obedient CIA stooge will do.
  2. He flipped the country geo-politically, from the state that should have benefit from it's position in the middle of the Europe, in to some sort of final frontier, protecting Europe from the hordes of those crazy Russians, all by himself , only crazy person could have come up with this, or an obedient CIA stooge again.

So it is what Ukraine g-ment does, not what putin tells.


EugeneGur -> Chirographer 2 Sep 2015 20:35

everything would have been wonderful if Ukraine had not decided to finally reject the brotherly embrace of Putin's Russia

Not everything, because by that time Ukrainian authorities have already ruined a lot. However, there is little doubt that Ukraine would've been a hell of a lot better off if it hadn't followed the path of the coup and indulged in anti-Russian hysteria. Has your mother ever told you that quarreling with your neighbors is never a good idea?

Looking at the situation objectively, it is a good thing that the Kiev government is trying to follow the Minsk plan.

Objectively? You? It would be a good thing if it were but it doesn't. These constitutional changes have nothing to do with the requirements for the regional autonomy set out in Minsk II. Nor have they been agreed to by the Donbass representatives, which makes the whole thing pointless. But even these miserable changes had to be pushed through by Nuland, because Rada initially refused to approved them. There are 13 points in Minsk II and so far Kiev fulfilled none of them.

Jeff1000 2 Sep 2015 20:30

Some people think the challenges faced by Ukraine's Poroshenko are now too big to overcome. But those who would like to take his place have not shown themselves capable of doing even half of what he has achieved.

Wait...Poroshenko has achieved something? He has done nothing but what he was told.

He waged war in the east because John Brennan told him to. And then stopped when Merkel told him to. He is a non-entity.

Julian1972 -> truk10 2 Sep 2015 19:54

I know! I know!

Still, when the US funds its various Intelligence Agencies and Covert Overseas Operations Organizations to levels beyond that which most of the rest of the world combined spend on their actual militaries, it's hard not see why they end up being suspected of having sticky fingers in various pies.

Poor, innocent US...after all, all that money's just being spent on ergonomic seating and biodegradable paperclips, right? Hahahaha!

nnedjo 2 Sep 2015 19:51

There is one more possible theory, which seems that the author has failed to notice.
Thus, due to the fact that the proposed legislation is far from what was envisaged by Minsk 2 agreement, and in particular is far from what would satisfy the pro-Russian rebels, the following question arises:
Does this event may have been aimed to strengthen the claim that this bill is the most that Ukraine can offer to the pro-Russian rebels, because, "for God's sake, even for this Ukrainians began to kill each other in the middle of Kiev"?


TomFullery -> Chillskier 2 Sep 2015 19:47

You are right about Ukraine's economy. I visit fairly often and each time I get more Hryvnia for my Euros. Plus the restaurants are empty so you are guaranteed good service from serving staff desperate for a tip to supplement their meagre wages (so much for joining the US "democratic" system!).

Strange that the Nazi putsch in Kiev has benefited me (who wouldn't piss on them if they were burning) rather more than 99% of Ukrainians.

Although I do notice that the Kiev Nazis seem to have taken one step in the direction of moderation - the shrine to the Nazi Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera which was there erected about the time of the putsch has now disappeared (most likely moved to a less conspicuous location).

Julian1972 -> desnol 2 Sep 2015 19:44

Dead right.

In penning the written equivalent of 'The Picture That Fooled the World':

http://www.srpska-mreza.com/guest/LM/lm-f97/LM97_Bosnia.html

maybe, at least, his 'confusion' is a symptom of his conscience trying to find it's voice. Hehehe, maybe there's hope for him yet?

Let's face it, straight reporting on The Ukraine is hard to come by, given that it's labouring under the 3-line whip of the CIA, MI6 and another global I.S. best not to mention.

NorthOfTheM25 2 Sep 2015 19:42

The Ukrainian regime in as much as they try so hard to have a resemblance of 'western values' (whatever that means) & to avoid behaving like the powers that be at the Kremlin. At the end of the day have the same approach in how they apportion blame & deflect attention from their obvious failings.

When you back hard right elements (to further your personal political goals, when both parties share a common antagonist) who are prone to violence. Don't cry victim when they disagree with your political overtures & decisions. Acting out that disagreement the only manner they know how to which is through violence.

I have no sympathy Poroshenko, for the backlash his government is now facing re: his government's constitutional proposals.

TomFullery -> jezzam 2 Sep 2015 19:35

His Ukraine policy has two main prongs.

1. Make Putin realise that military aggression against his neighbours carries too high an economic penalty to be worthwhile.

Nothing got military until the US-instigated Nazi putsch in Kiev. Strategic imperatives trump short term economic considerations and Russia has reacted skilfully to the attack by the US using Ukraine as a proxy (much to Ukraine's detriment)

2. Support Ukraine economically until it becomes a prosperous liberal democracy, like the rest of Europe (Russia excepted of course).

Ukraine will be asset-stripped by US corporations. Ukraine will not be a prosperous, liberal democracy in your lifetime and neither will the US.

His policy seems to be working very well.

Oh dear!

Chillskier -> normankirk 2 Sep 2015 19:33

Link to the story that will challenge the spotless mind of jezzam:
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/08/28/ukrainischer-oligarch-bereichert-sich-an-iwf-krediten/

Oligarchs in Ukraine are doing extremely well, obviously not a concern for a coup sponsors.

normankirk -> jezzam 2 Sep 2015 19:33

Want an example of a twist?

Kerry warning Poroshenko against resuming hostilities, retaking territory in breach of the Minsk agreement, then less than a week later Nuland rushing to Kiev to egg Poroshenko on, thoroughly endorsing his plans

Hanwell123 -> Knapping 2 Sep 2015 19:28

He was the idiot who jumped the gun in the CIA plan to create a war in 2008. He went before the whistle shelling an unprotected and unwarned city hours before he was supposed to. One of Asias prize fools. So Poroshenko's made him - a non Ukrainian - Governor of Odessa. Great stuff Poro!

TomFullery -> jezzam 2 Sep 2015 19:27

Despite Yanukovich's corruption he did a decent job of steering Ukraine down the middle path between Russia and the US/EU and he was nobody's proxy. As for his corruption he was a mere pickpocket compared to the like of Timoshenko who is not on any Ukrainian, EU or US corruption list!

This wasn't good enough for the neocons in Washington who wanted the whole country - hence their instigation of the Nazi putsch in Kiev. It's gone downhill all the way for the Ukrainian people since then considering they have lost a sizeable chunk of territory and now likely having to move to some sort of federal system.

On top of those miseries they now have Finance and Economics ministers from Lithuania and Poland parachuted in by the US and given Ukrainian citizenship on the day of their inauguration to their respective posts. They also have US stooge and ex-Georgian president Sakaashvili and fugitive from Georgian justice parachuted in as governor of Odessa. Let's not forget Joe Biden's son who was appointed to the board of directors of one of Ukraine's biggest energy companies very shortly after the Nazi putsch.

At least the east of the country is out of the hands of US corporate predators but it's a certainty that agreements will be signed (if not already) to turn massive tracts of Ukrainian farmland in the west of that country to US GM giants. I wonder how those US-loving west Ukrainians are going to react when the horrible reality of US-style "democracy" hits home.

NorthOfTheM25 -> truk10 2 Sep 2015 19:24

Stop it, you are embarrassing yourself & sound like a bitter divorcee who has lost a legal battle. Nothing you have said has little bearing with the article.

But I guess each time the key trigger words Russia, Ukraine, Kremlin, Stalin & Moscow are mentioned then just like Putin bots, you are also activated from your dwelling under the bridge to reel out the tired & repetitive anti Putin bellicose rants.

normankirk -> jezzam 2 Sep 2015 19:22

except it is the oligarchs who are prospering. Kolomoisky is under investigation for diverting 1.8 billion of IMF money to his own Cyprus bank account. Poroshenkos profits have increased astronomically while all Ukrainians are taking pay cuts.


luckyjohn -> alpamysh 2 Sep 2015 19:03

Yanukovych contributed a lot to radicalise Ukrainian society. He planned his survival in office by manipulation - stressing Tyannybok's importance to voters so that in the end there would be a choice - Tyaynybok or himself Yanukovych for president. Of course - Yanukovych then wins because the radical Tyahnybok is too "dangerous" to vote in. So much for your democratically elected president Yanukovych! So the presence of radical elements in Ukrainian society is in fact Yanukovych's doing. He was a very divisive president who played on divisions in Ukraine rather than trying to heal them as well as being thoroughly corrupt.


virgenskamikazes 2 Sep 2015 18:37

I would believe the Western version if, after ousting Yanukovich, they would do a 21st century, EU version of a Marshall Plan. If the EU had said to Yanukovich "we want to flood Ukraine with Euro with very low interest and in long term, for investment in infrastructure and industrialization projects - given that you cut ties completely with Russia" and Yanukovich had said "no" to that, than I think it would be fair for the Ukranian people to oust him.

But the EU offered a humiliating, absurd shock therapy style reform, that's why Yanukovich "no". Even imediate full EU, EZ membership was not on the table.

The thing is, the Ukrainian people bought on the fantasy that they could mass emigrate to central Europe overnight had Yanukovich said "yes", that only them had economic problems, that the West is the promised land, that we are still in the Cold War, etc.

Had Yanukovich hold on tight on power until two months ago, after the Greek tragedy, I doubt there would be political strength for the USA and the Ukrainian far-right to oust him.

Beckow -> ArthurJenkinson 2 Sep 2015 18:32

He wrote a long article with bizarre conspiracy theories in order to confuse a very simple attack by a Ukrainian nationalist mob on the police, killing 3 policemen.

The "theories" are there to obfuscate and confuse. We are close to the end game in Kiev and it will not be pretty. And the angry hysteria among Washington, London and Berlin sponsors of this madness will also get uglier. They don't like to lose so they would prefer just about anything to admitting to being defeated in Ukraine.


Julian1972 2 Sep 2015 17:43

Poroshenko's assertion that Russia is to blame for this week's murder of policemen is of the same Frankenstein DNA as his assertion that Russia was behind the downing of Flight MH17 and that the Eastern part of The Ukraine's population are not democrats rising up against an illegal putsch which brought him to power but are simply 'Kremlin puppets'...and therefore justifiably crushed by the same type of gunfire that otherwise had Maidan martyrs held up as 'heroes'. (Even though it was members of their own side doing the shooting, hahaha).

Disgusting man hailing from a disgusting class of politician/businessmen trained by the US to bring death and chaos to any part of the globe that the powers behind the US Government see fit. Prepare for our own Maidan should this class of parasite-sans-frontieres, (read Mikheil Saakashvili), succeed in bringing The Ukraine under the NATO umbrella.


BastaYa72 -> alpamysh 2 Sep 2015 17:43

You can't even tell the difference between 'neo-fascist' and 'Nazi'.

If either term comes into your tiny mind it obviously defaults to imagining scenes from the last days in the Führerbunbker - whatever turns you on.

Also, the IMF has always favoured right wing corporatist regimes, preferably with as little democracy as possible.


desnol 2 Sep 2015 17:41

The author's puzzlement and confusion are directly proportional to how little he understands the situation in Ukraine. He keeps wondering about various scenario's, each more absurd than the previous.

I chortled with laughter, almost choked, when he suggested that the Kremlin agents are organising the far right nationalists in Ukraine, deliberately causing an outbreak of peace in order to show up the Kiev parties in a bad light! Believe me, Kiev parties can show themselves up all by themselves!

And then, almost at the very end of the article, after all his fanciful, surreal speculation, Andrey Kurkov hits the nail on the head with


"Still, the violence could have a far more banal explanation."

But even then he gets it all skewed up, blaming the fact that Ukranian army went to fight the separatists for the fact that the far right thugs are now armed and throwing bombs in Kiev. Doesn't he realise they were armed and throwing bombs in Maidan 2014 edition? He doesn't ask who armed them in the first place.
The author is giving a good impression of being one very confused bloke.

domeus -> thenewstranger 2 Sep 2015 17:30

At least he is an improvement on all the other Guardian journalists who report on Russia and Ukraine. He connects the right wing group of people behind the killing of the of the policeman in Kiev with those those who volunteered to kill their fellow countrymen in Odessa and throughout the eastern and southern regions. Autonomy for the regions would have solved the problem then and prevented the unnecessary bloodshed and suffering. But Nuland had other plans and the western media acted accordingly.

Jessica Roth -> alpamysh 2 Sep 2015 17:14

The Maidan "protestors" were the ones who broke the cease-fire, shooting at both the Berkut and their own people. The forensic evidence proved it. Did you not listen to the Urmas Paet-Baroness Ashton phone call?

The "impeachment" of Yanukovich was illegal under the Ukraine constitution, which required a 75% vote. Even with the US-trained thugs forcing MPs to the floor at gunpoint, only 72% of the Ukraine parliament was present for the vote. Poroshenko has no more business being President than the burnt and raped corpses of the people his Azov Nazis butchered in Odessa and Mariupol do. (Although the corpses would probably do a better job.)

bonhiver 2 Sep 2015 16:49

I wondered how long it would be for poroshenko to blame putin for the grenade attack. Russia has been a convenient scapegoat for Ukraine to blame for its own failings since the overthrow of yanukovic.

The right wing activists who carried out the grenade attack were at the heart of the maidan protests which also involved violent confrontations with the police. They were also those who tarrgetted ethnic Russians following the overthrow of yanukovic so their actions in opposition to granting extra powers to eastern territories is hardly surprising.

ositonegro 2 Sep 2015 16:44

The Azov battalion also declared they would bring the war to Kiev if not sated in Dombass. You make a fascist revolution and the next move is to institutionalize it. Hitler did this very well, destroying the populist SA movement and assassinating their leaders and incorporating the remainder into the regular army. Then fascism could move forward with the whole state support.

But in Ukraine the EU-US used fascism to make the coup then tried to reign it in. The fascists however cannot be institutionalized. They are still a powerful street movement with the added benefit of having been trained and armed and given military space to grow. Now they are pushing for policy dominance over the regular bourgeois political forces and using bombs to do it. The Azov Battalion always said they would take the war back to Kiev if they felt betrayed.

It has to be understood that Poroshenko is not a fascist, despite coming to power on the back of their efforts. The EU-US do not want the fascists in power. How could Ukraine enter the EU with an outright fascist government? But they are playing with fire, using these street forces and then renouncing them. It will come a time when they do not have either the legitimacy of the power to stop another coup against themselves, and this time with no restraints. Then what will the EU do?

While Greece founders under unsustainable debt and Eurogroup dictatorship, Ukraine is given sweeteners, relieving 20% of their debt - something unimaginable with Greece. But you can't stop a tsunami with Canderel.

[Aug 31, 2015] China can ride out this crisis. But we're on course for another crash

Notable quotes:
"... There is every reason to fear more fallout from casino capitalism ..."
"... A dysfunctional model of capitalism, built on deregulation, privatisation and low wages, crashed and burned seven years ago. But the fallout from that crisis is still ricocheting around the world, from Europe to the "emerging economies", as the attempt to refloat a broken model with cheap credit inflates asset bubbles and share buybacks – or enforce it with austerity – fuels new crises. ..."
"... That's one reason why the anti-austerity movement and the demand for economic alternatives is growing across Britain, Europe and the US. The elites so evidently don't know what they're doing, even as they rake in the spoils. ..."
"... Conclusion: dramatic market fluctuations of the past few weeks were primarily irrational !! Most losses have already been recouped and for all of the sound and fury, corrections appear to be marginal, not precipitous. ..."
"... Steve Keen, for example, saw the 2008 crash coming, and continues to provide very good, reasoned analysis about what continues to occur. ..."
"... First, we all know that markets have been rigged since QE was introduced to pull the Establishment's irons out of the fire. But surely there is an uncomfortable paradox in the knowledge that, in this latest saga, while the world's greatest totalitarian regime was signally unable to rig its market, conversely it took only a day for the great champion of free market capitalism to do so? ..."
"... "In 2013, 45.3 million people (14.5 percent) in the USA were in poverty. ..."
Aug 30, 2015 | The Guardian

Market mayhem is the product of the aftershocks of 2008. No wonder calls for alternatives are growing


It may not yet be the moment to get in supplies of tinned food. That was what Gordon Brown's former adviser during the 2008 crash, Damian McBride, suggested on Monday as stock markets crashed from Shanghai to New York and $1tn was wiped off the value of shares in one day. But seven years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers brought down the global financial system and plunged half the world into a slump, it's scarcely alarmist to see the financial panic as the harbinger of a new crisis in a still crippled world economy.

The market gyrations that followed "Black Monday" this week and the 40% drop in the value of Chinese stocks since June have only underlined the fragility of what is supposed to be an international recovery. For all the finger-wagging hubris of western commentators over the fact that the latest mayhem has erupted in China, this is a global firestorm. And after three decades of deregulation punctuated by financial crises and a systemic meltdown, there is every reason to fear more fallout from casino capitalism.

Financial markets pumped up with credit and quantitative easing to keep the real economy afloat are in any case ripe for a crash – or "correction", as the market players like to call it. The only question is how far and fast they go – and how great is the price paid by the rest of us.

Paradoxically, Beijing may be better placed than others to ride out this storm. China's economy is slowing down, as it shifts from export-led growth to consumption. But it's still growing at 7%, nearly three times as fast as Britain and the US, which are supposed to be the west's current star performers. Even if China's figure is overstated, its growth is still at least double the Anglo-American rate: the kind of economic problem the rest of the world would be happy to have.

That follows three decades when Chinese growth averaged 10% a year, delivering the fastest economic development and reduction in poverty in world history – as well as rising inequality and environmental degradation. But China's stock market is small compared with its western equivalents and relatively insulated from the rest of the economy.

Despite its huge private sector, China is still a hybrid economy, dominated by state banks and publicly owned corporations. That means its financial system is shielded from the impact that a stock market crash on this scale would have in a western-style private banking system.

China rode out the 2008 crash by pumping public investment into the economy, delivering 78% growth between 2007 and 2014, while the US managed 8%. That has left it with a huge debt pile, estimated at 282% of national income, which some now believe will bring China's economy to a juddering halt.

But that is mostly debt between state-owned institutions, so there is no basis for a speculative Lehmans-type collapse. In fact, some of the problems China is now facing as it tries to bring the stock market crisis under control, such as capital outflow, stem from the liberalisation urged on it by the World Bank and its own home-grown would-be oligarchs.

There is every reason to fear more fallout from casino capitalism

China's room for manoeuvre would certainly be much narrower if it had gone for their full deregulation and privatisation package. But the main drag on the Chinese economy isn't the failings of its own economic model, but stagnation in the rest of the world. Global trade suffered its largest contraction since 2008 in the first six months of this year, partly as a result of the ongoing crisis in the eurozone. Eight years after the financial crisis erupted in the US, its aftershocks are still being felt across the world.

A dysfunctional model of capitalism, built on deregulation, privatisation and low wages, crashed and burned seven years ago. But the fallout from that crisis is still ricocheting around the world, from Europe to the "emerging economies", as the attempt to refloat a broken model with cheap credit inflates asset bubbles and share buybacks – or enforce it with austerity – fuels new crises.

That is what has been played out across financial markets this week, in which China has been a transmission belt rather than the motor. Any idea that the western economies that generated stagnation have been fixed is not serious. Their recoveries have been the slowest on record and interest rates remain at a historic low – because owners of capital are prepared to invest in anything except the productive economy. The likelihood must be that this stagnation continues indefinitely, punctuated by financial upheavals. Without far-reaching change in economic policy, they can be expected to trigger crises that will tip western economies, and others, back into full-blown recession.

That's one reason why the anti-austerity movement and the demand for economic alternatives is growing across Britain, Europe and the US. The elites so evidently don't know what they're doing, even as they rake in the spoils. In such a context, calls for large-scale public investment, ownership and quantitative easing for the real economy made by Labour's leadership frontrunner, Jeremy Corbyn, look far more realistic than the business-as-usual offered by his rivals.

If the current market chaos turns into another crash, the demand for much stronger measures will become unstoppable.


the_thoughtful_one 29 Aug 2015 06:47

well said article - and in the BBC news the ex Sainsbury's boss attacks a living wage - while he earns 176 times that wage and hardly presided over a great Sainsbury's did he - because their share price dropped 30% after his shift, his foundations

and they still pay 3p/hr less than Tesco after a 4% pay rise so you can see this was forced on the company

people of his ilk "ARE" the problem.

HeinzH 29 Aug 2015 06:37

With todays capitalism ,which derailed under Thatchers/Reagans reign,the problem is not deregulation and privatisation but looting of the economy.Free hands to the bank establishment has given us a never ending criminality in the markets and a rising number of extremly rich people in the industrialized world.Is it that difficult to understand that the amassment of riches amongst the already rich is no way for creating a just and sustainable society?


soundofthesuburbs 29 Aug 2015 06:26

The timeline for the collapsing global economy.

Japanese banks had been on a maniacal lending spree into real estate and the bubble popped in 1989. Rather than own up to losses and admit their bankers were fools, they covered up the problems with loose monetary policy.

Japan then had the rest of the world to trade with that was still doing well but it never really recovered.

US banks went on a maniacal lending spree into real estate and the bubble popped in 2008. Rather than own up to losses and admit their bankers were fools, they covered up the problems with loose monetary policy.

US banks used complex financial instruments to spread this problem throughout the West.

"It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime loans, and dispersed throughout the world" (pg 404, "All the Presidents Bankers", Nomi Prins).

Rather than own up to losses and admit their bankers were fools, the UK and Euro-zone
covered up the problems with loose monetary policy.

Japan, the UK, the US and the Euro-zone had the BRICS nations to trade with that were still doing well but they never really recovered.

The BRICS nations are now heading for recession.

Doesn't look good does it.


coplani 29 Aug 2015 04:45

The fundamental question is simply this....

Can millions of people continue to make a living from sitting on their backsides and investing or gambling on the stock markets.
"Loads of Money" and "Money Making Money from Investing"...

Is it sustainable in a World where growth is no more...

Markets and asset values at an all time high...Can this money making money from investing continue indefinitely...Especially when others are joining in by the million.

Our whole way of life is now dependent on the markets and they cannot be allowed to go down in value...Thus Q.E. and record low interest rates....Currency devaluation could be next as has already happened elsewhere...

Investment funds, Pension Schemes, Banks, Massive Financial Institutions etc now depend wholly on money making money....

Any enterprise started, which seems to be profitable is snapped up by the market looking for money to make money...

For how long can this be sustained....That is the question.


KassandraTroy 28 Aug 2015 19:06

Yup. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Yet here we are, courtesy of the new "free trade agreements", ready to turn 40% of the global economy over to these same players right when we need to put on the brakes. Because, of course, the oligarchs have bought our governments. I shudder to think of a world ruled by the multi national corporations. It'll probably collapse in 6 months...maybe a few more for the planet to just stop

nnedjo 28 Aug 2015 15:16

Their recoveries have been the slowest on record and interest rates remain at a historic low – because owners of capital are prepared to invest in anything except the productive economy.

Well, something like this, only more exclusively, says also a former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. In his article "How I became an erratic Marxist" Varoufakis says:

Today, turning to the European crisis, the crisis in the United States and the long-term stagnation of Japanese capitalism, most commentators fail to appreciate the dialectical process under their nose. They recognise the mountain of debts and banking losses but neglect the opposite side of the same coin: the mountain of idle savings that are "frozen" by fear and thus fail to convert into productive investments.

So, indeed, it seems that rich people of today are chosen only to remain rich, and to enjoy life. So they keep their money in banks, not taking anything with them, nor even think to invest it in something and so increase their capital. Accordingly, in addition to reducing the number of workers as a result of the automation of production, modern capitalism is faced with another phenomenon. He is in danger of losing the capitalists too.

And, capitalism that has no workers, and at the same time has no capitalists too, in many ways resembles Marx's ideal of a classless society by the name of communism. :-)

konga76 28 Aug 2015 15:08

The author's message is suspect. The stock market crash of the last week was mostly panic. Fundamentals in China market are unchanged, Western investor participation in said market was severely limited by Chinese law, and Western exposure to market contraction was meager.

In US, where biggest Western drop was seen, only 1% of economy hurt by China contraction. Additionally, there is considerable doubt that the author's 7% growth in China is accurate. Many economists inside and out of China believe it to be significantly less, and these suspicions are not of recent vintage. And, recent data corrections have shown US economy grew at 3.5% earlier this year, not the 2% previously reported.

Conclusion: dramatic market fluctuations of the past few weeks were primarily irrational !! Most losses have already been recouped and for all of the sound and fury, corrections appear to be marginal, not precipitous.

ID401112 -> goodlife9 28 Aug 2015 13:28

Good post. Economics is imprecise, granted, and it doesn't help that most world leaders are completely financially illiterate. But there are different schools of thought and economist that offer very robust analysis of the current economic situation. They're just not listened to because the needed measures are both in direct conflict with the needs of party donors, and expectations of the voting public.

Steve Keen, for example, saw the 2008 crash coming, and continues to provide very good, reasoned analysis about what continues to occur.

Similary, the Austrian school of economics gives very good critique on the inherent dangers and problems associate with fiat money.

But who in power would significantly reduce the value of housing or return to a gold standard as party policy.


OstanesAlchemy 28 Aug 2015 09:57

Who thought a debt based monetary system was a good idea? Oh yes, it was those people who had capital they wanted to "leverage" (multiply) without obligation.

So why don't we face the fact that over 90% of the money in the economy was issued as debt, and that leads to the mathematical certainty that the debt is, not only never going to be paid off, but thanks to the compound interest, completely unsustainable.

We must be so stupid as a species to allow the massive excess capacity in our economies to go to waste, and for our populations to go without for the want of the right numbers, in the right places on a computer chip. A problem that could literally be solved (or at least alleviated) at the stroke of a few keys.


nishville -> Limiting_Factor 28 Aug 2015 02:14

Is it the West's fault?

In this case, a resounding yes. West caused this crisis by promoting and exporting neoliberal capitalism, a system that thrives on instability. You can regard it as a virus infecting the organism of interconnected world economy.


RalphTheStaller 28 Aug 2015 01:17

As the dust settles on the latest "correction", one is left with a sense of unease.

First, we all know that markets have been rigged since QE was introduced to pull the Establishment's irons out of the fire. But surely there is an uncomfortable paradox in the knowledge that, in this latest saga, while the world's greatest totalitarian regime was signally unable to rig its market, conversely it took only a day for the great champion of free market capitalism to do so?

Secondly, we all know that when a market is challenged it is either the earnings base which is called into question or the multiplier used to capitalise the income. Would it not have been healthier for the philosophical base of neo-capitalism if the challenge to valuation had come from bond investors seeking a real return rather than fears that corporate earnings would not fulfil expectations?


nnedjo lib410 28 Aug 2015 00:36

And some of the former Soviet and Communist bloc countries have already reached about 50% of this level, after only about 10 years of EU membership?

More precisely, only one of the former socialist countries and it is Slovenia. Also, it should be noted that Slovenia was the most developed of the former Yugoslav republics. And former Yugoslavia had never belonged to the eastern bloc - Warsaw Pact, and besides that, by its economic development was roughly at the level of the least developed European countries, like for example Greece.

So the fact that Slovenia, which had previously been economically developed as Greece, after 25 years of capitalism has again reached Greece in average salaries, for you is "an incredibly fast transformation".

A very interesting observation, I must admit. :-)


OneCommentator 27 Aug 2015 21:49

Hunger eliminated in the developed world?? You must be a comedian.

Here's a statistic for you to chew on:
"According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 15.8 million children under 18 in the United States live in households where they are unable to consistently access enough nutritious food necessary for a healthy life.

And another:
"In 2013, 45.3 million people (14.5 percent) in the USA were in poverty.

You say "very few cases" -
You mean 15% or 1-in-7 qualifies as "very few"?

Here's another fact:
"Nearly 70 percent of the households served by food banks report that their most common spending tradeoff was between paying for utilities or food.

If you're saying that 15% of American households are in poverty because they're drug-addicted, that's delusional. They're in jobs & paying their bills - But they can't keep up with expenses.


eminijunkie 27 Aug 2015 19:24

Henry Ford is one of the very few people of the modern, or near modern perhaps, age who actually understood the basic concept of a consumer based economy. There must be consumers, consumers must have the means to obtain what the consume, and if they consume those that produce that which is consumed can make a living by selling the goods that are consumed.

Cut back on the money people have with which to purchase things and you strangle the economy as a whole. This is called austerity, and so naturally it does not work. The less one pays consumers to consume, the less they consume and the less the producers produce and eventually the whole scheme grinds to a point of catharsis of some sort.

The idea of a small number of people becoming extravagantly by gained vast wealth is something that is entirely destructive of the whole idea of any economy, whether you call it communistic or capitalistic.

The problem, of course, is that the earth just might not have unlimited resources, but there is such a thing as recycling and alternate forms of energy etc. The one thing there can't is a rich of inordinately wealthy hoarding all the money and mobs of consumers who don't have the wherewithal to consume.

Ultimately, of course, if that continues too long and too seriously, history tells us the day will come when the consumers consume the wealthy.

Perhaps some compromise will come first.

As a side note, there was a problematic gentleman in Germany in the 1930's that listened to Ford and got himself on the cover of time magazine a number of times as an economic miracle worker, but we no longer pay any attention to him or what he accomplished by implementing the above concept of solving a server economic crisis by just giving citizens money to spend.

People without wealth who are given money go right out and spend it all, and that's good for business everywhere.

And a person who works hard enough and/or smart enough to make a billion dollars will, for the most part, work just as hard to earn a million if that's all he or she can get, because a measly million beats the public dole any day of the week.


smalltownboy shaun 27 Aug 2015 19:15

It means that the question is, who will now buy US treasuries? (Who will now back-stop the dollar?).

Don't worry your pretty little head about it, shaun. There are lots of takers for US treasuries. China had no problem selling some of their stockpile in an an effort to prop up the yuan, which is still pegged to a basket of world currencies, including the dollar. You need to stop getting your financial news from Zero Hedge and RT.


nnedjo nnedjo 27 Aug 2015 17:48

Thus, the average EU-28 wage per hour amounts to about 18 euros, according to this chart.

Realworldview 27 Aug 2015 17:48

China can ride out this crisis. But we're on course for another crash

We are certainly in for another crash, and its scale will be beyond all previous crashes, also China will not ride it out, it will crash along with other nations. The consequences of the looming financial collapse will last for centuries, because the era of economic growth is over meaning debt cannot be paid down. How Economic Growth Fails provides a plausible explanation, with the consequences explored in Deflationary Collapse Ahead? These extracts reveal a major blind spot in the discipline of economics that means economic and political elites fail to understand the impact of limits on the economy and why their "conventional" economic policies are failing:

Today's general level of understanding about how the economy works, and energy's relationship to the economy, is dismally low. Economics has generally denied that energy has more than a very indirect relationship to the economy....

Economics modelling is based on observations of how the economy worked when we were far from limits of a finite world. The indications from this modelling are not at all generalizable to the situation when we are reaching limits of a finite world. The expectation of economists, based on past situations, is that prices will rise when there is scarcity. This expectation is completely wrong when the basic problem is lack of adequate wages for non-elite workers. When the problem is a lack of wages, workers find it impossible to purchase high-priced goods like homes, cars, and refrigerators. All of these products are created using commodities, so a lack of adequate wages tends to "feed back" through the system as low commodity prices. This is exactly the opposite of what standard economic models predict.

For a comprehensive overview of our situation and just how limited our future options are, this article by Nicole Foss posted on The Automatic Earth website is a must read: Nicole Foss: The Boundaries and Future of Solution Space. These extracts reinforce the role of plentiful cheap fossil fuel based energy in our industrial civilisation, and the unwelcome consequences of its future unaffordability once a global deflationary collapse has occurred:

We are facing limits in many ways simultaneously – not surprising since exponential growth curves for so many parameters have gone critical in recent decades, and of course even more so in recent years. Some of these limits lie in human systems, while others are ecological or geophysical. They will all interact with each other, over different timeframes, in extremely complex ways as our state of overshoot resolves itself (to our dissatisfaction, to put it mildly) over many decades, if not centuries. Some of these limits are completely non-negotiable, while others can be at least partially mutable, and it is vital that we know the difference if we are to be able to mitigate our situation at all. Otherwise we are attempting to bargain with the future without understanding our negotiating position.

The vast majority has no conception of the extent to which our modernity is an artefact of our discovery and pervasive exploitation of fossil fuels as an energy source. No species in history has had easy, long term access to a comparable energy source. This unprecedented circumstance has facilitated the creation of turbo-charged civilization.

Huge energy throughput, in line with the Maximum Power Principle, has led to tremendous complexity, far greater extractive capacity (with huge 'environmental externalities' as a result), far greater potential to concentrate enormous power in the hands of the few with destructive political consequences), a far higher population, far greater burden on global carrying capacity, and the ability to borrow from the future to satisfy the insatiable greed of the present. The fact that we are now approaching so many limits has very significant implications for our ability to continue with any of these aspects of modern life. Therefore, any expectation that a future in the era of limits is likely to resemble the present (with a green gloss) are ill-founded and highly implausible.

nnedjo Hippokl, 27 Aug 2015 17:43

Well, these are the data obtained from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. And on the left side of the graph you have data for the EU-28, and the Euro area EU-18. In the previous post I am slightly increased earnings per hour in the EU-28 at 25 euros, because it is in fact the information when other labour costs are added to the wages and salaries.


nnedjo 27 Aug 2015 17:16

Let's simplify things a bit. Technological development leads inevitably to the fact that things that were previously available only to a few individuals become available to most average people. The reason is that the development of technology increases the productivity of the average man, so that someone who previously could produce goods only for a few people, now can produce goods for the huge number of people.
So, if we neglect the economy, judging solely on the basis of technological development should not be such a thing as stagnation in production, and every man would become constantly richer and richer because he would have received more and more goods, as well as other values in the field of health care, education, entertainment, recreation, ... etc.
And, since even today is nothing wrong with technology, it is obvious that this is not a technological crisis, but this is the economic crisis.

And, how did it come to this economic crisis? Well, advocates of austerity measures obviously claim that the crisis was created so that people are spending more than they earn, and this is why they must now spend less, or to agree to austerity measures. However, if someone is spending more than it earns, then someone else had to earn more than what he spent. In other words, if this is true, then the economic crisis would have occurred only in some countries and not in all countries of the world, including the most developed ones. That's the obvious flaw of this argument, and it is clear that this is a classic crisis of capitalism, like many that have occurred previously, and on which, among others, Karl Marx also was talking about.

So the basis of Marx's teaching is precisely the fact that the employer pays employees based on quantitative measures of labor, ie the number of hours spent at work, and not on the basis of what he can really produce for the same number of hours. In this way, the worker always produces more values than it receives from the employer as wages. And in this way the owner appropriates this surplus of created values , and thus becomes more and more rich.

However, that the surplus of produced values turned into capital, the owner must sell goods in the market. But who is going to buy the goods, if most customers are workers who also produced more goods than they get money for it? In other words, on the market appears surplus of goods, which nobody can buy. You have on one side the huge number of empty houses, and on the other side, you have a huge number of the homeless. (Does this sound familiar?). You have overproduction of food on one side, and on the other side, you have an army of hungry. Or, on the one hand, the huge number of cars, and on the other hand, people go on foot.
And, since it is impossible to sell previously manufactured goods, it is clear that there is no purpose to increase the new production. In other words, production is decreasing, and the economy falling into recession.

And how this crisis of capitalism can be overcome? Advocates of austerity say that capitalism can be saved only "by becoming more capitalist". Or in other words, so that the workers will be paid even less than before, either from private owners or by the state, and commodity (electricity, gas, water, etc ...) will become even more expensive. But, whether is not the main cause of the crisis precisely because the goods have become expensive for people who are not paid enough to be able to buy it? And then, how austerity measures may increase production and pull the economy out of recession? It is obvious that they can not, which means that the solution is not "capitalism that will become more capitalistic". Recession can be solved only in that way that capitalism will become more socialist, or roughly with the introduction of those measures that Jeremy Corbyn suggests. In that sense I would say that Seumas Milne is right because he gives Jeremy Corbyn for the right.

MarkThomason 27 Aug 2015 17:11

I should add that I know of three stores near me that had been in business a long time, and closed because their usual suppliers were unable to extend the usual terms for inventory, because the suppliers had lost their credit lines. None had new risks or new problems, they just had their long-standing arrangements cancelled on them due to the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, the casino ran full blast with borrowed money provided by the government.

[Aug 30, 2015] The Guardian view on the latest Ukraine ceasefire call: why this could be the one that works

Notable quotes:
"... The West tried to crash Russian economy ahead of the inevitable Ukrainian collapse, and it failed. So now the death-watch for the Ukraine's economy has started: default on loans, catastrophic drop in living standards and incomes, millions trying to emigrate, and energy dependency on Russia that might turn out to be fatal if there is a cold winter in Europe. ..."
"... Yeah, I can imagine Russians being jealous of Ukrainians. The economy is collapsing, the inflation is 40%, the far is going on, the armed Right Sector people are walking in the center of the city, the opposition leaders are suppressed and the actions are taking against the media that disagrees with Kiev. And while all of this, the corruption remains exactly where it used to be. Darn, the entire world is jealous of those lucky Ukrainians. ..."
"... Only US nutcases don't care about economy or living standards and prefer to play geo-political games with Ukrainians... ..."
"... And as for West "helping Ukraine" by cutting down the debt by 20%, this is the freshest interpretation of the event I've ever heard. It wasn't done to "help" Ukraine. The West agreed to do so to avoid even messier and costlier option of default and loosing even more money in Ukraine. Other than talking about giving some more loans to Ukraine in the future, the help to Ukraine from the West is now minimum. ..."
"... Land that has long since been signed over to Monsanto and DuPont as part payment for earlier loans. Ukraine's economy is in such a state that's it's obvious that it will form the next major refugee crisis, while Svoboda and Privvy Sector will almost certainly launch a coup to over-throw the Kiev government. ..."
"... Ukraine is bankrupt - negotiating to not pay back the full principal is the definition of a default. You can call it a "haircut" all you want, Ukraine has just defaulted - as in: they will not pay their full debts back. Who is going to invest there now? Other than EU taxpayers and IMF funny money men? ..."
Aug 30, 2015 | The Guardian

HollyOldDog -> Bosula 30 Aug 2015 20:28

The rest of Ukraine was descending into chaos, what with police and demonstrators being shot and killed by unknown assalients from rooftops. Odessa , where 45 plus Ukrainian citizens were trapped in a building which was set fire to by outside football supporters, then shot at and clubbed when the citizens climbed out of the burning building seeking help. Would you risk yourself and your family in such a situation or would you seek the protection of a friendly power?

Chillskier -> jezzam 30 Aug 2015 20:00

Ensure that Ukraine does not go under economically and eventually becomes a fully functioning and prosperous liberal democracy.
It seems to be working pretty well..

NO it is not.
You need to talk to people who actually live there, it is a catastrophe

HollyOldDog -> truk10 30 Aug 2015 19:46

Ukraine should be wary of false friends who may lead then down a blind alley. Only today I watched a very interesting TV program that puts the continueing existance of Monsanto into serious doubt. The program was about wheat in terms of the future of Global Warming where presentment her patterns within seasons would vary widely. Is it the right course of action to choose types of GM wheat where seasonal rains would pop up at inconvenient times ( which a farmer would pay 'through the nose for') or to allow your wheats to choose the correct wheat for the growing conditions it encounters. Some of the Wheats on test where from the times of the ancient Egyptians while the oldest variety was around 9000 years old. Instead of gene splicing and growing micro cultures in a lab followed by years of field testing , perhaps we should just look what our ancestors did.

I know this is not exactly on topic but I am trying to suggest Not to believe the latest SPIN, just because it is new. NEW SPIN does not equal TRUTH. IF something looks to be too good to be true then it is too good to be true - Forbes, verify your stories before you publish.

Beckow -> impartial12 30 Aug 2015 18:41

"Ukraine is important to the West because of its encroachment strategy against Russia"

The strategy is to somehow take over Russia by either having Yeltsin-like puppets in power again, or maybe by physically taking it apart (separatism). The "encroachment" is just the means to that end.

Russians had two choices when the coup happened in Kiev on the last day of the Sochi Olympics:

  • - do nothing and hope for the best; maybe Ukraine would run into economic troubles, maybe it would collapse into infighting like after the Orange revolution
  • - quickly save what could be saved - Crimea, bases, Donbass Russians - and squeeze Ukraine economically until it collapses

The West was surprised that Russia went for the second option and decided to fight. I think Russia decided that this was their best chance to resist, and that facts on the ground in Ukraine were in their favor. So far it has worked for Russia, thus the almost hysterical anger in the West.

Beckow -> Tintenfische 30 Aug 2015 17:55

Stay sober. Russia's economy is down 4%, that's not "go down in flames". E.g. EU economy dropped 6-9% after '09, and people are ok, kind of.

The real issue is with the Ukrainian economy and living standards. Russia's per capita income this year is 10 times higher than Ukraine's. That's very substantial, that's why about 3 million Ukrainians work in Russia and more are coming each month.

The West tried to crash Russian economy ahead of the inevitable Ukrainian collapse, and it failed. So now the death-watch for the Ukraine's economy has started: default on loans, catastrophic drop in living standards and incomes, millions trying to emigrate, and energy dependency on Russia that might turn out to be fatal if there is a cold winter in Europe.

vr13vr -> CedricH 30 Aug 2015 17:55

Yeah, I can imagine Russians being jealous of Ukrainians. The economy is collapsing, the inflation is 40%, the far is going on, the armed Right Sector people are walking in the center of the city, the opposition leaders are suppressed and the actions are taking against the media that disagrees with Kiev. And while all of this, the corruption remains exactly where it used to be. Darn, the entire world is jealous of those lucky Ukrainians.

Beckow -> Tintenfische 30 Aug 2015 17:47

"it denies the Ukrainian people any sort of agency what so ever and at the same time ignores that the elections within the Ukraine have not been called free or fair for a generation"

I wrote 'assisted in an overthrow' - do you get the meaning of the verb "to assist"? Assisting in an overthrow of an elected president is by any definition illegal and unconstitutional - all else that followed has to be examined in that light.

Elections in Ukraine have been free and fair and declared so by EU itself many times. Yanukovitch won fair and square. Russian speakers (or supporters) used to get roughly 50% of the vote, sometimes more, sometimes little bit less. Their party - Party of Regions - was outlawed. So maybe they are listened to, but in a very constrained way - they are certainly not equal to the Western Ukrainians. That's why some of them started a civil war.

You don't address any of the disastrous economic consequences of Maidan and the war: Ukraine is suffering and is much worse off than two years ago. There is no economic prosperity possible in Ukraine without Russian cooperation (energy, imports, food, investments). That is a reality that cannot be wished away. Unless Ukraine adjusts to being a poor, agrarian country, that exports millions of workers, with living standards maybe like in Albania or Tunis (at best), they will have to make peace with Russia and its own Russian leaning population. There is no other way, even Germany and France have officially told Kiev that much.

Only US nutcases don't care about economy or living standards and prefer to play geo-political games with Ukrainians...

SHappens -> Agrajag3k 30 Aug 2015 17:42

Ukraine can prosper perfectly well on its own, just like any other county under the right leadership.

which they dont have. On the other hand when a big part of the country doesn't want to align with the "West" they should be heard. That's what is called democracy

vr13vr 30 Aug 2015 16:09

Clueless. The "low intensity" fight continues, but it's evident that the chances of Kiev to establish full control of the area are non-existent, and it is Kiev who is looking for a grace saving exit at this point.

And as for West "helping Ukraine" by cutting down the debt by 20%, this is the freshest interpretation of the event I've ever heard. It wasn't done to "help" Ukraine. The West agreed to do so to avoid even messier and costlier option of default and loosing even more money in Ukraine. Other than talking about giving some more loans to Ukraine in the future, the help to Ukraine from the West is now minimum.

BastaYa72 -> alpamysh 30 Aug 2015 16:33

Moreover, a country with the agricultural resources of Ukraine

Land that has long since been signed over to Monsanto and DuPont as part payment for earlier loans. Ukraine's economy is in such a state that's it's obvious that it will form the next major refugee crisis, while Svoboda and Privvy Sector will almost certainly launch a coup to over-throw the Kiev government.

Iraq, Libya, Ukraine - you can pretty much guarantee that wherever the West intervenes or interferes, chaos and destruction is pretty much 'nailed-on'.

Laurence Johnson -> Beckow 30 Aug 2015 16:05

You make some very sober points. Ukraine is indeed destined to be a wasteland similar to Libya and Syria. The scorch and burn policy of "if I cant have it, nobody can have it" is very clear.

I suspect that in twenty years time East Ukraine will be an economic miracle that engages with Asia via Russia. As for Kiev I suspect they will still be arguing about which Oligarch has the biggest pair of balls.

normankirk 30 Aug 2015 15:56

under the Minsk agreement, the border comes back under Ukrainian control, only when Ukraine has done the necessary constitutional reform that grants autonomy to the Donbas. So far, Kiev has dragged the chain , and to this day has refused dialogue with the leaders of the DPR and LPR.Poroshenko has openly boasted of using the ceasefire to build up another military assault on the eastern Ukrainians , and has vowed to reclaim all the terrItory by force.All this is in breach of the Minsk agreement Articles like this, with their bias and misinformation destroys the credibility of the guardian

This time the ceasefire may work because Merkel and Hollande have pressured Poroshenko, but I'm not holding my breath.

Parangaricurimicuaro 30 Aug 2015 15:45

I think that Europe is having to much on its plate. Terrorism problems, energy insecurity, bailing out Greece, refugees escaping wars south of the Mediterranean, aging population etc. so maybe it is most than they could possible chew. Reality is sobering everyone.


SHappens Agrajag3k 30 Aug 2015 15:36

Russia has no interest in seeing the war end or seeing Ukraine prosper.

Ukraine cannot prosper without Russia's market, that's an economic truth. Ukraine can even less prosper without the Donbass. The West must accept to share Ukraine with Russia. Federalization can make this possible and fulfill every country's ambitions and will, except for one country overseas, taking part to the events, we dont know why or do we?

Beckow 30 Aug 2015 15:26

Half-truths are by definition not truths. To say:

"deadline for the internationally recognised border to come back under Ukrainian government control"

Minsk also requires that Donbass has autonomy before border is turned over. How does one leave out the other side of the story? It is like reporting on Soviet Union conquest of Berlin in 1945 without mentioning that Germany invaded Russia in 1941. Maybe that's next in the endless search for just the right narrative where friends are friends, and enemies are, well the enemy is Russia, end of story. No need to actually be accurate. About Minsk or anything else.

Ukraine is bankrupt - negotiating to not pay back the full principal is the definition of a default. You can call it a "haircut" all you want, Ukraine has just defaulted - as in: they will not pay their full debts back. Who is going to invest there now? Other than EU taxpayers and IMF funny money men?

Time is definitely not on Ukraine's side: economy is down by 15-17%, inflation is 40-50%, incomes are dramatically down to roughly Senegal-Nepal level, the exports to Russia that Ukraine used to live off are down by more than 50% and dropping - and nothing is replacing the Russian market. With living standards are on sub-African level and with no visa-free access to EU, no investments (see the default above), and energy dependence on Russia, how can time be on Kiev's side? How are they going to grow out of it? What and to whom are they going to export? How is the per capita income going to grow? Today Ukraine income is 1/10 of Russia's per capita income (that's right 10%). How is time on Kiev's side?

West triggered an unnecessary catastrophe in Ukraine by assisting in an overthrow of an elected government. Ukraine is divided, look at all elections, look at language usage, etc... half is pro-West, half is pro-Russian. It is impossible to have a prosperous Ukraine without both having a say in running the country. So sooner or later, Ukraine will either go back to its traditional role as a buffer state, or it will break-up. There is no way one group can permanently dominate the other. And that takes us back to the Minsk treaty that specifies that Donbass gets autonomy. Maybe we should ask Kiev what happened to that part of the treaty. Why isn't it even mentioned?


impartial12 Tintenfische 30 Aug 2015 15:19

That is funny considering the amount of armaments building up among the former nations of the Soviet Union neighboring Russia. The escalation in Ukraine had started with an illegal coup of an elected government. And don't even get me started on the neo-Nazi tendencies of the new regime. It takes two to tango, and the West clearly wants to play this game no matter what negative consequences it may bring.


SHappens 30 Aug 2015 15:14

Kiev, backed by Washington who is using Ukrainian army foot soldiers, paramilitaries, foreign mercenaries, Nazi-infested death squads and others hasn't stopped since initiated back in April 2014. Kiev flagrantly violated the Geneva and two Minsk ceasefire agreements straightaway. Moreover Kiev has repeatedly refused to sit and talk with the people in the East and grant them autonomy as per Minsk.

Surely Russia supports the eastern ukrainians, rightly, in a way or another, preventing in this way a full war offensive by Kiev, however Russian's army is not present in Ukraine. President Putin wants peace and has been calling for it since the very start of the event, that is the ATO launched by Kiev back in 2014.

This is the Donbass who fights against Kiev. It is the US citizens who are forced to devote scarce resources to the dying puppet regime in Kiev (who will not avoid the country's default anyway + they have been downgraded), while Russia can stay away making peace proposals. If the US wants to put the fire, they will put it so it is necessary to be able to quickly turn it off to preserve what is most precious. That's why Putin considers peace of vital importance.

We can only guess who will be most effective - the US with their fuel container or the Russians with their fire extinguisher?

[Aug 28, 2015] Ukraine agrees win-win debt restructuring deal

Notable quotes:
"... the government conceded that it must pay a higher interest rate on the remaining debts. ..."
"... includes a four-year extension on repayments ..."
"... In Moscow, the Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, said Russia would not participate in the agreement. Ukraine owes Russia a $3bn eurobond due for full repayment in December. The need to repay Russia represents a dilemma for the IMF as it considers whether to pump further funds into Ukraine, possibly in conjunction with Brussels. It is not officially allowed to continue lending to a country that is in default to another sovereign. ..."
"... The Washington-based lender of last resort has already come up against criticism for its lending policy, which critics believe forces the government to pursue draconian austerity measures that will depress growth and increase its debts. Exotix credit strategist Jokob Christensen said the bondholders were the clear winners. "I have a hard time seeing how this deal will help reduce [Ukraine's] debt to 71% of GDP in 2020, which is one of the crucial targets in the operation," he said. ..."
Aug 28, 2015 | The Guardian

Ukraine has secured a 20% writedown on $18bn (£11.6bn) of its foreign debts in a deal its finance minister described as win-win...

... ... ...

The hedge funds holding Ukrainian debt will write off around $4bn in return for securities that will pay holders a percentage of Ukraine's economic growth from 2021. But in a move that is likely to dismay many MPs in the Kiev parliament, the government conceded that it must pay a higher interest rate on the remaining debts.

The deal, which still needs to be approved by creditors outside the group, includes a four-year extension on repayments to give Ukraine breathing space. But the interest rate on the bonds will rise 0.5 percentage points to 7.75%. It ended months of tense negotiations aimed at helping to keep the country on track with its International Monetary Fund-led bailout programme, plugging a funding gap and preventing a unilateral debt default.

Ukraine's finance minister, Natalia Yaresko, who had sought a 40% debt haircut, said the deal meets all targets set by the IMF bailout programme and would allow the country to move ahead. "Everyone's done well out of this deal. That's why it's collaborative. It's not one side winning, it's a win-win situation. We're all now moving forward without putting the value of the bonds at any further risk," she said.

Ukraine's sovereign dollar bond prices surged after the news, indicating that traders viewed the remaining debt to be on a more secure footing. Its 2017 issue rose 8.7 cents to trade at 64.5 cents in the dollar, according to Tradeweb data, while the 2022 bond rose 10 cents.

In Moscow, the Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, said Russia would not participate in the agreement. Ukraine owes Russia a $3bn eurobond due for full repayment in December. The need to repay Russia represents a dilemma for the IMF as it considers whether to pump further funds into Ukraine, possibly in conjunction with Brussels. It is not officially allowed to continue lending to a country that is in default to another sovereign.

The debt deal should help keep Ukraine's national currency, the hryvnia, stable and allow increased spending on defence in the east,...

... ... ...

The Washington-based lender of last resort has already come up against criticism for its lending policy, which critics believe forces the government to pursue draconian austerity measures that will depress growth and increase its debts. Exotix credit strategist Jokob Christensen said the bondholders were the clear winners. "I have a hard time seeing how this deal will help reduce [Ukraine's] debt to 71% of GDP in 2020, which is one of the crucial targets in the operation," he said.

Gabriel Sterne, head of global macro at Oxford Economics, also cast doubt on whether the deal would make Ukraine's debt levels sustainable and added: "There is a strong likelihood that they will be back at the negotiating table before too many IMF reviews have passed."

Talks had been held up over a disagreement with creditors on whether to provide Kiev with a writedown on the face value of the bonds. Kiev had initially sought a 40% cut. "We started in different places, because the creditor committee didn't believe we had a solvency problem but my goal was not a particular number, it was meeting those IMF targets," Yaresko said. She added that she hoped it was highly unlikely that remaining creditors would reject the agreement and forecast that the process would be wrapped up by the end of October.

[Aug 28, 2015] Ukraines debt deal is better than defaulting – but its just a stop gap

Aug 27, 2015 | The Guardian

The debt deal Ukraine has painstakingly negotiated with its creditors is welcome and preferable to the alternative: a default that would have put additional pressure on the country's shaky banks and led to both capital flight and a protracted battle in the courts. But amid all the backslapping a bit of perspective is needed.

Greece has severe problems but Ukraine is the most troubled country in Europe. It has inflation at 55%, its economy is expected to contract by 10% this year, and the government is fighting a war with separatists in the east backed by Russia that is costly in both human and financial terms.

The deal involves a 20% writedown to the face value of $18bn of eurobonds and pushes back the date on which the bonds will be redeemed by four years. Ukraine has some breathing space and the accord means it will continue to be eligible for financial help from the International Monetary Fund. That's the good news.

But the finance minister, Natalia Yaresko, had to scale back her ambitions once it became clear creditors thought Kiev's threat to default was a bluff. She has had to offer higher interest rates when debt payments resume and has had to accept a 20% writedown rather than the 40% she wanted.

Ukraine's debts remain high and its economy is in freefall. This agreement is a stop gap not a game changer.

[Aug 27, 2015] Fuck the US Imperialism -- Top German Politician Blasts Nuland & Carter

"Nuland says 'F*ck the EU'. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism... F*ck US imperialism!"
Jun 28, 2015 | Zero Hedge

With intra-Europe relations hitting a new all-time low; and, having already been busted spying on Merkel, Obama got caught with his hand in Hollande's cookie jar this week, the following exultation from one of Germany's top politicians will hardly help Washington-Brussells relations. As Russia Insider notes, Oskar Lafontaine is a major force in German politics so it caught people's attention when he excoriated Ash Carter and Victoria Nuland on his Facebook page yesterday... "Nuland says 'F*ck the EU'. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism... F*ck US imperialism!"

Here is the Facebook post (in German):

Lafontaine has been an outsized figure in German politics since the mid-70s. He was chairman of the SPD (one of Germany's two main parties) for four years, the SPD's candidate for chancellor in 1990, minister of finance for two years, and then chairman of the Left party in the 2000s. He is married to Sarah Wagenknecht, political heavyweight, who is currently co-chairman of Left party.

Lafontaine's outburst came a day after his wife, Sarah Wagenknecht, blasted Merkel's Russia policy in an interview on RT.

Here is the full translation of the post:

"The US 'Defense' secretary, i.e., war minister is in Berlin. He called on Europe to counter Russian 'aggression'. But in fact, it is US aggression which Europeans should be opposing.

"The Grandmaster of US diplomacy, George Kennan described the eastward expansion of NATO as the biggest US foreign policy mistake since WW2, because it will lead to a new cold war.

"The US diplomat Victoria Nuland said we have spent $5 billion to destabilize the Ukraine. They stoke the flames ever higher, and Europe pays for it with lower trade and lost jobs.

"Nuland says 'F*ck the EU'. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism.

"F*ck US imperialism!"

* * *

When he comes out swinging this way, you know something is changing.

* * *

America - making friends and influencing people for 238 years...

[Aug 27, 2015] Smoke and Mirrors of Corporate Buybacks Behind the Market Crash

"...What we're seeing is that short-term thinking really hasn't taken into account the long run. And that's why this is very much like the long-term capital market crash in 1997, when the two Nobel prize winners who said the whole economy lives in the short term found out that all of a sudden the short term has to come back to the long term."
.
"...Well, companies themselves have been causing this crisis as much as speculators, because companies like Amazon, like Google, or Apple, especially, have been borrowing money to buy their own stock. And corporate activists, stockholder activists, have told these companies, we want you to put us on the board because we want you to borrow at 1 percent to buy your stock yielding 5 percent. You'll get rich in no time. So all of these stock buybacks by Apple and by other companies at high prices, all of a sudden yes, they can make that money in the short term. But their net worth is all of a sudden plunging. And so we're in a classic debt deflation."
.
"...HUDSON: Well, what they cause is the runup–companies are under pressure. The managers are paid according to how well they can make a stock price go up. And they think, why should we invest in long-term research and development or long-term developments when we can use the earnings we have just to buy our own stock, and that'll push them up even without investing, without hiring, without producing more. We can make the stock go up by financial engineering. By using our earnings to buy [their own] stock.
.
So what you have is empty earnings. You've had stock prices going up without really corporate earnings going up. Although if you buy back your stock and you retire the shares, then earning the shares go up. And all of a sudden the whole world realizes that this is all financial engineering, doing it with mirrors, and it's not real. There's been no real gain in industrial profitability. There's just been a diversion of corporate income into the financial markets instead of tangible new investment in hiring.
"
.
"...What people don't realize usually, and especially what Lawrence Summers doesn't realize, is that there are two economies. When he means a bad situation, that means for his constituency. The 1 percent. The 1 percent, for them they think oh, we're going to be losing in the asset markets. But the 1 percent has been making money by getting the 99 percent into debt. By squeezing more work out of them. By keeping wages low and by starving the market so that there's nobody to buy the goods that they produce."

Michael Hudson, the author of Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy Global Economy, says the stock market crash on Monday has very little to do with China and all to do with shortermism and buybacks of corporations inflating their own stocks - August 25, 2015

... ... ...

And this is what most of the commentators don't get, that all this market runoff we've seen in the last year or two has been by the Federal Reserve making credit available to banks at about one-tenth of 1 percent. The banks have lent out to brokers who have lent out to big institutional traders and speculators thinking, well gee, if we can borrow at 1 percent and buy stocks that yield maybe 5 or 6 percent, then we can make the arbitrage. So they've made a 5 percent arbitrage by buying, but they've also now lost 10 percent, maybe 20 percent on the capital.

What we're seeing is that short-term thinking really hasn't taken into account the long run. And that's why this is very much like the long-term capital market crash in 1997, when the two Nobel prize winners who said the whole economy lives in the short term found out that all of a sudden the short term has to come back to the long term.

Now, it's amazing how today's press doesn't get it. For instance, in the New York Times Paul Krugman, who you can almost always depend to be wrong, said the problem is there's a savings glut. People have too many savings. Well, we know that they don't in America have too many savings. We're in a debt deflation now. The 99 percent of the people are so busy paying off their debt that what is counted as savings here is just paying down the debt. That's why they don't have enough money to buy goods and services, and so sales are falling. That means that profits are falling. And people finally realize that wait a minute, with companies not making more profits they're not going to be able to pay the dividends.

Well, companies themselves have been causing this crisis as much as speculators, because companies like Amazon, like Google, or Apple, especially, have been borrowing money to buy their own stock. And corporate activists, stockholder activists, have told these companies, we want you to put us on the board because we want you to borrow at 1 percent to buy your stock yielding 5 percent. You'll get rich in no time. So all of these stock buybacks by Apple and by other companies at high prices, all of a sudden yes, they can make that money in the short term. But their net worth is all of a sudden plunging. And so we're in a classic debt deflation.

PERIES: Michael, explain how buybacks are actually causing this. I don't think ordinary people quite understand that.

HUDSON: Well, what they cause is the runup–companies are under pressure. The managers are paid according to how well they can make a stock price go up. And they think, why should we invest in long-term research and development or long-term developments when we can use the earnings we have just to buy our own stock, and that'll push them up even without investing, without hiring, without producing more. We can make the stock go up by financial engineering. By using our earnings to buy [their own] stock.

So what you have is empty earnings. You've had stock prices going up without really corporate earnings going up. Although if you buy back your stock and you retire the shares, then earning the shares go up. And all of a sudden the whole world realizes that this is all financial engineering, doing it with mirrors, and it's not real. There's been no real gain in industrial profitability. There's just been a diversion of corporate income into the financial markets instead of tangible new investment in hiring.

PERIES: Michael, Lawrence Summers is tweeting, he writes, as in August 1997, 1998, 2007 and 2008, we could be in the early stages of a very serious situation, which I think we can attribute some of the blame to him. What do you make of that comment, and is that so? Is this the beginnings of a bigger problem?

HUDSON: I wish he would have said what he means by 'situation'. What people don't realize usually, and especially what Lawrence Summers doesn't realize, is that there are two economies. When he means a bad situation, that means for his constituency. The 1 percent. The 1 percent, for them they think oh, we're going to be losing in the asset markets. But the 1 percent has been making money by getting the 99 percent into debt. By squeezing more work out of them. By keeping wages low and by starving the market so that there's nobody to buy the goods that they produce.

So the real situation is in the real economy, not the financial economy. But Lawrence Summers and the Federal Reserve all of a sudden say look, we're not really trying–we don't care about the real economy. We care about the stock market. And what you've seen in the last few years, two years I'd say, of the stock runup, is something unique. For the first time the stock, the central banks of America, even Switzerland and Europe, are talking about the role of the central bank is to inflate asset prices. Well, the traditional reason for central banks that they gave is to stop inflation. And yet now they don't want, they're trying to inflate the stock market. And the Federal Reserve has been trying to push up the stock market purely by financial reasons, by making this low interest rate and quantitative easing.

Now, the Wall Street Journal gets it wrong, too, on its editorial page. You have an op-ed by Gerald [incompr.], who used to be on the board of the Dallas Federal Reserve, saying gee, the problem with low interest rates is it encourages long-term investment because people can take their time. Well, that's crazy Austrian theory. The real problem is that low interest rates provide money to short-term speculators. And all of this credit has been used not for the long term, not for investment at all, but just speculation. And when you have speculation, a little bit of a drop in the market can wipe out all of the capital that's invested.

So what you had this morning in the stock market was a huge wipeout of borrowed money on which people thought the market would go up, and the Federal Reserve would be able to inflate prices. The job of the Federal Reserve is to increase the price of wealth and stocks and real estate relative to labor. The Federal Reserve is sort of waging class war. It wants to increase the assets of the 1 percent relative to the earnings of the 99 percent, and we're seeing the fact that this, the effect of this class war is so successful it's plunged the economy into debt, slowed the economy, and led to the crisis we have today.

PERIES: Michael, just one last question. Most ordinary people are sitting back saying well, it's a stock market crash. I don't have anything in the market. And so I don't have to really worry about it. What do you say to them, and how are they going to feel the impact of this?

HUDSON: It's not going to affect them all that much. The fact is that so much of the money in the market was speculative capital that it really isn't going to affect them much. And it certainly isn't going to affect China all that much. China is trying to develop an internal market. It has other problems, and the market is not going to affect either China's economy or this. But when the 1 percent lose money, they scream like anything, and they say it's the job of the 99 percent to bail them out.

PERIES: What about your retirement savings, and so on?

HUDSON: Well, if the savings are invested in the stock market in speculative hedge funds they'd lose, but very few savings are. The savings have already gone way, way up from the market. And the market is only down to what it was earlier this year. So the people have not really suffered very much at all. They've only not made as big of gains as they would have hoped for, but they're not affected.
... ... ...

Michael Hudson is a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He is the author of The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and its Discontents. His most recent book is titled Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy.

[Aug 13, 2015] Its not migrants who are the marauders and plunderers

Notable quotes:
"... The sultan of Najd, Abdelaziz al-Saud bowed his head before the British High Commissioner in Percy Cox's Iraq. His voice quavered, and then he started begging with humiliation: "Your grace are my father and you are my mother. I can never forget the debt I owe you. You made me and you held my hand, you elevated me and lifted me. I am prepared, at your beckoning, to give up for you now half of my kingdom…no, by Allah, I will give up all of my kingdom, if your grace commands me! ..."
Aug 13, 2015 | The Guardian

Never let it be said that Britain's leaders miss an opportunity to inflame fear and loathing towards migrants and refugees. First David Cameron warned of the threat posed by "a swarm of people" who were "coming across the Mediterranean … wanting to come to Britain". Then his foreign secretary Philip Hammond upped the ante.

The chaos at the Channel tunnel in Calais, he declared, was caused by "marauding" migrants who posed an existential threat. Cheer-led by the conservative press, he warned that Europe would not be able to "protect itself and preserve its standard of living" if it had to "absorb millions of migrants from Africa".

With nightly television coverage of refugees from the world's worst conflicts risking their lives to break into lorries and trains heading for Britain, this was rhetoric designed to stoke visceral fears of the wretched of the Earth emerging from its depths.

Barely a hint of humanity towards those who have died in Calais this summer has escaped ministers' lips. But in reality the French port is a sideshow, home to a few thousand migrants unable to pay traffickers for more promising routes around Britain's border controls.

Europe's real refugee crisis is in the Mediterranean. More than 180,000 have reached Italy and Greece by sea alone this year, and more than 2,000 have died making the crossing, mostly from war-ravaged Libya. The impact on Greece, already wracked with crisis, is at tipping point.

On the Greek island of Kos, 2,000 mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees were rounded up on Tuesday and locked in a sports stadium after clashes with riot police, who used stun grenades to maintain order. Numbers reaching the Greek islands have quadrupled since last year.

But nothing in Europe matches the millions who have been driven to seek refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan or Jordan. Set against such a global drama, Calais is little more than deathly theatre. Britain is not one of the main destinations for either refugees or illegal migrants – the vast majority of whom overstay their visas, rather than stow away in the Channel tunnel.

Last year 25,870 sought asylum in the UK and only 10,050 were accepted. By contrast, Sweden accepted three times as many and Germany had more than 200,000 asylum and new asylum applicants. Nor is Britain's asylum seeker's benefit rate, at £36.95 a week, remotely the magnet it is portrayed. France pays £41.42; in Norway it's £88.65.

What does suck overwhelmingly legal migrant workers into Britain is a highly deregulated labour market, where workplace protection is often not enforced and which both gangmasters and large private companies are able ruthlessly to exploit.

The case, reported in the Guardian, of the entirely legal Lithuanian farm workers – who are suing a Kent-based gangmaster supplying high street supermarkets over inhuman working conditions, debt bondage and violent intimidation – is only the extreme end of a growing underbelly of harsh and insecure employment.

If ministers were remotely concerned about "rogue employers driving down wages" by using illegal migrants, as they claim, they would be strengthening trade unions and rights at work. But they're doing the opposite. And they're using the language of dehumanisation to justify slashing support for asylum seekers' children, locking up refused applicants indefinitely and targeting illegal workers far more enthusiastically than the employers who exploit them.

But what risks dividing communities can also turn them against such anti-migrant crackdowns. In recent months, flash protests have erupted in London and other cities against UK Border Agency attempts to arrest failed asylum seekers or undocumented migrant workers. In areas such as Elephant and Castle, riot police have been called in after UKBA vans were surrounded and pelted with eggs by angry locals and activists trying to prevent the detention of people seen as part of the community.

The chaos at Calais and the far larger-scale upheaval and suffering across Europe could be brought under control by the kind of managed processing that northern European governments, such as Britain's, are so keen to avoid.

'If the current US and British-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen continues, expect Yemeni refugees to join the region's exodus in the months to come.'

'If the current US and British-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen continues, expect Yemeni refugees to join the region's exodus in the months to come.' Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

But that would only be a temporary fix for a refugee crisis driven by war and state disintegration – and Britain, France and their allies have played a central role in most of the wars that are fuelling it. The refugees arriving in Europe come from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia and Eritrea.

With the recent exception of the dictatorial Eritrean regime, those are a roll-call of more than a decade of disastrous western-led wars and interventions. In the case of Libya, the British and French-led bombing campaign in 2011 led directly to the civil war and social breakdown that has made the country the main conduit for refugee trafficking from Africa. And in Syria, the western funding, arming and training of opposition groups – while fuelling the rise of Isis – has played a crucial role in the country's destruction.

If the current American and British-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen continues, expect Yemeni refugees to join the region's exodus in the months to come. So the first longer term contribution Britain and its allies could make to staunching the flow of refugees would be to stop waging open and covert wars in the Middle East and north Africa. That is actual marauding.

The second would be a major shift in policy towards African development. Africa may not be leading the current refugee crisis, and African migrants certainly don't threaten European living standards. But as a group of global poverty NGOs argued this week, Africa is being drained of resources through western corporate profit extraction, extortionate debt repayments and one-sided trade "partnership" deals. If that plunder continues and absolute numbers in poverty go on rising as climate change bites deeper, migration pressures to the wealthy north can only grow.

There is a genuine migration crisis driven by war and neoliberal globalisation. Despite the scaremongering, it hasn't yet reached Britain. But it's a fantasy to imagine that fences, deportations and better security can protect fortress Europe. An end to the real plunder and marauding would be more effective.


ID0049691 nadel 13 Aug 2015 10:55

Why don't you start with yourself? How many of your ancestors like millions of other Europeans, went to Africa, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere to "settle" there over the past centuries? Now that the tide is turning you and your likes do nothing but whine and accuse others of being "left wingers". The left wingers seem to be the only people left with human feelings.

Beastcheeks 13 Aug 2015 10:55

Thank you Seamus - a beacon of light amongst the marauding dirge of mass media ignorance and hatred that characterises the current mainstream British position. When I read many of responses to your reasoned arguments - I hang my head in shame. Mass delusion and hatred not dissimilar to Nazi Germany I'm afraid. The very fact you have to spell out the obvious truth - that you can't bomb the hell out of people and then cry foul when they come to us for safe refuge - beggars belief. I am well and truly disgusted and am in the process of relinquishing my British nationality. No longer am I willing to tolerate such ignorant intolerance in my name.


rentierDEATHcult 13 Aug 2015 10:51

Shias are not joining ISIS ... but the vast majority of Sunnis are not joining it, either !?

Kurds are Sunnis - they're fighting ISIS.

Sunni tribes in Iraq are collaborating with Shia (often Iranian) militias to fight ISIS.

Even fellow Sunni Jihadists in the al-Nusra Front (& affiliated brigades) regard ISIS as ignorant nihilists and want to have nothing to do with them.

Your thesis about a Shia + Sunni conflict driving the wave of migration into Europe is, simply, flawed.

Its utter nonsence, in fact.

Moreover, Shia and Sunni have lived amongst each other, largely, in peace during that 1400 years. Prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, most suburbs of Baghdad were mixed and a significant proportion of families shared a dual Shia + Sunni tradition.


Rj H 13 Aug 2015 10:42

There are some good and bad points to all this as demonstrated on this comments thread. There seems to be no real consensus and blame is shifted from one side to the other (whether political, social, class or economic). The only thing we (indigenous population) might all agree upon is; upon stepping back and looking at the current state of the UK (formally Great Britain) most of us will come to the conclusion that something has gone wrong and the country and the UK is not enjoying good health. That fact alone should demonstrate that those in charge are not doing their jobs properly. Poor leadership across 40 years has damaged this country. A country that once governed FOR its people now governs contrary to the majority of its people's wishes. Those at the top are not capable (or indeed willing) to look out for those at the bottom. We as a population are being hit and abused by a government that cares only for the wealth and power of a select few. Never have so many been owed so much by so few. The government has reduced the people's voice to a hoarse whisper. We need to regain our voice and SHOUT back that we won't stand for this situation any longer.


blueanchor rentierDEATHcult 13 Aug 2015 10:36

"How is Islam responsible ...?".

Aren't the battlelines across swathes of Islam's heartland in the Middle-East drawn up broadly on Sunni v Shia lines? For instance I don't think you'll find any Shia joining Isis. What you have now is an eruption of the Islamic sectarian dispute which has been running on and off for 1,400 years, and people are fleeing to escape it.


musolen David Hicks 13 Aug 2015 10:35

No, you're right, of course we don't, that's the point.

One sided trade deals are negotiated with massive distortion favouring the big multinational corporations but listen to the IMF and all you hear is we have to 'open up our markets to enable free trade'.

The US has more trade embargoes in place than any other nation and EU is close behind and the irony doesn't even register on the faces at IMF and World Bank trampling the world spreading their Neo-Liberal rubbish.

My point was that to have capitalism, if you are an advocate of capitalism you have to accept those free movements of goods, money and people.

Paul Torgerson Rob99 13 Aug 2015 10:35

Well at least there is one person on here who has not swallowed the right wing xenophobic crap. But the right wing press is doing a great job of brain washing the populace. Examining the facts indicates a humanitarian problem that will not in any way disadvantage Europe even if they allow ALL these people to settle in Europe


wasson Bicbiro 13 Aug 2015 10:34

So you think if the UK minimum wage was lower than Poland they'd still come? I'm afraid I'm going to have to to disagree with you there bic. They come because they can earn in a week what they earn in 3 months in Poland. Simple as.


rentierDEATHcult sludge 13 Aug 2015 10:32

If you know anything about Lawrence of Arabia (since you brought him up), you would know that the British were collaborating against the Ottomans by inciting Arab tribes to revolt against them.

The Ottoman state was seen as an Islamist bulwark against European colonialism, especially, British imperialism.

So i'm not sure why you think the British would have undermined the Saudis and handed territories they had seized back to the Ottoman Turks - against whom the British were collaborating - (using the Saudis) !?

You need to understand and embrace this part of recent British history. Because anyone that doesn't understand (or acknowledge) their history is not to be trusted with the present.


bugiolacchi dragonpiwo 13 Aug 2015 10:28

UK is not part of Shengen. Non-EU migrants who work, live, travel freely, and prosper in the rest of Europe need a visa to cross the few miles of water between us and the continent.

As per the ID cards, every time they interview an 'illegal' immigrant, one of the reasons given for coming here is that it is the only country (in the world?) where one does no need to identify themselves when asked (a 'utility bill' my socks...) and can drive without a driving licence or car documentations with them, but to 'present' them later. A Christmas invitation if one wants to 'blend' in the background'. Again, a 'utility bill' as an idea.. hilarious!


rentierDEATHcult sludge 13 Aug 2015 10:19

The 'Gazzeteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman & Central Arabia' authored by John Gordon Lorimer has now been declassified by the British government and provides significant insight into the relationship between Abdulaziz al Saud and the British colonial authorities.

The memoirs of HRP Dickson in his 1951 book "Kuwait and Her Neighbours" provides further details on how Britain supported the rise of the Saudi monarchy as de facto colonial agents of Pax Britannica.

Dickson was British envoy to the Gulf emirates and an aide to British High Commissioner for Iraq - Sir Percy Cox

Dickson recounts this exchange between Sir Percy and Abdelaziz al Saud during the conference in al-Aqeer in November 1922:

The sultan of Najd, Abdelaziz al-Saud bowed his head before the British High Commissioner in Percy Cox's Iraq. His voice quavered, and then he started begging with humiliation: "Your grace are my father and you are my mother. I can never forget the debt I owe you. You made me and you held my hand, you elevated me and lifted me. I am prepared, at your beckoning, to give up for you now half of my kingdom…no, by Allah, I will give up all of my kingdom, if your grace commands me!"

[Aug 09, 2015] Seven countries near bankruptcy

Aug 08, 2015 | usatoday.com

Moody's Investors' Service rates seven countries Caa1 or worse, several tiers lower than Ba1, which still carries a significant credit risk. These countries are approaching or have narrowly escaped bankruptcy. Ukraine is rated Ca, which is currently the lowest credit rating of any country reviewed by Moody's.

... ... ...

Ukraine

> Moody's credit rating: Ca
> Moody's outlook: Negative
> 2015 Gov't debt (pct. of GDP): 94.1%
> 2015 GDP per capita (PPP): $8,278

Ukraine's conflict with Russia over its annexation of Crimea continues to fuel the country's financial problems. While the IMF approved Ukraine's debt restructuring plan in March, Ukraine has the worst credit rating of any country reviewed, downgraded this year from Caa3 to Ca, the second lowest possible level. Creditors can expect a 35% to 65% recovery rate on loans issued by the country. According to Moody's, "The likelihood of a distressed exchange, and hence a default on government debt taking place, is virtually 100%."

The same day that Moody's issued the downgrade, the National Bank of Ukraine announced the establishment of the Financial Stability Council. According to Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriia Gonatreva, the Council's function will be to "take a comprehensive and systemic approach to identify and mitigate the risks threatening the stability of the banking and financial systems of the country."

[Aug 09, 2015] The main points of this Gorbulin-Poroshenko Plan

marknesop.wordpress.com

yalensis, August 7, 2015 at 2:54 pm

Op-ed by Sergei Markov, a Russian political analyst who is considered to be close to the views of the Kremlin:

http://rusnext.ru/recent_opinions/1438977256

According to Markov, Kiev was only interested in the first part of the Minsk Accords, namely in a panic to stop counter-offensive of Novorossiya army, after their debacle at Debaltsevo.

But they have zero interest in carrying out the rest of the accords.

Plus, according to Markov, Kiev is under instructions from their American masters, to continue the war at all costs.
According to Markov, Kiev is actually carrying out a plan called the "Gorbulin-Poroshenko Plan", and I googled Gorbulin, but couldn't get any more information, so I don't know who this person is.

But the main points of this Gorbulin-Poroshenko Plan are said to be:

1. Kiev does not take on any (Minsk) obligations which involve peace-making moves.
2. Full blockade (of Donbass).
3. Continue artillery shelling of residential areas of Donbass, kill as many civilians as possible.
4. This in order to make life unbearable in Donbass.
5. The goal is to turn the residents against their leaders, in DPR and LPR.
6. Weaken Russia with sanctions.
7. Planning a military blitzkrieg against Donbass, on the model of the attack of Croatian army against Serbian Krajina.
8. NATO will station troops in Kharkov, Zaporozhie and Dnipropetrovsk.
9. NATO will beef up Ukrainian army and prepare for fatal strike against Donbass.
10. The police state/dictatorship in Ukraine will be strengthened.

marknesop, August 7, 2015 at 5:45 pm

Volodymyr (Ukraine has to spell it differently so they can all high-five each other, the way the British deliberately misspell "tire") Gorbulin is the former National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) Secretary, now a personal adviser to Poroshenko. Looks a right Himmler type.

[Aug 09, 2015] Hillary Clinton State Department Emails, Mexico Energy Reform, and the Revolving Door

Notable quotes:
"... By Steve Horn, a Madison, WI-based Research Fellow for DeSmogBlog and a freelance investigative journalist. He previously was a reporter and researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy. Originally published at DeSmogBlog . ..."
"... Originally stored on a private server , with Clinton and her closest advisors using the server and private accounts, the emails confirm Clinton's State Department helped to break state-owned company Pemex 's (Petroleos Mexicanos) oil and gas industry monopoly in Mexico, opening up the country to international oil and gas companies. And two of the Coordinators helping to make it happen, both of whom worked for Clinton, now work in the private sector and stand to gain financially from the energy reforms they helped create. ..."
"... The appearance of the emails also offers a chance to tell the deeper story of the role the Clinton-led State Department and other powerful actors played in opening up Mexico for international business in the oil and gas sphere. That story begins with a trio. ..."
"... David Goldwyn , who was the first International Energy Coordinator named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009, sits at the center of the story. As revealed by DeSmog, the State Department redacted the entire job description document for the Coordinator role. ..."
"... The emails show that, on at least one instance, Goldwyn also used his private " [email protected] " (Goldwyn Global Strategies) email address for State Department business. ..."
"... It remains unclear if he used his private or State Department email address on other instances, as only his name appears on the other emails. But Cheryl Mills, a top aide to Secretary Clinton at the time, initiated the email that he responded to on his private account. ..."
naked capitalism
By Steve Horn, a Madison, WI-based Research Fellow for DeSmogBlog and a freelance investigative journalist. He previously was a reporter and researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy. Originally published at DeSmogBlog.

Emails released on July 31 by the U.S. State Department reveal more about the origins of energy reform efforts in Mexico. The State Department released them as part of the once-a-month rolling release schedule for emails generated by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now a Democratic presidential candidate.

Originally stored on a private server, with Clinton and her closest advisors using the server and private accounts, the emails confirm Clinton's State Department helped to break state-owned company Pemex's (Petroleos Mexicanos) oil and gas industry monopoly in Mexico, opening up the country to international oil and gas companies. And two of the Coordinators helping to make it happen, both of whom worked for Clinton, now work in the private sector and stand to gain financially from the energy reforms they helped create.

The appearance of the emails also offers a chance to tell the deeper story of the role the Clinton-led State Department and other powerful actors played in opening up Mexico for international business in the oil and gas sphere. That story begins with a trio.

The Trio

David Goldwyn, who was the first International Energy Coordinator named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009, sits at the center of the story. As revealed by DeSmog, the State Department redacted the entire job description document for the Coordinator role.

Goldwyn now runs an oil and gas industry consulting firm called Goldwyn Global Strategies, works of counsel as an industry attorney at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, and works as a fellow at the industryfunded think tanks Atlantic Council and Brookings Institution.

The emails show that, on at least one instance, Goldwyn also used his private "[email protected] " (Goldwyn Global Strategies) email address for State Department business.

It remains unclear if he used his private or State Department email address on other instances, as only his name appears on the other emails. But Cheryl Mills, a top aide to Secretary Clinton at the time, initiated the email that he responded to on his private account.

[Aug 08, 2015] France to pay Russia under $1.31 billion over warships

Notable quotes:
"... In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. ..."
"... The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

PARIS (Reuters) - The total cost to France of reimbursing Russia for cancelling two warship contracts will be less than 1.2 billion euros ($1.31 billion), French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday.

1. France says 'several' nations interested in Mistral warships AFP
2. Hollande, Putin reach agreement on cancelled warship deal AFP
3. Russia agrees compensation deal with France over Mistral warships AFP
4. 'Extremely difficult' for France to sell Mistral warships: experts AFP
5. France, Russia reach Mistral compensation deal: RIA Reuters

Le Drian said on radio RTL the initial price for the two Mistral helicopter carrier warships had been 1.2 billion euros, but France will have to pay less than that because the ships were not been finished and the contract was suspended.

"Talks between President Putin and President Francois Hollande have concluded yesterday. There is no further dispute on the matter," he said.

He added that the discussions had been held in an amiable way and that there were no further penalties to pay over the contract, which was canceled because of Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict.

"Russia will be reimbursed euro for euro for the financial commitments taken for these ships," he said, adding that the ships are now fully owned by the French state.

In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

Le Drian said that France, whose navy already has three Mistral warships, would look for other buyers for the two ships.

"I am convinced there will be other buyers. Already a number of countries have expressed an interest for these two ships," he said.

Canada and Singapore have been mentioned as potential buyers. So has Egypt, which has just bought French fighter jets and naval frigates.

The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them.

DCNS is 35 percent owned by defense group Thales and 64 percent by the French state.

France last year suspended the Mistral contract, dating from 2011, after coming under pressure from its Western allies over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The long-discussed French sale was Moscow's first major Western arms purchase in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Nicolas Sarkozy, who was France's president when the order was struck, had hailed the signing of the contract as evidence the Cold War was over.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, editing by Larry King)

[Aug 08, 2015] France to pay Russia under $1.31 billion over warships

Notable quotes:
"... In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. ..."
"... The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

PARIS (Reuters) - The total cost to France of reimbursing Russia for cancelling two warship contracts will be less than 1.2 billion euros ($1.31 billion), French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday.

1. France says 'several' nations interested in Mistral warships AFP
2. Hollande, Putin reach agreement on cancelled warship deal AFP
3. Russia agrees compensation deal with France over Mistral warships AFP
4. 'Extremely difficult' for France to sell Mistral warships: experts AFP
5. France, Russia reach Mistral compensation deal: RIA Reuters

Le Drian said on radio RTL the initial price for the two Mistral helicopter carrier warships had been 1.2 billion euros, but France will have to pay less than that because the ships were not been finished and the contract was suspended.

"Talks between President Putin and President Francois Hollande have concluded yesterday. There is no further dispute on the matter," he said.

He added that the discussions had been held in an amiable way and that there were no further penalties to pay over the contract, which was canceled because of Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict.

"Russia will be reimbursed euro for euro for the financial commitments taken for these ships," he said, adding that the ships are now fully owned by the French state.

In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

Le Drian said that France, whose navy already has three Mistral warships, would look for other buyers for the two ships.

"I am convinced there will be other buyers. Already a number of countries have expressed an interest for these two ships," he said.

Canada and Singapore have been mentioned as potential buyers. So has Egypt, which has just bought French fighter jets and naval frigates.

The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them.

DCNS is 35 percent owned by defense group Thales and 64 percent by the French state.

France last year suspended the Mistral contract, dating from 2011, after coming under pressure from its Western allies over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The long-discussed French sale was Moscow's first major Western arms purchase in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Nicolas Sarkozy, who was France's president when the order was struck, had hailed the signing of the contract as evidence the Cold War was over.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, editing by Larry King)

[Aug 08, 2015] France to pay Russia under $1.31 billion over warships

Notable quotes:
"... In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. ..."
"... The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

PARIS (Reuters) - The total cost to France of reimbursing Russia for cancelling two warship contracts will be less than 1.2 billion euros ($1.31 billion), French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday.

1. France says 'several' nations interested in Mistral warships AFP
2. Hollande, Putin reach agreement on cancelled warship deal AFP
3. Russia agrees compensation deal with France over Mistral warships AFP
4. 'Extremely difficult' for France to sell Mistral warships: experts AFP
5. France, Russia reach Mistral compensation deal: RIA Reuters

Le Drian said on radio RTL the initial price for the two Mistral helicopter carrier warships had been 1.2 billion euros, but France will have to pay less than that because the ships were not been finished and the contract was suspended.

"Talks between President Putin and President Francois Hollande have concluded yesterday. There is no further dispute on the matter," he said.

He added that the discussions had been held in an amiable way and that there were no further penalties to pay over the contract, which was canceled because of Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict.

"Russia will be reimbursed euro for euro for the financial commitments taken for these ships," he said, adding that the ships are now fully owned by the French state.

In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

Le Drian said that France, whose navy already has three Mistral warships, would look for other buyers for the two ships.

"I am convinced there will be other buyers. Already a number of countries have expressed an interest for these two ships," he said.

Canada and Singapore have been mentioned as potential buyers. So has Egypt, which has just bought French fighter jets and naval frigates.

The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them.

DCNS is 35 percent owned by defense group Thales and 64 percent by the French state.

France last year suspended the Mistral contract, dating from 2011, after coming under pressure from its Western allies over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The long-discussed French sale was Moscow's first major Western arms purchase in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Nicolas Sarkozy, who was France's president when the order was struck, had hailed the signing of the contract as evidence the Cold War was over.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, editing by Larry King)

[Aug 08, 2015] France to pay Russia under $1.31 billion over warships

Notable quotes:
"... In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. ..."
"... The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

PARIS (Reuters) - The total cost to France of reimbursing Russia for cancelling two warship contracts will be less than 1.2 billion euros ($1.31 billion), French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday.

1. France says 'several' nations interested in Mistral warships AFP
2. Hollande, Putin reach agreement on cancelled warship deal AFP
3. Russia agrees compensation deal with France over Mistral warships AFP
4. 'Extremely difficult' for France to sell Mistral warships: experts AFP
5. France, Russia reach Mistral compensation deal: RIA Reuters

Le Drian said on radio RTL the initial price for the two Mistral helicopter carrier warships had been 1.2 billion euros, but France will have to pay less than that because the ships were not been finished and the contract was suspended.

"Talks between President Putin and President Francois Hollande have concluded yesterday. There is no further dispute on the matter," he said.

He added that the discussions had been held in an amiable way and that there were no further penalties to pay over the contract, which was canceled because of Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict.

"Russia will be reimbursed euro for euro for the financial commitments taken for these ships," he said, adding that the ships are now fully owned by the French state.

In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

Le Drian said that France, whose navy already has three Mistral warships, would look for other buyers for the two ships.

"I am convinced there will be other buyers. Already a number of countries have expressed an interest for these two ships," he said.

Canada and Singapore have been mentioned as potential buyers. So has Egypt, which has just bought French fighter jets and naval frigates.

The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them.

DCNS is 35 percent owned by defense group Thales and 64 percent by the French state.

France last year suspended the Mistral contract, dating from 2011, after coming under pressure from its Western allies over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The long-discussed French sale was Moscow's first major Western arms purchase in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Nicolas Sarkozy, who was France's president when the order was struck, had hailed the signing of the contract as evidence the Cold War was over.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, editing by Larry King)

[Aug 08, 2015] Russia found good way to get even with Netherlands

Notable quotes:
"... The surprising thing is, as the article points out, of the flowers which Netherlands exports, not all of them are even produced locally (in Holland). A surprising number of the flowers come from third countries, such as Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Kenya. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

yalensis, August 4, 2015 at 2:04 pm

Russia found good way to get even with Netherlands:

Starting 10 August, Russia will start limiting import of cut flowers from Netherlands.
The pretext is that all cut flowers from Netherlands must go through phyto-sanitary inspection before being admitted into the country.

In Russia, a whopping 90% of all cut flowers are imported. Of this, Europe supplies 40.5%; Netherlands by itself 38.5%. Hence, the new rule is sure to hit the Dutch in their pocketbooks.

The surprising thing is, as the article points out, of the flowers which Netherlands exports, not all of them are even produced locally (in Holland). A surprising number of the flowers come from third countries, such as Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Kenya.

Recently Russia started forming direct ties with those countries and importing the flowers directly, bypassing Netherlands. This process is expected to continue.

Already, Ecuador is pushing out Netherlands in the Russian market for flowers.

Even China is getting in on the game, starting to supply some of the voracious Russian appetite for cut flowers. Given all these sources of the flowers, Russian consumers are not likely to suffer a deficit of flowers, the article concludes.

[Aug 01, 2015] Ron Paul: All Wars Are Paid For Through Debasing The Currency

Zero Hedge
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

And at some point, all empires crumble on their own excess, stretched to the breaking point by over-extending a military industrial complex with sophisticated equipment, hundreds of bases in as many countries, and never-ending wars that wrack up mind boggling levels of debt. This cost has been magnified by the relationship it shares with the money system, who have common owners and shareholders behind the scenes.

As the hidden costs of war and the enormity of the black budget swell to record levels, the true total of its price comes in the form of the distortion it has caused in other dimensions of life; the numbers have been so thoroughly fudged for so long now, as Wall Street banks offset laundering activities and indulge in derivatives and quasi-official market rigging, the Federal Reserve policy holds the noble lie together.

Ron Paul told RT

Seen from the proper angle, the dollar is revealed to be a paper thin instrument of warfare, a ripple effect on the people, a twisted illusion, a weaponized money now engaged in a covert economic warfare that threatens their very livelihood.

The former Congressman and presidential candidate explained:

Almost all wars have been paid for through inflation… the practice always ends badly as currency becomes debased leading to upward pressure on prices.

"Almost all wars, in a hundred years or so, have been paid for through inflation, that is debasing the currency," he said, adding that this has been going on "for hundreds, if not thousands of years."

"I don't know if we ever had a war paid though tax payers. The only thing where they must have been literally paid for, was when they depended on the looting. They would go in and take over a country, and they would loot and take their gold, and they would pay for the war."

As inflation has debased the currency, other shady Wall Street tactics have driven Americans into a corner, overwhelmed with debt, and gamed by rigged markets in which Americans must make a living. The economic prosperity, adjusted for the kind of reality that doesn't factor into government reports, can't match the costs of a military industrial complex that has transformed society into a domestic police state, and slapped Americans with the bill for their own enslavement.

Dr. Paul notes the mutual interest in keeping the lie going for as long as the public can stand it… and as long as the gravy keeps rolling in:

They're going to continue to finance all these warmongering, and letting the military industrial complex to make a lot of money, before it's admitted that it doesn't work, and the whole system comes down because of the debt burden, which would be unsustainable."

Unsustainable might be putting it lightly. The entire thing is in shambles from the second the coyote looks down and sees that he's run out over a cliff.

[Jul 28, 2015] A Foreig n Enemy is a Tyrant's Best Friend by Dan Sanchez

Antiwar.com

Cold wars freeze despotism in place, and thaws in foreign relations melt it away

by Dan Sanchez, July 28, 2015

Print This | Share This

Iran Great Satan

The recent Iran nuclear deal represents a thaw in the American cold war against that country. It is a welcome sequel to the Obama administration's partial normalization with Cuba announced late last year.

Hardliners denounce these policies as "going soft" on theocracy and communism. Yet, it is such critics' own hardline, hawkish policies that have done the most to ossify and strengthen such regimes.

That is because war, including cold war, is the health of the state. Antagonistic imperial policies - economic warfare, saber-rattling, clandestine interventions, and full-blown attacks - make the citizens of targeted "rogue states" feel under siege.

This activates what Randolph Bourne called their "herd mind," inducing them to rally around their governments in a militaristic stampede so as to create the national unity of purpose deemed necessary to defend the homeland against the foreign menace. When you lay siege to an entire country, don't be surprised when it starts to look and act like a barracks.

Rogue state governments eagerly amplify and exploit this siege effect through propaganda, taking on the mantle of foremost defender of the nation against the "Yankee Imperialist" or "Great Satan." Amid the atmosphere of crisis, public resistance against domestic oppression by the now indispensable "guardian class" goes by the board. "Quit your complaining. Don't you know there's a cold war on? Don't you know we're under siege?"

Moreover, cold wars make it easy for rogue state governments to shift the blame for domestic troubles away from their own misrule, and onto the foreign bogeyman/scapegoat ("bogeygoat?") instead. This is especially easy for being to some extent correct, especially with regard to economic blockades and other crippling sanctions, like those Washington has imposed on Cuba, Iran, etc.

Imperial governments like to pretend that affairs are quite the reverse, adopting the essentially terrorist rationale that waging war against the civilian populace of a rogue state will pressure them to blame and turn against their governments. In reality, it only tends to bolster public support for the regime.

The imperial "bogeygoat" is an essential prop for the power of petty tyrants, just as rogue state bogeymen are essential props for the power of grand tyrants like our own. Thus, it should be no surprise that the staunchest opponents to the Iran nuclear deal include both American and Iranian hardliners. Just as there is a "symbiosis of savagery" between imperial hawks and anti-imperial terrorists (as I explain here), there is a similar symbiotic relationship between imperial and rogue state hardliners.

The last thing hardliners want is the loss of their cherished bogeygoat. Once an emergency foreign threat recedes, and the fog of war hysteria lifts, people are then more capable of clearly seeing their "guardians" as the domestic threat that they are, and more likely to feel that they can afford to address that threat without exposing themselves to foreign danger. This tends to impel governments to become less oppressive, and may even lead to their loss of power.

Thus after Nixon normalized with communist China and belatedly ended the war on communist Vietnam, both of those countries greatly liberalized and became more prosperous. Even Soviet reforms and the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union only arose following American detente.

Simultaneously, as the American cold wars against communist Cuba and communist North Korea continued without stint for decades, providing the Castros and Kims the ultimate bogeygoat to feature in their propaganda, the impoverishing authoritarian grip of those regimes on their besieged people only strengthened.

Similarly, ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew the puppet dictator that the CIA had installed over Iran in a 1953 coup, the Ayatollahs have been able to exploit ongoing hostility from the American "Great Satan" to retain and consolidate their repressive theocratic power.

All this is an object lesson for US relations with Putin's Russia, Chavista Venezuela, and beyond. Disastrously, it is being unheeded.

Even while thawing relations with Iran, the Obama administration has triggered a new cold war with Russia over Ukraine. This has only made Russian President Vladimir Putin more domestically popular than ever.

And even while normalizing relations with Cuba, Obama recently declared Venezuela a national security threat, imposing new sanctions. As journalist Alexandra Ulmer argued, these sanctions "may be godsend for struggling Venezuelan leader," President Nicolas Maduro. As Ulmer wrote in Reuters:

"Suddenly, the unpopular leader has an excuse to crank up the revolutionary rhetoric and try to fire up supporters, copying a tactic used skillfully for more than a decade by his mentor and predecessor, the late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez.

A new fight with the enemy to the north may also help unite disparate ruling Socialist Party factions and distract Venezuelans from relentless and depressing talk about their day-to-day economic problems."

[Jul 27, 2015] Mathew D. Rose: The Crisis In Europe Has Only Just Begun

Jul 24, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com

Ping July 24, 2015 at 11:04 am

Article does great service cutting thru the 'noise'.

I don't know why half billion 'clawback' and hefty penalties from GS isn't demanded for structuring fraudulent accounting in Greece's entry to EU.

Also unaddressed, the 12-14 billion olympic boondoggle that undoubtedly was wildly profitable for a few, leaving the Greek population with abondoned facilities and the bill.

susan the other July 24, 2015 at 11:06 am

Rose is correct. But the EU was doomed from the start. Now the Europeans are deliberating about having formed a political (as in purely political) union, without a viable economic model. We put it just the opposite but the result is the same. The thing that gets me, whether it is Germany or the US, is how holier-than-thou creditors are when the game is up. They seem to have only one religion: IBGYBG. When they are not repaid they pontificate about how irresponsible the debtors are, nevermind a worldwide depression. The main reason the EU was doomed from the start was that it was founded on a growth model that didn't really have legs. It was just a convenient magic show. They shouldn't pretend they didn't see this coming. Already their talk has shifted to saving the Core. Merkel, and probably Hollande, has decided to cut her losses, I'd bet. Save the Core instead of lose the whole unsalvageable mess. In so doing they should write off the debts of the periphery to zero.

Synoia July 24, 2015 at 12:49 pm

The EU was formed to prevent more wars between Germany and France.

This is unlikely:

In so doing they should write off the debts of the periphery to zero.

There appear to be many derivatives which would be triggered by such an event.

susan the other July 24, 2015 at 1:39 pm

nullify them all

paulmeli July 24, 2015 at 4:01 pm

Derivatives create a lot of counter-party risks because the Masters of the Universe™ were selling them to each other to hedge their bets.

Seems to me then that much of the risk is circular and so would cancel itself out. Self-nullifying.

IsabelPS July 24, 2015 at 11:21 am

"This has been a conflict between a small European nation, led by a leftist government, attempting to reassert its autonomy under crushing German predominance. That may sound simplistic, but there is not much more to it."

I've stopped reading here.

salvo July 24, 2015 at 1:45 pm

well, if you lived in germany like I do, you'll make the experience of an everyday propaganda in the mass media including the state owned ones repeating the narrative of the lazy greek.

IsabelPS July 24, 2015 at 3:13 pm

And?

In what way that is a proof of "a small European nation, led by a leftist government, attempting to reassert its autonomy under crushing German predominance"?

salvo July 24, 2015 at 3:59 pm

well, I think it's not wrong to say the Germany is projecting its power on the other nations in the eurozone and that greece loss of sovereignity is a result of such power projection

IsabelPS July 24, 2015 at 6:54 pm

And, of course, there's not much more to it.

Windsock said it well:

"The wealthy Greeks seek to conserve their wealth as much as the wealthy Germans. To devolve this down to nationalistic stereotypes is to play the game of the wealthy. Divide and rule. This article buys into that, big time."

I would say it more bluntly: useful idiots.

norm de plume July 25, 2015 at 2:42 am

Well of course, there is more to it. 'Germany' is part of a transnational neoliberal power elite, even if 'the German people aren't, and it is a central component. Its participation in what has happened to Greece may not have been sufficient, but it was certainly necessary.

If Merkel and Schauble and co had been sensible out loud from January and actually listened to and dealt fairly with Varoufakis, even if the IMF and ECB were hardline, would we be where we are?

And whatever influence the US or her own finance-capilitalists wield over her, ultimately Merkel is voted in or out by constituents. Win them over to a sounder view and she either listens or plans her retirement.

Democratic sovereignty may be virtually dead in Greece, thanks in part to the efforts of Merkel and co, but it is still breathing in powerful nations like Germany.

'To devolve this down to nationalistic stereotypes is to play the game of the wealthy'

That's true. The real issue is the elite, whatever canton they happen to hail from.

To that end you might be interested in a reply I just appended to a comment of yours from a couple of weeks ago, in a discussion on whether Tsipras will do a Blair and end up on the yachts of his erstwhile enemies. You said:

'Which does not mean that he, and Syriza, will not fall into the clientelist trap (some, like Guy Verhofstadt, say they have already started)'

I said 'Well, Guy Verhofstadt certainly knows of which he speaks.

Follow the money. Their money, that is. Not ours.'

That's the enemy of both Germans and Greeks, good or bad, lazy or industrious.

IsabelPS July 25, 2015 at 6:37 pm

I don't doubt it. Guy Verhofstadt also knows a thing or two about inflated governments, as Belgians do.

There is a lot of noise and little information.

German native speaker July 25, 2015 at 2:49 pm

Just today, from FAZ: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/eurokrise/griechenland/medikamente-griechen-bekommen-fast-nur-teurere-originalarzneien-13719073.html

Who is responsible for Greeks not able to buy cheaper generic pharma drugs? The Greeks, and there are no two ways about it.

Your claim that German mass media depict the Greeks as lazy "on a daily basis" is nothing but propaganda, and obviously easy to do if you conveniently forget to include (or read, or watch) all examples to the contrary. Discussions in Sueddeutsche were often very good, you ever took the time to read them? This programm is publicly financed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QimxVuicZU

Ishmael July 24, 2015 at 11:30 am

There are many things in this article I would disagree with.

Yes, Greece was made to suffer by the French and German banks during the bailout; however, if Greece had really buckled down and changed it probably could have got through this and moved forward.

It is not German's fault that the Greeks have not improved their tax collection. Nope German assistance was kicked out of the country. It was not the Germans who failed to go after past Greek elites. No it was the Greeks. It was not the Germans who constructed an enormous counter productive government bureaucracy in Greece and refused to reform it. It was the Greeks. It was not the Germans who put in an unsustainable pension system and refused to reform it, it was the Greeks. It was not the Germans who have failed to put in place an up to date property system so that the owners (mainly Greek elites) of the property pay their property taxes, and still refused to do this, it was the Greeks.

I saw some report that said approximately $50 billion a year of taxes from Greek elites goes uncollected each year. The problem is Germany and the rest of the EU expected Greece to reform itself when it hit the wall. It has refused to do so. I keep saying, why does the Greek population keep wanting to stay on the Euro. It distrusts its own govt more than the EU.

FedUpPleb July 24, 2015 at 12:26 pm

Yes, Greece was made to suffer by the French and German banks during the bailout; however, if Greece had really buckled down and changed it probably could have got through this and moved forward.

Actually they did. Greece was in a primary surplus at the beginning of this year.

What changed was a new government was elected whom the European powers disapproved of. In league with the ECB, these powers - pincipally Germany - deliberately engineered a bank run in Greece so as to topple theis elected government or bring it into line. There is no other explanation.

This is not the Europe most europeans ever signed up for. It is the end of the EU as a political project as far as I, what some other assorted cranks, but now an alarmingly new number of ordinary commentators have concluded.

The elites and assorted Quis across the continent will continue to laud and implement the new German and neoliberal coup. But don't expect the general population to be pleased about it.

Yves Smith Post authorJuly 24, 2015 at 4:13 pm

*Sigh*

The bank run was underway before Syriza came into office. It's fair to say that the ECB took measures to make it worse (giving only minimal ELA increases) but it's not accurate to depict them as its sole cause. It's more akin to fanning flames.

The creditor conduct has been terrible. There's no need to overegg the pudding. It only hurts the credibility of critics.

Synoia July 24, 2015 at 1:36 pm

It is not American's fault that the Americans have not improved their tax collection.

It was not the Americans who failed to go after past American elites.

paulmeli July 24, 2015 at 4:08 pm

It doesn't matter much at this point whose fault it is…the obstinance in dealing with the problem will ensure that the Euro system fails catastrophically.

It would be hard to make an argument that the Greeks were responsible for that outcome. Any system that can be brought down by it's weakest member is a very poor system indeed.

TheCatSaid July 24, 2015 at 4:32 pm

Wasn't it the Greek elites who had the agency to make these changes, but chose to protect their own interests instead? Like what is happening in the USA?

In each case what is needed is to create genuinely democratic power structures. Maybe the broader populace needed to see things really fall apart, before taking up the mantle of taking responsibility to create something new that is capable of moving things forward in a constructive way for the people at large.

Ishmael July 24, 2015 at 5:18 pm

The elites (and this includes many ex-junta members) have controlled the govt since late 70's. The people have gone along with this because crumbs have been handed out to the people while the elites were stealing the country blind. One of the big backers of Syrzia is govt workers. They and the elites do not want govt reforms. Change will not come until it is forced upon them.

My first reaction to the new deal (my wife is Greek and I am around lots of Greeks) is basically that Germany was annexing the country but later as I thought about it I decided maybe that is a good thing. The Greek people have not been able to have a functioning country for 30 years. It is ranked as the most corrupt place in Europe and also one of the hardest countries in Europe to open a business.

JTMcPhee July 25, 2015 at 9:18 am

One can be sure that "the Greeks," like the Czechs maybe, ought to cheer the victory of their new masters. In the New Libertarian vein, you only got what you ( or the Government-Like Organization you as a weak little individual and serf-able mope must perforce become attached to) can Take and then Hold against the other Galtian Enterprises.

So it's the case, then, that Friedmania has flattened the earth so completely that the armies of Bidness can send the tanks and JU-87s and F-16s in a clean, bloody sweep over the Lowlands… Interesting that backward tribespeople in places like Afghanistan (our name for that collection) have resisted the actual tanks, preserving their identities as, e.g., Pashto, while happily soaking up the bribes and floods of corruption, pallets of $100 bills and Viagra and stuff…

Moneta July 24, 2015 at 10:23 pm

The blame is circular. Germany knew Greece restructured its debt to enter the zone.

As for the generous pensions, I keep on scratching my head wondering how many would consider 10k generous if they were receiving it. Money value is not the only measure of the size of a pension. One must look at what it buys. And frankly, they seem to consume way less resources than we do here in Canada.

windsock July 24, 2015 at 11:35 am

Any excuse to avoid getting on with it?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11761028/Greek-bail-out-talks-delayed-by-Troika-security-fears.html

MyLessThanPrimeBeef July 24, 2015 at 1:04 pm

Maybe they can meet inside a NATO base?

windsock July 24, 2015 at 11:49 am

I was one of those people who, in my youth, welcomed the EEC, then EC, then EU, from the shores of Old Blighty, hoping and believing it would tie us in to a balancing power against the US and USSR (giving my age away). I bought into that "preventing war" schtick.

Now I realise that they didn't want to prevent war because of its effects upon the populations who fought and suffered it. Now, watching Greece (and my own government), I can see that the reason they wanted to prevent war is because war destroys wealth. It is wealth, above all else, that all governments of the world, now seek to conserve.

The wealthy Greeks seek to conserve their wealth as much as the wealthy Germans. To devolve this down to nationalistic stereotypes is to play the game of the wealthy. Divide and rule. This article buys into that, big time.

William C July 24, 2015 at 1:12 pm

It is unfair to cast aspersions on the intentions of a dead generation on the grounds of the behaviour of their grandchildrens' generation. Monnet and Schumann were active 60 to 70 years ago.

Although British myself, I had French relations (now dead) who were passionate about uniting Europe precisely on the grounds that they wanted no repetition of the slaughter and rapine which traumatised their lives. There are no grounds for supposing that they were insincere and motivated by concern for their (often trivial) personal possessions.

Windsock July 24, 2015 at 2:03 pm

I am not casting aspersions on the people. I am saying that maybe we, the people have been duped? Or maybe, good causes get hijacked as a vehicle of convenience by others with different intentions?

Linus Huber July 24, 2015 at 8:31 pm

It often happens that cause and effect are set in incorrect order. The creation of the EC in this form was simply possible due to a peaceful period experienced during that time but has little real effect on peace itself what its main objective is supposed to be.

On another level I do not like the above article at all. It is exactly the worst way that nationalism is used to divert attention from the failure of the power hungry elite to the seemingly inappropriate conduct of people of another nation. It is a dangerous development and shows that the unsustainable policies of individual governments may be in trouble.

On the aspect of racism we have to differentiate. It is normal that one feels more comfortable with persons of the same background/culture/language etc. and therefore favors those in his personal choices which is part of the individual's freedom. The line is to be drawn when someone ACTS against another race/person of different background or culture where the word racism is appropriate. To now use the German's sentiment towards Greece as prove of being racist is completely inappropriate except when the believe that someone can endlessly live above his own means is completely ingrained in the mind set. We all have sentiments in that we mostly believe our culture/way of life etc. is somehow a bid superior to others' culture for defining one's identity and we generally do not appreciate that our "negative" character attributes are blown out of proportion.

Synoia July 24, 2015 at 1:37 pm

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.

MyLessThanPrimeBeef July 24, 2015 at 6:26 pm

The other road to Hell is paved with bad intentions.

At times, it seems all roads lead to Hell.

Jim July 24, 2015 at 12:45 pm

As many of the remarks in this thread concerning the shortcoming of various European populations demonstrate, Europe lacks any sense of common identity. Europe is not a community and Europeans are not a people. A unified Europe might be ruled by force as a multicultural empire like the Ottoman Empire but the notion of a United States of Europe is utter fantasy.

c wenn July 24, 2015 at 4:25 pm

Thank You… I've spent a bunch of time in Europe, and all the above generalizations are more true than not.

However, Greek and Italian government is so corrupt, so sleazy, and so unlike the German system, that it's been pretty well accepted that tax evasion is a way of life there. Germany has its bad apples, but not anywhere near the kind of corruption you see in the PIIGS…. and yes, that's probably a sly acronym.

BUT – however colorful and memorable my stays in Italy [north or south], Greece, or even Spain – I would rather have Swiss, Belgian, German or even French neighbors. Sorry… there IS a difference in these peoples, if only in the overall flavor of their respective countries.

The Swiss are niggardly so and so's… and every time I'm there I curse their petty, judgmental, xenophobic ways…. but Switzerland will be a better place to live and prosper for it.

There is something to be said about grumpy old white people…. they make the neighborhood better. And safer.

sorry… but these conversations are going to have to be had as the world is awash in migratory peoples… some who are overwhelming their environments are not who we want moving in…. sorry… Hamilton's Rule

why oh why can't we have the necessary discussion about over population, migratory populations… and who and how many can play?

It's coming to all of you… and I don't care how lofty the rhetoric, there IS a difference between cultures. I would rather have Swiss neighbors than Hmong.

MyLessThanPrimeBeef July 24, 2015 at 6:44 pm

In general, a Swiss would rather have Swiss neighbors, a Hmong Hmong neighbors, a Martian Martian neighbors.

But as you say, not everyone is the same.

Take, for example, Bilbo Baggins.

He likes to venture out and hang around stranger creatures, like men, elves, wizards, etc.

Generally speaking, pardon the generalization, but people usually don't like to migrate to strange new places, unless their homes have been destroyed (or captured as slaves/indentured laborers)…not even to make more money. They rather their home nation grow more prosperous, so they can make more money at home…generally speaking.

Jim July 24, 2015 at 7:01 pm

Not to even mention foreigners there is little love lost between German, French and Italian Swiss. Xenophobia is a basic Swiss principle just as it is for say the Japanese.

Hans Suter July 25, 2015 at 2:30 am

Mr. Rose's contribution creates a relaxed ambiente in which a wide garden variety of small and large racism thrives. What about facts about xenophobic Switzerland ? Here a few: "With more than 20% of the population resident aliens, Switzerland has one of the highest ratios of non-naturalized inhabitants in Europe (comparable to the Netherlands; roughly twice the ratio of Germany). In 2003, 35,424 residents were naturalized, a number exceeding net population growth. Over the 25-year period of 1983 to 2007, 479,264 resident foreigners were naturalized, yearly numbers rising gradually from below 10,000 (0.1%) in the 1980s to above 40,000 (0.6%) in the 2000s.[16] Compare the figure of 0.2% (140,795) in the United Kingdom (2004).["

Linus Huber July 25, 2015 at 4:17 pm

@ Hans

Thanks to put the matter in proper perspective. It is not a matter of being xenophobic but rather a matter of volume, size and sustainability. Switzerland has a strong tradition to welcome real refugees and to ignore the mentioned circumstances by people who may belong to a nation whose government may be responsible for many bad policies implemented worldwide that contributed to a large degree to the present disorder is a faulty logic. But again, the blame game between nationalities and nations is exactly the wrong way to go but is the preferred choice by governments and the elite to divert the attention from their failures.

Jim July 24, 2015 at 6:51 pm

"Culture" is the epiphenomenal shadow of polynucleotides.

Barry Fay July 25, 2015 at 9:05 am

Boy do you have that wrong! You don´t mean "neighbors" at all. You mean "prosperity" and that you would rather live in a prosperous place than a poor one. I can only pity you. You have simply swallowed the kool-aid that capitalism preaches about "happiness". Both the Germans (I live in Berlin) and the Swiss are the unhappiest people I´ve ever been around. And the happiest? I´d have to say the Cubans! They know how to ENJOY LIFE.

JTMcPhee July 24, 2015 at 12:46 pm

What's with the persistent, insistent, often inconsistent turn to personification/reification/hypostatization in what purports to be "sophisticated and informed analysis" of complex intersections and interactions and interrelations? Is "Greece" a useful category, or "Germany," or "The US," when it comes to trying to keep the species alive? Or is that latter notion not really part of the goal at all?

TheCatSaid July 24, 2015 at 4:36 pm

I can't imagine any EU meeting starting with a request to consider what is needed to keep the species alive.

Linus Huber July 25, 2015 at 4:24 pm

@ JTMcPhee

An excellent question.

One might need to differentiate between the interest of the people and the interest of the governments. The government's interest might in many cases not be what serves the people best but what ensures and enhances their own power.

Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg July 24, 2015 at 1:34 pm

These historical episodes always remind me of Terence McKenna's dictum that 'Culture is not your friend'. These 'Germans/Greeks/English are mean/kind/clueless/uncivilized…' are all notions generated by cultural baggage that all peoples carry.
There are a lot of issues coming to a head in the Greek econonomic debacle. It's a real shame that the EU institutions can't seem to find a way to ameliorate conditions for the common people in Greece and maybe inflict a little suffering on the knaves and fools of various nationalities who brought Greece to this pass. But supranational institutions these days are all tailored to cater to the comfort of an internationalist elite that transcends ethnicity. They have their own culture and it involves laughing at you while peeing off a cliff on your head.

Synoia July 24, 2015 at 1:47 pm

Two points:

First, I'm astonished at the speed with which the cultural stereotypes have returned in public discourse. "Good German, Lazy Greek, Arrogant German, Junker, etc"

Thus I fear war. Dehumanizing others with labels is the start of a series of excuses to start killing.

Second, War has become so profitable (for some), and the epithet 'War Profiteer," whihc if issued when I was young was about the worst epithet which could be slung at another, has lost its power to shame, and now appears as a medal of achievement aka: Defense Industry CEO.

salvo July 24, 2015 at 1:56 pm

yes, you're right, but living in Germany I experience such kind of generalizations everyday, the narrative of the lazy greek has become common sense

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c wenn July 24, 2015 at 4:28 pm

I am sick to death of tip toeing around the reality of how GENERALIZATIONS get to be truths.

They are more truthful than not.. and never fair to the individual.

But we are highly selective in our outrage. THAT is what steams me.

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German native speaker July 25, 2015 at 5:53 pm

What you are bringing to the discussion are generalizations, and instead of the Greeks being badmouthed, you are badmouthing Germans. Same exact thing.

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Brian M July 24, 2015 at 2:08 pm

General Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" remains a definitive (and delightfully simple) polemic on this very topic, Synoia.

That and the classic Black Sabbath song "War Pigs"!

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vidimi July 24, 2015 at 2:25 pm

imo, war between any of the eu states seems inconceivable in the next decade. of course, the political landscapes can change quickly, but europeans have always held stereotypes of each other. a case in point is the joke about european heaven and hell from years back: european heaven: the french are the cooks, the germans the mechanics, the british the police, the italians the lovers, and it's all organised by the swiss. european hell: the british are the cooks, the french the mechanics, the swiss the lovers, the germans the police and it's all organised by the italians.

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Jim July 24, 2015 at 2:47 pm

The present borders in Eastern Europe which were drawn up by Stalin at the end of WWII are fundamentally unstable.

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OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL July 24, 2015 at 5:23 pm

European (and world) war is already in full swing, it's financial. So much easier to pursue without all those messy flag-draped coffins to hide at the airport, the Pulitzer shots of crying babies, or the CNN live feeds of missile strikes destroying buildings. It's a casino, and we are the chips.

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MyLessThanPrimeBeef July 24, 2015 at 6:49 pm

Financial wars are less messy or not as gory, but can be more lethal.

Non-violence* kills.

*We think of physical violence as the only kind of violence. So, when I say non-violence, it could mean mental violence (which is not physical violence).

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craazyman July 24, 2015 at 5:35 pm

they're just trying to refill your beer, is that so bad?

It must be the wind . . . .

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VietnamVet July 24, 2015 at 2:15 pm

The article is true. The Eurozone is a dead man walking. The fault line between the Western and Greek Orthodox cultures is real. The article is wrong in sense that like almost all working journalists he is a handmaiden to the Davos Elite. The oligarchs are the ones pushing debt. They then suck the debtors dry till dead. Exploiting ethnic hatreds furthers their crimes.

Class Warfare is very 19th century. Today we have plunder capitalism. Plutocrats and their servants robbing everyone else. This is oblivious to corporate media.

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paulmeli July 24, 2015 at 4:13 pm

Robber baron financier Jay Gould quipped "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half".

Same as it ever was.

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EmilianoZ July 24, 2015 at 3:04 pm

Germany is back to its good old self. The atonement period is over, folks. As the French say: chassez le naturel, il revient au galop. And the more repressed it was, the more virulent the come back.

Emmanuel Todd gives some clues as to what the new Reich might look like:

https://www.les-crises.fr/translation-germanys-fast-hold-on-the-european-continent-by-emmanuel-todd/

It's not very different to what Doktor Schaeubble is supposed to have planned according to an article in the links some time ago. In addition, Doktor Schaeubble wants Slovakia too. An old ally from Barbarossa must not be forgotten.

Emmanuel Todd thinks the UK is in the process of escaping by leaving the EU altogether (I think there's a referendum on that). He has put France in gray denoting "voluntary servitude". I'm sure the French elite wants to be collaborators, like in the old times (Sartre said that was the reason the French army collapsed so rapidly). The French people probably want out and join the Club Med.

I wouldn't mind a euro north and a euro south. There's nothing to visit up north but if the currency becomes cheaper, it would make visiting France, Italy and Spain very attractive.

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Dean Plassaras July 24, 2015 at 3:20 pm

Well written and formulated.

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john c. halasz July 24, 2015 at 3:31 pm

Deutschland raus! This ought to be the marching slogan of every truly democratically minded citizen in Europe, no matter how strange the ideological alliances. It has been remarked by many economists over the years, most recently by that former IMF guy, that having Germany leave the Euro and return to the DM would be the cleanest, least disruptive and fairest way to resolve the Euro-crisis.

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Steve H. July 24, 2015 at 5:27 pm

Excellent comments about implicit racism, nationalism, ismism. Not necessarily mutually exclusive.

What is the degree of homogeneity in a culture? Is it in the DNA, like lactose intolerance? Is it a product of circumstance, sea-farers in antithesis to mountain dwellers? Does it scale with size?

In smaller groups with a survival mentality, non-compliance may be ruthlessly selected out, with compliance being actions we might consider superstitious or abhorrent. Urban living requires a skill set which starts to look like a global culture, as long as the three billion people cooking on three-stone fires are peripheralized.

Here's what I know. When I hear or read about what America is doing in the world, I remember that a quarter of a million people were in a single protest march against the wars in 2003 and it didn't mean shit. That our government routinely does actions that over 2/3 of the population does not support. That corporations are both not people and 'not people'.

There is a difference between homogeneity and agency. When those with agency in Germany attempted to create a master race, they created a cultural identity that those looking at Germans can never forget.

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craazyman July 24, 2015 at 5:45 pm

A little FDI would solve the whole problem. Where is it?

Wasn't it supposed to have been here by now? This is like JEB Stuart at Gettysburg. Where is he? (Sorry for the Civil War allusion, it's too abstract, since he did show up. Evidently he liked to roam around the countryside.).

Where is FDI? Where is it roaming? Where is it? It must be sitting in a pile somewhere, like baseballs, or tennis balls. Is it at the ECB? Is it in Germany? Where the hell is it? it must be a big pile by now. Can't somebody see it protruding above a horizon like the Matterhorn? Oh! maybe it's in Switzerland! maybe it's in a Swiss Bank! No. There's too much of it. It wouldn't fit. It has to be somewhere - or maybe it's spread out all over the place. Maybe it's so spread out it's lost it "congealiality". Oh man. That's a property of FDI. It doesn't work if it's only a euro or two. It has to congeal. Evidently it can't be too spred out or all in one place. If it's all in one place, it's a big pile and it's useless, since it congeals and hardens like glue. If it's too spread out, it loses all congealiality. This sounds like a chemistry problem. It may be.

Where the hell is it? I've not seen one macroeconomics article on the interet that says where the FDI is. Not one. (Although maybe I haven't looked hard enough. That's certainly a possibility).

Maybe it's coming "soon".

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BEast July 24, 2015 at 9:37 pm

Very interesting article. I would like more background on the campaign of condemnation of Gutmenschen - on what basis were they condemned? "Impracticality"? Failure to get on board with various Eurozone proposals? EU skepticism? General lack of sociopathy?

How was the campaign orchestrated, and by whom?

(This is obviously the first I've heard of it.)

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mesfern July 25, 2015 at 5:28 am

I believe Rose is referring to a controversy about the possible origin of the expression "Gutmenschen" in Nazi lingo. It became popular in the late 90s after the publication of a "Dictionary of the Gutmenschen", by satirist Klaus Bittermann, which mocked many instances of self-righteousness in Germany's public life. With time, however, it came to target the Left and "Political Correctness" in particular; thus, a "Gutmensch" would be a do-gooder who supported all kinds of progressive causes, from feminism to environmentalism, but had no knowledge of the hard facts of life (that is, the business world). Eventually, a journalism association traced the expression back to a few Nazi leaflets; it was hardly conclusive evidence, but enough to blow things out of proportion and start another culture battle. At its most erudite, it was related to the Weberian opposition between the Gutmensch's ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility; at its most tribal, the "Gutmensch" became an umbrella term for everything inimical to the methods and the aims of the Right. Hence, one can have "Gutmenschen issues", "Gutmenschen arguments", "Gutmenschen politics". When used by the Right, it is a strongly derogatory expression, very hostile and openly dismissive.

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German native speaker July 25, 2015 at 2:09 pm

There was no campaign ever.

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salvo July 25, 2015 at 3:47 am

I don't understand what the problem is about: saying Germans are racists would be a generalization if the sentence means each individual german is a racist, but I think it points to a structural fact, that the mainstream public discourse in germany, and certainly in many other countries, is driven by the need to constitute a collective identity where the german is somewhat superior to the other. You just need to live here in Germany and listen to the everyday discourse, most people are not explicit racists, but they tend to assign positive attributes to themselves in constituting that collective identity while at the same time assigning the opposite negative attribute to another collective identity, we are diligent, trustworthy, thrifty and so on because some other, i.e. the Greek, are exactly the opposite, lazy, untrustworthy, profligate. The people who constitute themselves this way don't think as themselves as racists, because being racist is a negative trait in the public discourse. It is simply a fact that the mainstream public discourse in Germany is full of such stereotypes, positive for themselves and negative for the other (not only in tabloids like bild but in the so-called Qualitätspresse, even in the fee-financed state media.) This process is amplified by the fact that Germany has become the hegemonic power in Europe. Projecting one's power needs an ideological discourse which legitimates the unavoidable violence linked to this process, so if the Greeks are impoverished, disenfranchised in the process of power projection, then this has to be morally justified, usually by ascribing inferiority.

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Windsock July 25, 2015 at 4:24 am

I think my issue with this is that someone who is not German is heavily insinuating that the German nation is "reverting to type". Phrases like " a primordial fear" suggest there is a fixed reference in the very nature of those who speak German that is incapable of change or challenge. I would dispute that.

But then the very existence of the nation state is defined by those cultural commons that others do not share – language, religion, governance etc – and who is ever going to define themselves as inferior to anyone else?

Much of the early EU history was built on predicating the subsidiarity of the nation state to the continental whole. It has morphed, in my view, into a tool for the trans/multi-national globalist wealthy and the result is the playing off of nation states against each other, in both economic and cultural terms. I think this article is complicit in that.

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James Miller July 25, 2015 at 1:51 pm

During my university studies in Sociology, I was always amazed at the endless pressure to refrain from judging culture-only record it, dissect it (in a non judgmental way, of course), and teach the fragments left over to the next crop of undergrads. A museum of culture, poorly displayed and heavily redacted.
Judgement is required, or it's all useless.
There are such things as sick cultures, and it's not very difficult to find reasonable criteria to identify them.
One cannot, for the purposes of solving problems of the sort that we debate here, ignore this fact.
Tax theft as a cultural norm is a reality in Greece, and it cannot be the basis of an accusation of racism to point this out.
Greek culture, no matter how rich in history, literature and art, contains elements that make it non-viable in even the medium run, and the national sport of tax theft is only one of many of them.
It is equally clear, now, that the same is true of the "European Union".

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German native speaker July 25, 2015 at 1:59 pm

It is interesting to me that Mr. Rose wanted the comments open. He lives in Berlin, and has been described as an investigative journalist (http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/mathew-d-rose-der-investigator-von-berlin-a-321596.html). I don't see much investigative journalism in the above piece. In his books, Rose's career consists of mainly criticizing the country that he chose as his residence. Yet some commenters claim that there is no "freedom" in Germany – go figure. Would be interesting to know if he collected money from the state that he loathes.
Lving in Berlin, there is ample possibility to talk to Polish people and other Eastern Europeans. Not done in above article, and this should be easy, living there. There are so many yuppy-like people who used illegal Polish laborers to fix up their Prenzlauer Berg/ Kreuzberg properties – this comes to mind.

Not sure what Mr. Rose's agenda is – sounds as if he wants to elicit emotional responses from foreigners, about the awfulness of Germans as such. Sorry you have to live amongst them.

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Gaylord July 25, 2015 at 5:41 pm

This is not merely Germany vs. Greece, but rather the Western Banking Cabal asserting heightened control over the economies of the world, particularly those nations which depend on the dollar and the euro for trade. The reason for the austerity policy, aside from unbridled greed (class war), is the fact of Peak Resources which means increasing scarcity into the future - energy, raw materials, food, water. The oligarchs are also preparing for Climate Chaos which they anticipate will be infinitely costly. They expect record-breaking losses and repair costs from storm damage, drought, wildfires, floods and sea level rise, crop losses, fishery collapses, and health care costs resulting from Fukushima's poisons that have been spreading through oceans and the air during the last four + years. The cost of disposing of all the dead human remains will also be a challenge, as the Great Extinction event proceeds.

[Jul 27, 2015] The F Story about the Great Inflation

Jul 27, 2015 | Economist's View
The Rage said...

I love "great inflation" discussions. Outside 1968-early 82 period when inflation was decelerating from high levels, inflation has been fairly steady from the modern FED system in 1951 to 2015. It was like a shot in the dark.

I always go by some Keynesian theories that excessive growth caused by fighting proxy wars during the cold war in Korea and Vietnam caused excessive national growth that lead to eventually shortages in capital and excessive wage growth so business raised prices to slow down the economy.

ilsm said in reply to The Rage...

The US debt is fully $10T less than the $28T cold war tab.

You get the negative impact of wars, but miss the point.

Guns and butter. You cannot have both. The pentagon trough [plus much of the other 5% of GDP for federal welfare to 'capitalists' like Elon Musk] is too heavy to tote.

Inflation from LBJ through Reagan was a band aid to get some butter while the pentagon troughers gobbled up resources to airily blow things up pillaging coca cola and blue jeans from the butter 'side'.

Cold war [war on Saudi/Sunni fostered terrists is continued cold war troughing] has depleted the US common since 1947, less a few years when Clinton actually paid off some of the war debt.

Matt Young said...

While we are on the subject, lets ask. What is the likelihood that Simon even advances the theory of information by one bit? We know the experts, the count is about ten to twenty, many of them having their stuff posted on this blog. Does anyone believe that Simon discovered a new secret?

ilsm said in reply to Matt Young...

Ask the wrong questions you get the wrong answer you seek.

likbez said...

"Ask the wrong questions you get the wrong answer you seek."

That reminds me neoliberal discourse about corruption and all those dances about "governance" (aka organizing political and economic life along market mechanisms) that neoliberal are pushing.

It's simply amazing how neoliberals managed to brainwash public using pseudo-science, mathiness and obscure terminology. Using bottom feeders like Friedman, Feldstein, Mishkin, John Taylor, Greg Mankiw etc.

Those stooges of financial oligarchy even managed to explain corruption as the rent-seeking behavior of individual public servants not as a key, immanent feature of neoliberal accumulation of capital.

/greece. /guardian_slips. Polit*/ Neocolon*/ /predator_state. /imf_and_debt /disaster_capitalism. Propaganda/

[Jul 26, 2015]Greece, [yet another] the Sacrificial Lamb

"...these policy debates are really about ideology and power."
.
"...special interests, in and out of the country, are using the troika to get what they could not have obtained by more democratic processes."
.
"...The battle, however, is not just about Greece. It's not even just about the money, although special interests in the rest of Europe and some within Greece itself have taken advantage of the troika to push their own interests at the expense of ordinary Greek citizens and the country's overall economy. This is something I saw repeatedly firsthand when I was at the World Bank, most noticeably in Indonesia. When a country is down, there is all manner of mischief that can be done."
.
"...One underlying problem in Greece, in both its economy and its politics, is the role of a group of wealthy people who control key sectors, including banks and the media, collectively referred to as the Greek oligarchs."
.
"...More likely than not, though, the troika will do what it has done for the last five years: Blame the victim."
JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
Jul 25, 2015 | The New York Times

As I read the details, I had a sense of déjà vu. As chief economist of the World Bank in the late 1990s, I saw firsthand in East Asia the devastating effects of the programs imposed on the countries that had turned to the I.M.F. for help. This resulted not just from austerity but also from so-called structural reforms, where too often the I.M.F. was duped into imposing demands that favored one special interest relative to others. There were hundreds of conditions, some little, some big, many irrelevant, some good, some outright wrong, and most missing the big changes that were really required.

Back in 1998 in Indonesia, I saw how the I.M.F. ruined that country's banking system. I recall the picture of Michel Camdessus, the managing director of the I.M.F. at the time, standing over President Suharto as Indonesia surrendered its economic sovereignty. At a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in December 1997, I warned that there would be bloodshed in the streets within six months; the riots broke out five months later in Jakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia. Both before and after the crisis in East Asia, and those in Africa and in Latin America (most recently, in Argentina), these programs failed, turning downturns into recessions, recessions into depressions. I had thought that the lesson from these failures had been well learned, so it came as a surprise that Europe, beginning a half-decade ago, would impose this same stiff and ineffective program on one of its own.

Whether or not the program is well implemented, it will lead to unsustainable levels of debt, just as a similar approach did in Argentina: The macro-policies demanded by the troika will lead to a deeper Greek depression. That's why the I.M.F.'s current managing director, Christine Lagarde, said that there needs to be what is euphemistically called "debt restructuring" - that is, in one way or another, a write-off of a significant portion of the debt. The troika program is thus incoherent: The Germans say there is to be no debt write-off and that the I.M.F. must be part of the program. But the I.M.F. cannot participate in a program in which debt levels are unsustainable, and Greece's debts are unsustainable.

Austerity is largely to blame for Greece's current depression - a decline of gross domestic product of 25 percent since 2008, an unemployment rate of 25 percent and a youth unemployment rate twice that. But this new program ratchets the pressure up still further: a target of 3.5 percent primary budget surplus by 2018 (up from around 1 percent this year). Now, if the targets are not met, as they almost surely won't be because of the design of the program itself, additional doses of austerity become automatic. It's a built-in destabilizer. The high unemployment rate will drive down wages, but the troika does not seem satisfied by the pace of the lowering of Greeks' standard of living. The third memorandum also demands the "modernization" of collective bargaining, which means weakening unions by replacing industry-level bargaining.

None of this makes sense even from the perspective of the creditors. It's like a 19th-century debtors' prison. Just as imprisoned debtors could not make the income to repay, the deepening depression in Greece will make it less and less able to repay.

Structural reforms are needed, just as they were in Indonesia, but too many that are being demanded have little to do with attacking the real problems Greece faces. The rationale behind many of the key structural reforms has not been explained well, either to the Greek public or to economists trying to understand them. In the absence of such an explanation, there is a widespread belief here in Greece that special interests, in and out of the country, are using the troika to get what they could not have obtained by more democratic processes.

Consider the case of milk. Greeks enjoy their fresh milk, produced locally and delivered quickly. But Dutch and other European milk producers would like to increase sales by having their milk, transported over long distances and far less fresh, appear to be just as fresh as the local product. In 2014 the troika forced Greece to drop the label "fresh" on its truly fresh milk and extend allowable shelf life. Now it is demanding the removal of the five-day shelf-life rule for pasteurized milk altogether. Under these conditions, large-scale producers believe they can trounce Greece's small-scale producers.

In theory, Greek consumers would benefit from the lower prices, even if they suffered from lower quality. In practice, the new retail market is far from competitive, and early indications are that the lower prices were largely not passed on to consumers. My own research has long focused on the importance of information and how firms often try to take advantage of the lack of information. This is just another instance.

One underlying problem in Greece, in both its economy and its politics, is the role of a group of wealthy people who control key sectors, including banks and the media, collectively referred to as the Greek oligarchs. They are the ones who resisted the changes that George Papandreou, the former prime minister, tried to introduce to increase transparency and to force greater compliance with a more progressive tax structure. The important reforms that would curb the Greek oligarchs are largely left off the agenda - not a surprise since the troika has at times in the past seemed to have been on their side.

As it became clear early on in the crisis that the Greek banks would have to be recapitalized, it made sense to demand voting shares for the Greek government. This was necessary to ensure that politically influenced lending, including to the oligarchic media, be stopped. When such connected lending resumed - even to media companies that on strictly commercial terms should not have gotten loans - the troika turned a blind eye. It has also been quiescent as proposals were put forward to roll back the important initiatives of the Papandreou government on transparency and e-government, which dramatically lowered drug prices and put a damper on nepotism.

Normally, the I.M.F. warns of the dangers of high taxation. Yet in Greece, the troika has insisted on high effective tax rates even at very low income levels. All recent Greek governments have recognized the importance of increasing tax revenues, but mistaken tax policy can help destroy an economy. In an economy where the financial system is not functioning well, where small- and medium-size enterprises can't get access to credit, the troika is demanding that Greek firms, including mom and pop stores, pay all of their taxes ahead of time, at the beginning of the year, before they have earned it, before they even know what their income is going to be. The requirement is intended to reduce tax evasion, but in the circumstances in which Greece finds itself, it destroys small business and increases resentment of both the government and the troika.

This requirement seems at odds, too, with another of the demands with which Greece has been confronted: that it eliminate its cross-border withholding tax, which is the withholding tax on money sent from Greece to foreign investors. Such withholding taxes are a feature of good tax systems in countries like Canada and are a critical part of tax collection. Evidently, it is less important to ensure that foreigners pay their taxes than that Greeks do.

There are many other strange features of the troika bailout packages, in part because each member of the troika has its favorite medicine. As doctors warn, there can be dangerous interactions. The battle, however, is not just about Greece. It's not even just about the money, although special interests in the rest of Europe and some within Greece itself have taken advantage of the troika to push their own interests at the expense of ordinary Greek citizens and the country's overall economy. This is something I saw repeatedly firsthand when I was at the World Bank, most noticeably in Indonesia. When a country is down, there is all manner of mischief that can be done.

But these policy debates are really about ideology and power. We all know that. And we understand that this is not just an academic debate between the left and the right. Some on the right focus on the political battle: the harsh conditions imposed on the left-wing Syriza government should be a warning to any in Europe about what might happen to them should they push back. Some focus on the economic battle: the opportunity to impose on Greece an economic framework that could not have been adopted any other way.

I believe strongly that the policies being imposed will not work, that they will result in depression without end, unacceptable levels of unemployment and ever growing inequality. But I also believe strongly in democratic processes - that the way to achieve whatever framework one thinks is good for the economy is through persuasion, not compulsion. The force of ideas is so much against what is being inflicted on and demanded of Greece. Austerity is contractionary; inclusive capitalism - the antithesis of what the troika is creating - is the only way to create shared and sustainable prosperity.

For now, the Greek government has capitulated. Perhaps, as the lost half decade becomes the lost decade, as the politics get uglier, as the evidence mounts that these policies have failed, the troika will come to its senses. Greece needs debt restructuring, better structural reforms and more reasonable primary budget surplus targets. More likely than not, though, the troika will do what it has done for the last five years: Blame the victim.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, a professor at Columbia and the author, most recently, of "The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them."

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.


pieceofcake -> konstanz germany 3 hours ago

'One underlying problem in Greece, in both its economy and its politics, is the role of a group of wealthy people who control key sectors, including banks and the media, collectively referred to as the Greek oligarchs.'

Thank you - as it was the Oligarchic system which ruined Greece and perhaps it could have been mentioned in this article - how much money these Oligarchs moved out of the country into foreign bank accounts - and if you have been in Athens you probably had Greeks telling you, that with this money in Greece there would be no need for another bailout.

And for sure the debt - which is more or less the main 'incentive' for Greece to reform - should be forgiven - and the other European nations will agree to another 'haircut' AFTER the reforms are implemented - and you might be able to trust such a prediction - as all our predictions about the Greece Crisis -(documented by the published comments in the NYT) have come true.

And it is a very welcome change of the narrative by progressive US economists - that at least the distructive role of the Greek Oligarchs is recognized. It comes up late in the article and the suggestion - the troika seemed to be at times on their side is probably as unfair as the idea that progressive US economists have been on the Oligrachs side.

As from the beginning of the crisis it was rarely mentioned by US economists. They built a narrative all about 'austerity' insted of 'money for reforms' or a working taxation system for Greece!

[Jul 26, 2015]The great Greece fire sale

"... "Privatisation in Greece right now means a fire sale," political economist Jens Bastian said."
.
"...The Guardian is not the paper you think it is... or would like it to be.
Even if its support for the previous Coalition government wasn't clear enough, the nature of its coverage of Russia, Greece, and lately the Corbyn candidacy, very obviously reveals its true loyalties."

.
"... Privatization will make the Greek economy look like Russia. Mafia State 2.0. The cost of everything will rise as the profiteers stripmine any assets left after the sellout of the Greek people. Those assets deemed unprofitable will be dumped onto the bankrupt state government. Your last paragraph is neocon boilerplate and simply doesn't apply in a situation where pirates move in to clean the bones of their victims. "
July 24, 2015 | The Guardian

Greece needs to sell off €50bn worth of state assets such as airports and marinas quickly as part of its third bailout deal. But is such a plan realistic?

In the early days of the Greek debt crisis, two German politicians came up with a radical solution: Greece should sell off some of its uninhabited islands and property to pay back its creditors. "Sell your islands you bankrupt Greeks! And sell the Acropolis too!" was how the German tabloid Bild summed up their idea.

While selling off ancient monuments was never a serious idea, the privatisation of state assets has always been an integral feature of Greece's international bailouts. Over the past five years, Greece has faltered on promises to sell vital parts of its infrastructure – ports, airports, marinas and waterworks – in exchange for billions of euros in loans.

Privatisation remains a vital element of Greece's latest bailout deal. Under threat of being forced out of the eurozone, Athens agreed to transfer "valuable assets" to an independent fund, with the aim of raising €50bn (£35bn). Half the proceeds will be used to shore up capital reserves at Greek banks; a quarter will be used to repay Greece's creditors, and the remainder will be spent on unspecified investments.

The privatisation fund was the issue that almost forced a Grexit at the marathon 17-hour, all-night summit of European leaders in Brussels earlier this month. "It was the only thing discussed at the summit," recalls one diplomat.

At 6am, as Greece teetered on the brink of leaving the euro, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, was still haggling over privatisation details with his counterparts, Angela Merkel and François Hollande.

The idea of the privatisation fund first emerged in a leaked German government paper which argued Greece should leave the eurozone if it did not agree to put €50bn in a Luxembourg fund as collateral for its debts. Although drafted in Berlin, the plan soon found support among Greece's hardline creditors in central Europe and the Baltics.

Tsipras wrung two concessions: the fund would be run from Athens, not Luxembourg, and a tranche of the cash would be earmarked for investments in Greece.

The privatisation fund is likely to remain one of the most contentious issues as Greece and its creditors strive to conclude bailout talks by mid-August.

From the creditors' perspective, Greek privatisation has been failure heaped upon failure. In 2011, international creditors decreed that Athens would raise €50bn by the end of 2015 from selling state assets. By early 2015, only €3.2bn had been raised; none of the most sensitive aspects – airports, ports, railways – had been sold. Neither officials at the European commission nor the International Monetary Fund are taking the €50bn target remotely seriously.

In a devastating analysis of Greece's debt burden published in July, the IMF said it was realistic to assume asset sales would be worth no more than €500m a year – meaning it could take 100 years to raise €50bn.

Gabriel Sterne at Oxford Economics argues that the IMF has failed to learn from its recent history that "less is more" when it comes to setting numerical targets. "It is economics versus faith – 'Somehow we will make this work even if it doesn't add up' – but the economics really doesn't add up."

When Syriza swept to power in January, one of its first actions was to sack the people in charge of Greece's privatisation agency and cancel plans to sell Greece's electricity transmission operator (ADMIE). The sale of other assets – most notably regional airports and the port of Piraeus – had almost been completed, but was thrown into doubt. The government is expected to put up little resistance to the sales now being concluded. Venues purpose-built for the 2004 Athens Olympic games, which have sat derelict and rotting for the past decade, will also be among the assets moved to the fund, alongside state utilities, including the water board and ADMIE.

Both Russia and China have expressed interest in snapping up the state-run railway network, one of the biggest encumbrances on public finances before the debt crisis erupted in late 2009. The Greek state is also rich in buildings bequeathed by individuals to municipalities and the Orthodox Church – properties that are also expected to be included in the fund. Contrary to popular perception, the public sector owns very few islands. The sale last week to Hollywood star Johnny Depp of the Aegean islet of Stroggilo, for a reputed €4.2m, was conducted privately.

While Tsipras has been forced into a humiliating climbdown over the sale of state assets, he has repeatedly branded the entire bailout plan as a bad deal that he doesn't believe in.

Unions with ties to the governing party have already vowed to "wage war" to stop the sale of docks in Piraeus, where the Chinese conglomerate, Cosco, currently manages three piers. With the debt-stricken country on its knees, officials have stressed that the prime minister will fight to ensure the denationalisations are not seen as a fire sale.

However, independent observers fear just that. "Privatisation in Greece right now means a fire sale," political economist Jens Bastian said.

Bastian was one of the officials responsible for privatisation under the European commission's Taskforce for Greece, a body of experts distinct from the troika. He thinks it was a "political mistake" to set a target to raise €50bn from asset sales, in the absence of support from Greek politicians across the political spectrum, from the centre-right New Democracy party, to Pasok on the centre-left and Syriza on the left.

"We have never had a political majority to embrace the idea of privatisation. How are you going to create the political momentum that has been absent in the past years under more difficult conditions today?" he asks.

Greece's creditors share such scepticism. Their answer is tighter controls. The privatisation fund will be managed by Greeks under the close watch of creditors.

The privatisation fund has few precedents, although it has been compared to the Treuhandanstalt, the German agency created in the dying days of the GDR to privatise East German assets shortly before reunification. Greece's former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, was one of the first to draw the parallel, although others offer the comparison unprompted. Peter Doyle, a former IMF economist, says the Treuhand offers the closest parallels: the agency had full control over government ministries to sell assets quickly. "The principal task was to sell these things to somebody for cash."

Greek government officials and opposition politicians said it was too early to know how the Greek fund would operate.

"We've got a long way to go before we have a clear picture of what this fund and the privatisation scheme will entail," Anna Asimakopoulou, shadow finance minister with the main opposition New Democracy party, told the Guardian. "But the entire privatisation process will feature large in negotiations because Tsipras is so opposed to them and creditors see them as a good way to raise revenues."

Greece has an urgent need for cash: although the eurozone bailout is meant to be worth up to €86bn, only €50bn is on the table, via the eurozone's bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.

Doyle thinks Greece's bailout is underfunded. "The Europeans just don't have enough cash ... and a major way to fill that gap is through privatisation." Officials at the Greek privatisation agency are "going to find their arms very strongly twisted to provide needed cash", he says.

"The privatisation agency is facing a trade off between doing something that is fair and open and following judicial procedures, or something that is going to deliver needed cash."


He fears Greece could be heading down the path taken by Russia in the 1990s, when valuable state assets were sold at knockdown prices to raise urgently-needed cash, creating a new oligarch class in the process.


"The very thing we all think that Greece needs – to get rid of its oligarchy – will in fact be entrenched by privatisation done this way," argues Doyle, who worked on privatisations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland in the 1990s. The difference between those countries and Greece, he thinks, is that the population and political class in central Europe accepted the idea of privatisation, despite the short-term hardships.

He is convinced the current privatisation plan for Greece is doomed to fail. "The programme was set up to encourage Greece to leave the euro and that plan didn't work, so now we are stuck with the privatisation arrangement that nobody, not even the original creditors, ever intended to happen."

Up for sale

Helliniko Olympic complex

Ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki

14 regional airports

PPC power company, including ADMIE, the electricity transmission operator

DEPA natural gas company

Hellenic Petroleum
Hellenic Post
Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company
Xenia Hotels in Rhodes
Marinas of Chios, Pylos and other locations

Source: Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund


MrShigemitsu -> Byron73 26 Jul 2015 15:49

surely a newspaper like the Guardian

Woah, back up now.... you see, there's your problem right there.

The Guardian is not the paper you think it is... or would like it to be.

Even if its support for the previous Coalition government wasn't clear enough, the nature of its coverage of Russia, Greece, and lately the Corbyn candidacy, very obviously reveals its true loyalties.

It supports the neoliberal status quo - don't kid yourself otherwise.


JaneThomas 25 Jul 2015 22:07

"It's neither more moral nor a matter of just desserts to call for that internal devaluation, that austerity, than it is to call for the currency devaluation. Indeed, I would argue entirely the other way: the currency devaluation will cause a lot less human pain so that's the way the problem should be solved. Thus Greece must leave the euro because that's the way to solve the problem with the least pain."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/07/25/greece-really-should-leave-the-euro-the-economics-is-entirely-clear-here/


delaxo kimdriver 25 Jul 2015 17:34

How many Greeks really want Eurozone at any cost can only be seen through a referendum.
Remember that prior to the last referendum of 61-39, the same opinion poll companies were predicting a 50-50 result.
Are they more trustworthy on the Eurozone question?

someoneionceknew Drosophilasrule 25 Jul 2015 17:24

Capital's motivation is to accumulate financial assets i.e. supplying the least possible service/product for the greatest possible return.

delaxo kimdriver 25 Jul 2015 16:32

"the Greek political establishment was held to account by its electorate":
Excuse me but his sounds like a joke, when 61% of the electorate expressed a will that was summarily rejected by the true rulers of the colony.


Alfie Silva kimdriver 25 Jul 2015 16:11

Al well and good in principle and I agree with most of what you say.

However, privatisations are not always the nirvana you make them out to be.

You see it everywhere across Europe; the privatisation of EDP, PT, REN for example in Portugal; customer service is now appalling in these former nationalized industries.

I experienced it first hand in the UK; NORWEB and North West Water becoming United Utilities; service to the public again is appalling.

In the rush to privatise, the need for an ombudsman and guaranteed standards by statute is as necessary as making a return to shareholders.


Moniq Vervoort 25 Jul 2015 12:43

The list of Oligarch Greeks that don t pay tax in Greece should be plastered all over the internet , newspapers , tv , etc

Out of the 100 richest people on Earth right now 8 are Greek , one lady and 7 gents that ought to get a BBC camera and a competent interviewer asking their take on the situation ' back Home'!

That would make more sense that simply flogging the place off to Tom Dick and Harry (IMO)


Ryleigh RedCoat4Ever 25 Jul 2015 09:48

Except they are a nation state, not a household or a company. The ability of one country to intervene in another and seize assets smells of imperialism and colonialism.


deskandchair -> Winhoering 25 Jul 2015 09:20

Another corporatist fantasist:
"Spain and Ireland are reporting good growth rates"
AND soaring poverty and unemployment and mass emigration, really great EZ success stories there NOT.


deskandchair -> whitewolfe 25 Jul 2015 09:17

"Smaller the state less corruption"
More corporatist lies, small state = large corporate power and in which fairy-tale lala land do you imagine there's no corruption in private companies? Indeed, corruption is even MORE COVERT in private companies you dunce.


LibertineUSA 25 Jul 2015 09:06

Making Greece poorer one step at a time. What a triumph of neoliberal economics...for at least the beneficiaries of neoliberal economics. Who just happen to be the same people who own everything and don't want to pay their taxes.


FourtyTwo Drosophilasrule 25 Jul 2015 09:01

Germany already owns fully the Greek telecom company (Deutsche Telekom) and is preparing to secure the purchase of all Greek regional airports (Fraport AG). There are also rumours that Sofina, based in Brussels is after Thessaloniki's water company EYATH (ΕΥΑΘ). Interestingly enough Guy Verhofstadt sits on this company's board. So I grant you it is not just "Germany" but Germany's sphere of influence out to buy Greece. ;)

But even if some Greek oligarchs manage to get a piece of that cake, do you really think that would be anything to be proud of? I hear that Greece's "national contractor" George Bobolas is collaborating with Sofina to get a piece of EYATH. What do you have to say about that?

Everybody knows that the non-paper regarding the Greece Treuhand (let's call a spade a spade, shall we?) was circulated by Schaeuble even before the beginning of the summit meeting and that originally the fund would be based in Luxembourg, be run by non-Greeks and all the money from the privatisations would go to creditors to service the debt. The summit almost collapsed because of this aggressive move as Tsipras abandoned the negotiations in dismay and several more moderate people had to intervene to get him back to the negotiation table. Later we found that the non-paper was known and endorsed by both Merkel and the SPD. So yes, pretty much all of "Germany" was behind that caper.

Joint control of assets (Greek state and private companies) has already been proposed by the Greek government, namely Varoufakis himself, but that was deemed unsatisfactory. And even a neoliberal has to agree that selling off assets at a time of a big depression and uncertainty will effect in their being sold for peanuts with a great loss to the seller and a humongous gain for the buyer. Especially if the assets are monopolies of basic commodities like water which means they are totally risk-free, or related to the country's basic means of revenue, tourism.


Kompe75 hungrycocky 25 Jul 2015 07:59

We knew that Germans and reason coincide....but now with Schaueble everything is possible...they have tradition in electing paranoid leaders


MacNara -> whitewolfe 25 Jul 2015 06:31

You are clearly an ultra-capitalist, while I am not, so it's difficult to talk with you. But like many with a religious belief in capitalism, you don't seem to have much idea how it works.

Let's take your point 1:


Selling them contributes to the government, cash. Cash that the country desperately needs.

No: all this money is going abroad; the Greek government won't see any of it. From the point of view of the Greek government, the sale alone (assuming nothing else happened) would be purely an accounting change with no effect in the real world. So, from their point of view, if they were capitalists it would be best to carry on as is, or declare bankruptcy and have a pre-arranged buyer for the bankrupt company (i.e. themselves).


As long as trains run and electricity is deliver[ed] who cares who owns it?

Well, shareholders seem to, otherwise why would there be stockmarkets? And the reverse is true from the customers' point of view. That is to say, if the company became profitable and the profits went to the Greek state rather than others, then it would make a big difference to the citizens.

And so on for your other three points, which I had also already answered in my original post.

John Bennetts -> whitewolfe 25 Jul 2015 06:02

Total BS, Whitewolf. I expect that putting others down makes you feel bigger.

Name examples of "smaller state less corruption". Where has this worked?

The foreign banks made bad deals, lost the gamble and then pressured their governments, led by Germany, to extract penalties far i n excess of the supposed crime. The whole nation is being pauperised.

But that doesn't matter... they're only olive-sucking Greeks, after all. Not German or French banks. So that's OK.

MacNara 25 Jul 2015 00:02

I don't understand why the idea of management contracts for Greek state-owned industries has not been given an airing.

For example, Deutsche Bahn (German government) could be given a ten or twenty year contract to make the railways profitable, and EDF (French government) could do the same for the power system. And this could be done without privatisation (after all, the German and French equivalents are state-owned).

This would surely have several benefits:

1. When the companies were profitable, they could contribute to Greek government finances.

2. Alternatively, once profit-making, they could be sold off, but not at fire-sale prices as looks likely at the moment.

3. This would be a clear example of the German and French (and other governments') desire to help Greece improve, and not to asset-strip, so it would be a PR win, and a plus for all sides (especially if these contracts were 'at cost' and non-profit).

4. Making these businesses profitable will probably initially involve job losses, wage cuts, and price rises. Keeping them in state ownership would mean that the benefits of these sacrifices by Greeks would be kept in-house (i.e. go to the government and not foreign capitalists or Greek oligarchs) and therefore make it more likely that they would get social acceptance.

Has such a plan really never been discussed? Or is my logic faulty?


deskandchair 24 Jul 2015 23:52

". It is a necessary component of a healthy economy because it ensures private sector efficiency and productivity"

Straight from the '90's handbook and absolute RUBBISH. Look at for example public transport systems privatised in Australia. They're now less efficient (schedules are a joke) rolling stock is older and shoddy and private companies STILL DEPEND on state governments for injections of hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain infrastructure.

Then there's electricity supplies in Aus states that have privatised, over-investment in infrastructure (so they can pump the cost of electricity so while households are using less power, costs far exceed inflation). The same with water, gas etc.

I have yet to see ONE example of privatisation of public assets in Aus that resulted in better service, efficiencies etc etc etc. Privatisation of assets is simply a cash-cow for certain companies to bleed the public dry and am happy to consider any REAL example where this is not so.


Alto Cumulus 24 Jul 2015 22:56

Multinational corporations hire battalions of lawyers precisely to AVOID paying taxes. And foreign governments collude, allowing multinationals and Greek oligarchs to park their money in the Luxemburg, Netherlands, or other tax havens.

So selling of Greece's water utilities or ports does NOT mean the corporate buyers will be compelled to pay taxes in Greece. The burden of tax payment will continue to fall to Greek small businesses and Greek families.

The little taxes the new corporate overlords may pay will be immediately sucked up by Greece's creditors.

Marty Wolf -> psygone 24 Jul 2015 15:30

Privatization will make the Greek economy look like Russia. Mafia State 2.0. The cost of everything will rise as the profiteers stripmine any assets left after the sellout of the Greek people. Those assets deemed unprofitable will be dumped onto the bankrupt state government. Your last paragraph is neocon boilerplate and simply doesn't apply in a situation where pirates move in to clean the bones of their victims.

Olastakarvouna 24 Jul 2015 15:12

Helliniko Olympic complex, and 14 regional airports have already been sold (with only bureaucratic hurdles remaining). So has DEPA the natural gas company, but its sale is being held up by EU regulators. The PPC power company will NEVER be sold (unless you believe that Britain will sell its NHS). The Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company will also NEVER be sold, as its sale (and that of Thessaloniki water supply co) was deemed unconstitutional a year ago by Greece's highest court. Helena Smith, please try refining your reporting a little bit more.

[Jul 26, 2015] What Is Wrong with the West's Economies?

"...The jarring market forces? It was a political project with the desired results."
.
"..."We will all have to turn from the classical fixation on wealth accumulation and efficiency to a modern economics that places imagination and creativity at the center of economic life.""
.
"...AN excellent paper up until Eddie tries to solve the problem. His description of the long term societal effects of consolidation of corporations into corporatist behemoths and wealth into obscene levels of power, isolation, and self-indulgence was unerring. Too bad he had no idea what he was depicting."
.
"...Our financial leaders don't want a thriving economy. The want to crush the opposition and keep people under their thumb"
.
"...Perhaps well worth a rather long read, is Domhoff's piece titled, "The Class Domination Theory of Power, here: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/class_domination.html"

This is from Edmund Phelps. It was kind of hard to highlight the main points in brief extracts, so you may want to take a look at the full article:

What Is Wrong with the West's Economies?: What is wrong with the economies of the West-and with economics? ...

Many of us in Western Europe and America feel that our economies are far from just...

With little or no effective policy initiative giving a lift to the less advantaged, the jarring market forces of the past four decades-mainly the slowdowns in productivity that have spread over the West and, of course, globalization, which has moved much low-wage manufacturing to Asia-have proceeded, unopposed, to drag down both employment and wage rates at the low end. The setback has cost the less advantaged not only a loss of income but also a loss of what economists call inclusion-access to jobs offering work and pay that provide self-respect. And inclusion was already lacking to begin with. ...

How might Western nations gain-or regain-widespread prospering and flourishing? Taking concrete actions will not help much without fresh thinking: people must first grasp that standard economics is not a guide to flourishing-it is a tool only for efficiency. Widespread flourishing in a nation requires an economy energized by its own homegrown innovation from the grassroots on up. For such innovation a nation must possess the dynamism to imagine and create the new-economic freedoms are not sufficient. And dynamism needs to be nourished with strong human values.

Of the concrete steps that would help to widen flourishing, a reform of education stands out. The problem here is not a perceived mismatch between skills taught and skills in demand. ... The problem is that young people are not taught to see the economy as a place where participants may imagine new things, where entrepreneurs may want to build them and investors may venture to back some of them. It is essential to educate young people to this image of the economy.

It will also be essential that high schools and colleges expose students to the human values expressed in the masterpieces of Western literature, so that young people will want to seek economies offering imaginative and creative careers. Education systems must put students in touch with the humanities in order to fuel the human desire to conceive the new and perchance to achieve innovations. This reorientation of general education will have to be supported by a similar reorientation of economic education.

We will all have to turn from the classical fixation on wealth accumulation and efficiency to a modern economics that places imagination and creativity at the center of economic life.

I'm skeptical that this is the answer to our inequality/job satisfaction problems.

Posted by Mark Thoma on Friday, July 24, 2015 at 10:38 AM in Economics, Income Distribution, Productivity | Permalink Comments (14)

Peter K. said...

"With little or no effective policy initiative giving a lift to the less advantaged, the jarring market forces of the past four decades-mainly the slowdowns in productivity that have spread over the West and, of course, globalization, which has moved much low-wage manufacturing to Asia-have proceeded, unopposed, to drag down both employment and wage rates at the low end."

The jarring market forces? It was a political project with the desired results.

JohnH said in reply to Peter K....

Indeed! And there is currently no meaningful effort to fix the problem, only to worsen it through TPP and TAFTA.

Rune Lagman said...

"We will all have to turn from the classical fixation on wealth accumulation and efficiency to a modern economics that places imagination and creativity at the center of economic life."

Well, ain't gonna happen by "reforming" the education system.

Everybody (more or less) knows what it takes to "fix" the western economies; lots of infrastructure investment (preferable green) and higher wages. I'm getting fed up with all these "economists" that keep justifying the status quo (probably because their paycheck depends on it).

dan berg said...

Could it possibly be that your skepticism arises from the fact that -precisely because you are an academic economist - you haven't got an imaginative or creative bone in your body?

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to dan berg...

Dear AH,

Doc Thoma wrote "I'm skeptical that this is the answer to our inequality/job satisfaction problems."

Everybody has imagination and creative potential. Most people just lack the mean to express it in a way that will enter the economy. Even Edmund realized that people got to eat. The obstacles run from there. It was Edmund's answer that Doc Thoma was skeptical of. This was Phelps answer to the question:

"... Of the concrete steps that would help to widen flourishing, a reform of education stands out. The problem here is not a perceived mismatch between skills taught and skills in demand. (Experts have urged greater education in STEM subjects-science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-but when Europe created specialized universities in these subjects, no innovation was observed.) The problem is that young people are not taught to see the economy as a place where participants may imagine new things, where entrepreneurs may want to build them and investors may venture to back some of them. It is essential to educate young people to this image of the economy.

It will also be essential that high schools and colleges expose students to the human values expressed in the masterpieces of Western literature, so that young people will want to seek economies offering imaginative and creative careers. Education systems must put students in touch with the humanities in order to fuel the human desire to conceive the new and perchance to achieve innovations. This reorientation of general education will have to be supported by a similar reorientation of economic education..."

If you agree with Edmund Phelps on his answer then at least we must all admit that you have an astronomical imagination.

djb said...

Our financial leaders don't want a thriving economy

The want to crush the opposition and keep people under their thumb

Give people real hope and the economy will thrive

anne said...

By way of Branko Milanovic, referring to randomized trials in economics:

http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/bblonder/phys120/docs/borges.pdf

1658

On Exactitude in Science
Suarez Miranda

…In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

(1946

Viajes de varones prudentes
Jorge Luis Borges)

cm said...

"The problem is that young people are not taught to see the economy as a place where participants may imagine new things, where entrepreneurs may want to build them and investors may venture to back some of them. It is essential to educate young people to this image of the economy."

He left out the part who will pay for all these new things. Aggregate demand. I don't know where this idea comes from that young people don't imagine creating new things. They do it all the time, until the rubber hits the road and they have to get a corporate job because there is just not enough interest and funding for what they are interested in offering. No amount of education will help there.

Not to put words in his mouth, but its sounds like an impersonalized form victim blaming - schools suck and young people have no imagination.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to cm...

Schools suck and young people have too much imagination. But Edmund Phelps has more imagination that anyone that I have ever known :<)

cm said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

Not sure how this relates to my point. How will "better education" fix the fact that when you have a good idea, more likely than not there is no market for it? A lot of tech innovation "rests" in actual or metaphorical drawers because of no ROI or no concrete customer/market to sell it. And this is not a recent phenomenon.

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said...

AN excellent paper up until Eddie tries to solve the problem. His description of the long term societal effects of consolidation of corporations into corporatist behemoths and wealth into obscene levels of power, isolation, and self-indulgence was unerring. Too bad he had no idea what he was depicting.

Lafayette said...

{... which has moved much low-wage manufacturing to Asia-have proceeded, unopposed, to drag down both employment and wage rates at the low end.}

Yes, unopposed. Just what should any nation do about it? Forbid it?

That's not the way economies work.

The Industrial Revolution took a lot of people off the farms, brought them into large cities, where accommodations were created for their families, and gave them jobs in factories with which to pay the rent.

Many then moved on to purchase those properties an become homeowners, which was a typical example of "economic progression".

Of course, the Industrial Revolution, which started in western developed nations, aided by a couple of wars, inevitably progressed from more developed to lesser developed societies.

We in the industrially developed West should not have permitted the Chinese, Vietnamese or Filipinos from bettering their lot by making exactly the same societal progression?

Where is the Social Justice in that, pray tell?

If there has been any failure in Social Justice, it is in the US. Piketty was very clear about that in this info-graphic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/68758107@N00/14266316974/

The income unfairness that has occurred since the US ratcheted down drastically upper-income taxation was not replicated in the EU. Is a third of all income going to only 10% of the population in Europe unfair? Perhaps.

But not quite as unfair as the nearly 50% in the United States. And as regards Wealth, the societal impact is even worse. As Domhoff's work shows, 80% of the American population obtain only 11% of America's wealth historically. See that tragic bit of unfairness here: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Net_worth_and_financial_wealth.gif

Lafayette said in reply to Lafayette...

Perhaps well worth a rather long read, is Domhoff's piece titled, "The Class Domination Theory of Power, here: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/class_domination.html

Excerpt: {The argument over the structure and distribution of power in the United States has been going on within academia since the 1950s. It has generated a large number of empirical studies, many of which have been drawn upon here.

In the final analysis, however, scholars' conclusions about the American power structure depend upon their beliefs concerning power indicators, which are a product of their "philosophy of science". That sounds strange, I realize, but if "who benefits?" and "who sits?" are seen as valid power indicators, on the assumption that "power" is an underlying social trait that can be indexed by a variety of imperfect indicators, then the kind of evidence briefly outlined here will be seen as a very strong case for the dominant role of the power elite in the federal government.}

Thanks to RR in the 1980s.

No wonder "they" make statues of Reckless Ronnie. Can't believe that? See this from WikiPedia: "List of things named after Ronald Reagan", here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Ronald_Reagan

[Jul 26, 2015] Mathew D. Rose The Crisis In Europe Has Only Just Begun naked capitalism

Posted on July 24, 2015 by
By Mathew D. Rose, a freelance journalist in Berlin

Five months ago I attempted to explain why the conflict between Germany and Greece was destined culminate as it has:

Following the recent elections in Greece, Germany and its EU compradors are making it clear who is in charge. The Germans are currently not offering any compromise, but iterate the same blunt demand: Greece has to accept what is being dictated; in other words, capitulate or be annihilated. This time it will not be the Wehrmacht und Luftwaffe that are to force the Greek nation into submission, but a weapon just as lethal: national bankruptcy.

This conflict has nothing to do with Greek debt or finances. Syriza's strategy was based upon the rational assumption that the nation's debt and recovery are being stifled by austerity. As we know from most any respected economist, Greece's debt can never and will never be repaid. On the continent that prides itself as the cradle of the enlightenment, there should have been an amicable, lasting solution to Greece's untenable financial situation. Greece has had to learn the hard way, that the EU is no longer a European project for peace, democracy and prosperity, but a German tool for hegemony.

This has been a conflict between a small European nation, led by a leftist government, attempting to reassert its autonomy under crushing German predominance. That may sound simplistic, but there is not much more to it.

In past postings I have also attempted to explain the German mindset leading to this – and there is no other word for it – disaster. The negotiations have been surprisingly linear. Syriza's main goal was debt relief. They always saw Chancellor Merkel as the lone decision maker in the negotiations. Ms Merkel on the other hand has unremittingly demanded unconditional capitulation. The rest has been spectacle. There is a saying: "Clowns entertain in the intervals between the acts. The circus director runs the show". Dijsselbloem, Juncker and the rest may have had a lot to say to the media, but little to say in negotiations. Finland, Slovakia and Slovenia are irrelevant. The only other player of any importance besides Merkel was ECB president Mario Draghi, who assisted Germany's financial blitzkrieg by questionably terminating the ECB's support of Greek banks. Schäuble was Merkel's executioner.

The intervention of France's President Francois Hollande was uncannily reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain. The only thing lacking was his arrival at Charles de Gaulle Airport brandishing a letter from Chancellor Merkel. The conclusion of "negotiations" was reminiscent of the Munich Dictate. Greece has been "saved", much as Czechoslovakia 77 years ago.

The humanitarian disaster had reached dimensions that defy any definition of a "United Europe". With the media's obsession with the pseudo negotiations the fact that this was an existential decision for millions of Greeks was forgotten, many of whom stood at the edge of an abyss. This became clear as affected Greeks were asking how they were to pay for their insulin and if it would soon become unavailable due to the financial embargo that was being created. This was the terrorism that Yanis Varoufakis denounced.

The reaction of what I would term "enlightened Germans" to Varoufakis's claim was what one expects. For them, they were being compared to ISIS. Even though the fear emanating from much of Greece's population was palpable, there was little reflection by many of those Germans capable of doing so, with regard to the aggression conducted in the name of Germany. In the phase immediately before Syriza's capitulation there was an increasing awareness among some Germans that something was going terribly wrong, but it was too little and too late.

This brings me to the first main point of this posting. The history of the "good Germans" has always been one of ineffectuality. In the course of history there have been many Germans who believed in the enlightenment, be it Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant or Wolfgang Goethe. These however never questioned the authoritative role of the state against the will of the people. The class of "enlightened" Germans always regret what their nation is doing, but more often than not, in the end participate in the very actions they deplore. As A.J.P. Taylor wrote: "There were, and I daresay are, many millions of well-meaning kindly Germans; but what have they added up to politically?" In the case of Greece, this has occurred still again.

Not that the ethical Germans have had an easy time of it lately. A few years ago there was a massive campaign in commentaries and politics condemning so called Gutmenschen (literally translated: good people), who were defined by their critics as persons following their moral conscience – regardless of being leftist, moderate or conservative. In a nation that is responsible for the holocaust, this is a very worrying development. Thus the transition of Germany's hegemonic role in Europe, among many internal transitions such as the unjust redistribution of wealth, has been thoroughly ideologically prepared.

It is worth mentioning a sort of landmark book written by the German historian Heinrich August Winkler, "The Long Journey to the West", which appeared in the year 2000. It traces the purported progress of Germany becoming a responsible member of Western Europe's democratic tradition and intellectual enlightenment. Winkler may have been too quick with his conclusion. Under German hegemony we are seeing heads of state removed by financial pressure (Italy and Greece), nations forced to take over debts from reckless private banks (Ireland and Spain) and Greece being pounded into submission and having its autonomy reduced to passing legislation dictated by Berlin. The Germany of today has little to do with Western European democracy, resembling more traditional German anti-democratic authoritarianism.

The second point I wash to make is that the real losers with regard to the disaster in Greece are not even aware of their plight: the Eastern Europeans. What the Germans have done to Greece has its basis in racism, but the Germans have a primordial fear and hate of eastern Europeans, resulting in a commensurate brutality. When the opportunity arrives to subjugate these peoples, the process will not be as gentle as in Greece. Ukraine could already be the first example of this.

The only exception might be Poland, which throughout history has been invaded and occupied by the Germans. Not only have the Germans always considered Poland a colony, but after the Second World War German territory was added to Poland. This is something that Germans resent to this day. Willy Brandt falling to his knees in Warsaw was an important gesture, but in Germany these days Willy Brandt numbers among the derogated "Gutmenschen". The Poles are fortunately highly distrustful of the Germans – with good reason – and are still not members of the eurozone . They surely have been following the developments in Greece and hopefully comprehended the writing on the wall.

Lastly, no one seems to have really thought through what the "reforms" forced upon Greece will mean in practice. Up to now Greeks apparently were reluctant to pay taxes because hardly any one, especially the oligarchs, did so. To alter a nation's attitude to taxation is a herculean task for a government at the best of times, a process that Yanis Varoufakis interestingly had initiated very early on. The imposition of a ridiculously high value added tax increase by Germany is nothing more than taxation without representation. Not paying ones taxes in Greece will become a patriotic act of resistance against the Germans and the troika. There can be no crdible political discourse from a politically disgraced Syriza, leaving coercion as the only alternative (Varoufakis knew why he resigned as finance minister and has voted against the German dictate). The Greek people clearly rejected the dictate that has been foisted upon them. They will not be supporting the so called "reforms", especially as they simply cannot afford to do so.

The crisis in Greece and in Europe is not over, it is only just beginning.


John Jones, July 25, 2015 at 2:36 am

Yeah and Greeks and eastern Europeans and other minorities etc also live the experience of been on the end of the racism by Germans, English and other northern Europeans. And it is not 'some people' in their experience.
And it is always satire and funny when you are not the one on the other end of the joke.

The wealthy Greeks seek to conserve their wealth as much as the wealthy Germans. To devolve this down to nationalistic stereotypes is to play the game of the wealthy. Divide and rule. This article buys into that, big time.

Stereotypes which most of the German population has had no problem believing and spouting off towards Greeks. Preconceived notions that not only the Germans have but England and northern Europe.


Skippy, July 24, 2015 at 11:45 am

The strange thing is the Germans were late to the colonization party, tho at that time there was some funky stuff happening in German philosophy and spiritualism.

Skippy…. and at the end of the day all the other anglophone nations history is white washed and Germany was left holding the bag as the bad guy.


vidimi, July 24, 2015 at 12:05 pm

yup. i would say the english probably qualify as history's greatest all-time villains…or should i say "some english people".


flora, July 24, 2015 at 12:49 pm

Yes. " A few years ago there was a massive campaign in commentaries and politics condemning so called Gutmenschen (literally translated: good people), who were defined by their critics as persons following their moral conscience – regardless of being leftist, moderate or conservative."

This remark makes me wonder if Hegel is still the guiding philosophy in Germany.

"Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life…" Hegel

Hegel gives the state the primacy, not the family or community or individual conscience.

dk, July 24, 2015 at 11:47 am

The reality is that oligarchs use proxies of many kinds, from nations to individuals. They gain resources and profit from the products and byproducts of elaborately manufactured scenarios, pitting groups against each other to produce illusions of demand, debt, etc. Germany and Greece are no more than proxies in this gambit.

Beware the kayfabe.

DJG, July 24, 2015 at 11:06 am

The Anglo-German media have steeped in racism. Are you forgetting the acronym PIIGS? Do you think that is referring to hams on the hoof in Finland?

I'll write it again: The DJG rule. The Anglophone world (and the Germans and Dutch) prefer their Romans and Greeks dead. The current ones are too "excitable."

MyLessThanPrimeBeef, July 24, 2015 at 12:15 pm

Brown people, little people, poor people, desert people don't do too well either in that world.

hemeantwell, July 24, 2015 at 11:35 am

To add: the more I think about this, the more off target this post is. Precisely at a time when it is necessary to consider features of the current crisis like, in no particular order, falling German productivity, the dwindling of Chinese demand that fueled Germany's economy, growing difficulties in finding investment options for surplus capital >>> bubble investment, how a NATO that is dominated by the US is fostering a crisis in the Ukraine, Rose focuses on the diffuse sentimental templates that can regressively steer a crisis response, especially when elites want to play the nationalism card. Rose does next to nothing to draw our attention back to crisis drivers, he just forecasts how it can be misinterpreted.

German native speaker, July 25, 2015 at 5:43 pm

For years, after starting an illegal war in Iraq, after the US caused the banking/ derivatives crisis, and after the truth about NSA/Snowdon, whenever someone in Germany talked bad about the "Amis" (short for Americans) because of the way the US behave, I have reminded them that not all Americans are 'behind' and supportive of the 'system'.
I guess I can now follow your reasoning and encourage all Germans to pile it on about how bad Americans are, and unless all of them are called ruthless imperialists, the US won't change (according to your logic).


OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL, July 24, 2015 at 4:56 pm

The "most successful" in recent memory gets to dictate the narrative because their view is seen as "right". Germany gets to crow about their "economic miracle", founded on running surpluses, exchange rate suppression that would never have been possible under the deutschemark, and the inconvenient truth of the massive debt forgiveness and restructuring they were afforded in 1953. America benefits similarly from their long-in-the-tooth supremacy after WW II, a victory of excellent river systems, large protective oceans, bounteous agricultural acres, and skillful realpolitik at Bretton Woods. Of course there's no possible chance that a 23% VAT on tourism will remedy Greece's predicament, but the ultimate failure of the program will be whitewashed because the "right" countries in the dominant narrative du jour did their best. We used to have a few politicians who understood at least a tiny bit about history and economics, but that era is long gone indeed, they're either ignorant (Reagan, Bush, Trump) or utterly corrupt (Clinton, Obama, Clinton).

Jim, July 24, 2015 at 7:19 pm

"excellent river systems, large protective oceans, bounteous agricultural acres" – these are all things that Brazil or for that matter the Congo Republic has. Going by natural resources and geographical advantages the Congo Republic should be vastly richer than remote mountainous Japan with it's earthquakes, almost total lack of natural resources and with only 3% of it's surface area suitable for agriculture.Japan has only one thing going for it – the Japanese people. But that makes all the difference in comparison with that treasure house of natural resources – the Congo.

Tinky, July 25, 2015 at 6:16 am

Did you really not understand that HAL was referring to aggregate advantages, and that isolating one in comparison is not at all useful?

Or should we also list the countless island nations that enjoy "large protective oceans", yet somehow fail to threaten the economic dominance of the U.S.?

mesfern, July 25, 2015 at 7:25 am

Believe it or not, the relative amount of agricultural land is the same in Japan and the Congo (~12%; the US have 45%). It may not be the first impression one has from the Congo, but its terrain is rather mountainous and rocky; as one nears the eastern provinces, one might even be tempted to say they are the African Himalaya. Add in the rainforests, and it becomes obvious why it is so difficult to build and maintain the necessary infrastructures.

praedor, July 24, 2015 at 2:21 pm

Clear political correctness corrupting your vision. The German people (by and large, the majority, the bulk, the CULTURE) label the Greeks as lazy and deserving of what they are getting. They label the GREEKS as LAZY and deserving of their plight. They don't deserve aid, succor, etc, because they're Greeks and Greeks are…Greek (lazy leeches). That is an objective fact of the coverage and the overall conceit of the German people en bank. It is racist. I don't give a flying crap if you can find one or two coffee shop teenager Germans who disagree, they aren't the ones running the show, propping up the show, supporting the show, creating the show, kowtowing to the show (though they too are kowtowing). The German machine as a whole, in focus, by design, by preference, is racist and hegemonic. The Troika IS the German establishment, the German heart, the German soul as it is run and supported, directly and indirectly, actively and passively, by Germans. Virtually all of them.

FedUpPleb, July 24, 2015 at 12:19 pm

Shill harder Jesper. What was done to Greece cannot be explained by any rational political policy. It has its roots in emotion, domination, nationalism and yes, racism. You can call the latter "cultural differences" if you like, but it only puts a euphemism on the shocking behaviour seen over the last two months.

Europe has been cast back into the 1950s by this euro crisis. A large portion of the blame now lies with German intransigence in the face of the reality of both bank and soverign bankruptcies. This German intransigence is, at its heart, motivated by national interest, which by casting us back into the 1950s, makes many nervous.

I have been watching commentary and coverage from across the world closely since the end of May on these issues. I can assure anyone still in doubt that the opinions in this post are representative of a very wide and indeed deep shift in mood following what was done to Greece. Europe has lost the cafe-latte front and one must understand the points being made in this post to realise it.

Or one can remain in terminal denial and wait for the market to come along and make things better. In any case, please have the graces not to simply stand around shilling.

salvo, July 24, 2015 at 1:50 pm

well, I live in Germany and am formally German myself and I can assure you the main narrative repeated in German mainstream discourse by the mass media is that the Greeks are somewhat inferior, lazy, profligate, untrustworthy and so on, something most people tend to believe. Indeed most of them feel that the German politics is way too soft towards them. I could start linking to a few articles by German mainstream media to underwrite my point


Gabriel, July 24, 2015 at 10:59 am

One of the few bright spots for me in how the Greece has played out is that in Poland people seem indeed to have picked up that joining the Euro might be something besides a badge of honor of being "Western" and European.

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/07/germanys-policies-pose-danger-to-europe.html

My partner Polish and is currently stuck there for preposterous reasons, and she's confirmed that "sensible," cosmopolitan, Warsaw, pro-EU people are taking a hard look at what actually adopting the Euro might expose them to.

I was gloomy about the chance of this happening, because the pattern I remember from Argentina in the 90s is that the lackeys who aren't being punished by the hegemon think they'll score points by sounding even more punitive than the hegemon (Slovakia seems to have played that role in this crisis), and far too many intelligent people don't understand that adopting a currency cannot be considered in purely symbolic terms. Perhaps Poles' not altogether delightful history with German-run international systems has made them more alert about this kind of thing.

PS. Apropos well-meaning Germans, I linked to a couple of vids by some of their contemporary equivalents here.


susan the other, July 24, 2015 at 11:19 am

I was surprised by the Fortruss post because there is so much censorship here we don't get any idea about the manipulations of our State Department until they fail or succeed. It made me think that we and Germany/France are truly on opposite sides when it comes to the future of Europe. Without "Old Europe" on our side to manipulate eastern Europe it is doubtful we will succeed in drawing them in (and keeping them) into the neoliberal model we seem so determined to export. Hopefully the crisis in neoliberalism has just begun.


Jim Haygood, July 24, 2015 at 11:03 am

Change one word; here's how it reads:

'The class of "enlightened" Americans always regret what their nation is doing, but more often than not, in the end participate in the very actions they deplore.'


nobody, July 24, 2015 at 11:26 am

Mark Ames:

I really started with the idea that in every age, there is some awful oppression that is not yet recognized and therefore doesn't exist, but later seems horribly obvious. This became clear to me working in Moscow in the '90s. No one in the "liberal" Western press corps, academia, world financial aid organizations or Clinton Administration had a shred of sympathy for the millions of Russians suffering from so-called "privatization" programs that we rammed down their throats.

Literally millions of Russians went to their graves early in the '90s, yet many respectable Westerners openly said that the old generation would "have to die off" before the proper mindset set in to allow full Westernization in Russia. Those millions of deaths are still not seen as part of something larger and evil.

http://www.alternet.org/story/24796/a_brief_history_of_rage,_murder_and_rebellion


Gabriel, July 24, 2015 at 11:52 am


Excellent quote. Thanks for posting it. And today's crop of "respectable Westerners" wonder why Putin seems to have Svengali-high approval ratings when facing down the full disapproval of DC and the EU.

Our Western elite really has gone one-up on the Bourbons. Latter remembered everything and learned nothing; ours does away with the remembering bit.

Eric Patton, July 24, 2015 at 11:27 am

Germany has money, industry, resources, brains, and will. They think strategically, and they plan well. You have to admire it.

Inverness, July 24, 2015 at 4:10 pm

Germany has benefited tremendously from both debt forgiveness and cheap Turkish labour.

Jim, July 24, 2015 at 7:30 pm

Oh get real! Germany has been devastated numerous times in history. Almost totally destroyed by the Thirty Years War, again almost totally destroyed, occupied and divided at the end of WWII, devastated both by the Napoleonic Wars as well as WWI. It always recovers to become the strongest state in Western Europe.

YankeeFrank, July 25, 2015 at 4:04 pm

And you say that as if its a good thing. The 20th century would beg to differ. I'd "admire" Germany a bit more perhaps if they managed to build a strong nation without it always seeming to be built on a sneering arrogance and racist hatred of those not "German", meaning specifically Prussian or Bavarian, and it not always winding up with the total domination and ruin of other nations. I guess its easy for them to get up and engineer every day when motivated by an overweening pride.

To me they have a singular inability to do anything other than engineer other peoples' ideas and start wars that make the world cringe in horror at their monstrous deeds. Some cultural things never change I guess.

And no, I'm not letting the US off the hook for its misdeeds, but there is something fundamentally vicious and yes, I'll say it, evil, about the German culture that not only justifies the suffering of "others" at their hands but actually revels in it, as the OP and some commenters who are actually German have made clear here.

MyLessThanPrimeBeef, July 24, 2015 at 12:25 pm

It's interesting how often we exclude ourselves in our analyses of events abroad, or fail to include the international dimension of our domestic policies.

It's the hegemonic-power projection cartographic map you mentioned a few days ago.


[Jul 24, 2015] Mario Draghi: The ECB Has No Mandate To Ensure Checks Clear Or Credit Cards Work

July 23, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com

By Nathan Tankus, a writer from New York City. Follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus

Last week Mario Draghi held a press conference following the decision to raise ELA a paltry 900 million dollars for Greek banks. In that press conference he said many things but I'd like to focus on one passage that has gotten no attention:

There is an article in the Treaty that says that basically the ECB has the responsibility to promote the smooth functioning of the payment system. But this has to do with the functioning of TARGET2, the distribution of notes, coins. So not with the provision of liquidity, which actually is regulated by a different provision, in Article 18.1 in the ECB Statute: "In order to achieve the objectives of the ESCB, the ECB and the national central banks may conduct credit operations with credit institutions and other market participants, with lending based on adequate collateral." This is the Treaty provision. But our operations were not monetary policy operations, but ELA operations, and so they are regulated by a separate agreement, which makes explicit reference to the necessity to have sufficient collateral. So, all in all, liquidity provision has never been unconditional and unlimited.

This is a truly shocking statement. To understand why, we need to go back to the basics of central banking. Banks have accounts at the central bank (I'm going to call the balances in these accounts "settlement balances" in line with non U.S. Conventions) which are primarily used to settle payments with other banks. When you use a debit card issued by one bank to pay someone with a bank account in another bank, your bank has to in turn send a payment using settlement balances to make that payment.

As should be obvious from that description, in order to make that payment your bank has to have sufficient settlement balances in its account at the central bank or the central bank must provide an overdraft. Thus, if the smooth functioning of the payments system is defined as the ability of depository institutions to clear payments, the central bank must ensure that settlement balances are available at some price.

The Federal Reserve explicitly recognizes this in its "Policy on Payment System Risk" by stating that "the Board recognizes that the Federal Reserve has an important role in providing intraday balances and credit to foster the smooth operation of the payment system". Draghi is arguing that the ECB's mandate to "promote the smooth functioning of the payments system" is defined differently than the Federal Reserve's mandate and (as far as I can tell) every other Central Bank's payment system mandate around the world. I can't over-emphasize how radical a departure Draghi's position is from the norms of central banking. Whatever else we may want to criticize the Federal Reserve's and the government's response to the financial crisis, they did preserve the the smooth functioning of the payments system with their alphabet soup of lending facilities and ultimately an FDIC guarantee on interbank lending. The problem was that they didn't put Too Big To Fail banks in a form of receivership and didn't prosecute bank executives, not that they made sure payments continued to take place.

As disturbing as the European Central Bank position already is, it becomes more frightening when we analyze why the Greek banking system has been cut off in detail. First, remember that the ECB's official position has been that the Greek banking system is solvent as long as Greek government bonds preserve a certain value. Second, the ECB judges the value of those government bonds not be their market price but by their view of the Greek government's "compliance" with the dictates of the EU and the IMF. As Vice President Constâncio said during the press conference:

when a country has a rating which is below the investment grade which is the minimum, then to access monetary policy operations, it has to have a waiver. And the waiver is granted if there are two conditions. The first condition is that the country must be under a programme with the EU and IMF; and second, we have to assess that there is credible compliance with such a programme.

The bigger picture here is that under this interpretation of the ECB's operating mandates the European Central Bank can, at any time choose to exclude a particular country's bonds from its monetary policy operations, watch its credit rating fall and eventually, force the country to choose between an IMF program and having a frozen banking system and no ability to borrow. Not only must that country enter an IMF program but it must be judged to be in "credible compliance" by the ECB at all times.

Being in credible compliance is a necessary not sufficient condition for borrowing. Recall that the statute Draghi quoted said that it "may", not must, "conduct credit operations". This is how they've justified keeping the Greek banking system on such a tight leash despite claiming that the Greek Government was in "credible compliance" up until recently and how they can justify not extending ELA by enough to restore normal operations in the current situation. The ECB is like an abusive spouse who believes marriage means they can beat their significant other for any reason and that previous beatings justify beatings in the future.

Even worse, if the Greek banking system is insolvent because of defaults from the private sector in Greece (very likely), the Troika has made the reduction in value of deposits (a bail-in) the preferred tool (along with privatization) to return solvency to the banking system. In other words, there is not only no guarantee of orderly clearing of payments but also no guarantee that depositors will eventually be made whole. It is official policy that at any time the value of a deposit in one bank does not equal the value of a deposit in another bank. Cyprus was not a fluke. It would be foolish for depositors in other countries to feel safe, except perhaps those in Germany and France. Their political leaders would likely suddenly discover the need for depositors to be fully protected in the Eurozone if they were ever forced to recognize insolvency.

Putting all this together, Europe now has a system where liquidity and insolvency problems can occur and can be deliberately generated (at least in part) by the central bank. Then the Troika can force that country into an "IMF program" if it wants to continue having a functioning banking system. Alternatively, the central bank can choose to simply "suspend convertibility" to the unit of account and force the write down of deposits until the banks are solvent again. During this drawn out period payments grind to a halt and mass business disruptions and failures can and will be generated. In other words Europe has created a system where you either comply with the dictates of unelected bureaucrats or you accept a more disorderly version of the United States banking system before the Civil War. The bottom line is that if you feel inclined to visit Europe remember that the payments system can fail you at any time. Plan accordingly.

[Jul 23, 2015] Greece, Iran, and the Rules of the Game

Jul 23, 2015 | LobeLog

Alexis Tsipras had a choice. As the leader of the fledgling Syriza government in Greece, he could have told the European Union to stuff its austerity plan. He could have taken the risk that the EU would offer a better deal to keep Greece in the Eurozone. Or, failing that, he could have navigated his country into the uncharted waters of economic independence.

But he chose to "follow the rules" by accepting the EU plan. Greece is getting its financial bailout, Greeks are tightening their belts, and the Eurozone will survive more-or-less intact. Tsipras learned what happens when you challenge the rules of an elite club. Once in a while, the club changes the rules. Most of the time, the club issues an ultimatum: suck it up or move on.

Hassan Rouhani had a choice. As the leader of a new reformist government in Iran, he could have told the international community to keep its nose out of his country's business. He could have kept adding to Iran's civilian nuclear program, arguing all the time that it was not in violation of any international agreements. He could have tried to chip away at the international sanctions regime by concluding economic agreements with willing countries.

But he chose to negotiate with the permanent five members of the UN Security Council - plus Germany - and bring Iran into full compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency requirements. By "following the rules" in this way, Rouhani is hoping that the windfall that comes from the lifting of sanctions will provide enough capital to turn around the Iranian economy and boost the prospects of his political cohort.

In Hollywood movies and on TV, the rule breakers usually triumph. I can't begin to count how many films and shows feature CIA operatives, FBI agents, and police officers that must defy the chain of command in order to do the right thing and collar the bad guys.

But in the real world, breaking the rules usually comes with big penalties. Of course, it all depends on who sets the rules and who dares to defy them. Sometimes the outlaws face a lifetime behind bars. And sometimes they not only break the rules with impunity but win the proverbial jackpot as well.

... ... ...

Iran, a larger country that plays a strategic role in the Middle East, has considerably more room for maneuver than does Greece. But it too cannot unilaterally remake the rules of the game. It can only negotiate the best deal it can. In the end, it must open itself up to the kind of inspection regime that more powerful countries would never tolerate. It is, of course, the height of hypocrisy for Israel, which refuses to disclose whether it has a nuclear program at all - much less permit access to its secret sites - to insist that Iran open up virtually every corner of the country to a highly intrusive verification regime.

But the rules of the game are changing. The model of "international community" that we've been driving is more than 65 years old, and its engine is starting to conk out.

All the major rule-setting institutions reflect the balance of power that reigned in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The World Bank was founded in 1944, the IMF and United Nations in 1945, and the European Coal and Steel Community (which served as the cornerstone of the future European Union) in 1951. But what will happen as Germany and France exert less control within the EU, as China builds new international financial institutions, as the UN finally tackles the problem of reforming the Security Council? What will happen as U.S. relative power in the world continues to decline?

New rule-makers mean new rules. Get ready: A new world is not only possible, it's just around the corner.

John Feffer is the the editor of LobeLog and the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also the author, most recently, of Crusade 2.0. He is a former Open Society fellow, PanTech fellow, and Scoville fellow, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and many other publications.

[Jul 22, 2015] This is What Economists do not Understand About the Euro Crisis – or the U.S. Dollar

Jul 22, 2015 | Economist's View

bakho

The powers are not stupid but they are incredibly naive and misinformed. The idea of the Eurozone was to subsume nationalist fever into a multicultural Eurozone. The Germans in their Nationalist Pride have made this a failure of Greece instead of the failure of the Eurozone. The rhetoric is one of nationalism, not one of unity. The economics is Nationalist, not Post-Nationalist.

DrDick said in reply to bakho...

The German economic policy is, and long has been, deutschland über alles.

pgl

Is Merkel related to Jeb! I was looking for what the term Club Med nations really means - and it seems to be a put down for nations like Italy and Greece. But check this out. Merkel's "solution" is for the Italians and Greeks to work more:

http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2011/05/19/merkel-club-med-countries-must-work-more/

Of course they want to work more but the stupid fiscal austerity that Merkel is cramming down their throats is leading to massive unemployment. And guess what? Jeb! wants to impose annually balanced budgets for the US through spending cuts. Wow - the US may indeed become the next Greece if Jeb! becomes President.

pgl said in reply to pgl...


OK - I had to post this:

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/07/is-jeb-related-to-angela-merkel.html

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said...

Kathleen McNamara actually believes the cover story for why elites pushed the Euro zone. Yes a great peace keeping mission this has been :<)

Economic elites in Europe have used the Euro to roll back democratic socialism and increase the global reach of European based multi-national corporations. The Euro is about the Davos economic elite and their goals. The Davos economic elite did not want fiscal union, they wanted fiscal disintegration of the welfare state. They have institutionalized fuss budgetry and inflationphobia for 19 of the 28 EU states.

Eclectic Obsvr

Gee, I don't think any of the critiquing economists doubt that the Euro was created as a political matter in the EU. It's just that they thought it economically unwise and to that extent economics matters to politics. It is the same thing about preaching austerity with the idea that exports will make up for lost domestic demand. At some point it's not logical to believe that all Eurozone countries have have a current account surplus. Appears to me that this is something coming out of a perhaps arrogance of foreign policy "experts".

Kenneth Thomas said in reply to Eclectic Obsvr...

Yes, although I believe France actually got the idea after its policy about-face in 1984. They dreamed of a multinationally controlled ECB replacing the Bundesbank, but let austerity and deficit mania get written into the ECB's mandate.

Michael Derry

Sometimes people overlook the easiest of things. The problem in Europe is the same as the U. S. faced under the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention was originally called to address the economic problems of the Confederation by strengthening the then existing Congress. The solution involved a fiscal union and it still took a few years to get the monetary and trade imbalances settled. You would figure a political scientist would know this.

Barkley Rosser said...

At the end here we have some people talking about the realities of the politics of this in the 80s, particularly regarding France. It also occurs to me that most of the commentators here are Americans, where all the people now getting their backs patted (Feldstein, Krugman, Friedman, etc.) while now able to crow about the current problems were all massively dead wrong back in the 90s and after when pretty much all of them declared loudly that the Europeans would not even be able to get the euro established at all. All along they totally under rated the political push behind this, which was arguably seriously flawed and well beyond plots by Davos elites, although that crowd clearly has done well under this at the expense of others. In that regard, this article serves a useful purpose.

The political strength of the euro in face of its now obvious and glaring economic problems is seen both by the fact that we have recently seen more countries joining, the Baltic nations, clearly for political/security reasons (join Europe! Get away from Russia!), but the fact that after all this stuff this spring, here is Greece accepting this horrible deal because their leaders recognize that the overwhelming majority of Greeks want to stay in the euro. Greece should probably never have joined, and it looks to me that they would probably be better off to obey the desires of the horrible Wolfgang Schauble, but there they are, hanging on in there.

Let us also keep in mind that these current problems have arisen due to the depths of the Great Recession, which basically none of us foresaw how bad it would be. Indeed, it has been a tough test, and the critics have been able to see their forecasts of problems be fulfilled.

likbez said in reply to Barkley Rosser...

Economically all three Baltic nations now are basket case. Latvia is probably in worst condition.

They lost most of the trade with Russia and nobody else wants what they can produce. Emigration is rampant. Especially among young people, who see no perspectives in their home country.

They also destroyed most of their manufacturing base (the same is true for Poland).

While partially inevitable with the independence, Baltic's version of Russophobia has its economic and political costs.

Jesse said...

Her central hypothesis seems to be that money is power, and that the deployment of the euro is an exercise in the centralization of power over a heterogeneous collection of nations and economies. And that the US dollar is similar.

How fitting that she teaches at Carroll Quigley's old university.

She *could* be correct. And if so, then we are in for interesting times.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2015/07/comex-registered-deliverable-gold.html

DrDick said in reply to Jesse...

It is the German's wet dream. Their economic policies have long focused on artificially suppressing the prices of their manufactures to keep their exports competitive. Now everyone's currency is pegged to their economy and they control the system.

[Jul 22, 2015] The Courage of Hopelessness by Slavoj Zizek

This article described well what damage Syriza might have done to the neoliberal paradigm which seems to be entrenched everywhere these days
.
Very interesting comparison in there between EU government and the Chinese Communist Party which I hadn't heard before. "It should shamelessly flirt with Russia and China, playing with the idea of giving an island to Russia as its Mediterranean military base, just to scare the shit out of Nato strategists. To paraphrase Dostoyevsky, now that the EU God has failed, everything is permitted." And while he does mention Golden Dawn and other euro- right wing parties he isn't especially critical of them. Not all that familiar with Zizek's overarching philosophy but one wonders if he shouldn't be careful what he wishes for in terms of allies in the struggle against neoliberalism. Anyway, other than that lots to chew on here.
.
"...However, statements like those from IMF demonstrate that the true problem lies elsewhere: does EU really believe in their own bailout plan? Does it really believe that the brutally imposed measures will set in motion economic growth and thus enable the payment of debts? Or is it that the ultimate motivation for the brutal extortionist pressure on Greece is not purely economic (since it is obviously irrational in economic terms) but politico-ideological – or, as Paul Krugman put it in the New York Times, "substantive surrender isn't enough for Germany, which wants regime change and total humiliation - and there's a substantial faction that just wants to push Greece out, and would more or less welcome a failed state as a caution for the rest." One should always bear in mind what a horror Syriza is for the European establishment – a Conservative Polish member of the European parliament even directly appealed to the Greek army to make a coup d'etat in order to save the country."
.
"...At a deeper level, however, one cannot avoid a suspicion that the true goal is not to give Greece a chance but to change it into an economically colonised semi-state kept in permanent poverty and dependency, as a warning to others. But at an even deeper level, there is again a failure – not of Greece, but of Europe itself, of the emancipatory core of European legacy."
.
"...Sounds familiar? Yes, to anyone who knows how Chinese power functions today, after Deng Xiaoping set in action a unique dual system: the state apparatus and legal system are redoubled by the Party institutions which are literally illegal - or, as He Weifang, a law professor from Beijing, put it succinctly: "As an organisation, the Party sits outside, and above the law. It should have a legal identity, in other words, a person to sue, but it is not even registered as an organization. The Party exists outside the legal system altogether." (Richard McGregor, The Party, London: Allen Lane 2010, p. 22) It is as if, in McGregor's words, the state-founding violence remain present, embodied in an organisation with an unclear legal status:"
.
"...And it is crucial to note how the obverse of this non-transparency of power is false humanitarianism: after the Greek defeat, there is, of course, time for humanitarian concerns. Jean-Claude Juncker immediately stated in an interview that he was so glad about the bailout deal because it would immediately ease the suffering of the Greek people which worried him very much. Classic scenario: after a political crack-down, humanitarian concern and help… even postponing debt payments."
.
"...In the guise of Syriza "contradictions", the EU establishment is merely getting back its own message in its true form. And this is what Syriza should be doing now. With a ruthless pragmatism and cold calculation, it should exploit the tiniest cracks in the opponent's armour. It should use all those who resist the predominant EU politics, from British conservatives to Ukip in the UK. It should shamelessly flirt with Russia and China, playing with the idea of giving an island to Russia as its Mediterranean military base, just to scare the shit out of Nato strategists. To paraphrase Dostoyevsky, now that the EU God has failed, everything is permitted."
.
"...The ultimate problem is a much more basic one. The recurrent story of the contemporary Left is that of a leader or party elected with universal enthusiasm, promising a "new world" (Mandela, Lula) – but, then, sooner or later, usually after a couple of years, they stumble upon the key dilemma: does one dare to touch the capitalist mechanisms, or does one decide to "play the game"? If one disturbs the mechanisms, one is very swiftly "punished" by market perturbations, economic chaos and the rest."

Greece is not being asked to swallow many bitter pills in exchange for a realistic plan of economic revival, they are asked to suffer so that others in the European Union can go on dreaming their dream undisturbed.

The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben said in an interview that "thought is the courage of hopelessness" - an insight which is especially pertinent for our historical moment when even the most pessimist diagnostics as a rule finishes with an uplifting hint at some version of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The true courage is not to imagine an alternative, but to accept the consequences of the fact that there is no clearly discernible alternative: the dream of an alternative is a sign of theoretical cowardice, it functions as a fetish which prevents us thinking to the end the deadlock of our predicament. In short, the true courage is to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is most likely the headlight of another train approaching us from the opposite direction. There is no better example of the need for such courage than Greece today.

The double U-turn that took the Greek crisis in July 2015 cannot but appear as a step not just from tragedy to comedy but, as Stathis Kouvelakis noted in Jacobin magazine, from tragedy full of comic reversals directly into a theatre of the absurd – is there any other way to characterize the extraordinary reversal of one extreme into its opposite that would bedazzle even the most speculative Hegelian philosopher? Tired of the endless negotiations with the EU executives in which one humiliation followed another, Syriza called for a referendum on Sunday July 5 asking the Greek people if they support or reject the EU proposal of new austerity measures. Although the government itself clearly stated that it supported No, the result was a surprise: the overwhelming majority of more than 61 per cent voted No to European blackmail. Rumors began to circulate that the result – victory for the government – was a bad surprise for Alexis Tsipras himself who secretly hope that the government would lose, so that a defeat will allow him to save face in surrendering to the EU demands ("we have to respect the voters' voice"). However, literally the morning after, Tsipras announced that Greece was ready to resume the negotiations, and days later Greece negotiated a EU proposal which is basically the same as what the voters rejected (in some details even harsher) – in short, he acted as if the government has lost, not won, the referendum. As Kouvelakis wrote:

"How is it possible for a devastating 'no' to memorandum austerity policies to be interpreted as a green light for a new memorandum? … The sense of the absurd is not just a product of this unexpected reversal. It stems above all from the fact that all of this is unfolding before our eyes as if nothing has happened, as if the referendum were something like a collective hallucination that suddenly ends, leaving us to continue freely what we were doing before. But because we have not all become lotus-eaters, let us at least give a brief résumé of what has taken place over the past few days. … From Monday morning, before the victory cries in the country's public squares had even fully died away, the theater of the absurd began. …

The public, still in the joyful haze of Sunday, watches as the representative of the 62 percent subordinated to the 38 percent in the immediate aftermath of a resounding victory for democracy and popular sovereignty. … But the referendum happened. It wasn't a hallucination from which everyone has now recovered. On the contrary, the hallucination is the attempt to downgrade it to a temporary 'letting off of steam,' prior to resuming the downhill course towards a third memorandum."

And things went on in this direction. On the night of July 10, the Greek Parliament gave Alexis Tsipras the authority to negotiate a new bailout by 250 votes to 32, but 17 government MPs didn't back the plan, which means he got more support from the opposition parties than from his own. Days later, the Syriza Political Secretariat dominated by the left wing of the party concluded that EU's latest proposals are "absurd" and "exceed the limits of Greek society's endurance" – Leftist extremism?

But IMF itself (in this case a voice of minimally rational capitalism) made exactly the same point: an IMF study published a day earlier showed that Greece needs far more debt relief than European governments have been willing to contemplate so far - European countries would have to give Greece a 30-year grace period on servicing all its European debt, including new loans, and a dramatic maturity extension…

No wonder that Tsipras himself publicly stated his doubt about the bailout plan: "We don't believe in the measures that were imposed upon us," he said during a TV interview, making it clear that he supports it out of pure despair, to avoid a total economic and financial collapse. The eurocrats use such confessions with breathtaking perfidity: now that the Greek government accepted their the tough conditions, they doubt the sincerity and seriousness of their commitment. How can Tsipras really fight for a program he doesn't believe in? How can the Greek government be really committed to the agreement when it opposes the referendum result?

However, statements like those from IMF demonstrate that the true problem lies elsewhere: does EU really believe in their own bailout plan? Does it really believe that the brutally imposed measures will set in motion economic growth and thus enable the payment of debts? Or is it that the ultimate motivation for the brutal extortionist pressure on Greece is not purely economic (since it is obviously irrational in economic terms) but politico-ideological – or, as Paul Krugman put it in the New York Times, "substantive surrender isn't enough for Germany, which wants regime change and total humiliation - and there's a substantial faction that just wants to push Greece out, and would more or less welcome a failed state as a caution for the rest." One should always bear in mind what a horror Syriza is for the European establishment – a Conservative Polish member of the European parliament even directly appealed to the Greek army to make a coup d'etat in order to save the country.

Why this horror? Greeks are now asked to pay the high price, but not for a realist perspective of growth. The price they are asked to pay is for the continuation of the "extend and pretend" fantasy. They are asked to ascend to their actual suffering in order to sustain another's (eurocrats') dream. Gilles Deleuze said decades ago: Si vous etez pris dans le reve de l'autre, vous etez foutus. ("if you are caught into another's dream, you are fucked"), and this is the situation in which Greece finds itself now. Greeks are not asked to swallow many bitter pills for a realistic plan of economic revival, they are asked to suffer so that others can go on dreaming their dream undisturbed.

The one who now needs awakening is not Greece but Europe. Everyone who is not caught in this dream knows what awaits us if the bailout plan is enacted: another 90 or so billions will be thrown into the Greek basket, raising the Greek debt to 400 or so billion euros (and most of them will quickly return back to Western Europe - the true bailout is the bailout of German and French banks, not of Greece), and we can expect the same crisis to explode in a couple of years.

But is such an outcome really a failure? At an immediate level, if one compares the plan with its actual outcome, obviously yes. At a deeper level, however, one cannot avoid a suspicion that the true goal is not to give Greece a chance but to change it into an economically colonised semi-state kept in permanent poverty and dependency, as a warning to others. But at an even deeper level, there is again a failure – not of Greece, but of Europe itself, of the emancipatory core of European legacy.

The No of the referendum was undoubtedly a great ethico-political act: against a well-coordinated enemy propaganda spreading fears and lies, with no clear prospect of what lies ahead, against all pragmatic and "realist" odds, the Greek people heroically rejected the brutal pressure of the EU. The Greek No was an authentic gesture of freedom and autonomy, but the big question is, of course, what happens the day after, when we have to return from the ecstatic negation to the everyday dirty business – and here, another unity emerged, the unity of the "pragmatic" forces (Syriza and the big opposition parties) against the Syriza Left and Golden Dawn. But does this mean that the long struggle of Syriza was in vain, that the No of the referendum was just a sentimental empty gesture destined to make the capitulation more palpable?

The really catastrophic thing about the Greek crisis is that the moment the choice appeared as the choice between Grexit and the capitulation to Brussels, the battle was already lost. Both terms of this choice move within the predominant eurocratic vision (remember that the German anti-Greek hardliners like Wolfgang Schauble also prefer Grexit!). The Syriza government was not fighting just for a greater debt relief and for more new money within the same overall coordinates, but for the awakening of Europe from its dogmatic slumber.

Therein resides the authentic greatness of Syriza: insofar as the icon of the popular unrest in Greece were the protests on the Syntagma (Constitution) Square, Syriza engaged in a Herculean labor of enacting the shift from syntagm to paradigm, in the long and patient work of translating the energy of rebellion into concrete measures that would change everyday life of the people. We have to be very precise here: the No of the Greek referendum was not a No to "austerity" in the sense of necessary sacrifices and hard work, but a No to the the EU dream of just going on with the business as usual.

The country's former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, repeatedly made this point clear: no more borrowing but an overall rehaul needed to give the Greek economy a chance to rebound. The first step in this direction should be an increase in the democratic transparency of our power mechanisms. Our democratically elected state apparatuses are thus more and more redoubled by a thick network of "agreements" and non-elected "expert" bodies which yield the real economic (and military) power. Here is Varoufakis's report on an extraordinary moment in his dealings with EU negotiator Jeroen Dijsselbloem:

"There was a moment when the President of the Eurogroup decided to move against us and effectively shut us out, and made it known that Greece was essentially on its way out of the Eurozone. /…/ There is a convention that communiqués must be unanimous, and the President can't just convene a meeting of the Eurozone and exclude a member state. And he said, 'Oh I'm sure I can do that.' So I asked for a legal opinion. It created a bit of a kerfuffle.

For about 5-10 minutes the meeting stopped, clerks, officials were talking to one another, on their phone, and eventually some official, some legal expert addressed me, and said the following words: 'Well, the Eurogroup does not exist in law, there is no treaty which has convened this group.' So what we have is a non-existent group that has the greatest power to determine the lives of Europeans. It's not answerable to anyone, given it doesn't exist in law; no minutes are kept; and it's confidential. So no citizen ever knows what is said within… These are decisions of almost life and death, and no member has to answer to anybody."

Sounds familiar? Yes, to anyone who knows how Chinese power functions today, after Deng Xiaoping set in action a unique dual system: the state apparatus and legal system are redoubled by the Party institutions which are literally illegal - or, as He Weifang, a law professor from Beijing, put it succinctly: "As an organisation, the Party sits outside, and above the law. It should have a legal identity, in other words, a person to sue, but it is not even registered as an organization. The Party exists outside the legal system altogether." (Richard McGregor, The Party, London: Allen Lane 2010, p. 22) It is as if, in McGregor's words, the state-founding violence remain present, embodied in an organisation with an unclear legal status:

"It would seem difficult to hide an organization as large as the Chinese Communist Party, but it cultivates its backstage role with care. The big party departments controlling personnel and the media keep a purposely low public profile. The party committees (known as 'leading small groups') which guide and dictate policy to ministries, which in turn have the job of executing them, work out of sight. The make-up of all these committees, and in many cases even their existence, is rarely referred to in the state-controlled media, let alone any discussion of how they arrive at decisions."

No wonder that exactly the same thing happened to Varoufakis as to a Chinese dissident who, some years ago, formally brought to court and charged the Chinese Communist Party for being guilty of the Tienanmien massacre. After a couple of months, he got a reply from the ministry of justice: they cannot pursue his charge since there is no organization called "Chinese Communist Party" officially registered in China.

And it is crucial to note how the obverse of this non-transparency of power is false humanitarianism: after the Greek defeat, there is, of course, time for humanitarian concerns. Jean-Claude Juncker immediately stated in an interview that he was so glad about the bailout deal because it would immediately ease the suffering of the Greek people which worried him very much. Classic scenario: after a political crack-down, humanitarian concern and help… even postponing debt payments.

What should one do in such a hopeless situation? One should especially resist the temptation of Grexit as a great heroic act of rejecting further humiliations and stepping outside - into what? What new positive order are we stepping into? The Grexit option appears as the "real-impossible", as something that would lead to an immediate social disintegration. Krugman writes: "Tsipras apparently allowed himself to be convinced, some time ago, that euro exit was completely impossible. It appears that Syriza didn't even do any contingency planning for a parallel currency (I hope to find out that this is wrong). This left him in a hopeless bargaining position."

Krugman's point is that Grexit is also an "impossible-real" which can happen with unpredictable consequences and which, as such, can be risked.

"All the wise heads saying that Grexit is impossible, that it would lead to a complete implosion, don't know what they are talking about. When I say that, I don't mean that they're necessarily wrong - I believe they are, but anyone who is confident about anything here is deluding himself. What I mean instead is that nobody has any experience with what we're looking at."

While in principle this is true, there are nonetheless too many indications that a sudden Grexit now would lead to utter economic and social catastrophe. Syriza economic strategists are well aware that such a gesture would cause an immediate further fall of the standard of living for an additional (minimum) 30 per cent, bringing misery to a new unbearable level, with the threat of popular unrest and even military dictatorship. The prospect of such heroic acts is thus a temptation to be resisted.

Then there are calls for Syriza to return to its roots: Syriza should not become just another governing parliamentary party, the true change can only come from grassroots, from the people themselves, from their self-organization, not from the state apparatuses… another case of empty posturing, since it avoids the crucial problem which is how to deal with the international pressure concerning debt, or, more generally, how to exert power and run a state. Grassroots self-organization cannot replace the state, and the question is how to reorganize the state apparatus to make it function differently.

It's nonetheless not enough to say that Syriza put a heroic fight, testing what is possible - the fight goes on, it has just began. Instead of dwelling on the "contradictions" of Syriza policy (after a triumphant No one accepts the very program that was rejected by the people), and of getting caught in mutual recriminations about who is guilty (did the Syriza majority commit an opportunistic "treason", or was the Left irresponsible in its preference for Grexit), one should rather focus on what the enemy is doing: the "contradictions" of Syriza are a mirror image of the "contradictions" of the EU establishment gradually undermining the very foundations of united Europe.

In the guise of Syriza "contradictions", the EU establishment is merely getting back its own message in its true form. And this is what Syriza should be doing now. With a ruthless pragmatism and cold calculation, it should exploit the tiniest cracks in the opponent's armour. It should use all those who resist the predominant EU politics, from British conservatives to Ukip in the UK. It should shamelessly flirt with Russia and China, playing with the idea of giving an island to Russia as its Mediterranean military base, just to scare the shit out of Nato strategists. To paraphrase Dostoyevsky, now that the EU God has failed, everything is permitted.

When one hears the complaints that the EU administration brutally ignores the plight of the Greek people in their blind obsession with humiliating and disciplining the Greeks, that even Southern-European countries like Italy or Spain didn't show any solidarity with Greece, our reaction should be: but is there any surprise in all this? What did the critics expect? That the EU administration will magically understand the Syriza argumentation and act in compliance with it? The EU administration is simply doing what it was always doing. Then there is the reproach that Greece is looking for help in Russia and China – as if Europe itself is not pushing Greece in that direction with its humiliating pressure.

Then there is the claim that phenomena like Syriza demonstrate how the traditional Left/Right dichotomy is outlived. Syriza in Greece is called extreme Left, and Marine le Pen in France extreme Right, but these two parties have effectively a lot in common: they both fight for state sovereignty, against multinational corporations. It is therefore quite logical that in Greece itself, Syriza is in coalition with a small Rightist pro-sovereignty party. On April 22, 2015, Francois Hollande said on TV that Marine le Pen today sounds like George Marchais (a French Communist leader) in 1970s – the same patriotic advocacy of the plight of ordinary French people exploited by international capital – no wonder Marine le Pen supports Syriza . . . a weird claim which doesn't say a lot more than the old Liberal wisdom than Fascism is also a kind of Socialism. The moment we bring into the picture the topic of immigrant workers, this whole parallel falls apart.

The ultimate problem is a much more basic one. The recurrent story of the contemporary Left is that of a leader or party elected with universal enthusiasm, promising a "new world" (Mandela, Lula) – but, then, sooner or later, usually after a couple of years, they stumble upon the key dilemma: does one dare to touch the capitalist mechanisms, or does one decide to "play the game"? If one disturbs the mechanisms, one is very swiftly "punished" by market perturbations, economic chaos and the rest.

The heroism of Syriza was that, after winning the democratic political battle, they risked a step further into disturbing the smooth run of the Capital. The lesson of the Greek crisis is that Capital, though ultimately a symbolic fiction, is our Real. That is to say, today's protests and revolts are sustained by the combination (overlapping) of different levels, and this combination accounts for their strength: they fight for ("normal" parliamentary) democracy against authoritarian regimes; against racism and sexism, especially the hatred directed at immigrants and refugees; for welfare-state against neoliberalism; against corruption in politics and economy (companies polluting environment, etc.); for new forms of democracy that reach beyond multi-party rituals (participation, etc.); and, finally, questioning the global capitalist system as such and trying to keep alive the idea of a non-capitalist society. Both traps are to be avoided here: the false radicalism ("what really matters is the abolition of liberal-parliamentary capitalism, all other fights are secondary"), as well as the false gradualism ("now we fight against military dictatorship and for simple democracy, forget your Socialist dreams, this comes later – maybe…").

When we have to deal with a specific struggle, the key question is: how will our engagement in it or disengagement from it affect other struggles? The general rule is that, when a revolt begins against an oppressive half-democratic regime, as was the case in the Middle East in 2011, it is easy to mobilize large crowds with slogans which one cannot but characterise as crowd pleasers – for democracy, against corruption, etc. But then we gradually approach more difficult choices: when our revolt succeeds in its direct goal, we come to realize that what really bothered us (our un-freedom, humiliation, social corruption, lack of prospect of a decent life) goes on in a new guise. In Egypt, protesters succeeded in getting rid of the oppressive Mubarak regime, but corruption remained, and the prospect of a decent life moved even further away. After the overthrow of an authoritarian regime, the last vestiges of patriarchal care for the poor can fall away, so that the newly gained freedom is de facto reduced to the freedom to choose the preferred form of one's misery – the majority not only remains poor, but, to add insult to injury, it is being told that, since they are now free, poverty is their own responsibility. In such a predicament, we have to admit that there was flaw in our goal itself, that this goal was not specific enough - say, that standard political democracy can also serve as the very form of un-freedom: political freedom can easily provide the legal frame for economic slavery, with the underprivileged "freely" selling themselves into servitude. We are thus brought to demand more than just political democracy – democratization also of social and economic life. In short, we have to admit that what we first took as the failure to fully realize a noble principle (of democratic freedom) is a failure inherent to this principle itself – to learn this move from the distortion of a notion, its incomplete realization, to the distortion immanent to this notion is the big step of political pedagogy.

The ruling ideology mobilises here its entire arsenal to prevent us from reaching this radical conclusion. They start to tell us that democratic freedom brings its own responsibility, that it comes at a price, that we are not yet mature if we expect too much from democracy. In this way, they blame us for our failure: in a free society, so we are told, we are all capitalist investing in our lives, deciding to put more into our education than into having fun if we want to succeed, etc. At a more directly political level, the US foreign policy elaborated a detailed strategy of how to exert damage control by way of re-channeling a popular uprising into acceptable parliamentary-capitalist constraints – as was done successfully in South Africa after the fall of apartheid regime, in Philippines after the fall of Marcos, in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto, etc. At this precise conjuncture, radical emancipatory politics faces its greatest challenge: how to push things further after the first enthusiastic stage is over, how to make the next step without succumbing to the catastrophe of the "totalitarian" temptation – in short, how to move further from Mandela without becoming Mugabe.

The courage of hopelessness is crucial at this point.

[Jul 21, 2015] Greece: plea for unity as banks reopen

"...Well, they found out how hard it is when you have no leverage to put up a strong fight. "
.
"...The whole premise that the EU would crumble if Greece left the EU was pushed by Yanis V....and he was 2 years to late to the party... the markets had priced in the Grexit over the last 3 years and it showed in the lack of volatility during the leadup to the Vote."
Jul 20, 2015 | The Guardian

KateShade -> curious3 21 Jul 2015 10:49

Curious3, here is the direct quote from the July 12th Proposal (downloaded from BBC)

"to develop a significantly scaled up privatisation programme with improved governance; valuable Greek assets will be transferred to an independent fund that will monetize the assets through privatisations and other means. The monetization of the assets will be one source to make the scheduled repayment of the new loan of ESM and generate over the life of the new loan a targeted total of EUR 50bn of which EUR 25bn will be used for the repayment of recapitalization of banks and other assets and 50 % of every remaining euro (i.e. 50% of EUR 25bn) will be used for decreasing the debt to GDP ratio and the remaining 50 % will be used for investments."

thecatspyjamas2 -> picar52 21 Jul 2015 10:21

As Paul Krugman said yesterday " I find it hard to believe they didn't have a plan B" ...That was the worst thing they did...not just the stupid promises they made..but the fact they had no leverage AND they did not have the common sense to even try to create some fake leverage during the negotiations. Syriza must have thought the previous Greeks in charge just did not put up any fight against the Austerity.

Well, they found out how hard it is when you have no leverage to put up a strong fight.

The whole premise that the EU would crumble if Greece left the EU was pushed by Yanis V....and he was 2 years to late to the party... the markets had priced in the Grexit over the last 3 years and it showed in the lack of volatility during the leadup to the Vote.

KateShade -> curious3 21 Jul 2015 09:41

Dear curious, according to July 12 summit proposal 50% of money is to go on recapitalizing banks, 25% on bringing down debt to GDP ratio and 25% on investment.
So the answer to the question how much of money raised is to go on interest is "none".
Does that clarify things?

picar52 -> TokyoJones 21 Jul 2015 06:55

I appreciate your comments and will reply in as few words as possible. My dismay is not solely with the present government but with the whole political establishment that has ever since the beginning of the crisis, in 2009, consistently avoided doing their bit with regard to each and every agreement they signed with the troika, etc. As a result they all lost international credibility, as the only game they ever knew how to play was that of populist rhetoric vis-a-vis the local electorate. In fact George Papandreou, who was in power for three years (2009-11), did absolutely nothing in terms of reforms. The opposition parties, conservative New Democracy and left Syriza attacked the PASOK government in every possible way. Meanwhile, in other southern European countries, the opposition parties took a more responsible approach and thus measures were introduced that ensured that their crises quickly ended. In Greece however, things took a different turn. And the end result is there for all to see.

I shall give you another example of populist misleading rhetoric. Andreas Papandreou, who first gained power in 1981, got elected on slogans such as

EEC and NATO, the same syndicate! (EOK kai NATO to idio syndikato!)

or

Out with the (US military) bases of death! (Exo oi vaseis tou thanatou!)

Papandreou had promised (in 1981) to hold a referendum for Greeks to decide to on membership of the EEC. When elected, he never held it. He promised to close down the US military bases. He never did - instead the US stopped operating them because they no longer served their purpose.

So please understand, Greek politicians are a special breed. Their cynical streak as regards the implementation of measures required to gain power is probably unmatched in any other European democracy.

Europeans who have not experienced this at close hand cannot appreciate the level of lying and hypocrisy we have had to put up with.


bally38 -> areianos 21 Jul 2015 06:43

1. Please Stop shouting.
2. Credit Default Swaps were triggered. Here's the story in Reuters (march 2012)
3. "WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE SUCH MEDIA MUPPETS" As they say, when you point the finger, three fingers are pointing back at you.


areianos Grishnakh 21 Jul 2015 06:21

This is the last of it, after 2015 debt is highly manageable.

http://graphics.wsj.com/greece-debt-timeline/

Varoufakis is an intelligent and honourable man and fought for the people very well

Tsipras had to make the most difficult executive decision of his life.

By January 2016 the Greek crisis will be over.

I don't blame Germany for protecting its own unregulated and gambling interests I just find it somewhat unique that Americans have more concern about the Greeks in Greece than Germans.

[Jul 20, 2015] The Dangerously Vague Romance of War by Shane Smith

July 20, 2015 | original.antiwar.com
Which sounds better, to "die for your government", or "give your life for your country"? The first could be interpreted, after a mountain of bodies pile up, as a mistake. As something that would seem to require scrutiny, admissions of having been wrong, of blame to be placed. Dying for a government, or more precisely, dying for a select group of political figures at a certain moment in time for very specific reasons, doesn't hide behind a fluttering flag quite as well as "dying for country". Which is why we never hear it. War, in the mind of the Middle America that still thinks on it, is shrouded in a sepia-toned composite of images and sounds, stories of soldiers, duty to country, service, songs, movies, and myth that give politicians far more leverage than they would otherwise have, when executing another war. No, "service to country" is the emotional and moral narcotic we administer to ourselves, almost automatically, at the inception of a new war. War is all wrapped up in our American Mythos so tight that it seems astonishing that we haven't descended utterly into a pure American-style fascism. Maybe a few more 9/11-style attacks and the transformation would be complete. 9/11 was an unparalleled opportunity for the explosion of government growth, and as much as "war is the health of the State", so are foreign attacks on the home State, attacks that can be perfectly molded so as to stoke the maximum amount of nationalist rage from the citizens. Those attacks were a godsend for a government that had been starved of an actual threat for far too long. And they took full advantage of the opportunity. Fourteen years later, the Warfare State is petering out from the evaporating fumes of 9/11, and their looking for a new fix.

But what of those who lied the country into igniting a regional dumpster fire after 9/11? Once the war hysteria evaporates, where are What would it really take to hold any one politician for a military disaster halfway around the world? It is blindingly obvious that there will never be a reckoning for those who hustled us into the Iraq war. What about Libya? Syria? How bad does it have to get for there to be something resembling accountability? War atrocities seem to have become less of a chance for justice and lessons learned than as a new precedent that the progenitors of the next war can point to when their war goes bad. And creators of war did learn a few things from Iraq and Afghanistan. They learned that flag-draped coffins do focus the attention of the citizenry. And drone strikes don't, really.

That hazy collage of feel-good nationalism is trotted out every election year, and every candidate engages in it to one degree or another. Peace is a hard sell next to the belligerent effusions of a Donald Trump. His crazed rantings against immigrants, his bizarre fantasies as to how he would handle world leaders via telephone call, as well as his boorishness in general, has thousands flocking to hear him speak. But what they're cheering is an avatar of a blood-soaked ideology, one that cloaks itself in the native symbols and culture, breeding hate and intolerance, until the bilious nationalism reaches just the right temperature and then boils over into lawless fascism. As Jeffrey Tucker points out, Trump is nothing new. The graveyard of twentieth century tyrannies is a testament to just how much death and destruction can be induced by a charismatic parasite bellowing the tenets of a flag-wrapped tyranny. Most of what we hear coming from leaders today is fascism to a greater or lesser extent. If what we mean by fascism to be a Religion of the State, a militant nationalism taken to its logical conclusion, then every leader engages in it, because it ignites something primitive and sinister in the minds of voters.

We understand war theoretically, and distantly, but what of those who are forced to carry out the fever dreams of politicians? Blindly thanking veterans for their service, we feel a sense of duty discharged, and never think to look more deeply into their traumas, or the scheme they were tricked into executing. Military recruiters, the unscrupulous peddlers of military slavery, are treated as a benign influence on young people today. Their pushy, overindulgent attitude toward our 18-year olds should piss us off more than it does, since what they are conning the young into is becoming the expendable plaything for the whims of the current Administration.

War is the pith of total government. The source of all its power, war and the threat of war provide the excuse for every injustice, every outrage, every restriction of liberty or further bilking of the citizen-hosts. As the Warfare State trots out the familiar sermons of threats from abroad, potential greatness at home, and wars to be fought, one would do well to reflect that war enriches the State at the expense of the rest of us. It consumes our lives, our liberty, our wallets, and the future of our children and grandchildren. The current crop of candidates who peddle military greatness are the enemy of peace and prosperity, and when they so openly declaim their lust for war, we should frankly believe what they say. And after hearing them, we should recognize the would-be tyrant in our midst, hawking hyper-militarism under the guise of national greatness, and treat them like the vermin they clearly are.

Shane Smith lives in Norman, Oklahoma and writes for Red Dirt Report.

Read more by Shane Smith

[Jul 19, 2015] Negotiating with Germany is a Waste of Time

"...Germany is a loanshark with a gang of Northern countries and they just kneecapped Greece to get the word out in the neighborhood, aka Eurozone. This isn't about moral hazard, it's Germany saying to the periphery if you don't submit we will pound you into the ground."
.
"...Since Prof. Varoufakis is an expert in Game Theory, I'm surprised that he didn't realize that BEFORE he started negotiations. If the Eurozone hardliners gave in to Greece, they would have to give the same deal to everyone who asked for it.
I wonder if he's going to use this experience in his classes."

.
"..."Ireland, Spain and Portugal endured the pain associated with their bailouts and emerged economically stronger." Lies. Europe is sinking into economic weakness because of Germany's insane ideas about economics."
.
"...The euro is essentially the successor to the Deutsche mark, whatever other Europeans might think of it. Germany's currency had far more global weight than those of the other members before the monetary union was created, and Germany's exit would destroy the euro immediately."
.
"...I do not hate Germans, my family are of German descent and I have German friends. What I hate are destructive neoliberal policies like those imposed by the German government. Let us be clear, from all reports the people who refuse to negotiate here are the Germans. The French, Italians, and others have shown some flexibility, but the Germans have not, and as the dominant economy in the ECU, they pretty much get their way."
.
"...Germany and the UK have been fighting for decades (really since Bismark) over who should politically run Europe. That is why the so called UK "exit" from the EU is a real joke. More like hurt feelings of being the loser. "
.
"...Let's not waste time with wishful thoughts about the foresight of the German elites. As they so often say, "We Germans reject Keynesian economics." Indeed. They reject not only deficit spending in a liquidity trap but, more fundamentally, the paradox of thrift, and not just as the paradox applies to households but also as it applies to sovereign nations.
.
So the German elites announce, over and over again, their dictum for the rest of Europe. "Imitate Germany! Be more competitive!" That is to say, always run a large current-account surplus.
"
.
"...
"We Germans reject Keynesian economics." Should we call this MerkelNomics? Sort of like Herbert Hoover economics. Or Cameron-Osborne economics. The kind of stupidity that JohnH apparently hearts. Of course this is also the economics of the modern Republican Party. We are ruled by morons. "
.
"...The historic way a weaker economy became more competitive was to have a weaker currency and to protect its developing industry with various protections against imports. That route is not available to the periphery nations."
.
"...Stripped of ambitions for a political and economic union, the bloc changes into a utilitarian project
.
A few things that many of us took for granted, and that some of us believed in, ended in a single weekend. By forcing Alexis Tsipras into a humiliating defeat, Greece's creditors have done a lot more than bring about regime change in Greece or endanger its relations with the eurozone. They have destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union.
.
In doing so they reverted to the nationalist European power struggles of the 19th and early 20th century. They demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order. The best thing that can be said of the weekend is the brutal honesty of those perpetrating this regime change."
Jul 13, 2015 | Economist's View

David

Germany is a loanshark with a gang of Northern countries and they just kneecapped Greece to get the word out in the neighborhood, aka Eurozone. This isn't about moral hazard, it's Germany saying to the periphery if you don't submit we will pound you into the ground.

What a great democratic experiment. And what a model of solidarity and social cohesion. What a joke.

anne -> Peter K....

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=11bD

January 15, 2015

Government debt and balance of trade as shares of Gross Domestic Product for France, 2000-2012

(Percent)

[ President Hollande has been shockingly conservative or a staunch conservative wearing socialist clothes. ]

DrDick -> anne...

It has been pretty obviously the latter from the outset. He is a socialist in name only, much like the British Labour Party these days.

MacAuley -> Peter K....

Since Prof. Varoufakis is an expert in Game Theory, I'm surprised that he didn't realize that BEFORE he started negotiations. If the Eurozone hardliners gave in to Greece, they would have to give the same deal to everyone who asked for it.
I wonder if he's going to use this experience in his classes.

pgl

"be willing to act unilaterally, be willing to default unilaterally, have a plan for achieving primary surplus if you haven't already achieved it, have a hard default and euro exit (now possible, thanks to the Germans) option in your back pocket, and be willing to use it at the first sign of hassle from the ECB."

YES! Only edit to this comes from the fact that Greece already has a large primary surplus. Exit the Euro Zone and say the heck with the Germans.

Fred C. Dobbs

(Many hold that Germany should have given
in to Greece, not the other way around.
That was not to be. Go figure.)

The Greek Deal Is a Disaster for Greece, and Maybe
for Europe http://nyti.ms/1UUXCHl via @UpshotNYT
NYT - Neil Irwin - July 13

For years, Greece's negotiations with its European creditors have featured moments in which all parties stare into the abyss, fear what they see, and step back to reach a deal.

On Monday, there was yet another deal. But this time it is one that pushes Greece into the abyss, even if financial markets don't acknowledge it just yet and even if what happens next is deeply uncertain.

Greece already has 26 percent unemployment, a tourism industry that is suffering as would-be visitors stay away, and banks and a stock market that have been closed going on three weeks. Just a week ago, its voters overwhelmingly rejected a bailout offer that was less punitive than the one its leaders just accepted.

Yet the deal that Greek leaders and their creditors reached Monday morning after a brutal series of overnight talks promise to deepen political and economic strains in a country already in depression.

It was a momentous weekend for Europe, and not in a good way. The deal will keep Greece in the eurozone at least a while longer, at great cost, and with little certainty about the future of either Greece or Europe in the not too distant future.

In exchange for a cash lifeline, the country has agreed to much greater concessions than those that were under discussion a few weeks ago. Among them: higher taxes, cuts to government pensions and a sell-off of $55 billion worth of state assets in order to recapitalize banks and make debt payments. That last strategy is a little like a family selling off its furniture to make its mortgage payment; you can do it, but it does not exactly amount to a long-term solution.

A week ago, thousands of Greeks crowded Syntagma Square, in front of the nation's parliament, celebrating their country's emphatic "No" vote on a proposed financial rescue. Right and left, old and young, the Greek people were united: They would not accept the further austerity that Germany and other European countries were demanding as a condition of further bailout money. ...

(The new harsh scheme can only work if Greece corrects
a lot of 'systemic problems', and - unfortunately -
maybe not even then.)
Monday, July 13, 2015 at 12:24 PM

Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...

The Eurozone's Damaging Deal for Greece
http://nyti.ms/1JeyJgO
NYT - editorial - July 13

In the end, after trying every possible tactic, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece threw in the towel and accepted the toughest demands yet made by creditors to extend life support for Greece and keep it in the eurozone. That may avert an immediate catastrophe, but there is little to celebrate since it will do little to address, much less repair, the slow-moving disaster of the Greek economy.

The Greek Parliament has to approve the main portions of the package by Wednesday just to start negotiations on a new three-year bailout of up to 86 billion euros ($96 billion). Despite pleas from the Greeks for debt relief, the creditors gave only vague indications that they might consider easing terms on Greece's total debt of more than 300 billion euros, which it cannot possibly repay.

Mr. Tsipras certainly didn't help his cause with the European leaders by calling for a confusing last-minute referendum, in which Greek voters rejected an earlier bailout deal. And now his capitulation has enraged members of his left-wing Syriza party, raising the possibility of another national election, with the attendant unknowns, or at least a thorough reshuffling of the government.

The guiding notion behind the creation of the European Union was to resolve problems like this through consensus and cooperation. Instead, the final 17-hour negotiating session was marked by acrimony not only between Greece and the European leaders, but also between Germany and France; between the German finance minister and the head of the European Central Bank; between north and south, east and west.

So the tragedy is not only that the Greek debt crisis has no end in sight, but that instead of the one-for-all-and-all-for-one ethic that was supposed to govern Europe, the rancorous talks showed a roomful of national leaders with sharply differing conceptions of what to do about a bankrupt fellow member.

The Greek Parliament is likely to accept the deal, if only because there is no choice. Austerity will remain firmly in place, and the increased taxes and reduced pension payments imposed in the package will only further erode the demand that the Greek economy needs to avoid a deepening depression. The deal also requires that a fund be created to sell off public assets worth 50 billion euros to repay debts and recapitalize banks, a condition hard for a socialist government to swallow, and continued monitoring of Greece's adherence to bailout terms by the International Monetary Fund. ...
Monday, July 13, 2015 at 05:16 PM

Eric

there is only one problem with this plan, there is no popular support for it.

Some of you probably think that if the economy in some countries continues to stagnate, this attitude will change. But popular support for the euro in those countries is not about macro-economics, but because they don't trust their own politicians to handle their own currencies properly.

I think there is a higher chance that the Northern countries exit the eurozone than the troubled countries, even when it would be wise from a macro economic perspective.

David -> Eric...

Actually there are lot of problems with it as others have posted.

Odd note. when did the Finns become jerks? I have known a few who were super cool. I get there's a politics thing but I expected this out of Germany, not the Finns.

Peter K. -> Eric...

"but because they don't trust their own politicians to handle their own currencies properly."

You have no evidence of this and just are making things up out of thin air.

pgl -> Peter K....

Eric does not even know the difference between the overall surplus/deficit versus the primary surplus. Dumb? Dishonest? Either way - he is a troll.

am -> pgl...

I thought also that the ps had disappeared since the start of the year.

But the mystery in all of the crisis has been the wish to retain the euro by the Greek people. It may be some sense of belonging to the euro group that they desire. But it is more like knowing the history of the drachma. His point that Peter copied in is not all unreasonable.

They don't want the drachma because monetary and fiscal policy may revert to drachma like figures of the past, including devaluation.

I posted up a link before on the recent history of the drachma. From ww2 to the collapse of the Bretton Wood institutions it was good: called the golden period. From 1972 or thereabouts until the attempt at convergence to join the euro it was very poor. During the convergence period it was good. I think the people can remember the bad period with devaluations. It was one of the reasons they wanted to join the euro.

Eric

''Want the Euro? Be More Like the Germans''

...

The euro is essentially the successor to the Deutsche mark, whatever other Europeans might think of it. Germany's currency had far more global weight than those of the other members before the monetary union was created, and Germany's exit would destroy the euro immediately. By contrast, the common currency could feasibly survive the exit of any other member, probably even France. If you want to use an essentially German currency, you have to be a little German. That means low or nonexistent budget deficits, extreme tax discipline (tax dodging in Germany is not just a crime -- it causes genuine moral outrage), and a rule-based approach to government and economic life.

Europeans like the euro, and most of them make an honest attempt at German-ness. Ireland, Spain and Portugal endured the pain associated with their bailouts and emerged economically stronger. Their political landscape also became more German: The center left and the center right, increasingly indistinguishable from one another, alternate in power or even share it, and the extreme right and extreme left have been marginalized. In Greece, the extreme left won. That was extremely un-German. The result is politically -- and probably economically -- disastrous for Greece.

The message for other euro countries is that if they want to enjoy the trade, convenience and interest-rate benefits of the common currency, they cannot afford to elect the far left and far right. The German-led currency union will fight back and make it painful. If Podemos wins in Spain, or if the Finns Party triumphs in Finland, they will need to take their countries out of the euro area to escape Greece's fate.
...

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-13/want-the-euro-be-more-like-the-germans

David -> Eric...

How rule based were the Germans after WW2 when their debt was forgiven and they were gifted the Marshall plan after they started the worst war in human history, genocide etc. This was the greatest crime foriveness in human history.

DrDick -> David ...

Also after WW I, when they defaulted on their debts.

Peter K. -> Eric...

Wow what a horrible piece. Not surprising coming from Eric.

"Ireland, Spain and Portugal endured the pain associated with their bailouts and emerged economically stronger."

Lies. Europe is sinking into economic weakness because of Germany's insane ideas about economics.

Peter K. -> Eric...

"Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is a Berlin-based writer, author of three novels and two nonfiction books."

The Germans are reverting to form.

Just saw Brad Pitt's movie Fury. Good movie. Pitt kills a lot of Nazis as the Americans invade Germany.

Peter K. -> Peter K....

Pitt likes to kill Nazis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grq0rhtbtAw

Peter K.

Feckless as Syriza? What other choice did they have?

One. Default and exit. But the Greeks don't want to do that, so why have a backup plan? I don't really go along with these criticisms of Tsipras and Syriza. Nobody could have done better. Being "nice" to the Germans wouldn't have mattered at all. The Greeks were nice for 5 years and just gave them a broken economy.

The Greeks recognized it wasn't working and elected Syriza to get a better deal. They couldn't. They held a referendum and the Greeks voted No to the austerity deal. But they don't want to leave the Eurozone so they have to accept the bailout terms. They're in a no win situaion.

I agree with Krugman and Dean Baker that default and getting your own monetary policy is the way to go, but the Greeks don't want to leave Europe.

John Cummings -> Eric...

I suspect there is a bunch of pro-anglo sentiment in secret. Basically progressives and Margie Thatcher are crying together at the diminished anglo role....

pgl -> Eric...

We don't hate Germans. We hate horrific economic policies. We also don't like trolls - like you.

Eric -> Eric...

actually it was Germany that proposed a possible better way out for Greece this weekend: a time out from the euro zone for at least five years, debt restructuring, humanitarian aid and growth enhancing measures:

http://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/staatsverschuldung/finanzministerium-verschickt-papier-schaeuble-schlaegt-grexit-auf-zeit-vor_id_4810445.html

This German plan was ridiculed and dismissed by other eurozone countries, in particular France. I wonder why.

John Cummings -> Eric...

That was only by "select" Germans and only if Greece didn't capitulate. It may still happen if Greece doesn't follow their edict.

DrDick -> Eric...

I do not hate Germans, my family are of German descent and I have German friends. What I hate are destructive neoliberal policies like those imposed by the German government. Let us be clear, from all reports the people who refuse to negotiate here are the Germans. The French, Italians, and others have shown some flexibility, but the Germans have not, and as the dominant economy in the ECU, they pretty much get their way.

Peter K. -> Eric...

My family is of German descent. My father's father had German parents, one of whom came over on a boat. My grandfather fought the Japanese in World War II while some of his cousins were drafted by the Nazis late in the war and sent to the Eastern Front never to be heard from again.

Your lack of concern over the well-being of the Greeks is shameful. You're a stupid troll.

John Cummings

Germany and the UK have been fighting for decades (really since Bismark) over who should politically run Europe. That is why the so called UK "exit" from the EU is a real joke. More like hurt feelings of being the loser.

btg -> John Cummings...

The Brits kept out of Europe and have never seen themselves as being fully part of Europe - the EU was always a French/German thing.

Britain/England is an island and as such it never needed a large standing army and instead became a maritime power with an empire larger than its European neighbors.

Britian sees the defeat of Germany as a highpoint but even then it was largely overtaken by the US since then as the US forced it to dismember the empire.

Peter K.

http://macromarketmusings blogspot.com/2015/07/did-monetary-policy-really-offset.html

Monday, July 13, 2015

Did Monetary Policy Really Offset Fiscal Austerity in Canada?
by David Beckworth

The blogosphere is once again talking about Canada's successful fiscal austerity in the mid-to-late 1990s. Paul Krugman rekindled the conversation with this statement:

"[L]ook at everyone's favorite example of successful austerity, Canada in the 1990s. Canada came in with gross debt of roughly 100 percent of GDP, roughly comparable to Greece on the eve of the financial crisis. It then proceeded to do a pretty big fiscal adjustment -- 6 percent of GDP according to the IMF's measure of the structural balance, which is about a third of what Greece has done but comparable to other European debtors. But unemployment fell steadily. What was Canada's secret?"

Ramesh Ponnuru and I have argued numerous times that Canada's secret was a monetary policy offset. That is, monetary policy eased to offset the drag of fiscal tightening. Paul Krugman agrees in the above post. The evidence that we and others have pointed to in support of this view is the Bank of Canada cutting its target interest rate more than 500 basis points between 1995 and 1997.

Some of our conservative and libertarian friends, however, are not convinced by this evidence. David Henderson and Robert Murphy, in particular, have pushed back against this view. They contend there was no monetary offset. Henderson questions how much influence the Bank of Canada actually has over interests rates. Murphy goes further and provides a list of data points that he claims show the Canadian success story did not rely on loose money. So are Henderson and Murphy's skepticism of the monetary offset warranted?

The answer is no.....

....

Note that nominal GDP follows its trend path rather closely during the period of fiscal austerity. The Bank of Canada, in other words, did what was necessary to keep aggregate demand on a stable growth path during this time. Given the evidence shown above, the Bank of Canada offset the fiscal tightening via lower interest rates and a permanently higher monetary base path. This story is completely missed by Murphy's cursory look at nominal GDP growth rates over a few years. So yes, monetary policy did offset fiscal austerity in Canada in the mid-to-late 1990s.

The policy implications from this experience are clear. Economies undertaking fiscal austerity are best served by expansionary monetary policy. It provides a viable path to obtaining a more sustainable debt level. The ECB, however, tightened monetary policy twice during the Eurozone crisis. Given the one-size-fits-all approach problems, this tightening proved excessive for the periphery countries and helped spawn the soveriegn debt crisis. Just imagine how different the Eurozone would be today had the ECB began its QE program back in 2008.

------------------

Obviously JohnH and other critics of monetary policy and QE don't agree. The banks had enough liquidity and QE wouldn't help. How wrong they are. They're just like conservatives.

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 01:56 PM
John Cummings -> Peter K....

Debt expanded due to the corporate debt bubble(that financed Y2K overhaul) of the 1990's which gave the illusions that "austerity" worked. "Monetary" Policy became looser as would expect during that time of disinflation (which was the point). Glibers don't want to give the BoC any credit, but that is their way. In the end the BoC didn't really offset anything. The debt market is the debt market.

pgl -> John Cummings...

What a bunch of irrelevant babble. Read what Krugman wrote and learn. Duh!

John Cummings -> pgl...

Krugman ignored the debt expansion of corporate balance sheets in the mid-late 90's. That was the key driver. Overrating central banks is a classic sign of neo-classical/new keynesian garble.

A debt expansion is a debt expansion. It will drive growth. Always have. Since the 1600's.

pgl -> John Cummings...

Are you talking about US corporate balance sheets in 1995. How the F is this relevant to the current Greek crisis? Krugman has noted Greece's debt before the crisis. So pardon my French but what the FUCK are you babbling about now?

Bert Schlitz -> John Cummings...

"Some of our conservative and libertarian friends, however, are not convinced by this evidence. David Henderson and Robert Murphy, in particular, have pushed back against this view. They contend there was no monetary offset. Henderson questions how much influence the Bank of Canada actually has over interests rates. Murphy goes further and provides a list of data points that he claims show the Canadian success story did not rely on loose money. So are Henderson and Murphy's skepticism of the monetary offset warranted?"

1.Libertarian/Austrian types don't believe in the nation state. Any function, even if run privately by a monopoly is considered bad when connected to the nation state. Their ideal is more of a Wealth/Propertarian run global syndicate that handles wealth tranfers via what true conservatives would call a degenerated imperial state of capitalists/merchants. Very non-democratic.

2.They believe capitalism can survive without debt expansion. This silly notion is what separates them from neo-liberals who quite understandably, know this is not true. Debt is what makes capitalism go. Without it, it is not sustainable. That is why the economic contraction from a libertarian regime would eventually drive them from power and enable conservatives and socialists to unite, much like it did in the late 19th century during what was the closest to the last libertarian period.

pgl -> Peter K....

"Some of our conservative and libertarian friends, however, are not convinced by this evidence."

These conservatives and libertarians may be his friends but they know nothing about economics. Just check out the devaluation of the C$ and you'll see what Krugman was talking about.

anne -> Peter K....

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/fiscal-fantasies-2/

June 18, 2010

Fiscal Fantasies
By Paul Krugman

It's really amazing to see how quickly the notion that contractionary fiscal policy is actually expansionary is spreading. As I noted yesterday, * the Panglossian view has now become official doctrine at the European Central Bank.

So what does this view rest on? Partly on vague ideas about credibility and confidence; but largely on the supposed lessons of experience, of countries that saw economic expansion after major austerity programs.

Yet if you look at these cases, every one turns out to involve key elements that make it useless as a precedent for our current situation.

Here's a list of fiscal turnarounds, ** which are supposed to serve as role models. What can we say about them?

  • Canada 1994-1998: Fiscal contraction took place as a strong recovery was already underway, as exports were booming, and as the Bank of Canada was cutting interest rates. As Stephen Gordon explains, *** all of this means that the experience offers few lessons for policy when the whole world is depressed and interest rates are already as low as they can go.
  • Denmark 1982-86: Yes, private spending rose - mainly thanks to a 10-percentage-point drop in long-term interest rates, hard to manage when rates in major economies are currently 2-3 percent.
  • Finland 1992-2000: Yes, you can have sharp fiscal contraction with an expanding economy if you also see a swing toward current account surplus of more than 12 percent of GDP. So if everyone in the world can move into massive trade surplus, we'll all be fine.
  • Ireland, 1987-89: Been there, done that. **** Let's all devalue! Also, an interest rate story something like Denmark's.
  • Sweden, 1992-2000: Again, a large swing toward trade surplus.

So every one of these stories says that you can have fiscal contraction without depressing the economy IF the depressing effects are offset by huge moves into trade surplus and/or sharp declines in interest rates. Since the world as a whole can't move into surplus, and since major economies already have very low interest rates, none of this is relevant to our current situation.

Yet these cases are being cited as reasons not to worry as austerity becomes the rule.

You know what? I'm worried.

* http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/magical-thinking-at-the-ecb/

** http://www.scribd.com/doc/27294711/Fiscal-Turnarounds

*** http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2010/06/on-the-lessons-to-be-learned-from-the-elimination-of-the-canadian-federal-deficit-in-the-1990s.html

**** http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/magical-foreigners-austerity-edition/

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 04:22 PM
anne -> Peter K....

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/policy-lessons-from-the-eurodebacle/

July 8, 2015

Policy Lessons From the Eurodebacle
By Paul Krugman

[Graph]

It's now clear, or should be clear, that the Greek program was doomed to failure without major debt relief; no matter how hard the Greeks tried, austerity would shrink GDP faster than it reduced debt relative to the baseline, so that the debt situation was bound to worsen even as the attempt to balance the budget imposed vast suffering.

And there was no good, or even non-terrible, answer given Greece's membership in the euro.

But there's a broader lesson from Greece that is relevant to all of us - and it's not the usual one about mending our free-spending ways lest we become Greece, Greece I tell you. What we learn, instead, is that fiscal austerity plus hard money is a deeply toxic mix. The fiscal austerity depresses the economy, and pushes it toward deflation; if it's accompanied by hard money (in Greece's case the euro, but a fixed exchange rate, a gold standard, or any kind of obsessive fear of inflation would do the trick), the result is not just a depression and deflation, but quite likely a failure even to reduce the debt ratio.

For comparison, look at everyone's favorite example of successful austerity, Canada in the 1990s. Canada came in with gross debt of roughly 100 percent of GDP, roughly comparable to Greece on the eve of the financial crisis. It then proceeded to do a pretty big fiscal adjustment - 6 percent of GDP according to the International Monetary Fund's measure of the structural balance, which is about a third of what Greece has done but comparable to other European debtors. But unemployment fell steadily. What was Canada's secret?

The answer was, easy money and a large currency depreciation. * These offset the drag from austerity, allowing growth to continue.

So, how does this play into U.S. policy debates? Well, Republicans love to warn that America might turn into Greece any day now. ** But look at the policy mix that is now de facto GOP orthodoxy: sharp cuts in government spending (maybe offset by tax cuts for the rich, but these won't provide much stimulus), combined with a monetary policy obsessed with fears of dollar "debasement". That is, the conservative side of the US political spectrum, while holding up Greece as a cautionary tale, is actually demanding that we emulate the policy mix that turned Greek debt into a complete disaster.

* https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1m1K

** http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/06/the-only-lesson-the-united-states-should-draw-from-greece/

anne -> Peter K....

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=147Z

Price of an American Dollar in Canadian Dollars, 1990-2000

Canadian Dollars

1990 ( 1.17)
1991 ( 1.15)
1992 ( 1.21)
1993 ( 1.29) Clinton
1994 ( 1.37)

1995 ( 1.37)
1996 ( 1.36)
1997 ( 1.39)
1998 ( 1.48)
1999 ( 1.49)

2000 ( 1.49)

anne -> Peter K....

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1rjx

January 4, 2015

Interest Rate on 10-Year Canadian Government Bonds, 1990-2000

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 04:31 PM
anne -> anne...

The value of the Canadian dollar fell by 27% against the American dollar through the 1990s. The interest rate on 10-year Canadian government bonds fell 33% during the 1990s.

pgl -> anne...

Yep - very big drop in interest rates and large devaluation of the C$. So fiscal austerity was offset by more investment demand and higher net exports.

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 05:57 PM
am

The poster should have noted that no other government is in the Greece position. The Podemos leader, likely to be the next Spanish PM, said there was a big difference between Greece and Spain and in debt numbers that is very true.

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 01:59 PM
anne -> am...

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=ZaL

January 15, 2015

Central government debt as a share of Gross Domestic Product for Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, 2007-2012

[ Central government debt as a share of GDP was above 120% for Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Greece by 2012. Spain alone had a reasonably low debt ratio at 65%. ]

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 04:40 PM
anne -> am...

Spain maintained a relatively and reasonably debt ratio in the wake of the recession at the expense of a searing loss of employment:

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1rjU

January 4, 2015

Spain Employment-Population Ratio, * 2007-2014

* Employment age 25-54

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 05:06 PM
anne -> am...

Correcting:

Spain maintained a relatively and reasonably low debt ratio in the wake of the recession at the expense of a searing loss of employment, with the employment-population ratio for men and women 25-54 falling from 77.2 to 65.6 between 2007 and 2013:

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1rjU

January 4, 2015

Spain Employment-Population Ratio, * 2007-2014

* Employment age 25-54

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 05:08 PM
anne -> anne...

By contrast, when the Spanish employment-population ratio for men and women 25-54 was 65.6 in 2013, the German employment-population ratio was 83.5 for a shocking difference:

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1rjX .

Jan

Let's not waste time with wishful thoughts about the foresight of the German elites. As they so often say, "We Germans reject Keynesian economics." Indeed. They reject not only deficit spending in a liquidity trap but, more fundamentally, the paradox of thrift, and not just as the paradox applies to households but also as it applies to sovereign nations.

So the German elites announce, over and over again, their dictum for the rest of Europe. "Imitate Germany! Be more competitive!" That is to say, always run a large current-account surplus.

Of course, this dictum would first impoverish laggard European nations, including the UK, then Latin American nations, then Russia and the USA.

Therefore, a German-dominated Europe would in the future find itself surrounded by mortal enemies, which would have no choice but to destroy it again.

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 02:21 PM
pgl -> Jan...

"We Germans reject Keynesian economics."

Should we call this MerkelNomics? Sort of like Herbert Hoover economics. Or Cameron-Osborne economics. The kind of stupidity that JohnH apparently hearts. Of course this is also the economics of the modern Republican Party. We are ruled by morons.

Eric -> Jan...

Hoe does becoming more competitive impoverish your country?

RGC -> Eric...

The historic way a weaker economy became more competitive was to have a weaker currency and to protect its developing industry with various protections against imports. That route is not available to the periphery nations.

The Germans would be wise to recognize that it is in their long-term interest to help those nations become more competitive and thereby create a balanced, stable trading zone where everyone can succeed.

The best way to do that is via some sort of development fund that is targeted at the most urgent projects wherever they may be. To do that the Germans are going to have to be magnanimous ala the Marshall Plan, although it is also in their self-interest. The current situation may also require some purely cash transfers to bridge a ramp-up period.

The Germans need to think like true Europeans, ditch the "lazy Greeks" talk and think of the periphery nations somewhat like East Germany. Either that or forget about united Europe and go back to the dangers of nationalism.

Eric -> RGC ...

Thanks. But don't you think the Germans want convergence, that is help the weaker nations become more competitive? They do understand that there is no future for the eurozone without convergence.

There are and have been loads of subsidies in the EU. If you travel through poorer parts of Europe, you see the EU signs that projects have been paid with EU money. Infrastructure is pretty good in countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece, partly thanks to EU funds, now the same is happening to Eastern Europe. But this has not made a country like Greece more competitive.

The Germans don't believe it's (just) about the money, they believe in reforms.

The thing is that reforms have been ridiculed by the likes of Krugman, it's all about fiscal stimulus in their world, something the Germans are skeptical about.

Eastern Europe is actually a good example, but the problem is they could run this program at home, but can't in a country like Greece. In the end only the Greek can help themselves.

Eric -> Eric...

I meant East Germany is a good example

RGC -> Eric...

IIRC, some from the West said similar things about their East brothers before reunification.

I've read a lot of Varoufakis' papers and I think he was on the right track. He has been very critical of Greece's corruption and lack of administrative competence. His economics is socialist/Keynesian. He proposed a solution similar to my prior post:

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/

Of course there are plutocrats, self-serving politicians, banksters and dummkopfs in all countries. I think all the larger economies, except maybe China, suffer right now from neo-liberal or just incompetent governments.

Bert Schlitz -> Eric...

All capitalism is unsustainable eventually. I always viewed the "horrible" East Germany not so horrible indeed when visiting their and exploring its inner bowels. They had a better work ethic and weren't so concerned about materialistic obsession.

Having the Russians completely leaving them alone by the 1990's without unification would have been interesting. There was indeed quite a bit of leftover national socialism embedded over there.

Western Germany on the other hand was binging on debt expansion like all other OCD countries in the 1980's and its economic situation "appeared" to improve rapidly. Like all capitalist music boxes, that story has to end. Once debt expansion ends and the state can't hold up the carcass anymore, the situation in 1980's East Germany would seem like a paradise.

pgl -> Eric...

East Germany is a good example of how NOT to do this. Do you know anything? It appears not.

pgl -> Eric...

It depends on how one does the more competitive part. The right way to do this is to devalue the currency but Greece can't do this as long as they are this Euro and the Germans don't help. Have you read ANY part of this discussion? Seriously - you are like the 3 year old who just fell off the turnip truck.

Peter K. -> Eric...

Wolfgang Munchau:

"We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable. "

Eric likes it when the strong push around the weak. He identifies with the bully.

Jan -> Eric...

"Competitive" does mean productive. It means a regular current account surplus. Germany achieved a regular surplus not by upgrading labor or capital but by thrift (shifting income from consumption to production)-- repressing wages/benefits and acquiring a quasi-pegged currency.

A regular surplus benefits the nation which runs it at the expense of other nations. Latin American economists have been saying in recent years that the German surplus has been "hollowing out" their economies and at least one prominent German economist has agreed with them.

The EU is a huge economy. If it were to run a surplus as large as Germany now runs, the USA and Russia would soon become friends again.

am

The Euro group negotiators are reported to be pleased with the package on offer. It would seem probable that the Greek government or parliament will not approve the deal. This will mean grexit. The Euro group negotiators are reported to be pleased with the package on offer.

cogitoman

What is wrong to being made to stick to the rules?

RGC -> cogitoman...

Rules are necessary and good. The next question is "do we have the right rules?". IMO the Eurozone has unworkable rules.

anne

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/13/athens-and-eurozone-agree-bailout-deal-for-greece

July 13, 2015

Tsipras faces clash with Syriza radicals opposed to eurozone bailout for Greece

After marathon talks to secure third bailout, Greek prime minister prepares for showdown with MPs opposed to deal described as harsher than Versailles treaty
By Phillip Inman and Jennifer Rankin - Guardian

Brussels

[ So a Greek legislator would have to be a "radical" to vote against a "deal described as harsher than Versailles treaty." ]

gordon

I have a suspicion that many Greeks fear that leaving the Eurozone would mean they would no longer be able to leave Greece to work in Eurozone countries and send remittances home. The bulk of remittances to Greece appear to come from Germany:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/20/remittance-map/

anne -> gordon...

I have a suspicion that many Greeks fear that leaving the Eurozone would mean they would no longer be able to leave Greece to work in Eurozone countries and send remittances home....

[ Would there be migration limits if Greece simply remained in the European Union? ]

David

There is a modern meme I hate, the idea that everything has to be a "brand".

But if the Eurozone falls apart it will be the German brand that suffers. No one likes a bully.

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 05:26 PM
Peter K. -> David ...

Yes and the idea of Europe as a symbol of progress.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e38a452e-26f2-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html#axzz3fpG5IsRy

July 13, 2015 10:45 am

Greece's brutal creditors have demolished the eurozone project

by Wolfgang Munchau

Stripped of ambitions for a political and economic union, the bloc changes into a utilitarian project

A few things that many of us took for granted, and that some of us believed in, ended in a single weekend. By forcing Alexis Tsipras into a humiliating defeat, Greece's creditors have done a lot more than bring about regime change in Greece or endanger its relations with the eurozone. They have destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union.

In doing so they reverted to the nationalist European power struggles of the 19th and early 20th century. They demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order. The best thing that can be said of the weekend is the brutal honesty of those perpetrating this regime change.

[clipped]

nor even the total capitulation of Greece. The material shift is that Germany has formally proposed an exit mechanism. On Saturday, Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, insisted on a time-limited exit - a "timeout" as he called it.

I have heard quite a few crazy proposals in my time, and this one is right up there. A member state pushed for the expulsion of another. This was the real coup over the weekend: not only regime change in Greece, but also regime change in the eurozone.

The fact that a formal Grexit may have been avoided for the moment is immaterial. Grexit will be back on the table when you have the slightest political accident - and there are still many things that could go wrong, both in Greece and in other eurozone parliaments. Any other country that in future might challenge German economic orthodoxy will face similar problems.

This brings us back to a more toxic version of the old exchange-rate mechanism of the 1990s that left countries trapped in a system run primarily for the benefit of Germany, which led to the exit of the British pound and the temporary departure of the Italian lira. What was left was a coalition of countries willing to adjust their economies to Germany's. Britain had to leave because it was not.

What should the Greeks do now? Forget for a moment the economic debate of the past few months, over issues such as the impact of austerity or economic reforms on growth. Instead ask yourself this simple question: do you really think that an economic reform programme, for which a government has no political mandate, which has been explicitly rejected in a referendum, that has been forced through by sheer political blackmail, can conceivably work?

The implications for the rest of the eurozone are at least as troubling. We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable. Previously, the strongest argument against any forecasts of break-up has been the strong political commitment of all its members. If you ask Italians why they are in the eurozone, few have ever pointed to the economic benefits. They wanted to be part of the most ambitious project of European integration undertaken so far.
We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable

But if you take away the political aspiration, you may end up with a different judgment. From a pure economic point of view, we know that the euro has worked well for Germany. It worked moderately well for The Netherlands and Austria, although it produced quite a degree of financial instability in both.

But for Italy, it has been an unmitigated economic disaster. The country has seen virtually no productivity growth since the start of the euro in 1999. If you want to blame the lack of structural reforms, then you have to explain how Italy managed decent growth rates before then. Can we be sure that a majority of Italians will support the single currency in three years' time?

The euro has not worked out for Finland either. While the country is considered the world champion of structural reforms, its economy has slumped ever since Nokia lost the plot as the world's erstwhile premier mobile phone maker. Whether the euro is sustainable for Spain and Portugal is not clear. France has performed relatively well during the euro's early years, but it, too, is now running persistent current account deficits. It is not only Greece where the euro is not optimal.
Once you strip the eurozone of any ambitions for a political and economic union, it changes into a utilitarian project in which member states will coldly weigh the benefits and costs, just as Britain is currently assessing the relative advantages or disadvantages of EU membership. In such a system, someone, somewhere, will want to leave sometime. And the strong political commitment to save it will no longer be there

anne

https://twitter.com/TIME/status/620723673675251712

TIME.com @TIME

Greece may have to sell islands and ruins under its bailout deal http://ti.me/1CCqn5s

3:37 PM - 13 Jul 2015

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 06:03 PM
anne -> anne...

We could do a time share on Corfu, I mean the whole island.

Sign here ...

anne

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1paT

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Ireland, Portugal, Spain,
Italy and Greece, 2007-2014

(Indexed to 2007)

[ Real per capita GDP has failed to recover in each of these 5 countries. ]

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 06:50 PM
anne

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1r1K

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
Finland and Iceland, 2007-2014

(Indexed to 2007)

[ Real per capita GDP has only recovered in Sweden and that barely. ]

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 06:52 PM
anne

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1rkL

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, Germany,
France and Netherlands, 2007-2014

(Indexed to 2007)

[ Real per capita GDP has recovered only in Germany which had recovered by 2010. ]

Reply Monday, July 13, 2015 at 06:55 PM
MacAuley

Greece was not ready to join the Eurozone in 1999 and it was pretty clear by 2011 that Greece would be better off outside the Eurozone.
By 2013 it was obvious that the only reason to delay Grexit (and to continue Greek austerity) was to prepare for the inevitable. The Eurozone is now prepared for Grexit, and it's time. In five years the Greeks will be grateful.

[Jul 18, 2015] M of A - Billmon The Eurosystem's (Monetary) Control of Europe's Politics

"...The "Eurosystem", the network of national central banks governed by the European Central Bank, gives central bankers unprecedented ability to squeeze and manipulate national governments in a coordinated way. It is as if every government in the Eurozone ALREADY has a colonial entity watching it like the Troika's agents are supposed to watch Syriza in Athens. And, since the ECB Governing Council (like other EU institutions) tries to operate by a non-transparent "consensus" (i.e. the votes are not revealed), the degree to which national central bank heads are representing the ECB in their countries, rather than the other way around, is often not clear."
.
"...IMO these 'lessons' miss the biggest one for the left: the loss of independent media. What good is protesting neolib control via banks if no one is listening?
.
Governments easily manipulate corporate controlled media via access journalism. Thus we get factual truths intermixed with propaganda spin that is relentlessly pro-business, pro-establishment.
.
Greece is a case in point. As described in Greek Government Insider Lifts the Lid on Five Months of 'Humiliation' and 'Blackmail', the Troika was gradually increasing pressure on Greece to do what the Troika demanded. They withheld billions of euro to Greece and cut off liquidity to the Greek government. Then they waited as the financial pressure on Greece grew. But along with those measures was a caustic media that painted Syriza as incompetent, then undemocratic (because most greeks wanted to remain in the euro), then irresponsible (for calling a referendum), etc.
"
.
"... Following, a link to a German documentary about the various mechanisms of the EU [Troika, Eurogroup, European Commission, Council, etc] which are being used as devastating tools to beat down and extract wealth, vampire style, from Greece [and Cyprus], in order to revive comatose banks and line the pockets of investors, through privatization of public property.
.
This documentary does a good job of demonstrating just how the power of technocratic branches of the EU is being rolled out to pillage Greek, Portuguese, Cyprus economies, plunging the respective populations into ever greater misery.
.
The Trail of the Troika [1:29:22]
Jul 18, 2015 | Moon of Alabama

Billmon: The Eurosystem's (Monetary) Control of Europe's Politics

Note: This post was composed from a Twitteressay by Billmon.

J.W. Mason lists some Lessons from the Greek Crisis:

Before the crisis no one even knew that national central banks still existed - I certainly didn't. But now it's clear that the creditors' unchallenged control of this commanding high ground was decisive to the outcome in Greece. Next time an elected government challenges the EU authorities, their first order of business must be getting control or cooperation of their national central bank.

The quote says "control or cooperation," but I can guarantee the latter is never going to happen.

It is nearly impossible to exaggerate the degree to which the campaign for central bank "independence" has made them the enemies within for any left governments.

The central bankers waged a 50-60 year political war to wrest back the monetary flexibility that the break down of Bretton Woods gave to national governments. Having won that war across most of the developed world in the 70s and 80s, they extended the battlefield to the emerging markets in '90s and '00s.

The autonomy of central banks (meaning the political allegiance to Wall Street/London City/Frankfurt etc.) was maybe the biggest neoliberal victory of all. If rightwing political victories (Reagan, Thatcher et. al.) were the beachheads of the Great Counterattack on social democracy then "independent" central banks became the citadels of the occupation forces: Neoliberalism's "Republican Guard."

Ironically, the ECB was originally conceived - or at least was sold to the European left - as a way for governments to regain monetary flexibility at a higher level. As a way to a) escape US dollar hegemony and to b) outflank the Bundesbank by formalizing the joint political control of European monetary policy. I do not know if the hack establishment Social Democrats who sold that vision ever believed it, but if so, more fool them. Because what the European Monetary Union became, obvious now, was a way to turn the vision on its head: formalize joint MONETARY control of Europe's politics.

The "Eurosystem", the network of national central banks governed by the European Central Bank, gives central bankers unprecedented ability to squeeze and manipulate national governments in a coordinated way. It is as if every government in the Eurozone ALREADY has a colonial entity watching it like the Troika's agents are supposed to watch Syriza in Athens. And, since the ECB Governing Council (like other EU institutions) tries to operate by a non-transparent "consensus" (i.e. the votes are not revealed), the degree to which national central bank heads are representing the ECB in their countries, rather than the other way around, is often not clear.

As long as the cozy comprador system tied peripheral governments to the core (i.e. Berlin), the role of the ECB and the Eurosystem could be obscured. Peripheral governments appointed "made guys" (i.e. banksters and/or their technicians) to national central bank boards and pretended to govern. Core politicians and their local comprador politicians let the Eurosystem technicians in Frankfurt tell them what "structural reforms" they should push to make the EMU "work."

But the moment an outsider government like Syriza came to power, the role of the Eurosystem and the national central banks in it could no longer be hidden. The fact that the Greek National Bank was an instrument of the ECB in Frankfurt, not of the Greek government in Athens, became obvious to everybody. The ECB's role as the muscle behind the Eurogroup's (Berlin's) diktats put the Greek National Bank in the position of helping to choke its own banks and terrorize its own citizens. And under the rules of EMU the Greek government was completely powerless to do anything about it. A defining moment.

The inescapable conclusion is that the allegedly "independent" Eurosystem now operates not as a network of central banks but as a parallel government.

The role of the Eurosystem within the half-hidden political order of the eurozone really is comparable to the Soviet or Chinese Communist Party. Like the Communist Party, the Eurosystem is now the "leading organ" of the neoliberal order, operating at all levels of the EU structure and providing "guidance" to elected political structures which are not formally under its legal control, but in reality are dominated by it. And behind the administrative apparatus of the party (Eurosystem) is the Central Committee (Eurogroup) and the Politburo (the key creditor government officials). And behind THEM is the real locus of the party's centralized power: the General Secretary (Germany/Merkel).

So J.W. Mason is quite right: it is impossible for any left government to attack the dictatorship of finance unless it controls its national central bank. But while control of the national central bank is necessary, it is hardly sufficient. As long as the EMU exit is off the table, verboten, so to speak, control of the national central banks only eliminates the "near enemy."

Ultimately it comes down to political will, which in parliamentary democracies, comes down to public support. As long as the majority (of all voters or of propertied influentials, depending on the system) is more loyal to the Euro than to national sovereignty an effective challenge to the dictatorship of finance is impossible - no matter how many national central banks the left controls.

Posted by b at 06:57 AM | Comments (90)
Selected Skeptical Comments
Posted by: nmb | Jul 16, 2015 7:20:43 AM | 1

Greece capitulates with the euro-dictatorship ... until the next battle

Posted by: jfl | Jul 16, 2015 7:33:14 AM | 2

You know this 'independent' central bank as tool of the neolibraconian consensus is the most salient point drummed home about Russia : the central bank as 5th column.

And the Russian central bank preceded the ECB, didn't it? When the boys from Harvard went to Russia to 'straighten' things out they conducted an experiment ... and discovered it worked just great : rinse and repeat. Russia was the archetype of the gelded European nation to come.

So the next time says Russia is not a part of Europe I'll say ... not only of Europe, but the first European nation subverted by the gnomes of neolibraconia.

The Europeans who still have a pulse ought to note now just who their real enemy is : hint, the one that's occupying Europe. And who is their fellow European victim. And ban together to defeat their common enemy ... well run him out of town on a rail, at any rate.

Certainly rearrange their banking arrangements.

Posted by: Timon | Jul 16, 2015 8:48:21 AM | 5

One of the key reasons that Wall St/City/Frankfurt want universal "austerity" is not just that they want people to be frightened, impoverished and insecure; but in particular, because it has the desirable effect of suppressing the political participation of people who must continuously walk the edge, just to get by - and by now this is about half the population -and who might otherwise participate in the political process with decisive effect.

Rise like lions after slumber
In unfathomable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
That in sleep have fallen on you
Ye are many, they are few.

H.L. Mencken is also very good on this subject - the need of the self-appointed elite to distract and render impotent the average person, and how greatly the big shots hate and fear the "mob".

why would a small country like Greece need to be the second biggest spender in nato after the USA. ...

Posted by: mcohen | Jul 16, 2015 8:57:04 AM | 6

According to an editorial published by the Greek conservative newspaperKathimerini, after the removal of the right-wing military junta in 1974, Greek governments wanted to bring disenfranchised left-leaning portions of the population into the economic mainstream[28] and so ran large deficits to finance enormous military expenditure, public sector jobs, pensions and other social benefits.

Greece is, as a percentage of GDP, the second-biggest defense spender[29] in NATO, the highest being the United States, according to NATO statistics.

The US is the major supplier of Greek arms, with the Americans supplying 42 per cent of its arms, Germany supplying 22.7 per cent, and France 12.5 per cent of Greece's arms purchases.[30]

Everybody and I mean everybody is king fu fighting
those bankers are as fast as lightning

Posted by: ab initio | Jul 16, 2015 10:32:40 AM | 12

It should be obvious with how the ECB structure was formed that any country that uses the euro as its currency is dependent on the ECB for liquidity if there is deposit flight from the banks in that country.

There is only two ways for a country to retain full sovereignty. One have a national currency with a national monetary authority that controls it and second a government that if it runs a deficit has the ability to borrow in private markets and maintains a currency board (e.g: Ecuador which uses the US dollar).

Ecuador is a good example where its government debt became untenable. It defaulted on the debt and so was for all intents shut out from private debt markets, so the government could not run a deficit. It continued to use the US dollar as its currency.

Greece had to make a choice. Continue in the eurosystem and accept the hegemony of the eurogroup or exit. It's parliament accepted the former. One can blame Schauble and Merkel all you want but the bottom line is that the Greek government and parliament acquiesced to its loss of sovereignty. The Greek people have the power to change it if they want. They just have to decide to exit the eurosystem and elect a government that does that.

In France, Marine Le Pen is clear. She will take France out of the eurosystem if elected. Of course we'll have to see if she honors her campaign promise but at least she is categorical about it. Syriza got elected promising they'll be able to get a better deal compared to the center-right party before them. In this case the Left in Greece delivered an even worse result for the average Greek citizen.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 16, 2015 12:52:58 PM | 18

IMO these 'lessons' miss the biggest one for the left: the loss of independent media. What good is protesting neolib control via banks if no one is listening?

Governments easily manipulate corporate controlled media via access journalism. Thus we get factual truths intermixed with propaganda spin that is relentlessly pro-business, pro-establishment.

Greece is a case in point. As described in Greek Government Insider Lifts the Lid on Five Months of 'Humiliation' and 'Blackmail', the Troika was gradually increasing pressure on Greece to do what the Troika demanded. They withheld billions of euro to Greece and cut off liquidity to the Greek government. Then they waited as the financial pressure on Greece grew. But along with those measures was a caustic media that painted Syriza as incompetent, then undemocratic (because most greeks wanted to remain in the euro), then irresponsible (for calling a referendum), etc.

Too often we give the media a pass when it has been well documented that business and government tries to control MSM (and increasingly other media as well) via access journalism, advertising revenue (a few industries dominate) writing stories that cite in-the-tank 'experts' from establishment-friendly think-tanks and controlled opposition.

Even within Greece, Syriza had trouble getting their message out because oligarchs own virtually all of the media! And many blogs also fell for the spin - even those that have been critical of the media in the past like Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com - despite the fact that the delay in Greece putting forth a proposal before the April 30th deadline could be logically attributed to the 2-step process that the Troika had forced (describing how they would service the debt would severely undermine Greece's position in future debt restructuring talks).

A Left that is not in touch with the people - and whose message is undermined by establishment-friendly media - is a disaster far greater than the loss of control of the financial system. The Left's greatest strength should be its connection with the people that it fights for. Yet, instead the Left has allowed itself to be marginalized by a corporate media that has strengthened the centrist 'faux Left' at the expense of the progressive Left. So much so that many people today identify THE LEFT with the identity politics that forms 'the base' for the fauxLeft. In short, people of the 'Left' are viewed as selfishly wanting something for themselves at the expense of others. (It should come as no surprise that reporting about Greece often fell in line with this line of thinking.)

For activists that are outside the centrist political establishment - anti-war, climate change, the environment (fracking, nuclear energy, etc.), inequality, constitutional and civil rights, etc. - it is very difficult to reach a wide audience. All 'change' is channeled into the pro-business, pro-establishment centrist political system. Anyone who is not a centrist is suspect.

Greece's coherent arguments quickly fell off media radar as sniping about their incompetence and their oh-so-strange Finance Minister took center stage. This put even more pressure on the Greeks and deterred potential allies. And the spinning continues. The understanding of most people still does not go much beyond this: the Greeks don't want to pay their bills and Syriza are incompetent radicals that made the problems worse and can't be trusted. In the face of this onslaught by the Troika and Troika-friendly media, Syriza's resistance is all but ignored in favor of trumpeting Greece's defeat (a warning to others?).

=

Is there any hope? Maybe.

1) Syriza formed a government with nationalists (ANEL). Why the Left is depicted as unpatriotic is beyond me, but the left may be getting its patriotic mojo back as WAR and trade deals are increasingly understood as benefiting an international elite. I could see similar political alliances forming in other countries. (In the US, I think the establishment had feared a potential Tea Party - Occupy alliance.)

2) Media reform (or the threat of it). The Greek government has begun investigations into media bias during the referendum (there was very little coverage of government rallies and government positions, etc.). If the Syriza-led government falls, any media reforms are probably less likely.

Ron Paul's "audit the Fed" movement got some traction which caused the Fed to take notice. "Truth in media" efforts should probably be re-doubled.

3) Education. We need to retain humanities education. Higher education is turning into vocational training. For example, IMO it's difficult to appreciate the myriad issues and import of the neolib consumer-oriented approach to government vs. the democratic citizen-oriented approach, without a humanities education.

Also, people don't usually react until it is too late - partly because few have enough learning to understand the impact that new policies will have. They try to make up for their lack of understanding by relying on trusted representatives like Obama. TTIP is a case in point. Look for demonstrations about Obamatrade in a few years when it is too late.

Posted by: dana | Jul 16, 2015 1:25:52 PM | 19

Following, a link to a German documentary about the various mechanisms of the EU [Troika, Eurogroup, European Commission, Council, etc] which are being used as devastating tools to beat down and extract wealth, vampire style, from Greece [and Cyprus], in order to revive comatose banks and line the pockets of investors, through privatization of public property.

This documentary does a good job of demonstrating just how the power of technocratic branches of the EU is being rolled out to pillage Greek, Portuguese, Cyprus economies, plunging the respective populations into ever greater misery.

The Trail of the Troika [1:29:22]

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 16, 2015 1:34:37 PM | 20

@ 15

james, If you read the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Kline you can follow the same financial rape of South American countries in the 70's that the financial mafia are doing now to the middle east.

The world needs to have a discussion about the world of private finance that exists now and what could be if all finance were sovereign.

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Jul 16, 2015 2:26:43 PM | 22

The role of the European Central Bank and their buttler, Stournaras, at the Greek Central Bank in this fiasco needs this kind of discussion, and more, since it lies at the heart of German blackmail and coup attempt of the Greek government. Thank you b for this post.

@5

One reason that there have been inordinate arms purchase by Greece is that the Greek elite -- media, oligarchy, politicians (especially the latter) are up to their armpits in corruption, and one of the vehicles for corruption is arms deals.

The all powerful "socialist" minister of defence under Papandreou and minister of development under Simitis is now in jail, almost prime minister, now serving 20 years in the hoosgow, for being bribed by German arms dealers (Siemens, among others). It is widely believed that the previous governments went after this easy and obvious target to cut off investigations of others, a lot of others.

The nationalist minister of defence under the Tsipras government, Panos Kammenos is sending document after document to prosecutors involving a bewildering array of bribery, thievery, fraud, and so on in the Greek armed forces. Submarines that lean, helicopters that can't fly, because of onerous service after purchase contracts. The list is huge.

One reason why both German and Greek corruptos hate him so much, and tried to bring down the Tsipras government. It remains to be seen if he keeps his post, after Tsipras's deal with the Germans.

The other, of course, is the Turkey threat, also used to justify military procurement.

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Jul 16, 2015 3:31:55 PM | 24

Quote from Jacobin from an article titled The End of Europe.

http://tinyurl.com/nt2g8g3

The discussions with Greece are thus a formal process designed to politically defeat Greece's left forces, burying any prospects of meaningful political change across the continent. This is the only explanation for the creditors' inflexibility despite Tsipras crossing all Syriza's red lines in terms of pensions reforms, tax policy, privatizations, and market liberalization. This punitive stance was made crystal clear by late June, when the ECB actively incited a bank run, warning of an "uncontrollable crisis," and abruptly capped its emergency loans to the banking sector, triggering bank holidays and capital controls.

Also in the site, an informative behind the scenes interview with Left Platform Syriza MP, Stathis Kouvelakis.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 16, 2015 3:34:47 PM | 25

Here's another lesson: Resistance works.

The Troika was willing to 'punch' Syriza's ticket ("Welcome to the Club"!) with minor concessions. But Tspiras/Varoufakis did not simply accept what the Troika demanded.

As bad as the deal is, Greece managed to get the debt restructuring that the Troika had refused to talk about. They had even refused to put their promises of a future debt restructuring in writing.

Many are saying that Greece should've prepared for GRexit; critizing Syriza/Tspiras as too establishment and too europhile to contemplate that path. But they have bought time to prepare for the next round. And in the next round, it may be that a GERexit is on the table as well.

Euro QE is not a magic elixir; just more extend and pretend. It'll exacerbate core vs. periphery problems as much as it exacerbates inequality (as it has in the USA). And political and fiscal integration is hard to do when people feel that they are not treated fairly.

Posted by: tom | Jul 16, 2015 3:45:06 PM | 26

This $50 billion Greek asset theft fund that was willingly handed over by Syriza traitors, as well as other politicians responsible, Is exactly the collateral needed for a independent Greek central bank to create, let's say for eg, a fractional reserve base of 10% to create $500 billion.

With that now $500 billion, the Greek government could pay off all the debt, including the criminally induced ones, and it's based on those $50 billion worth of assets.
And That's only if you agree to the idea of paying off all your criminally in deuced debts.

An independent and sovereignly principled government or parliament would do exactly that.
And there's more fractional reserves using National assets that can be used to grow the economy and serve the people.

Syriza knows this, but since they are unprincipled, Ideologically weak, cowardly towards their aggressors and more interested in power than public service, means you're never get that from these freaks.
Obvious from day one. Judge them on their actions, not on their whingeing on how they've been mistreated and violated.

How the fuck is it accepted, that private banks can print as much national currencies as they like, but the owners of the those national currencies - the people and the government - cannot do with fractional reserves and money printing, like what the private banks do.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 16, 2015 4:45:18 PM | 31

jackrabbit@17, I would like to point out that the Greek populace ignored the media when they voted in the referendum, so I think the importance of such propagandistic power is overblown. Once you lose faith in that source of information, it's gone; it doesn't come back. Russia under the Soviets is a case in point, and currently also there is an erosion in US confidence that what they see and hear is trustworthy. What happened after the referendum confused the public, and that was a huge mistake.

Back a ways, in support of Tsipras, I wanted him to do as Putin has done and shore up that public confidence because then you can make decisions in the moment and the support will grow. Immense popularity is a powerful weapon. Varoufakis was correct in seeing that as an important pivotal moment, when the people supported the 'no' vote that Tsipras had also supported. The course he chose confused his supporters. Paramount should have been the dictum that the people could not bear further austerity and that was that - the austerity they would face at that point would be the prideful kind that can see a brave future beyond.

Tsipras had embraced the New Deal outlook, but he forgot Roosevelt's famous saying, 'You have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Varoufakis welcomed, FDR style, the banksters' hatred. It's too bad Tsipras could not do the same. Long lines of grateful poor people stood by the tracks as FDR's funeral train passed. Will that happen for Tsipras? There's a Greek saying that one should count no man happy until after his death. Roosevelt, loved by his people and by history, was a happy man. I hope there's time for Tsipras to become one as well.

Posted by: jfl | Jul 16, 2015 7:50:55 PM | 33

PPS/23: Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1948 CE


Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

For these reasons, we must observe great restraint in our attitude toward the Far Eastern areas. The peoples of Asia and of the Pacific area are going to go ahead, whatever we do, with the development of their political forms and mutual interrelationships in their own way. This process cannot be a liberal or peaceful one. The greatest of the Asiatic peoples-the Chinese and the Indians-have not yet even made a beginning at the solution of the basic demographic problem involved in the relationship between their food supply and their birth rate. Until they find some solution to this problem, further hunger, distress, and violence are inevitable. All of the Asiatic peoples are faced with the necessity for evolving new forms of life to conform to the impact of modern technology. This process of adaptation will also be long and violent. It is not only possible, but probable, that in the course of this process many peoples will fall, for varying periods, under the influence of Moscow, whose ideology has a greater lure for such peoples, and probably greater reality, than anything we could oppose to it. All this, too, is probably unavoidable; and we could not hope to combat it without the diversion of a far greater portion of our national effort than our people would ever willingly concede to such a purpose.

Between Berlin and a Hard Place: Greece and the German Strategy to Dominate Europe, 2012 CE


As Chancellor Merkel and other German leaders would frequently remind the rest of Europe and the world, with 7% of the world population, 25% of global GDP and 50% of world social spending, Europe's economic system was unsustainable and uncompetitive in a globalized economy. Germany's vision for Europe was aimed at introducing "rules to force Europe's economies to become more competitive." But competitiveness was defined by Germany, and thus, "the rest of Europe needs to become more like Germany."

I nearly choked when I read Timothy Geithner quoted at the beginning of dana's link ... but it makes perfect sense. None of this is about 'economics' - that chimerical, dismal 'science' - all of it is about politics, and power politics, and imperial politics.

The Germans - like everyone else - can see the US has had its run and is headed for its fall. But they also know that Germany by itself is not of a size to pick up where the US leaves off, when the US leaves off. So Germany needs to take over Europe.

I think I've heard this before.


Between 2008 and 2013, the Greek government cut 40% of its budget, healthcare costs soared, tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers were fired, drug costs rose, as did drug use with HIV infections doubling and a malaria outbreak was reported for the first time since the 1970s, while suicide rates increased by 60%. ... Unemployment has grown to 26% (and over 50% for youth), wages dropped by 33%, pensions were cut by 45%, and 40% of retired Greeks now live below the poverty line.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. The Germans are cleaning up Greece, and Europe.

The IMF's latest move - fake debt reduction for Greece, the kind of stuff that flows out of Geither's pie-hole in dana's link above - seems to be overt recognition of this fact, bringing it into play.

So they new dynamic will be the US on one side and Russia on the other, containing Germany's New Europe?

Makes sense, really. (None of this makes any sense ... only to the zero-summers playing games with our world). China surely has its eyes on all that Lebensraum in eastern Russia. The US and Russia can team up to defeat the NAZIs who have 'stolen' the Ukrainian revolution (to contain both Europe and China). (And then the US can double-cross Russia when the time is ripe).

Hey, looks like it's 'working' with our new, soon to be 'best friends' in Iran.

Arghhhh. Makes me want to stop reading the news, stop watching the movie. Or do something to help change it.

Posted by: jfl | Jul 16, 2015 10:29:16 PM | 34

More on the reaction to Germany's power plays, from Fort Russ ...

"Germany's policies pose a danger to Europe for the first time since 1945"--A View From Poland

... and the US' possible doubly convoluted play as hypothesized by Joaquin Flores last September ...

Pravy Sektor Coup as ISIS Scenario: NATO to Feign a 'Unilateral' Alliance With Russia

... just substitute the US for NATO. Germany has certainly knocked the scales from some eyes. I can't imagine Russia will be drawn in.

Greed and geopolitics do make strange bedfellows though. Nations don't have friends they have interests. And it's hard to see any of these 'nation' that have identified its citizens' interests with its own. Of the big ones ... maybe Russia under Putin? All he has is the support of the Russian people.

Posted by: guest77 | Jul 17, 2015 12:48:32 AM | 36

Excellent thread.

Syriza has shown, I suppose, that gaining access to power isn't enough. The party has to be involved with its members and those they hope to make members. Helping people get access to food, medicine, security, and anything else the state is refusing to help with. The left cannot just win elections, it must be threatening to those in power. It must be prepared to take control of those things the people demand they control (and it must be willing to relax when the people demand this). People must look to the organization in Latin America, that is all I can say. There, under the harshest repression, democracy is thriving.

The story of Greece I suppose is a lesson for the rest of the left parties though, who of them has a chance outside of Podemos - and what of Podemos anyway. They don't seem particularly able sadly.

The world- but especially the west - in the last 30 years, has changed so fundamentally that democracy is nowhere to be found. Nor democratic forms of social organization are even gone for the most part. And now they are turning the screws on whatever remains. Even the middle classes live under turn-key totalitarianism, as it was said by someone, (as opposed to before, where it was just the lower classes) and everyone knows this. And it is proved more and more with each passing event it seems. The people are thoroughly boxed in and controlled, but unlike juliania I think the media has so much to do with it. The massive media conglomeration is a keystone of the changes over the last 30 years, as well as the emergence of the internet - brought to a great many people by those media conglomerates.

The oligarchs of the west are determined to return to their royal status and complete political power they had before WW1. This is really a hopeless feeling attached to this, their seemingly complete victory over democracy. And I imagine that is much of the point...

Posted by: guest77 | Jul 17, 2015 12:52:57 AM | 37

I haven't read this all, but looks very applicable to our times...

The network of global corporate control - https://archive.org/details/TheNetworkOfGlobalControl

Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston

Abstract
The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.

This core can be seen as an economic "super-entity" that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 17, 2015 1:33:03 AM | 38

juliania @30

Yes, Tsipras seems to have been ambivalent. The referendum was a bold move that actually worked in his favor but then turned cautious. Maybe he worried that if he threatened GRexit Schauble and the Troika would call his bluff?

In an earlier thread, I likened Tsipras to Chamberlain, who had the best intentions but is remembered as an appeaser. This may seem like a dramatic comparison but Michael Hudson has made the point that economics is now war by other means.

Chamberlain satisfied the public's overwhelming desire for peace just as Tspiras satisfied his public's desire to stay in the Euro. Each one had misgivings about the deal that they signed. Chamberlain began to rearm - especially building up British air power. Tsipras may also prepare for a future confrontation with the Troika.

Posted by: MRW | Jul 17, 2015 2:05:22 AM | 40

The role of the Eurosystem within the half-hidden political order of the eurozone really is comparable to the Soviet or Chinese Communist Party.


No, it's not. Billmon doesn't understand the structure. He's not seeing it clearly, and is not getting to the root of the problem.

The individual EU countries that use the Euro cannot create their own currency. They GAVE UP their sovereign currency for a foreign one, the euro, when they agreed to make themselves subservient to the Maastricht Treaty.

The Maastricht Treaty did/does not allow for a 'federal government of Europe'. It ONLY concerned itself with a monetary union, and it set down strict rules for entry (for instance, a nation's deficits could be no more than 3%--an insanity). It allowed for the creation of a central bank, the European Central Bank (ECB), whose operating rules were dictated by the Maastricht Treaty (and subsequent revisions).

But crucial to understand is this: a central bank CAN ONLY SET MONETARY POLICY. You need a 'federal government' to SET FISCAL POLICY. The EU doesn't have that. Sure, it has the EU parliament, and it has a bunch of unelected officials running the ECB. But it has no overlord, no elected oversight, that can rule in conditions like Greece is going through to ease sectoral pain, and stop the bleeding of ordinary citizens. That requires fiscal policy. The only way that fiscal policy can be changed in the EU is by a change to the treaties. Or the blessing of Angela Merkel, because Germany has captured the ECB.

Let me try to put this in perspective. The US has a federal government AND a central bank. Despite what all the Federal Reserve haters and the 'get rid of the IRS' people claim (inaccurately), the US central bank is a creature of Congress and must answer, by law, to the federal government twice a year. It is the US Treasury's banker, and must, again by law, return all profits each year to the US Treasury.

The US federal government creates fiscal policy. This is the direction for the country that the central must follow and support trhough monetary polices. Fiscal policy is Congress' job although they haven't done it properly for 30 years. For example, if one of the 50 states is in trouble-let's be hyperbolic: devastating earthquake, massive drought, asteroid hits--Congress can authorize ("appropriate") funds--creating them 'out of thin air'-to help the state. With no debt to children or grandchildren.

Why? Because the US federal government issues the currency, the 50 states only use them. The 50 states cannot create their own currency, just like the countries that use the euro. But the 50 states have the protection of the US federal government.

The formerly sovereign countries in the EU that use the Euro are like the 50 US states now. They cannot create their own currency, which would give them the policy space to pay their own citizens and denominate all the debts incurred in their own currency. They are dependent on the ECB, a goddam central bank that has no fiscal authority, to help them. EVEN THOUGH, in Europe, the ECB issues the Euro 'out of thin air'. The ECB is a collection of central banks. And right now Germany's central bank is dominant because it has climbed to the top-Germany was deeply in debt before the euro took over-on the backs of the other nations.

You will not begin to understand what is going on until you realize that the euro was designed by the famous French economist, François Perroux, in 1942 in anticipation of Hitler winning WWII, which was expected then. The plan was that they (the Nazi Pétain government wanted to be aligned with the German hegemon) would introduce a pan-Eurpoean currency and force adoption by the southern and eastern European countries to control and impoverish them. Mitterand, aligned with the Nazi/fascist Cagoulard in the late 1930 and 40s, was a Pétain enthusiast; this only came out in 1990. It was Mitterand who pushed through the euro, if you will check history. Perroux's monetary replacement was the blueprint for the Maastricht Treaty and the subsequent treaties.

Posted by: MRW | Jul 17, 2015 2:46:03 AM | 42

@tom | Jul 16, 2015 3:45:06 PM | 25

How the fuck is it accepted, that private banks can print as much national currencies as they like, but the owners of the those national currencies - the people and the government - cannot do with fractional reserves and money printing, like what the private banks do.

1. Private banks cannot "print as much national currencies as they like."

2. Fractional reserve banking does not exist. It died 80 years ago in most modern economies. I think only Hong Kong and Bulgaria (I think) use it now. The US doesn't' use it. Neither does any single country in the EU or Europe. Fractional reserve banking can only exist in countries that have a gold standard.

3. The only entity that prints the euro is the ECB, although the national central banks do it for the ECB under contract. BUT. BUT. BUT. These national central banks do it by keystroke. They don't control the physical printing presses. Besides, physical currency is such a small part of the currency.

4.

but the owners of the those national currencies - the people and the government
any country using the euro is not using a "national" currency. They are using a foreign currency.
Posted by: james | Jul 17, 2015 3:06:57 AM | 43

@19/20 psychohistorian.. i like where you are coming from, but people are slow to change and always looking for leadership.. many think that because someone is rich or has a type of power that comes with money, that they will be good enough to lead.. that is a mixed bag to me personally.. there are just as many losers with money as not..

@28 Laguerre.. thanks.. you've given a specific example to my more generalized observations already posted.. indeed - visa and mastercard are a part of the same ponzi scheme run by the same kleptomaniacs under the guise of whatever they want to pass themselves off as.. playing with the bank of international settlements is only a step away..

@35 guest77 quote.. "The world- but especially the west - in the last 30 years, has changed so fundamentally that democracy is nowhere to be found." i think that is very true..

@39 mrw.. good post, but you are not addressing the issue directly either.. making a comparison to what was a country like greece to one of the states in the usa, cheapens the idea of what a country is.. the euro has done this too.. doesn't mean we have to go along with it, but in terms of drawing a parallel, it isn't a bad one to make. and of course the big difference here is now that greece has given up it's control of monetary policy, as have all the other countries gobbled up in this insane idea of an european community - greece is an opportunity for everyone within the stupid structure to see it for what it is - a complete rip off of any shred of democracy that might have remained...

mrw - we've had these conversations before.. you appear to think the fed reserve is some sort of good two shoes neutral structure that follows a mandate and is not beholden to malevolent interests.. i see it as just the opposite.. the euro was another way to diversify the ponzi scheme by duping a lot of ignorant people into something they would have been better knowing more about.. i would be curious to hear a response from you that provides an answer as to the solution here.. mine would be greece to say fuck you to the euro currency and go back on it's own...

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 17, 2015 3:29:02 AM | 44

@jackrabbit.....you said that us "lower class" folk rely on the "upper class" folk to keep the world running

In the 66 years of my life I have seen untold potential waiting/begging for opportunity and I think your neck might break watching the momentary vacuum be filled getting rid of the top 50K social parasites and their attendant sociopaths. It is a myth that us poor 99% can't make it without the 1%. It is a myth that has been around for centuries and never has been true. The 1% are and have been an impediment to that advancement of humanity for quite some time. In most major ways we stopped evolving during the Enlightenment period when faith didn't become deprecated but instead became one of the tenets of the Western form of social organization, others being private property/finance, inheritance and "rule of law".

If all that were to change by neutering inheritance and ongoing ownership of private property (yeah, neuter public policy influence of religions too)
With Capital being returned to the global Commons, public education regains its priority and is a right for all but at the higher levels; and private education disappears. With those of faith no longer being in control of public policy, population control can be discussed, managed and alternatives like birth control researched/provided. We have answers for many of our pressing social problems, but we do not have the will to break out of the anthropological mold we are in.

Would the 99% agree to develop and use a technology that burdened the next thousand generations of humans to manange the potentially extinction causing effluent (i.e. Fukushima)? We live according to a very sick, no longer defensible and currently committing war crimes against humanity form of social organization, who's administrators we used to prosecute at the Hague 70 years ago. American empire is now the tool of the global plutocrats and the odds of the 99% wresting control away and changing the course of our species and world look slim.......but creating textual white noise on the intertubes is cathartic.

Posted by: chris m | Jul 17, 2015 6:06:08 AM | 47

Regarding events of past 6 months between Greece and the EU
(and Greek membership of the euro).
Following the recent Greek capitulation,it is clear to almost everyone now that the fuse has been lit beneath the euro.(and possibly even the entire European project.

Eurosceptism is starting to break out (and its only just starting) throughout the entire EU.
We can now all see politicians such as Marine Le Pen getting elected in next French Presidential Election on a purely "leave the euro now" ticket.

PS the entire Europe project was always predicated on a "lets destroy individual National Sovereignty" premise (a sort of EUSSR).

I never did understand why when Communism officially died around 1990
that it seemed to make an almost simultaneous and miraculous rebirth, but then Europe is the land of Dracula
and various other 19th century horror stories.

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 17, 2015 11:00:23 AM | 51

Syriza has shown, I suppose, that gaining access to power isn't enough. The party has to be involved with its members and those they hope to make members. guest77 at 35.

I agree, also pretty much with the rest of the post. What happened is that there was a power vacuum in Greece (when PASOK threw in the towel and the old structure crumbled) and the only ones willing to enter the breach were Syriza. One might also say that in Greece the political power structure does not match the real power structures in a good or efficient way. This democratic hoopla is all peachy cool when it is Swiss burghers discussin' and votin' on the color of the trams, or property tax, while being faithful to their 'radical' or 'socialist' -whatever- roots. In Greece, in its present form, it does not work. See for ex. the fantastical abyss between the OXI vote and the acceptance by the elected representatives of even harsher austerity.

Ideally, in a hypothetical genuine, true? democratic system, after the OXI vote a unitary or even technocatic Gvmt should have been formed (ironically, Tsipras did just that in a way ..) behind the OXI vote, to collectively resist and bargain (doubt any positive result would have been forthcoming but who knows), but naturally that was not possible.

One argument is that the 'Left' must be 'more in touch', 'must reform', must be 'more grass roots' etc. (Sounds a bit like what they say about the EU, heh? And in Greece that argument is made, plenty) - true, but imho it won't be enough. No way.

So some other avenues have to be explored, sought, implemented.. One imperative (under the present cirucumstances) is national sovereignity, see in Greece, New Democracy being say 'for austerity', 'for the euro' and so on because they are tied up in comprador not to say Mafia circles linked to the EU, big capital, banks, instituted corrupt structures, tax evasions, etc.

Anyway this debacle has shown that parliamentary democracy is not to be afforded to small powerless countries that have been taken for a ride. I think ppl are seeing that now, that facade is cracking.

Overall the EU is in deep sh*t. It won't survive for very long in its present shape.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 17, 2015 11:16:30 AM | 53

camelotkidd

This article fails to note the 'eurosclerosis' that plagued Europe in the 70's and 80's. Uncompetitive economies with large social obligations and clientist political systems that still exist in some areas.

The 'evil genious' moniker doesn't really fit. I doubt he is the only economist that would've offered such a solution. And he is certainly not the only guy that found European labor laws of the time to be a costly headace. I think he just got there first. And his demeanor is grandfatherly not menacing.

And he is not unmindful of how his work can be misused. When I took his advanced economics class in the early 90's I argued against the excesses of supply-side economics while others in the class seemed to be eager to show their support of what they assumed Mundell believed in. I got an A-.

=

There are problems with the Euro - the disparate economies, the lack of political and fiscal union, the uneven benefits, etc. - but blaming it on the academics seems like scape-goating, and nearly as bad as blaming it on the victims. Should we blame Marx for the fall of the Soviet Union?

Posted by: tom | Jul 17, 2015 4:34:48 PM | 59

MRW @42

How do you reconcile the contradiction between your points 1 and 2.

If Private banks "cannot" print as much money as they like ( point 1 ), then how can fractional reserve banking Not exist in most of the world ? ( point 2 ) . If fractional reserves do not exist then they free to print as much as they like.

Of course whem I say they can "print as much as they like" , that is not a children's imagination interpretation where the private banks are free to print infinitelt, that's of course the private banks have been unlinked from previously acceptable amount of printing/keyboard strokes, to create money.

And your 3rd doesn't make any sense at all. How does a gold standard have any restrictions on having a 10% fractional reserve, 1000%, or 1,000,000% of gold holdings ? Gold doesn't make decisions, regulations and enforcement are the decision-makers. Whether it's gold or fiat.

And your point 4 is right. It is my argument to why no country should join a single currency like the euro, and nations should always have their own sovreign national currencies

Posted by: juliania | Jul 18, 2015 1:08:20 AM | 66

Jackrabbit@38

Sorry to be late on here. The Chamberlain comparison is an interesting one, and Tsipras' tragic flaw may be his devotion to the Eurozone - I think it is his, not really any perceived mandate, because surely he knows a good leader makes choices as events change - to go back to my example, that's what FDR did, and very risky choices they were. Some of FDR's didn't work, so he did other things. He was making it up as he went along, and I think that's very similar to what would be needed in exiting the eurozone. You would have to bring the people along with you, with the confidence and trust that something needed to happen, charting a new course. Tsipras doesn't seem to have been willing to do that, and consequently he runs the risk of being just one more in the line of leaders who have caved under pressure.

I think it has a lot to do with lack of faith in the people themselves on the part of such leadership. Obama showed this when he didn't take public financing but already was turning to the banksters. He didn't need to do that, and he probably would have even had a bigger vote tally if he'd stayed with the people. I wonder why this new leadership seems so divorced from sympathy with those who elect them and whom they presumably serve? I don't think Tsipras is as two-faced as Obama, but he's starting to wear the same shoes. The tragedy is the Greek people so much need him to step up - the way a tennis player steps up if he's really a champion. I think there's still time but it's getting late. If he keeps on with this deal, history will take note. That's a huge price to pay.

Posted by: jfl | Jul 18, 2015 1:24:02 AM | 67

Tsipras ... he messed up. If 'his' deal goes through Greece suffers the full catastrophe. The thing to do is to prevent that happening. Tsipras is a lame duck. It makes little difference why he messed up ... character flaw, bribery, incompetence, all the usual failings of the political class.

The point is he has set Greece up for more lethal loans and so his 'program' must be repudiated. The only way I can imagine that happening is via the direct participation of the Greek people in their government. If there is a majority NO! on the new' program, good. Make a counter offer ... when (if, I suppose, to be inclusive) it's rejected, exit the euro - there's life at the end of the tunnel. If not ... well, they're done for, aren't they?

Debt-slaves of the German-dominated EU : deprived of their remaining assets and their own government.

Posted by: fairleft | Jul 18, 2015 2:58:03 AM | 68

Lapavitsas Calls for Exit as the Only Strategy for Greek People (the video, audio and transcript):

Why this capitulation? Why have we come to this after all the enthusiasm of six months ago? After the surge of grassroots support in this country and in Europe? The answer is clear to me. And it has to do with the wrong strategy, that was good enough to win elections, but proved disastrous in government. What is this wrong strategy? It's very simple, expressed openly time and time again. We will achieve radical change in Greece, radical change in Europe, and we will do it within the Eurozone. That was the strategy. Well, that's not possible, period.

As far as I'm concerned, the Greek left has found its leader. Lapavitsas says it all, clearly and brilliantly: Grexit and nationalize the banks.

You can't advance if you do not understand that Syriza has failed, if you keep making excuses for their failure, or try to pretend it was anything but failure. Greece must leave the euro. This has been obvious for several years, but unreasoning, 'no matter what' Eurozone love, especially prevalent within Syriza and generally among the middle-class European left and pseudo-left (Podemos, I'm looking at you!), MUST be abandoned. The euro doesn't love you; it's time to stop loving it back.

The MAIN task for the European left, if it wants to be left rather than neoliberal, is to abandon the euro. It's easy: listen and be persuaded by Lapavitsas.

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 18, 2015 4:10:39 AM | 69

More from Lapavitsas:
Finally, the deal is quite clearly neocolonial. The government of the left has signed up Greece to a neocolonial agreement.

And it is--it is neocolonial for many reasons. I will mention three. First, the deal proposes the establishment of a privatization fund of 50 billion Euros which will basically sell public property under foreign management. 25 billion of that, the first 25 billion, will go to the banks by the agreement. If there's anything left, and there won't be anything left because they'll never make 50 billion, it might go to repaying the debt and possibly to investment. Essentially, then, this fund will sell what it can of public property to recapitalize the banks. We've just agreed the deal that sells the family silver to recapitalize the failed Greek banks.
~~~
The real winner of this deal is obvious. It's staring you in the face. The real winner is the Greek oligarchy expressed in the mass media. That's why the mass media are thriving and celebrating [a win].
~~~
Because the monetary union in which, to which Greece belongs, is not ideological. I mean, it is, but it isn't just ideology. And it isn't just a balance of forces. It is an institutional mechanism. The sooner the Greeks understand this, the better for all of us. It is an institutional mechanism, it is a monetary union that's, it's a hierarchical body that works in the interests of big business and in the interests of a few countries within it. That's what the EMU is.
~~~
Now, what do we do, then? What we need to do is to withdraw our consent to this agreement. To withdraw our consent to this agreement. And to redesign a radical program that is consistent with our values, our aims, and what we've told to the Greek people all this time, all these years. And that radical program is impossible without Euro exit. The only thing that we really need to do is focus on developing a plan for Euro exit that will allow us to implement our program. It is so obvious I'm amazed that people still don't see it after five months of failed negotiations.

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 18, 2015 4:23:57 AM | 70

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33578778
The former Greek finance minster has said his country's economic reforms are "going to fail", just as formal talks on a huge bailout are set to begin.

In a BBC interview, Yanis Varoufakis said Greece was subject to a programme that will "go down in history as the greatest disaster of macroeconomic management ever".
~~~
I may disagree with [PM Tsipras] and I declared that by resigning my post
~~~
The bailout could total €86bn (£60bn) in exchange for austerity measures.

In a damning assessment, Mr Varoufakis said: "This programme is going to fail whoever undertakes its implementation."

Asked how long that would take, he replied: "It has failed already."

Posted by: fairleft | Jul 18, 2015 4:51:18 AM | 71

Varoufakis is just whining. He doesn't provide a solution to the immediate and staggeringly important problem, imposition of worse austerity on Greece's people. He sounds not dissimilar to Tsipras, who also says he's unhappy/pessimistic yada yada. They're like old men complaining about the weather. Whining and whinging, Tsipras has signed up to carry out the police state repression that's the only way his new legislation can be carried out.

Even though the solution/escape is clear, as Lapavitsas points out. It's almost as if the Syriza apologists are incapable of saying/thinking the word 'Grexit'. Who is holding their tongues?

Posted by: mcohen | Jul 18, 2015 6:59:22 AM | 72

parking weapons like f-16 and submarines in countries is a good idea...they are maintained and serviced and kept ready for active service...this all under the cover of arms deals etc etc.

there is only one flaw..the government of that country must be trusted....they cannot change sides...greece is in a unique position.opposite north africa,on the med, so it is well positioned for launching of attacks,on countries like libya or tunisia or even egypt.

discrete crete sounds like a good name.

Posted by: paulmeli | Jul 18, 2015 8:15:45 AM | 73

"Varoufakis is just whining. He doesn't provide a solution…"

Exactly. There is no solution that doesn't include leaving the Euro and reclaiming monetary sovereignty (although that alone won't do it…they need astute, competent leadership too). A solution that presumes changing the fundamental Euro structure to include a fiscal component is never going to happen, the big guns (Germany) would leave before that would happen.

Playing long shots works in the movies, in real life not so much.

Most of the billions of words that have been written on this subject have been little more than wailing and gnashing of teeth. Denial.

There are several stages to go before there is any viable solution that citizens will sign on to, that won't be co-opted by TPTB.

Posted by: honest! | Jul 18, 2015 9:28:16 AM | 74

I'm not saying Syriza made all of the right mover, but neither do I think they can be considered "the Greek People's enemy". Not at all. They appear to be being honest.

Posted by: guest77 | Jul 17, 2015 7:52:02 PM | 64

What a load of utter nonsense.

Honest?

They demanded the right to seek a mandate from the people before proceeding. They then got exactly the mandate they claimed to have sought . . . . . .

. . . And then, promptly ignored it entirely.

=======

There's nothing "honest" in that. Cynical? Absolutely. Manipulative? Certainly

Threacherous? Most definitely

But "honest"? . . . . GTFO!.

Posted by: jfl | Jul 18, 2015 10:06:29 AM | 75

@71, @73

And you guys are just endlessly whining about the whiners ... the political class has chosen its preferred 'solution'. They're all done. If there is to be a real solution it has got to come from the Greek people.

@37

That's quite an article. I cut and pasted the picture of the 'bow-tie' graph and made the table of the 50 top controllers from page 33 sortable below it.

page 33 of The network of global corporate control

I'll try to summarize the significance of the bow-tie graph and its abbreviated labels tomorrow, for those who don't want to read the full article themselves.

Twenty-four of the top 50 controllers are nominally American.

Forty-four are financial.

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 18, 2015 11:43:49 AM | 76

Posted some time back about the ESM (etc.) Here some info that give OK descriptions.

Eric Zuesse, global research

http://tinyurl.com/pqwbvqa

> a link in that article to the Treaty (automatic download)

then this, from the Corporate Europe Observatory

http://tinyurl.com/o3eyg25

> a link to a leaked text explaining the Troikas plans for the privatization fund (that 50 bn) pdf

http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/esm_report_to_greece_0.pdf

for some extra financial info (the only available to the public?) one must go to their site and click through and through - all automatic downloads.

http://www.esm.europa.eu

As MRW writes, at 40, there is no resemblance between EU financial and pol. structures those of the Soviet, Chinese Communist Parties.

MRW maybe you are hyping the Nazi past? Mitterand and Thatcher particularly were against the re-unification of Germany. Mitterand wanted to lock Germany down in the Euro in an 'alliance' (or because he was a bankster's man, in fact laws prohibiting speculation were lifted in France well before Billy C's annulment of Glass-Steagall, the US played catch-up) and Germany made the trade, with difficulty (attachment to the mark, independence, etc.) Controlling countries through their currency and banking system is not an original or particularly Nazi idea. For ex it works right now in parts of Africa with the CFA and nobody talks about it. The French didn't borrow that idea from the Nazis.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jul 18, 2015 12:09:41 PM | 77

Jackrabbit at 38, juliania at 66, jfl & fairleft >67

Like many, I've been waiting for the longest running drama on the Athens stage to finally get to the last act before attempting to make sense of the staging, plot and characters.

I still don't think we're quite there yet; probably a little more political fall-out still, but not much, see e.g., a majority of the Syriza Central Committee opposed the austerity deal.

The question of the political leadership of the left, however, is always an interesting topic. Also from the 17 July "Links" page at - dare I mention the name? - Naked Capitalism, John Pilger at Alternet argues thatThe Leaders of Greece Are Some of the Phoniest Idealists You'll Ever See. It seems hard to disagree.

Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures....

The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as "liberal" or even "left", Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, "schooled in postmodernism", as Alex Lantier wrote. [I could not immediately find whatever Pilger is quoting, he is affiliated with the "wsws" website; such sad sloppiness at a major site in these days of html coding...]

For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza's luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but "better terms" of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with "identity politics" and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not resistance, but subservience. "Mainstream" political life in Britain exemplifies this.

This is not inevitable, a done deal, if we wake up from the long, postmodern coma and reject the myths and deceptions of those who claim to represent us, and fight.

How then do democratic movements ensure that their leaders views and priorities accord with their own, and can be held responsible and be replaced? What sort of leadership is needed for industrial as well as political democracy?

Posted by: rufus magister | Jul 18, 2015 12:18:48 PM | 78

ps to 77 -- Amongst the parties affected by the Munich Agreement, I think Edvard Beneš, the Czechoslovakian President, is a better fit for poor Tsipras.

Posted by: paulmeli | Jul 18, 2015 12:54:19 PM | 79

"the political class has chosen its preferred 'solution'. They're all done. If there is to be a real solution it has got to come from the Greek people."

No kidding?

I don't know what's worse, repeating the obvious ad nauseam or whining.

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 18, 2015 2:00:07 PM | 80

Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures…. a quote by rufus at 77

NO. Syriza was elected on a platform of 'staying in the EU-Euro' and at the same time 'reducing /abolishing austerity.'

This mandate might be considered contradictory or ridiculous, illusory, doomed to fail, etc. (Yes I agree.)

Also Syriza has a slim voter support and thus had to form a coalition Gvmt.

Well in function of that contradictory mandate they managed (at terrible cost and perhaps misguidely) half of it. Staying in the Euro.

What is surprising? Nothing.

Why they chose the one above the other is abundantly clear.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Jul 18, 2015 2:24:51 PM | 81

RM@77

I enjoy good discussion and criticism but this carping and sniping about Syriza from the US Left says more about writers such as JP and the weaklings of the Left, that have attained a new level of meaninglessness, and has allowed someone like Bernie Sanders to claim to be a Socialist without any real blowback, is trying.

Posted by: MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:29:54 PM | 85

paulmeli at @63 has got it exactly right. In all modern economies on a fiat currency, loans create deposits.

Bankers, as a result, create 'credit money', NOT new interest-free money. (Credit money also means that one person's asset is another person's liability. At the commercial banking level within the real economy that includes collateral, timed repayment schedule, and interest owed, which is income to the issuing bank. Everything nets to zero at this level across the macroeconomy.)

The US federal government, on the other hand, adds new money into the economy. Only entity that can. Only the US federal government can introduce new, interest-free money into the economy, and it does it via congressional spending based on the needs of its citizens, and where it wants the economy to grow (giving 40% of it to the financial institutions is NOT GROWTH). Which the mo-fos we've elected do not understand.

One small quibble, Paul. The amount of physical currency, physical cash and coin, is around 11.5% to12% of the available money. The rest are treasury securities. Don't forget that countries like Ecuador are pegged to the USD and need US cash for their citizens. Ecuador's central bank orders them from the US Treasury (Bureau of Printing and Engraving) and puts up 100% of the demanded amount in assets (treasury securities) to pay for them.

Posted by: MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:31:15 PM | 86

Tom @61

Sorry for the delay. I'm traveling. Good questions, btw.

First, let's clear up what fractional reserve banking is. This is a lousy simplistic example, but it will work. And let's imagine a small western town with one bank, which I will call Bank Buckeroo. Introducing a second bank in the town mean I would have to explain how interbank reserves work, and it doesn't matter in this explanation. [BTW, US banks DO NOT LEND their reserves; reserves serve another purpose in the US banking system; namely to help the Federal Reserve retain the overnight interest rate target that banks charge each other. Canada, for example, doesn't even have a reserve requirement for their commercial banks.]

Fractional reserve banking explained

OK. Johnny Schwartzburger sidles into his Bank Buckeroo and deposits 100 bucks in cash in his savings account.

Now Bank Buckeroo has got $100 more than it had yesterday.

Because the reserve requirement is, say, 10%-the FRACTION of the loan that the bank must retain under "fractional reserve banking"--Bank Buckeroo holds onto $10 and can loan out $90.

Sally Sweetpea needs $90 for her beauty shop and she borrows $90 from Bank Buckeroo, and deposits that in her checking account.

Now Bank Buckeroo holds onto $9 (10% of $90) and can loan out $81.

Old Ray Saddleback needs $81 to buy supplies for the only café in town, so he hits up Bank Buckeroo for an $81 loan.

Bank Buckeroo holds onto $8.10 (10% of $81) and can loan out $72.90.

Paddy O'Gilligan needs $72.90 to top off his supply of whiskey at the only bar in town (and this banker likes his whiskey), so he borrows $72.90 from Bank Buckeroo.

Bank Buckeroo holds onto $7.29 (10% of $72.90) and can loan out $65.61

You see where I'm going with this. Eventually, Bank Buckeroo will have reserved all $100, but will have extended credit against that $100 to customers that he knows are good to pay back their loans. Under the gold standard system before 1933, each dollar had a statement on it that you could exchange 20 of the one-dollar bills for one ounce of gold (not exactly the statement but that's what it meant). It was a "fixed exchange rate." The value of a dollar (US) was fixed to the value of gold. So Bank Buckeroo has Johnny Schwartzburger's original $100 in cash that guarantees it can trade-in the cash for $100 in gold anytime it wants. It's protected against that loss. The only thing the banker has to worry about is whether his customers can pay back the new loans, and he knows their creditworthiness intimately.

That all changed in 1933-no more gold standard in the US

We went off the gold standard. The value of the USD was no longer pegged to the value of gold, the supply of which the US federal government could not control globally except for certain US mines. Each new goldmine find globally affected the value of the dollar before 1913 and led to extraordinary panics and busts in the last half of the 1800s. More gold available meant the value of the dollar dropped, and that affected international trade, and whether people exchanged their dollars for gold stateside and hoarded it, further diminishing the amount of money available in the real economy. It was the National Gold Something-or-Other Act in 1900 that pegged the USD at $20/ounce.

Interestingly enough, it was Marriner Eccles, whom FDR made the first chairman of the Federal Reserve three years later, a Republican Mormon banker from Provo UT who appeared before the Senate and House of Representatives in 1932/33 to make the case for dropping the gold standard (he wasn't the only one however). Eccles became more popular than Miley Cyrus. Eccles had seen the devastation that the banking system was doing to his municipal and rural customers. Eccles was 22 when he made his first million after his father died and he had to take over the family businesses, which included a bank. He was a financial genius who could speak plain English to commoners about banking and esoteric financial concepts. His ideas predated John Maynard Keynes by three years. (BTW, Keynes was never taught in American universities, so anyone sneeringly invoking Keynes doesn't know what they are talking about. The first Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Samuelson, is supposed to be the explainer and keeper of Keynes ideas, but Samuelson admitted in 1989 in a video interview that he never read more than half the book, and that he never understood Keynes' ideas to begin with.)

[to be contd]

Correction: Each new goldmine find globally affected the value of the dollar before 1913

Should read: Each new goldmine find globally affected the value of the dollar before 1900

Posted by: MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:34:22 PM | 87

Tom @61 [contd.]

If Private banks "cannot" print as much money as they like ( point 1 ), then how can fractional reserve banking Not exist in most of the world ? ( point 2 ) . If fractional reserves do not exist then they free to print as much as they like.

[…]

And your 3rd doesn't make any sense at all. How does a gold standard have any restrictions on having a 10% fractional reserve, 1000%, or 1,000,000% of gold holdings ? Gold doesn't make decisions, regulations and enforcement are the decision-makers. Whether it's gold or fiat.

Loans create deposits. Yes, 'out of thin air'. Bankers can say 'Yay' or 'Nay' based on the cut of your jib, or the color of your skin, although they are not allowed to.
Banks don't print money. They issue credit, i.e. 'credit money'. They mark up the customer's bank account with computer keystrokes in the amount of the loan. Banks issue credit money based on two things: (1) customer creditworthiness, (2) customer income. They also require collateral.
Banks have to maintain reserves in their banks accounts at the Federal Reserve on all the loans they make.It is a percentage of the loan, and banks cannot loan out this money. If the bank doesn't have enough reserves in their Fed account, they have to borrow from other banks at the Fed Funds Rate, or overnight interest rate, set by the Fed. (The Fed uses this overnight interest rate to promote or demote bank lending in the economy, among other things.)
If the bank has been making bad loans or is overextended-this goes to your Point 1 about banks being free to issue as much credit money as they like-and other banks know that, the other banks might not loan it any reserves.
In that case, the solvency-suspect bank has to slink to the Fed's Discount Window where they can borrow the required reserves, but the interest rate is punitive, and it usually alerts bank examiners that there's a problem at the bank. So having to go to the Discount Window is not something a bank wants to broadcast.
By law, the Federal Reserve must supply reserves to banks within the federally chartered banking system, or declare the overextended bank insolvent.
A 'check and balance' on a bank loaning out as "as much as they like" is meeting its reserves requirement.

About gold. When you have a gold standard, you're on a fixed exchange rate: X amount of currency for each ounce of gold. That's when fractional reserve banking makes sense because the bank only wants to loan out X amount of money based on the amount of gold in the kitty. It's up to the banker to make intelligent and safe decisions about who he loans to by doing his due diligence.

On a gold standard, he who owns the gold, owns the country. When we got rid of the gold standard, goldminers and gold owners stopped owning this country, including Mr. Rothschild. We fucked him up the ass. Our money is based on the 'full faith and credit of the US federal government' and we issue our own currency. To boot, we are the reserve currency worldwide.

Posted by: MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:36:21 PM | 88

The thread didn't take my formatting in @88. Here is the first half presented in a clearer format:
----------------------------------------------

In response to Tom's @61

  • Loans create deposits. Yes, 'out of thin air'. Bankers can say 'Yay' or 'Nay' based on the cut of your jib, or the color of your skin, although they are not allowed to.
  • Banks don't print money. They issue credit, i.e. 'credit money'. They mark up the customer's bank account with computer keystrokes in the amount of the loan. Banks issue credit money based on two things: (1) customer creditworthiness, (2) customer income. They also require collateral.
  • Banks have to maintain reserves in their banks accounts at the Federal Reserve on all the loans they make.It is a percentage of the loan, and banks cannot loan out this money. If the bank doesn't have enough reserves in their Fed account, they have to borrow from other banks at the Fed Funds Rate, or overnight interest rate, set by the Fed. (The Fed uses this overnight interest rate to promote or demote bank lending in the economy, among other things.)
  • If the bank has been making bad loans or is overextended-this goes to your Point 1 about banks being free to issue as much credit money as they like-and other banks know that, the other banks might not loan it any reserves.
  • In that case, the solvency-suspect bank has to slink to the Fed's Discount Window where they can borrow the required reserves, but the interest rate is punitive, and it usually alerts bank examiners that there's a problem at the bank. So having to go to the Discount Window is not something a bank wants to broadcast.
  • By law, the Federal Reserve must supply reserves to banks within the federally chartered banking system, or declare the overextended bank insolvent.
  • A 'check and balance' on a bank loaning out as "as much as they like" is meeting its reserves requirement.

Posted by: MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:41:19 PM | 89

Some reporters are finally beginning to understand what I have been yammering on here over the past 18 months:

Why America Is Not The Next Greece
The key difference is that the United States has its own central bank -- the most powerful one in the world.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-america-is-not-the-next-greece_55a814c5e4b04740a3df6b11?

Posted by: MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:45:47 PM | 90

[Jul 18, 2015] Disaster In Europe

Paul Krugman:

Disaster In Europe: ...all the wise heads saying that Grexit is impossible, that it would lead to a complete implosion, don't know what they are talking about. When I say that, I don't mean that they're necessarily wrong - I believe they are, but anyone who is confident about anything here is deluding himself. What I mean instead is that nobody has any experience with what we're looking at. It's striking that the conventional wisdom here completely misreads the closest parallel, Argentina 2002. The usual narrative is completely wrong: de-dollarization did *not* cause economic collapse, but rather followed it, and recovery began quite soon.

There are only terrible alternatives at this point, thanks to the fecklessness of the Greek government and, far more important, the utterly irresponsible campaign of financial intimidation waged by Germany and its allies. And I guess I have to say it: unless Merkel miraculously finds a way to offer a much less destructive plan than anything we're hearing, Grexit, terrifying as it is, would be better.

[Jul 18, 2015] Greece bailout revives image of the 'cruel German'

Jul 18, 2015 | The Washington Post

A divided Germany rose from the ashes of the Nazi defeat in World War II, weathering the Cold War to transform into one of the good guys. Modern Germany quickly molded itself into the standard-bearer of global pacifism, a hotbed of youth culture and the tree-hugging Lorax of nations in the fight against climate change.

But, just like that, the image of the "cruel German" is back.

Germany - more specifically, its chancellor, Angela Merkel - has faced years of derision for driving a hard bargain with financially broken Greece, which has received billions in bailouts since 2010. But for both Germany and Merkel, the concessions extracted this week from Athens appear to have struck a global nerve. By insisting on years more of tough cuts and making other demands that critics have billed as humiliating, Berlin is wiping out decades of hard-won goodwill.

In the aftermath of the deal with Greece, the hashtag #Boycottgermany - calling on users not to buy German products - has started trending on Twitter. Evoking Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal from "The Silence of the Lambs," some are sharing caricatures depicting Merkel as an E.U.-eating "Angela Lecter." A cartoon portraying Wolfgang Schäuble - Merkel's even-harder-line finance minister - as a knife-wielding killer from the Islamic State militant group has gone viral.

Germany was one of more than a dozen nations that insisted on a tough deal with Greece. But Britain's Daily Mail singled out Germany, saying Greece had surrendered to austerity "with a German gun at his head."

In the United States, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman this week noted the hate mail he had received from Germany for repeatedly criticizing its tough line on fiscal reforms. The Germans, he wrote, had suggested that as a Jew, he should know "the dangers of demonizing a people." To that, Krugman responded with sarcasm: "Because criticizing a nation's economic ideology is just like declaring its people subhuman."

In Greece, those actively supporting the austerity deal are being heckled by their countrymen as "Nazi collaborators." Another image making the rounds on social media shows a doctored version of the European Union flag, its circle of gold stars against a blue background reshaped into a swastika.

French daily Le Figaro declared that "conditions were imposed on a small member state that would have previously required arms." In a commentary that sneered at Merkel's "half smile" after the deal was reached, Britain's Guardian newspaper argued that rather than being cruel to be kind, the terms of the bailout were simply "cruel to be cruel."

In its online edition, even Germany's own Der Spiegel magazine decried the Berlin-led demands as "the catalogue of cruelties."

In a country that can be highly sensitive about its brutal past, some Germans are beside themselves. On Friday, the German parliament is set to vote on whether to green-light rescue talks under the onerous new terms. It is expected to vote yes. In any case, some argue, the damage to Germany's image has been done.

"Merkel, Schäuble and [Vice Chancellor Sigmar] Gabriel in two and a half days burned the trust that had been built over 25 years," Reinhard Bütikofer, a German politician from the progressive Green Party, declared during an emotional outburst on local television. "The heartless, dictatorial and ugly Germany again has a face, and that is Schäuble."

He finished by saying, "I am upset, as you can see, very upset."

... ... ...


[Jul 18, 2015] Billmon The Eurosystem's (Monetary) Control of Europe's Politics

"...The "Eurosystem", the network of national central banks governed by the European Central Bank, gives central bankers unprecedented ability to squeeze and manipulate national governments in a coordinated way. It is as if every government in the Eurozone ALREADY has a colonial entity watching it like the Troika's agents are supposed to watch Syriza in Athens. And, since the ECB Governing Council (like other EU institutions) tries to operate by a non-transparent "consensus" (i.e. the votes are not revealed), the degree to which national central bank heads are representing the ECB in their countries, rather than the other way around, is often not clear."
"...IMO these 'lessons' miss the biggest one for the left: the loss of independent media. What good is protesting neolib control via banks if no one is listening?
Governments easily manipulate corporate controlled media via access journalism. Thus we get factual truths intermixed with propaganda spin that is relentlessly pro-business, pro-establishment.
Greece is a case in point. As described in Greek Government Insider Lifts the Lid on Five Months of 'Humiliation' and 'Blackmail', the Troika was gradually increasing pressure on Greece to do what the Troika demanded. They withheld billions of euro to Greece and cut off liquidity to the Greek government. Then they waited as the financial pressure on Greece grew. But along with those measures was a caustic media that painted Syriza as incompetent, then undemocratic (because most greeks wanted to remain in the euro), then irresponsible (for calling a referendum), etc."
"... Following, a link to a German documentary about the various mechanisms of the EU [Troika, Eurogroup, European Commission, Council, etc] which are being used as devastating tools to beat down and extract wealth, vampire style, from Greece [and Cyprus], in order to revive comatose banks and line the pockets of investors, through privatization of public property.
This documentary does a good job of demonstrating just how the power of technocratic branches of the EU is being rolled out to pillage Greek, Portuguese, Cyprus economies, plunging the respective populations into ever greater misery.
"...None of this is about 'economics' - that chimerical, dismal 'science' - all of it is about politics, and power politics, and imperial politics."
The Trail of the Troika [1:29:22]
Jul 18, 2015 | Moon of Alabama

Billmon: The Eurosystem's (Monetary) Control of Europe's Politics

Note: This post was composed from a Twitteressay by Billmon.

J.W. Mason lists some Lessons from the Greek Crisis:

Before the crisis no one even knew that national central banks still existed - I certainly didn't. But now it's clear that the creditors' unchallenged control of this commanding high ground was decisive to the outcome in Greece. Next time an elected government challenges the EU authorities, their first order of business must be getting control or cooperation of their national central bank.

The quote says "control or cooperation," but I can guarantee the latter is never going to happen.

It is nearly impossible to exaggerate the degree to which the campaign for central bank "independence" has made them the enemies within for any left governments.

The central bankers waged a 50-60 year political war to wrest back the monetary flexibility that the break down of Bretton Woods gave to national governments. Having won that war across most of the developed world in the 70s and 80s, they extended the battlefield to the emerging markets in '90s and '00s.

The autonomy of central banks (meaning the political allegiance to Wall Street/London City/Frankfurt etc.) was maybe the biggest neoliberal victory of all. If rightwing political victories (Reagan, Thatcher et. al.) were the beachheads of the Great Counterattack on social democracy then "independent" central banks became the citadels of the occupation forces: Neoliberalism's "Republican Guard."

Ironically, the ECB was originally conceived - or at least was sold to the European left - as a way for governments to regain monetary flexibility at a higher level. As a way to a) escape US dollar hegemony and to b) outflank the Bundesbank by formalizing the joint political control of European monetary policy. I do not know if the hack establishment Social Democrats who sold that vision ever believed it, but if so, more fool them. Because what the European Monetary Union became, obvious now, was a way to turn the vision on its head: formalize joint MONETARY control of Europe's politics.

The "Eurosystem", the network of national central banks governed by the European Central Bank, gives central bankers unprecedented ability to squeeze and manipulate national governments in a coordinated way. It is as if every government in the Eurozone ALREADY has a colonial entity watching it like the Troika's agents are supposed to watch Syriza in Athens. And, since the ECB Governing Council (like other EU institutions) tries to operate by a non-transparent "consensus" (i.e. the votes are not revealed), the degree to which national central bank heads are representing the ECB in their countries, rather than the other way around, is often not clear.

As long as the cozy comprador system tied peripheral governments to the core (i.e. Berlin), the role of the ECB and the Eurosystem could be obscured. Peripheral governments appointed "made guys" (i.e. banksters and/or their technicians) to national central bank boards and pretended to govern. Core politicians and their local comprador politicians let the Eurosystem technicians in Frankfurt tell them what "structural reforms" they should push to make the EMU "work."

But the moment an outsider government like Syriza came to power, the role of the Eurosystem and the national central banks in it could no longer be hidden. The fact that the Greek National Bank was an instrument of the ECB in Frankfurt, not of the Greek government in Athens, became obvious to everybody. The ECB's role as the muscle behind the Eurogroup's (Berlin's) diktats put the Greek National Bank in the position of helping to choke its own banks and terrorize its own citizens. And under the rules of EMU the Greek government was completely powerless to do anything about it. A defining moment.

The inescapable conclusion is that the allegedly "independent" Eurosystem now operates not as a network of central banks but as a parallel government.

The role of the Eurosystem within the half-hidden political order of the eurozone really is comparable to the Soviet or Chinese Communist Party. Like the Communist Party, the Eurosystem is now the "leading organ" of the neoliberal order, operating at all levels of the EU structure and providing "guidance" to elected political structures which are not formally under its legal control, but in reality are dominated by it. And behind the administrative apparatus of the party (Eurosystem) is the Central Committee (Eurogroup) and the Politburo (the key creditor government officials). And behind THEM is the real locus of the party's centralized power: the General Secretary (Germany/Merkel).

So J.W. Mason is quite right: it is impossible for any left government to attack the dictatorship of finance unless it controls its national central bank. But while control of the national central bank is necessary, it is hardly sufficient. As long as the EMU exit is off the table, verboten, so to speak, control of the national central banks only eliminates the "near enemy."

Ultimately it comes down to political will, which in parliamentary democracies, comes down to public support. As long as the majority (of all voters or of propertied influentials, depending on the system) is more loyal to the Euro than to national sovereignty an effective challenge to the dictatorship of finance is impossible - no matter how many national central banks the left controls.

Posted by b at 06:57 AM | Comments (90)
Selected Skeptical Comments
nmb | Jul 16, 2015 7:20:43 AM | 1

Greece capitulates with the euro-dictatorship ... until the next battle

jfl | Jul 16, 2015 7:33:14 AM | 2

You know this 'independent' central bank as tool of the neolibraconian consensus is the most salient point drummed home about Russia : the central bank as 5th column.

And the Russian central bank preceded the ECB, didn't it? When the boys from Harvard went to Russia to 'straighten' things out they conducted an experiment ... and discovered it worked just great : rinse and repeat. Russia was the archetype of the gelded European nation to come.

So the next time says Russia is not a part of Europe I'll say ... not only of Europe, but the first European nation subverted by the gnomes of neolibraconia.

The Europeans who still have a pulse ought to note now just who their real enemy is : hint, the one that's occupying Europe. And who is their fellow European victim. And ban together to defeat their common enemy ... well run him out of town on a rail, at any rate.

Certainly rearrange their banking arrangements.

Timon | Jul 16, 2015 8:48:21 AM | 5

One of the key reasons that Wall St/City/Frankfurt want universal "austerity" is not just that they want people to be frightened, impoverished and insecure; but in particular, because it has the desirable effect of suppressing the political participation of people who must continuously walk the edge, just to get by - and by now this is about half the population -and who might otherwise participate in the political process with decisive effect.

Rise like lions after slumber
In unfathomable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
That in sleep have fallen on you
Ye are many, they are few.

H.L. Mencken is also very good on this subject - the need of the self-appointed elite to distract and render impotent the average person, and how greatly the big shots hate and fear the "mob".

why would a small country like Greece need to be the second biggest spender in nato after the USA. ...

mcohen | Jul 16, 2015 8:57:04 AM | 6

According to an editorial published by the Greek conservative newspaper Kathimerini, after the removal of the right-wing military junta in 1974, Greek governments wanted to bring disenfranchised left-leaning portions of the population into the economic mainstream[28] and so ran large deficits to finance enormous military expenditure, public sector jobs, pensions and other social benefits.

Greece is, as a percentage of GDP, the second-biggest defense spender[29] in NATO, the highest being the United States, according to NATO statistics.

The US is the major supplier of Greek arms, with the Americans supplying 42 per cent of its arms, Germany supplying 22.7 per cent, and France 12.5 per cent of Greece's arms purchases.[30]

Everybody and I mean everybody is king fu fighting. And those bankers are as fast as lightning

ab initio | Jul 16, 2015 10:32:40 AM | 12

It should be obvious with how the ECB structure was formed that any country that uses the euro as its currency is dependent on the ECB for liquidity if there is deposit flight from the banks in that country.

There is only two ways for a country to retain full sovereignty. One have a national currency with a national monetary authority that controls it and second a government that if it runs a deficit has the ability to borrow in private markets and maintains a currency board (e.g: Ecuador which uses the US dollar).

Ecuador is a good example where its government debt became untenable. It defaulted on the debt and so was for all intents shut out from private debt markets, so the government could not run a deficit. It continued to use the US dollar as its currency.

Greece had to make a choice. Continue in the eurosystem and accept the hegemony of the eurogroup or exit. It's parliament accepted the former. One can blame Schauble and Merkel all you want but the bottom line is that the Greek government and parliament acquiesced to its loss of sovereignty. The Greek people have the power to change it if they want. They just have to decide to exit the eurosystem and elect a government that does that.

In France, Marine Le Pen is clear. She will take France out of the eurosystem if elected. Of course we'll have to see if she honors her campaign promise but at least she is categorical about it. Syriza got elected promising they'll be able to get a better deal compared to the center-right party before them. In this case the Left in Greece delivered an even worse result for the average Greek citizen.

Jackrabbit | Jul 16, 2015 12:52:58 PM | 18

IMO these 'lessons' miss the biggest one for the left: the loss of independent media. What good is protesting neolib control via banks if no one is listening?

Governments easily manipulate corporate controlled media via access journalism. Thus we get factual truths intermixed with propaganda spin that is relentlessly pro-business, pro-establishment.

Greece is a case in point. As described in Greek Government Insider Lifts the Lid on Five Months of 'Humiliation' and 'Blackmail', the Troika was gradually increasing pressure on Greece to do what the Troika demanded. They withheld billions of euro to Greece and cut off liquidity to the Greek government. Then they waited as the financial pressure on Greece grew. But along with those measures was a caustic media that painted Syriza as incompetent, then undemocratic (because most greeks wanted to remain in the euro), then irresponsible (for calling a referendum), etc.

Too often we give the media a pass when it has been well documented that business and government tries to control MSM (and increasingly other media as well) via access journalism, advertising revenue (a few industries dominate) writing stories that cite in-the-tank 'experts' from establishment-friendly think-tanks and controlled opposition.

Even within Greece, Syriza had trouble getting their message out because oligarchs own virtually all of the media! And many blogs also fell for the spin - even those that have been critical of the media in the past like Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com - despite the fact that the delay in Greece putting forth a proposal before the April 30th deadline could be logically attributed to the 2-step process that the Troika had forced (describing how they would service the debt would severely undermine Greece's position in future debt restructuring talks).

A Left that is not in touch with the people - and whose message is undermined by establishment-friendly media - is a disaster far greater than the loss of control of the financial system. The Left's greatest strength should be its connection with the people that it fights for. Yet, instead the Left has allowed itself to be marginalized by a corporate media that has strengthened the centrist 'faux Left' at the expense of the progressive Left. So much so that many people today identify THE LEFT with the identity politics that forms 'the base' for the fauxLeft. In short, people of the 'Left' are viewed as selfishly wanting something for themselves at the expense of others. (It should come as no surprise that reporting about Greece often fell in line with this line of thinking.)

For activists that are outside the centrist political establishment - anti-war, climate change, the environment (fracking, nuclear energy, etc.), inequality, constitutional and civil rights, etc. - it is very difficult to reach a wide audience. All 'change' is channeled into the pro-business, pro-establishment centrist political system. Anyone who is not a centrist is suspect.

Greece's coherent arguments quickly fell off media radar as sniping about their incompetence and their oh-so-strange Finance Minister took center stage. This put even more pressure on the Greeks and deterred potential allies. And the spinning continues. The understanding of most people still does not go much beyond this: the Greeks don't want to pay their bills and Syriza are incompetent radicals that made the problems worse and can't be trusted. In the face of this onslaught by the Troika and Troika-friendly media, Syriza's resistance is all but ignored in favor of trumpeting Greece's defeat (a warning to others?).

=

Is there any hope? Maybe.

1) Syriza formed a government with nationalists (ANEL). Why the Left is depicted as unpatriotic is beyond me, but the left may be getting its patriotic mojo back as WAR and trade deals are increasingly understood as benefiting an international elite. I could see similar political alliances forming in other countries. (In the US, I think the establishment had feared a potential Tea Party - Occupy alliance.)

2) Media reform (or the threat of it). The Greek government has begun investigations into media bias during the referendum (there was very little coverage of government rallies and government positions, etc.). If the Syriza-led government falls, any media reforms are probably less likely.

Ron Paul's "audit the Fed" movement got some traction which caused the Fed to take notice. "Truth in media" efforts should probably be re-doubled.

3) Education. We need to retain humanities education. Higher education is turning into vocational training. For example, IMO it's difficult to appreciate the myriad issues and import of the neolib consumer-oriented approach to government vs. the democratic citizen-oriented approach, without a humanities education.

Also, people don't usually react until it is too late - partly because few have enough learning to understand the impact that new policies will have. They try to make up for their lack of understanding by relying on trusted representatives like Obama. TTIP is a case in point. Look for demonstrations about Obamatrade in a few years when it is too late.

dana | Jul 16, 2015 1:25:52 PM | 19

Following, a link to a German documentary about the various mechanisms of the EU [Troika, Eurogroup, European Commission, Council, etc] which are being used as devastating tools to beat down and extract wealth, vampire style, from Greece [and Cyprus], in order to revive comatose banks and line the pockets of investors, through privatization of public property.

This documentary does a good job of demonstrating just how the power of technocratic branches of the EU is being rolled out to pillage Greek, Portuguese, Cyprus economies, plunging the respective populations into ever greater misery.

The Trail of the Troika [1:29:22]

psychohistorian | Jul 16, 2015 1:34:37 PM | 20

@ 15

james, If you read the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Kline you can follow the same financial rape of South American countries in the 70's that the financial mafia are doing now to the middle east.

The world needs to have a discussion about the world of private finance that exists now and what could be if all finance were sovereign.

Thrasyboulos | Jul 16, 2015 2:26:43 PM | 22

The role of the European Central Bank and their buttler, Stournaras, at the Greek Central Bank in this fiasco needs this kind of discussion, and more, since it lies at the heart of German blackmail and coup attempt of the Greek government. Thank you b for this post.

@5

One reason that there have been inordinate arms purchase by Greece is that the Greek elite -- media, oligarchy, politicians (especially the latter) are up to their armpits in corruption, and one of the vehicles for corruption is arms deals.

The all powerful "socialist" minister of defence under Papandreou and minister of development under Simitis is now in jail, almost prime minister, now serving 20 years in the hoosgow, for being bribed by German arms dealers (Siemens, among others). It is widely believed that the previous governments went after this easy and obvious target to cut off investigations of others, a lot of others.

The nationalist minister of defence under the Tsipras government, Panos Kammenos is sending document after document to prosecutors involving a bewildering array of bribery, thievery, fraud, and so on in the Greek armed forces. Submarines that leak, helicopters that can't fly, because of onerous service after purchase contracts. The list is huge.

One reason why both German and Greek corruptos hate him so much, and tried to bring down the Tsipras government. It remains to be seen if he keeps his post, after Tsipras's deal with the Germans.

The other, of course, is the Turkey threat, also used to justify military procurement.

Thrasyboulos | Jul 16, 2015 3:31:55 PM | 24

Quote from Jacobin from an article titled The End of Europe.

http://tinyurl.com/nt2g8g3

The discussions with Greece are thus a formal process designed to politically defeat Greece's left forces, burying any prospects of meaningful political change across the continent. This is the only explanation for the creditors' inflexibility despite Tsipras crossing all Syriza's red lines in terms of pensions reforms, tax policy, privatizations, and market liberalization. This punitive stance was made crystal clear by late June, when the ECB actively incited a bank run, warning of an "uncontrollable crisis," and abruptly capped its emergency loans to the banking sector, triggering bank holidays and capital controls.

Also in the site, an informative behind the scenes interview with Left Platform Syriza MP, Stathis Kouvelakis.

Jackrabbit | Jul 16, 2015 3:34:47 PM | 25

Here's another lesson: Resistance works.

The Troika was willing to 'punch' Syriza's ticket ("Welcome to the Club"!) with minor concessions. But Tspiras/Varoufakis did not simply accept what the Troika demanded.

As bad as the deal is, Greece managed to get the debt restructuring that the Troika had refused to talk about. They had even refused to put their promises of a future debt restructuring in writing.

Many are saying that Greece should've prepared for GRexit; critizing Syriza/Tspiras as too establishment and too europhile to contemplate that path. But they have bought time to prepare for the next round. And in the next round, it may be that a GERexit is on the table as well.

Euro QE is not a magic elixir; just more extend and pretend. It'll exacerbate core vs. periphery problems as much as it exacerbates inequality (as it has in the USA). And political and fiscal integration is hard to do when people feel that they are not treated fairly.

tom | Jul 16, 2015 3:45:06 PM | 26

This $50 billion Greek asset theft fund that was willingly handed over by Syriza traitors, as well as other politicians responsible, Is exactly the collateral needed for a independent Greek central bank to create, let's say for eg, a fractional reserve base of 10% to create $500 billion.

With that now $500 billion, the Greek government could pay off all the debt, including the criminally induced ones, and it's based on those $50 billion worth of assets.
And That's only if you agree to the idea of paying off all your criminally in deuced debts.

An independent and sovereignly principled government or parliament would do exactly that.
And there's more fractional reserves using National assets that can be used to grow the economy and serve the people.

Syriza knows this, but since they are unprincipled, Ideologically weak, cowardly towards their aggressors and more interested in power than public service, means you're never get that from these freaks.
Obvious from day one. Judge them on their actions, not on their whingeing on how they've been mistreated and violated.

How the fuck is it accepted, that private banks can print as much national currencies as they like, but the owners of the those national currencies - the people and the government - cannot do with fractional reserves and money printing, like what the private banks do.

juliania | Jul 16, 2015 4:45:18 PM | 31

jackrabbit@17, I would like to point out that the Greek populace ignored the media when they voted in the referendum, so I think the importance of such propagandistic power is overblown. Once you lose faith in that source of information, it's gone; it doesn't come back. Russia under the Soviets is a case in point, and currently also there is an erosion in US confidence that what they see and hear is trustworthy. What happened after the referendum confused the public, and that was a huge mistake.

Back a ways, in support of Tsipras, I wanted him to do as Putin has done and shore up that public confidence because then you can make decisions in the moment and the support will grow. Immense popularity is a powerful weapon. Varoufakis was correct in seeing that as an important pivotal moment, when the people supported the 'no' vote that Tsipras had also supported. The course he chose confused his supporters. Paramount should have been the dictum that the people could not bear further austerity and that was that - the austerity they would face at that point would be the prideful kind that can see a brave future beyond.

Tsipras had embraced the New Deal outlook, but he forgot Roosevelt's famous saying, 'You have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Varoufakis welcomed, FDR style, the banksters' hatred. It's too bad Tsipras could not do the same. Long lines of grateful poor people stood by the tracks as FDR's funeral train passed. Will that happen for Tsipras? There's a Greek saying that one should count no man happy until after his death. Roosevelt, loved by his people and by history, was a happy man. I hope there's time for Tsipras to become one as well.

jfl | Jul 16, 2015 7:50:55 PM | 33

PPS/23: Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1948 CE

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

For these reasons, we must observe great restraint in our attitude toward the Far Eastern areas. The peoples of Asia and of the Pacific area are going to go ahead, whatever we do, with the development of their political forms and mutual interrelationships in their own way. This process cannot be a liberal or peaceful one. The greatest of the Asiatic peoples-the Chinese and the Indians-have not yet even made a beginning at the solution of the basic demographic problem involved in the relationship between their food supply and their birth rate. Until they find some solution to this problem, further hunger, distress, and violence are inevitable. All of the Asiatic peoples are faced with the necessity for evolving new forms of life to conform to the impact of modern technology. This process of adaptation will also be long and violent. It is not only possible, but probable, that in the course of this process many peoples will fall, for varying periods, under the influence of Moscow, whose ideology has a greater lure for such peoples, and probably greater reality, than anything we could oppose to it. All this, too, is probably unavoidable; and we could not hope to combat it without the diversion of a far greater portion of our national effort than our people would ever willingly concede to such a purpose.

Between Berlin and a Hard Place: Greece and the German Strategy to Dominate Europe, 2012 CE

As Chancellor Merkel and other German leaders would frequently remind the rest of Europe and the world, with 7% of the world population, 25% of global GDP and 50% of world social spending, Europe's economic system was unsustainable and uncompetitive in a globalized economy. Germany's vision for Europe was aimed at introducing "rules to force Europe's economies to become more competitive." But competitiveness was defined by Germany, and thus, "the rest of Europe needs to become more like Germany."
I nearly choked when I read Timothy Geithner quoted at the beginning of dana's link ... but it makes perfect sense. None of this is about 'economics' - that chimerical, dismal 'science' - all of it is about politics, and power politics, and imperial politics.

The Germans - like everyone else - can see the US has had its run and is headed for its fall. But they also know that Germany by itself is not of a size to pick up where the US leaves off, when the US leaves off. So Germany needs to take over Europe.

I think I've heard this before.


Between 2008 and 2013, the Greek government cut 40% of its budget, healthcare costs soared, tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers were fired, drug costs rose, as did drug use with HIV infections doubling and a malaria outbreak was reported for the first time since the 1970s, while suicide rates increased by 60%. ... Unemployment has grown to 26% (and over 50% for youth), wages dropped by 33%, pensions were cut by 45%, and 40% of retired Greeks now live below the poverty line.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. The Germans are cleaning up Greece, and Europe.

The IMF's latest move - fake debt reduction for Greece, the kind of stuff that flows out of Geither's pie-hole in dana's link above - seems to be overt recognition of this fact, bringing it into play.

So they new dynamic will be the US on one side and Russia on the other, containing Germany's New Europe?

Makes sense, really. (None of this makes any sense ... only to the zero-summers playing games with our world). China surely has its eyes on all that Lebensraum in eastern Russia. The US and Russia can team up to defeat the NAZIs who have 'stolen' the Ukrainian revolution (to contain both Europe and China). (And then the US can double-cross Russia when the time is ripe).

Hey, looks like it's 'working' with our new, soon to be 'best friends' in Iran.

Arghhhh. Makes me want to stop reading the news, stop watching the movie. Or do something to help change it.

jfl | Jul 16, 2015 10:29:16 PM | 34

More on the reaction to Germany's power plays, from Fort Russ ...

"Germany's policies pose a danger to Europe for the first time since 1945"--A View From Poland

... and the US' possible doubly convoluted play as hypothesized by Joaquin Flores last September ...

Pravy Sektor Coup as ISIS Scenario: NATO to Feign a 'Unilateral' Alliance With Russia

... just substitute the US for NATO. Germany has certainly knocked the scales from some eyes. I can't imagine Russia will be drawn in.

Greed and geopolitics do make strange bedfellows though. Nations don't have friends they have interests. And it's hard to see any of these 'nation' that have identified its citizens' interests with its own. Of the big ones ... maybe Russia under Putin? All he has is the support of the Russian people.

guest77 | Jul 17, 2015 12:48:32 AM | 36

Excellent thread.

Syriza has shown, I suppose, that gaining access to power isn't enough. The party has to be involved with its members and those they hope to make members. Helping people get access to food, medicine, security, and anything else the state is refusing to help with. The left cannot just win elections, it must be threatening to those in power. It must be prepared to take control of those things the people demand they control (and it must be willing to relax when the people demand this). People must look to the organization in Latin America, that is all I can say. There, under the harshest repression, democracy is thriving.

The story of Greece I suppose is a lesson for the rest of the left parties though, who of them has a chance outside of Podemos - and what of Podemos anyway. They don't seem particularly able sadly.

The world- but especially the west - in the last 30 years, has changed so fundamentally that democracy is nowhere to be found. Nor democratic forms of social organization are even gone for the most part. And now they are turning the screws on whatever remains. Even the middle classes live under turn-key totalitarianism, as it was said by someone, (as opposed to before, where it was just the lower classes) and everyone knows this. And it is proved more and more with each passing event it seems. The people are thoroughly boxed in and controlled, but unlike juliania I think the media has so much to do with it. The massive media conglomeration is a keystone of the changes over the last 30 years, as well as the emergence of the internet - brought to a great many people by those media conglomerates.

The oligarchs of the west are determined to return to their royal status and complete political power they had before WW1. This is really a hopeless feeling attached to this, their seemingly complete victory over democracy. And I imagine that is much of the point...

guest77 | Jul 17, 2015 12:52:57 AM | 37

I haven't read this all, but looks very applicable to our times...

The network of global corporate control - https://archive.org/details/TheNetworkOfGlobalControl

Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston

Abstract
The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.

This core can be seen as an economic "super-entity" that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.

Jackrabbit | Jul 17, 2015 1:33:03 AM | 38

juliania @30

Yes, Tsipras seems to have been ambivalent. The referendum was a bold move that actually worked in his favor but then turned cautious. Maybe he worried that if he threatened GRexit Schauble and the Troika would call his bluff?

In an earlier thread, I likened Tsipras to Chamberlain, who had the best intentions but is remembered as an appeaser. This may seem like a dramatic comparison but Michael Hudson has made the point that economics is now war by other means.

Chamberlain satisfied the public's overwhelming desire for peace just as Tspiras satisfied his public's desire to stay in the Euro. Each one had misgivings about the deal that they signed. Chamberlain began to rearm - especially building up British air power. Tsipras may also prepare for a future confrontation with the Troika.

MRW | Jul 17, 2015 2:05:22 AM | 40

The role of the Eurosystem within the half-hidden political order of the eurozone really is comparable to the Soviet or Chinese Communist Party.


No, it's not. Billmon doesn't understand the structure. He's not seeing it clearly, and is not getting to the root of the problem.

The individual EU countries that use the Euro cannot create their own currency. They GAVE UP their sovereign currency for a foreign one, the euro, when they agreed to make themselves subservient to the Maastricht Treaty.

The Maastricht Treaty did/does not allow for a 'federal government of Europe'. It ONLY concerned itself with a monetary union, and it set down strict rules for entry (for instance, a nation's deficits could be no more than 3%--an insanity). It allowed for the creation of a central bank, the European Central Bank (ECB), whose operating rules were dictated by the Maastricht Treaty (and subsequent revisions).

But crucial to understand is this: a central bank CAN ONLY SET MONETARY POLICY. You need a 'federal government' to SET FISCAL POLICY. The EU doesn't have that. Sure, it has the EU parliament, and it has a bunch of unelected officials running the ECB. But it has no overlord, no elected oversight, that can rule in conditions like Greece is going through to ease sectoral pain, and stop the bleeding of ordinary citizens. That requires fiscal policy. The only way that fiscal policy can be changed in the EU is by a change to the treaties. Or the blessing of Angela Merkel, because Germany has captured the ECB.

Let me try to put this in perspective. The US has a federal government AND a central bank. Despite what all the Federal Reserve haters and the 'get rid of the IRS' people claim (inaccurately), the US central bank is a creature of Congress and must answer, by law, to the federal government twice a year. It is the US Treasury's banker, and must, again by law, return all profits each year to the US Treasury.

The US federal government creates fiscal policy. This is the direction for the country that the central must follow and support trhough monetary polices. Fiscal policy is Congress' job although they haven't done it properly for 30 years. For example, if one of the 50 states is in trouble-let's be hyperbolic: devastating earthquake, massive drought, asteroid hits--Congress can authorize ("appropriate") funds--creating them 'out of thin air'-to help the state. With no debt to children or grandchildren.

Why? Because the US federal government issues the currency, the 50 states only use them. The 50 states cannot create their own currency, just like the countries that use the euro. But the 50 states have the protection of the US federal government.

The formerly sovereign countries in the EU that use the Euro are like the 50 US states now. They cannot create their own currency, which would give them the policy space to pay their own citizens and denominate all the debts incurred in their own currency. They are dependent on the ECB, a goddam central bank that has no fiscal authority, to help them. EVEN THOUGH, in Europe, the ECB issues the Euro 'out of thin air'. The ECB is a collection of central banks. And right now Germany's central bank is dominant because it has climbed to the top-Germany was deeply in debt before the euro took over-on the backs of the other nations.

You will not begin to understand what is going on until you realize that the euro was designed by the famous French economist, François Perroux, in 1942 in anticipation of Hitler winning WWII, which was expected then. The plan was that they (the Nazi Pétain government wanted to be aligned with the German hegemon) would introduce a pan-Eurpoean currency and force adoption by the southern and eastern European countries to control and impoverish them. Mitterand, aligned with the Nazi/fascist Cagoulard in the late 1930 and 40s, was a Pétain enthusiast; this only came out in 1990. It was Mitterand who pushed through the euro, if you will check history. Perroux's monetary replacement was the blueprint for the Maastricht Treaty and the subsequent treaties.

MRW | Jul 17, 2015 2:46:03 AM | 42

@tom | Jul 16, 2015 3:45:06 PM | 25

How the fuck is it accepted, that private banks can print as much national currencies as they like, but the owners of the those national currencies - the people and the government - cannot do with fractional reserves and money printing, like what the private banks do.

1. Private banks cannot "print as much national currencies as they like."

2. Fractional reserve banking does not exist. It died 80 years ago in most modern economies. I think only Hong Kong and Bulgaria (I think) use it now. The US doesn't' use it. Neither does any single country in the EU or Europe. Fractional reserve banking can only exist in countries that have a gold standard.

3. The only entity that prints the euro is the ECB, although the national central banks do it for the ECB under contract. BUT. BUT. BUT. These national central banks do it by keystroke. They don't control the physical printing presses. Besides, physical currency is such a small part of the currency.

4.

but the owners of the those national currencies - the people and the government
any country using the euro is not using a "national" currency. They are using a foreign currency.
james | Jul 17, 2015 3:06:57 AM | 43

@19/20 psychohistorian.. i like where you are coming from, but people are slow to change and always looking for leadership.. many think that because someone is rich or has a type of power that comes with money, that they will be good enough to lead.. that is a mixed bag to me personally.. there are just as many losers with money as not..

@28 Laguerre.. thanks.. you've given a specific example to my more generalized observations already posted.. indeed - visa and mastercard are a part of the same ponzi scheme run by the same kleptomaniacs under the guise of whatever they want to pass themselves off as.. playing with the bank of international settlements is only a step away..

@35 guest77 quote.. "The world- but especially the west - in the last 30 years, has changed so fundamentally that democracy is nowhere to be found." i think that is very true..

@39 mrw.. good post, but you are not addressing the issue directly either.. making a comparison to what was a country like greece to one of the states in the usa, cheapens the idea of what a country is.. the euro has done this too.. doesn't mean we have to go along with it, but in terms of drawing a parallel, it isn't a bad one to make. and of course the big difference here is now that greece has given up it's control of monetary policy, as have all the other countries gobbled up in this insane idea of an european community - greece is an opportunity for everyone within the stupid structure to see it for what it is - a complete rip off of any shred of democracy that might have remained...

mrw - we've had these conversations before.. you appear to think the fed reserve is some sort of good two shoes neutral structure that follows a mandate and is not beholden to malevolent interests.. i see it as just the opposite.. the euro was another way to diversify the ponzi scheme by duping a lot of ignorant people into something they would have been better knowing more about.. i would be curious to hear a response from you that provides an answer as to the solution here.. mine would be greece to say fuck you to the euro currency and go back on it's own...

psychohistorian | Jul 17, 2015 3:29:02 AM | 44

@jackrabbit.....you said that us "lower class" folk rely on the "upper class" folk to keep the world running

In the 66 years of my life I have seen untold potential waiting/begging for opportunity and I think your neck might break watching the momentary vacuum be filled getting rid of the top 50K social parasites and their attendant sociopaths. It is a myth that us poor 99% can't make it without the 1%. It is a myth that has been around for centuries and never has been true. The 1% are and have been an impediment to that advancement of humanity for quite some time. In most major ways we stopped evolving during the Enlightenment period when faith didn't become deprecated but instead became one of the tenets of the Western form of social organization, others being private property/finance, inheritance and "rule of law".

If all that were to change by neutering inheritance and ongoing ownership of private property (yeah, neuter public policy influence of religions too)
With Capital being returned to the global Commons, public education regains its priority and is a right for all but at the higher levels; and private education disappears. With those of faith no longer being in control of public policy, population control can be discussed, managed and alternatives like birth control researched/provided. We have answers for many of our pressing social problems, but we do not have the will to break out of the anthropological mold we are in.

Would the 99% agree to develop and use a technology that burdened the next thousand generations of humans to manange the potentially extinction causing effluent (i.e. Fukushima)? We live according to a very sick, no longer defensible and currently committing war crimes against humanity form of social organization, who's administrators we used to prosecute at the Hague 70 years ago. American empire is now the tool of the global plutocrats and the odds of the 99% wresting control away and changing the course of our species and world look slim.......but creating textual white noise on the intertubes is cathartic.

chris m | Jul 17, 2015 6:06:08 AM | 47

Regarding events of past 6 months between Greece and the EU
(and Greek membership of the euro).
Following the recent Greek capitulation,it is clear to almost everyone now that the fuse has been lit beneath the euro.(and possibly even the entire European project.

Eurosceptism is starting to break out (and its only just starting) throughout the entire EU.
We can now all see politicians such as Marine Le Pen getting elected in next French Presidential Election on a purely "leave the euro now" ticket.

PS the entire Europe project was always predicated on a "lets destroy individual National Sovereignty" premise (a sort of EUSSR).

I never did understand why when Communism officially died around 1990
that it seemed to make an almost simultaneous and miraculous rebirth, but then Europe is the land of Dracula
and various other 19th century horror stories.

Noirette | Jul 17, 2015 11:00:23 AM | 51

Syriza has shown, I suppose, that gaining access to power isn't enough. The party has to be involved with its members and those they hope to make members. guest77 at 35.

I agree, also pretty much with the rest of the post. What happened is that there was a power vacuum in Greece (when PASOK threw in the towel and the old structure crumbled) and the only ones willing to enter the breach were Syriza. One might also say that in Greece the political power structure does not match the real power structures in a good or efficient way. This democratic hoopla is all peachy cool when it is Swiss burghers discussin' and votin' on the color of the trams, or property tax, while being faithful to their 'radical' or 'socialist' -whatever- roots. In Greece, in its present form, it does not work. See for ex. the fantastical abyss between the OXI vote and the acceptance by the elected representatives of even harsher austerity.

Ideally, in a hypothetical genuine, true? democratic system, after the OXI vote a unitary or even technocatic Gvmt should have been formed (ironically, Tsipras did just that in a way ..) behind the OXI vote, to collectively resist and bargain (doubt any positive result would have been forthcoming but who knows), but naturally that was not possible.

One argument is that the 'Left' must be 'more in touch', 'must reform', must be 'more grass roots' etc. (Sounds a bit like what they say about the EU, heh? And in Greece that argument is made, plenty) - true, but imho it won't be enough. No way.

So some other avenues have to be explored, sought, implemented.. One imperative (under the present cirucumstances) is national sovereignity, see in Greece, New Democracy being say 'for austerity', 'for the euro' and so on because they are tied up in comprador not to say Mafia circles linked to the EU, big capital, banks, instituted corrupt structures, tax evasions, etc.

Anyway this debacle has shown that parliamentary democracy is not to be afforded to small powerless countries that have been taken for a ride. I think ppl are seeing that now, that facade is cracking.

Overall the EU is in deep sh*t. It won't survive for very long in its present shape.

Jackrabbit | Jul 17, 2015 11:16:30 AM | 53

camelotkidd

This article fails to note the 'eurosclerosis' that plagued Europe in the 70's and 80's. Uncompetitive economies with large social obligations and clientist political systems that still exist in some areas.

The 'evil genious' moniker doesn't really fit. I doubt he is the only economist that would've offered such a solution. And he is certainly not the only guy that found European labor laws of the time to be a costly headace. I think he just got there first. And his demeanor is grandfatherly not menacing.

And he is not unmindful of how his work can be misused. When I took his advanced economics class in the early 90's I argued against the excesses of supply-side economics while others in the class seemed to be eager to show their support of what they assumed Mundell believed in. I got an A-.

=

There are problems with the Euro - the disparate economies, the lack of political and fiscal union, the uneven benefits, etc. - but blaming it on the academics seems like scape-goating, and nearly as bad as blaming it on the victims. Should we blame Marx for the fall of the Soviet Union?

tom | Jul 17, 2015 4:34:48 PM | 59

MRW @42

How do you reconcile the contradiction between your points 1 and 2.

If Private banks "cannot" print as much money as they like ( point 1 ), then how can fractional reserve banking Not exist in most of the world ? ( point 2 ) . If fractional reserves do not exist then they free to print as much as they like.

Of course whem I say they can "print as much as they like" , that is not a children's imagination interpretation where the private banks are free to print infinitelt, that's of course the private banks have been unlinked from previously acceptable amount of printing/keyboard strokes, to create money.

And your 3rd doesn't make any sense at all. How does a gold standard have any restrictions on having a 10% fractional reserve, 1000%, or 1,000,000% of gold holdings ? Gold doesn't make decisions, regulations and enforcement are the decision-makers. Whether it's gold or fiat.

And your point 4 is right. It is my argument to why no country should join a single currency like the euro, and nations should always have their own sovreign national currencies

juliania | Jul 18, 2015 1:08:20 AM | 66

Jackrabbit@38

Sorry to be late on here. The Chamberlain comparison is an interesting one, and Tsipras' tragic flaw may be his devotion to the Eurozone - I think it is his, not really any perceived mandate, because surely he knows a good leader makes choices as events change - to go back to my example, that's what FDR did, and very risky choices they were. Some of FDR's didn't work, so he did other things. He was making it up as he went along, and I think that's very similar to what would be needed in exiting the eurozone. You would have to bring the people along with you, with the confidence and trust that something needed to happen, charting a new course. Tsipras doesn't seem to have been willing to do that, and consequently he runs the risk of being just one more in the line of leaders who have caved under pressure.

I think it has a lot to do with lack of faith in the people themselves on the part of such leadership. Obama showed this when he didn't take public financing but already was turning to the banksters. He didn't need to do that, and he probably would have even had a bigger vote tally if he'd stayed with the people. I wonder why this new leadership seems so divorced from sympathy with those who elect them and whom they presumably serve? I don't think Tsipras is as two-faced as Obama, but he's starting to wear the same shoes. The tragedy is the Greek people so much need him to step up - the way a tennis player steps up if he's really a champion. I think there's still time but it's getting late. If he keeps on with this deal, history will take note. That's a huge price to pay.

jfl | Jul 18, 2015 1:24:02 AM | 67

Tsipras ... he messed up. If 'his' deal goes through Greece suffers the full catastrophe. The thing to do is to prevent that happening. Tsipras is a lame duck. It makes little difference why he messed up ... character flaw, bribery, incompetence, all the usual failings of the political class.

The point is he has set Greece up for more lethal loans and so his 'program' must be repudiated. The only way I can imagine that happening is via the direct participation of the Greek people in their government. If there is a majority NO! on the new' program, good. Make a counter offer ... when (if, I suppose, to be inclusive) it's rejected, exit the euro - there's life at the end of the tunnel. If not ... well, they're done for, aren't they?

Debt-slaves of the German-dominated EU : deprived of their remaining assets and their own government.

fairleft | Jul 18, 2015 2:58:03 AM | 68

Lapavitsas Calls for Exit as the Only Strategy for Greek People (the video, audio and transcript):

Why this capitulation? Why have we come to this after all the enthusiasm of six months ago? After the surge of grassroots support in this country and in Europe? The answer is clear to me. And it has to do with the wrong strategy, that was good enough to win elections, but proved disastrous in government. What is this wrong strategy? It's very simple, expressed openly time and time again. We will achieve radical change in Greece, radical change in Europe, and we will do it within the Eurozone. That was the strategy. Well, that's not possible, period.

As far as I'm concerned, the Greek left has found its leader. Lapavitsas says it all, clearly and brilliantly: Grexit and nationalize the banks.

You can't advance if you do not understand that Syriza has failed, if you keep making excuses for their failure, or try to pretend it was anything but failure. Greece must leave the euro. This has been obvious for several years, but unreasoning, 'no matter what' Eurozone love, especially prevalent within Syriza and generally among the middle-class European left and pseudo-left (Podemos, I'm looking at you!), MUST be abandoned. The euro doesn't love you; it's time to stop loving it back.

The MAIN task for the European left, if it wants to be left rather than neoliberal, is to abandon the euro. It's easy: listen and be persuaded by Lapavitsas.

okie farmer | Jul 18, 2015 4:10:39 AM | 69

More from Lapavitsas:
Finally, the deal is quite clearly neocolonial. The government of the left has signed up Greece to a neocolonial agreement.

And it is--it is neocolonial for many reasons. I will mention three. First, the deal proposes the establishment of a privatization fund of 50 billion Euros which will basically sell public property under foreign management. 25 billion of that, the first 25 billion, will go to the banks by the agreement. If there's anything left, and there won't be anything left because they'll never make 50 billion, it might go to repaying the debt and possibly to investment. Essentially, then, this fund will sell what it can of public property to recapitalize the banks. We've just agreed the deal that sells the family silver to recapitalize the failed Greek banks.
~~~
The real winner of this deal is obvious. It's staring you in the face. The real winner is the Greek oligarchy expressed in the mass media. That's why the mass media are thriving and celebrating [a win].
~~~
Because the monetary union in which, to which Greece belongs, is not ideological. I mean, it is, but it isn't just ideology. And it isn't just a balance of forces. It is an institutional mechanism. The sooner the Greeks understand this, the better for all of us. It is an institutional mechanism, it is a monetary union that's, it's a hierarchical body that works in the interests of big business and in the interests of a few countries within it. That's what the EMU is.
~~~
Now, what do we do, then? What we need to do is to withdraw our consent to this agreement. To withdraw our consent to this agreement. And to redesign a radical program that is consistent with our values, our aims, and what we've told to the Greek people all this time, all these years. And that radical program is impossible without Euro exit. The only thing that we really need to do is focus on developing a plan for Euro exit that will allow us to implement our program. It is so obvious I'm amazed that people still don't see it after five months of failed negotiations.

okie farmer | Jul 18, 2015 4:23:57 AM | 70

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33578778
The former Greek finance minster has said his country's economic reforms are "going to fail", just as formal talks on a huge bailout are set to begin.

In a BBC interview, Yanis Varoufakis said Greece was subject to a programme that will "go down in history as the greatest disaster of macroeconomic management ever".
~~~
I may disagree with [PM Tsipras] and I declared that by resigning my post
~~~
The bailout could total €86bn (£60bn) in exchange for austerity measures.

In a damning assessment, Mr Varoufakis said: "This programme is going to fail whoever undertakes its implementation."

Asked how long that would take, he replied: "It has failed already."

fairleft | Jul 18, 2015 4:51:18 AM | 71

Varoufakis is just whining. He doesn't provide a solution to the immediate and staggeringly important problem, imposition of worse austerity on Greece's people. He sounds not dissimilar to Tsipras, who also says he's unhappy/pessimistic yada yada. They're like old men complaining about the weather. Whining and whinging, Tsipras has signed up to carry out the police state repression that's the only way his new legislation can be carried out.

Even though the solution/escape is clear, as Lapavitsas points out. It's almost as if the Syriza apologists are incapable of saying/thinking the word 'Grexit'. Who is holding their tongues?

mcohen | Jul 18, 2015 6:59:22 AM | 72

parking weapons like f-16 and submarines in countries is a good idea...they are maintained and serviced and kept ready for active service...this all under the cover of arms deals etc etc.

there is only one flaw..the government of that country must be trusted....they cannot change sides...greece is in a unique position.opposite north africa,on the med, so it is well positioned for launching of attacks,on countries like libya or tunisia or even egypt.

discrete crete sounds like a good name.

paulmeli | Jul 18, 2015 8:15:45 AM | 73

"Varoufakis is just whining. He doesn't provide a solution…"

Exactly. There is no solution that doesn't include leaving the Euro and reclaiming monetary sovereignty (although that alone won't do it…they need astute, competent leadership too). A solution that presumes changing the fundamental Euro structure to include a fiscal component is never going to happen, the big guns (Germany) would leave before that would happen.

Playing long shots works in the movies, in real life not so much.

Most of the billions of words that have been written on this subject have been little more than wailing and gnashing of teeth. Denial.

There are several stages to go before there is any viable solution that citizens will sign on to, that won't be co-opted by TPTB.

honest! | Jul 18, 2015 9:28:16 AM | 74

I'm not saying Syriza made all of the right mover, but neither do I think they can be considered "the Greek People's enemy". Not at all. They appear to be being honest.

guest77 | Jul 17, 2015 7:52:02 PM | 64

What a load of utter nonsense.

Honest?

They demanded the right to seek a mandate from the people before proceeding. They then got exactly the mandate they claimed to have sought . . . . . .

. . . And then, promptly ignored it entirely.

=======

There's nothing "honest" in that. Cynical? Absolutely. Manipulative? Certainly

Threacherous? Most definitely

But "honest"? . . . . GTFO!.

jfl | Jul 18, 2015 10:06:29 AM | 75

@71, @73

And you guys are just endlessly whining about the whiners ... the political class has chosen its preferred 'solution'. They're all done. If there is to be a real solution it has got to come from the Greek people.

@37

That's quite an article. I cut and pasted the picture of the 'bow-tie' graph and made the table of the 50 top controllers from page 33 sortable below it.

page 33 of The network of global corporate control

I'll try to summarize the significance of the bow-tie graph and its abbreviated labels tomorrow, for those who don't want to read the full article themselves.

Twenty-four of the top 50 controllers are nominally American.

Forty-four are financial.

Noirette | Jul 18, 2015 11:43:49 AM | 76

Posted some time back about the ESM (etc.) Here some info that give OK descriptions.

Eric Zuesse, global research

http://tinyurl.com/pqwbvqa

> a link in that article to the Treaty (automatic download)

then this, from the Corporate Europe Observatory

http://tinyurl.com/o3eyg25

> a link to a leaked text explaining the Troikas plans for the privatization fund (that 50 bn) pdf

http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/esm_report_to_greece_0.pdf

for some extra financial info (the only available to the public?) one must go to their site and click through and through - all automatic downloads.

http://www.esm.europa.eu

As MRW writes, at 40, there is no resemblance between EU financial and pol. structures those of the Soviet, Chinese Communist Parties.

MRW maybe you are hyping the Nazi past? Mitterand and Thatcher particularly were against the re-unification of Germany. Mitterand wanted to lock Germany down in the Euro in an 'alliance' (or because he was a bankster's man, in fact laws prohibiting speculation were lifted in France well before Billy C's annulment of Glass-Steagall, the US played catch-up) and Germany made the trade, with difficulty (attachment to the mark, independence, etc.) Controlling countries through their currency and banking system is not an original or particularly Nazi idea. For ex it works right now in parts of Africa with the CFA and nobody talks about it. The French didn't borrow that idea from the Nazis.

rufus magister | Jul 18, 2015 12:09:41 PM | 77

Jackrabbit at 38, juliania at 66, jfl & fairleft >67

Like many, I've been waiting for the longest running drama on the Athens stage to finally get to the last act before attempting to make sense of the staging, plot and characters.

I still don't think we're quite there yet; probably a little more political fall-out still, but not much, see e.g., a majority of the Syriza Central Committee opposed the austerity deal.

The question of the political leadership of the left, however, is always an interesting topic. Also from the 17 July "Links" page at - dare I mention the name? - Naked Capitalism, John Pilger at Alternet argues thatThe Leaders of Greece Are Some of the Phoniest Idealists You'll Ever See. It seems hard to disagree.

Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures....

The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as "liberal" or even "left", Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, "schooled in postmodernism", as Alex Lantier wrote. [I could not immediately find whatever Pilger is quoting, he is affiliated with the "wsws" website; such sad sloppiness at a major site in these days of html coding...]

For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza's luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but "better terms" of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with "identity politics" and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not resistance, but subservience. "Mainstream" political life in Britain exemplifies this.

This is not inevitable, a done deal, if we wake up from the long, postmodern coma and reject the myths and deceptions of those who claim to represent us, and fight.

How then do democratic movements ensure that their leaders views and priorities accord with their own, and can be held responsible and be replaced? What sort of leadership is needed for industrial as well as political democracy?

rufus magister | Jul 18, 2015 12:18:48 PM | 78

ps to 77 -- Amongst the parties affected by the Munich Agreement, I think Edvard Beneš, the Czechoslovakian President, is a better fit for poor Tsipras.

paulmeli | Jul 18, 2015 12:54:19 PM | 79

"the political class has chosen its preferred 'solution'. They're all done. If there is to be a real solution it has got to come from the Greek people."

No kidding?

I don't know what's worse, repeating the obvious ad nauseam or whining.

Noirette | Jul 18, 2015 2:00:07 PM | 80

Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures…. a quote by rufus at 77

NO. Syriza was elected on a platform of 'staying in the EU-Euro' and at the same time 'reducing /abolishing austerity.'

This mandate might be considered contradictory or ridiculous, illusory, doomed to fail, etc. (Yes I agree.)

Also Syriza has a slim voter support and thus had to form a coalition Gvmt.

Well in function of that contradictory mandate they managed (at terrible cost and perhaps misguidely) half of it. Staying in the Euro.

What is surprising? Nothing.

Why they chose the one above the other is abundantly clear.

Wayoutwest | Jul 18, 2015 2:24:51 PM | 81

RM@77

I enjoy good discussion and criticism but this carping and sniping about Syriza from the US Left says more about writers such as JP and the weaklings of the Left, that have attained a new level of meaninglessness, and has allowed someone like Bernie Sanders to claim to be a Socialist without any real blowback, is trying.

MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:29:54 PM | 85

paulmeli at @63 has got it exactly right. In all modern economies on a fiat currency, loans create deposits.

Bankers, as a result, create 'credit money', NOT new interest-free money. (Credit money also means that one person's asset is another person's liability. At the commercial banking level within the real economy that includes collateral, timed repayment schedule, and interest owed, which is income to the issuing bank. Everything nets to zero at this level across the macroeconomy.)

The US federal government, on the other hand, adds new money into the economy. Only entity that can. Only the US federal government can introduce new, interest-free money into the economy, and it does it via congressional spending based on the needs of its citizens, and where it wants the economy to grow (giving 40% of it to the financial institutions is NOT GROWTH). Which the mo-fos we've elected do not understand.

One small quibble, Paul. The amount of physical currency, physical cash and coin, is around 11.5% to12% of the available money. The rest are treasury securities. Don't forget that countries like Ecuador are pegged to the USD and need US cash for their citizens. Ecuador's central bank orders them from the US Treasury (Bureau of Printing and Engraving) and puts up 100% of the demanded amount in assets (treasury securities) to pay for them.

MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:31:15 PM | 86

Tom @61

Sorry for the delay. I'm traveling. Good questions, btw.

First, let's clear up what fractional reserve banking is. This is a lousy simplistic example, but it will work. And let's imagine a small western town with one bank, which I will call Bank Buckeroo. Introducing a second bank in the town mean I would have to explain how interbank reserves work, and it doesn't matter in this explanation. [BTW, US banks DO NOT LEND their reserves; reserves serve another purpose in the US banking system; namely to help the Federal Reserve retain the overnight interest rate target that banks charge each other. Canada, for example, doesn't even have a reserve requirement for their commercial banks.]

Fractional reserve banking explained

OK. Johnny Schwartzburger sidles into his Bank Buckeroo and deposits 100 bucks in cash in his savings account.

Now Bank Buckeroo has got $100 more than it had yesterday.

Because the reserve requirement is, say, 10%-the FRACTION of the loan that the bank must retain under "fractional reserve banking"--Bank Buckeroo holds onto $10 and can loan out $90.

Sally Sweetpea needs $90 for her beauty shop and she borrows $90 from Bank Buckeroo, and deposits that in her checking account.

Now Bank Buckeroo holds onto $9 (10% of $90) and can loan out $81.

Old Ray Saddleback needs $81 to buy supplies for the only café in town, so he hits up Bank Buckeroo for an $81 loan.

Bank Buckeroo holds onto $8.10 (10% of $81) and can loan out $72.90.

Paddy O'Gilligan needs $72.90 to top off his supply of whiskey at the only bar in town (and this banker likes his whiskey), so he borrows $72.90 from Bank Buckeroo.

Bank Buckeroo holds onto $7.29 (10% of $72.90) and can loan out $65.61

You see where I'm going with this. Eventually, Bank Buckeroo will have reserved all $100, but will have extended credit against that $100 to customers that he knows are good to pay back their loans. Under the gold standard system before 1933, each dollar had a statement on it that you could exchange 20 of the one-dollar bills for one ounce of gold (not exactly the statement but that's what it meant). It was a "fixed exchange rate." The value of a dollar (US) was fixed to the value of gold. So Bank Buckeroo has Johnny Schwartzburger's original $100 in cash that guarantees it can trade-in the cash for $100 in gold anytime it wants. It's protected against that loss. The only thing the banker has to worry about is whether his customers can pay back the new loans, and he knows their creditworthiness intimately.

That all changed in 1933-no more gold standard in the US

We went off the gold standard. The value of the USD was no longer pegged to the value of gold, the supply of which the US federal government could not control globally except for certain US mines. Each new goldmine find globally affected the value of the dollar before 1913 and led to extraordinary panics and busts in the last half of the 1800s. More gold available meant the value of the dollar dropped, and that affected international trade, and whether people exchanged their dollars for gold stateside and hoarded it, further diminishing the amount of money available in the real economy. It was the National Gold Something-or-Other Act in 1900 that pegged the USD at $20/ounce.

Interestingly enough, it was Marriner Eccles, whom FDR made the first chairman of the Federal Reserve three years later, a Republican Mormon banker from Provo UT who appeared before the Senate and House of Representatives in 1932/33 to make the case for dropping the gold standard (he wasn't the only one however). Eccles became more popular than Miley Cyrus. Eccles had seen the devastation that the banking system was doing to his municipal and rural customers. Eccles was 22 when he made his first million after his father died and he had to take over the family businesses, which included a bank. He was a financial genius who could speak plain English to commoners about banking and esoteric financial concepts. His ideas predated John Maynard Keynes by three years. (BTW, Keynes was never taught in American universities, so anyone sneeringly invoking Keynes doesn't know what they are talking about. The first Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Samuelson, is supposed to be the explainer and keeper of Keynes ideas, but Samuelson admitted in 1989 in a video interview that he never read more than half the book, and that he never understood Keynes' ideas to begin with.)

[to be contd]

Correction: Each new goldmine find globally affected the value of the dollar before 1913

Should read: Each new goldmine find globally affected the value of the dollar before 1900

MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:34:22 PM | 87

Tom @61 [contd.]

If Private banks "cannot" print as much money as they like ( point 1 ), then how can fractional reserve banking Not exist in most of the world ? ( point 2 ) . If fractional reserves do not exist then they free to print as much as they like.

[…]

And your 3rd doesn't make any sense at all. How does a gold standard have any restrictions on having a 10% fractional reserve, 1000%, or 1,000,000% of gold holdings ? Gold doesn't make decisions, regulations and enforcement are the decision-makers. Whether it's gold or fiat.

Loans create deposits. Yes, 'out of thin air'. Bankers can say 'Yay' or 'Nay' based on the cut of your jib, or the color of your skin, although they are not allowed to.
Banks don't print money. They issue credit, i.e. 'credit money'. They mark up the customer's bank account with computer keystrokes in the amount of the loan. Banks issue credit money based on two things: (1) customer creditworthiness, (2) customer income. They also require collateral.
Banks have to maintain reserves in their banks accounts at the Federal Reserve on all the loans they make.It is a percentage of the loan, and banks cannot loan out this money. If the bank doesn't have enough reserves in their Fed account, they have to borrow from other banks at the Fed Funds Rate, or overnight interest rate, set by the Fed. (The Fed uses this overnight interest rate to promote or demote bank lending in the economy, among other things.)
If the bank has been making bad loans or is overextended-this goes to your Point 1 about banks being free to issue as much credit money as they like-and other banks know that, the other banks might not loan it any reserves.
In that case, the solvency-suspect bank has to slink to the Fed's Discount Window where they can borrow the required reserves, but the interest rate is punitive, and it usually alerts bank examiners that there's a problem at the bank. So having to go to the Discount Window is not something a bank wants to broadcast.
By law, the Federal Reserve must supply reserves to banks within the federally chartered banking system, or declare the overextended bank insolvent.
A 'check and balance' on a bank loaning out as "as much as they like" is meeting its reserves requirement.

About gold. When you have a gold standard, you're on a fixed exchange rate: X amount of currency for each ounce of gold. That's when fractional reserve banking makes sense because the bank only wants to loan out X amount of money based on the amount of gold in the kitty. It's up to the banker to make intelligent and safe decisions about who he loans to by doing his due diligence.

On a gold standard, he who owns the gold, owns the country. When we got rid of the gold standard, goldminers and gold owners stopped owning this country, including Mr. Rothschild. We fucked him up the ass. Our money is based on the 'full faith and credit of the US federal government' and we issue our own currency. To boot, we are the reserve currency worldwide.

MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:36:21 PM | 88

The thread didn't take my formatting in @88. Here is the first half presented in a clearer format:
----------------------------------------------

In response to Tom's @61

  • Loans create deposits. Yes, 'out of thin air'. Bankers can say 'Yay' or 'Nay' based on the cut of your jib, or the color of your skin, although they are not allowed to.
  • Banks don't print money. They issue credit, i.e. 'credit money'. They mark up the customer's bank account with computer keystrokes in the amount of the loan. Banks issue credit money based on two things: (1) customer creditworthiness, (2) customer income. They also require collateral.
  • Banks have to maintain reserves in their banks accounts at the Federal Reserve on all the loans they make.It is a percentage of the loan, and banks cannot loan out this money. If the bank doesn't have enough reserves in their Fed account, they have to borrow from other banks at the Fed Funds Rate, or overnight interest rate, set by the Fed. (The Fed uses this overnight interest rate to promote or demote bank lending in the economy, among other things.)
  • If the bank has been making bad loans or is overextended-this goes to your Point 1 about banks being free to issue as much credit money as they like-and other banks know that, the other banks might not loan it any reserves.
  • In that case, the solvency-suspect bank has to slink to the Fed's Discount Window where they can borrow the required reserves, but the interest rate is punitive, and it usually alerts bank examiners that there's a problem at the bank. So having to go to the Discount Window is not something a bank wants to broadcast.
  • By law, the Federal Reserve must supply reserves to banks within the federally chartered banking system, or declare the overextended bank insolvent.
  • A 'check and balance' on a bank loaning out as "as much as they like" is meeting its reserves requirement.

MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:41:19 PM | 89

Some reporters are finally beginning to understand what I have been yammering on here over the past 18 months:

Why America Is Not The Next Greece
The key difference is that the United States has its own central bank -- the most powerful one in the world.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-america-is-not-the-next-greece_55a814c5e4b04740a3df6b11?

MRW | Jul 18, 2015 7:45:47 PM | 90

[Jul 18, 2015] Little-Known History of the Euro Crisis Was Baked In from the Start

Jul 18, 2015 | Zero Hedge
windcatcher

Communism definition: A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Central banksters are not advocating communism. Indeed, the totalitarian fascist financial criminals advocate no publically owned property. They are buying public lands for pennies on the dollar as they enslave the population via representative debt.

The banksters are plundering criminals that want all that is valuable and to hell with the population, there are too many people anyway, let them starve. The criminal fascist central banksters hate any public support of the people. That is not a communist or a socialist and certainly not a democratic concept; it is a totalitarian criminal bankster cartel fascist concept.

Benito Mussolini in his book titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" defined fascist form of government as the merger of corporate monopoly with government. The bankster modern fascist should be branded as fascist, and no other, to distinguish them from representative democracy (government of, for and by the People.

windcatcher

The European Union before the Eurozone, was designed and implemented by the bankster financed and controlled Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Goldman Sachs is but one tentacle of the criminal bankster world financial octopus of the New World Order Empire.

Our American Constitution has not been destroyed (same for Greece Constitution); it has been overthrown by bankster fascist (government of, for and by multinational corporate monopoly). The American Constitution and our Bill of Rights, as authored primarily by James Madison and explained in the Federalist Papers, are still intact today.

Our Founding Fathers had to deal with the same problems we are facing today: domination by corporate monopoly over the American economy and obeying foreign laws.

We fought the American Revolution to be free from the corporate monopoly and domination of the American economy by the British Empire.

After we won the war, our Founding Fathers along with economist Adam Smith's "Free Enterprise" economy, the American Constitution was written to guarantee the American People that the government function was for and by the People--- not government of, for and by the criminal corporate monopoly. The Age of Enlightenment of constitutional democratic republics began.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, the Constitution, if not vigilantly guarded against criminal corporate monopoly corruption, the people will have to refreash our Constitution with revolution. Indeed, our nation was founded on revolution in rejection of corporate monopoly and domination by totalitarian criminal banksters.

Enough is enough! Nationalize the banks and requisition them to serve the People to restart our American Free Enterprise economy, throw the fascist totalitarian bankster criminals in prison!

If the criminal banksters were prosecuted for American mortgage fraud back in 2000 the criminals would have been in prison instead of destroying the economies of the world with their fascist totalitarian New World Order Empire.

Radical Marijuana

I did not previously know those historical details presented in the article above, however, those do not surprise me! The European Union and its Euro were projects of the international bankers, within which context almost all of the successful national politicians were the banksters' puppets, voted for by enough of the people who have become the banksters' muppets, while the European politicians, and those that voted for them, became mostly even more so...

The EU and Euro were stepping stones.

Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley:

"powers of financial capitalism
had another far-reaching goal,
nothing less than to create a
world system of financial
control in private hands
able to dominate the
political system of
each country and
the economy of
the world as
a whole ..."

That has already been mostly achieved, to make:

WONDERLAND MATRIX BIZARRO MIRROR WORLD,

where everything appears absurdly backwards!

[Jul 18, 2015] Why is Germany so tough on Greece? Look back 25 years

"...The lesson Schäuble learned – and which is likely to influence his decision-making now – is that if you act the pure-hearted neoliberal you can still get away with decisions that don't make perfect economic sense."
.
"...But Schäuble should have learned from history that the Treuhand gamble had catastrophic psychological consequences. Even though the agency was run by Germans, who spoke German, still it was seen by many in the east as an occupying force."
.
"...Schäuble's idea of foreign countries controlling Greek assets and moving them abroad is an even more humiliating concept for any country. Schäuble comes across as a tough and sober accountant. In fact he is just an ordinary politician repeating old mistakes. "
.
"...The assault on his life, who forced him to a wheel-chair, made Schaeuble, who always was an arrogant, egocentric, right-wing conservative, a vengeful and bitter arrogant egocentric conservative, who hates everything even remotely socialist."
.
"...And the whole Greece thing just shows how idiotic neoliberalism actually is..."
.
"...This talk of nation vs nation is a distraction. It's better to follow the money. It quickly becomes clear that those who have profited from Greece joining the Euro are keeping their money and the rest are having to suffer the consequences. Goldman Sacks have made billions as have investors in Europe. Meanwhile the people of Greece, Germany or the broader EU are being told they have been reckless and will have to suffer the consequences."
.
"...It's enough to be in the wider neoliberal EU to go under. Being in the eurozone just adds extra pain, waterboarding and rectal feeding. As EU apparatchiks admitted themselves. Maybe the US can now shut down Gitmo by sending the inmates to Greece, where conditions are just as harsh."
.
"...Whilst national governments are printing money in gay abandon to bail out their banker backers... Simultaneously fleecing their taxpayers under the the moral pretence of 'Austerity', we have witnessed an unelected cartel eviscerate a sovereign nation. The Greek Balance Sheet of Misery is deep in the red! Apparently, people no longer matter - Politicians and Bankers have a free rein. Greece fell for the EU dream... It was a political sucker to be exploited for the benefit of the Project. Post 2008, it has been treated like dirt. Its neighbours should take note - this Union is a nasty creature."
.
"...Many many people these on both sides of the former border are living in a way where 1990 GDR living standards would just about be an upgrade."
.
"...The nepotism and clientelism of the ruling class has been a problem since independence from Turkey and successive Greek governments have promised and failed to rectify it but that doesn't excuse humiliating an entire nation and pushing it to the point of economic and civil collapse because 'they deserve to reap what they sow' regardless of the consequences for the entire region with IS just a few hundred kilometres away. This is the worst case of being unable to see the wood for the trees that we have seen since the 'allies' invaded Iraq on the pretext of saving the West from nuclear weapons that did not exist.

The vindictive behaviour towards Greece marshalled by Germany last weekend has lost it a lot of friends and reminded us where its mindset comes from and where it leads to if more civilised nations do not step in to reel it in. Habermas in particular is particularly cognisant of this."

Jul 18, 2015 | The Guardian
Every drama needs a great baddie, and in the latest act of the Greek crisis Wolfgang Schäuble, the 72-year-old German finance minister, has emerged as the standout villain: critics see him as a ruthless technocrat who strong-armed an entire country and now plans to strip it of its assets. One part of the bailout deal in particular has scandalised many Europeans: the proposed creation of a fund designated to cherrypick €50bn (£35bn) worth of Greek public assets and privatise them to pay the country's debts. But the key to understanding Germany's strategy is that for Schäuble there is nothing new about any of this.

It was 25 years ago, during the summer of 1990, that Schäuble led the West German delegation negotiating the terms of the unification with formerly communist East Germany. A doctor of law, he was West Germany's interior minister and one of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's closest advisers, the go-to guy whenever things got tricky.

The situation in the former GDR was not too dissimilar from that in Greece when Syriza swept to power: East Germans had just held their first free elections in history, only months after the Berlin Wall fell, and some of the delegates from East Berlin dreamed of a new political system, a "third way" between the west's market economy and the east's socialist system – while also having no idea how to pay the bills anymore.

The West Germans, on the other side of the table, had the momentum, the money and a plan: everything the state of East Germany owned was to be absorbed by the West German system and then quickly sold to private investors to recoup some of the money East Germany would need in the coming years. In other words: Schäuble and his team wanted collateral.

At that time almost every former communist company, shop or petrol station was owned by the Treuhand, or trust agency – an institution originally thought up by a handful of East German dissidents to stop state-run firms from being sold to West German banks and companies by corrupt communist cadres. The Treuhand's mission: to turn all the big conglomerates, companies and tiny shops into private firms, so they could be part of a market economy.

Schäuble and his team didn't care that the dissidents had planned to hand out shares of companies to the East Germans, issued by the Treuhand – a concept that incidentally led to the rise of the oligarchs in Russia. But they liked the idea of a trust fund because it operated outside the government: while technically overseen by the finance ministry, it was publicly perceived as an independent agency. Even before Germany merged into a single state in October 1990, the Treuhand was firmly in West German hands.

Their aim was to privatise as many companies as possible, as soon as possible – and if you were to ask most Germans about the Treuhand today they would say it achieved that objective. It didn't do so in a way that was popular with the people of East Germany, where the Treuhand quickly became known as the ugly face of capitalism. It did a horrible job in explaining the transformation to shellshocked East Germans who felt overpowered by this strange new agency. To make matters worse, the Treuhand became a hotbed of corruption.

The agency took all the blame for the bleak situation in East Germany. Kohl and Schäuble's party, the conservative CDU, was re-elected for years to come, while others paid the price: one of the Treuhand's presidents, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, was shot and killed by leftwing terrorists. (Schäuble too became the victim of an attack that left him permanently in a wheelchair, only days after German reunification – but his paranoid attacker's motives were unrelated to the political events)

But the reality of what the Treuhand did is different from the popular perception – and that should be a warning for both Schäuble and the rest of Europe. Selling East Germany's assets for maximum profit turned out to be more difficult than imagined. Almost all assets of real value – the banks, the energy sector – had already been snapped up by West German companies. Within days of the introduction of the West German mark, the economy in the east completely broke down. Like Greece, it required a massive bailout programme organised by Schäuble's government, but in secret: they set aside 100bn marks (£35bn) to keep the old East German economy afloat, a figure that became public only years later.

With prices for labour and supplies going through the roof, the already stressed East Germany economy went into freefall and the Treuhand had no chance to sell many of its businesses. After a couple of months it started to close down entire companies, firing thousands of workers. In the end the Treuhand didn't make any money for the German government at all: it took in a mere €34bn for all the companies in the east combined, losing €105bn.

What the Treuhand did should be a warning for Schäuble and Europe: the economy in East Germany completely broke down

In reality, the Treuhand became not just a tool for privatisation but a quasi-socialist holding company. It lost billions of marks because it went on paying the wages of many workers in the east and kept some unviable factories alive – a positive aspect usually drowned out in the vilifications of the agency. Because Kohl and, during the summer of 1990, Schäuble weren't Chicago economists keen on radical experiments but politicians who wanted to be re-elected, they pumped millions into a failing economy. This is where parallels with Greece end: there were political limits to the austerity a government could impose on its own people.

The lesson Schäuble learned – and which is likely to influence his decision-making now – is that if you act the pure-hearted neoliberal you can still get away with decisions that don't make perfect economic sense. If Schäuble is acting tough with Greece right now, it is because his electorate wants him to act that way; it's not just that he doesn't care about the Greek people, he wants people to believe he doesn't care, because he sees the political advantage in it.

But Schäuble should have learned from history that the Treuhand gamble had catastrophic psychological consequences. Even though the agency was run by Germans, who spoke German, still it was seen by many in the east as an occupying force.

Schäuble's idea of foreign countries controlling Greek assets and moving them abroad is an even more humiliating concept for any country. Schäuble comes across as a tough and sober accountant. In fact he is just an ordinary politician repeating old mistakes.

Related: Greece's debt can be written off –whatever Wolfgang Schäuble says | Philip Inman


DerFremde 18 Jul 2015 07:48

If Schäuble is acting tough with Greece right now, it is because his electorate wants him to act that way;

Yes, after they were programmed to feel that way by the well-orchestrated media campaign that's gone on for 5 years now.

Zabka 18 Jul 2015 07:42

Schäuble is a nasty sociopath and Europe is paying for the fourth time Germany's folly and Imperial ambitions


sacco ThinkingAustralian 18 Jul 2015 07:41

How could the Greek MPs have voted against the package ? The unelected euro institutions deliberately crippled their banking system just prior to the referendum. The unelected euro institutions have had an ongoing police of regime change in Greece. For that alone they need to be abolished.

You appear to be confusing several things. The governance of the Eurozone is largely in the hands of the so-called Eurogroup of EZ finance ministers, and what you describe as the "unelected euro institutions" are, for the most part, as mortified by the situation as you or I but do not have a role in which they can exercise significant control.

Their influence is (one might even say "unfortunately" in the light of events) rather limited. In particular, as regards the ferocious arguments over the release of €7.2bn which have dominated the headlines for the last six months with its endless arbitrary deadlines, the European Commission team of civil servants who provide the secretariat which performs technical work and assessments for the Eurogroup concluded that Greece had satisfied the conditions set for release of the funds, and this outcome was communicated by the "unelected" Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs -Pierre Moscovici- at their meeting last December!

The Eurogroup ministers decided, however, (possibly together with the influence of the IMF) that they had other reasons not to release the funds. Why? Many observers concluded that they did so mainly in order to retain a powerful political lever to prevent any incoming Greek government after the elections from taking any decisions of which they, the Eurogroup, might not approve.

it's worth remembering, though, that the weighting of Germany's vote alone is sufficient to impose a blocking veto, and that this is also the group with most political power over the European Central Bank. Although the ECB has some nominal independence, in practice the current conditions are far beyond what can be dealt with using the instruments and policies that it has been given, so it is constantly beholden to its political masters for permission to take necessary action: in these urgent circumstances, a veto is almost as effective as absolute control, as the only actions that can be proposed are those which won't be vetoed.

Fstephens56 Fstephens56 18 Jul 2015 07:28

In the end Treuhand sold out 95% of the Eastern German economy to Westerners, who in turn didn't even have to present a feasible plan (or money to back the investment). It's easy to suppose that anybody who handed over a few bills to the right hands was able to snatch up a bit of value. Usually the Eastern companies "sold" for 1 Mark.

However, Western German "investors" were not really interested in another automobile manufacturer in the East, or another innovative company that produces household goods. They saw these companies a competition and their only interest was in seeing them closed down or reduced to a minor subsidiary.
If you have any doubts about it, just look up the "Foron" scandal. It is a perfect example on how the Eastern German economy was systematically and deliberately ruined by competitors, who wouldn't even shy away from threats and illegal activities to ensure their position.

Only 5% of former GDR companies were sold to Eastern German investors, interested in carrying on. However, since Treuhand favored Western German buyers over Eastern German investors, these 5% were more or less either "left-overs", that nobody else wanted, or rare examples of factories, where the workers managed to buy out their own company and run it themselves after other investors failed to present themselves.

So in short Treuhand failed in all but 1 thing: filling the pockets of their associates. They stole from the poor and used it to bolster the profits of the rich.

But back to Schaeuble! He was Kohl's favored minister by the time and it's save to assume that he was more or less involved in (or at least aware of) the proceedings. Schaeuble is a neo-liberal, law-and-order, right-wing nationalist, who thinks of political office not as a service to the nation, but as a business meant to make money for the one who runs it. (Just listen to some of his former speeches if you have any doubts about that)

The assault on his life, who forced him to a wheel-chair, made Schaeuble, who always was an arrogant, egocentric, right-wing conservative, a vengeful and bitter arrogant egocentric conservative, who hates everything even remotely socialist.

Over the years his speeches as minister for inner affairs grew more and more disturbing. Making it evident, that Schaeuble thought of common people as nothing more than a violent, incompetent mob, that had to be educated and controlled by a superior political cast. (Just listen to one of his later speeches as minister for inner affairs in Merkel's government concerning his thoughts about public opposition against his political ideas.)

Schaeuble was then by believed by many Germans (including some media) to be an overly bitter and possibly dangerous "lunatic", unfit for political office. Upon Merkel's reelection, Schaeuble was then removed from office and instituted as finance minister. Possibly a step to "ship him off" to a position where he could do less harm.

That said: the second thing to know is that the crisis in Greece is nothing by another crisis of the financial sector. Private investors invested money into Greece, that Greece is unable to pay back. Unfortunate - but such are the risks of the stock market, right?

Not quite! Because what actually happened was that Germany (and other European) countries used tax-payer's money to bail-out European banks a second time, by backing up the already defaulted Greek loans with public money.

So the money "given" to Greece is not really helping the Greek people. It is meant to use public money to support private investors and European banks.

And as always: where big money is moving through many hands, those who would like to hold a sum of it, aren't far removed.
As an example, it is said that Schaeuble talked about an "investment plan" that would see a substantial sum put in an institution run by one of his relatives.

A "mere coincidence" of course, but one that explains more precisely what is going on than the article above. It's all about clever ways to turn public money into private money, while keeping public eyes and public discussion fixed on "hard but necessary" austerity measures. Measures that were never meant to help Greece, let alone end the crisis! All of this maneuvering is just meant to help the private investors and keep them from losing money.
Investors, that were never interested in a strong Greek economy. But only in an opportunity to snatch up some valuable pieces of Greek property for a bargain and either gut and sell them for a short-term profit, or to rid themselves of possible competition.

So in the end, the only relevance the historical context has at this point is one that we have already known and is true for ANY historical context: people are doing gruesome thing for personal gain and few ever care about the consequences their actions impose unto other people.

Fstephens56 18 Jul 2015 07:27

The article couldn't be any more dead wrong, if it told us that Schaeuble did it because he was a reptilian overlord from another dimension.

First thing to know about him: he was close friends with former chancellor Kohl and his minister for inner affairs. Now Kohl is a man as corrupt as they come. Kohl had close ties to the media via his dear friend Leo Kirch (a media-mogul) and various companies. And if you doubt that Kohl ran his office like a business: the GDR secret service had surveillance tapes of Kohl accepting bribes. I say "had" because Kohl used the power of his office to see them destroyed.

After which he made it a habit of using his money and influence to sue people who dared to openly oppose his version of the truth. A habit that he hasn't given up until today: he recently sued a ghost-writer, that he fired over "differences of opinion" for publishing some of the less favorable things he had learned during his interviews with the former chancellor.

Schaeuble and Kohl were then involved in the "Leuna" affair. Where several French officials, Kohl as the then-chancellor of Germany and probably some of his ministers where allegedly taking bribes for one of the most obvious heists ever! The most grotesque scandal yet in German history.

"Leuna" was the name of a former GDR chemistry empire worth billions and billions of pounds and the beating heart of the Eastern German economy. High-quality plastics, artificial fabrics and pharmaceutical products were amongst the key export products and fed a whole region bigger than Wales.

Kohl used the power of his office to personally take control over the "Leuna" asset, snatching it away from under the nose of Treuhand. And gifted it to French company Total for the symbolic price of 1 Mark (about a quarter of a British Pound).

With this "deal" French "Total" took sole control of ALL gas-stations throughout Eastern Germany, THE ONLY petrol refinery in Eastern German able to produce gasoline, a long-running fixed-price deal with Russia for deliverance of finest Siberian oil reserves paid in Ruble at a bargain price, control over SEVERAL PIPELINES was included for free, and ALL of the chemistry production of Eastern Germany combined in an industrial complex the size of the City of London complete with its own railroad system, able to produce plastics and high-quality pharmaceutical products 24/7.

And like this wasn't enough, the Kohl-Schaeuble-duo than "gifted" Millions of German tax-payers money to the company. Because it was quite obvious that Total got more out of that heist than they could possibly chew.

This "Leuna" heist affected roughly 500.000 workers in Eastern Germany. It cost the job of tens of thousands of people. The result of which were angry protests against Kohl and people throwing eggs and foul vegetables at the man, as he later visited the region.

However, this is not even the end of it. The article states that the banks had already been sold before the Treuhand came to be, but fails to mention "how" exactly that happened. It was Kohl himself who oversaw the process and gave them away on a bargain due to a little "accounting error" that "miscalculated" the value of these banks much to the advantage of the buyers. With this deal Kohl effectively gifting billions to Western German banks, circumventing any public control of what is happening.

Meanwhile the Treuhand had some shady dealings of its own. The article mentions that one of the heads of "Treuhand" was assassinated. What the article fails to mention however is, that the man killed was believed to be the first (and only) ever not to be part of a government-friendly group of individual and he was killed right BEFORE he to get a good look at the books. He was quickly replaced by another, more agreeable individual.

In other words: the reunification was a mess and a huge scandal, where most people involved were doing their very best to siphon as much money and personal gain out of the process as possible, before proper order could be established.

The price for this corruption was paid by those, unable to fight back:

  • - pensioners were denied money from their private pension plans (a result of the bank-deal)
  • - millions of people lost their jobs
  • - nearly all small businesses went bankrupt, breaking the back of what remained of Eastern German economy
  • - highly educated and young people fled the country in hundreds of thousands, leaving behind ghost cities (some cities like Halle-Neustadt lost up to half of their population)
  • - real-estate values plummeted, leaving people with nothing

ItsAnOutrage2 cpp4ever 18 Jul 2015 07:02

...the creditors should have done their due diligence better and never lent to Greece in the first place, and at some point they will have to accept some lose.

They have already accepted a loss of over €100billion. The argument over further lending to Greece is, in essence, about paying Greece not to devalue the Euro and damage the political and economic structure of the EU. Some people think it's worth the hit, and others think we should let Greece go. I am in the latter camp; I've nothing against the Greeks, but their government is only interested in getting re-elected. Greece is toast in either event, so let them start rebuilding sooner rather than later.

AndrewDavidBoyle Paidenoughalready 18 Jul 2015 06:52

'Other peoples money?!' The crisis was manfactured from 2008 by banks and institutions. This video is the confession of an economic hitman. It shows how financial crisis are manufactured. It was his job.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XWuAct1BxHU

tichchurch t1m0thy1 18 Jul 2015 06:51

The bankers don't just have a lot to answer for, they have it ALL to answer for. This is ALL their mess. Their corruption,and their greed. They should be the ones to pay, not the innocent citizens of Greece who, on top of suffering the high unemployment and hardships imposed on them by austerity, are also having to put up with the unfair accusations, insults and vilification, that the wrongly informed general public from the rest of the EU is directing at them.

AndrewDavidBoyle 18 Jul 2015 06:36

The Investment For Greece Fund

KFW is led by a six-member Managing Board headed by Ulrich Schröder, which in turn reports to a 37-member Supervisory Board. The chair of the Supervisory Board changes annually between the German Federal Ministers of Finance and Economic Affairs; the chairman for 2015 is Wolfgang Schäuble.
The KfW will contribute financially to the fund and provide it with technical assistance. Whatever that means.

The Investment For Greece fund was a bilateral agreement between KMF and the Greek government. Interesting that Tsipras was keen to avoid this fund and instead create another one!

Up to €50bn (£35bn) worth of Greek assets will be transferred to a new fund, which will contribute to the recapitalisation of the country's banks. The fund will be based in Athens, not Luxembourg as Germany had originally demanded.

The location of the fund was a key sticking point in the marathon overnight talks. Transferring the assets out of Greece would have meant "liquidity asphyxiation", Tsipras said.

We will see what happens here...

johnbig SenseCir 18 Jul 2015 06:29

Very interesting article giving information not generally known, at least by me.

However the lesson I take from this is that the reunification of Germany on a 1 D mark for 1 Ost mark basis was a political decision of the highest order probably made by Kohl himself. The economics then had just to follow as best possible without negating or modifying the main decision. Schauble was obliged to follow Kohl's policy decision

In Greece it seems to be the economics leads all other considerations and the political aim of helping back to its feet a small economy and thus keeping a healthy European Union takes a back seat. Unless the political decision being applied is to do anti-Keynes economics for all always. Markel is obliged to follow Schauble"s policy.

EcoNasty huzar30 18 Jul 2015 05:26

If they were stupid and greedy enough to throw money at me if I'm a high risk then they shouldnt be surprised when I don't pay them back...

After all, we wouldn't have had the crash would we if it hadn't been for stupid greedy moneymen making crap decisions ??

And the whole Greece thing just shows how idiotic neoliberalism actually is...

I mean, I actually think Tsipras is playing a blinder. He knows that Greece may have been pushed into a corner I'm the short term, but in the long game Greece has Merkel et al over a barrel ..they can't (despite the tub thumping last week) allow Greece to leave because the disastrous impact this would have on the EZ and wider global economy and they'd have to write down hundreds of billions - yet their austerity measures will make it far less likely that Greece can meet its next payment deadline meaning they'll be back here again in a few months ...

...of course there's no more room for more restructuring or austerity after this bailout so they're stuffed essentially...either they let Greece leave with the huge risks that poses or they have to lose face and write down Greece's debts.

Tsipras ..the man who broke neoliberalism. He'll get statues erected ;

Peter Gentoo 18 Jul 2015 05:25

Why the British Empire ruined the world part II:

Scramble of Africa:

During the final twenty years of the nineenth century, Britain occupied or annexed territories which accounted for more than thirty-two percent of Africa's population, making the British the most dominant Europeans on the continent.By 1965, Britain had lost its stranglehold on the continent-but the consequences of imperialism were immense. Firstly, the settler states of Kenya, Rhodesia, and South Africa saw many episodes of violence before African nationalists could forge a return to stability, after the departure of the colonial governments. Corrupt African "strongmen," or dictators, often gained power-despite ignoring the social needs of the people. Economic dependence on the West, coupled with political corruption, crippled attempts to diversify.Even today, Africa is the least developed region in the world, with poverty and malnutrition running rampant. The idea that Europeans wanted to "civilize" Africa was an utter lie, and a means to justify the exploitation of the continent.

Palestine:

After defeating the Ottoman Empire in World War One, Great Britain did not liberate their Arab allies but instead colonized them. The British received Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. After centuries of anti-Semitism, many Jews began migrating to their original homeland of Palestine (ancient Judaea), and after the War, these migrations greatly increased. Many British officials, some of whom were also anti-Semitic, wanted to establish a Jewish homeland in the Middle East in order to kick the Jews out of Europe altogether.The British announced in 1947 their intention to withdraw from Palestine in 1948. On November 1947 the United Nations General Assembly passed a plan to partition Palestine into two separate states-one Arab, and one Jewish. The Jews accepted, but the Arabs rejected the partition. The British officially left on May 14, 1948, without providing a resolution to the situation; that same day the Jews proclaimed the state of Israel. Arab countries immediately attacked the new Jewish state, but the Israelis drove off the invaders and conquered more territory. Roughly nine hundred thousand Arab refugees fled-or were expelled from-old Palestine.This war left an enormous legacy of Arab bitterness towards Israel and its political allies, Great Britain and the United States. The Arab-Palestinian conflict has provided a deep divide between East and West, and between Christianity and Judaism on the one hand and Islam on the other hand. The modern "War on Terror" stems from the American and Western support of Israel. In addition, Israel has been accused of atrocities ranging from bulldozing Palestinian homes, to acts of terror committed by Mossad, the Israeli CIA

Partition of India:

After two centuries of colonialism in India, the British Labour government agreed to a speedy independence of India after 1945. But conflict between Hindu and Muslim nationalists led to murderous clashes between the two communities in 1946. When it became clear that the Muslim League would accept nothing less than an independent Pakistan, India's last viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, proposed partition. Both sides accepted, and at the "stroke of midnight" on August 14, 1947, one fifth of humanity gained political independence.Yet independence through partition brought tragedy. In the weeks afterwards, communal strife exploded into an orgy of massacres and mass expulsions. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims were slaughtered, and an estimated five million made refugees. Indian Congress Party leaders were completely powerless to stop the violence. "What is there to celebrate?" exclaimed Gandhi in reference to the much-sought independence; "I see nothing but rivers of blood." In January 1948, Gandhi himself was gunned down by a Hindu fanatic who believed that he was too lenient on Muslims.After the ordeal of independence, relations between India and Pakistan remain tense to this day. Fighting over the disputed area of Kashmir continued until 1949, and broke out again in 1965-1966, 1971, and 1999. What makes the Indo-Pakistani conflict even more dangerous is that both sides contain nuclear weapons. With the possibility that Pakistan might become a failed state, there is a good chance of a major genocide erupting in the twenty-first century.

Peter Gentoo 18 Jul 2015 05:23

Why the British Empire ruined the world:

Apartheid:

Apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced through legislation by the National Party governments, the ruling party in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. The rights of the nation's black majority were curtailed, and white supremacy and Afrikaner-minority rule was maintained. After one hundred years of wars, and having gained complete political control, the British made a decision that doomed many South Africans. They gave Boer republics the green light to disenfranchise all non-whites. The apartheid system was entrenched in the Union constitution, which was drawn and approved by the British government. In 1913, the Native Land Act was brought into force; it pushed black people off the land on which they were either owners or tenants, and relocated them to shantytowns in the cities.

Irish Potato Famine:

During the summer of 1845, a "blight of unusual character" devastated Ireland's potato crop-the staple of the Irish diet. A few days after potatoes were dug up from the ground, they began to rot. Over the next ten years more than 750,000 Irish died from the ensuing famine, and another two million left their homeland for Great Britain, Canada and the United States. Within five years, the Irish population was reduced by a quarter.

Invention of the machine gun:

In 1879, the Gardner Machine Gun was demonstrated for the first time. It could fire ten thousand rounds in twenty-seven minutes, and its accuracy was superior to that of the Gatling gun. This impressed military leaders from Britain, and the following year the British Army purchased the gun.In 1881, the American inventor Hiram Maxim visited the Paris Electrical Exhibition. While he was at the exhibition a man he met told him "if you wanted to make a lot of money, invent something that will enable the Europeans to cut each other's throats with greater facility." Maxim decided to move to London, and began working on a more effective machine-gun. The British Army adopted the Maxim Machine Gun in 1889. The following year, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Russia also purchased the gun, causing an arms race on the European continent. The machine gun would haunt the British during the Battle of the Somme, when the British suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day. Since its introduction, the machine gun has caused countless fatalities across the world, and has allowed for more people to be killed within a shorter time span.

Atlantic slave trade:

The British did not start the slave trade or even import the most slaves (both of these dubious distinctions belong to the Portuguese). In the beginning, British traders merely supplied slaves for the Spanish and the Portuguese colonies; but eventually, British slave traders began supplying slaves to the new English colonies in North America. The first record of enslaved Africans landing in British North America occurred in 1619, in the colony of Virginia.In the 1660s, the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the slave trade, owning more than fifty percent of the Africans transported from Africa to the Americas. The British involvement in the slave trade lasted from 1562 to until the abolishment of slavery in 180-a period of 245 years. History Professor David Richardson has calculated that British ships carried more than 3.4 million enslaved Africans to the Americas during this time. In addition to being a major player in the slave trade, the British supported the pro-slavery Confederates during the Civil War. The British needed cotton to fuel their machines; this caused the demand for cotton to skyrocket, which in turn demanded slave labor. If the Confederates had won at the battle of Antietam, the British would have given full support to the rebels, and may even have tipped the Civil War in favor of the Confederates. And although Great Britain was one of the first nations to abolish slavery, they quickly made up for the loss of human labor by extracting Africa's raw materials and resources.

DeeDee99 18 Jul 2015 05:18

"Look at what he inflicted on his own country."

Yes. HIS OWN COUNTRY.

Now he's doing it to another country: and both he, the President of the other country, the IMF and the ECB all know it isn't going to work.

So he is destroying another country for what ........... ? So the EU can continue to build an anti-democratic and increasingly dictatorial United States of Europe where national democracies are irrelevant (unless they happen to be Germany).

ZankFrappa 18 Jul 2015 05:12

This talk of nation vs nation is a distraction. It's better to follow the money. It quickly becomes clear that those who have profited from Greece joining the Euro are keeping their money and the rest are having to suffer the consequences. Goldman Sacks have made billions as have investors in Europe. Meanwhile the people of Greece, Germany or the broader EU are being told they have been reckless and will have to suffer the consequences.

anita66 18 Jul 2015 05:05

Maybe worth noting, that Schäuble's readon to make Greece fail is also related to the vast oil resources in the Aegean sea. And his generally corrupt manner. In the past he accepted bribes and bribed for weapon deals and other operations. and thats who most deals in Greece were agreed.

bloomday Budanevey 18 Jul 2015 05:03

Greece's economic performance from the mid-90's to the beginning of 2010 was better than the EU average (3.9% vs 2.4%). Once the European financial crisis began to make itself felt in Greece, in 2010, they followed the Troika's austerity instructions to the letter, slashing expenditures and increasing taxes. A 25% decline in GDP and 25% unemployment, with youth unemployment twice that was the result. This economic downturn happened because they followed and implemented creditor demands for austerity, measures that are now seen not to work for Greece. What is more, It is a fiction that all the bailout money loaned to Greece is at it's disposal to use as it pleases, most has been recycled back to the creditors in loan repayments - Joseph Stiglitz estimates that 90% of the money loaned Greece has been paid straight back to the Creditors, leaving Greece with insufficient sums to invest to create growth. Austerity is an anti-growth economic policy and the sooner the leadership of the German CDU wake up to the fact the better it will be for the Eurozone.

lundberg 18 Jul 2015 04:53

The link between the early 1990's and now (2008 till forever?) is that Germany and Schäuble caused all-European recessions. The 1990's recession was very bad in for example Sweden and Finland. One reason for this German behaviour is a myth that inflation (as of 1923) is the only thing to be avoided. Others have noted that other bad things have happened in Germany even after 1923. Tight Money, high interest rates is the perpetual formula, though exactly that brought Hitler into power.

The reunification was performed in a stupid way (1 West Mark= 1 East Mark, overnight, when market value was 7:1 or so). This stupidity was repeated, and worse, with the Maastrich treaty in 1992. All Europe had to pay for it, which led to a first wave of rightwing populism rather than European unity. We are now living through the second wave.

Germany was eventually essentially reunited, though it took much longer time and inflicted a lot more pain than was necessary, in Germany and abroad.
Europe remains broken, because you cannot have a single currency without a single government. This has been known all along, though the smart-alecs in Brussels, Berlin and Paris thought that they would solve that problem by stepwise federalization. Not likely.

bootayjam grumpyoldman 18 Jul 2015 04:34

Well said. I find it amazing that the Guardian is only now waking up to the fact that maybe, just maybe, the EU is bought and paid for and part of the global corporate banking system that has a stranglehold on us all.

Look at the IMF, which acts as a member of the Troika.
But it has has no elected position, and cannot be removed from power.
The second unelected member is Mario Draghi of the ECB. The same Mario Draghi who worked for Goldman Sachs and helped Greece hide it's true debt in order to join the Euro. How do you get rid of him? And more importantly, how did he get the job?
And finally, the head of Europe, Juncker, is also unelected by the people. And he was responsible for introducing corporate tax dodging in Luxembourg when he was PM there.

The entire government design is totally un-Democratic and therein lies the crisis, but not just in the EU, but across the world. Can you vote out the IMF or World Bank?

But in terms of the EU, not a single member of the Troika ever needs to worry about polls since they do not have to worry about elections.

This is authoritarian government if we have ever seen one, and Tony Benn's 5 awkward questions to ask those in power seem more relevant every day.

laSaya TomHalpin 18 Jul 2015 04:32

Reparations and exploitation
Further information: German reparations for World War II
Contrary to common myth, the US did in fact take "reparations"; parts of it by John Gimbel called "plunder and exploitation", directly from Germany. The US for instance took an 8.9% share of dismantled Western German industry.
The Allies also confiscated large amounts of German intellectual property (patents and copyrights, but also trademarks). Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the US pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany", that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the US (and the UK) amounted to close to $10 billion. The US competitors of German firms were encouraged by the occupation authorities to access all records and facilities. l Law No. 25) for fear of the research directly profiting their competitors.
The patents, drawings and physical equipment taken in Germany included such items (or drawings for) as electron microscopes, cosmetics, textile machinery, tape recorders, insecticides, ... and other technologies - almost all of which were either new to American industry or 'far superior' to anything in use in the United States."
The British took commercial secrets too, by abducting German scientists and technicians, or simply by interning German businessmen if they refused to reveal trade secrets.
Konrad Adenauer stated: "According to a statement made by an American expert, the patents formerly belonging to IG Farben have given the American chemical industry a lead of at least 10 years.
In JCS 1067 there were provisions allowing German scientists be detained for intelligence purposes as required. Although the original focus on the exploitation was towards military means, much of the information collected by FIAT was quickly adapted commercially to the degree that the office of the Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas requested that the peace treaty with Germany be redacted to protect US industry from lawsuits.
The US made no attempt to evaluate the value of what was taken from Germany, and in the contracts that led to sovereignty for West Germany in 1955 the West Germans had to formally renounce all claims to possible compensation for all types of assets taken, including scientific and technical know-how.
The property taken in Germany was without regard to the rules of the Hague Convention, which prohibits the seizure of enemy private property "unless it is susceptible of direct military use",

German reparations for World War II

Division of Germany as of the Potsdam Conference.

After World War II, both West Germany and East Germany were obliged to pay war reparations to the Allied governments, according to the Potsdam Conference. Other Axis nations were obliged to pay war reparations according to the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947.

Contents
1 Early propositions
2 Recipients
2.1 Greece
2.2 Israel
2.3 The Netherlands
2.4 Poland
2.5 Yugoslavia
2.6 Soviet Union
3 Other forms of payment
3.1 Annexation of territories
3.2 Dismantling of industries
3.3 Intellectual property
3.4 Forced labour
4 See also
5 References

Other forms of payment
According to the Yalta Conference, no reparations to Allied countries would be paid in money. Instead, much of this value consisted of German industrial assets, as well as forced labour.

Annexation of territories
Poland and the Soviet Union annexed the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse, leading to the expulsion of 12 million Germans. These territories were incorporated into Poland and the Soviet Union respectively and resettled with citizens of these countries.
France controlled the Saar protectorate from 1947 to 1956, with the intention of using its coal deposits and possibly annexing the region to France permanently. The same mines had been under French control from the end of the First World War until 1935. Following the results of a plebiscite, France had to relinquish its control of the Saar region on January 1, 1957, however it continued to extract coal from the area's mines until 1981.

Dismantling of industries
Further information: Allied plans for German industry after World War II
At the beginning of the occupation, the Allies started dismantling the remnants of German industries. Later abandoned this plan in favour to the Marshall Plan.

Intellectual property
The Allies confiscated significant values of German patents, copyrights and trademarks.

Forced labour
See German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, Forced labour of Germans in the Soviet Union and Forced labour of Germans after World War II.
-------------
For some ignorance is bliss.

Never led the facts get into the way of prejudice.

Prejudice is what fool use for reason.
Voltaire.

romantotale17 ID0958318 18 Jul 2015 04:28

With a Gini coefficient of 0.78, Germany has a high degree of wealth inequality compared to other countries and there is still a wide gap between western and eastern Germany, almost 25 years after unification. In 2012, the average net worth of eastern Germans was less than half that of western Germans.

Sounds like the country is well run, then. According to current definitions of a successful society: ie benefiting the wealthy, ability of the wealthy to conceal their gains, increasing inequality...

wilk 18 Jul 2015 04:20

Before reunification West Germany had a growth rate of aboaut 3.6%. and East Germany full employment . After - Schauble Germany managed to reach 2.2% the other year - the highest since reunification; eastern Germany has an double the unemployment rate of the west - over 10%. Workers rights in Germany have been decimated with most of those in work on zero- hour contracts or temporary work and the rich states are refusing to put more money into the failing eastern ones.
Like most of us the German people like to have a "Greece" so that we can feel well off and that our governments and big business are working for us - so the Merkels' and Schaubles' keep in power

phil49 -> probitase 18 Jul 2015 04:13

Rather simplistic. North America achieved its independence well before most Latin American countries and before rapacious 19th century capitalism had developed. By the time the Latin American countries achieved independence, European (mainly British) companies were ready to step in and siphon off vast amounts of the wealth generated, unlike in the United States, where most of the wealth was home-owned and reinvested, before the US was ready to take over from the European imperialists and do as they had done.

someoneionceknew -> Mister_T 18 Jul 2015 04:12

Cool story, bro. But completely untrue. Germany is being run for the benefit of its corporations and its banks i.e. neoliberal fundamentalism.

It's 'success' is arguable. Its future looks bleak.

laSaya smiley08 18 Jul 2015 03:46

When people bang on about what W. Germany got in Marshall plan aid after WWII they never look at the facts.
Read on.

The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total), followed by France (18%) and West Germany (11%). Some 18 European countries received Plan benefits.

Criticism of the Marshall Plan became prominent among historians of the revisionist school, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s. They argued that the plan was American economic imperialism, and that it was an attempt to gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe.

Henry Hazlitt criticized the Marshall Plan in his 1947 book Will Dollars Save the World?, arguing that economic recovery comes through savings, capital accumulation and private enterprise, and not through large cash subsidies. Ludwig von Mises criticized the Marshall Plan in 1951, believing that "the American subsidies make it possible for [Europe's] governments to conceal partially the disastrous effects of the various socialist measures they have adopted"

Hard luck story

We all know the easy British explanation for our cumulative export defeat in world markets from the 1950s onwards, especially at the hands of the Germans. This story tells us that lucky West Germany had all her industries and infrastructure bombed flat or removed as reparations, and then was able to re-equip herself from scratch with Marshall Aid dollars. Meanwhile, so this hard-luck story goes on, poor old Britain had to struggle on with worn-out and old-fashioned kit.

Britain actually received more than a third more Marshall Aid than West Germany ...

This is utter myth. Britain actually received more than a third more Marshall Aid than West Germany - $2.7 billion as against $1.7 billion. She in fact pocketed the largest share of any European nation. The truth is that the post-war Labour Government, advised by its resident economic pundits, freely chose not to make industrial modernisation the central theme in her use of Marshall Aid.

Successive governments squandered billions of Marshall Plan Aid to support British world power pretensions, and so jeopardised the economic future of Britain.

The sad irony is that it had been in vain that the Labour Government had sacrificed the modernisation of Britain as an industrial country for the sake of using Marshall Aid to support a world power role - strategic and financial.

What a monumental waste of a great and unrepeatable opportunity.

Refer http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/marshall_01.shtml
The Wasting of Britain's Marshall Aid
By Correlli Barnett
Last updated 2011-03-03

As for the 1953 debt agreement, read on.

Germany, which up until the 1953 Debt agreement had to work on the assumption that all the Marshall plan aid was to be repaid, spent its funds very carefully. Payment for Marshall plan goods, "counterpart funds", were administered by the Reconstruction Credit Institute, which used the funds for loans inside Germany. In the 1953 Debt agreement the amount of Marshall plan aid that Germany was to repay was reduced to less than 1 billion USD.[85] This made the proportion of loans versus grants to Germany similar to that of France and the UK.[84] The final German loan repayment was made in 1971.

----------------------
Arguing that economic recovery comes through savings, capital accumulation and private enterprise, and not through large cash subsidies.

Greece please take note of this advice from Henry Hazlitt .

For those that claim that the 193 debt agreement was so instrumental in German economic recovery because it was " generous " read the above and think again.

Further lets look at what the aid was intended to be used for.
The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States.

Oh, such generosity.

NickFletcher19 18 Jul 2015 03:35

Can people please do referring to him and his ilk as "technocrats". These people aren't experts in economics, business, management, if anything other than politics.

diotima1 18 Jul 2015 03:33

It's nauseating that such proposals, disguised as "rational" are taken seriously by EU and set the agenda for finding a solution to the Greek tragedy. In this the Greek goverment is also to blame. Advised by flamboyant Varoufakis , who failed to table any serious proposal for the past five months, it wasted all credibility and played into the hands of Shauble and US think tanks ready to experiment with demise of euro at the expense of Greek people.


Thomas W. Gallant 18 Jul 2015 03:07

A full understanding of the relationship between Greece and Germany requires a longer-term historical perspective. See th following article (in English) from the Greek magazine 'Chronos.' http://chronosmag.eu/index.php/tw-gallant-greece-and-germany-the-last-tango.html


DefeatedParty benjaoming 18 Jul 2015 02:31

They may have an Onassis or two, but that certainly doesn't make them prosper that much. Had they built those ships you might have a point. We are talking heavy industry here and since tourism is hardly the high point of any really successful economy, your reply is just a lot of useless left-wing hot air. The idea that the whole economy even the size of the small Greek economy was somehow reduced to its present malaise by a few tax dodges is another simplistic answer to the troubles affecting Greece. Your answer is in effect a few scattered breadcrumbs which had no other effect than to make you look completely silly and irrelevant.

angiefay 18 Jul 2015 00:38

Schäuble and Merkel have split Europe. They are trying to force their ORDER on everyone.

Against them we have France, who, however naïvely, believes more in JUSTICE. Nothing about the New German Order is just, only about profit and control. The situation in Greece has exposed how much they are trying to take control of Europe though the banks.

Instead of trying to help Greece set up systems such as a Land Registry, local Tax Offices free from corruption etc, which would provide a more just tax system, they want to sell off/buy up any remaining assets the country has.


hfakos Ben McCarty 17 Jul 2015 20:00

So what are you proposing, exterminating the native cultures in Europe to create a new coherent one? I didn't say the U.S. reaching its current stage was a rosy process, but it's a fact they now have a coherent enough culture mostly speaking the same language. We cannot reach this stage in Europe, because civilization has advanced enough not to tolerate the forced engineering of a new culture from already thriving and existing ones. So, there always be very serious constraints on the cohesion of Europe. You just have to live with that.


seaspan Steve Sage 17 Jul 2015 19:42

The social/private structure of Greece is typically European, that isnt the problem. The problem started with euro integration, and the negative balance of trade in the private economy unable to devalue local currency, stimulate Exports, investment in local industry, etc. Imports vastly exceeded Exports, so the Govt floated bonds to buy back the difference (ballooning deficits), But also Pools of euro money in foreign banks recycled back to Greece as easy loans, which increased Imports accentuating the difference to Exports -- a downward spiral, and ever increasing govt debt. This structural flaw hasnt been addressed at all...


eastofthewall BeatonTheDonis 17 Jul 2015 19:35

That was the biggest surprise in this saga. That even the yanks had more sense than to pathologically stick to austerity. They had a stimulus program. When the U.S. is less cruel than you, it's time for self-reflection.

Have you been to America lately? Visit Baltimore for me, will you! After the dotcom bubble burst the U.S. had a stimulus program which helped building up the even bigger housing bubble. That is why we now live in the age of "The Second Great Depression". Do you really think another stimulus bubble will help you out of this mess?

be_kul 17 Jul 2015 19:25

Sorry, the parallels go far beyond that:

(1) Schäuble wants the new "Greek Treuhand" to be a part of the ESM. In the ESM – in case the author forgot about that – every person MUST and CAN NOT be put on juridical trial for his/her deeds. The same was true for the Treuhand in East Germany.

(2) Schäuble wants the new "Greek Treuhand" to be managed 'inside' the ESM by a little German bank which is part of the German governmental KfW – which is headed by Schäuble (and his minions).

(3) But the best is yet to come: While the new Greek Treuhand will be modelled after the East German Treuhand, the latter itself was modelled after another "Treuhand" in German history: That one which was established to plunder the "Generalgouvernement" i.e.: the occupied Poland under Hitler. It had the same legal structure as the East German Treuhand … and even the name was the same.

So, there you have it: Schäuble does not even try to hide that his plans for Greece are those of an occupier – he can just simply count on (the vast majority of) people who don't know history.

By the way: Did anyone mention that Greece in 1953 joined the creditors of Germany when they were cutting down Germany's depth from WW II by 60% and re-structured the rest so that Germany could come out of its own hell with the "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic wonder – which was not a wonder at all!)? And did anyone mention the credit Hitler's Germany stole from Greece during WW II and never paid back (except a very small part of it)?

If anyone now thinks that I would "pull a godwin" now … sorry, I won't.

Because I guess anyone can draw his/her own historical parallels and consequences in viewing Schäuble correctly.

Phil Porter Dritan Nikolla 17 Jul 2015 18:54

I'm just trying to change myself and become the heartless, soulless and cultureless husk the EU and it's citizens seemingly now aspire to.
The Euro symbol will become the new crucifix!


hfakos 17 Jul 2015 18:34

It's enough to be in the wider neoliberal EU to go under. Being in the eurozone just adds extra pain, waterboarding and rectal feeding. As EU apparatchiks admitted themselves. Maybe the US can now shut down Gitmo by sending the inmates to Greece, where conditions are just as harsh.


someoneionceknew 17 Jul 2015 18:28

If Schäuble is acting tough with Greece right now, it is because his electorate wants him to act that way; it's not just that he doesn't care about the Greek people, he wants people to believe he doesn't care, because he sees the political advantage in it.

That's possibly the most disturbing aspect of the analysis.


monzer7 17 Jul 2015 18:19

Whilst national governments are printing money in gay abandon to bail out their banker backers... Simultaneously fleecing their taxpayers under the the moral pretence of 'Austerity', we have witnessed an unelected cartel eviscerate a sovereign nation.

The Greek Balance Sheet of Misery is deep in the red!

Apparently, people no longer matter - Politicians and Bankers have a free rein.

Greece fell for the EU dream... It was a political sucker to be exploited for the benefit of the Project.

Post 2008, it has been treated like dirt. Its neighbours should take note - this Union is a nasty creature.


girlmostlikely sailorjeff 17 Jul 2015 18:15

It's also why German's are skeptical of transfer unions. They were promised by Kohl and Schäuble and Waigel, that Eastern Germany would just bloom and it would magically catch up to Western living standards on it's own merits. Those were Germans after all. None of that happened, the catching up has been the other way round. Many many people these on both sides of the former border are living in a way where 1990 GDR living standards would just about be an upgrade.


erpiu 17 Jul 2015 18:15

schäuble and his bunch of rightwing political hacks who pass as eurozone finance ministers are know-nothing frauds or if you prefer, fantasists --as p.krugman calls them.

schäuble himself is an opportunist par excellence, a now-aparatchick/political hack formerly a small-time lawyer with several one-week courses in "economics explained to homemakers" and a dissertation on "public accountants" as special qualifications for his current position as "supreme social-dumping master of western europe"('s rentier-subjugated economies) with distant adolfian resonances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Sch%C3%A4uble
======
Schäuble studied law and economics at the University of Freiburg and the University of Hamburg, which he completed in 1966 and 1970 by passing the First and Second State Examinations respectively, becoming a fully qualified lawyer.

In 1971 Schäuble obtained his doctorate in law, with a dissertation called "The public accountant's professional legal situation within accountancy firms".
======
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Sch%C3%A4uble


kcfussball -> DT48 17 Jul 2015 18:13

Agreed, it seems to be part of the neo - con agenda to create divides amongst ordinary people. I wonder what they are scared of.

hfakos -> Phil Porter 17 Jul 2015 17:53

It's the liberal "intellectuals" we. They know better what's good for you. In Eastern Europe they were called Bolsheviks.

Pharaoh9 MartinLunnon 17 Jul 2015 17:46

In the German mind the problem is always with you, never with the bank.

monzer7 17 Jul 2015 17:44

I admire Germany for the way in which it has rebuilt its country. Their products demonstrate an envious capability. Every German I have ever met has been easy going, and friendly - nice people.

Their politicians stink!

This rape of Greece was unnecessary... It portrays an unassailable bully humiliating a people.

The image has been tarnished. My admiration diluted.


monzer7 17 Jul 2015 17:44

I admire Germany for the way in which it has rebuilt its country. Their products demonstrate an envious capability. Every German I have ever met has been easy going, and friendly - nice people.

Their politicians stink!

This rape of Greece was unnecessary... It portrays an unassailable bully humiliating a people.

The image has been tarnished. My admiration diluted.


MartinLunnon RationalPlan 17 Jul 2015 17:34

This is clearly a relevant point. Perhaps it's been made by many previous BTL commentators, but I'm surprised that it wasn't brought out in the article.
The parallels with the situation in Greece are many: both East Germany then and Greece now are experiencing the pains of a fixed exchange rate with the strong (West) German economy. In both cases the fixed exchange rate (and thus strong currency while the fix holds) favours savers over borrowers - I suspect that many Germans instinctively believe this to be necessary ever since the inflation if the 1920s and 30s.

In Greece now the borrower is the government. In Germany shortly after reunification the burden fell on Treuhand-owned companies which had liabilities to pay wages in DM coverted from OstMarks at 1:1: "With prices for labour and supplies going through the roof, the already stressed East Germany economy went into freefall"

"When you owe the bank £1000 you have a problem: when you owe the bank £1,000 million the bank has a problem". In the CDU's image of the German mind the problem is always with you, never with the bank.

hfakos linesanddots 17 Jul 2015 17:33

These are all Cold War dinosaurs. Merkel included. With them at the helm a different, livable Europe has no chance.

paulc156 Christian Abel 17 Jul 2015 17:25

Frankly, though the IMF have been culpable in previous instances of crisis management both with Greece and others they have exhibited some capacity to learn from past mistakes. As for the EU and especially the German dominated ECB they have pushed half of Europe to the precipice based on an imbecilic policy prescription that hasn't been tried since the UK tried to stay on the gold standard after WW1. You seem to have sided with the cranks!

Lafcadio1944 Cerebral_Football 17 Jul 2015 17:24

I recommend you read Naomi Kline's well documented book Shock Doctrine which makes the case for what I said far better than I can.

As to your apparent view that the appropriate social behavior is to always and under all circumstances take every possible advantage available to enrich ourselves. I suggest you investigate that period in history known as the Enlightenment.


LiberteEgalite1 trickster5 17 Jul 2015 17:14

trickster, you are incorrect! At least 400 million people in India live in abject poverty in suffering as a direct result of England's plundering of India over 200 years, this is not counting the millions that it killed in the name of keeping order because the Indians dared to raise their heads against the British tyranny.

You need to read real history and not the blinkered one that you read in the glossy magazines glorifying the inhuman British empire.


hfakos probitase 17 Jul 2015 16:59

But there are many mini-jobs. Which is practically unemployment if that's the only thing you have. Statistics are easy to manipulate.


hfakos KrissCross 17 Jul 2015 16:56

What a success story, climbing all the way up to being the EU's poorest nation with an EUR300 monthly salary and loosing a million people who emigrated to the West, and it keeps counting. You have also become a much more sovereign nation, that's why you cancelled South Stream a nanosecond after McCain showed up in Sofia. I mean EUR300 is more than enough, let's not be greedy and try get more revenue in the EU's poorest country. Thanks but no thanks, I wouldn't like to emulate Bulgaria's "success".


FactsForFood Mevagissey 17 Jul 2015 16:55

Hmmm, in comparison the US killed at least 129,000 civilians in a few seconds when it dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And many more civilians were long-term disabled afterwards.

So you are saying that we should remember this terrible crime by the US and hold them accountable for it as well.


Cerebral_Football Fani Papas 17 Jul 2015 16:48

Here's a brilliant quote from yesterday's Atlantic:

By 2010 one of those countries-Greece-could no longer pay its bills. Over the prior decade Greece had built up massive debt, a result of too many people buying too many things, too few Greeks paying too few taxes, and too many promises made by too many corrupt politicians, all wrapped in questionable accounting. Yet despite clear problems, bankers had been eagerly lending to Greece all along.

Greece is made up of Greeks, you can't disassociate them. The Greek people borrowed that money when they were levering up and buying homes, not paying taxes, doling out public sector pensions and benefits like they had discovered the cure for cancer.

Greece owes money to Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Portugal and every other country in the Eurozone. But first and foremost, before all of that, they owed the money to the banks. Yes and the banks needed to be paid back.

If you think that's unfair, try telling your credit card/bank company that you won't pay them back.


Mevagissey Susan Dechancey 17 Jul 2015 16:47

The nepotism and clientelism of the ruling class has been a problem since independence from Turkey and successive Greek governments have promised and failed to rectify it but that doesn't excuse humiliating an entire nation and pushing it to the point of economic and civil collapse because 'they deserve to reap what they sow' regardless of the consequences for the entire region with IS just a few hundred kilometres away. This is the worst case of being unable to see the wood for the trees that we have seen since the 'allies' invaded Iraq on the pretext of saving the West from nuclear weapons that did not exist.

The vindictive behaviour towards Greece marshalled by Germany last weekend has lost it a lot of friends and reminded us where its mindset comes from and where it leads to if more civilised nations do not step in to reel it in. Habermas in particular is particularly cognisant of this.

hfakos -> jozef77 17 Jul 2015 16:46

Don't worry, you will see many other cents extracted from the periphery by German corporations. You know, such when I pay international rates calling my Deutsche Telekom customer parents in Hungary from my Deutsche Telekom line in Germany. Borderless Europe, ain't it great?


probitase -> DT48 17 Jul 2015 16:41

One of the rules of the Eurozone is that a country is not allowed to default on its debts. The EU is indeed designed to pull countries in until they find they cannot or do not have the power to extricate themselves.


hfakos -> angryboy 17 Jul 2015 16:38

Yes, the Greeks are like stupid kids. What a worn-out cliche. The only countries that matter here are Germany and maybe France. Lol, do you really believe that whatshisname FinMin of mighty Slovakia has any say in this crises? Germany is using the clowns of these midget EZ countries to deflect some blame. I have never seen that many Mickey Mouse politicians suffering from delusions of grandeur than during the Greek torture sessions. As if whatshername from the Baltic grand duchies has any weight behind her proclamations.

TomorrowsWorld Barry1858 17 Jul 2015 16:35

It's a hard battle getting people to realise just how much so-called wealth is predicated on the money market casino rather than goods and services. Perhaps because it makes all the effort of putting in your relatively honest 9 to 5 fairly irrelevant, most people would rather talk about lazy Greeks than face the fact that they're the living fuel for a casino lifestyle they will only get close to if they happen to buy a winning lottery ticket.


Susan Dechancey 17 Jul 2015 16:33

where are the insights into how Greece got here ? a contra to this :

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010

In just the past decade the wage bill of the Greek public sector has doubled, in real terms-and that number doesn't take into account the bribes collected by public officials. The average government job pays almost three times the average private-sector job. The national railroad has annual revenues of 100 million euros against an annual wage bill of 400 million, plus 300 million euros in other expenses. The average state railroad employee earns 65,000 euros a year. Twenty years ago a successful businessman turned minister of finance named Stefanos Manos pointed out that it would be cheaper to put all Greece's rail passengers into taxicabs: it's still true. "We have a railroad company which is bankrupt beyond comprehension," Manos put it to me. "And yet there isn't a single private company in Greece with that kind of average pay."

So lets look a t Greece .. it like watching a magician ....


BeastNeedsMoreTorque papalibre 17 Jul 2015 16:32

But that argument doesn't put the banks lending the money in the clear does it? Even if we accept your argument about the stupid borrowers it doesn't exonerate the banks does it?
It's called fraud.
If I sell you a car that I know is unsafe but you're too stupid to check before I hand over the cash, its still fraud on my part.

Here's a quote that might persuade you:

Financial fraud can be broadly defined as an intentional act of deception involving financial transactions for purpose of personal gain. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation. Many fraud cases involve complicated financial transactions conducted by 'white collar criminals' such as business professionals with specialized knowledge and criminal intent.

[Jul 18, 2015] There's no end in sight to the Greco-European drama

"..."It is like a dysfunctional family where narcissistic parents believe a fantasy of their own perfection and scapegoat one of the children as the cause and epitome of all that is wrong." Nice analogy. This is the world that propaganda created. A completely parallel universe. But it's not exactly a new development. Look at the US, they are at their n-th invasion, and everybody still pretends that they are slaughtering people for 'humanitarian' reasons. Or the IMF, which has ruined the economies of pretty much every single state in the Third World and everybody pretends that 'we are helping them to escape poverty'."
.
"...It all started with the 2008 global financial meltdown caused by private banker greed. Since the rich cannot be paid for their mistakes--i.e. nationalize the banks--then the rest of us, the state, take over the debt."
.
"...Yes, what's happening to Greece is happening (or will happen) to us all. I will continue to vote however I've seen what happens to a fine government representing to the best of their ability the people & country - they got knocked around & overruled. What I thought was non-negotiable turns out some Hayek adoration readers in powerful positions decide now is time to dismantle social security provision, employment protections & public infrastructure is made over to privateers. Scary times. "
.
"...Warren Buffet said we are in a class warfare and we (the rich) are winning. Strong words since Americans don't believe in class or Marxism."
Jul 15, 2015 | The Guardian

The last act of the classical Greek tragedy ends with two outcomes: disaster and catharsis. In the current Greek debt drama, however, there has been no catharsis. The purification has failed to materialise.

It would have meant that both sides had seen the error of their ways and come to their senses. Instead, the madness continues: Greece will take on €86bn of debt in addition to the existing €317bn (not including the emergency loans from the ECB). From Angela Merkel through François Hollande to Alexis Tsipras, all eurozone government leaders assert that Greece will emerge from over-indebtedness more quickly this way and will be economically healed in three years. Europe pretends that the bailout will help. And Greece acts as if everything is fine now.

The Brussels summit was not a disaster, though. Greece does not fall into chaos and the euro remains stable. Maybe Walter Benjamin, who once said: "The real disaster is if everything stays as it is," was right. When it comes to classical drama, it seems we have not reached the final act after all. The fourth act, the "retardation", continues. The action is slowing down, with suspensory moments: the troika returns to Athens and monitors the situation, while the Greek authorities delay and tinker about again. Until the action moves into a phase of extreme tension towards the finale. When will that be? Merkel hopes it will be after the next parliamentary elections.

The troika is not operating as a trustee, but representing highly selfish interests

For the Greeks, there is more at stake in this drama than there is for the Germans. The Germans will lose a lot of money at the most. The Greeks, however, have long since come under the tutelage of the donors. What Tsipras signed on Monday is the permanent abandonment of Greek sovereignty. Athens will be told what budget surplus it must achieve and what taxes it should raise. Fiscal sovereignty is broken. The constitution will be interfered with to impose pension cuts. The administration and judiciary must be rebuilt according to the standards of the northerners. It is not about a bailout loan, but it is avowedly about nation building, as if Greece were a failed state. Even the IMF has condemned the deal as unworkable and said the levels of debt are unsustainable.

Greek culture is being encroached upon in every way. The Sunday opening of shops is being enforced, whether the still strongly religious population likes it or not. Consumption is more important than orthodox religion – that is the credo of the north. In international law the internal affairs of a nation are largely taboo; in the euro protectorate there are no taboos.


citizenJA -> Neil59 17 Jul 2015 08:58

If Greece was a corporation, would we be concerned about this "takeover"? What is happening now is no different than an administrator stepping in, only it is happening to a government.

Wrong. Greece is a sovereign nation, sovereign people, not a business full of employees. Greece's government is functional & democratically accountable. A nation isn't a corporation. A country isn't a business. I can't tell you how horrifying your post is to me.


citizenJA Johanes 17 Jul 2015 08:08

Tecup, I really hope it is opening a few eyes to the real state of affairs.

We are all Greece, and sadly, this is not a statement of solidarity. It is a metaphor for what our rulers are turning us into. And we vote for them ...

Yes, what's happening to Greece is happening (or will happen) to us all. I will continue to vote however I've seen what happens to a fine government representing to the best of their ability the people & country - they got knocked around & overruled. What I thought was non-negotiable turns out some Hayek adoration readers in powerful positions decide now is time to dismantle social security provision, employment protections & public infrastructure is made over to privateers. Scary times.


HauptmannGurski CjCanada 16 Jul 2015 20:49

The elephant in the room is NATO. They wanted to keep Greece in at all costs, and now they have all costs.


luella zarf CjCanada 16 Jul 2015 19:05

It is like a dysfunctional family where narcissistic parents believe a fantasy of their own perfection and scapegoat one of the children as the cause and epitome of all that is wrong.

Nice analogy. This is the world that propaganda created. A completely parallel universe.

But it's not exactly a new development. Look at the US, they are at their n-th invasion, and everybody still pretends that they are slaughtering people for 'humanitarian' reasons. Or the IMF, which has ruined the economies of pretty much every single state in the Third World and everybody pretends that 'we are helping them to escape poverty'.

The problem is that once the sociopaths have completed the capture of the developing world, they have nothing left to plunder but the developed world. No surprise there, capitalism is a Ponzi scheme, but imagine the shock of the Western middle classes when they finally realize that this is their future too.


luella zarf competentcrew 16 Jul 2015 18:47

The market structure has not changed from 100 years ago and is archaic, more Oriental than European. Something has to change.

The 'burden of the white man' reloaded. With this attitude, Germans will end up being again the most hated people in Europe, and rightly so. Nobody asked them to 'zivilise' us.


luella zarf DieSacheUndOderIch 16 Jul 2015 18:40

That is the point! Germany only subscribed to the Euro under its conditions, that included a stable currency.

In 10 years the European Union will either break up or we will have war again. People are not going to put up with enforced austerity and German colonialism forever. You can hide your head in sand or you can try to understand the macroeconomics of EU, which are a bit complicated but not beyond what the average intelligence can grasp.

But Germans, to quote the economist Heiner Flassbeck, suffers from 'a collective denial of the truth', when it comes to the 'failure of German economic and financial policies and their devastating consequences'.

http://www.flassbeck-economics.de/the-euro-crisis-and-germanys-collective-denial-of-the-truth/


Areal Person -> Johanes 16 Jul 2015 17:04

Yeah, although I'm with John Gray and his post-Marxist analyses of the cyclical nature of human civilization, and would if pushed say the outlook is bleak with a few rays of sunshine here and there. The UK is likely to move further to the right when things worsen - that's not a definite, but it's likely if the post-Thatcherite years are to be viewed as a legitimate litmus test.


competentcrew -> luella zarf 16 Jul 2015 12:27

53 small businesses go bankrupt every day in Greece. 1.5 million former private sector employees are unemployed. There's no time to romanticise about beauty and variety. We are talking about people scavenging bins for food. The market structure has not changed from 100 years ago and is archaic, more Oriental than European. Something has to change.


competentcrew -> kay_dee 16 Jul 2015 12:21

Excuse me? 200.000 skilled professionals emigrated from Greece (in the last 2 years and this is a low estimate) not because they were bored, but because the way the Greeks want to run their country left them with no jobs and no hope. The country is ruined and desperately needs growth, so Sunday trading might just help a fraction. Living in a time warp doesn't.


wheresrobinhood 16 Jul 2015 01:57

It all started with the 2008 global financial meltdown caused by private banker greed. Since the rich cannot be paid for their mistakes--i.e. nationalize the banks--then the rest of us, the state, take over the debt.

The author is projecting a finality when the state cannot take on the debts of the rich any longer.

Warren Buffet said we are in a class warfare and we (the rich) are winning. Strong words since Americans don't believe in class or Marxism.

[Jul 16, 2015] The crucifixion of Greece is killing the European project

"...Spot on. Greece's debts have now been made effectively unrepayable in order to send the deafening warning to the Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, etc., not to dare elect anti-austerity governments. It's pretty desperate stuff."
.
"...if Greece was free to decide would they be in this spot. no.. they are being dictated. period. the people understand that and are protesting, but the politicians can only do what the banks tell them so they will do exactly what they are told and then have elections - the people will then elect new government which will negotiate so minor changes to the payment plans or some other irrelevant term which the new government will tout as a victory which of course the media will lap up like a dog in heat and everything will be as it should according to the control exerted by these financial oligarchs who dont give a crap about the people and only care to own own own. "
.
"...Just as Sven Linqvist shows in The History of Bombing that World War Two was essentially the result of Germany importing practices into Europe which were formerly common and universally accepted (even applauded) in the West's administration of its colonies (mass murder, genocide, gun boat diplomacy), so Europe's next breakdown will be able to trace its roots back to this importing of economic practices formerly reserved by Western institutions for the developing world into the heart of the developed world. This is the beginning of the end for Europe, and it certainly marks the end of my--and many others'--dreams of a powerful, unified Europe underpinned by the acquis communautaire."
.
"...The EU is a tool of banks and corporations to squeeze the poor."
.
"...This article points out what has been obvious for some time. The neo liberalist European elites cannot tolerate Syriza or any other far left political movement. There is to be no credible alternative to austerity and anyone who says otherwise will be crushed. "
.
"...I have just read the Hans-Ulrich Goerges column in yesterday's Stern magazine. It points out how much untaxed money rich Greeks, including the families of Greek government ministers, have parked in Switzerland over the last few years and particularly in the last few months and weeks. The amount of money involved dwarfs other sums under discussion here. And nobody does anything about it! What sort of a society is mainland western Europe, that everybody involved knows exactly what is going on, but all turn a blind eye?"
.
"...You do realise that the biggest tax evading entities in Greece are of German interests? You do realise that the fund where undervalued Greek assets will be going into is directed by none other than Dr Schauble (the German finance minister) himself. Greece won't be reformed because of many interests and mostly external. The rest is a charade."
.
"...To quote the great economist - J K Galbraith - 'In economics, the majority is always wrong' and that is certainly the case with the euro. For twenty years The Guardian has been mocking those of us who foresaw that the euro would impoverish southern Europe. We were also ridiculed for pointing out that the EU was undemocratic - run by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. Well, now the penny appears to have dropped - which is great - but I don't expect any apology to us eurosceptics! "
.
"...Thank you for the better analysis I've read. As a Portuguese, from a country that is going through a very similar situation, I feel that we are not living anymore in a democracy: only a formal one, under the economical-financial diktat of the UE bureaucracy, Germany, IFM and North-American geopolitical interests. If you have a good memory, as a people we have freed ourselves from a 48 years dictatorship in April 1974, and now we are falling under another one, like the Greeks, who suffered also in the flesh the Dictatorship of the Colonels. What is waiting us? A long agony, in a humiliating, almost colonial situation. The "Evil Empire" is now formed by a nebulous cloud of hidden interests, speculators and corporations. I also had an internationalist dream, I dreamed with a democratic United Europe where the richness of its several cultures and its cross pollination could have given birth to o New Renaissance and an enlarged Atlantic-Mediterrean Pax. Not any more. After the abject humilitiation of Greece I feel ashamed of even be classified as an European. In the now quickly decaying corpse of a dream all the extremims will found, as worms, the fertile ground of a graveyard. No, thank you. Keep your money and, when needed, try to eat it."
.
"...For me this is a wake up call. The European project has been stripped of its social pretensions and bare naked it's ugly. A project which was originally intended to maintain the social and economic balance in a Europe which would otherwise inevitably be dominated by Germany's disproportionate mass and scale has become a means of achieving and maintaining German financial and economic supremacy over the rest of Europe."
.
"...In a speech from Goebbells to Czech Intellectuals and journalists, Berlin 1940.

You gentlemen have now seen something of the Reich, and I made a point of allowing you to make this journey before I addressed you. You have seen the Reich in Wartime, and you will have formed some idea of what it can be in peace. Out great nation with its large population, together with Italy, will in practice take over the leadership of Europe. There are no two ways about that. What it means for you is that you are already members of a great Reich which is preparing to reorganize Europe, tearing down the barriers that still separate the European peoples and making it easier for them to come together. Germany intends to put an end to a situation which quite clearly cannot satisfy mankind for long. We are performing here a work of reform which I am convinced will one day be recorded in large letters in the book of European history. Can you imagine what the Reich will actually be like after the war? (…)"
.
"...What preparations did the Euro-zone make for a Greek default? They moved the private debt to the Euro-zone tax payers. 2009 - 2014 - reduction in private creditors exposure: France - 50 billion, Germany - 20 billion ..... etc ......."
.
"...... Wake up call for Mr.Milne: The European Project was never meant to be of benefit for the people, only for business (and politicians). You better focus on TTIP, the coming super USA/EU, where we will all be Greece. And we don't get a referendum... This is why the UK no longer needs to be in the EU, TTIP will take care of that. All a matter of "look over here!", so you don't see what's happening over there.... "
.
"...The fact that war is inconceivable between the members of the EU is the often forgotten achievement. You do not have to look very far back from its foundation to realise what has been achieved. The tragedy in my view is that the vision of Europe has been hijacked by the federalists and euro (the currency)-philes. Enforcing a single currency made this crisis only a matter of time, as we have all known since it started. Spare a thought for German tax-payers who are doing the lion's share of the funding while hearing Germany abused on all sides."
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"...I agree with Seamus' analysis and find it moves to the core of what's wrong with the financial Management of Greece by the Interests of World, European Capital. "Greed is good for Greece" is what it's democratic and financial institutions are being told by wealthy power Brokers. "If you don't shape up to our expectations of ever more atavistic desire for exponential Profit margins....you will be punished. So shape up and take your medicine. Corporate Fascism. This greed for Profit at exponential expectation is commodifying the very space between human communities and is philosophically. morally and spiritually bankrupt. I fear the the reptilian brain has taken over the asylum! See Chomsky's "Profit Before People"..."
.
"...We're always talking about the loans, but the loans are not the problem, nor was the Greek economy the problem: between 2001 and 2008, the Greek economy grew faster than the German economy. If you do not believe this, don't quarrel, look it up.
.
The fundamental problem of the euro zone has nothing to do with Greece, it has to do with Germany and with the macroeconomic architecture of the euro: it can't work. Since 2001, and against agreements, Germany put enormous pressure on wages: wages did not increase in sinc with productivity, but remained far below it. The consequence of this was that, by 2010, the Germans will able to produce a product and sell it in the EU for 15 % cheaper than an basically identical product made in France. With Greece, the difference was 25 %. This is how Germany exported its unemployment across the union, how it created unemployment everywhere else, how, year after year, it accumulates record trade surpluses that end up in German banks that borrow it to us so we can buy more cheap German products."
.
"...You have not addressed the most horrible fact which was that the German officials conspired for years to use Grexit to manipulate other EU states into giving up their sovereignty, which is black on white in Geithner's memoirs. Yet you go on with the same moralistic crap: that nobody forced Greece to do this or that. Which tells me that you do not have an ethical bone in your body, because that is Dark Vader shit. "
.
"...Central Europe is painting Greece as the naughty boy, while Spain and Portugal are the good little boys who did what they were told and imposed painful austerity on their peoples. This is the colonial tactic of divide and rule. The truth is that the euro enriches Central Europe and impoverishes the periphery. All the PIIGS faced painful choices after the 2008 crash as a result. The Spanish wrote off the chances of their young people. The Greeks tried to blag, bluster and fight their way out. Central Europe want everybody to think about how terrible the Spanish and the Greeks are for making these different bad choices. Actually, Central Europe are the villains (not only Germany but also Benelux and Finland). They used to say that you should not have monetary union without political union. We should now say: Monetary union without political union is perfect, if you want a mechanism for central imperial domination of their peripheral colonies."
.
"...Greek elites, also wedded to the same system, long ago placed their country in this unpleasant position. While I acknowledge that Greece must reform, many think the reforms the Troika wishes for are not the best ones to achieve results, lacking fairness and justice, and again penalising the poorest sections of Greek society. Both Germany and Greece, pushed by the EU to be the stars of this drama, are engaged in an impossible stand off."
.
"...in 2014 Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury 2009-2013 published his Memoirs, where he details how he met Schauble in 2012. Well well, and Mr Schauble told him that kicking the Greeks out of the eurozone was a desirable strategy because "a Grexit would be traumatic enough that it would help scare the rest of Europe into giving up more sovereignty to a stronger banking and fiscal union". http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/business/dealbook/the-hard-line-on-greece.html

Translation: Since 2012, the Germans have attempted to throw Greece under the bus in order to manipulate other states to give up their sovereignty to the bankers! You can't make this up if you tried it! Disgusting."
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"...No taxpayers lent money to Greece : that was private banks. This only became a problem for European taxpayers when the troika decided in 2010 to take over responsibility for the debts, thereby transferring liability from bankers to taxpayers. They then imposed macroeconomic policies which gutted the Greek economy making it unlikely European taxpayers would ever get much of their money back . The newspapers really have got you hating the oppressed and loving your oppressors, haven`t they ?"
.
"...Yes, I was thinking the right wing voters are most hypocritical, even in their condemnation of the EU, because they vote for the same neoliberal ideology that got Greece into this mess, for their own nations!"
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"...I was raised to have a horror of clubs and organizations with memberships. Do not see why a country would want to be a member of a club, especially when the economic disparities are so great. The EU can never operate like the USA, because every one of the countries in it as a long and different history, different language and culture. To run efficiently it will have to imitate the former USSR and develop a dictatorial central administration. Seems that Merkel has grasped that fact. Arbeit macht Frei will be the watchword and goodbye to La dolce vita."
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"...Did it occur to you that the EU has changed in recent years. It is now run by right wing governments who promote a failed austerity and a failed banking system. A decade ago, it was full of socialist governments who went on a spending spree. The Banks were the winners in both cases, but now the poorest pay with unemployment, rights taken, and assets stripped, while those who benefitted most still enjoy their riches and stack money away in tax havens."

The Guardian

This attempt to turn Athens into a debt colony will fail – and open the way to the breakup of the eurozone

"That's been a familiar pattern in the developing world for decades, in the guise of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programmes. But the eurozone has now given it permanent institutional form."


afurada crystaltips2 17 Jul 2015 18:31

It means what it says - that over 90% of the demands made by the Troika were carried out by successive governments. I'm listing some of them here (in order of occurrence from 2010): a freeze in the salaries of all government employees; a 10% cut in bonuses and overtime for govt workers; a freeze on pensions; an increase in VAT from 19% to 21%; rises in taxes on fuel, cigarettes, and alcohol; rises in taxes on luxury goods; cuts in public sector pay; pension reform including increasing retirement age from 60 to 65 for women; cap on monthly wages and introduction of 10% cuts on salaries above €1,800; new taxes and new cuts of workers' wages; property tax collected through the electricity bill; public pension cuts to 15%; increase of the retirement age from 65 to 67; additional wage cuts for civil servants up to 20%; public salary wage cuts up to 30%; Public Broadcasting Service shut down; thousands of layoffs and wage cuts for civil service workers.

They could have done more, and harmed the economy even further. As it turns out, it is a good thing that they didn't.


Graham Jones 17 Jul 2015 18:25

Indeed, the bullying of Greece and the introduction of secretive treaties like TTIP and TISA which threaten all our public services, making a mockery of having a parliamentary democracy, have convinced me to vote no in a referendum. The EU is a tool of banks and corporations to squeeze the poor. It seems our MEPs are as blissfully unaware of the broad tide of disaffection with the EU as they are with the real effects of the secret treaties. I bet Cameron is kicking himself about offering a referendum on EU membership, naively thinking that the leftish, greenish and liberal voters would weigh against the Tory euroscepts and kippers. He really needs the SNP on this one!

eamono MaroonMango 17 Jul 2015 17:50

Absolute crap as the Finance Minister was defeated 4-2 in a ministerial vote prior to his resignation. What were his policies and decisions? They were to take control of the Greek National Bank before the ECB acting unlawfully, stopped the funding. Why aren't you questioning the political actions of a bank that is deemed to be economic not political? Who in Europe ordered the ECB to act like this? The Germans? It wasn't the French. Do some research!!! Dr. Eamon

ukchange68 iOpenerLo114Lat51 17 Jul 2015 17:33

'real money' investors have been cheated, and stolen from, just like the rest of us, I'm afraid

Euvosto Taivas gooner40 17 Jul 2015 16:39

Regrettable, the political egos in Brussels, Paris and Berlin could never stand the Union's dissolution without tragedy.


bolshevik96 17 Jul 2015 15:55

This article points out what has been obvious for some time. The neo liberalist European elites cannot tolerate Syriza or any other far left political movement. There is to be no credible alternative to austerity and anyone who says otherwise will be crushed. The fact that the democratically elected government of a free and sovereign nation can be bullied into accepting harsh, economic strictures despite their election on an anti austerity ticket shines a revealing light on the bureaucratic reality of the European Union. The Greek people made their voices heard in the referendum and the message was loud and clear - NO. Democracy in the Union now only exists on the sufferance of the financial elites and if you think that this has no implications for the UK you couldn`t be more wrong. The writing is on the wall for the smaller, newer members (and some of the older ones) : elect governments acceptable to the new neo liberalist orthodoxy or face the consequences.... For years the right wing press has been banging on about European interference in British domestic affairs and the left has been dismissing it as xenophobic scare mongering but maybe they have actually been calling it right.... if that`s the case the left had better start re-thinking their position and start putting British interests first, last and always........


tnbskts icarus32fly 17 Jul 2015 15:21

Because when a country gets into deep financial trouble, what's the alternative? And the problem is, the deep financial trouble isn't always self-inflicted; sometimes governments are destabilised from without in order to bring about this very situation, sometimes the problems are part of a more widespread financial or other crisis (which is at least part of the problem in this case, even though I know the Tories like to claim that the 2008 financial crisis was totally down to the Labour government).

And then the vultures circle and pick the bones clean. Austerity for the masses, public holdings transferred to private ownership at fire-sale prices, laws passed to favour foreign investors and trade at the expense of local businesses and individuals, and a society and economy wrecked for decades to come.


mjlynley 17 Jul 2015 12:50


While I have lots of sympathy with the Greek (I used to live there), and I agree that the terms are onerous, those who are vociferously criticizing the Europeans and blaming especially the Germans must ask themselves 1) what about Greece's responsibility (and trustworthiness) and 2) what is the alternative.

With regard the first, the Greeks and their sympathizers talk all the time about the democratic will of the people. But democracy also means collective responsibility for what the governments you elect do in your name. Let us not forget, Greece was actually starting to recover at the end of last year before Syriza started its disastrous and ill-conceived theatrics. Also, you can't put the blame for the debt on the creditors - the Greeks LIED and CHEATED about their true level of indebtedness, and they failed to keep their promises. The Greeks are adults and must take responsibility for their decisions. If they are not considered adults able to make sensible decisions, then they don't deserve to rule.

Another important point, frequently mentioned, but not stressed enough, is that the Greeks themselves don't want to pay for their country. Tax evasion is rampant. I was there a couple of months ago and was surprised by the number of petrol stations that were cash only, no receipt. If the Greeks aren't at least prepared to meet the world half-way, why should taxpayers in northern Europe be forced to subsidize them ad infinitum. The reforms are designed to get Greece to a primary budget surplus (i.e. before interest). Surely that is not unreasonable?!

What is the alternative to the current deal? Everyone knows there will be some form of debt relief, even if it's only making a large chunk virtually interest-free, and stretched out far into the future. If there is a write-off, someone has to pay. The money doesn't come out of thin air. And that will be borne by taxpayers whose countries kept the rules!

Sadly, it's a mess with no winners, only losers.


dr8765 17 Jul 2015 08:50

Near perfect closing paragraph Seumas.

On the assumption that The Guardian will allow a "free vote" amongst its journalists, I hope that you will lead the "out" faction in the run-up to the referendum. Although, judging by some of the things written by others this past week, you may have some competition.

At last the left in this country seems to have woken up to what is happening, although that doesn't extend to the politicians. But then, when was the last time the Labour party really represented the views of the disenfranchised?


Liam DC Nisbet LiberteEgalite1 17 Jul 2015 08:34

Do your research. Greeks are well aware of the endemic corruption and tax evasion, and this has certainly contributed towards their economic woes, but it's not the whole picture.

Greece was lent a lot of money, by Germany, when Germany knew it couldn't pay it back. That's called irresponsible lending and it would land your average high street bank in deep water, but the Troika are not your average high street banks.

This article is not baseless at all, in fact it's right on the money.

It's your kind of poorly informed rhetoric that stokes nationalist resentment. Keep your childish opinions to yourself in future because you're not helping anyone.


LiberteEgalite1 17 Jul 2015 08:14

Countries poorer than Greece in the EU such as Latvia, Slovakia, and Lithuania have made the reforms and adjustments required to reign in borrowing in order to be competitive and are starting to succeed. Their aspire to be like Netherlands and Germany and are working hard to attain this goal. Greece on the other hand wants to send a begging bowl around the EU so that it can hand generous welfare to its citizens using other people's money. This article is baseless and not helpful in helping Greeks understand the real source of their plight, which is their endemic corruption and tax evasion of its elite.


MaxDrei 17 Jul 2015 07:30

I have just read the Hans-Ulrich Goerges column in yesterday's Stern magazine. It points out how much untaxed money rich Greeks, including the families of Greek government ministers, have parked in Switzerland over the last few years and particularly in the last few months and weeks. The amount of money involved dwarfs other sums under discussion here. And nobody does anything about it! What sort of a society is mainland western Europe, that everybody involved knows exactly what is going on, but all turn a blind eye?


NickLS -> nicholass 17 Jul 2015 07:25

Greece does not have an export oriented economy, this is a fact. It would be great if it did, but to develop one would take time and - surprise! - development; yes, the opposite of austerity!

Given this factual situation of negligible exports, cutting pensions and wages effectively means killing the internal market and shrinking the economy because - surprise! - people will have less money to buy stuff from the companies that sell them. Thus, the remaining companies' sales will fall more and they will have to close shop.

As for the characterisation of SYRIZA, I do not know what you justify it on and what your experience with them is, but I think it should be more than clear that your opinion does not necessarily reflect the truth.


channelswimmer -> ChipsandCrisps 17 Jul 2015 07:15

Actually they checked their books, however Eurostat rules said that derivative positions did't have to be on the books. Many complained about this rule, but Greece with the help of Goldman Sachs completely abused it by turning what looks like a loan from GS (ie GS give Greece a load of money, Greece pay small 'interest charges', Greece repays a load of money) into something structured as a derivative position that didn't have to show up.

estremoz -> NickLS 17 Jul 2015 05:57

It won't be NATO, it will be Eurogendfor, militarily equipped, rapid reaction force entirely at the operational control of the Commission, not the Council of Ministers.
Already formed, already fully operational.
Anti EU protests, which will increase, will be termed domestic terrorism.


NickLS -> cpp4ever 17 Jul 2015 05:49

Greece is not going to exit the Eurozone for the simple reason that Greek assets have been and will keep being sold off at ridiculously low prices to foreign interests. This includes infrastructure, utilities, telecommunications, banks, road tolls, ports, airports, minerals, oil rights, land, tourist businesses, etc. For example, Fraport (a German company) will be gaining ownership of 14 airports throughout Greece soon and Deutsche Telecom already owns the biggest telecommunication company in Greece. Canadian companies and funds own the Athens airport and the gold reserves in the north of the country.

Can you imagine what long term profits these are going to make for foreign companies and for lender countries who bought it all for 1/100th of their real value through the bailout terms? A return to the drachma would mean the end of the profits and their feast, so it won't happen. And even if a revolt happens one day, you will start hearing in the media how Greek "extremists" are out of control and need to be suppressed by NATO or Juncker's army, if he has it by then.


icarus32fly 17 Jul 2015 05:48

Crucifixion: what an apt image! And the sheer weight of the voices behind the plethora of links you provide in this piece is ample evidence that most people of good sense are hating what's happening. Wonder if a shotgun wedding -the very rushed formation of the EU-can possibly end in an amicable and civilised divorce?


tnbskts 17 Jul 2015 05:45

Naomi Klein pointed out in The Shock Doctrine in 2007 that banker-imposed austerity was incompatible with democracy, and that the financial sector along with its bought-and-paid-for governments would do whatever it took to make sure that its interests prevailed, so this outcome was pretty much inevitable. Not exactly surprising that Greece has been added to the parade of countries that have already been impoverished so that the few at the top can become even richer.


icarus32fly MaxDrei 17 Jul 2015 05:44

No, not heart breaking at all; heartbreak involves losing something worthwhile and precious, the whole EU Project was never anything like this but a cock-eyed, ill-conceived, misguided shotgun monetary wedding...to continue your marriage metaphor...I'm still trying to figure out who was pregnant and had to get married.


orsat1 17 Jul 2015 05:42

I have had many happy experiences in the past 47 years whilst visiting Greece. I would like to go again but, I fear a backlash from all Greeks who do not profit from tourism. Tourism is a major part of the Greek economy and many Germans holidayed there: they will now stay away thus exacerbating the problem. Likewise many other EU citizens will feel as I do and stay away.

The IMF and now the ECB have said that the debt is unsustainable, only the EU [mainly Germany] believes that they can get blood out of a stone. PLEASE LEAVE THE EU if only temporarily, and bring back the drachma. Tourists will flock to your shores.


cpp4ever 17 Jul 2015 05:38

Have to agree with you, Seumas Milne, Greece will eventually have to exit the Eurozone and default on many of its debts if the EU Troika continues with policies that have singularly failed in the past and I reckon will no doubt fail again. The current course for Greece makes a mockery of any Democracy requirements of the Eurozone when it can apparently be effectively over ruled so easily. If anyone thinks otherwise, then consider this, Greek businesses going bankrupt is about the most successful business there at the moment and that is going to do nowt for their GDP, or make the profits required to service any debts, let alone pay them off. But that is what Troika policy has achieved and can hardly be called a success!


johnc2tinit 17 Jul 2015 05:31

Perhaps now is the time to point out the obvious: On the scale of Europe Greece is a tiny country.

The Greek population is a mere 5% that of France, Germany and Britain combined. It is similar to that Lombardy and just double that of Ireland. With a third of the population is in the city or metropolitan area of Athens there is neither the workforce nor the infrastructure to rebuild a viable economy, capable of sustaining the payback expected.

Even with a florid economy Greece would have struggled to pay back the "investments" that other European countries poured in as bail-out. The error was as much on the part of the "rescuers" as on the government then in power for accepting such disproportionate sums.

Any private investor will find in small print at the foot of a prospectus the warning: past performance is no guarantee of future returns. In Greece's case, following years of corrupt government, this codicil should have made the EU all that much more careful to help Greece to become solvent again – innovating industry and creating jobs – rather than encouraging her to dig a deeper hole to be finally swallowed in.

Until those now crying for their money back realise that their money as lost and start supporting all the smaller members of the union in order to rebuild a single economic entity the future is bleak. For all of us, even for the larger and more wealthy members.

John Crawford, Bergamo, Italy


NickLS Mark Hatton 17 Jul 2015 05:30

It is misleading to say there is a Greek situation. There is a situation for almost everyone in Europe; some are feeling the effects now, some felt it earlier and some will feel it later. However, you are right to say the the EU is a very opaque bureaucratic hegemony, on that is empowered by the de facto diversity, inequality and the lack of effective bottom-up organisation throughout the continent.


AgeingAlbion 17 Jul 2015 05:30

Over 40 years ago Tony Benn and Enoch Powell joined forces and argued that the EU was undemocratic; that you could not have a single government without a single minister of finance; and that the EU (Eec for pedants) was an ever expanding monster that was a one way street to a superstate. The dishonest Ted Heath pretended he disagreed. The more honest on the left agreed but thought it was a good thing, since for them more government is always better government.

So well done for waking up Seamus to what was predicted by intelligent people from opposite ends of the spectrum before you were even born.


Christopher Deans 17 Jul 2015 05:28

There was not one member country that did not fudge entry conditions to the common currency of the euro and Greece was aided by other members. The only way the euro could have worked was within the confines of a Federal Europe, and a common currency was the lure. This was Germany's third attempt to dominate Europe in the last 100 years and it has failed. The Greeks will leave the Euro and they will be followed by the Mediterranean Nations whose economy is being stifled by debts greater than 100% of GDP; they need to devalue their currency to survive. German goods and services will become increasingly expensive, and equitable trade balances will eventually be restored. The process of restoration will cause some considerable hardships, which are inevitable. but who wants to use currency and a fiscal system in which trade deficit will see German bailiffs at the door demanding possession of national assets.


Mark Hatton 17 Jul 2015 05:23

The European Union is not a democratic institution, neither was it created to be. It's basis is ideological federalism, or bureaucratic hegemony, if you prefer.

The EU project was always a method for Germany and/or France to attempt to dominate the mainland. There was long an unspoken agreement between these two senior nations to this end, whilst each plotted to usurp the other, 'France by other means', 'ever closer union'. The disparate identities of the European members are being gently sanded to match the homogeneous banality of the bureaucratic elite themselves. Peace in our time intending to be achieved by grim uniformity.

That the Greek situation is political as well as financial is self evident. But it is not as black and white, good vs evil as some commentators would have you believe. The Greek establishment are as responsible for their predicament as the EU is. As a nation it has lived beyond it's means, and saw Euro membership as it's ticket to do this. It is naive to imagine the EU, IMF and German banks would be given pause by a pointless referendum and empty bluster. For all Tsipras' guts and political mandate, its was always a matter of time before he had to capitulate, or leave the Euro. Everyone round that table knew it.


imp44791 oak101 17 Jul 2015 05:23

For once a decent comment in CiF that doesn't go on about either "banksters" or "lazy Greeks".

There are no good guys in this affair.

1. Not those European politicians who are risking to wreck (and possibly have already wrecked) decades' worth of effort to build a system to keep the nationalist beast quiet over a point of philosophy ("moral hazard") and protocol ("why did you lot call a referendum while we were still negotiating"?).

2. Not the supposed left-wingers in Greece who have repeatedly lied to their own voters for years on end (latest one: "vote No, and we will force a good agreement in 48 hours"), and who once elected immediately proved themselves to be the usual force of conservatism that the Greek "left" has always been: the protectors of guild privileges, the sacrificers of workers in the private sector to protect the cushy positions of their clients in the civil service, the persistent deniers of any modernising reform.

3. Not the voting public in Greece who cannot rid itself of the ridiculous sense of exceptionalism, entitlement (on the achievements of some chaps who lived 2500 years ago), and myth-making ("the Russians will save us")

4. Not the voting public in Europe, who has fallen hook, line and sinker for all the inane stereotypes of feckless Southerners who will retire at 30 to sit out in the sun, and buy luxuries with the hard earned money of Berlin bakers.

5. And certainly not the commenters of CiF, who ride their own personal ideological hobby-horses (be that "banksters" or "morally bankrupt socialists") over an affair that has little to do with any of that.

I am a Greek expat of some 25 years, after despairing of points 2 and 3 above. Because Syriza's BS is not just BS. It's also old-hat BS: all a silly mish-mash of old Pasok clientelism and anti-modernising reflexes, seasoned by the illiterate ramblings of the extra-parliamentary far left. But the last five years have also led me to despair of the supposedly better Europeans. Perhaps it's time to up sticks again and try a less ideologically bankrupt continent. Is New Zealand far enough? How about Tuvalu?


NickLS rCharel 17 Jul 2015 05:23

You do realise that the biggest tax evading entities in Greece are of German interests? You do realise that the fund where undervalued Greek assets will be going into is directed by none other than Dr Schauble (the German finance minister) himself. Greece won't be reformed because of many interests and mostly external. The rest is a charade.


bill9651 17 Jul 2015 05:11

To quote the great economist - J K Galbraith - 'In economics, the majority is always wrong' and that is certainly the case with the euro.

For twenty years The Guardian has been mocking those of us who foresaw that the euro would impoverish southern Europe. We were also ridiculed for pointing out that the EU was undemocratic - run by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

Well, now the penny appears to have dropped - which is great - but I don't expect any apology to us eurosceptics!

ThinBanker justonetom 17 Jul 2015 05:06

With respect, I think you miss a crucial angle on Syriza. Tsipras and Varoufakis are very intelligent men, so is it realistic to suggest that they were naively offering the undeliverable and crossing their fingers? No, the point of their strategy was fear: take a bold, brazen stance and evoke the clear understanding that they will not back down and all the time leverage fear of the repurcussions for the eurozone as a whole if they are kicked out. Such a strategy requries a poker face, a brazen bluff til the end.

When it came to showing hands, Germany won .... but if you think about it, this was the only viable strategy if Greece was to try and remove its straitjacket.


ManuelGiraldes 17 Jul 2015 04:58

Thank you for the better analysis I've read. As a Portuguese, from a country that is going through a very similar situation, I feel that we are not living anymore in a democracy: only a formal one, under the economical-financial diktat of the UE bureaucracy, Germany, IFM and North-American geopolitical interests. If you have a good memory, as a people we have freed ourselves from a 48 years dictatorship in April 1974, and now we are falling under another one, like the Greeks, who suffered also in the flesh the Dictatorship of the Colonels. What is waiting us? A long agony, in a humiliating, almost colonial situation. The "Evil Empire" is now formed by a nebulous cloud of hidden interests, speculators and corporations. I also had an internationalist dream, I dreamed with a democratic United Europe where the richness of its several cultures and its cross pollination could have given birth to o New Renaissance and an enlarged Atlantic-Mediterrean Pax. Not any more. After the abject humilitiation of Greece I feel ashamed of even be classified as an European. In the now quickly decaying corpse of a dream all the extremims will found, as worms, the fertile ground of a graveyard. No, thank you. Keep your money and, when needed, try to eat it.


JackBz 17 Jul 2015 04:53

For me this is a wake up call. The European project has been stripped of its social pretensions and bare naked it's ugly. A project which was originally intended to maintain the social and economic balance in a Europe which would otherwise inevitably be dominated by Germany's disproportionate mass and scale has become a means of achieving and maintaining German financial and economic supremacy over the rest of Europe.

Right now Greece can go hang, but the message is - actually - you can all go hang, if it doesn't work for Germany it's not going to happen.


Shipyardwelder 17 Jul 2015 04:11

Greece has been made a sort of sacrificial lamb for the Euro project. On the altar of the European dream, a nation has been reduced to penury. Yes, they were stupid to borrow money in the way that they did. But, more stupid is a E.U., that allowed a situation like this to develop in the first place. -- May the fine Greek people find resurrection that comes after crucifixion.


estremoz 17 Jul 2015 03:39

In a speech from Goebbells to Czech Intellectuals and journalists, Berlin 1940.

You gentlemen have now seen something of the Reich, and I made a point of allowing you to make this journey before I addressed you. You have seen the Reich in Wartime, and you will have formed some idea of what it can be in peace. Out great nation with its large population, together with Italy, will in practice take over the leadership of Europe. There are no two ways about that. What it means for you is that you are already members of a great Reich which is preparing to reorganize Europe, tearing down the barriers that still separate the European peoples and making it easier for them to come together. Germany intends to put an end to a situation which quite clearly cannot satisfy mankind for long. We are performing here a work of reform which I am convinced will one day be recorded in large letters in the book of European history. Can you imagine what the Reich will actually be like after the war? (…)


mitchellkiwi 17 Jul 2015 03:30

Well, Merkel, Schauble, Juncker, congratulations! You'll be able to buy the Piraeus, already you own plenty of properties there. You'll be able to buy energy, water and other public services. But more and more of the British public now know they no longer want to be a part of such an abusive organisation. The UK will be leaving after their referendum. We don't want to know you any longer.


Euvosto Taivas FrankMartin 17 Jul 2015 03:30

At least very many Finns would like to resign the euro. They have begun collecting names, in order to give the opportunity to a referendum. The eurozone represents the dictatorship of the international banksters. The whole European Union is hated every day more and more. Names against it are collected, too. As we know, Eu does not allow referendums regarding its decisions or very existence.


soundofthesuburbs David Parris 17 Jul 2015 03:21

What preparations did the Euro-zone make for a Greek default? They moved the private debt to the Euro-zone tax payers.

2009 - 2014 - reduction in private creditors exposure: France - 50 billion, Germany - 20 billion ..... etc .......

The taxpayers have been loaded up with the bankers bad loans.

The full unpleasant story:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-03/good-you-greece-don%E2%80%99t-waver-now-part-2


DT48 FenlandBuddha 17 Jul 2015 03:06

Who do you think funded people like Jean Monnet? The campaign for European Union was in Britain until Britain made it clear it was not going to commit, then it shifted to France.

Yes, it is a US project - some European politicians may have been anti-American, but surely it is obvious by now that the US is politically pragmatic and would consider that a small price to pay for the desired geopolitical outcomes.


Enoch Powell 17 Jul 2015 02:57

The crucifixion of Greece is killing the European project

The European project is dead. Dead as a dodo !! The free trade concept looked good on paper but the EU has transformed into something quite different than what was originally intended.

If the British people knew that political union was on the agenda and that millions of poor East Europeans would have free access to British jobs, public services and social housing they would have comprehensively rejected EU membership at conception. The fact is the British and Greek people have been lied to time and time again by the political establishment. The chickens have come home to roost and it's game over for this failed and corrupt European project. Get over it !!


taxmillionaires admonfr 17 Jul 2015 02:55

You conveniently forget that of the 'bail outs' allegedly given to Greece, more than a 90% went straight to the banks, therefore, they should not be called bail outs for Greece. They were at all effects bailouts for the effing failing banks.

Greece couldn't pay its debt and that debt shouldn't been payed. When you walk into a casino and you gamble, you may win or loose. If you loose, you don't have the European taxpayers covering for your loses. The same should be applied to banks and investors. You invest at your own peril. You may win a fortune in profits and interest but you may lose if the borrower cannot pay back. However, the way it is in Europe now, the banks and creditors gamble and profit from the interests while the taxpayers foot the bill for the loses. If there is not enough taxpayers' money to cover the astronomical loses of those banks, then bleed the taxpayers dry by imposing an artificial austerity destined to suck up to the last cent of EU states to give to banks. What a cosy arrangement, no?

I will only believe that it was Greece's fault if up to the last cent of those 300 bn or so in 'bail outs' had remained in Greece's economy. As it is, for me, it was, it is and it will continue to be the fault of the banks and the apologists for those banks. As we stand, the eurocrats have catastrophically failed not only to Greece, to the rest of the eurozone countries, but to every country in the EU because they have tramped democracy and put in the open what the EU project is all about. Nobody apart from Greece's democratically elected government should have a say in how the country is run.

What those eurocrats have done in Greece is at all effects a coup and history will make them pay dearly for it.


muezzin maricaangela 17 Jul 2015 02:49

Well, as you know, ties between Germany and Croatia are deep :) We'll see if Germans will help if Croats implode.

As for the commercial loans - this is how the Chinese and Americans operate. Standard MO. Only, the Germans, Swiss and Italians did it a bit more ineptly, crashing many a East/Southern European family with unfavorable loans. Note however, that this does not apply to Greece, where interests rates were slashed a few years ago.


FenlandBuddha Thorlar1 17 Jul 2015 02:49

"The "European project" was largely designed by the US in the aftermath of WWII specifically to resist Soviet Russian expansion."

Absolute bollocks. The drivers behind the European project were all European (sometimes anti-American). It was all about no more European wars and at its core how can France and Germany live together after 3 destructive wars in one lifetime. That's what drive men like Jean Monnet. If the USSR hasn't existed they would have acted in exactly the same way. The Americans couldn't wait to get out of Europe after the war.

Utter anti-American " twist rhe facts to make the US the villain" drivel


hertsman GMPierce 17 Jul 2015 02:46

The money went to the German and French banking system and was added to Greece's bill. The Greeks didn't see a nickle of that money.

Wrong. They got 9% or around 25 Bn - that's a lot of nickels. Please make your contributions more accurate.

the ordinary Greek people don't profit from that corruption.

Really ? Where do you think the money came from to allow public servants to retire at 55 with 80% pension ? A Guardian article on Greek pensions featured a clerk who had retired at 55 and received E 940/month pension. This must be the most generous pension system in the world.


David Parris 17 Jul 2015 02:35

Germany wants influence in proportion to its size, and its size is huge; this has led to dangerous hegemonism leaving smaller states (except Luxembourg) counting for little. Essentially, European democratic structures exist only on paper; in practice, France and Germany collude to stitch up major decisions in advance, to the detriment of smaller Member States. The mechanism of so-called "bail-outs" should be noted; they consist of loans at better interest rates than the bank gives me, and are used to pay off German bond holders. So in effect, Germans are the main beneficiaries of bail-outs, and although they tie up capital, they provide a decent return to the lender.

jorjo stui2000 17 Jul 2015 02:30

Some consequences of the mess imposed by Germany and their vassals

  • - in a few months Germany has lost a lot of the political capital and reputation it had acquired post WWII
  • - Euroscepticism growing all over Europe, not only within rightwing populists but amongst liberal and progressive part of society
  • - Probability of UK exiting EU as a result of the referendum increasing materially
  • - Possibility of Scotland leaving UK as a result of it

What a shamble, and I have not even mentioned the consequences in Greece!


soundofthesuburbs admonfr 17 Jul 2015 02:26

It is interesting to contrast how Greece is being treated for its debt of 300 – 400 billion to how the bankers were treated when they lost 6 trillion.

James Rickards in Currency Wars gives this figure (before anyone asks):
Losses from sub-prime - less than $300 billion
With derivative amplification - over $6 trillion


Thorlar1 17 Jul 2015 02:21

The "European project" was largely designed by the US in the aftermath of WWII specifically to resist Soviet Russian expansion. Consequently there has never been any place for left wing politics, let alone economics, at the high tables of European economic policy.

Germany, the greatest recipient of post war reconstruction funds (bail outs) at the end of the war, is dutifully toeing an economic line drawn by America, via the IMF, World Bank and now the ECB. Europe is not a unifying project, it is a neoliberal test bed for economic Darwinism and magic pudding thinking where survival of the fittest is the first and only rule.

Ironically it took the US, an outsider, to dictate the terms of Breton Woods and the new global world order to Europeans, especially France, who wanted to do another Versailles treaty on Germany all over again.

But as always America's motives were far from pure, it created a powerful anti-communist bulwark in central Europe, and new 'trading partners' for its exports and has retained economic supremacy ever since, essentially on the back of arms manufacture and associated industries that has accounted for up to a third of the the US's GDP. For a while it not only survived at the expense of its 'competitors' it thrived.

But all good things come to an end and the end for the US economic dominance was the signaled by rejection of Keynesianism in the late 70s and 1980's debt-fueled consumption. This and other magic pudding ideas became a global exports along with structural adjustment, aka austerity.

After a brief fling with communism Greece avidly imported all this economic nonsense, peddled by dealers like Goldman Sachs et al, little realising that unlike America with its huge economy and global fiat currency, they could not money-print their way out of living beyond their means. When it came time to pay the piper the down side of debt-fueled consumption was made very clear by Germany, a principal lender, who has no problem doing to Greece what the US stopped France from doing to Germany all those years ago.

The only answer for Greece now is to forget tourism and convert its entire economy to arms manufacturing, this will not only enable it to repay all its loans, but be in surplus in no time. They could get some advice on this from another small European arms manufacturing country: Sweden!


Scrotalyser Euvosto Taivas 17 Jul 2015 02:18

The EU always was a Banking Project. We must thank the Greeks for showing us the true nature of the beasts. And apologies to all those whose warnings were brushed off as conspiracy theories.


Gjenganger Charliezulu 17 Jul 2015 02:14

I beg to differ. Postwar Germany must have been a place of crushing austerity. They had had their system rewritten by outsiders, they had taken on board the new way of doing things and decided to make a success of it no matter what. Then the outside world decided to stop demanding the impossible and thereby cause unnecessary ruin (and, yes, that kind of foresight is in short supply today).

We should not push the parallel too far - Greece is 'guilty' of economic mismanagement, not of world war and genocide. But some of the same spirit of accepting reality and dealing with your problems would go a long way to make debt relief easier. Germany did not hold a referendum to decide that they were having their pre-war living standard back, the occupying troops out, and their country unified, and the US and USSR would kindly move out of the way and provide the money to finance the project.


Gayreekslayer 17 Jul 2015 02:13

Greece has a per capita GDP that is lower than that of West Virginia (both before and after the meltdown), one of America's poorest states. West Virginia doesn't have subway stations with marble. It couldn't afford it even if it wanted to have them.

Bottom line is when you have an economy that is worse than West Virginia, you can't live like you're in The Netherlands or in Germany.


GMPierce 17 Jul 2015 02:03

Guess what guys -- The old man crying in front of the Bank ATM was not one of the people who collected the cash from the previous bail-outs.

The money went to the German and French banking system and was added to Greece's bill. The Greeks didn't see a nickle of that money.

The Greek government is obviously corrupt, but again, the ordinary Greek people don't profit from that corruption. The Greeks banks are broke because all of the money is in the hands of the EU bureaucrats and a dozen other varieties of thieves.

You can call them socialists or you can call them free-enterprisers, but whatever label they use is just a justification for why they are entitled to rob the ordinary people blin.


mrmikeeu 17 Jul 2015 01:59

The crucifixion of Greece is killing the European project

... Wake up call for Mr.Milne: The European Project was never meant to be of benefit for the people, only for business (and politicians). You better focus on TTIP, the coming super USA/EU, where we will all be Greece. And we don't get a referendum... This is why the UK no longer needs to be in the EU, TTIP will take care of that. All a matter of "look over here!", so you don't see what's happening over there....

Healthymongrel 17 Jul 2015 01:55

The fact that war is inconceivable between the members of the EU is the often forgotten achievement. You do not have to look very far back from its foundation to realise what has been achieved. The tragedy in my view is that the vision of Europe has been hijacked by the federalists and euro (the currency)-philes. Enforcing a single currency made this crisis only a matter of time, as we have all known since it started. Spare a thought for German tax-payers who are doing the lion's share of the funding while hearing Germany abused on all sides.

The real blame lies with the people who will never be called to account: the fantasists for a federal Europe who pulled countries into the Euro knowing perfectly well that their economies, their whole ways of looking at the world, were incompatible.

That was a criminal act.

Meanwhile, in the UK the advantages of Europe are being masked by this disaster, the will of the Greek (and I suspect the German) people is being driven over, public opinion in France is moving against all things European.


ID3090731 17 Jul 2015 01:55

I agree with Seamus'analysis and find it moves to the core of what's wrong with the financial Management of Greece by the Interests of World, European Capital.

"Greed is good for Greece" is what it's democratic and financial insitutions are being told by wealthy power Brokers.
"If you don't shape up to our expectations of ever more atavistic desire for exponential Profit margins....you will be punsished. So shape up and take your medicin.

Corporate Facism. This greed for Profit at exponential expectation is commodifying the very space between human communities and is philosophivally. morally and spiritually bankrupt. I fear the the reptilian brain has taken over the asylum! See Chomsky's "Profit Before People"


trp981 17 Jul 2015 01:25

"The ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis compared the 'deal' to the Versailles treaty."

The post WW1 Versailles treaty and the post WW2 Marshall Plan can be profitably compared to everyone's favorite US Constitution amendments: 18th and 21st. The former instituted the prohibition on alcoholic beverages, while the latter repealed the former. The zeal of austerity-mongers in torturing Greece in the guise of a morality play, while much of the bailout money is being transferred in the background to the coffers of the creditors - who hold more than at least as much responsibility in making risky loans in pursuit of higher gains - could possibly lead to a system-wide collapse beyond Greece. After a prolonged period of avoidable suffering, something like a Marshall Plan/21st Amendment will be required to repeal a stupid "pre-Keynesian balanced-budget economics" and wash away the damage wrought by the banks and the financial sector in general. An unnecessary lessons-not-learned repetition of historical events and/or the return of the repressed.

"That's been a familiar pattern in the developing world for decades, in the guise of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programmes. But the eurozone has now given it permanent institutional form."

The Troika's algorithmic cruelty towards the Greeks has thrown into relief – yet again - the consequences of "structural adjustment programmes", which effectively redefine the economic concept of GDP as generalized debt peonage. The only novelty in the Greek situation, and by extension "southern Europe", is that the GDP has now contracted from faraway places to the outskirts of the civilized continent.

"The idea that this crisis has simply pitted one democratic mandate – that of Greece – against the hard-pressed taxpayers of 18 other eurozone members is nonsense."

The good news for those into the dark arts of manufacturing consent is that a politically sufficient number of people can be fooled a politically sufficient number of times. Especially effective is the national-economy-is-like-household-economy ruse, which always succeeds in corralling the economic illiterate. Which leaves us with the wise words of Cheech and Chong: "I know exactly where we are."


CroppyNotDown 17 Jul 2015 01:13

The ECB happy to illegally egg on then stand and watch a bank run destroy an entire country, for whom it is the central bank; all at the behest of its most powerful shareholder.

This is surely a world first in the history of central banking.

Now the ECB will loosen the noose, ever so slightly, just to allow a few short breadths.

Europe knows its destruction techniques well. It has a long and bloody history learning them.

The humiliation of Greece cries out for vengence, and that is probably what it will get.


apacheman 16 Jul 2015 20:28

You might call this the opening stages of The War of the 1%.

Truly it is a war of sociopaths against humanity, and it will be very, very ugly before it is through.

It has happened repeatedly in human history, and it always ends in the same way: the extermination of the current 1% and and their families after the slaughter of millions of innocents.

I wish they would learn to accept limits, but their natures demand complete and utter control...they enjoy watching the suffering, and always think they can get off scot-free, right up to the moment they are on the steps of the guillotine, or facing the firing squads.

Sadly, it is beginning again.


ID9173573 16 Jul 2015 20:14

We're always talking about the loans, but the loans are not the problem, nor was the Greek economy the problem: between 2001 and 2008, the Greek economy grew faster than the German economy. If you do not believe this, don't quarrel, look it up.

The fundamental problem of the euro zone has nothing to do with Greece, it has to do with Germany and with the macroeconomic architecture of the euro: it can't work. Since 2001, and against agreements, Germany put enormous pressure on wages: wages did not increase in sinc with productivity, but remained far below it. The consequence of this was that, by 2010, the Germans will able to produce a product and sell it in the EU for 15 % cheaper than an basically identical product made in France. With Greece, the difference was 25 %. This is how Germany exported its unemployment across the union, how it created unemployment everywhere else, how, year after year, it accumulates record trade surpluses that end up in German banks that borrow it to us so we can buy more cheap German products.

France did never did anything 'wrong,' it followed the wage rule, it was not over it and it was not under it. Now France is bleeding. Greece went over: wages increased faster than rises in productivity, but it was, all by all, not that much and it should not have been important. Now you can say, what's wrong with it, isn't that competition? Isn't that the name of the game, trying to sell your products cheaper than your competitors. No, it is not. It's mere mercantalism, it is as stupid as it gets. The German policies destroyed demand everywhere in Europe, up to the point that there is deflation everywhere. It is called Japanese disease: deflation, high and persistent unemployment and a low rate of investment. There is only one way out of this and that is to let wages rise. But no one understands that, although there is a clear historical precedent: in the 1920s the golden standard created basically the same imbalances as we have now but politicians from whatever stripe or colour continue to swear by it - we know where it ended. The euro will go down the same road if no changes will be made. In the meantime, let just suck the living daylight out of the Greeks and turn the place into a protectorate. But it won't help. It is not a new problem, it is an old problem. Wages have to rise, social welfare allowances and pensions have to rise, the ridiculous and idiotic obsession with decreasing the government deficit as a priority has to be left behind, instead priority has to be given to bringing the aggregate private debt down and up to the day that this happens there will be no growth anywhere - for those who believe that the conservatives are doing a great job: look at manufacturing output, look at productivity growth (ridiculous), look at the investment rate (still way below 2008) - these factors and pretty much nothing else determine growth, not financialisation, not the insane inflation of real estate. Either we change or we'll become developing countries. For the truth is that if Greece is bankrupt, no one else is far off.


luella zarf Cigars 16 Jul 2015 20:07

You have not addressed the most horrible fact which was that the German officials conspired for years to use Grexit to manipulate other EU states into giving up their sovereignty, which is black on white in Geithner's memoirs. Yet you go on with the same moralistic crap: that nobody forced Greece to do this or that. Which tells me that you do not have an ethical bone in your body, because that is Dark Vader shit.

But I'm not going to bother to deconstruct all your ideological nonsense, it's not worth my time and energy, I'll just copypaste again Mark Blyth's ending from his article in Foreign Affairs:

''To fix the problem, someone in core Europe is going to have to own up to all of the above and admit that their money wasn't given to lazy Greeks but to already-bailed bankers who, despite a face-value haircut, ended up making a profit on the deal.''

No surprise there, like in any casino, the house never loses.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/greece/2015-07-07/pain-athens


Allen57 16 Jul 2015 19:44

Central Europe is painting Greece as the naughty boy, while Spain and Portugal are the good little boys who did what they were told and imposed painful austerity on their peoples. This is the colonial tactic of divide and rule.

The truth is that the euro enriches Central Europe and impoverishes the periphery. All the PIIGS faced painful choices after the 2008 crash as a result. The Spanish wrote off the chances of their young people. The Greeks tried to blag, bluster and fight their way out. Central Europe want everybody to think about how terrible the Spanish and the Greeks are for making these different bad choices. Actually, Central Europe are the villains (not only Germany but also Benelux and Finland).

They used to say that you should not have monetary union without political union. We should now say: Monetary union without political union is perfect, if you want a mechanism for central imperial domination of their peripheral colonies.


maricaangela CarolusB 16 Jul 2015 19:38

Thanks for your polite reply, Charles. I too know many people from those areas and have lived in Serbia and Croatia, as well as Germany.

Yes, the poor will suffer most, but rather than blame Syriza entirely, I think two irreconcilable ideologies came up against each other, and there was no room for manouevre at all, to move to a logical and helpful conclusion.

This is a terrible deal for Greece - it doesn't even avert disaster, just makes it more long-winded and painful - and a terrible deal for the tax payers footing the bill. So who should we blame? As the saying goes, 'The fish rots from the head'. The EUs weak leadership has meant they have co-opted German politicians, who are unfortunately equally wedded to failed economics and have too much 'inat' to change course, and possibly too much to lose politically?

Greek elites, also wedded to the same system, long ago placed their country in this unpleasant position. While I acknowledge that Greece must reform, many think the reforms the Troika wishes for are not the best ones to achieve results, lacking fairness and justice, and again penalising the poorest sections of Greek society. Both Germany and Greece, pushed by the EU to be the stars of this drama, are engaged in an impossible stand off.

Why do you only blame Syriza? Why not the lack of oversight of the EU, the corrupt behaviour of the previous Greek governments, and the fact that within the EU, since 2008, the Banks have not been regulated or checked but continually bailed out and the recipients of enormous funds from QE? Why has Germany made the taxpayers of Europe fund the Bank's bailouts?

This is a catastrophic situation and exposes democracy in peril. I am sure in Germany, opinion is also split, and can understand that all those carrying the load are equally fed up, but I do think people should think more clearly about how we got here.I do not see apportioning blame appropriate any more but I see no contrition from the EU, nor any desire to change the trajectory of policy, however unpopular it increasingly becomes, and when even the IMF says it will no longer work.

The EU should have made sure Greece was solvent before membership, and they have thrown good money after bad. Do you think they are competent decision makers, and why do they carry on protecting the Banks at the expense of taxpayers? In fact, Varafoukis wanted a Grexit, he couldn't find the means to do it, and in a way, he and Schauble obviously separately thought that was the better option, and it would have been in accord with the results of the referendum that was held in Greece.

I'm sorry, but you do not offer explanations of these anomalies, while only blaming Syriza, a government in power for only 6 months, and constantly negotiating in that time to stave off disaster, when this crisis has been dragging on for years.

Austerity has been proven not to work, and yet the medicine is still administered, even though it kills the patient (and in the end, the nurse(!), no doubt). Obama rejected it, Osborne is no longer following it in reality, numerous economists reject it's value. Yet here we are with more austerity for Greece, none for the Banks, Financial Institutions and elites who have taken the money out of Greece, and placed it in foreign banks and tax havens.

I am very sorry for the taxpayers who are footing the bill, and the Greek people. I am not sorry for those who will not take any responsibility for their mistakes, and I will vote to go out of the EU. I cannot, on principle, vote to stay in such a misguided institution which holds in contempt the citizens of Europe, and upholds elitism and corruption.

I do not think the Greek governments are innocent, but I find it very hard to find any innocents among the leaders here. As usual, the people who had no say in these events will pay the highest price, whether Germans, Greeks, Finns, Slovenians - let's hope they remember when next they vote in elections.

I wish you well, in the hope we might have light at the end of the tunnel eventually!


Santiago Barreiro Jim Jetson 16 Jul 2015 19:36

Half of my family live in Spain, and they´re pretty honest taxpayers, well-meaning townsfolk. Since the EU showed up and the EURO replaced the peseta, the quality of life there has decreased. The issue in the eurozone isn´t honest vs. dishonest countries, but rich vs. poor countries. France is noticeably corrupt, improductive and with a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy and they haven´t suffered. Simply because they´re rich enough so an overvalued currency doesn´t affect them.


luella zarf -> Cigars 16 Jul 2015 19:33

Mark Blyth, a noted economist, has a recent article in Foreign Affairs, subtitled Why Greece Isn't to Blame for the Crisis: ''According the Bank of International Settlements, by 2010 when the crisis hit, French banks held the equivalent of nearly 465 billion euros in so-called impaired periphery assets, while German banks had 493 billion on their books.''

The article explains the mechanisms through which the banks were bailed out and even made a profit despite the alleged haircut which ends up like this: "To fix the problem, someone in core Europe is going to have to own up and admit that their money wasn't given to lazy Greeks but to already-bailed bankers who, despite a face-value haircut, ended up making a profit on the deal.'' https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/greece/2015-07-07/pain-athens


HoolyK maricaangela 16 Jul 2015 19:17

Look, ... there are a ton of countries and peoples around the world who would love to be like Germany and the Germans ... a disciplined, cultured, technologically advanced people with a successful economy. Like China and Russia for example, their leaders are basically aping the Germans, trying to turn their countries into bigger versions of Germany. Greece has an opportunity for direct German rule that can turn it into a mini-Germany, but with sun and beaches. Why not take this offer? Because the Greeks, ever since independence from the Ottoman Empire has not shown itself very worthy of self rule. Why shy away? After all, Greece once had a German prince upon its thrown, and Greece's very flag is based upon the colors of Bavaria. The alternative is wallowing in Balkan mediocrity and Mediterranean sloth.


duke_widin 16 Jul 2015 18:53

This week has made a mockery of monetary union as a path to a united democratic Europe and opened the way for the eurozone's breakup.

Greece is important for the EU that's why every aspect is analysed and discussed but, still small fry... Greece needs the the 3rd time bailed out in 5 years,this makes it hard to understand how the program works . I read columns and articles here in the Guardian from economy professors who don't seem to understand how solid the Euro zone is set up in contrast to the USDollar who still got a private central bank the FED something even the UK gave up more as 75 years ago ....

However,the euro has the highest combined value of banknotes and coins in circulation in the entire world and in only 15 years(the US Dollar took ca.150 years) it has become the second reserve currency after the USDollar without any other competitor in sight....

The EU with over 500 million inhabitants in this short time has became the world most potent and biggest consumer market..
And now the EU will find a even greater stability in more political integration...


darkwhy ShiresofEngland 16 Jul 2015 18:36

And the blatant absence of due diligence. When a loan shark lends money there is no due diligence, just fear and the breaking of bones.
Lack of due diligence was the major driver behind the sub-prime mortgage crime-all the way to the top. They [the bankers] got of with it Scot -free and kept on awarding themselves £$billions while their victims suffer without end[the poor in the Uk for one


luella zarf -> Cigars 16 Jul 2015 18:30

The lenders were more than willing to help if economic reforms were implement.

This a shameless lie, that reform were not implemented (why are you doing this? didn't your mummy teach you basic morality?). If you search the website OECD Going for growth 2015, you will find a chart called OECD Going for growth reform responsiveness, average 2007-1014 showing that Greece leads the OECD reform ranking.

The problem is that austerity is a ruinous idiotic policy and the reforms have thrown Greece into a 1933-style depression. Unemployment in Greece is over 25 percent now, higher than the United States during the Great Depression.

The lenders were not considering Grexit.

Unfortunately for all of you the trolling trolls who promote this propagandistic bullshit, in 2014 Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury 2009-2013 published his Memoirs, where he details how he met Schauble in 2012. Well well, and Mr Schauble told him that kicking the Greeks out of the eurozone was a desirable strategy because "a Grexit would be traumatic enough that it would help scare the rest of Europe into giving up more sovereignty to a stronger banking and fiscal union".
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/business/dealbook/the-hard-line-on-greece.html

Translation: Since 2012, the Germans have attempted to throw Greece under the bus in order to manipulate other states to give up their sovereignty to the bankers! You can't make this up if you tried it! Disgusting.


8911steven Jim Jetson 16 Jul 2015 18:21

No taxpayers lent money to Greece : that was private banks. This only became a problem for European taxpayers when the troika decided in 2010 to take over responsibility for the debts, thereby transferring liability from bankers to taxpayers. They then imposed macroeconomic policies which gutted the Greek economy making it unlikely European taxpayers would ever get much of their money back . The newspapers really have got you hating the oppressed and loving your oppressors, haven`t they ?


HolyInsurgent 16 Jul 2015 18:05

Seumas Milne: A eurozone nakedly dominated by one state, Germany, enforcing destructive austerity on its vassals with such brutality, can have no enduring legitimacy.

Ironically including for Germany when it enters an inevitable recession in the boom-and-bust cycle. Then watch German politicans and economists howl when their surrounding markets have all been crippled by Germany's "success." What goes around comes around. And Germany will learn this hard lesson too late.

What kind of a union of partners treats one of its members like a recalcitrant colony, destroys its economy if it steps out of line, and dismisses its democracy as an impudent affront? In fact it's one that has always ducked democratic accountability, embedded deregulation and privatisation in treaties, and preferred to fix policy – including the race-to-the-bottom Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership – with corporate interests in secret.

Agreed. The neoliberal policies of the Troika are the culprit and require re-evaluation before there are intra-European boycotts...or worse.


maricaangela CarolusB 16 Jul 2015 17:51

The mindset of the Balkans is not easily understood by Western Europe. Cut off from their cultural Christian roots by the Ottomans for centuries, deeply divided and distrustful, forced to fight for freedom from their occupiers, and centuries of begging for any favour, job, or entitlement,have left them with a deep distrust of the State (hence the endemic non-payment of taxes even now they have self rule) yet eager to be part of the Europe they were separated and distanced from for so long. Same goes for other countries, e.g. Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary and the former Jugoslav states, on similar lines, often uniting to fight the Ottomans, but otherwise quarreling over borders, land and ethnic divisions, and divided in WWs by forces beyond their control. This is not foremost in the national mindsets now, but is deeply subconscious, rather like our sabres are rattled at Germany/Prussia in an almost visceral way, and despite the jokes about us and the French, we look to them to show a united front against any German encroachment of our powers. Unfortunately, German actions have ignited that subconscious fear, of being cast out, isolated and alone. So they grab at straws for now.

I guess this historical sense of being forced apart from the rest of the continent, yet fighting two WWs alongside the allies (with Serbia) makes them feel they are safer in than out, even though that position may be very tenuous. People in continental Europe are eager for peace and tolerant of their neighbours only to a certain degree, and in the Balkans this is exacerbated by a deep inferiority complex of being pawns in the games of the bigger powers, and deeply misunderstood.

In a similar sense, Serbs have a lot of contempt for Milosevic, yet feel outraged that Britain, a former ally bombed them. This burns them deeper than their own politicians, who they expect to be venal and corrupt and do nothing good for them. Thus Greece is behind Syriza because they are the best they've had for a long time, they are willing to include the people who were denied a voice for so long, yet have ultimately ended up with a terrible deal. These countries feel martyred by all sides, like victims of their own and others, so they make, for us, strange decisions, it's true.


inmateN7 16 Jul 2015 17:48

Any of us in the UK who have been at the sharp end of our incumbent governments' austerity programme can only feel sympathy for the people of Greece, who have been well and truly shafted by this 'fix'. However, this does not justify a knee-jerk, one-size-fits-all assumption that both we and Greece, would be better out of the EC.
For Greece, a forced exit may be the only outcome, but they have their reasons for wanting to stay in the EC, they are not masochists. While we in the UK have always been cynical of the 'provisions' of EC membership, I don't think we're half as cynical as those on the continent, many of whom underwent near stratospheric inflation when they swapped their currencies. Membership is not a dictatorship, it's always up for negotiation, and what we need are the leaders and representatives to navigate this negotiation in a mature and truly democratic way. Sure TTIP gives me the fear, and there's a lot to argue against, but I still feel more secure about the nations of Europe being united in a common purpose, and not fracturing under different ideologies, returning to eyeing each other with jingoistic suspicion...

Alarmcall 16 Jul 2015 17:30

All Europe should be questioning whether this European Union has lost its way, has strayed too far from the enlightened founding principles of the Treaty of Rome, has forgotten their purpose to prevent history repeating the fateful folly of letting bankers exploit workers, keeping working conditions harsh, spreading impoverishment, fanning nationalism and seeding revolt and warfare.

The European Union, not just the Euro Zone, is now at risk of being destroyed by stupidity, bruised egos, weak visionless collective leadership and no clear chain of command. The so called leaders need to wake up to the lack of Unity at the heart of both the Eurozone and the wider EU. Too many countries are preoccupied with self interest, not sharing, and not uniting under the EU flag; this includes the shameful United Kingdom government.


Market makers do not plan for or buy long term security, they simply exploit opportunity for profit. Markets will let a population starve, they will let a nation go bankrupt regardless of the suffering, they will let a nation be defenceless, they will pollute and disrupt the biosphere for as long as governments let them, unless they are paid not to.


Markets corrupt governments to put GDP growth above responsibility for people or life on Earth. Anything that gets in the way of greed driven corporations making more profits is ignored, denied or if needs be fought by mercenary intermediaries paid to misinform, to make political donations and provide other reward channels to lure away opposition. Above all they rely on selfishness dominating community.

Markets are in conflict with the needed good governance of this planet now that humans are changing the conditions that have enabled us to flourish.

As the last three decades have shown, markets push government towards ever more deregulation, and lower taxes to increase debt driven unconstrained growth of consumption, regardless of financial risk to individuals, or countries, and without heeding the clear scientific evidence that pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses is causing a speed of global warming that will in a lifetime radically change the climate system with catastrophic consequences for the stability of civilisation around the planet.

The citizens of all the member states of the European Union need to come to their senses and reflect on these matters. The European Union has not responded well to the internal economic problems of the Euro Zone nor the wider EU, nor major international problems, because the member states retain the real power and they act like slaves to blindly further this out of control corporate machine, that is taking their countries on a suicidal route to savage resource wars in a hungry climate ravaged world.

For too long Europe has relied upon leadership from the United States, but the US Congress has been neutered by the misuse of the power and wealth of Corporations.

We can see the result in the staggeringly huge government debts in America and across the EU including Britain. These are primarily down to rescuing commercial banks that were going bust and governments taxing far too little at the expense of a bleak future for the young.


The loans to Greece were designed to rescue European banks, transfer the debt to taxpayers, and through harsh terms provide more opportunities for buying up Greek distressed assets by commercial vultures.

This dangerous global banking system needs putting back in its box. Global problems can only be solved by responsible governance.

The three decades of cut taxes, de-regulate, "small government is best", started in the 1980's has corrupted and crippled the West with runaway greed, destroyed global economic stability through debt, deepened inequality and through damage to the biosphere is undermining the stability of the climate, the habitable zones, and the food and water resources that have made modern large scale civilisation possible.


Europe should say no to TTIP, no to ISDS and concentrate on making Europe united and self sufficient.

This highly dangerous century is no time for Europe to revert to small disagreeable countries led by blinkered narrow minded leaders. Europe must find leaders with the courage and the vision to stand up for the high principles of the Treaty of Rome and put a real Union into the heart of Europe.

It is time for a new Europe to emerge under new leadership with a proper Federal Democratic Structure. There is no way back to pre 2007. There will be no good way forward to manage this isolated rock in space for mutual benefit without a real United States of Europe influencing the fast approaching global choice between war and peace.

YouHaveComment -> soundofthesuburbs 16 Jul 2015 17:29

It's the new Osborne Consensus.

Socialism and Keynesianism for the rich.
Austerity for the rest of us.


Garry Coll 16 Jul 2015 17:28

The recent, and ongoing, Greek episode of the Eurozone soap opera borders on the absurd.

Notwithstanding the excellent article above by Mr Milne, it seems that there is more to this than a conflict between Greece and its Eurozone partners.
When the threat of default loomed several weeks ago, the Greek government said in plain language, we can't pay this.

To which they were told, pay up, because if you go into default we will have to take serious action like kick you out of the Euro and possibly the EU also.

So Greece went into default by not paying a tranche of it agreement with the IMF.

To which they were told, alright now that you're in default you must accept this bailout or we'll kick you out of the Euro and possibly the EU also.

Grand said Greece, we'll put your bailout proposal to the people in a referendum. And the Greek people in a democratic plebiscite voted against the bailout proposal.

After which Greece defaulted again on an IMF payment.

To which they were told, here are our final bailout


Kenny6501 16 Jul 2015 17:25

The 50B was the amount of holdings the government was supposed to privatize from the last package. In the last rescue package, the implication is that the european and germans agree to trust that the Greeks will manage these sales themselves to pay for the loans that the other countries have put in (primarily Germany and France, but even the poorer baltics chipped in). So selling these assets from the previous rescue was a "we trust the greeks to do what is right" - the equivalent of a call from our bank reminding you to sell your 3rd or 4th condo to pay for the 5th one to reduce your debt to the bank.

The 50B is now a forced sale because the last one didn't happen and only 7B of asset sale was in place, of which Syriza tried to reverse at least one (the port in Piraeus), the structure of explicitly saying 50B has to be sold is just one step below the equivalent of the Germans sending Guido in with a process server to repossess your nice furniture. It's what happens when your lender no longer trusts you.


YouHaveComment 16 Jul 2015 17:25

Plan to save Europe

1 - Direct elections for the EU Commission - we have to be able to vote them out.
2 - None of this TTIP / BIT nonsense of negotiating away the democratic will of the people behind closed doors.
3 - Direct elections for the EU Commission - we have to be able to vote them out.
4 - Euro to be reformed so that no country ever again gets to be in Greece's or Germany's position.
5 - Direct elections for the EU Commission - we have to be able to vote them out.
6 - There is no point 6.
7 - Direct elections for the EU Commission - we have to be able to vote them out.

(with apols to Monty Python)


luella zarf AnotherBerliner 16 Jul 2015 17:20

The principle is called "No taxation without representation" (that is, European taxpayers have the right to decide how their tax money is spent, including if on loans to Greece).

Actually, when the Troika coerced Greece to accept the bailout in 2011, Papandreou didn't want to sign without a public mandate and tried to organize a referendum, but the Eurocrats immediately ousted him and buried the referendum and now Greeks are saddled with this huge unpayable debt for which they have never voted. What democracy, what representation?!

People have no idea of what the sociopaths at the top did in order to save the gambling German, French, British and American banks, and now are screaming for blood, but the Greeks were not allowed to vote either.


umweltAT2100 16 Jul 2015 17:19

Everything Mr. Milne has written is factually correct - it is a horror scenario!

A real shocker and an alarming eye-opener was the letter in the Guardian by Elmar Brok* supposedly addressed to Mr Tsipras but clearly aimed at making known that the German CDU/CSU avowed intention was to rid the Greeks of this terrible Syriza government that they had democratically elected and re-endorsed in the subsequent referendum. It was also to prepare the ground for Schäubles' secret master-plan** (that wasn't shared or agreed to by the other Euro countries) Grexit for 5 years, at the end of which Greece probably would not qualify to re-enter the Euro.

A lot of anti-bailout rabble-rousing seems to have been beaten up by the German Bild newspaper – and national hostility was so high, that the SPD party leader Gabriel joined his CDU/CSU coalition partners against any debt relieve or restructuring of the repayment terms. (So even without Murdoch the media can be a deadly instrument – or is he running the Bild!)

The way the Troika mismanaged this whole catastrophic, short-sighted/visionless and merciless episode has done irreparable damage to the EU, and its nations states see quite plainly that it is not Greek that cannot be trusted, but that strong nationalistic and right-wing governments are all speaking with different voices, and like the Tower of Babel, the whole thing is in danger of imploding. The EU has also goofed up badly on issues like Ukraine and Mediterranean migrants over the last two years.

The Greeks have suffered irreparable damage – chaos, confusion, not knowing whether they could still get a few Euro out of the bank to buy essentials, anger at being humiliated, terrified of what the next day's disasters would hold in store for them, the country crippled and grinding to a halt right at the beginning of the tourist season which is one of the main sources of income. At the same time, like Italy, Greece is handling a steady flow of Mediterranean migrants, over 68,000 this year alone. And now they are force to sell their port of Piraeus, so any profits will go to its new owners, probably China.

Killing the European Project by Paul Krugman
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/killing-the-european-project/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=1

Mr Tsipras, we need to rebuild trust before we can talk | Elmar Brok | Comment is free | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/06/tsipras-restore-trust-greece-eu
*Profile: Elmar Brok is a German MEP, CDU* member, and chairman of the European parliament committee on foreign affairs

**Wolfgang Schaeuble: Germany's man with a Grexit plan - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33511387


RocketSurgeon 16 Jul 2015 17:18

Great article, and why I put the Guardian above all other UK media sources for unbiased reporting.

Predatory Lending is illegal, and the EU and ECB and the German banks reasonably knew that the last bailouts were beyond Greece ability to repay.
So now money created out of thin air [loaned into existence], is now franked and made solid and legit, and Greece's hard assets are nailed down as collateral for the lenders to rob Greece of its few real assets.

The banks have taken over, and democracy and votes are just symbols with no real value.

This is our future. Elected Governments being dictated to by Corporations and Banks, and Nations swindled in clear day light out in the open.
Just my opinion.


goudar30 maricaangela 16 Jul 2015 17:15

Yes an evident consequence , my comment was not meant to be offensive , but sarcastic towards this absurd situation & the huge gap between cold technocracy and the hardship of the weakest , I think it is and will become more & more a serious matter for every single european Citizen,

Those kind of outrageous policies are bound to bring suffering.to people and not only in Greece , more and more weakened people are suffering from those ideologies. in many Eu countries.

and these days , many -& more then politicians may wish- feel & are greek .

decisivemoment Wiseaftertheevent 16 Jul 2015 17:14

No they damned well are not. In many cases private European banks made reckless loans to private entities in Greece, and now they demand 100 cents plus on the Euro in bailout. In any loan situation, part of the responsibility is on the lender. To have it any other way you'll ultimately blow the system up; lenders would do whatever they could get away with and it would take capitalism itself down. But that now seems to be the mentality of the German finance ministry, and most of the rest of the EU is bending down for it.

This changes everything for 2017 in the UK. Everything. Whose situation do you prefer, Iceland, or Greece? I think the answer to that is easy, the one with the glaciers and the herring. And for the EU to survive, and Britain to survive in it, the choice CANNOT be limited to those two options. Yet limiting to those two is precisely what the German approach does.


maricaangela Alfie Silva 16 Jul 2015 17:10

In Croatia, the same has happened. For short term profit for their broke economy, the politicians loaned them to the Chinese who stuck high tolls on them, far too expensive for locals to use and which even Swiss and Austrian tourists try to avoid. Thus the old, and bad roads, are blocked in summer, and busy in winter, with these new highways empty.

I heard in Spain the same problem exists. No sense at all.


FOARP Charliezulu 16 Jul 2015 17:05

Greece already received debt-relief in 2012 to the tune of more than 100 billion Euros, in the form of a 50% hari cut on private loans (those evil "banksters" everyone keeps blaming for this crisis received 50 cents back for every euro they originally lent Greece). Why should she receive more such largesse?

sacco TeutonClown 16 Jul 2015 16:29

I would love to see what would happen if Germany had that big a problem.

I am pretty sure Germany would not have received a single bail-out, let alone three.

Germany, together with France, already had just this kind of problem in 2009–10 and on to 2012, when they vetoed any proposal to restructure massive debts that were clearly unpayable after the global banking crash in order to protect the exposure of their own banks.

While other countries were forced to bear the major costs of re-capitalising their own banking systems, German banks had vast tranches of their bad debts bought out at above the market rate by programmes such as SMP; those that remained in the private sector were marked down to less than 47% in 2012 (and even that was more than they were worth). Ironically, given your comment, it is precisely the bill for their portion of these debts that is currently being used to keep Greece under the heel.

The unfathomable sums that have to be raised according to en endless series of deadlines that have rendered normal political responsibility impossible in Greece -the Troika has thus far seen off three governments, five Prime Ministers, and eight ministers of Finance- serve nothing more than to make scheduled repayments on these even though they were officially declared unpayable in 2010 - if they weren't unpayable losses, then why were the Eurozone rules violated by bailing out the banks with programmes such as SMP? No Greek government can hope to make any impression on this cause of permanent tribute as, without control over their own policy priorities and with the Eurozone & ECB policies acting to maximise uncertainty over their future trajectory -the very opposite of the support that should be offered to build the confidence required to promote investment- the numbers are simply too big in relation to the diminished Greek economy.

Yet they are forced to continue with the endless irrelevance of this coercive and corrosive mill of debt recycling, because otherwise the the political masters will force the ECB (contrary to its mandate) to shut down Greek banks, just as we have seen.

To sum up: Germany has already had its bail-out through its banks. They have proved sufficiently powerful -and ill-advised- to saddle the full bill on the Greeks, the least able to pay. The longer-term results will be to stall and even reverse progress on many aspects of the European project that has served German prosperity so well, and to promote the rise of far-right populist nationalism in both Greece and Germany (and likely in France and elsewhere too).

maricaangela Nanome 16 Jul 2015 16:28

Yes, I was thinking the right wing voters are most hypocritical, even in their condemnation of the EU, because they vote for the same neoliberal ideology that got Greece into this mess, for their own nations!

The Left is hypocritical until now, because ideology blurred their vision and their judgement, but at least they don't vote for it at home.

Ideology and dogma is dangerous. Right and left are now vague concepts with little solid principle involved. The main principle with Greece is that democracy itself is threatened when Corporations and Banks make the rules, and politicians from all sides are their puppets.

ShiresofEngland TheMarxOfProgress 16 Jul 2015 16:14

Greece isn't blameless and who can fault Eurozone taxpayers for not wanting to keep funnelling cash to them?

Do you mean that EZ taxpayers should expect those debts in 2010 to stay as bank debts, and Article 125 of the Treaty of Lisbon to be upheld which if the EU/ECB/IMF had played with a straight bat then it would have been a default in 2010.

Didn't happen did it? Those who ask themselves why leaves a bitter taste in the mouth if they are europhiles.


JensBa mp66 16 Jul 2015 16:08

There was a secret plan, that 4-5 people had worked out. But their was no decision to implement it from the leadership of Syriza, which would have been necessary. For details see the interview of Varoufakis with New Statesman.


ShiresofEngland 16 Jul 2015 16:06

What kind of a union of partners treats one of its members like a recalcitrant colony, destroys its economy if it steps out of line, and dismisses its democracy as an impudent affront? In fact it's one that has always ducked democratic accountability, embedded deregulation and privatisation in treaties, and preferred to fix policy – including the race-to-the-bottom Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership – with corporate interests in secret.

The EUSSR

OMG not that tired old cliche, and I put it in bold! You can spot me walking the streets as I am the handsome chap wearing a "Told You So" T shirt. [Smugness mode off]

There is always one big drawback of being a eurosceptic, and it isn't the irritant of being called racists, loonies and fruitcakes. The real problem is when we are right it always come at a heavy price, and today the Greek people are paying that price. Euroloon zealots will test to destruction their beliefs which always comes at the expense of the 'little people'. Those poor buggers like all of us just trying to get by and do what is right for ourselves and families.

This deal for Greece is vicious stupidity of the highest order. It is unworkable, and nobody wants it other than the banksters and the euroloons. The silver lining is many europhiles are having second thoughts as the EU's mask has slipped. It is always hard to make a U turn, but I did as once one myself (yep honestly!). I commend those who have changed their position and offer a welcome to the darkside.


inLondon10 16 Jul 2015 16:05

Costas Lapivitsas from the left platform of Syriza, Larry Elliot from the Guardian, Ambrose Evans Pritchard from the Telegraph are not necessarily political soul mates but all make convincing arguments that,with the current terms on offer, Greece would be better out of the Euro. Surely the most constructive way forward is for Tsipras and the EU to organise a way out of the Euro with as little damage as possible.


vicepopeeric Wolfgang Amadeus 16 Jul 2015 16:02

Lets see, we gave the banks almost a quadrillion dollars for f***ing up the economy by gambling with other peoples money.
Greece has had about 370 billion dollars (works out at about 3.7% of what we gave the banks). Of that 370 billion dollars, only about 10% actually went to the Greeks, the rest went to banks to pay other banks.

No its NOT the economy stupid it's PEOPLE that count.


Drewv PolydentateBrigand 16 Jul 2015 16:01

Immolation, crucifixion, waterboarding... stop this emotive hyperbole.

These are accurate descriptions. Your "generous loan" will be used almost entirely to pay the interest on a debt that will never be repaid, to German and French banks.

The country isn't bankrupt, that is the entire fucking point. Bankrupt countries get major debt relief.


candy44maker JohnG4 16 Jul 2015 15:59

There are but a few German banks affected!

Some interesting Infographics:

The Greeks will need to hire 180 truck drivers to transport the money.

Who Loaned Greece the Money?

Greece owes a lot of money to a lot of people, and it's not at all that German or French banks are affected. Check out who loaned the money.

Information Date: 2012 February. Source: EBA (European Banking Authority)

Greece meanwhile owes to their lenders 0.5 trillion Euro. They claim that only 10% was spent on the Greek people, and 90% of the money lent was going back to foreign banks. This is simply not true. Approx. 30% of the money was used for the annual budget in Greece, about 35% was spent to make loan payments and approx. 35% of the money left Greece and was transferred to offshore bank accounts.


Some interesting graphics:

http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_greek.html


AngrySkeptic 16 Jul 2015 15:51

I was raised to have a horror of clubs and organizations with memberships. Do not see why a country would want to be a member of a club, especially when the economic disparities are so great. The EU can never operate like the USA, because every one of the countries in it as a long and different history, different language and culture. To run efficiently it will have to imitate the former USSR and develop a dictatorial central administration. Seems that Merkel has grasped that fact. Arbeit macht Frei will be the watchword and goodbye to La dolce vita.

Drewv -> SimpleOldSailor 16 Jul 2015 15:46

So the Eurozone breaks up, in that case the winners will be the big banks and the other leeches that live off the blood stream of international finance.

Will theybe? Their short-term losses would be enormous, with vast amounts of public and private debt being written off as the dominoes start falling. International finance as a whole would take a pounding worse than in 2007/2008.


DomesticExtremist hood 16 Jul 2015 15:36

That is to expect neo-liberal high priests in Brussels to dismantle their own temple.

It's not going to happen.


maricaangela wondrinfree 16 Jul 2015 15:32

Did it occur to you that the EU has changed in recent years. It is now run by right wing governments who promote a failed austerity and a failed banking system. A decade ago, it was full of socialist governments who went on a spending spree. The Banks were the winners in both cases, but now the poorest pay with unemployment, rights taken, and assets stripped, while those who benefitted most still enjoy their riches and stack money away in tax havens.

Mistakes have been made, but those who should be paying are still at the party, while those who had no hand in all this have been kicked into the gutter.

Oligarchy is winning, with the support and help of political elites.


Seppo Janhonen feliciafarrel 16 Jul 2015 15:28

Good comment. I share your view of the idea of truth and honour as well as most - as I believe - of us Finns. The Greek catastrophy is right now shaking our trust to the honesty, reliability and endurance of the European project. It´s interesting how the views of single Europian citizens are being shaped in these days. Many of us are asking why on earth we are paying the debts of a state that is not willing (and obviously not able either) to manage its own businesses. Mr. Tsipras is not much respected in Finland right now.

Also the EU membership will without doubt enjoy less support in future; The Guardian itself encourages this development by stating the simple truth that a small country like Finland has no influence in decision making in EU. That´s what we have seen right now although our leaders have maintained it´s important to sit at the table where the decisions are made. Well, the results can be seen... Why stay in an immoral society like (euro group) or even EU? Therefore it is probable that there will start processes to quit euro or even EU in my country.

Who knows whether one day the EU countries Greece, Finland and Britain on extreme sides of our continent share one more thing in common? That´s quitting EU.


AngrySkeptic WitNit 16 Jul 2015 15:26

It's all very well to talk in objective terms such as "public finance". The problem is what the people of the country will be forced to live through and have been living through foe a while. Is it absolutely necessary that they should? Probably not. Is this what a united Europe means? Probably. Is this what a united Europe should be? I think not.


oxleydan CarolusB 16 Jul 2015 15:05

Well the 18 EZ governments can send their CCJs or whatever to the muppets that took out the loans in the first place, rather than sacrificing the entire civilian population.

And can you see any possible issues with medicine that kills the patient? If the terms of the bailout further reduce demand in the Greek economy, thereby actually reducing the prospects of economic growth necessary for paying back the loans, then you have to question the motivation behind the terms of the bailout. Is it motivated by a punitive desire to make an example of Greece, to deter Spain, Italy and Portugal? In other words, it's political rather than economic.


Alfie Silva -> feliciafarrel 16 Jul 2015 15:04

Your propaganda goes against all that is decent and correct.

You may accuse me of propaganda, but I have no axe to grind nor vested interest to protect.

In Portugal, every graduate who graduates, is another graduate who leaves Portugal. Or they stay and find work in McDonalds. If they can get it.

The Euro may have benefited a small number of Portuguese, but the majority are fed up. They may not be as vocal as the Greeks, but the next macro-economic shock to hit Europe will change that.


cascade14 16 Jul 2015 15:04

The "crucifixion" of Greece is only an outward manifestation of the true intentions of the EU, which are most often hidden within the myriad of Directives, Regulations and Decisions that are produced with Teutonic efficiency and, which are designed to control, subliminally, every aspect of the lives of all of those who have been mesmerised by the lure of a European Utopia.

The cruelty inflicted upon the Greek population is a PR aberration and error by the EU, brought about by the unexpected temerity of the Greeks to dare to express their wishes, nay despair, through a democratic process of a Referendum which stands in stark opposition to the ideals of Empire building and subjugation of the masses; which is essential to the expansion of the EU.

The side effect of which is to try to keep in line those other "none- believers" who might wish to put their heads above the parapet and say "Boo" to Merkel and Schauble.


LanceLee Wolfgang Amadeus 16 Jul 2015 15:04

It has long ceased to be about money.

Even on the level of money, the current 'deal' is an absurdity: it amounts to loaning more money to Greece which cannot pay back the money it already owes. This goes on, bizarrely, because among other realities the Euro zone institutions make money from these loans, a sum currently standing at 1.9 billion Euros. It pays to devastate Greece. We could all be in total agreement that Greece pay everything back- and be faced with the conundrum an impoverished society that cannot meet its own needs can hardly meet outside debtors' without incurring more debt. What is needed, if money is what we're talking about, is a plan that provides for growth to provide the money to repay debt. It's really very simple.

Well, let them 'Grexit' and default... Really? Repay none of the 240 billion and climbing Euro debt? Another great idea.

The problem is that if the solution really isn't very hard to imagine, sparking a reasoned growth with reform, allowing for debt repayment and national functioning, there is a political investment primarily on Germany's part in a policy called 'austerity' that has no intellectual or economic justification that in effect says: 'in hard time, raise taxes and cut spending'. We could as well call this the rebirth of the economic policies of Herbert Hoover. But values like 'thrift' 'responsibility' 'integrity' have been high-jacked by this theory, so that advising a modern Keynesian policy as has been carried out in the United States with such radically different, and better results, compared to the Euro zone, is tantamount to these misguided politicos to 'profligacy'. Worse, having invested their political capital in this approach, predominantly German inspired, the Euro zone leaders have denied themselves the possibility of a rational settlement.

So I find myself in the very odd position of agreeing with Seumas Milne, who is a bright person but whose views I usually find exaggerated to the point of absurdity. How odd to think Mrs. Merkel has so bungled things that she has made Milne right.


Lafcadio1944 16 Jul 2015 14:46

The European project has long sense been dead. Apparently commentators and just now figuring this out and far far to late. Europe through the maneuvering of Germany especially under Merkel has taken over Europe and now acts as its overseer. Through German writing of the "rules" to its own advantage and then being the enforcer of the rules essentially has turned the once proud nations of Europe into German bantustans. No country or even group of countries can now leave the EZ without serious and prolonged economic suffering, and staying in they have only the opportunity of offering the equivalent of -0- hour feudal work for a pittance, insuring their perpetual poverty.

These are the present conditions and it remains to be seen whether or not the people of Europe are going to do anything about it but history shows that people are obedient to power to the point of digging their own graves as the Greeks have done.

Democracy may be wonderful and might some day offer benefits to the general population, but for now the democratic process elects people who say they are left and govern from the far right. This happens over and over from the "hope" Obama exploited to win election to the leftest slogans Syriza used to win election. Once in power suddenly they discover the great virtue of Neoliberal/Ordoliberal (I write the rules you obey) ideologies of oligarch worship and oppression.

Germany wrote the rules for the EU and they advantage Germany exclusively. Germany is now running a trade surplus in excess of 7% - people don't seem to understand or care that this is a deliberate violation of EU regulation and rules and so no commentators mention it. The German trade surplus especially sense it is so very high acts as a tool to dominate the rest of Europe, disadvantage them seriously and insure that if they left the EU there economies would collapse. Thus, Germany has a very big hammer which it shows to Hollande each time he makes some feeble attempt to disagree with Merkel.

The EU has been converted by Germany/Merkel to a mechanism for transferring wealth from the middle and lower classes of Europe to oligarchs. Even German workers have not escaped and will only find their living standards continue to deteriorate.

Think of life in Bangladesh, that is Neoliberal heaven.


ilove2shop -> ID7524597 16 Jul 2015 14:34

You really should use Google to see the state of the countries you mentioned. Ireland has had a mass exodus of it's population, like the Great Potato Famine exodus,Spain has double digit unemployment (and it had a surplus before the crash),as do Portugal and Italy with people leaving for former Portugese and Spanish colonial economies.Why do you think Podemos is on the rise?

Italy, Ireland and Portugal, all had democratic mandates that were reversed by the eurozone.

Their economies are mired in a deflationary near-recession. Italy's GDP peaked at $31,764 in inflation-adjusted U.S. dollar per capita in 2008; by 2014, it had fallen to $28,376. On the same basis, Ireland's GDP per capita has fallen from $51.002 in 2008 to $45,119 today. And Spain's GDP per capita is now $24,573, vs. $26,927 in 2008.

At the same time, inflation in the eurozone has fallen to -0.5% in March 2015 from 5% in December, 2007. Low inflation and low growth means low demand for money, and that means lower interest rates - despite these countries' staggering debt.

Another reason for the low rates: The European Central Bank is buying long-term bonds in a bid to keep rates low and give a boost the economy. It's a page out of the Federal Reserve's playbook. At the same time, however, the ECB is demanding austerity programs from its weakest members, often involving drastic cuts in government spending. It's a bit like bleeding a patient at the same time as giving a transfusion - which is why the Eurozone is facing a long recovery.

http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/04/21/three-little-piigs/


tomguard 16 Jul 2015 14:05

It is clear that the banks can get away with just about anything. They are corrupt, venal, rapacious and largely incompetent and irresponisble yet everything is done to save them and make sure that they never pay for their mistakes, indeed they are rewarded. Meanwhile ordinary people like the ordinary people of Greece are made to pay for the banks mistakes, see their pensions and savings eroded and squandered by these vultures. So sad and angry at what is being done to Greece, crucifixion is an apt description of what is being done to the country and its people.


JohnG4 ID7524597 16 Jul 2015 14:04

You are completely ignorant of the concept of bank lending and bank money. Greece borrowed from banks brand new money (not pre-existing money) at interest. It did not borrow from your bank account! It did not borrow from your government! So how is it that Greece lived at your expense?

On the contrary: Germany benefited immensely from the monetary expansion (the lush bank lending) since the expansion financed the trade surplus of Germany. It was a monetary expansion for the German economy, only the latter did not have to pay interest or seignorage tax.

None of this writes off the responsibilities of successive Greek governments. But, the banking system that financed this expansion concealed the true credit risk even from the Greek electorate.


JosephH79 JohnG4 16 Jul 2015 14:04

Because that narrative helps impose technocratic, plutocratic, neo-liberal, hegemonic, ... ... idiocy upon European people.


michalakis 16 Jul 2015 14:02

I find nothing to disagree with in this article; no hyperbole of any sort.

Just as Sven Linqvist shows in The History of Bombing that World War Two was essentially the result of Germany importing practices into Europe which were formerly common and universally accepted (even applauded) in the West's administration of its colonies (mass murder, genocide, gun boat diplomacy), so Europe's next breakdown will be able to trace its roots back to this importing of economic practices formerly reserved by Western institutions for the developing world into the heart of the developed world. This is the beginning of the end for Europe, and it certainly marks the end of my--and many others'--dreams of a powerful, unified Europe underpinned by the acquis communautaire.


justonetom citizenJA 16 Jul 2015 13:36

Syriza did not destroy the economy. The Greek economy was a basket-case long before they came to power. However, the economy has sharply worsened on their watch. The figures are all in the public domain; stating that is not contentious.

Look, Greece could choose to default. To say, sorry, can't pay these loans and never will. Formally default. So why don't they? Because they know that without further loans their country is bankrupt.

Beyond Seamus's banner-waving, it's not complicated. Country that can't pay its debts seeks more loans. People willing to advance loans demand a better quality of proof that this time loans will be repaid (ie. reforms). Greece can choose to accept or decline.

What Tsipras offered was a total chimera. Merkel knew it, we all knew it. "No cuts! No reforms! But more loans to us! And staying within the EZ!". This was demagogy. He was never going to be able to deliver that, and lo and behold...

Seamus wants, desperately, this to be a story about "evil neoliberal bankers". And there is some truth in a narrative that includes bad lending. But ultimately Tsipras was a poor negotiator, insulting the very people whose help he required, acting in bad faith with 'stunts' like springing a referendum without giving notice to his partners... Syriza has proved incompetent. A classic "opposition" party that crashes and burns as soon as it has real-world work to do from a position of real power.

Had the Greeks seen through him/it, and voted for a party that could do business with the troika, they might have ended up with better terms from more sympathetic partners in the EZ.


Weefox 16 Jul 2015 13:24

Greece had a choice. For some reason it decided that it was better to stay in the EU, which it hates and slags it at every turn. Why? The neoliberal economy of Europe is something which Syriza and the hard left reject, but they still expects it to cover their debts.

I am beginning to smell a whiff of hypocrisy.


welcomeparty lawbag 16 Jul 2015 13:14

Well you should talk to the leadership of the EU who had the gal in 2012 to take the debt held by privat banks who had just had a "haircut" of 43% of their holding but what does the EU do they purchase the debt, not at the 57% value but pays it at a full 100% of price (this makes good the loss the bankers made - why?), so now we the tax payer "own" the debt. It was a Privat debt but the EU leadership made it a public debt.

You tell me is that the fault of the Greek people or is it the Crew of bankers that hold office in the EU and who have favoured the German and French bank's with the deposit of 90% of the Billions Greece was lend. Greece only ever saw 10% flowing into their banks.

It is bordering on criminal what they have been doing and is doing to the Greek nation, who needs enemies when you have friends like these.

If you are worried about Greece not paying the money they have borrowed, ask the EU why they will not talk about debt restructure (Pay in full over time) or rather why they have not allowed Greece to access this function that the IMF has spouted about.

Why has the EU promised if Greece swallow the bitter and accessive austerity imposed on them The banks will be allowed Greece to access the QE program of 1 TRILLON EURO allocated to banks, should Greece need it they will be able to access this fund they can from 2018. But guess what the QE program finishes in 2018.

What kind of negotiation is that- they have emasculated Greece and they believe that these sort of thing are allowed - which they are not...

You maybe rushing to get into the full Union of the EU, me I would rather be poor but outside the EU - why, well if they will do what they are doing to the Greek people in public, I feel I would be scared silly wondering what they would do behind closed doors and I was in trouble.

Making people scared is easy and is extreme, fear is a new God the propaganda machine of the EU are using , the 3rd world war has arrived without a shot being fired, not becourse you and I have issues, but becourse they can....


Steven Savage 16 Jul 2015 13:14

"What kind of a union of partners treats one of its members like a recalcitrant colony, destroys its economy if it steps out of line, and dismisses its democracy as an impudent affront? "

The same kind of union that allowed Greece to enter when it no doubt had very good reason to suspect that Greece was cooking its books to show its deficit was far lower than it actually was, and that allowed Goldman to create derivatives to further shore up its sovereign balance sheet.

No one ever really seems to take the European currency union to task over this. The Greek entrance into the Euro should have been "annulled," for lack of a better word, years and years ago, perhaps as early as 2003. That annulment would have allowed the EU to remove Greece by legitimately claiming fraud, and as such, would have been a way out of the Euro that no one else would have been privy to. It would have kept the currency union together for the rest of the members, and would have hopefully stopped the worst of the bad debt way before it grew to such unmanageable, toxic levels.

The EU had its chance to dismiss Greece but chose not to. We all know EU vanity and arrogance were heavily involved in retaining Greece. Greece is wrong for its economic deceptions and culture of tax avoidance, but the EU darn well knew it was letting Greece get away with, and it knew it about a dozen years ago.


waterme888 objectinspace 16 Jul 2015 13:14

the imf does austerities to countries for a reason.. to think that they are enforcing these rules on greece just for the benefit of greeks is laughable.. greece is a small small economy with little impact on world economics.. so why is not a single media asking the hard questions why now.. why is this happening now and why is the economic union of europe going to be effected by such an insignificant economy collapsing.

in the 1988-1989 this very same thing was done to poland --- few remember as todays society does not study history and relies on being told what to think by the corrupt and reprehensible media.

now i dont have enough room to explain the totality of keynesian economic reforms pushed forth by these huge financial oligarchs but if you think even for one moment that these banks have the best interests of the greeks in mind your off your rocker.


OneCommentator 16 Jul 2015 13:13

This week has made a mockery of monetary union as a path to a united democratic Europe and opened the way for the eurozone's breakup.

So true! Hence the problem is not neo-liberalism or German intransigence but the monetary union of disjunct and completely different economic and even political systems. Greece's politics not only their economic performance are completely different from Germany's. Why should they be in the EZ together? Free trade? Sure, it makes sense. But that's about it. There is no need of a United Europe. It is naive and meaningless dream.


GordonGecko real tic 16 Jul 2015 13:13

'Proof? or is this more tendentious opinion conjuring fairy facts as it goes along? '

Try https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/greece/2015-07-07/pain-athens

and note the phrase 'money wasn't given to lazy Greeks but to already-bailed bankers who, despite a face-value haircut, ended up making a profit on the deal."

'It's hardly surprising that hostility to the EU, which shows no signs of being open to deep-seated reform, is growing across the continent.'

Hostility is perhaps too strong, but nonetheless there is now a tendency to question whether the European Institutions are there to protect us from neoliberalism or have already sold out. Personally I have been a europhile for over 40 years but I am now wondering if this is the sort of Europe I really want.


Lastwordsusie viscount_jellicoe 16 Jul 2015 13:04

It's desperately frightening.
The government of pretty much all of the globe with a few exceptions is run by rightwing corporate ideologues.
Neoliberalism has - at least for now - triumphed and those on the left are feeling pretty bewildered and rudderless.
Greece's pain is not just that of CRUSHING austerity without end, but also of ritual humiliation.
That's a recipe not for meek compliance - but ultimately, seething anger, division and civil unrest.That will no doubt be crushed also but the troika has successfully set the left against itself once more.

I don't doubt that what the troika seeks is the restoration of ruthless and corrupt rightist government - (maybe they'd like another Junta to deal with.)

I'm not sure there ever can be a bloodless revolution unless there's a way of overcoming the power of capital and those that wield it without some miraculous change in human behaviour and some genetic evolution that ceases to regard the earths resources as belonging to the few with the many in hock to their whims or largesse.
Uncertain times?
No! Much, much more than that.
What will the right do when population drifts of the desperate, fleeing war and hunger, along with ecological resource imperatives -become insuperable, as the world's ability to withstand the rapacious greed of its exploiters start forcing its hand?


658176529539572 16 Jul 2015 12:55

Centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson gave the American people this warning:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."

-- Central banks (all over the world), are apparently using this method of conquest…


roola 16 Jul 2015 12:54

Thank God one journalist sees the political truths behind the EU's policies for Greece. Weimar Republic, anyone?

And, no, the EU has never been a solely economic union. How can it be while it implements undemocratic procedures that can dictate, as in Greece, a country's economic future? Whatever happens, Greece, with a now greater accumulation of swinging debts and with the EU's intent to break its left-wing government, eventually will be forced to leave Europe. When that happens, EU 'unity' will be seen for the sham it is.

I was one of those who voted 'yes' in the original UK referendum for joining Europe, though with misgivings about the undemocratic set-up. Not now. The misgivings have proven themselves to be the reality and my vote would be a 'no' vote.


michalakis greatapedescendant 16 Jul 2015 12:51

Yes, seriously.

The fallout could not have been more if the Germans had just send the Luftwaffe in to bomb the place. I'm 47, a formerly middle class, middle income, self-employed professional. I've been working abroad for the last 4 years, as has almost every other 'dad' I know. My former life is destroyed: the infrastructure I worked in, the people I worked with, have gone. My clients, my colleagues, my connections are all gone. I cannot return to Greece to work. I cannot watch my daughter grow up. Seriously.


rightwinggit 16 Jul 2015 12:50

The idea that this crisis has simply pitted one democratic mandate – that of Greece – against the hard-pressed taxpayers of 18 other eurozone members is nonsense.

It is, of course completely true.

Very little of Greek government debt is now held by private institutions. By far the biggest creditor is the German government (read taxpayer) followed by the French taxpayer followed by the Italian taxpayer followed by the Spanish taxpayer.

The only countries where significant amounts of Greek debt are held in private hands are in the US and the UK and the US favours debt relief.

In terms of percentage of GDP Malta is in deep shit - its exposure to Greece is 5% of its GDP.

Personally I think Greece should leave the EZ and return permanently to the Drachma but don't pretend that there will be no cost to EZ taxpayers.

Germany is owed €90bn. If half of it is written off, that would cost each German €550. When you look at it like that it doesn't sound like very much. All you have to do is persuade the German voter that it is a price worth paying....


658176529539572 Roguing 16 Jul 2015 12:47

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Stamp,_1st_Baron_Stamp

Silas Walter Adams (1958). The legalized crime of banking and a constitutional remedy. Boston: Meador. pp. 13,30,58,90,246. OCLC 3906807

AXWE08 lawbag 16 Jul 2015 12:46

I think we have heard this Neoliberal prescription before. It is ironic that such avowed loyalty to the EU's machinations comes from the very sector that would see the UK leave the EU. The truth is simple enough: A debt that can't be paid, won't. No matter how much squeezing is applied to Greece the outcome will be the same, namely debt write down at some time in the near future. Austerity was seen to be a failure long before Syriza and Tisparas took office and this was the reason why they were voted in.


Jantar 16 Jul 2015 12:45

I totally agree that this deal/putsch is a disgrace - but let's not fall in that simplistic Hollywood trap that suggests that because one side acted disgracefully the other side must be the side of the angels.

Greece has been a thoroughly corrupt state since the Colonels were forced out. Their democracy was always fake, hijacked from the start by economic & political cabals. So let's not pretend this is a story about some virtuous/democratic David being crushed by wicked Goliath. The referendum was a farce: the choices badly chosen & put, with a government playing to the gallery, promising things not even covered by the actual referendum . Still, and as always, the true and self-appointed leaders of the EU fear elections and hate referendums and have never accepted any of the latter.

The government of the day lied about the economic situation when they joined the Euro but that was something the Eurocrats knew, of course but they had their own self-glorious reasons to publicly pretend Greece was ready to join.

So, yes, this is a mess - but there really are no 'white hats' here. Black and dark grey are the only colour options in this movie.

As always, as throughout the whole of human history, it's the common people (who can be venal, yes, and short-sighted, and plain dumb - and often are; not many white hats there either) who get screwed. Nothing new under the sun indeed.


viscount_jellicoe 16 Jul 2015 12:40

Spot on. Greece's debts have now been made effectively unrepayable in order to send the deafening warning to the Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, etc., not to dare elect anti-austerity governments. It's pretty desperate stuff.


waterme888 -> objectinspace 16 Jul 2015 12:39

if Greece was free to decide would they be in this spot. no.. they are being dictated. period. the people understand that and are protesting, but the politicians can only do what the banks tell them so they will do exactly what they are told and then have elections - the people will then elect new government which will negotiate so minor changes to the payment plans or some other irrelevant term which the new government will tout as a victory which of course the media will lap up like a dog in heat and everything will be as it should according to the control exerted by these financial oligarchs who dont give a crap about the people and only care to own own own.

this happens in every country - its called Keynesian economics and even your country is under the influence.. or perhaps your buying power has gone up over the past 20 years..

this whole system is a illusion and education into finance is the only cure.


viewcode 16 Jul 2015 12:37

Dear Guardian

Speaking seriously at the moment, don't you think this article is over the top? It's a rant, and quite an intense one at that. You should step back, take a deep breath, and try to regain a sense of proportion. Germany is not the Wehrmacht, Greece has not been immolated and - as even the Eurosceptics have realised (http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/07/a-beginners-guide-to-euroscepticism/ ) - this is driven more by hysteria than by rationality. "Brutal authoritarianism"? Seriously?


658176529539572 16 Jul 2015 12:37

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."

-- Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain


FourtyTwo 16 Jul 2015 12:35

What helped win the election became a fatal handicap in office, as Tsipras resisted pressure even to make contingency plans for Grexit. That would have strengthened his negotiating hand, as well as giving Greece the option of escaping indefinite economic depression.

According to both Tsipras and Varoufakis there was a contingency plan being made by a small group of 5 people. Varoufakis stated in an interview that he knew since March that Schaeuble wanted a grexit and of course he wanted to prepare for such an outcome as best as he could. The plan did not turn up well and was abandoned because it showed that Greece didn't have enough financial power left to prop up a new currency, which would immediately devaluate out of control.
The reason for the clandestineness of this plan was that if the media found out about it they would blow the whistle and accuse Syriza of actively planning a grexit, something that terrified Greeks at that time.


Goias Goias -> lawbag 16 Jul 2015 12:34

"Why should the French, the Germans et al, give more money to the Greeks to enable them to do silly left wing populist things?"

This is an interesting statement, it ignores completely the silly little right-wing things like the global financial crisis in 2008 and the ripple effect it had over the banking system first and the countries having to sustain that system later. I guess our lenience towards these silly little right-wing things makes us accomplices of the destruction they bring.

If only the Greek officials wore ties. Don't they now how important that is?


bally38 16 Jul 2015 12:31

As that well-known negotiating guru Yannis Varoufakis put it:

If you are not willing to even contemplate the prospect of a breakdown, then you're not negotiating

He wasn't joking. He didn't just contemplate it. He planned for it. The referendum was planned, just as the two sides had nearly clinched a deal. He had prepared for enforced capital controls, and admitted in the New Statesman interview what his advice to Tsipras was. Take over the Bank of Greece and pay salaries for another few months with the last reserves, while issuing IOUs. ie: Unilateral Grexit. For which Syriza has no mandate.

Tsipras, to his credit, refused to implement the plan, instead asked for Varoufakis' resignation.

Any crucifixion of Tsipras was on a cross that Yannis Varoufakis nailed him to. But he's an adult. As he said in his TV address two nights back. He's responsible, because he's the Premier.


waterme888 Renato Timotheus 16 Jul 2015 12:31

the unemployment was a gift of these same banks who use influence and covet means to enforce their will upon those countries they need to capitulate into a deep control algorithm.

look up keynesian economic theory and then study what happened to the countries of south america in through the 1950-1970's and understand that is exactly what is happening to greece..

the media does not report these facts for they are owned or influenced by the same banks perpetrating the control.

do you smell extinction.


liberalexpat 16 Jul 2015 12:28

The bias of many of the articles on Greece in the British media has gone completely OTT - it's patently obvious that there are glaring faults on both sides - and the misuse of the word democracy is flagrant.

Certainly, the eurozone countries have acted harshly. But the Greek crisis stems from decades of tax cheating, clientelism and other ills, many of them stemming from the uncontrollable behaviour of the Greek mega-rich. Liberal British commentators normally lambast the mega-rich, tax evaders and the widening rich-poor divide - why let the Greeks off the hook?

A major problem is that so many British europhobic commentators are projecting their views onto the Greeks: look how furious with them Henry the Eighth Farage is. They hate the EU, and tell us other Europeans do, too: they are in denial of the fact that poll after poll has shown the Greek majority in favour of staying in both the euro and the EU since they can't and won't understand it.

Democracy. Is Greece the only eurozone country to have it - and should it be allowed to impose its view on 18 other member countries? (Note to commentators: the EU and the eurozone are not the same.) And if the Greek referendum was the touchstone of European democracy, why not have one in the other 18 countries?

Secondly, the workings of Greek democracy à la Tsipras. He calls a snap referendum on a non-existent deal, says its conclusive 'no' vote will strengthen his hand in fighting austerity - then trashes the people's vote and has to rely on the opposition to get the austerity bailout vote through. Hmmm.


waterme888 wondrinfree 16 Jul 2015 12:26

they want to remain in it because you only read what the news reports and assume that what they are telling you is what the people want... if the people want this so badly then why did they just announce they may have elections in the fall. now consider that when have elections changed anything.. in the long run nothing changes and everything remains the same.. history is so very clear..

distract the masses with rhetoric as people in groups are easily swayed into false beliefs.

societal engineering done in the name of control.


parttimer 16 Jul 2015 12:26

Greece would be turned into an economic "protectorate", one purred, where all key decisions would be taken by foreign governments and unelected EU bureaucrats.

Wow. If only someone had told you in advance that EU membership resulted in all key decisions being taken by foreign governments and unelected EU bureaucrats.


sjxt 16 Jul 2015 12:24

An unusually good article for Seumus - the only point I would take issue with is the comparison with the IMF's third world debt programs and bank handling of sovereign defaults.

The only reason the IMF is involved in this case at all is DSK's EU/French politicking - the IMF's lending here should have prevented it lending to a palpably bust sovereign.

And if we were looking at private bank loans negotiations on debt relief would have started months ago - such loans would be written down in the bank's books under GAAP already.

The real culprits here are the northern governments who have pretended for years this is a liquidity rather than a solvency problem to their electorates and on that basis crucified Greece in the earlier bailouts to bail out their own banks, and now refuse to face their electorates with the unpalatable truth most of their money ain't coming back.

But with the IMF and now the ECB calling for debt relief - probably disguised as massive maturity extensions, plus other EU governments like France and Italy, 2 and a half of the Troika are now lining up against the Germans their allies......


MartinAMiss worldsworstposter 16 Jul 2015 12:23

France was the first country to break the 3% rule. Germany has broken Eurozone rules. This isn't just about Greece, but Germany & France shielding their banks from bad debts they shouldn't have made.

Other rule breaks, the ECB cutting ELA fundding to Greek banks. Under the rules that govern it, ECB's job is to keep banks opne, not close them like an enforcer for a loan shark.

If you are in doubt about that fact it is the banks that are being bailed out, perhaps the former head of Bundesbank & board member of IMF will convince you.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/former-central-bank-head-karl-otto-poehl-bailout-plan-is-all-about-rescuing-banks-and-rich-greeks-a-695245.html


JohnHawkwood 16 Jul 2015 12:09

Greece is being crushed to remind the Spanish and Italians of the price of disobedience


zappa2007 16 Jul 2015 12:08

The Greeks had no option to accept this awful deal because not to have done so would have left them with no banking system, hunger, poverty and riots. The new Government came to power thinking they could have a rational conversation with the EU on he basis of reform and explaining to the EU about the logic of their rational position. The Germans and other rightists have imposed a political settlement in the face of the economics of the situation that even the IMF recognises. Yes, just like the Treaty of Versailles. Look how well that turned out.

A cruel trick has been played on the Greeks and the rest of us too. It is the banks that have swallowed all the cash in vast bailouts but the public who have to pay it back. Profits have been privatised and losses socialised. Meanwhile we voluntarily give up our rights and living standards. What fools we all are.


itin78 16 Jul 2015 12:06

The 'European project',has brought Greece a ticket to the third world.

The Common market was sold to us as,a Free Trade Area.

The currency union,which was meant to be the precursor of a European Superstate,was dreamt up by empire building politicians,without consulting the citizens of Europe.
The project is undemocratic.

It is not long ago that a lady on the BBC was telling us that we must join the Euro.
Thank goodness that we actually kept out.
It was a rare piece of good fortune for the UK.

In the meantime,there will be no end to the amount of our taxes that disappear into the bottomless pit of the Greek 'economy.'


midnightschild10 16 Jul 2015 12:02

When I was young I went to Europe on vacation, before it became the EU. It may only be remembering as a child how happy and welcoming the Greeks were to visitors. The singing and dancing on the Palatka was a fond memory. I have visited the EU three times since, and saw how Europe had changed, particularly under the austerity programs. The concept of the EU might have sounded good in theory, but in practice, the strong countries got richer while the weaker countries got the shaft. You can't build a country by keeping the people on their knees. What happened to Greece is tragic. It showed the punitive measures taken against those who voice their choices in a democratic way. The world watched, and saw how the EU had changed from a financial trade cooperation became nothing more than a political class attack by the rich against the poor.


Julius Marklovitz 16 Jul 2015 11:59

This situation is absolutely ridiculous. Tsipras is a genius I will admit. He has essentially made himself and his country look like poor victims of a bully. Only one problem. This bailout is 100% voluntary. Nothing dictates that Greece has to ask or receive a bailout. Oh and not to mention that this is bailout number 3! When all is said an done your talking about half a TRILLION dollars for a country of 11 million. $50,000 per Greek. That is OBSCENE. But their rampant government corruption, rampant tax evasion, and the cultural belief that it is ok to steal and kickbacks are an everyday part of life warrants no responsibility. I'm a democrat and this makes me sick. This isn't some child being bullied. This is a country who by choice has done everything in its power to squander it's resources and then guilt trips the world into buying its victim stance. It's manipulative. And get this through your head. Countries who are fiscally responsible are not responsible for those who plunge their countries into recessions . I'm not a fan of Germany in terms of how they use Greece to devalue their currency. But this it's Germany's fault is just garbage.


Jmbowsher mittelfeld 16 Jul 2015 11:53

Well Varoufakis and co (who, if you remember, have only been in power less than 6 months) were committed to reform, particularly where the fat cats were concerned. But as Varoufakis states, they were told they couldn't make reforms because to do so would be to act unilaterally. In other words, any perceived impotence is largely down to the troika...


shalone 16 Jul 2015 11:43

And the misery of greek people has aroused so much sympathy in many countries. If anything, Schauble and Merkel are being accused of being ruthless. So it is not only greeks that hate the two leaders.

[Jul 15, 2015] The Greek Deal From Germany - Reading Between the Lines - Darkness Over the Earth

Perhaps the Greeks made a mistake, and relied too much on rationality, on a belief in a Eurozone in which good sense and reason would prevail. As it was, the Germans were willing to ruthlessly crush the Greek banking system, while the ECB and IMF stood idly by, fomenting a financial panic and humanitarian disaster in order to displace a sovereign government and put an entire nation 'in its place.' We certainly have seen this kind of example made before.

This was an exercise in raw power. It was a financial blitzkrieg, an act of economic warfare and reckless destruction on a people that ought to be condemned by the free world. But this kind of ruthless abuse of financial systems seems to be the accepted thing now amongst the developed economies. And we might view Greece as a sort of an experiment in a new form of warfare and ruthlessness, as were Guernica, Warsaw, and Lidice.

It is a shame if the Greeks have not prepared for Grexit, although there are still clearly options despite the naysayers who see only difficulties in everything. Freedom is rarely the easier way.

The lesson that the countries of the Eurozone cannot trust Germany to act with wisdom and goodwill was known, but now we also see that restraint is also not in their repetoire. If one can read between the lines, it would be a pity if the rest of the European countries do not start planning now for their own active exit from such an failed concept as the European Monetary Union.

And it would be a tragedy if the rest of the world does not now see plainly where a single currency for the world would also take them, where it is already taking them. Modern theories about its benign utility to do only good aside, money is raw power. And one must be exceptionally careful of granting that power to create and distribute and manage money into the hands of vain and corruptible people without stringent transparency, checks and balances, and provisions for justice and individual freedom.

Are the lights going out all over Europe? Not yet, but there is a darkness casting its shadow over the earth. I fear that Greece is only the beginning of a new phase in the degradation of the human condition by the power of insatiable greed, and spiritual wickedness in high places.

"The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called 'the dung of the devil'. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind.

Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home."

Francis I

[Jul 14, 2015] Francis in America: a radical pope journeys to the heart of the [neoliberal] machine

Notable quotes:
"... Note the adjective " unfettered ". Anything that is not sanctioned by the rule of law is not good for anyone. The challenge today is extractive capitalism. Some of this can be addressed by tax policy. Bankruptcy law needs to be changed to hold liable those executives who take out excessive amounts of funds from an enterprize. Personal property needs need better protection. Existing environmental laws need to be enforced. ..."
"... My understanding is that Pope Francis (I am not Catholic) has spoken about the inherent unfairness of "unrestricted" capitalism. He has not denounced capitalism. His words are painstaking, accurately stated & precise. ..."
"... I like his moves, promoting climate change, making a point in visiting the poorest countries on Earth, and naming Capitalists as members of a greedy system, not capable of taking on the role of providing goods and services to the Needy, and of course, the Pontiff heaps religious obscenities upon the War Mongers, mainly in the West. I am going to give my Bible another chance, here's hoping . ..."
"... He seems to be pointing out a few realities. Which, as others have pointed out is causing much wriggling by those who have complete faith by the dollar in the sky. ..."
"... "The US government gives the Vatican nothing...". Not quite. The US Government gives the Church tax-exemption. ..."
"... Of course all the corporate politicians both Republican and Democrat are going to oppose the Pope. Forget the politicians and let's see how the American people react. I expect the Pope will be warmly received as a man of empathy and humanity who shows concern for the poor. I hope that when he addresses congress he does not pull any of his punches. ..."
Jul 14, 2015 | The Guardian

LivinVirginia -> Ken Barnes 13 Jul 2015 20:27

I do not mean to misquote him. Pope Francis is a good man, but before he lectures the US on capitalism, he needs to remember that the Vatican bank has been embroiled in their own banking scandals. I was raised Catholic. I do not have a good impression of the men who run the church. They spend a lot of time asking for money, and I always wonder if they are spending it hiring lawyers for pedophile priests. I like the Pope though. He seems better that the rest of the lot. I think the tax exemptions for religions should be stopped. Religions spend too much time discriminating against certain segments of society. I think they are wolves in sheep's clothing.

RoachAmerican 13 Jul 2015 20:19

Note the adjective " unfettered ". Anything that is not sanctioned by the rule of law is not good for anyone. The challenge today is extractive capitalism. Some of this can be addressed by tax policy. Bankruptcy law needs to be changed to hold liable those executives who take out excessive amounts of funds from an enterprize. Personal property needs need better protection. Existing environmental laws need to be enforced.

William Brown 13 Jul 2015 20:05

I imagine The Pope will say something about an 'eye of a needle'

brianboru1014 13 Jul 2015 19:52

Wall Street via the New York Times and the WS Journal is well on the way to denigrating this man. Even though most Americans support him, these publications will do everything to belittle him.

CaptainWillard -> CaptainWillard 13 Jul 2015 19:36

The US government gives "only" tax exempt status. On the other-hand, citizens of the US very likely raise more money for the Catholic Church than the citizens of any other country.

Ken Barnes -> LivinVirginia 13 Jul 2015 19:30

My understanding is that Pope Francis (I am not Catholic) has spoken about the inherent unfairness of "unrestricted" capitalism. He has not denounced capitalism. His words are painstaking, accurately stated & precise. It helps no one in a discussion to change what another has said & then attempt to debate the misquote.

Greenshoots -> goatrider 13 Jul 2015 19:29

And a shedload of other "purposes" as well:

The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.

Richard Martin 13 Jul 2015 19:20

Francis really follows in the footsteps of the First Fisherman, radicalised in God's format .

I like his moves, promoting climate change, making a point in visiting the poorest countries on Earth, and naming Capitalists as members of a greedy system, not capable of taking on the role of providing goods and services to the Needy, and of course, the Pontiff heaps religious obscenities upon the War Mongers, mainly in the West. I am going to give my Bible another chance, here's hoping .

John Fahy 13 Jul 2015 19:16

He seems to be pointing out a few realities. Which, as others have pointed out is causing much wriggling by those who have complete faith by the dollar in the sky.

goatrider -> LivinVirginia 13 Jul 2015 19:01

As it does every other religion----

TerryMcGee -> Magali Luna 13 Jul 2015 19:00

Up until this pope, I would have agreed with you. But this pope is different. In one step, he has taken the papacy from being a major part of the problem to a major force for good. We can't expect him to fix all the problems in the church and its doctrines - that's not the work of one generation. But if he can play a major part in fixing the two massive world problems he has focussed on - climate change and rampant capitalism - he will have done enough for one lifetime.

And I get the impression that he's only warming up....

LivinVirginia -> goatrider 13 Jul 2015 18:34

"The US government gives the Vatican nothing...". Not quite. The US Government gives the Church tax-exemption.

David Dougherty 13 Jul 2015 18:13

Of course all the corporate politicians both Republican and Democrat are going to oppose the Pope. Forget the politicians and let's see how the American people react. I expect the Pope will be warmly received as a man of empathy and humanity who shows concern for the poor. I hope that when he addresses congress he does not pull any of his punches.

Cooper2345 13 Jul 2015 17:59

I like the gift that Morales gave to the Pope, the crucifix over the hammer and sickle. It shows the victory of Christianity over Soviet communism that one of Francis' predecessors helped to shepherd. It's a great reminder of a wonderful triumph and reason to be thankful for the genius of St. John Paul II.

[Jul 14, 2015]Greek bailout: Angela Merkel accused of blackmailing Athens

"..." The destruction of Greece, like the destruction of America, by the big banks and financial firms is not, as the bankers claim, about austerity or imposing rational expenditures or balanced budgets. It is not about responsible or good government. It is a vicious form of class warfare. It is profoundly anti-democratic. It is about forming nations of impoverished, disempowered serfs and a rapacious elite of all-powerful corporate oligarchs, backed by the most sophisticated security and surveillance apparatus in human history and a militarized police that shoots unarmed citizens with reckless abandon. The laws and rules it imposes on the poor are, as Barbara Ehrenreich has written, little more than "organized sadism.""
.
"... Merkel and her finance minister have accomplished what the eurosceptics could not do themselves -- brought the entire EU project into question."
.
"...This deal is neither good for the ordinary Germans nor the Greeks. It's plain stupidity, or cynical manipulation by Merkel and Schauble so that someone else in the future will have to suffer the consequences of their actions. The Greeks can never repay the German taxpayer a mounting amount of debt, with a shrinking economy. Greece, after another round of misery and economic contraction, plus some asset stripping for opportunistic buyers (cronies of D'bloem, Merkel, and Schauble's backers), will find itself in a deeper hole very soon."
Jul 14, 2015 | The Guardian


andr3wuk 14 Jul 2015 19:37

I actually think that Schauble speaks a lot of economic sense. As finance minister, it's his responsibility to table the economically viable options that are politically feasible within his own country.... And that's where it all breaks down.

Merkel is a weak leader. The Euro was meant to be a catalyst of European Federalisation, not the tool for economic imperialism that it currently is. It is up to Merkel, the LEADER of the German people, to explain the features of the Euro that strengthen Germany at the periphery's expense. Take the Euro away, and Germany will enter a recessionary period. At the very least, its growth will slow to a halt. It is up to Merkel, the leader of the German people, to explain to the German population the responsibility that Germany has to ensuring sustainable growth in periphery until European integration is complete. It is up to Merkel to lead a change in public perception and find the political backing for debt reduction, because, for as much as she barks on about the rules and regulations of the EMU, capitalist economics has some ground rules, some fundamental laws, which she is more than happy to use to Germany's advantage at the expense of the periphery.

Yes, politicians are representatives of the people, and ultimately they must listen to the people, but they are also leaders of the people, and unless Merkel takes this part of her job seriously, as opposed to simply pandering to German public opinion, then she is misleading her own electorate, much in the same way that she accuses Tsipras of having mislead his.

Unless the Euro changes quickly, unless there is a commitment towards fiscal (and by necessity) political integration, Germans had better get used to being viewed negatively by the rest of Europe, because it's only going to get worse. The government of Germany may not trust that of Tsipras, but the governments of the periphery are starting to lose trust that fiscal consolidation will ever happen, and then they will seek to break free from the shackles of the Euro. Then. once German products become more expensive to the outside world, and the oversized German export economy starts to shrink (i would call it an economic correction), the bubble will deflate, people will become redundant, and the German dream will turn into the German nightmare.


Cynndara HoSimpson 14 Jul 2015 19:03

Well, frankly, the EU has given Germany the dominance over the European market that Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler were both striving for. What the Germans don't understand is that they have sucked their neighbors dry with their export-geared economy. It's understandable that the average German worker doesn't understand this, since they have suffered from deliberately depressed wages used to make their products competitive and increase the profits of business owners. It isn't the WORKERS who have benefited from the arrangement, anywhere on Earth. Of course, encouraging the serfs to hate each other over trivial differences while pocketing the profits is an old, old elite strategem.


Cynndara 14 Jul 2015 18:55

". . . only 18% of Germans said they trusted Greece to implement the reforms it signed up to, with 78% saying they had no trust in the government of Alexis Tsipras."

Nor should they. "An oath made under duress is not binding" is one of the most ancient precepts of Germanic law. The Greeks are fully justified in doing anything they can to renege on terms that were dictated to them with a bazooka pointed at their entire economy via the banks.

Since the terms are unsustainable and odious, they will not be sustained, and eventually the Greeks will be forced to leave the EU. What Germany has done makes it far more likely that when they do, there will be no EU left.

WWIII anyone? When will they ever learn?


tf2333 WonderWorld 14 Jul 2015 17:36

I always have the facts in mind. Comparing median household incomes (more accurate than mean) worldwide Germany was #12 in 2011 and Greece was #27. In 2013 Germany was #16 and Greece nowhere in the top 30... It is miraculous what two years of financial aid can accomplish. These are the comprehensive facts from the 2013 US census, I am open to your own sources.


Katime Monasteria 14 Jul 2015 17:35

It's only the wealthy who dodged taxes. Actually under the austerity program of the preceding administration, taxes for the wealthy were cut down while taxes for the poor were raised (like in the UK and the US, among other countries)

Of course wealthy Greeks have gotten their money out of Greece and parked a lot of it in the Cayman Islands along with the money siphoned out of other economies including that of the US.

Working class folks always paid their taxes. In Greece like elsewhere taxes are deducted from paychecks.

I hope for your sake that you are one of the 88 individuals who own half of all the earth's wealth. If you are a working stiff like the rest of us, you're being a patsy.


Nigelpwsmith 14 Jul 2015 17:23

The Germans are taking particular delight in their cruelty to use Greece as a whipping boy to get all the other Euro countries into line. They even had the temerity to suggest that if Greece didn't accept the deal, they wouldn't just be out of the Eurozone, but out of the EU as well - something that is impossible without the consent of the Greek people.

Merkel and Schäuble have taken it one step further. The bully boys are now threatening to demand funds from the United Kingdom. Even though Cameron obtained an opt out from bailing out the Eurozone, Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, has discarded any notion that this was written into any treaty and may revive the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism. Using the EU funds as collateral, the EU would loan even more money to Eurozone basket cases and then when these debts are not repaid, contributors like the UK would get stung with the bill.

If anything is likely to persuade the British public to leave the EU in 2017, this would be it!


brianboru1014 14 Jul 2015 17:14

Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, actually have managed to divide the continent.
Germany is not trusted any more as an innocent post World War 2 European nation. Many now see it as the most destructive force in Europe just as it was in the beginning of the 20th century.


WonderWorld Aris Tsihlis 14 Jul 2015 17:03

Just so you know: according to the most recent poll in Germany, 75% of the Supporters of the Green party and 52% of the Linke party are supportive of Merkel's way of dealing with the Greek blackmailing of Europe. You should get used that democracy is not the personal right of communist Greek demagoges, but is practiced in every single country in the EU. And a majority of the people there are fed up with Greece stealing their tax money.

MartinAMiss RedCoat4Ever 14 Jul 2015 16:54

It's economically unworkable. As has been demonstrated by the fact bedt to GDP ratio has gone from 130% to 177% and predcited to rise to 200%.

The IMF has always been clear about sustainability. Having two French chiefs who have presidential ambitions, when so much of the Greek liability belongs to French banks, has hindered a sensible solution being found.


tf2333 14 Jul 2015 16:35

Throwing my own interpretation in the pool of opinions... It is only natural that measures and assurances are needed whenever someone is asking for money. But in modern societies, fine lines are drawn to what these assurances should be. Regardless of the final concessions from both sides, the original demands of 1) 50bn worth of assets to be gradually sold by the creditors and controlled from Luxembourg (!) 2) involvement of the creditors in Greek legislation from now on and 3) re-iteration of all legislation taken by the current elected government without the consent of the Eurogroup are far-fetched in a legal sense, to say the least. It is worth mentioning that the Eurogroup is a non-legal entity that keeps NO written log during its meetings and is under no one's jurisdiction... Last but not least, I am simply sad to see the European ideal broken and nationalism grown on all sides. Taking the US as the nearest example of a monetary union, many of the southern states are literally bankrupt and the northern states are simply paying for their debt to maintain the stability of the union. The same situation within Europe is translated into "why should Finnish / Germans etc pay for the debt of the Greeks?". Well, this is how unions work, to everyone's sudden dismay, not as a club only for the privileged.


eurotrash 14 Jul 2015 15:16

" The destruction of Greece, like the destruction of America, by the big banks and financial firms is not, as the bankers claim, about austerity or imposing rational expenditures or balanced budgets. It is not about responsible or good government. It is a vicious form of class warfare. It is profoundly anti-democratic. It is about forming nations of impoverished, disempowered serfs and a rapacious elite of all-powerful corporate oligarchs, backed by the most sophisticated security and surveillance apparatus in human history and a militarized police that shoots unarmed citizens with reckless abandon. The laws and rules it imposes on the poor are, as Barbara Ehrenreich has written, little more than "organized sadism."

Corporate profit is God. It does not matter who suffers. In Greece 40 percent of children live in poverty, there is a 25 percent unemployment rate and the unemployment figure for those between the ages of 15 and 24 is nearly 50 percent. And it will only get worse.

We will not return to a rational economy or restore democracy until these global speculators are stripped of power. This will happen only if the streets of major cities in Europe and the United States are convulsed with mass protests. The tyranny of these financial elites knows no limits. They will impose ever greater suffering and repression until we submit or revolt. I prefer the latter. But we don't have much time.


daitwice Optimist13 14 Jul 2015 14:27

You are an optimist. Businesses are about margins. That's why any substantial boycott can be harmful.

What will save Germany is inertia, the failure of most to act on their feelings of disgust. It's easier to rip off a comment here or on social media than think through how to avoid buying German products. We shall see how long people remember, before they switch to some other outrage project.
But I think you're wrong about fringe parties. People who have always been pro-EU are turning sharply against THIS Europe. Certainly Britons, with their innate sense of what representative government is, do not like bullying decisions taken behind closed doors by unaccountable committees that refuse to take minutes of their meetings.

The German S-Ds are more corporatist in their approach. They've been complicit in driving down German wages so that there's now a wave of anger and a level of poverty for 3 million Germans that can be be usefully turned outwards against southern Europeans (not that I'm saying the Greeks haven't made mistakes).


Alexandra Michaels Kostas Nikolaidis 14 Jul 2015 14:18

Corruption in Greek governments? Absolutely! I know it. I saw it. Why do you think so many back Tsipras who is not from the old money ruling class that live in Ekali and sail around the world on yachts?

Tax evasion? Yes, mostly the upper middle and upper classes...not the ones who are paying the piper--the civil servants and some of the more honest and smaller independent business people.

Don't put all the blame on Greece. What do the yiayiades and papoudes need to suffer in their old age when they lived honorable lives? Your people are suffering because of the rich and the corrupt and the monolith banks.

Read the prophecies of the Elder, Saint Paisios who predicted all of this back in 1983 when it seemed like science fiction to the people who he said it to and who documented his words.

See what the big bank monolith minotaur really is...if you believe in God.


RedCoat4Ever Alexandra Michaels 14 Jul 2015 14:07

When Varoufakis was backward inducing the various levels of "the game", he miscalculated the probabilities AND payoffs. He believed the dominant strategy was to claim "the EZ needs us more than we need them". He was wrong. Dead wrong. Tsipras played and now has to take the payout. He chose an inferior strategy, which is remarkable given that the payouts and probabilities were known to the world. There is not a question of blame. This was Tsipras' choice. He must now accept the payout.


AKAJOE 14 Jul 2015 14:04

It is probably true that Germany has/is been too harsh - although the total online hate campaign is way way over the top. With every idiot jumping on the band wagon...but what I don't understand is why is no one mad at the Greeks? The Greek elite (political and business) completely failed their own country by exploiting the system and people and sucking the whole place dry for the last 4 decades.(and longer)..this is 10x worse than what Germany is doing...where is the social shit storm against them??! how about #BoycottShippingTycoons or #GetTheCroniesOutofHere..anyway can't think of anything more witty....

crystaltips2 Alexandra Michaels 14 Jul 2015 14:00

It may be a generalisation but when most sources agree that Greece's shadow economy is around 25% of GDP then it's a pretty fair one. Public spending is 50% of GDP, so that means fully half of private sector transactions are made 'off the books'. You don't need to speak Greek or live there to find this out.


germany15 DieSubversiv 14 Jul 2015 13:49

The devil-contract-thing is right, I agree -- But when Banks use their power to do crime, like manipulating Libor, eulibor, ... and in this case manipulating the Greeks balances and so on (like golmansachs did), they are the origin of the Greek disaster. If I would sign a manipulated contract, the crime is not the signing, but the manipulation !!!
I would agree to you, that the signers where very naive, but the thing is: Now we know, that they were cheating and even, if we can prove this, the banks will not be judged (to big to judge or so) -- In my opinion that's a language of a non-democratic state -- Sad but true !

And I have to add, that of course the whole political system in that case failed too!

But the sickest thing is:
Now, as we know of the crime, the goldmansachs bank did in that case, the result is, that a goldmansachs banker is running the ECB System ?!


Alexandra Michaels 14 Jul 2015 13:48

All along Tsipras realized that the debt was unsustainable and that austerity did not work. The world's global economists agree with that.

All along he stated that he wished to negotiate for better and less humiliating (to the poor and middle class) terms for the bail out.
Unlike the German leaders who are beholden to the monolith bank god of greed, as well as previous elitist politicians who ran the Greek government, he cared about the lesser rather than only the rich.

The humiliating austerity (threatened to be stricter and worse before the mandate) terms he was forced to agree to after being (in the words of other ministers present) "mentally waterboarded", "crucified", etc., are a sad day for all the world.

That a woman could exert such pressure on another is beyond me, but desperation and greed can do funny things to a person...

Today, not Germany and not Greece are winners...the evil banksters who are ruling the world, the anti-christ, if you will, are the winners.


retsdon damiendd 14 Jul 2015 13:47

I actually voted in the referendum back in 78 or whenever it was to stay in the old Common Market. And I'd probably do so again today. But over the subsequent 30 odd years the project has been hijacked by Empire builders in Brussels. If I had a vote in the next referendum on staying in the current EU - which I don't - I'd vote out probably. It's an unhealthy organization.


Alexandra Michaels Sal2011 14 Jul 2015 13:40

Sal, that was an amazing post and assessment. So many think that this is all simplistic and like to compare it to them going to the bank for a car loan (atleast in the U.S.)

Sadly, these opportunistic corporations, the new oligarchy of the once democratic United States, are also salivating Ukraine.

One cannot help wonder who is behind these global events.

These corporations and banksters are nothing short of pure evil. The media is often biased and cannot be trusted.

Thank God for erudite posters like you. I wish I could copy your post and share it elsewhere, but alas there is no 'cut and paste' ability here.

While I congratulate you, I also tremble in fear at this evil which has taken control of the world and which has killed democracy.

Algirdas Davidavičius Maarten Van Wijk 14 Jul 2015 13:34

It is beyond me how all the responsibility for expert, technocrat failures made in favour of the banks against the sovereign national democracies is constantly shifted towards citizens in a manner that sets them one national democracy against the other. Now suddenly the lithuanians and dutch are "paying for the lousy greeks", when it is private investor and their client polititian failures that created the crisis. Is it not, dear Mr. Vam Wijk, that the "Greece against all the rest of EU democracies" is absolutely a scandalous lie and absolutely disorienting illusion?

jackayarcher 14 Jul 2015 11:05

Below all the shouting, accusations, recriminations, ad hominem attacks on all sides, there is the fundamental economic fact that the austerity measures imposed on the Greeks by the Germans were/are a huge mistake. Even the IMF now admits (and why did it not do so sooner?) that Greek debt, just like German debt in the not-so-distant past, was too high to ever be re-paid, that trying to do so under the conditions Germany insists on means that Greece is condemned to perpetual penury.

This is the worst act on Germany's part -- acting irrationally while assuming an almost religious sense of economic and moral superiority. Unattractive, to say the least, however popular such behavior may be among Germans. It isn't to the rest of us. Merkel and her finance minister have accomplished what the eurosceptics could not do themselves -- brought the entire EU project into question. As for the eurozone, we now see how appallingly bad an idea it is, and one that will bring all Europe to grief.


prefec2 Skallior 14 Jul 2015 10:58

As a German, I have to concur with your assessment. Merkel and Schäuble ruined the EU. However, they are not the only ones who supported this stupid path which will not lead to a recovery of Greece, but to the destruction of the euro zone and the EU. The EU is already a fragile thing, as more and more countries have become egoistic, for example the UK or Finland, a union where everyone is only looking after his personal benefit will not work. Nor will it work based on a neo-liberal agenda of Merkel.


prefec2 JMFulton 14 Jul 2015 10:54

The EU handed them a brick not a life line. the only thing that would help is a debt restructuring or a haircut combined with a massive reform of the state bureaucracy. Cuts to pensions, however, are not necessary. The same goes for privatization of infrastructure.

Greece is so deep in debt, because of the corrupt elites (which are presently not in government). It is also in debt, because Goldman Sachs helped them to trick the EU and the EU and especially Schröder looked the other way when they cheated themselves into the Euro. However, most of their debt accumulated after becoming part of the Euro zone.


Sal2011 14 Jul 2015 10:30

This deal is neither good for the ordinary Germans nor the Greeks. It's plain stupidity, or cynical manipulation by Merkel and Schauble so that someone else in the future will have to suffer the consequences of their actions. The Greeks can never repay the German taxpayer a mounting amount of debt, with a shrinking economy. Greece, after another round of misery and economic contraction, plus some asset stripping for opportunistic buyers (cronies of D'bloem, Merkel, and Schauble's backers), will find itself in a deeper hole very soon.

How do countries like Greece find themselves in such a debt jam? Here's an example of a typical process. A German company wants to do a project in Greece. It approaches the Greek government, with its lobbyists and debt from a German bank to finance the deal. Since it is coming in with the capital, it overprices the project. Greece gets an overpriced asset and debt - sometimes the asset is indeed worthless for example military white elephants that will never be used. The German company gets the windfall. The German banker is happy at placing more debt, they get paid by the amount of debt they sell. The German and Greek taxpayers ultimately pick up the bill for the overpriced asset. While the overpriced asset doesn't contribute as it should to the Greek economy (if indeed anything, e.g. in he case of a military white elephant), the Greek taxpayer - ironically the middle earners and poor, who don't have offshore tax accounts - is expected to pay for it. Public opinion is whpped up against the Greek pensioner, middle earning worker as if they somehow manipulated the system and pocketed the money, not a crony corporation of the German politicians.

When the Greek taxpayer obviously finds himself going bust trying to pay for an overpriced asset, Germany passes the bad debt to its own taxpayers, i.e. the Greeks now owe German taxpayers. They obviously can't pay this either. So now they are forced to sell assets - let's look at what assets are being proposed. These assets are monopolies like the electricity transmission grid and airports which the Greek taxpayer has to use and pay for in any case. In other words, compulsory taxpayer payments. Who will these assets go to? Foreign companies, cronies of the Troika's decision makers (where they will find jobs, advisory roles after public sector retirement). Will it help Greece grow again? No. Will it help Greek payments to the German taxpayer? Unlikely. But it does help certain opportunists make a lot of money in the short run, while others are left to suffer the consequences in the future.


Shannon Ribbons 14 Jul 2015 10:07

The banks WILL have their money. Only a juicy war could have distracted them from their slavering over Greece.

[Jul 14, 2015] Peace In Our Time

"...The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, an imperial thug. "
.
"...The global financial class is pleased that any pain to be visited from the bad behavior of, wait for it, the global financial class including some of the usual and almost omnipresent suspects, will be presumably visited upon the Greek public alone.
.
And there will be a feast of sorts for the vulture class.
.
This is the continuation of a financial strategy being pursued by the Western developed economies for some years now. It is not 'ordoliberal', which is a nice historical diversion, so much as neo-liberal, a fashion of political management that has swept the West thanks in great part to the economic and political influence of the US and the UK.
"
.
"...'In the [1967] coup d'état the choice of weapon used in order to bring down democracy then was the tanks. Well, this time it was the banks. The banks were used by foreign powers to take over the government. The difference is that this time they're taking over all public property.'"
.
"...We are seeing the same thing being done on a much more local scale in the UK and the US surely, with certain locales being turned into virtual protectorates after being caught up in a web of corruption, financial fraud, and unpayable debts by officially sanctioned Banks. Consider this not an anomaly, but an experiment in progress, with more to follow."
jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Frederick Douglass

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seems to have folded precipitously, after apparently having taken all other options off the table including a Grexit, a movement toward the burgeoning China Development Bank, an impasse.

His strategy seemed a bit out of joint. I have heard that Victoria Nuland made him an offer he could not refuse, and he did not wish or did not have the option to offer a 'principled resignation' as did Varoufakis.

(Note: I am now mulling this and a few other things over in light of this new interview by Varoufakis.)

It could be that he was then taken aback and surprised by the sheer ferocity of the European (German) proposal, which was to essentially make Greek into a protectorate, and to visit a looting of national assets, given that the loans being granted are completely unpayable and the collateral will be forfeit.

He certainly is not the first Western leader to have capitulated when a 'gun' has been held to their head. There is a certain rhyme, and a sense of déjà vu in all this. We must do these things, because of the imperative of (pick one: destiny, our blood, they have given us no choice, it is in their nature to be ruled, to safeguard our freedom, and/or the logic of the market)

There was intraday commentary along these lines here.

There is certainly room for criticizing Syriza in this. I admit I was supportive of their efforts, and still am. I will try not to judge their efforts too harshly until all the facts are revealed. Since I am not eager to be a martyr, I rarely find it appropriate to insist on that path for anyone else. But I did think this characterization from John Pilger bears some merit.

The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, an imperial thug.

Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as 'liberal' or even 'left', Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, "schooled in postmodernism", as Alex Lantier wrote.

For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza's luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but "better terms" of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with "identity politics" and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not resistance, but subservience. "Mainstream" political life in Britain exemplifies this.

John Pilger, The Problem of Greece is not Only a Tragedy: It is a Lie

I wonder how much of Anglo-American political realities that Pilger is projecting on the Greeks. It is hard to me to judge.

But this is mere speculation and second guessing, and we have to focus on what is next. Certainly the Greek people will be foolish to accept the terms to which their Prime Minister has agreed. But what they will do about it, if anything, is another matter. One hopes that they will make a stand, if only to break the momentum of what James Galbraith has called 'the neoliberal project' in which the US in involved despite all its dissembling about it.

Those who complain about the abuse of power and financial repression in their own cases, as those in the precious metals are sometimes known to do, are foolish if they think that what is happening in Greece means nothing for them. The cause of freedom makes all free people brothers and sisters, and those who see themselves as standing proudly alone will fall, miserably and alone.

The global financial class is pleased that any pain to be visited from the bad behavior of, wait for it, the global financial class including some of the usual and almost omnipresent suspects, will be presumably visited upon the Greek public alone.

And there will be a feast of sorts for the vulture class.

This is the continuation of a financial strategy being pursued by the Western developed economies for some years now. It is not 'ordoliberal', which is a nice historical diversion, so much as neo-liberal, a fashion of political management that has swept the West thanks in great part to the economic and political influence of the US and the UK.

What makes it different in this case of Greece is that it is being done, not to a Third World country, but to a long established Western nation and a member of the European community. If there is any good to come out of this, at least the neo-liberal financial class has been revealed for who and what they truly are. And so we can no longer claim any illusions, no plausible excuse in our believing them once again.

'In the [1967] coup d'état the choice of weapon used in order to bring down democracy then was the tanks. Well, this time it was the banks. The banks were used by foreign powers to take over the government. The difference is that this time they're taking over all public property.'

Yanis Varoufakis

And so we see Hillary the populist railing about wages and Wall Street today, while riding on a tidal wave of big money, insider dealings, and soft payoffs from the moneyed interests. But it is all in the patter, the words, the quality of the performance, the identity politics, don't ya know. This is a spectacle, a play on the national stage, and an act of political fiction. And so facts don't matter, just the entertainment factor. How else could one account for at least half of the Republican candidates?

We are seeing the same thing being done on a much more local scale in the UK and the US surely, with certain locales being turned into virtual protectorates after being caught up in a web of corruption, financial fraud, and unpayable debts by officially sanctioned Banks.

Consider this not an anomaly, but an experiment in progress, with more to follow.

Have a pleasant evening.

[Jul 14, 2015] Rich countries accused of foiling effort to give poorer nations a voice on tax

Jul 14, 2015 | The Guardian
Jul 13, 2015 | The Guardian

Aid agencies at Addis Ababa development finance summit claim UK and others have obstructed talks aimed at enabling poor countries to influence UN tax policy.


Aid agencies on Monday accused the world's richest countries, including the UK, of blocking plans to allow poor countries a greater say on UN tax policies.

The upgrade of the UN tax committee to an intergovernmental body was widely seen as a way for less wealthy nations that have struggled to build effective tax systems to influence policy decisions at the UN.

The UK joined the US and several other wealthy countries at the UN financing for development conference in Addis Ababa in a manoeuvre to limit discussions on tax policy at the UN, arguing that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was taking the lead on tax issues.

But a proposal presented to the conference by the OECD, known as a thinktank for the world's 34 richest nations, was also criticised for treating developing countries as an afterthought.

The OECD and the UN Development Programme launched a project entitled tax inspectors without borders to help poorer countries bolster domestic revenues by strengthening the ability of tax authorities to limit tax avoidance by multinationals.

The initiative, which involves providing tax audit experts to work alongside local officials dealing with the affairs of multinationals, has had encouraging results across pilot projects in Albania, Ghana and Senegal. Evidence from Colombia, meanwhile, indicated an improvement in tax revenue from $3.3m (£2.1m) in 2011 to $33.2m in 2014, "thanks to tax audit advice and guidance".

Aid charities believe developing countries should build robust tax systems to prevent them from borrowing heavily and getting into debt, as highlighted in a recent report by the Jubilee debt campaign.


The World Bank has come under heavy fire in the past for encouraging poor countries to cut corporate taxes to boost foreign direct investment. Ethiopia, Mongolia, El Salvador and Puerto Rico are among 38 countries in the report that are slipping dangerously into debt after borrowing on the international money markets to bridge the gap left by large tax shortfalls.

The Addis Ababa conference was expected to produce a series of high-level deals to promote sustainable, self-sufficient development. But the charities fear the UN and the World Bank will promote private finance initiatives that involved either privatisation or greater borrowing to finance investment, improve infrastructure and public services.

Speaking at the conference, a spokeswoman for ActionAid said: "The UK government has positioned itself as a global leader on many aspects of sustainable development, aid and in global efforts to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. It is therefore disappointing that the UK appears to be one of the few governments blocking progress on the important issue of a tax body."

Failure to tackle this question in Addis will not make the urgent need for international tax reform go away. It will simply intensify the challenges ahead for the international community. There is growing recognition that the OECD alone cannot ensure global rules work for all countries, especially the poorest. Blocking agreement on an obvious solution in Addis simply delays the inevitable while putting other critical processes at risk.

Save the Children said the world was "sleepwalking towards failure" at the global finance summit, adding that the UN should create an international body to oversee global tax matters.

A spokesman said: "Tax has never been more under the spotlight as the source of finance for development, but decisions affecting the poorest countries and their ability to recoup money owed to them are taken in an elite club of the most powerful nations. This 20th-century way of doing business is no longer appropriate for the era of sustainable development goals."

[Jul 14, 2015] Grexit may have been avoided, but divisions in Europe are growing

"...Even in a Social democratic Europe the problems of the Euro would remain. The difference in economies and outlook, the needs are too different. Neo-Liberalism has accelerated the exposing of the contradictions though."
.
"...Yes, although Syriza are basically mopping up what earlier, usually right-wing, governments screwed up."
.
"...Seems to me that Europe is being ruled by Germany. Germany is the main beneficiary of the Euro of course, and it was the Euro which got the country's economy moving forward powerfully again after its stagnation of the nineties. "
.
"...Having said all this, I have a lingering suspicision that my local airport on Syros is going to be sold off for a bargain basement price to some asset stripping International Bank. That shouldn't happen. Greece's financial woes shouldn't be an excuse to asset strip the whole of Greece."
.
"...And if you had any idea about 'facts', you'd know that even the very identification of a 'fact' is subjective and therefore not 'neutral', which was your choice of word. And the process of identifying 'facts' comes before the act of reporting them, another process that is subjective and thus not neutral. But you feel free to kid yourself that German newspapers contain 'neutral' reporting while accusing others of stupidity. Must be great belonging to a superior nation, nein?"
.
"...Do me a favour, the Greek nation isn't a naughty child that has to be humiliated into "behaving". If the French and German bankers had "behaved" there would have been a fraction debt owed in the first place. "
.
"...There is no " agreement". There is an ultimatum."
.
"...Therefore: yes, we Germans have indeed access to neutral reporting. It is part of our media landscape. Amazing. Any English-speaking student of the philosophy of history will tell you that 'neutral' or 'objective' history does not and cannot exist. And what happened yesterday, indeed just now, is 'history'. However, according to you, it seems that Germans have overcome the problems of identifying a 'fact' and presenting 'facts' in a manner which in no way reflects the author's prejudices. Which means (i) you Germans really are robots devoid of human emotion, or (ii) you be talking rubbish. Personally I reckon it's the latter but feel free to correct me."
.
"..."They crucified Tsipras in there," a senior eurozone official who had attended the summit remarked. "Crucified." http://t.co/Ue9ENl3tIz "
Jul 12, 2015 | The Guardian

Although couched in fairly careful language, subject to votes in the Greek parliament and with the proposed privatisation fund to be based in the country rather than – as originally suggested – abroad, the agreement reached deprives Greece of an enormous amount of its sovereignty. It may stop short of the "coup" mentioned at times overnight, but – unless the Greek parliament balks in coming days – Greece is no longer master of its own destiny.

... ... ...

The southern countries face the refugee crisis from across the Mediterranean; France has made a partial return to Africa, as a byproduct of the chaos in Libya. The countries to the north, and especially the east, are newly apprehensive about Russia, following events in Ukraine, but their fears are not entirely shared by the "new" Europeans further south, who are more concerned about their economic losses from anti-Russian sanctions.

The EU countries are suddenly looking outward in many different and divisive ways. Until now, though, the Franco-German alliance has remained constant, and the union, including the common currency, remains intact. Last night it was possible, if only fleetingly, to sense the perils that await if that centre cannot hold.


mattus 13 Jul 2015 19:02

You can take money off a country, but you have to do it on the sly! So that the country does not notice.

Financial Waterboarding is not the right tactic.

for a historical comparison:

https://radicaleconomicthought.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/how-to-get-repaid/


mattus TheVeggieBurgher 13 Jul 2015 18:59

Troika does not equal lifeboats, they are destroyers!


mattus 13 Jul 2015 18:57

Grexit has not been avoided, just as the Versaille treaty did not avoid the eventual non-compliance by the Germans. Greeks 2015 and Germans 1918 were both humiliated. They have to produce for foreign powers under severe oversight and a treaty that is not perceived to be fair.

That will not work.

What will work, however is a Grexit which allows Greece to keep Euro as its currency. Is that possible? Of course Montenegro does so:

https://radicaleconomicthought.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/how-to-grexit-gracefully/


HumanTraffic bally38 13 Jul 2015 16:58

Amusing that you quote what was seen as the worst decision by a British Foreign Office in recent history. It gave away the moral authority and high-grund the UK has in 1955 (against the wishes of Mr Churchill), it allowed the original 6 to go on to be hugely more successful than the UK in the next 30 years and within 10 years a British government was begging to be let in, finally being allowed once de Gaulle had lost power.

By the time the UK entered we were bankrupt, had tried to spend and devalue our way out of repeated crises (and failed) at the cost of the value of the pound and the destruction of most big industries.

We then entered to an EEC which was almost entirely crafted to support a French-style agricultural sector and ensure that the Berlin-Paris axis would rule the roost. In subsequent years of course we have acted as the cuckoo-in-the-nest, constantly bitching, moaning and belittling and finally, with the John Major widen-don't-deepen approach to undermining may get the way of the Tory Europhobe.


TimTimpson HolgerHallmann 13 Jul 2015 16:09

But Germany IS doing it again; assuming she knows what's best for other countries, imposing her Will on other Peoples, seeking to dominate Europe and doing it by abusing her power.

Rather than showing the generosity and humanity of the Greeks and others after WWII, when the vast debt owed by Germany was written off, she seeks to humiliate and dictate to another nation in order to expropriate their treasures.


retsdon -> Eddiel899 13 Jul 2015 15:26

I don't think it was a deliberate scam. The problem was the cash from massive German trade surpluses looking for a higher return outside domestic Germany meeting massive demand from peripheral Europe to jig their lifestyles, competitiveness, infrastructure, whatever up to northern standards. As there was nothing to within the combined Eurozone to stop northern banks lending or peripheral Europeans borrowing ( at negative real rates at times), it's hardly surprising that the result was an enormous credit bubble which was sooner or later bound to burst in tears.

The real problem is that the losses from the burst were not equitably assigned - far too much of the cost landing on the shoulders of peripheral Europe's workers and middle-class savers already mired in the inevitable recession.


Danny Sheahan -> Marendins 13 Jul 2015 14:17

Even in a Social democratic Europe the problems of the Euro would remain. The difference in economies and outlook, the needs are too different.

Neo-Liberalism has accelerated the exposing of the contradictions though.


TimTimpson -> Vincent Veal 13 Jul 2015 13:38

Are you serious? you want to remain in the organisation that has just behaved in that manner towards a member requiring support. You must have shares in JP Morgan or something.


jackheron -> CaptainGrey 13 Jul 2015 13:26

Yes, although Syriza are basically mopping up what earlier, usually right-wing, governments screwed up. If you do a little, you know, reading about the subject, you'll find that since democracy was introduced in Greece (I tend to go for 1952, when women finally got the vote), Greeks have in fact been cautious, conservative voters, cleaving to the right in times of crisis.

Although frankly why I'm bothering to explain this to someone who identifies with one of the weedier characters in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is, I will confess, baffling. Everyone knows that Captain Black was the ne'er-do-well hipster, and with that five o'clock shadow that makes Greek men so irresistible.

Coolhandluke77 13 Jul 2015 12:46

That is what the Euro or shared currency means - loss of sovereignty.

The new deal seems to a new take on fraudulent loans: assets are seized and loans given even though there is no credible way they can be paid back.

If this is "a coup" then the coup leaders are easy to identify. They are The Great Left Hope - Syriza. Many on the left were spell bound by Syriza, and now they turn on the anti-German chauvinism rather than see their illusions punctured.

It's all about maintaining the Euro - a political and vanity project - at any cost.

BritCol Tracey Savage 13 Jul 2015 12:20

Try reading some economists other than Milton Friedman. Maybe start with Heilbroner, or Galbraith or even Schumpeter. There are other options besides the Chicago school of trickle down pennies.

Danny Sheahan whitecross 13 Jul 2015 12:13

Also that anyone who challenges Germany's economic needs will be slammed down hard.

A currency union where the needs and protection of one trumps the needs of all others is doomed to fail in acrimony.


afortiorama misterlunch 13 Jul 2015 11:46

It's exactly the same, they had debts and they didn't have the money to repay them. Iceland defaulted and recovered, Argentina defaulted and didn't recover (wait for Kirchner to step down and then you'll see the vultures that are already circling it will tead Argentina apart); Greece has a EU anchor. Tsipras tried to bluff his way out - I don't blame him - and lost.


whitworthflange Eddiel899 13 Jul 2015 11:34

Seems to me that Europe is being ruled by Germany. Germany is the main beneficiary of the Euro of course, and it was the Euro which got the country's economy moving forward powerfully again after its stagnation of the nineties.

Germany lent the money to its neighbours to buy German goods in its new European wide home market, and in the process most of those neighbours lost the majority of their manufacturing capability as Germany out competed and drove it out of business.


ShakeyDave R. Sokol 13 Jul 2015 11:28

There's a BBC Newsnight report about it here, too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17108367


ShakeyDave taketheatrain 13 Jul 2015 11:26

So - how's the privatised power industry working out for everyone in the UK?


david119 13 Jul 2015 11:24

"The agreement reached deprives Greece of an enormous amount of its sovereignty"

If a country joins the Euro it does loose some national sovereignty, that has been obvious from the start.

But it was not necessary to deprive Greeks of dignity and hope.

There is nothing in the rules of the Euro that says that European taxpayers have to bail out banks that engage in reckless and irresponsible lending. Those banks should have been allowed to go bust as Northern Rock was allowed to go bust when it engaged in irresponsible and reckless lending to individuals.

There are two sides to this.

Greece needs hope. It will never realistically be able to pay back it's mountain of debt, much of its debt needs to be cancelled.

But on the other hand anyone who has lived in Greece knows that the creaking, bureaucratic Greek State will never reform itself and if Greeks want to continue to use the Euro this reform urgently needs to happen.

So the EU needs to combine basic humanity with toughness over the reform of the Greek State. If Greeks want to carry on as usual then they have to exit the Common Currency. All the Greeks that I know accept this.

Having said all this, I have a lingering suspicision that my local airport on Syros is going to be sold off for a bargain basement price to some asset stripping International Bank. That shouldn't happen. Greece's financial woes shouldn't be an excuse to asset strip the whole of Greece.


MrGadgie HolgerHallmann 13 Jul 2015 11:10

And if you had any idea about 'facts', you'd know that even the very identification of a 'fact' is subjective and therefore not 'neutral', which was your choice of word. And the process of identifying 'facts' comes before the act of reporting them, another process that is subjective and thus not neutral.

But you feel free to kid yourself that German newspapers contain 'neutral' reporting while accusing others of stupidity. Must be great belonging to a superior nation, nein?


letsbeavinya MerlinUK 13 Jul 2015 11:06

The end of sovereignty? Possibly. The start of responsibility?

Do me a favour, the Greek nation isn't a naughty child that has to be humiliated into "behaving". If the French and German bankers had "behaved" there would have been a fraction debt owed in the first place.


cessle 13 Jul 2015 10:59

There is no " agreement". There is an ultimatum.

If Greece has any sense at all it will reject this ultimatum and default. It will receive more humanitarian aid from the EU that will actually get to the people who need it most than if it capitulates to the EU, EC, ECB and IMF and re-capitalises it banks from more unrepayable bail-outs designed to keep the failed European project afloat.

Germany, quite unfairly, will be blamed for forcing out the Greeks and for setting in motion the end of the EU and its bastard progeny the Euro. Its relationship with France will deteriorate markedly.

France, Spain and Italy will be looking nervously over their shoulders as they watch speculators bet on who will be next out of the failed currency.

Will a Brexit be necessary? Could be academic.


Eddiel899 13 Jul 2015 10:55

The predictable outcome has been arrived at.

The bankers are again happy and the losers are again going to be Germany and Greece. For this is a charade to rob Germany of whatever wealth it has left with the pretence of keeping Europe and Greece on the right path. And we don't have to look far to see who is pulling the strings ....... the oligarchs who now rule Europe through what is euphemistically called the Troika.


MrGadgie HolgerHallmann 13 Jul 2015 10:51

Therefore: yes, we Germans have indeed access to neutral reporting. It is part of our media landscape.

Amazing. Any English-speaking student of the philosophy of history will tell you that 'neutral' or 'objective' history does not and cannot exist. And what happened yesterday, indeed just now, is 'history'.

However, according to you, it seems that Germans have overcome the problems of identifying a 'fact' and presenting 'facts' in a manner which in no way reflects the author's prejudices.

Which means (i) you Germans really are robots devoid of human emotion, or (ii) you be talking rubbish. Personally I reckon it's the latter but feel free to correct me.

reddan 13 Jul 2015 10:33

This from the Financial Times

"They crucified Tsipras in there," a senior eurozone official who had attended the summit remarked. "Crucified." http://t.co/Ue9ENl3tIz

Interesting debate below between Syrizia central committee member Stathis Kouvelakis and Proffessor Alex Callinicos on 11th July at Marxism in London.

https://youtu.be/1paxMRddO0M

pwatson 13 Jul 2015 10:26

What a fudge, what a deliberate attempt to downplay the significance of what has been occurring. How perfidious.

letsbeavinya taketheatrain 13 Jul 2015 10:24

Although the deal is imposed from outside it is a good deal. It offers the opportunity for Greece to start to rebuild its finances and governance. In my view this is a better option than Grexit, a return to the Drachma, a world of hurt and a probable return to business as usual.

What a load of guff.
This is the end of sovereignty for the Greek parliament.

[Jul 13, 2015] Germany is attempting to force Greece out of the common currency union as a lesson to France

Tim Owen , July 12, 2015 at 4:52 am

The EU is a sick joke:

"The independent economics-writer, Charles Hugh Smith - who was one of only 29 economists worldwide who predicted the 2008 crash in advance and who explained accurately how and why it was going to occur - has provided a more honest description of the sources of Greece's depression:

1. Goldman Sachs conspired with [actually: were hired by] Greece's corrupt kleptocracy to conjure up an illusion of solvency and fiscal prudence so Greece could join the Eurozone [despite Greek aristocrats' massive tax-evasion, which created the original problem].

2. Vested interests and insiders gorged on the credit being offered by German and French [and other] banks, enriching themselves to the tune of tens of billions of euros, which were transferred to private accounts in Switzerland at the first whiff of trouble. When informed of this, Greek authorities took no action; after all, why track down your cronies and force them to pay taxes when tax evasion is the status quo for financial elites?

3. If Greece had defaulted in 2010 when its debt was around 110 billion euros, the losses would have fallen on the banks that had foolishly lent the money without proper due diligence or risk management. This is what should have happened in a market economy: those who foolishly lent extraordinary sums to poor credit risks take the resulting (and entirely predictable) losses."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/07/how-fascist-capitalism-functions-the-case-of-greece.html

marknesop July 12, 2015 at 11:18 am
Here's a very interesting article by recently-departed Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. He contends that Germany is the driving force behind it, and that Germany is attempting to force Greece out of the common currency union as a lesson to France, to put the fear of God into them. In such circumstances, Tsipras's erratic behaviour and overall spinelessness just gets in the way.

This fits well with the image of Germany as the emerging leader of a new Europe, but not so well with the concept of a Germany that is more a friend to Moscow and less a tool of Washington.

In fact, it sounds like a country rent with internal struggle which is trending toward a boil itself.

[Jul 13, 2015]Greece and eurozone reach agreement in bailout talks

Greece remain a debt slave.... The condition in which it was put by previous neoliberal goverments...
.
"...All of it is nasty. It revolts me. Rich scumbags win and the small people pay"
.
"...Greece will now be governed in the way that all countries will be governed in the future. Neoliberal institutions will have the world in their grip and dictate all policy so they can squeeze every last drop out of the people justifying this because money is owed. Conquest by indebting nations this is the perfect instrument to destroy all self determination."
.
"...Its not the germans. They are just the convenient target. We all know its the banks behind the governments."
Jul 13, 2015 | The Guardian

Rabiesx15 -> elboberto 13 Jul 2015 10:03

All of it is nasty. It revolts me. Rich scumbags win and the small people pay
The majority of leading politicians, business owners and bankers need to take a long look in the mirror and ask themselves what divides them from Norman Bates, to me they all seem to be psychopaths

rogerfranklin 13 Jul 2015 10:01

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but well done to French socialist Hollande and Italian banker Draghi for doing just enough to (hopefully) prevent armageddon. Of course this deal won't work and we'll all be back here in a year or so but at least the eurozone hasn't been turned into the ERM with Italy and Spain the next targets.

Branko Dodig -> inconvenient_truth 13 Jul 2015 10:00

They don't want to waste their people's money? They have already done so when Greece was technically in default in 2012; they bought off the bank-held bad debt (which happened due to irresponsible lending of banks wishing for higher returns since Germany etc could not absorb the capital and had very unattractive interest rates).

Realistically, bubbles form and deficit soars when there is an inflow of cheap capital, as it was to the periphery of Europe in the 2000s. It's not just a "periphery of Europe thing", a mentality or cultural problem, because the same thing happened in the USA in various periods, and in Germany as well (the famous French "indemnity" which caused a crisis in Germany afterwards).

If we treat the symptoms and not the causes in the way the EU and specifically the Eurozone is set up, we're just going to have recurring problems of this sort.


RichardDargan 13 Jul 2015 09:58

Perhaps this is the end of democracy, in that the will of the people in a country however misguided it might be in what it wants, has been subjugated to the money machine.

The Greeks voted against austerity at least twice. The first time was when they elected Syriza and the second time was when they voted 'No' in the referendum a week ago. The ratcheting up of the terms of what the Greeks have to do to get their money means they now have worse terms than those they started with. Vindictiveness or what, on the part of the ECB and others calling the shots? Is the vindictiveness aimed as a warning to other countries (?Italy and Spain?) who might find themselves, in the future, in a similar position?

I have the nagging feeling that the 'result' of these negotiations has more to do with the internal politics of Germany and Finland and other countries pushing for harder terms than with the situation in Greece.

It will be the 'ordinary' Greeks who will have to pay for the fecklessness of the political and wealthy classes who probably have got their money out and safe in some offshore location. It all leaves something of a dirty taste in the mouth the way this has been handled. So much for democracy when the unelected money-men and women start dealing with the affairs of countries.

nursinggardener 13 Jul 2015 09:53

Greece will now be governed in the way that all countries will be governed in the future. Neoliberal institutions will have the world in their grip and dictate all policy so they can squeeze every last drop out of the people justifying this because money is owed. Conquest by indebting nations this is the perfect instrument to destroy all self determination.


lsjogren -> AdelJ
13 Jul 2015 09:52

Greece is not in debtor's prison. They are free to reneg on their debts and abandon the Euro. And that is what they should do because;

1). In the long run it will be in their best interest
2). It will expose the Eurofarce and force the other countries of Europe to stop basing their economies on the false premise that failed economies are capable of paying off their debts over time.

trobriander 13 Jul 2015 09:50

A word of truth must be said here. Tspiras deserves an applause. The man was voted in to help a nation on the brink. He was fighting hard to save those dearest to him while trying to talk some sense into creditors who make the merchant of Venice look like a gentleman.

He called for a tough referendum to exercise transparency with the Greeks for the initial bail out. Conversely, Merkel (who earned herself a solid F [0/100] for the Greek course) called it a bluff and threatened if outcome were NO then it was immediate Euro exit – she even refused to talk until after the referendum, which was further damaging.

With a big OXI mandate, the man went back to Brussel to negotiate better proposal – carrying with him even a bigger load, in return, the EZ have further entrenched – as if every leader held a bat, waiting turn to get a swing at the ball

Once a wise man said: good finance brings about good friends…
Dear Tspiras, There are hardly any good friends left within the EZ!

thinkoutloud 13 Jul 2015 10:07

I have always supported our membership of the EU and have seen as a force for good and particularly as a way Europe can be big enough to manage rather than be controlled by finance.

Well, this has given me real cause for concern and i am now far less worried about the prospect of our leaving the EU. Indeed I may vote for it (100% reversal of previous views).

The Eu has turned on its people, putting finance and the markets first. if you ever had any doubts, you now know what loss of national sovereignty really means.

Almost the only time we hear of Nations nowadays is in their role as supporters of the finance industry, to bear their risk and to have their ordinary people bear the consequences of financial system (greed and ) failure. Beyond that, Nations as cultural and political entities no longer exist, they are just 'economies' - they serve the markets.

I had thought financiers and bankers got high salaries because they took huge risks, but it appears it is we the ordinary people who take the risks while they take the profits with the help of our politicians.

yuk!


mgtuzairodtiiasn -> greatapedescendant 13 Jul 2015 10:06

Thank you for your wishes, but I think that Tsipras will soon be a political zombie. This was the plan of the gang in Brussels and Berlin, and I cannot understand why he failed to do something to avoid the traps. The agreement is not viable. We will have a discussion about this subject again, very soon. Unfortunately, now the only alternative in the Greek political system is Golden Dawn. A racist and nationalist party. The Greeks will vote to support this party, not because they are racists and nationalists. (You can see almost all Greeks offering food and cloths to the thousands of illegal immigrants and refugees. A problem that has its roots to the irresponsibility of the northern countries.) But they will support Golden Dawn because they want a way to express their opposition to all politicians which act as betrayers, like Tsipras.


jonathanpt 13 Jul 2015 10:06

This is not the deal they rejected last week, that was a short term extension of the second bail-out for 8 billion.This is a new 3 year 3rd bail-out for 80 billion.

However as a long term europhile and strong supporter of Britains membership of the EU ,the way Greece has been treated leaves me wondering,for the first time, about our continuing membership and there will be more like me, unintended consequences.... Brixit???


lsjogren crumlinbob 13 Jul 2015 09:48

crum: Greece has taken a stand, "we hate the neo-liberal superstate, and we want to remain part of the neo-liberal superstate".

Sorry, they can't have it both ways.


amrit radnor 13 Jul 2015 09:48

These previous Greek leaders were hovering in Brussel like birds looking for dead animal's body.

Regime change game is yet to end.

Present government could get defeated and new elections could take place.


illywacker Gulfstream5 13 Jul 2015 09:46

1) It is the private banks that ran out of our money with which to gamble.

2) Socialism is precisely about using richer people's money to help those who have little. Thatcher does not acknowledge such generosity as a factor in human relations ("no such thing as society", etc. etc.), which tells you everything you need to know.


lsjogren crumlinbob 13 Jul 2015 09:44

crum: You just don't get it. National sovereignty and a common currency with other nations are incompatible. Greece can either have the Euro or national sovereignty, not both.


soundofthesuburbs 13 Jul 2015 09:43

"Athens has also agreed to sell off state assets worth €50bn, with the proceeds earmarked for a trust fund supervised by its creditors. Half the fund will be used to recapitalise Greek banks, while the remaining €25bn will pay down Greek debts."

Banks are institutions where the profits remain in private hands and the losses are socialised.

Can anyone explain?

brnost 13 Jul 2015 09:42

When unelected bodies force an elected government to surrender its financial sovereignty, the word "coup" is the only one that can be used. No one emerges with credit from this, but Germany and Merkel come out looking very ugly indeed. It should never have come to this. It was Syriza's predecessors who got into the mess, but the troika were complicit, and their humiliation of Greece to cover their own culpability has exposed the moral bankruptcy of the whole Euro project.

mgtuzairodtiiasn PeregrineSlim 13 Jul 2015 09:42

It is true. The first loans were given to Greece when the state was born after the Ottoman occupation. So, all subsequent loans were given just for the payment of the previous loans. But, although the nominal amounts were very large, only small parts of them were received by the Greeks. The rest of the money was considered in all cases as warranties, commission etc. The Greek state in fact was forced to get this loans with the threat of favoring the "enemies". Except of a small period before 1893, when some money was spent to improve the infrastructure, in all other periods the money was spent for military equipment, mainly warships which were sold by the lenders.

crumlinbob 13 Jul 2015 09:35

Disgraceful treatment of a soverign country. The EU has become a nasty shambles. The austerity measure being forced on the Greeks will not help that country one bit. Things will get worse as most economists (without a right wing blinkered view) have stated. Hell even the IMF have said they got their figures wrong. So what is being foistered on Greece wont work. So whay is it being forced on them? To teach the people that democracy is in no way equal to corporate finance and how dare they vote a left wing government to cause such upset to the neo liberal superstate. The EU is a disgrace.

AdelJ 13 Jul 2015 09:31

The result of the agreement will probably not be known until six months hence but if more damage is done to the Greek economy will this be considered a success? I hope it works but on the face of it it looks both a political and economic disaster for Greece. Did Greece stuff up in the way they borrowed and spent - most certainly, but surely the end result has to be both reform and the chance of a thriving economy in the future. I fear this agreement will not deliver. The Greeks have basically been put in debtors prison. When Schauble asked the Greek negotiators how much to leave the eurozone the best answer might have been to give him a figure.

ukchange68 jahiz123 13 Jul 2015 09:31

slave states - ALL to do with finance, nothing to do with countries


pedro15 Doug_Niedermeyer 13 Jul 2015 09:29

Russia would have defeated the Axis on its own ,just taken a bit longer.

You came into the War in '17 when the Europeans had lost millions over 4 years ,Germany was using 16 year olds and on its last legs with rampant starvation. Bit like you stand back ,watch 3 guys batter a fourth into the ground then when the fourth is unconscious you join in helping the kicking .Just enough time in ww1 to get enough experience for your 'we saved the world movies.

You didn't declare War on Germany until Hitler ,down to some weird sense of loyalty to Japan declared war on USA after Pearl Harbour, and after Germany had in effect lost the Russian campaign befor Moscow. I believe for the aid of a few destroyers you took a chunk of the Caribbean off us.

If you are so great please explain why you have not won a single War, up to and including Iraq, since ww2.

mgtuzairodtiiasn Isanybodyouthere 13 Jul 2015 09:26

In fact the Finnish economy faces huge problems. It is even in a worse situation than the Greek one. The Greek problems are in some degree artificial, due e.g. to the actions of Schauble, but the Finnish problems are all substantial. Finland has lost two of its main sectors, the Forest industry, and telecommunications. Also, there is a huge housing bubble, as in Sweden too. I expect that while we are talking about Greece, another country (Finland? Belgium? ) will soon explode. Notice that while the Greek public debt is very high, the total debt is much lower than that of other countries. E.g. the mean household of Greece owes 109% of its income, while the Dutch one owes 317%. So, there are many countries much more indebted, and all this noise about Greece helps politicians to hide the problems there are existent in their countries.

david wright 13 Jul 2015 09:26

Angela Merkel said: "I never make historical comparisons."

Of course not. She daren't. In 1953, Germany was essentially let of the hook for huge amounts in return for bveing a good ally and helping ounter the Soviet union (which indeed needed countering). Then in Reunification, the former West germany accepted East german currency at par with the Deutschmark, a huge giveaway - 25% would have been generous. Finally, EuroReichsKanzlor Merkel daren't think of the possible blowback from her imposition of a 'worse than Versailles' solution on Greece. Hear and see no evil. If only she could have made the hat trick, and done none. The underlying situation is utterly unchanged. The same go-round will begin in between a couple of months, and three years. It ain't over til it's over, and it ain't over yet, baby.

soundofthesuburbs 13 Jul 2015 09:23

Greece is a banker gamble that didn't pay off.

Bankers worked on the assumption that Germany would pick up all debts, if there were problems.

This lead to bond yields across the Euro-zone being exceptionally low.

Following this assumption, lending to anyone was like lending to Germany, but there was a slightly higher margin in lending to Greece which made it more profitable.

When it became apparent Germany was not going to pick up the tab, bond yields soared in countries like Greece and sustainable debt became unsustainable.

The EU moved the banker's bad debts to the taxpayers of Europe and the bankers gamble has been left to run its course, with them being saved from any losses.

bensdad 13 Jul 2015 09:23

And there we have it. The EU may be dead in the water, but at least we now have a IVth Reich.

TimTimpson EloiCasali 13 Jul 2015 09:20

Greece's hidden economy is about 25% of GDP.
Germany's 15%
Britain's around 10%
USA 7%

Germans should let the British and Americans run their economy, the tax dodgers!

http://www.economist.com/node/16792848

GordonLiddle drdirk 13 Jul 2015 09:18

I concur. One of my reasons for wanting to be in the EU, apart from peace etc, was that it gave us a level of protection from the right wing Neo-Liberal drift in the UK. The recent treatment of Greece in these negotiations and the coup yesterday has left me scratching my head, particularly as we also have right wing group of fanatics in charge here as well.


ukchange68 drdirk 13 Jul 2015 09:19

very, very well said.
Its not the germans. They are just the convenient target. We all know its the banks behind the governments.
This greek capitualtion will go down in history as one of those moments that was missed/wasted.
the orcs are on the march........


libbyliberal 13 Jul 2015 09:17

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/13/whats-the-deal-syriza-the-troika-and-the-future-of-austerity-in-greece/

Peter Bohmer;

It is important that the Greek people not be alone in this struggle. In the United States and other countries, we should connect our struggles against austerity at home to solidarity with the Greek people, their social movements and with left political parties who share this politics and practice. The struggle in Greece for an alternative to austerity is so important not only for the Greek people but for all people who want to live in a world where human needs are put at the center of our politics and economics.


drdirk 13 Jul 2015 09:14

People, please stop bashing the Germans in general. As a German, I feel very ashamed what the Merkel administration and its allies did to Greece in these "negociations". We should all concentrate on the matter, that democracy has been hijacked by a neoliberal elite of politicians and banks. All over Europe, led by the northern states. They are trying to establish a new form of governing all over Europe. There is no difference whether you live in England, Germany or elsewhere. They want it all and they want it now. Believe me, I know many fellow Germans who strongly feel disgusted by this government, maybe not enough ( the German media has been rediculously supportive of the German finance minister ) . The social democrats are dead. They should just join the Conservatives. If progressive left wing and liberal people don't come up with a new political way for Europe, things will go dark. The orks are already waiting to come out of their holes...

LouisianaAlba 13 Jul 2015 09:10

Bad deals are cemented in history and this one looks ready to be cemented. Krugman labels the process leading to it, vindictive. We all want to hope for the best and trust in the abilities of those managing the bad end of this deal in Greece, but I think all their abilities will be tested too much. I put in an earlier comment that magically disappeared from these columns who and what I thought was the beginning of all this. The magic word Versailles has now been brought elsewhere. Read the Varoufakis New Statesman interview..there is no doubt who was in charge of all this.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/yanis-varoufakis-full-transcript-our-battle-save-greece

alemontree 13 Jul 2015 09:09

A typical case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" , especially for Germany. I remember well the times when everybody (including the UK incidentally) was criticizing Germany for lack of leadership. Now Merkel leads and gets criticized for being heavy-handed, Versailles-jackboot-Panzer analogies included. I am not a fan of hers and I don't delude myself that this deal is going to solve Greece's problems for the next decades. However, considering the alternatives, namely a messy Grexit with a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions, it doesn't warrant all that name calling. Don't forget that Merkel has to sell this deal in Germany as well. Considering public opinion there is staunchly anti-bailout. that's not going to be a lot of fun either. Perhaps we should all pipe down a notch and wait how this plays out before declaring the end of the EU.

W61212 Alexander2015 13 Jul 2015 09:06

No, capital debts remain. If Greece left EZ it would at least not be locked into another larger bailout that would like the prior, is impossible to repay. Grexit now and not increase the debt, or stay in EZ, get another bailout and the debt would be unpayable sometime down the line. Bailouts for Greece are carousel, get bailout, can't repay, get another bailout, can't pay - and can't pay because of imposed austerity. Which is why this must stop.


Isanybodyouthere 13 Jul 2015 09:05

Interesting, the fledgling Finnish govt which is a coalition of right wing and right of centre groups would have fallen if they had voted to give Greece more concessions. So it's not just Tsipras and Syriza living dangerously. I also have a feeling Finland's EU membership will be severely tested if this coalition is to hold.


psygone 13 Jul 2015 08:56

After Greece defaulted on its sovereign debt in 1893, the UK, France, the Austria-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, the Russian Empire and several Italian independent states created the "International Financial Commission of Control".

The institution headquartered in Athens with more than 5,000 mostly foreign employes, supervised the public finances of Greece which was imposed by European powers, who had bailed out Greece in autumn of 1897 when the country bankrupted four years earlier.

The Commission supervised the collection ot taxable incomes from salt, olive oil, matches, playing cards, cigarette papers and Naxos emery, tobacco, stamp duties and the Piraeus customs office's duties.

The goal was the payment of the country's debts to its creditors.

However, the institution's official last act was an emergency evacuation on 6 April 1941 as Nazi German and Italian troops entered Athens.

The "International Financial Commission of Control" did return to Athens in 1945 but with only 12 employees and continued to operate in Greece until 1978 when the 1893 debt was finally "written off" -- 81 years total.


Lawrie Griffith Casablancaboy 13 Jul 2015 08:54

Poland is being shored up as a bastion of containment against Russia.
If Greece was strategically important in this new cold war with Russia it be awash with money and its debts wiped.


CroppyNotDown W61212 13 Jul 2015 08:53

Tsipras is too young to know the full extent of German vindictiveness. He is not to be faulted for assuming that he was negotiating with democrats.
Greece should have sent Manolis Glezos. He has a better gut feel for what he is up against. He has seen it before.


Γιώργος Πρίμπας Phil Gollin 13 Jul 2015 08:51

And the truth is that Greece is occupied by Germans conservatives politicians (who will borrow money with 0,0something % rate and will lend the Greeks with at least 2,5% rate) who promise to eat the money from Greeks.

Thank you for yours help!

Of course if the German government will want to cut money from social heath it will say: the Greeks! :-)
so idiots are those who will believe it!


AnOwl 13 Jul 2015 08:50

I'll tell you what the demands look like. They look like the demands that Austria-Hungary made of Serbia in July 1914. IN that case, the Austro-Hungarians thought that Serbia would never accept the terms and expected a war. Serbia, of course, did accept them (even though they were widely regarded in European diplomatic circles as a humiliation) and we all ended up going to war anyway.

Whilst there is little militarism in today's Europe, I can't help but note the similarities in the degree of belligerence. And I agree with Varoufakis that the end result of this will be as significant for th elong-term future of Europe as Westphalia, Versailles or the Treat of Rome.


Silvertown DJT1Million 13 Jul 2015 08:50

The EU has behaved totally dishonourably preferring to destroy the economy of a fellow member of the EU to protect the bankers who foolishly had loaned the Greek state billions.

The Greek people are suffering so the bankers of Frankfurt, Paris Milan, Madrid etc do not have sleepless nights waiting for the 'people's governments' to require the Banks to take a haircut rather than pauperise their citizens.

[Jul 13, 2015] Greece Schaeuble's Track

"...A country in the Euro has no control of its monetary policy. Therefore when Greece had negative real interest rates during the boom time, there was nothing it could do to prevent people borrowing money. When added to a government also borrowing to appease special interests, this can be disastrous."
"......Tsipras has done a great job at playing the other side of the table off against each other. So much so, it doesn't even have to have been intentional, and it still works out great. He's exposed the entire EU structure as a bag of bones, let alone a naked emperor. "
"...Who says Germany wants to avoid a Greek debt "crisis"?"
"...Well, Illargi's analysis agrees with my own. And I agree with him that too many have been influenced by Troika-friendly MSM that has done a fantastic job turning the knife by painting the Greeks as profligate, Syriza as incompetent, and Tsipras as a betrayer. The message: Greeks MUST do whatever the Troika asks and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool or worse."
"...Greece fiscal sovereignty surrender is demanded by elite European terrorists. But these terrorists wear nice suits. The fourth Reich is showing its fangs a lot more now more now. "
"...Seems obvious now ( if it wasn't already ) that debt slavery isn't just about asset theft and depredations, it's about smaller nation state surrender to ongoing long term domination by larger states. Since war is currently unacceptable, then financial war is widely accepted by the vast majority of the people in the West, when it West on West wars.
"...All this " trust" talk is fucking bullshit. So, for the last 5 years that the terrorist troika and EU states knew that Greece couldn't pay off it's fraudulently induced and locally corrupt debt, but kept lending it to them anyway so to steal and impoverish them with near zero real fightback, because they trusted there would be no fightback. Weaken and then conquer is the plan."
"
Jul 12, 2015 | M of A

okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 12:33:40 PM | 3

http://www.notesonthenextbust.com/2015/07/a-union-of-deflation-and-unemployment.html

On Twitter recently, someone posted that anyone who doesn't understand the importance of the difference between a sovereign money supply and a non-sovereign money supply does not understand economics. I wholeheartedly agree with this. And the majority of comments I see on articles about the Greek situation confirms that most people don't understand economics. I don't even know where to begin with criticisms of the idea of a shared currency without shared government.

There are three main problems:

Problem 1: It is very easy to get into debt: A country in the Euro has no control of its monetary policy. Therefore when Greece had negative real interest rates during the boom time, there was nothing it could do to prevent people borrowing money. When added to a government also borrowing to appease special interests, this can be disastrous. But Spain had this problem even whilst running government budget surpluses. A country in the Euro has very little control over fiscal policy due to the rules determining how much governments can borrow and save. So even if a government wanted to combat loose monetary policy with correctly tight fiscal policy, it couldn't.

Problem 2: Once in debt is impossible to get out of debt: There are three main ways a government has historically gotten out of debt. The first is economic growth; a growing economy means that debt to GDP ratios go down as GDP rises. The second is inflation; if a government's debt gets too large it can always resort to the printing press to help it out. The third is outright default.

Problem 3: After both of these are realized, economic growth becomes very difficult: Governments, chastened by the experience of Greece and knowing that they are effectively borrowing in a foreign currency, can not borrow much more. A sovereign nation would have no problem issuing 150 or 200% debt to GDP. The central bank would support them and they would know that real interest rates could not get too high. Not so a borrower of a foreign currency.

I think I show three things here:

  • The only policy a country can follow if it wants to avoid debt crisis is to run a current account surplus.
  • This leads to a policy of internal devaluation and deflation.
  • This creates a positive feedback mechanism which leads to a spiral of deflation and unemployment.

This is true certainly as long as Germany insists on low inflation and trade surpluses but possibly anyway, just by the nature of the riskiness of sovereign borrowing. I would like to hereby offer my humble advice to the leaders in Europe; now is the time to give up on this unworkable idea before it becomes even more of a disaster.


Noirette | Jul 12, 2015 2:31:16 PM | 5

> ab initio at 1.

Finnish + other EU / Euro countries tax payers won't pay for greek debt. (See okie's post as well) but follow along..

A simple chart from le Figaro in F, 26 June, one of the better ones, top of Goog, comprehensible imho.

http://tinyurl.com/ona4gls

It shows the bulk of the debt is lodged at the The EFSF, European Financial Stability Facility, founded May 2010. All decent articles will state the same, or cite the ESM.

The EFSF is a *Private Company* under *Luxemburg* law. It flogs low-yield bonds. The investors are Central Banks/Gvmts/Sovereign Funds (30%), Banks (40%), Fund managers, Pension funds, and private. 50% in the Euro Area, next Asia (Nomura and Daiwa are bank partners), next UK and Switzerland.

It is often confused with the ESM - European Stability Mechanism, founded Sept. 2012, an inter-governmental institution under International Law.

If the ESM is or not an EU institution is hard to say (there *is* text in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - the amendement was specifically designed to exclude the possibility of a referendum) though its scope of action is European (geographical) and its members are all Euro currency countries. Its investors resemble those of the EFSF, bonds are low-yield.

I could not figure out the relationship between the two (imho the ESM it to take over the EFSF but that hasn't been done yet?), it is all very confused, deliberately so imho.

Those who will 'pay', i.e. absorb some financial losses - not garnering the 'interest' they counted on (they took that risk), on the face of it, thus, are these bondholders.

There is a knot (I'm not in finance, so please correct if, this is only from looking things up wiki like) it appears (very unclear, see links) that the members of the ESM (to treat only that for the mo) are at the same time the guarantees for these bonds, they can be forced to stump up to compensate losses. These bonds have a TOPTOP rating, are considered super-safe. Because, I suppose, of that guarantee. See Pension funds buying...

So in a sense you are right, as the Gvmts. are the end of the line on the hook, but it there is many a slip betwix the cup and the lip, and an Exit of the Euro changes the situation (imho.)

ESM site

http://www.esm.europa.eu/index.htm

:) click to see something you have never seen before on the internet (text 3 lines), the Disclaimer on the ESM site:

http://www.esm.europa.eu/investors/disclaimer.htm

an anti-ESM article (see also vid at top in German Eng subs)

http://tinyurl.com/7fl3po3

Addendum. The Troika (ECB, IMF, European Commission) decides what program (IMF, ESM, etc., what conditions, reforms, etc.) will be implemented, so far for Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, and Greece. These are NOT the creditors, they are the decisionary / supervisory board. They may however also be financially involved (yikes.)

Confused? So am I. The shame is the real structures are kept under cover, or layered into arcane, obfuscating guff, misdirection. Finns think they have to pay for bouzouki CDs and Retsina for Greeks so they can party while they shiver, argh.


okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 3:04:36 PM | 6

b, Raúl Ilargi Meijer over at Automatic Earth agrees with you:

http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/07/tsipras-invites-schauble-to-fall-into-his-own-sword/

...Tsipras has done a great job at playing the other side of the table off against each other. So much so, it doesn't even have to have been intentional, and it still works out great. He's exposed the entire EU structure as a bag of bones, let alone a naked emperor.

...Tsipras has known forever that for Greece to stay inside the eurozone was a losing proposition. But he never had the mandate. Well, after Schäuble's antics last night, (Schäuble snapped at Draghi last night: "Do you hold me for a fool?") that mandate has come a lot closer.


Comrade X | Jul 12, 2015 3:20:55 PM | 8

Re: okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 12:33:40 PM | 3:

"I would like to hereby offer my humble advice to the leaders in Europe; now is the time to give up on this unworkable idea before it becomes even more of a disaster."

Who says Germany wants to avoid a Greek debt "crisis"?


paulmeli | Jul 12, 2015 3:25:56 PM | 9

re okie farmer @ 3

To add to your spot-on post (if everyone read Bill Mitchell this lack of understanding would change fast), in order for any economy to grow, it's money supply has to grow…spending (GDP) can't be increased (in the real world) without printing more money, because very little of the money we have (savings) ever gets spent. For every dollar someone spends, someone else is saving two. There is no 'circulation' per se without some entity (almost always the government) forcing money through the system.

The conventional wisdom that 'printing' money (government spending) is harmful or inflationary is so much nonsense yet it seems to have been internalized by 95% of the World's population.

Without money 'printing' we would all be living like the Amish. I will take inflation over deflation any day. Our last 'liberal' President, Richard Nixon, (in public investment terms) believed the ideal level of inflation was 4% per year…now, we target 2%.

Greece's money supply is 'draining' away towards it's trading partners…Greece's borrowing is funding them. Good luck to them as they drain one economy after another in the Eurozone. When one player in a poker game ends up with all the money at the table, the game is over.


Jackrabbit | Jul 12, 2015 4:18:39 PM | 10

Re: okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 3:04:36 PM | 6

Well, Illargi's analysis agrees with my own. And I agree with him that too many have been influenced by Troika-friendly MSM that has done a fantastic job turning the knife by painting the Greeks as profligate, Syriza as incompetent, and Tsipras as a betrayer. The message: Greeks MUST do whatever the Troika asks and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool or worse.

As I've outlined in Greek posts of the last few days, even those who should know better (like Yves Smith) have fallen in with this mantra.

Instead, the Greeks held firm to their pro-EU and anti-austerity positions and forced the issue to the EU-wide political level. In the process they have gained powerful friends (US, France, Italy, etc.) and will likely win a much more favorable outcome than if they had quietly succumbed to the Troika in February (Yves preferred course).

* Debt restructuring is now "on the table" and Europe recognizes that they will have to help if there is any GRexit, instead of making an example of Greece.


tom | Jul 12, 2015 4:44:22 PM | 11

Greece fiscal sovereignty surrender is demanded by elite European terrorists. But these terrorists wear nice suits. The fourth Reich is showing its fangs a lot more now more now.

Because Merkel and other poorly concealed fascists elite in Europe posing as Democrats, they are even more pissed off about weak democratic resistance in Greece where they haven't out right surrendered yet.

because of that resentment of human independence, she now demands The Greek government handover Greeces fiscal control as part of a worsening debt slavery deal.

These terror elite freaks a super pissed and want to drive Greece into the fucking dirt as an example, and as punishment for not being willing slaves.


karlof1 | Jul 12, 2015 5:11:54 PM | 12

I'd like to take Tsipras fishing, he's so patient in waiting as the Troika finishes building its own scaffold and tying its noose! For almost a month now, the Greeks have had an out--Most of the debt's been determined to be odious and just needs to be officially declared as thus formally. Zip!! There's a massive haircut!! And there's nothing the Troika can do about it except to withhold liquidity for Greek banks. If it does, then Tsipras will trump them by saying so-long to the EU, Eurozone and NATO, while adding insult to injury by refinancing its debt through the other resources offered.


okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 5:18:07 PM | 13

'This is a coup'
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-33497309


Willy2 | Jul 12, 2015 5:27:29 PM | 14

@13:
- Interesting proposal: Greece could temporarily leave the Eurozone. Although Greece doesn't have to. They could give each saver a "haircut" of say 30%. That's a devaluation as well.

I disagree with the cartoon. Circumstances already have taken a turn for the worst. Even WITH or WITHOUT the politicians.


tom | Jul 12, 2015 5:34:13 PM | 15

Seems obvious now ( if it wasn't already ) that debt slavery isn't just about asset theft and depredations, it's about smaller nation state surrender to ongoing long term domination by larger states.

Since war is currently unacceptable, then financial war is widely accpected by the vast majority of the people in the West, when it West on West wars.


Comrade X | Jul 12, 2015 6:03:52 PM | 16

To Tom @15: The US degenerated to become the TBTF debtor. Of course it would sink to perpetual asset theft and depredation. The neoliberalized world follows.


okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 6:44:45 PM | 18

TRNN BRICS Development Bank, neoliberal, with a comment on Greece
https://youtu.be/2imOfILmxzg


okie farmer | Jul 12, 2015 6:50:39 PM | 19

Funny or Die, trade Florida for Greece

https://youtu.be/Ast52VeMvfw


Laguerre | Jul 12, 2015 7:10:57 PM | 20

Germany talking heavy. That's not going to go down well. Either you make of the Eurozone a fiscal unity, whereby Germany is forced to help out other areas, as in the US. Or you let them go, and suffer the losses implied in a Greek default.


tom | Jul 12, 2015 7:44:09 PM | 21

All this " trust" talk is fucking bullshit. So, for the last 5 years that the terrorist troika and EU states knew that Greece couldn't pay off it's fraudulently induced and locally corrupt debt, but kept lending it to them anyway so to steal and impoverish them with near zero real fightback, because they trusted there would be no fightback.

Weaken and then conquer is the plan.

The European Evil elite "trusted" all those years of stealing from Greece and starving their people to death with much resistance, but since the democratic vote, now trust is an issue?!?!?! After 5 years of un-payable debt loaded on with endless amount of more un-payable debt......yeah right.

It's obvious, but unsaid of course, that the real lack of trust, is a lack of trust of full Greek surrender to their slave masters in the EU. So that "trust" PR bullshit ( which will work on the majority of people in the West ) will be used to try get general support and to force Greece to hand over their economic sovereignty, which is no sovereignty at all, but an attempt at forced surrender to domination-ists.

[Jul 11, 2015] Varoufakis: Behind Germany's Refusal to Grant Greece Debt Relief

"...The calling of the referendum was politically brilliant, because it defused the notion of an extremist government standing irrationally against the Troika."
.
"...Greece would look to the US for help in vain, given that Obama's representative to the continent is Victoria Nuland, the bearer of color revolutions and the reaping of ancient lands and cultures for profit."
Jul 11, 2015 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"What is at stake is a rather heroic rebellion by a very beleaguered people against a doctrine which has been destroying their lives - the austerity doctrine and the whole neoliberal project. For the rest of us, what is at stake is whether we have the moral courage in the sense of ethical responsibility to stand up to it."

Jamie Galbraith, Greek Revolt Threatens Entire Neoliberal Project

It is probably less an issue of ethical responsibility and more an act of self-interest for most. Having come out of the Third World and working into the developed nations, why would anyone assume that Greece would be sufficient for the maw of neoliberal greed.

The above interview with Galbraith is worth reading. For one thing it contains the seed of the current spin that Tsipras called the referendum in order to lose it, and to somehow save himself and betray the Greeks. And for another you will be able to read what Jamie Galbraith really thinks, the parts that the friends of the financial establishment have carefully excluded from their versions of the story.

The calling of the referendum was politically brilliant, because it defused the notion of an extremist government standing irrationally against the Troika. This derailed the path towards a scheme to stage a 'color revolution' backed by the oligarchs to take out these mad leftists who were not speaking for the people.

Remember the economic decision involving Europe which provoked the recent coup d'état in the Ukraine? In that case the government did not have the backing of the people, and it took hold, at least in the Western portions of the country. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Of course the referendum was famously too close to predict when first called for Syriza, and surprisingly late in the game for most everyone else as you may recall How soon some choose to forget. But it changed the course of events in a dramatic way. As it was it did not help their bargaining position, but as Galbraith relates they did not expect it to be.

But it put the field of play into better terms if you goal is playing for survival and time. They are knocking down all the rationales and excuses to visit harsh terms on Greece that the Troika and their enablers are using. They are exposing their opponents for what they really are.

Empires founded on unsustainable foundations are like financial bubbles and Ponzi schemes. They are inherently non-productive and consuming, so they must continue to grow, or choke on their own ideologically driven detritus. Transferring wealth as your major economic policy requires a steady source of new supply.

Most of the American media has fallen into line with the neoliberal agenda. It might seem surprising, but power has its attraction under corporatism, even for people who would ordinarily consider themselves to be 'liberal.'

There are concerning things happening in the Western world, and a lack of traction towards individual freedom amongst 'the great democracies,' above and beyond Germany's growing desire to bring their version of order and efficient management of lands and people to the rest of Europe.

The growing militancy in Japan, and Abe's aggressive pushing aside of constitutional restraints, is undernoted in the West, but of concern to those in Asia.

Greece would look to the US for help in vain, given that Obama's representative to the continent is Victoria Nuland, the bearer of color revolutions and the reaping of ancient lands and cultures for profit.

At least in this cycle of the will to power some, including the Pope thank God, are speaking out early, publicly, and strongly against the rising tide of injustice, the senseless abuse of power, and the impulse towards dehumanizing central rule and neo-totalitarianism. Silence is complicity.

Behind Germany's refusal to grant Greece debt relief

Posted on July 11, 2015 by yanisv

Tomorrow's EU Summit will seal Greece's fate in the Eurozone. As these lines are being written, Euclid Tsakalotos, my great friend, comrade and successor as Greece's Finance Ministry is heading for a Eurogroup meeting that will determine whether a last ditch agreement between Greece and our creditors is reached and whether this agreement contains the degree of debt relief that could render the Greek economy viable within the Euro Area.

Euclid is taking with him a moderate, well-thought out debt restructuring plan that is undoubtedly in the interests both of Greece and its creditors. (Details of it I intend to publish here on Monday, once the dust has settled.) If these modest debt restructuring proposals are turned down, as the German finance minister has foreshadowed, Sunday's EU Summit will be deciding between kicking Greece out of the Eurozone now or keeping it in for a little while longer, in a state of deepening destitution, until it leaves some time in the future.

The question is: Why is the German finance Minister, Dr Wolfgang Schäuble, resisting a sensible, mild, mutually beneficial debt restructure? The following op-ed just published in today's The Guardian offers my answer. [Please note that the Guardian's title was not of my choosing. Mine read, as above: Behind Germany's refusal to grant Greece debt relief ). Click here for the op-ed or…

Greece's financial drama has dominated the headlines for five years for one reason: the stubborn refusal of our creditors to offer essential debt relief. Why, against common sense, against the IMF's verdict and against the everyday practices of bankers facing stressed debtors, do they resist a debt restructure? The answer cannot be found in economics because it resides deep in Europe's labyrinthine politics.

In 2010, the Greek state became insolvent. Two options consistent with continuing membership of the eurozone presented themselves: the sensible one, that any decent banker would recommend – restructuring the debt and reforming the economy; and the toxic option – extending new loans to a bankrupt entity while pretending that it remains solvent.

Official Europe chose the second option, putting the bailing out of French and German banks exposed to Greek public debt above Greece's socioeconomic viability. A debt restructure would have implied losses for the bankers on their Greek debt holdings.Keen to avoid confessing to parliaments that taxpayers would have to pay again for the banks by means of unsustainable new loans, EU officials presented the Greek state's insolvency as a problem of illiquidity, and justified the "bailout" as a case of "solidarity" with the Greeks.

To frame the cynical transfer of irretrievable private losses on to the shoulders of taxpayers as an exercise in "tough love", record austerity was imposed on Greece, whose national income, in turn – from which new and old debts had to be repaid – diminished by more than a quarter. It takes the mathematical expertise of a smart eight-year-old to know that this process could not end well.

Once the sordid operation was complete, Europe had automatically acquired another reason for refusing to discuss debt restructuring: it would now hit the pockets of European citizens! And so increasing doses of austerity were administered while the debt grew larger, forcing creditors to extend more loans in exchange for even more austerity.

Our government was elected on a mandate to end this doom loop; to demand debt restructuring and an end to crippling austerity. Negotiations have reached their much publicised impasse for a simple reason: our creditors continue to rule out any tangible debt restructuring while insisting that our unpayable debt be repaid "parametrically" by the weakest of Greeks, their children and their grandchildren.

In my first week as minister for finance I was visited by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup (the eurozone finance ministers), who put a stark choice to me: accept the bailout's "logic" and drop any demands for debt restructuring or your loan agreement will "crash" – the unsaid repercussion being that Greece's banks would be boarded up.

Five months of negotiations ensued under conditions of monetary asphyxiation and an induced bank-run supervised and administered by the European Central Bank. The writing was on the wall: unless we capitulated, we would soon be facing capital controls, quasi-functioning cash machines, a prolonged bank holiday and, ultimately, Grexit.

The threat of Grexit has had a brief rollercoaster of a history. In 2010 it put the fear of God in financiers' hearts and minds as their banks were replete with Greek debt. Even in 2012, when Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, decided that Grexit's costs were a worthwhile "investment" as a way of disciplining France et al, the prospect continued to scare the living daylights out of almost everyone else.

By the time Syriza won power last January, and as if to confirm our claim that the "bailouts" had nothing to do with rescuing Greece (and everything to do with ringfencing northern Europe), a large majority within the Eurogroup – under the tutelage of Schäuble – had adopted Grexit either as their preferred outcome or weapon of choice against our government.

Greeks, rightly, shiver at the thought of amputation from monetary union. Exiting a common currency is nothing like severing a peg, as Britain did in 1992, when Norman Lamont famously sang in the shower the morning sterling quit the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). Alas, Greece does not have a currency whose peg with the euro can be cut. It has the euro – a foreign currency fully administered by a creditor inimical to restructuring our nation's unsustainable debt.

To exit, we would have to create a new currency from scratch. In occupied Iraq, the introduction of new paper money took almost a year, 20 or so Boeing 747s, the mobilisation of the US military's might, three printing firms and hundreds of trucks. In the absence of such support, Grexit would be the equivalent of announcing a large devaluation more than 18 months in advance: a recipe for liquidating all Greek capital stock and transferring it abroad by any means available.

With Grexit reinforcing the ECB-induced bank run, our attempts to put debt restructuring back on the negotiating table fell on deaf ears. Time and again we were told that this was a matter for an unspecified future that would follow the "programme's successful completion" – a stupendous Catch-22 since the "programme" could never succeed without a debt restructure.

This weekend brings the climax of the talks as Euclid Tsakalotos, my successor, strives, again, to put the horse before the cart – to convince a hostile Eurogroup that debt restructuring is a prerequisite of success for reforming Greece, not an ex-post reward for it. Why is this so hard to get across? I see three reasons.

Europe did not know how to respond to the financial crisis. Should it prepare for an expulsion (Grexit) or a federation?
One is that institutional inertia is hard to beat. A second, that unsustainable debt gives creditors immense power over debtors – and power, as we know, corrupts even the finest. But it is the third which seems to me more pertinent and, indeed, more interesting.

The euro is a hybrid of a fixed exchange-rate regime, like the 1980s ERM, or the 1930s gold standard, and a state currency. The former relies on the fear of expulsion to hold together, while state money involves mechanisms for recycling surpluses between member states (for instance, a federal budget, common bonds). The eurozone falls between these stools – it is more than an exchange-rate regime and less than a state.

And there's the rub. After the crisis of 2008/9, Europe didn't know how to respond. Should it prepare the ground for at least one expulsion (that is, Grexit) to strengthen discipline? Or move to a federation? So far it has done neither, its existentialist angst forever rising. Schäuble is convinced that as things stand, he needs a Grexit to clear the air, one way or another. Suddenly, a permanently unsustainable Greek public debt, without which the risk of Grexit would fade, has acquired a new usefulness for Schauble.

What do I mean by that? Based on months of negotiation, my conviction is that the German finance minister wants Greece to be pushed out of the single currency to put the fear of God into the French and have them accept his model of a disciplinarian eurozone.

[Jul 11, 2015]Merkel and the NSA - Analysis

October 24, 2013 | www.tomroganthinks.com

Accusations that the NSA has listened in on Chancellor Merkel's conversations are not conducive to positive German-US relations. Interestingly, the fact that the White House is saying that they 'are not' monitoring and 'will not' monitor Merkel, suggests that 'they have' monitored her in the past. To be sure, as I noted yesterday, there are worthwhile reasons behind US intelligence collection operations in Europe. Still, targeting the phone of a close ally (especially a head of state and especially one as friendly as Merkel) is a dangerous gamble. It risks significant blowback in terms of personally alienating a valued American friend. The NSA will have known this. Correspondingly, I assume that Merkel was targeted for a short time and in pursuit of specific information. Perhaps in regards to her position during a conference/financial negotiations (international meetings are a playground for intelligence officers).


There's another point here; as Marc Ambinder (a top journalist on the NSA) notes, if Merkel was indeed targeted, then why wasn't her position as an intelligence source more highly classified? Ambinder hints at the larger truth. If she was monitored, Merkel was effectively a deep cover source. In that regard, it's truly ridiculous that Snowden was able to gain access to such an operation. He was a contractor, not the Director of the NSA. As I've argued before, the US Government has a serious problem with its protection of its highly classified sources.


Of course, all of this raises the broader question as to what other information Snowden might have given Greenwald. Does he have agents/officers details? The British certainly think so. Based on what's happening at the moment, we must assume that Greenwald is upping the ante. This may signal how he'll conduct himself at Omidyar's new media endeavor. Ultimately, this is what will most concern the US Government - signal intelligence programs can be reconstructed. Humans cannot.

[Jul 10, 2015] Unbridled capitalism is the 'dung of the devil', says Pope Francis

"...He said he supported their efforts to obtain "so elementary and undeniably necessary a right as that of the three "Ls": land, lodging and labour"."
"...he called the unfettered pursuit of money "the dung of the devil", and said poor countries should not be reduced to being providers of raw material and cheap labour for developed countries. "
"..."Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change," the pope said, decrying a system that "has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature"."
"...The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor"
"...A lot of us are awaiting the 3rd WW, between Russia and the US, between China and the US, between the West and the East, while the war is on. ... Is it work of Capitalism? I think that capitalism in it's modern form lies near this war, and both are made by the same people."
"...Still, the subject of my comment was not the predominance of Christians, but how much poverty exists in this predominantly Christian nation. They ignore the most fundamental teachings they profess to believe--the admonitions of Jesus to feed, clothe, and generally help the poor."
"...There is a reason the US has over 900 bases across the world, and that is to insure its business interests."
"...An economic system is not a matter of either-or. Those who profit from "Laissez Faire" capitalism like to push the idea that the only alternative is communism. Pope Francis is obviously a proponent of a "mixed economy" as most people in the US on the left are. He is attacking "unbridled capitalism" not an adequately regulated free-market economy."
"...Animal farm is not about the failure of either Communism or Fascism....it is a commentary on the corruption of power; not a uniquely Communist problem. The machinations of politics also feature quite heavily...divide and rule, propaganda, double standards and the use of language to achieve ones aims...these are abuses of power that both the left and the right have been guilty of. Hitler's Germany was Fascist (right wing extremism), Stalin's Russia was Communist (left wing extremism)..."
Jul 10, 2015 | The Guardian

Pope Francis has urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order, denouncing a "new colonialism" by agencies that impose austerity programs and calling for the poor to have the "sacred rights" of labor, lodging and land.

In one of the longest, most passionate and sweeping speeches of his pontificate, the Argentine-born pope used his visit to Bolivia to ask forgiveness for the sins committed by the Roman Catholic church in its treatment of native Americans during what he called the "so-called conquest of America".

The pontiff also demanded an immediate end to what he called the "genocide" of Christians taking place in the Middle East and beyond, describing it as a third world war.

"Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus," Pope Francis said.

"In this third world war, waged piecemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end."

Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered pursuit of money "the dung of the devil", and said poor countries should not be reduced to being providers of raw material and cheap labour for developed countries.

Repeating some of the themes of his landmark encyclical Laudato Si on the environment last month, Francis said time was running out to save the planet from perhaps irreversible harm to the ecosystem.

Pope Francis shakes hands with a mining worker's leader watched by Bolivia's president Evo Morales, right, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP

Francis made the address in the city of Santa Cruz to participants of the second world meeting of popular movements, an international body that brings together organisations of people on the margins of society, including the poor, the unemployed and peasants who have lost their land. The Vatican hosted the first meeting last year.

He said he supported their efforts to obtain "so elementary and undeniably necessary a right as that of the three "Ls": land, lodging and labour".

His speech was preceded by lengthy remarks from the left-wing Bolivian president Evo Morales, who wore a jacket adorned with the face of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. He was executed in Bolivia in 1967 by CIA-backed Bolivian troops.

"Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change," the pope said, decrying a system that "has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature".

"This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it intolerable, labourers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself – our sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say – also finds it intolerable," he said in an hour-long speech that was interrupted by applause and cheering dozens of times.

Since his election in 2013, the first pope from Latin America has often spoken out in defence of the poor and against unbridled capitalism but the speech in Santa Cruz was the most comprehensive to date on the issues he has championed.

Francis' previous attacks on capitalism have prompted stiff criticism from politicians and commentators in the United States, where he is due to visit in September.

The pontiff appeared to take a swipe at international monetary organisations such as the IMF and the development aid policies by some developed countries.

"No actual or established power has the right to deprive peoples of the full exercise of their sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and justice," he said.

"The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor," he said.

Last week, Francis called on European authorities to keep human dignity at the centre of debate for a solution to the economic crisis in Greece.

He defended labor unions and praised poor people who had formed cooperatives to create jobs where previously "there were only crumbs of an idolatrous economy".

In one of the sections on colonialism, he said:

"I say this to you with regret: many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God."

He added: "I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.

"There was sin and an abundant amount of it."

The audience gave Francis a standing ovation when he put on a yellow miner's hat that was given to him at the end of his speech.

The pope made his speech at the end of his first full day in Bolivia, where he arrived on Wednesday. On Thursday morning he said a mass for hundreds of thousands of people and said that everyone had a moral duty to help the poor, and that those with means could not wish they would just "go away".

Francis praised Bolivia's social reforms to spread wealth under Morales. On Friday, he will visit Bolivia's notoriously violent Palmasola prison.

The pope looked bemused on Wednesday night when Morales handed him one of the more unusual gifts he has received: a sculpted wooden hammer and sickle – the symbol of communism – with a figure of a crucified Christ resting on the hammer.
Francis leaves on Friday for Paraguay, the last stop on his "homecoming" trip.


Westonboy 10 Jul 2015 09:01

The Pope didn't actually say "unbridled capitalism is the dung of the devil" did he?
So why is that the headline of this piece?


valeronfreza 10 Jul 2015 08:46

Actually, I find one of his thoughts really interesting. A lot of us are awaiting the 3rd WW, between Russia and the US, between China and the US, between the West and the East, while the war is on. The whole civilized world takes part in this mess, the thing is that this war looks different from what we're used to see. I mean, we get information, made by those, who wants us to see it different, like something, that happening far away, though it's dangerous as hell.
Is it work of Capitalism? I think that capitalism in it's modern form lies near this war, and both are made by the same people.


cblyth79 10 Jul 2015 08:41

he called the unfettered pursuit of money "the dung of the devil"

He has hit the nail on the head. This is everything that is wrong with society. Every decision is taken with regards to making as much money as possible. However, the great irony is that even if people do make money, their constant desire for more means they are never happy or fulfilled. Meanwhile, socially and environmentally we suffer greatly due to this ultimately fruitless pursuit of as much money as possible.


PM782_ -> Greenshoots 10 Jul 2015 08:40

Generally speaking, you are right of course.

I have very little time for virgin men in silly hats & dresses, carrying crucifixes and expecting everyone to take them seriously when history shows us they cannot be trusted to act in an ethical way, and will (as always) be more concerned about amassing money and influence than doing any good in the world.

The whole thing is ludicrous and you should be ashamed that you believe in it. It is really astonishing.

Greenshoots -> Drew Layton 10 Jul 2015 08:39

Atheist trope. One could as easily say "Religion compels unreasonable people to do reasonable things".


Westonboy -> pol098 10 Jul 2015 08:37

I'm happy to salute the personal contributions you make but, of course, the computer that you will have used to write or test your software is a product of capitalism.
Also, most of the the goods you recycle or give away are no doubt the products of capitalism.
Anti-capitalists don't seem to have any alternative method of wealth creation.


EnglishChapin 10 Jul 2015 08:26

In the article:

Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered pursuit of money "the dung of the devil"

In the headline:

"Unbridled capitalism is the 'dung of the devil', says Pope Francis"


kycol1 -> natsirtguy 10 Jul 2015 08:24

As a Unitarian/Universalist I am equally, if not more, wary of that practice. Francis, however, is a public figure who has the right to express his opinion. While he was definitely speaking to a Catholic audience, he was not giving his words the weight of a Papal Encyclical. Also, it is the accepted and expected belief of Catholics that the Pope directs their thinking as far as faith goes. I do not see his words being a act of forcing his will on me, personally. All public figures have the right to express their opinion on that subject. I also believe that regulation should go further than dealing with "negative externalities" unless you view the financial crisis of 2008 as a negative externality . While the causes of the crisis were complex and varied, lax regulatory oversight during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations played a role in creating the conditions for it.

lesmandalasdeniki -> hollyjadoon 10 Jul 2015 08:13

Why do you want poor people to rise up? On what sense? Revolution to topple world governments, what's next? What kind of governmental system will we apply to ensure law and order? Will it be one world government by the Vatican?


GallopingGournmet -> citizen_1111 10 Jul 2015 08:09

I'm glad you set everyone straight on this. We were all thinking capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. But clearly capitalism involves greed for money, exploitation and environmental destruction. The very fact you've attempted to pick at this shows you're missing the overarching point. The Pope is criticizing how our unregulated "socioeconomic system" - which was capitalism the last time I looked - for being responsible for ruining society, enslaving men and women and destroying human fraternity. All of which is pretty spot on. Excuse me for having to clarify this for you.


citizen_1111 10 Jul 2015 07:48

Wouldn't it be great if newspapers like the Guardian printed the truth, rather than spin. The pope did not say that "unbridled capitalism is the dung of devil". Here's the actual paragraph. It's nothing like the Guardian's deceptive headline.

Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished.

And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called "the dung of the devil". An unfettered pursuit of money rules.

The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.

So he's actually referring to greed for money - a moral sin .... not capitalism, which is basically meritocratic mechanism of funding businesses.


HobbesianWorld -> Drew Layton 10 Jul 2015 07:41

Wrong, it's a predominantly Christian nation. Christians don't own it. Under the Constitution, all beliefs in matters of religion are equal.

Still, the subject of my comment was not the predominance of Christians, but how much poverty exists in this predominantly Christian nation. They ignore the most fundamental teachings they profess to believe--the admonitions of Jesus to feed, clothe, and generally help the poor.

Capitalism isn't a sacred arm of Christianity, yet many (most?) Christians tend to favor Wall Street's gluttony and greed while millions of children live in poverty. Is that what we should see in a "Christian" nation? It's the epitome of hypocrisy.


PM782_ 10 Jul 2015 07:33

The guy in charge of 1 billion plus devout catholics, with all the riches of the Vatican, preaches to us about how excessive capitalism is a bad thing.

This pope seems more reasonable than his predecessors however until he actually DOES something that makes the world a better place and in some way makes up for the history of atrocious behavior that the Catholic church has engaged in, I'm simply not interested.

It is strange though, seeing how many people are hoodwinked by a few choice words, when the organization he represents has been an utter blight on humanity since it began.


heretoeternity -> natsirtguy 10 Jul 2015 07:32

There is a reason the US has over 900 bases across the world, and that is to insure its business interests.

Laurence W 10 Jul 2015 07:18

Devout capitalists/corporatists may not see the symmetry between John Paul II's defiance of the bankruptcy of unbridled Communism and Francis's defiance of the bankruptcy of unfettered Capitalism. They cling to their irrational faith (and that is what it is) in Adam Smith's "invisible hand." The collapse of Communism does not somehow validate Capitalism. It seems Capitalism's true believers must be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st. Century.


ideation2020 -> PeterAB12 10 Jul 2015 07:11

In the West there is a marked reduction in family size since about 1965. There are also far more women at work, the workforce has adapted to almost full attendance of female workers. We generally have accommodated an increase of 70% by reducing family size and equally as important is the accommodation and full attendance of single a and" won't marry" adults.

SmileyFace2 -> natsirtguy 10 Jul 2015 07:10

But Capitalism has resulted in a Plutocracy which leads to rule by the top 1%. So it is not quite a simple as you seem to think hence the need for a mixed economy.


HobbesianWorld 10 Jul 2015 07:08

While I wouldn't put it that way, the Pope is correct that unfettered capitalism is the major source of injustice, especially the injustice of poverty.

It's a source of dark humor for me to hear Christians call the U.S. a "Christian nation" even as they fight to maintain and enhance the cause of poverty--unbridled corporatism; profit over humanity, wealth over justice and selfishness over honor.


Brian Milne -> Kevin Lim 10 Jul 2015 06:59

How much time have you spent in South America? I spent 18 years going back and forth as part of my job, must admit I have not spoken to a Liberation Theology priest (he was actually a Jesuit originally) since October. So perhaps I am just a little bit out of synch.

Life paths include being allowed to express one's sexuality openly and not risk excommunication and denunciation by the church, to be allowed to have abortions and use contraception without being told that you will go to Hell, to be allowed to 'formally' leave the church (some countries still require religion on official document) and to follow political streams that the church condemns as unchristian to name but just a few. By using the pressure of condemnation in the afterlife people are to this day controlled by fear.

Sure nobody is obliged to put money in the dish but too many still fear the stigma of not doing so. If this man can end that then it would be a job well done, but he will not, will he?


cblyth79 -> Manjush 10 Jul 2015 06:51

I agree that overpopulation is a problem, but to me the real problem is the capitalist consumerism of first-world countries and the damage this is causing to the planet. Even if the populations of third-world countries doubled they would not get anywhere near the CO2 that we produce. And that's not even to mention the fact that we have caused climate change and they haven't. To blame overpopulation is to out the blame on third-world countries, when it should be squarely on us.


VivF -> dysro1 10 Jul 2015 06:50

Animal farm is not about the failure of either Communism or Fascism....it is a commentary on the corruption of power; not a uniquely Communist problem. The machinations of politics also feature quite heavily...divide and rule, propaganda, double standards and the use of language to achieve ones aims...these are abuses of power that both the left and the right have been guilty of. Hitler's Germany was Fascist (right wing extremism), Stalin's Russia was Communist (left wing extremism)...

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
- Lord Acton


Drew -> Layton 10 Jul 2015 06:48

Yay! Religion has done something that isn't rape, muder, burning at the stake, ripping people's breasts off, implement, beheading, shooting people on beaches, blowing things up, being homophobic, sexist, racist or generally being a complete twat! Let's all jump up and down and burn a pilot! YAY!


Kathy -> Foulds 10 Jul 2015 06:42

We are in very new times....Pope Francis is not afraid to challenge the status quo...Alleluia.


Tony Menezes 10 Jul 2015 06:24

The national interest of the unbridled capitalists has sidelined morality and justice. The third world war has started albeit piecemeal.
This is a strong wake up call from someone that must be listened to.


Greenshoots -> rgrabman 10 Jul 2015 06:23

I can only speak for the UK where I have yet to find a Catholic friend who is not immensely supportive of what the Pope has to say, whatever prominent Tory Catholics may have to say. Catholics on the whole tend to vote Labour.

If you want to see a precursor to what the Pope is now saying, read the Catholic bishops document "The common good" from 1996:
"As at the end of the 19th century, Catholic Social Teaching is concerned to protect the poor and vulnerable from the chill winds of economic forces. The defeat of Communism should not mean the triumph of unbridled capitalism."

"The Catholic doctrine of the common good is incompatible with unlimited freemarket, or laissez-faire, capitalism ...".


Unconstituted -> natsirtguy 10 Jul 2015 06:22

Massively disagree with that bit about him being a non-scientist etc.

If skeptics are still unsure after all the science that has been thrown at them, then perhaps they aren't influenced that way. They follow figures that they personally respect.

And the Pope has a huge following. I am certain that he will have given a lot of people pause for thought recently.

Like many here, as an atheist, I'm no fan of the guy. But causes like social justice, climate change etc need more than just reams of studies. It needs PR.


Greenshoots -> clogexpat 10 Jul 2015 06:17

Which is incorrect because the left is not, and never has been, an identifiable tribe in British politics.
I agree that many people are not tribal about being left wing. They are willing to partner with people whom they disagree with on some issues but where there is a common cause.
However, you just have to read many of the posts in this thread to see that, for many other people, it is a form of tribal allegiance because they, in response to the Pope saying something they probably do agree with, they cannot refrain from attacking him on unrelated issues. They are not interested in supporting the common cause.


Longasyourarm -> MaximTS 10 Jul 2015 06:15

Well spotted but many here are in it for the opportunity to exercise their demons of hatred, bigotry and racism. Most don't even read the article and jump right to the comments in their haste to slag off Catholics, the Pope, Religion in general. I suppose it is still better than invasion of other countries and stealing their stuff, isn't it Tony?


domrice 10 Jul 2015 06:13

Finally, a pontiff brave enough to enunciate the core values of Jesus Christ. Oh that the world had political leaders who weren't shameless slaves to the moneylenders.


discreto -> SmileyFace2 10 Jul 2015 06:11

That is because the Free Trade is not Fair Trade, this is what Pope Francis is talking about. Capitalism is Free Trade it is not Fair Trade with the People who work to ensure the Goods are there to trade are not getting what is a Fair and Just Living wage, they are being used by the Corporations who make Millions out of their hard work. I support Pope Francis and his Courage in speaking up for the People in developing Countries who are made to depend on Capitalism against their will. At last he is the Pope who is acknowledging the sins of the Church both past and present, with a strong voice of Apology. It would be good if he could sit down with The First Nations of America to take part in their native Ritual of Smudging from Smoke of burnt Herbs and grasses for forgiveness and Peace. I pray for Pope Francis's Protection.


kycol1 -> natsirtguy 10 Jul 2015 06:02

An economic system is not a matter of either-or. Those who profit from "Laissez Faire" capitalism like to push the idea that the only alternative is communism. Pope Francis is obviously a proponent of a "mixed economy" as most people in the US on the left are. He is attacking "unbridled capitalism" not an adequately regulated free-market economy.


ID1780902 10 Jul 2015 05:55

Why so many negative comments? Here we have an extremely high profile figure publicly rallying people all over the world to help with climate change, and to oppose some of the excesses of capitalism.

Regardless of what you think of the Catholic church, many people will listen to what he says, and take it very seriously. If he only changes the mind of a single climate-change denier that would be enough, but I think he will do a lot more than that, particularly in the US.

[Jul 10, 2015] Greece is the latest battleground in the financial elite's war on democracy

"...And what were the boards, and risk and compliance committees of the lending banks, and the regulators of Germany, France and the EU doing while the banks were lending hand over fist to a country which plainly was over extended?

Hardly surprising that the number one priority of the ECB, EU, France, and Germany was to bail out their banks, regardless of what happened to the feckless Greeks."
.
"...Your point is valid if you believe the drug-pusher has no responsibility for the state of the addict. A sensible economy is one where you keep the banksters on a leash - the free market agenda beloved of the IMF put paid to that."
.
"... Monbiot is saying that 21st century neoliberalism is the same as 19th century laissez-faire."
.
"...To me, what the Europeans are doing to Greece is so transparent, if one knows a little about the history of other parts of the world. But other parts of the world are periphery, in Europe's view, and they are the center. Now they are treating even parts of the Eurozone as periphery. At some point the center gets smaller and smaller and everything is periphery, the other, out there, those people, and the European identity becomes a black hole rather than a beacon of light."
.
"...A very succinct article that hits some of the historical notes that explains how the elites have controlled the masses to their advantage. All the financial laws, regulations that have been put in place such as compound interest, the corporation as a 'person', and the takeover of the IMF and World Bank by US and European elites are geared to keep the wealth in those few hands."
.
"...Great article. Particularly nails the canard that right wing IMF policies are "natural", "objective" and "correct." All economics is politics in disguise, especially neo-liberal economics.""
.
"...The Greek people did not know that Goldman Sachs had cooked the books to allow them entry into the Euro. They didn't know that Goldman Sachs was betting against them providing the final nail in the coffin of their economy. They didn't know that sub prime mortgages were being re-packaged as mortgage backed securities causing a GLOBAL financial crisis. Only the most informed would have been able to see through their previous governments lies about spending levels. "
.
"...Agreed: the IMF is politicised and has operated as a means of enforcing market capitalism on countries which were not in a position to make it work. Agreed: the EU project and the single currency in particular were extremely ambitious projects which in some respects were based on a degree of utopia and some pretty fundamental fallacies. None of which excuses successive Greek governments for being complacently corrupt, economically incompetent and, in Syriza's case, deliberately inflammatory, of course. Not that Greece is entirely alone in this, even within the EU, though as shambles go it takes some beating. "
"

The Guardian

From laissez-faire economics in 18th-century India to neoliberalism in today's Europe the subordination of human welfare to power is a brutal tradition

Greece may be financially bankrupt, but the troika is politically bankrupt. Those who persecute this nation wield illegitimate, undemocratic powers, powers of the kind now afflicting us all. Consider the International Monetary Fund. The distribution of power here was perfectly stitched up: IMF decisions require an 85% majority, and the US holds 17% of the votes.

The IMF is controlled by the rich, and governs the poor on their behalf. It's now doing to Greece what it has done to one poor nation after another, from Argentina to Zambia. Its structural adjustment programmes have forced scores of elected governments to dismantle public spending, destroying health, education and all the means by which the wretched of the earth might improve their lives.

The same programme is imposed regardless of circumstance: every country the IMF colonises must place the control of inflation ahead of other economic objectives; immediately remove barriers to trade and the flow of capital; liberalise its banking system; reduce government spending on everything bar debt repayments; and privatise assets that can be sold to foreign investors.

Using the threat of its self-fulfilling prophecy (it warns the financial markets that countries that don't submit to its demands are doomed), it has forced governments to abandon progressive policies. Almost single-handedly, it engineered the 1997 Asian financial crisis: by forcing governments to remove capital controls, it opened currencies to attack by financial speculators. Only countries such as Malaysia and China, which refused to cave in, escaped.

Consider the European Central Bank. Like most other central banks, it enjoys "political independence". This does not mean that it is free from politics, only that it is free from democracy. It is ruled instead by the financial sector, whose interests it is constitutionally obliged to champion through its inflation target of around 2%. Ever mindful of where power lies, it has exceeded this mandate, inflicting deflation and epic unemployment on poorer members of the eurozone.

The Maastricht treaty, establishing the European Union and the euro, was built on a lethal delusion: a belief that the ECB could provide the only common economic governance that monetary union required. It arose from an extreme version of market fundamentalism: if inflation were kept low, its authors imagined, the magic of the markets would resolve all other social and economic problems, making politics redundant. Those sober, suited, serious people, who now pronounce themselves the only adults in the room, turn out to be demented utopian fantasists, votaries of a fanatical economic cult.

All this is but a recent chapter in the long tradition of subordinating human welfare to financial power. The brutal austerity imposed on Greece is mild compared with earlier versions. Take the 19th century Irish and Indian famines, both exacerbated (in the second case caused) by the doctrine of laissez-faire, which we now know as market fundamentalism or neoliberalism.

In Ireland's case, one eighth of the population was killed – one could almost say murdered– in the late 1840s, partly by the British refusal to distribute food, to prohibit the export of grain or provide effective poor relief. Such policies offended the holy doctrine of laissez-faire economics that nothing should stay the market's invisible hand.

When drought struck India in 1877 and 1878, the British imperial government insisted on exporting record amounts of grain, precipitating a famine that killed millions. The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited "at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices". The only relief permitted was forced work in labour camps, in which less food was provided than to the inmates of Buchenwald. Monthly mortality in these camps in 1877 was equivalent to an annual rate of 94%.

As Karl Polanyi argued in The Great Transformation, the gold standard – the self-regulating system at the heart of laissez-faire economics – prevented governments in the 19th and early 20th centuries from raising public spending or stimulating employment. It obliged them to keep the majority poor while the rich enjoyed a gilded age. Few means of containing public discontent were available, other than sucking wealth from the colonies and promoting aggressive nationalism. This was one of the factors that contributed to the first world war. The resumption of the gold standard by many nations after the war exacerbated the Great Depression, preventing central banks from increasing the money supply and funding deficits. You might have hoped that European governments would remember the results.

Today equivalents to the gold standard – inflexible commitments to austerity – abound. In December 2011 the European Council agreed a new fiscal compact, imposing on all members of the eurozone a rule that "government budgets shall be balanced or in surplus". This rule, which had to be transcribed into national law, would "contain an automatic correction mechanism that shall be triggered in the event of deviation." This helps to explain the seigneurial horror with which the troika's unelected technocrats have greeted the resurgence of democracy in Greece. Hadn't they ensured that choice was illegal? Such diktats mean the only possible democratic outcome in Europe is now the collapse of the euro: like it or not, all else is slow-burning tyranny.

It is hard for those of us on the left to admit, but Margaret Thatcher saved the UK from this despotism. European monetary union, she predicted, would ensure that the poorer countries must not be bailed out, "which would devastate their inefficient economies."

But only, it seems, for her party to supplant it with a homegrown tyranny. George Osborne's proposed legal commitment to a budgetary surplus exceeds that of the eurozone rule. Labour's promised budget responsibility lock, though milder, had a similar intent. In all cases governments deny themselves the possibility of change. In other words, they pledge to thwart democracy. So it has been for the past two centuries, with the exception of the 30-year Keynesian respite.

The crushing of political choice is not a side-effect of this utopian belief system but a necessary component. Neoliberalism is inherently incompatible with democracy, as people will always rebel against the austerity and fiscal tyranny it prescribes. Something has to give, and it must be the people. This is the true road to serfdom: disinventing democracy on behalf of the elite.

• Twitter: @georgemonbiot. A fully referenced version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com

SaguaroRex 9 Jul 2015 22:30

It really is a religion. It's fun sometimes to imagine certain twinings-- compare and contrast. So one day I was sitting around thinking: US...and IS... what do they have in common?

Well,

1) they both pursue really totalitarian ideologies with every conviction of the religious fanatic.

2) Meaning they will subordinate their very humanity to the propagation, nay: perfection! of this brand of 'Utopianism'.

3)They each of them want to completely wipe something out and feel they must do so in order for their Creed to survive. The IS wants to destroy the Past ...as is evidenced by their historical monuments destructions. But the US, they want to destroy the Future... Or, specifically: any future where they are not practicing their own very self-interested brand of money-power religion and are not on top of the world lording it over everyone else.

Both of these visions are so deranged as to be impossible to achieve, but like any ardent Totalitarians-- they will damn sure try and over the dead bodies Of Others, regardless of how many or how much suffering need be inflicted to serve their 'God'...

Remco van Santen 9 Jul 2015 21:36

Conspiracist twaddle to argue the problem is external. Greece was corruptly managed for decades with the less wealthy bearing the burden disguised by an on-going devaluation of the drachma that devalued seven-fold in the two decades to joining the euro (http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/fedstl/exgrus).

The Europeans were naïve to expect the internal corruption to cease and the fixed exchange rate, presented by the adopted euro, simply brought it out to the surface. Greece is the home of democracy, but it is also became the home of those saying we might all be equal, but some are more entitled than others. Adopting the euro exposed the rot and so this is an opportunity for Greece to get its own house in order.

The Eurozone might like to think of helping the more vulnerable like the pensioners are protected and not used by the Greek government for grandstanding. Greece, the sheep, is parasite-infested and to be held just long enough under the sheep-dip pesticide to kill the parasites but not too long to kill the sheep.

Go Tsipras, show you are a leader of a true democracy.

motram 9 Jul 2015 20:50

Looks like the Tsyriza government has surrendered to Eurozone and IMF austerity demand. The game is over. The Rothsyz and the bilderbergys have carried the day in the end.

zolotoy -> peeptalk 9 Jul 2015 20:38

Only the little people pay taxes, as Mrs. Helmsley so trenchantly observed. That holds for all countries, not just Greece.

Allykate mikebain 9 Jul 2015 17:38

Interesting comment Mike Bain, thank you. Only a couple of points the "hoi polloi" are the lower classes not the elite (a common error!) and I dispute the notion that all humans are exploiters and takers. History proves otherwise. The early banks and building societies in England were created by non-conformists, Unitarians and Quakers etc, who did not spend their wealth on themselves but lived sparingly, ploughed their money back into their businesses, and ultimately achieved amazing reforms for the ordinary people here. If the rich, modern Greeks had the same selfless Christian philosophy, the corrupt tax system and greedy loans may not have destroyed their economy.

Allykate 9 Jul 2015 17:20

The "true road to serfdom" or revolution. Don't blame me..... I made speeches in support of the Referendum Party to oppose the signing of The Maastricht Treaty. John Major just would not listen to the people.


Boghaunter mikebain 9 Jul 2015 17:00

Governments are not the people. Germans were not Hitler. He was elected but then assumed dictatorial power. Look at the US - our government is made up of politicians bought by the 0.1%. The 0.1% do a great job controlling what the average American is told.

As for Germany reaping the benefit of no military, we'd be A LOT better off if we made the choice to invest in our country instead of in our ridiculously large military budget. We could choose that benefit. General Butler famously said, "War is a racket," and he was right.

The Marshall Plan was enlightened self interest as the US feared the spread of communism in devastated Europe. The UK received the most $. It also was disbursed with tight control over German politics/administration/economy and required dismantling of much of Germany's remaining industry. It was not a simple handout.


NYbill13 9 Jul 2015 15:45

Why Did They Lend Mega-Billions to Greece?

I still can't figure out what 'Greece' needed so badly that a handful of men who ran its government a decade ago took on these loans.

Was the money invested in public infrastructure? Does Greece now have a fabulous highway, airport and rail systems?

Did the previous Greek government ('conservative,' perhaps?) build a dozen new public hospitals, renovate the nation's schools or build networks of water and sewer treatment plants or desalination stations?

If so, then the Greek people may indeed owe a great debt to European financiers.

If not, who spent all this money and on what? Did those who signed the loan agreements receive any sort of commission for doing so?

Do those signatories now work for the IMF or perhaps Deutsche Bank?

All the press says is 'the Greeks' owe the Germans a ton of money. After 11,789 headlines and articles, I definitely understand that much.

After that, it's just pompous quotes and dire speculation about the future of the damn euro.

How about some background information, fellas? I'll bet you could even find out who signed the loan papers on both sides and talk to them.

Oh, but that would take, you know, research.


syenka CaptainGrey 9 Jul 2015 14:22

The point cap'n, is that the money isn't actually going to the Greeks. It's going to Greece's creditors (the ECB et al) who made incredibly irresponsible loans to a tiny slice of the Greek population. That irresponsibility should NOT be rewarded. The way out, of course -- oh horrors! -- is to just let the creditors take a bath, i.e. wipe the debt off the books. Then, put some money into the pockets of regular Greeks who will, of course, proceed to spend it and thereby relaunch the economy. Would you or I or any European be hurt by such a move? If your answer is yes, tell us how. And, the suffering of millions of Greeks would come to an end.


alpine1994 CaptainGrey 9 Jul 2015 13:22

It's true, the Greek government took the money. We all know about the Legarde List and the rampant corruption of the previous government administrations. They've all got off scot free and instead it's the Greek people who suffer through aggressive austerity. One might be so callous to blame them too, but if the government decreed citizens could retire young with a fat pension, most people would excitedly take up the offer. If the EU had any balls, it would authorize INTERPOL or what ever agency to crack down on corrupt current and former Greek politicians and other financial criminals to help recover money to satiate the debt. These fat cats get away with sinking whole countries!


CollisColumbulus Patrick Moore 9 Jul 2015 09:43

The greatest landholders in Ireland were almost to a man absentees, living in comfortable houses in Britain with wealth extracted from Irish peasants by their middlemen. Furthermore, they were alien in religion, often language, and nationality (the landholders may have considered themselves Irish - in some cases - by they were certainly 'British' in identity also, which cannot be said of the mass of the population) from the peasantry who provided their wealth. The ethno-religious land settlement in Ireland and the stranglehold on the Irish peasantry that resulted were the direct result of British policy in Ireland from the sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century onward and were maintained by the power of the British military. While the situation is too often reduced to 'Irish good, English bad' - note the heroic relief efforts of many private British individuals, especially the Quakers - it is impossible to excuse the British state from a large dose of culpability for the Famine without resorting to historical dishonesty of the highest level.


Giannis Kalogeropoulos athenajoseph 9 Jul 2015 09:40

you are not well informed. please read http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2015/07/07/five-reasons-greeks-were-right/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances

and remember: "the ones who have no knowledge, should not express opinion" Plato 460bc

CollisColumbulus -> Patrick Moore 9 Jul 2015 09:37

"The potato famine was a tragedy, but it is a little reported fact that the only crop that was blighted. During the time of the famine Ireland was an exporter of meat and grain. There was no shortage of food in Ireland - but there was a shortage of potatoes, which was the staple of the poor".

I am astonished that you use this to argue against British culpability in the Irish famine. The actions of the British state and Anglo-Irish colonial landholding society both created the conditions of dreadful rural poverty (and potato dependency) that were a sine qua non of the Famine and directly exacerbated the situation through their adherence to laissez-faire economics. It might be noted that many starving Irish farm labourer families emigrated to Britain to enter the workhouses there, rather than the workhouses in Ireland, because they knew the poor would not be allowed to starve to death in Britain.

Giannis Kalogeropoulos -> athenajoseph 9 Jul 2015 09:33

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-GDP_ratio see that map. Debt for countries is not like debt for people ... get informed before you blame ....


nottrue -> CitizenCarrier 9 Jul 2015 08:45

Something brought down Greece.

Its called the GFC. To refresh your memory financial institutions had manufactured schemes that made them lots of money from money that did not exist. When they eventually got caught out the tower of cards collapsed and the world was left short of cash and economies everywhere shrank. The financial institutions that caused the problem were bailed out by taxpayers because they were too big to fail. This meant that a few thousand very wealthy kept there wealth and the institutions could continue to play their game and make more money. The next collapse is not far away. The Greek loans (and other bad and risky loans) were bought by the taxpayer as part of their bail out package. It is shameful that governments refuse a similar bailout deal to the Greeks which involves the misery of millions of people. It is even sicker that the condition they imposed have been known and shown repeated not to work since the 1930 depression.


mikebain 9 Jul 2015 08:30

A great essay with a sad but true take-away point-humans are exploiters, takers. Humans can see no other way forward than to take from the weak - it's the easiest thing to do. Wealth must be protected at all costs. History is replete and is an unyielding witness to human exploitation of anything exploitable, especially the defenseless.

There is one exception to this-the aftermath of WWII. It is interesting that Germany never repaid its WWII debits (or those from WWI) and was the beneficiary of the Marshall Plan and U.S. military protection during the Cold War. So as Germany had no real debt-after murdering millions-and did not have the expense of maintaining a military, it was able to focus on growing it's economy at the cost of the U.S. taxpayer, some who had family members killed by Germans in WWII.

Of course this does not enter into the reporting of the credit crisis in Greece, where Germany is demanding austerity.

And so it goes: money talks, hoi polloi walks. True democracy will always be threatened by the human exploiters, the takers of this world, many who we call "Leaders"-and unfortunately they are legion and reborn on our planet every second; entering life with a mind fully open to and waiting to be filled with Free Market, Libertarian hubris, avarice, and the right to self-righteous exploitation of any and everything.

Michael Bain
Glorieta, New Mexico


Celtiberico 9 Jul 2015 08:27

the gold standard – the self-regulating system at the heart of laissez-faire economics – prevented governments in the 19th and early 20th centuries from raising public spending or stimulating employment. It obliged them to keep the majority poor while the rich enjoyed a gilded age. Few means of containing public discontent were available, other than sucking wealth from the colonies and promoting aggressive nationalism. This was one of the factors that contributed to the first world war. The resumption of the gold standard by many nations after the war exacerbated the Great Depression, preventing central banks from increasing the money supply and funding deficits. You might have hoped that European governments would remember the results.

The worrying part is that a repeat performance today would quite possibly result in the destruction of human civilisation, or even life on earth.


Cecelia O'brien 9 Jul 2015 05:22

there may be a few errors here but fundamentally this article is spot on! Good for you!

I'd add though we let this happen - we too were greedy and the managerial middle class stood by as the unions were destroyed - we all took this 15% returns on dicey investments and did not question how such high rates could be possible - we celebrated globalism while and we supported elected officials who promised us deregulation was going to bring more prosperity.

Take your government back while you can.


JimGC athenajoseph 9 Jul 2015 04:58

And what were the boards, and risk and compliance committees of the lending banks, and the regulators of Germany, France and the EU doing while the banks were lending hand over fist to a country which plainly was over extended?

Hardly surprising that the number one priority of the ECB, EU, France, and Germany was to bail out their banks, regardless of what happened to the feckless Greeks.


Cafael Skeffo 9 Jul 2015 04:34

Appeal to authority.

Capitalism destroyed feudalism? No, historical cataclysms and technological advances destroyed feudalism, but after a period of flux which you call capitalism, power and wealth is again concentrated at the top and new aristocracies emerge who move to guard their position and make it permanent; we are seeing this now with the increase in inequality and the end of post-industrial revolution/post-war social mobility in Western nations.

And you appear to subscribe to survival of the fittest approach of the extreme right wing: 'destroying the inefficient'. Heard that before.


Skeffo Cafael 9 Jul 2015 03:51

Your thinking so extraordinarily confused that it almost impossible to confront all the contradictions and inanities. You really need to do some philosophy courses, and focus on logic please.

Then start to learn some economic history: capitalism does not lead to feudalism, it destroyed feudalism. (I mean, even a simple time line could help you there.)

Capitalism, through its creative destruction, is continuous revolution. Try to get your head around it. It may take a few decades, or even the rest of your life, but you will understand if you work at it seriously.

ThanksNeolibZombies athenajoseph 9 Jul 2015 03:48

"Has Monbiot lost it?" No, his article looks spot on to me. Forcing a country to adopt austerity / structural adjustement policies that have a long, proven track record of causing economic devastation everywhere they have been tried is a form of persecution...and of course these policies have caused economic devastation in Greece.

"Why should [Greece] be allowed to walk away from a debt of its own making?"
(Sigh.) I got tired of hearing this in the 1980s and 90s and the 2000s, the same argument was used to justify beating African economies to a pulp.

Interesting that the rich people who made trillions out of throwing us all into unsustainable debt in the decades leading up to the financial crash have been bailed out and have been "allowed to walk away" with trillions of pounds, leaving us with the bill. It's one rule for the rich and another rule for everyone else, so Greeks have to suffer big cuts in living standards.

Debt is a big stick with which the rich continually beat the poor, and it's always the fault of the poor for some reason.


Benjamin Raivid Giannis Kalogeropoulos 9 Jul 2015 03:45

You don't need to be 'bailed out' - the money you own is fake - made from thin air by banks who never had the money, but were allowed to metamorphosis it (i.e. just type the numbers they wanted, but didn't have) onto a screen. This fake money is then charged at interest. The audacity! It's 'legalised' counterfeiting and totally corrupt. Why should anyone have to pay back fake money, let alone at interest?

The EU waged war against the Greeks - calling them lazy and saying they are in debt because they don't pay their taxes (lol! Forget about being insulted, it reveals a total ignorance of the nature of taxes: even buying clothes at a store, or fuel from a petrol station is taxed! We are always paying taxes!). Brits seriously believe that Greeks are in debt because they don't pay taxes....(while, of course, Britain itself is great at paying taxes, just ask Vodafone and Amazon and Boots and Specsavers...)

Forget the bailout; do an Iceland. Or use the resources you have, land, fields, food - the basic necessities of life, and live.


merlin2 pdre 9 Jul 2015 03:05

Agree with others here. The vast majority of the money (240B or so) went to servicing the debt owed to German banks, laundered through the ECB agent). Another 40B went to Greek banks to stave off bankruptcy and most of the rest was spent (by necessity and EU dictats) on various private/public equities and entities. Much less than 10% of the original actually went towards internal social programs, infrastructure and/or any stimulus activities that could help the country actually regrow its economy.

With no funds for growth and a substantial reduction in tax receipts and economic activities due to mandated austerity, a catch 22 was created as sure as night follows day. This result is so obvious that one is left wondering - could the EU financial elitocrats be that clueless or did they know and caused the Greek collapse deliberately? I see no other possibility. Not when every economist worth their salt, from Krugman to de Long to Piketty and just about everyone (even a few Austrians!) saw ihe crisi coming from miles away and issued warnings by the bushel for some time now.

That leaves a major question unanswered - if the economic wizards of Europe are not entirely incompetent/clueless - what does the alternative mean? if they knew what's going to happen, and let it roll, what purpose did/does it serve?

athenajoseph 9 Jul 2015 02:46

Has Monbiot lost it? Those who persecute Greece he says....

Greece has been incompetent, corrupt and profligate and now owes more than it can pay. Why should it be allowed to walk away from a debt of its own making?

An individual cannot. Did the Greek economists not read the fine print? Why did they not act when the debt got to $100billion? Why wait until you have added another $270billion?

Sure the EU has played a part but the biggest part was played by Greece. The sooner it is out of the EU the better.


athenajoseph 9 Jul 2015 02:44

One may well argue that there were flaws in the EU from the beginning, however, as an exercise and experiment, sourced in a deep desire to unite Europe and perhaps avoid a third disastrous war, it is to be commended and has offered much of value.

Given the Greek propensity for corruption and default it was perhaps singularly unwise for the EU to ever admit Greece into their ranks. However, what was done is done. The Greeks may well be better off outside of the EU or at least back to the drachma, but anyone who thinks that there will be anything 'better' without Greece dealing with its endemic corruption and incompetence is deluded.

You can lay perhaps 30% of the blame for this situation at the door of the EU and banks but the rest is surely on the shoulders of Greece.

The Greek Government should have acted when the debt got to $100billion. It did not. It did not when it got to $200billion or $300billion and it now sits at $370billion. And that is supposed to be someone else's fault??

Tsipras has been playing childish games. Calling a referendum and then encouraging a no vote, which he got, and then sacrificing his finance minister in the name of it, as was correct given his appalling use of the term 'terrorism' applied to the EU, and then returning supposedly to negotiate with the EU with nothing concrete in his hands.

The manipulative, cavalier, incompetent, childish and corrupt behaviour of the Greeks should have them thrown out and the sooner, the better. Let them create their utopia themselves and put their money where their very large mouth is.

http://www.vanityfair.com/.../10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010


ID7678903 Giannis Kalogeropoulos 9 Jul 2015 02:13

A great description of their actions and the pain they cause. The reason they cut the army is to ensure there could not be a popular uprising that it would support . Also a large number of Greeks have done their military service. A popular uprising led by such a knowledgeable group would preserve democracy and they don't want that.


AnonForNowThanks corstopitum 8 Jul 2015 23:25

But WHO really got the "haircut?"

Who got the commissions? Who set up the insurance products? Who is actually holding the note, and what stream of income did they expect to get and what are they getting instead?

I don't think you understand modern "risk shifting," or how much money is made on such deals, and I don't think that anyone does, frankly.

But like Socrates, at least I realize that I don't know -- because these are not regulated markets, their actions are hidden from scrutiny yet have massive, global ramifications, and all we have been fed are ridiculous, home-spun metaphors designed to stoke mindless rage. I'm sorry, but you've fallen for it.


AnonForNowThanks BeastNeedsMoreTorque 8 Jul 2015 23:13

As John Lanchester pointed out in IOU: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay, there were a lot of things that "could" be done when the US and its sphere of influence had to "compete" with the Soviets in a "beauty contest."

Thanks to Sputnik, little American children learned physical science and calculus in public schools, thanks to the Cuban system of medicine the elderly got Medicare, thanks to the Red Army Germany got debts forgiven, and thanks to the whole lot of them major appliances ran trouble-free for 20 years.

Don't dismiss it. Read what he has to say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/books/06book.html?_r=0

In any event, that was then. This is now.


AnonForNowThanks iOpenerLo114Lat51 8 Jul 2015 22:52

So you believe investment bankers have to be FORCED to set up bond auctions that will result in commissions so large that they and their children and their children's children will be set up for life?

They were screaming, "no, NO!" and trying to push the money back out of their pockets, but they were forced.

In the case of Greece, the bonds were engineered by a right-wing government acting in collusion with Goldman Sachs. And there will be complete idiots who will believe your tale, that the "leftists" forced loans to be made to Greece.

The sad part is that although you do have to count on mass idiocy, a two-minute memory and an even shorter attention span, you can.


Giannis Kalogeropoulos 8 Jul 2015 22:44

if they only could give us some time to breath ... Greece from 1994 till 2008 have pay for loans 540 billions and everything was fine to the country and the loaners. we can pay 320 billion we owe now (that was 190bn before EU run to "save" us) but they don't want to get the money! they have made a trap! they turn the Goldman Sachs loans to EU loans, so ordinary EU people will have to pay it! why? ask your governments ... who did it! (so it seems we are not the only ones with corrupted governments) ... then, they come to tell us how to run the country (and sell all the valuable to German France etc. private companies for a penny ) ... HOW WOLD YOU FEEL, if you get a loan to buy a house and someone from the bank comes every day to your house, to tell you what to eat, how to dress, how to use water and electricity ... to don't pay to educate your kids, to sell your favorite leather chair, so he can make sure he will get his money back???? and all that, while you were paying the debt on time!!!!!!!! how would you feel??? ... that's how we feel ... they did it to us, they will try it on you all too, sooner or later ... its harvest time and banks don't know what is civil rights or democracy. they need assets, houses cars gold land for to turn their worthless paper in to real value!!!! keep in mind that in Greece at 1998 it was discovered one of the biggest oil reserves in Europe .... coincidence that after that Goldman sachs "bomb" us with loans???? think again. ordinary people are in danger of loosing our freedom today in Europe from banks who we owe some paper they type and tell us it has value ... but it cost to them, some ink and paper ... Greek referendum scared them. they are afraid of little people come together and form groups of common interests. cause that gives us power. we have power to change our faith, as we Greeks are trying to do. we stopped them from stealing the valuable of our country and to drink our blood just by choosing the right government and say no to fear! they try to scare us by saying we become Zimbabwe (no offence to that country) that we die from hunger with out money, they close our banks, they said we ll become fail state etc. still we vote no! one and only reason. ENOUGHT IS ENOUGHT and when someone feed a desperate man to the wolfs, he will return leading the wolfs!!! I think banks will not stop so we must all be suspicious and supportive to each other. together we won the Huns, we won the Turks, we won the Nazis, we won dark ages, we can win banks ... we want and we will pay back every penny of what we owe (even if its with tricky interests) as we always did. but they have to let us to do so. how on earth, they make us to close our factories and productive companies and they expect us to pay back?? they ask to double costs on touristic businesses. but if so Greece will become expensive for tourists and they will go elsewhere! tourist industry produces 7% of Greek economy!!!! hmmm wait! German companies last 10 years have bought great deal of hotels in turkey!!!! ... and they say they want to save us... 5 years they did the worst they could to save us and the best they could for to buy all the valuable assets here. so that is what its all about ... fortunately we have a strong army (one of the best trained in world, and that because we have near war events with turkey all time around), cause else they will threaten us even with army force. how accidental that 5 years now, they cut 60% of money for the army, and they want to cut even more ... Germany France and others last 20 years sold us weapons worth over 90bn euro. now they say we have very big army. but we don't have neighbors Luxemburg or Belgium! we have aggressors like turkey (2 biggest army in NATO), Syria's crisis Libya Albania's uck etc. why now they discover that we have to cut 50% of our army??? they used it to all crisis but now is a danger ... also because we are the last neighboring battle grounds like Syria etc we receive refugees and emigrants from all poor countries. estimates say they are now over 30% of Greek population!!!! over 3million!!! EU offers advise their respect but nothing else!!!

WE HAVE CRISIS! we have 1,5 million unemployed! how can we feed the poor emigrants who want to go to England Germany France etc and we are forced by EU rools to keep them here??? why EU acts like nothing is wrong? ... I hope you are wiser now about what is happening to a small but proud country called Greece, last borders of EU with the "dangerous" out world ...


Naseer Ahmad 8 Jul 2015 20:40

The Bengal famines were engineered by the East India Company http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders

Tsipras should tell the latter day East India Companies to take a hike. Sadly, I think he'll back down because socialists are just as bound by economic orthodoxy as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and their descendants.

As Alfred Marshall argued, "man should be equally important as money, services are as important as goods, and that there must be an emphasis on human welfare, instead of just wealth".


LostintheUS 8 Jul 2015 19:49

Excellent essay. Hear, hear!

I was just reading exactly this last night, that the famine was caused "partly by the British refusal to distribute food, to prohibit the export of grain" in the "Chronicles of the Macedonian". A ship that was the second ship captured by the American navy during the War of 1812. In the 1840s, the "Macedonian" was borrowed by a private citizen/sea captain to take food to Ireland. He made the observation that none of the other crops had failed and that people were starving by the hundreds of thousands because the British government would not distribute these other crops that had been extremely successful.


seaspan 8 Jul 2015 19:47

Predatory international finance is killing capitalism. Where austerity simply means shrinking the private economy and making more and more working age people to be dependent on government, but receiving less and less money driving them to poverty and penury, which kills capitalism even more. This will surely lead to socialism (massive govt intervention and investment) or fascism (economic slavery under authoritarian rule).


Rozina DavidRees 8 Jul 2015 19:45

Unfortunately, people didn't like the results of communism and it depended in the assumption that humans like sharing and aren't greedy. We don't and we are.

That last sentence itself could also be an assumption. How much of the self-interest and greed, that we are taught is innate, is actually inculcated into us by culture and becomes ingrained habit hard to overcome and easy to indulge in an environment where we are constantly pushed to acquire more possessions and pile up more debt?

There are other alternatives to capitalism and communism: you could try investigating social credit as one alternative.

According to Douglas, the true purpose of production is consumption, and production must serve the genuine, freely expressed interests of consumers. In order to accomplish this objective, he believed that each citizen should have a beneficial, not direct, inheritance in the communal capital conferred by complete access to consumer goods assured by the National Dividend and Compensated Price.[6] Douglas thought that consumers, fully provided with adequate purchasing power, will establish the policy of production through exercise of their monetary vote.[6] In this view, the term economic democracy does not mean worker control of industry, but democratic control of credit.[6] Removing the policy of production from banking institutions, government, and industry, Social Credit envisages an "aristocracy of producers, serving and accredited by a democracy of consumers."[6]


CodePink 8 Jul 2015 19:38

And yet, when the private banks (financial elite) needed bailing out to the tune of TRILLIONS of dollars due to their own greedy practices, the taxpayer was forced into it.

Given most of Greece's debt was originally owed to private banks like Goldman Sachs who continued to loan them money despite the fact they knew they couldn't pay it back, and they then somehow managed to convince the ECB to take on the debt - the old socialise the losses, privatise the profits scheme - perhaps the IMF should be looking to GS and the likes to contribute significantly to paying down Greece's debt.

lifeloveroverall 8 Jul 2015 19:26

The order from and to the Brussels Donkeycrats : Attack and no mercy to Greece. Regardless: we are the chosen, on a holy mission to keep safe our beloved money power. But here is my wish to all Donkeycrats, may you all burn in Hell.
PS: my apologies to the poor donkeys


estragon11 8 Jul 2015 19:09

as far as that goes, who cares about the planet as long as there is money to be made?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/08/exxon-climate-change-1981-climate-denier-funding


blacksox666 8 Jul 2015 18:58

Austerity, Merkel style, is just a modern version of Le droit du Seigneur, but writ large. it's time for another version of 1932 when the Republicans were thrown out and men and women who cared about the middle and lower classes took the reigns of government. Time for the Greeks to start printing Drachmas and go forward. it has been said "better a horrible end than horrors with no end"


goldstars 8 Jul 2015 18:25

More people need to know about the IMF's actions in the world, and how that affects all of us. It won't get better unless people realise they can stand up to it. The Guardian is still vaguely leftwing enough (or has that history) that it attracts those who already have sympathy or understanding. We need to see Monbiot's articles, and similar information, spread far and wide in all mainstream media.


RealWavelengths 8 Jul 2015 18:15

"The IMF is controlled by the rich, and governs the poor on their behalf. It's now doing to Greece what it has done to one poor nation after another, from Argentina to Zambia. Its structural adjustment programmes have forced scores of elected governments to dismantle public spending, destroying health, education and all the means by which the wretched of the earth might improve their lives."

Best synopsis of the IMF. However, I disagree that returning to the gold standard during the interwar period was a factor in the Great Depression. Creative credit policy was the main culprit.


seaspan 8 Jul 2015 17:30

The Greek pension system has four aspects that should be considered. 1) demographics,,, 20% of the population is aged 65 and over, 2) Govt layoffs by attrition (early retirement options), 3) no clear distinction between social security and welfare, 4) disability pensions. Officially, the retirement age is 66 years old climbing from 57 in 2009. Where people get manipulated is the malicious citing of individual cases as being the rule rather than the exception. Demand context when reading these false statistics...

oldamericanlady YouDidntBuildThat 8 Jul 2015 16:57

The notion that public spending didn't make a dent in the poverty rate is simply absurd, but it's one of those invented facts repeated endlessly by right-wingers because it sounds like it might be true.

In fact, there was a sharp decline in various indicators of poverty from the late 1960s until the early 1980s, when the launch of Reaganomics took the American economy into a long, slow, steady decline; and even in the three subsequent decades, by measurements like housing, medical care and nutrition poor Americans are unquestionably better off than they were before the war on poverty.

Moreover, look at social spending over a greater span of time: the long-term success of Social Security and Medicare at lifting America's elderly out of the direst ranks of poverty is just unquestionable--except, of course, by reactionary propagandists who insist it can't possibly be true because it's such an inconvenient truth.

Before Social Security, nearly half of America's elderly lived in poverty, many of them in dire poverty. It was not unheard of for old people to starve to death in this country, and many were forced out of their homes and into wretched existences in county homes and poor farms.

Today, thanks to social spending, the poverty rate among the elderly is down to about 10%--still far too many, with income inequality worsened by Reaganism in this age cohort as in all others, but an incredible improvement over the rate just a few generations ago nevertheless.

Public spending works.

Unfortunately, so do incessant right-wing mantras and lies.

Arjen Bootsma 8 Jul 2015 16:55

The world we live in values property rights over human rights.

AuntieMame Ykuos1 8 Jul 2015 16:53

73% of Greece's exports are mineral fuels, followed by salt, sulphur, stone and cement. And don't forget Virgin Olive oil, the best in the world, since it is not mixed with inferior oils the way Italian produce theirs mixed with normal imported oils.

Tourism is a large sector of the service industry in that absolutely stunningly beautiful country, but by far not the largest.

Do a little research before spewing platitudes her about Greece, a country that you obviously know nothing about.

seaspan shout_at_me 8 Jul 2015 16:35

Greece has the highest self employed sector in all of Europe. In any country that sector is the most difficult for tax collection. It is a libertarian paradise...


AuntieMame shout_at_me 8 Jul 2015 16:06

Actually the Greek crisis was caused by prior conservative government, not the lefty coalition of Tsipras which only became the majority five short month ago.

But I guess that you are one of those calling all of Europe as socialist haven, including the conservative government with universal healthcare, free higher education, and strong safety nets for the less fortunate among their citizens.


easterman FenlandBuddha 8 Jul 2015 15:15

Don't borrow from the IMF and none of this applies. Run a sensible economy and you never need the IMF

Sounds logical - until you factor in the fact that the market's-know -best IMF was a cheerleader for the de-regulation of the banks which led to the credit boom which led to the credit crunch which led to taxpayer bailouts of the banks (and counter-cyclical fiscal policy by the G7 in order to head of a global depression) which led to quadrupling of budget deficits in many countries which led the weaker ones into the clutches of ...the IMF who then set about deflating them using a dodgy estimate of the fiscal multiplier which grossly underestimated the damage this would do to output and tax revenue which left them needing more bailouts to pay the interest on the loans ( created at the push of a button) and subject to even more deflation ...

Your point is valid if you believe the drug-pusher has no responsibility for the state of the addict. A sensible economy is one where you keep the banksters on a leash - the free market agenda beloved of the IMF put paid to that.


Henforthe SteB1 8 Jul 2015 14:48

The whole modern system is a gigantic Ponzi Scheme, I mean it literally.

I certainly get what you mean- I've always suspected it's more to do with our banking system though. Interest rates are routinely manipulated specifically in order to encourage growth, and fractional reserve systems can mean that this growth isn't based in anything of real value. Sure, growth creates jobs and can lift communities out of poverty, but can it be sustained indefinitely? And once a society becomes developed, does it really need further growth, at least enough to continue to manipulate currencies to encourage it?

It's presumably possible for economic growth to decouple from physical resource use, although it's not really happened yet. But I suspect there are still 'Limits to Growth' within the pure economic realm. Growth seems to inevitably slow to a crawl as a society becomes developed and its population stabilises: see Japan and much of Europe, and perhaps also look at China where this week the government is desperately trying to keep markets rising in the face of a gradual realisation that the actual demand just isn't there. Perhaps if we learnt to accept this, things might be more stable in the long term.

I agree that we should look back at the Enclosures as a heinous crime perpetrated by the landed elites. The Enclosures are doubly relevant here: in the event of market uncertainty, one can fall back on savings or assets. But government economic policy makes that more difficult: interest manipulation and capital controls mean savings become diminished or inaccessible. But also, in some parts of the world people can still weather hard economic times by going 'back to the land'.

But in the West this is no longer possible, because the common land was stolen.


SocratesTheGooner -> Colin Chaplain 8 Jul 2015 14:17

Take the 19th century Irish and Indian famines, both exacerbated (in the second case caused) by the doctrine of laissez-faire, which we now know as market fundamentalism or neoliberalism.

Not a straw man. Monbiot is saying that 21st century neoliberalism is the same as 19th century laissez-faire. How much more explicitly could he put it?


shaheeniqbal 8 Jul 2015 13:33

This Greek Tragedy highlights the interferences of IMF and World Bank into the democratic processes of a country. From the collapse of Greek economy it is quite clear that "Confessions of a Hitman" was not a conspiracy theory. Every day the third world is constantly suffering the IMF excesses... Greece is lucky that it is in Europe otherwise it would have suffered the same fate as the African and other third world countries indebted to IMF and World Bank and had their arms and legs twisted. It is not only that IMF dictates the prices of Electricity and Gas and imposition of taxes ie general sales taxes but they also interfere in the Democratic processes by backing their favorite chosen corrupt and criminal political leaders who loot these countries with both hands and shift the assets of the impoverished countries to foreign shores.

One hopes that with the establishment of Brics Bank the poor and deprived third world will be able to shop around for cheaper loans and suffer less interference in the internal politics.

The events in Greece highlight the misery and suffering of the impoverished third world countries at the hands of the unscrupulous lenders who once allowed into the country will keep thrusting the indebted economies into further debt and ultimate ruination.


Piotr Szafrański -> hankwilliams 8 Jul 2015 12:51

Hank, you think that "40% [of enterprises] wouldn't have been lost and many Poles would not have left if the austerity programme wasn't inflicted on the Poles.". You might be right, you might be not right. The only way to decide was to check the other way.

Well, at least 51% of Poles did not want to check the other way. Our choice.

Of some interest here is that there WERE countries which tried "the other way" (no austerity). Did not work so well for them. So this alternative might not had worked. But you are free to have your opinion.

"get their rich to pay their share"??? Always those mystical "rich"... Used to be "rich Jews", but after WWII this is somehow awkward, isn't it? But well, the Bolshevik revolution definitely made the rich pay, didn't it? How well did it work for Russia? Wanna recommend this to the Greeks?

But sorry, this time we have "rich Germans". It is politically correct to call to take their money, of course. Social justice and international justice in one package. They are all Nazi, I forgot.


Piotr Szafrański -> hankwilliams 8 Jul 2015 11:59

Hank, our "austerity programme" had started in 1989. And continues. Back then the country was in such dire straights that even the ruling elite ("communists") had problems with buying basic appliances. People's wages were below 100$/month.

Since then, supported by the international community (massive debt relief, massive investments) we GRADUALLY progressed. But the said debt relief was ONLY at the very beginning of the reforms (1989/90). We pay our dues on time since then.

Meanwhile, the price of reform was high. Whole cities had found over 50% of jobs disappearing. Factories employing tens of thousands were being closed. Some of those jobs/enterprises maybe could be saved (we estimate say 40% of the closed ones), but there were no lenders willing to experiment. Axes were in full swing. Many people remember this today with revulsion, and in many cases they are right. About 10% of population (i.e. over 3mln people) emigrated or are shuttling between jobs elsewhere and families in Poland. Unemployment remains high (about 10%). Poles work, on average, supposedly the longest hours worldwide, except for the Koreans.

But since 1991/92, Poland had an uninterrupted growth. Most Poles today earn money they would not believe back in 1989. We slowly grow enterprises and industries competitive or even dominant in their markets worldwide. And obviously, the more you eat, the bigger the appetite grows. Ask average Pole - we are grumbling. Which is not bad - we still have way to go.

But maybe were we were "lucky" it was that 1989 was a clear break - we got suddenly full freedom and responsibility, after 50 years. So it was obvious to most that we start low and we have to keep belts tight for a long time. That precious 51% of people feeling less of entitlement and more of duty was there.


sassafrasdog Gerbetticus 8 Jul 2015 11:57

Yes, I have the Shock Doctrine, and my professor of Latin American history required that we view the documentary version of Shock Doctrine on a day when he was out of town at a conference or something.

I sat there with my jaw dropped. Other students in the room, all much younger, were muttering curses. As an older adult student, I remembered the day when Salvador Allende fell, and could still picture the TV in my mother's kitchen where we had watched the coverage.

Shock Doctrine explained all, like the other shoe dropping.

To me, what the Europeans are doing to Greece is so transparent, if one knows a little about the history of other parts of the world. But other parts of the world are periphery, in Europe's view, and they are the center. Now they are treating even parts of the Eurozone as periphery. At some point the center gets smaller and smaller and everything is periphery, the other, out there, those people, and the European identity becomes a black hole rather than a beacon of light.

It is hard to look at oneself sometimes, but a wise teacher once told me that the characteristics that we dislike in others, are the same characteristics that we ourselves contain. That is the fear. The answer is that by facing the truth of that, we are able to attend to our own faults, and become, humbly, more tolerant of the things that make us all human.

I hope that Europe can acquire some wisdom before it is too late.


BritCol 8 Jul 2015 11:27

A very succinct article that hits some of the historical notes that explains how the elites have controlled the masses to their advantage. All the financial laws, regulations that have been put in place such as compound interest, the corporation as a 'person', and the takeover of the IMF and World Bank by US and European elites are geared to keep the wealth in those few hands.

What has been so worrying is how few people seem to realize that, and cheer on the status quo. Have they such little self-respect that they believe these elites are better, smarter than them? All they have is all the advantages of being born rich. Although certainly some entrepreneurs, like artists, have natural advantages.

Gerbetticus 8 Jul 2015 11:06

Dr Karen Adler states in a letter to The Guardian today:

"The debt that the Greek government is attempting to negotiate on is around £237billion. Compare that with the British government bailout which, at its peak, guaranteed £1,162 billion to the banks. One bank alone (Deutsche Bank) got £226 billion......

So Dr Adler, , if you're on here, can you explain how, in the face of EU prohibition of State Aid to private companies , a , no , The German bank, was bailed out by the British taxpayer to a total sum only £11 billion less than the total owed by the entire Greek state? Forgive me, Im not a practitioner of the dismal science!

bridgefergal -> BeTrueForAll 8 Jul 2015 11:05

Agreed. The general ignorance extant about how money is created - it's created from thin air, for free and is essentially an unlimited resource - is truly breathtaking. The Bank of England had a circular on money creation a short while back, which should have been required reading for the usual "there's no money left" Tory trolls who infest CiF. But who needs the truth when comforting untruths are far more reassuring viz. Labour spent all the money; benefits and welfare caused the crash and the deficit; tax cuts for business and the wealthy trickle down to everyone; only Labour raises taxes (it can't be said often enough that Tories hiked VAT by a third in 2010). Etc. Etc.

Maria Pospotiki -> Extremophile 8 Jul 2015 11:01

Tsipras right after his election, was the first to open Lagarde's list, he asked Swiss bank's collaboration to impose taxes on those who had sent their money abroad, he even dealt with media corruption even though this could do harm to his party. And all these in five months. Us Greeks are not proud about the corruption of our system, but this corruption was reinforced by foreign forces all these years. Even recently, the ex minister of health has signed under much suspicion a contract with a German company offering technical support which hasn't yet been delivered. All these years this was exactly what was happening in Greece with the consistent opinion of the european countries. Solidarity and democracy seem to be a utopia in our days.


Chenoa mickstephenson 8 Jul 2015 10:50

Yes, exactly.

I said before and I'll say it one more time:

Syriza aren't playing ball so they must be dealt with and used as an example in case Spain, Portugal, Italy et al get any similar ideas.

A good question that many people ask is this: why does the current illegal and fascist government in Ukraine get loans from the IMF straight away & 'no questions asked' yet the democratically-elected government in Greece will only be allowed to receive loans if they meet with the harsh, inhumane conditions attached? Double standards due to ineptitude etc etc or planned tactics by neoliberal & neoconservative ideologues? I think I'll go with the latter. This is all about economic warfare and the asset-stripping of countries (read books like 'The Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein and 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' by John Perkins for more info) it's all been done before in so-called 'developing countries' and they are currently doing it to the 'developed countries'.

Also, research shows that the US/Israel/Europe/NATO and allies (the actual planners are linked to the BIS, CFR, Committee of 300, Trilateral Commission aka the corporatocracy) want global hegemony and won't stand for any competition. The neocons/neolibs/zionists have even written books and documents about these things themselves:

- 'The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives' by Zbigniew Brzezinski

- Project for a New American Century

- 'Crisis of Democracy' by the Trilateral Commission

- The Wolfowitz Doctrine:

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."


Brollachain 8 Jul 2015 10:31

The Maastricht treaty, establishing the European Union and the euro, was built on a lethal delusion: a belief that the ECB could provide the only common economic governance that monetary union required. Those sober, suited, serious people...turn out to be demented utopian fantasists, votaries of a fanatical economic cult.

Well, quite, because in Guardianland the basic delusion is to believe in a market system in the ifrst place.

If, on the other hand, you do subscribe to the market - as just about everybody on the planet outside the Guardian does - then one of the things you could do would be to link up with other people of the same mind, and set some rules for the market. But then , as part of the price for joining the club, you also have to keep to the rules.

Monbiot is quite right; ECB is not democratic in this sense. It's a game manager - in its way, not unlike a moderator on CiF, for example. Democracy doesn't really come into it. As a participant, you may like the rules, or not, but nobody forced you to join the club in the first place - the joining part is where democracy comes in, and everyone gets to decide whether to join or not.

Now, Monbiot doesn't like this; but then, he doesn't believe in the system to start with. Like many Guardian writers, he believes in a system where there is an inexhaustible pot of Scott Trust money to support everyone's way of life, and no accountability whatsoever to produce a product that anyone is actually prepared to pay for. Not unlike the Greeks, in fact, until about two days ago.

So what exactly happened recently? In the first place, the Greeks were so keen to get into the game that they lied their way in. Since then, Greek governments have lied repeatedly to stay in. The last Greek Finance Minister was so contemptuous of the system that he openly declared his determination to 'game the system' - to take it for all it was worth, and give nothing in return. From his point of view, there was literally nothing to lose. If the system gave in, he could claim victory. If the system failed, this would simply be an interesting academic demonstration of the correctness of his own convictions. If Greece left, or was ejected from the system for ignoring its rules, then there would always be the Monbiots of this world, with their Scott Trust mentalities, to put the blame on everyone else.

Let's once and for all do away with the myth that all this is somehow to do with 'austerity'. Were Monbiot's ecological pretensions ever to be realised, life in the West would be infinitely more austere than anything the ECB has proposed. Monbiot is not against austerity, in fact he is all for it, provided it is on his own terms; he is against 'the system'.

The system is the market system, which in its current incarnation defers to the not-so-invisible hand of organisations such as the ECB. That is the way the game works , as played nowadays. Monboit needs to be honest with himself. Democracy and markets are two sides of the same coin. If you have a planned economy, democracy makes no sense, since the State invariably knows what is best for the people anyway.

So, as a non-believer in democracy, why is he concerned about 'undemocratic powers' in the first place? In his ideal, market-free State, democracy would not exist. Let the Greeks starve, should be his war-cry - just as it seems to have been Varoufakis's. Let the whole of Europe starve, as long as it brings 'the system' down! Who cares, as long as the game ends with the withering away of democracy and the market he so heartily detests.

BeTrueForAll Rusty Richards 8 Jul 2015 10:29

The EU were as much a part of the lie to help Greece gain membership of the EU as the Greeks were and must be held equally liable. An all round con job by the EU and the IMF.

Correct! The motive was the wealthy wanted the Greeks to join because they could "rent" out their wealth to the Greek government in the form of Greek government bonds and at a higher interest rate to boot than other Eurozone countries particularly Germany. Where there's greed there's always miscalculation of risk!


JustsayNO1954 MightyDrunken 8 Jul 2015 10:28

"The UK doesn't need the IMF. We have Gideon Osborne."

That's just as well, because we have nothing left to sell!

Unlike the Greeks, we gave ours away without a fight, the only thing left are Public Services and they go in the TTIP!

TTIP is the NWO next move, which will give Corporations control of each nations Sovereignty, it's also a Slave Charter, which is why EU insist on Free Movement!


BeTrueForAll cambridgefergal 8 Jul 2015 10:20

Great article. Particularly nails the canard that right wing IMF policies are "natural", "objective" and "correct." All economics is politics in disguise, especially neo-liberal economics."

Your comment really hits the nail on the head in regard to the Greek debt fiasco and indeed all the Austerity War-Mongering politicians around the planet. The "politics" is really about a few trying to get away with "dominating" the many!

Geoffrey Ingham, the Cambridge University Professor of Sociology, in the concluding remarks of his truly excellent book "The Nature of Money" states the following:-

"...... the two sides of the economy - entrepreneurial (and consumer) debtors - struggle with creditor capitalists over the real rate of interest."

I would add to this that in reality creditor capitalists prowl the planet like savage beasts always looking to force societies to be as utterly dependent upon privately created money for sale as possible and ignorant of sovereign governments ability to create public money debt and interest free.

The Eurozone is a classic example of the war going on between public interest and private greed. Likewise the war in the UK with the austerity promoting Conservative and Labour Parties trying to pull the wool over individual's eyes that there is no such thing as a sovereign society being able to create public money.


roninwarrior 8 Jul 2015 10:17

Nothing here many haven`t worked out long ago, but still good to see the truth being written.

This should lead people to the current trade agreements being negotiated secretly. TPP and TTIP are completely nefarious items of legislation that will further destroy democracy, and people need to enlighten themselves and start leaning on their local representatives to be the will of the people.

I watched this recently, and although it`s not directly on topic of these trade agreements, what`s said within it has extremely pertinent echoes to how these processes are being carried out, and generally the entitlement attitude of these corrupted plutocrats.

Greece has once again taught the world a lesson in democracy, and the world needs to take careful heed. It`s also worth revisiting the words of Joseph Stiglitz, , recently published in these very pages. Stiglitz said,

It is hard to advise Greeks how to vote on 5 July. Neither alternative – approval or rejection of the troika's terms – will be easy, and both carry huge risks. A yes vote would mean depression almost without end. Perhaps a depleted country – one that has sold off all of its assets, and whose bright young people have emigrated – might finally get debt forgiveness; perhaps, having shrivelled into a middle-income economy, Greece might finally be able to get assistance from the World Bank. All of this might happen in the next decade, or perhaps in the decade after that.

By contrast, a no vote would at least open the possibility that Greece, with its strong democratic tradition, might grasp its destiny in its own hands. Greeks might gain the opportunity to shape a future that, though perhaps not as prosperous as the past, is far more hopeful than the unconscionable torture of the present.

I know how I would vote.


Youmadbrah 8 Jul 2015 10:14

Corruption at all levels and dysfunctional financial and legal systems are at the heart of any developing economy crisis. Spending less on more vulnerable people in the society will do nothing fix it. Governments usually go this route because the old and the children are less likely to revolt, well they did in Greece so at the democracy works there. The way to fix the country is by radical reform and debt relief. Austerity is just a patch on a dysfunctional system.


skinnywheels feliciafarrel 8 Jul 2015 10:09

This idea that the Greeks went and blew all the money on women, cars and drink is a convenient argument for insisting that a nation of people are made to pay for reckless actions of others that were largely out of their control.

The Greek people did not know that Goldman Sachs had cooked the books to allow them entry into the Euro. They didn't know that Goldman Sachs was betting against them providing the final nail in the coffin of their economy. They didn't know that sub prime mortgages were being re-packaged as mortgage backed securities causing a GLOBAL financial crisis. Only the most informed would have been able to see through their previous governments lies about spending levels.

There was asymmetric information, so when the huge amount of spin and marketing was used to get people to take on these loans people were not aware of all the facts. These loans should not have been made and there are far more factors involved then just Greeks partying all their money away. So why should it just be the Greek people who pay? Why not the banks who were offering out loans at a time when they must have known there was a high likelihood of default?

TruthseekerD 8 Jul 2015 09:54

Indeed, Sir!!

It beggars belief that anyone with a conscience and an open mind can defend the Troika/IMF. They did this to African countries throughout the latter half of the 20th century, hence the problems and instabilities that have continued to unfold there. People in the west didn't give a damn then and stayed asleep, believing the victim-blaming propaganda that gets put about to create a perception that 'the poor did this to themselves'.

Now, having run out of developing countries to pillage and plunder, they have turned their parasitic gaze towards Southern Europe. Again, disingenuous bullshit is sold through their complicit media wing of the vampire banking elites that buys into the right-wing nationalism and isolationist mood that has been carefully cultivated, sowing seeds in the minds of the unquestioning that 'they were profligate, it's their own fault and they should take their medicine'.

It's only when the shit hits the fan (and it will) in a major western economy that enough people will suddenly wake up and smell the coffee, and realise that the banking elites are the ones controlling bought and paid for puppet governments, leading the majority to hell in a handcart.

The much-vaunted sham of western democracy has been exposed - if a people elect a government that doesn't fit in with the agenda of the parasitic banking elites, it is discredited and destabilised so as to punish them for their temerity in not bending over for more virtual slavery. That's what this is really about..........

PixieFrouFrou SocalAlex 8 Jul 2015 09:51

'And to think a decade and a half ago, Monbiot was one of the reasons why I paid for the (paper) Graun every day. I am DONE with this paper!'

George has done sterling work in his reportage on environmental matters. I salute and support him for this. Just don't read any of his articles on finance or economics.


Albert_Jacka_VC 8 Jul 2015 09:37

It should never be forgotten that economics of the Austrian School, as re-baptised by Friedman & Co as economic rationalism, or neo-liberalism, was born of religious impulses -- by fat Calvinists for whom Hell was for others, not for their own class.

And class warfare is what neo-liberalism is. Guilt and shame over sinful debt are the propaganda weapons. But they grow blunt, when the fraud becomes exposed.

The Euro phase is war by the banker class, on everyone else. Only the One Percent are supposed to benefit.

The Irish fell for the trap, Spain's Indignados appear to have been infiltrated by Soros shills, but in Greece, they have run into a problem. SYRIZA is in touch with a desperatre people, whose backs are against the wall, and who have nothing to lose.

The Eurogarchs had better beware. SYRIZA owns printing presses, and is perfectly able to begin running off tewenty-euro notes. The next phase, now that the Troika has bared its bloody fangs, is open and guerilla war against these vicious parasites. Harrying the Germans is not novel to Greeks. They did it before, during the war. And Greece is not alone.


BeTrueForAll Bob adda 8 Jul 2015 09:44

It is hard for those of us on the left to admit, but Margaret Thatcher saved the UK from this despotism.

I was never a fan of Margaret Thatcher's but on this issue she was spot on. I am so glad that Britain is not part of the eurozone. It is an extremely destructive force that I think will end up destroying the EU.

Unfortunately this is myth making due to a shallow understanding of money mechanics. Here is Margaret Thatcher declaring there is no such thing as "public money":-

"One of the great debates of our time is about how much of your money should be spent by the State and how much you should keep to spend on your family. Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay-that "someone else" is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money."

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105454

Now see my above comment why free "public money" has to be created before "private money" for sale can exist and why public money is essential to deal with crises and in particular crises caused by the misuse of private money creation.


dedalus77uk 8 Jul 2015 09:16

Agreed: the IMF is politicised and has operated as a means of enforcing market capitalism on countries which were not in a position to make it work. Agreed: the EU project and the single currency in particular were extremely ambitious projects which in some respects were based on a degree of utopia and some pretty fundamental fallacies. None of which excuses successive Greek governments for being complacently corrupt, economically incompetent and, in Syriza's case, deliberately inflammatory, of course. Not that Greece is entirely alone in this, even within the EU, though as shambles go it takes some beating.

Two things strike me, though.

  • One is that, if the IMF's policies and strings are so obviously bad, severeign governments can choose to not avail themselves of its funding and not enter into a Faustian pact. It's not as easy as getting a big load of money upfront, of course, but if the implication is destroying your economy and putting your country at the mercy of faceless international institutions and its capitalist purse-strong holders, then that would seem to be the right choice, no? No-one is being forced at gun-point to drink from the poisoned well, though I appreciate that much pressure can be brought to bear, and it takes a strong government to resist that. But everyone's still responsible for their own choices, at the end of the day: it's not IMF or bust.
  • Secondly, the concept of allowing countries access to money in return for certain reforms is not in itself a bad thing, if those reforms are in fact the "right" ones. That doesn't mean only economic reforms - in fact perhaps it shouldn't mean economic reforms at all. Perhaps what these reforms should be more focused on is human rights: ie, ensure that there is a proper and independent judiciary and a transparent legal process; ensure that national assets are distributed equitably; ensure that there is proper participation in the democratic process, etc - all things which are in the UDHR and which actually serve to make a country more stable, more prosperous and - importantly - more attractive for investment. Is this perhaps the future of international money-lending?

If so we need someone to either reform the IMF, or set up the "ethical" alternative to the IMF - any takers?


MightyDrunken Stilts 8 Jul 2015 09:16

It is the obvious problem with the IMF, some countries contribute and other borrow. The ones who contribute gets the votes which means the power is in the hands of the creditors.

Therefore if a country is unlucky enough to need an IMF loan they have to sign a deal which is in the creditors interest and not their own. However the purported purpose of the IMF is not to further the interest of the developed nations but to;

foster global growth and economic stability by providing policy, advice and financing to members, by working with developing nations to help them achieve macroeconomic stability, and by reducing poverty.


Terence Skill rathbaner 8 Jul 2015 08:57

As a German, I want to tell you two things. 1st: I totally agree with your point. 2nd: But Wolfgang Schauble is everything but blind. He is one eager globalist using his power to the fullest to reach his goals. To me, it all depends on the assault on his life in 1989 - he should never had become the interior minister of Germany after that (set up several surveillance laws "to protect the public from terrorism", but only achieved one thing: surveillance) nor the financial minister of this country.

His view on the world and how things should be is just another one than ours might be - his vision has always been a European super-state. unfortunately he is a psych, oder "damaged goods" as I believe to call him. A politically motived criminal who shouldn´t be in disposal of more than his own, barrier-free house.


onoway 8 Jul 2015 08:52

The thing is that the politicians who get in do not practice what they promise.

Nobody gets into power promising to make things worse for people, they spin things so that what they say will do has the shiny promise of a better future. Politicians and businesses have learned very well how to push the emotional buttons hard wired into humanity. Witness the way women were brought to the idea that smoking was a symbol of independence and the implication that women who did not smoke were dependent and servile. Nothing is said at the time about cancers and other issues directly related.

Also, people have a very limited choice as to who they vote for, the only option to protest the choices is to abstain, which accomplishes nothing but make it easier for the government to push through things they would never otherwise be able to do.

Nobody rational would vote for total control of the world's food supply by 4 or 5 chemical companies, possibly the most powerful being one for which the basis of their business is the development and manufacturing of poisons, but that's now what we have, mandated and promoted by governments. Perhaps a suggestion made on QI is the answer, instead of career politicians, all of whom are in it for the power it gives them, governments should be run like jury duty, your turn comes up you are part of the government for however long. Or as the Inuit and others did; nothing can become law unless ALL the politicians agree, if they don't, then it simply doesn't happen. Then we might get back to some form of democracy.

At the very least, it would take longer to get to the totalitarian state we are rapidly approaching if not indeed already in. All we have now is the (very expensive) veneer, not democracy at all.


MrBlueberry DrChris 8 Jul 2015 08:41

The wealth of this world is owned by the Corporate companies not governments and the gap keeps growing each year. For example Corporates take 900$ billion annually in tax avoidance from poor countries while the poorest countries pay 600$ billion in debt each year to the rich corporations. In all 2$ trillion goes from the poorest countries to bolster the wealth of the riches corporations. The total wealth of the world is 223$ trillion.

8 out 6 people are poor. The richest 300 people (not governments) have the same wealth as the poorest 3 billion. It's worth pondering over.


rathbaner 8 Jul 2015 08:40

I'v been struck many times by the similarity in attitude - and the blindness - shown by Wolfgang Schauble and by Lord John Russell.

Russell to Parliament at the height of the famine: "Sir, I am obliged to say, therefore, that while we attempt all that we think practicable, we must, in the first place, refuse to make promises of that which is out of our power; and in the next place, we must call upon and expect those who have local duties to perform in Ireland, to perform those duties, and to assist the Government and Parliament in their arduous duty: and when I say that I expect this, I am quite sure that many will perform it, because I know that in many, very many instances, the resident proprietors in Ireland have been most ready with their money, with their time, and with their attendance, in endeavouring to provide for the relief of their destitute countrymen."

Just like Schauble saying we've done everything we can and it is now up to the Greek govt to rescue themselves and their country.

Both seem utterly blinded to the - utterly obvious - reality by their ideological beliefs. And all this while Ireland was a net exporter of food (to the Empire) and German banks and the ECB are making profits on the €bn from interest on the Greek loans.


halfdan Rahere2015 8 Jul 2015 08:39

Indeed. When one looks at the money lent to bail out a number of banks, e.g. $868 billion to Barclays, why can it not be done to bailout a national economy. There could be conditions attached, such as a caretaker financial advisory team to make sure it was spent correctly, the aim being to get the Greek economy back into a position from which it could grow rather than fail. This may have been done, but Greeks being Greeks, they won't look a gift horse in the mouth for fear that it is a wooden one.

[Jul 09, 2015] Countdown To Grexit

Moon of Alabama

The Greek referendum seemed to have given some push towards a compromise. But the powers that rule the Euro did not agree. The European Central Bank continues to starve the Greek banks. In a few days they will be toast and a Greek exit from the Euro will be inevitable. That seems to be what the hardliners in Berlin around the psychopathic Finance Minister Schaeuble want to achieve.

The Greek Prime Minister Tzirpas managed to get the backing of the people and most other political parties for a compromise offer. But the promises he made before the referendum already fall apart. The banks did not reopen, a deal is not in sight and given the fast deterioration of the real economy the situation will soon be immensely more difficult.

He will have to answer questions. Why can't he present a written proposal in Brussels today as he promised to do? Why hasn't he anticipated the assault on the banks by the ECB and the powers behind it? Why hasn't he prepared for an exit from the Euro? Why was there no scenario planning anticipating the current situation?

The German media and politicians have villainized the Greek so much, based on crude propaganda a denial of the on facts, that a Grexit seems to be the now favored public opinion in Germany. The public opinion in other northern and eastern European countries is very much the same. People do not want to "give more money to the Greek" even though hardly any money was given to them so far. What was given in taxpayer guarantees was given to German and French banks. The consequences of a Grexit seem to be beyond the realm of discussions.

Supporting some partial debt jubilee now, hardly noticeable when stretched over decades, and giving the Greek economy the ability to grow out of debt would be much cheaper for European taxpayers than a complete Greek default which will trigger the payment of hundreds of billions of guarantees. With an exit from the Euro such a default is very likely. Greece would then have no debt at all. It could again borrow from maybe Russia and other sources who would be happy to make some money lending to a then nearly debt free country.

On top of the catastrophic results of a five years austerity program the carnage in Greece from a hasty, unplanned bankruptcy and exit from the Euro would be huge. But the example of other cases of state bankruptcy show that the recovery is usually quite fast and the long term possibilities much more favorable than the slow death a continued austerity program would guarantee.

(I am still under an unusual workload but the end is in sight.)

Posted by b at 12:19 PM | Comments (161) i enjoyed hoarsewhisperer's post on the last thread -
Interesting tweet over at Xymphora...

Shafik Mandhai
‏@ShafikFM

The money Greece owes, $370 billion, compared to the taxpayer-funded bailouts banks got...

Citigroup - Citigroup $2.513 Trillion
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 Trillion
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 Trillion
Bank of America - $1.344 Trilliom
Barclays PLC - $868 Billion
Bear Sterns - $853 B
Goldman Sachs - $814 B
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 B
JP Morgan Chase $391 B
Deutche Bank - $354 B
UBS - $287 B
Credit Suisse - $262 B
Lehman Bros - $183 B
Bank of Scotland - $181 B
BNP Paribas - $175 B
Wells Fargo - $159 B
Dexia - $159 B
Wachovia - $142 B
Dresdner Bank - $135 B

Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 6, 2015 11:22:25 PM | 160

james | Jul 7, 2015 1:03:49 PM | 2


Why the Greek elite doesn't want Grexit

nmb | Jul 7, 2015 1:04:25 PM | 3


Joseph Stiglitz usa today article from today.. "Most bailouts (for instance, the Mexican bailout) are not bailouts of the country but of the Western banks who didn't do adequate due diligence. It could be nice that the German and other European governments bailed out their banks (though whether that is good policy is another matter); but the Greeks rightly asked, why it should be done so much on their backs."

james | Jul 7, 2015 1:17:28 PM | 4


The German media and politicians have villainized the Greek so much, based on crude propaganda a denial of the on facts, that a Grexit seems to be the now favored public opinion in Germany. The public opinion in other northern and eastern European countries is very much the same.

Qui bono?

"The imposition of the euro had one true goal: To end the European welfare state." Maybe it needed a push?

Comrade X | Jul 7, 2015 1:35:10 PM | 6


Thanks james #2 & Horsewhisperer,

Yeah, kind of puts it into perspective doesn't it. The $370 billion the predatory-mob-owned-banks suckered Greece for after the economic hit men sold them the Brooklyn Bridge that now got issued back to them vs the upward of $10 Trillion the American regular joe taxpayer got hoodwinked for. The Greeks hit back against the corporate welfare state. About time someone stood up to the international syndicate.

juannie | Jul 7, 2015 1:52:36 PM | 7


Recent History.

Papandreou in 2011 wanted to program a referendum to refuse the bail-out. It was known (easy) that the Greeks would vote OXI, clear as day. (As in the vote last week.) The 'institutions' convinced Papandreou to not do it, or he capitulated, or was never serious about it, who knows.

BBC article, Nov 2011, Paul Mason, details the consequences of the referendum (had it taken place), and actually outlines the future a bit. Yes, pretty much what did go down in 2015. The same arguments, discussions points, themes.

Greek referendum is coin-flip on euro exit.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-15539350

Private debt was shunted to the public. The Guardian, for ex. (April 2015) lists the massive debts and hides who the creditors are (except for some well know names like IMF) and hints that Greece does not want to pay:

http://tinyurl.com/pfed8wm

The Council on Foreign Relations (hardly to be taxed with a pro-Gr. or left attitude), July 2015:

Greece Fallout: Italy and Spain Have Funded a Massive Backdoor Bailout of French Banks one page.

http://blogs.cfr.org/geographics/2015/07/02/greecefallout/

> See the nos. for France and who holds Greek bonds today.

Grexit is now possible, or at least not as dangerous as in 2011. Which was all planned, of course.

Noirette | Jul 7, 2015 2:33:26 PM | 9


In 2011, because the EU had not yet prepared for Grexit, Greece would have had far more bargaining power after an OXI vote in a referendum.

lysias | Jul 7, 2015 2:40:03 PM | 10


b:

FYI, Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com claims that almost all of the debt is non-dischargeable (because it is made under a legal regime that makes discharge virtually impossible). She also points out that 'odious debt' is a term that has not yet been recognized by courts as a means of discharging debts.

RBS did a study, however, that agrees with your assessment. They estimated that the cost to the Eurozone of a GRexit is about 220bm Euro vs. 130bn to keep Greece in the Eurozone (writing down debt, etc.).

Notably, EU countries that have not adopted the Euro are doing fine. And Greece deposits of natural gas have reported to have been discovered in Greek waters (which doesn't seem to get talked about much). With that and other commercial opportunities, I'd think that they would recover from a GRexit fairly quickly.

Jackrabbit | Jul 7, 2015 2:40:28 PM | 11


Note: I say "Yves Smith ... claims..." because it's hard for me to trust what she writes with respect to Greece.

Jackrabbit | Jul 7, 2015 2:49:29 PM | 12


U.S. common law may not recognize odious debts, but it does recognize the idea of unconscionable contracts, which a court may refuse to enforce:

Unconscionability (known as unconscionable dealing/conduct in Australia) is a doctrine in contract law that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Typically, an unconscionable contract is held to be unenforceable because no reasonable or informed person would otherwise agree to it. The perpetrator of the conduct is not allowed to benefit, because the consideration offered is lacking, or is so obviously inadequate, that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract.

Unconscionability is determined by examining the circumstances of the parties when the contract was made, such as their bargaining power, age, and mental capacity. Other issues might include lack of choice, superior knowledge, and other obligations or circumstances surrounding the bargaining process. Unconscionable conduct is also found in acts of fraud and deceit, where the deliberate misrepresentation of fact deprives someone of a valuable possession. When a party takes unconscionable advantage of another, the action may be treated as criminal fraud or the civil action of deceit.


Expressions like "Greek elite", "German elite" and "European elite" seem inappropriate for a class of people who could care less about national or regional interests. Where they live is merely a matter of convenience, habit or personal preference.

SingingSam | Jul 7, 2015 4:32:33 PM | 26


An important point that b makes in his post is the building momentum in Germany to not just hold the line on austerity but actually crush Greece. Schauble now outpolls the sainted Merkel. This from today's NYT:
That stance puts pressure on Ms. Merkel domestically, emboldening politicians who believe that Germany has erred not by pushing too hard for austerity in Greece but by tolerating modest steps toward softer terms. When German lawmakers were last called upon to vote on extending the Greek bailout in February, 29 deputies from her center-right bloc broke ranks and opposed the government.

Since then, conservatives' fury at Greece has only mounted. Mr. Schäuble, who last week for the first time bested the chancellor in a well-regarded political popularity poll, is an essential partner for Ms. Merkel in keeping the anger under control.

Tsipras with that 61% "Oxi" under his belt is going to have to start issuing drachmas soon.

Posted by: Mike Maloney | Jul 7, 2015 4:37:10 PM | 27

Gerry1211 | Jul 7, 2015 6:33:40 PM | 42

With the exception of Varoufakis and his follower Euclid Tsakalotos both of whom have PhDs in economy, NONE of the EU debt negotiators are economists.....Schauble of Germany is a Lawyer, Christine Lagarde of the IMF is a lawyer, and Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the Netherlands, the financial head of the EU is an agricultural engineer(unelected) . Go figure! They are a group of clueless wonders with demands. They have strong armed and looted Greece. Greece should have defaulted in 2010. Their debt would be a whole lot less. But the ECB made a few billion on this racket, as did the banks.

Austria will have a referendum on whether to stay in the EU.....If Greece exits the EU, so will Spain, Italy, Ireland and hopefully Austria and the Netherlands. This is the Soviet Union of Europe. 17 UNelected people running the Continent for the benefit of the elite. Democracy has gone. The pitchforks are coming soon. People are fed up.

@43
One of us (Palast, an economist by training) has had long talks with the acknowledged "father" of the euro, Professor Robert Mundell. It's important to mention the other little bastard spawned by the late Prof. Mundell: "supply-side" economics, otherwise known as "Reaganomics," "Thatcherism" – or, simply "voodoo" economics.

The imposition of the euro had one true goal: To end the European welfare state.

For Mundell and the politicians who seized on his currency concept, the euro itself would be the vector infecting the European body politic with supply-side Reaganomics. Mundell saw a euro'd Europe as free of trade unions and government regulations; a Europe in which the votes of parliaments were meaningless. Each Eurozone nation, unable to control neither the value of its own currency, nor its own budget, nor its own fiscal policy, could only compete for business by slashing regulations and taxes. Mundell said, "[The euro] puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians… Without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business."

"[All capital] is created by the state in one way or another." Nonsense. Capitalists make capital, otherwise they wouldn't own it.

Comrade X | Jul 7, 2015 7:08:45 PM | 52

Mr Maloney @44:
Looks like Rifkin's diagnosis was mistaken:

According to Rifkin, the "European Dream" is one in which individuals find security not through individual accumulation of wealth, but through connectivity and respect for human rights.

He missed the neoliberalizing component of EU crapitalism but he also missed the looming inter-crapitalist warfare.He's kinds glitchy. Can you tell me how he got from "The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era" to "The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where all of Life is a Paid-For Experience"?

Comrade X | Jul 7, 2015 7:29:15 PM | 53

@30

Black mansplains how fraudulent yields were a management tactic to goose their own income, but neglects to note that this was endemic fraud, a virtual system of fraud. It is almost certain some realized this system of fraud was ultimately backstopped by the government and that it could be used in a neoliberal attack on government. Black, in his dotage, focuses blame on the Troika:

The troika, however, while purporting to be neoliberal, is actually an old-fashioned means of bailing out German and French banks that make bad loans.

Is this in any way credible? He acknowledges widespread "control fraud", but instead of arguing that this disease is exacerbated by neoliberalism he implies the rectification of "old fashioned means of bailing out banks" with their commitment to neoliberalism was neglected.

Bullshit.

Comrade X | Jul 7, 2015 8:17:11 PM | 56

Comrade X at 55:

First of all your age-ism sucks. Leave those thoughts unexpressed. Secondly, your comment is nonsense. Black is probably the world's leading critic of systematic banking fraud, but only when there is actual. French and German banks making unsecured loans to Greek banks was not fraudulent. The investment bankers who sold mortgage-backed securities they knew were 'crap' were engaging in fraud.

And your decontextualized quote needs to be remedied:

The neoliberal "modern finance" theories such as the "efficient market hypothesis" are premised on lenders providing "private market discipline." That, in turn, is premised on the assumption that when lenders make bad loans (whether for reasons of fraud or incompetence) they will suffer the resultant losses rather than being bailed out. The troika, however, while purporting to be neoliberal, is actually an old-fashioned means of bailing out German and French banks that make bad loans.

The context of the preceding couple of sentences shows that obviously Black was exposing the hypocrisy of 'neoliberals' who spout about 'the discipline of the market' and then use the government to bail out well-connected, thoroughly corrupting corporations and banks whenever they get a chance.

fairleft | Jul 7, 2015 8:57:28 PM | 59

Some good description of the madness involved
Everybody knew what a fight would mean. The inner cabinet had discussed the details a week earlier at a tense meeting after the European Central Bank refused to increase liquidity (ELA) to the Greek banking system, forcing Syriza to impose capital controls.

It was a triple plan. They would "requisition" the Bank of Greece and sack the governor under emergency national laws. The estimated €17bn of reserves still stashed away in various branches of the central bank would be seized.

They would issue parallel liquidity and California-style IOUs denominated in euros to keep the banking system afloat, backed by an appeal to the European Court of Justice to throw the other side off balance, all the while asserting Greece's full legal rights as a member of the eurozone. If the creditors forced Grexit, they - not Greece - would be acting illegally, with implications for tort contracts in London, New York and even Frankfurt.

They would impose a haircut on €27bn of Greek bonds held by the ECB, and deemed "odious debt" by some since the original purchases were undertaken by the ECB to save French and German banks, forestalling a market debt restructuring that would otherwise have happened.

"They were trying to strangle us into submission, and this is how we would retaliate," said one cabinet minister. Mr Tsipras rejected the plan. It was too dangerous. But a week later, that is exactly what he may have to do, unless he prefers to accept a forced return to the drachma.

...

The two sides are talking past each other, clinging to long-entrenched narratives, no longer willing to question their own assumptions. The result could be costly. RBS puts the direct financial losses for the eurozone from a Greek default at €227bn, compared with €140bn if they bite the bullet on an IMF-style debt restructuring.

somebody | Jul 7, 2015 9:20:01 PM | 61

God...

This article was published 2012, wow how time fly. Nevertheless, it is mandatory reading.

By Greg Palast

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/robert-mundell-evil-genius-euro

"Robert Mundell, evil genius of the euro"

The idea that the euro has "failed" is dangerously naive. The euro is doing exactly what its progenitor – and the wealthy 1%-ers who adopted it – predicted and planned for it to do.

That progenitor is former University of Chicago economist Robert Mundell. The architect of "supply-side economics" is now a professor at Columbia University, but I knew him through his connection to my Chicago professor, Milton Friedman, back before Mundell's research on currencies and exchange rates had produced the blueprint for European monetary union and a common European currency.

Mundell, then, was more concerned with his bathroom arrangements. Professor Mundell, who has both a Nobel Prize and an ancient villa in Tuscany, told me, incensed:

"They won't even let me have a toilet. They've got rules that tell me I can't have a toilet in this room! Can you imagine?"

As it happens, I can't. But I don't have an Italian villa, so I can't imagine the frustrations of bylaws governing commode placement.

But Mundell, a can-do Canadian-American, intended to do something about it: come up with a weapon that would blow away government rules and labor regulations. (He really hated the union plumbers who charged a bundle to move his throne.)

"It's very hard to fire workers in Europe," he complained. His answer: the euro.

The euro would really do its work when crises hit, Mundell explained. Removing a government's control over currency would prevent nasty little elected officials from using Keynesian monetary and fiscal juice to pull a nation out of recession.

"It puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians," he said. "[And] without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business."

He cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace – or the plumbing.

As another Nobelist, Paul Krugman, notes, the creation of the eurozone violated the basic economic rule known as "optimum currency area". This was a rule devised by Bob Mundell.

That doesn't bother Mundell. For him, the euro wasn't about turning Europe into a powerful, unified economic unit. It was about Reagan and Thatcher.

"Ronald Reagan would not have been elected president without Mundell's influence," once wrote Jude Wanniski in the Wall Street Journal. The supply-side economics pioneered by Mundell became the theoretical template for Reaganomics – or as George Bush the Elder called it, "voodoo economics": the magical belief in free-market nostrums that also inspired the policies of Mrs Thatcher.

Mundell explained to me that, in fact, the euro is of a piece with Reaganomics:

"Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well."

And when crises arise, economically disarmed nations have little to do but wipe away government regulations wholesale, privatize state industries en masse, slash taxes and send the European welfare state down the drain.

Thus, we see that (unelected) Prime Minister Mario Monti is demanding labor law "reform" in Italy to make it easier for employers like Mundell to fire those Tuscan plumbers. Mario Draghi, the (unelected) head of the European Central Bank, is calling for "structural reforms" – a euphemism for worker-crushing schemes. They cite the nebulous theory that this "internal devaluation" of each nation will make them all more competitive.

Monti and Draghi cannot credibly explain how, if every country in the Continent cheapens its workforce, any can gain a competitive advantage.
But they don't have to explain their policies; they just have to let the markets go to work on each nation's bonds. Hence, currency union is class war by other means.

The crisis in Europe and the flames of Greece have produced the warming glow of what the supply-siders' philosopher-king Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction". Schumpeter acolyte and free-market apologist Thomas Friedman flew to Athens to visit the "impromptu shrine" of the burnt-out bank where three people died after it was fire-bombed by anarchist protesters, and used the occasion to deliver a homily on globalization and Greek "irresponsibility".

The flames, the mass unemployment, the fire-sale of national assets, would bring about what Friedman called a "regeneration" of Greece and, ultimately, the entire eurozone. So that Mundell and those others with villas can put their toilets wherever they damn well want to.

Far from failing, the euro, which was Mundell's baby, has succeeded probably beyond its progenitor's wildest dreams.

neretva'43 | Jul 7, 2015 10:03:35 PM | 67

Interesting article on Zero Hedge. It seems after all Merkel is the winner and Tsipras the loser
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-07/greferendum-shocker-tsipras-intended-lose-and-now-trapped-his-success

Wullf | Jul 7, 2015 10:39:26 PM | 70

To neretva'43 @59: Yes, the authoritarians will always represent their domination as "winning". The world is a contest, and we must win. Lenin's goal was the elimination of that fraudulent struggle.

Comrade X | Jul 7, 2015 10:49:38 PM | 71

Tsipras has said that he is going to the European High Court, which is his chosen way to challenge an expulsion of Greece by bureaucratic fiat. And If the German government really is committed to Grexit now; then there has to be a negotiation that signifies some kind of legal structure, if that is to happen. Tsipras has neither disrespected Varoufakis, nor does he disrespect the mandate, the "OXI". He has simply brought someone, the new FinMin, Euclid T. in whom he trusts to close the deal. The new man is the right person for the next phase in this struggle.

Let's remember that on Friday the Greek PM addressed the "OXI" gathering in Syntagma, where his obvious sympathy was communicated to the Greeks. Tsipras got the mandate he wanted. The referendum was worded in such a way as to make the choice crystal clear.

Posted by: Copeland | Jul 8, 2015 12:43:48 AM | 78

http://www.thenation.com/article/austerity-has-failed-an-open-letter-from-thomas-piketty-to-angela-merkel/

Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel

Five leading economists warn the German chancellor, "History will remember you for your actions this week."

By Thomas Piketty, Jeffrey Sachs, Heiner Flassbeck, Dani Rodrik and Simon Wren-Lewis

okie farmer | Jul 8, 2015 1:29:37 AM | 79

The world financial systems rely on a whole lot of faith to operate.

It is an understatement to say that the faith in the current Western financial system is being challenged both internally and externally.

Will any of the machinations going on diminish the power and control of the global plutocrats that own private finance? We can only hope so for the future of our species.

I am encouraged by the conscious movement of Greece toward the EU exit, however ugly that might be. It won't happen overnight and will cause further global financial conflict but represents a serious challenge to continued private Western financial hegemony. If the global plutocrats don't take us to extinction over losing their control of global finance, the new, more inclusive agreements with countries of the world will hopefully help form the basis for government/economic cooperation over other global challenges like climate change.

Bless Greece for having the will to say no to the private gawds of Mammon. May they stay the course.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 8, 2015 1:35:56 AM | 80

jeffry sachs, the guy who advised russia to implement shock therapy writing letter to Merkel is rich

meofio | Jul 8, 2015 1:49:35 AM | 81

Wullf @74

Their comments are taken out of context and spun into a fact-free narrative that makes no sense.

Jackrabbit | Jul 8, 2015 1:54:42 AM | 82


Jackrabbit and Psychohistorian- thanks for the posts on NC. I followed some of both of your back and forth with Yves on their threads. Disregarding that I've lost a lot of respect for a blog I really like -- it's kind of comical. I keep thinking she owns a crap load of Greek bonds...I know, she does a lot of good work.

Nana 2007 | Jul 8, 2015 3:47:25 AM | 83


jeffry sachs, the guy who advised russia to implement shock therapy writing letter to Merkel is rich

I don't know why, but he has changed a lot since those days. Back then he was a supply side economist, wanted to privatize everything - not any more.

okie farmer | Jul 8, 2015 3:48:31 AM | 84


Comrade X at 65:

You're just misrepresenting Black as exactly the opposite of what his career over the last 20 years has been about. Leaving out the out of context quote, let's go back to your statements in comment 55:

"Black mansplains how fraudulent yields were a management tactic to goose their own income" ... No, he doesn't indicate those yields were fraudulent but that, though the yields were real they also came with a very high degree of risk, so investors in Greek bank bonds should've demanded collateral. And what the h@ll does any of the preceding have to do with 'mansplaining'?

"but [Black] neglects to note that this was endemic fraud, a virtual system of fraud." For years Black has been one of the leading 'sayers' that the phenomenon of investing in high yield, high risk bonds with a certain bailout if things turn bad is endemic. It's the cornerstone of his entire output over the last 10 years.

"It is almost certain some realized this system of fraud was ultimately backstopped by the government and that it could be used in a neoliberal attack on government." Not sure what "it" means here, but you're saying neoliberal bankers' secret motivation was to 'attack government' and not to make mountains of money? I suppose that is a possible motive, but surely a very minor one compared to the greed is good one.

"... [Black] acknowledges widespread "control fraud", but instead of arguing that this disease is exacerbated by neoliberalism he implies the rectification of "old fashioned means of bailing out banks" with their commitment to neoliberalism was neglected."

No, it's the opposite: he argues that the 'control fraud' disease is exacerbated by neoliberalism. How can anyone not read that in Black? In response to the final two clauses of that long sentence, and ignoring the problem you're having with the word 'rectification', Black is saying that two phenomena are taking place: (1) when it serves the bureaucracy's masters, use of the neoliberal faith to close off government regulation; (2) violation of supposed neoliberal principles and active government whenever that serves a corrupt bureaucracy's benefactors. (2) is the fundamental obligation, and a bureaucrat who doesn't realize that is a short-lived one.

fairleft | Jul 8, 2015 3:53:18 AM | 85

It didn't take long to realize Sachs' advice to Russia was a failure. Maybe that's why he changed.

okie farmer | Jul 8, 2015 4:07:33 AM | 86

The US are not amused - the guy writing this is former US ambassador to Berlin

The threat of Greek exit from the euro comes at a very delicate time when Europe needs the support of both Greece and the US through Nato for assistance on myriad dangerous security issues it is facing in the Mediterranean.

However, security co-operation between the US and EU members has been sliding for many years. If Greece suddenly refused to work with the EU on issues such as refugees, it is not at all certain that the US would come to the rescue. Germany in particular has been berating the Americans regularly in recent months on issues such as the activities of the National Security Agency and on sending weapons to Ukraine and troops to the Baltic.

Angered by the heavy insolvency payments which US taxpayers would incur if Greece defaults on IMF loans, a European call for help from Nato might fall on deaf ears. The US could easily tell the Europeans to take care of the Mediterranean by themselves. It no longer maintains a carrier battle group in the area, for example. The vaunted sixth fleet has been shifted – to Asia, of course.

somebody | Jul 8, 2015 5:02:57 AM | 87


Greece: We need to talk about the debt

Merkel: You are radical left

Greece: We accept austerity! We want to pay!

Merkel: Germans won't pay for Greeks, not a cent

Greece: Debt restructuring is essential

Merkel: You need VAT at 23%

Greece: Austerity doesn't work the debt can't be repaid see the IMF we need to talk

Merkel: Varoufakis is a rude person

Greece: The debt has to addressed

Merkel: Greeks are lazy

Greece: bis repetita

Merkel: Nobody will pay for free riders, certainly not industrious thrifty Germans

Greece: bis repetita

Merkel: You have cartels you need reform

……………………….. :)

Noirette | Jul 8, 2015 5:27:34 AM | 88


Noirette | Jul 8, 2015 5:27:34 AM | 87

Merkel is famous for taking herself out of the game till the very end and then changing track quickly if necessary. Tsipras might win this by repeating the same stuff in an endless loop.

German - transatlantic - media have switched reporting dramatically the last few days. Tabloid Bild covers Tsipras speech on the front page - and - at the same time - the refugee crisis in Greece.

She - and CDU conservatives - are in a tight spot as she seems to plan to stand for the next elections - and basically this is an election campaign now threatening to split her party.

There is something else - Merkel backed the Bush Iraq war against Chancellor Schröder and used to have best contacts (as her party) with US republicans. Austerity, non state intervention used to be ideology of the German Conservative young guard. She had to tone it down, as German society was not prepared to vote for it, despite of the toning down she needs coalition governments. German conservatives have now given up on US republicans as hopeless and against the values of their voters, the chemistry with the Obama administration is not good, though.

Wikileaks came out a few days ago with the content of a - relatively harmless - phone tap of Merkel. I understand this as a threat to get out some real damaging stuff.

German Social Democrats are too stupid to profit. Germany will - again - have a right and left field playing against the center. Though, luckily, German society has changed.

The US seem to have called the end of "Pax Americana" in Europe.

somebody | Jul 8, 2015 5:56:16 AM | 89


"... [Black] acknowledges widespread "control fraud", but instead of arguing that this disease is exacerbated by neoliberalism he implies the rectification of "old fashioned means of bailing out banks" with their commitment to neoliberalism was neglected."

No, it's the opposite: he argues that the 'control fraud' disease is exacerbated by neoliberalism. How can anyone not read that in Black?

fairleft | Jul 8, 2015 3:53:18 AM | 84

Yeah

Kind of hard to take seriously anyone that could read something bill black wrote and come away with the ridiculous totally-ass-backwards nonsense that X is trying to attribute to Bill Black

Why, by golly, it's almost as if ol comrade x there is talking out of his ass

X Factoring | Jul 8, 2015 6:11:39 AM | 90


http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/yanis-varoufakis-economist-play-politics/4081

First, though he came from the centre-left towards Syriza, Varoufakis ended up consistently taking a harder line than many others in the Greek cabinet over the shape of the deal to be done, and the kind of resistance they might have to unleash if the Germans refused a deal. Second, because Varoufakis is an economist, not a politician. His entire career, and his academic qualifications are built on the conviction that a) austerity does not work; b) the Eurozone will collapse unless it becomes a union for recycling tax from rich countries to poor countries; c) Greece is insolvent and its debts need to be cancelled. By those measures, any deal Greece can do this week will falls short of what he thinks will work. On top of that, politicians are built for compromise. Tsipras has to work the party machine, the government machine, the machine of parliament. Varoufakis' machine is his own brain. If he wound up the creditors it was for a reason: they'd convinced themselves that Tsipras was a Greek Tony Blair and would simply betray his promises and compromise on taking office.

okie farmer | Jul 8, 2015 6:23:10 AM | 91


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-06/who-biggest-winner-greek-tragedy

Back in June 2012, the ECB, whose head was the recently crowned Mario Draghi who had less than a decade ago worked at none other than Goldman Sachs, was sued by Bloomberg's legendary Mark Pittman under Freedom of Information rules demanding access to two internal papers drafted for the central bank's six-member Executive Board.

They show how Greece used swaps to hide its borrowings, according to a March 3, 2010, note attached to the papers and obtained by Bloomberg News.

The first document is entitled "The impact on government deficit and debt from off-market swaps: the Greek case." The second reviews Titlos Plc, a securitization that allowed National Bank of Greece SA, the country's biggest lender, to exchange swaps on Greek government debt for funding from the ECB, the Executive Board said in the cover note. From Bloomberg:

In the largest derivative transaction disclosed so far, Greece borrowed €2.8 billion from Goldman Sachs in 2001 through a derivative that swapped dollar- and yen-denominated debt issued by the nation for euros using a historical exchange rate, a move that generated an implied reduction in total borrowings.

"The Greek authorities had never informed Eurostat about this complex issue, and no opinion on the accounting treatment had been requested," Eurostat, the Luxembourg-based statistics agency, said in a statement. The watchdog had only "general" discussions with financial institutions over its debt and deficit guidelines when the swap was executed in 2001. "It is possible that Goldman Sachs asked us for general clarifications," Eurostat said, declining to elaborate further.

The ECB's response: "the European Central Bank said it can't release files showing how Greece may have used derivatives to hide its borrowings because disclosure could still inflame the crisis threatening the future of the single currency."

Considering the crisis of the (not so) single currency is very much "inflamed" right now as it is about to be proven it was never "irreversible", perhaps it is time for at least one aspiring, true journalist, unafraid of disturbing the status quo of wealthy oligarchs and central planners, to at least bring some closure to the Greek people as they are swept out of the Eurozone which has so greatly benefited the very same Goldman Sachs whose former lackey is currently deciding the immediate fate of over €100 billion in Greek savings.

Because something tells us the reason why Mario Draghi personally blocked Bloomberg's FOIA into the circumstances surrounding Goldman's structuring, and hiding, of Greek debt that allowed not only Goldman to receive a substantial fee on the transaction, but permitted Greece to enter the Eurozone when it should never have been allowed there in the first place, is that the person who oversaw and personally endorsed the perpetuation of the Greek lie is none other than Goldman's Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International from 2002 to 2005. The man who is also now in charge of the ECB. Mario Draghi.

okie farmer | Jul 8, 2015 6:36:30 AM | 92


okie farmer | Jul 8, 2015 6:36:30 AM | 91

First Lagarde, then Merkel, now Draghi under attack ...

In other news Greece is still able to raise 1.6 billion in treasury bonds. Which incidentally is the sum they refused to pay to ECB.

Athens: Greece on Wednesday raised 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in a sale of 6-month treasury bonds at a rate of 2.97 percent, unchanged from the last issue a month ago, the Greek Debt Agency said.

Such sales occur every month in Greece as part of a rollover of treasury bonds. With further issues to Thursday, the agency aims to raise a total two billion euros in 6-month bills as part of the rollover.

somebody | Jul 8, 2015 7:02:41 AM | 93


fairleft @84: "You're just misrepresenting Black as exactly the opposite ..." You mean as a bad guy instead of a good guy?

It is common for the CEOs of the lenders to agree to lending terms in which the interest rate on the loan is higher than the banks' typical yield on a loan – and for that "spread" still to be grotesquely inadequate relative to the true risks of making the loan. The resultant paradox is that the worse the underwriting (and underwriting is the first foundation of prudent, honest banking), the higher the (fictional) nominal yield, the higher the (falsely) reported profits, and the greater the bonuses to the elite bankers in the near term.

Black's blames the lack of underwriting here, not collateral. The fraudsters used false risk evaluation to set the yields. There is no paradox; it's fraud. He mansplains by complexifying his explanation in order to deflect a more thorough representation. This is a technocratic disease sympathetic to the fraudsters in this way: the fraudsters would claim their instruments were so complex that it was difficult to evaluate the risk. In fact they complexified them in order to mask the risk.

It's not just that fraud is endemic, fraud is a business model. It is a key component of neoliberal political economy. Black fails to represent that adequately, partly because he's busy mansplaining finance.

You say "you're saying neoliberal bankers' secret motivation was to 'attack government'"; this is not what I say. Is this inability to see the obvious akin to psychological denial? The manipulated population do not all understand the objective, some perform their function unconsciously. Some perform it collusively. In this case, the neoliberal attack on government was an outright agenda and, at some level, the tool of fraudulent risk assessment was allied to the goal of drowning the government in a bathtub. Can Black admit such a "conspiracy"?

I recently came upon a term used to describe how conservatives write about left topics, which I don't have at my fingertips. In essence, they slyly denigrate the left criticism. Black's language denigrates the EU bankers (for using old-fashioned mechanisms) when the blame should be laid on the fraudsters, including US fraudsters. If he "argues that the 'control fraud' disease is exacerbated by neoliberalism", he should be acknowledging that the EU was defrauded and that it's banking system was attacked by fraudsters, not deploying bullshit, fair and balanced, technocratic mumbo-jumbo.

The avoidance of strategic analysis makes Black a gatekeeper.

Comrade X | Jul 8, 2015 7:29:23 AM | 94

[Jul 05, 2015] Patriotism Begins With Localism

Jul 05, 2015 | The American Conservative

Responses to Patriotism Begins With Localism


Apolitical, July 3, 2015 at 9:50 am

Dulce et decorum est … to stop believing the "old lie" that appears so promiscuously on Union and Confederate war memorials. If men on all sides always die for country, who puts them up to it?

JonF, July 3, 2015 at 10:44 am

Re: But it is also, crucially, a matter of shared bloodlines, language, history, literature, and cuisine, things that originated long before the time of Rousseau and Voltaire.

At yet France is a glued-together-at-the-seams country too. The whole South of France once spoke a different language, in which the troubadours sang, and which still survives in the local dialects of the inhabitants. Burgundy was once a sovereign and very wealthy duchy whose duke controlled almost the entire Rhineland all the way to the Netherlands. Brittany too was its own nation, albeit torn between France and England. And the English ruled Gascony for 300 years, and were preferred as rulers to the Valois kings so that the Gascons promptly revolted when the French took the land back. The Pope ruled (and for a time dwelt) in Avignon. The Provence was a county of the Holy Roman Empire. Louis XIV knit these disparate lands together by corralling their nobility into velvet captivity at Versailles. The Revolutionaries added an ideology and a national anthem (and spilled the blood of the dissenters) and Napoleon gave the mix a mythology of glory. But the seams are still there under the surface. And indeed, you can find similar fissures in many other European countries too.

Connecticut Farmer, July 3, 2015 at 10:47 am

The concept of a country linked together by a common set of laws was never intended by our revered Founders to be anything more or less than an experiment. An experiment that had never been tried before. Arguably the United States Constitution that was drafted during the height of the Enlightenment and, together with the America's so-called "birth certificate", Jefferson's Declaration, may be considered that era's greatest accomplishment…a little Locke here, a dash of Montesquieu there and…Voila! In that respect "United" States are in no way "united", in the strictest sense of the word, except through the Constitution. And I suspect that is about all the Founders could have hoped for. From the beginning America was– and remains– a culturally Balkanized and, now more than ever, polyglot landmass more reminiscent of pre-World War One Austria-Hungary.

The late Speaker of The House, Tip O'Neill-a Boston Irishman I might add–is reputed to have once said "All politics is local." He got it half right. What he should have said is "All LOYALTY is local". I am also reminded of a line in The Godfather when Sonny Cordleone says to his brother Fredo "Your country ain't your blood".

Patriotism indeed begins on the local level, whether geographical, cultural, familial–or some combination thereof. The author is spot-on.

Gregory, July 3, 2015 at 8:28 pm

That line in Wilfred Owen's poem is supposed to be ironic…

TB, July 3, 2015 at 9:08 pm

"Patriotism Begins With Localism"
_________

I think the last refuge of the scoundrel begins with tribalism fear which, is the cultural anthropologist's way of saying "localism".

Fran Macadam, July 3, 2015 at 11:57 pm

Well written, but full of unexamined assumptions that are more comforting myth than truth.

Like the girls who didn't stay thin, exactly.

"I'd wager that all of us on the roof that night were grateful to live in a place where we can vote, start a business, and express ourselves freely, and grateful towards the ungodly number of young men shot and shredded and killed in our name."

Yet voting's never meant less as policies are completely untethered from public opinion, except as it can be manufactured through what crony capitalism calls PR, more honest oligarchies call propaganda. And participation in voting is a minority activity, meaning real democracy's already given the process a vote of no confidence.

We can express ourselves freely, if we're not among those with proscribed views, but those in charge aren't interested in what we have to say. The main corporate media, the gateways through which most people get their filtered news, prints all the news that fits their status quo interests. No genuinely alternative political opinions that challenge the duopoly establishment are able to be considered, though the corporate donorist class has no solutions to the ill which ail us, except for mendacity. Certainly there have been an ungodly number of young men killed in our name, and an even more ungodly number of foreign civilians of all ages and sexes whom they have killed, also in our name. But truth be told, our name being invoked was our only connection to the purpose of the wars, which wasn't for our interests at all; none of the foreign wars of choice have secured our liberties, only debased them – and violated those of others. Far from making us secure, our very democracy has been endangered by their unaccountable and unconstitutional means, perhaps fatally. Perhaps only the young now can be so deceived, without experience, with heavy student debt focusing their thoughts on more immediate personal concerns, with their docile, untenured instructors carrying their own debt loads, unwilling to intellectually challenge the status quo.

What business will you be grateful to start? In the post-industrial economic desert of America that the donorist elites leveled to keep more of business' rewards for themselves, it's unlikely to be able to provide the stable, well-paying work that manufacturing used to.

I suggest getting another advisor and thesis.

Suggested topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

JEinCA, July 4, 2015 at 3:16 am

I think Pat Buchanan said it best. We're no longer a nation in any traditional sense of the word. We are an economy. The best definition of a nation would be Michael Savage's definition of borders, language and culture but more important than all of this would be religion. Unless a nation has a commonly shared faith it can never truly be one. The Russians know this and that is why the Kremlin has thrown its support behind the Russian Orthodox Church. The West used to know this and that is why Europe was up until this last century identifiably Christian civilization with the biggest differances largely arising from the Catholic-Protestant divide.

For awhile America reflected Christian Europe but now we reflect Babylon and our elites are largely cynical atheists who look down on people of faith. Such a house could have never withstood a Great Depression let alone a Soviet style collapse.

[Jul 05, 2015]The Observer view on Greece's referendum

The EU Parliament has been in the hands of the neocons for a long time.
.
"...Europe and the IMF are trying for regime change in Greece. If they don't get it at the ballot box on Sunday, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a military coup is in the works, aided as always by the CIA"
.
"...This chronology of events is quite selective and somewhat inexact. However I would merely point out the fact that it considers years of dreadfully wrong policies by the troika and the previous greek governmentsp as equivalent to Syrizas six months in power, something that borders on the astonishing. To consider Syriza's choices as irresponsable, inexperienced, etc., is to merely repeat, in a very medíocre fashion Lagarde's imbecile observation about the need for adults in the room. It is therefore quite below the Observer's standards."
Jul 05, 2015 | The Guardian

DarrellKavanagh -> SoberThirdThought 4 Jul 2015 23:49

That the EU and IMF want regime change in Greece is not in doubt: indeed it has been admitted. But a military coup is extremely unlikely - they'll continue to use economic and ideological methods.

DarrellKavanagh -> Peter Locke 4 Jul 2015 23:44

Or a government, which was elected to oppose the quack economic medicine which is acknowledged worldwide to have made things immeasurably worse over the last 5 years, draws some perfectly reasonable conclusions when their supposed partners continue to force more of the same medicine down their throats.

Your pseudo-historical claptrap says more about you than it does about Syriza.

SoberThirdThought -> Peter Locke 4 Jul 2015 23:41

I don't know about "enriching bankers," but the Versaille Treaty was pretty much designed to keep Germany on its knees, humiliated and weak.

SoberThirdThought 4 Jul 2015 23:38

Europe and the IMF are trying for regime change in Greece. If they don't get it at the ballot box on Sunday, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a military coup is in the works, aided as always by the CIA

SocialScienceCritic, 4 Jul 2015 22:48

The choices on the ballot are:

• NO vote: Do you want to negotiate an agreement that allows at least some money to rebuild our country, and then pay our debts with a meaningful fraction of our growth?

• YES vote: Or do you want to go back to EZ sponsored austerity, and hope that you will outlive its severe damage to our country?

(That's if there is any country left after Brussels technocrats run our government and all of our children and anyone with half a brain has emigrated.)

Nobody can force a country out of the EU, much less a pack of appointed bureaucrats. All this IN-OR-OUT talk is a big lie to force a yes vote. Even the latest IMF report is timed to ease Greece into a YES vote.

1. If Greece votes YES, they will put a noose around their own neck. They'll no longer be a news item, "A population starves and freezes to death for the tenth straight year in a row, (because they chose to)." Varoufakis will do something more interesting, and so will I.

2. If Greece votes a resounding NO, democracy is still alive in at least some part of the world. Something will happen where a country picks itself up and starts to work. This is a moment to celebrate and watch with fascination.

3. If Greece is scared and votes 50 - 50%, well that is the power of a democracy in all of our nations, (powerless). Half the people are probably not suffering much from austerity. Some weak agreement will come. At least IMF already called for debt relief, which is a referendum success.

Maybe 150 countries in the world run themselves is some kind of fashion. IS GREECE NUMBER 151? Evidently many writing comments here believe it cannot happen for Greece.

The EZ boys don't have a clue what that plan could be. So far it hasn't worked at gun point for 5 years running. Maybe they could actually take up their guns and revert to the old German plan that was abandoned. They could disassemble everything that can be detached from the earth and send it back to Germany.

That is the effect of what they are doing anyway. The abandoned Greek factories have turned into scrap-iron.

lucianospalleti2 4 Jul 2015 19:48

This chronology of events is quite selective and somewhat inexact. However I would merely point out the fact that it considers years of dreadfully wrong policies by the troika and the previous greek governmentsp as equivalent to Syrizas six months in power, something that borders on the astonishing. To consider Syriza's choices as irresponsable, inexperienced, etc., is to merely repeat, in a very medíocre fashion Lagarde's imbecile observation about the need for adults in the room. It is therefore quite below the Observer's standards.

[Jul 05, 2015] Greeces mass psychology of revolt will survive the financial carpet-bombing

Jul 05, 2015 | The Guardian

...Sunday's referendum will take place under a kind of financial warfare not seen in the history of modern states. The Greek government was forced to close its banks after the European Central Bank, whose job is technically to keep them open, refused to do so. The never-taxed and never-registered broadcasters of Greece did the rest, spreading panic, and intensifying it where it had already taken hold.

When the prime minister made an urgent statement live on the state broadcaster, some rival, private news channels refused to cut to the live feed. Greek credit cards ceased to work abroad. Some airlines cancelled all ticketing arrangements with the country. Some employers laid off their staff. One told them they would be paid only if they turned up at an anti-government demonstration. Martin Schulz, the socialist president of the European parliament, called for the far-left government to be replaced by technocrats. And the Council of Europe declared the referendum undemocratic.

With ATM cash limited to €60 a day, one shopkeeper described the effect on her customers: on day one, panic buying; day two, less buying; day three, terror; day four, frozen. The words you find yourself using in reports, after looking into the eyes of pensioners and young mothers, make the parallel with conflict entirely justified: terror, fear, flight, panic, uncertainty, sleeplessness, anxiety, disorientation.

If the effect was to terrorise the population, it has only half worked. The pollsters are simply finding what Greek political scientists already know: society is divided, deeply and psychologically, between left and right.

The anthropologist David Graeber points out, in his history of debt and debt forgiveness Debt: The First 5,000 Years, that the transaction carries the implicit threat of violence. Debt gives you the power of rightful coercion with all the blame attaching to the victim. But rarely has that power been used as Europe used it against Greece last week. In the 2013 Cypriot crisis, where the EU enforced the seizure of money in people's bank accounts, the government caved in at the first confrontation.

... ... ...

Germany's mistake, in this sense, since 2010, has been its failure to demand a modernised and productive capitalism. It imposed European debt rules via parties who were never prepared to impose the European norms of business and social equity. Indeed, the EU has relied on a local business elite that is often physically absent: happier in Knightsbridge than in its Athenian equivalent.

When Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy overthrew first George Papandreou and then Silvio Berlusconi, they could at least console themselves that it was a political mercy killing. Not many people rioted. And as Sarkozy implied, when he slapped me down at a press conference, this was the European way.

After this week, the narrative of the EU as "imperialist" will blossom in Greece – but true imperialisms imposed order. The outcome here is likely to be very different.

[Jul 04, 2015] Leaders of Europe are shallow people unequipped to cope with a continental problem

All of the are neoliberals. They just don't care... Hillary Clinton and Jeb bush belong to the same category
Jul 04, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

et Al, July 4, 2015 at 9:27 am

Moon of Alabama: Greece: Sane Voices Call For A "No" Vote
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/07/greece-sane-voices-call-for-a-no-vote.html

…James K. Galbraith is right with his description of those leaders:

[T]he leaders of today's Europe are shallow, cloistered people, preoccupied with their local politics and unequipped, morally or intellectually, to cope with a continental problem. This is true of Angela Merkel in Germany, of François Hollande in France, and it is true also of Christine Lagarde at the IMF. In particular North Europe's leaders have not felt the crisis and do not know the economics, and in both respects they are the direct opposite of the Greeks…
####

As always, a voice of sanity and common sense. After bailing out West Germany in the 1960s, when the boot is on the other foot, they seem to have a rather short memory…

[Jul 04, 2015] Yanis Varoufakis accuses creditors of terrorism ahead of Greek referendum

Like any neoliberal country Greece is a divided country with 20% of population representing "fifth column of globalization" and benefiting from it and 80% suffering from it.
.
"...Well that is the rub. Western banks effectively control the cost of credit globally. You either fall into line or you're perpetually behind the curve until you sell all your goods of any value."
.
"...Are you even aware that this is not actually loans that the Greek people got? If I loan money to your corrupt banker and than ask YOU to return it, will you be less offensive?
"

.
"...The 2010 bailout was the one that allowed private French, Dutch and German banks to transfer their liabilities to the Greek public sector, and indirectly to the entire eurozone's public sector. There was no debt restructuring in that deal."
.
"...The loans were made by a cabal of high-financiers in Europe to a cabal of corrupt finianciers in Greece. The game of lending rules are: you bet that the party you lend money to will pay back the loan with interest. Which is what the German banks did, making a profit on the interest for quite some time. But now the high-financiers in Europe have lost the game, i.e. Greece/the-old-displaced-guard-in-Greece can no longer pay them back. That's the financiers problem: not the problem of Greece's normal citizens nor other EU taxpayers! Is that so difficult to understand? Class war for beginners... privatize the profit, socialize the loss."
.
"...The banksters, multi-national corporations and their political lackeys, have engaged in an extend and pretend fantasy which is passing their private debt onto taxpayers across Europe. Once the shoulders of the Greek taxpayer have been broken, it will pass onto the shoulders of the taxpayers from the rest of Europe. God, I want to shake the anti Greek/pro EU lobby to wake them up. Greece, please, please, please vote NO, so we can begin the long process of getting control of Europe out of the hands of these maniacs."
.
"...Without risking depositors' cash, governments had the ability to sit back ready to nationalise any banks whose lending to Greece was so irresponsible that they were unsustainable. This would have wiped out the shareholders and sent a clear message that lending as well as borrowing has to be responsible and that shareholders need to earn their fat returns by exerting oversight.
"

.
"...Yanis Varoufakis has a point. The proposals put by the EU would cause the Greek economy to contract further, this effectively would increase the debt ratio to GDP. Nowhere have I heard any talk on how to build up the Greek economy, it has all been about collecting taxes.

I have also read commentators on here talk about how Greece lied to get into MU, this has a great deal of truth in it, but one must remember the EU knew what a basket case Greece was financially, therefore they are equally complicit in this debacle.

The question has to be why the EU is doing this to Greece, they know their actions will do nothing other than cause more misery in the country. The reason this is happening is to protect German banks. Greece is the domino that could bring the whole system down."
.
"...No, the original package lent to Greece was to bailout Greek and EU banks. The subsequent bailout (to pay for the bailout) is 60% owned/facilitated by EFSF. It raised it through selling bonds, no doubt to financial institutions. So now we're in the bizarre situation of banks befitting from the bailout of banks with the Greek people carrying the can and Europeans (who are liable to honour EFSF bonds+intererst) blaming Greece and defending the banks! "

Jul 04, 2015 | The Guardian

Banksterdebtslave -> conor boyle 4 Jul 2015 11:15

Yes it should have been, by letting the banks go under as per Iceland. Or were too many people (living in vacuums ?) unprepared to deal with the short term pain ? Now it seems the world of people must suffer to service the Banks' bad debt.....what good slaves we are! The Emperor has no clothes!

Duncan Frame -> Brasil13 4 Jul 2015 11:10

Well that is the rub. Western banks effectively control the cost of credit globally. You either fall into line or you're perpetually behind the curve until you sell all your goods of any value.

W61212 -> Brasil13 4 Jul 2015 11:08

Careful what you wish for. From the EC

'In 2013 the EU recorded a trade surplus in goods (more than double the surplus registered in 2012). The EU also has a surplus in commercial services trade.
The EU is the biggest foreign investor in Brazil with investments in many sectors of the Brazilian economy. Around 50% of the FDI flows received by Brazil during the last 5 years originated in the EU.'

This debacle with Greece demonstrates the EU can't run itself and yet it has huge holdings with Brazil and has recently reversed to a trade surplus in to Brazil, a nation with huge natural, industrial and human resources of its own. Brazil exports mainly agricultural and mining products to the EU and imports manufactured products. See the imbalance? Brazil exports primary products and imports finished products made elsewhere and those jobs are elsewhere. See the problem?

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/brazil/

GordonGecko 4 Jul 2015 11:07

There's only one letter difference but choice for the Greeks is to become either the new Ireland (and suffer self-inflicted austerity for decades to come) or the new Iceland (by tearing up the rule book and starting again).

I hope they watch this before voting;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu5sTyAXyAo


usufruct -> Laurelei 4 Jul 2015 11:07

Germans (for the most part) are not Nazis or terrorists, and should not have to take the blame for this crisis. They are, however, dupes, like people living under capitalism everywhere. They are willing to let the international banksters and their political cronies in the European parliament run their lives and create whatever mischief they believe is in their interest.


ToddPalant -> Scaff1 4 Jul 2015 11:06

Tell us suckers then, about how Ukraine, a run down country that was just made worse by regime change. From bad Yanukovich to much worse American puppet and idiot Poroshenko plus a catastrophic war. Tell us about Lybia and bad Qaddafi, who in his life time killed 3-4000 people and the much worse UK-France that caused at least a 100000 dead with their pet invasion at the behest of our friends from across the Atlantic.

May be you need to dust your mirror.


Duncan Frame -> Laurelei 4 Jul 2015 11:05

Terrorists primary aim is to promote fear rather than harm. That's far more effective in getting their way. You close the banks you show the public what you're capable of.

Saaywar Montana -> thisisafix 4 Jul 2015 11:04

Their economies are naff. Spain and Italy are the two countries most likely to join Greece in a new union. Portugal and Ireland are too far gone but Ireland has been rebelling. Once people see a progressive union to compete with the rubbish EU then these countries will gain support for joining a new southern European union.

These countries are not out of the water and won't get out of it either. Austerity will do what it does and the people will rise up. It's inevitable. The EU doesn't have a monopoly on unions lol.

Greece, as did every other country, got left with the bill of the private banking sector. Yes, it was their fault for running a deficit but a significant proportion of the debt owed by the Greek gov is bank bailouts.

It's the same here. The UK paid £700bn to private banks to make sure they didn't fail. The deficit has nothing to do with that. so around 50% of the debt is a mixture or deficit spending and capital investments made by the government.

Robape Laurelei 4 Jul 2015 10:57

Financial terrorists, just interested in the bottom line, not countries.

elcomm W61212 4 Jul 2015 10:56

When fascist governments get in trouble at home they start wars to distract people. It's not that far out.

Duncan Frame Laurelei 4 Jul 2015 10:56

Yes everything's exceptional. 2008 was the biggest economic collapse since the great depression. And Greece was the most exposed country. No difference.

Alfie Silva karlmiltonkeynes 4 Jul 2015 10:55

My mistake, I thought you were intelligent.

It is common knowledge that only around 10% of bailout monies went to the real economy. You are correct indeed in that creditors got a haircut, mainly hedgefunds and most foreign banks by 2015 had reduced their exposure to Greece. The issue today is sovereign debt. Do you realise that sovereign debt is the senior collatoral for Eurozone banks?

So we are back to banks again Mr Banker.

Duncan Frame ID13579 4 Jul 2015 10:53

I don't have to excuse giving voice to the victims of those in power to you or anyone else. And it seems to me Tsipras is taking the same line. You confuse the Greek people with the people who actually profited from that debt. Why should they be forced to starve on the back of decisions over which they had influence?


usufruct -> HoorayHenrietta 4 Jul 2015 10:44

Like Americans and most other people around the globe, the German people have allowed the international banks to pull the wool over their eyes. There is no reason for taxpayers to bail out the banks as we are still doing here in the U.S. For the past six years my wife and I have been paying down mortgages on real estate hoping to reestablish equity in properties whose value was gutted by cavalier banksters on Wall Steet. A few clicks to gamble away the hard work of millions! These people should be arrested and tried for their crimes. In a fair court they would be sent away for life.


Chris Hindle 4 Jul 2015 10:42

'Yanis Varoufakis accuses creditors of terrorism.'

So what is wrong with that? Financial terrorism is a much more protracted and painful process to the victims than sudden violence, but the end result is the same.

The Vermin Who Would Be Kings have discovered they no longer need the fuss and expense of maintaining a standing army of occupation, far simpler to get countries/continents/ the world in deep debt (via bent politicians making private bankster debt into sovereign debt - just like they did in Greece ) and exert control through that.

BTW the UK has some £9 trillion in foreign debt (much of which is the bad debts of the City - and the highest of any stand-alone country on earth) So now you know what next months austerity drive is all about

InjunJoe -> degardiyen 4 Jul 2015 10:24

The "slovakian tax payer" will not be paying to maintain the Greek standard of living,
but to shore up the ECB, the IMF and the private lenders to Greek banks, as 90% of the "bail-out" goes to serving interest. Haven't you been reading the news?

Duncan Frame -> karlmiltonkeynes 4 Jul 2015 10:20

That's weird because at the same time the banks collapsed in 2008 the deficit went up from 57% to 82%, lots of people lost their jobs or had to take pay cuts. I'm sure it was just a coincidence.

LeftToWrite -> ID6487190 4 Jul 2015 10:17

Yeah the EU has shown itself to want a compromise. All those nice compromised offers it made. Yep we all remember those.

Compromise means both sides giving ground, not one side accepting everything the other demands. Use a dictionary next time.

For once a nation is standing up to EU bullying and we have ignorant fools like you turning it the other way in an attempt to change the narrative.

LeftToWrite 4 Jul 2015 10:11

How can the Troika have fucked up this badly? It seems they forgot that Greece is actually a construct that represents the people who live there, and you can't just impose misery after misery on a people without expecting them to finally have enough. Even if they vote yes, all it does is postpone that that time when they will have had enough.

Honestly, this has shown the true greed at the hearts of Merkel et al, and by extension the people they represent. Save the French and German banks, fuck over the Greek people. If people think anti German rhetoric in Greece is extreme now, decades of resentment is about to follow.


שוקי גלילי Steve Collins 4 Jul 2015 10:09

You probably meant to say "when you ask for it back from someone ELSE, who didn't actually get your money". Are you even aware that this is not actually loans that the Greek people got? If I loan money to your corrupt banker and than ask YOU to return it, will you be less offensive?

-> dniviE 4 Jul 2015 10:06

01

Sorry: its Wednesday 8th, I wrote Tuesday ;-))

email from Green Party Brussels office.
TTIP and ISDS - Call to action by Keith Taylor MEP!

Breaking news! We've just been informed that the postponed vote on the European Parliament resolution on TTIP has been put on the agenda for Wednesday 8th July.

MEPs will be voting on the resolution as a whole, but also on a whole array of amendments to the text.
Among these is a compromise amendment on the investor-state dispute mechanism, or ISDS. The compromise amendment suggests replacing ISDS courts with some kind of 'new' system, but there is no further explanation or details. As long as there is any system in place for investors to sue governments, as the compromise calls for, it is still ISDS. The fact that the Parliament's President is trying to spin this as something different by giving it a new name does not change anything.


The compromise amendment has been agreed by the largest groups in the European Parliament: the centre-left Socialists & Democrats (which includes the UK's Labour MEPs), the centre-right European People's Party, and the European Conservatives and Reformists group (which includes the UK's Conservative MEPs) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (which includes the UK's Liberal Democrat MEP).

On Wednesday, all MEPs will get a chance to vote on this amendment and the resolution as a whole.

The Greens are calling on citizens, trade unions, NGOs, towns and regions and businesses to speak out and contact their elected representatives and hold them to account on this attempt to privatise justice and infringe democratic rights.

How you can help
This is our last chance to make sure that damaging ISDS provisions are not given the green light by the European Parliament. MEPs need to know the full force of public opinion on this threat to our national laws and our democratic rights.
Contact your other MEPs before Wednesday asking them to oppose TTIP and the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).
- use Write To Them to email your MEPs directly with your own concerns
- use the 38 Degrees campaign to send a quick template email
- call your MEPs in Brussels to let them the reasons you're opposed
- spread the word! Share your concerns on social media, tweet your MEPs, encourage your friends and family to contact their MEPs, use Greens/EFA resources to campaign.
Message from Keith

"I've been extremely heartened to receive so many emails from constituents voicing their opposition to ISDS and the TTIP proposals in the last few weeks. It's clear that there's a powerful and growing democratic movement to protect our laws, our public services and our regulatory standards from potential devastation.

The decision to postpone the vote on TTIP earlier in the month stinks of political parties running scared of the huge public opposition to TTIP.

TTIP represents a monumental power grab by corporations and it must be stopped in its tracks.

The sudden re-scheduling of this vote means we are now short on time to make our voices heard. The Greens need all the help we can get to spread the word and put pressure on other MEPs to do the right thing and represent the views and interests of their constituents."
You can keep up-to-date with the Greens/EFA campaign and what the Greens are doing in the European Parliament via their TTIP campaign website and their twitter feed.

Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,


LeftToWrite ID105467 4 Jul 2015 10:14

To bail out German banks, get your facts straight before posting nonsense.

Kalandar 4 Jul 2015 10:14

Propoganda galore from the mainstream media but its fooling no one, except perhaps themselves.

ID345543 4 Jul 2015 10:04

This Is Why The Euro Is Finished

The 2010 bailout was the one that allowed private French, Dutch and German banks to transfer their liabilities to the Greek public sector, and indirectly to the entire eurozone's public sector. There was no debt restructuring in that deal.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-04/why-euro-finished

Ninetto owl905 4 Jul 2015 10:03

The loans were made by a cabal of high-financiers in Europe to a cabal of corrupt finianciers in Greece. The game of lending rules are: you bet that the party you lend money to will pay back the loan with interest. Which is what the German banks did, making a profit on the interest for quite some time. But now the high-financiers in Europe have lost the game, i.e. Greece/the-old-displaced-guard-in-Greece can no longer pay them back. That's the financiers problem: not the problem of Greece's normal citizens nor other EU taxpayers! Is that so difficult to understand? Class war for beginners... privatize the profit, socialize the loss.

NeverNotHereTV gsxsure 4 Jul 2015 09:59

Syriza does not want "free money". They want a fraction put toward economic growth, and then payments as a meaningful fraction of that growth. It is simple enough.

Alfie Silva 4 Jul 2015 09:50

Please can anyone explain to me why we are letting the bankster cabal turn European against European?

The banksters, multi-national corporations and their political lackeys, have engaged in an extend and pretend fantasy which is passing their private debt onto taxpayers across Europe. Once the shoulders of the Greek taxpayer have been broken, it will pass onto the shoulders of the taxpayers from the rest of Europe. God, I want to shake the anti Greek/pro EU lobby to wake them up. Greece, please, please, please vote NO, so we can begin the long process of getting control of Europe out of the hands of these maniacs.

Finnbolt 4 Jul 2015 09:49

"Debt relief was "politically highly toxic for many eurozone member states"."

Here you have the problem. The creditor state governments are responsible to their voters and many have said that their taxpayers will not finance the Greeks and money lent will be paid back in full.

Syriza says they have a mandate from the Greek people to force other euro countries to continue financing them and take a haircut. In other words, lose most of the money lent to Greece.

EU is a collection of nation states with pretensions of a federation. One of the pretensions about to be busted is a transfer union, meaning taxpayers in richer countries tranferring part of their wealth to poorer countries.


APSAPS 4 Jul 2015 09:49

A $22.6 billion International Monetary Fund and World Bank financial package was approved on 13 July 1998 to support reforms and stabilize the Russian market. Despite the bailout, July 1998 monthly interest payments on Russia's debt rose to a figure 40 percent higher than its monthly tax collections. Additionally, on 15 July 1998, the State Duma dominated by left-wing parties refused to adopt most of the government anti-crisis plan so that the government was forced to rely on presidential decrees. On 17 August 1998, the Russian government devalued the ruble, defaulted on domestic debt, and declared a moratorium on payment to foreign creditors. It was later revealed that about $5 billion of the international loans provided by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were stolen upon the funds' arrival in Russia on the eve of the meltdown.

Sounds very similar.

Oh, wait, maybe some referendum could have helped?


Insomnijazz hertsman 4 Jul 2015 09:48

Nah - these are just lies for the gullible to swallow.

Without risking depositors' cash, governments had the ability to sit back ready to nationalise any banks whose lending to Greece was so irresponsible that they were unsustainable. This would have wiped out the shareholders and sent a clear message that lending as well as borrowing has to be responsible and that shareholders need to earn their fat returns by exerting oversight.

Instead they chose the worst option: bailing out the bank shareholders by assuming responsibility for their risky lending, but refusing to then pay the price for their political cowardice and shifting the blame onto a largely guiltless Greek population which has already suffered hugely from the economic devastation.


Brent1023 4 Jul 2015 09:46

Debt relief not on the table.
It comes down to the Greek people or the banksters. Who needs a bailout more?
The EU has sided with the banksters.
Not just in Greece but in Ireland, Spain, Portugal.
Only Iceland was able to force banksters to swallow their losses.
Everywhere else bankster fraud was rewarded with a 100% bailout.
Should be renamed the European Bankster Union.
Surprising that the UK does not want it - it also bailed out its banksters.

NWObserver sunnytimes 4 Jul 2015 09:39

The creditors are not looking to get their money back. Debt is the leverage being used to destroy the social and public infrastructure in the country.

So their worst nightmare is Greeks voting 'No', staying in default and surviving or prospering while remaining in the Eurozone. Then they will not be able to use the same fear tactics against another EZ country. They are psychopaths out to destroy, not creditors looking to get their money. So if Greeks vote 'No' , they will spare no effort to destroy Greece, beginning with the continuation of the liquidity freeze. However, there are some simple steps that Greece can take to end the liquidity freeze and I think they have already taken them.

Gottaloveit 4 Jul 2015 09:28

Read this article from 2010 by Michael Lewis and get a glimpse of what a mess Greece is
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010
The people of Greece are not finished paying penance yet

W61212 Fritz72 4 Jul 2015 09:28

Albrecht Ritschl: During the past century alone, though, at least three times. After the first default during the 1930s, the US gave Germany a "haircut" in 1953, reducing its debt problem to practically nothing. Germany has been in a very good position ever since, even as other Europeans were forced to endure the burdens of World War II and the consequences of the German occupation. Germany even had a period of non-payment in 1990....but we were also extremely reckless -- and our export industry has thrived on orders. The anti-Greek sentiment that is widespread in many German media outlets is highly dangerous. And we are sitting in a glass house: Germany's resurgence has only been possible through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War II victims.'

Enough said now?

W61212 hhnheim 4 Jul 2015 09:21

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/economic-historian-germany-was-biggest-debt-transgressor-of-20th-century-a-769703.html


North2011 kizbot 4 Jul 2015 09:04

Don't worry. The nappy business is doing well in Brussels...
EU sources: possible extra Eurogroup on Monday and EU leaders Summit on Wednesday #Greferendum via GR media http://www.dimokratiki.gr/04-07-2015/pithano-ektakto-eurogroup-ti-deftera-ke-sinodos-korifis-tin-tetarti/ …
They are pissing in their pants the lot of them...


rafela Bogoas81 4 Jul 2015 09:00

Austerity didnt work. In the last five years the economy shrinked by 19%. Unemployment rose to 27%. Tsipras wanted more debt relief. The IMF report sustain that an improvement is impossible without debt relief.


sunnytimes 4 Jul 2015 08:58

German people are industrious and inventive. They play by the rules. Unfortunately they are also rather naive and believe generally what the state tells them. In history the role of such people has always been to pay the bills.


GuillotinesRUs 4 Jul 2015 08:45

Yanis Varoufakis has a point. The proposals put by the EU would cause the Greek economy to contract further, this effectively would increase the debt ratio to GDP. Nowhere have I heard any talk on how to build up the Greek economy, it has all been about collecting taxes.

I have also read commentators on here talk about how Greece lied to get into MU, this has a great deal of truth in it, but one must remember the EU knew what a basket case Greece was financially, therefore they are equally complicit in this debacle.

The question has to be why the EU is doing this to Greece, they know their actions will do nothing other than cause more misery in the country. The reason this is happening is to protect German banks. Greece is the domino that could bring the whole system down.

U77777 -> CassiusClay 4 Jul 2015 08:40

Austerity isn't the answer - but when you have put yourself into the situation that the Greeks have, it is part of the solution. A small part and nothing like the media like to portray, but something has got to give.

As for electing Tsipras and varoufakis......Seriously, stop drinking. They're a bunch of cowboys with some well intended principles and a load of rather deluded ideas. Worse still, neither of them have actually come up with anything like a constructive plan how to stimulate the economy and help Greece stand on its own 2 feet again


Dimitris Chloupis -> sylvester 4 Jul 2015 08:39

Any sensible Greek realizes without deep reforms no economy is going forward. This is not even debatable in my country. We already reduced public sector by 500.000 employes thats a juicy 50%. High pensions of the past are long gone. The result is that now it costs 6 billion to pay for wages in public sector and another 5 billion to pay for pension, total 10 billion. But we need another 10 billion for paying back loans each year. This year alone we paid back 25 billion !!!

Tax evasion should be our next focus, its not reasonable for an economy that makes 200 billions per year to need loans . There is a will to fix all that, because the alternative is far worse.

Of course the same can be said about Germany , why a country that make 3.1 trillion euros per year has a 80% debt ? Tax evasion of course ;) Time to open those swish bank accounts , but does Germany want that ? How many vested Greek interest are connected with German vested interest ?

Denying corruption is to deny the foundation of modern economies.

W61212 -> RussBrown 4 Jul 2015 08:39

I made a point earlier about the birth of a new Brussels based dictatorship which controls all EZ 'national governments', which are national governments by name only, ergo Syriza has to go for straying from the script. Brussels has already proven it would rather deal with corrupt Greek politicians by doing so in the past

Continent Renato -> Timotheus 4 Jul 2015 08:37

Inequality of opportunity in the Eurozone is now so great -- young people in Greece have an unemployment level of 60% and the rate is 33% in the austerity "success story" of Portugal

The systems are different. Northern countries have the dual education system, i.e. only about 10 p.c. of the youth go to college/university, and 90 p.c. go through a 3 or 4 year education "learning by doing".

In addition, the "dirty work" in Greece (farming/harvest/construction) is done by temporary migrants from Macedonia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria because the Greek parents wanted their children to have a better life and sent them to universities without an employment market for so many acdemics. Many of them land in a job with in the bloated govt.

sunnytimes 4 Jul 2015 08:36

The true parasites are the bond markets of London and New York. The create nothing. All they do is swap pieces of paper with ech other all day long, skimming every transaction. The UK and US have run trade deficits or decades, that is by definition they produce less than they consume. Time to tear down this edifice of debt and get back to a capital-based economy.

LeftOrRightSameShite FOARP 4 Jul 2015 08:35

Greece already has been bailed out

No, the original package lent to Greece was to bailout Greek and EU banks. The subsequent bailout (to pay for the bailout) is 60% owned/facilitated by EFSF. It raised it through selling bonds, no doubt to financial institutions. So now we're in the bizarre situation of banks befitting from the bailout of banks with the Greek people carrying the can and Europeans (who are liable to honour EFSF bonds+intererst) blaming Greece and defending the banks!

Bit thick really innit!

RussBrown 4 Jul 2015 08:35

Myth 1 - Greece do nothing to solve the problem (they have had years of austerity)

Myth 2 - Germany is bailing out the Greeks. The money that goes to Greece goes straight back into the German Banks. But by making it impossible for business to run in Greece the businesses move their resources to Germany and pay taxes their in a massive transfer of wealth from a poor EU country to the richest. This is a capitalist scam and all of lot on here shouting their propaganda should be ashamed of yourselves. The rich bankers are using you to justify the destruction of the poor!

[Jul 03, 2015] Greek referendum: how would top economists vote?

Jul 11, 2015 | theguardian.com

The Greek government is urging a no vote in Sunday's bailout referendum. Eurozone leaders say vote yes

Greeks go to the polls on Sunday to vote on whether to accept the bailout programme proposed by international lenders that would restart financial aid in exchange for further austerity and economic reform.

The government is urging people to vote no, with the finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, saying it is time to end years of rolling over Greece's bailouts and "pretending" its debts can be repaid.

But Eurozone leaders have insisted that if Greece votes no, it will be saying goodbye to the euro. Two former Greek prime ministers, Kostas Karamanlis and Antonis Samaras, both of the centre-right New Democracy party, are urging a yes vote, saying that a return to the drachma would kill the Greek economy.

So how do top economists say they would vote - and why?

Joseph Stiglitz - NO

Nobel laureate in economics and professor at Columbia University

Stiglitz has decried the economics behind the international creditors' programme for Greece as "abysmal". "I can think of no depression, ever, that has been so deliberate and had such catastrophic consequences," he wrote this week.

He says it is hard to advise Greeks how to vote on 5 July, given both options carry "huge risks". But it is clear the Nobel laureate himself would vote no:

A no vote would at least open the possibility that Greece, with its strong democratic tradition, might grasp its destiny in its own hands. Greeks might gain the opportunity to shape a future that, though perhaps not as prosperous as the past, is far more hopeful than the unconscionable torture of the present.
Paul Krugman - NO

Nobel prize-winning US economist

"I would vote no, for two reasons," Krugman wrote in the New York Times.

Firstly, thinks Krugman, the troika of international lenders – the entity consisting of the European commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – is effectively demanding that the policy regime of the past five years be continued indefinitely: "Where is the hope in that?"

Secondly, the political implications of a yes vote would be "deeply troubling", he says.

The troika clearly did a reverse Corleone – they made Tsipras an offer he can't accept, and presumably did this knowingly. So the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don't like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals.
Thomas Piketty - NO

Professor at the Paris School of Economics and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Piketty has joined other economists in calling for Greece's heavy debt burden to be restructured and says Greeks should vote no. In an interview with the French broadcaster BFMTV he described the deal proposed by creditors as "bad". He also warned that expelling Greece from Europe would push it into the arms of Russia.

It's a complicated choice. The question being asked is whether the plan from the creditors is good or not. If that is the question being asked, the answer for me is clear: it is a bad plan.
Jeffrey Sachs - NO

Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of The Price of Civilization

Sachs sees a way out of the crisis if Greece's debt burden is eased while keeping the country in the eurozone. For that to happen Greece and Germany need to come to a "rapprochement" soon after the referendum and agree to a package of economic reforms and debt relief, he wrote on Project Syndicate. But first Greeks must vote against international creditors' proposals .

I recommend that the Greek people give a resounding "No" to the creditors in the referendum on their demands this weekend.

... ... ...

Professors of economics at Greek universities - YES

In an open letter, 246 professors at economics schools and universities in Greece urged people to vote yes on Sunday or risk leaving the EU.

Taking into account that the proposals of our creditors and the Greek government were converging until last Friday, we believe that what is really at stake in the coming referendum, irrespective of the precise formulation of the question, is whether Greece will remain, or not, in the eurozone and, possibly, whether it will remain in the EU itself...

Leaving the eurozone, especially in this chaotic and superficial way, would likely lead to a process of leaving the EU too, with unpredictable and disastrous consequences for the national security and the democratic stability of our country.

[Jul 01, 2015]Syriza can't just cave in. Europe's elites want regime change in Greece

"...But it has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with a dysfunctional currency union, a destructive neoliberal economic model enforced by treaty and an austerity regime maintained to ensure a return to profitability on corporate terms."
.
"...No, I think Berlin and Brussels are behaving abominably, not so much in terms of what is decided, but, as Pope Francis implied (there you are) without any consideration for the dignity of the Greek people. Shaming, blaming, demonizing, threatening, giving the cold shoulder, to a small marginal country who is supposedly part of your union."
.
"...I am against Syriza mate, but many commentors ignore the socioeconomic impact on the Greek population and simplify or generalize things. Syriza is in power the past 3 or 5 months. The previous gov were in power since 1974. Two parties, two families. Nepotism in politics is strong. "
.
"...Seamus is correct in his analysis. What is happening in Greece is akin to Democratic asphyxiation by financial means. And those of us that believe in basic Democracy should be standing with Syriza and the Greek people at this time. Neo-liberal dogma was always ugly. It's practical application is even uglier. This will have serious implications for the Left in Europe as a whole but more imminently for the British referendum vote due pretty soon."
.
"...After all, based on a leak of series of emails , Greek government was strictly following the instructions of Troika during the past 5 years. "
.
"...we wouldn't be having this conversation if the private companies that lent money to Greece had been made to eat their own losses.

But then neoliberalism isn't capitalism, not in the traditional sense. As has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, neoliberals magically turn into socialists at the drop of a hat. Gains privatised, losses socialised. In other words, they use the power of the state to collect economic rents. To call this sure thing investing or risk-taking is pure propaganda.
"

.
"...I agree the EU élites are out to topple Syriza. The invective against Tsipras and ruthless shut down of bank support to strike fear in the population show that clearly enough. Syriza is a mortal threat to the noe-liberal order. I don't agree that Syriza is innocent in this drama, though. Its crisis management has been abysmal. They know, or should, what is coming. when they threaten the EU élites."
.
"...This is a clash of ideologies. It's obvious if you listen to the spokepersons of Syriza and the Left compared with the clapped out so-called politicians of ND and the Right. The Greeks and the Spanish are the only countries where there's a popular moblisation against the robber barons who created the crisis and are continuing to profit from the consequences. The left have been emasculated throughout Europe "
.
"...My fear is that Syriza has lost the momentum, they have been unable to make the subject what it should be, Neoliberal ideological economics. The fear mongering and the bank run neatly engineered by Draghi and now the threat of shutting down the entire banking system - I'd be scared too. That's hardball politics - but the main thing is people obey authority and the EU has authority as far as the Greek people are concerned and they will back them into their very own graves."
.
"...Don't forget they are beyond the Great Depression now in terms of the economic catastrophe. Population has been sliding since 2010."
.
"...Greeks elected Syriza out of desperation. The rest is just the usual anti-left cliches, not that there's anything wrong with anti-left, however your understanding of the situation would be greatly enhanced if you spent a minute Googling origins of this crisis. Perhaps EU/EZ is a bit complex for you."
.
"...The reason why the Troika objected to increases in certain taxes as part of Greece's economic plans is twofold: (i) due to this historical lack of tax collection, increased revenue projections based on increased taxes would be almost entirely illusory, and (ii) they targeted weak industries that Greece needs to prosper and grow, and risked making Greece's economic situation worse. Many of the larger and stronger of these multinational industries also had the capability of simply leaving Greece. Tsipras refused to discuss sources of real and easy tax revenue, like tourism on the Greek islands. "
.
"...This is another round of banking bailouts using public money, cynically misnamed as bailing out Greece. The troika need to launder the money through Greece to give to the banks. Greece get to keep a very small percent for their troubles and taking more blame than they should."
.
"..."Europe is not under obligation to Greece" is nonsense. If Greece is a member state then EU is indeed under obligation to support it, and it should do this effectively. It should not carry out a policy that undermines its economy. Even if EU officials do not do this out of principles, they should to do it to avoid loosing the support of the EU project."
.
"...The preliminary report of the Greek debt investigation (yes, there is one) will be out shortly. From what I've read, much of the debt went to Greek banks and their foreign partners that indulged in an aggressive loaning orgy and created a debt bubble inside the Greek economy. The banks were recapitalised during the bailout with €80bn of state money that ended up as sovereign debt."
.
"...I had thought that Angie, Wolfie and Christine were perhaps just inept, but now I'm afraid they may be executing a well laid plan. Perhaps they want to form a new entity: The People's Neo-liberal Puppy Republic Of Greece. The steps: Blame all others; extort impossible amounts of invented "debts";people who oppose you are labeled as traitors; prioritize German and French banks so they can be saved from their own shitstorm and nationalize (i.e. charge the ordinary punter) all the fantasy cash that no-one's ever seen; call a national emergency and impose martial law. Next is destroy all opposition and hand everything over to private industry. A week ago, this would be very far-fetched, but now??"

Jul 01, 2015 | The Guardian

It's now clear that Germany and Europe's powers that be don't just want the Greek government to bend the knee. They want regime change. Not by military force, of course – this operation is being directed from Berlin and Brussels, rather than Washington.

But that the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the troika of Greece's European and International Monetary Fund creditors are out to remove the elected government in Athens now seems beyond serious doubt. . Everything they have done in recent weeks in relation to the leftist Syriza administraton, elected to turn the tide of austerity, appears designed to divide or discredit Alexis Tsipras's government.

They were at it again today, when Tsipras offered what looked like almost complete acceptance of the austerity package he had called a referendum on this Sunday. There could be no talks, Merkel responded, until the ballot had taken place.

There's no suggestion of genuine compromise. The aim is apparently to humiliate Tsipras and his government in preparation for its early replacement with a more pliable administration. We know from the IMF documents prepared for last week's "final proposals" and reported in the Guardian that the creditors were fully aware they meant unsustainable levels of debt and self-defeating austerity for Greece until at least 2030, even on the most fancifully optimistic scenario.

That's because, just as the bailouts went to the banks not the country, and troika-imposed austerity has brought penury and a debt explosion, these demands are really about power, not money. If they are successful in forcing Tsipras out of office, a slightly less destructive package could then be offered to a more house-trained Greek leader who replaced him.

Hence the European Central Bank's decision to switch off emergency funding of Greece's banks after Tsipras called the referendum on an austerity scheme he had described as blackmail. That was what triggered the bank closures and capital controls, which have taken Greece's crisis to a new level this week as it became the first developed country to default on an IMF loan.

The EU authorities have a deep aversion to referendums, and countries are routinely persuaded to hold them again if they give the wrong answer. The vote planned in Greece is no exception. A barrage of threats and scaremongering was unleashed as soon as it was called.

One European leader after another warned Greeks to ignore their government and vote yes – or be forced out of the eurozone, with dire consequences. Already the class nature of the divide between the the wealthier yes and more working-class no camps is stark. The troika's hope seems to be that if Tsipras is defeated by fear of chaos, Syriza will split or be forced from office in short order. The euro elite insists it is representing the interests of Portuguese or Irish taxpayers who have to pick up the bill for bailing out the feckless Greeks – or will be enraged by any debt forgiveness when they have been forced to swallow similar medicine. The reality is the other way round.

... ... ...

Tsipras and Syriza's determination to stay in the eurozone come what may has seriously weakened Greece's hand. The economic dislocation of jumping off the euro train would doubtless be severe in the short term, though the costs of permanent austerity would almost certainly be greater thereafter.

But Syriza insiders say there is little preparation for what anyway may be forced on them. The relentless pressure of the EU bureaucracy demands a strong and clear-headed response. Right now, for example, that means the Athens government immediately taking control of its banks, currently shutting down all transactions.

The worst outcome of this crisis would be for Syriza to implement the austerity it was elected to end. A yes vote in next weekend's referendum, , if it goes ahead, would probably lead to the government's fall, and almost certainly new elections.

Papistpal rredge 1 Jul 2015 21:21

"Implicit in your argument"

Always a ploy of course, when you find implicit, tacit, implied arguments in someone else's thought, and then argue with it. No, I am not saying anything about the money.
No, I think Berlin and Brussels are behaving abominably, not so much in terms of what is decided, but, as Pope Francis implied (there you are) without any consideration for the dignity of the Greek people. Shaming, blaming, demonizing, threatening, giving the cold shoulder, to a small marginal country who is supposedly part of your union. There is NO excuse for your behavior

Ritoras Tijger 1 Jul 2015 20:57

I am against Syriza mate, but many commentors ignore the socioeconomic impact on the Greek population and simplify or generalize things. Syriza is in power the past 3 or 5 months. The previous gov were in power since 1974. Two parties, two families. Nepotism in politics is strong.

As said, because none answers your question that doesn't mean no is the answer.

Be open minded and less emotional. Few of the questions you ask you can google them and share the findings with us. That will be more convincing!

peekaboo -> summicron 1 Jul 2015 20:54

The public in the 18 countries have not been consulted. Critical decisions affecting all other members need direct approval. In fact referendums have almost never been held for EU membership in candidate countries.

ineluctable2u -> tsimshatsui 1 Jul 2015 20:50

That's naive. Merkel is only making the Greek people suffer now in the hope that they will lose their will and vote yes. This is ruthless politics by the troika and Merkel in particular.

martyc73 -> Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 1 Jul 2015 20:49

The North is a diversion - it cant raise taxes and relies on subvention from the British State etc and you know this so don't be using that as an argument. The bank guarantee was also sold in a totally different way to what was rolled out subsequently. And you know this too. Hums and Haws???

Seamus is correct in his analysis. What is happening in Greece is akin to Democratic asphyxiation by financial means. And those of us that believe in basic Democracy should be standing with Syriza and the Greek people at this time. Neo-liberal dogma was always ugly. It's practical application is even uglier. This will have serious implications for the Left in Europe as a whole but more imminently for the British referendum vote due pretty soon.

Ritoras Tijger 1 Jul 2015 20:46

Bud, first of all you repeat you you you, it is very instructional, chill. Bravo to you as well for making so focussed comments. I mean it even though you put all the fault on the Greek gov.. Don't see you challenging yourself enough? Are the rest of stakeholders here perfect?

But, how do you know what Greece has done and what not?

Why the Troika have not reacted the same and with the same persistence as it does now during the last 5 years to correct the direction of travel? You're 100% right about the Lagarde list. The ministers who did not do nothing are in trials now.. However, I was in fact hoping that the Troika could play a more active role in this and exercise influence to clear corruption. After all, based on a leak of series of emails , Greek government was strictly following the instructions of Troika during the past 5 years.

About the military expenses. I like defense and the military in fact. But! In a recession, the Troika should have first said, save money there to invest in sectors like healthcare, education etc. After all, Greece is very well equipped and supposedly is backed up by NATO allies.

calsation miceonparade 1 Jul 2015 20:43

I must say I enjoyed your takedown of oldships immensely. It seems he doesn't realise we wouldn't be having this conversation if the private companies that lent money to Greece had been made to eat their own losses.

But then neoliberalism isn't capitalism, not in the traditional sense. As has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, neoliberals magically turn into socialists at the drop of a hat. Gains privatised, losses socialised. In other words, they use the power of the state to collect economic rents. To call this sure thing investing or risk-taking is pure propaganda.

Papistpal 1 Jul 2015 20:40

Never thought I'd agree with you, but I have to say, from this American capitalist perspective, Berlin and Brussels have no sense of fair play and no respect for democracy. How can the EU call itself a democracy if Germany has a veto because it has the big bucks. The US, I admit, would like to do something similar, but we are constrained by maintaining at least some vestige of democratic practice and sensibility. What is with the moralism, anyway. "Greece is wrong, so we get to do whatever we want to them." Moralistic platitudes are not policy statements. Damn Merkel to hell


TheNerveInstitute 1 Jul 2015 20:36

Greeks must not cave in. This is interesting !

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14132

lawrenceab 1 Jul 2015 20:29

I agree the EU élites are out to topple Syriza. The invective against Tsipras and ruthless shut down of bank support to strike fear in the population show that clearly enough. Syriza is a mortal threat to the noe-liberal order.

I don't agree that Syriza is innocent in this drama, though. Its crisis management has been abysmal. They know, or should, what is coming. when they threaten the EU élites. Why for instance did they not impose capital controls the very first weekend after coming to power?? The the country could have put up its defenses at a time of its own choosing, husbanded its resources while negotiating - paid the IMF, keep banks open during this crucial referendum week. You don't negotiate with 17 adversaries who all want to crush you, with one hand tied behind your back and € billions flowing out weekly. In three months you are on the floor.


castalla 1 Jul 2015 20:17

This is a clash of ideologies. It's obvious if you listen to the spokepersons of Syriza and the Left compared with the clapped out so-called politicians of ND and the Right. The Greeks and the Spanish are the only countries where there's a popular moblisation against the robber barons who created the crisis and are continuing to profit from the consequences. The left have been emasculated throughout Europe ... let's hope the OXI vote wins the day and Syriza gets a mandate to argue for a restructure of the debt programme.

someoneionceknew -> FactPatrol 1 Jul 2015 20:10

The – European Social Model – is built on the fundamental principles built into Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC):

… promotion of employment, improved living and working conditions … proper social protection, dialogue between management and labour, the development of human resources with a view to lasting high employment and the combating of exclusion.

It combines with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to define an "underlying principle is one of solidarity and cohesion: that economic growth must serve to boost overall social wellbeing, and not take place at the expense of any section of society".

The ILO book says that while "there is no official definition of the European Social Model" there is a long history of practice and dialogue that allows one to map out the main characteristics.

The ILO define "six main pillars":

1. "Increased Minimum Rights on Working Conditions".

2. "Universal and Sustainable Social Protection Systems".

3. "Inclusive Labour Markets".

4. "Strong and Well-Functioning Social Dialogue".

5. "Public Services and Services of General Interest".

6. "Social Inclusion and Social Cohesion".

miceonparade -> Exodus20 1 Jul 2015 20:08

Remember what Greece were like before joining the euro, in the 1990's?

Greece in the 1990s did not have 30% unemployment or 60% youth unemployment or a depression. Things can only begin to get better after exiting the euro and reclaiming fiscal sovereignty which can be used to put Greek people back to work.

someoneionceknew FactPatrol 1 Jul 2015 20:07

The European Social Model in Crisis: Is Europe losing its soul?

PDF 52 page precis.

while the European Social Model may have been called into question here and there before the crisis, the list of changes in most elements and pillars of the European Social Model since the crisis is formidable. While there are a few exceptions … all other trends show a general withdrawal of the state from social policy, first through massive cuts in social expenditure and reduced funding of education, health care and other public services, and second through radical reforms in a number of areas, such as social dialogue, social protection, pensions, labour market and social cohesion in general …

the changes are particularly severe in those countries that implemented an austerity package under the direct influence of the Troika …


Hill0fBeans sjorsnotmine 1 Jul 2015 20:05

There are no poor Greeks in Greece any more...

You're a disgrace. Instead of trolling, read some facts every now and then.

- like the 4 out of 10 Greek children living beneath the poverty line

- or 44.8% of pensioners living on less than 665 euros/month

- or the 27% unemployed

Go crawl back underneath your bridge. This is not a place for trolls.

camerashy 1 Jul 2015 19:56

The closet fascists are all out in force to get rid of a democratically elected government! Rule by corporations and banks is what you deserve and is what you are going to get in next 5 years ... so enjoy it.

deskandchair -> Danny Sheahan 1 Jul 2015 19:56

It can't go any other way, fiscal control means political control. The tragedy is that the EZ was formed in the first place.

Lafcadio1944 1 Jul 2015 19:52

My fear is that Syriza has lost the momentum, they have been unable to make the subject what it should be, Neoliberal ideological economics. The fear mongering and the bank run neatly engineered by Draghi and now the threat of shutting down the entire banking system - I'd be scared too. That's hardball politics - but the main thing is people obey authority and the EU has authority as far as the Greek people are concerned and they will back them into their very own graves.


xsyfer John Smith 1 Jul 2015 19:51

It has that already. Don't forget they are beyond the Great Depression now in terms of the economic catastrophe. Population has been sliding since 2010. There will be friends. I reckon UK, us and Sweden might do something bilateral after the mess to keep Greece away from Russia.

Might be too late then though


deskandchair Markdoug1 1 Jul 2015 19:51

You don't live in EZ or EU (although superficial thinking isn't exclusive to those outside EZ) however you're correct, Greeks elected Syriza out of desperation. The rest is just the usual anti-left cliches, not that there's anything wrong with anti-left, however your understanding of the situation would be greatly enhanced if you spent a minute Googling origins of this crisis. Perhaps EU/EZ is a bit complex for you.


Eleutheros 1 Jul 2015 19:46

But it has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with a dysfunctional currency union, a destructive neoliberal economic model enforced by treaty and an austerity regime maintained to ensure a return to profitability on corporate terms.

And that's the essence of the current situation, not just in the EU, but most "western" societies, including Australia, where I live; our present government follows the policies of Thatcher and Reagan and is trying to bring austerity to a rich and prosperous country.

Excellent article Seumas Milne, thank you.


Oscarinho 1 Jul 2015 19:43

Yes, there is a potential danger of a right-wing, if not neo-nazi, turn in Greece (and maybe, only maybe in other places, too). But just tell me why does the author doesn't mention that without the support of the right-wingers and neo-nazis called Anel and Golden Dawn Syriza would not have a majority in their own country??? Syriza does not represent a European leftist alternative (ask Renzi) but mere 2 million Greek voters supported by the far right that are taking their own society hostage playing the nationalistic card.

Yes, we need another haircut and, yes, this radical austerity policies needs to be changed. It's just not sustainable as we learned the hard way- But Syriza is looking for a system change by any means with any partners (Golden Dawn, Putin's Russia, and even Erdogan). No thanks.


Forthestate ID5590609 1 Jul 2015 19:40

you and others believe that Greeks are now somehow inherently entitled to this new and vastly improved standard of living...

Just more bollocks! How do you square "this new and vastly improved standard of living" with the reality since the crisis hit? Most analysts agree that the decline has seen Greece lose everything that it acquired during the years you refer to, and more, and I repeat, it is a decline probably unparalleled in peacetime. Where is the recognition of the catastrophe that has hit the Greek people in your ridiculous assertion that they are enjoying a new and vastly improved standard of living?


John Smith 1 Jul 2015 19:32

Looking at the headline photo of Merkel, the caption: Who will rid me of this troublesome Greek
popped into my head.

Then I read the article above.

Nothing would please the Euromeddlers more than a military coup, or a revolt by the coalition partners.

Because what this crisis is exposing is how after five fruitless years, the geniuses at the heart of the EU, couldn't grasp that among their many errors of judgement, it's no good loaning a bankrupt money to pay off debt, the Euro has actually worked against the economic expansion of the Eurozone both before and after the crash, and by failing to spot the dishonesty of previous Greek administrations or act, it has shown the world that their system is weak, cannot tackle a crisis, and despite years of rhetoric will have to do the one thing it said would never ever happen, expel a member state and write off tens of billions of wasted euros.

In my earlier analysis I have already explained why the Euro was a currency launched half cocked, and that without taking into account the needs of individual nations, it is doomed in the long term, to fall to pieces.

I fear that whatever happens now, Greece is going to find itself with few friends, and at least five years of pain and emigration of its youth.

ID5590609 Forthestate 1 Jul 2015 19:26

The level of Greek tax collection from all sectors and classes in Greek society is abysmal. Tspiras and Varoufakis do not deny this is a problem, and other than pride or foolishness, I question why you do. Some economists suggests that as much as 39% of the Greek economy is effectively underground. The other purported statistics are simply red herrings to confuse this simple fact (and also avoid dealing with the rampant other corruption and incompetence inherent in the Greek economy).

The reason why the Troika objected to increases in certain taxes as part of Greece's economic plans is twofold: (i) due to this historical lack of tax collection, increased revenue projections based on increased taxes would be almost entirely illusory, and (ii) they targeted weak industries that Greece needs to prosper and grow, and risked making Greece's economic situation worse. Many of the larger and stronger of these multinational industries also had the capability of simply leaving Greece. Tsipras refused to discuss sources of real and easy tax revenue, like tourism on the Greek islands.

The fact that Greece's economy has contracted over 25% is also not particularly relevant. The larger GDP since joining the Euro represented a tremendously bloated bubble based on irresponsible public and private debt. The current GPD still has ample room to decrease before it accurately reflects the true size, scope and productivity of the Greek economy (and even reflects Greece's pre-Euro GDP). Also noteworthy is the fact that Greek incomes nearly tripled since it joined the Euro Apparently, you and others believe that Greeks are now somehow inherently entitled to this new and vastly improved standard of living (more impressive than some other Eurozone members who are poorer and helped fund Greece's bailout) despite the fact that it was entirely unearned and based on fraud and the largesse of the taxpayers of other nations.


Exodus20 Tijger 1 Jul 2015 19:26

This is another round of banking bailouts using public money, cynically misnamed as bailing out Greece. The troika need to launder the money through Greece to give to the banks. Greece get to keep a very small percent for their troubles and taking more blame than they should.


JordiLlull neilmack 1 Jul 2015 19:24

Who are "Most people"? I dont think there are polls, but few people in Europe believe that the fault lies exclusively on a government who has been there for 6 months, and is trying to prevent the policies that have led to a 25% loss of GDP. Particularly since the troika has made it damn clear that it does not plan to accept ANY plan. Sure, some have bought Daily Mirror arguments that the Greeks spent the bailouts on Ouzo, but informed people know that the vast majority was used to pay back interests, and that Greek retirement pensions are around 300 euro/month. I would rather argue that "most people" in Europe who have traditionally supported EU are starting to raise questions about what EU's role in this crisis.

"Europe is not under obligation to Greece" is nonsense. If Greece is a member state then EU is indeed under obligation to support it, and it should do this effectively. It should not carry out a policy that undermines its economy. Even if EU officials do not do this out of principles, they should to do it to avoid loosing the support of the EU project.

deskandchair truecomrade 1 Jul 2015 19:22

Fiscal control = political control, it can be no other way.


FourtyTwo sjorsnotmine 1 Jul 2015 19:21

More than 30% of the population are officially below the poverty line.

http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=2040


FourtyTwo Exodus20 1 Jul 2015 19:17

The preliminary report of the Greek debt investigation (yes, there is one) will be out shortly. From what I've read, much of the debt went to Greek banks and their foreign partners that indulged in an aggressive loaning orgy and created a debt bubble inside the Greek economy. The banks were recapitalised during the bailout with €80bn of state money that ended up as sovereign debt.

MTSK87 privateindustry44 1 Jul 2015 19:13

You are an ignorant piece of work aren't you Sir? Look at the facts before spreading lies. The Greeks work (the ones still in employment that is) work more hours than any other EU citizen ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155304 ), the rich and powerful did not pay taxes no, but your average 20-30 something year old with a wage of 400 euros a month that has to go back to living with his/her parents can barely afford coffee never mind pay taxes. And free money? Please the "creditors" have NEVER given anyone "free" money. Germany never gave away anything for free (see treaties imposed on Greece to buy old German weapons). Greece was manipulated and suffered for that "free money".

emordnilap Mark Riggle 1 Jul 2015 19:10

I had thought that Angie, Wolfie and Christine were perhaps just inept, but now I'm afraid they may be executing a well laid plan. Perhaps they want to form a new entity: The People's Neo-liberal Puppy Republic Of Greece. The steps: Blame all others; extort impossible amounts of invented "debts";people who oppose you are labeled as traitors; prioritize German and French banks so they can be saved from their own shitstorm and nationalize (i.e. charge the ordinary punter) all the fantasy cash that no-one's ever seen; call a national emergency and impose martial law. Next is destroy all opposition and hand everything over to private industry. A week ago, this would be very far-fetched, but now??

[Jul 01, 2015] Path to Grexit Tragedy Paved by Political Incompetence

"...I think the Germans think that if things get bad enough in Greece, they'll kick out Tsipras and elect a government more willing to deal."
Jul 01, 2015 | Economist's View

Ellis said...

How many austerity plans do the Greek people have to suffer through? How much unemployment? Half the young population? Is the plan to to cut living standards in half?

And for what? To repay a debt that the Greek people had nothing do with! To reimburse usurious interest rates that cut the economy in a trap by the banks!

What a bunch of predators!

djb said in reply to Ellis...

i like how the advocates of austerity get all pissed off at the greek people as if they are just being obstinate

its like someone is trying to punch someone else in the face and they are getting all pissed off at the other guy because he keeps lifting his hands to block the punches

"come cut it out, just let me get good shots in at you , whats a matter with you"

And Greece will not go to the drachma - Greeks are now demanding paper Euro notes, and everyone outside Greece shipping into Greece is demanding paper Euro notes up front. Greeks are now not able to get food and medicine and fuel if they don't have Euro currency.

But let's be clear - the Greeks are to blame because they refuse to pay Greeks to work by buying only Greek production, or by trading Greek produced goods for imported goods.

Charles Carlstrom said...

Strikes at first glance don't seem rational. But they occur. Somestimes you swerve too late to avoid ruin.
But even now it appears Greece is starting to swerve.

DrDick said in reply to Charles Carlstrom...

Only if you are a member of management. For the workers they are the only logical recourse. When management will not provide safe/decent working conditions or pay you what you are worth, your best recourse is to withhold your labor.

anne said...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/tsipras-accepts-most-terms-as-merkel-insists-on-referendum.html

July 1, 2015

Tsipras Accepts Most Creditor Terms as Merkel Insists on Referendum
By Yves Smith

Post-bailout expiration dynamics are likely to produce even worse outcomes for Greece than it had on offer from the creditors last month. It isn't just that the bailout funds of €7.2 billion are gone; it's that Greece has gone over an event horizon with stringent capital controls on and the European Central Bank ready and able to push the Greek banking system over the brink.

Greece's weak negotiating position is even weaker now. Even with a boost via a "no" vote on the referendum this Sunday, if the Greek government were to take a firmer stance, the creditors have the means and the incentives to keep crushing the economy via financial strangulation. The ruling coalition would not be able to hold on to power for more than a month or two as the economy continued to decay at an accelerating rate.

This is a ruthless, brutal power play in progress. Too many key actors are driven by their own narrow imperatives, most important of all, their domestic politics, as well as institutional rigidities. Those constraints work against taking a broader view and recognizing that the immolation of Greece will blow back and damage the European project and their own economies. But that would require much bolder, visionary thinking and action. The current crop of leaders has instead become habituated to incremental patches even though it is widely recognized that the architecture of the Eurozone is incomplete and wobbly. But no one is willing to move to a higher level of integration, in large measure because, particularly for Germany, that entails the loss of power and privilege at the national level.

Tsipras has recognized the weakness of his position too late. Yesterday, he tried making a desperate, last-minute deal to ward off an IMF default and secure the bailout funds before the program expired. But that clearly could never happen. It would require approval from all of the other 18 states in the Eurozone, including parliamentary approval in Germany. There was no way that would occur without German legislators having had Greece pass legislation before they voted on the release of funds; the Greek government had been told that that was a requirement and that needed to be done by the end of last weekend, June 28. *

Moreover, Germany wasn't even the most hardline country; Portugal, Spain, and Latvia are more hostile to cutting Greece any slack since their leaders had their citizens wear the austerity hairshirt. Given that it was obviously impossible at that late juncture for the other Eurogroup members to release the bailout funds before they went poof (at a bare minimum, there was no way the Germany MPs would approve it), the Tsipras appeal was a sign of utter desperation or delusion. And that in turn was an admission of tremendous weakness. Less than two days of capital controls and a bank holiday, and the ruling coalition was folding....

* Some pundits have depicted these deadlines as artificial. They weren't. There are many areas where the lenders' conduct can correctly be called unreasonable, but the hard deadlines were the result of past agreements and Eurozone procedures make them extremely difficult to change. This is one reason for the current creditor hostility. Greece consumed an enormous amount of time, running up against deadlines in what the other side saw as brinksmanship, which was a bizarre strategy given that Greece had a weak bargaining position. But the lenders felt compelled to accommodate Greece on that front as much as possible because the optics would be terrible if they didn't, particularly if the situation were to devolve into a Grexit. Compounding that problem, an lawyer with considerable knowledge of European practice pointed out by e-mail: "Europeans have a very hidebound and literal view about their EU rules and documents. Americans see a contract as a basis for negotiation."

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to anne...

'Germany wasn't even the most hardline country; Portugal, Spain, and Latvia are more hostile to cutting Greece any slack since their leaders had their citizens wear the austerity hairshirt.'

Every country in the EU is angry with Greece.

In Greece's bailout talks, why it's 18 eurozone countries versus one http://on.wsj.com/1B7hOIy via @WSJ

... Some eurozone governments-Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the Baltic states-see themselves as having swallowed tough, politically costly but ultimately successful medicine and see no reason why Greece should be spared such rigor. Some, like Slovakia and the Baltic states, are poorer than Greece and pay their workers a lower minimum wage.

Another element is that further debt relief for Greece in whatever form means losses for governments-Athens owes other eurozone governments €195 billion ($212 billion)-and therefore for eurozone taxpayers. Germany is owed the largest sum-more than €60 billion-followed by France and Italy. But, as a percentage of their gross domestic product, other countries have more on the line than Germany. According to a Bloomberg Brief analysis, Greece's debts to Slovenia exceed 3% of Slovenian GDP, compared with 2.4% for Germany. ...

DeDude said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...

"see no reason why Greece should be spared such rigor"

Yes their rulers have convinced them that the depression they threw Greece into is no big deal compared to what they themselves have suffered. As long as your corporate media hide the facts from people, you can convince them of all kinds of stuff.

"debt relief for Greece in whatever form means losses for governments"

Yes - and the real story there is that almost all the debt that was held by private banks and plutocrats back when this problem surfaced (and the debt should have been written down) is now owned by governments. But that is not the debate in the corporate media - instead it is about how terribly irresponsible the Greek government is (I guess you can fool the fools every time).

Nathanael said in reply to anne...

Yves has been mis-analyzing the Greek crisis from beginning to end. It's seriously lowered my opinion of her, and I think she's a complete idiot at this point.

Syriza has played this out exactly right, whether intentionally or not.

Given that the Troika will never, ever make a functional offer of major fiscal stransfers to Greece, and has as much as said so, default was inevitable.

Greece doesn't have to leave the euro, of course; Greece could unilaterally print euros (in violation of the Troika's insane deflationary policies) and wait for Germany to leave the euro. But it has the same effect.

GIVEN that default is inevitable, Syriza needs to be seen as:
(1) Trying as hard as it can to offer a deal
(2) Not knuckling under to the foreign powers

They've done this.

The referendum will either go "yes" or "no".

If it's "yes", then Syriza will resign. The new government of Greece will implement stupid policies forced by the Troika which will make their situation even WORSE; they will be blamed for it and will be thrown out. Syriza survives.

If it's "no", Syriza can exit and allow the economy to recover through devaluation.

The worst case scenario for Syriza was that the Troika accepted one of Syriza's overly generous offers of surrender; the economy continued to get worse; Syriza was blamed for this and thrown out of office; and Golden Dawn was elected.

Golden Dawn would, of course, immediately leave the euro and revive the economy. By pressganging, if necessary. :-P Having a glowing example of successful fascist economic management in Europe is the LAST thing the world needs. Thank goodness we seem to be avoiding that.

anne said in reply to anne...

Yves Smith has from my perspective been remarkably sensitive to the needs of the Greek people, thorough in reporting and analysis, and evidently, however sadly, all too correct in analysis compared with other Greek-sympathetic economists.

I am aware that the analysis of Smith has been criticized, but I am also aware and impressed that even leaders of liberal Podemos in Spain have shared in criticisms of Syriza.

paine said in reply to anne...

Just a side comment

The private greek banks can go to hell in a chariot for all I care

The greek government should worry about small dipositors only

paine said in reply to paine...

Eichenberry seems poorly briefed
On the negotiations here

Syriza has not acted incompetently

The troika is out for regime change

Reply Wednesday, July 01, 2015 at 02:24 PM

anne said in reply to paine...

Eichengreen seems poorly briefed
On the negotiations here

Syriza has not acted incompetently

The troika is out for regime change

[ Understood as to what the European leadership is after, but Syriza has puzzled me. ]

ilsm said in reply to paine...

ecb the usa of the europa.

troika deals like nukes.

widespread drone strikes without deflation.....

Chris Herbert said...

I have a problem with the exit=disaster scenario. As a monetary sovereign and with a central bank, both recapitalization and devaluation can be accomplished without the armageddon stuff. China's currency, for example, is not traded on Forex. China's central bank pegs its value by fixing what it will pay in its currency for another currency--and its currency is the only one that can be used in China. Once Greece goes back to the drachma and once they've got a central banker and a currency that is exclusive to domestic commerce (no Forex speculative trading) I think a good central banker can do a lot to help Greece maintain its balance. Even better, said recapitalization can be debt free. I'm not saying it won't cost anything, I'm just saying a monetary sovereign need not issue debt. Greece could put people to work doing infrastructure improvements, which build assets not liabilities. Without issuing debt. Greece has to learn how to collect taxes, obviously. And some reforms to government size is probably in order. But the 'end of days' scare is just that, a scare.

pgl said in reply to Chris Herbert...

I have a similar problem with the criticism is Grexit. Let's roll the tape back to 1967 when Prime Minister Harold Wilson decided to devalue the UK pound:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/19/newsid_3208000/3208396.stm

The UK did not suffer a financial crisis. It did manage to raise its net exports. So why can't the Greeks do the same?

am said in reply to pgl...

Fine, so why do the Greek people want to keep the euro as the official currency. Professor Krugman mentioned as a reason that people like to have a strong currency. They have had the drachma before and it was never very good and neither was the economy. I suggest the reason they want to keep the euro is it is strong in the sense of a stable currency and inflation is kept low in Greece as most of their imports are in euros. With a weak drachma they just get inflation on imports. With the euro they get steady prices. Add in to that payment of salaries and pensions in euros and then you have the advantage of earning in the currency of import purchases. Hohum, I'm probably wrong.

Chris Herbert said in reply to mulp...

Leaving the euro is not cost free. The dollar/drachma after Grexit is set by the central bank. Maybe Greece needs to become more efficient in their use of energy. Maybe Russia will sell oil to them at advantageous prices. A central bank can price the drachma advantageously between different suppliers. And don't forget the Greeks have a primary surplus right now and Grexit will eject its creditors, which is what I think Greece needs to to. The collapse scenarios are scare stories aimed at the Greeks. They should reject them and become independent. Only by being a monetary sovereign can Greece regain control of its economy. Right now they are in debtors prison.

Peter K. said in reply to am...

with the Euro they get humanitarian disaster. You know the economic stats, don't you?

am said in reply to Peter K....

Yes but why do they want to keep the euro, as is reported. They may suddenly change that in the referendum vote but it is reported that the euro is what they want.

foofootos said in reply to am...

easy, the depositors want to keep the euro because they don't have a lender of last resort. They will loose their deposits. That's all, that and scare tactics.

Paine said in reply to foofootos...

Yes that's a good part of it

But I'd like to know the value of euros held on deposit now
by the bottom three quarters of the population

Dan Kervick said in reply to am...

I don't think it's really entirely economic. They view the euro symbolically as a special European club membership, and don't want to be excluded from that club.

anne said in reply to Chris Herbert...

http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/who-uses-the-euro

July 1, 2015

Who Uses the Euro

The Washington Post ran a map * showing which countries in Europe use the euro and which use other currencies. The map is wrong. It shows Montenegro and Kosovo as using currencies other than the euro. This is not accurate, both countries do use the euro as their official currency although they are not have been accepted into the euro zone.

This is important in the context of the discussions on Greece because it illustrates the point that Greece cannot be forced off the euro. The European Commission and the European Central Bank can impose incredibly onerous conditions on Greece, but they cannot prevent the country from using the euro if it so chooses. The decision to leave the euro could only be made by the Greek government, not its creditors.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/30/7-questions-about-greeces-huge-crisis-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/

-- Dean Baker

John Cummings said in reply to Anonymous...

I never saw the "big" Greece problem before the Euro. The problem is the credit bubble starting in 73 creating a redic surge in consumer products that really took hold in the 80's/90's for the US and spread after that. It created the "look" of growing personal wealth via personal assets, but it was a bubble. Without this borrowing, the US economy probably would have struggled to grow much in the 80's as inflation fighters went on a rampage(which is what partially triggered the bubble to grow faster). They still maintain much of the growth from the bubble, only thanks to the market being scared to live without it. About the only thing it did, was force Russia away from the Stalin era Soviet fast, but now, they are stepping back while no one is watching. This is late capitalism.

The 80's and 90's would have been a lot more Escape from New York rather than Morning in America.

Nathanael said in reply to Anonymous...

Argentina's main problems were US-backed military coups and fascism. Argentina has quite impressively managed to get itself out from under both of those problems -- seemingly permanently.

foofootos said in reply to Anonymous...

Greece only got to comparable trouble after the Balkan wars (they defaulted), during the second world war, and then during civil war. Hardly a counter-example of "drachma troubles". Many a time I see Greece described as a serial defaulter. And then I read the History of the Greek state after it's independence from the Ottoman empire, and I see a war happening every 15-20 years or so. It seems this way of looking the Greek economy just goes with the Greek stereotype.

ilsm said in reply to foofootos...

Greece seems to spend about 150% of the NATO standard war spending for GDP. While the rest of the EU spends <75% of NATO standard.

Still only 3% compared to US' 5 to 7% according to how you count.

US spends more in VA than total of Russia, China and UK for their military.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to anne...

Pegging to the Euro will not counter trade imbalances, which is the real source of Greece's troubles.

They need a currency that floats. They need to decrease imports and increase exports (or more likely tourism) to eliminate their trade imbalance, which is the root cause of their debt.

pgl said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

Exactly!

foofootos said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

Greece currently has a balanced current account.

pgl said in reply to foofootos...

Link? Evidence? Even if this is true, it is mainly because of the imposed austerity and weak economy.

pgl said in reply to foofootos...

Darrell in Phoenix notes:

"Check the CIA world factbook for Greece.

Exports $35B. Imports $62B.

Trade imbalance of $27B compared to GDP of $290B = 9.5%!"

Your source?

am said in reply to anne...

In Simbabwe which has no currency of its own apart from small coins for change shop goods are priced in US dollars. So consumers can buy a basket of goods and then pay the value of the us dollars in us dollars, south African rand, Botswanan pula, euro or pound. These are all calculated up by a routine in the software system operating at the checkout. The tax which is vat is then sent up to the government. The government staff are paid in us dollars. But the government can't do stimulus because they can't print any of these currencies and they don't have one of their own. But for an interim solution it is workable.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to am...

And the dollars flow out of the country, and them when there are no dollars left, the economy collapses.

What you need is exactly what Ben Franklin argued for nearly 300 years ago. A government issued script currency that can be used to pay your taxes, and taxes high enough to create sufficient demand for the script to give it value. You then let the value of that government issued script currency to float on the international exchange markets to balance trade.

OH, and NEVER take on debt denominated in a foreign currency.

Nathanael said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

That's even a good rule for households, frankly. I never take debt denominated in a currency I can't print. :-)

Peter K. said in reply to Chris Herbert...

What the critics of the Greek fail to mention is that before the Troika began bringing the hammer down on Syriza and refused to negotiate with them, the Greeks were running a primary surplus.

Krugman pointed to this. That is, they were in the black without interest payments. With default and saying no to the bailout packages they are free of the interest payments and free of the onerous austerity measures which killed their economy.

What the critics of defaults say is that the defaulters will never be able to borrow again, but in the real world that hasn't been the case. They're just blowing smoke to bully the Greeks into more, fruitless austerity measures.

Dan Kervick said in reply to Peter K....

Agreed. There will always be attractive economic opportunities in Greece. Even if Greece defaults, there will be new investors willing to gamble that they wont default again.

pgl said...

"Instead, the creditors first calculated the size of the primary budget surpluses that Greece would have to run in order to hypothetically repay its debt. They then required the government to raise taxes and cut spending sufficiently to produce those surpluses.They ignored the fact that, in so doing, they consigned the country to an even deeper depression. By privileging their own balance sheets, they got the Greek government and the outcome they deserved."

This is precisely the problem Keynes warned about after WWI when the French demanded too much from the Germans. Of course the Germans never really did pay all of those cursed repatriations. Modern day European leaders have forgotten everything Keynes tried to teach us.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to pgl...

The austerity proponents are following the typical NeoCon mind-set of ignoring macroeconomic principles. "Keynesian hokum" is their preferred name for macroeconomics I believe.

DrDick said in reply to pgl...

This is exactly why Eichengreen's piece is pure garbage. Greece made lots of compromises, too many in fact. It was the creditors who refused to compromise. Every bank that had made irresponsible loans (and their were huge numbers of these) in Greece should have been forced to eat all their losses. After all, they had charged a risk premium to cover this already. Instead the Troika has decided that they should be fully indemnified and only the Greeks should suffer.

Peter K. said in reply to DrDick...

Yeah it's almost as if he criticizes the Greeks so he can criticize the Troika even more.

"Still, this incompetence pales in comparison with that of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF."

Nonetheless I agree with you and disagree with Yves Smith and the like. Syriza and the Greeks did the best they could under impossible circumstances.

The Troika's plan didn't work and they refused to negotiate. The problem is Greeks want to stay in the Eurozone nonetheless. Sunday we'll find out if they still do no matter what.

pgl said in reply to DrDick...

This is why I prefer what Krugman wrote.

DrDick said in reply to pgl...

Likewise, and the same for Stiglitz, who is quite good on this.

Paine said in reply to pgl...

Running these nakedly in humane pub sec pruning exercises was the entire project

The debt
A pretext

Let that be a lesson to you long run fiscal space fuss budgets

Paine said in reply to Paine ...

A yes on Sunday simply means

Go back and get the best deal you can

Darrell in Phoenix said...

Exchange rates fluctuate to counter trade imbalances. The concept of a common currency, without controls to ensure no trade imbalances exist, is fundamentally flawed.

Money flows out of Greece. THE ONLY way money can get back into Greece is debt.

Trade imbalances cannot be persisted indefinitely. They result in the buildup of debt on the side with the deficit, and interest on the debt just widens the trade imbalance until the debt collapses.

Either Europe needs to take MAJOR steps to reverse existing trade imbalances, or the Euro is ultimately doomed to collapse under unrepayable debt.

RGC said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

"Either Europe needs to take MAJOR steps to reverse existing trade imbalances, or the Euro is ultimately doomed to collapse under unrepayable debt."

Yep. Varoufakis had a "Modest Proposal" to fix this:


4. THE MODEST PROPOSAL – Four crises, four policies

The Modest Proposal introduces no new EU institutions and violates no existing treaty. Instead, we propose that existing institutions be used in ways that remain within the letter of European legislation but allow for new functions and policies.

These institutions are:

· The European Central Bank – ECB

· The European Investment Bank – EIB

· The European Investment Fund – EIF

· The European Stability Mechanism – ESM

Here are the four policies that will re-deploy the above institutions in a manner that deals a decisive blow at, respectively, (1) the banking crisis, (2) the public debt crisis, (3) the under-investment and internal imbalances crisis, and (4) the social emergency crisis afflicting countries were absolute poverty is becoming a major issue...

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/4-the-modest-proposal-four-crises-four-policies/

Chris Herbert said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

Darell writes "Money flows out of Greece. THE ONLY way money can get back into Greece is debt." Not so with a monetary sovereign. Euros are worth what the Greek central banks says they are worth, in drachmas. And only drachmas can be used in domestic commerce. You have squirreled away euros in Swiss bank accounts? Fine. Spend them anywhere but in Greece. If you have cheated on taxes, and for sure you have if you are Greek and rich, then face extradition for crimes in Greece. A monetary sovereign does not have to issue debt. It can recapitalize without debt. Look at China, which has used this banking system successfully for more than two decades! China understand the difference between liabilities and assets. It's not the debt that matters it's what you build that matters.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to Chris Herbert...

Chris, I was saying now... With Greece on the Euro and unable to print their own currency.

Yes, if they return to drachma, they can issue money. Until then, the only way they have been able to make their economy liquid in the face of large trade deficit is with debt.

Darrell in Phoenix said...

Check the CIA world factbook for Greece.

Exports $35B. Imports $62B.

Trade imbalance of $27B compared to GDP of $290B = 9.5%!


Of, Germany LOVED loaning Greece money so they could buy German products.... but the problem is that the debt can't possibly be repaid unless the trade imbalance is reversed. Germans have the money that Greece needs to repay the debt!


This echos the problems in the USA. The poor go into debt, creating money that they spend, which then flows through into the economy into the hands of billionaires. It is mathematically impossible for the poor to repay the debt unless the rich first spend the money! Oh, we say it is a legal, moral and social obligation to repay the debt, but suggest it is a moral and social obligation (and should be a legal obligation through a steeply progressive income tax code with deductions for most spending and capital investments) and OH HOW THE RICH SCREAM!

pgl said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

Good research - and analysis.

RueTheDay said...

I struggle to understand the path forward from the referendum. Putting aside the obvious question of "what exactly are they voting on", there are some serious logistical challenges.

It will likely take a day or two (or three) for the votes to be counted and the result certified. Assuming a best case scenario of a YES vote, Tsipras will likely resign, a snap election will be called, and a new government will have to form. How long will this take? What if Syriza is re-elected? What if there is no clear winner and we're back to having to form a coalition government, which may or may not happen?

Time is one thing this situation does not have. There are significant upcoming dates:
-July 10 €2B Rollover of treasury bills
-July 13 €452M IMF
-July 14 €73M in Japanese Samurai bonds due
-July 17 €1B Rollover of treasury bills
-July 20 €2.1B ECB
-July 20 €1.4B National central banks
-July 20 €25M European Investment Bank

I can't imagine any scenario under which the ECB can avoid having to yank the ELA if the July 20 payments are missed. But there are plenty of opportunities for an accident before then. It is assumed that the treasury bill rollovers will not be an issue since they are almost entirely held by Greek banks. Is it really safe to assume that? I might be thinking about a switch into safer, more liquid assets if I were a Greek banker. Or are they just going to avoid an auction altogether and deem the bills rolled over by fiat? The Samurai bonds are tiny, but they are still a commercial obligation, will require money the Greek government likely will not have, and a default will not be able to be brushed aside as easily as the missed IMF payment. Speaking of which, the IMF will be unable to assist in any way throughout this period, unless the arrears are cleared.

But wait, there's more. With the previous programme having expired, there will need to be a new MoU, a vote by the Greek Parliament, a vote by other European parliaments, including Germany. This is no longer something Finance Ministers can decide at a late night meeting.

Yet, the official position is no more talks until after the referendum.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to RueTheDay...

I think the Germans think that if things get bad enough in Greece, they'll kick out Tsipras and elect a government more willing to deal.

A vote of NO to the "Should we accept these terms?" means the Greek people support Tsipras's hardline demand for write downs. This puts the Germans in the position of having to accept his terms or face Greece leaving.

In short, the referendum may take the "well just wait until the Greeks replace you, then deal with the new guy" threat off the table.

Reply Wednesday, July 01, 2015 at 11:53 AM

RueTheDay said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

My point is that regardless of which way the vote goes on Sunday, by the time the results are in there simply may not be enough time left to avoid a default. Note well that default does not automatically imply Grexit, but it certainly ratchets things up a notch.

Reply Wednesday, July 01, 2015 at 11:59 AM

Peter K. said in reply to RueTheDay...

It's all up to the ECB and Troika. The money involved is small to them. It's all political. Looks like they want a regime change in Greece. Either that will happen or there will be Grexit.

Syriza caved on austerity but wanted more taxes and less spending cuts. The Troika said no. And the Troika spins it like the Greeks left the negotiation table. The Troika said no and then the ECB refused to back Greek banks as the "deadline" passed causing the bank holiday.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to RueTheDay...

Oh, I think default is inevitable. All the referendum does is clarify the options AFTER that.

If it fails, and the Greeks vote that they want to accept the Eurozone offer, then there will be a change in Greek government, a new round of austerity, and a delay of another year before the crisis explodes again.

If it passes with a resounding vote of "NO, we're not paying" then Eurozone will have to take major cuts in the debt or accept Greece leaving the Eurozone.

Nathanael said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix...

Darrell has the analysis correct.

The political key here is that SOME party is going to either leave the euro. (Or massively and permanently default and start printing euros. If they simply ignore all the ECB rules entirely, they may be able to stay in the euro. Same thing; in this case, Germany is the one who leaves the euro.)

  • If it's Syriza and they do it with public support, there are good things in the future.
  • If it's Golden Dawn and they do it with public support, there are bad things in the future.
  • If Syriza does it without public support, Golden Dawn benefits, and there are bad things in the future.
  • If Golden Dawn does it without public support, they'll just cancel elections to avoid losing power, so they'll again benefit and there will be bad things in the future.

In a sense, the democratic parties are handcuffed in their options relative to the fascist parties, so it's harder for Syriza to succeed than for Golden Dawn.

And it's really REALLY bad if Golden Dawn becomes a big economic success by defaulting or leaving the euro!!!

Paine said in reply to RueTheDay...

Default is a label easily applied and un applied
In arrears delinquent these are objective terms
Use em instead of the Halloween word default

[Jun 30, 2015] The Limits to Growth and Greece Systemic or Financial collapse

Jun 30, 2015 | resilience.org

The results of the "standard run" (or "base case") scenario of "The Limits to Growth" 1972 study. Could it be that the ongoing Greek collapse is a symptom of the more general collapse that the model generates for the first two decades of the 21st century?

So, we have arrived to an interesting point, to be intended in the Chinese sense of a curse. It is the point where the people of Greece are being asked to choose between starvation and slavery and this is supposed to be a triumph of democracy

As the tragedy unfolds, people take sides, aiming their impotent rage at this or that target; the Euro, the bureaucrats of Brussels, the Greek government, Mr. Tsipras, some international conspiracy, and even Mr. Putin, the usual bugaboo of everything.

But, could it be that all the financial circus that we are seeing dancing in and around Greece is just the effect of much deeper causes? The effect of something that gnaws at the very foundations not only of Greece, but of the whole Western World?

Let's take a step back, and take a look at the 1972 study titled "The Limits to Growth" (LTG). Look at the "base case" scenario, the one which used as input the data that seemed to be the most reliable at the time. Here it is, in the 2004 version of the study, with updated data in input.

[Jun 30, 2015] Greek failure to make IMF payment deals historic blow to eurozone

I can only imagine the intensity of "consultations" between Washington and Berlin now...
.
"...The present circumstances in Greece were inherited by the current government from the previous right-wing government, which managed to bring them out by faithfully following the austerity prescriptions of the Troika. However both left and right-wing governments of the past, who created and hid the enormous debt, are also to blame."
.
"...The documents show that the IMF's baseline estimate – the most likely outcome – is that Greece's debt would still be 118% of GDP in 2030, even if it signs up to the package of tax and spending reforms demanded. "
.
"...This is nothing more than a large-scale payday loan scam. Greece will never get past the loan sharks and will constantly have to borrow just to pay off the interest. I'd rather default and eat beans for a year while starting fresh than eat beans for 20 years paying off old debt. You can call them lazy, you can call them thieves but - if they play their cards right - you can also call them "debt free"."
.
"...The public debt of Greece existed BEFORE the recent election. The cruel conditions inflicted upon Greece by its "partners" existed BEFORE the recent election. The crisis existed BEFORE the recent election."
.
"...Lending more billions to Greece so they can repay the interest on previous billions loand and those new loans repayed by cuts to pensions and more privatisation of public assets...blatant transference of cash from those who can't afford it to those who don't need it. Hopefully the Greek people give a resounding middle finger to the EU/IMF. And if I hear another muppet crack on about 'the Greeks ought to pay their taxes' I'll bloody lose my temper. D some reading for gawds sake. It really isn't that hard."
.
"...I would have thought that a "senior german conservative politician" telling the Times that whatever happens Tsipras must be forced from office is an historic blow to the EU. Now, at least, people know what it is and who it is for."
.
"...If they actually wanted payment, they'd be reasonable. But payment isn't their priority, these organisations want power over Greece."
Jun 30, 2015 | The Guardian

ShibbyUp -> peter nelson 30 Jun 2015 21:30

The Greek banks and former conservative governments, you mean.

You and plenty of other brainwashed idiots around here seem to think that individual, working class Greeks had something to do with this. Of course, as always, the banks and politicians who actually caused this got off scott free, with taxpayer money, to cause the next big financial crisis.

HaroldP -> Nottodaymate 30 Jun 2015 21:29

Banksters, what did you expect, honesty, morality, humanity, financial expertise? Bailouts from citizens, that's what you expected? The poor darlings can't even run a bank when they can print money. Incompetant scum. Regards, Harry.


Jazzfunk23 -> workingclass2 30 Jun 2015 21:28

In recent years most of this mess was presided over by liberal conservatives...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy_(Greece)


PeregrineSlim 30 Jun 2015 21:25

Germania offers a regime of permanent debt servitude to pay for its failed banks:

The documents, drawn up by the so-called troika of lenders, support Greece's argument that it needs substantial debt relief for a lasting economic recovery.

The documents show that the IMF's baseline estimate – the most likely outcome – is that Greece's debt would still be 118% of GDP in 2030, even if it signs up to the package of tax and spending reforms demanded.

clematlee Danny Sheahan 30 Jun 2015 21:25

What you have in the USA is TENS of millions of people who don't have any US dollars while in Manhattan flats sell for millions.


AlamoSexual 30 Jun 2015 21:20

This is nothing more than a large-scale payday loan scam. Greece will never get past the loan sharks and will constantly have to borrow just to pay off the interest. I'd rather default and eat beans for a year while starting fresh than eat beans for 20 years paying off old debt. You can call them lazy, you can call them thieves but - if they play their cards right - you can also call them "debt free".


UnevenSurface Danny Sheahan 30 Jun 2015 21:12

Greece will still be here. There will of course be enormous poverty (in various forms) in the short term - but even the FT says that the GDP will bounce up 6% quite quickly. After that, they'll be the cheapest holiday destination in Europe, exporting the cheapest wine and olive oil. The GDP could expand by 25%, up to pre-austerity levels. Excluding macro economic factors out of our control, I would be truly surprised if they aren't better off - overall - within five years.

HaroldP -> owl905 30 Jun 2015 21:12

The public debt of Greece existed BEFORE the recent election. The cruel conditions inflicted upon Greece by its "partners" existed BEFORE the recent election. The crisis existed BEFORE the recent election. Obviously Tsipras did not "wreck his country." His fellow citizens elected his party to fix an existing crisis. He won the election with a proposal of how to do that. He has deviated only slightly from his promises. I find him to be a "hero" in that he could teach the political class of Europe the importance of keeping the agreement between the state and the citizens. It is heroic indeed to be the honest politician of Europe. He has my respect. Regards, Harry.


Paul Collins 30 Jun 2015 21:12

Lending more billions to Greece so they can repay the interest on previous billions loand and those new loans repayed by cuts to pensions and more privatisation of public assets...blatant transference of cash from those who can't afford it to those who don't need it. Hopefully the Greek people give a resounding middle finger to the EU/IMF.

And if I hear another muppet crack on about 'the Greeks ought to pay their taxes' I'll bloody lose my temper. D some reading for gawds sake. It really isn't that hard.


malenkylitso -> owl905 30 Jun 2015 21:08

Greece was forced into a corner, then took a bailout which less than 10% went to the Greeks. The rest went to the banks.
Sounds like a protection racket.


SystemD 30 Jun 2015 21:07

This is not just about Greece; the impact of a Greek default go much wider. The IMF (and the Troika) has to be seen to be taking a hard line. If they don't, then their credibility with the rest of the world diminishes, particularly in Africa. The Germans are worried about the Euro as a currency; the Deutchmark was given up on the promise of stability, and the 1920's are still - just - within living memory. There is a lot of fear behind their stance. Stock markets generally are worried about the instability the situation is causing. They don't want Greece crushed - they just want a stable situation with predictable outcomes. Volatility is not in their interest. And Greece needs money and help to try to cure the cancer of corruption in its economy.

Greece cannot pay back its debt. Unless the creditors agree to a very long term of repayment (at least 50 years) at reasonable rates, the only real options are for Greece to leave the Euro zone and go back to the drachma, or the debt must be written off, with the proviso that there will be no new loans, and Greece will have to rebuild and finance its economy from its own resources.

Stanley Wallings 30 Jun 2015 21:06

I feel sorry for the Greek people - they've had 5 hard years and for nothing. Grexit will be horrible for those who have to stay in Greece. The 'haves' have already moved their money and can just hop on a flight out. I hope Tsipras isn't driving the bus over a cliff for no reason other than to piss off the Troika. I hope he has a plan C

medicynic RobWilson73 30 Jun 2015 21:06

What a great idea! Let's get rid of pensions worldwide, then no one has any cause for complaint. I'm pleased to see that you are one of those who, when pensions in the UK increase say: "No thanks. I don't need it and don't deserve it. It only makes me fat anyway".
In my experience in British industry, workforces are rife with 'tax-dodging, CSA dodging, mendacious, lazy wankers', a lot of who deserve a cut in wages never mind a pension.

Monkeybus 30 Jun 2015 21:06

SQUEEZE THE GREEKS, WRING THEM OUT, RINSE THEM. Other xenophobic pronouncements are available. SHIFTLESS, LAZY, FECKLESS. Can't they print their own money like more advanced nations?

We are all in this together, err, hang on.

Imagine if Gordon Brown had taken us into the Euro after all?


clematlee FakeyWilson 30 Jun 2015 21:06

and the west arms heart eating loonies in North Africa and invades and kills millions of people in the process, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Grenada, Korea, Panama, Syria and the list goes on. Watch the EX USA secetary of state on youtube saying the starvation of 500,000 children was a price worth paying, by the west imposed on Iraq. It was starvation to death. Her name was Madalin Allbrite. Don't worry about losing some so called freedoms to stop Allbite and her ilk.


Tappert Heintz 30 Jun 2015 21:03

"Greek failure to make IMF payment deals historic blow to eurozone"

Sounds like the Daily Mail. Nonsense.


owl905 Iheartbill 30 Jun 2015 21:02

They're not barred from international trade, but it's really scewed to cash and barter. There simply isn't the mechanism to manage the exchange rates. No one outside the country will want rapidly devaluating and 'only-good-in-Greece' drachmas. Greeks don't realize what's coming after 15 years of Euro stability.

One big surprise from them is that pipeline deal with Russia. That needs a lot of capital - Russia is walking into even more problems if it starts forwarding debt financing to Greece to get the pipeline built.

The tourist industry won't be hit by it (except for foreign import items that are part of the industry) - it will be hit by the drachma, that has the profit from the industry shrink to nothing.


Danny Sheahan Justitiadroit 30 Jun 2015 21:01

Look at the Eurozone growth rates for the last 5 years, its a basket case.

The Greeks have messed up over the years but the Euroland is no case study in growth.


rberger ArundelXVI 30 Jun 2015 21:00

Actually there is very little debt servicing involved. The 29 billion actually includes debt repayments (principal, not interest). Greece is not paying any interest for most of its bailout money until after 2020, but of course needs to pay interest on the bonds that it has issued itself.


ScanDiscNow Danny Sheahan 30 Jun 2015 21:00

Pre Euro Greek total production increased by some 600% between 1960 and 2001 while German total production increased by a mere 255%. However, throw in the Euro and the subsequent 15 years has German total production up 20% while Greece total production is down 26%
ZeroHedge.


Anthony Apergis owl905 30 Jun 2015 20:57

And herein lies the issue my friend! The strictly monetary considerations that underpin your rationale betray the disintegration of what started in Rome as a visionary peace project for the peoples of Europe to an economic, neoliberal construct whose only concern is %s and profits. Surely, you must be able to see this. I would strongly advise you to read the preamble to the Treaty of Rome (1957).

MonsieurBoombastic FilthyRichBanker 30 Jun 2015 20:54

The capital controls in Greece apply to cash withdrawals and overseas transfers so this won't affect things like internet banking where cash is transferred within the system. The things you mention are probably still going on in most cases.

moderatextremist 30 Jun 2015 20:51

When Greece joined the EU, the corrupt government went on a spending spree of EU money, and used Goldman Sachs to cover it up. It is those politicians and Goldman Sachs, the vampire squid on the face of the world, that should be put on trial. I fear this development will be hurtful to an awful lot of good people, while the arseholes that created the mess will get away with it...... yet again.


sefertzi7 30 Jun 2015 20:48

The worst possible outcome. Now the crooks who caused the debt mountain in the first place (Papandreou x2, Simitis, Karamanlis, Samaras et al) will come back to power, reluctantly do what they are told with the quid pro quo of a blind eye turned while they carry on in their corrupt old ways.

Call that a revolution? More like crash and burn to me.

raymundlully -> Kaiama 30 Jun 2015 20:45

If the debt is forgiven and goes away.
Greece has in arrears to private pharma companies ,I doubt they'll extend credit orwant paying in toy Drachmas.

Cash-strapped Greece has racked up mounting debts with international drugmakers and now owes the industry more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), a leading industry official said on Wednesday.

The rising unpaid bill reflects the growing struggle by the nearly bankrupt country to muster cash, and creates a dilemma for companies under moral pressure not to cut off supplies of life-saving medicines.

Richard Bergstrom, director general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, told Reuters his members had not been paid by Greece since December 2014. They are owed money by both hospitals and state-run health insurer EOPYY.


MalleusSacerdotum 30 Jun 2015 20:45

If Greece were a private or public company and continued to 're-finance' in the manner proposed by the IMF, its directors would be charged with insolvent trading.

They are getting a lot of stick for admitting that they are effectively bankrupt.

It is at least an honest admission of the state of play.


Omniscience Jazzfunk23 30 Jun 2015 20:42

They turned a primary deficit into a surplus within the last 5 years

Greece have never run a primary surplus.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/02/16/greece-still-has-a-vast-problem-it-doesnt-have-a-primary-budget-surplus/


Dannybald George Purcell 30 Jun 2015 20:40

Right wing conservative neo-libs corrupt elitists. The Troika is refusing to allow Greece to tax the wealthy corrupt tax avoider thieves, while forcing more of the workers into poverty.


Vee1984 30 Jun 2015 20:40

It is a well known fact that many Greeks like to avoid paying taxes just as there are many other European countries who avoid paying tax whether on an individual or on a company basis.

The European Union has created this problem over a long period of time by allowing countries to borrow more than required and funds being used to build eg airports in Spain which are unused and unnecessary due ro their geographical location and many speculative projects undertaken throughout the EU. The reason for lending such sums, with a total disregard as to how interest payments can be repaid, never mind repaying the loans, has been done to enrich the lenders who, as we all know, love to gamble on how much money can be made. A risk game, played out every day, and, I suspect, some bets even being placed on the odds of Greece defaulting in some hedge fund offices somewhere in Europe. It should be noted that Spain and Italy have loaned money to Greece. How can this be when both countries have loans via the EU etc? Again, investors after interest on the loans with a total disregard as to their own countries finances. Greece is a democracy and should not give in to the rhetoric coming from the IMF or ECB. Why not? Neither can afford to and neither can Germany. Interesting days ahead. I truly hope that in the name of Democracy, the Greek people will vote NO in the referendum no matter the increasing hardship this will bring. The EU really need to be extremely mindful of the fact that abject poverty and the continuation of austerity gives rise to discontent and a surge in popularity to right-wing extremist views.


Anthony Apergis Justitiadroit 30 Jun 2015 20:39

Indeed, the EU has mutated from a union of the peoples of Europe, into a market-driven transnational institution governed by bankers and solely concerned with GDP growth rates (and I mean this in a strictly non-communist/leftist way).


Dannybald DavidRees 30 Jun 2015 20:36

As a German voter I would never vote for the right wing neo-lib corporatist Fascist scum in government. The hypocrisy of this regime is turning millions of Europeans against Germany and rightly so. The London conference of 1953 halved German debt owed for destroying Europe. Greek debt was 100% of GDP in 2008 and that had nothing to do with Tspiras.

The 'Eurogroup' only cares about a tiny elitist group of Europeans and not about the majority of it's people. Wake up DavidRees and the rest of you indoctrinated half wits.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/27/greece-spain-helped-germany-recover


Omniscience 30 Jun 2015 20:35

If the EU are the enemy now, imagine the bed wetting and howls of protest if Greece had to make real repayments.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/06/28/uk-eurozone-greece-debt-factbox-idUKKCN0P80XU20150628

Euro zone countries have already extended the maturities of their loans to Greece from 15 to 30 years and reduced the interest rates on some to just 0.5 basis points above their borrowing cost. They also granted Greece a 10-year moratorium on interest payments on the second bailout loan from the euro zone rescue fund.


FlashRat 30 Jun 2015 20:35

I would have thought that a "senior german conservative politician" telling the Times that whatever happens Tsipras must be forced from office is an historic blow to the EU. Now, at least, people know what it is and who it is for.

PennyForYourComment DavidRees 30 Jun 2015 20:35

Which is why the Eurozone concept is fundamentally broken.

Imagine if every time one US went into a bad recession, all the other states had to vote on whether to send them money, with all the governors having to agree... and then trying to post their own conditions on how that States economy be run before the money were delivered. It would be an unworkable mess, especially given acrimony and resentment between states and regions (North vs. Deep south vs. midwest, vs. west coast, etc)... The country would sooner or later fall apart as States started rebelling and quitting. It would be absurd.

But somehow Europe is supposed to run on exactly this system. If you are going to have a single currency, then you need common fiscal mechanism binding the areas together, because these act as automatic financial stabilizers when there's a regional crash. If Florida's economy crashes, money automatically pours in from everywhere else to cover unemployment insurance, etc, via the Federal government. No similar thing happens with Greece in Europe.

BunyipBluegum theoldgreyfox 30 Jun 2015 20:34

The default you are referring to is a recent one (2014) - I was referring to the previous default in 2001, which was followed by a significant period of economic growth and recovery. I am not suggesting that a default is always the best solution in such circumstances, nor that the immediate fallout won't be problematic. However in any case the example of Iceland clearly demonstrates that a default can be the best option economically in some circumstances.

It's the same principle as bankruptcy: if your debts reach a level that can never be paid back, it's better to wipe the slate clean and start again, even though the cost of doing this may be to slide back down the snake to the bottom of the board.


Anthony Apergis 30 Jun 2015 20:33

To sum up:
Roughly €170b initial Greek debt +
Roughly €150b financial aid to Greece aimed at repaying initial creditors (NOT the restructuring of the Greek economy) + austerity measures while doubling an already unsustainable debt = EU solidarity to a member- state.
And the above does not even take into account whose economy did the initial debt prop up. I cannot believe that the people of Europe cannot see what the REAL problem is.
The EU - and by extension Europe - is truly in trouble.


raymundlully Franco87 30 Jun 2015 20:32

UK had third world inflation in the 1970s it took the IMF medicine broke the unions in the 80s and created a home fit for bankers.

www.whatsthecost.com/historic.cpi.aspx

1980, 18.00%. 1979, 13.40%. 1978, 8.30%. 1977, 15.80%. 1976, 16.50%. 1975, 24.20%. 1974, 16.00%. 1973, 9.20%. 1972, 7.10%. 1971, 9.40%. 1970, 6.40%

Danny Sheahan Omniscience 30 Jun 2015 20:31

What about economic slums like Portugal and Italy.

They are much worse off now than Greece was at the start of its crisis. It will not take much to have Italy in crisis.

Portugal is heading for an abandoned state after its crisis so its not much of a threat now, how it will pay its debt in the future is anyone's guess. Though it is safe to presume that a country in such decline will have less people paying tax.

They'll want more than billion.


RGBargie 30 Jun 2015 20:31

It looks like Greece might soon be sailing into uncharted waters.

I can just imagine what the consequences will be for the EZ if Greece goes alone, and then makes a success of their new found freedom. I imagine there might well be others ready to abandon ship if that happens.

Westmorlandia BunyipBluegum 30 Jun 2015 20:31

Point taken, but whatever the Greeks don't pay back to the EFSF will have to be paid by other Eurozone countries, as that's how the EFSF guarantees work. So it isn't just about whether it's fair for Greeks to pay for what their government borrowed, but whether it's more fair for Greeks to pay or for everyone else in the Eurozone to pay for what elected Greek governments borrowed.

Reality has said for some time that Greece can't pay, and therefore some of it should have been written off. But that's more about pragmatism than fairness.

FilthyRichBanker Wily Ways 30 Jun 2015 20:30

He could do what the rest of Europe does and make paying taxes compulsory rather than voluntary for a start.

Cut the bloated Public sector and halve the defence budget in line with the rest of Europe - and sell off the $50bn of assets they previously agreed to.


Bardamux Michael Richard Allen 30 Jun 2015 20:29

Ignorant it is then. So i'll explain it to you step by step.

1) If you deposit money in a bank, you are loaning the bank your money. And in many countries you will get a small interest rate for it.
2) it is considered a short term loan, because you can withdraw it at (almost) any time.
3) Remember Icesave in the UK ? That bank did not pay its depositors
4) Other banks received hundreds of billions of euro's / pounds / dollars
5) Banks could loan money at almost 0% even with terrible collateral to help them survive
6) Greece will pay its debt if they receive half or even less help than the Dutch and UK banks did.

Get it now or do you need more steps to help you out ?

Omniscience Danny Sheahan 30 Jun 2015 20:29

Most of the Debt is dormant thanks to the EU

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/06/28/uk-eurozone-greece-debt-factbox-idUKKCN0P80XU20150628

Euro zone countries have already extended the maturities of their loans to Greece from 15 to 30 years and reduced the interest rates on some to just 0.5 basis points above their borrowing cost. They also granted Greece a 10-year moratorium on interest payments on the second bailout loan from the euro zone rescue fund.


Omniscience 30 Jun 2015 20:27

To be fair, they have only been lying about reform since joining the Euro.

2005 : Greece faces up to taxing times

Greece plans to offset a projected shortfall this year in tax revenues with a €2bn securitisation deal, in spite of European Commission strictures against the use of one-off measures to reduce the budget deficit. George Alogoskoufis, finance minister, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the transaction would enable Greece to achieve this year's budget deficit target. He also stressed securitisation was "a temporary measure that will give us time to bring about permanent structural corrections".
Joaquin Almunia, the European Union's budget commissioner, signalled acceptance of this year's planned transaction during a visit to Athens last week but urged Greece to accelerate structural reforms next year.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0c99809c-3abd-11da-b0d3-00000e2511c8.html


TerryChandler OnTheRobertELee 30 Jun 2015 20:26

The problems of Greece haven't happened since "a radical populist party" was elected. On the contrary, the present government was elected because of the problems.


Danny Sheahan outsiderwithinsight 30 Jun 2015 20:23

Not at all, it means that Italy and Portugal are next.

If Greece leaves and its hard to see how they will not at this stage then the Euro has become a non-permanent currency arrangement that the EU or ECB will not defend its integrity.

That marks it out as different from every other currency in the world. Only currencies that have allowed that in the past went on to be all failed entities.

CambridgeAfterDark 30 Jun 2015 20:25

Splendid, send a message to all banker gangsters everywhere.
Best way to deal with a bully, is hit them back.
Guess the right-wing trolls on here look pretty silly now, all saying last week the FTSE would rally upwards upon a Grexit!


BunyipBluegum robbyevans 30 Jun 2015 20:20

The present circumstances in Greece were inherited by the current government from the previous right-wing government, which managed to bring them out by faithfully following the austerity prescriptions of the Troika.

However both left and right-wing governments of the past, who created and hid the enormous debt, are also to blame.

coxinutant 30 Jun 2015 20:16

A continued austerity programme makes it unlikely that Greece will be able to grow economically. Continued economic pain-> lower ability to repay debt. So all those people who get on their hig horse and demand that Greece repay its debts should keep in mind that debt cannot be repaid when you have 25% unemployment, when wages plummet and people cannot spend to make the economy grow. If austerity had been the miracle cure, it would have worked years ago. So stop bandying about terms like 'communist' and 'marxist' and all that BS. The current government in Greece did not create the crisis, the austerity, the 25% unemployment. The crisis was created by an irresponsible banking sector, which was then bailed out by your money (yeah ordinary Joe, looking at you). Austerity was hatched by The IMF, against the advice of sensible economists...

And it hasn't worked. And I am sure the 'marxist' policies of Syriza did not create the enormous unemployment that Greece faces. Last time that occured in Europe, fascist governments came to power, aided by pro-fascist symptahies in France and the UK...


BunyipBluegum -> peter nelson 30 Jun 2015 20:14

It was the Greek governments of the mid 2000s, who were corrupt and nepotistic. If it was them and their wealthy friends who were going to carry the can for this, then I'd say well deserved.

But the whole reason why Syriza is against the austerity program is that it doesn't greatly affect these people, but it DOES greatly affect ordinary Greeks, especially the working class, elderly and vulnerable.

Also it hasn't worked. If you were prescribed a foul medicine by your doctor that made you feel sick and weak, and then failed to cure your problem, would you be inclined to go back for another dose?

AtomsNest -> echoniner 30 Jun 2015 20:14

If they actually wanted payment, they'd be reasonable. But payment isn't their priority, these organisations want power over Greece.

World Oil Energy Consumption by Sector, 1973-2010

World Oil Energy Consumption by Sector, 1973-2010

Oil can be put to a variety of uses, with transportation accounting for a growing share of the oil consumed. While the transport sector consumed 42% of the oil in in 1973 this share climbed to 61.5% in 2010. The growing level of global motorization is a core component behind this relative growth, particularly the growth of international trade. Non-energy uses mostly relate to the petrochemical industry where petroleum is used to manufacture products such as plastics or fertilizers. Other sectors concern agriculture (powering farm equipment), commercial and public services (power generation) and residential (heating oil).

[Jun 30, 2015] Stiglitz: Troika has Kind of Criminal Responsibility

"...Alexis Tsipras must be stopped: the underlying message of Europe's leaders. Germany's vice-chancellor has become the first senior EU politician to voice the private views of many - that the Greek PM is a threat to the European order
By Ian Traynor - Guardian"
.
"...Tsipras is only a symbol of what must be stopped. What must be stopped is democratic interference in the affairs of finance capital. What do "the people" know about such important matters? Besides, they might favor their own interests over those of the system (meaning those of the oligarchs)."
.
"...For finance capital, the stakes in Greece are high. They must make the Greeks pay a very high price for defiance. If not, Spain, Portugal, etc. will try the same thing.
What good is the "will of the people" and democracy when it goes up against the banks?"

.
"...Finance capital now MUST take untenable speculative risks. The state now MUST bail out finance capital when their bubbles burst. The international institutions now MUST enforce draconian austerity to pay for the bailouts. ...because otherwise there wouldn't be enough value produced for the finance sector to appropriate and accumulate. This is the END GAME a perpetual smash-and-grab operation by the plutocrats. "

Jun 30, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com

From Time:

Joseph Stiglitz to Greece's Creditors: Abandon Austerity Or Face Global Fallout: ... "They have criminal responsibility," he says of the so-called troika of financial institutions that bailed out the Greek economy in 2010, namely the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. "It's a kind of criminal responsibility for causing a major recession," Stiglitz tells TIME in a phone interview.
Along with a growing number of the world's most influential economists, Stiglitz has begun to urge the troika to forgive Greece's debt – estimated to be worth close to $300 billion in bailouts – and to offer the stimulus money that two successive Greek governments have been requesting.
Failure to do so, Stiglitz argues, would not only worsen the recession in Greece – already deeper and more prolonged than the Great Depression in the U.S. – it would also wreck the credibility of Europe's common currency, the euro, and put the global economy at risk of contagion. ...
JohnH said...

Some background on the stakes in Greece AKA why Greece must be made to heel--Aegean gas, banking and oil company profits, and, yes, the Clintons.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/782961-the-u-s-looks-to-exploit-the-greek-re-default

pgl said in reply to JohnH...

Note when Stiglitz writes this:

"Of course, the economics behind the program that the "troika" (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) foisted on Greece five years ago has been abysmal, resulting in a 25% decline in the country's GDP. I can think of no depression, ever, that has been so deliberate and had such catastrophic consequences: Greece's rate of youth unemployment, for example, now exceeds 60%."

The troika economics he is condemning was the refusal of the ECB to do QE earlier. Troika's bad economics is exactly what you have been advocating for the US for a long time. Just in case you missed this.

mulp said in reply to pgl...

Should Congress give Puerto Rico $150 billion to get it out of debt?

Or should Puerto Rico be forced out of the dollar zone and thus face drastic spending cuts.

Larry said in reply to pgl...

Agree on QE. But even that would not have fixed Greece. It doesn't belong in the EZ and never did.

pgl said in reply to Larry...

I agree. Cyprus made a mistake by entering the EZ as well.

Dan Kervick said in reply to pgl...

And yet economists have been extremely slow to react to this massive economic derailment with anything close to the kinds of bold emergency recovery plans they would be ginning up if the same disaster was taking place in their own countries.

Why aren't the kinds of figures Stiglitz just cited the headlines here? Why has the Great Greek Depression been treated by the media, and most economists, as though it is fundamentally just a disagreement between Greece and its creditors?

What is the plan for putting the 20% of the Greek over-15 population that is not working, but should be working, back to work?

Maybe people think that millions and millions of Greek people without jobs is just Greece being Greece? That profound economic dysfunction and failure is a case of "well, what do you expect from those people?"

Economists seem to have been so zombified by the inscrutable bureaucratic rhetoric and psychopathic insanity of the Eurocrats, and the bumbling incoherence of the Greek government, that most of them aren't able to think clearly. The Euros have convinced them all that any outside-the-narrow-box thinking will cause chaos, panic, unraveling, The Unthinkable, the Complete End of Europe as We Know It and the Return of the Satanic Hordes. So they sit on sidelines hoping that someone will make some deal that allows Greece to keep paying forever, grindingly, in a way that isn't too, too, too, too painful.

Part of the problem maybe is that mainstream economists have too many buddies in the Eurocracy. They can't believe that all those nice people they went to graduate school with have gone so bonkers.

The situation with the Eurocrats reminds me a little bit of Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai. A noble project (in this case, the Europe project) evolves over time into a demented and fanatical religion whose ultimate purpose is forgotten by its architects, who lose the capacity to adapt to evolving circumstances with common sense.

Larry said in reply to Dan Kervick...

McArdle notes today that US pundits have been more supportive of Greece than the Europeans. Proximity breeds contempt?

Dan Kervick said in reply to Larry...

It's not surprising. European governments own most of the debt now and want to get paid; and they don't want any special deals that weren't available to them.

And the Greeks themselves are in denial. They haven't yet come to grips with what it's going to take to rebuild their collapsed economy.

Dan Kervick said in reply to pgl...

Krugman has been better than most in calling out some of the bad actors, but what is Krugman's plan for ending Greece's depression?

Is it the same plan he would recommend to American leaders if America were in Greece's position?

Would Krugman, an expert on depressions, advocate that the US run a surplus in a depression - just not a very big one - so it can pay its creditors?

Dan Kervick said in reply to Dan Kervick...

His column today on crippling austerity is pretty good though. The problem, as he says, is the grip of the notion that leaving the Euro is "unthinkable".

A lot of Europeans have gotten too tied to the idea that one country leaving the Euro is some kind of continental catastrophe. To read some of the hysteria - such as a recent Guardian piece - Greeks first leave the euro and then its back to Bolsheviks, Nazis, trench warfare slaughter or Mongol invasions or something.

But the euro isn't the UN Charter or the Magna Carta or the Treaty of Versailles. It's just money. The unity of Europe does not stand or fall on whether a country decides to use a particular form of money. There are several EU members, in perfectly good standing, who do not use the euro. Big deal.

I understand that most of the Greeks themselves cannot wrap their heads around this idea. But economists can easily.

Anyway, Greece and the rest of the world have gotten themselve so tangled up in the obsessive attention to the secondary matter of the Greek "debt crisis" that they don't seem to have time to think about the primary crisis - the Nobody has a Job and Our National Output is in the Toilet Crisis.

Benedict@Large said in reply to pgl...

QE? Oh nonsense. The Euro banks knew Goldman had washed Greece's books, and that Greece was not a suitable candidate for the initial loans, much less the subsequent ones. This is onerous debt, and is simply uncollectible. Banks must relearn to live and die by their ability to make good loans. And if the elites get burned in the process? Maybe they'll learn to stop staffing their banks with assclowns.

JohnH said in reply to pgl...

The Troika won't allow Greece to use Aegean gas as collateral precisely because Greece is supposed to hand over its wealth without much if any compensation...

pgl said in reply to JohnH...

I despise this Troika. Whether they are evil or whether they are dumbass liquidionists like you are - it does not matter. They are being very destructive. OK, you are not evil but you are stupid with your fear of using aggregate demand stimulus. Same horrific results.

Sandwichman said...

Joe! Joe! Joe!

(and as for "Chief Economist" Blanchard: M-I-T... I-M-F... M-O... U-S-E: Mickey Mouse).

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/06/m-i-teee-squeeze-you-next-week-i-m-f.html

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

No to austerity! Yes to democracy!

http://www.altersummit.eu/accueil/article/no-to-austerity-yes-to-democracy?lang=en

"Europe is at a crossroads. The institutions of the Troika are not only trying to destroy Greece; they are trying to destroy us all. Now is the time to raise our voices against this blackmail by the European elites.

"Next Sunday the Greek people will be able to vote to reject the blackmail that is austerity and vote for dignity – with hope for another Europe. This historic moment requires everyone in Europe to speak up and take a stand.

"We all say NO to austerity, pension cuts, and VAT increases; We all say NO to poverty and privileges; We all say NO to blackmailing and to the dismantling of social rights; We all say NO to fear and the destruction of democracy.

"We all say YES to dignity, sovereignty, democracy, and solidarity with the citizens of Greece.

"This is not a conflict between Greece and Europe. It is about two antagonist visions of Europe: our Europe of solidarity and democracy, created from below and without closed borders; and their vision, which denies social justice, dismantles democracy, opposes the protection of the weakest and the taxation of the wealthy."

Basta -- Enough -- Another Europe is possible !

DrDick said in reply to Sandwichman...

He certainly nailed this one. The Troika are demanding that the Greek people protect the plutocrats (mostly foreign) for paying any price for their reckless and feckless action and democracy (and the "little people" be damned.

mulp said in reply to DrDick...

We should not have expected debt repayment from Mexico in 1994?

More important, all the debt of Puerto Rico should be forgiven and then we should give them all the money they ask for to keep the country afloat?

DrDick said in reply to mulp...

People who cannot pay their debts will not pay them. Everything else is a pipe dream. You cannot privilege capital over human welfare.

Peter K. said in reply to Sandwichman...

Agreed. The IMF research dept had been looking good. (And the IMF asked the Fed not to raise rates this year).

But their behavior regarding Greece is criminal.

anne said in reply to Paine ...

http://time.com/3939621/stiglitz-greece/?xid=tcoshare

If the Greek economy collapses without the euro, "you have on the edge of Europe a failed state," Stiglitz says. "That's when the geopolitics become very ugly."

By providing financial aid, Russia and China would then be able to undermine Greece's allegiance to the E.U. and its foreign policy decisions, creating what Stiglitz calls "an enemy within."

[ This is xenophobic rubbish, showing a mean-spirited and wrong-headed disdain for China and Russia. ]

anne said in reply to anne...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/29/alexis-tsipras-must-be-stopped-the-underlying-message-of-europes-leaders

June 29, 2015

Alexis Tsipras must be stopped: the underlying message of Europe's leaders. Germany's vice-chancellor has become the first senior EU politician to voice the private views of many - that the Greek PM is a threat to the European order
By Ian Traynor - Guardian

Sandwichman said in reply to anne...

Except that Tsipras is only a symbol of what must be stopped. What must be stopped is democratic interference in the affairs of finance capital. What do "the people" know about such important matters? Besides, they might favor their own interests over those of the system (meaning those of the oligarchs).

mulp said in reply to Sandwichman...

You are saying "yes, the Greece and Puerto Rico can drain my retirement savings because Stiglitz says its democratic"?

I speak as someone who had lots of savings in BofA which bought the bank that bought my local bank listening to people calling for BofA to be liquidated and all the debt it held written off.

Jeffrey Stewart said...

It never ceases to amaze the number of human lives must be destroyed through unemployment and poverty due to "austerity" so that financial capitalists are repaid in full.

JohnH said in reply to Jeffrey Stewart...

It's how they keep the rest of the world under their thumbs...

Ellis said...

For finance capital, the stakes in Greece are high. They must make the Greeks pay a very high price for defiance. If not, Spain, Portugal, etc. will try the same thing.

What good is the "will of the people" and democracy when it goes up against the banks?

Sandwichman said in reply to Ellis...

"For finance capital, the stakes in Greece are high."

Yes, the stakes are high for finance capital. The choice is between euthanasia of the rentier and suicide-bomber-style financial terrorism. Finance capital opts for the latter.

We should all be clear on what the choices are and why finance capital chooses the reckless strategy it does. Finance capital CANNOT win this fight to the death. There is no win-win compromise that will enable the continuation of business-as-usual to be sustainable.

'Tis the final conflict. Greece is only an episode but there will be episode after episode based on the same scenario. The "wages-rut system" no longer has the "beautiful" capacity of ensuring the continued accumulation of capital merely through an imbalance in the economic power of labor and capital.

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

Finance capital now MUST take untenable speculative risks. The state now MUST bail out finance capital when their bubbles burst. The international institutions now MUST enforce draconian austerity to pay for the bailouts.

...because otherwise there wouldn't be enough value produced for the finance sector to appropriate and accumulate.

This is the END GAME a perpetual smash-and-grab operation by the plutocrats.

Glen said in reply to Ellis...

It's well understood in modern economics that when banks and ultra rich speculators make horrible investments that wreck the world economy, then the innocent must pay. That whole capitalism risk/reward thing is so passe.

Ellis said in reply to Glen...

What's behind the debt? In 2004, the government paid through the nose to host the Summer Olympics. The Greek military sucks up 3 or 4 per cent of GDP buying expensive weapons and ammo from the U.S. Germany and France. When Greece entered the EU, it employed the services of Goldman Sachs to hide their debt -- paying a pretty penny for their services. And when the crisis hit in 2008, the fear that Greece might default boosted interest rates for the Greek government to usurious levels. In other words, it's pillage pure and simple.

And now, the IMF figures that the best way forward is to starve the population even more.

[Jun 30, 2015]Joseph Stiglitz: how I would vote in the Greek referendum

"...Actually 90% of the money went off to pay the private creditors (French and German banks who had invested in Greece). Only 10% amount of the loan ever went into the Greek economy but that was more than balanced by the the damage that austerity politics did to the country."
.
"...So the IMF and the Eurozone have in effect been playing debt collectors for French and German banks, and have attempted to bestow the costs on Greece. Is there any way that could possibly ever have worked?"
.
"... Lagarde, is getting smacked and rightly so; she, Merkel et al, all thought they could dictate to and bully Greece, and Greece would roll over, well it hasn't."
.
"...Only because the banks were too big to fail and therefore letting them crash would have crashed the entire economy. If you ignore that, in theory holding the banks responsible for the crisis they created and making them insolvent instead of using QE to bail them out could theoretically have been something that held the right people to blame, and didn't punish ordinary people with austerity.
It's pretty smart of the banks as they got themselves into a position where, when they screw up, other people have to pay the price."
.
"...Tsipras called them "criminals". I guess it is more close to the truth."
.
"...Greece cannot pay, but no one can say that as it undermines the whole financial system, which is based on confidence. We can't 'write off Greek debt' (as Jeremy Corbyn helpfully suggests) as no indebted countries would feel the need to pay off debts again - they'd just wait for the 'Greece' solution."
Jun 30, 2015 | The Guardian

colin2d -> colin2d 30 Jun 2015 10:10

The big problem right now in Greece is lack of liquidity to operate the economy. There simply is not enough money in circulation.

If newly issued Greek euros are not traded on international markets and they are legal tender in Greece and the Greek government accepts them as tax payments, there is no market value. You have an assigned value, like in other controlled systems. So you can have a high velocity of circulation as people spend them quickly, but no problem of devaluation - unless the Greek government would issue Greek euros to total excess.

Suppose you are a shopkeeper in Greece and your pensioner customers pay you in Greek euros. And suppose, the Greek law says you can pay your suppliers in Greek euros and the supplier can pay his taxes in Greek euros. In that case, the Greek government will need capital controls to ration the supplier's euros to buy imports. But that's likely to stimulate local production and be a plus for the Greek economy.

Local fiat currencies do work.

It is a rather different and probably not very acceptable example, but the Cuban 'CUC', is not backed at 1:1 against the US dollar in an open market. Its value is the fiat of the Cuban government. No open market trading means no devaluation by market forces.

Trumbledon 30 Jun 2015 10:03

We never had an advanced economy actually asking for that kind of thing, delayed payment

They still haven't - Greece is no more an advanced economy than a person who buys a houseful of luxury items using credit cards is a wealthy person.

Greece has virtually no industry worth mentioning and virtually no agriculture; the Greek economy is almost entirely reliant on tourism.

Greece has a smaller GDP than Thailand or Argentina, Greece's economy is roughly half the size of Vietnam's. How on earth can Greece be considered an 'Advanced economy'? That's claptrap.

mikeyk1 Omniscience 30 Jun 2015 10:03

Actually 90% of the money went off to pay the private creditors (French and German banks who had invested in Greece). Only 10% amount of the loan ever went into the Greek economy but that was more than balanced by the the damage that austerity politics did to the country.

Adam Fo 30 Jun 2015 09:57

It's probably worth adding here that Argentina did pay off it's IMF loans in full as well as the modest amount of interest charged. One of the reasons they could do that is they are a more resource based economy than Greece. Increasing commodity prices during that period helped them.
Like Greece holders of Governments bonds saw massive haircuts. 50% (100 billion euro) in the case of Greece in 2012.

Thalia01 ThinBanker 30 Jun 2015 09:55

Only because the banks were too big to fail and therefore letting them crash would have crashed the entire economy.

If you ignore that, in theory holding the banks responsible for the crisis they created and making them insolvent instead of using QE to bail them out could theoretically have been something that held the right people to blame, and didn't punish ordinary people with austerity.

It's pretty smart of the banks as they got themselves into a position where, when they screw up, other people have to pay the price.

Hottentot 30 Jun 2015 09:40

Sorry, but the Guardian can't compare Argentina, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Sudan, to Greece, as none of them were / are in the Euro. Lagarde, is getting smacked and rightly so; she, Merkel et al, all thought they could dictate to and bully Greece, and Greece would roll over, well it hasn't. It's about time others started telling the IMF (interesting that it's referred to as the Washington-based organisation) and the EU who are all about 'protecting' their interests, to sod off.

So the IMF and the Eurozone have in effect been playing debt collectors for French and German banks, and have attempted to bestow the costs on Greece. Is there any way that could possibly ever have worked?

bonkthebonk -> Adam Fo 30 Jun 2015 09:50

True, but how many of them are in a flawed currency union that actively contributed to their demise, saw their mainly foreign reckless, speculative lenders' liabilities socialised and how many of these poorer countries have been lent ever more money just to service the their debts and nothing more?

CaptainGrey -> colin2d 30 Jun 2015 09:26

Calling it a Greek Euro as opposed to a new Drachma won't make any difference. It will crash overnight. Greece has no reserves to prop it up.

optimist99 30 Jun 2015 09:24

The Greeks need to look hard at Argentina - once one of the richest countries in the world....

"By 1908 it had surpassed Denmark, Canada and The Netherlands to reach 7th place-behind Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Belgium. Argentina's per capita income was 70% higher than Italy's, 90% higher than Spain's, 180% higher than Japan's and 400% higher than Brazil's". (Bolt & Van Zanden 2013)

Now it is number 55....

(At the moment Greece is at 44 - similar to Portugal).

CaptainGrey -> EricthePenguin 30 Jun 2015 09:24

Mexico didn't default, it devalued. Completely different. As I note above/below (depending on your settings)

Argentina was shut out for a decade, but was able to get through it thanks to it's vast natural reserves of mining, farming and forestry, plus strict financial discipline. Greece has none of those things.

Default could be a disaster for a generation of more.

Actually, nobody knows for certain how bad a default will be. But it will not be a walk in the park

ThinBanker -> Gelion 30 Jun 2015 09:24

"But of course that's not debt, that's just a way of lowering currency values to keep your exports competitive and put your citizens into Austerity"

Huh? Without QE, 'austerity' would have been all the greater ...

PeterHG 30 Jun 2015 08:50

It seems inconceivable to me that Greece will leave the Euro. The loss of face to the Brussels European Union bureaucracy would be too great for them to bear . Such a happening is beyond their imagination so they will find some means to keep Greece in. The Greek politicians sense this and that knowledge dictates their actions.

ApfelD -> Johanes 30 Jun 2015 09:13

Tsipras called them "criminals". I guess it is more close to the truth.


optimist99 -> sandywinder 30 Jun 2015 09:15

"is that borrowing and spending too much will always get you in the end. In case people have forgotten, the UK has a £1.5 trillion national debt."

But the folk who lend money to the UK are perfectly happy to continue to do this... So it's not "borrowing and spending too much" in the UK... (HMG can borrow money over 30 years at less than 3% interest...).

kentspur 30 Jun 2015 08:36

It's a default.

This semantic dancing on a pinhead just shows the absurdity of the situation. Greece cannot pay, but no one can say that as it undermines the whole financial system, which is based on confidence. We can't 'write off Greek debt' (as Jeremy Corbyn helpfully suggests) as no indebted countries would feel the need to pay off debts again - they'd just wait for the 'Greece' solution.

[Jun 29, 2015] Russian sanctions blockback

www.unz.com
Fern , June 29, 2015 at 3:21 am
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh. What's the word I'm looking for? Ah yes, schadenfreude:-

"In 2015, the German economy is estimated to lose up to 290,000 jobs and receive $10 billion less than it could due to restrictive measure imposed on Moscow, the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations told Contra Magazine. German exports to Russia last year fell by $7.2 billion.
"The current developments exceed our worst fears," committee chairman Eckhard Cordes said.
This nasty short-term implication of an unreasonable Western policy towards Russia is affecting many European countries, not only the largest economy in the EU. In total, the European Union could potentially lose as much as $110 billion and up to 2 million jobs from the anti-Russian sanctions, according to the committee's estimates.

But the long-term consequences are far more profound and damaging. German businesses now fear that their reliable and long-time Russian partners have pivoted to Asia, specifically China.

German businesses are concerned that this shift could be permanent. By the time restrictive measures are lifted, former ties and partnerships could be long gone."

http://sputniknews.com/business/20150629/1023973728.html

"Former ties and partnerships could be gone". You bet. What's it gonna take before Europe's so called leaders wake up to the fact that US sanctions aren't just about trying to destroy Russia's economy, but also about doing serious, possibly terminal damage to the European one?

[Jun 29, 2015] Greek Tale(s)

"...From a macroeconomic viewpoint, the Greek saga is one of austere budget polices imposed on the Greek government by the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank in an attempt to collect payment on the government's debt. "
.
"...The debt/GDP level, which was supposed to fall to about 155% by 2013, actually rose to 170% because of the severity of the contraction in output. The IMF subsequently published a report criticizing its participation in the 2010 program, including overly optimistic macroeconomic assumptions."
.
"...Moreover, government pensions are important to a wide number of people. The old-age dependency ratio is around 30%, one of the highest in Europe. The contraction in the Greek economy means that the pension is sometimes the sole income payment received by a family. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the pension system is seen as a "red line" which can not be crossed any further in Greece."
.
"...... if the European governments insist that Greece must also pay back all its outstanding debt, then there is only one possible ending for this saga, and it will not be a happy one."
June 27, 2015 | Angry Bear

by Joseph Joyce

No matter what new twist the Greek debt crisis takes, there can be no question that it has been a catastrophe for that country and for the entire Eurozone. The Greek economy contracted by over a quarter during the period of 2007 to 2013, the largest decline of any advanced economy since 1950. The Greek unemployment rate last year was 26.5%, and its youth unemployment rate of 52.4% was matched only by Spain's. But who is responsible for these conditions depends very much on which perspective you take.

From a macroeconomic viewpoint, the Greek saga is one of austere budget polices imposed on the Greek government by the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank in an attempt to collect payment on the government's debt. The first program, enacted in 2010 in response to Greece's escalating budget deficits, called for fiscal consolidation to be achieved through cuts in government spending and higher taxes. The improvement in the primary budget position (which excludes interest payments) between 2010-11 was 8% of GDP, above its target. But real GDP, which was expected to drop between 2009 and 2012 by 5.5%, actually declined by 17%. The debt/GDP level, which was supposed to fall to about 155% by 2013, actually rose to 170% because of the severity of the contraction in output. The IMF subsequently published a report criticizing its participation in the 2010 program, including overly optimistic macroeconomic assumptions.

To address the continuing rise in the debt ratio, a new adjustment program was inaugurated in 2012, which included a writedown of Greek debt by 75%. Further cuts in public spending were to be made, as well as improvements in tax collection. But economic conditions continued to deteriorate, which hindered the country's ability to meet the fiscal goals. The Greek economy began to expand in 2014, and registered growth for the year of 0.8%. The public's disenchantment with the country's economic and political status, however, turned it against the usual ruling parties. The left-wing Syriza party took the lead position in the parliamentary elections held this past January, and the new Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, pledged to undo the policies of the troika. He and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis have been negotiating with the IMF, the ECB and the other member governments of the Eurozone in an attempt to obtain more debt reduction in return for implementing new adjustment measures.

The macroeconomic record, therefore, seems to support the position of those who view the Greek situation as one of imposed austerity to force payment of debt incurred in the past. But because of the continuing declines in GDP, the improvement in the debt/GDP ratio has remained an elusive (if not unattainable) goal. (For detailed comments on the impact of the macroeconomic policies undertaken in the 2010 and 2012 programs see Krugman here and Wren-Lewis here.) Another perspective, however, brings an additional dimension to the analysis. From a public finance point of view, the successive Greek governments have been unable and/or unwilling to deal with budget positions-and in particular expenditures through the pension system-that are unsustainable.

Pension expenditures as a proportion of GDP have been relatively high when compared to other European countries, and under the pre-2010 system were projected to reach almost 25% of GDP by 2050. Workers were able to receive full benefits after 35 years of contributions, rather than 40 as in most other countries. Those in "strenuous occupations," which were broadly defined, could retire after 25 years with full benefits. The amount that a retiree received was based on the last year of salary rather than career earnings, and there were extra monthly payments at Christmas and Easter. The administration of the system, split among over 100 agencies, was a bureaucratic nightmare.

Much of this has been changed. The minimum retirement age has been raised, the number of years needed for full benefits is now 40, and the calculation of benefits changed so as to be less generous. But some fear that the changes have not been sufficient, particularly if older workers are "sheltered" from the changes.

Moreover, government pensions are important to a wide number of people. The old-age dependency ratio is around 30%, one of the highest in Europe. The contraction in the Greek economy means that the pension is sometimes the sole income payment received by a family. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the pension system is seen as a "red line" which can not be crossed any further in Greece.

The challenge, therefore, is for the government to establish its finances on a sound footing without further damaging the fragile economy. This will call for some compromises on both sides.

... if the European governments insist that Greece must also pay back all its outstanding debt, then there is only one possible ending for this saga, and it will not be a happy one.

cross posted with Capital Ebbs and Flows

[Jun 29, 2015] Capped

Jesse's Café Américain

With the VIX soaring and the US equity markets seeing their first 2% correction in many moons, the capping on the precious metals was determined and obvious.

So much for 'Greek capitulation.'

I think Syriza realized they were being presented an untenable solution, the 'generous offer' of extend and pretend by Merkel and the Eurocrats, with the IMF playing heavy. This bailing out of private creditors while extracting a pound of flesh from the Greek people, facilitated by corporate friendly governments, was exactly how Greece came into this situation in the first place.

I thought forcing of a bank closure on Greece by the EU was a bit tough, and probably senseless. Showing them the lash to get them to fall to heel and all that.

Most economic commentators in the US are completely clueless about money these days, and global economics as well.

More surprises will therefore be coming I am sure.

US equity markets had about a two percent correction, with the SP 500 testing its 200 DMA.

Forget the domestic economic news, it was all geopoliticals and mostly about Greece.

The markets do not like the uncertainty of what will happen in Greece, as well as Puerto Rico and the Ukraine, not to mention the wavering financial assets bubble in China.

I am treading slowly through the commentary and news about Greece. The least helpful are those who are mostly projecting their egos or some ideology.

This is primarily a political problem. Greece has a left wing government that the Western powers find unattractive compared to the puppet governments which have facilitated the bailing out of Greek's private creditors while sustaining an unsustainable economic situation.

I am puzzled by Jeffrey Sachs who suggest that Greek default on their debt, but remain in the Eurozone. I am not quite sure how they might do that, and while Jeff says their is no mechanism to actually kick them out it does seem a bit too cute. The EU does not have a mechanism for forgiving one member's debts ...

[Jun 29, 2015]European Leaders Insist Greek Deal Is Still Possible

The neo-liberals running Europe have too much to lose by giving the Greeks a break -- especially the 'socialists' who have acquiesced in the suffering of their traditional supporters since the economic crisis began in 2007.
.
"...Austerity is precisely the opposite of policies required to revitalize a depressed economy. But it is exactly what a predatory financial cabal uses to squeeze the lifeblood out of victims it manages to snare with its promises of money now, pay later."
.
"...Sharpies in expensive suits take three-martini lunches at the expense of millions of people ensnared in their delightful little game and suffering to fund their luxuries for them. Debt is such a wonderful product. The gift that keeps on giving. You can even blame your victims by waging a moralistic finger at them: "You never should have borrowed the money in the first place!" What a rotten, selfish, greedy, antisocial game."
.
"...The theory seems to be that competing with Third World workers requires the 99% to accept Third World salaries and conditions... how else can the 0.1% keep their multi-billion dollar lifestyles?"
Jun 29, 2015 | NYT

Jerry Harris, Chicago

European bankers can't stand the idea of a democratic vote on economic problems that impact millions of people. Neo-liberalism is a zombie economic policy, alive long after it should be dead. How much more suffering must the Greek people endure before anti-austerity policies are accepted as the only way out of the crisis?

Todge, seattle 36 minutes ago

When Merkel and Juncker say "compromise", it means " do what we tell you" . Tsipras recognizes that the creditor nations have a double standard and is calling it.

The EU leaders are not happy. Unclear why. It's only Greek pensioners who'll have to eke out a misery on $250 a month.

Sherry Jones, Washington 4 minutes ago

Far too little attention has been paid to the darkest cloud on the horizon, the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe. As a result of austerity measures forced on Greek workers, such as reducing the standard minimum wage of $750 by 22 percent, people are increasingly, and quite rightly, bitter and angry. Punishing the working class and ignoring its 25 percent unemployment rate energizes destructive political forces in Greece such as the Golden Dawn party, which channels working class rage into rage against the "other", such as minority citizens and immigrants. This is a particularly bad time for anti-immigrant sentiment to take hold. It is worrisome to watch European leaders in this debt crisis fueling such nationalist and racist extremism.

Tommy, yoopee, michigan

It's unfortunate that the European Union will dissolve simply because European oligarchs refuse to pay higher taxes. This type of sickness that has occurred in the U.S. has apparently spread overseas.

Sad to say, but even the rich are so blind to know that they won't have a pot to urinate in if the earth is burning up and the people are in revolt. Austerity worked in this country, meaning it worked to keep America in a prolonged depression after they first tried it in 1937. Will we ever learn? If history is a guide, the quick answer is 'no'.

george, coastline

Last week the Troika insisted that Greece further cut pension benefits and not raise taxes, If Syriza had agreed to that, they would have been discredited by their own electorate. One wonders if that wasn't the real goal of Europe's leaders- to send a message to the Spanish who vote in November and can express their opinion of austerity by giving power to Podemos.

Now they're shocked and petrified that the Greeks will vote on their own destiny and say they are willing to compromise. But in the end, the neo-liberals running Europe have too much to lose by giving the Greeks a break -- especially the 'socialists' who have acquiesced in the suffering of their traditional supporters since the economic crisis began in 2007.

condo, France

I'm afraid today's slump in the markets has cost much much more than the money expected from Greece. Ideology has overcome economics in this instance, but pointing the finger at Ms. Merkel is not fair: the worst seem to be the visionless technocrats of the Eurogroup, not mentioning the IMF

Jason, DC 6 minutes ago

""Europe cannot give permanent financial aid with no conditions," he said."

But, they aren't asking for that. They are asking for a specific amount of aid with different conditions than what you want.

condo, France

I'm afraid today's slump in the markets has cost much much more than the money expected from Greece. Ideology has overcome economics in this instance, but pointing the finger at Ms. Merkel is not fair: the worst seem to be the visionless technocrats of the Eurogroup, not mentioning the IMF

Jason, DC

""Europe cannot give permanent financial aid with no conditions," he said."

But, they aren't asking for that. They are asking for a specific amount of aid with different conditions than what you want.

Bill Appledorf, is a trusted commenter British Columbia

Austerity is precisely the opposite of policies required to revitalize a depressed economy. But it is exactly what a predatory financial cabal uses to squeeze the lifeblood out of victims it manages to snare with its promises of money now, pay later.

American homeowners suckered with teasers to purchase balloon mortgages that cost them their homes; college students roped into lifelong indebtedness with student loans issued by financial institutions that never in a million years would pay their fair share of taxes to fund free public education; third world countries driven to financial ruin by the tried-and-true strategy being employed in Greece: transnational PayDay loans on which interest payments are only made possible by rolling them over in perpetuity and loaning just enough to pay that interest every time another tranche is issued.

Sharpies in expensive suits take three-martini lunches at the expense of millions of people ensnared in their delightful little game and suffering to fund their luxuries for them. Debt is such a wonderful product. The gift that keeps on giving. You can even blame your victims by waging a moralistic finger at them: "You never should have borrowed the money in the first place!"

What a rotten, selfish, greedy, antisocial game.

dolly patterson, silicon valley

I really don't understand what the big deal is about keeping Greece in the Eurozone...their economy only makes up 2%. They can still stay in the EU along with 9 other countries who don't trade the euro dollar.

If the EZ gives in to Greece, it set a precedence for others like Italy and Spain, etc., to not have to pay their dues.

Jason, DC

"If the EZ gives in to Greece..."

Exactly...all those countries should be conquered, not treated like they were part of an equal union.

Matthew, Auckland

At least Merkel gets that berating/telling the Greek people what to vote in their own referendum proooobably won't help. The rich, angry technocrats doing the berating? Er, not so much.

tony silver, Kopenhagen

The Capitalist West lent billions of Dollars, for Greece to realize its Olympic Games, knowing that it was a risk, as Greece is one of the poorest country in EU.

Now they demand their money back? Seems unrealistic.

If Greece has no more money to pay its obligations, then someone should have transferred it to foreign banks. Money cannot evaporate like smoke.

Billions of Dollars were driven by European and American money-men and invested in their banks.

David, Sacramento

Money can evaporate. Recall the Great Depression where stock prices plummeted between 1930 and 1932. That's when people jumped out of high-rise buildings, not 1929-1930.

change, new york, ny 39 minutes ago

Are we that careless and gullible? Greece does not have the money to pay today or at the end of the year. Kicking the can down the road is only for political reasons. Economically nothing will change.

The Europeans are looking for something to stem the fallout, something they themselves created. The best for the Eurozone is for Greece to quietly exit from the group. The fallout will be less damaging for all if the Europeans are willing to make a simple but hard choice.

That Greece will exit, should not be seen as a failure on the part of the Group. That is exactly what they are making this crisis to be.

anon,

Heather, a civil war would add MORE problems! Who wants more problems?

I'm surprised no one has in-depth investigated a population of 11M people has over 350B euro debt in its euro lifespan. I believe savvier crooks have left them with their debts also.

If Cyprus was offshore Asset banking, Greece appears to be offshore Debt banking. Not fair for 11M people to live like they abused the EMU by the decisions of a few. What is the history of Greek financials? Were they solvent before entering the Euro?

What if crooks got Greece into the Euro, performed numerous financial crimes, used Greece, robbed Greece, deposited the money into Cyprus and crooked banks of Greece and Cyprus. In recent years Europe has confiscated illegal money and closed illegal banks. Greek bankers and businessmen look crooked also. So they play the part, while others ran off with over 300B euros.

If you were to balance the funds, where did the 350B euros go? Each Greek should be a rich on the average. Only the average citizen suffers. THIS is a recurring pattern.

KeithNJ, NJ

Greek banks did not 'overlend'. The excessive lending to the Greek government was by non-Greek banks (perhaps the Greek banks knew better?).

The Greek government used the money to double state worker's salaries over less than ten years and greatly expand the headcount. Some money was left over for benefits to the public.

The Greek people, not surprisingly, apparently see their State as hopelessly corrupt and avoid funding it if at all possible. Now, other Europeans have come to the same conclusion.

So the question was, and remains, what will the Greek people do about their State? That question does not go away regardless of whether they stick with the Euro or devalue with the Drachma. Either way the State cannot fund itself and has run our of people willing to plug the gap, whether Greek or non-Greek.

su, ny

As of today, If Greece leaves Eurozone, Greece some part of population will leave Greece permanently too. so Meanwhile EU incompetent bureaucrats couldn't even figure out how to deal with Mediterranean immigrants, now in their hand there is a legitimate prospective millions immigrant Greek people.

EU is showing it's inner workings and that say only one thing :INCOMPETENT.

su, ny

No body in the world can say that 500 billion USD credit is given with under normal banking and financial procedures to 10,815.000 population country.

That is not right.

EU cannot wash its hands, this is entirely Greek's problem, EU and it's lenders are in this game and they did this to Greece knowingly and intentionally and now they are trying to capitulate a nation in pretext of World War one time Europe mentality.

This is a very nasty game and power play, nothing else.

German's bankers and Greek politicians collaborative work nothing else.

P.S: some credit in this scheme also goes to Goldman Sachs.

Carlos, Long Island, NY

Tsipras responded to their 'take it or else' ultimatum with a referendum; what's wrong with it? What are the EU leaders afraid off? I would said that after 5 years of austerity that only shrunk their economy, Greek people have a good reason to say no more.

They will go into a very bad couple of years but even that is better than eternal austerity with no economic growth. After the economy stabilizes, they will start growing and will do better. Just look what happened in Argentina.

Simon, Tampa

The Greeks need to call it a day and reject the Trioka's blackmail.

Jon Davis, NM

The Greeks need to exit the euro, align themselves economically with Russia, and lead NATO but remain neutral. Let the rest of Europe worry about Ukraine, ISIS and the flood of immigrants into southern Europe via Spain and Italy.

NYCLAW, Flushing, New York

Tsipras just called Merkel's bluff. By closing the Greek banks and stock exchange, Tsipras is signaling that he is willing to take great risk to get a deal that he and his voters can live with. Merkel, on the other hand, maybe was assuming that the Greeks would never risk an EU membership and accept further cuts.

Caveat to Merkel: the Chinese have a old saying: "Those wear shoes are better off not stepping on the barefooted ones." Watch out, Ms. Merkel, the Greeks may have been pushed to a point that they have nothing to lose.

Peter Czipott, is a trusted commenter San Diego

It seems that Krugman, in his op-ed today, must be right: it's not about analysis but about power. Analysis of the problem would yield a solution that, while not ideal, minimizes losses for all parties involved -- or, equivalently, maximizes the ultimate payout to creditors over time. That alternative dictates setting up a situation facilitating the eventual regrowth of the Greek economy, to the point where it can (a) provide for its own citizens' well-being, and (b) repay as much as possible of its outside debts.

Instead, Merkel and company, ostensibly representing the interests of their citizens, lay down terms that, as Krugman says, lead to endless Greek austerity and a depression of unforeseeable duration, which also harms the interests of the very citizens Merkel is presuming to protect.

And all for what? To assert the moral upper hand? It's counterproductive to the point of craziness; and Merkel, as a physicist and problem-solver, used to dealing with quantitative data, should know better: perhaps better than some of her economic advisers.

Michael Collins, Oakland

Greece will never be able to pay it's debt with an unemployment rate of 25%. Young Greeks are leaving in droves to find opportunity elsewhere. While it's true that Greek still needs to implement some economic reforms, like cutting down on tax evasion and cutting back on pensions, it's also clear that purpose of austerity is punishment without regard to viability.

Austerity will be the end of the Greek Economy, so why not exit?

If the Europeans are serious about keeping Greece (and Spain, and Portugal) in the EU, they need to temper Austerity with a serious plan to raise employment and give the younger generation a reason to stay in their home country.

John M, is a trusted commenter Oakland, CA

Indeed - Greece has suffered through a full-on depression for 5 years, and all the Troika said in response was "more of the same." To my mind, the whole purpose of this exercise is to force massive social safety net cuts and privatization not only upon Greece, but upon all of Europe - including Germany.

This is not merely a European perspective - look at the way pensioners were treated in Detroit, and how the Governor of Illinois proposes to treat Chicago city workers' pensions: bankruptcy, and then massive pension cuts. The theory seems to be that competing with Third World workers requires the 99% to accept Third World salaries and conditions... how else can the 0.1% keep their multi-billion dollar lifestyles?

Bob Dobbs, Santa Cruz, CA

In following a politically expedient course that utterly ruins a country considered "expendable," the European Community sowed the wind. And as you suggest, it may reap the whirlwind.

Europe's leaders are apparently no wiser or better than they were in 1919, when they imposed the same sort of austerity on -- Germany. Whose leaders also seem curiously blank on the matter.

[Jun 29, 2015] Shares slide as deepening Greek crisis shakes global markets

Jun 29, 2015 | The Guardian

The commission reiterated on Monday that the door remained open to a deal.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, was expected on Monday to appeal to Greece to return to the negotiating table, but would not make any fresh proposals.

On Sunday, the commission took the unusual step of releasing the draft bailout agreement that creditors had been negotiating with Greece before talks broke down.

"We are some centimetres away from an agreement," tweeted Pierre Moscovici, France's European commissioner, adding that there was an open door to further talks. "We must find a compromise. I want a reformed Greece to stay in the eurozone without austerity."

A bank manager explains the situation to pensioners waiting outside a branch of the National Bank of Greece hoping to get their pensions.

A bank manager explains the situation to pensioners waiting outside a branch of the National Bank of Greece hoping to get their pensions. Photograph: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Meanwhile, Angela Merkel will hold emergency talks with senior German politicians on Monday afternoon.

The German chancellor spoke to the US president, Barack Obama, on Sunday, with the two leaders agreeing it was "critically important to make every effort to return to a path that will allow Greece to resume reforms and growth within the eurozone", according to a White House statement.

The US Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, spoke to his counterparts in Germany and France, as well as Tsipras and the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. The US is urging all sides to resolve the crisis: it has called for Greece's creditors to discuss debt relief ahead of Sunday's referendum, but is also counselling Athens to adopt "difficult measures to reach a pragmatic compromise".

In a brief, televised address to the nation on Sunday night, Tsipras blamed the eurozone leaders. He did not say how long the banks would remain shut, nor did he give details of how much individuals and companies would be allowed to withdraw once they reopened.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Tsipras published a decree in the official government gazette setting out the capital controls to be imposed. The decree – entitled "Bank Holiday break" – was signed by Tsipras and the Greek president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos.

It said all banks would be kept shut until after the referendum on 5 July and that withdrawals from cash machines would be limited to €60 – about £40. Cash machines were not expected to reopen until later on Monday.

Foreign transfers out of Greece are prohibited, although online transactions between Greek bank accounts are to continue as normal. Tsipras insisted that pensions and wages would be unaffected by the controls.

Greece's finance ministry later announced that the strict ATM withdrawal limits would not apply to holders of credit or debit cards issued in foreign countries. This was viewed as a necessary move as tourists were spotted joining locals in front of ATMs on Sunday. Any similar restriction would hurt tourism, Greece's sole thriving industry, which accounts for at least a fifth of economic activity.

Tsipras said Saturday's move by the eurozone's finance chiefs to halt Greece's bailout programme was unprecedented. He called it "a denial of the Greek public's right to reach a democratic decision".

The commission said on Monday that Greece's capital controls were "necessary and proportionate", but free movement of capital would need to be be reinstated "as soon as possible in the interests of the Greek economy, the eurozone and the European Union's single market as a whole".

Tsipras added that the finance ministers' initiative had prompted the ECB to curb its assistance, forcing the government's hand. The Greek prime minister, who has always insisted the crisis can only be solved at the highest political levels, said he had once again appealed for an extension of the bailout until after the referendum, sending his proposal to the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, the leaders of the other 18 member states of the single currency, the commission and the ECB.

[Jun 29, 2015] Greece crisis: markets begin to tumble as investors flee

Jun 29, 2015 | The Guardian

Markets suffered across Asia on Monday as Greece shut down its banks for a week ahead of an increasingly likely debt default.

Oil prices declined and the euro edged down against the dollar, while Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index fell 2% to 20,283.98 points. The Shanghai Composite Index was off 0.4% at 4,178.56 despite China's surprise weekend interest rate cut.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.7% to 29,192.67. Seoul's Kospi shed 1.6% to 2,057.52 and Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 was off 1.8% to 5,447.80. Market benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand also fell sharply.

Turmoil in Asia had been widely expected after the failure of 11th-hour talks in Europe over the weekend raised the possibility of a Greek exit from the eurozone.

More than $35bn was wiped off the Australian stock market in the first hour of trading on Monday as investors braced for what could become a torrid week.

Earlier the euro dropped more than 3% to 133.80 yen, its lowest level for five weeks. The common currency fell as much as 1.9% to $1.0955, its lowest level in almost a month.

More on this topicGreek debt crisis: the key points of Athens bank controls

The US Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, stressed the need for Greece "to take necessary steps to maintain financial stability" ahead of the referendum.

He told the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, on Sunday that Athens and its creditors needed to continue working toward a resolution ahead of a Greek referendum on 5 July on the creditors' demands for austerity.

US stock futures dived 1.8%, hitting a three-month low, while US Treasuries futures price gained almost two points.

A cash-strapped Greece looks certain to miss its debt repayment on Tuesday as Greece's European partners shut the door on extending a credit lifeline after Greece's surprise move to hold a referendum on bailout terms.


robtal 29 Jun 2015 08:43

We can print all the money we want all over the world to save every banker, financial wizard, and insurance company . But one little country like Greece is the scape goat these financial criminals use to bring fear and control to the rest of the world. These are evil less than human monsters that run these world banks.


Paul Hawkins 29 Jun 2015 08:31

The World is being run by a group of financial gangsters such as the Rothschilds and 30 to 40 of the richest people in the world: Karen Hudes is a graduate of Yale Law School and she worked in the legal department of the World Bank for more than 20 years. In fact, when she was fired for blowing the whistle on corruption inside the World Bank, she held the position of Senior Counsel.

She was in a unique position to see exactly how the global elite rules the world, and the information that she is now revealing to the public is absolutely stunning. According to Hudes, the elite uses a very tight core of financial institutions and mega-corporations to dominate the planet.

Austerity is a lie as Countries use the Fiat monetary system and can produce money when they want, such as quantitative easing. It is the greed of the banks, that had to be bailed out across the world, that is causing the problem.

The sooner these greedy selfish power hungry bankers are brought to book the sooner the financial markets would recover.


Mark Foster Kenneth Stephen Besig 29 Jun 2015 08:17

A large part of Syriza wanted out of the Euro because they were sure the Troika would not compromise on it's insane 'reforms' which had already destroyed most of the economy. Debtors prison's were abolished years ago in the UK, primarily because creditors realized it meant they would never get any compensation for losses while debtors were in gaol. Yet by insisting on repayments on an odious debt, we effectively put the whole of Greece into a debtors prison, and insisted on all the wrong IMF/ECB reforms that have always failed to resurrect economies in the past. We are still caught up in the idiotic Washington consensus/Jeffrey Sachs/ Hernando de Sotos models of development.

In truth Greece should have left the failed euro project years ago. Iceland had the sense to get out of the Banks clutches, file bankruptcy and impose capital controls and start again. For the most part that as worked very well for them. Some will say Greece isn't Iceland, or nonsense like the Greeks are lazy (they work longer hours than the Germans), Greece has deep problems for sure and i'm not saying I'm confident Syriza have the program to fix them. But I'm 100% confident the demands of the Troika would only cripple them further.


Myrtle7 29 Jun 2015 08:14

Save Greece! A Kind Request to the EU Leaders and Creditors (Myrtle 7)

I am writing this because today we are hours before a bitter end, perhaps, for Greece and the beginning of problems for the EU.
A lot has been said about the Greeks living above their income for a long time or partying for a long time and these may have been true in many cases but the Greeks should not be punished now as they followed the example and attitude of some of their leaders. And, moreover, now, it is the poorer people, those with lower income, that are suffering, those that did not have the right "connections."

The referendum arranged by the government seems like a democratic move but in fact it will be a desperate choice as the Greek people are asked to choose between suicide by drowning and suicide by hanging.

If Greece goes into default it will be a catastrophe for the country; there is no currency to devalue. They have to re-create the drachma (it will take perhaps a year or more) which will be immediately devalued. How would these people, who are suffering already, cope? And if Greece defaults, I am not sure whether the Creditors will get their money within the next 50 years, anyway. Most seriously, the tense situation in the defaulted country, the low morale and possible disorder, would invite & unleash unforeseen dangers for Greece first, for other European countries later and the EU eventually; as we all know such situations can spread to the detriment of the people. Historic recurrence is here: the specifics and the actors change, but the result is similar. Moreover, it is common knowledge that there are forces, (they have their own agenda) which, wish, discuss in conferences, and even envision, the break up of the European Union, even as 'we speak'. If I am aware of this, I am sure the European leaders are aware too, for, as wise leaders, are conscious (or should be) of emerging situations long before they get out of hand. With around 6 million Muslims outside its northern borders, (excluding Turkish territories), Greece, will be an open, unprotected theatre for anyone who wants an easy passage to the west.

The Creditors are part of the leadership or the Hegemony of European Union as they form the powerful financial aspect of it; usually, leaders who push think they facilitate progress; in fact they are blocking it. Yet, there are certain characteristics that wise leaders have and magnanimity is the most important one. They do not expect a poor, proud nation to fall on their knees. They would always offer opportunities for relief and growth. Lawrence Summers, US Treasury Secretary, suggested something which sounds as a good solution: the Creditors can write off a small amount of the debt now and perhaps ask for something that Greece, could, comfortably, add to their plan that would help growth; e. g. taxing certain accounts many Greeks keep in Swiss banks. Such a move by the Creditors would be wise, intelligent and humane.

With this magnanimous act the Greeks would feel uplifted and stronger to face the odds. In my view, the most important attitude of the Leader is to make people feel they mean something within the group, but I may be wrong.


John Kakkos DazzlingKarina 29 Jun 2015 07:04

Lazy Greeks is a very racisti thing to say, espesially since Greeks work-hours exceed that of oher EU countries (including Germany). War reparations agreement was not accepted. Since in 1942, the Greek Central Bank was forced by the occupying Nazi regime to loan 476 million Reichsmarks at 0% interest to Nazi Germany. In 1960, Greece accepted 115 million Marks as compensation for Nazi crimes. Nevertheless, past Greek governments have insisted that this was only a down-payment, not complete reparations. The 300 bn were not given to Greeks but to banks. 30% of Greeks are iving below the povery line. Unemployment is 26% (60% to young) and 16% cant even provide daily food needs. EU is not to blame, nor it is Greece. This financial system is just not working.


Aboutface 29 Jun 2015 06:47

There are "invisible hands" weaving the thread of EU-Euro through the IMF needle in this Greek tradegy. One of the comment here by Steven Tracy on the Rothschilds and Rockerfeller seems about right...a force majeure / fire sale of prime assets and not to dismiss, there are very wealthy Greeks with offshore accounts, like vultures over a soon to be cadaver. Next move, the "Alexis Tsipras surprise" call option.


pauline7883 29 Jun 2015 06:40

the greek people have the right to this referendum they have to decide if the deal is acceptable whether they can cope with the continuing austerity. the financial institutions of europe have acted disgracefully
the greek government should begin an audit of the books looking at the loans/debts owed by greece to see if there was any illegality and prosecutions should follow

SEADADDY 29 Jun 2015 06:35

So, as Greece slips into the financial abyss, it's the common man/woman that gets the pain, the punishment and the price tag of bankers ineptitude, greed and Houdini escapism. The bankers, corporate investors and politicians get away with grand gambling and larceny of incredible scale, without so much as a slap on the wrist. It wasn't the small man in Greece that caused the crisis. It was the Niarchos's and the Onassis's & etc that caused the downfall, with getting away with not paying their fair taxes, flags of convenience, double dealing and tax havens world wide. It's high time that some government agency woke up and
NorthernFella,29 Jun 2015 06:00

They weren't ready to join the EU...

I would say, weren't ready to join the euro. Interesting that you don't mention anything about the role of Goldman Sachs in this big scam.

"Humiliation" - what idiocy.

If accusing all the Greek of the ongoing (bank)crisis, using austerity (cuts directed to the disadvantaged groups mostly) as a medicine and calling them lazy is not humiliating I don't know what is.

And the idea that they were being 'starved by austerity' is ridiculous. They were starved by their corrupt practices.

Let's take measures of that how much the neoliberalist austerity policy has affected those in the most vulnerable position and let's compare it to the times before austerity. Sure the situation has been bad for a long time before the crisis but austerity brought real hell.


Luckyspin marcus_rm 29 Jun 2015 05:34

The Greeks accuse the IMF of colluding in an EMU-imposed austerity regime that breaches the Fund's own rules and is in open contradiction with five years of analysis by its own excellent research department and chief economist, Olivier Blanchard.

Objectively, it is acting as an imperialist lackey. The IMF enforced brute liquidation without compensating stimulus or relief. It claimed that its policies would lead to a 2.6 % contraction of GDP in 2010 followed by brisk recovery.

What in fact happened was six years of depression, a deflationary spiral, a 26 % fall in GDP, 60 % youth unemployment, mass exodus of the young and the brightest, chronic hysteretic that will blight Greece's prospects for decades to come, and to cap it all the debt ratio exploded because of the mathematical – and predictable – denominator effect of shrinking nominal GDP.


George Vasilakakos deskandchair 29 Jun 2015 05:27

very poorly served Greece is by its media

That's the key point. You see the Greek media groups are run by the same oligarchs who've been buying our politicians. They owe hundreds of millions to the Greek banks, along with the political parties, between them it must be around a billion. The banks were unwilling to collect on those debts, got bailed out and we are footing the bill...

NorthernFella Phil Murray 29 Jun 2015 05:25
Well, that's why I'm writing about "near-racism". Greece is schizophrenically seemed as the cradle of democracy and the Western culture but as Gerold reveals the opinion of many by the comment:

Nonsense. The Greek nation and people have failed to grow into a modern responsible state. They are still living like an Ottoman Province, trying to short-change the Sultan.

Many are still romanticizing the ancient times and are disappointed as they see the times have changed. Many are wondering (bitterly) how the modern day Greek are so different from the ancient times. In one book (a Finnish version of Traveler's history of Greece, I think) it was written (in introduction) something like this: "are those hot-tempered noisy people really descended from the ancient Greek?".

When adding to it Gerold's views on Greece as a nation that is still living like "an Ottoman Province" it's easy to extend near-racist stereotypes even further. Now we're talking about "lazy Greek who just lie down under the palm trees, waiting for the next bailout". Of course there are stereotypes related to each nation but they get always stronger when we are going to the south and they are told by "harder-working northerners" ...

I'm looking forward to the Greek people correcting their previous election error

Should the Greek vote only for "rationalist", pro-euro, business-oriented right-wing parties who are ready to starve their own people to death? It sounds travesty of democracy and would prove that economy has replaced democracy.


Theo Krom 29 Jun 2015 05:14

The markets. already have lost much more money than if they were agree to restructure, not necessarily write-off, the Greek debt. If we count the profits the markets would gain after such deal would have been announced then it seems that whatever is happening is a clear and utter irrational thinking orchestrated by the allegedly proponents of rational economic thinking...

Policy for the contemporary markets, seems to be much more important than free markets. Free market is an illusion, an excuse for the banks to suffocate democracy, using pseudo-politicians as their most valuable gatekeepers....Well, the actual neo-liberalism has been implemented in a very distorted manner, exactly as happened with socialism... Actually, both lead to utter misery!!!

29 Jun 2015 05:12 ;
This is what the private FMI corporation owned by the private federal reserve corporation of USA has planned for ALL our countries. I's the Rothschields, the Rockfellers etc... The 1% that are behind all this.

Can't you see USA is deep in debt and nearly bankrupt, just like most of the western countries and Africa. They lend us money, put us deeper in debt, and we pay them back only the interest of the debt ???

This has all been carefully planned since the creation of the private federal reserve corporation in 1913 to rob our assets and control us.

One example. Watch Karen Hudes, former lawyer of the FMI for 20 years, reveal it all : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhTvsDuP-rg

This is why the BRIC countries have come together to ditch the US dollar.

Better than Eduard Snowden on the NSA.


GRJones Mark Foster 29 Jun 2015 04:51

Iceland is often held up on these pages as a shining example of the wealth and riches that flow to you if you reject austerity. It shouldn't be. Iceland suffered enormous economic contraction after its rejection of bailout conditions, and while the economy is growing, GDP is at about the level it was in 2004, unemployment is still well above pre-crash levels, and prices are 50% higher than they were before the crash. The steep devaluation of the currency by 50% meant that everyone in Iceland took an enormous hit in terms of real wages, and because most Icelandic mortgages are linked to the Euro theses have effectively doubled, while their homes have halved in value, leaving much of the population in negative equity. They have enacted massive austerity, more than any country in Europe bar Greece, slashing their deficit from 15% to less than 1%. The fall in living standards has been severe enough that the Icelandic people voted the parties that came into power after the rejection of bailout terms out of office, and reelected the party that was in power before the crash. The lesson to be learned from Iceland is that economic collapse means pain, no matter what you do.

someoneionceknew ID5590609 29 Jun 2015 04:50

Do you realize that the European rules prevent the ECB from funding member countries, as well as prohibiting national bailouts

Sure. But why aren't you Germans subject to the rules too?

The rules don't work. They can be changed fairly easily. Why not if it stops people starving and otherwise being persecuted through no fault of their own?


ID5590609 mjmizera 29 Jun 2015 04:38

Creditors already took a 50% haircut on Greece debt, and the conditions of Greece's bailout loans were extremely generous, with very low interest rates and exceptionally long payment terms. The terms and conditions were better than what was offered to Spain, Portugal and Ireland, and those countries actually implemented the demanded austerity reforms and are now experiencing growth.

Greeks don't need their debt forgiven. Greeks need to start paying taxes and reforming and managing their economy like a respectable first world nation, not some banana republic. Why should Europeans and others show solidarity with Greeks when Greeks fail to show solidarity with their own people and their democratically elected government?


Overdog81 29 Jun 2015 04:36

The past Greek politicians are responsible for bringing this debt to current levels. There's no doubt about this.

However, the current government found itself at the edge of a cliff. 6 months of negotiations and the issue of restructuring or writing off a non viable debt never came on the table by Greece's creditors. Basically Greece is begging for money that only go towards paying this huge debt and never into the real economy. Austerity measures are applied just to pay the debt's interest which has become huge (twice the size of Ireland's and Portugal's combined) .

What Syriza is doing now is the only option it has in order to make the debt viable and end austerity for its people. The timing of the referendum on friday night and capital controls on Sunday night (banks closed for a week and stock market closed on Monday) point towards this way. Its a huge gamble in order to reach an agreement but possibly the only hand Greece could play in order to shake off the markets and thus its creditors.

I truly hope an agreement is reached before the referendum so that everyone walks out happy especially Varoufakis and the Greek people who would get the best deal they could ever dream of. On the other side, a debt relief decision seems the only road for the imf and eu partners. Its a debt that could never be paid anyway so why risk?


Arthur Buse 29 Jun 2015 04:36

I had thought it was only Samuri that chose harakiri. But Alexis has done the EU a great kindness by throwing the Greek people to the dogs of famine. He has helped the cause of breaking up the Euro and even, dare we hope, the EU. Ever closer union was always a grave danger. It never went well for the USSR and it ended in tragedy. The EU will eventually go the same way. The USA is quite different. They adopted a common language before trying for a common currency and common Federal taxes. The EU will not manage the former and has not got the will to manage the latter. The Euro was therefore always doomed and now the EU needs to return to individual currencies and the EEC.

> ID5590609 29 Jun 2015 04:34

Germany is the largest net contributor to the EU. They will bear the brunt of any aid extended to Greece.

If Germans bear any loss then it is their own foolishness for trusting their politicians. Why are Germans on the hook for bailing out their own banks?

Greece has been an economic failure for their entire modern history, including well before they joined the Euro. They want to be live and be treated like a rich first world economy, yet run their country like banana republic. It's readily apparent that other Europeans will no longer fund or subsidize a lifestyle that Greeks cannot independently afford. Greece essentially partied on northern European largesse, but the bill is now due.

That's just cut and paste racist cant. Germans should know better given their history.

Your feelings about capitalism

Oh, you still don't understand what mercantilism means? Good lord.

but what do you think is going to happen when Greece is "independent" and has to reintroduce the Drachma.

Depends on many factors I'd say. But what are you offering?

ID5590609 someoneionceknew 29 Jun 2015 04:23

Germany is the largest net contributor to the EU. They will bear the brunt of any aid extended to Greece. That is why the opinion of the Germans is so important when considering any action on Greece.

Greece has been an economic failure for their entire modern history, including well before they joined the Euro. They want to be live and be treated like a rich first world economy, yet run their country like banana republic. It's readily apparent that other Europeans will no longer fund or subsidize a lifestyle that Greeks cannot independently afford. Greece essentially partied on northern European largesse, but the bill is now due.

Your feelings about capitalism notwithstanding, things must drastically change in Greece. You claim to oppose the Eurogroup's and IMF's purportedly cruel demand for austerity and reform. That's fine, but what do you think is going to happen when Greece is "independent" and has to reintroduce the Drachma. Socialist solidarity is not going to fund imports of food, fuel, medicine and other essentials. There will be austerity in Greece, either organized with their European partners, or resulting from the chaos of financial incompetence. Greece is going to have to continue to painfully adjust to a lifestyle commiserate with their true GDP, earnings and economic value. The good old days are gone.

> ID5590609 29 Jun 2015 04:05

They're not asking for money or aid?

They are not asking for Herr Schauble's (or his ilks') money or aid.

major economic reforms

More counterproductive austerity. More poverty, more privation, more labour bashing, more suicides.

"mercantilism" (which I assume is meant as a juvenile reference to capitalism)

So I'm dealing with an idiot.

Germany has generally learned the political and economic lessons from their own unfortunate history, everyone from WW1 reparations and the risks of inflation, the horrors of WWII,

Clearly it has not. Quite the opposite.


Carlo47 29 Jun 2015 04:03

Only the American Treasure understood the gravity of the situation, but it's odd that they don't give appropriate instructions to the IMF and namely to the chauvinist Ms Lagrande, who continues in its absurd hard line more on measures that on the debt.

On the other end Mr Schäuble and Mr Dijsselbloem must be happy that investors flee.

They have only have a bit of patience, until the contagion will arrive in Germany and Holland.

Anyhow, if they are honest, both should resign for clear inability to do their job and to understand the heavy drawbacks of their dummy hard line, as supposed and false financial experts.

The German Government and the EU heads should slap the door in their face and send them away.


CanadaChuck ID9492736 29 Jun 2015 03:53

I had thought that Greece was unimportant overall in the EU. What will happen when Italy and Spain collapse? I guess the UK won't have to bother leaving the EU.


Ian Crowther slingsby1000 29 Jun 2015 03:49

Agreed Slingsby, so a lot depends on the post management of crisis as we see in Argentina and Turkey, its not plain sailing, far from it. But being enslaved is worse, and paying on the never never, feeding German and French income is not the way to go Fault lies on both sides, nobody comes out of this smelling of roses.

The EU construct was a nonsense form the very start, a union of unequals, instabilities and too many externalities to manage that technocrats have little idea on how to manage in complex situations.


Lanceowenmorgan Kompe75 29 Jun 2015 03:42

Ya the Forth Reich is coming and it seems Putin is the only one smart enough to see it


ID9492736 29 Jun 2015 03:40

Barely half an hour after opening, the German Stock Exchange index (DAX) is down almost 5%, which is dangerously close to a system meltdown. The German moneymasters are trying to intervene by pumping money into the exchange, but it's like putting a band-aid on the collapsing levee. The German nuclear reactor is overheating uncontrollably.


Xenkar Stivell 29 Jun 2015 03:34

True, ordinary people in Europe need to stand up and support the people of Greece, but sadly as spiceof so eloquently put it

"These little conformists, the lowly prison guards of the elites, are the lowest form of humanity. Spiteful and small minded, they always want to "punish" those who dare raise their heads and complain."

MrEurope Lupick 29 Jun 2015 03:31

You do realize that what you wrote is beyond ignorance...? While I agree that the way market-news is brought is excessively dramatic, markets ARE for a large part a reflection of human productive activity, and productive activity tends to be... you know... the stuff that makes people money. Jobs. Earnings... roof over your head, and so forth... these things quite obviously matter.

The problem is that humans absolutely suck at understanding the long term consequences and impact of small, tiny little (negative, but also positive) changes that accumulate over time.

You know the famous example that if Jesus would have put one dollar in his bank account, he would (assuming 3% per annum interest) by the year 1000 he would have 7,080,467,438,104.71 dollars. (and more money than ever has or will exist in the history of Earth by 2015...) 3% does not sound like much... but all these small little additions do add up. And so if you're living in a world where every week or two there is a minor crisis here or there.... eventually it starts to matter. A lot. People put off investing. They spend less. There are less jobs... (which in turn compounds the problems...) and on it goes.

Bottom line is - you and I know fuck all about advanced economics, just like the vast majority of posters here.


Stivell 29 Jun 2015 03:28

Lagarde and the European leaders have forced Greece into this corner and really should expect nothing more than the Greeks turning and baring their teeth. Ordinary people in Europe need to stand up and support the people of Greece against these relentless scaremongering money-obsessed bastards. Go Greece, bite that hand!


Kompe75 29 Jun 2015 03:25

If the Schaueble , Merkel and Jean Claude don't resign after the upcoming fiasco , then the investors will fire them.Remember my prediction.They will have a bitter end than DSK.


D9492736 royaldocks 29 Jun 2015 03:16

If you really, seriously believe that EU economy is so competitive that it can turn on the dime and adjust to the coming global economic meldown to its advantage and do so in the current political and economic timespace , I have a BIG surprise for you: you are dangerously delusional.

First of all, the prices of ALL commodities, raw and unprocessed material EU economy needs to keep going are going to get sky-high because EUR will be hemorrhaging value until cows come home. And even if Mario Draghi and the idiots from Eurogroup come back to their senses tomorrow, it will have been too late: they already committed an act of economic suicide, and it is really too late to stop the head exit wound from bleeding to death now. Secondly, with the investors quitting the stock bubble like crazy, the amount of discretionary spending and funded demand is going to go down like a rock: Europe will be hit with AT LEAST a quadruple -whammy: (a) rigid and dogmatic austerity and money-supply strangulation (b) supply chain disruption (c) extremely weak demand and massively negative growth and (d) catastrophic consumer confidence index. Add to this list of nightmares a never-ending flow of migrants and refugees, ever-increasing pressure on social services, cost of funding of wars and military operations in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Aghanistan and elsewhere, the massive losses caused by the American-imposed sanctions against Russia (by most accounts, somewhere between $100 and $150 billion), the cost of containing the situation in Ukraine and bankrolling the bankrupt Ukrainian government and - on top of it all - servicing the sovereign debt, and you get a much clearer picture. There is absolutely no way - not even a hypothetical chance - that European economy can weather out this tsunami unaffected and unharmed. EU should consider itself lucky if they do not lose 20-30% of its entire economy in the next month or so.

If I were a German retiree, I would be queuing up at the local ATMs as we speak. Because, yes, it's the end of the Eurozone as we know it.


spiceof 29 Jun 2015 03:12

Amazing how the Greek subject matter brings forth the establishment sadists out en masse, demanding that punishment, penury and the bubonic plague be visited upon that rebellious country.

These little conformists, the lowly prison guards of the elites, are the lowest form of humanity. Spiteful and small minded, they always want to "punish" those who dare raise their heads and complain.

iruka Lupick 29 Jun 2015 02:56

Important point.

Of course it's worth bearing in mind that people like StrategicVoice213 aren't really concerned with contrasting good people and bad people, lazy people and hard-working people, etc..

Take a closer look, and 99 times out of 100 it's amply clear that their only real interest is in defending the authority and legitimacy of the institutions that they see being threatened or insulted by those they're calumnying.

The actual behaviour or character of this person or that nation is of no real consequence to 213's . Any old lie, projection or blinkered misconstruction will do.

It's the need to preserve sanctified hierarchies of power that engages them.

Or more accurately (since they're clearly all sad little creatures of no importance whatsoever, and no capacity to preserve anything, for whom an identification with power provides them with something clearly lacking in their actual lives) it's the need to glorify power, and all its ways and entitlements.


Lanceowenmorgan slingsby1000 29 Jun 2015 02:55

Who the fuck was the dumb ass(es) who would lend Greece all that money?
€386,000,000,000 to a country with a population of what 6-10 million? That's mathematics son you can argue with me but you can't argue with figures. Apologies to Foghorn Leghorn. But I think all comes down to greed.


truthbetold13 borninthe80s 29 Jun 2015 02:50

Such a pathetic cliche, a real twatcherite/conmoron lie. By bloated public sector you just mean that more things are run by the government instead of by big business. Nobody here being ripped off by utilities/ rail/private landlords etc thinks this is a better arrangement. What you have is higher prices, worse service, less equal pay within those sectors, systemic tax evasion by business and its bosses. Give me a state controlled service any day.


JohnnyMorales 29 Jun 2015 02:45

This should be the quote of the day:

Mitsuo Shimizu, deputy general manager at Japan Asia Securities Group in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News: "In the face of pressure from the eurozone to accept austerity measures, the Greeks answered that it's hard to live just on water."

The Japanese have never been considered softies. If they are describing the EU demands as too much, then they are definitely too much.


FactualEvidence 29 Jun 2015 02:45

The EU needs Britain to stay in the EU for one reason only and its financial.

The EU have ploughed in billions and billions of tax payers money into several different countries bailouts not just Greece, including Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Hungary, Latvia and Romania.
A total amount of 487.75 BILLION Euros has been given to these countries and that's since just 2008.
So rather than the EU getting stronger as united nation's it is getting worse.

The EU Commission, MEP's, LIBLABCON parties and BBC don't tell you that information. You have to research it yourselves on Wikipedia.

So my three questions to all those Europhiles are.
If being in the EU is so great how come so many countries have to rely on hand out?

If so many countries need billions to even provide essential services to survive. Where is this great trading economy?

Why is it not working for so many millions of people?

Go to Wikipedia and see how the monetary crisis is getting worse for all the countries not better.
Google : European Debt Crisis, and check out the chart around the middle of a very long page.

Were would the EU be without the billions we put in to it and on top of that all the VAT tax they get from us, YES VAT. Did you know that it was through EU ruling you pay VAT on your utility bills?


philbo Miamijim 29 Jun 2015 02:36

The IMF is mainly responsible for this mess.

ID9492736 stringvestor 29 Jun 2015 02:36

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/29/markets-global-idUSL4N0ZE0IK20150629

betrynol 29 Jun 2015 02:32

Good thing Europe is ring-fenced to the risk of contagion....

The ECB will have to buy more Spanish and Italian bonds this week than the entire Greek debt, and then bailout these countries so they can buy back the bonds (Greek style). Oh well, if they say they've got it covered, it's fine I suppose... (shakes head in haughty derision).

ID9492736 29 Jun 2015 02:32

A picture worth $60 trillion words:

http://www.allstocks.com/markets/World_Charts/world_charts.html

The only markets still in the black are the markets that haven't opened yet. When DAX and FTSE open, the shit tsunami is REALLY going to hit the austerity fans.


JohnnyMorales 29 Jun 2015 02:29

The loss of value across the world even if most of it is just temporary is many many times more than Greece's entire debt.

Yet because the EU troika wanted to win a moral battle and teach a wayward Greece a moral lesson and make impossible demands and accept the humiliation entailed in caving they opted to create those losses.

Greece only asked for some extra help. They did not make outrageous demands like the troika.

If anything good comes out of this may it be the end of the careers of those who think the financial world is the proper place to stage morality plays devoid of any financial purpose which cost far more than the alternative.


Ian Crowther 29 Jun 2015 02:28

This is the end game, and has been Greece's plan from the new Government taking power. The left want Grexit, and they will get what they wish for now, independence from a failing political and financial EU construct.

This may work well for Greece in the mid term, sure, its going to be tough on the people, but at least the Government will not be debt slaves now, reset the currency, devalue the economy so it can compete again, lower taxation to bring in big business, and begin to build a new economy based on what the Greek people want, rather than 85% of the money Greece leant eventually being paid back to the rentiers from which the cash came. Now zero will be repaid, and EU banks will have to suffer the losses, a drop in recapitalisation, and a hit to the recovery.


Lanceowenmorgan ID9492736 29 Jun 2015 02:24

I agree. FUCK ALL YOU NEOLIBERAL & NEOCON mother fuckers


LeonardPynchon borninthe80s 29 Jun 2015 02:24

Some perspective in the below piece - might help you:

https://theconversation.com/greece-woes-show-how-the-politics-of-debt-failed-europe-42787

The Financial Times' leading commentator Martin Wolf recently argued that "the vast bulk of the official loans to Greece were not made for its benefit at all, but for that of its feckless private creditors", that is, primarily, European banks and financial institutions. After exposing the futility of austerity, ex-IMF economic advisor Jeffrey Sachs recently declared: "Europe's leaders are hiding behind a mountain of pious, nonsensical rhetoric" risking an economic and social disaster "in order to insist on collecting some crumbs from the country's pensioners".

Describing the treatment of Greece as "the Iraq War of finance", Daily Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote: "rarely in modern times have we witnessed such a display of petulance and bad judgement by those supposed to be in charge of global financial stability."


dzogchen 29 Jun 2015 02:23

Five lost years for the Greeks it seems. From the market's perspective those years have been all about maneuvering the banks from out of risk. Now that work is done as the losses are laid squarely in the public lap. The markets of course don't give half a toss about Greek people, empathy isn't part of their nature, so might as well do what should have been done five years ago. All the best to the people who will pay the price for all this shenanigans. Kali tihi!

BeamEcho Tim Roberts 29 Jun 2015 02:21

This is not new for the IMF, their mandate includes providing policy advice to their members. They review the economic policies of their members. When they lend money they require economic policy changes...

Ian Crowther IndependentScott 29 Jun 2015 02:18

Greece will not have to repay the debt, they will walk away, default and never repay. It is the banking system and rehypothecated debt that will suffer, and the banks that have leant the money to France and Germany. European banks have only just been recapitalised, and losing another €300-400bn will hit the Euro recovery hard at a time when QE is being rolled out. The answer will be print more money.

Normin 29 Jun 2015 02:17

The banksters are just waiting for a scapegoat to pin their non sustainable economic system failure on. Meanwhile the elite will profit as the masses bleed. It can't go on like this forever it's just a matter of when.

Kompe75 29 Jun 2015 02:14

Juncker announces a campaign to support "YES" at the greek referendum..

Another sign these people consist the out-of-touch neoliberal elite..

Does he really believe Greeks , who have suffered enormously , will sign a appalling deal that's going to define the misery of generations for the next decades ? Just because he wants to remain President in the dictatorship of Brussels ? I live for the moment Juncker comes in Athens...the whole place will go up in flames.

john4108 29 Jun 2015 02:09

yes all going acording to plan the sacred " markets" are indulging in the usual lemmng like behaviour while the banksrs try to convince everyone that,the have the medicine that we all need . Casino capitalism writ large. Eventually, unless we want endlessly repeated crises and utter destruction on this plant, mankind will have to come up,with a more resilient economic system.

Islam is waiting in the wings and usory is a crime in the Koran. Of course Jesus threw the money lenders out of the temple....but Judeo-christianity has conveniently forgotten that.

[Jun 28, 2015] Former Finance Minister of Cyprus on the Greek Crisis

"...The troika clearly did a reverse Corleone - they made Tsipras an offer he can't accept, and presumably did this knowingly. So the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don't like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals...."
.
"...This is nothing more than a neo-liberal play. They just don't want to strip their pensions, but infrastructure as well. They should be making the requirements of the loan for deep pension cuts and money for investments which would help build up Greece's economy and the end for these bailouts. The fact they aren't doing that, but trying to confiscate it instead, which is the real issue. "
.
"..."IMF and Germany Are Hell-Bent on Finishing Off Even a Moderate Left in Greece" "Indeed, the leftist Greek government failed to see that what Europe's neoliberal elite was after, especially after being fully aware of the fact that Athens had no alternative plan, was not merely a humiliating Greek deal for the Syriza-led government but finishing them off completely to send a message to all potential "troublemakers" in the euro area of the fate awaiting them if they dared challenge the neoliberal, austerity-based orthodoxy of the new Rome." "
.
"...Panicky depositors spent the weekend pulling an estimated one billion euros from the banking system, stashing the cash in their houses or exchanging them for bulging bags of gold coins."
.
"...There are not as many hedge funds in Greece as there were a year ago, when it is estimated that around 100 foreign funds were sitting on big investment stakes. Their bet was that the previous Greek government would be able to complete the arduous process of economic reform in Greece that started five years ago."
.
"...Most of the hedge fund money in Greece is invested in about 30 billion euros of freshly minted Greek government debt securities that emerged from the 2012 restructuring of private sector bonds."
.
"...Among the most dubious of these, was a 10 percent equity stake, then worth about $137 million, that Mr. Paulson's hedge fund took last year in the Athens water monopoly. The company had little debt and was slated to be privatized, making it an attractive prospect at the time."
Jun 28, 2015 | Economist's View
Peter K.:

Mr Sarris seems a little like a Davos Man.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/business/dealbook/panic-among-hedge-fund-investors-in-greece.html

Panic Among Hedge Fund Investors in Greece

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

JUNE 28, 2015

ATHENS - For investors around the world looking at Greece, there was but one question Sunday: What is going to happen when the markets open on Monday?

That question is particularly acute for the hedge fund investors - including luminaries like David Einhorn and John Paulson - who have collectively poured more than 10 billion euros into Greek government bonds, bank stocks and a slew of other investments.

This weekend, Nicholas L. Papapolitis, a corporate lawyer here, was working around the clock comforting and cajoling his frantic hedge fund clients.

"People are freaking out," said the 32-year-old Mr. Papapolitis, his eyes red and his voice hoarse. "They have made some really big bets on Greece.

But there is no getting around the truth of the matter, he said. Without a deal with its European creditors, the country will default and Greek stocks and bonds will tank when the markets open.

On the ground here, the surprise decision of the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, to hold a referendum has turned what was a bank jog into more of a sprint with most Greeks now fearing that the country's depleted banks will be closed on Monday.

Panicky depositors spent the weekend pulling an estimated one billion euros from the banking system, stashing the cash in their houses or exchanging them for bulging bags of gold coins.

The yields on Greek government bonds, now around 12 percent are expected to soar as investors rush to unload their positions in a market that of late has become extremely hard to trade.

Bank stocks, if the stock market, in fact, opens, will also be hit with a selling wave, as they cannot survive if the European Central Bank withdraws its emergency lending program.

There are not as many hedge funds in Greece as there were a year ago, when it is estimated that around 100 foreign funds were sitting on big investment stakes. Their bet was that the previous Greek government would be able to complete the arduous process of economic reform in Greece that started five years ago.

When it became clear that a radical Syriza government under Mr. Tsipras would come to power, many investors quickly turned heel, dumping their Greek government bonds and bank stocks in large numbers before and after the election.

But a brave, hardy few stayed put - around 40 to 50, local brokers estimate - taking the view that while the new left-wing government could hardly be described as investor friendly, it would ultimately agree to a deal with Europe. It would be a bumpy ride for sure, but for those taking the long view that Greece would remain in the eurozone, holding onto their investments as opposed to selling them in a panic seemed the better course of action.

For now, at least, that seems to be a terrible misjudgment, especially if Greece defaults and leaves the euro.

Most of the hedge fund money in Greece is invested in about 30 billion euros of freshly minted Greek government debt securities that emerged from the 2012 restructuring of private sector bonds.

The largest investors include Japonica Partners in Rhode Island, the French investment funds H20 and Carmignac and an assortment of other hedge funds like, Farallon, Fortress, York Capital, Baupost, Knighthead and Greylock Capital.

A number of hedge funds have also made big bets on Greek banks, despite their thin levels of capital and nonperforming loans of around 50 percent of assets.

They include Mr. Einhorn at Greenlight Capital and Mr. Paulson, both of whom have invested and lost considerable sums in Piraeus Bank. Fairfax Financial Holdings and the distressed investor Wilbur Ross own a large stake in Eurobank, one Greece's four main banks.

Big positions have also been taken in some of Greece's largest companies. Fortress Capital bought $100 million in discounted debt belonging to Attica Holdings, Greece's largest ferry boat holder. York Capital has taken a 10 percent stake in GEK Terna, a prominent Greek construction and energy firm.

In 2014, Blackstone's credit arm bought a 10 percent chunk of the Greek real estate developer Lamda Development. And Third Point, one of the earliest, most successful investors in Greek government bonds, has set up a $750 million Greek equity fund.

Many of these forays were made during the heady days of 2013 and early 2014 when the view was that, in a rock bottom global interest rate environment, risky Greek assets looked attractive, especially if the reform process continued.

Among the most dubious of these, was a 10 percent equity stake, then worth about $137 million, that Mr. Paulson's hedge fund took last year in the Athens water monopoly. The company had little debt and was slated to be privatized, making it an attractive prospect at the time.

But the privatization process is now frozen and the monopoly is struggling to collect payment on its bills from near broke government entities, making it unlikely that Mr. Paulson will get much of his money back.

To be sure, many of these hedge funds are enormous and their Greek investments represent a fairly small slice of their overall portfolio.

Mr. Papapolitis, who used to work at Skadden Arps law firm in New York structuring exotic real estate deals, moved back to Greece in 2008 and has led some of the biggest hedge fund deals in the market.

Of the same age and generation as many of his clients, he feels their pain.

"These guys are my friends," he said. "They invested in Greece when the economy was improving. And now this happens - I feel obliged to be there for them."

He is not the only point man for hedge funds coming to Greece.

Last week, a group of about 12 of the largest remaining hedge funds arrived in Athens to attend a seminar organized by George Linatsas, a founding partner of Axia Ventures, an investment bank that specializes in Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Italy, as well as shipping.

With all the large investment banks and law firms having largely given up on Greece, Mr. Linatsas and his team of analysts became the main port of call for hedge funds that started buying Greek government bonds in 2012.

Then, the bonds were trading at 12 cents on the euro and they soon shot up to 60 cents, making billions of dollars for those early investors.

"People made their careers on that trade," Mr. Linatsas said. "The problem now is politics and whether there is a government that can take this country to the next stage."

The outlook seems grim.

Indeed, in recent months these investors have spent little time breaking down balance sheets or discounting cash flows. Instead, they have spent every effort trying to figure out what the Syriza government is up to.

Some have tried to get an edge by listening to Greek radio. Others have hired outside firms to study video clips of Mr. Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, to try and discern from body movement and voice tone whether they are telling the truth. And an increasing number have resorted to begging journalists for inside scuttlebutt.

Because few Syriza officials will meet with the investors, a large number of them have banded together, an unusual occurrence in an industry that puts the highest of premiums on secrecy. They exchange tips and theories via emails when they are apart and over wine-soaked dinners in Athens during their frequent trips here.

At times the swankiest hotel in town, the Hotel Grande Bretagne (or G.B. as it is commonly known) is so chock full of hedge fund executives (mostly in their 30s) that some have called it the G.G.B. - the acronym for Greek government bonds.

In recent days, as it has become clear that the Syriza government was not going to accept the latest proposal from its creditors, stress and anxiety has, in some cases, turned to outright anger.

"I just can't believe these guys are willing to torch their own country," one investor with a large holding of Greek bonds lamented in an email. "They thought this was a game. Now, when the supermarkets run out of food, gas stations run out of gas, hospitals have no medicine, tourists flee, salaries don't get paid because banks shut - what are they going to do?"

Peter K. -> Peter K....

""I just can't believe these guys are willing to torch their own country," one investor with a large holding of Greek bonds lamented in an email."

How ideological do you have to be to not understand that the Troika already torched the country and that the Greeks voted in Syriza becasue 5 years on there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope there's a Grexit even if the Troika forces it because the referendum took place after Monday's deadline. Syriza should really study all of the past defaults of other countries.

Paine -> Peter K....

This Sarris gent suggest the Syriza team should have proposed " bold reforms " early on


List em mr S... List em

He however seems to understands the original sin was
The elites decision to bail the private northern banks out

Of course the people of Greece must pay for that sin.

RGC:

"IMF and Germany Are Hell-Bent on Finishing Off Even a Moderate Left in Greece"

"Indeed, the leftist Greek government failed to see that what Europe's neoliberal elite was after, especially after being fully aware of the fact that Athens had no alternative plan, was not merely a humiliating Greek deal for the Syriza-led government but finishing them off completely to send a message to all potential "troublemakers" in the euro area of the fate awaiting them if they dared challenge the neoliberal, austerity-based orthodoxy of the new Rome."

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31596-imf-and-germany-are-hell-bent-on-finishing-off-even-a-moderate-left-in-greece

pgl:
Real GDP per person in Cyprus:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/cyprus/gdp-per-capita

The crash has brought this done to where it was in 2000. Why did they join the Euro system in the first place? Why would anyone listen to the finance minister of this nation?

Paine -> pgl...

Precisely put

Only a corporate lackey corrupted stooge or stool pigeon

Peter K. -> Peter K....

Greece's own central banker, Yannis Stournaras said in a statement after the European Central Bank decision on Sunday that the Greek central bank would "take all measures necessary to ensure financial stability for Greek citizens in these difficult circumstances."

Before negotiations broke off on Saturday between Athens and its creditors, the Tsipras government had been hoping to reach terms that would free up a €7.2 billion allotment of bailout money that the country needs to meet its short-term debt obligations.

Because European officials said on Saturday that Greece's €240 billion bailout program would not be extended, the big question had been whether the central bank's president, Mario Draghi, would continue financing the country's depleted banks.

Guidelines of the European Central Bank dictate that it can keep supporting troubled banks as long as there is a possibility that the country in question will come to terms with its creditors on a bailout - as was the case with Cyprus.

If Athens and its creditors do not resume talks before Tuesday, the promise of European support for Greece may no longer be on the table. But the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union and a key broker in the debt talks, seemed on Sunday to reach out to the Greek people, unexpectedly publishing the offer made to Greece before Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ended the negotiations and announced a national referendum.

The publication was designed to show the lengths to which the creditors, including the I.M.F. and the European Central Bank, had gone to satisfy Athens's demands for a deal that avoided hurting ordinary Greeks, said one European Union official with direct knowledge of the decision to publish the offer. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the institutions had not ruled out a resumption of talks with Mr. Tsipras on the sensitive issue of extending the bailout.

"This is a last bridge we are building for them," said the official. The goal of publishing the document was also to pressure "Mr. Tsipras to change course and choose to mount a 'yes' campaign" in the upcoming referendum, the official said.

The official acknowledged there was a slim chance that Mr. Tsipras would accede to the terms so soon after abandoning the negotiations. But if Mr. Tsipras did change course, that could lead to a meeting of leaders of the eurozone member states on Monday night to try one more time to reach a deal before the expiration of the bailout.

On Saturday, amid intense discussions between Greece and its creditors, officials representing the I.M.F., to which Greece owes €1.6 billion on Tuesday, were trying to persuade European leaders and Mr. Draghi to keep the bank emergency assistance flowing. And on Sunday, the head of the I.M.F., Christine Lagarde, waved an olive branch toward Greece.

In a statement, Ms. Lagarde expressed her "disappointment'' in the "inconclusive outcome of recent discussions on Greece in Brussels.''

"I shared my disappointment and underscored our commitment to continue to engage with the Greek authorities," she said, adding that the I.M.F. would ''continue to carefully monitor developments in Greece and other countries in the vicinity and stands ready to provide assistance as needed.''

Early Sunday, the Greek Parliament approved Mr. Tsipras's request for a public referendum on the proposal offer by Greece's creditors, with the vote to be held next Sunday. Mr. Tsipras and other Greek officials had asked European officials and Mr. Draghi to keep the central bank assistance in place until the vote.

The European Central Bank's decision on Sunday to cap the emergency loan program, as opposed to canceling it, "allows the Greek banks to remain in a sort of coma – not functioning but not dead," said Karl Whelan, an economics professor at University College in Dublin. That way, he said, the Greek financial system might be revived if at some later point if Greece secures a deal with its creditors.

Raoul Ruparel, an economist and co-director of Open Europe, a London-based research group, said the rupture between Greece and its creditors on Saturday was unlikely to mean a definitive end to negotiations, instead becoming "merely a prelude" to yet more talks in a week or so after Greece holds its referendum.

"I think we are just getting started on this merry-go-round," Mr. Ruparel said, predicting that Greek voters would probably vote to endorse proposals put forward by creditors and rejected by the Tsipras government. "We would then be back where we started, only in a worse situation," he added. Because the current program will have expired by then, Greece and its creditors would need to negotiate a new bailout - most likely a short-term deal - in an atmosphere poisoned by even deeper distrust than before.

"The whole thing is absolute nightmare,'' Mr. Ruparel said. ''I have been following this saga for five years, and it is depressingly tedious."

leoFromChicago:

Guy is totally business-as-usual.

I'm hardly an expert on Greece but if you were about to make a difficult decision -- say, exit the Euro -- you might want a dramatic display of public backing say, in the form of a referendum.

Peter K.:

For JohnH and Mr. Roger Fox:

http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-warnings-from-the-bank-of-international-settlements-have-been-ignored-because-they-have-been-wrong

The Warnings from the Bank of International Settlements Have Been Ignored Because They Have Been Wrong

by Dean Baker

Published: 28 June 2015

The Wall Street Journal passed along warnings from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) that central banks should start to curtail monetary expansion and that governments need to reduce their debt levels. The piece tells readers:

"The BIS has issued similar warnings in recent years concerning an overreliance on monetary policy, but its advice has gone largely unheeded."

It is worth noting that the BIS has been consistently wrong in prior years, warning as early as 2011 about the prospects of higher inflation due to expansionary monetary policy:

"But despite the obvious near-term price pressures, break-even inflation expectations at distant horizons remained relatively stable, suggesting that central banks' long-term credibility was intact, at least for the time being.

"But controlling inflation in the long term will require policy tightening. And with short-term inflation up, that means a quicker normalisation of policy
rates."

Since that date, the major central banks of the world have been struggling with lower than desired inflation and doing whatever they could to raise the rate of inflation. It would have been helpful to readers to point out that the BIS has been hugely wrong in its past warnings, so people in policy positions appear to have been right to ignore them. This is likely still the case.

anne:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/grisis/

June 28, 2015

Grisis
By Paul Krugman

OK, this is real: Greek banks closed, capital controls imposed. Grexit isn't a hard stretch from here - the much feared mother of all bank runs has already happened, which means that the cost-benefit analysis starting from here is much more favorable to euro exit than it ever was before.

Clearly, though, some decisions now have to wait on the referendum.

I would vote no, for two reasons. First, much as the prospect of euro exit frightens everyone - me included - the troika is now effectively demanding that the policy regime of the past five years be continued indefinitely. Where is the hope in that? Maybe, just maybe, the willingness to leave will inspire a rethink, although probably not. But even so, devaluation couldn't create that much more chaos than already exists, and would pave the way for eventual recovery, just as it has in many other times and places. Greece is not that different.

Second, the political implications of a yes vote would be deeply troubling. The troika clearly did a reverse Corleone - they made Tsipras an offer he can't accept, and presumably did this knowingly. So the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don't like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals.

A strange logistical note: I'm on semi-vacation this week, doing a bicycle trip in an undisclosed location. It's only a semi-vacation because I didn't negotiate any days off the column; I'll be in tomorrow's paper (hmm, I wonder what the subject is) and have worked the logistics so as to make Friday's column doable too. I was planning to do little if any blogging, and will in any case do less than I might have otherwise given the events.

anne -> anne...
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/grisis/

June 28, 2015

Grisis
By Paul Krugman

Clearly, though, some decisions now have to wait on the referendum.

I would vote no, for two reasons. First, much as the prospect of euro exit frightens everyone - me included - the troika * is now effectively demanding that the policy regime of the past five years be continued indefinitely. Where is the hope in that? Maybe, just maybe, the willingness to leave will inspire a rethink, although probably not. But even so, devaluation couldn't create that much more chaos than already exists, and would pave the way for eventual recovery, just as it has in many other times and places. Greece is not that different.

Second, the political implications of a yes vote would be deeply troubling. The troika clearly did a reverse Corleone - they made Tsipras an offer he can't accept, and presumably did this knowingly. So the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don't like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals....

* European Union Commission, EuropeanCentral Bank, and International Monetary Fund

Paine -> anne...

Pk has really shown a leadership side here
Not contrarian
Progressive leadership

Vote no !

Praise be to PK

Ben Groves:

This is nothing more than a neo-liberal play. They just don't want to strip their pensions, but infrastructure as well. They should be making the requirements of the loan for deep pension cuts and money for investments which would hel build up Greece's economy and the end for these bailouts. The fact they aren't doing that, but trying to confiscate it instead, which is the real issue. If Greece wants their fat pension system, that is their choice.

I don't see anything different than post WWI Germany. This is what Libertarianism will bring to the West if implemented. They would dismantle the current power structure and replace it with a privately controlled syndicate dictating wealth much like today. This is not new, it has been going on since the rise of Abrahamic religions in the west.

Fred C. Dobbs -> Lafayette...

Greece is doomed - Matt Yglesias - June 27 http://www.vox.com/2015/6/27/8856297/greece-referendum-euro via @voxdotcom

(Various useful links, at the link.)

... to understand the deeper causes of what's been going on since Tsipras' government swept to power in January, you really need to set the finance and economics aside and focus on the politics. Greece has been drawing dead this whole time, and the future outlook appears bleak for one simple reason - nobody else in Europe who holds power has any interest in making things anything other than painful for Greece.

1) Giving Greece a better deal would be a political disaster

Tsipras' fundamental miscalculation has been that he thought that by cloaking his specific requests for more lenient terms in the larger cause of anti-austerity politics, he could build a coalition of political support throughout Europe for his position. The reality was just the opposite. While politicians in Europe's creditor nations were naturally reluctant to grant Greece a better deal, politicians in Europe's debtor nations were even more opposed.

After all, if electing a bunch of far-left types to parliament so they can demand a better deal actually worked, then voters in Portugal and Spain and Italy and Ireland would take note of that fact. And the last thing the current crop of elected officials in Lisbon and Madrid and Rome and Dublin want is to all be turned out in favor of a bunch of far-left types.

2) Letting Greece default gracefully would be a disaster

Even if Greece's European partners weren't inclined to give Greece a better financial deal, they could have at least smoothed the path to default. A Greece that doesn't pay what it owes would be instantly cut off from credit markets and forced to run a very austere fiscal policy.

It's in Europe's interest to make things as hard as possible for Greece

Things could have been left at that. Instead, throughout the year, the European Central Bank has been saying that it will cut the Greek banking system off from emergency funding if Greece doesn't keep paying its debts. That means default will lead to the collapse of Greek banks, and the end of Greek membership in the euro.

That's a political decision the ECB isn't legally required to make. But politically it's the only possible decision. After all, if a default works out non-disastrously for Greece then other countries could be tempted to default. And international investors might worry that other countries could be tempted to default, raising interest rates and slowing the European economy. Only making default as painful as possible can safeguard the interests of other countries.

3) Letting Greece leave the Eurozone gracefully would be a disaster

Here's where the news gets really bad for Greece. Leaving the Eurozone could, in theory, go better or worse. But Europe needs it to go as badly as possible. After all, if Greece leaving goes pretty well, then other countries might be tempted to leave. And that raises the prospect of debt defaults, higher interest rates, and slowing European growth.

Once again, it's in Europe's interest to make things as hard as possible for Greece.

4) This is the time to fold 'em

The tragic irony, if you are Tsipras, is that his plan very well might have worked back in 2010 when his predecessors originally agreed to the terms of a bailout. Back then, the whole situation was considerably more fluid. Greece could have threatened to default and essentially commit a murder/suicide on the entire European economy unless it got better terms. That would have been a very risky strategy and you can see why the Greek government didn't pursue it. But it might have worked.

Yet as the song says, you need to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. ...

(Alternatively, persuade various major German
corps to re-locate to Greece, for tax-breaks,
warm weather, great beaches, warm weather,
'right-to-work' labor policies, tax breaks,
warm weather & great beaches, and - voilà - problem solved!)

Fred C. Dobbs:

The Next Few Days Have the Potential to Transform
Greece and Europe http://nyti.ms/1Nr7fbd via @UpshotNYT
NYT - Neil Irwin - June 28

As it turns out, the Greek crisis ends not with a bang, but with a referendum.

It has been easy to ignore the doings in Greece for the last few years, with the perpetual series of summits in Brussels that never seem to resolve anything. But it's time to pay attention. These next few days are shaping up to become a transformational moment in the 60-year project of building a unified Europe. We just don't yet know what sort of transformation it will be.

The immediate headlines that got us to this point are these: After an intractable series of negotiations over a bailout extension with Greece's creditors, the nation's left-wing government left the table Friday and said it would hold a referendum on July 5. Greek leaders think the offer on the table from European governments and the International Monetary Fund is lousy, requiring still more pension cuts and tax increases in a depressed economy, and intend to throw to voters the question of whether to accept it.

Whatever the exact phrasing of the question (and assuming the referendum goes forward as planned), it really boils down to this simple choice:

  • A "Yes" vote means that Greece will continue the grinding era of austerity that has caused so much pain to its citizens over the last five years, in exchange for keeping the euro currency and the monetary stability it provides.
  • A "No" vote almost certainly means that the country will walk away from the euro and create its own currency (which will surely devalue sharply), bringing financial chaos in the near term, but creating the possibility of a rebound in the medium term as the country becomes more competitive with its devalued currency.

The Greek government, led by Alexis Tsipras, disputes this framing, and argues that Greece could in fact reject the creditors' offer to extend the bailout program while sticking with the euro. Events over the weekend show how untenable that is. Thousands of Greeks lined up to withdraw euros from money machines, and the European Central Bank said it would not increase the size of the emergency lending program that Greek banks have been using to secure euros.

Ergo, the Greek banks are, or will soon be, out of money, and the E.C.B. will be disinclined to open the floodgates again in the absence of a bailout deal. That's why the Greek government has effectively frozen its financial system, closing banks and the stock market on Monday. ...

Greece Will Close Banks to Stem Flood of Withdrawals http://nyti.ms/1QXdEB2

LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NIKI KITSANTONIS - JUNE 28

ATHENS - Greece will keep its banks closed on Monday and place restrictions on the withdrawal and transfer of money, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address on Sunday night, as Athens tries to avert a financial collapse.

The government's decision to close banks temporarily and impose other so-called capital controls - and to keep the stock market closed on Monday - came hours after the European Central Bank said it would not expand an emergency loan program that has been propping up Greek banks in recent weeks while the government was trying to reach a new debt deal with international creditors. ...

[Jun 28, 2015] The Greek Tragedy: Curtain Closes On Most Absurd Act

moonofalabama.org

Nothing was posted here so far on the Greece tragedy. I did not touch the issue as there was excellent coverage elsewhere and what the whole issue produced so far was more absurd theater than serious economic policy. But one act of the drama is now coming to a preliminary end and the tragedy may now unfold into something new with potential serious geopolitical consequences.

Greece took up a lot of debt when banks were giving away money without caring for the ability of the debtor to pay back. When that game ran out, some six years ago, Greece could not no longer take up new credit to pay back its old debts. That is the point where it should have defaulted.

But the Greece government was pressed on to pay back the debt to the commercial banks even when it had no money and not enough income to ever do so. Bank lobbyists pressed other EU governments to raid their taxpayers to indirectly cover the banks' losses. These other governments then pushed Greece to take on "emergency loans" from their states to pay the foreign commercial banks.

Nothing of that money ever reached the people in need in Greece. Here is a gif that explains what happened to all those foreign taxpayer loans treats "given to the Greek".

To get these new loans Greece had to agree to lunatic economic measures, an austerity program and neoliberal "reforms", to fix its balance of payments. But austerity has never worked, does not work and will never work. It crashes economies, lowers tax incomes and thereby further hinders a government to pay back it debts. It creates a vicious cycle that ends in an economic catastrophe.

After six years of austerity nonsense the Greece voted for a new party that promised to end the cycle and stop the austerity measures. But the new Syriza government misjudge the situation and the nastiness and criminal energy of the other governments and organizations it was negotiating with. It early on said it would not default and thereby took away its own best negotiation argument. The negotiations failed. The creditors still demand more and more austerity. Now it will have to default but under circumstances that will make it much more difficult for Greece to get back on its feet.

Yesterday the Syriza prime minister Tsirpas, in a speech to his people, called for an end of the blackmail and for a referendum to decide on the way forward:

Fellow Greeks, to the blackmailing of the ultimatum that asks us to accept a severe and degrading austerity without end and without any prospect for a social and economic recovery, I ask you to respond in a sovereign and proud way, as the history of the Greek people commands.

To authoritarianism and harsh austerity, we will respond with democracy, calmly and decisively.

Greece, the birthplace of democracy will send a resounding democratic response to Europe and the world.

Paul Maison of Channel 4 news sees this as a positive and likely successful step. The people will vote no to austerity and the IMF, European Central Bank and various country governments will still keep giving fresh money to Greece. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism does not believe that this will happen. She calls the referendum a sham. Greece will default and the only thing the referendum will do is to keep Syriza in the political business. She blames Tsirpas for having misjudged the situation and for being unprepared of what is likely to come:

Greek defiance of its creditors will make it more, not less dependent on them in the next year. How badly things turn out for Greece will depend in significant degree on how much they do to ameliorate the impact of the implosion of the banking system, whether they take extreme measures to keep Greece in the Eurozone, and if Greece tumbles out, how much they provide in humanitarian aid and targeted trade financing (most important, for petroleum imports).

Greece should have defaulted six years ago. Tsirpas should have prepared for default immediately after he became premier. He should have used it as a threat during the negotiations. Greece will now have to default in the worst possible situation and with little thought given to the consequences of the default.

But the consequences will not be limited to Greece.There will be consequences for the EU, for NATO and for the political balance in the Mediterranean. Greece may now decide to leave the "western" realm and thereby set an example others could follow.

The German and other European governments promised their taxpayers that Greece will not default and that the austerity program pushed onto it will succeed. They will now rightfully lose some of their political and economic credibility. The Greece default will be a somewhat harsh and expensive lesson for the voters in those countries too. Let's hope that they will draw the right conclusions.

Selected Skeptical Comments

Posted by: madrone | Jun 27, 2015 10:50:12 AM | 2

While there is nothing easy about the path forward I think finance minister Varoufakis has played things pretty well dragging it out letting the people get all those euros out of the banks to help contribute to rebuilding but most of all blocking the ability of the Banksters to "Cyprusize" Greece. The referendum obviously comes from the study of Iceland and anybody that studies Argentina can only come away thinking Syriza is doing the right thing.

Posted by: nmb | Jun 27, 2015 11:33:51 AM | 3

The global financial mafia fully exposed through Greece

[Jun 28, 2015]The Troika pretends to suffocate Greece at all costs

"...Brussels has blocked any agreement that would help Greece's recovery; debt repayments are maximum priority"
.
"...Alexis Tsipras, prime minister, is practically "hands tied", he can't implement an alternative economic policy, this situation is contrary to his intentions, therefore it slowly diminishes the trust citizens have put into Syriza, his political party."
.
"...Greece has 10 days to liquidate the four monthly maturities of debt to the IMF (1.5 billion euros) and to open a new financing plan for 5.2 billion euros. By next July, Athens will have to pay 3.5 billion euros to the European Central Bank (ECB), 465 million euros to the IMF and 2 billion euros to additional creditors."
.
"...There is no doubt that if Tsipras decides abandoning the Euro, the consequences will be dramatic for Greece's economy and so for the rest of economies in the region [6], including of course, Germany and France. Berlin fears a massive spread. If Greece collapses, speculators will bet against the most fragile economies: Finland, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, etc."
.
"...Panic would boost interest rates, severely shrinking the financial liquidity between countries."
.
"...Nevertheless, the Troika seems decisive on backlashing the left's economic program. Syriza have inaugurated the electoral failure of neoliberalism in Europe and due to that, it has become the lender's favorite prey, who are ready to impose their will at any price. However, the Greeks should trust themselves, establish partnership beyond its continental borders and aim for utopia."
Jun 28, 2015 | voltairenet.org/RT

the Central Bank of Greece surprised everyone with the publication of their monetary politics for 2014-2015. Besides revealing the consequences of the economic suffocation imposed by Brussels, it concluded that in case of not getting to a prompt deal with its European partners, a crisis of great proportions will be detonated.

"A crisis with a manageable debt as we are currently facing with the help of our partners will transform into an uncontrollable crisis, with great risk for the banking system and for the financial stability", it quoted [1]. It was the first time this institution seriously contemplated Greece's separation from the Eurozone.

The most influencing media immediately began to stress that the majority of Greek's population is against abandoning the Monetary Union. Approximately a 70% according to a recent poll published by the GOP. For keeping the "common currency" the norms in the Maastricht Treaty have to be complied, therefore the occidental media concludes that the Greek citizens are willing to accept the European authorities conditions: Austerity is the price for a membership in the Eurozone.

However, media emporiums omit mentioning that same majority opposes to measures that the Troika (formed by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission) pretends to impose. That same majority is currently convinced that the original 245 billion euros rescue program has only brought economic affliction. The increase of inequality and poverty, lock of housing, mental illness and suicides, are evidence of the "humanitarian crisis" Greeks are daily suffering [2].

A change regarding to economic matters in urgent. In that sense, the Greek government has insisted in solving the more immediate needs (taxes on investment, creation of employment, a better distribution of income, etc.) and less in questioning terms of the debt. Despite this, Brussels has blocked any agreement that would help Greece's recovery; debt repayments are maximum priority [3].

Alexis Tsipras, prime minister, is practically "hands tied", he can't implement an alternative economic policy, this situation is contrary to his intentions, therefore it slowly diminishes the trust citizens have put into Syriza, his political party.

Disqualifications between the Greek government and the Troika were quite prompt on dates near the meeting with the Eurogroup. Tsipras addressed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had "criminal responsibility" for the crisis. He also repeated that his government wouldn't falter before the pressure imposed by the Troika. The objective of this proposal is to "humiliate Greece" and there he committed to reject the adjustment plans at every moment [4].

The finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has delivered the same message by declining on presenting proposals that would finally include a list of "credible" commitments for the creditors: raising the primary surplus, additional tax raises, dismantling the pension system, etc [5].

As consequence, the negotiations stalled once again [on July 18th, 2015, Editor's note] The Troika remains intransigent in applying its "structural reforms" no matter what, while Tsipras declines on betraying the Greeks. Therefore this dispute is ones more to be adjourned.

Greece has 10 days to liquidate the four monthly maturities of debt to the IMF (1.5 billion euros) and to open a new financing plan for 5.2 billion euros. By next July, Athens will have to pay 3.5 billion euros to the European Central Bank (ECB), 465 million euros to the IMF and 2 billion euros to additional creditors.

Debt and more austerity, in the end impose more debts, this situation puts Greece in a "depressive spiral" that seems not to have an end. How will the resources for complying with these commitments de delivered?

There is no doubt that if Tsipras decides abandoning the Euro, the consequences will be dramatic for Greece's economy and so for the rest of economies in the region [6], including of course, Germany and France. Berlin fears a massive spread. If Greece collapses, speculators will bet against the most fragile economies: Finland, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, etc.

Considerably affected by the weak economic growth and the deflation (price breakdown), the Eurozone would loose even more confidence from international investors. The crescent 'aversion to risk' due to Greece's exit would provoke an increase in the performance of sovereign bonds (currently at minimum levels). Panic would boost interest rates, severely shrinking the financial liquidity between countries.

Uncertainty will increase and the capital flows would be victim of a 'butterfly effect': slight increase of volatility in sovereign bond markets, light drops in stock exchanges and any change in the monetary policy, would be enough to detonate huge turbulences in credit circuits.

Nevertheless, the Troika seems decisive on backlashing the left's economic program. Syriza have inaugurated the electoral failure of neoliberalism in Europe and due to that, it has become the lender's favorite prey, who are ready to impose their will at any price. However, the Greeks should trust themselves, establish partnership beyond its continental borders and aim for utopia.

Democracy was born in the ancient Greece and there is where the foundations of a new Europe, free from the 'dictatorship of the creditors' should be built, if there is any alternative…

[Jun 28, 2015] Keynes, The Great Depression And The Coming Great Default

Jun 28, 2015 | Zero Hedge
falak pema

you guys have it ALL wrong.

Keynes was there to check OLIGARCHY neo-feudalism. This crisis is about Oligarchy neofeudalism.

We need a balance between state and private enterprise. Right now we have "inverted totalitarianism" :an alliance between state and private Oligarchs where, unlike Mussolini model; its private enterprise that RUNS THE WORLD; the 1%.

The state is their slave; even FED belongs to its paymasters : the TBTF aka JP Morgan and now GS. Since Glass Steagall revoke; engineered by the GS squid cabal allowing Investment banks to rule the roost to MAXIMISE shareholder returns, the whole shooting match of supply side deregulated Reaganomics; all based on asset hiking based on short term quarterly reports; has morphed capitalism beyond recognition.

The world of capital changed in 1981...the day all that mattered was shareholder value based on short term steroid pumping that the 1971 "our money your problem" had initiated based on petrodollar hegemony fueled on perpetual DEBT.

The cumulative effect of 1971/1981/1991 outsourcing NWO mantra post Iraq 1 and SU default was what we have spawned today: a three step process where petrodollar debt + FIRE economy oligarchy enrichment+ NWO outsourcing based on cheap oil and cheap labour have built this casino capitalism model now compounded by derivative financialisation toxic shenanigans.

Now tell me WHAT has KEYNES got to do with this monetarist construct based on Friedman's 1971 mantra?

You guys deny the time line of facts and its irrefutable logic all based on petrodollar hegemony, and arms bazar supremacy.

[Jun 28, 2015] IMF and Germany Are Hell-Bent on Finishing Off Even a Moderate Left in Greece

"...Europe's neoliberal elite was after, especially after being fully aware of the fact that Athens had no alternative plan, was not merely a humiliating Greek deal for the Syriza-led government but finishing them off completely to send a message to all potential "troublemakers" in the euro area of the fate awaiting them if they dared challenge the neoliberal, austerity-based orthodoxy of the new Rome."
.
"...Mr. Tsipras and his one-night "superstar" finance minister tied up with a dog chain and paraded in front of the European political stage for all to see - utterly defeated and humiliated, with their political futures up in the air, whether they accept or reject a humiliating Greek deal."
.
"...as it usually happens in situations of negotiations between ordinates and subordinates, master and slave, rich and poor, strong and weak, the more compromises the latter makes, the more compromises the former demands.""

IMF and Germany Are Hell-Bent on Finishing Off Even a Moderate Left in Greece

Jun 28, 2015 | Truthout

...Reflecting a political organization/party that had invited and accepted under the same roof extremely diverse political and ideological groups, the Syriza-led government not only failed to set out a clear strategic vision for getting the country out of its current crisis but walked straight into the trap that the euromasters and the "criminal IMF" were setting up for them throughout the course of the negotiations.

Indeed, the leftist Greek government failed to see that what Europe's neoliberal elite was after, especially after being fully aware of the fact that Athens had no alternative plan, was not merely a humiliating Greek deal for the Syriza-led government but finishing them off completely to send a message to all potential "troublemakers" in the euro area of the fate awaiting them if they dared challenge the neoliberal, austerity-based orthodoxy of the new Rome.

Working in collaboration with the IMF (whom Mr. Tsipras has charged with "criminal responsibility" for the economic and social catastrophe of Greece), Germany's plan (a nation that has failed to pay its debts repeatedly in modern times and had the bigger part of its foreign debt wiped off in 1953, yet has the audacity now to try to teach moral lessons to Greece) is to have Mr. Tsipras and his one-night "superstar" finance minister tied up with a dog chain and paraded in front of the European political stage for all to see - utterly defeated and humiliated, with their political futures up in the air, whether they accept or reject a humiliating Greek deal.

... ... ...

The members of the Greek government negotiation team had submitted a list of proposals for the June 22 Euro summit that were fully in line with the logic of the EU/IMF bailout program for Greece: more austerity and additional structural adjustments. All in all, the proposals they made amounted to over 8 billion euro in additional cuts between 2015 and 2016! The leftist Greek government even proposed a tax increase to incomes above 30,000 euro, thus suggesting that individuals in that income bracket rank among the wealthy! Basic food items and services were to carry a 23 percent VAT. The special VAT rate on Greek islands, which is so crucial for the tourist sector of the economy, was to be removed. The early retirement age was to be increased as of the start of 2016, and a benefit for low-income pensioners was to be gradually substituted, beginning from 2018.

The obvious capitulation on the part of the Syriza-led government to the euromasters and the IMF thugs, which was not the first one, was made just to get a deal done as time was running out for Greece (it has a huge payment to make to the IMF at the end of June in the tune of 1.6 billion euro) and thus to remove the dark clouds of a Grexit that had begun to spread dangerously over Greece, as it had finally become clear that Germany and the IMF were calling Syriza's bluff and were ready for the unthinkable, i.e., the possibility of a Grexit.

But as it usually happens in situations of negotiations between ordinates and subordinates, master and slave, rich and poor, strong and weak, the more compromises the latter makes, the more compromises the former demands.

Thus, the Greek proposals were found to be inadequate, and there were demands for more blood and tears. Germany and the IMF wanted to force the Syriza-led government to cross its last and final "red line," which was over additional antisocial measures in the nation's social security and pension system. Among other things, the Lagarde/Schäuble duo wants the benefit for low-income pensioners to be completed eliminated by 2017. This would mean that a person who receives today a monthly pension for the amount of 500 euro (close to 50 percent of Greek pensioners receive pensions below the official poverty line) would be deprived of about 200 euro, which come as a welfare payment of sorts.

... ... ...

Footnotes:

1. The political babel of Syriza consists of right-wing and ultra-nationalist camps (ie., the Independent Greeks party, Syriza's coalition partner in government) to defunct social democrats and outdated Keynesians who saw primarily the crisis in Greece as a threat to capitalism itself and were suggesting, accordingly, all sort of interventionist schemes to keep Greece in the euro area and the emergence of an alternative socio-economic system at bay, including recycling unemployment schemes with the minimum wage so as not to upset the exploitation rate in the private sector (!) and IOUs, and from remnants of euro-communism and the old communist left to post-leftism, postmodernist tendencies devoid of any true understanding of contemporary political realities and without structured support at the popular, working-class level. Indicative of its political nature, not even one large, mass protest or demonstration has ever been organized or successfully carried out by Syriza. Its official organ Avgi still sells thousands of copies less on a daily and a weekly basis than the official organ of the Greek Communist Party, which in the elections of January 2015 barely got over 5 percent of the popular vote.

2. Syriza had been converted long ago into an utterly confusing, "non-left" left political organization, and the restructuring of the Greek economy and its moribund political culture, the abandonment of outworn, antediluvian modes of political thinking and behaviors, and the transformation of capitalism and its transition to a socialist economy had been completely removed from its political radar. For an argument along those lines, see C. J. Polychroniou, "To Change Greece Requires Changing the Political Culture - and This Could Be a Tall Order, Especially for the Left." Truthout (September 1, 2013).

... ... ...

C.J. Polychroniou is a research associate and policy fellow at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and a former columnist for a Greek major national newspaper. His main research interests are in European economic integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and the deconstruction of neoliberalism's politico-economic project. He has taught for many years at universities in the United States and Europe and is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout's Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

[Jun 27, 2015] Greece: Its the Politics, Stupid!

"...The troika had two goals from the start. First to give the banksters and plutocrats enough time to exit the country they had plundered (with help from local plutocrats). There was a large amount of privately held debt that could not be unloaded during a crisis, so they needed a pretend bailout such that most of that private risk could be transferred onto public organizations. Second they needed to keep the public in the other European countries from understanding that the fault was with their own banksters and plutocrats, not the people of Greece; and that the bailout plan (rather than immediate debt restructuring) actually was a plan to move the inevitable cost away from the banksters and onto the taxpayers."
Jun 27, 2015 | Economist's View

Gloomy European Economist Francesco Saraceno:

It's the Politics, Stupid!: I have been silent on Greece, because scores of excellent economists from all sides commented at length...
But last week has transformed in certainty what had been a fear since the beginning. The troika, backed by the quasi totality of EU governments, were not interested in finding a solution that would allow Greece to recover while embarking in a fiscally sustainable path. No, they were interested in a complete and public defeat of the "radical" Greek government. ...
What happened...? Well, contrary to what is heard in European circles, most of the concessions came from the Greek government. On retirement age, on the size of budget surplus (yes, the Greek government gave up its intention to stop austerity, and just obtained to soften it), on VAT, on privatizations, we are today much closer to the Troika initial positions than to the initial Greek position. Much closer.
The point that the Greek government made repeatedly is that some reforms, like improving the tax collection capacity, actually demanded an increase of resources, and hence of public spending. Reforms need to be disconnected from austerity, to maximize their chance to work. Syriza, precisely like the Papandreou government in 2010 asked for time and possibly money. It got neither.
Tsipras had only two red lines it would and it could not cross: Trying to increase taxes on the rich (most notably large coroporations), and not agreeing to further cuts to low pensions. if he crossed those lines, he would become virtually indistinguishable from Samaras and from the policies that led Greece to be a broken State.
What the past week made clear is that this, and only this was the objective of the creditors. This has been since the beginning about politics. Creditors cannot afford that an alternative to policies followed since 2010 in Greece and in the rest of the Eurozone materializes.
Austerity and structural reforms need to be the only way to go. Otherwise people could start asking questions; a risk you don't want to run a few months before Spanish elections. Syriza needed to be made an example. You cannot survive in Europe, if you don't embrace the Brussels-Berlin Consensus. Tsipras, like Papandreou, was left with the only option too ask for the Greek people's opinion, because there has been no negotiation, just a huge smoke screen. Those of us who were discussing pros and cons of the different options on the table, well, we were wasting our time.
And if Greece needs to go down to prove it, so be it. If we transform the euro in a club in which countries come and go, so be it.
The darkest moment for the EU.
RGC said...

by MICHAEL HUDSON


Many readers of the European and American press must be confused about what actually is happening in the negotiations between Greece (Alexis Tsipras and Yannis Varoufakis). The European Troika (the IMF, European Central Bank and European Council now object to the name and want to be called simply "the Institutions") have stepped up their demands on Syriza. What is called "negotiation" is in reality a demand for total surrender. The Troika's demand is to force Syriza to go back on the campaign promises that it made to voters who replaced the old right-wing Pasok ("socialist") and Conservative New Democracy coalition, or else simply apply the austerity program to which that coalition had agreed:cutbacks in pensions, deeper austerity, more privatization selloffs, and a tax shift off business onto labor. In short, economic suicide.

Last weekend a group of us met in Delphi to discuss and draft the following Declaration of Support for Greece against the neoliberal Institutions. It is now clear that finance is the new mode of warfare. The creditors' objective is the same as military conquest: they want the land, the natural resource rights and monopolies, and they want tribute (in this case, debt service). And they don't want sovereign Greece to tax the economic rent from these assets. In short, the negotiation between The Institutions and Greece is a bold exercise in rent extraction.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/26/the-delphi-declaration/

Peter K. said...

I agree with what Saraceno wrote. "The troika, backed by the quasi totality of EU governments, were not interested in finding a solution that would allow Greece to recover while embarking in a fiscally sustainable path."

The austerity program they forced Greece to follow was a failure and the troika doesn't care what Syriza was elected to do. It can overrule democracy.

As good as the IMF research department has been regarding Keynesian policies lately, the IMF is coming off really bad here, just going along with insane policy.

If Greece doesn't pay by the 30th do they get kicked out? If they kicked out will they hold the July 5th referendum anyway?

Maybe the troika don't kick them out immediately and the referendum votes no on the bailout package. Then Greece defaults but possibly stays in the EU on the drachma with capital controls. Possibly Greece can rejoin the EU later on.

anne said in reply to anne...

What still puzzles me is whether and by what authority Greece can be forced to leave the European Union, even if Greece has to abandon the Euro.

As for the leadership of the European Union, no matter the title of the various governing parties, there has been an increasingly conservative political-economic bent to the leadership in domestic, Europe-wide and international affairs.

DeDude said in reply to anne...

They can not be forced to leave the European (political) Union. The may have to abandon the Euro currency, but a number of other EU countries have their own currency (enjoying the free trade and political advantages of being an EU country). They would likely be forced to either back out of the Euro or face a complete collapse of their banks and economy (without banks no business) if the ECB close their banks access to funds. But there is no way that they could be kicked out of the Euro if they refused to leave.

anne said in reply to Larry...

http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/greece-and-the-euro

June 26, 2015

Greece and the Euro

James Stewart has a piece * in the New York Times telling readers that if Greece were to leave the euro it would face a disaster. The headline warns readers, "imagine Argentina, but much worse." The article includes several assertions that are misleading or false.

First, it is difficult to describe the default in Argentina as a disaster. The economy had been plummeting prior to the default, which occurred at the end of the year in 2001. The country's GDP had actually fallen more before the default than it did after the default. (This is not entirely clear on the graph, since the data is annual. At the point where the default took place in December of 2001, Argentina's GDP was already well below the year-round average.) While the economy did fall more sharply after the default, it soon rebounded and by the end of 2003 it had regained all the ground lost following the default.

[Graph]

Argentina's economy continued to grow rapidly for several more years, rising above pre-recession levels in 2004. Given the fuller picture, it is difficult to see the default as an especially disastrous event even if it did lead to several months of uncertainty for the people of Argentina. In this respect, it is worth noting that Paul Volcker is widely praised in policy circles for bringing down the inflation rate. To accomplish this goal he induced a recession that pushed the unemployment rate to almost 11 percent. So the idea that short-term pain might be a price worth paying for a longer term benefit is widely accepted in policy circles.

At one point the piece refers to the views of Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's finance minister, on the difficulties of leaving the euro. It relies on what it describes as a "recent blogpost." Actually the post * is from 2012.

To support the argument that Greece has little prospect for increasing its exports it quotes Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, on the impact of devaluation on tourism:

"But they've already cut prices and tourism has gone up. But it hasn't really helped because total revenue hasn't gone up."

Actually tourism revenue has risen. It rose by 8.0 percent from 2011 to 2013 (the most recent data available) measured in euros and by roughly 20 percent measured in dollars. In arguing that Greece can't increase revenue from fishing the piece tells readers:

"The European Union has strict quotas to prevent overfishing."

However the piece also tells readers that leaving the euro would cause Greece to be thrown out of the European Union. If that's true, the EU limits on fishing would be irrelevant.

The piece also make a big point of the fact that Greece does not at present have a currency other than the euro. There are plenty of countries, including many which are poorer than Greece, who have managed to switch over to a new currency in a relatively short period of time. While this process will never be painless, it must be compared to the pain associated with an indefinite period of unemployment in excess of 20.0 percent which is almost certainly the path associated with remaining in the euro on the Troika's terms.

In making comparisons between Greece and Argentina, it is also worth noting that almost all economists projected disaster at the time Argentina defaulted in 2001. Perhaps they have learned more about economics in the last 14 years, but this is not obviously true.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/business/an-echo-of-argentina-in-greek-debt-crisis.html

** http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/05/16/weisbrot-and-krugman-are-wrong-greece-cannot-pull-off-an-argentina/

-- Dean Baker

anne said in reply to Mel at onin...

Tsipras had only two red lines it would and it could not cross: Trying to increase taxes on the rich (most notably large corporations), and not agreeing to further cuts to low pensions. if he crossed those lines, he would become virtually indistinguishable from Samaras and from the policies that led Greece to be a broken State.

-- Francesco Saraceno

[ I believe that this passage is wrong. Prime Minister Tsipras, to my understanding, was willing and had offered to increase taxes on the rich or "large corporations."

I will try to find a reference, but I am fairly sure I read this in regard to the offer by Tsipras. I recall the insistence on preserving low pension levels came with an express proposal to increase taxes on those with relatively high incomes. ]

DeDude said...

The troika had two goals from the start. First to give the banksters and plutocrats enough time to exit the country they had plundered (with help from local plutocrats). There was a large amount of privately held debt that could not be unloaded during a crisis, so they needed a pretend bailout such that most of that private risk could be transferred onto public organizations. Second they needed to keep the public in the other European countries from understanding that the fault was with their own banksters and plutocrats, not the people of Greece; and that the bailout plan (rather than immediate debt restructuring) actually was a plan to move the inevitable cost away from the banksters and onto the taxpayers.

Unfortunately, European tribalistic politics (further inflamed by the second goal) forced such austerity upon the people of Greece that they rebelled and elected a socialist government. Now there is a third goal for the troika (as dictated by their plutocrat masters); to punish the people of Greece (and scare voters in other countries) for electing socialist leaders. Be ready for an all out war of sabotaging any and all Greek economic recovery. They are desperate to set the example and scare away any thought of rebellion against economic tyranny in countries like Portugal, Spain, Ireland (Italy, France). They are not even trying to hide their sabotage of the Syriza government – just compare what they demand to what Syriza is offering. The objectives are for the same goals, it is just that Syriza has a plan that can reach those goals without sinking the Greek economy into an even deeper hole.

Fred C. Dobbs said...


If you owe your bank a million euros
and can't pay, YOU have a problem.

If it's a billion euros, THEY have a problem.

If it's a trillion, *you* are back
to having a problem, as it turns out.

Who knew?

RGC said...

IMF policy re Greece and Ukraine:

Greece: IMF Warns No Leeway on Payment as Merkel Urges Greece to Bow

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-18/lagarde-affirms-greece-s-june-30-deadline-to-make-imf-payments

Ukraine: IMF Violates IMF Rules, to Continue Ukraine Bailouts

http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/imf-violates-imf-rules-to-continue-ukraine-bailouts/

Sandwichman said...

DS-K weighs in on the IMF not learning from mistakes

http://fr.slideshare.net/DominiqueStraussKahn/150627-tweet-greece?ref=https://fr.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/yT0ZJNQMSAStzy

Reply Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 11:51 AM

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/business/dealbook/businesses-worry-about-shouldering-burden-of-greek-debt.html

June 24, 2015

Businesses Worry About Shouldering Burden of Greek Debt
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

THESSALONIKI, Greece - From the beginning, officials at the International Monetary Fund, one of the country's creditors, have criticized the proposal's reliance on raising corporate tax, arguing that such increases will only hurt the country's already fragile economy....

[ This is the IMF; sacrifice ordinary already damaged Greek people for the sake of corporate or relatively rich Greeks. ]

Reply Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 11:59 AM

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

Unconfirmed rumors that DS-K was originally going to refer to "the IMF's rape of Greece" but decided that might backfire.

Reply Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 12:04 PM

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

Having read the Dominique Strauss Kahn memo carefully again, I am not sure just what is being argued other than a little more generous debt forgiveness a little earlier.

Reply Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 02:39 PM

Sandwichman said...

"Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the eurogroup of finance ministers, said before the meeting he was 'disappointed' by the surprise plans to stage a popular vote on debt financing proposals.

"'It's a very sad decision for Greece because it's closed the door to further talks, a door that was still open in my mind,' he said."

Democracy? Can't have that! This is FINANCE.

Reply Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 12:24 PM

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

I am reminded of "Yes, Minister" on the EU.

Reply Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 01:53 PM

mrrunangun said...

I think of my dad's friend Phil in these cases of indebtedness. Phil was a successful businessman who functioned as a lender of last resort for a number of his acquaintances. Phil wanted his money first and foremost. When a borrower could not pay on time, Phil gave a brief grace period. If the borrower still could not pay, Phil would counsel the guy to get an honest job if he didn't already have one or get a second job if he had one and only one. If the guy already had two jobs or was ineligible for honest work, he was advised to consult a pawnbroker. If necessary, stealing and fencing outside of Phil's network might be a last resort. If the borrower still could not pay, Phil was not above resorting to strong collection methods that might persuade the borrower to come up with some cash courtesy of friends and family. Like legal collection methods Phil's cost money so was only resorted to in unusual cases. If the borrower still could not come up with the money, Phil had to face the loss. Needless to say, no further credit would be forthcoming.

It may be impossible for Greece to pay its debts because its prospects for growth are inadequate given the nature of its politics, the size of the debt, and relatively small size of its economy. If its lenders have concluded that that is the case, Greece would have to default and take the consequences. Its lenders will have to take the consequences as well. Phil would not have felt obliged to continue to make loans to a customer who had demonstrated an inability to repay his loan after the usual forbearance.

Chris Herbert said...

Greece doesn't need any loans. Greece doesn't need any debt. Once you are a monetary sovereign you call the shots. Just ask the United States, or China, or Japan. Or Iceland. The central bank can recapitalize the economy with a new drachma, the only currency that can be used domestically. It can fund infrastructure projects that invigorate the Greek economy without issuing debt because it is producing assets, not liabilities. It can do so by avoiding what Keynes describe as 'a bookkeepers nightmare.' Keynes:

"The divorce between ownership and the real responsibility of management is serious within a country when, as a result of joint-stock enterprise, ownership is broken up between innumerable individuals who buy their interest today and sell it tomorrow and lack altogether both knowledge and responsibility towards what they momentarily own. But when the same principle is applied internationally, it is, in times of stress, intolerable - I am irresponsible towards what I own and those who operate what I own are irresponsible towards me. There may be some financial calculation which shows it to be advantageous that my savings should be invested in whatever quarter of the habitable globe shows the greatest marginal efficiency of capital or the highest rate of interest. But experience is accumulating that remoteness between ownership and operation is an evil in the relations between men, likely or certain in the long run to set up strains and enmities which will bring to nought the financial calculation....

National self-sufficiency, in short, though it costs something, may be becoming a luxury which we can afford if we happen to want it. Are there sufficient good reasons why we may happen to want it? The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of which we found ourselves after the War, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous - and it doesn't deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed."

anne said in reply to Chris Herbert...

http://www.polyarchy.org/enough/texts/keynes.1933.html

1933

National self-sufficiency
By John Maynard Keynes

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Chris Herbert...

Terrific!

anne said...

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/europes-moment-of-truth/

June 27, 2015

Europe's Moment of Truth
By Paul Krugman

Until now, every warning about an imminent breakup of the euro has proved wrong. Governments, whatever they said during the election, give in to the demands of the troika; meanwhile, the ECB steps in to calm the markets. This process has held the currency together, but it has also perpetuated deeply destructive austerity - don't let a few quarters of modest growth in some debtors obscure the immense cost of five years of mass unemployment.

As a political matter, the big losers from this process have been the parties of the center-left, whose acquiescence in harsh austerity - and hence abandonment of whatever they supposedly stood for - does them far more damage than similar policies do to the center-right.

It seems to me that the troika - I think it's time to stop the pretense that anything changed, and go back to the old name - expected, or at least hoped, that Greece would be a repeat of this story. Either Tsipras would do the usual thing, abandoning much of his coalition and probably being forced into alliance with the center-right, or the Syriza government would fall. And it might yet happen.

But at least as of right now Tsipras seems unwilling to fall on his sword. Instead, faced with a troika ultimatum, he has scheduled a referendum on whether to accept. This is leading to much hand-wringing and declarations that he's being irresponsible, but he is, in fact, doing the right thing, for two reasons.

  • First, if it wins the referendum, the Greek government will be empowered by democratic legitimacy, which still, I think, matters in Europe. (And if it doesn't, we need to know that, too.)
  • Second, until now Syriza has been in an awkward place politically, with voters both furious at ever-greater demands for austerity and unwilling to leave the euro. It has always been hard to see how these desires could be reconciled; it's even harder now. The referendum will, in effect, ask voters to choose their priority, and give Tsipras a mandate to do what he must if the troika pushes it all the way.

If you ask me, it has been an act of monstrous folly on the part of the creditor governments and institutions to push it to this point. But they have, and I can't at all blame Tsipras for turning to the voters, instead of turning on them.

RGC said in reply to anne...

"If you ask me, it has been an act of monstrous folly on the part of the creditor governments and institutions to push it to this point."

The US banks promoted loans that obviously could not be repaid. They committed massive fraud. They caused a horrendous debt deflation and concomitant great recession. Yet they were bailed out by Obama. Why shouldn't the European banks expect the same of their politicians?

[Jun 27, 2015] Breaking Greece

Paul Krugman:

Breaking Greece: I've been staying fairly quiet on Greece... But given reports from the negotiations in Brussels, something must be said...
This ought to be a negotiation about targets for the primary surplus, and then about debt relief that heads off endless future crises. And the Greek government has agreed to what are actually fairly high surplus targets, especially given the fact that the budget would be in huge primary surplus if the economy weren't so depressed. But the creditors keep rejecting Greek proposals on the grounds that they rely too much on taxes and not enough on spending cuts. So we're still in the business of dictating domestic policy.
The supposed reason for the rejection of a tax-based response is that it will hurt growth. The obvious response is, are you kidding us? The people who utterly failed to see the damage austerity would do - see the chart, which compares the projections in the 2010 standby agreement with reality - are now lecturing others on growth? Furthermore, the growth concerns are all supply-side, in an economy surely operating at least 20 percent below capacity. ...
At this point it's time to stop talking about "Graccident"; if Grexit happens it will be because the creditors, or at least the IMF, wanted it to happen.
Sandwichman said...

The class nature of the IMF position is evident to anyone who chooses to see. Olivier Blanchard is the IMF's chief economist. Professor Krugman politely omits mentioning that salient fact. Professional courtesy, I presume.

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

Olivier Blanchard is the IMF's chief economist.

[ Meaning what exactly? ]

Sandwichman said in reply to anne...

Meaning if "unserious" Olivier (see below) was serious about his unseriousness maybe he would publicly repudiate the economics of the policy of the organization that he is presumably chief economist for.

Sandwichman said in reply to anne...

"The IMF's 'Tough Choices' on Greece," Jamie Galbraith

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/imf-greece-debt-restructuring-by-james-k-galbraith-2015-06#I3bKPImqEIzi2QYu.99

"Blanchard should know better than to persist with this fiasco. Once the link between "reform" and growth is broken – as it has been in Greece – his argument collapses. With no path to growth, the creditors' demand for an eventual 3.5%-of-GDP primary surplus is actually a call for more contraction, beginning with another deep slump this year.

"But, rather than recognizing this reality and adjusting accordingly, Blanchard doubles down on pensions. He writes:

"'Why insist on pensions? Pensions and wages account for about 75% of primary spending; the other 25% have already been cut to the bone. Pension expenditures account for over 16% of GDP, and transfers from the budget to the pension system are close to 10% of GDP. We believe a reduction of pension expenditures of 1% of GDP (out of 16%) is needed, and that it can be done while protecting the poorest pensioners.'

"Note first the damning admission: apart from pensions and wages, spending has already been "cut to the bone." And remember: the effect of this approach on growth was negative. So, in defiance of overwhelming evidence, the IMF now wants to target the remaining sector, pensions, where massive cuts – more than 40% in many cases – have already been made. The new cuts being demanded would hit the poor very hard."

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

Understood completely, darn.

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

So Galbraith and Krugman basically agree on the stupidity of the policy. Galbraith names the name. Krugman hesitates. Basic social psychology.

Sandwichman said in reply to Sandwichman...

Final paragraph of the Jamie Galbraith piece:

"Blanchard insists that now is the time for "tough choices, and tough commitments to be made on both sides." Indeed it is. But the Greeks have already made tough choices. Now it is the IMF's turn, beginning with the decision to admit that the policies it has imposed for five long years created a disaster. For the other creditors, the toughest choice is to admit – as the IMF knows – that their Greek debts must be restructured. New loans for failed policies – the current joint creditor proposal – is, for them, no adjustment at all."

Final two paragraphs of Krugman's:

"Talk to IMF people and they will go on about the impossibility of dealing with Syriza, their annoyance at the grandstanding, and so on. But we're not in high school here. And right now it's the creditors, much more than the Greeks, who keep moving the goalposts. So what is happening? Is the goal to break Syriza? Is it to force Greece into a presumably disastrous default, to encourage the others?

"At this point it's time to stop talking about "Graccident"; if Grexit happens it will be because the creditors, or at least the IMF, wanted it to happen."

Do those "IMF people" have names? I guess not.

anne said in reply to Sandwichman...

Perfectly contrasted and argued, and important.

pgl said in reply to Sandwichman...

This is sounding a lot like our Federal government. Nondefense purchasing is not that high even though we need a lot more infrastructure. Republicans have bitched about Social Security retirement benefits for decades. Cut taxes to hell and then demand a balanced budget even during weak aggregate demand. OK, Greece's problems are enormous but listen to Paul Ryan enough and we will become a banana republic.

[Jun 27, 2015] Tsipras Bailout Referendum Sham naked capitalism

"...not just greece. the collusion between the ECB and the French and German governments/banks, along with the IMF sends a clear message to all the European "junior" states."
.
"...He stated that default would be "catastrophic" and that he saw his job as "attempting to save capitalism from itself." In short exactly the role that FDR played in the U.S. "
.
"...Surely you can't believe Syriza is going to come out of that stronger? The banking system has basically collapsed, deal or no deal. Plus. the Troika proposal also contains the poison pill of VAT increases for the islands, which would drive a wedge between Syriza and it's nationalist allies. "
.
"...The combination of political cravenness combined with short-sightedness and a recklessness built on arrogance displayed by the Troika should be truly sobering and is the real story, regardless of what now happens in Greece."
June 27, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com

Chris Herbert said...

Greece doesn't need any loans. Greece doesn't need any debt. Once you are a monetary sovereign you call the shots. Just ask the United States, or China, or Japan. Or Iceland. The central bank can recapitalize the economy with a new drachma, the only currency that can be used domestically. It can fund infrastructure projects that invigorate the Greek economy without issuing debt because it is producing assets, not liabilities. It can do so by avoiding what Keynes describe as 'a bookkeepers nightmare.' Keynes: "The divorce between ownership and the real responsibility of management is serious within a country when, as a result of joint-stock enterprise, ownership is broken up between innumerable individuals who buy their interest today and sell it tomorrow and lack altogether both knowledge and responsibility towards what they momentarily own. But when the same principle is applied internationally, it is, in times of stress, intolerable - I am irresponsible towards what I own and those who operate what I own are irresponsible towards me. There may be some financial calculation which shows it to be advantageous that my savings should be invested in whatever quarter of the habitable globe shows the greatest marginal efficiency of capital or the highest rate of interest. But experience is accumulating that remoteness between ownership and operation is an evil in the relations between men, likely or certain in the long run to set up strains and enmities which will bring to nought the financial calculation....

National self-sufficiency, in short, though it costs something, may be becoming a luxury which we can afford if we happen to want it. Are there sufficient good reasons why we may happen to want it? The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of which we found ourselves after the War, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous - and it doesn't deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed."

anne said in reply to Chris Herbert...

http://www.polyarchy.org/enough/texts/keynes.1933.html

1933

National self-sufficiency
By John Maynard Keynes

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Chris Herbert...
Terrific!
Swedish Lex June 27, 2015 at 7:27 am

Thanks for long analysis.

Not sure I agree with all.

While Tsipras, Syriza & Co. certainly are not the team that would win the Super bowl, far from it, they are nevertheless not worse than the Troika in terms of incompetence, internal inconsistencies, having made populistic and crazy promises to voters on false pretenses, etc. Greece is the unruly teenager and the Troika are supposed to be the enlightened and responsible parents, even if it means being harsh. What we have instead is one entirely dysfunctional family.

My point is that even a 24 karat Greek Government would have an impossible task in negociating with the Ayatollahs of the Troika.

This game is therefore (unfortunately) not about acting rationally. Doing the right and responsible thing will not make you win or at least lose less.

Therefore I think that Tsipras move to launch a referendum is not bad. If the ECB shuts off the ELA – a couple of days before the citizens of Greece get to vote on the situation – then the ECB will (again) be confirmed at the Institution that kills democracy.

The Greek referendum has in my view been an option for the Greeks all the time. By doing it now "Ach mein Gott, way too late", the Greeks show that the creditors, and their parliaments, do not own the agenda (and hence cannot use it as pressure point).

What we are witnessing is clearly not a negotiation. It is political warfare with one pygmy state against a totally overwhelming force. I do not expect Greece to win this, in the end, but I hope that they will lose with dignity while the creditors win in infamy. This is not irrelevant since the next generation of Greeks will need to know that their parents refused to surrender to the, objectively, suicidal demands of the creditors....

Swedish Lex, June 27, 2015 at 7:33 am

I also believe that a Greek default would blow a big hole in the ECB's balance sheet, meaning that the euro states would have to inject tens of billions of new equity. Real money. TBC.

Freddo, June 27, 2015 at 7:52 am

I wonder how Merkel is feeling right now. I would interpret telling Tspiras to "shut up" as a sign she sees her legacy disappearing down a drain. Powerful leaders holding all the cards don't talk like that. Maybe she has suddenly realized she doesn't hold all the cards.
ennui, June 27, 2015 at 10:06 am

not just greece. the collusion between the ECB and the French and German governments/banks, along with the IMF sends a clear message to all the European "junior" states. the fact that the ECB has conducted a slow bank run in Greece destroys any trust national political leaders might have in a European banking system. you can't have a central bank which is willing to destroy the banking system of a member state to advance the political aims of other member states….

steviefinn, June 27, 2015 at 7:56 am

Swedish Lex

Agreed – & what is the difference in the end result between bowing & scraping & at least putting up some sort of fight ? Strikes me that it would eventually end up in much the same place anyway. Maybe morals don't count in this counting house world anymore, but however it ends, I personally am grateful to Syriza for allowing us more insight into the dealings of the EU Junta – which hopefully others will learn from, leading to a way of destoying this hydra.

Lambert Strether, June 27, 2015 at 1:23 pm
Not sure what mechanism you have in mind. From the post:

[Syriza's] assumption appears to have been that the national governments would find it too politically toxic to recognize losses on the debt they had extended to Greece through the EFSF and the Greek Bailout Fund. But maturities on these facilities have been extended and payments deferred. And the national governments do not have to mark to market. They will recognize losses only if and when Greece fails to make payments, which is years down the road. And even then, the pain is spread out over decades. That means Greece's supposed nuclear weapon turns out to be a pop gun.

Granted, these are country losses (after they were left holding the bag for German banks) but you do't explain how the ECB would lose. Would you, please?

Cugel, June 27, 2015 at 7:42 pm

Varoufakis last year explained everything before Syriza even took power. He stated that default would be "catastrophic" and that he saw his job as "attempting to save capitalism from itself." In short exactly the role that FDR played in the U.S.

The difference of course is that the U.S. had a sovereign currency and could run deficits and FDR didn't have to answer to the Troika. So, Syriza tried to get the creditors to see reason and see that it was in their long-term best interests to grant debt-relief. They failed because of EU arrogance, blind adherence to dogma, and short-term thinking. But, they certainly didn't have any other choice.

Yves has criticized them severely for not negotiating better. It is impossible to prove she's wrong that Syriza missed opportunities for finding a workable compromise, but I've never seen it as remotely plausible that the creditors would agree to anything Greece could accept.

The attempt at a referendum is obvious political theater and will be rejected by the Troika. It wouldn't work anyway. It is just another political ploy by Tsipras to cast the blame on the Troika by making them look bad, but they are long past the point of caring and just want Greece out of the EU.

Ben Johannson, June 27, 2015 at 3:35 pm

I can see no evidence that eurozone CB's must be in positive territory regarding its balance sheet or that member states must make any "hole" whole. They may demand it anyway given the leaders of the eurogang are likely as stupid as they look but it isn't an inevitability given the ECB does not require balance sheet solvency to conduct its operations.

ennui, June 27, 2015 at 1:15 pm

As Varoufakis notes in his recent statement, an agreement now would leave Syriza with a Greek economy in a deep depression, a banking system that has been strangled by the ECB with no commitment to confidence building, a requirement to create a fiscal surplus and monthly reviews by the IMF culminating in a repeat performance of this whole charade in November.

Surely you can't believe Syriza is going to come out of that stronger? The banking system has basically collapsed, deal or no deal. Plus. the Troika proposal also contains the poison pill of VAT increases for the islands, which would drive a wedge between Syriza and it's nationalist allies.

Whether it was intentional or not, Syriza's dogged commitment to this "negotiation" has illustrated just the degree to which the Troika are acting in bad faith. There were just two outcomes that were possible from this process: Syriza signing a deal which would be politically suicidal or Greek exit, and this was by design by the powers of Europe.

The combination of political cravenness combined with short-sightedness and a recklessness built on arrogance displayed by the Troika should be truly sobering and is the real story, regardless of what now happens in Greece.

[Jun 27, 2015] The Greek PM has announced a national referendum on July 5 on the conditions of the debt deal with international creditors

Patient Observer, June 26, 2015 at 8:10 pm

This is big:
http://rt.com/news/270046-greece-debt-deal-referendum/
"The Greek PM has announced a national referendum on July 5 on the conditions of the debt deal with international creditors. It's up to the Greek people, Tsipras said, to make a fateful decision on the country's sovereignty, independence and future.

"These proposals, which clearly violate the European rules and the basic rights to work, equality and dignity show that the purpose of some of the partners and institutions was not a viable agreement for all parties, but possibly the humiliation of an entire people," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address to the nation, as cited by Reuters.

The referendum will be held on July 5, a few days past the June 30 deadline, Tsipras announced. "

A clever move – what can EU do if the debt deal is voted down? Putin-like in its directness and effectiveness.

yalensis, June 27, 2015 at 3:09 am
Hallelujah!

And holding the referendum just a week from now is smart too.

EU/USA don't have enough time to organize election fraud.

[Jun 23, 2015] Bill Black: A Harvard Don is Enraged that Pope Francis is Opposed to the World Economic Order

Notable quotes:
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with http://neweconomicperspectives.org " rel="nofollow">New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... laissez faire. ..."
"... The Gospel According to St. Lloyd Blankfein ..."
Jun 23, 2015 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Posted on June 23, 2015 by Yves Smith

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with http://neweconomicperspectives.org" rel="nofollow">New Economic Perspectives

A New York Times article entitled "Championing Environment, Francis Takes Aim at Global Capitalism" quotes a conventional Harvard economist, Robert N. Stavins. Stavins is enraged by Pope Francis' position on the environment because the Pope is "opposed to the world economic order." The rage, unintentionally, reveals why conventional economics is the most dangerous ideology pretending to be a "science."

Stavins' attacks on the Pope quickly became personal and dismissive. This is odd, for Pope Francis' positions on the environment are the same as Stavins' most important positions. Stavins' natural response to the Pope's views on the environment – had Stavin not been an economist – would have been along the lines of "Pope Francis is right, and we urgently need to make his vision a reality."

Stavins' fundamental position is that there is an urgent need for a "radical restructuring" of the markets to prevent them from causing a global catastrophe. That is Pope Francis' fundamental position. But Stavins ends up mocking and trying to discredit the Pope.

I was struck by the similarity of Stavins response to Pope Francis to the rich man's response to Jesus. The episode is reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in similar terms. I'll use Matthew's version (KJAV), which begins at 19:16 with the verse:

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

Jesus responds:

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

The young rich man wants to know which commandments he needs to follow to gain eternal life.

He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

The young, wealthy man is enthused. The Rabbi that he believes has the secret of eternal life has agreed to personally answer his question as to how to obtain it. He passes the requirements the Rabbi lists, indeed, he has met those requirements since he was a child.

But then Jesus lowers the boom in response to the young man's question on what he "lacks."

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

We need to "review the bidding" at this juncture. The young man is wealthy. He believes that Jesus knows the secret to obtaining eternal life. His quest was to discover – and comply – with the requirement to achieve eternal life. The Rabbi has told him the secret – and then gone well beyond the young man's greatest hopes by offering to make him a disciple. The door to eternal life is within the young man's power to open. All he needs to do is give all that he owns to the poor. The Rabbi goes further and offers to make the young man his disciple. In exchange, the young man will secure "treasure in heaven" – eternal life and a place of particular honor for his sacrifice and his faith in Jesus.

Jesus' answer – the answer the young man thought he wished to receive more than anything in the world – the secret of eternal life, causes the young man great distress.

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

The young man rejects eternal life because he cannot bear the thought of giving his "great possessions" to "the poor." Notice that the young man is not evil. He keeps the commandments. He is eager to do a "good thing" to gain eternal life. He has "great possessions" and is eager to trade a generous portion of his wealth as a good deed to achieve eternal life. In essence, he is seeking to purchase an indulgence from Jesus.

But Jesus' response causes the young, wealthy man to realize that he must make a choice. He must decide which he loves more – eternal life or his great possessions. He is "sorrowful" for Jesus' response causes him to realize that he loves having his great possessions for his remaining span of life on earth more than eternal life itself.

Jesus offers him not only the means to open the door to eternal life but the honor of joining him as a disciple. The young man is forced by Jesus' offer to realize that his wealth has so fundamentally changed him that he will voluntarily give up his entry into eternal life. He is not simply "sorrowful" that he will not enter heaven – he is "sorrowful" to realize that heaven is open to him – but he will refuse to enter it because of his greed. His wealth has become a golden trap of his own creation that will damn him. The golden bars of his cell are invisible and he can remove them at any time and enter heaven, but the young man realizes that his greed for his "great possessions" has become so powerful that his self-created jail cell has become inescapable. It is only when Jesus opens the door to heaven that the young man realizes for the first time in his life how completely his great possessions have corrupted and doomed him. He knows he is committing the suicide of his soul – and that he is powerless to change because he has been taught to value his own worth as a person by the extent of his great possessions.

Jesus then makes his famous saying that captures the corrupting effects of great wealth.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

The remainder of the passage is of great importance to Luther's doctrine of "justification by faith alone" and leads to Jesus' famous discussion of why "the last shall be first," (in which his anti-market views are made even more explicit) but the portions I have quoted are adequate to my purpose.

Pope Francis' positions on the environment and climate are the greatest boon that Stavin has received in decades. The Pope, like Stavins, tells us that climate change is a disaster that requires urgent governmental action to fix. Stavins could receive no more joyous news. Instead of being joyous, however, Stavins is sorrowful. Indeed, unlike the wealthy man who simply leaves after hearing the Rabbi's views, Stavins rages at and heaps scorn on the prelate, Pope Francis. Stavins' email to the New York Times about the Pope's position on climate change contains this double ideological smear.

The approach by the pope, an Argentine who is the first pontiff from the developing world, is similar to that of a "small set of socialist Latin American countries that are opposed to the world economic order, fearful of free markets, and have been utterly dismissive and uncooperative in the international climate negotiations," Dr. Stavins said.

Stavins' work explicitly states that the "free markets" he worships are causing "mass extinction" and a range of other disasters. Stavins' work explicitly states that the same "free markets" are incapable of change – they cause incentives so perverse that they are literally suicidal – and the markets are incapable of reform even when they are committing suicide by laissez faire. That French term is what Stavins uses to describe our current markets. Pope Francis agrees with each of these points.

Pope Francis says, as did Jesus, that this means that we must not worship "free markets," that we must think first of the poor, and that justice and fairness should be our guides to proper conduct. Stavins, like the wealthy young man, is forced to make a choice. He chooses "great possessions." Unlike the wealthy young man, however, Stavins is enraged rather than "sorrowful" and Stavins lashes out at the religious leader. He is appalled that an Argentine was made Pope, for Pope Francis holds views "that are opposed to the world economic order [and] fearful of free markets." Well, yes. A very large portion of the world's people oppose "the Washington Consensus" and want a very different "world economic order." Most of the world's top religious leaders are strong critics of the "world economic order."

As to being "fearful of free markets," Stavins' own work shows that his use of the word "free" in that phrase is not simply meaningless, but false. Stavins explains that the people, animals, and plants that are the imminent victims of "mass extinction" have no ability in the "markets" to protect themselves from mass murder. They are "free" only to become extinct, which makes a mockery of the word "free."

Similarly, Stavins' work shows that any sentient species would be "fearful" of markets that Stavins proclaims are literally suicidal and incapable of self-reform. Stavins writes that only urgent government intervention that forces a "radical restructuring" of the markets can save our planet from "mass extinction." When I read that I believed that he was "fearful of free markets."

We have all had the experience of seeing the "free markets" blow up the global economy as recently as 2008. We saw there, as well, that only massive government intervention could save the markets from a global meltdown. Broad aspects of the financial markets became dominated by our three epidemics of "accounting control fraud."

Stavins is appalled that a religious leader could oppose a system based on the pursuit and glorification of "great possessions." He is appalled that a religious leader is living out the Church's mission to provide a "preferential option for the poor." Stavins hates the Church's mission because it is "socialist" – and therefore so obviously awful that it does not require refutation by Stavins. This cavalier dismissal of religious beliefs held by most humans is revealing coming from a field that proudly boasts the twin lies that it is a "positive" "science." Theoclassical economists embrace an ideology that is antithetical to nearly every major religion.

Stavins, therefore, refuses to enter the door that Pope Francis has opened. Stavins worships a system based on the desire to accumulate "great possessions" – even though he knows that the markets pose an existential threat to most species on this planet and even though he knows that his dogmas increasingly aid the worst, most fraudulent members of our society to become wealthy through forms of "looting" (Akerlof and Romer 1993) that make other people poorer. The result is that Stavins denounces Pope Francis rather than embracing him as his most valuable ally.

Conclusion: Greed and Markets Kill: Suicide by Laissez Faire

The old truths remain. The worship of "great possessions" wreaks such damage on our humanity that we come to love them more than life itself and act in a suicidal fashion toward our species and as mass destroyers of other species. Jesus' insight was that this self-corruption is so common, so subtle, and so powerful that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Today, he would probably use "economist" rather than "camel."

Theoclassical economists are the high priests of this celebration of greed that Stavins admits poses the greatest threat to life on our planet. When Pope Francis posed a choice to Stavins, he chose to maintain his dogmatic belief in a system that he admits is suicidal and incapable of self-reform. The reason that the mythical and mystical "free markets" that Stavins worships are suicidal and incapable of self-reform even when they are producing "mass extinction" is that the markets are a system based on greed and the desire to obtain "great possessions" even if the result is to damn us and life on our planet.

Adam Smith propounded the paradox that greed could lead the butcher and baker (in a village where everyone could judge reputation and quality) to reliably produce goods of high quality at the lowest price. The butcher and baker, therefore, would act (regardless of their actual motivations) as if they cared about their customers. Smith observed that the customer of small village merchant's products would find the merchant's self-interest a more reliable assurance of high quality than the merchant's altruism.

But Stavins makes clear in his writing that this is not how markets function in the context of "external" costs to the environment. In the modern context, the energy markets routinely function in a manner that Stavins rightly depicts as leading to mass murder. Stavins so loves the worship of the quest for "great possessions" that he is eager to try to discredit Pope Francis as a leader in the effort to prevent "mass extinction" (Stavins' term) – suicide by laissez faire.

(No, I am not now and never was or will be a Catholic.)

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Clive June 23, 2015 at 6:04 am

The Pope's recent comments stirred an old memory from when I was a child, for some reason. Growing up in England in the 1980's, it didn't escape even my childish notice that the series "Dr. Who" was often a vehicle for what would now been deemed outrageously left wing thinking and ideas.

One such episode was The Pirate Planet. The plot's premise was that a race had created a mechanism for consuming entire planets at a time, extracting mineral wealth from the doomed planet being destroyed in the process and using energy and resources for the benefit of a tiny ruling elite with the remnants being offered as trinkets for the masses.

A small subset of the evil race was subliminally aware of what was happening. One of the lines spoken by a character really stuck in my mind, when he said after the reality of their existence was explained to him "so people die to make us rich?"

At the time, it was intended I think more as an allegory on the exploitation of South African gold miners under apartheid than as a general critique of capitalism by the prevailing socialist thinking in Britain in that era (it seems impossible now for me to believe how left wing Britain was in the late 1970s and even into the very early 1980s, but that is indeed the case; it feels like it was a completely different country. Perhaps it was ). No wonder the Thatcher government aggressively targeted the BBC (who produced the show), seeing it, probably rightly, as a hotbed of Trotskyite ideology.

But the point the show was trying to make is as valid now as it was then and is the same point the Pope Francis is making. A great deal of our material wealth and affluence is built on others' suffering. It is wrong. And the system which both perpetrates the suffering and the people who benefit from it needs to change. Us turkeys are going to have to vote for Christmas.

Disturbed Voter June 23, 2015 at 6:43 am

Nice post, Clive. But I thought Brits ate goose at Christmas, and Americans eat turkey at Thanksgiving ;-)

Yes, where have all the leftists gone? Is Cornel West the only one "left" in America? Forty years ago I was moving to the Right, in reaction to the Left. The Cold War was still on, patriotism et al.

The current paradigm is insane so nature will not allow it to continue much longer. G-d not so much. The US today is qualitatively different than it was in the 70s.

Trotsky was one of the first people to understand Hitler. Stalin not so much. Our current crop of elder pundits of Neoliberalism originally were Jewish trotskyites back in the 60s. Neoliberalism was perhaps pragmatic back then, but has outlived its usefulness.

vidimi June 23, 2015 at 7:59 am

old queen vic introduced the turkey to britain and it has supplanted the goose as a christmas special. i prefer goose, though.

James Levy June 23, 2015 at 10:36 am

My friend Tracey and her family still had "joint of beef" for Christmas.

James Levy June 23, 2015 at 6:47 am

The overweening arrogance of the Thatcherites and the neoclassical ideologues that are in evidence at Harvard is their insistence that what they peddle is not a set of values, but a "science", and that their set of values is the only set of values even worth considering (TINA). The Pope's job is to remind us all of another possible set of values and organizing principles. No one said you have to believe in them. But they have a right to be on the table when we collectively chose what kind of world we want to live in.

John Smith June 23, 2015 at 6:13 am

"All he needs to do is give all that he owns to the poor." Bill Black

No. He is to sell all he owns but Jesus does not say that he is to then give away ALL the money. The rich guy's problem is his possessions, not money. Note that Matthew, another rich guy, did not give away all his money yet he was a disciple of Jesus.

As for "free markets", what is free market about government-subsidized/privileged banks?

Patricia June 23, 2015 at 6:35 am

Don't know if this has been linked at NC; it is another righteous rant on the subject:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/in-the-usa-i-cannot-write/

Disturbed Voter June 23, 2015 at 7:18 am

Nice. Takeaway? "no true feelings" insightful description of the people around me. The West in a state of nervous breakdown.

vidimi June 23, 2015 at 11:11 am

something didn't read right about this piece to me. hard to put my finger on it, but it came across as a bit hypocritical and a lot bitter. apart from that, the style is eclectic and the thoughts are scrambled all over the place. more a rant than a coherent argument.

It all began when I arrived. After travelling some 48 hours from South Africa to Southern California, carrying films and books for the conference, I was not even met at the airport. So I took a taxi. But nobody met me at the place where I was supposed to stay. I stood on the street for more than one hour.

in this passage he sounds like he suffers from affluenza. in those poor but righteous third world countries, he is treated like a rockstar. in the rotten US, he is dismayed at the lack of attention. although no doubt he has a point, it smacks a bit of entitlement.

not vltchek's best work, but then again, he did admit to writing most of it on the plane.

Synoia June 23, 2015 at 6:42 am

it seems impossible now for me to believe how left wing Britain was in the late 1970s and even into the very early 1980s, but that is indeed the case; it feels like it was a completely different country.

True. And greed, as described by Bill Black. has no limits.

Moneta June 23, 2015 at 6:56 am

Free markets and world economic order in the same sentence?

Disturbed Voter June 23, 2015 at 7:10 am

Irony perhaps? But then actual free markets are only in the imagination of Adam Smith.

William C June 23, 2015 at 7:28 am

I seem to remember plenty in WoN about businessmen conspiring against the public.

Eric Patton June 23, 2015 at 8:22 am

Very awesome essay.

Ulysses June 23, 2015 at 8:52 am

"Theoclassical economists are the high priests of this celebration of greed that Stavins admits poses the greatest threat to life on our planet. When Pope Francis posed a choice to Stavins, he chose to maintain his dogmatic belief in a system that he admits is suicidal and incapable of self-reform. The reason that the mythical and mystical "free markets" that Stavins worships are suicidal and incapable of self-reform even when they are producing "mass extinction" is that the markets are a system based on greed and the desire to obtain "great possessions" even if the result is to damn us and life on our planet."

This is an extremely important point. We cannot combat neoliberal ideology as if it were simply a set of rational assumptions, albeit flowing from flawed premises. No, it is a religious dogma of greed, set up to combat all of the more communitarian and gentle schools of religious thought– including the Christianity of Pope Francis, or the environmentalism of St. Francis, the patron saint of ecologists.

diptherio June 23, 2015 at 9:39 am

Good to see that someone else pulls out the "rich young man" bit occasionally. Not many Christians I've talked to seem to be aware of it, much less of the implications. Good on ya'.

vidimi June 23, 2015 at 10:46 am

fundamentalists like to take things in the bible literally, but they know that jesus didn't mean it when he said that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God"

Garrett Pace June 23, 2015 at 10:05 am

Maybe he didn't realize that his possessions owned him, but the rich young man knew that *something* was wrong. For all his virtue and good works, he could feel things weren't right inside himself.

Vatch June 23, 2015 at 10:30 am

Pope Francis probably hasn't read The Gospel According to St. Lloyd Blankfein. If he had read it, he would know that investment bankers are doing God's work.

[Jun 22, 2015] The Boomerang Effect: Sanctions on Russia Hit German Economy Hard

nationalinterest.org
Moscow Exile, June 22, 2015 at 10:36 am
Hasn't even registered on European economies.

Können Sie Deutsch?

Sanktionen kosten Europa bis zu 100 Milliarden Euro, Freitag, 19.06.2015, 10:09

Russlands Wirtschaftskrise hat verheerende Folgen für Europa. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Studie aus Österreich. Besonders betroffen ist Deutschland. Die Krise könnte das Land mittelfristig eine halbe Million Arbeitsplätze und Milliarden Euro an Wertschöpfung kosten.
Die Wirtschaftskrise in Russland hat weitaus schlimmere Konsequenzen für die Länder der Europäischen Union (EU) und die Schweiz als bislang erwartet. Nach einer Berechnung des Österreichischen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung (Wifo), die der europäischen Zeitungsallianz "Lena" exklusiv vorliegt, sind europaweit weit mehr als zwei Millionen Arbeitsplätze und rund 100 Milliarden Euro an Wertschöpfung in Gefahr.

Moscow Exile, June 22, 2015 at 10:44 am
The Boomerang Effect: Sanctions on Russia Hit German Economy Hard – Der Spiegel, July 21, 2014
Moscow Exile, June 22, 2015 at 11:32 am
No, it's not what I maintain, it's what these people report is happening:

German businesses suffer fallout as Russia sanctions bite (Financial Times)

http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/9a620f0c-73fc-11e4-82a6-00144feabdc0.img

German Businesses Urge Halt on Sanctions Against Russia – Wall Street Journal

In most countries, it would be highly unusual for corporate executives to inject themselves into geopolitics and matters of national security with the forcefulness that a number of German business leaders have. But many of Germany's largest companies have substantial Russian operations, built in some cases over decades, and worry that tough economic sanctions would rob them of a key growth market when their home market-Europe-is stagnant.

Germany's economy hit by trade sanctions on Russia – FT

The sanctions being placed on Russia by Europe are having a negative impact on the bloc, experts have said.

European countries have implemented a series of trade embargoes as a punishment for Russia's moves to annex Crimea and for its ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Rowan Dartington Signature's Guy Stephens said the eurozone had been "rife" with weak economic data and one of the biggest concerns was Germany because of its relationship with Russia.

"Sanctions against key trading partner Russia, coupled with declining demand from China, have begun to take their toll on Europe's largest economy," he said.

"Business confidence is also waning and GDP growth for next year has been downgraded to just 0.8 per cent, well below the government's forecast of 1.3 per cent. All in all, the decline of Europe's powerhouse could just turn out to be the ammunition that European Central Bank president Mario Draghi needs to begin a prolonged quantitative-easing campaign."

Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said Europe's share of global profits had "collapsed".

"And complicating the immediate path of liquidity and corporate earnings in Europe is the ongoing collapse in the Russian rouble," he said.

[Jun 22, 2015] The Russian Pipeline Waltz

Jun 22, 2015 | naked capitalism
Gaylord June 20, 2015 at 3:47 am

Does anybody know what Russia's plans are to try to prevent runaway climate change? Or is Russia's government oblivious to the catastrophic effects of continued greenhouse gas emissions? Their aggressive plans for oil drilling in the Arctic indicate the latter.

Barry Fay June 20, 2015 at 6:33 am

"Or is Russia's government oblivious to the catastrophic effects of continued greenhouse gas emissions?" Sounds like a typical cheap shot against Russia to me. The country most oblivious to the catastrophic effects, and one of the two the biggest contributors (with China), is the good ole USA. Russian is at 6%, USA at 20%! Your propaganda driven prejudice is showing!

Macon Richardsonn June 20, 2015 at 7:35 am

Thank you Barry Fay! Well said.

Nick June 20, 2015 at 9:06 am

With Russia's utter dependence upon oil and gas, plus lack of FDI, they have no alternative but to drill baby drill. Eventual regime change may increase their long term prospects.

Gio Bruno June 20, 2015 at 12:48 pm

Careful now. This could encourage blow-back from Barry Fay.

Let me just say that Russia is not a static society (education is prized). They can, and likely will, create a more diversified/un-stratified economy going forward. As for regime change, that's an habitual fantasy of folks who read only MSM propaganda. Putin, despite the grandstanding of American representatives (98% return rate) has the support of 80% of the Russian population. Russians are not stupid (See USA for comparison.)

Steve H. June 20, 2015 at 9:21 am

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/naomi-oreskes-the-hoax-of-climate-change-denial.html#comment-2458611

Externality June 20, 2015 at 12:28 pm

1. Russian- – unlike some Western nations – has submitted a detailed carbon-reduction plan to the upcoming climate conference. http://newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/russia-submits-its-climate-action-plan-ahead-of-2015-paris-agreement/

2. At a time when China and parts of Eastern Europe remain dependent on highly polluting coal-fired power plants, Germany is returning to coal following its phase-out of nuclear power, cash-strapped EU countries are phasing out renewable energy subsidies, and many Eastern European nuclear plants are overdue for retirement, natural gas remains a necessary – and environmentally friendly – energy alternative. The only question then is where the gas to come from. The UK's oil and gas industry is in terminal decline, large-scale imports from North America and the Middle East are a decade or more away, and efforts to promote fracking-related gas production in Europe has failed for a variety of reasons. To borrow a favorite line of the neo-liberals, "there is no alternative" (TINA) to Russian gas.

3. Since the end of the Cold War, the West has aggressively used the WTO, investor-state dispute tribunals, sanctions, propaganda campaigns, and "regime change" to punish resource-exporting nations who limit, or attempt to limit, exports for environmental reasons. To the WTO, for example, environmental laws in countries outside of Western Europe, the US, and Canada are illegal "non-tariff trade barriers." Russian attempts to protect its old growth forests against timber exporters and Chinese attempts to limit the environmentally disastrous (and often illegal) mining of rare earth ores were both struck down by the WTO at the request of the West. If Russia were to limit oil and gas exports for environmental reasons, the resulting legal, political, and military confrontation with the West would dwarf the Cuban missile crisis.

Rex June 20, 2015 at 1:33 pm

Burning any hydrocarbon produces carbon dioxide, so natural gas is not "environmentally friendly." There is clear evidence, too, that natural gas exploration and production release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere. EPA has proposed rules on that for producers (late and weak, of course). Methane in atmosphere is over 20X as damaging as CO.

Russian scientists contribute much to Climate Mayhem knowledge, especially in the rapidly changing arctic and on the threat of methane release.

Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch, Pacific Oceanological Institute, 43 Baltiiskaya Street, Vladivostok 690041, Russia
Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov, Anatoly Salyuk, Denis Kosmach & Denis Chernykh

Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch, Institute of Chemistry, 159, 100-Let Vladivostok Prospect, Vladivostok 690022, Russia
Valentin Sergienko

To name a few.

One wonders if Russian climate scientists are censored and hounded as much as are U.S. and U.K. researchers, especially in the US government (USGS, NOAA, NASA, etc.). Persecution and censorship of US scientists is above McCarthey-esque proportions today.

Ian June 20, 2015 at 8:37 pm

What about thorium reactors. I am aware that at least China is investing in the technology.

Lune June 20, 2015 at 3:08 pm

Just like the War on Drugs is most successful when it focuses on reducing demand (drug users) rather than fighting/bombing the suppliers (Mexico, Colombia, etc), the War on greenhouse gases is best fought by reducing demand. If the Europeans find a way to no longer need so much natgas, then Russia wouldn't be selling it to them. Otherwise, someone else will sell it to them regardless.

That doesn't completely exonerate Russia, of course, and given their history with the Aral Sea, I'm not sure that they would put environmental concerns very high on their list of priorities (certainly not higher than their economic security). But right now, the problem with greenhouse gases is on the other end of all these pipelines.

Otter June 20, 2015 at 8:15 am

The abandonment of South Stream was not much of a surprise to anybody with even a passing interest in the energy politics.

Brussels and Washington were both adamant that it would never pass through Bulgaria.
I suppose some people were surprised at how quickly negotiations progressed with Turkey. Possibly there is some quid pro quo regarding Iranian and Kurdish hydrocarbons.

Serbia and Hungary are anxious for access. The Austrians are even talking money. Greece of course needs gas and transit fees. Italia, Slovakia, Czech would welcome shares. The only problem is some people have suddenly taken an interest in organizing a colour revolution in Makedonia.

Jackrabbit June 20, 2015 at 1:03 pm

I questioned the author's perspective as soon as I saw this (in the second sentence) :

Six months ago Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised the energy world by dismissing the long-prepared South Stream project in favour of Turkish Stream.

Russia re-routed South Stream to Turkey (now called "TurkStream") because Bulgaria rejected South Stream under pressure from US/EU. OIFVet, a frequent commentator at NC, has written loads of good and inciteful comments with respect to this farce (he is Bulgarian).

The author refers to a "Russian Waltz" which casts aspersions on Russian intentions. Their intentions are clear. To by-pass a Ukraine that is hostile to Russia. Period. Their efforts to do so are being blocked (first by pressuring Bulgaria, now with a color revolution in Macedonia). Russia's 'waltz' partner is the EU which created the rule that pipeline ownership must be independent of supplier. This rule has dubious value when applied to large suppliers like Russia/Gazprom.

The author artfully guides us to three possibilities but ignores the most logical and intuitive one. Russia is likely to be taking this move now to hedge against the developing brinkmanship whereby Russia is blamed for causing European suffering by refusing to transit gas through Ukraine – despite the US/EU's irresponsible blocking of South Stream / Turk Stream as a delivery platform.

=

I believe that one must be very careful about sources when dealing with issues that are sensitive to the US/EU establishment.

Brugel is nominally an independent think tank but it is governed by, led by, and staffed with establishment figures and technocrats. From their annual report:

The idea to set up an independent European think tank devoted to international economics stemmed from discussions involving economists, policymakers and private practitioners from many European countries. The initiative subsequently found support from 12 EU governments and 17 leading European corporations, who committed to the project's initial funding base and participated in the election of its first Board in December 2004. Operations started in 2005 and today Bruegel counts 18 EU governments, 33 corporations and 10 institutions
among its members.

It is difficult to trust "experts" that have a vested interest in culling favor with the establishment. This article proves that such skepticism is very much warranted.

David in NYC June 20, 2015 at 1:13 pm

Putin's plan, to maintain a chokehold of the distribution of gas, mimics John Rockefeller's strategy for Standard Oil to control the distribution of oil in the late 19th century.

susan the other June 20, 2015 at 1:14 pm

Syria has really taken a hit for Russia. Until the conflict there is resolved the the Saudis/Arab natgas cannot build their pipeline. And by the time it is resolved Russia will have already established its network. It looks like this leaves the Saudis and other MidEast natural gas suppliers at the mercy of China and India. The BRICS.

Raj June 20, 2015 at 7:50 pm

You already know this, but Israel wants to send the gas production from the Levantine Basin to the Europe market and Assad stands in the way for the time being. Once Assad is toppled and a new puppet regime is put in place, I think we'll see the construction of the pipeline through Syria. Qatar & Saudi Arabia will connect through the same artery to reach the Europe market…and then Russia finds itself with competition. This is the key for the West to gain greater control of the Russian economy, and eventually profit from Russia's resources. So, in the short term (~10 yrs), Russia may have its infrastructure in place (whether via Nord, Turkish or South stream), but in the long term (~20+ yrs), we'll see Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar enter the Europe market and Russia will no longer be the only game in town. We think we're seeing the squeeze put on Russia now, but it will only get worse with time. The West looks at Russia's resources and sees dollar signs.

Gerard Pierce June 20, 2015 at 5:29 pm

In the current political situation, there should be a natural alliance between Russia and Greece, but it can't be a declared alliance – that leads to retaliation that neither one wants to deal with right now.

A covert alliance with Russia could put Greece in a position to obtain finance through China. Without any overt declarations, the European countries might figure out "on their own" that continued sanctions against Russia are counter-productive.

Even in default, if Greece can maintain any kind of economy, the wily Varoufakis gets to sit back and smile while the EU ministers try to explain to southern Europe why their policies are necessary and correct.

The US gets to continue with its unprofitable wars in the mid-East while trying to avoid major embarrassment from the fascists in DonBass. The major problem for the Russians is watching as Russians in Ukraine are ethnically cleansed.

If the Russians can avoid a military response all that is needed is someone to maintain the body count. The overall death count would probably be a lot less than a military response.

Susan Pizzo June 20, 2015 at 8:49 pm

An MOU with Greece has been signed, providing significant investment funds, a route around Ukraine, and a potential clinker in the Russian sanction vote on Monday. Further complications for debt negotiations? Greece is also reportedly "drawing up a default plan, which would see the country institute capital controls and nationalize its banking industry" (ibtimes). It ain't over till it's over…

http://www.ibtimes.com/greece-russia-reach-preliminary-gas-pipeline-deal-greek-debt-woes-continue-1976077

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/19/news/greece-russia-gas-deal/index.html

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-18/russia-greece-ink-pipeline-deal-gazprom-boosts-ukraine-bypass

[Jun 18, 2015] Pope Blames Markets for Environments Ills

Notable quotes:
"... "Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he adds. ..."
June 18, 2015 WSJ

Pope Blames Markets for Environment's Ills. Pontiff condemns global warming as outgrowth of global consumerism. Pope Francis said human activity is the cause of climate change, which threatens the poor and future generations.

ROME- Pope Francis in his much-awaited encyclical on the environment offered a broad and uncompromising indictment of the global market economy, accusing it of plundering the Earth at the expense of the poor and of future generations.

In passionate language, the pontiff attributed global warming to human activity, blamed special interests for holding back policy responses and said the global North owes the South "an ecological debt."

The 183-page document, which Pope Francis addresses to "every person living on this planet," includes pointed critiques of globalization and consumerism, which he says lead to environmental degradation.

"The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," he writes.

The encyclical's severe language stirred immediate controversy, signaling the weight the pontiff's stance could have on the pitched debate over how to respond to climate change.

"Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain," he writes. "As a result, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which become the only rule."

The Vatican published the document, titled "Laudato Si" ("Be praised"), on Thursday. The official release came three days after the online publication of a leaked version by an Italian magazine.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, had described the leaked Italian text as a draft, but the final document, published in eight languages, differed only in minor ways, while the pope's main points were identical. An encyclical is considered one of the most authoritative forms of papal writing.

In the encyclical, Pope Francis wades into the debate over the cause of global warming, lending high-profile support to those who attribute it to human activity.

A "very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climactic system," contributing to a "constant rise in the sea level" and an "increase of extreme weather events," he writes.

"Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he adds.

While acknowledging natural causes for climate change, including volcanic activity and the solar cycle, Pope Francis writes that a "number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity."

The pontiff goes on to argue that there is "an urgent need" for policies to drastically cut the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases and promote the switch to renewable sources of energy.

Related Coverage

Five Things to Know About 'Laudato Si'
Latest Critic of Too-Big-To-Fail: Pope Francis
Past Encyclicals That Had an Impact on the World
'Laudato Si' in Full
Excerpts From Pope Francis' Encyclical on the Environment
On Global Warming, Pope Francis Is Clear but U.S. Catholics are Divided
Scientists Back Pope Francis on Global Warming

[Jun 18, 2015] Pope Blames Markets for Environments Ills

Notable quotes:
"... "Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he adds. ..."
June 18, 2015 WSJ

Pope Blames Markets for Environment's Ills. Pontiff condemns global warming as outgrowth of global consumerism. Pope Francis said human activity is the cause of climate change, which threatens the poor and future generations.

ROME- Pope Francis in his much-awaited encyclical on the environment offered a broad and uncompromising indictment of the global market economy, accusing it of plundering the Earth at the expense of the poor and of future generations.

In passionate language, the pontiff attributed global warming to human activity, blamed special interests for holding back policy responses and said the global North owes the South "an ecological debt."

The 183-page document, which Pope Francis addresses to "every person living on this planet," includes pointed critiques of globalization and consumerism, which he says lead to environmental degradation.

"The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," he writes.

The encyclical's severe language stirred immediate controversy, signaling the weight the pontiff's stance could have on the pitched debate over how to respond to climate change.

"Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain," he writes. "As a result, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which become the only rule."

The Vatican published the document, titled "Laudato Si" ("Be praised"), on Thursday. The official release came three days after the online publication of a leaked version by an Italian magazine.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, had described the leaked Italian text as a draft, but the final document, published in eight languages, differed only in minor ways, while the pope's main points were identical. An encyclical is considered one of the most authoritative forms of papal writing.

In the encyclical, Pope Francis wades into the debate over the cause of global warming, lending high-profile support to those who attribute it to human activity.

A "very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climactic system," contributing to a "constant rise in the sea level" and an "increase of extreme weather events," he writes.

"Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he adds.

While acknowledging natural causes for climate change, including volcanic activity and the solar cycle, Pope Francis writes that a "number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity."

The pontiff goes on to argue that there is "an urgent need" for policies to drastically cut the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases and promote the switch to renewable sources of energy.

Related Coverage

Five Things to Know About 'Laudato Si'
Latest Critic of Too-Big-To-Fail: Pope Francis
Past Encyclicals That Had an Impact on the World
'Laudato Si' in Full
Excerpts From Pope Francis' Encyclical on the Environment
On Global Warming, Pope Francis Is Clear but U.S. Catholics are Divided
Scientists Back Pope Francis on Global Warming

[Jun 16, 2015] Hillary Clinton ducks questions on trade deals during New Hampshire visit

Notable quotes:
"... But, listen, lets review the rules. Heres how it works: the president makes decisions. Hes the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction! ..."
"... The media is still a bunch of stenographers for the WH and even now the WH candidates. ..."
"... She was part of the Obama/Biden administration that expanded Afghanistan war, attacked Libya, intervened in Syria and Yemen, relaunched the Iraq war, used Ukraine to provoke Russia and is being provocative with China by interfering in South China Sea. ..."
"... Lets face it. Wall Street and the military industrial complex control BOTH parties, and are especially bonded with and beholding to Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... You have to remember that to the financial elites who are backing Republicans - and Obama - middle class means anyone whos in the top 5% of the economic pyramid but hasnt made it into the top 1% because theyre too damned lazy. ..."
Jun 15, 2015 | The Guardian

FugitiveColors 15 Jun 2015 23:52

She can talk til her pantsuit turns blue.
I have already decided that my ballot will have Bernie Sanders on it one way or another.
I don't believe her. I don't like her, and I damn sure won't vote for her.
She is a blue corporate stooge and not much different than a red corporate stooge.
Bernie is honest and after all of those years in politics, he is not rich.
You can't say that about a single other candidate.


libbyliberal -> Timothy Everton 15 Jun 2015 23:47

Yo, Timothy, Paul Street recently reminded his readers of part of Colbert's speech at the Correspondents' Dinner way back in 2006 (time flies while we're sinking into fascism):

"But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"

Timothy Everton -> enlightenedgirl 15 Jun 2015 22:36

Sorry Not-so-enlightenedgirl. WE don't elect government officials, and we don't pay them for "not putting the screws to us". They get elected, paid, and influenced by lobbyists for the wealthy one percent, and by the corporations, who both fund their campaigns for future favors rendered. Those with the most funding for the prettiest and most abundant campaign ads are those elected. And yes, they DO put the screws to us, the American public. This woman is more a puppet for those interests than some Republicans.

Timothy Everton -> libbyliberal 15 Jun 2015 22:11

"The media is still a bunch of stenographers for the WH and even now the WH candidates."

Sorry libby, I don't see them crowding around Bernie Sanders, the only viable candidate FOR the AVERAGE American. In fact, I believe he had more "press time" before he became a candidate.

That is the way it goes here though. Get an honest candidate who speaks her/his mind, and you get no press coverage - way too dangerous for those who actually control our government through lobbyists.


libbyliberal 15 Jun 2015 21:42

What is this business about Hillary NOT "taking the bait" of a reporter's questions? Hillary needs to be challenged and not be the one in control with her gobsmackingly well-funded pr info-mercial steamrolling her presidential challenge.

The media is still a bunch of stenographers for the WH and even now the WH candidates. This is what THEY say their policy is and will be. Not critical thinking of the journalist, no connecting of the dots, to be applied?

Their talk sure is cheap and seductive. Obama gave us major lessons in that in 2008 and again in 2012. More nicey-nice sounding bull-sh*t that is vague or downright mendacious to the realpolitik agenda.

Hillary wants to talk about what is convenient and safe for her. Identity politics. Generalized populist feel-good rhetoric. Nothing substantial with the globalized and corporatized trade deals OR the massive violent US-sponsored or direct militarism around the globe.

Hillary's NYC Four Freedoms Park speech: lack of mention of foreign policy except for some threats on China, Russia, N. Korea and Iran. No mention of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Afghanistan. No mention of drone warfare. No mention of NSA surveillance. No mention of police violence.

She was part of the Obama/Biden administration that expanded Afghanistan war, attacked Libya, intervened in Syria and Yemen, relaunched the Iraq war, used Ukraine to provoke Russia and is being provocative with China by interfering in South China Sea.

Hillary skipped addressing the inconvenient and the media and her fan base had no problem with such gobsmacking omissions. Hillary decides that the US citizenry doesn't want to focus on foreign policy and she ramps up vague populist rhetoric like Obama did back in 2008 to convince the citizenry she is their champion even though she personally has amassed over $100 million from her financial elite cronies over the decades and if you think that fortune has no influence on who she is championing there's a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn you should look into buying.

Let's face it. Wall Street and the military industrial complex control BOTH parties, and are especially bonded with and beholding to Hillary Clinton.


Vladimir Makarenko -> enlightenedgirl 15 Jun 2015 19:19

"diplomacy so badly needed after the disastrous term of Bush and Cheney and their destruction of the Middle East." If anything she extended B & Ch policies by destroying Libya and turning it in a murderous breeding ground for Islamic ultras. She was at helm of arming Syrian "opposition" better known today as ISIS.

Her record as a Secretary is dismal - line by line no achievements, no solved problems but disaster by disaster.

talenttruth 15 Jun 2015 18:34

If the Democratic party nominates the "inevitable" Hillary Clinton, rather than someone real who ACTUALLY represents the middle class, tells the truth and is NOT part of the "corporately bought-and-sold" insider group, then it will be heads-or-tails whether she wins or one of the totally insane, whack-job Republi-saur candidates wins.

If she keeps on doing what she's been doing, she will LOOK just like those arrogant "insiders" the Republicans claim her to be (despite the fact that they are FAR FAR FAR worse, but much better at lying about that than any Democrat). Hillary is a VERY VERY WEAK candidate, because the huge "middle" of decent Americans is looking for real change, and not -- as well -- a Republican change WAY for the worse.

This Election is the Democratic Party's to LOSE. Hillary could make that happen (no matter how much worse ANY Republican victor will likely be). What a choice.

sour_mash -> goatrider 15 Jun 2015 18:09

"...why doesn't the disgusting American media ask the Republicans who support it to explain themselves too. Why are they so eager to join Obama in destroying the American middle class?"

After +6 years of the then Republican Party, now known as the Christian Jihad Party or CJP, making Obama a one term president it smells to high heaven that they now agree on this single issue.

Yes, where are the questions.

Whitt 15 Jun 2015 18:03

Because they're not "destroying the American middle class". You have to remember that to the financial elites who are backing Republicans - and Obama - "middle class" means anyone who's in the top 5% of the economic pyramid but hasn't made it into the top 1% because they're too damned lazy.

[Jun 16, 2015] Jeb Bush's campaign debut: protester showdown met with chants of 'USA'

Notable quotes:
"... sandra oconnor is actually on record saying that she would do anything to get bush elected. ..."
"... All candidates are promising change and yet are funded by those who dont want change. All candidates are promising defeat of ISIS and yet voted for or presided over or agreed with military aggression in the ME and tactics that helped create the instability in Iraq that led to ISIS. All candidates are promising to strengthen the middle classes and yet support tax cuts (benefiting the rich), trade agreements (benefiting the rich), deregulation (benefiting the rich), and are funded by industries that impoverish the working and middle classes and keep wages stagnant. ..."
"... Most Americans are addicted , with help from the media, to those who like to drag them to wars and fuck their economy for the sake of the rich and powerful. And the sad truth is that there is not much difference between Democrats such as Clinton and the GOP bunch that have announced their presidential intentions. There is no hope as long as big money is involved in choosing leadership for a country that boasts about democracy and democratic values while its institutions are under assault by corrupt rich and powerful. ..."
"... The right-wing is incredibly stupid if Bush is their nominee. ..."
"... Bush may speak Spanish and come across as Latino friendly, but the reality is that hes the son of one of the most powerful families in the US. As a conservative Republican, his first priority is to the powerful elite. ..."
Jun 15, 2015 | The Guardian

eileen1 -> mabcalif 15 Jun 2015 23:48

Neither a Bush nor a Clinton. They're both poisonous in different ways.

eileen1 -> WMDMIA 15 Jun 2015 23:47

There is no difference between Bush and Obama, except Obama is smarter and more devious.

redbanana33 -> mabcalif 15 Jun 2015 23:27

"are you really suggesting we forget this piece of history simply because bush won by corruption and connivance?"

No, I never said I believed there was corruption and connivance. Those are your words. Your personal opinion. MY words were that if more voters had wanted Gore as their president, he would have won. As it was, he couldn't even carry his home state. Sometimes the truth is hard to face and so we make excuses for what we perceive as injustice, when, in reality, more people just didn't think like you did in that election. But blame the court (bet you can't even clearly state what the case points they were asked to consider, without googling it) and blame the Clintons and even blame poor Ralph for your guy's lack of popularity. If it makes you feel better, go for it. It won't change the past.

And, speaking of presidents winning by a hair's breadth, shall we talk about how Joe Kennedy bribed his way to electing his son? Hmmmm? Except that even the crook Nixon had enough class to concede rather than drag the country through months of misery like your hero did.

mabcalif -> redbanana33 15 Jun 2015 22:50

there have been more than one excellent president who's won that office only by a hair's breadth.

are you really suggesting we forget this piece of history simply because bush won by corruption and connivance? particularly when the outcome was so disastrous for the country and the world?

it wasn't a question of being more popular, it's a question of being overwhelmed by the clinton scandal, a brother governor willing to throw the state's votes and by a supreme court that was arrayed against him (sandra o'connor is actually on record saying that she would do anything to get bush elected.) not to mention a quixotic exercise in third party politics with a manifestly inadequate candidate that had no foreign policy experience

Otuocha11 -> redbanana33 15 Jun 2015 22:43

Yes some people need to be reminded, especially about the falsification/lies completing the 2009 voter-registration form.

bishoppeter4 15 Jun 2015 22:39

Jeb and his father and brother ought to be in jail !

Otuocha11 -> redbanana33 15 Jun 2015 22:38

His point is that "No more president with the name BUSH" in the White House. He can change his name to something like Moron or Terrone. Let him drop that name because Americans have NOT and will NOT recover from the regime of the last Bush.

redbanana33 -> Con Mc Cusker 15 Jun 2015 22:30

Then (respectfully) the rest of the world needs to grow some balls, get up off their asses, define their vision, and strike out on their own as controllers of their own destinies.

After that, you'll have the right to criticize my country. Right now you don't have that right. Get off the wagon and help pull it.

ponderwell -> Peter Ciurczak 15 Jun 2015 22:25

Politics is about maneuvering to get your own way. In Jebya speak it means whatever will
lead to power. Hillary sounds trite and poorly staged.

Jeez, now Trump wants more attention...a big yawn.

WMDMIA 15 Jun 2015 22:24

His brother should be in prison for war crimes and crimes against Humanity. Jeb violated election laws to put his brother in office so he is also responsible for turning this nation into a terrorist country.

ExcaliburDefender -> Zenit2 15 Jun 2015 22:03

No $hit $herlock, he met his wife when they were both 17, in MEXICO. Jeb has a degree in Latin Studies too.

Just vote, the Tea Party always does.

:<)

ExcaliburDefender 15 Jun 2015 22:01

Jeb may very well be the most qualified of the GOP, and he can speak intelligently on immigration, if his campaign/RNC would allow it.

Too bad we don't have other GOPers like Huntsman and even Steve Forbes, yes I enjoyed Forbes being part of the debates in 96, even voted for him in the primary. And not because I thought he would win, but I wanted him to be heard.

Debates will be interesting, Trump is jumping in for the 4th time.

#allvotesmatter

fflambeau 15 Jun 2015 22:00

The USA presidential campaign looks very much like a world wrestling match (one of those fake ones). Only the wrestlers are more intelligent.

MisterMeaner 15 Jun 2015 21:59

Jebya. Whoopty Goddam Doo.

ponderwell 15 Jun 2015 21:52

Jebby exclaimed: 'The country is going in the wrong direction'. Omitting the direction W Bush sent the U.S. into with false info. and willful intention to bomb Iraq for the sake of an egotistical purpose.

And, the insane numerous disasters W sponsored. The incorrigible Bush Clan !

benluk 15 Jun 2015 21:49

Jeb Bush, "In this country of ours, most improbable things can happen," Jeb Bush

But not as improbable as letting another war mongering Bush in the White House.

gilbertratchet -> BehrHunter 15 Jun 2015 21:42

Indeed, and it seems that Bush III thinks it's a virtue not a problem:

"In this country of ours, most improbable things can happen," began Bush. "And that's from the guy who met his first president on the day he was born and his second on the day he was brought home from the hospital..."

No Jeb, that would be improbable for me. For you it was a normal childhood day. But it's strange you're pushing the "born to rule" angle. I guess it's those highly paid consultants who tell you that you have to own the issue before it defines you.

Guess what... No amount of spin will change your last name.

gorianin 15 Jun 2015 21:35

Jeb Bush already fixed one election. Now he's looking to "fix" the country.

seasonedsenior 15 Jun 2015 21:29

Stop calling him Jeb. Sounds folksy and everyman like. His name is John E. Bush. And he's from a family of billionaires. Don't let him pull a what's-her-name in Spokane. He was a rich baby, child, young man, Governor ...on and on and is completely out of touch with the common man.

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his sensibilities are built of money gained off the backs of the workers of this country. He is big oil to his core.

Caesar Ol 15 Jun 2015 21:27

Jeb is the dumbest of all the Bushes. Therefore the most dangerous as someone will manipulate him the way that Cheney did with Bush.

ChelsieGreen 15 Jun 2015 21:27

Interesting thing is that Bush is old school Republican, spend big, be the power to the world.

Since his brother/father left office the party moved on, Tea Party may have faded slightly but they are not big spenders, they are small government. Jeb will have trouble making a mark in the early states to be the nominee, he is considered center-right.

The right wing of the party thinks where they slipped up was not nominating someone right-wing enough, they will portray him as weak on immigration and chew him up.


Brookstone1 15 Jun 2015 21:11

America has been wounded badly by the reckless and stupidity of the Republicans under the leadership of G. W. Bush. And now it would be a DEADLY MISTAKE to even ponder about voting Republican again, let alone voting for another Bush! The Bush family has nothing in common with ordinary Americans!

NO MORE BUSH!!!

nubwaxer 15 Jun 2015 21:03

i heard his punchlines about "fixing" america to get us back to free enterprise and freedom. dear jeb, we know what you mean and free enterprise is code for corporatism run wild and repeal of regulations. similarly when you say freedom you mean that for rich white males and right to work laws, union busting, repeal of minimum wage laws, no paid vacation or maternity leave and especially the freedom to go bankrupt, suffer, and die for lack of health care insurance. more like freedumb.

Xoxarle -> sitarlun 15 Jun 2015 20:33

All candidates are promising change and yet are funded by those who don't want change.

All candidates are promising defeat of ISIS and yet voted for or presided over or agreed with military aggression in the ME and tactics that helped create the instability in Iraq that led to ISIS.

All candidates are promising to strengthen the middle classes and yet support tax cuts (benefiting the rich), trade agreements (benefiting the rich), deregulation (benefiting the rich), and are funded by industries that impoverish the working and middle classes and keep wages stagnant.

All candidates are promising bipartisanship and yet are part of the dysfunction in DC, pandering to special interests or extreme factions that reject compromise.

ID6995146 15 Jun 2015 20:33

Another Saudi hand-holder and arse licker.


OlavVI -> catch18 15 Jun 2015 20:24

And he's already got Wolfowitz, one of the worst war mongers (ala Cheney) in US history as an adviser. Probably dreaming up several wars for Halliburton, et al., to rake up billions of $$$$ from the poor (the rich pretty much get off in the US).

concious 15 Jun 2015 20:20

USA chant is Nationalism, not Patriotism. Is this John Ellis Bush really going to get votes?

sitarlun 15 Jun 2015 20:02

Most Americans are addicted , with help from the media, to those who like to drag them to wars and fuck their economy for the sake of the rich and powerful.

And the sad truth is that there is not much difference between Democrats such as Clinton and the GOP bunch that have announced their presidential intentions.

There is no hope as long as big money is involved in choosing leadership for a country that boasts about democracy and democratic values while it's institutions are under assault by corrupt rich and powerful.

OurPlanet -> briteblonde1 15 Jun 2015 19:34

He's a great "fixer" Him and his tribe in Florida certainly fixed those chads for his brother's election success in 2000. A truly rich family of oilmen . What could be better? Possibly facing if inaugerated as the GOP nominee to face the possibly successful Democrat nominee Clinton. So the choice of 2016 menu for American election year is 2 Fish that stink. Welcome to the American Plutocracy.

Sam Ahmed 15 Jun 2015 19:23

I wonder if the state of Florida will try "Fix" the vote count for Jeb as they did for Georgie. I wonder if the Republicans can "Fix" their own party. You know what, I don't want the Republican party to think I'm bashing them, so I'll request a major tune up for Hillary Clinton too. Smiles all around! =)

Cyan Eyed 15 Jun 2015 18:48

A family linked to weapons manufacturers through Harriman.
A family linked to weapons dealing through Carlyle.
A family linked to the formation of terrorist networks (including Al Qaeda).
A family linked to an attempted coup on America.
The right-wing is incredibly stupid if Bush is their nominee.

davshev 15 Jun 2015 18:43

Bush may speak Spanish and come across as Latino friendly, but the reality is that he's the son of one of the most powerful families in the US. As a conservative Republican, his first priority is to the powerful elite.

[Jun 14, 2015] Bush and Hawkish Magical Thinking

Notable quotes:
"... t's usually not clear what hawks think would have discouraged Russian interference and intervention in Ukraine under the circumstances, but they seem to think that if only the U.S. had somehow been more assertive and more meddlesome there or in some other part of the world that the conflict would not have occurred or would not be as severe as it is. ..."
Jun 14, 2015 | The American Conservative
Jeb Bush made a familiar assertion during his visit to Poland:

Bush seemed to suggest he would endorse a more muscular foreign policy, saying the perception of American retreat from the global stage in recent years had emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to commit aggression in Ukraine.

"When there's doubt, when there's uncertainty, when we pull back, it creates less chance of a more peaceful world," Bush told reporters. "You're seeing the impact of that in Ukraine right now."

Bush's remarks are what we expect from hawks, but they are useful in showing how they indulge in a sort of magical thinking when it comes to the U.S. role in the world. They take for granted that an activist and meddlesome U.S. foreign policy is stabilizing and contributes to peace and security, and so whenever there is conflict or upheaval somewhere it is attributed to insufficient U.S. meddling or to so-called "retreat." According to this view, the conflict in Ukraine didn't happen because the Ukrainian government was overthrown in an uprising and Russia then illegally seized territory in response, but because the U.S. was perceived to be "retreating" and this "emboldened" Russia. It's usually not clear what hawks think would have discouraged Russian interference and intervention in Ukraine under the circumstances, but they seem to think that if only the U.S. had somehow been more assertive and more meddlesome there or in some other part of the world that the conflict would not have occurred or would not be as severe as it is.

This both greatly overrates the power and influence that the U.S. has over the events in other parts of the world, and it tries to reduce every foreign crisis or conflict to how it relates to others' perceptions of U.S. "leadership." Hawks always dismiss claims that other states are responding to past and present U.S. actions, but they are absolutely certain that other states' actions are invited by U.S. "inaction" or "retreat," even when the evidence for said "retreat" is completely lacking. The possibility that assertive U.S. actions may have made a conflict more likely or worse than it would otherwise be is simply never admitted. The idea that the U.S. role in the world had little or nothing to do with a conflict seems to be almost inconceivable to them.

One of the many flaws with this way of looking at the world is that it holds the U.S. most responsible for conflicts that it did not magically prevent while refusing to accept any responsibility for the consequences of things that the U.S. has actually done. Viewing the world this way inevitably fails to take local conditions into account, it ignores the agency of the local actors, and it imagines that the U.S. possesses a degree of control over the rest of the world that it doesn't and can't have. Unsurprisingly, this distorted view of the world reliably produces very poor policy choices.

[Jun 14, 2015] An Inconvenient Truth The Bush Administration Was a Disaster

Jun 14, 2015 | The American Conservative

Most Americans remember the Bush years as a period of expanding government, ruinous war, and economic collapse. They voted for Obama the first time as a repudiation of those developments. Many did so a second time because most Republicans continue to pretend that they never happened.

[Jun 04, 2015] How to succeed in Iran: lessons from Russia and China by Tehran Bureau correspondent

Notable quotes:
"...Money money money, grab grab grab. The opening up of Iran is all about western companies making money and peace may be a fortunate side effect."
"...But maybe it's just reputation. The USA has been partying in the Middle East for decades, so people there already know who Americans are and what to expect from them. Russians and Chinese are involved too, but ways they use to achieve an agreement are not so... insolent, I'd say."
"...Against crippling sanctions they've achieved what the vast majority of countries in the region could only have dreamt of"
"...Resistance against what? Oh, you must mean the Western steam roller that crushes all life in countries that wish to follow their own destiny. Why would Iran want to join the 'Also Rans' who are only allowed the scraps thrown from the Western Oligarch Table?"
"...I'm not sure why state ownership of certain assets and industries is presented as a bad thing, in Guardian of all places. This is how governments pay for high standard of education, healthcare and strong defence. This is how governments avoid the debt trap and compounded interest charges creeping into the tax bill"
"...Wow, you must think that the rest of the world is truly as gullible as those in Canada and Australia when the USA once again stirs the shit at the bottom of the West Ukrainian pond."
"...They also have 81% home ownership as against The US and UK on about 65%. Education is valued and they have a high rate of women accessing tertiary education."
"...It's this kind: we, the westerners, are the most advanced civilization! The proof: our economies are all privatized, not government-run! The Iranians Russian, and Chinese are still savages! They have a long way to go to achieve our advanced level of civilization! "
"...US expert don't really understand that state capitalism is not a communist theory. Majority of Asian nations had practiced state capitalism.

Even British regime do practiced state capitalism till private liberalization been pushed by Margaret Thatcher."

Jun 04, 2015 | The Guardian

bcnteacher 4 Jun 2015 08:17

Money money money, grab grab grab. The opening up of Iran is all about western companies making money and peace may be a fortunate side effect.

BabyLyon 4 Jun 2015 08:14

Russia and China are more eastern, than western. It's easier for Iran to communicate with them, I think this may be a reason too.

But maybe it's just reputation. The USA has been partying in the Middle East for decades, so people there already know who Americans are and what to expect from them. Russians and Chinese are involved too, but ways they use to achieve an agreement are not so... insolent, I'd say.

abdur razzak 4 Jun 2015 07:38

Good, more power to them. This is a much more efficient way to use resources for the benefit of the whole population than anything the west ever tried.
http://www.latestdatabase.com/

1DrSigmundFraud -> JoePope 4 Jun 2015 07:22

The US probably won't be doing business there for obvious reasons. Iran wants to protect it's industries if sanctions are lifted for obvious reasons. You only need to look at the UK for reasons as to what happens if you don't while the US for instance now has only 3 levels of classes

  • Poor
  • Extremely poor
  • Extremely wealthy

Iran does have a healthy middle class one the downtrodden US labor force would die for. Their Oil wealth has been put to good use check out the Tehran Metro for instance

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tehran+metro+images&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8jJwVYu9GOqt7Aas5IHoBw&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=667

Or their Ski Resorts

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ski+resorts+iran+images&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QTNwVarOC-HC7gbUwYDYCQ&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=667

Top Hotels

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=top+hotels+in+iran+images&es_sm=93&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=fDNwVeoNxZruBtLngvgI&ved=0CCAQsAQ

Education one of the better Middle east countries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Iran

Against crippling sanctions they've achieved what the vast majority of countries in the region could only have dreampt of

normankirk -> LoungeSuite 4 Jun 2015 06:47

And neo liberalism delivers such a great standard of living for ALL Americans and Brits does it?

HollyOldDog -> LoungeSuite 4 Jun 2015 06:27

Resistance against what? Oh, you must mean the Western steam roller that crushes all life in countries that wish to follow their own destiny. Why would Iran want to join the 'Also Rans' who are only allowed the scraps thrown from the Western Oligarch Table?

MaoChengJi -> LoungeSuite 4 Jun 2015 06:21

Sort of like in Putin's Russia.

Yeah, exactly. Like Putin's Russia compared to Yeltsin's Russia. Like China.

LoungeSuite -> MaoChengJi 4 Jun 2015 06:08

Neoliberalism will fail soon, but state-controlled economies will survive,

Sort of like in Putin's Russia. And now in Venezuela. Oh. And the Cuban is a supreme example of socialism. (Gone wrong of course. Somehow, it always goes wrong. Oh! And America is to blame. Standard Guardian discourse).


HollyOldDog -> Luminaire 4 Jun 2015 06:01

Swimming against the tide again is your speciality. Plus you just love throwing nonsense around. I have noticed that the Far Right Ukrainian punishers are up to their nasty tricks again just before a G7 meeting.

Wow, you must think that the rest of the world is truly as gullible as those in Canada and Australia when the USA once again stirs the shit at the bottom of the West Ukrainian pond.

HollyOldDog -> normankirk 4 Jun 2015 05:48

It's a pity that successive British Governments were not better disposed to hanging on to British State assets rather than selling off the family jewels.

JoePope 4 Jun 2015 05:15

I'm not sure why state ownership of certain assets and industries is presented as a bad thing, in Guardian of all places. This is how governments pay for high standard of education, healthcare and strong defence. This is how governments avoid the debt trap and compounded interest charges creeping into the tax bill -- it is difficult to support the welfare system in any populous country purely through tax collection. One would have to have perfect conditions of natural resources/reserves, high technology, innovation and diversification, favourable geopolitical environment & export ability, stable and predictable population levels AND the lack of short term electioneering and corruption to achieve that. Even then, it is debatable whether private ownership and capital especially foreign capital in the case of strategic assets (energy, defence) is justified or needed.

Of course a fully centrally planned economy has been proven to be inefficient and uncompetitive when met with open/free markets -- the "greed is good" mantra, profit seeking motive and consumerism trumps the desire to empower and care for the wider population and more worryingly the need to maintain social cohesion, independence and security. Therefore, a balance should be sought through bilateral or regional deals with economies which are at a similar developmental level, to ensure healthy competition exists and drives improvements in labour productivity, product quality and technology.

This analysis gives some interesting information on Iran but reads as sour grapes and profiteering attempt by western investment funds and corporations. I hope Iranians keep the family jewels in their hands and allow external trade and investment only on terms favorable to their people and their economy.

normankirk -> MaoChengJi 4 Jun 2015 04:13

Good shit, I agree. Must be how come they can afford a good public health system, their primary health care network is acclaimed. They also have 81% home ownership as against The US and UK on about 65%. Education is valued and they have a high rate of women accessing tertiary education.

All of the above is how they have been so resilient in the face of pretty brutal sanctions.

But of course these days, having national assets is akin to being a dictatorship in the eyes of corporatocracies.

MaoChengJi Dmitry Berezhnov 4 Jun 2015 03:26

It's this kind: we, the westerners, are the most advanced civilization! The proof: our economies are all privatized, not government-run! The Iranians Russian, and Chinese are still savages! They have a long way to go to achieve our advanced level of civilization!

Yes, you can make money trading and making deals with savages, but you need to understand their savagery ways and be careful.

allowmetosayuarefool 4 Jun 2015 02:50

US expert don't really understand that state capitalism is not a communist theory. Majority of Asian nations had practiced state capitalism.

Even British regime do practiced state capitalism till private liberalization been pushed by Margaret Thatcher. Private liberation had its own disadvantages.

look at HK economic - largely been controlled by few family of tycoon. Today, UK election result had been determined by UK BANKER.

MaoChengJi 4 Jun 2015 02:42

The economy in the Islamic republic is still largely state-owned, with much of its 'privatised' capital in the hands of regime-affiliated organizations

Good, more power to them. This is a much more efficient way to use resources for the benefit of the whole population than anything the west ever tried.

Neoliberalism will fail soon, but state-controlled economies will survive, if they are isolated enough from the failing neoliberal environment. Sounds like the Iranian economy is, and good for them.

Dmitry Berezhnov 4 Jun 2015 00:14

Could not figure what kind of article that is, either:

- In case we are not going to sign a nuclear deal, please note that there's no democracy and we will have to invade them.

or:

- Iran is kind of not bad for investments, look how China and Russia make money on cooperation while we cannot due to sanctions implied by ourself.

[Jun 02, 2015]The Delusional World Of Imperial Washington

Notable quotes:
.
"... What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of such defiance? This is no small matter. For decades, being a superpower has been the defining characteristic of American identity. The embrace of global supremacy began after World War II when the United States assumed responsibility for resisting Soviet expansionism around the world; it persisted through the Cold War era and only grew after the implosion of the Soviet Union, when the U.S. assumed sole responsibility for combating a whole new array of international threats. As General Colin Powell famously exclaimed in the final days of the Soviet era, "We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, 'Superpower Lives Here,' no matter what the Soviets do, even if they evacuate from Eastern Europe." "
.
"...The problem, as many mainstream observers now acknowledge, is that such a strategy aimed at perpetuating U.S. global supremacy at all costs was always destined to result in what Yale historian Paul Kennedy, in his classic book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, unforgettably termed "imperial overstretch." As he presciently wrote in that 1987 study, it would arise from a situation in which "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is… far larger than the country's power to defend all of them simultaneously.""
.
dir="ltr">"...But for any of this to happen, American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower -- and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow. From such denialism, it's already clear, will only come further ill-conceived military adventures abroad and, sooner or later, under far grimmer circumstances, an American reckoning with reality."
Zero Hedge
Submitted by Michael Klare via TomDispatch.com,

Think of this as a little imperial folly update -- and here's the backstory.

In the years after invading Iraq and disbanding Saddam Hussein's military, the U.S. sunk about $25 billion into "standing up" a new Iraqi army. By June 2014, however, that army, filled with at least 50,000 "ghost soldiers," was only standing in the imaginations of its generals and perhaps Washington. When relatively small numbers of Islamic State (IS) militants swept into northern Iraq, it collapsed, abandoning four cities -- including Mosul, the country's second largest -- and leaving behind enormous stores of U.S. weaponry, ranging from tanks and Humvees to artillery and rifles. In essence, the U.S. was now standing up its future enemy in a style to which it was unaccustomed and, unlike the imploded Iraqi military, the forces of the Islamic State proved quite capable of using that weaponry without a foreign trainer or adviser in sight.

In response, the Obama administration dispatched thousands of new advisers and trainers and began shipping in piles of new weaponry to re-equip the Iraqi army. It also filled Iraqi skies with U.S. planes armed with their own munitions to destroy, among other things, some of that captured U.S. weaponry. Then it set to work standing up a smaller version of the Iraqi army. Now, skip nearly a year ahead and on a somewhat lesser scale the whole process has just happened again. Less than two weeks ago, Islamic State militants took Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. Iraqi army units, including the elite American-trained Golden Division, broke and fled, leaving behind -- you'll undoubtedly be shocked to hear -- yet another huge cache of weaponry and equipment, including tanks, more than 100 Humvees and other vehicles, artillery, and so on.

The Obama administration reacted in a thoroughly novel way: it immediately began shipping in new stocks of weaponry, starting with 1,000 antitank weapons, so that the reconstituted Iraqi military could take out future "massive suicide vehicle bombs" (some of which, assumedly, will be those captured vehicles from Ramadi). Meanwhile, American planes began roaming the skies over that city, trying to destroy some of the equipment IS militants had captured.

Notice anything repetitive in all this -- other than another a bonanza for U.S. weapons makers? Logically, it would prove less expensive for the Obama administration to simply arm the Islamic State directly before sending in the air strikes. In any case, what a microcosm of U.S. imperial hubris and folly in the twenty-first century all this training and equipping of the Iraqi military has proved to be. Start with the post-invasion decision of the Bush administration to totally disband Saddam's army and instantly eject hundreds of thousands of unemployed Sunni military men and a full officer corps into the chaos of the "new" Iraq and you have an instant formula for creating a Sunni resistance movement. Then, add in a little extra "training" at Camp Bucca, a U.S. military prison in Iraq, for key unemployed officers, and -- Voilà! -- you've helped set up the petri dish in which the leadership of the Islamic State movement will grow. Multiply such stunning tactical finesse many times over globally and, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare makes clear today, you have what might be called the folly of the "sole superpower" writ large.

Delusionary Thinking in Washington

The Desperate Plight of a Declining Superpower

Take a look around the world and it's hard not to conclude that the United States is a superpower in decline. Whether in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, aspiring powers are flexing their muscles, ignoring Washington's dictates, or actively combating them. Russia refuses to curtail its support for armed separatists in Ukraine; China refuses to abandon its base-building endeavors in the South China Sea; Saudi Arabia refuses to endorse the U.S.-brokered nuclear deal with Iran; the Islamic State movement (ISIS) refuses to capitulate in the face of U.S. airpower. What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of such defiance?

This is no small matter. For decades, being a superpower has been the defining characteristic of American identity. The embrace of global supremacy began after World War II when the United States assumed responsibility for resisting Soviet expansionism around the world; it persisted through the Cold War era and only grew after the implosion of the Soviet Union, when the U.S. assumed sole responsibility for combating a whole new array of international threats. As General Colin Powell famously exclaimed in the final days of the Soviet era, "We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, 'Superpower Lives Here,' no matter what the Soviets do, even if they evacuate from Eastern Europe."

Imperial Overstretch Hits Washington

Strategically, in the Cold War years, Washington's power brokers assumed that there would always be two superpowers perpetually battling for world dominance. In the wake of the utterly unexpected Soviet collapse, American strategists began to envision a world of just one, of a "sole superpower" (aka Rome on the Potomac). In line with this new outlook, the administration of George H.W. Bush soon adopted a long-range plan intended to preserve that status indefinitely. Known as the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994-99, it declared: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union."

H.W.'s son, then the governor of Texas, articulated a similar vision of a globally encompassing Pax Americana when campaigning for president in 1999. If elected, he told military cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, his top goal would be "to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity -- given few nations in history -- to extend the current peace into the far realm of the future. A chance to project America's peaceful influence not just across the world, but across the years."

For Bush, of course, "extending the peace" would turn out to mean invading Iraq and igniting a devastating regional conflagration that only continues to grow and spread to this day. Even after it began, he did not doubt -- nor (despite the reputed wisdom offered by hindsight) does he today -- that this was the price that had to be paid for the U.S. to retain its vaunted status as the world's sole superpower.

The problem, as many mainstream observers now acknowledge, is that such a strategy aimed at perpetuating U.S. global supremacy at all costs was always destined to result in what Yale historian Paul Kennedy, in his classic book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, unforgettably termed "imperial overstretch." As he presciently wrote in that 1987 study, it would arise from a situation in which "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is… far larger than the country's power to defend all of them simultaneously."

Indeed, Washington finds itself in exactly that dilemma today. What's curious, however, is just how quickly such overstretch engulfed a country that, barely a decade ago, was being hailed as the planet's first "hyperpower," a status even more exalted than superpower. But that was before George W.'s miscalculation in Iraq and other missteps left the U.S. to face a war-ravaged Middle East with an exhausted military and a depleted treasury. At the same time, major and regional powers like China, India, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been building up their economic and military capabilities and, recognizing the weakness that accompanies imperial overstretch, are beginning to challenge U.S. dominance in many areas of the globe. The Obama administration has been trying, in one fashion or another, to respond in all of those areas -- among them Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the South China Sea -- but without, it turns out, the capacity to prevail in any of them.

Nonetheless, despite a range of setbacks, no one in Washington's power elite -- Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders being the exceptions that prove the rule -- seems to have the slightest urge to abandon the role of sole superpower or even to back off it in any significant way. President Obama, who is clearly all too aware of the country's strategic limitations, has been typical in his unwillingness to retreat from such a supremacist vision. "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation," he told graduating cadets at West Point in May 2014. "That has been true for the century past and it will be true for the century to come."

How, then, to reconcile the reality of superpower overreach and decline with an unbending commitment to global supremacy?

The first of two approaches to this conundrum in Washington might be thought of as a high-wire circus act. It involves the constant juggling of America's capabilities and commitments, with its limited resources (largely of a military nature) being rushed relatively fruitlessly from one place to another in response to unfolding crises, even as attempts are made to avoid yet more and deeper entanglements. This, in practice, has been the strategy pursued by the current administration. Call it the Obama Doctrine.

After concluding, for instance, that China had taken advantage of U.S. entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan to advance its own strategic interests in Southeast Asia, Obama and his top advisers decided to downgrade the U.S. presence in the Middle East and free up resources for a more robust one in the western Pacific. Announcing this shift in 2011 -- it would first be called a "pivot to Asia" and then a "rebalancing" there -- the president made no secret of the juggling act involved.

"After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region," he told members of the Australian Parliament that November. "As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority. As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not -- I repeat, will not -- come at the expense of the Asia Pacific."

Then, of course, the new Islamic State launched its offensive in Iraq in June 2014 and the American-trained army there collapsed with the loss of four northern cities. Videoed beheadings of American hostages followed, along with a looming threat to the U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad. Once again, President Obama found himself pivoting -- this time sending thousands of U.S. military advisers back to that country, putting American air power into its skies, and laying the groundwork for another major conflict there.

Meanwhile, Republican critics of the president, who claim he's doing too little in a losing effort in Iraq (and Syria), have also taken him to task for not doing enough to implement the pivot to Asia. In reality, as his juggling act that satisfies no one continues in Iraq and the Pacific, he's had a hard time finding the wherewithal to effectively confront Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the various militias fighting for power in fragmenting Libya, and so on.

The Party of Utter Denialism

Clearly, in the face of multiplying threats, juggling has not proven to be a viable strategy. Sooner or later, the "balls" will simply go flying and the whole system will threaten to fall apart. But however risky juggling may prove, it is not nearly as dangerous as the other strategic response to superpower decline in Washington: utter denial.

For those who adhere to this outlook, it's not America's global stature that's eroding, but its will -- that is, its willingness to talk and act tough. If Washington were simply to speak more loudly, so this argument goes, and brandish bigger sticks, all these challenges would simply melt away. Of course, such an approach can only work if you're prepared to back up your threats with actual force, or "hard power," as some like to call it.

Among the most vocal of those touting this line is Senator John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a persistent critic of President Obama. "For five years, Americans have been told that 'the tide of war is receding,' that we can pull back from the world at little cost to our interests and values," he typically wrote in March 2014 in a New York Times op-ed. "This has fed a perception that the United States is weak, and to people like Mr. Putin, weakness is provocative." The only way to prevent aggressive behavior by Russia and other adversaries, he stated, is "to restore the credibility of the United States as a world leader." This means, among other things, arming the Ukrainians and anti-Assad Syrians, bolstering the NATO presence in Eastern Europe, combating "the larger strategic challenge that Iran poses," and playing a "more robust" role (think: more "boots" on more ground) in the war against ISIS.

Above all, of course, it means a willingness to employ military force. "When aggressive rulers or violent fanatics threaten our ideals, our interests, our allies, and us," he declared last November, "what ultimately makes the difference… is the capability, credibility, and global reach of American hard power."

A similar approach -- in some cases even more bellicose -- is being articulated by the bevy of Republican candidates now in the race for president, Rand Paul again excepted. At a recent "Freedom Summit" in the early primary state of South Carolina, the various contenders sought to out-hard-power each other. Florida Senator Marco Rubio was loudly cheered for promising to make the U.S. "the strongest military power in the world." Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker received a standing ovation for pledging to further escalate the war on international terrorists: "I want a leader who is willing to take the fight to them before they take the fight to us."

In this overheated environment, the 2016 presidential campaign is certain to be dominated by calls for increased military spending, a tougher stance toward Moscow and Beijing, and an expanded military presence in the Middle East. Whatever her personal views, Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic candidate, will be forced to demonstrate her backbone by embracing similar positions. In other words, whoever enters the Oval Office in January 2017 will be expected to wield a far bigger stick on a significantly less stable planet. As a result, despite the last decade and a half of interventionary disasters, we're likely to see an even more interventionist foreign policy with an even greater impulse to use military force.

However initially gratifying such a stance is likely to prove for John McCain and the growing body of war hawks in Congress, it will undoubtedly prove disastrous in practice. Anyone who believes that the clock can now be turned back to 2002, when U.S. strength was at its zenith and the Iraq invasion had not yet depleted American wealth and vigor, is undoubtedly suffering from delusional thinking. China is far more powerful than it was 13 years ago, Russia has largely recovered from its post-Cold War slump, Iran has replaced the U.S. as the dominant foreign actor in Iraq, and other powers have acquired significantly greater freedom of action in an unsettled world. Under these circumstances, aggressive muscle-flexing in Washington is likely to result only in calamity or humiliation.

Time to Stop Pretending

Back, then, to our original question: What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of this predicament?

Anywhere but in Washington, the obvious answer would for it to stop pretending to be what it's not. The first step in any 12-step imperial-overstretch recovery program would involve accepting the fact that American power is limited and global rule an impossible fantasy. Accepted as well would have to be this obvious reality: like it or not, the U.S. shares the planet with a coterie of other major powers -- none as strong as we are, but none so weak as to be intimidated by the threat of U.S. military intervention. Having absorbed a more realistic assessment of American power, Washington would then have to focus on how exactly to cohabit with such powers -- Russia, China, and Iran among them -- and manage its differences with them without igniting yet more disastrous regional firestorms.

If strategic juggling and massive denial were not so embedded in the political life of this country's "war capital," this would not be an impossibly difficult strategy to pursue, as others have suggested. In 2010, for example, Christopher Layne of the George H.W. Bush School at Texas A&M argued in the American Conservative that the U.S. could no longer sustain its global superpower status and, "rather than having this adjustment forced upon it suddenly by a major crisis… should get ahead of the curve by shifting its position in a gradual, orderly fashion." Layne and others have spelled out what this might entail: fewer military entanglements abroad, a diminishing urge to garrison the planet, reduced military spending, greater reliance on allies, more funds to use at home in rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of a divided society, and a diminished military footprint in the Middle East.

But for any of this to happen, American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower -- and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow. From such denialism, it's already clear, will only come further ill-conceived military adventures abroad and, sooner or later, under far grimmer circumstances, an American reckoning with reality.

[Jun 1, 2015] Neocolonialism Bulletin, 2015

[May 31, 2015]Why the US is Finally Talking to Russia

May 31, 2015 | Sputnik International
So a woman walks into a room… That's how quite a few jokes usually start. In our case, self-appointed Queen of Nulandistan Victoria "F**k the EU" walks into a room in Moscow to talk to Russian deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Grigory Karasin.

A joke? Oh no; that really happened. Why?

Let's start with the official reactions. Karasin qualified the talks as "fruitful", while stressing Moscow does not approve of Washington becoming part of the Normandy-style (Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France) negotiations on Ukraine. Not after the relentless demonization not only of the Kremlin but also of Russia as a whole since the Maidan coup.

Ryabkov, for his part, made it known the current state of the US-Russia relationship remains, well, corrosive.

It's crucial to remember the Queen of Nulandistan went to Moscow only after meeting with certified Washington vassal President Poroshenko and her own, hand-picked Prime Minister, "Yats"; and that was before accompanying Secretary of State John Kerry on the full regalia State Department trip to Sochi on May 12.

The Minsk-2 agreement – the actual product of the Normandy-style negotiations – directly involved Berlin and Paris, who finally saw the realpolitik on the wall and were compelled to divert from Washington's monomaniac antagonistic approach.

Inside the EU, chaos remains on the key subject of sanctions. The Baltics and Poland toe the "Russians are coming!" Cold War 2.0 hysteria line, while the adults in Brussels are represented by Italy, Greece, Spain and Hungary.

So Germany and France are already in deep trouble keeping the messy EU house in order. At the same time Berlin and Paris know nothing the self-described "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" Obama administration pulls off will mollify Moscow to abandon its precise red lines.

Watch Those Red Lines

It's crucial to notice that Crimea does not seem to be on the table anymore; it's a fait accompli. But then there are those U.S. "military trainers" who have been deployed to western Ukraine only for a "six-month mission" (historical reminder; this is how the Vietnam war started). For Moscow, expansion of this "mission" is an absolute red line.

And then there's the ultimate red line; NATO expansion, which remains unabated in the Baltics, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. That won't stop; it's part of NATO's obsession in solidifying a new Iron Curtain from the Baltics to the Black Sea.

Thus, beyond all the talking, the next step to watch is whether the Obama administration will really refrain from weaponizing Kiev.

Ukraine for all practical purposes is now a massively indebted failed state turned into an IMF colony. The EU does not want it – although NATO does. For Moscow, the – ghastly – show will only be over when Ukraine, with or without the people's republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, is neutral, and not part of a NATO strategic threat.

I have examined here the possibility that the Obama administration's strategic shift towards talking instead of cursing/threatening may signify that the real Masters of the Universe have finally understood the emerging New (Silk) World Order is bound to leave them behind.

... ... ...

Strategy? What Strategy?

The Dr. Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski-style strategy has always been to lure Russia into another Afghanistan in Ukraine, leading to a collapse of the Russian economy with the Big Prize being a Western takeover of Russia's oil and natural gas wealth, and by extension Central Asia's. Ukrainians would be used as cannon fodder, as were Afghans since the 1980s Arab-Afghan jihad.

Yet the Obama administration overplayed its hand, and realpolitik now spells out the deepening of the Russia-China strategic partnership across the entire Eurasian land mass; Eurasia as a prospective, massive commercial emporium stretching from Beijing to Berlin, or from Shanghai to St. Petersburg and beyond towards Rotterdam and Duisburg.

Without the exceptionalist obsession of some key Beltway factions, none of the elements of Cold War 2.0 would be in play, as Russia is a natural ally of the US in many fronts. That in itself reveals the state of "strategic thinking" by the current US administration.

Moscow, anyway, won't be caught off-guard by the current, barely disguised, charm offensive, because Russian intelligence knows that may well veil a "Grand Chessboard"-style tactic of two steps back to regroup for a massive advance later.

Moreover, nothing has basically changed other than the original, dissuasive Cold War era MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – doctrine being over.

The US still retains PGS (Prompt Global Strike) capability. Ukraine is just a detail. The real game-changer will happen when Russia is able to seal its whole territory, via the S-500s, against PGS. That will happen sooner than anyone thinks. And that's why the real Masters of the Universe – via their emissaries – feel compelled to talk.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

See also

Western Isolation of Moscow Helps Putin, Opens New Opportunities for Russia

[May 30, 2015]Why is Obama Goading China

The point is, Washington doesn't give a hoot about the Spratly Islands; it's just a pretext to slap China around and show them who's running the show in their own backyard. Carter even admits as much in his statement above when he says that the US plans to be "the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come." China knows what that means. It means "This is our planet, so you'd better shape up or you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt." That's exactly what it means.
May 30, 2015 | counterpunch.org

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is willing to risk a war with China in order to defend "freedom of navigation" in the South China Sea. Speaking in Honolulu, Hawaii on Wednesday, Carter issued his "most forceful" warning yet, demanding "an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation" by China in the disputed Spratly Islands.

Carter said:

"There should be no mistake: The United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world." He also added that the United States intended to remain "the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come."

In order to show Chinese leaders "who's the boss", Carter has threatened to deploy US warships and surveillance aircraft to within twelve miles of the islands that China claims are within their territorial waters. Not surprisingly, the US is challenging China under the provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a document the US has stubbornly refused to ratify. But that's neither here nor there for the bellicose Carter whose insatiable appetite for confrontation makes him the most reckless Sec-Def since Donald Rumsfeld.

So what's this really all about? Why does Washington care so much about a couple hundred yards of sand piled up on reefs reefs in the South China Sea? What danger does that pose to US national security? And, haven't Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines all engaged in similar "land reclamation" activities without raising hackles in DC?

Of course, they have. The whole thing is a joke. Just like Carter's claim that he's defending the lofty principal of "freedom of navigation" is a joke. China has never blocked shipping lanes or seized boats sailing in international waters. Never. The same cannot be said of the United States that just recently blocked an Iranian ship loaded with humanitarian relief–food, water and critical medical supplies–headed to starving refugees in Yemen. Of course, when the US does it, it's okay.

The point is, Washington doesn't give a hoot about the Spratly Islands; it's just a pretext to slap China around and show them who's running the show in their own backyard. Carter even admits as much in his statement above when he says that the US plans to be "the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come." China knows what that means. It means "This is our planet, so you'd better shape up or you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt." That's exactly what it means.

So let's cut to the chase and try to explain what's really going on, because pretty soon no one is going to be talking about Ukraine, Syria or Yemen because all eyes are going to be focused on...

[May 30, 2015] Rand Paul declares surveillance war and hints at filibuster for NSA reform

"By collecting all of your records, we're wasting so much money, so much time, and the haystack's so large we can't find the terrorists," Paul said. "I'm for looking at all of the terrorists' records – I just want their name on the warrant and I just want it to be signed by a judge just like the constitution says."
Spiegel said it is Expired.... And they are a NSA Fish Wrap..... http://m.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/a-1036475.html
Notable quotes:
"... With controversial provisions of the Patriot Act scheduled to run out at midnight on Sunday, Paul, the Kentucky senator and Republican presidential hopeful, fielded questions about how he intended to win privacy campaigners a long hoped-for victory. ..."
"... "I think a lot of people in America agree with me," Paul said, "that your phone records should not be collected by your government, unless they suspect you of a crime and unless they call a judge and unless a warrant has your name on it." ..."
"... Apparently the real problem is Executive Order 12333, under which almost all of the mass surveillance is "authorized". ..."
"... By the time someone is a party candidate, they've already been bought off. National write-in. ..."
"... politicians listen to corporations and shareholders. What corporations dictate, their political lapdogs obediently listens. ..."
"... Please, tell me that porn sites are involved in this. Cut off Congress's porn access and they will be putty in our hands. ..."
"... "This is a blackout," read the site to which computers from congressional IP addresses were redirected. "We are blocking your access until you end mass surveillance laws." ..."
May 29, 2015 | The Guardian

Rand Paul indicated his intention on Friday to filibuster a surveillance reform bill that he considers insufficient, as privacy advocates felt momentum to tear the heart out of the Bush-era Patriot Act as its Snowden-era expiration date approaches.

With controversial provisions of the Patriot Act scheduled to run out at midnight on Sunday, Paul, the Kentucky senator and Republican presidential hopeful, fielded questions about how he intended to win privacy campaigners a long hoped-for victory.

... ... ...

"By collecting all of your records, we're wasting so much money, so much time, and the haystack's so large we can't find the terrorists," Paul said. "I'm for looking at all of the terrorists' records – I just want their name on the warrant and I just want it to be signed by a judge just like the constitution says."

... ... ...

"Right now we're having a little bit of a war in Washington," Paul said at the rally on Friday. "It's me versus some of the rest of them – or a lot of the rest of them."

... ... ...

In the middle is a bill that fell three votes shy of a 60-vote threshold. The USA Freedom Act, supported by Obama, junks the NSA's bulk collection of US phone records in exchange for extending the lifespan of the Patriot Act's controversial FBI powers.

While McConnell, Obama and many Freedom Act supporters describe those powers as crucial, a recent Justice Department report said the expiring "business records" provision has not led to "any major case developments". Another power set to expire, the "roving wiretap" provision, has been linked to abuse in declassified documents; and the third, the "lone wolf" provision, has never been used, the FBI confirmed to the Guardian.

... ... ...

The White House has long backed passage of the USA Freedom Act, calling it the only available mechanism to save the Patriot Act powers ahead of expiration now that the House has recessed until Monday.

Obama on Friday chastised what he said were "a handful of Senators" standing in the way of passing the USA Freedom Act, who he alleged risked creating an intelligence lapse.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence whom Paul has criticized for lying to Congress about surveillance, issued a rare plea to pass a bill he has reluctantly embraced in order to retain Patriot Act powers.

"At this late date, prompt passage of the USA Freedom Act by the Senate is the best way to minimize any possible disruption of our ability to protect the American people," Clapper said on Friday.

At the Beacon Drive-in diner in Spartanburg, Paul chastised proponents of the Patriot Act for arguing the law would prevent another 9/11. "Bull!" a woman in the crowd exclaimed, as others groaned at the national security excuse cited by more hawkish lawmakers.

"I think a lot of people in America agree with me," Paul said, "that your phone records should not be collected by your government, unless they suspect you of a crime and unless they call a judge and unless a warrant has your name on it."

Multiple polls released this month have found overwhelming public antipathy for government surveillance.

Still, it remains unclear if the USA Freedom Act has the votes to pass. Senate rules permit Paul to effectively block debate on the bill until expiration. Few who are watching the debate closely felt on Friday that they knew how Sunday's dramatic session would resolve.

But privacy groups, sensing the prospect of losing one of their most reviled post-9/11 laws, were not in a mood to compromise on Friday.

"Better to let the Patriot Act sunset and reboot the conversation with a more fulsome debate," said Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

See also:

Trenton Pierce -> phrixus 30 May 2015 21:18

He opposes indefinite detention in the NDAA, he opposes TPP and the fast track. He opposes the militarization of local police. He opposes the secrecy of the Federal Reserve. He opposes unwarranted civil asset forfeiture. He opposes no-knock home searches. He opposes the failed drug war. He opposes war without congressional approval. What is it about him you don't like?

Trenton Pierce -> masscraft 30 May 2015 21:14

Then line up behind Rand. He polls the best against Hilary. The era of big government Republican is over. Realize that or get ready for your Democrat rule.

Vintage59 -> Nedward Marbletoe 30 May 2015 16:20

The machine would chew him up and spit him out and he's smart enough to know that.

ripogenus 30 May 2015 07:47

Just listened to NPR's On the Media. They did a special podcast just on the patriot act and the consequences if it expires. Apparently the real problem is Executive Order 12333, under which almost all of the mass surveillance is "authorized".

seasonedsenior 29 May 2015 22:20

New technology is beginning to equal the playing field somewhat whether it be video of police misconduct or blocking out Congress from 10,000 websites to stop NSA spying. This part of technology is a real positive. There are too many secrets in our democracy-light that should be exposed for the greater good. There is too much concentrated power that needs to be opened up. I am happy to see these changes happening. Keep up the good work.

AmyInNH cswanson420 29 May 2015 22:12

By the time someone is a party candidate, they've already been bought off. National write-in.

Viet Nguyen -> cswanson420 29 May 2015 17:44

politicians listen to corporations and shareholders. What corporations dictate, their political lapdogs obediently listens.

Best examples? Retarded laws that discriminate against gay people in states like Indiana. When major corporations such as Wal-Mart and Apple, who only cares about money, condemn such retarded laws with potential boycotts, their political lackeys quickly follow in line.

I am waiting for another multinational corporation to declare the NSA process detrimental to businesses, and see how many former government supporters of the NSA do a complete 180 degree stance flip.

EdChamp -> elaine layabout 29 May 2015 17:22

Please, tell me that porn sites are involved in this. Cut off Congress's porn access and they will be putty in our hands.

Congratulations! You win the award of the day for that one gleaming guardian comment that truly made me smile.

Repent House 29 May 2015 16:13

"This is a blackout," read the site to which computers from congressional IP addresses were redirected. "We are blocking your access until you end mass surveillance laws."

This is so freekin awesome... mess with the bull you get the horns as I always say! They seem to under estimate the strength, knowledge, tenacity, of the "AMERICAN PEOPLE" This is what we need to do on a wider scale for a number of things wrong! Awesome!

[May 29, 2015] Michael Klare Delusional Thinking in Washington, The Desperate Plight of a Declining Superpower naked capitalism

May 29, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com

By Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What's Left. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. Originally published at TomDispatch

Take a look around the world and it's hard not to conclude that the United States is a superpower in decline. Whether in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, aspiring powers are flexing their muscles, ignoring Washington's dictates, or actively combating them. Russia refuses to curtail its support for armed separatists in Ukraine; China refuses to abandon its base-building endeavors in the South China Sea; Saudi Arabia refuses to endorse the U.S.-brokered nuclear deal with Iran; the Islamic State movement (ISIS) refuses to capitulate in the face of U.S. airpower. What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of such defiance?

This is no small matter. For decades, being a superpower has been the defining characteristic of American identity. The embrace of global supremacy began after World War II when the United States assumed responsibility for resisting Soviet expansionism around the world; it persisted through the Cold War era and only grew after the implosion of the Soviet Union, when the U.S. assumed sole responsibility for combating a whole new array of international threats. As General Colin Powell famously exclaimed in the final days of the Soviet era, "We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, 'Superpower Lives Here,' no matter what the Soviets do, even if they evacuate from Eastern Europe."

Imperial Overstretch Hits Washington

Strategically, in the Cold War years, Washington's power brokers assumed that there would always be two superpowers perpetually battling for world dominance. In the wake of the utterly unexpected Soviet collapse, American strategists began to envision a world of just one, of a "sole superpower" (aka Rome on the Potomac). In line with this new outlook, the administration of George H.W. Bush soon adopted a long-range plan intended to preserve that status indefinitely. Known as the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994-99, it declared: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union."

H.W.'s son, then the governor of Texas, articulated a similar vision of a globally encompassing Pax Americana when campaigning for president in 1999. If elected, he told military cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, his top goal would be

"to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity - given few nations in history - to extend the current peace into the far realm of the future. A chance to project America's peaceful influence not just across the world, but across the years."

For Bush, of course, "extending the peace" would turn out to mean invading Iraq and igniting a devastating regional conflagration that only continues to grow and spread to this day. Even after it began, he did not doubt - nor (despite the reputed wisdom offered by hindsight) does he today - that this was the price that had to be paid for the U.S. to retain its vaunted status as the world's sole superpower.

The problem, as many mainstream observers now acknowledge, is that such a strategy aimed at perpetuating U.S. global supremacy at all costs was always destined to result in what Yale historian Paul Kennedy, in his classic book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, unforgettably termed "imperial overstretch." As he presciently wrote in that 1987 study, it would arise from a situation in which "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is… far larger than the country's power to defend all of them simultaneously."

Indeed, Washington finds itself in exactly that dilemma today. What's curious, however, is just how quickly such overstretch engulfed a country that, barely a decade ago, was being hailed as the planet's first "hyperpower," a status even more exalted than superpower. But that was before George W.'s miscalculation in Iraq and other missteps left the U.S. to face a war-ravaged Middle East with an exhausted military and a depleted treasury. At the same time, major and regional powers like China, India, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been building up their economic and military capabilities and, recognizing the weakness that accompanies imperial overstretch, are beginning to challenge U.S. dominance in many areas of the globe. The Obama administration has been trying, in one fashion or another, to respond in all of those areas - among them Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the South China Sea - but without, it turns out, the capacity to prevail in any of them.

Nonetheless, despite a range of setbacks, no one in Washington's power elite - Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders being the exceptions that prove the rule - seems to have the slightest urge to abandon the role of sole superpower or even to back off it in any significant way. President Obama, who is clearly all too aware of the country's strategic limitations, has been typical in his unwillingness to retreat from such a supremacist vision. "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation," he told graduating cadets at West Point in May 2014. "That has been true for the century past and it will be true for the century to come."

How, then, to reconcile the reality of superpower overreach and decline with an unbending commitment to global supremacy?

The first of two approaches to this conundrum in Washington might be thought of as a high-wire circus act. It involves the constant juggling of America's capabilities and commitments, with its limited resources (largely of a military nature) being rushed relatively fruitlessly from one place to another in response to unfolding crises, even as attempts are made to avoid yet more and deeper entanglements. This, in practice, has been the strategy pursued by the current administration. Call it the Obama Doctrine.

After concluding, for instance, that China had taken advantage of U.S. entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan to advance its own strategic interests in Southeast Asia, Obama and his top advisers decided to downgrade the U.S. presence in the Middle East and free up resources for a more robust one in the western Pacific. Announcing this shift in 2011 - it would first be called a "pivot to Asia" and then a "rebalancing" there - the president made no secret of the juggling act involved.

"After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region," he told members of the Australian Parliament that November. "As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority. As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not - I repeat, will not - come at the expense of the Asia Pacific."

Then, of course, the new Islamic State launched its offensive in Iraq in June 2014 and the American-trained army there collapsed with the loss of four northern cities. Videoed beheadings of American hostages followed, along with a looming threat to the U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad. Once again, President Obama found himself pivoting - this time sending thousands of U.S. military advisers back to that country, putting American air power into its skies, and laying the groundwork for another major conflict there.

... ... ...

But however risky juggling may prove, it is not nearly as dangerous as the other strategic response to superpower decline in Washington: utter denial.

For those who adhere to this outlook, it's not America's global stature that's eroding, but its will - that is, its willingness to talk and act tough. If Washington were simply to speak more loudly, so this argument goes, and brandish bigger sticks, all these challenges would simply melt away. Of course, such an approach can only work if you're prepared to back up your threats with actual force, or "hard power," as some like to call it.

Among the most vocal of those touting this line is Senator John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a persistent critic of President Obama. "For five years, Americans have been told that 'the tide of war is receding,' that we can pull back from the world at little cost to our interests and values," he typically wrote in March 2014 in a New York Times op-ed. "This has fed a perception that the United States is weak, and to people like Mr. Putin, weakness is provocative." The only way to prevent aggressive behavior by Russia and other adversaries, he stated, is "to restore the credibility of the United States as a world leader." This means, among other things, arming the Ukrainians and anti-Assad Syrians, bolstering the NATO presence in Eastern Europe, combating "the larger strategic challenge that Iran poses," and playing a "more robust" role (think: more "boots" on more ground) in the war against ISIS.

Above all, of course, it means a willingness to employ military force. "When aggressive rulers or violent fanatics threaten our ideals, our interests, our allies, and us," he declared last November, "what ultimately makes the difference… is the capability, credibility, and global reach of American hard power."

A similar approach - in some cases even more bellicose - is being articulated by the bevy of Republican candidates now in the race for president, Rand Paul again excepted.

... ... ...

However initially gratifying such a stance is likely to prove for John McCain and the growing body of war hawks in Congress, it will undoubtedly prove disastrous in practice. Anyone who believes that the clock can now be turned back to 2002, when U.S. strength was at its zenith and the Iraq invasion had not yet depleted American wealth and vigor, is undoubtedly suffering from delusional thinking. China is far more powerful than it was 13 years ago, Russia has largely recovered from its post-Cold War slump, Iran has replaced the U.S. as the dominant foreign actor in Iraq, and other powers have acquired significantly greater freedom of action in an unsettled world. Under these circumstances, aggressive muscle-flexing in Washington is likely to result only in calamity or humiliation.

Time to Stop Pretending

Back, then, to our original question: What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of this predicament?

Anywhere but in Washington, the obvious answer would for it to stop pretending to be what it's not. The first step in any 12-step imperial-overstretch recovery program would involve accepting the fact that American power is limited and global rule an impossible fantasy. Accepted as well would have to be this obvious reality: like it or not, the U.S. shares the planet with a coterie of other major powers - none as strong as we are, but none so weak as to be intimidated by the threat of U.S. military intervention. Having absorbed a more realistic assessment of American power, Washington would then have to focus on how exactly to cohabit with such powers - Russia, China, and Iran among them - and manage its differences with them without igniting yet more disastrous regional firestorms.

If strategic juggling and massive denial were not so embedded in the political life of this country's "war capital," this would not be an impossibly difficult strategy to pursue, as others have suggested. In 2010, for example, Christopher Layne of the George H.W. Bush School at Texas A&M argued in the American Conservative that the U.S. could no longer sustain its global superpower status and, "rather than having this adjustment forced upon it suddenly by a major crisis… should get ahead of the curve by shifting its position in a gradual, orderly fashion." Layne and others have spelled out what this might entail: fewer military entanglements abroad, a diminishing urge to garrison the planet, reduced military spending, greater reliance on allies, more funds to use at home in rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of a divided society, and a diminished military footprint in the Middle East.

But for any of this to happen, American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower - and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow. From such denialism, it's already clear, will only come further ill-conceived military adventures abroad and, sooner or later, under far grimmer circumstances, an American reckoning with reality.


voxhumana, May 29, 2015 at 4:58 am

An interesting read. Would have been far better without the Democratic partisanship:

"Whatever her personal views, Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic candidate, will be forced to demonstrate her backbone by embracing similar positions."

forced?

"American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower - and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow."

oh, I see… only certain Republican candidates' political aspirations are premised on war and global hegemony but poor Hillary "we came, we saw, he died" Clinton will be "forced" to go along if she wants to be elected.

Klare makes many good points but suggesting that Hillary Clinton will be forced to be a war monger, forced to promote her well established neocon foreign policy bona fides, is absurd


Katniss Everdeen, May 29, 2015 at 6:36 am

My thoughts exactly.

And just as bogus as the knee-jerk, neanderthal "republicans bad, democrats good" grunting is the characterization of gwb's middle east policies as "missteps" and "miscalculations."

They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew how it would turn out. It made a few people tremendously wealthy, and justified the apparatus of population surveillance and control which is fast becoming necessary for maintaining the illusion that the us is anything more than a shadow of its former self.

weinerdog43, May 29, 2015 at 8:33 am

Seriously? Please show me exactly where 'republicans bad; democrats good' is located. The reason it looks bad if you are a republican partisan, is because most of the problem lies there. Yes, Obama has been a colossal disappointment, but he campaigned as a Liberal but has governed as a moderate/conservative republican.

To this day, over 60% of republicans think the Iraq war was a good thing. While I'll agree that the 'power elite' in Washington love them some war, to argue that democrats in the street think the same is grossly unfair.

lylo, May 29, 2015 at 10:54 am

I would object to the idea that he has governed as a Republican.
I mean, prior to the more recent Republican presidents, it wasn't that bad of a party: they didn't like to spend money on anything, represented small towns and business owners. Which went pretty well with the Democrats prior to our more recent crop: they liked to spend on the people and represented the more urban populations. See? This is a decent argument worth having. And the one that the "people on the street" represent, both sides.

Recent Republican presidents are neoconservatives–they love war and enriching the elite, preferring to represent big finance and corporations. Recent Democrat presidents are neoliberals–they love war and enriching the elite, preferring to represent big finance and corporations.

Unsurprisingly, Obama is a neoliberal. (BTW: it's all just code for fascist!)

You've roped yourself hard into the very paradigm that the guy was lamenting, and in a way, proved his point. You seem to imply that average democrats are so much less tribal and more enlightened, yet the majority of democrats polled support our actions in Libya.
You seem to think the problem is republicans, and it's not: it's fascism and blind party loyalty.


steviefinn, May 29, 2015 at 6:20 am

Not to mention that the US appears to be rotting from within in terms of debt, corruption etc, within a world where resources that supported an earlier lifestyle are becoming ever scarcer. I seem to remember that the decline of Rome was similar in some details with this, but at least you guys don't have millions of desperate Huns, Visigoths etc threatening your Northern border.

I remember at a pretty rough school I once attended how the long ruling school yard bully ended up being abandoned by his cohorts & losing his power. As was his habit he picked on a much smaller new kid who just happened to be a southpaw who also just happened to know how to deliver a single very effective liver punch.

Doug, May 29, 2015 at 6:40 am

Klare's assessment is correct that US super power delusions outstrip US resources (not to mention woefully ignorant yet arrogant office holders in both parties). However, he misses the mark in naming the counter parties with whom the US government must deal.

Finding a path forward has far more to do with reclaiming hegemony over the likes of Halliburton, JPMorganChase, ExxonMobil, Blackstone, and so on than it does with diplomacy etc respecting Russia, China, Iran and any number of other so-called nations that, in turn - like the US - are mere partners/puppets serving the corporations - the real superpowers in a world of 'free markets'.

Carla, May 29, 2015 at 6:57 am

Agreed. Wonder if you have read "National Security and Double Government" by Michael J. Glennon. Or for that matter, if Klare has.

MikeNY, May 29, 2015 at 7:03 am

It would mean accepting that "American Exceptionalism" is and always has been a fiction. We are neither humble nor wise enough to do that.

Jim Haygood, May 29, 2015 at 9:17 am

'No one in Washington's power elite seems to have the slightest urge to abandon the role of sole superpower or even to back off it in any significant way,' writes Klare.

Down the road, this means that the vast value-subtraction scheme of U.S. global supremacy will fold the same way the gold-backed dollar did in 1971: with an anticlimactic, out-of-the-blue weekend executive order announcing 'we're done with all that.'

To paraphrase Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech, 'the global supremacy situation has developed not necessarily to America's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interests.'

Why do bad things happen to good superpowers?

Whine Country, May 29, 2015 at 10:20 am

"good superpowers"…add that to George Carlin's list of famous oxymorons. How about right next to "military intelligence"?

TedWa, May 29, 2015 at 12:11 pm

As soon as Obomba said that I had to laugh. If you have to tell everyone you're cool – as soon as you say it, you're not. If you have to tell everyone that you're the best at something, as soon as you say it, you're not. It's that moment of claiming in public what everyone knew in secret that makes it not true, and a good joke in the making. It's taking serious respect in private and turning it into something else (pride maybe) that's deserving of open ridicule.

American exceptionalism is a joke and Obomba's playing checkers. We're no different than anyone else in this world.

Nick, May 29, 2015 at 7:41 am

In the post-globalized world we now find ourselves in, the US may not be the supreme actor it once was, rather it will lead the world's democracies in a grand coalition – this is perhaps Obama's greatest legacy. It's particularly odd India is classified as an adversary, as they are not only the largest democracy on the planet, but a newly minted key US trade partner. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has finally grown up, after decades of reliance on the US for military protection; however they are still indisputable American allies.

Things can change very quickly, Syria is on the brink of collapse and an Iran deal is within sight. China's economy is fragile, while the US economy is stabilizing. Even given DC disorganization, this is much too pessimistic I'd say, the next few decades will see many unimagined positive developments for the US (forefront of renewable energy, breadbasket of the world, 3D printing revolution, resurgence of domestic space industry, energy independence, cutting edge drones and AI, to name but a few).

Ignim Brites, May 29, 2015 at 8:33 am

Leader of a grand coalition of the world's democracies is the essence of the neo-con vision of the US "universal" and indispensable role. Obama pays lip service to this idea but his intention is to destroy it and he is succeeding. It's all over now baby blue.

OIFVet, May 29, 2015 at 12:18 pm

"it will lead the world's democracies in a grand coalition – this is perhaps Obama's greatest legacy."

Step away from the blue pill, Nick. What "democracies" are these where the governments go against popular will to impose austerity, where corruption in the form of campaign fundraising and lobbying is legalized, and where the government of lesser members of the "grand coalition" get their marching orders from Washington, often against the best interest of the nation and the will of its people? Obama helped to expose the meaningless of the term, to a greater extent than even Bush did, because he managed to bring Bush's "Old Europe" to heel too – quite a legacy indeed. The less "freedom and democracy" there is the more and louder the US and its "allies" shout it from the mountaintops. It's a sham.

As for your second paragraph: wow! Some questions: For whom is "America's economy" stabilizing? How does one survive in this stabilized economy of crappy McJobs? Have you asked the considerable FF lobby about whether it will permit a move to the "forefront of renewable energy"? How do you square the imagined lead in renewables with the very real strategy of energy independence based on fossils, particularly fracked fossils? "Will America be the "breadbasket of the world" after Monsanto grabs Ukraine's chernozem or before? In either case, is it even possible to be the breadbasket given less water in California to water the Inland Empire? I can go on, the point is, your entire comment was a rah-rah USA!USA! cheer that relies on wishful thinking. And that's pretty much America's problem: cheerleading has replaced sober thinking. We have cheerleaders for politicians, cheerleader press, and cheerleader Nicks.

It's effing scary to the rest of us that the entire strategy seems to be wishful thinking firmly rooted in exceptionalism and delusions about what is freedom and democracy, with the latter having been reduced to a competition of who amongst corporate-sponsored candidates can offer more exceptionalism and promise to drop more bombs someplace we don't like so that General Dynamics can either increase its stock dividends or do some stock buy backs.

sleepy, May 29, 2015 at 1:29 pm

@hatti552

Since the drive for US global hegemony probably had more advocates among postwar dem internationalists–many of whom were New Deal holdovers–as it did among the traditionally isolationist repubs, I'm not sure if your neat little left/right dichotomy works.

In any case, aside from labeling, do you care to give any reasons for your support of US global hegemony? Do you think it's not working because Obama hasn't tried hard enough (basically the repub position) and you favor doubling down a'la McCain?

Jesper, May 29, 2015 at 8:58 am

My take is that if there had been a long-term strategy for the US good that its government was following/implementing then it is almost impossible to detect and decipher for people outside of the power-centers in DC. And if there is no long-term strategy, be it to keep the US as the sole superpower or to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, then the explanation must be something different.

Maybe another angle might help in describing the situation?

Is the US government (and the power-brokers in DC) acting to keep the US strong or to keep themselves (personally) powerful?

NotTimothyGeithner, May 29, 2015 at 10:36 am

The U.S. government needs a powerful figurehead/central authority to control the bureaucracy and to wrestle control, the Federalist papers made note of this even before the imperial presidency, but there hasn't been a powerful democrat since LBJ. Obama, Clinton, and Carter were right wing leaders of nominally lefty parties, and the result was they spent much of their Administrations browbeating their own party to maintain control or push their legislation instead of cleaning the Pentagon or Wall Street. Obama's ideas and personality don't control members of Congress. It's Wall Street money. If a popular Obama walked into a random state and ignored an incumbent Senator in favor of a challenger, the incumbent would never r have the money to overcome one soundbite which would be carried by the news as a free spectacle. The result is an open season for everyone else's pet project because no one can stop them and two they might get lost or fired when the next strong center arrives.

The U.S. government is responding to every mouth at the trough. Gore couldn't have invaded Iraq not because he wouldn't have but because he wouldn't have the political support from his own party to shutdown other pet projects to prepare the MIC and population for it. Dubya didn't fight his party back benchers until 2005. After he moved on SS, Dubya became irrelevant because he was no longer popular enough to be feared.

It's not just Goldman Sachs. It's everyone who works in Nuland's office. They don't want to be part of a failed program or a public embarrassment. Because Obama is weak, he can't move on obvious stains such as Nuland because she represents a supporter in DC. Without many of these clowns, he would be alone because he's lost much of his popularity, did nothing for down ticket races, and threatened many members into submission.

While a person is popular, they can walk in and tell the baron class how things will be or they won't be barons. If they align themselves with the barons, they cease to be popular and rely on the barons who more autonomy and options than the 99% and have to acquiesce. Not every baron has the exact same goal. If they get too uppity, the king will act, but they can get away with a great deal if the king irritates the masses because his strength comes from above not below. It's really that simple. If the Obots had made demands of Obama, every other article in print would be why can't he have a third term. Republican Presidential candidates would be terrified of his successor instead of racing to sign up supporters.

Ignoring the GOP and long term problems with Team Blue recruitment, much of the Obama mess goes tend his own standing goes back to his decision to be President on TV and rely on experts from the previous two administration's who had just been rejected. Hillary in '08 never discussed Bill's record because it would hurt her with her more ignorant supporters who projected onto Hillary.

DJG, May 29, 2015 at 9:14 am

The symptoms have been in evidence for a long time, and it isn't clear to me that we have reached the moment when collapse will happen or when even John McCain will recognize that something has gone wrong. McCain and Obama, being all tactics and no strategy, have yet to figure out that U.S. supply lines for the military and for our decadent corporations are way overstretched. Has either proposed closing a military base? Has either advised food purveyors to stop importing garlic (garlic!) from China?

Not even the evidence of continuing U.S. defeats–in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya–elicits an appropriate response from the elites. So they venture into Ukraine, the next failure.

Unlike Rome, though, I'd venture to say that the USA has chosen some particularly pernicious "allies," such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and England (soon to be detached from Scotland). Each of these so-called allies is more than self-serving. The U.S. elites, though, rather than showing any skepticism, have been craven in dealing with the big four. Our relation to England seems to be to conduct their foreign policy and protect the illegality of the City of London in exchange for some nostalgia about Toad in a Hole.

hemeantwell, May 29, 2015 at 9:31 am

Klare, whose work over the years has been largely useful, is a lazy writer when it comes to the Cold War. To simplistically talk about it as "resisting Soviet expansionism around the world" ignores how US expansionism, aka imperialism, conditioned Soviet policy. As a professor of peace studies he must certainly be familiar with the substantial body of work by authors such as Williams, Alperovitz, Cohen and others who show that the US did nothing to allay Soviet security concerns and instead adopted an offensive posture that, to the Soviets, recommended ensuring friendly neighbors by whatever means necessary. What is disgusting about Klare now is that, by casually repeating formulaic ideological themes, he only adds to the ignorance regarding the current mess in the Ukraine, a mess that in my view basically reprises the late 1940s. Sure, he does talk about "sharing the planet with other powers," but he seems unwilling to say what that means. In that sense this professor of peace falls behind murderers like Kissinger, who has been critical of NATO efforts to turn the Ukraine into a launchpad on Russia's doorstep.

OIFVet, May 29, 2015 at 12:21 pm

+100

sufferin'succotash, May 29, 2015 at 9:40 am

HW Bush's pronouncement that "the American Way of Life is non-negotiable" around the time of the Gulf War more or less let the cat out of the bag.

Neocon delusions of grandeur aside, much of the US interventionism over the past several decades has been driven by the need to keep the Cheap Oil flowing in. That is, if one assumes that the AWL depends on cheap oil.

knowbuddhau, May 29, 2015 at 11:45 am

Thanks to the others who take Klare to task for lazy rhetorical shortcuts that only serve to further bury the truth of our times. I agree that we're in a period of imperial decline. But "missteps"?! "Miscalculations"?! The phrase you're looking for, professor, is "war crimes." Calling our wars of aggression by their true name is still a step too far, eh?

One measure of our hubris is the inability of "serious" and "respectable" critics to openly proclaim that we've been serial war criminals since the days of the Indian Wars. Our continental empire was built by making treaties at gun point, without much intent to honor them, as a means to grab the land. (ISTM General Sherman made remarks to that effect, but I can't find the quote.) Our global empire hasn't been much different.

I suppose Indian Removal and wiping out the buffalo, and the continuing efforts to undermine tribal sovereignty today, were, and are, likewise "missteps" and "miscalculations" we can somehow blame on Republicans exclusively.

NotTimothyGeithner, May 29, 2015 at 12:53 pm

I think you may be thinking of Grant not Sherman, but both would be denounced by Team Blue as pinko commies. One of Grant's SOTU's included a call for universal, public education and not one dollar for sectarian schools. The charter movement would be appalled.

Amazingly enough, Grant and Sherman are oozing intelligent sound bites which proves the modern Democrats don't have a messaging problem as much as a message problem.

OIFVet, May 29, 2015 at 12:27 pm

I suppose Indian Removal and wiping out the buffalo, and the continuing efforts to undermine tribal sovereignty today, were, and are, likewise "missteps" and "miscalculations" we can somehow blame on Republicans exclusively

Of course not! Stalin! Golodomor! Outside enemies and justifications are the norm, it's just that from time to time we have to engage in intramural squabbling just to perpetuate the myth that there is a qualitative difference between the two wings of the Corporate Party and thus we have a democracy with a real choice of parties and ideas.

Code Name D, May 29, 2015 at 1:35 pm

One who makes no mistakes is incapable of learning from them.

Steven, May 29, 2015 at 1:54 pm

(I can't seem to manage a concise response to Naked Capitalism's postings. What follows is just the last couple of paragraphs of what I hope will be a (mercifully) short posting on OpEdNews.)

Klare needs to take that last step. It isn't about 'peak oil' or 'peak everything' so much as 'peak debt' or 'peak money', i.e. a world awash in money and in mad pursuit of ever more of it. There are indeed physical limits. But with a little luck the world (of humans) may still have the resources to right-size itself to fit within them. However that won't happen until the greed of the world's plutocracy and the ambitions of their psychopathic servants in the political class are controlled.

80 years ago the Nobel Prize winning chemist explained where oil DOES come into the picture:

Though it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the knowledge to the economics of life are not generally realised, life in its physical aspect is fundamentally a struggle for energy, …

Soddy, Frederick M.A., F.R.S.. Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (Kindle Locations 1089-1091). Distributed Proofreaders Canada.

The 'backing' for the petrodollar now includes the monetized value of Chinese and third world labor and natural resources as well as OPEC oil. But controlling the outcome of life's "struggle for energy" is still the crumbling cornerstone of both US foreign and domestic economic policies:

• control the world's access to energy and it has no choice but submitting to the hegemon's will

• the U.S. political system is now owned lock, stock and barrel by a financial / military industrial / fossil fuels complex (am I forgetting anybody?). The powers that be are trying to preserve the existing status quo by insuring that life remains a "struggle for energy".

The denizens of Wall Street and Washington can perhaps be forgiven for believing they were the "masters of the universe" at the conclusion of WWII. What they can NOT be forgiven is their belief – then or now – is that "the end of history" had arrived (unless they cause it).

fresno dan, May 29, 2015 at 1:54 pm

I don't know if I buy the premise that the US was ever as powerful as it proclaims itself to be. I remember when guys in black pajamas, with no navy or air force defeated the "most powerful nation on earth"

Fifty years later, when the US is supposedly the "Sole superpower" on earth, a bunch of guys with no air force or navy defeated us in Afghanistan….

I will concede we did no "lose" in Iraq….although I will NOT concede that we won either…
and I will say we won unequivocally in Grenada.

Am I seeing a pattern?

sleepy, May 29, 2015 at 2:32 pm

At least in Vietnam, it was the policy that lost. As far as I recall, the military won every battle.

I think the same can be said, more or less, about Iraq and Afghanistan. It's difficult for the military to sustain and fulfill stupid policy.

They all show the limits of military force in the pursuit of idiocy. Garbage in, garbage out.

If the US wants to hang on to some sort of international influence, it needs to hone up on its diplomatic skills and downplay its sabre-rattling.

NotTimothyGeithner, May 29, 2015 at 3:12 pm

The military won every battle based on our count. Cornwallis won every battle against continentals, but he was forced to flee because he couldn't supply his army without splitting it and letting his baggage train and foraging parties come under fire. The whole we won every battle mantra is propaganda to avoid holding many of the generals and the MIC accountable for their lies and mistakes. When a platoon was massacred on patrol, it wasn't a "battle." I guess there was no honor in shooting guys in the back unlike say a drone strike. When the military was in a position to launch a massive aerial counter attack, then we won and temporarily planted a flag while the position grew weaker. But hey we won the battle. Did we have a great record without the air power which limited how the various enemies could move troops?

Air power made battles impossible in many ways. The Tet Offensive was everywhere all at once which means there were no reserves or occupation forces ready. The goal was to spur uprisings and force the Americans to redeploy which is what happened, and the costs of defending urban areas skyrocketed as the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forced the U.S. and it's puppets out of the country side. Oh sure, the enemy was forced to flee the cities they attacked, but they didn't bring the forces needed to occupy or destroy the U.S. and South Vietnam forces. Did we win that battle? No, they were completely unprepared for a multi-city assault. It was beneath the notice of the Pentagon brass, so they cooked up an excuse to call it a win.

sleepy, May 29, 2015 at 3:48 pm

So, we just need to beef up our military, retrain the troops, have smarter generals, and our empire can continue on into the indefinite future, policy be damned!

The US public ultimately saw Vietnam as a complete policy failure preserving a corrupt local government, and the US withdrew. There was no Dien Bien Phu. Domestic opposition forced the US out.

As soon-to-be-disciplined General Shinseki said to Congress prior to the invasion of Iraq, that the Iraqis would not welcome us with flowers and it would take 500,000 troops to occupy the nation for years for the policy to be successful.

susan the other, May 29, 2015 at 2:46 pm

If the TPP is just an attempt to make the ASEAN countries militaristic enough to give us some breathing room, then that's pretty interesting. They can come together under the TPP umbrella and form a quiet military coalition to relieve the world's only superpower. Think of us as a senile superpower. John Foster Dulles wanted the ASEAN countries to all have the bomb. Why should we be the only bomb droppers? The only totally absurd country. The greater question has evolved finally. Why can't we all function rationally? And with a dedication to the environment.

I've been wondering how we were going to pay Russia for helping us thru this mess. Crimea was one payment. But Russia has given us much more than we have given her, so other payments might include some of our bases around the world. A great gift to an almost superpower. And an agreement that we will only bluster about China's islands in the South China Sea but we won't really do anything. Bluster is how you wind down from being a super killer because you got too old and fat.

[May 28, 2015] Ukraine financial catastrophe of 2014 2015

Notable quotes:
"... According to UN standards a person lives below the poverty line, if one spends life and food less than 5 USD a day, or less than $150 a month . The subsistence minimum in Ukraine today is defined in 1176 UAH, i.e. about 50 dollars a month - less than two dollars a day. ..."
"... So the Ukrainians in poverty are already close to residents of African countries, which spend an average of 1.25 per day US dollars, was heard on "Radio Liberty". ..."
"... "What is subsistence? It's not just food, it and public transportation, and household services, and utilities, and clothing. Overlooked in the subsistence minimum medical services and education. If we analyze these factors, we can understand that Ukrainians are below the threshold of absolute poverty," ..."
"... Today more than 80% of Ukrainians live below the poverty line, the UN data show. In 2012, according to the world organization, only 15% of Ukrainian citizens existed on 5 dollars a day. ..."
foreignpolicy.com

According to UN standards a person lives below the poverty line, if one spends life and food less than 5 USD a day, or less than $150 a month . The subsistence minimum in Ukraine today is defined in 1176 UAH, i.e. about 50 dollars a month - less than two dollars a day.

So the Ukrainians in poverty are already close to residents of African countries, which spend an average of 1.25 per day US dollars, was heard on "Radio Liberty".

"What is subsistence? It's not just food, it and public transportation, and household services, and utilities, and clothing. Overlooked in the subsistence minimum medical services and education. If we analyze these factors, we can understand that Ukrainians are below the threshold of absolute poverty," stressed Shipko.

According to the Deputy, the minimum wage in Ukraine at the current exchange rate of the national Bank should be approximately 3750 UAH - the only way the Ukrainians will be able at least get requred $5 a day.

Today more than 80% of Ukrainians live below the poverty line, the UN data show. In 2012, according to the world organization, only 15% of Ukrainian citizens existed on 5 dollars a day.

Ukrainian women do not want to bear children through insecurity and inability to pay for the hospital and diaper.

[May 28, 2015]Moscow's account of Nato expansion is a case of false memory syndrome

May 24, 2015 | The Guardian

VladimirM 27 May 2015 09:39

It's all water under the bridge now whether assurances were made or not. Nato expanded, Russia saw the threat in it and we have arrived to where we are now.

If this bitter experience is anything to go by, Nato would better stop where it is at the moment and not 'invite' new members, such as Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine.

From the military point of view, and what well known events have proven, both Georgian and Ukrainian armies (do not know about Moldova) do not meet and unlikely will soon meet requirements needed, from the financial point of view neither Europe nor those countries can afford full-scale refurbishment of their military capabilities. Is it worth pushing any further?

Cooperation implies communication and dialogue and listening to each other, it's about time, I believe.

Alexander S -> Botswana61 27 May 2015 08:49

Can you explain it?

How come Russia is the second destination country in the World after the US? How about you get the facts straight before commenting?

Alexander S -> Botswana61 27 May 2015 08:39

wasn't it pres. Putin who has recently changed Moscow's military doctrine…

You're wrong. It was Medvedev in 2010. "Prevention of a nuclear conflict, as well as any other military conflict is the most important task of the Russian Federation".

"Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened".

Alexander S -> Botswana61 27 May 2015 08:11

cannot be held responsible for its deeds

I perfectly understand Russians. You see I've inherited all the property and debts of my grandad. I've paid all his liabilities existed. I continue to execute his contracts. But don't you dare to make me responsible for what that old hag says he did to her in college! I AM his successor but I'm not responsible for his deeds. Period.

assets a little east of the Urals … not being formally in Europe anymore

That's exactly what the Treaty says. Anyway it doesn't matter anymore as Russia completely halted its participation in the Treaty.

Iran has also signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And?

And the US of A do anything it can to encumber Iran's peaceful nuclear program.

Alexander S -> Botswana61 27 May 2015 05:28

Ukraine never had any nuclear arsenal at the first place, USSR did. The Russian Federation is one and only USSR's successor state. Ukraine was pushed by Russia and US to give back or destroy any nuclear weapon happened to be on its soil after the fall of the Soviet Union.

And yeah, Ukraine has given up any rights to have a nuclear arsenal by signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty not the "Budapest Memorandum" as some imply.

Czechlander 26 May 2015 23:47

None of this chatter matters; let those that clamor for NATO enjoy their imagined security. Of course, by joining NATO, a country like Estonia is at a risk from all NATO potential enemies. Not a wise choice. But never mind. The greatest danger to us all are the risks associated with the undeniable fact that huge swathes of Russia are under foreign occupation because of Bolshevik treason of the Russian people. Let's face it, only Russia was made smaller and weaker within the framework of the Soviet Union by the egregious Bolsheviks; it's easy to figure out how much Bolsheviks "loved" the Russian nation.

The Russian people resident in the territories fraudulently taken away from Russia have full rights to do anything to change the illegal status quo and return to Russia's bosom. One doesn't have to be an oracle to see that Ukraine is going down the drain, what with all the fascists in its government, the failed economy, the exodus of its young to Russia and the EU, and so on. When the people in the Russian regions under illegal occupation become fed up with their bleak lot within the chauvinist Ukraine, and a standard of living akin to that of the Indian unclean caste, they will be in position to simply and easily say Good Bye to it. There won't be anybody around to take on the unenviable task of stopping them. Nothing I or anyone else says about it here is going to alter one iota of this geopolitically inevitable future.

AnimalFarm2 26 May 2015 23:08

What utter rubbish! Guardian was once respected. The author has done very little homework!

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev on February 8, 1990 that "NATO's jurisdiction will not shift one inch eastward."

The next day, German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl told Gorbachev that "naturally NATO could not expand its territory" into East Germany.

On the same day Germany's Minister for Foreign Affairs Hans-Dietrich Genscher said the following to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze: "For us, it stands firm: NATO will not expand to the East."

On this basis the whole article is codswallop!

The author should retract and apologise!

MysticMegsy -> Ivan Daraktchiev 26 May 2015 21:46

"With the collapse of Soviet Union NATO's raison d'être disappeared and it should have disbanded itself exactly the way the Warsaw Pact did"

Fair point, can't argue with that. Your user name had me worried at first, but you seem to be a rational thinker.

"Instead, it continues to serve as a vehicle for conducting USA's proxy wars, each part of its 70 years long bellicose campaign for the immense Russian resources."

Hmmm, are you sure? and which proxy wars (relating specifically to Russian resources) might those be? I could list dozens, but none to do with Russian sovereign territory. In fact most proxy wars I can think of were backed by the US and USSR on opposing sides.

"There's nothing to discuss here, especialy after US Congress' vote for Resolution 758 on Dec. 4th 2014 thus legalizing the war against Russia - including approval of a preemptive (nuclear) strike."

OK, it's clear now - you are a paranoid lunatic. You almost had me hoodwinked there for a moment.

desconocido 26 May 2015 19:51

The claim that the west gave no guarantees against Nato expanding eastwards may be literally true but is nevertheless misleading. As Clark and Spohr write, "these developments belonged to a future that was not yet in sight".

Having freed eastern Europe and dissolved the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet leadership trusted that the west would reciprocate by respecting Russian interests, and was repeatedly reassured by western leaders in this respect.

As a member of the European parliament delegation to the Supreme Soviet in 1989, I witnessed this trust and later the increasing bewilderment of the Soviet/Russian participants in various conferences at the arrogant triumphalism of Nato and even EU speakers. "But I thought communism had lost and we had all won?" complained one.

Many Soviet leaders responsible for the "miracle of 1990" – like the former Soviet ambassador to Bonn, Valentin Falin – have complained bitterly that Mikhail Gorbachev naively trusted the west and gave away so much for so little.

So the attitude of the revived Russia of today should not come as a surprise.

Jakob von Uexkull
Former MEP, German Greens

desconocido -> Metronome151 26 May 2015 19:41

So yes it is just Russian hysteria, wishful thinking and false memory syndrome.

More to the point is EugeneGur's comment:

But the memory of Nato's broken promises also matters because it touches on the legitimacy, in Russian eyes, of the international settlement established during the German unification process and the European order that emerged in its wake.

The west always considers Russia's action in isolation from everything else. The narrative is rather simple, not to say primitive: Russia is inherently bad, aggressive, totalitarian (feel free to add whatever additional derogatory adjectives you can come up with). So, whatever the West does against Russia must be good. The West never considers the impact its own actions have on the Russian perception of the situation and Russian actions. The expansion of NATO were bound to elicit Russia's reaction at some point, regardless whether any promise was made and whether it was binding or not. It doesn't really take a genius to predict what that reaction would be, which is a good thing, because NATO is rather short on geniuses.

People, you were given a gift, a gift the West did not in the least deserve. The Soviet Union peacefully withdraw from Eastern Europe. Germany, in particular, was given a gift , which was no less than magnificent considering what Germany did in Russia. And how did the West use that gift? It grabbed and grabbed, and grabbed. Finally, it bit off more than it could chew with Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, particularly, Ukraine.

desconocido -> Chirographer 26 May 2015 19:28

nobody in NATO, Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova has been planning an attack on Russia.

Really? What do you call that Georgian attack on the Russian peacekeeping force (don't sneer, official OSCE title) in South Ossetia? And if I was in Russia, looking at NATO's track record, I wouldn't believe for a minute that NATO wasn't planning an attack on me.

Alexander S -> SonnyTuckson 26 May 2015 19:27

"The Budapest Memorandum" is a perfect case of false memory syndrome as stated in this article. At no time did anybody, including US and Russia, offer a binding commitment to respect and/or protect Ukrainian borders.

Nevertheless as Russia stated on many occasions it upholds the international law and supports both the integrity of Ukrainian territory and the right of people of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to self-determination.

Ivan Daraktchiev 26 May 2015 17:32

With the collapse of Soviet Union NATO's raison d'être disappeared and it should have disbanded itself exactly the way the Warsaw Pact did. Instead, it continues to serve as a vehicle for conducting USA's proxy wars, each part of its 70 years long bellicose campaign for the immense Russian resources.

There's nothing to discuss here, especially after US Congress' vote for Resolution 758 on Dec. 4th 2014 thus legalizing the war against Russia - including approval of a preemptive (nuclear) strike.

Volkovolk -> silvaback 26 May 2015 17:08

Bla-bla-bla, russian occupants, agression, occupation... Tell me better how you have an UNA-UNSO ultaright party led by son of UPA leader Shushevich.

The guy who led the Volin Slaughter and served in SS punitive batallion Nachtigall. How you have this abomination of a party and dare accuse us in anything, Bizarro?)

MaoChengJi 26 May 2015 15:36

I must say: the authors of letters you published are too nice to this truly disgusting lying and racist piece.

Duncan Frame -> psygone 26 May 2015 13:14

I agree but, you can see US doing almost exactly the same thing with any country that embraces socialism in the Americas. Had Russia extended its hegemony, insofar as it exists these days, there is no doubt the US would use the most effective tools at it's disposal (powerful economic sanctions) to destabilize or otherwise nullify the political power of that country.

The difference between Russia and the US is that Russia cannot control the economic climate anywhere as near as effectively as the US so it uses more direct methods.

FromVolga 26 May 2015 13:13

http://nato.int/docu/speech/1990/s900517a_e.htm

The Atlantic Alliance and European Security
in the 1990s

Extract:
This will also be true of a united Germany in NATO.
The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops
beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives
the Soviet Union firm security guarantees.
Moreover we could conceive of a transitional period
during which a reduced number of Soviet forces could
remain stationed in the present-day GDR.
This will meet Soviet concerns about not changing
the overall East-West strategic balance.
Soviet politicians are wrong to claim that German
membership of NATO will lead to instability.
The opposite is true.
Europe including the Soviet Union would gain stability.
It would also gain a genuine partner in the West ready to cooperate.

And could you listen the words of Germany Foreign Minister Genscher in 1990?
Please use link below at 7:50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfZmPnJbCkI

Do you realy think all of these is a case of false memory syndrome ?

vlad day -> Botswana61 26 May 2015 11:47

How smart. Really being curious or just used to be noisy? Relax. A year has passed, and so far Russia has not recognized the two Republics. Today, nobody speaks in Chechnya or Dagestan about independence; hope the botswana man's being outdated has an excuse. The problem of these territories was not separatism but terrorism. When Russians and other non-Chechens started leaving Chechnya, big banners appeared in the streets reading "Russians, do not leave, we need slaves and prostitutes". As for independence, poorly educated mountain folk whose best skill was using a gun and explosives, had a special idea of it.

When told about the need to buy a visa for every crossing the border once independence is established, they would jump: "Why should I?.. I don't want any visa!!!" – "But you have to…" – "No! No visa!"

I guess the botswana man was already born to the world when Kosovo tragedy started unfolding. Was he asking NATO American guys who were shelling Kosovo and Belgrade (with the words "Still willing to be a Serb?" and "Easter Greetings!" on the shells and rockets) if they were ready, for instance, to grant independence to Texas populated mainly with Mexicans? To all appearance, no.

BradBenson -> alpamysh 26 May 2015 07:41

That is insane. Hitler was always hell-bent on expansion to the East for Lebensraum. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact bought time for both countries to prepare for the conflict that both knew was coming. Stalin was always paranoid and, having killed off his officer corps in the 30's, he was well aware that Russia was not prepared for war.

Unfortunately for Stalin, he began to believe that the treaty would hold, especially since he did not think that the Germans would risk a two-front war again. As a result, he was initially caught off guard and didn't want to believe that the Germans were actually attacking Russia on June 22, 1941. As history has proven, he quickly came to his senses.

BenAris 26 May 2015 07:40

there was a promise of no nato expansion:

On January 31, 1990 West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher publicly declared that there would be "no expansion of NATO territory eastward" after reunification. Two days later, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker met with Genscher to discuss the plan. Although Baker did not publicly [8] endorse Genscher's plan, it served as the basis for subsequent meetings between Baker, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. During these discussions, Baker repeatedly underlined the informal deal on the table, first telling Shevardnadze that NATO's jurisdiction "would not move eastward" and later offering Gorbachev "assurances that there would be no extension of NATO's current jurisdiction eastward." When Gorbachev argued that "a broadening of the NATO zone" was "not acceptable," Baker replied, "We agree with that." Most explicit was a meeting with Shevardnadze on February 9, in which Baker, according to the declassified State Department transcript, promised "iron-clad guarantees that NATO's jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward." Hammering home the point, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl advanced an identical pledge during meetings in Moscow the next day.

refn to archive notes on Bakers comments

http://www.2plus4.de/USA/chronik.php3?date_value=25.02.90&sort=001-000

the prob was because Soviets didnt explicit accept the terms of this informal offer the US felt justified changing it later and eventually included E Germany in NATO.

its not clear cut like Putin suggests but there was an offer even if Soviets fluffed the diplomatic close of the deal.

brianfp -> Polvilho 26 May 2015 07:34

The double standard I refer to is the attitude, prominent in mainstream media, of tremendous hand-wringing over Russia's actions in Ukraine by the same people who either or laud or ignore much worse acts of aggression or terrorism carried out by the US with far less plausible pretext.

I disagree with you on the matter of US actions in the region also but that wasn't what I was walking about.

BradBenson -> SanDiegoGuy 26 May 2015 07:30

I didn't mention the Czars. What I said above is exactly what happened in Georgia.

I was living as an expatriate in Germany at the time and the German Newspapers carried daily maps showing the locations of the pipelines and the location of the fighting. They didn't cover any of that in the US.

Nor did any US Newspaper mention the involvement of the US Military by airlifting the Georgian Afghanistan War Contingent from Afghanistan back home to Georgia virtually over night. Nor did the American News Reports cover the Russian Claims of US Special Forces Involvement and that they found dead black soldiers in Georgian Uniforms. Maybe they were from Atlanta or Resaca.

In any case, I have provided my sources in my other response to your posts. Therefore, I will not repost them here. Suffice to say, if you feel my sources are flawed, you are always welcome to present your own, which you haven't by the way.


BradBenson SanDiegoGuy 26 May 2015 07:13

Well that's all fine and dandy that you have reviewed all of these links and found the arguments, the supporting links in the articles, and the knowledge base of so many different analysts to be flawed. Yet you present an equally flawed history without so much as a supporting source. Whom do you think has made the more cogent argument here?

As for my comments to AstarSoldier, if he's such a "star soldier" let him speak for himself. To me, there are no "star soldiers" and I don't care about his physical stature. The term "little man" referred to his intellect and was a direct reference to yet another sophomoric comment by someone who doesn't know what he is talking about...sort or like your comment above.

Here is the history on Georgia. Educate yourself.

Georgia accused of targeting civilians.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7692751.stm

I survived the Georgian war. Here's what I saw.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2008/1008/p09s02-coop.html

Revisiting the "Battle of Tskhinvali"
http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/08/16/revisiting-the-quot-battle-of-tskhinvali-quot/

The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power
https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/russo_georgian_war_and_balance_power

Plucky Little Georgia? No, the Cold War Reading Won't Wash
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/09/georgia.russia1

Tbilisi Admits Misjudging Russia
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0d8beefe-6fad-11dd-986f-0000779fd18c,Authorised=false.html?nclick_check=1&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F0d8beefe-6fad-11dd-986f-0000779fd18c.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1%26siteedition%3Duk&siteedition=uk&_i_referer=#axzz3a7HUGsQv

'Poor Little Georgia'–Not!
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2008/08/13/poor-little-georgia-not/

Saakashvili "planned S. Ossetia invasion": ex-minister
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/14/us-georgia-russia-opposition-idUSLD12378020080914

Did Saakashvili Lie? The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/did-saakashvili-lie-the-west-begins-to-doubt-georgian-leader-a-578273.html

Accounts Undercut Claims by Georgia on Russia War
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9805E5DF1130F934A35752C1A96E9C8B63


Aleksander Trebunskikh Matthew Reynolds 26 May 2015 05:10

According to your logic, USA is the biggest empire nowadays and ever been in history, because: "exercise authoritarian control over it's satellite nations" - but, in case you love USA and hate USSR - which doesn't exist for more then 25 years, you wont see this.


Dmitry Fedotov alpamysh 26 May 2015 05:04

For the first time in 20 years in the Chernobyl forest appeared bear, and it was captured at the camera. In Chernobyl, for the first time in 20 years. And then there is a war for a year! tanks, jets! bombs! and no photographs of Russian troops in Ukraine. Hows that? Maybe they are not there? Maybe your media epidemic of idiocy? Remember, your media did not show you all the people killed in Iraq. And them there were more than 200,000. Maybe they're lying to you again?


Botswana61 Kiselev 26 May 2015 04:12

Sea tranport of bulk is the cheapest one by far. With air transport being the best for perishable goods and merchandize (e.g. machine tools, plane parts, etc.) which have to make it to their final destination literally over night.

Sorry ,but Trans-Siberian express types of trains belong to XIX century; while gas-guzzling and heavily polluting Diesel-powered, road-clogging 18-wheelers will largely disappear before the end of the next decade.


Botswana61 Laurence Johnson 26 May 2015 03:52

'The US is isolated geographically from the core global markets of trade.'

What a patent nonsence! If you followed the trends you would have noticed that while Europe (currently in recession) is stagnating - the obvious area of a dynamic economic development is PACIFIC RIM!

The biggest trade association in the world by far is APEC, which includes such countries like Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, to mention just a few.

More&more Americans think of themselves as Pacific nation rather than Atlantic one.

US's business with Pacific Rim countries is brisque and growing fast. So is American export to other APEC member states.

So nice try, but no cigar.


Volkovolk AlfredHerring 26 May 2015 03:45

Yes, that was 70-90% of [all] ordinary people including ukrainians, belarus, kazachs and all other nations with some Batlic and georgian exceptions) What's interesting is that geogians had another exception - Osetian autonomous soviet republic. They - osetians - decided that they wanna stay in USSR and had their autonomous referendum.

The situation in Ukraine (where 70% of people voted for preserving and 28% againsts) changed for now because, you see, ukrainian leaders decided that's the best way to validate independence of Ukraine is to create artifical hatred towards past in USSR and by extension because of galicial lobby towars Russia and russians-moscals.

Now this 25 years of propaganda brought fruits and Ukraine is tearing itself apart in civil war.


SidSpart EugeneGur 26 May 2015 03:21

don't act surprised by the Russia's reaction and the measures Russia takes to counter what it sees as a threat.

I am not surprised by Russia's reaction to N.AT.O expansion .

Even if there was no formal agreement for N.A.T.O not to expand ,it must have been obvious after the collapse of the U.S.S.R that Russians would not want N.A.T.O on their doorstep .

At the time when the old Warsaw pact countries were joining N.A.T.O I felt it was sending the wrong message to the Russians - basically saying - "We Do Not Trust You " especially the talk about setting up the missiles shield .

The question is would the people living in those East European which are now members of N.A.T.O feel safer if they had remained non-members in the light of what has happened in the Ukraine ?

(Even though I think the Ukraine situation is a different case.)

It is not only Russians who worry about their Security and Safety, after all Latvia and Poland have never occupied Moscow or St Petersburg - but Russians have occupied Warsaw and Riga .


Laurence Johnson 26 May 2015 02:31

The problem is simple. The US is isolated geographically from the core global markets of trade. Europe united with Russia and Asia in trade would be a disaster for the US and as such must never happen.

The bridge between Asia and Europe is Russia and its clear that all options are on the table to prevent that link from becoming a reality. Its simple good business sense on the part of the US to protect its markets, which is Europe.

Laurence Johnson 26 May 2015 02:31

The problem is simple. The US is isolated geographically from the core global markets of trade. Europe united with Russia and Asia in trade would be a disaster for the US and as such must never happen.

The bridge between Asia and Europe is Russia and its clear that all options are on the table to prevent that link from becoming a reality. Its simple good business sense on the part of the US to protect its markets, which is Europe.

TecchnoExpertThanx 26 May 2015 00:08

What concerns me is that both the authors Christopher Clark (a Regius Professor of History at Cambridge and the author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 ) and Kristina Spohr (a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science), carry with them significant title, and responsibility to educate and ultimately influence the next generation of political analysts, historians and policy makers.

This research and amateurish conclusions, resembles more like an essay written by a first year 'Poly Science' student with a score of 'F'.

The problem with many of our educators (amongst other things) is laziness.

Hey, I personally subscribe and listen to LSE (and similar) lectures, debates and PR book releases/reviews... but whether a student or professor, being overexposed to liberal dissidence that are well funded for their 'expert' analysis, will not make you in return an 'Expert', historian, or have you any nearer to understanding fact from fiction.

Its time to break away from the the bubble that includes free lunches and coffee, supplied by government and non government think tanks, and go out and do some real research and analysis that people can learn and benefit from.

AssameseGuy87 -> Bangorstu

I think, after forty years of independence, many of those nations need to start taking some responsibility for themselves.

Yes, there has to be some progress. For example, in India, there has been a furore over colonial-era laws that remain in practice. There really shouldn't be any excuses as to why these laws remain in place and haven't yet been repealed. But the fact remains the Empire did engage in widespread economic exploitation of the colonies that the successor nations were still reeling under after decades after independence. It's easy for some Britons to ask that question ('What have they been doing these past 50-70 years') but I don't think they can ever imagine the mess the Empire had left some of their erstwhile colonies in (in many cases, after more than a century of rule).

Most of the British Empire was conquered for somewhat less than a century....

The bulk of its colonies were acquired in the period from 1815 to 1896 (almost all of them achieved independence after the end of the WW2). One more things needs to be said. In many of these colonies, the formal incorporation of the territory into the British Empire came later; for decades (and in one particular case, up to a century) prior to that, the British were by and large the de facto rulers. Also, some of these colonies were initially British protectorates where the rulers of these states were mere figureheads.

But we never did - the indigenous languages weren't suppressed and they still survive.

The British didn't overtly have to; just one interesting policy was that they just preferred those with English education over those with vernacular language education for posts. It was largely due to the efforts of the indigenous people in many places that their languages survive today. In some places, the British favoured one ethno-religious group over the other for consideration for posts. But then, that comes under divide and rule policies implemented by most colonial powers. I would like to say that in many of these places it wasn't all peace and harmony before the colonial-era; there were indeed bloody conflicts. But then rarely were they along ethnic/religious lines. Divide and rule undoubtedly deepened the divisions between ethnic/religious groups in many former colonies.

And note many of the issues are due to arbitrarily drawn borders which can of course be changed if the countries concerned wish them to be.

And how exactly do you think we should do that??. I actually do know of a war fought over an arbitrarily drawn border. In that case, the British signed an unequal treaty which incorporated that territory into the British Raj (that was in the early 20th century). After independence, it's successor state inherited the territory. The state from which the British had gained the territory (when it's rule was weak and the might of the British was at their highest) considered that border drawn under an unequal treaty to be illegal. The successor state should just hand over the territory and the people living there, right (after 100 years of rule)??.
The Empire did good in many cases (very few dispute these). But what irritates people from places which were formerly part of the British Empire is the tendency of some Britons to simply wish away the problems faced by some of it's former colonies ('Oh, they have been independent for 50-70 years, what's stopping them') without understanding the complexity of the problem and dismissing anyone critical of some policies of the Empire as someone having a 'chip on their shoulder'.
Even worse are of course the shameless, despicable Empire apologists ('Oh, but, but the Spanish were much worse', 'Oh, but, but massacres were the norm back then', 'Oh, but, look at the ones firing the guns'; if only the Nazi war criminals used that last one as an excuse at Nuremberg). Thankfully, you do say this though:

I didn't say that did I? I said being colonized was a mixed blessing which is somewhat different.

Btw, It's a very much more complex situation and set of relationships
Yes, indeed (I agree). The Empire did much good (very few dispute that) and the Empire did much wrong too, many of which have consequences today (and out come all the apologists; I'm not saying you are one though). Many Britons take pride in the Commonwealth (the Army traditions, the language etc) but I sadly doubt many Britons can truly (or more unfortunately, even wish to) understand the negative effects some of the Empire's policies have had on its former colonies.

hermanmitt -> Matthew Reynolds 25 May 2015 20:20

If you really want to sustain this notion that the US is this covert empire, then you have to eventually get around to some sort of Phantom Menace conspiracy theory...

Once there was gold backing the U.S. Dollar. Then there was oil which turned the dollar into the world reserve currency. That and WW11. Now there is nothing backing the dollar, which is now a totally fiat currency backed solely by the U.S. military industrial complex.

The U.S. has established its Empire through the financial system by creating debt, backed at present by absolutely nothing, except the U.S. Military which needs to be pervasive around the globe in order to maintain that status quo.

When a country, Iraq, chooses to start selling its oil in Euros, it gets invaded. When a country starts to sell its oil in 'gold backed Dinars', Libya, it gets toppled. When there is a country the U.S. does not wish a direct military confrontation with, Russia, the war footing moves to a proxy, Ukraine, and the war is escalated on a financial front. Russia kicked out the Rothschilds, paid off their interest owed from oil revenues and banned them from returning to Russia. Now, Russia and China trade for oil and gas in local currencies, cutting out the dollar middle-man, and are creating a new global reserve currency based on the Chinese Yuan coupled to a new gold standard. That makes Russia a legitimate target for both a proxy war, via Ukraine, and a financial war, through sanctions. China cannot be directly confronted because China owns too much US debt, which they can call in at any time, and bankrupt the FED. The same pattern of financial aggression applied, until recently, to Iran. However the mood has changed since the U.S. need Iran to help deal with ISIS in the region in order to keep the dollar-based oil flowing.

The pattern of military and financial aggression is now so blatant it's impossible to hide, and with the rise of the Chinese who have a financial and military pact with Russia, the writing is on the wall for the fall of the dollar, possibly this year. Even the City of London has recognized this and is trading the Yuan in London, with the UK effectively joining the BRICS alliance.

It's time to start recognising the very obvious pattern that has been clearly revealed over the past decade and a half. The U.S. has buried the world in debt through the Federal Reserve System and is desperately trying to keep itself afloat. It has no real friends left, apart from perhaps Britain, but that is also a bit questionable. Everyone has just done as they are instructed, until recently, but of late, and due to the huge shift in trade and energy supply eastwards, U.S. influence is fast on the wane, and the only thing they have left is the MIC.

We are witnessing the last desperate gasps for breath of the U.S. Empire, and it could get a lot more dangerous for everyone on this planet as the inevitable day approaches where the, mathematically certain, collapse of the dollar finally occurs.

Does that go some way to filling in a few of the gaps for you?


Volkovolk -> Will Hay 25 May 2015 20:17

You are really ignorant.

Firstly "soviet invasion" started two weeks after the german. Secondly the goal of this invasion was to put border away to west before inevitable war with Germany. Read about Brest Fortress then understand that before that invasion Brest was on Poland territory. And thirdly to blame Stalin "as much as Hitler" is kinda the same as to blame jews for Holocoust.


Volkovolk 25 May 2015 19:49

Oh, and by the way i feel that i shall ask you western people one question. Have you ever wondered what Russians are thinking about Gorbachev, Yeltsin and about nearly all of their decisions? Have you ever wondered what Russians are feeling towards them? Not pro-western sectant Russians and not some successful businessmen who used the opportunity to became oligarchs, but ordinary people? Hint: this emotion has much, much common with despise and hatred.


vlad day 25 May 2015 18:09

False logic enveloped into quasi-academic wording.

"There was no commitment to abstain in future from eastern NATO enlargement". Yes, there was; a western politician who used to communicate with Gorbachev's team over German matters etc., speaking to reporters: "We didn't put it on paper." A girl journalist happily smiled and nodded her little head on those wise words. So, there was a pledge, though not "put on paper". A nice way of cheating.

"…a mythical sequence of unmediated aggressions whose ultimate purpose was to justify current Russian policy in the Ukraine". And where is a formulation of "Russian policy in Ukraine"?

Here, I guess, the author's knowledge approximates zero. No Western (and no Ukrainian) reporters in the area of conflict, except for a couple of freelancers, one of which is Graham Phillips, a classical black sheep (white crow, as we put it in Russian) of the highly hypocritical journalist community in Britain.

Radical Ukrainian nationalists commit violence all over Ukraine (not only in the two "pro-Russian" regions trying to get out of Kiev's deadly grip), killing politicians, bloggers, writers in broad daylight. Every time no investigation follows. "People being tortured and murdered, oh, really?" Who cares.

The Ukrainian topics have disappeared in the western media except for some half-abstract "academic" contexts like the one above.

EugeneGur 25 May 2015 16:15

But the memory of Nato's broken promises also matters because it touches on the legitimacy, in Russian eyes, of the international settlement established during the German unification process and the European order that emerged in its wake.

The west always considers Russia's action in isolation from everything else. The narrative is rather simple, not to say primitive: Russia is inherently bad, aggressive, totalitarian (feel free to add whatever additional derogatory adjectives you can come up with). So, whatever the West does against Russia must be good. The West never considers the impact its own actions have on the Russian perception of the situation and Russian actions. The expansion of NATO were bound to elicit Russia's reaction at some point, regardless whether any promise was made and whether it was binding or not. It doesn't really take a genius to predict what that reaction would be, which is a good thing, because NATO is rather short on geniuses.

People, you were given a gift, a gift the West did not in the least deserve. The Soviet Union peacefully withdraw from Eastern Europe. Germany, in particular, was given a gift , which was no less than magnificent considering what Germany did in Russia. And how did the West use that gift? It grabbed and grabbed, and grabbed. Finally, it bit off more than it could chew with Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, particularly, Ukraine. Because, you see, Russia is in a way.

Here everything goes: Nazis - no problem; civilian deaths - regrettable but for the good cause; political repressions, torture, murders - can happen to the best of us. With Ukraine even that stand by excuse that the country wanted to join NATO doesn't cut it, because a good half of the country wanted nothing to do with NATO, and NATO knows. But who cares? If necessary, we'll organize a coup, buy off the elites, instigate a civil war, destroy the country - do what it takes but we'll drag whatever is left of it into NATO.


hermanmitt Matthew Reynolds 25 May 2015 15:00

Thank-you for proving my point.

Russia currently has a total of 13 military bases, most of which are in fairly close proximity.

According to a statement Ron Paul, the U.S. currently has 900 military bases stationed in 130 countries around the globe.

That is a difference of 878


AGLiakhov 25 May 2015 14:47

I was a member of various Soviet delegations in these and other talks in the late 80s. I am prepared to sign an affidavit setting out at least 3 occassions when non expansion assurances were given by US and NATO officials of different seniority. I was present when President Bush Sr. Personally promised President Gorbachev that there would be no Eastern expansion. Unfortunately Gorby believed that the world is run by gentlemen and "my word is my bond". He refused to allow us to commit this undertaking to paper. Dear researchers - please research well and maintain your integrity. However I doubt that my comment will be allowed in.

Bardamux -> Chirographer 25 May 2015 14:08

As long as Ukraine does not control all of its territory it can not become a member of NATO. Same with Georgia. The Russian action, while illegal and wrong, is quite understandable. They do not want Ukrain/Georgia to become part of a possibly hostile military alliance. Thus they take a small piece of land and prevent these countries from becoming members.

This would of course be completely unnecessary if the Russians could trust the promises that Ukraine and Georgia will never, ever become members of NATO. But surprise they do not believe this pledge.

' pledge not to violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine' - After there was a deal by with the Western-powers to keep Yanukovich in power until new elections. Which was ripped up barely after the ink dried.

Please try to understand this, right or wrong, Russia might risk nuclear war over Ukraine and Georgia. Much like America risked and threatened this over the Cuban missiles.

Dmitry Fedotov 25 May 2015 14:00

Europe and America turned flourishing Libya to hell. The endless civil war, half the population are refugees in their own country. The number of victims is unknown. Democracy level has not increased. You poured into the Iraq more than 300 tons of depleted uranium which is horrendous toxin. children will die from it for generations. You turned Fallujah into radioactive hell. And you call Assad's chemical? All your weapons containing depleted uranium - the chemical.

Chemical Britain, chemical United States and chemical Europe.

When you will realize that you are guilty, when you will repent, remember what else do is your fault, understand how much blood on your hands, then you will have the right to judge someone. Now it's just the arguments of a maniac who sagely condemns others and chews human heart same time.


Bardamux -> Grishnakh 25 May 2015 13:37

Please learn how to read. I stated many times it was not a binding agreement. It was a promise, not a binding agreement. Still upset the Russians though. Well now Russia knows that it can not trust any promise by the US/NATO. And since it is nearly impossible to make a binding agreement that can not be changed it means they will remain distrustful. And might use force if they feel it is necessary. I.e. Georgia and Ukraine. Perhaps even in the Baltics. Which would be a disaster. Congratulations on making a dunce out of Russia. But do not blame them for their lack of trust now.

US can block access of countries if they want. Has there ever joined nation without American approval ?


EugeneGur 25 May 2015 12:36

Amid recriminations over US and western European interventions in Kosovo, Libya and Syria, the Russian leadership has begun to question the legitimacy of the international agreements on which the current European order is founded.

Isn't that rather natural? Nobody certainly signed up for that, for the US or, more broadly, the West, single-handedly deciding what is "the European order" or any other "order", for that matter. It may sound naive, and definitely was extremely naive, but at the time of the Germany reunification agreement the Russian leadership and Russian people could not have imagined in their worst nightmares that the West, including Germany, of all countries (!), would instigate a coup in Ukraine, support neo-Nazis, a civil war, killing and starving of civilians. The West, it seems, like Bourbons, have learned nothing and forgot nothing".

I do hope that the Russian have learned something useful from this development: that the West is never ever to be trusted. If you have to deal with the West at all, get everything in righting three times over, and support that by a good number of judiciously placed military bases.

sambeckett2 -> Renato Timotheus 25 May 2015 11:56

Let's imagine, for a moment, that the you and I go out for dinner and we talk about a lot of things, but we don't discuss me having sex with your wife.
Does that mean that you have acquiesced to me doing it?

The countries in question are not the 'wife' of Russia - they do not belong to Russia. The break up of the Eastern Bloc was more akin to a divorce. If your wife chooses to sleep with me after that divorce it is none of your business - you do not 'acquiesce' to me doing it because you have no say.

Not discussing something does not amount to acquiescence to it.

And it doesn't amount to you having a right to prevent it either.

When G. says that NATO expansion was not discussed, I think he clearly means it was not even countenanced.

They did not have a right to 'countenance' it. If Russia did not consider the possibility at the time, that was their misfortune. To quote Gorbachev:

So don't portray Gorbachev and the then-Soviet authorities as naïve people who were wrapped around the West's finger. If there was naïveté, it was later, when the issue arose. Russia at first did not object.

the Germans - e.g. Kohl and Genscher -- knew full well that they would never get their precious reunification if there was any hint of a NATO eastward expansion.

So the implicit and explicit assurances they gave -- the latter in the form of a gentlemanly agreement -- were very real ones.

in 1990-1, there was no assurances of any kind, except with regards to the GDR. Again, Gorbachev clearly states this, and he also states that the assurances with regards to the GDR were kept. You have not pointed out a single instance in which such assurances were made in 1990-91. Gorbachev clearly states that the matter was not discussed and that the examples you have given relate to to GDR alone.

how can Russia's current leadership have any trust in Merkel's pronouncements --

And, as the article suggests, how can anyone trust Russia when they falsely claim they were given assurances about NATO expansion when they weren't? Their own leader at the time affirms this - I cannot see how the sentence "The topic of "NATO expansion" was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years" could be any clearer.

Without some level of trust between Germany and Russia, we will see increasing tensions between them and in the part of Europe that lies between the two countries.

That does not give Russia a free pass to claim that something happened when it simply didn't.

GuardianFearless 25 May 2015 11:23

Another NATO fairy tale. Don't you think it's doesn't matter now what exactly West thinks about it, all European decisions already were made and nothing can be done now to change the outcome. The more important part what Russia thinks of that events, and what will be the consequences now, just because Russia thinks that there was a betrayal.

You can try to justify actions that was taken in the past in this case only for your own people, but if you can't convince Russia (and, by the way, the rest of non USA-oriented world), that will not delay or spare consequences. West will have a problem with Russia in future, it's inevitable, and a big one (looks like even nuclear one), because Russia makes reality in the world on her own, that West has to check, so if Russians thinks there was something wrong with NATO actions in 90-th it's totally 100 percent real for the rest of the world. So, author, please check your reality detector, looks like a battery fails in it, and write again!

EugeneGur 25 May 2015 11:06

The miracle of 1990 is that one of the greatest transformations of the international system in human history was achieved without war, in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation.

And then this miracle was used up ill by the West to expand east without any spirit of dialog or cooperation. Even assuming no promises were made, the actions themselves were hardly friendly, and that's precisely how they are perceived in Russia. The usual argument that the Eastern European countries fell over themselves to join NATO is faulty. First, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't recall a single referendum about joining NATO in any of them, so how the people of these countries felt remains unknown.

Second, even assuming they were anxious to join NATO, NATO could've predicted the Russian reaction, could it not, if the NATO commanders had any brains at all? You want to please Estonia and annoy Russia - that's what you have achieved.

So, don't act surprised by the Russia's reaction and the measures Russia takes to counter what it sees as a threat. Regardless of what the Eastern Europe wants, Russia remains within its right to protect itself, and it will. Trying to present it as something totally unreasonable, Russian "paranoia", is the usual deceit tactics the West is so good at. This always amuses me to no end: Russia feeling apprehensive at being encircled by something that represents itself as the strongest military alliance in the wold is paranoia, but the US representing North Korea as existential threat is reality. Fantastic.

Алексей Кузнецов -> AbsolutelyFapulous 25 May 2015 10:48

What did NATO do to Russia that is not a product of Russia paranoia?

1. Yugoslavia
2. Iraq
3. Afghanistan
4. Libya
5. Syria

Who's next? What about missile defense system in Europe?

TecchnoExpertThanx 25 May 2015 10:41

8

9

If the Russians are constantly guilty of 'whataboutism', then unfortunately for us in the west, we are guilty of 'Double Speak' (having this pointed out to us, is commonly referred to as 'whataboutism').
Whether it is deliberate or not, it is about time we stop using this technique to hide behind our false justifications and need for 'action'.

Courtesy of our propagators, their media poodles and sock puppets, people actually believe that the 'Ends justify the means' and that the ends is 'Freedom' and the means is 'Democracy Building', and everything in between is 'Good'.
And sure, we may 'torture some folks', but how dare anyone question intent!!!
Bin Laden? Why am i not surprised to have read only last week that Bin Laden must be conspiracy theorist because seals found amongst other novels, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man?
Here are some quotes from a Guardian article in 2004. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/11/iraq.usa

....the hallmark of Reagan's presidency was anti-communist cynicism, masked by phoney rhetoric about freedom. In his first press conference as president he used quasi-biblical language to claim that Soviet leaders "reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat". It was one of the most extraordinary cases of the pot calling the kettle black...

...In the name of anti-communism everything was possible. Reagan invaded Grenada on the false premise that US students who had been there safely for months were suddenly in danger. Reagan armed thugs to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, even after it won internationally certified free elections in 1984....

Reagan armed and trained Osama bin Laden and his followers in their Afghan jihad, and authorised the CIA to help to pay for the construction of the very tunnels in Tora Bora in which his one-time ally later successfully hid from US planes. On the grounds that Nelson Mandela's African National Congress was pro-communist, Reagan vetoed US congress bills putting sanctions on the apartheid regime the ANC was fighting.

His policies towards the Soviet Union were hysterical and counter-productive. He put detente into deep freeze for several years with his insulting label "the evil empire". It led to overblown outrage over the downing by Soviet aircraft of a South Korean airliner that intruded into Russian air space. Moscow's action was inept, but if Reagan had not put the superpowers in collision, the Kremlin might have treated the wayward plane more calmly.

It further goes onto conclude;


Reagan's Star Wars project did not bankrupt the Soviet Union into reform, as his admirers claim. In repeated statements as well as his budget allocations Gorbachev made it clear Moscow would not bother to match a dubious weapons system which could not give Washington "first-strike capability" for at least another 15 years, if ever.

But hey, all this is a distraction. Rather than bickering around 'he said, she said', Ambassador to the .S.S.R. from 1987 to 1991, Jack F. Matlock does an excellent job in readdressing one of Russia's biggest concerns. Now irregardless of a promise or lost in translation, who in their right mind would think that expanding NATO (even if countries BEG to join), would be in the in the best interest for global security??????
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-is-the-bully-the-united-states-has-treated-russia-like-a-loser-since-the-cold-war/2014/03/14/b0868882-aa06-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwj8T34v6hM


Report


StephenKMack 26may1989 25 May 2015 10:40

Thank you for your comment. For those of us who came of age during the last Cold War we don't need a 'report' to inform us of the fact that a 'New Cold War' is in full swing! The attacks on those who dissent as 'dupes' and/or as 'paid agents of Putin' hinting at the notion of 'Quislings' are all familiar territory.

It smacks of the Nixon/McCarren/Mundt/McCarthy political axis of the late forties in America:' a generation of treason' to describe The New Deal! Always the same screeching hysteria, although Mr. Clark in his search for 'reasons', while he carefully diagnosis Russian paranoia, and the self-identification as victim of Western mendacity, tries to mute the tone of that hysteria, by providing plausible historical antecedents, in a carefully massaged exercise in empiricism, and he acquits himself with a kind of confident ease.

To provide one salient example of the same old faces, the same old rhetoric, from the last 'Cold War', we see Strobe Talbott of Brookings, or RussiaHand as he dubbed himself, one of the architects of the transition of the Soviet Union from command to a 'free market' economy, that required the 'strong medicine' of the 'shock doctrine' to make that transition. That transition led to the rise of The Oligarchs equaling former KGB thugs like your arch-enemy Putin.

After that ignominious policy failure, hailed by the Western Media as a necessity for the transition to Democracy, that caused untold suffering on the Russian people: the triumph of the misery producing Neo-Liberal Dogma in it's squalid infancy , or nearly that.

Regards,
StephenKMackSD

Кирилл Олейник 25 May 2015 10:26

After all these events since the bombing of Yugoslavia it is obviously that Gorbachev had made mistake.

The West is not able to appreciate the concessions, West doesn`t know what means gratitude. And such demagogic articles are just another proof.

When Soviets had stopped meaningless Cold War the West had dared to call itself the winner. So there is no reason to have a dialogue with the West, because it can understand only the language of strength. Well, this is a good remark, Russians will remember this. If you prefer the language of strength then you`ll have it.

Don`t cry then.

Z'ing Sui AbsolutelyFapulous 25 May 2015 10:16

From what I read, Russians are angry for a number of reasons, here's approximate list
1. Expansion - "our anti-Western alliance is over, your anti-Russian alliance is growing", the broken promise to Gorby, etc.

2. Bombing Russia's allies. - Russia had very few of them as it was, and the Serbia thing being done without engaging Russians is something they can't forgive. Destroying Libya and threats to bomb Syria pale in comparison (Russians don't see the distinction between NATO countries and NATO)

3. "We helped you, you didn't help us" - Russia's provided logistics to NATO in Afghanistan, but they say NATO has never done anything meaningful in return

4. Training troops that fight Russia - that's something spanning from Soviets fighting in Afghanistan to Georgia, they aren't specific. But training Georgia troops and then having them shell Russian positions in South Ossetia is something that actually seems to have happened

Alexander Bach Artusov 25 May 2015 10:06

There was NO written agreement as I understand it.

True. Russians have never claimed there was a written agreement. They claim that was alluded in spoken words and they believed it as at that time they trusted the West much more than today. Anyway, today they don't use this issue as a justification of everything. They only give it as one example of the West's behaviour. There were many other things later on. So there's no point in focusing on this particular one. The fact is that today Russia has no trust towards the West whatsoever, not only because of the cheats, but mostly because the West continuously refuses to admit any Russia's interests.

Putin is KGB trained and probably shares some ideas of Russian expansion [ or perhaps not - who knows ? ]

I don't think so. Putin has given a hint a few times that he treats the ex-USSR splinters as a burden for Russia, so he prefers them to pay for themselves. Crimea is an easily explainable exclusion: 1) it's very Russian (full of Russians) 2) it's very pro-Russian (people there want to be in Russia) 3) it has very high strategic value (having it gives control over the whole Black Sea).

As per other regions (South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Novorossia), as you see Putin doesn't take them into Russia although he could apparently do so with ease.


Ieuan Tintenfische 25 May 2015 10:00

Tintenfische said: "As for Iran, well yes we did invade together with you, but the SHah had declared war on the UK"

If you're talking about 1941, no the Shah had not declared war on anybody. Iran had declared itself neutral.

The Brits used as their excuse for invasion that Iran was under Nazi domination and 'full of German advisers'. In turns out that the only Germans in the country were a couple of hundred employees of the German embassy, who had every right to be there.

The UK occupied the country until 1946.

Interestingly enough the Shah of 1941 had been supported by the UK in the 1920's when he was no more than a junior army officer and marched on Tehran to overthrow the new Iranian Parliament (There had been an Iranian constitutional revolution which had overthrown the current Shah and set up a democratic parliament).


Z'ing Sui AbsolutelyFapulous 25 May 2015 09:57

Would have been a great move 20-25 years ago, when Russians removed their boots from Europe, their people hailed western values and their politicians weren't former KGB. Now, with NATO disregarding Russia for 20 years basically just because Russia was too concerned with not falling apart to do anything about it, and Russians going on a rampage in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, with Putin having almost 90% ratings for opposing NATO, it's just too late.

Why would they trust NATO after all these years? I sure wouldn't, not until NATO undoes whatever Russians consider NATO's wrongdoings, which is not really possible too.

Z'ing Sui 25 May 2015 09:46

Almost every politician who was privy to the process of negotiations with the Russians or had anything to do with foreign policy towards USSR at the time has at least expressed sentiment that Russians would of course not expect NATO expansion and would consider it a hostile move after they've remove their troops from Europe.

A number of people confirm that the assurances were in fact given to the Russians, and here's a great article that actually relies on the documents of the time, and not on some ww1 history lessons

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/opinion/30sarotte.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

"What would Mr. Gorbachev demand in return? To learn the answer, Mr. Baker and Mr. Kohl journeyed to Moscow within a day of each other. On Feb. 9, 1990, Mr. Baker asked Mr. Gorbachev, "Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO's jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?"

Mr. Gorbachev, according to Mr. Baker, answered that "any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable." Their meeting ended without any final deals made. Mr. Baker left behind a secret letter, detailing what he had said, for Mr. Kohl in Moscow."
It seems clear that although Kohl obviously negotiated mostly concerning East Germany's future, Russians were talking about any sort of NATO expansion, into East Germany and otherwise, and Kohl and Baker at the very least, knew it when they made their assurances to the soviets.

Yes, there was no binding agreement, but Gorby's trust was obviously betrayed. "False memory syndrome" is what authors suffer from. You can't fight Putin's lies with lies of your own.


PixieFrouFrou Alexander Bach 25 May 2015 09:43

'In a recent atricle (8 of March 2015) the Guardian writes (see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/nato-is-misquoting-mikhail-gorbachev)'

The item you quote is a letter to the Guardian from a reader, not an article in the Guardian.


BradBenson Steely1 25 May 2015 08:43

Yes indeed. That was an excellent article which, although written six years ago, is more accurate and true to the facts than the above opinion piece.

These two authors want to blame something that happened at the beginning of the 20th Century for Russian mistrust of the West in the 21st. I would suggest that, if they want to go back that far in history to find a reason for Russian mistrust of the West, they should not overlook the Western MILITARY INTERVENTION in Russia during the civil war, which followed the revolution--to which US Military Units were also dispatched. Perhaps the Russian Memory is better than ours here in the West.


Ian56789 DHMeyer 25 May 2015 08:24

The Ukraine economy is in the midst of collapse - GDP fell by 17.6% in Q1.

This was the highly predictable outcome (as was the civil war) of the US engineered Coup in Kiev.

The IMF loans will do absolutely nothing to help Ukraine. They will go on bailing out Templeton, Soros and other US hedge funds that hold Ukraine debt (about $23bn in total).

The IMF loans will go on increasing military spending up from $1.5bn in 2013 to $3.8bn in 2015. A fair amount of it will be used on buying US made weapons (quelle surprise!).

A billion or so will go in the pockets of Poroshenko, Yatsenuk & other Ukrainian Oligarchs. Yatsenuk is already accused of embezzling $325m.

The IMF imposed "austerity" will further depress Ukraine's economy. Private fuel bills have increased by 300% and overall inflation is running at something like 60%.

The EU co-operation agreement was discussed at a meeting in Yalta in September 2013 attended by Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Poroshenko and representatives of the IMF, German and Russian foreign ministries.

It was later reported that Hillary Clinton had taken an $8m bribe from the host - Ukrainian Oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.


Susan O'neill alpamysh 25 May 2015 08:22

What an utterly ridiculous claim. The nazi Kiev regime has outlawed Russian speech, legal representation of Russian speaking peoples and the Lugansk and Donetsk peoples wanted to survive. They are fighting for their lives under an oppressive regime who has promised them suffering beyond belief. They asked to be recognized as a federation, which Putin has acknowledged but the US wants a deal on that "bread basket" land and will support the Kiev war in order to get it. This war is about power to those who have it and can wield it. The only "ideals" are those of the nazi ideology. There is real conviction on the part of the Donbass civilian population. It's called survival.

It was also later reported (in the Telegraph) that the EU trade agreement up for consideration would cost the Ukraine economy something like $160bn over 10 years, which was the reason that Yanukovich eventually rejected it.

You should also look into Kolomoyski, Burisma Holdings (Ukraine's largest private fracking company), Hunter Biden (son of VP Joe) and John Kerry's investments in Burisma through the Heinz Family Trusts.


hermanmitt 25 May 2015 08:06

Try asking yourself one question:
How many Russian 'military bases' are there around the globe?

It perhaps needs to be pointed out that, in reality, there is no such thing as NATO. NATO, as it exists, is merely the European military arm that enforces the current 'western occupation' by the U.S. Empire, which relies exclusively on its Military Industrial Complex to hold the empire together.

When you look at it in this way, to get the full picture, one needs to add into the mix all the other U.S. military bases around the globe, which tells you that the entire planet is held under a threat of U.S. aggression. It's the reason that U.S. military spending is more than the next 26 countries combined. A strategy first widely employed in the building and maintenance of the British Empire, this is really nothing more than an extension of 'gunboat diplomacy' - a global example of a military backed empire, but done in a more cover way.

The Russians may, diplomatically, be pointing out some very salient facts, for those of us who prefer the macro, as opposed to micro, view of the geo-political map.

Anyone who supports the current corrupt and disastrous, heavily Fascist orientated, regime in Kiev is no friend of Ukrainians, nor friends of Europe (or ordinary Americans).

Putin has repeatedly tried to have civilized discussions with the West and sought to de-escalate the situation at every opportunity. It just hasn't been reported in Western mainstream media - it has been reported in numerous Western alternative media outlets. Just about all of the Western alternative media directly contradicts the false Neocon propaganda pushed in Western Corporate media.


DHMeyer SHappens 25 May 2015 07:59

1. Expansion of NATO was the choice of the independent countries which applied to join the organisation. They wouldn't have done so if Russia was indeed a peaceful and helpful neighbour, but sorry, history of the region proves they are not interested in that sort of role.

2. Do you really believe that Russia wouldn't demand written guarantees "because it would have seemed indecent"? Since when Russian diplomats are sentimental fools and since when Russia is overly concerned with decency?

Steely1 25 May 2015 07:58

A real article on the subject: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html

[May 27, 2015] Ukraine is now problem for both Russian and West, but West managed to score several points against Russia and do it relatively cheaply

The West scored major geopolitical victory against Russia: As Paul said (see below): "My limited knowledge of the situation inside the Ukraine is that a lot of Ukrainians do blame Russia. Why not? That is what the TV says. It is very hard to get someone to admit he made a mistake."
Poor Ukrainian citizen. Poor Ukrainian pensioners existing on a $1 a day or less (with exchange rate around 26.5 hrivna per dollar, pension around 900 hrivna is around $1 per day. Some pensioners get less then that ( miserable 1500 hrivna per month considered to be "decent" pension and monthly salary 4000 hrivna is a "good" salary by Ukrainian standards).
The last thing EU wants is an additional stream of refugees from Ukraine escaping miserable salaries and lack of decently paying jobs and pressure of Ukrainian migrant workers on unqualified job market positions.... So far the main hit for this was not in Western but in Russian job market, but that may change. At the same time making the Ukraine enemy of Russia is a definitive geopolitical victory, achieved with relatively modest financial infusions (USA estimate is 5 billions, the EU is probably a half of that) and indirect support of Western Ukrainian nationalists.
One year ago there was a hope the Donetsk problem will be solved. Now in 2016 this civil war entered the third year -- Kiev government can't squash unrecognized Donetsk Republic with military force and it does not want to switch to federal state to accommodate their pretty modest demands: initially use of Russian language and reverse of "creeping cultural colonization" of this region by Western Ukraine. Initially the official language question was the one of the most important and Kiev Provisional government rejected Canadian variant of using the same language as its powerful, dominant neighbor and unleashed a civil war (with full blessing of the USA, which pursue "divide and conquer strategy in this region from the moment of dissolution of the USSR). Now after so much bloodshed the positions are hardened... Imagine that the Quebec nationalists came to power in Canada by French supported and financed coup, and instantly outlawed the English language for official usage and in schools and universities.
Notable quotes:
"... If you made a list of perhaps ten goals that powerful Western groups may have had in this Ukrainian project, how many have been achieved? ..."
"... That has surely been largely achieved. ..."
"... That has largely happened, as the TV says Russia stole the Crimea and is sending terrorists and bandits into the country. Look at all the banditry in the LPR. ..."
"... Finally, the bankruptcy and transfer of the country from Ukrainian oligarchs to Western corporations is about to begin. ..."
"... They surely screwed things up in the Ukraine over the last ten years. ..."
"... I'm afraid the West would like to start wars in multiple fronts at the same time making it very hard for Russia to respond. ..."
"... If the West could pull all this through at the same time Russia would be forced to either capitulate on most fronts or start a major war. Russia could not answer to these threats with conventional ways so the options for Russia would be to use nuclear weapons or accept a major geopolitical defeat. ..."
"... Georgia and Azerbaijan are not likely to cooperate, Ukraine's offensive capability is minimal, the Americans are not any more eager to attack Syria than they were two years ago, and the Islamist threat to Central Asia is presently contained. ..."
"... It has without doubt caused problems and will affect some Russian military effectiveness in the short term, but no. For example, though some products were actually made in the Ukraine, many of those businesses contracted out the production of components to Russia. ..."
"... True, but again a very short term achievement. ..."
"... NATO is not going to do anything apart from make as much noise and fearmaking as possible ..."
"... The American military industrial complex has screwed itself in a bid to make more money! Their space programs are not exactly brilliant either. ..."
"... [The transfer of property to Western corporations is] Almost inevitable, but there are several factors at play here. Western investors will have to deliver rather than just asset strip and run; domestic political repercussions will be huge at least in the medium to long term. ..."
"... Either way it is the West to whom the Ukrainian citizen will pay tribute, for a long long long time. ..."
"... All Russia needs to do is be fair and reasonable and step in at the right moment. ..."
"... As to Moscow screwing up the Ukraine over the last ten years, I think that may be a bit harsh. Sometimes the best option is to keep your hand out of the viper's nest and do nothing as much as possible, only intervening when critical. ..."
"... To be honest, Western foreign policy has rarely been panicked, but is always exploitative. If the opportunity arises, it will jump in having prepared the PPNN to scream that something must be done. ..."
"... No panic here. Just my opinion that the Kremlin needs to study how the ex-Soviet sphere has played out and deal with things like NGOs and educational, cultural, and media matters. ..."
"... As for my view that NATO wants to stress Russia, well, I suppose it comes down to your Weltanschauung. I think the US has to take Russia down to some degree, even if it is just smashing Syria. You aren't a superpower if someone can get away with things like grabbing the Crimea without paying a cost. Plus, Russia provides China with protection till China can develop a decent military. So the US has a limited amount of time before locking things up. Call it the Wolfowitz Doctrine if that is your preferred way of looking at it. ..."
"... If I am right that the US has to tie Russia up, the logical way is to create as many problems on the periphery as possible. ..."
"... I wouldn't take the problems with certain fighters to mean the US hasn't got great technology in its black projects. ..."
"... As for Ukrainians losing their anti-Russian religion, well, perhaps. But as long as Russia occupies the Crimea, that could take a long time. My bet is the anti-Russian sentiment will last a lot longer than the Ukraine does. ..."
"... Regardless of the think tanks, one thing the US can no longer ignore is their pocket. That's where to hit them. Even Osama Bin Laden understood this and was his primary goal to cause the US to over-extend itself politically & financially. ..."
"... The US want to do more but it can't do it the old expensive way – it has less means but it wants to achieve more. Something has to give. The US has barely started addressing the problem. That's even before we consider the move of some oil trading out of the US dollar. ..."
"... And what of the growing number of home grown jihadists that all NATO's wars have created? For all their support by western foreign policy to undermine Russia, it's a monster that will bite anyone and is increasingly looking at the West. As others have written before me, does the West want a reliable partner in Russia whilst it is under threat of jihadism or another big problem on their plate they can't quite manage? ..."
"... Western corporations will only plunder the country if they can get a return on their investment, and except in the case of what they can strip from it – like the black earth – and take away, that does not seem very likely to me. However, I would agree, and have done since some time ago, that the west's biggest success was turning Ukraine and Russia into enemies. ..."
"... NATO has not quite given up trying to turn Ukraine into a prosperous western democracy within its own orbit, but the enormity of the task and the hidden factors that make it so is beginning to dawn and enthusiasm in Europe is well on the wane, remaining strong only in Washington which does not have to do much of anything but manage. ..."
"... I think it is clear to Brussels and Washington that Moscow will see Ukraine destroyed and a failed state before it will allow it to be a NATO satellite snuggled up against its southwestern borders. ..."
"... NATO is running a steady propaganda campaign about Russian aggression, but I don't know how well that is actually selling outside Galicia, while it must be clear to a lot of Ukrainians what a failure the promise of western largesse was. ..."
"... My limited knowledge of the situation inside the Ukraine is that a lot of Ukrainians do blame Russia. Why not? That is what the TV says. It is very hard to get someone to admit he made a mistake. ..."
"... My main point in rubbing the west's nose around in it is not that they have conclusively lost, because it is indeed early days to make such a judgement, but that it has not won easily as it bragged it would do. ..."
"... The west does a poor job of managing expectations generally, and it has done abysmally this time around. It has no intention of curbing oligarchs in Ukraine and little interest beyond lip service in genuine reform in Ukraine. For their part, Europe should proceed cautiously with plans to integrate Ukraine more closely, because it is plain that the interest of Ukraine's oligarchs in such a course is to broaden their opportunities for stealing and increasing their wealth. ..."
"... There are plenty of opportunities for the west to steal Ukraine blind, but few that involve a product or entity that the west can buy, remove and sell somewhere else. ..."
"... The Trade Union Building on maidan square was found to be full of the burned remains of Berkut prisoners chained to the batteries and pipes after right sector set the building on fire. The Berkut were burned alive, left to their fate in the very two floors that right sector called their own during the maidan debacle. ..."
"... The Trade Union Building in Odessa also had people burned alive, the total death toll there was almost 300. The sub basement was a charnel house of corpses including women and children ..."
"... Over 200 citizens were killed in Mariupol the following weekend, shot down or burned to death in Militsiya HQ. In this incident at least a few of the perpetrators were destroyed in an ambush by Opolchensya as Opelchensya were leaving the city, ordered out as they were too few to defend the berg. ..."
"... To expand on the documentations a tiny bit, do you think all those artillerists who when captured to a man scream that they did not know they were bombarding and killing thousands of our civilians are believed? Not hardly. They knowingly committed crimes and they will pay for their crimes. ..."
"... Auslander is living in a denial. The perps of these crimes will never face any punishment because there is nobody to carry out such punishments. Novorossiya is a tiny portion of Ukraine and the rest is ruled by the Kiev thugs. Novorossiya can never reach the criminals there. ..."
"... Well, in their lifetime anyway. Russia will not invade and Novorossiya is currently limited to defending their land against Kiev attacks unable to even liberate Sloviasnk and Mariupol. And it would be against the nature of Russia (or NAF) to send partizans to kill the perps in Kiev or Lvov. Russians simply do not behave that way nowadays. ..."
"... I wonder if he has any substantiation for those numbers. Some sources have always said that hundreds more died in the Trade Unions building in Odessa than were ever officially acknowledged, but I don't recall hearing about anyone dying in the Trade Unions building on Maidan, and I thought the death toll in Mariupol was just a few police (not to make it sound like that's nothing) rather than hundreds. And I follow the situation in Ukraine fairly closely – this would not even register on those who get all their news from CNN. ..."
"... Actually it was my net-acquaintances from Serbia and Bulgaria who were arguing with each other who is more deserving the title of "niggers of Europe". Serbian guy was winning, using the ultimate proof that Tupak is alive in Serbia ..."
"... The election of Poland's new president spells big problems for Ukraine. The issue is "de-heroization" of OUN-UPA militants whom Ukraine just recently granted the status of the liberators of Europe from fascism. But unlike Komorowski, who forgave the Ukrainian heroes the Volhyn Massacre in which the Banderites slaughtered over 200 thousand Poles, the conservative Duda does not intend to sacrifice his principles. ..."
"... This is so. A state must have myth and Ukraine has already rejected the Soviet myth. Junk the Bandera myth as well, and what is left? 'Slava Ukraini' hasn't been brilliantly effective in motivating Ukrainians to fight, but would they have done better with a slogan like 'for the preservation of ill-gotten capital!'? ..."
May 26, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Paul, May 25, 2015 at 11:49 pm

The premise that the West must be losing is a bit simplistic. If you made a list of perhaps ten goals that powerful Western groups may have had in this Ukrainian project, how many have been achieved?
  • For example, one goal was to destroy businesses (and the military-industrial complex) that were oriented towards Russia. That has surely been largely achieved.
  • Another goal was to radicalize the Ukrainian population against Russia. That has largely happened, as the TV says Russia stole the Crimea and is sending terrorists and bandits into the country. Look at all the banditry in the LPR.
  • Another goal was to stress the Russian military with having to respond to too many problems in a short period of time, which may be relevant if and when the West hits on several fronts at once.
  • Finally, the bankruptcy and transfer of the country from Ukrainian oligarchs to Western corporations is about to begin. Doubt Russia can stop that.

Not denying that Putin and his circle have survived, and that the Russian economy is in better shape than most expected, but we should try to think long and hard about the pros and cons of the Kremlin's approaches.

They surely screwed things up in the Ukraine over the last ten years. Approximately zero soft power in a place that it should have been straightforward to create.

People have been writing novels and articles for a long time about how the West could gin up a war in the Ukraine to start an attack on Russia or otherwise break the establishment in Moscow. It was fairly obvious.

karl1haushofer, May 26, 2015 at 2:02 am
I'm afraid the West would like to start wars in multiple fronts at the same time making it very hard for Russia to respond.
  • Kiev would start a major offensive against Donetsk and Lugansk.
  • Transdnistria is currently blockaded by Moldova and Ukraine with no food supplies allowed to pass. Moldovan military operation might follow and Russia would be mostly unable to respond by other means than missile strikes against Moldova – which Russia under extremely cautious Putin would never do.
  • Azerbaijan would launch an offensive against Armenia in Nagarno-Karabakh. Russia lacks common border with Armenia so Russia's options would again be limited.
  • Albanian proxies, supported and trained by the West, would start military and terrorist attacks against Macedonian authorities.
  • NATO would start to bomb Syrian military and capital to oust and kill Assad.
  • Georgia might start another military operation against South Ossetia in parallel with others if it thinks Russia is too preoccupied to respond.
  • NATO-funded and -trained Islamic militants would attack authorities in Central Asian countries like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

If the West could pull all this through at the same time Russia would be forced to either capitulate on most fronts or start a major war. Russia could not answer to these threats with conventional ways so the options for Russia would be to use nuclear weapons or accept a major geopolitical defeat.

Pavlo Svolochenko, May 26, 2015 at 2:17 am
Yes, 'If'.
  • Georgia and Azerbaijan are not likely to cooperate, Ukraine's offensive capability is minimal, the Americans are not any more eager to attack Syria than they were two years ago, and the Islamist threat to Central Asia is presently contained.
  • The Moldovan army is not capable of defeating Transdnistria by itself, so victory would require NATO troops to join in the attack. And if it comes to the point where NATO is willing to directly assault Russian forces, then there's no reason to hold back anyway.
et Al , May 26, 2015 at 6:12 am
Here's my take for what it is worth:

The West plays the short game, so initially it may look like they have achieved much, much like their foreign policy successes at first, which then turn out to be disasters with the West reduced to firefighting.

1: ..destroy businesses (and the military-industrial complex) that were oriented towards Russia. This has not succeeded. It has without doubt caused problems and will affect some Russian military effectiveness in the short term, but no. For example, though some products were actually made in the Ukraine, many of those businesses contracted out the production of components to Russia.

2: ..radicalize the Ukrainian population against Russia. True, but again a very short term achievement. Food on plates and jobs don't grow on trees. What we do have is the ones in the middle who gravitated to the traditional Russophobes, aka swing voters, but things are only going to get worse in the Ukraine and the Nazi junta cannot deliver. Those swing voter will swing the other way, not a Russia love in, but a pragmatic middle ground. That is where they started.

3: Another goal was to stress the Russian military..What evidence is there of this? Apart from quite a number of massive snap military exercises that Russia has pulled off and impressed even the Russo-skeptic military crowd at RUSI and other MIX fronts, it is quite efficient to fly 50 year old Tu-95 bombers around Europe wearing out expensive western military equipment that will need to be replaced much sooner now than later. All those austerity plans that call for holding off on major defense spending in Europe are messed up. Money going in to weapons is money going away from jobs and the economy. Ukraine's rocket cooperation with Brazil is dead (now switched to Russia) and also with other partners. So far the US has not actively banned commercial satellites from being launched from Russian rockets, but the US cannot get its billion dollar spy sats in to space without Russian rocket engines. No-one has yet pulled the plug

NATO is not going to do anything apart from make as much noise and fearmaking as possible. It's one thing to scream and shout, its another to drop their trousers. It is quite the paper tiger. The USAF is set to rapidly shrink according to their own admission. The F-35 is designed to replace 5 aircraft – hubris or what? The F-15, F16, AV-8B, A-10 & the F-18. It's a pig of an aircraft that will perform those missions worse, in most cases, than those designed in the late 1960s early 1970s. The American military industrial complex has screwed itself in a bid to make more money! Their space programs are not exactly brilliant either.

4: the bankruptcy and transfer of the country from Ukrainian oligarchs to Western corporations is about to begin. [The transfer of property to Western corporations is] Almost inevitable, but there are several factors at play here. Western investors will have to deliver rather than just asset strip and run; domestic political repercussions will be huge at least in the medium to long term.

This is exactly what almost happened to Russia and then look how things turned out. Ukraine is of course a different case and the West will certainly try and manage it to their advantage, but it won't work if it is not for sustained profit. Either way it is the West to whom the Ukrainian citizen will pay tribute, for a long long long time. This is long before we throw any legal questions in to the mix. Whoever is in power now will pay the political price in future sooner or later. All Russia needs to do is be fair and reasonable and step in at the right moment.

As to Moscow screwing up the Ukraine over the last ten years, I think that may be a bit harsh. Sometimes the best option is to keep your hand out of the viper's nest and do nothing as much as possible, only intervening when critical.

Part of the problem with western politics and the Pork Pie News Networks of the last 25 years is the we must do something now mentality. Let's put it this way, you go in to hospital for a non-critical undiagnosed condition. Would you a) want to have the tests done and the best course of action chosen with your consent, or b) panic & be rushed to the operating theater so that they can just have a look around?

To be honest, Western foreign policy has rarely been panicked, but is always exploitative. If the opportunity arises, it will jump in having prepared the PPNN to scream that something must be done.

In short, as it is written on the cover of the good book, DON'T PANIC!

Paul, May 26, 2015 at 8:37 am
No panic here. Just my opinion that the Kremlin needs to study how the ex-Soviet sphere has played out and deal with things like NGOs and educational, cultural, and media matters. The science of mind manipulation has made great progress over the last century. It is a big mistake to just deal on an oligarchic level. Ukrainians have a legitimate gripe that their country is insanely corrupt and they can easily blame Moscow. That being the case, measures needed to be taken. And not creating any semblance of a pro-Russian political or intellectual class was similarly stupid.

As for my view that NATO wants to stress Russia, well, I suppose it comes down to your Weltanschauung. I think the US has to take Russia down to some degree, even if it is just smashing Syria. You aren't a superpower if someone can get away with things like grabbing the Crimea without paying a cost. Plus, Russia provides China with protection till China can develop a decent military. So the US has a limited amount of time before locking things up. Call it the Wolfowitz Doctrine if that is your preferred way of looking at it.

If I am right that the US has to tie Russia up, the logical way is to create as many problems on the periphery as possible. Could be Georgia; could be Central Asia; could be Transnistria. What would be your advice to those in US think tanks who are trying to keep domination of the world? What would be a good strategy? And, for what it is worth, I wouldn't take the problems with certain fighters to mean the US hasn't got great technology in its black projects. That is where all the money and technology have gone for the last 30 years. Do you really think the US would struggle to get to the Moon now and did it in 1969? Be serious – all technology is tremendously better today.

As for Ukrainians losing their anti-Russian religion, well, perhaps. But as long as Russia occupies the Crimea, that could take a long time. My bet is the anti-Russian sentiment will last a lot longer than the Ukraine does.

et Al, May 26, 2015 at 9:35 am
Regardless of the think tanks, one thing the US can no longer ignore is their pocket. That's where to hit them. Even Osama Bin Laden understood this and was his primary goal to cause the US to over-extend itself politically & financially.

The US want to do more but it can't do it the old expensive way – it has less means but it wants to achieve more. Something has to give. The US has barely started addressing the problem. That's even before we consider the move of some oil trading out of the US dollar.

And what of the growing number of home grown jihadists that all NATO's wars have created? For all their support by western foreign policy to undermine Russia, it's a monster that will bite anyone and is increasingly looking at the West. As others have written before me, does the West want a reliable partner in Russia whilst it is under threat of jihadism or another big problem on their plate they can't quite manage?

I have no doubt that the US has been trying to tie up Russia, but it is just more frenetic than before, the main planks of NATO enlargement (and weakening) resolved, but the rest has gone a bit wrong. The West is growing increasingly desperate and is trying all sorts of things to undermine Russia, but it could be much, much worse from a sanctions point of view. Level heads in the West understand that trying to pull the rug out completely from under Russia is a massive risk and one they are very careful in making.

As for their wonder-weapons, the US cannot afford enough of them or make them cheap enough for their allies to buy in sufficient numbers. It is much easier and cheaper to upgrade the sensors and missiles on a SAM system than to design and bring to production standard a brand new wonder-weapon. The old days of easily blinding air-defenses are almost over when you can have a lot of cheap distributed sensors providing the information, passively & actively. The countermeasure is a lot cheaper.

In al, Money Money Money – and every passing day the US has less to leverage and has to spread it far and wide:

marknesop, May 26, 2015 at 7:38 am
Western corporations will only plunder the country if they can get a return on their investment, and except in the case of what they can strip from it – like the black earth – and take away, that does not seem very likely to me. However, I would agree, and have done since some time ago, that the west's biggest success was turning Ukraine and Russia into enemies.

NATO has not quite given up trying to turn Ukraine into a prosperous western democracy within its own orbit, but the enormity of the task and the hidden factors that make it so is beginning to dawn and enthusiasm in Europe is well on the wane, remaining strong only in Washington which does not have to do much of anything but manage.

I think it is clear to Brussels and Washington that Moscow will see Ukraine destroyed and a failed state before it will allow it to be a NATO satellite snuggled up against its southwestern borders. The part that NATO is having trouble with is getting Russia to destroy it, so that it will be in the minds of Ukrainians for generations who did this to them.

NATO is running a steady propaganda campaign about Russian aggression, but I don't know how well that is actually selling outside Galicia, while it must be clear to a lot of Ukrainians what a failure the promise of western largesse was.

Paul, May 26, 2015 at 8:20 am
That's all reasonable, though it is hard to believe that there isn't a lot more than just some black earth to expropriate.

My limited knowledge of the situation inside the Ukraine is that a lot of Ukrainians do blame Russia. Why not? That is what the TV says. It is very hard to get someone to admit he made a mistake.

marknesop, May 26, 2015 at 10:17 am
That's true enough, and it appears there has always been a certain amount of hostility to Russia west of the Dneipr, so they perhaps did not need too much coaxing. My main point in rubbing the west's nose around in it is not that they have conclusively lost, because it is indeed early days to make such a judgement, but that it has not won easily as it bragged it would do.

The country it said it would confidently bat aside in its confident stroll to victory has not only weathered western attempts to crush its economy and put in place safeguards which will hurt western business opportunities in future, it has strengthened a powerful alliance with Asia and garnered considerable international sympathy, which implies increased hostility toward the west. Meanwhile, the country the west bragged it would snatch from Russia's orbit and make a model of a prosperous western democracy is miserable, poor and angry.

The west does a poor job of managing expectations generally, and it has done abysmally this time around. It has no intention of curbing oligarchs in Ukraine and little interest beyond lip service in genuine reform in Ukraine. For their part, Europe should proceed cautiously with plans to integrate Ukraine more closely, because it is plain that the interest of Ukraine's oligarchs in such a course is to broaden their opportunities for stealing and increasing their wealth.

There are plenty of opportunities for the west to steal Ukraine blind, but few that involve a product or entity that the west can buy, remove and sell somewhere else. Many such opportunities rely on western interests taking over Ukrainian businesses and asset-stripping them like crazy; however, the main buyer in many cases would be Russia, which has no interest in making western businesses rich, or other western buyers who would have to take over and run a Ukrainian business in a very uncertain environment in which its biggest market is Russia.

Pavlo Svolochenko, May 26, 2015 at 1:57 am

A copypaste from Auslander (formelry of MPnet), originally from Saker's blog:

"This is not the first time such atrocities [the mutilated rebel prisoner] have happened in this conflict and it will not be the last.

The Trade Union Building on maidan square was found to be full of the burned remains of Berkut prisoners chained to the batteries and pipes after right sector set the building on fire. The Berkut were burned alive, left to their fate in the very two floors that right sector called their own during the maidan debacle.

The Trade Union Building in Odessa also had people burned alive, the total death toll there was almost 300. The sub basement was a charnel house of corpses including women and children. I know the official death toll and I know the real death toll. We also lost a friend in that atrocity, not in the building but at the far end of the square, beaten to death because he was walking home from work at the wrong place and the wrong time. Why was he beaten to death? He had a speech impediment and when he got nervous he literally could not talk. Since he could not say 'salo yucrane' 5 right sector boys beat him to death in broad daylight.

Over 200 citizens were killed in Mariupol the following weekend, shot down or burned to death in Militsiya HQ. In this incident at least a few of the perpetrators were destroyed in an ambush by Opolchensya as Opelchensya were leaving the city, ordered out as they were too few to defend the berg.

The killings of innocents and not so innocents have been ongoing since the beginning and well before the beginning of the conflict that let to what is now Novorossiya. One can not morally justify killing all the UAF because of the acts of a relative few, but you can rest assured that documentations are being kept for all who can be identified as committing either individual or mass atrocities.

To expand on the documentations a tiny bit, do you think all those artillerists who when captured to a man scream that they did not know they were bombarding and killing thousands of our civilians are believed? Not hardly. They knowingly committed crimes and they will pay for their crimes. Do you think all those 'people' who commit atrocities and then post photos of the atrocities and openly brag about them on social media will walk away unscathed? Again, no hardly. Do you think we don't know who was and is abducting young women and even
girl children for their use and then killed and discarded them like less than animals? They are known.

I can go on for reams but you get the idea. These are crimes being committed by a relative few of UAF, and for the record anyone fighting for Ukraine against Novorossiya is a member of UAF, their military unit does not matter. In the end justice will be done, by the law and with due legal process where possible. Where not possible, justice will still be done. Justice, like revenge, is a dish best served cold.

As for those few of you who are still aghast at the total and deafening silence from USEU over these ongoing atrocities and crimes, I urge you to forget any chance of anything being said about we untermenschen being slaughtered by those civilized denizens of USEU. It is not going to happen so stop complaining about it. Never forget, never forgive, always remember, but don't complain, it's useless."

karl1haushofer, May 26, 2015 at 2:07 am
Auslander is living in a denial. The perps of these crimes will never face any punishment because there is nobody to carry out such punishments. Novorossiya is a tiny portion of Ukraine and the rest is ruled by the Kiev thugs. Novorossiya can never reach the criminals there.
Pavlo Svolochenko, May 26, 2015 at 2:11 am
Never is a strong word.
karl1haushofer , May 26, 2015 at 2:22 am
Well, in their lifetime anyway. Russia will not invade and Novorossiya is currently limited to defending their land against Kiev attacks unable to even liberate Sloviasnk and Mariupol. And it would be against the nature of Russia (or NAF) to send partizans to kill the perps in Kiev or Lvov. Russians simply do not behave that way nowadays.
kat kan, May 26, 2015 at 4:54 am
He says "In the end justice will be done, by the law and with due legal process where possible. Where not possible, justice will still be done. Justice, like revenge, is a dish best served cold."

I do believe various people involved in Odessa have disappeared – or turned up. Dead. Some have had to go to ground. Some have "died" under unbelievable circumstances, but their new name will probably still have the same face. The biggest obstacle will be all this wearing of masks, but with more recent atrocities, where they are garrisoned in the cities for months, they'd be known anyway..

The spirit of Novorossiya will be expanding (not yet). Things may slowly go back towards normal. But fully normal it can never be, while murderers and torturers walk free by the hundreds. It is going to be a very long headache for Ukraine.

marknesop , May 26, 2015 at 7:45 am
I wonder if he has any substantiation for those numbers. Some sources have always said that hundreds more died in the Trade Unions building in Odessa than were ever officially acknowledged, but I don't recall hearing about anyone dying in the Trade Unions building on Maidan, and I thought the death toll in Mariupol was just a few police (not to make it sound like that's nothing) rather than hundreds. And I follow the situation in Ukraine fairly closely – this would not even register on those who get all their news from CNN.
Moscow Exile, May 26, 2015 at 6:02 am
From the Brain-Dead Centre of the International Community:

Some comments:

  • – russians are very friendly people this story is all fake
  • – Yeah! And we'll kill anyone who disagrees!
  • – Russians ARE the blacks of europe. (no offense to russians, blacks, or eurpeans ofc)
  • – The scariest white people are Americans who make fictional Russian accents
Lyttenburgh, May 26, 2015 at 12:27 pm
Actually it was my net-acquaintances from Serbia and Bulgaria who were arguing with each other who is more deserving the title of "niggers of Europe". Serbian guy was winning, using the ultimate proof that Tupak is alive in Serbia
Tim Owen, May 26, 2015 at 2:03 pm
Yeah that's laughable. On the other hand

The election of Poland's new president spells big problems for Ukraine. The issue is "de-heroization" of OUN-UPA militants whom Ukraine just recently granted the status of the liberators of Europe from fascism. But unlike Komorowski, who forgave the Ukrainian heroes the Volhyn Massacre in which the Banderites slaughtered over 200 thousand Poles, the conservative Duda does not intend to sacrifice his principles.

http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/05/polands-new-president-demands-ukraine.html

Of course J Hawk's take is probably on the money. J.Hawk's Comment:

Not so fast. I'm not so sure that Duda wants to do any of the things described above. One of the major reasons Duda won is the defection of the rural voters, whose average income declined by 14% in 2014 in large measure due to Russian food embargo. Since Duda knows on which side his bread is buttered (no pun intended), deep down he also realizes the importance of that embargo lifting. His UPA criticism may well be only an excuse, a pretext to allow himself to maneuver out of his election campaign pro-Ukraine position while saving face. Because, ultimately, what is the likelihood that the Rada will actually pass a law that "de-heroizes" UPA to a sufficient degree? And even if it does, will Bandera monuments start disappearing from Lvov and other parts of Western Ukraine?

Pavlo Svolochenko, May 26, 2015 at 2:19 pm
This is so. A state must have myth and Ukraine has already rejected the Soviet myth. Junk the Bandera myth as well, and what is left? 'Slava Ukraini' hasn't been brilliantly effective in motivating Ukrainians to fight, but would they have done better with a slogan like 'for the preservation of ill-gotten capital!'?

[May 25, 2015] Andrzej Duda victory in Polish presidential election signals shift to right

Notable quotes:
"... The changing political mood could signal a return to power of Duda's conservative Law and Justice party in parliamentary elections this autumn. That would cement Poland's turn to the right, create a new dynamic with other European countries and possibly usher in a less welcoming climate for foreign investors. ..."
"... Duda says he wants new taxes on the foreign-owned banks and supermarkets to protect Polish interests, suggesting an approach similar to that of Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán. He also wants banks returned to Polish control. ..."
"... Party supporters have been rejoicing since Duda's apparent victory was announced late on Sunday. They say the party will do much more to help the many Poles who have not benefited from the country's economic growth, those who face low wages and job insecurity despite a quarter of a century of growth. In his campaign speeches, Duda often spoke of the more than 2 million Poles who left in the past decade to seek better economic opportunities abroad. ..."
www.theguardian.com

The changing political mood could signal a return to power of Duda's conservative Law and Justice party in parliamentary elections this autumn. That would cement Poland's turn to the right, create a new dynamic with other European countries and possibly usher in a less welcoming climate for foreign investors.

Law and Justice presents itself as a protector of those who have not benefited from the capitalist transformation and as a defender of national interests abroad. It is staunchly pro-US, but has a sometimes defiant stance towards other European partners, which has created tensions in the past with the EU and neighbouring Germany.

Duda says he wants new taxes on the foreign-owned banks and supermarkets to protect Polish interests, suggesting an approach similar to that of Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán. He also wants banks returned to Polish control.

Jacek Kucharczyk, president of the Institute of Public Affairs, an independent thinktank in Warsaw, said Poland's relations with other European powers would now depend on whether Duda sticks to the relatively moderate agenda he campaigned on or embraces his party leader's more combative foreign policy stance.

"That would be a nightmare scenario for Polish foreign policy, because it would mean getting into conflicts with Germany and anti-EU stunts and aggressive rhetoric towards Russia," Kucharczyk said. "We are in for a bumpy ride. The only question is how bumpy it will be."

Party supporters have been rejoicing since Duda's apparent victory was announced late on Sunday. They say the party will do much more to help the many Poles who have not benefited from the country's economic growth, those who face low wages and job insecurity despite a quarter of a century of growth. In his campaign speeches, Duda often spoke of the more than 2 million Poles who left in the past decade to seek better economic opportunities abroad.

[May 24, 2015]Problems he face are becoming less and less managable for the Chocolate King

tasnimnews.com

...Now Poroshenko clearly understands that his country plays virtually no role, neither in the EU nor NATO. Meanwhile, it becomes clear the future of the Eurozone. So far as the state is not able to become an EU member, the prospect of accession to EU and adopting common currency is very elusive. In other words, Western countries have excommunicated Ukraine from all associations to which she had once dreamed of entering.

The fact is that the West is using Ukraine for their own geostrategic purposes, and the events taking place in this country, created great economic hardships for Ukrainian people, hardships that increase with each day. Flirting by opponents of Yanukovych with the United States, NATO and the European Union caused a protracted crisis in the country, the conflict with Russia, the growth of separatist movements in the East, armed clashes, mass death of Ukrainian citizens and the reduction of GDP. However, Ukraine failed to achieve membership in NATO and the EU. In other words, the cooperation of the Pro-Western Ukrainian politicians with the two organizations turned into a complete fiasco.

In such conditions Poroshenko should be extremely concerned about his future and the future of his government. It is quite obvious that in the event of any military conflict between Russia and Ukraine NATO command, not having taken any formal obligations in respect of Kiev, will not directly participate. They will only watch the fall of Kiev from the sidelines. By the way, exactly the same thing happened in Georgia in 2008.

Then Mikhail Saakashvili stated that in the event of a military conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi, NATO members will immediately defend Georgia. During the clashes, the representatives of the Alliance really has condemned Russia's position, however, refrained from starting a direct confrontation with her. In the end, Saakashvili raised the white flag, admitting complete defeat in the Ossetian front.

If we return to the situation in Ukraine, we can say that now Poroshenko has lost the ability even in the slightest degree to analyze the events occurring in his country. Aggravates the current situation is that the White House and NATO have exploited weak Ukrainian government. The fact that the West is using Ukraine for their own purposes, and the events taking place in this country, created the conditions for Kiev to dteriarate ecomonically and politically with weach day.

To date, the results of flirting opponents of Yanukovych with the United States, NATO and the European Union caused a protracted crisis in the country, led to the conflict with Russia, the growth of separatist movements in the East, armed clashes, mass death of Ukrainian citizens and the alarming reduction of GDP. However, Ukraine failed to achieve membership in NATO and the EU. The cooperation of the Pro-Western Ukrainian politicians with those two organizations turned into a complete fiasco.

[May 23, 2015] Ukraines Bloody Civil War No End in Sight

Notable quotes:
"... is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security. ..."
Mar 31, 2015 | The National Interest

The OSCE reported that the main railway station in the city was shelled on March 25, and a visit to it the day after showed that to be so. Rebel tanks could be seen participating in exercises on the rural outskirts of Donetsk on the 26th. The sound of sporadic artillery fire could be heard in the city's centrally located Leninsky District well into the early hours of the 27th.


The mood among many in Donetsk-noncombatants as well as rebel fighters who comprise what is known as the Army of Novorossiya-indicates little interest in a rapprochement with Kiev. This is, given the conditions of the city after nearly a full year of war, rather understandable. Many bitterly complain of Kiev's chosen moniker for the military campaign it is waging against the separatist fighters, the "Anti-Terrorist Operation." Ordinary citizens and combatants alike view it as an attempt to dehumanize them as a whole by grouping the entire population of the region in with likes of ISIS.

Interactions with several rebel rank-and-files and a briefing from two rebel officers reveal even less of an appetite for a way back into the Ukrainian fold. As one senior officer put it: "Ukraine is dead. It was killed on May 2 in Odessa." Questions regarding Russian involvement were met with scoffs-though one did admit that "[their] Russian brothers" did provide food supplies to the area.

... ... ...

Interestingly, the rebels seem to have a similar mindset to those U.S. Congressmen who overwhelmingly voted to supply Kiev with lethal military aid last week: that the remilitarization of the conflict is simply inevitable. One rebel commander said that he expects Kiev to launch a new major offensive "within a week" and added, matter-of-factly: "We are ready." And ready, he claims, for the long haul.

... ... ...

Yet it seems that the Washington establishment's (though, interestingly, it seems not the president's) preferred policy choice is to send lethal aid to Kiev because it is believed, no doubt sincerely, that a supply of javelin anti-tank missiles will somehow increase the number of Russian fatalities to such an extent that public opinion would turn against Putin-thereby forcing him to back down.

This is nothing more than a fantasy dressed up as a strategy because it attributes little to no agency on the part of the rebel fighters or, for that matter, the area's noncombatants. The simple, undeniable fact is that even if Russia was to be persuaded-via sanctions or via a significant uptick in military casualties - to wash its hands of the region, there is almost no chance that the indigenous military forces in the region would simply melt away. What is continuing to unfold in the Donbass - despite repeated protestations from Kiev's representatives in Washington - is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security.

James Carden is a contributing editor for The National Interest.

Igor

Wow! Who is allowed to publish this article in the Western free press? Who allowed the journalist of National Interest go to Moscow and to Donetsk!? And what about the story about invisible Russian army? :-))) James Carden is real hero! :-))) Western press need 1 year for understanding of simple things...

Imba > Igor

Psst, don't scare them with your sarcasm. I'm sure author feels like a pioneer on Wild West, while writing such articles. You can scare him away and we will have to read again dull and boring articles about invasions, annexation, tattered economy, moscovites eating hedgehogs and so on.
Please respect him ;)

Dima Lauri > Imba

I am sure authors who does not accept the version of Washington will be soon labeled by "Putin troll", "Payed KGB agent", "Drunk/Stupid" or whatever verbal distortion.

folktruther

a good article for a change. the Ukraine coup engineered by Washington was the worst event of Obama's administration, and may perhaps turn out to be worse that Bush jr's invasion of Iraq. Washington simply wants a war, cold or hot, to disconnect Europe from Russia. hopefully Europe, especially Germany and france, will rebel against Washington policy like they did the Chinese bank, averting a war among nuclear powers. but the issue is currently in doubt.

[May 23, 2015] Ukraines Bloody Civil War No End in Sight

Notable quotes:
"... is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security. ..."
Mar 31, 2015 | The National Interest

The OSCE reported that the main railway station in the city was shelled on March 25, and a visit to it the day after showed that to be so. Rebel tanks could be seen participating in exercises on the rural outskirts of Donetsk on the 26th. The sound of sporadic artillery fire could be heard in the city's centrally located Leninsky District well into the early hours of the 27th.


The mood among many in Donetsk-noncombatants as well as rebel fighters who comprise what is known as the Army of Novorossiya-indicates little interest in a rapprochement with Kiev. This is, given the conditions of the city after nearly a full year of war, rather understandable. Many bitterly complain of Kiev's chosen moniker for the military campaign it is waging against the separatist fighters, the "Anti-Terrorist Operation." Ordinary citizens and combatants alike view it as an attempt to dehumanize them as a whole by grouping the entire population of the region in with likes of ISIS.

Interactions with several rebel rank-and-files and a briefing from two rebel officers reveal even less of an appetite for a way back into the Ukrainian fold. As one senior officer put it: "Ukraine is dead. It was killed on May 2 in Odessa." Questions regarding Russian involvement were met with scoffs-though one did admit that "[their] Russian brothers" did provide food supplies to the area.

... ... ...

Interestingly, the rebels seem to have a similar mindset to those U.S. Congressmen who overwhelmingly voted to supply Kiev with lethal military aid last week: that the remilitarization of the conflict is simply inevitable. One rebel commander said that he expects Kiev to launch a new major offensive "within a week" and added, matter-of-factly: "We are ready." And ready, he claims, for the long haul.

... ... ...

Yet it seems that the Washington establishment's (though, interestingly, it seems not the president's) preferred policy choice is to send lethal aid to Kiev because it is believed, no doubt sincerely, that a supply of javelin anti-tank missiles will somehow increase the number of Russian fatalities to such an extent that public opinion would turn against Putin-thereby forcing him to back down.

This is nothing more than a fantasy dressed up as a strategy because it attributes little to no agency on the part of the rebel fighters or, for that matter, the area's noncombatants. The simple, undeniable fact is that even if Russia was to be persuaded-via sanctions or via a significant uptick in military casualties - to wash its hands of the region, there is almost no chance that the indigenous military forces in the region would simply melt away. What is continuing to unfold in the Donbass - despite repeated protestations from Kiev's representatives in Washington - is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security.

James Carden is a contributing editor for The National Interest.

Igor

Wow! Who is allowed to publish this article in the Western free press? Who allowed the journalist of National Interest go to Moscow and to Donetsk!? And what about the story about invisible Russian army? :-))) James Carden is real hero! :-))) Western press need 1 year for understanding of simple things...

Imba > Igor

Psst, don't scare them with your sarcasm. I'm sure author feels like a pioneer on Wild West, while writing such articles. You can scare him away and we will have to read again dull and boring articles about invasions, annexation, tattered economy, moscovites eating hedgehogs and so on.
Please respect him ;)

Dima Lauri > Imba

I am sure authors who does not accept the version of Washington will be soon labeled by "Putin troll", "Payed KGB agent", "Drunk/Stupid" or whatever verbal distortion.

folktruther

a good article for a change. the Ukraine coup engineered by Washington was the worst event of Obama's administration, and may perhaps turn out to be worse that Bush jr's invasion of Iraq. Washington simply wants a war, cold or hot, to disconnect Europe from Russia. hopefully Europe, especially Germany and france, will rebel against Washington policy like they did the Chinese bank, averting a war among nuclear powers. but the issue is currently in doubt.

[May 23, 2015] L. TODD WOOD Russia still angry about Serbia

The NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia is the genesis of Mr. Putin's power. This article is not meant to comment on the morality or appropriateness of NATO's actions, only the consequences within Russia.
May 22, 2015 | Washington Times
L. Todd Wood - - Friday, May 22, 2015

The West frequently asks itself, "Why is Russian President Vladimir Putin so popular? He has harmed their economy. He has stifled the free press. He has destroyed the political opposition. We don't get it." Anyone asking this question exposes themselves to the criticism of short term thinking and a lack of appreciation, or ignorance, of history, even though the root cause of Mr. Putin's popularity happened only 16 years ago.

The NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia is the genesis of Mr. Putin's power. This article is not meant to comment on the morality or appropriateness of NATO's actions, only the consequences within Russia. Slobodan Milošević presided over a reign of terror in several of the Yugoslav provinces; that is a fact. He used mass media to delegitimize certain ethnic groups and accused them of fascist tendencies, setting up justification for military action. Sound familiar? He turned a blind eye to genocide, especially in Kosovo, and supported ethnic cleansing of Kosovo for Serbia. He was eventually extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and died in prison of a heart attack before the trial was concluded in 2006. In 1999, NATO initiated a 2-1/2-month-long, high-altitude bombing campaign of Serb military targets in Kosovo in an attempt to halt the Serbian ethnic cleansing and mass killings of non-Serbs in the region.

However, under President Boris Yeltsin, Russia vehemently opposed NATO's actions. In fact, Russia vetoed approval for NATO intervention at the U.N. Security Council, to no avail. The Kosovo campaign was the first time NATO had acted unilaterally without U.N. approval. Mr. Yeltsin even leaked that he had ordered Russian Strategic Rocket Forces to retarget their missiles against countries that were involved in the NATO bombing of Serb forces in Kosovo.

"I told NATO, the Americans, the Germans, don't push us towards military action. Otherwise there will be a European war for sure and possibly world war," Mr. Yeltsin barked on Russian state television.

But alas to Russia, she was humiliated as NATO acted with impunity in a former Soviet satellite state. Russia could do nothing; its military at the time, during the economic upheavals of the 1990s, was too weak. Multiple NATO countries, using more than 1,000 aircraft from bases mainly in Italy and Germany, as well as naval forces, NATO flew 38,000 bombing missions over Kosovo. The Serbian forces were forced to withdraw from the breakaway region. Russians have long memories and they never forgot this. This new assertive alliance, acting on their border in any fashion it desired, unnerved the Kremlin.

Many times over dinner with Russian friends in Moscow, the conversation inevitably turns to politics and how NATO acted unilaterally on Serbia. The morality of the question aside, that point of view is right.

Mr. Putin learned from this lesson. When the war in Chechnya flared up, Mr. Putin was quick to take advantage of the situation. He won the war, as well as the second Chechen conflict, brutally and effectively. He understood that Russians want a strong leader, someone who will convey strength to the world and regain Russia's role as a great world power. Mr. Yeltsin's actions to pick Mr. Putin as his predecessor is history.

Now let's fast-forward to the future, to NATO expanding into Eastern Europe, the Baltics and the Balkan states. This action further humiliated the Russian security establishment and the Russian people in general. The tipping point was the threat of Ukraine joining the alliance and the European Union. Mr. Putin had rebuilt the Russian military and was ready for the opportunity and he seized it, Crimea, or Krim, as the Russians call it.

In this one well-thought-out and efficient operation, Mr. Putin touched the humiliated soul of the Russian people and they will never forget it. That is why Mr. Putin enjoys 80 percent-plus approval ratings. That is why Russians will forgive and endure any short-term economic hardship Mr. Putin's Ukraine adventures will cost them. That is why Russians will let go of any democratic leanings they had in the past. Democracy was not pleasant for Russia. Russians would much rather have a leader who makes the trains run on time and can stand up to perceived Western aggression. For as they say in Russia, anyone who wants democracy left a long time ago.

[May 23, 2015] The Original Chechnya Bombers - The CIA, The Saudis And Bin Laden

Zero Hedge
Authored by F. William Engdahl via New Eastern Outlook,

What if Putin is Telling The Truth?

On April 26 Russia's main national TV station, Rossiya 1, featured President Vladimir Putin in a documentary to the Russian people on the events of the recent period including the annexation of Crimea, the US coup d'etat in Ukraine, and the general state of relations with the United States and the EU. His words were frank. And in the middle of his remarks the Russian former KGB chief dropped a political bombshell that was known by Russian intelligence two decades ago.

Putin stated bluntly that in his view the West would only be content in having a Russia weak, suffering and begging from the West, something clearly the Russian character is not disposed to. Then a short way into his remarks, the Russian President stated for the first time publicly something that Russian intelligence has known for almost two decades but kept silent until now, most probably in hopes of an era of better normalized Russia-US relations.

Putin stated that the terror in Chechnya and in the Russian Caucasus in the early 1990's was actively backed by the CIA and western Intelligence services to deliberately weaken Russia. He noted that the Russian FSB foreign intelligence had documentation of the US covert role without giving details.

What Putin, an intelligence professional of the highest order, only hinted at in his remarks, I have documented in detail from non-Russian sources. The report has enormous implications to reveal to the world the long-standing hidden agenda of influential circles in Washington to destroy Russia as a functioning sovereign state, an agenda which includes the neo-nazi coup d'etat in Ukraine and severe financial sanction warfare against Moscow. The following is drawn on my book, "The Lost Hegemon" to be published soon…

CIA's Chechen Wars

Not long after the CIA and Saudi Intelligence-financed Mujahideen had devastated Afghanistan at the end of the 1980's, forcing the exit of the Soviet Army in 1989, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself some months later, the CIA began to look at possible places in the collapsing Soviet Union where their trained "Afghan Arabs" could be redeployed to further destabilize Russian influence over the post-Soviet Eurasian space.

They were called Afghan Arabs because they had been recruited from ultraconservative Wahhabite Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Arab world where the ultra-strict Wahhabite Islam was practiced. They were brought to Afghanistan in the early 1980's by a Saudi CIA recruit who had been sent to Afghanistan named Osama bin Laden.

With the former Soviet Union in total chaos and disarray, George H.W. Bush's Administration decided to "kick 'em when they're down," a sad error. Washington redeployed their Afghan veteran terrorists to bring chaos and destabilize all of Central Asia, even into the Russian Federation itself, then in a deep and traumatic crisis during the economic collapse of the Yeltsin era.

In the early 1990s, Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton, had surveyed the offshore oil potentials of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and the entire Caspian Sea Basin. They estimated the region to be "another Saudi Arabia" worth several trillion dollars on today's market. The US and UK were determined to keep that oil bonanza from Russian control by all means. The first target of Washington was to stage a coup in Azerbaijan against elected president Abulfaz Elchibey to install a President more friendly to a US-controlled Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, "the world's most political pipeline," bringing Baku oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey and the Mediterranean.

At that time, the only existing oil pipeline from Baku was a Soviet era Russian pipeline that ran through the Chechen capital, Grozny, taking Baku oil north via Russia's Dagestan province, and across Chechenya to the Black Sea Russian port of Novorossiysk. The pipeline was the only competition and major obstacle to the very costly alternative route of Washington and the British and US oil majors.

President Bush Sr. gave his old friends at CIA the mandate to destroy that Russian Chechen pipeline and create such chaos in the Caucasus that no Western or Russian company would consider using the Grozny Russian oil pipeline.

Graham E. Fuller, an old colleague of Bush and former Deputy Director of the CIA National Council on Intelligence had been a key architect of the CIA Mujahideen strategy. Fuller described the CIA strategy in the Caucasus in the early 1990s: "The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power."6

The CIA used a dirty tricks veteran, General Richard Secord, for the operation. Secord created a CIA front company, MEGA Oil. Secord had been convicted in the 1980s for his central role in the CIA's Iran-Contra illegal arms and drugs operations.

In 1991 Secord, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, landed in Baku and set up the CIA front company, MEGA Oil. He was a veteran of the CIA covert opium operations in Laos during the Vietnam War. In Azerbaijan, he setup an airline to secretly fly hundreds of bin Laden's al-Qaeda Mujahideen from Afghanistan into Azerbaijan. By 1993, MEGA Oil had recruited and armed 2,000 Mujahideen, converting Baku into a base for Caucasus-wide Mujahideen terrorist operations.

General Secord's covert Mujahideen operation in the Caucasus initiated the military coup that toppled elected president Abulfaz Elchibey that year and installed Heydar Aliyev, a more pliable US puppet. A secret Turkish intelligence report leaked to the Sunday Times of London confirmed that "two petrol giants, BP and Amoco, British and American respectively, which together form the AIOC (Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium), are behind the coup d'état."

Saudi Intelligence head, Turki al-Faisal, arranged that his agent, Osama bin Laden, whom he had sent to Afghanistan at the start of the Afghan war in the early 1980s, would use his Afghan organization Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) to recruit "Afghan Arabs" for what was rapidly becoming a global Jihad. Bin Laden's mercenaries were used as shock troops by the Pentagon and CIA to coordinate and support Muslim offensives not only Azerbaijan but also in Chechnya and, later, Bosnia.

Bin Laden brought in another Saudi, Ibn al-Khattab, to become Commander, or Emir of Jihadist Mujahideen in Chechnya (sic!) together with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. No matter that Ibn al-Khattab was a Saudi Arab who spoke barely a word of Chechen, let alone, Russian. He knew what Russian soldiers looked like and how to kill them.

Chechnya then was traditionally a predominantly Sufi society, a mild apolitical branch of Islam. Yet the increasing infiltration of the well-financed and well-trained US-sponsored Mujahideen terrorists preaching Jihad or Holy War against Russians transformed the initially reformist Chechen resistance movement. They spread al-Qaeda's hardline Islamist ideology across the Caucasus. Under Secord's guidance, Mujahideen terrorist operations had also quickly extended into neighboring Dagestan and Chechnya, turning Baku into a shipping point for Afghan heroin to the Chechen mafia.

From the mid-1990s, bin Laden paid Chechen guerrilla leaders Shamil Basayev and Omar ibn al-Khattab the handsome sum of several million dollars per month, a King's fortune in economically desolate Chechnya in the 1990s, enabling them to sideline the moderate Chechen majority.21 US intelligence remained deeply involved in the Chechen conflict until the end of the 1990s. According to Yossef Bodansky, then Director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Washington was actively involved in "yet another anti-Russian jihad, seeking to support and empower the most virulent anti-Western Islamist forces."

Bodansky revealed the entire CIA Caucasus strategy in detail in his report, stating that US Government officials participated in,

"a formal meeting in Azerbaijan in December 1999 in which specific programs for the training and equipping of Mujahideen from the Caucasus, Central/South Asia and the Arab world were discussed and agreed upon, culminating in Washington's tacit encouragement of both Muslim allies (mainly Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and US 'private security companies'. . . to assist the Chechens and their Islamist allies to surge in the spring of 2000 and sustain the ensuing Jihad for a long time…Islamist Jihad in the Caucasus as a way to deprive Russia of a viable pipeline route through spiraling violence and terrorism."

The most intense phase of the Chechen wars wound down in 2000 only after heavy Russian military action defeated the Islamists. It was a pyrrhic victory, costing a massive toll in human life and destruction of entire cities. The exact death toll from the CIA-instigated Chechen conflict is unknown. Unofficial estimates ranged from 25,000 to 50,000 dead or missing, mostly civilians. Russian casualties were near 11,000 according to the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers.

The Anglo-American oil majors and the CIA's operatives were happy. They had what they wanted: their Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, bypassing Russia's Grozny pipeline.

The Chechen Jihadists, under the Islamic command of Shamil Basayev, continued guerrilla attacks in and outside Chechnya. The CIA had refocused into the Caucasus.

Basayev's Saudi Connection

Basayev was a key part of the CIA's Global Jihad. In 1992, he met Saudi terrorist Ibn al-Khattag in Azerbaijan. From Azerbaijan, Ibn al-Khattab brought Basayev to Afghanistan to meet al-Khattab's ally, fellow-Saudi Osama bin Laden. Ibn al-Khattab's role was to recruit Chechen Muslims willing to wage Jihad against Russian forces in Chechnya on behalf of the covert CIA strategy of destabilizing post-Soviet Russia and securing British-US control over Caspian energy.

Once back in Chechnya, Basayev and al-Khattab created the International Islamic Brigade (IIB) with Saudi Intelligence money, approved by the CIA and coordinated through the liaison of Saudi Washington Ambassador and Bush family intimate Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Bandar, Saudi Washington Ambassador for more than two decades, was so intimate with the Bush family that George W. Bush referred to the playboy Saudi Ambassador as "Bandar Bush," a kind of honorary family member.

Basayev and al-Khattab imported fighters from the Saudi fanatical Wahhabite strain of Sunni Islam into Chechnya. Ibn al-Khattab commanded what were called the "Arab Mujahideen in Chechnya," his own private army of Arabs, Turks, and other foreign fighters. He was also commissioned to set up paramilitary training camps in the Caucasus Mountains of Chechnya that trained Chechens and Muslims from the North Caucasian Russian republics and from Central Asia.

The Saudi and CIA-financed Islamic International Brigade was responsible not only for terror in Chechnya. They carried out the October 2002 Moscow Dubrovka Theatre hostage seizure and the gruesome September 2004 Beslan school massacre. In 2010, the UN Security Council published the following report on al-Khattab and Basayev's International Islamic Brigade:

Islamic International Brigade (IIB) was listed on 4 March 2003. . . as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of" Al-Qaida. . . The Islamic International Brigade (IIB) was founded and led by Shamil Salmanovich Basayev (deceased) and is linked to the Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs (RSRSBCM). . . and the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR). . .

On the evening of 23 October 2002, members of IIB, RSRSBCM and SPIR operated jointly to seize over 800 hostages at Moscow's Podshipnikov Zavod (Dubrovka) Theater.

In October 1999, emissaries of Basayev and Al-Khattab traveled to Usama bin Laden's home base in the Afghan province of Kandahar, where Bin Laden agreed to provide substantial military assistance and financial aid, including by making arrangements to send to Chechnya several hundred fighters to fight against Russian troops and perpetrate acts of terrorism. Later that year, Bin Laden sent substantial amounts of money to Basayev, Movsar Barayev (leader of SPIR) and Al-Khattab, which was to be used exclusively for training gunmen, recruiting mercenaries and buying ammunition.

The Afghan-Caucasus Al Qaeda "terrorist railway," financed by Saudi intelligence, had two goals. One was a Saudi goal to spread fanatical Wahhabite Jihad into the Central Asian region of the former Soviet Union. The second was the CIA's agenda of destabilizing a then-collapsing post-Soviet Russian Federation.

Beslan

On September 1, 2004, armed terrorists from Basayev and al-Khattab's IIB took more than 1,100 people as hostages in a siege that included 777 children, and forced them into School Number One (SNO) in Beslan in North Ossetia, the autonomous republic in the North Caucasus of the Russian Federation near to the Georgia border.

On the third day of the hostage crisis, as explosions were heard inside the school, FSB and other elite Russian troops stormed the building. In the end, at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children, with a significant number of people injured and reported missing. It became clear afterward that the Russian forces had handled the intervention poorly.

The Washington propaganda machine, from Radio Free Europe to The New York Times and CNN, wasted no time demonizing Putin and Russia for their bad handling of the Beslan crisis rather than focus on the links of Basayev to Al Qaeda and Saudi intelligence. That would have brought the world's attention to the intimate relations between the family of then US President George W. Bush and the Saudi billionaire bin Laden family.

On September 1, 2001, just ten days before the day of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Saudi Intelligence head US-educated Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, who had directed Saudi Intelligence since 1977, including through the entire Osama bin Laden Mujahideen operation in Afghanistan and into the Caucasus, abruptly and inexplicably resigned, just days after having accepted a new term as intelligence head from his King. He gave no explanation. He was quickly reposted to London, away from Washington.

The record of the bin Laden-Bush family intimate ties was buried, in fact entirely deleted on "national security" (sic!) grounds in the official US Commission Report on 911. The Saudi background of fourteen of the nineteen alleged 911 terrorists in New York and Washington was also deleted from the US Government's final 911 Commission report, released only in July 2004 by the Bush Administration, almost three years after the events.

Basayev claimed credit for having sent the terrorists to Beslan. His demands had included the complete independence of Chechnya from Russia, something that would have given Washington and the Pentagon an enormous strategic dagger in the southern underbelly of the Russian Federation.

By late 2004, in the aftermath of the tragic Beslan drama, President Vladimir Putin reportedly ordered a secret search and destroy mission by Russian intelligence to hunt and kill key leaders of the Caucasus Mujahideen of Basayev. Al-Khattab had been killed in 2002. The Russian security forces soon discovered that most of the Chechen Afghan Arab terrorists had fled. They had gotten safe haven in Turkey, a NATO member; in Azerbaijan, by then almost a NATO Member; or in Germany, a NATO Member; or in Dubai–one of the closest US Allies in the Arab States, and Qatar-another very close US ally. In other words, the Chechen terrorists were given NATO safe haven.

[May 23, 2015] MICHAEL HAYDEN The chasm between the security agencies and the Obama administration -

May 20, 2015 | Washington Times

One way of looking at the federal government is that part of it is permanent and another part of it is transient. The transient government comprises those elected officials and political appointees who change when administrations change.

There are exceptions (like Bob Gates staying on at Defense), but presidents work hard to fill as many positions as the law allows with folks beholden, loyal and like-minded. After all, elections matter and these political appointees reflect that constitutional process.


SEE ALSO: Obama's Islamic State strategy 'needs to be changed,' ex-Pentagon chief Gates says


There are limits, of course, some in law because of 19th-century civil service reforms and others out of practical considerations. In early 2009 President Obama changed out Mike McConnell as director of national intelligence and me as CIA director, but he personally intervened to keep Steve Kappes on as deputy CIA director at Langley. And, as per tradition, he made no other changes in the intelligence community.

Both permanent and transient elements contribute to the policy process. The permanent government brings with it fact-based expertise and experience, both of which are virtues unless they become so dominant as to foster stagnation. The transient folks bring a political legitimacy along with a vision and energy for change that stimulates progress unless they become so obsessive that it fosters recklessness.

There is a clear tension, but the tension can be creative. With ambiguous information and split counsel, presidents can be bold without being reckless, informed without being captured by expertise, as happened in both 2011's Abbottabad raid and 2007's Iraq surge.

... ... ...

Gen. Michael Hayden is a former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency. He can be reached at [email protected].

SEE ALSO: Marine Gen. James Mattis' assessment of Obama: U.S. suffering 'strategic atrophy'


Now in its seventh year, it might be good to take a look at some key decisions of the Obama administration through the lens of this distinction. It could be especially illuminating since this president is known to keep his own counsel and his administration has earned a reputation as being insular and controlling at the expense of Cabinet officials (who more tend to represent the views of the permanent government).

Out of the gate, two days after the inauguration, the president promised to empty Guantanamo within a year. I was still in government at the time and we all supported the concept of reducing the prisoner population. We already had released hundreds. But IF WE HAD BEEN ASKED, we would have pushed back on the 12-month timeline as creating pressure to make bad decisions on releases - which the permanent government was duty-bound to oppose, as it has and as it continues to try to do.

There may have been some of that same dynamic at work five years later with the Bergdahl swap for five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo. The political imperatives to clean up the Afghan battlefield (no man left behind) before the administration's self-imposed clock ran out and to reduce the population at Guantanamo led to an incredibly awkward Rose Garden ceremony with the Bergdahl family, administration characterizations that a deserter had served with "honor and distinction," and a new precedent of negotiating with terrorists that the permanent government would have to live with.

The administration routinely has shown itself to be fond of timelines, the better (I suppose) to enforce and police the implementation of decisions. Hence, withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan were on the clock rather than being conditions-based, the approach that would have been supported by the permanent government. Playing to the shot clock led to near disaster in Iraq (and a return of U.S. forces) and threatened to do the same in Afghanistan until withdrawals of troops were pushed to the right.

In Libya the president decided to go to war (although he later overruled DOD and directed it not be called a war to avoid triggering the War Powers Act) to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi, a decision opposed by some National Security Council members. It took seven months, but Gadhafi was killed, his government destroyed, local tribes empowered and Libya descended into chaos.

Despite accurate predictions that - absent massive post-Gadhafi attention and involvement (and maybe even with it) - Libya would become a failed state, "leading from behind" ensured that not even the heroic efforts of a murdered American ambassador could forestall a terrorist arms depot and safe haven.

The ambassador was killed, by the way, despite repeated requests for increased security within the permanent government that went nowhere with an administration set on "normalizing" its diplomatic footprint in Libya and then later trying to exonerate itself with a story that "the video made them do it." I know of no one currently or previously in the permanent government who thought that Ambassador Susan E. Rice's Sunday morning talking points could stand for very long.

The permanent government has been posting alarms elsewhere. Former Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn has made it clear that at least his corner of the American intelligence community did not believe that al Qaeda was on the run, that the tide of war was receding or that the Islamic State was the "JV team."

Back when the Syrian battlefield was more malleable and limited force could still achieve something, the president rejected counsel coming from his intelligence and security communities to act. Acting even then was a risky course and success was not guaranteed, but it's hard to imagine a scenario worse than the one in which we find ourselves now, with a terrorist state the size of Belgium straddling the ancient trade routes of the Middle East.

[May 23, 2015] The Children of the Abyss

May 20, 2015 | Jesse's Café Américain
"He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

J.H.Newman, The Times of Antichrist

People do not wake up one day and suddenly decide to become monsters, giving birth to unspeakable horrors.

And yet throughout history, different peoples have done truly monstrous things. The Americans were pioneers in forced sterilization and state propaganda. The British invented concentration camps, and were masters of predatory colonization. They even turned a large portion of the capital of their Empire into a festering ghetto through the Darwinian economics of neglect. None have clean hands. No one is exceptional.

What do they have in common? They all take a walk down a long and twisted path, one cold-hearted and 'expedient' decision at a time, shifting responsibility by deflecting the choice for their actions on their leaders.

There is always some crackpot theory. some law of nature, from scientists or economists to support it. What else could they do? It is always difficult, but necessary.

They cope with their actions by making their victims the other, objectified, different, marginalized. And what they marginalize they cannot see. What they cannot see, by choice, is easily ignored.

And so they destroy and they kill, first by neglect and then by more efficient and decisive actions.

They walk slowly, but almost determinedly, into an abyss of their own creation.

But they all seem to have one thing in common. First they come for the old, the weak, the disabled, and the different, in a widening circle of scapegoats for their plunder.

"There is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only one, and it is the children dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round. It is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly and easily, and bodies that leap airily, weaving rhythms never taught in dancing school.

I have talked with these children, here, there, and everywhere, and they struck me as being bright as other children, and in many ways even brighter. They have most active little imaginations. Their capacity for projecting themselves into the realm of romance and fantasy is remarkable. A joyous life is romping in their blood. They delight in music, and motion, and colour, and very often they betray a startling beauty of face and form under their filth and rags.

But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. They disappear. One never sees them again, or anything that suggests them. You may look for them in vain amongst the generation of grown-ups. Here you will find stunted forms, ugly faces, and blunt and stolid minds. Grace, beauty, imagination, all the resiliency of mind and muscle, are gone. Sometimes, however, you may see a woman, not necessarily old, but twisted and deformed out of all womanhood, bloated and drunken, lift her draggled skirts and execute a few grotesque and lumbering steps upon the pavement. It is a hint that she was once one of those children who danced to the organ-grinder. Those grotesque and lumbering steps are all that is left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged recesses of her brain has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside her, about her, with all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more than parody with her body. Then she pants for breath, exhausted, and stumbles out through the circle. But the little girls dance on.

The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated tigress turning on its young, turns upon and destroys all these qualities, blots out the light and laughter, and moulds those it does not kill into sodden and forlorn creatures, uncouth, degraded, and wretched below the beasts of the field.

As to the manner in which this is done, I have in previous chapters described it at length; here let Professor Huxley describe it in brief:-

"Any one who is acquainted with the state of the population of all great industrial centres, whether in this or other countries, is aware that amidst a large and increasing body of that population there reigns supreme . . . that condition which the French call la misere, a word for which I do not think there is any exact English equivalent. It is a condition in which the food, warmth, and clothing which are necessary for the mere maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal state cannot be obtained; in which men, women, and children are forced to crowd into dens wherein decency is abolished, and the most ordinary conditions of healthful existence are impossible of attainment; in which the pleasures within reach are reduced to brutality and drunkenness; in which the pains accumulate at compound interest in the shape of starvation, disease, stunted development, and moral degradation; in which the prospect of even steady and honest industry is a life of unsuccessful battling with hunger, rounded by a pauper's grave."

In such conditions, the outlook for children is hopeless. They die like flies, and those that survive, survive because they possess excessive vitality and a capacity of adaptation to the degradation with which they are surrounded. They have no home life. In the dens and lairs in which they live they are exposed to all that is obscene and indecent. And as their minds are made rotten, so are their bodies made rotten by bad sanitation, overcrowding, and underfeeding. When a father and mother live with three or four children in a room where the children take turn about in sitting up to drive the rats away from the sleepers, when those children never have enough to eat and are preyed upon and made miserable and weak by swarming vermin, the sort of men and women the survivors will make can readily be imagined."

Jack London, The People of the Abyss

[May 23, 2015] Porky and Yats repeatedly state that Russia is an aggressor state, and with the same breath they ask Russia for a discount on further gas supplies, for which Ukraine owes billions

"...And don't forget folks: Porky and Yats and a host of other shits that are part of the Kiev "government" repeatedly state that Russia is an aggressor state, is at war with the Ukraine and has invaded its eastern territory, where the Russian army presence numbers thousands. And with the same breath they ask Russia for a discount on further gas supplies, for which previously supplied Russian natural gas the Ukraine state owes billions."
"...Bear in mind, with their continuous shameless mendacity and double talk they may simply be mimicking the behaviour of their mentors, whose blatant hypocrisy has long been evident,"
Moscow Exile, May 23, 2015 at 6:50 am
Ukraine asks to extend discount on Russian gas by end of year

And don't forget folks: Porky and Yats and a host of other shits that are part of the Kiev "government" repeatedly state that Russia is an aggressor state, is at war with the Ukraine and has invaded its eastern territory, where the Russian army presence numbers thousands.

And with the same breath they ask Russia for a discount on further gas supplies, for which previously supplied Russian natural gas the Ukraine state owes billions.

Some aggressor!

Moscow Exile, May 23, 2015 at 6:55 am

They need a decent English proofreader: "by the end of the year" means a discount extension should be agreed upon before this year ends.

What the RT headline should is, I suspect: "Ukraine asks to extend discount on Russian gas up to the end of the year", meaning they want their present discount extended up to and including 31 December 2015.

Moscow Exile, May 23, 2015 at 7:19 am

Remember the "Are Slavs Stupid" thread of a while back?

I'm seriously beginning to believe that Ukrainians are, or at least many of their public figures are, in that they consistently make contradictory statements in almost the same breath, which might indicate that they have a very short memory span (surely a sign of being slow witted) or that they are so stupid not to recognize that the clear stupidity of their contradictory statements must surely be recognized by most people who are in possession of a normal intellect.

Bear in mind, with their continuous shameless mendacity and double talk they may simply be mimicking the behaviour of their mentors, whose blatant hypocrisy has long been evident, e.g. the statement: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …" was composed by slaveowners almost to a man, in that several of the Founding Fathers of the USA were in possession of hundreds of human beings that were listed in their account books as personal property and worked for them as slaves, namely George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry were all slave-owners. And Hilary Clinton "misspoke" when saying publicly that she had been fired upon by a sniper when arriving at Belgrade airport with her daughter; not forgetting the US lies concerning Iran and Iraq, of course, and the destruction of the USS Maine at Havana; and the role of the US Marine Corps in maintaining "freedom and Democracy" for the benefit of United Fruit and Wall St. in Central and Southern America, as revealed by General Smedly Butler …

May 23, 2015 at 4:12 am

Russian Fifth Columnists working with Brown Moses and NATO .

Apparently the Fifth Columnists have taken to snooping around graveyards, looking for evidence to hand over to NATO, of Russian servicemen dying in Ukraine civil war.

[May 23, 2015] George W. Bush didnt just lie about the Iraq War. What he did was much worse.

May 20, 2015 | theweek.com

None of the conservatives running for president want to be associated with the last Republican president - not even his brother (for whom stepping away is rather complicated). After all, George W. Bush left office with an approval rating hovering in the low 30s, and his grandest project was the gigantic catastrophe of the Iraq War, which we're still dealing with and still debating. If you're a Republican right now you're no doubt wishing we could talk about something else, but failing that, you'd like the issue framed in a particular way: The war was an honest mistake, nobody lied to the public, and anything bad that's happening now is Barack Obama's fault.

For the moment I want to focus on the part about the lies. I've found over the years that conservatives who supported the war get particularly angry at the assertion that Bush lied us into war. No, they'll insist, it wasn't his fault: There was mistaken intelligence, he took that intelligence in good faith, and presented what he believed to be true at the time. It's the George Costanza defense: It's not a lie if you believe it.

Here's the problem, though. It might be possible, with some incredibly narrow definition of the word "lie," to say that Bush told only a few outright lies on Iraq. Most of what he said in order to sell the public on the war could be said to have some basis in something somebody thought or something somebody alleged (Bush was slightly more careful than Dick Cheney, who lied without hesitation or remorse). But if we reduce the question of Bush's guilt and responsibility to how many lies we can count, we miss the bigger picture.

What the Bush administration launched in 2002 and 2003 may have been the most comprehensive, sophisticated, and misleading campaign of government propaganda in American history. Spend too much time in the weeds, and you risk missing the hysterical tenor of the whole campaign.

That's not to say there aren't plenty of weeds. In 2008, the Center for Public Integrity completed a project in which they went over the public statements by eight top Bush administration officials on the topic of Iraq, and found that no fewer than 935 were false, including 260 statements by President Bush himself. But the theory on which the White House operated was that whether or not you could fool all of the people some of the time, you could certainly scare them out of their wits. That's what was truly diabolical about their campaign.

And it was a campaign. In the summer of 2002, the administration established something called the White House Iraq Group, through which Karl Rove and other communication strategists like Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin coordinated with policy officials to sell the public on the threat from Iraq in order to justify war. "The script had been finalized with great care over the summer," White House press secretary Scott McClellan later wrote, for a "campaign to convince Americans that war with Iraq was inevitable and necessary."

In that campaign, intelligence wasn't something to be understood and assessed by the administration in making their decisions, it was a propaganda tool to lead the public to the conclusion that the administration wanted. Again and again we saw a similar pattern: An allegation would bubble up from somewhere, some in the intelligence community would say that it could be true but others would say it was either speculation or outright baloney, but before you knew it the president or someone else was presenting it to the public as settled fact.

And each and every time the message was the same: If we didn't wage war, Iraq was going to attack the United States homeland with its enormous arsenal of ghastly weapons, and who knows how many Americans would perish. When you actually spell it out like that it sounds almost comical, but that was the Bush administration's assertion, repeated hundreds upon hundreds of time to a public still skittish in the wake of September 11. (Remember, the campaign for the war began less than a year after the September 11 attacks.)

Sometimes this message was imparted with specific false claims, sometimes with dark insinuation, and sometimes with speculation about the horrors to come ("We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Bush and others when asked about the thinness of much of their evidence). Yet the conclusion was always the same: The only alternative to invading Iraq was waiting around to be killed. I could pick out any of a thousand quotes, but here's just one, from a radio address Bush gave on September 28, 2002:

The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.

What wasn't utterly false in that statement was disingenuous at best. But if there was anything that marked the campaign, it was its certainty. There was seldom any doubt expressed or admitted, seldom any hint that the information we had was incomplete, speculative, and the matter of fevered debate amongst intelligence officials. But that's what was going on beneath the administration's sales job.

The intelligence wasn't "mistaken," as the Bush administration's defenders would have us believe today. The intelligence was a mass of contradictions and differing interpretations. The administration picked out the parts that they wanted - supported, unsupported, plausible, absurd, it didn't matter - and used them in their campaign to turn up Americans' fear.

This is one of the many sins for which Bush and those who supported him ought to spend a lifetime atoning. He looked out at the American public and decided that the way to get what he wanted was to terrify them. If he could convince them that any day now their children would die a horrible death, that they and everything they knew would be turned to radioactive ash, and that the only chance of averting this fate was to say yes to him, then he could have his war. Lies were of no less value than truth, so long as they both created enough fear.

And it worked.

[May 23, 2015] The Failures of Putin's Ukraine Strategy

Neocons are always neocons... They are becoming more reckless with time. The key problem for Washington with Russia position (which is no doubt pretty costly for Russia itself) is that it enable and encourage to say No to Washington's demands other countries making geopolitical domination for the USA a lot more costly. Something like small scale revolt against the USA post-war domination. It also catalyze economic ties of Russia and China (and by extension other BRICs members), making the situation with dollar as world reserve currency and status of IMF more fuzzy...
May 23, 2015 | The American Interest
Nevertheless, Russia failed to deliver the knockout blow last spring, allowing Kyiv to recover and establish firm control throughout most of the country, even its Russophone portions. Moscow retains the military upper hand as the two countries settle into a protracted stalemate in the Donbass, but the Kremlin's strategy must take into account a number of factors that bode ill for Russia in the longer run.

Ukraine has stumbled upon a most improbable ally-Saudi Arabia. In a stark example of the law of unintended consequences, the Russian economy has sustained heavy collateral damage from the Saudi campaign against North American shale-oil production (and secondarily, against Iran). The war of attrition in the Donbass is in large measure hostage to the economic war of attrition in the Bakken formation. This situation, unanticipated by Russia (or anyone else, to be fair) when it invaded Ukraine, appears likely to depress energy prices for years to come, sapping the strength of Russia's economy and hence the country's ability to wage war. A major cataclysm in the Middle East could turn energy prices around, of course, but it is instructive that oil prices have plummeted even in the face of Islamist depredations in Iraq and chronic chaos in Libya-and the loosening of sanctions on Iran would bring even more oil and gas onto the market.

If the Saudi factor was unforeseeable, the Western response to the invasion of Ukraine appears to represent an actual miscalculation by Moscow. The Kremlin no doubt expected something akin to the reaction over Georgia in 2008-some harsh Western rhetoric, a few pro forma sanctions, and, six months later, a proffered reset button and the resumption of business as usual. Instead, Western governments have imposed fairly extensive sanctions and have thus far stuck to them. Sanctions against individuals are largely symbolic, but restrictions on lending are a genuine hardship to Russian companies, especially in the current economic downturn.

The Kremlin has naturally responded with a variety of tactics to undermine Western unity and determination. Above all, Moscow has tried to demonize the United States and present Europe as a co-victim of sanctions imposed by Washington. The Maidan, in the Kremlin's creative retelling, was not about Ukrainian disgust with corruption or a yearning for European standards, but was just cynical American manipulation in order to strike a blow against Russia. The Russian narrative about the U.S. puppet master, of course, glosses over the enormous role played by Europeans in nurturing Ukrainian institutions and civil society over the years, and the influence on Ukrainians of the sheer example set by the transformation of Ukraine's erstwhile socialist neighbors. If Poles, Balts and Romanians can enjoy a modicum of prosperity and good governance by joining Europe, then why shouldn't Ukrainians move in the same direction?

... ... ...

Besides vilifying Washington as the bogeyman, Moscow is understandably hard at work mobilizing any and all European governments and groups that can be used to undermine sanctions. Putin has found a worthy acolyte in Hungary's Viktor Orbán, the man who would be Magyarbashi, and can count on a degree of sympathy from a variety of European leaders ranging from Slovakia's Robert Fico to the new Syriza government in Greece. However, Putin has struck out completely with the individual who matters more than any other: Angela Merkel. If there were any question about the impact of individuals on the course of history, one need only ponder how different the European reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine would be if Gerhard Schröder were sitting in the German chancellor's office rather than on the board of Gazprom.

Besides working sympathetic European leaders, Moscow has also cultivated a motley array of right- and left-wing extremists, people often of diametrically opposed political orientations united only by their hatred of Washington and Brussels. However, even where such groups attract a stable portion of their national electorates and can reasonably aspire to enter governing coalitions, they tend to have only a marginal influence on policy, particularly foreign policy. Electoral surprises can happen, of course, but Moscow is unlikely to see much return on its investment in these European groups.

... ... ...

[May 20, 2015] Russia to take legal moves if Ukraine defaults on $3bn debt - finance minister

Notable quotes:
"... "unscrupulous" ..."
"... "Suspension of debt payments not coordinated with creditors results in a technical default, and in the case of Ukraine, it threatens to undermine Kiev's ability to attract private investment through EU programs," ..."
"... "It is rather clear that the IMF is assuming that Russia's $3 billion bond is included in this year's $5.2 billion financing from a 'debt operation'," ..."
May 20, 2015 | RT Business
Russia will appeal to the International Court of Justice if Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signs a moratorium on the payment of Ukraine's external debt into law and fails to pay its debt to Russia, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

Siluanov said Ukraine was virtually defaulting on its debt, adding that Russia doesn't yet have grounds to lodge any claims. If Kiev fails to pay $75 million in June, Moscow will use its right to appeal to the court, the Minister said.

The Ukrainian parliament has adopted a law allowing the country not to pay foreign debt to private lenders, saying it needs to protect the ailing economy and people from "unscrupulous" creditors.

The bill says the $3 billion in Ukrainian Eurobonds purchased by Russia at the end of 2013 are on the list of liabilities subject to a possible payment moratorium.

Experts agree that Tuesday vote meant a technical default for the country and would impede Ukraine's ability to raise private investment from the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), a European source told TASS on Wednesday.

"Suspension of debt payments not coordinated with creditors results in a technical default, and in the case of Ukraine, it threatens to undermine Kiev's ability to attract private investment through EU programs," the source said.

As part of the underpinning of Kiev's bailout plan, the International Monetary Fund said in March that Russia would not receive the $3 billion bond repayment from Ukraine this year.

IMF is looking for cooperation from creditors to accept a restructuring on Kiev's debt. That includes Russia.

"It is rather clear that the IMF is assuming that Russia's $3 billion bond is included in this year's $5.2 billion financing from a 'debt operation'," said Charles Blitzer of Blitzer Consulting and a former IMF staff member.

Read more Ukraine passes bill allowing moratorium on foreign debt payments

[May 20, 2015] Russia bans undesirable international organisations ahead of 2016 elections

May 20, 2015 | The Guardian

Russia's parliament has passed a law banning "undesirable" international organisations, raising fears of a further crackdown on voices critical of the Kremlin.

According to the legislation, the prosecutor general and foreign ministry can register as undesirable any "foreign or international organisation that presents a threat to the defensive capabilities or security of the state, to the public order, or to the health of the population".

Blacklisted groups will be forbidden from operating branches or distributing information in Russia and banks will have to notify the prosecutor general and justice ministry of any financial transfers involving them. Although the language of the threat posed was vague, the bill's authors suggested that international NGOs often work in the interests of foreign intelligence agencies.

[May 19, 2015]Military Bureaucracy

October 26, 2009 | outsidethebeltway.com

Two separate reviews of The Fourth Star, a new book by David Cloud and Greg Jaffee, touch on a theme that has fascinated me since I wrote a dissertation on the subject.

NYT foreign correspondent Dexter Filkins (via SWJ):

"The Fourth Star" paints wonderfully dramatic portraits of the four senior officers highlighted here, but at its heart it's a story about bureaucracy. As an institution, the United States Army has much more in common with, say, a giant corporation like General Motors than with a professional sports team like the New York Giants. You can't cut players who don't perform, and it's hard to fire your head coach. Like General Motors, the Army changes very slowly, and once it does, it's hard to turn it around again.

Actually, it's arguably easier to "cut" bad soldiers than bad football players nowadays, since the latter often have huge signing bonuses and hold teams hostage in a salary cap era. But, otherwise, Filkins is right. While the military is relatively efficient, it's not only a bureaucracy but the very thing bureaucracy was modeled after. Which makes it amusing when conservatives simultaneously rant about the inefficiency of bureaucracy while extolling the virtues of military efficiency. (The military, along with their brethren in the intelligence community and foreign service, does tend to be more motivated and obedient to orders from above than your average bureaucracy.)

New Kings of War blogger "Captain Hyphen."

One of the most trenchant discussions of these wrong "lessons learned" post-Vietnam is General David Petraeus' PhD dissertation, which the review of The Fourth Star mentions tangentially. While Petraeus might have "irritated many of his fellow officers on his way up," he also identified an important bureaucratic reality, noting it in his dissertation: any serving officer who writes a PhD dissertation critical of the US Army as an institution and publishes it as a book will not rise to the ranks of the general officer corps. Petraeus, of course, heeded his own advice, as his dissertation remained safely tucked away in the Princeton library (until the age of scanning and posting to the Internet; h/t to Paula Broadwell for sharing the link). He was able to continue his upward trajectory, unlike such recent soldier-scholars as Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) John Nagl, whose Oxford DPhil became Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, arguably a self-inflicted career wound as an Army officer because of its coherent, incisive critique of the Army's failures as a learning organization.

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, however, is the exception that proves the rule, because it was only the patronage of General Petraeus that made him a general officer after twice being passed over for promotion from colonel to brigadier general. McMaster's Dereliction of Duty was the oft-cited, seldom-read mantra of senior officers in the last decade and appeared to be part of the hold-up for his advancement. Further compounding the delay, his successful counterinsurgency campaign as the commander of an armored cavalry regiment in Tall Afar made his conventionally-minded brigade commander peers look bad (or at least that's one interpretation of how it was viewed within the Army).

How a bureaucracy without lateral entry promotes and selects its leaders is a vital issue with implications measured in decades, dollars, and lives. I look forward to reading how Cloud and Jaffe capture this dynamic in the US Army today.

One could argue McMaster exemplifies, rather than serving as an exception, to the rule. Generally, being passed over - let alone twice - for promotion pretty much indicates that you're done.

Certainly as a prospective general officer. Conversely - and I don't claim to have any inside scoop here - Nagl certainly seemed to be an officer on a fast track who left the Army voluntarily to 1) so his family could settle down and 2) to take advantage of a flood of opportunities to apply his expertise in the think tank arena. It seemingly proved a wise choice, as he soon wound up as president of CNAS.

[May 19, 2015] Americas Warfare State Revolution

Apr 05, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Submitted by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of the warfare-state revolution that transformed the federal government and American society after World War II. The roots of America's foreign-policy crises today, along with the massive infringements on civil liberties and privacy and the federal government's program of secret indefinite incarceration, torture, assassination, and extra-judicial executions can all be traced to the grafting of a national-security apparatus onto America's federal governmental system in the 1940s.

Certainly, the seeds for what happened in the post-WWII era were sown prior to that time, specifically in the move toward empire, which, interestingly enough, occurred during the same period of time that Progressives were inducing Americans to abandon their system of economic liberty and free markets in favor of socialism and interventionism in the form of a welfare state and regulated economy.

I'm referring to the year 1898, when the U.S. government intervened in the Spanish American War, with the ostensible aim of helping the Cuban and Filipino people win their independence. It was a false and fraudulent intervention, one that was actually designed to place Cuba and the Philippines under the control of the U.S. government. The result was a brutal war in the Philippines between U.S. forces and the Filipino people, along with a never-ending obsession to control Cuba, one that would ending up becoming a central focus of the national-security state.

A national-security state and an empire certainly weren't among the founding principles of the United States. In fact, the revolution in 1776 was against an empire that the British colonists in America no longer wanted to be part of. They were sick and tired of the endless wars and ever-increasing taxes, regulations, and oppression that come with empire and overgrown military establishments.

In fact, there was a deep antipathy toward standing armies among the Founding Fathers. The words of James Madison, the father of the Constitution, reflect the mindset of our American ancestors:

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

What about foreign interventionism? The speech that John Quincy Adams delivered to Congress on the 4th of July, 1821, entitled "In Search of Monsters to Destroy," expressed the sentiments of our predecessors. Adams pointed out that there were lots of bad things in the world, things like tyranny, oppression, famines, and the like. He said though that America would not send troops to slay these monsters. Instead, America would build a model society of freedom right here at home for the people of the world. In fact, if America ever became a military empire that would engage in foreign interventionism, Adams predicted, it would fundamentally change the character of American society, one that would look more like a society under dictatorial rule.

That's not to say that 19th-century America was a libertarian paradise with respect to warfare, any more than it was a libertarian paradise in general, as I pointed out in my article "America's Welfare-State Revolution." But the fact is that there was no overgrown military establishment, no CIA, no NSA, no conscription, no foreign interventionism, and no foreign aid (and no income tax, IRS, Federal Reserve, and fiat money to fund such things).

There was a basic military force but in relative terms it wasn't very large. There were also wars, such as the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Mexican War, and many military skirmishes, but with the exception of the Civil War, the casualties were relatively low, especially compared with such foreign wars as World War I and World War II.

Moreover, it was an established practice to demobilize after each war. That is, a permanent war machine and perpetual war were not built into the system. War and military interventionism were the exception, not the rule.

That all changed with the embrace of a national-security establishment after World War II. In his Farewell Address in 1961, President Eisenhower observed that the national-security state - or what he called the military-industrial complex - constituted an entirely new way of life for the American people, one that entailed what amounted to a new, permanent warfare-state branch of the federal government, consisting of an overgrown military establishment, a CIA, and an NSA, along with an army of private-sector contractors and subcontractors who were feeding at the public trough on a permanent basis.

Most significantly, Ike pointed out that this national-security apparatus constituted a grave threat to the liberties and democratic processes of the American people.

This revolutionary transformation was justified in the name of "national security," which have become the two most important words in the American lexicon, notwithstanding the fact that no one has ever been able to define the term. The warfare-state revolution would be characterized by an endless array of threats to national security, beginning with communism and communists, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and others, and later morphing into Saddam Hussein, terrorism, terrorists, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and even the Muslims.

In the process, Adams proved right. By grafting a totalitarian-like structure onto America's federal governmental system, the United States began displaying the characteristics of a dictatorial society.

Assassination, torture, rendition, secret prisons, medical experiments on unsuspecting Americans, the hiring of Nazis, indefinite detention, partnerships with criminal organizations and foreign dictators, coups, sanctions, embargoes, invasions, undeclared wars, wars of aggression, and extra-judicial executions. When any of those types of things occurred in the 19th century, they were considered exceptions to the system. Now they have become permanent parts of the system.

And look at the results of this gigantic warfare-state transformation: ever-increasing infringements on liberty and privacy, ever-increasing spending, debt, and taxes, and ever-increasing anger and hatred toward our country. Yes, all the things that characterized the British Empire that British colonists revolted against in 1776. How's that for irony?

Meanwhile, like the welfare state, modern-day Americans continue to remain convinced that their system of government has never changed in a fundamental way. They continue to play like their governmental system is founded on the same constitutional principles as when the country was founded. It is a supreme act of self-deception.

The truth is that America has now had two different governmental systems: One without a national-security apparatus and one with it. It seems to me that it's a no-brainer as to who was right and which system was better in terms of freedom, privacy, peace, prosperity, and harmony.

Thin_Ice

This! You should see the faces on people when I try to explain to them that we're not supposed to have an ever present military. They call me unpatriotic and a hater of our verterans. WTF?!?! I try explaining to them we shouldn't have "veterans", that many of the conflicts they were part of should never have happened. Still, I'm the bad guy despite the fact that the country's ideals have drifted so far off course. I'm reluctantly getting more and more used to the deer in the headlights response from people, which is sad.


El Vaquero

Calm down, don't get angry, and use the Socratic method with them. The cognitive dissonance will still fight back, but ask them about why we were in Vietnam and Iraq. Lead them to the conclusion that those wars never should have been fought. Unplugging from the matrix is very, very difficult and very, very uncomfortable. You want them to understand your point of view so that it is much harder for them to condemn you for it. You are dealing with deeply ingrained cultural values that they have never questioned.

And be nice to the troops. Most of them were duped into believing that they were doing good. You want them to turn on their masters if their masters turn on us.

q99x2

There is no America. There's parts of the globe that are labeled United States but the Banks and Corporations have more money and power than nations. They control the land mass that people refer to as America. They control the military that wears American uniforms and they control the nuclear weapons that used to be American weapons. That is why nuclear weapons can be removed from the US without prosecution or military intervention. Deal with it bitchez.

Chupacabra-322

The biggest dilemma facing today's younger Generation is the lack of a point of reference. 911 & other False Flag / PsyOp's have diluted their minds full of lies & deception.

A former KGB Agent interviewed by G. Edward Griffen explained that for a propaganda campaign to be truly effective it has to cross over generations or be "Generational."

We"re well into the second decade of the biggest PsyOp ever conducted over the masses on a Global Scale, 911. The Social Engineers / Revisionists have been very busy rewriting history.

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the future controls the past."
-George Orwell.

Fun Facts

The mightiest nation on earth is run exclusively for the benefit of the mightiest banks on earth.

Too big to fail, too big to bail, too big to jail.

The politico are the puppet class.

The people [at the very bottom of the pyramid] are the serf class with no money, no voice, no power.

All as intended. Follow the money. Read the protocols for more detail.

Pitiful

If it were so easy. Unfortunately there are people who want control, for who knows what reason. I always wondered myself why anyone would want more than they need but I have never been able to come up with a clear answer that makes any logical sense. I can give a prime example: I had a friend in college who was very wealthy and frugal, so frugal they went to a community college with me. He was always telling me he needed more money (he already had an eight figure stash) and one day I asked him why he needed more. The only response he could come up with was: Becuase I want it. Again, I asked what for and he couldn't ever come up with a reasonable explanation other than he wanted it. I don't know about anyone else here but I can say for sure that if I was able to scrounge seven figures in my savings, I would be done saving with no need for any more. But I'm a simple, realistic person and I would expect that my children (not that I will ever have any) pave their own road like I did and I would leave nothing for them or anyone else and expect them to do the same. My money will all be spent and recycled back into the economy when I'm gone. There is no use for it after death. I'm a firm believer that if you can't survive on your own, you don't deserve to survive at all. The animals have already figured this out and humans knew it at one point to. Leave the weak to die or be dragged down with them.

If I ever had the opportunity to ask one of the banksters who has some "end-game" plan for power and control over others I would only have one question: How is that going to improve your life and why would you do that anyway? You already have everything you could possibly need for the next 100 generations of your family. What is the fucking point?

TacticalZen

We are Rome and will follow their pattern of decline, although vastly accelerated given our modern communications and banking.

Herdee

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Treasury Official in Ronald Reagan's Administration puts it pretty bluntly in what he's telling Americans.Americans reading this need to wake up to what a right wing neo-fascist government is doing to their society.

http://thenewsdoctors.com/can-evil-be-defeated-dr-paul-craig-roberts/

All religious Americans especially need to pay heed to his insights.It's no joke,it's what's happening right now.Can evil be defeated?The founding fathers warned you about it.

Amish Hacker

The MIC will always need a credible boogeyman to justify its existence. For years this role was played by the Soviet Union. We were told to be afraid of commies in Moscow, in the State Department, in Hollywood, and under every bed. Then, suddenly, came the end of Ivan, and the MIC was threatened with irrelevance, even dissolution. We the People were beginning to wonder aloud about a "peace dividend." Obviously, this could not be allowed.

The MIC solution was to replace the Soviet menace with the terrorist menace. Really, you have to admire the psychopathic brilliance of this move, since terrorism is a conceptual boogeyman that will never expire or be deposed. Multiple, ongoing wars are now our new normal, and saddest of all, we seem to be getting used to it.

Jack Burton

This post somehow brings to mind a High School Class Reunion I attented 5 years ago. We are all old enough now to have been set in our careers for 30 years. So when you talk to people you can get a good insight into how they all made their livings after High School. My town School was small, my class was 145 students.

What amazed me was what we all ended up talking about. It was the Military. Because as Americans THIS was the common bond we men share. Over half of the men there were veterans, me included, but even more than that, there was our lives after military service, and those who went direct to college. The college kids grew up and from those I talked to, there we many who work for the big defense industries in the Minneapolis Metro Area. Plus we had students who went west and worked for giant defense industries out there. Our conversations revolved around missiles, torpedoes, radars, air craft and high explosives. I met a class mate who designed the explosives for Bunker Busters and other High Energy weapons. One class mate helped build the guidance for the type of torpedoes my ship used. One class mate knew the type of detection gear I operated in the Navy, as his father designed much of it. On and On it went.

By the end of the night, it seems half of our class was employed in military design and construction, the other half of average guys were all vets. Yes, Middle America, out where I live, is a totally militarized entity. It really hit home when you talk to a group you have known all your life.

Monetas

If we ever had an Empire .... it was a Moral Empire .... and it needs to be regained, improved and expanded .... it's called American Exceptionalism .... and I'm not impressed with the pretenders to our throne .... nor their bootlicking lackeys .... a bunch of chickens .... cackling in the Barnyard of Life !

[May 19, 2015] Paul Krugman Errors and Lies

May 18, 2015 | Economist's View

Paul Krugman: Errors and Lies "The Iraq war wasn't an innocent mistake":

Errors and Lies, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Surprise! It turns out that there's something to be said for having the brother of a failed president make his own run for the White House. Thanks to Jeb Bush, we may finally have the frank discussion of the Iraq invasion we should have had a decade ago

The Iraq war wasn't an innocent mistake, a venture undertaken on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be wrong. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. We were, in a fundamental sense, lied into war.

This was, in short, a war the White House wanted, and all of the supposed mistakes that, as Jeb puts it, "were made" by someone unnamed actually flowed from this underlying desire.

Now, you can understand why many political and media figures would prefer not to talk about any of this. Some of them may have fallen for the obvious lies, which doesn't say much about their judgment. More, I suspect, were complicit: they realized that the official case for war was a pretext, but had their own reasons for wanting a war, or, alternatively, allowed themselves to be intimidated into going along.

On top of these personal motives, our news media in general have a hard time coping with policy dishonesty. Reporters are reluctant to call politicians on their lies, even when these involve mundane issues like budget numbers, for fear of seeming partisan. In fact, the bigger the lie, the clearer it is that major political figures are engaged in outright fraud, the more hesitant the reporting. And it doesn't get much bigger - indeed, more or less criminal - than lying America into war.

But truth matters, and not just because those who refuse to learn from history are doomed in some general sense to repeat it. The campaign of lies that took us into Iraq was recent enough that it's still important to hold the guilty individuals accountable. Never mind Jeb Bush's verbal stumbles. Think, instead, about his foreign-policy team, led by people who were directly involved in concocting a false case for war.

So let's get the Iraq story right. Yes, from a national point of view the invasion was a mistake. But (with apologies to Talleyrand) it was worse than a mistake, it was a crime.

pgl said

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney knew all along what the real deal in Iraq was when they went in. General Zinni knew too and he said this would be a disaster. Bush pretends he listened to his generals. Really> Zinni warned us not to go in back in 2002. So yea - Jeb and his advisers would have invaded knowing what we know today as they knew all of this back then. But hey - it worked to get Bush-Cheney reelected in 2004!

ilsm said in reply to pgl

Most of the generals (I was in the business of buying) saw Iraq as business development, a fine little war to get the budgets up.

It has been fine at getting the budgets up.

The GOP move to raise the pentagon limits over the sequestration depends on more crazed activity in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. While rattling the saber at Russia over the CIA's mistake in Kiev. Since 2003 I tried to (really retire, I was double dipping) retire twice both times my phone rings with more "work" at great compensation.

mulp said in reply to pgl

We the People who vote in all elections voted to invade Iraq in 2002.

The declaration of war if Bush wants it was voted on before the 2002 november election. Almost five hundred members of Congress were subject to being popular referendum on that vote and on their votes for job killing tax cuts.

Republicans won on the basis of their wars and job killing tax cuts, and Democrats lost 2 Senate seats and 8 House seats.

We the People who vote in all elections love the free lunch economics and politics of the neoconservative Republican party.

It is neoconservative because conservatives decided to merge the hatred of taxes with the "spend" of liberal "tax and spend". Redefine American Exceptionalism and now you have free lunch tax cuts that pay for more spending on entitlements and wars that generate a profit.

We the People who vote in all elections seem to be in the "you can fool some of the people all the time" They are the free lunch economic conservatives who believe that sacrifice is what happens to other people. If they suffer, its the fault of liberals. But they know that they can gain disproportionate power by being We the People who vote in every election.

Opponents are those who vote only for dictator every 4 years, without realizing that neoconservatives call the president dictator to rally their faithful to vote in every damn election.

The verdict on the Iraq mistake was rendered November 2002, not in 2004, and the verdict was We the People who care about the US voted to support the stupid Iraq war. Those who opposed the war did not give a damn and did not vote in 2002, believing the power is in the dictator.

DrDick said in reply to mulp
What do you mean, "we", Kimosabe? I have never voted for a Republican and have opposed ever war or military intervention war since Vietnam. A large number of people did so, but those who did not and vocally opposed it share none of the blame.

cawley said in reply to DrDick

Ditto.

Plus many of the people who did vote, did so on the basis of lies.

PK is absolutely correct that shrub, et al, knew that it was a lie. Even though many of us that followed the AUMF and stove piping closely knew that a lot of it was fabricated, for John Q Public depending on network news it was all "he said, she said", suitcase dirty bombs and crop dusters spreading anthrax.

When the electorate is being intentionally mislead by the Administration - from the President, down - and the news media, it's a little disingenuous to drop all the blame on the voters.

Julio said in reply to DrDick

Not the blame, perhaps, but some of the responsibility.
We live in a representative republic. These things are done in our collective name.
pgl said in reply to mulp
Yea - did we vote to train wreck Social Security in 2004? Don't think so. BTW - I did vote in 2002 for people who were opposed to the war.
ilsm said
Jeb was caught speaking in the open things he was supposed to say only in closed sessions with war profiteer PAC's and other exploiters of the 90%.aff. He's already made a Mitten gaff.

PNAC is alive and well, undercover in the GOP.

They want to keep Iraq whole, but the Saudi royals do not want Iraq run by Shiites who are 67% of the population. hey need to resurrect Saddam!T

ISIS goes nowhere without Sunni support, Ramadi falling is example.

W and PNAC were invading Iraq for the money, oil was the least corrupt motive, the most corrupt is the trillions squandered since 2003. Trillions that were taken away from US productivity and kill social security.

The matter of US casualties is another grave sin .

mulp said in reply to ilsm
We the People who vote in all elections have the power, not PNAC.
ilsm said in reply to mulp
"We the MISLEAD People who vote,"

Faux News, we the mislead, aggravated to hate those people and misbelieve war mongering experts.

JohnH said
Twenty-twenty hindsight is often pretty good. But it's hard to understand what prompted Krugman to write this piece now. Maybe he's trying the "get" Jeb (a positive.) Or maybe he's trying to help clear a space for Hillary to "get it," a decade too late, and offer her excuses and mea culpas. In any case, the last thing we need is another President with such poor judgement.

What's particularly disturbing about the Iraq experience is that almost no lessons have been learned, other than perhaps it's better to use drones instead of boots on the ground for fighting pointless and futile foreign wars. Pelosi won a mandate in 2006 to end the war but never challenged Bush on it. Harry Reid even held "surge" hearings on 9-11-2007, the best day possible to garner support for yet more war.

What kept USA from attacking Iran was not Democrats in Congress or public opposition. Rather, it was a report issued by US intelligence services, a consensus opinion that Iran had no nuclear program. They had learned lessons from being manipulated on Iraq intelligence and wanted restore their credibility.

Moreover, the Iraq experience in no way prevented Obama from pursuing the destruction and resulting chaos in Afghanistan or Libya, or from thwarting self-determination with coups in Haiti, Honduras, and Paraguay.

What Krugman is missing here is the urgent need for opinion leaders to exercise critical thinking and judgement before these tragedies occur. By 2007, Bush was known to be a notorious liar. Nonetheless, few questioned his intention to attack Iran, even with the consensus report of the intelligence services that destroyed the pretexts for it.

By January, 2003 I had compiled enough evidence of Bush's phony intelligence to come out publicly against the war, much to the dismay and horror of most people, including my bosses. All it took was looking for the right information and connecting the dots. My point here is not to be self congratulatory, but to show that it can be done.

What really needs discussion now is how to get American people to see through the stream of BS emanating from Washington and their megaphones in the news media and to use their powers of critical thinking and judgement and to preserve their personal integrity by acting to stop stupid wars and promote the common good. That could start at Ivy League schools like the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where Krugman teaches.

pgl said in reply to JohnH
I guess you are the most ignorant person ever. Krugman was against this stupid war in 2002. And cover for Hillary who voted to support Bush for whatever reasoning she now gives.

Krugman is not leading Hillary campaign. But you still have a perfect record - for getting everything wrong.

pgl said in reply to JohnH
I guess the Google Master classes taught for Chicken Hawks like you are designed to filter out anything that does not support the Chicken Hawk agenda. Krugman was called the Shrill One back in 2002 for his tirades against Bush Cheney. But maybe you don't know this as you are: (1) stupid; and (2) trained by the Bush-Cheney Chicken Hawk school of neo-McCarthyism.

Say hello to Scooter Libby for us!

JohnH said in reply to pgl
You insist on my misinterpreting my point: more important than debating Iraq is to make sure that we don't allow ourselves to be misled again. Pulling out the long knives on Iraq means nothing if no lessons are learned about the folly of most wars. And so far none have been learned, at least in the Obama administration. One of the most important places for this to happen is at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which would be more aptly named the Wilson School for Warmongers.

pgl said in reply to JohnH
"By January, 2003 I had compiled enough evidence of Bush's phony intelligence to come out publicly against the war, much to the dismay and horror of most people, including my bosses. All it took was looking for the right information and connecting the dots. My point here is not to be self congratulatory, but to show that it can be done."

Your bosses? Who gave you a job? A lot of people had tons of evidence to come out against the war by then. One was General Anthony Zinni whose opposition to the planned invasion was made loud and clear.

Why don't you share with us a link to the evidence you made public? That's right - I'm calling you on this as you have lied so many times before. But please prove me wrong on this one.

JohnH said in reply to pgl
One piece that confirmed my thinking was a Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) Memorandum. It was published on Common Dreams. The link is no longer available but its message is summarized but not quoted verbatim at many other sources.

Second Piece: "In October 1998, just before Saddam kicked U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq [actually, they were withdrawn], the IAEA laid out a case opposite of Mr. Bush's Sept. 7 [2002] declaration: "There are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance," IAEA Director-General Mohammed Elbaradei wrote in a report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. (.http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020927-500715.htm.).

pgl said in reply to JohnH
There was tons of the counter information. A lot of it was put up by people like Paul Krugman. No one paying attention in early 2003 believed a word from Bush or Cheney.
don said
My own take - an important cause of the war was the fact that one of Saddam's minions tried to kill W's father after he had left office. It was pretty obvious to me that the war was brought on by pretexts, and especially that any ties to 9-11 were spurious. (I recall especially a snippet from a broadcast by a British news agency, which I overheard as I was walking around the ellipse across from the White House. The announcer was saying "

and our polls indicate that the strategy appears to be working 80% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the events of 9/11 ") Colin Powell, to his credit, was such a poor liar that it was blatantly obvious. From accounts I read of Saddam's behavior as the invasion became imminent, I am reminded of a scene in Robocop, where Saddam would be in the position of the hapless employee who is asked to pick up a gun and threaten a prototype robot cop, which then malfunctions (not that Saddam has any pity coming). Yet Hillary voted for the war.

The disconnect between truth and news seems to have grown during and since W's time, or perhaps it is just things I noticed. Bush shirks Vietnam, yet the issue goes against veteran Kerry (who is attacked by the 'swift boats' propaganda). Repeal of the 'death tax' gets popular support. Despite almost $4 trillion in official reserves, China is not, and has never been a currency manipulator

JohnH said in reply to don
Kerry left everything he learned in Vietnam on the altar of political opportunism. Now he's just another member of the committee of warmongers running foreign policy
pgl said in reply to JohnH
You could not carry Kerry's shoes when he in the navy. You can't carry them now. Stick to what you know - shilling for right wing liars like Cameron.
Robert Hill said
I wonder what the USA and UK arms industry would do if world peace were suddenly to break out.

[May 19, 2015] The Military-Industrial Complex in the United States Evolution and Expansion from World War II to the War on Terror

Sept 1, 2013 | studentpulse.com

After World War II, the United States military gradually came into a position of overwhelming dominance in the world. Military spending in the United States far outpaces that of other countries, with their world share of military expenditures at 41% in 2011, followed by Russia and China with only eight and four percent respectively (SIPRI 2012). This has been the case since the Second World War and has been justified in different ways over time. The arguments for continued military dominance have ranged from "long-term economic gains" at the start of the war (Shoup and Murray 1977, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 45) to Soviet containment during the Cold War, "a broader responsibility of global militarism" since the 1980s (Ryan 1991, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 73), and most recently the need to protect citizens against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, there has been consistent concern that powerful groups in military, political, and corporate positions, profiteering from conflict and sharing interests in intensifying defense expenditure, have become the primary actors for making and administering U.S. foreign policy. Today the scope of the defense industry is now much bigger than legitimate security needs justify (see, for example, Moskos 1974, Mintz 1985, Waddell 2001 and Hossein-zadeh 2006).

This analysis argues that expansion of the U.S. military establishment from the 1940s onward was initially a means to an end in the process of stabilizing the world economy and serving national security interests, but -- over time -- became an end in itself, serving the interests of an elite group that uses the projection of power as a way to justify the continued expansion of military spending. This essay is divided into two sections: the first focuses on the origins of America's military-industrial complex, beginning with a definition of the elite group that the complex comprises. Next, by focusing on the period in which the foundation for the complex was laid – the Second World War – it is argued that the complex arose unintentionally in some ways, although important characteristics of it were visible from the start. Third, military Keynesianism, often used to defend high military budgets once the complex was in place, will be discussed and refuted. The second section focuses on the most important argument in favor of high military budgets today: the need to protect American citizens from the global threat of terrorism. It is argued that public perceptions of the causes of terrorism are incorrect, yet have been gladly utilized and fostered by the American military-industrial complex to justify an ineffective global war.

The Evolving Military-Industrial Complex in the United States

What distinguishes the "power elite" that constitutes the military-industrial complex from other powerful groups in American society who also seek advancement of their own interests, is that this is not a ruling class based solely on the ownership of property (Mills 1956, cited in Moskos 1974: 499-500). Rather, it is a coalition of civilian agencies that formally shape military policy (such as the Senate and the CIA), military institutions, private firms, research institutions and think tanks – all centered on and linked to the Pentagon (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 13). As a result of power arising from the occupancy in top bureaucratic positions as well as from capital ownership, the interests of the ruling elite go beyond the mere accumulation of wealth and include desires to maintain themselves in power and to press for specific forms of public policy. Their most important common interest is intensifying defense expenditure. War profiteering in itself is not new – wars have always been fought at least in part for economic gains. Today's military-industrial complex is different in that it treats war as a business: the ruling elite's goal of having a large military establishment is not to expand the nation's wealth, but "to appropriate the lion's share of existing wealth for the military establishment" (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 90). As a consequence, decisions on defense allocation, arms production and military operations are motivated by desires for profit and personal power, not necessarily by security requirements.

This is not to say that expansion of the military budget has always been an 'end' for a powerful group of elites, but in fact was initially a means to serve other ends. The first big expansion of the military establishment took place in the early years of the Second World War, when the U.S. had legitimate concerns for its own national security due to such events as the attack on Pearl Harbor, and feared the war would negatively impact foreign trade. Military expansion is a logical result of the former concern, as it is a means to preserve physical security. However, it is closely linked to the latter concern, too. The Council on Foreign Relations, one of the nation's most influential think foreign policy think-tanks, advised the U.S. government that it needed free access to markets and raw materials in all regions outside of continental Europe for economic self-sufficiency. To this end, the U.S. advocated globalization and open economic cooperation through multilateralism. At the time, the crisis of the '30s and the war had made the concept of the free market highly unpopular. This made "military supremacy for the U.S. within the non-German world" a complementary requirement to ensure all countries within the "U.S.-led, non-German Grand Area," including Japan, would accept American conditions (Shoup and Murray 1977, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 45). In short, military spending was not yet an end in itself, it was the combined result of needing to increase power in the face of security challenges and wanting to restore trust in and stabilize the global capitalist system.

Key characteristics of the current military-industrial complex, however, were already present when the objectives of U.S. foreign policy during World War II were drafted. As Hossein-zadeh points out, a brief look at the social status and class composition of the Council on Foreign Relations, which consisted of wealthy, influential people with ties to major industrial corporations and politicians, shows that a ruling class shaped major government policies "operating through the institutional umbrella of the Council, and providing intellectual justification for major foreign policy overhauls" (2006: 41). The military-industrial complex in its present form might not have been in place then or have been created intentionally, but clearly there already was a power elite based on more than capital ownership, and strong ties between the military, political, and corporate spheres.

After World War II, the Cold War stabilized U.S. foreign policy for over forty years1. With its demise, a "vacuum in the organizing principles of national government" had emerged (Waddell 2001: 133). Even if unintended, the military-industrial complex was well in place by now, and suggestions to curtail the military budget were met with fierce opposition. However, cutting back on non-military public expenditures while an expensive military establishment is preserved proved harder to justify with the loss of the perceived Soviet threat. An argument in favor of military spending that has been used consistently is that it boosts economic growth (Dreze 2000: 180). Mintz, for instance, notes that the military-industrial complex is seen by many to have "considerable influence on levels of employment, … the profitability of arms manufacture and the scope of exports" (1983: 124).

The view that large military spending is an effective means of demand stimulation and job creation, and hence of economic growth, is called military Keynesianism. Keynes' (non-military) theory holds that in times of inadequate purchasing power, the (non-military) private sector becomes wary of expansion, and so the government should spend money in order to boost the stagnant economy by stimulating demand. Since expansion of the military industry is a government investment, it could have the desired economic effects in times of recession. However, it is important to keep in mind that Keynes argues for little government spending in times of high employment and sufficient demand. Military Keynesianists seem to ignore this fact completely and have argued for high government expenditures even during the Golden Age after World War II – and in no other sector than the military-industrial one. This can only be explained by the fact that it is a constantly shrinking number of people experiencing the economic benefits of high military spending (Waddell 2001: 135). The same people tend to switch positions between the Pentagon, its prime contractors and lobbying think tanks supporting those contractors, meaning that military spending is no longer an economic stimulus for the entire nation. Instead, it has become a redistributive mechanism of national resources in favor of the wealthy (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 226).

Cashing In on the War on Terror

What gets lots in the debate over the economic consequences of military spending is the effect it has on international stability. An old principle asserts that military threats are essential in preventing wars from occurring (Dreze 2000: 1178), but an overly extended military establishment means actual military operations are necessary from time to time to 'prove' the necessity of the army. And indeed, militarists have found that the most effective manner of convincing the American public of the need of a large military establishment is the constant 'discovery' of external threats. The threat currently most emphasized by the U.S. is global terrorism. We argue that while some fears of Islamic fundamentalism are justified, most are not; and that the threat of terrorism is not logically followed by higher military investment.

The U.S. is not being fair in its assessment of the Arab threat. Public discourse today implies that Islam is inherently more rigid and anti-modern than other religions. Huntington famously predicted that most major conflicts would be between Muslims and non-Muslims, as "Islam has bloody borders" (1993: 12). In 1990, historian Bernard Lewis described a "surge of hatred" rising from the Islamic world that "becomes a rejection of Western civilisation as such" (cited in Coll 2012). Richard Perle, American neoconservative militarist and advisor to Israel's Likud Party, proposes a strategy of "de-contextualization" to explain acts of terrorism and violent resistance to occupation, arguing that we must stop trying to understand the territorial, geopolitical and historical reasons that some groups turn to fundamentalism; instead, reasons for the violence of such groups must be sought in the Islamic way of thinking (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 101).

Religious fundamentalism, however, is universal: it arises in response to modernity and secularism, both of which tend to weaken or threaten religious traditions. John Voll points out that by the early 1990s, "violent militancy was clearly manifest among Hindu fundamentalists, Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Jewish fundamentalists in Israel and others elsewhere" (1994, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 110-11). As one scholar points out, if the Bosnians, the Palestinians and the Kashmiris are asked about their borders they would say that, respectively, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism are the ones that have bloody borders (Ahmed 2002: 29). Yet statements like the ones by Huntington, Lewis and Perle cited above single out Islam as the most dangerous potential enemy of the West. They all interpret the militancy of Islamic fundamentalism as being somehow directly caused by distinctive Islamic doctrines and traditions (Voll 1994, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 111) and attribute terrorist attacks to "pathological problems of the Muslim mind" (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 101). In doing so, they posit a characteristic supposedly shared by Muslims from Indonesia through Iran to Senegal, that makes conflict with the West inevitable.

An incorrect assessment of the roots of terrorism does not justify the extent to which the U.S. expanded its military activity after 2001; nor does it explain why it continues to fight an ineffective war. As Peña points out, a larger military would not have prevented the tragedy of 9/11, and it will not prevent future terrorist actions (2001, cited in Snider 2004). Terrorism, much like the war that is fought against it, is a means of pursuing objectives, not an actor. It cannot be stopped by military action as fighting does nothing to address the issues that terrorists feel can only be resolved violently; if anything, this is more likely to lead to a vicious cycle of constantly growing military budgets and an ever higher number of terrorist attacks. As one author put it: "the moral crusade to end terrorism can only begin with a realistic assessment of its cause" (Snider 2004). So far, the global war on terror has done little to eradicate terrorism.

On the contrary, it seems the threat of an attack is now bigger: the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has increased from just over 1800 in 2001, to a staggering five-thousand ten years later (START 2012). The question that arises, then, is why successive U.S. administrations have found it so difficult to accept that perhaps their assessment of the causes of terrorism is incorrect; that perhaps, the policies built on their premises are not effective, but rather a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to a vicious cycle of constantly expanding military activities and an increasing number of individuals who believe their grievances cannot be settled non-violently. This has everything to do with the never-ending need for militarism: 9/11 was approached by the U.S. as an opportunity for aggression. The attacks, however heinous, were approached by the government not as crimes (which would require criminal prosecution and law enforcement), but as a personal attack against Americans (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 91). With the views expressed by Huntington, Lewis and Perle widespread among the American public already, pre-emptive war and military expansion was easily justifiable to Americans. After all, how would dialogue help if the Muslim mind is pathologically troubled? An American citizen might cringe at the idea, but it is true: the 9/11 tragedy "came from heaven to an administration determined to ramp up military budgets" (Johnson 2004: 64).

Conclusion

This essay has sought to argue that the U.S. military-industrial complex was the unintentional result of both a desire to stabilize the global capitalist system and to protect national security interests, but that military spending is now closely linked to the personal interests of a small, influential group of elites. In the first section, it was illustrated that the context of the Second World War made increased military expenditures a necessary means to other ends, although the power elite that would eventually come to benefit from these expenditures was already in place. Once in place, this power elite has constantly needed to justify the disproportionate allocation of national resources to the military establishment. Emphasizing the economic benefits of military investment by drawing on Keynesian theory is a way of doing so, but military Keynesianists seem to give a one-sided account of the theory, one that suits their interests.

The second section focused on the global war on terror, arguing that the U.S. is capitalizing on public fears which are based on an incorrect assessment of the causes of terrorism. The war on terror has done little to eradicate terrorism, but as long as the public continues believing it is a necessary war, the U.S. military-industrial complex will continue using it as an opportunity to keep military budgets high.


References

  • Ahmed, A. (2002) 'Ibn Khaldun's understanding of civilizations and the dilemmas of Islam and the West today', Middle East Journal, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 20-45
  • Coll, S. (2012) 'Days of Rage', The New Yorker, 1 October. [Online] Available at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/10/01/121001taco_talk_coll (accessed 7 January 2013)
  • Dreze, J. (2000) 'Militarism, development and democracy', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 35, No. 14, pp. 1171-1183
  • Hossein-zadeh, I. (2006). The political economy of U.S. militarism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
  • Huntington, S. P. (1993) 'The Clash of Civilizations?' in The Council on Foreign Relations, ed. 1996, Samuel P. Huntington's the clash of civilizations: the debate, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, pp. 1-26
  • Johnson, C. (2004) The sorrows of empire: militarism, secrecy, and the end of the republic. New York: Henry Holt and Company
  • Mintz, A. (1985) 'The military-industrial complex: American concepts and Israeli realities', The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 623-639
  • Moskos, C. (1974) 'The concept of the military-industrial complex: radical critique or liberal bogey?', Social Problems, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 498-512
  • SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) (2012) Military spending and armament: the 15 major spender countries in 2011 (table). Solna: SIPRI. Available at http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/resultoutput/milex_15 (accessed 4 January 2013)
  • Snider, B. (2004) 'Manufacturing terrorism', antiwar.com, 14 June. [Online] Available at http://antiwar.com/blog/2004/06/14/manufacturing-terrorism/ (accessed 6 January 2013)
  • START (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism). (2012) Incidents over time. Maryland: Global Terrorism Database. [Data file] Available at http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?region= (accessed 7 January 2013)
  • Waddell, B. (2001) 'Limiting national interventionism in the United States: the warfare-welfare state as a restrictive government paradigm', Capital and class, Vol. 74, pp. 109-140

1.) The U.S. did have to rethink the expenses of their policies during the crisis of the '70s, when expanding on both warfare and welfare became too expensive. Allocating taxpayers' money to the military had become harder to justify for several reasons; by this time, however, the military-industrial complex was well in place. Beneficiaries of militarism succeeded in maintaining high military budgets, mainly by exaggerating the 'Soviet threat' (such as in the now-discredited Team B report by the Committee on the Present Danger). This was clearly a way of defining the elite group's interests in terms of national interests and is relevant to the topic, but it is not within the scope of the essay to discuss this in detail.

[May 18, 2015] Dueck's "Conservative Realism" and The Obama Doctrine

This is a Neoconservatism, not so much realism...
May 18, 2015 | The American Conservative
Frank Hoffman reviews Colin Dueck's The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today:

The author proposes an alternative strategy called conservative American realism. It is designed to appeal to the center mass of today's conservatives by triangulating the three factions. This strategy seeks to counter the perceived retrenchment of the last six years, and explicitly embraces American primacy. Primacy, to Dueck, is "a circumstance and an interest, not a strategy." Conservative American realism emphasizes reassuring allies that the United States seeks to remain a key player in the international arena by expanding forward presence and bolstering deterrence. Dueck details U.S. fundamental interests, and defines the specific adversaries that must be countered. These include state competitors (China and Russia), rogue states like North Korea, and jihadi terrorists. To deal with the latter, the author chides Mr. Obama for half-hearted approaches, and suggests these implacable foes require solutions that are "appropriately Carthaginian." One wonders how far Dueck would really take that historical analogy - enslave Muslims or salt their lands?

Based on the description of Dueck's "conservative American realism" in the review, it is debatable whether the proposed strategy qualifies as either conservative or realist. It would appear to commit the U.S. in too many places to bear burdens that our allies and clients should be taking on for themselves, and it does so out of a misguided concern that the U.S. has not been activist enough during the Obama presidency. I don't know what Dueck means by "appropriately Carthaginian" solutions, but the implication that the U.S. should be seeking to ruin and dominate other nations in such a fashion is disturbing in itself. It is not at all clear that the U.S. should be doing more "reassure" allies and clients. Most of them are already too dependent on the U.S. for their security and should be expected to do more to provide for themselves, and their endless demands for "reassurance" are attempts to get the U.S. to give them extra support they don't need or that the U.S. has no interest in giving them. The U.S. currently has too many commitments overseas and hardly needs to expand the presence that it already has.

Dueck places great emphasis on applying coercive measures against various states, but there doesn't seem to much attention paid to the costs that applying these measures can have on the U.S. and its allies. Imposing costs and intensifying pressure on other states aren't ends in themselves, and they have proven time and again to be ineffective tools for changing the behavior of recalcitrant and hostile regimes. Coercive measures can backfire and can have effects that their advocates don't anticipate, and they can provoke the targeted state to pursue more hostile and dangerous policies than there would have been otherwise. Dueck's interest in relying on coercive measures seems to be little more than a reaction against the perceived laxity of the Obama administration, which has itself been too reliant on imposing sanctions as an all-purpose response to the undesirable behavior of other governments. If Obama failed to apply enough pressure, Dueck's thinking appears to be that more pressure must be the answer. Missing from all of this is any explanation of why the U.S. needs to be cajoling and pressuring these states in the first place. To what end?

Dueck also wants to throw more money at the military by insisting on setting the military budget at 4% of GDP. As Hoffman notes, tying the military budget to an arbitrary figure like this represents the absence of strategy:

The basis for this amount appears aspirational, and I have previously written on why such general goals are astrategic if not tied to specific requirements and threats. More importantly, details about how he would employ the additional $170 billion per year in defense spending are lacking.

If one wants huge increases in military spending and the pursuit of pointlessly confrontational policies against both major authoritarian powers, Dueck's book would appear to offer the desired guidance. What it has to do with either realism or conservatism remains a mystery.

[May 18, 2015] NYT throws Poroshenko under the bus

In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution - NYTimes.com

The country is on the cliff of bankruptcy. A spate of politically motivated killings and mysterious suicides of former government officials has sown fear in the capital. Infighting has begun to splinter the pro-European majority coalition in Parliament. And a constant threat of war lingers along the Russian border.

A year after the election of Petro O. Poroshenko as president to replace the ousted Viktor F. Yanukovych, and six months after the swearing in of a new legislature, Ukraine remains deeply mired in political and economic chaos.

"Poroshenko, whether you like him or not, he's not delivering," said Bruce P. Jackson, the president of the Project on Transitional Democracies, an American nonprofit group. "The Ukrainian government is so weak and fragile that it is too weak to do the necessary things to build a unified and independent state."

Victoria J. Nuland, a senior State Department official, in Kiev, Ukraine, on Saturday. She will be in Moscow for talks Monday.

Efforts to forge a political settlement between the government in Kiev and Russian-backed separatists who control much of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have hit a deadlock over procedural disputes, despite a cease-fire in February calling for decentralization of power and greater local autonomy as the linchpins of a long-term accord.

[May 18, 2015]Did Uncle Sam buy off the Maidan?

The question is interesting ;-). The answer of pressitutes from Zeit is pathetic... They definitely know about amount of cash shipped via diplomatic mail during Maydan event and the about the amount of cash confiscated by police from Batkivshchina office during the raid in December 2014. But they prefer do not metion it. This is what pressitution is about. When Jen Psaki is a role mode ;-)
May 17, 2015 | ZEIT ONLINE

The United States has spent millions on Ukraine over the past few decades. Where did the money go?

Read the German version of this article here.

When someone mentions Ukraine nowadays, Russia automatically springs to mind. What will happen next: Will it be war or peace?

As soon as Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to attack the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in an attempt to build a bridge to already annexed Crimea, the West would feel obliged to react. And then it would quickly become apparent that the West is not united.

It would also bring to the fore another problem that has so far been hidden by the conflict with Russia: The problem between Europe and America. At that point, many in Washington would want to send arms to Ukraine. In Brussels, very few would. In Berlin, no one would. That would give rise to another question: What do the Americans really want in Ukraine?

A few months ago, the Ukrainians asked the United States for tanks and missile defense systems. They received instead 300 American military advisors, off-road vehicles and night-vision equipment. That was all the help for a country at war. Anyone attempting to measure the gap between the Ukrainian wishes and American response will see that there hasn't been anything more than gestures and symbolism so far. But what does that actually mean?

To understand the American relationship to Ukraine, it's necessary to go back to the beginning. Back in 1991, President George H. W. Bush traveled to Kiev. The Cold War was over. The Soviet Union still existed, but it was crumbling. The West had won. What now?

Mr. Bush had no interest in seeing the complete collapse of the Soviet Union. He feared there would no longer be an organizing power in the region. Which is why he appeared before the Ukrainian parliament to warn against the drive for independence and "suicidal nationalism."

The Ukrainians paid no heed, voting in a December 1991 nationwide referendum – including Crimea – for independence. There was no way Washington could ignore that, so cooperation with Kiev was strengthened.

The nuclear weapons in Ukraine, in cooperation with Russia, were destroyed. Ukrainian soldiers received training in the United States.

In the second half of the 1990s, Ukraine had more military cooperation with the United States than with any other country. Not even with Russia. There were dreams of joining NATO, even while Ukraine's Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was in power. The Russians didn't seem to mind much.

But such harmony didn't last long. As Ukraine's economic and political reforms stagnated and corruption remained rampant, the Americans slowly lost interest in the country. Only after Mr. Yanukovych, suspected of vote fraud, was kept from ascending to the presidency by the 2004 Orange Revolution did U.S. attention revive.

In December 2004 Viktor Yushchenko was elected Ukrainian president, guaranteeing closer ties with America, especially since his wife grew up there and had even worked for the U.S. State Department for a time.

It's then that the theories of U.S. meddling in Ukraine started to gain traction. The British journalist Ian Traynor claimed in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian that the Yushchenko campaign was an American plot, citing as evidence American payments to train election observers and protest groups, as well as American financed polls designed to back up accusations of Mr. Yanukovych's vote fraud.

Not many believe Mr. Traynor's theory, but one person who does is the respected Professor John Mearsheimer, who teaches political science at the University of Chicago. He says that Washington continues to try to influence Ukraine even a decade after the Orange Revolution. He's convinced that the Maidan protests – eventually responsible for the ousting of Mr. Yanukovych on February 22, 2014 – were several years in the making and backed by American cash. A putsch. "America wanted a change, because it wanted to gain influence over Ukraine," Prof. Mearsheimer says.

It's at this point that a large sum of money and a telephone call become part of the story.

Victoria Nuland, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, spoke of $5 billion, or €4.5 billion, for Ukraine in a call to the American ambassador in Kiev on January 28, 2014. That was just a few weeks before Mr. Yanukovych was chased out of the country. Ms. Nuland also spoke of whom from the opposition could join the new government as if she could influence such things. That all came to light after the conversation was tapped and made public – apparently by a Ukrainian intelligence service officer still loyal to Mr. Yanukovych.

At first glance, $5 billion is a hefty sum of money – but is it hefty enough to buy an entire revolution?

The money flowed from 1991 to 2014. Most of it from the U.S. State Department, which handles foreign affairs, and its development arm USAID, which was set up by John F. Kennedy. He saw it as successor to the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Europe after the Second World War.

The agency's funds come from the U.S. federal budget. In 2016, USAID will have $22.3 billion to spend worldwide, but it has to stick to the president's foreign policy guidelines. It is therefore a political instrument that is never completely without a political goal in mind. But how will that money be used exactly?

The Kiev offices of USAID are on the edge of the Ukrainian capital, on the same compound as the U.S. Embassy. It's a gigantic building surrounded by a high fence.

Ann Marie Yastishock, the deputy regional USAID director, has frequently had to answer questions about the money. "We don't finance revolutions, we support civil society and NGOs," she said. "We financed neither the Orange Revolution nor the Maidan protests in 2014. Those were citizens out there at the Maidan, rising up against their corrupt government."

USAID became active in Ukraine in 1992 at the behest of the Ukrainian government, just as it did in Russia, Georgia and many other post-Soviet countries. "We thought at the time that we would be here at most 20 years and then everything here would blossom," Ms. Yastishock remembers.


America has supported many projects with the money since then with the intention of helping strengthen democracy: Anti-corruption groups, election monitoring, parliamentary expertise. Much more money was spent on health projects, environmental projects and economic development.


But the expenditures have decreased substantially over the years. It was still $195.6 million in 2011, but that had shrunk by 2014 to just $86.1 million. Only in 2015 did that figure rise a little.

Could such amounts have led to people risking their lives during the long weeks of struggle at Maidan?

Mr. Putin seems to think so. He sees the foreign money as interference in the domestic affairs of a country. That's why NGOs in Russia that receive money from abroad are now subject to the country's foreign agent law. American NGOs are no longer allowed to operate there. The foundation of the U.S. investor George Soros had to shut down its HIV and methadone projects, helping contribute to Russia's increasing HIV infection rate.

Mr. Putin, on the other hand, has invested heavily in a number of NGOs meant to increase Russia's influence abroad since the Orange Revolution in 2004. Starting in 2012, $130 million has flown each year into organizations operating in post-Soviet countries and the Balkans, but particularly in Ukraine.


The overall amount is growing, according to a soon-to-be-released study from the respected London-based think tank Chatham House, which is predominately funded by international corporations. The study shows a huge network in service of Russian interests using fear-mongering and manipulation to influence a country's populace and attempt to bias it against the West. The biggest difference to the American soft power concept is that Russia isn't trying to win anyone over with the attractiveness of its own model, but rather makes use of economic pressure and political intimidation.

But even someone failing to see a difference between Russian and American influence has to recognize that neither side now has the upper hand and neither is seriously in any position to steer the course of Ukrainian history. The Ukrainians, just as they did when Bush Senior spoke to them, have always decided their own future.

And it should stay that way, because it could be a highly dangerous scenario if Ukraine became a geostrategic playing field for foreign powers. For example, what would happen if a U.S. president unwilling to ignore Russian provocations, such as a U.S. Republican like John McCain, came to power?

President Barack Obama thinks differently. He avoids conflicts with Mr. Putin and would prefer to leave the problem with Europe, that is, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"Shortly after the annexation of Crimea by Putin there was the policy of not doing anything to provoke the Russians," says Karen Donfried, Mr. Obama's former Europe advisor. A high-ranking advisor in the White House connects the dots: "We can't deal with the Ukraine problem in an isolated fashion, since there are other interests as well. We want to keep open our lines of communication with the Russians on topics such as Syria, Islamic State, Assad or Afghanistan." In other words: Mr. Obama believes he still needs the Russians.

In Kiev, the co-founder of the independent broadcaster Hromadske TV, which is financed by Ukrainian citizens, as well as donations from E.U. foundations and the Dutch and American embassies, says that it's become harder to get money from the Americans. And that's despite the fact that independent media in Ukraine can only exist with outside help.


Ukrainian TV channels, all owned by the country's oligarchs, simply can't be trusted. The Americans, however, are hesitant. They want to avoid at all costs any semblance of meddling.

Back in Washington there are still memories of Russia's war with Georgia in 2008, when relations between the Bush administration and Russia had reached a low point. America had previously lavished Georgia with massive amounts of money and weapons in an attempt to build a strategic bridgehead in the southern Caucasus region. But as Russia marched into Georgia, it wasn't prepared to intervene. Washington's Russian policy lay in tatters.


A year later, Mr. Obama became president and attempted to restart ties with Russia. From the economy to disarmament, there were many common interests. Karen Donfried says: "We were honestly convinced that Russia had decided to cooperate with the West instead of risking an open military conflict. We were just as surprised by the events on the Maidan as by Putin's reaction to them. We knew, of course, that Russia had reacted sensitively to the NATO expansion. But we never thought that it would react in such a way to an E.U. association agreement."

Because Mr. Obama wants to avoid an escalation of the conflict, he's continued to speak out against arms shipments. Anyone supplying weapons would simply fuel the logic of an arms race. Mr. Putin wouldn't watch idly, he would send more weapons into eastern Ukraine. That's why Mr. Obama has up until now ignored those in Washington demanding a more hawkish course of action against Russia.


Ukraine is not an American priority, according to the government advisor, the White House is merely trying to improve the security situation there.

American interest in Ukraine has ebbed and flowed dramatically over the past quarter century. Sometimes it wanted to help build up the country's democratic society, while other times it wanted to contain its strategic rival Russia. Should the situation escalate anew in the coming months, America will likely change its policy yet again. Barack Obama will then have to again consider sending weapons. His political opponents and some of his political allies will ask him the following question: Should America tolerate such behavior from Mr. Putin?

And then there will be that problem again between America and Europe.

Translated by Marc Young

[May 18, 2015] New Military Spending Bill Expands Empire But Forbids Debate on War

May 17, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

On Friday the House passed a massive National Defense Authorization for 2016 that will guarantee US involvement in more wars and overseas interventions for years to come. The Republican majority resorted to trickery to evade the meager spending limitations imposed by the 2011 budget control act – limitations that did not, as often reported, cut military spending but only slowed its growth.

But not even slower growth is enough when you have an empire to maintain worldwide, so the House majority slipped into the military spending bill an extra $89 billion for an emergency war fund. Such "emergency" spending is not addressed in the growth caps placed on the military under the 2011 budget control act. It is a loophole filled by Congress with Fed-printed money.

Ironically, a good deal of this "emergency" money will go to President Obama's war on ISIS even though neither the House nor the Senate has debated – let alone authorized – that war! Although House leadership allowed 135 amendments to the defense bill – with many on minor issues like regulations on fire hoses – an effort by a small group of Representatives to introduce an amendment to debate the current US war in Iraq and Syria was rejected.

While squashing debate on ongoing but unauthorized wars, the bill also pushed the administration toward new conflicts. Despite the president's unwise decision to send hundreds of US military trainers to Ukraine, a move that threatens the current shaky ceasefire, Congress wants even more US involvement in Ukraine's internal affairs. The military spending bill included $300 million to directly arm the Ukrainian government even as Ukrainian leaders threaten to again attack the breakaway regions in the east. Does Congress really think US-supplied weapons killing ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine is a good idea?

The defense authorization bill also seeks to send yet more weapons into Iraq. This time the House wants to send weapons directly to the Kurds in northern Iraq without the approval of the Iraqi government. Although these weapons are supposed to be used to fight ISIS, we know from too many prior examples that they often find their way into the hands of the very people we are fighting. Also, arming an ethnic group seeking to break away from Baghdad and form a new state is an unwise infringement of the sovereignty of Iraq. It is one thing to endorse the idea of secession as a way to reduce the possibility of violence, but it is quite something else to arm one side and implicitly back its demands.

While the neocons keep pushing the lie that the military budget is shrinking under the Obama Administration, the opposite is true. As the CATO Institute pointed out recently, President George W. Bush's average defense budget was $601 billion, while during the Obama administration the average has been $687 billion. This bill is just another example of this unhealthy trend.

Next year's military spending plan keeps the US on track toward destruction of its economy at home while provoking new resentment over US interventionism overseas. It is a recipe for disaster. Let's hope for either a presidential veto, or that on final passage Congress rejects this bad bill.


Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[May 18, 2015] Open thread for night owls The empire strikes back

May 17, 2015 | | Daily Kos News

Hersh's latest is a ten thousand-word piece in the London Review of Books in which he explains that everything the government told you about the killing of Osama bin Laden is a lie. A few of the highlights are: (1) The government of Pakistan knew exactly where Bin Laden was, (2) Saudi Arabia was paying Pakistan to keep Bin Laden in his safe house compound, (3) America found out where Bin Laden was not by tracking an Al Qaeda courier or by torturing people, but because a disgruntled Pakistani intelligence officer wanted to claim the $25 million dollar reward, (4) America was going to make it appear as if Bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike, but switched courses at the last minute after one of the SEAL's helicopters crashed, (5) The American and Pakistani government colluded to lie to the public about how Bin Laden was found and killed.

Predictably, many in the media have rushed to the government's defense. Hersh's anonymous sources rankle them. The story itself, which is so far removed from the official narrative and implicates corruption at the highest levels of government, has a dreamlike aura. Never mind that the account the government gave has been deteriorating from the start, and the glaring contradictions between the official versions as related by the Pakistani and American governments. Put aside the fact that someone else using different sources reported a version of Hersh's story in 2011, or that NBC, within a day, had already confirmed a key point of Hersh's narrative. If Hersh's critics actually did submerge themselves in a detailed re-reporting of his allegations, the process would subjugate the American ruling class to deeper scrutiny than usual. [...]

[May 18, 2015] I herewith enter in to evidence the following 'article' by Neuters written with excruciating spin

et Al, May 17, 2015 at 11:41 am

I herewith enter in to evidence the following 'article' by Neuters written with excruciating spin.

Neuters: Analysis – West clings to fraying Ukraine peace deal despite Kiev doubts
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/17/uk-ukraine-crisis-ceasefire-analysis-idUKKBN0O208T20150517

Western powers are clinging to a fraying peace deal in Ukraine and forcing Kiev to follow suit, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of wavering and NATO is warning that Moscow may be preparing for a new offensive.

Western powers are clinging to a fraying peace deal in Ukraine and forcing Kiev to follow suit, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of wavering and NATO is warning that Moscow may be preparing for a new offensive.

The United States and European Union are still backing the three-month old ceasefire, despite a growing feeling that it is in its death throes, telling Putin that sanctions will remain if he does not honor his promises…

…SICKLY FROM BIRTH

While it has been sickly from birth, no-one wants to administer the last rites on the ceasefire….

…Some commentators detected a softer tone when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Putin last week…

…Any new Russian-backed thrust is likely to focus on the coastal city of Mariupol. If it fell, the rebels might be able to open a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia annexed last year…

…"The simple reason why the political agenda of Minsk-2 has gone nowhere very fast is that the agenda ratifies Russian strategic gains and therefore runs counter to the national goals set by the Ukrainian government," Christopher Granville, managing director of London-based consultancy Trusted Sources, wrote in a note…

…It is not in Putin's nature to "blink". He cannot afford to back down on Ukraine as he would lose popularity at home and looking weak is not an option….

####

The article is all over the place. The author fails to ascribe blame on Russia and Putin outright but strongly alludes to it by use of 'anal-ysis' (Volodymyr Fesenko, Christopher Granville and the usual unnamed sources, Grubby Kegs & MakeLove. It's very badly written too. Well done Baron von Balmforth! This article is truly a massive piece of journalistic SHITE! Neuters should be embarrassed.

So, considering what we have all discussed above, it looks like there has been a shift of some kind and the Pork Pie News Networks are scrambling to catch up.

Christopher Granville

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Granville

…He is a former diplomat, having worked in the Political Section of the British Embassy in Moscow from 1995 to 1999, and previously at the Foreign Service of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office between 1990 and 1995.[6] He is a Quondam (former) Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and graduate of New College, Oxford.[7]…

Excuse me, but the above screams of SPOOK, recruited at Oxford… It's so cliché!

[May 17, 2015] Ukraine Recession Deepens as GDP Falls 17.6%

Poor Ukrainian citizens got back to 90th instead of EU...
Notable quotes:
"... and it is a bit too much like the assumptions made by American and EU policy makers who originally thought that sanctions would get the Russian people to blame Putin. ..."
May 15, 2015 | NASDAQ.com

The contraction in Ukraine's economy accelerated to 17.6% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, the State Statistics Service said Friday, hammered by a conflict with Russia-backed separatists in its eastern industrial heartland that has slashed industrial output.

Gross domestic product for the period slid 6.5% from the final quarter of 2014, the agency said. Ukraine reached a cease-fire deal with the separatists in February that has reduced--but not ended--fighting. Talks over a longer-term political resolution to the conflict have stalled with each side blaming the other.

The contraction was "a little bit worse than we estimated," according to Olena Bilan, chief economist at Dragon Capital brokerage. She said the economy had also been damaged by shrinking domestic consumption after the country's currency collapsed and inflation shot up. Retail spending was down 31% in March compared with the same month last year, according to Dragon Capital.

Still, analysts said the contraction in the last quarter is likely to be the worst for the year, as the economy's plunge began last summer as fighting picked up. Ukraine's government has forecast a 5.5% contraction this year, but the World Bank said last month that Ukraine's economy would shrink by 7.5%.

"In certain sectors are showing that the economy is testing the bottom," said Alexander Valchyshen, head of research at ICU investment firm, citing transportation and agriculture as examples of industries experiencing a turnaround. " Going forward I think the stronger decline we are having in the first quarter, the stronger rebound in the second half of the year, because last year it was the second half of the year when we started registering the collapse."

See also

kirill, May 16, 2015 at 6:45 am
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/gdp-decline-in-ukraine-accelerates-to-176-percent-in-q1-2015-statistics-388663.html

So Ukraine's GDP drop in 2015 is likely going to be over 20%. I recall Moody's, etc forecasting a GDP drop of 2% for Ukraine and 6% for Russia. The 2% figure actually is looking more realistic for Russia this year and is total BS if applied to Ukraine.

PaulR, May 16, 2015 at 9:49 am
That's quite a fall. Inflation is now almost 61%. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/inflation-cpi
kirill, May 16, 2015 at 11:54 am
These numbers are full on depression ones. The USA's GDP went down 25% during the Great Depression. I see Ukraine going down 30% and Ukraine was not doing so well before this disaster started.
Hunter, May 16, 2015 at 7:14 am
Hey all, very interesting discussions.

Nice article Mark.

I have an observation though and a question:

First the observation – you suggest that the EU will come to blame America for the soured relationship with Russia.

I think that's a little bit too simplified to properly describe what might occur in Europe (I would imagine that only SOME EU members' populations will come to blame America, others will blame Russia for the EU's soured relationship with Russia) and it is a bit too much like the assumptions made by American and EU policy makers who originally thought that sanctions would get the Russian people to blame Putin. Just as how that assumption was faulty, the assumption that the EU will come to blame America could also probably be faulty and likely is given the deepset Russophobia in many parts of Europe.

... ... ...

[May 17, 2015] Rumor mill about coming Yats demise

yalensis, May 17, 2015 at 11:25 am

This piece is proposing a bit of a conspiracy theory; but also making a solid prediction, that can proved or disproved in the short term.

The theory is this:

One of Vickie Nuland's tasks, in her recent trip to Kiev, was to groom a man named Sergei Levochkin for the Prime Minister job. (to replace Yats).

Levochkin is a former Party of Regions type who was in Yanukovych government. Now he is head of the so-called "Opposition Bloc".

Levochkin confirmed that, yes, he met with Nuland; and, yes, they discussed regulation of the crisis in Donbass.

The theory is that Americans have not placed all their eggs in one basket; and that Opp Bloc of former Regions is being groomed to take over Ukie government, since Porky & Co have failed miserably. Nuland is said to be auditioning replacements for both Porky and Yats.

Again, this is all provable/disprovable, we just wait to see if it happens.

The more interesting aspect is: What will Russia do? Is Kremlin in on this conspiracy to throw Porky under the bus (if indeed such a conspiracy exists)?

Everybody knows that Russia wasted years of time supporting Yanukovych government, and in fact it was Russia that put all its eggs in Party of Regions basket. Will Russia now accept the return of a basically Regions government; and if so, will they throw independent Donbass under the bus? These are all questions that we await eagerly to see the answers.

[May 17, 2015]US Empire: American Exceptionalism Is No Shining City On a Hill

May 15, 2015 | informationclearinghouse.info

The concept of American exceptionalism is as old as the United States, and it implies that the country has a qualitative difference from other nations. This notion of being special gives Americans the sense that playing a lead role in world affair is part of their natural historic calling. However there is nothing historically exceptional about this: the Roman empire also viewed itself as a system superior to other nations and, more recently, so did the British and the French empires.

On the topic of American exceptionalism, which he often called "Americanism", Seymour Martin Lipset noted that "America's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. The revolutionary ideology, which became American creed, is liberalism in its eighteenth and nineteenth-century meaning. It departed from conservatism Toryism, statist communitarianism, mercantilism and noblesse-oblige dominant in monarchical state-church formed cultures." Naturally identifying America's system as a unique ideology, just like calling its successful colonial war against Britain a revolution, is a fallacy. For one, America was never based on social equality, as rigid class distinctions always remained through US history.

In reality, the US has never broken from European social models. American exceptionalism implies a sense of superiority, just like in the case of the British empire, the French empire and the Roman empire. In such imperialist systems, class inequality was never challenged and, as matter of fact, served as cornerstone of the imperial structure. In American history, the only exception to this system based on social inequality was during the post World War II era of the economic "miracle". The period from 1945 to the mid 1970s was characterized by major economic growth, an absence of big economic downturns, and a much higher level of social mobility on a massive scale. This time frame saw a tremendous expansion of higher education: from 2.5 million people to 12 million going to colleges and universities, and this education explosion, naturally, fostered this upward mobility where the American dream became possible for the middle class.

Regardless of real domestic social progress made in the United States after the birth of the empire in 1945, for the proponents of American exceptionalism - this includes the entire political class - the myth of the US being defined as a "shining city on a hill" has always been a rationale to justify the pursuit of imperialism. For example, when President Barack Obama addressed the nation to justify the US military intervention in Libya, he said that "America is different", as if the US has a special role in history as a force for good. In a speech on US foreign policy, at West Point on May 28, 2014, Obama bluntly stated:

"In fact, by most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise - who suggest that America is in decline or has seen its global leadership slip away are misreading history. Our military has no peer…. I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being."

In his book, Democracy In America, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville was lyrical in his propaganda-like adulation of American exceptionalism, defining it almost as divine providence.

"When the earth was given to men by the Creator, the earth was inexhaustible. But men were weak and ignorant, and when they had learned to take advantage of the treasures which it contained, they already covered its surface and were soon obliged to earn by the sword an asylum for repose and freedom. Just then North America was discovered, as if it had been kept in reserve by the Deity and had risen from beneath the waters of the deluge", wrote de Tocqueville.

This notion, originated by the French author, and amplified ever since, which defined the US as the "divine gift" of a moral and virtuous land, is a cruel fairy tale. It is mainly convenient to ease up America's profound guilt. After all, the brutal birth of this nation took place under the curse of two cardinal sins: the theft of Native American lands after committing a genocide of their population; and the hideous crime of slavery, with slaves building an immense wealth for the few, in a new feudal system, with their sweat, tears and blood.

[May 17, 2015] The west is in a poor position to sustain an economic war against Russia

marknesop.wordpress.com

ucgsblog, May 16, 2015 at 1:33 am

Nice Article Mark! I'm just going to leave this here: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=UAH&view=1Y

That's a chart showing how the Ruble pwnd the Hryvna. In spite of mismanagement, (at the beginning, it's now fixed,) Ruble's close tie to falling oil prices, anti-Ruble currency speculation, (thanks to all those who speculated when exchange rate was above 1 to 80 from my wallet,) lack of diversification, and deliberate attempts to lower the Ruble from within, (makes sense for exporters,) the Ruble kicked the Hryvna's butt in a contest where the Ruble wasn't even trying.

Furthermore, a new investor's report was released on Ukraine. Who gets blamed by the US Investing Community:

1. Poroshenko's inability to fight corruption, (listed as main, i.e. major, reason for not investing)
2. War in Donetsk and Lugansk
3. Instability within Ukraine

No one's buying propaganda that it's all Putin's fault, although Putin might face tough questions as to what Russia's policy in Donetsk and Lugansk is going to be. Still, the number one reason is corruption. Not Putin.

And let's not forget that IMF Is about to be challenged, so its investment into Ukraine will be limited. I heard rumors about IMF not allowed to help countries at war, (or was it WB,) can someone clarify that?

"LA Times so excited that it forgot Russia and China agreed to a gas price last winter; saying instead that they had not yet agreed on a price, and that this means bad news for Russia because it is in a weak negotiating position. If it were true that they have not agreed on a price – which it isn't – how would that indicate Russian weakness? Wouldn't they just take whatever they could get, if their position was weak?"

LA Times' job is not to make sense about Russia. They're doing it rather well.

"The west is in a poor position to sustain an economic war against Russia, as the Eurozone is experiencing anemic growth – and even that appears to be due to false optimism over Quantitative Easing – while American growth is stagnant for the first quarter;"

Don't forget Greece. Since the EU cannot sustain Greece and fight Russia, the pro-US leaders of German government, spearheaded by Schauble, are trying to kick Greece out of the EU. Not just the Eurozone, but the EU.

"How does the west react to losing? I'm glad you asked. Like this. The Daily Mail, which some of my commenters refer to as the Daily Fail, chuckles uproariously at the antics of Russian soldiers attempting to load a tank onto the back of a flatbed truck. On the third attempt, the vehicle ends up too far to the right, and capsizes onto its roof as it falls off the truck. Oh, those Russians! Probably drunk, as usual. Except the vehicle is not a tank, it is a self-propelled howitzer, an artillery piece. The source clearly identifies the operation as depicting a Ukrainian unit, and if you look just behind the three guys watching just as the howitzer falls off the truck, you will see an oil drum with a Ukrainian flag standing in it. The first principle of Gambling For Idiots – when you're losing, double down."

Nice!

Also guys, have you heard about the Democratic revolt against Obama on the issue of the Trans Pacific Partnership? Apparently Democrats don't want to completely alienate their base, who knew? Speaking of Congressional approval rating: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx

marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 8:53 am
Hi, UCG! Good to hear from you, and what a lot of info in a single comment. As regards the IMF being forbidden from lending to the state in a country embroiled in a civil war – yes, and no. The most authoritative source I saw was John Helmer, who proclaimed that the IMF's lending to Kiev while it was at war with one of its regions was a violation of its charter (Article 1). However, if you look at it you will see it lays out instruction on the IMF's principles and what it must be mindful of when lending – not what it is forbidden to do. Even a halfway-capable lawyer could argue that lending to Kiev with the understanding it would almost certainly divert some or all of the funds to supporting its military campaign violates the spirit of the charter. But since it does not spell out what the IMF may not do, an argument might be made – just off the top of my head – that Kiev felt it necessary to attack the eastern region and subdue it in order to protect its currency, which would surely collapse without access to its main industrial belt, a la paragraph iii: "To promote exchange stability, to maintain orderly exchange arrangements among members, and to avoid competitive exchange depreciation."

I had not heard about domestic opposition to TPP, but if it is as riddled with advantageous loopholes for Washington to manipulate and control foreign governments as the TTIP with the EU, I devoutly hope it fails.

On your mention of Greece, it seems your analysis is spot on – I read something just yesterday in which the article was smoothing the way for a Greek exit and telling everyone it would not be really a bad thing at all, as well as a strikingly similar article which paved the way for Scotland to leave the UK without any blame accruing to Dave, saying the same stuff about how it really wouldn't matter too much to the UK at all, there would be niggling little difficulties but they were all surmountable.

Sounds a far cry from the confident strut about western unity from just a few months back, doesn't it?

Warren, May 16, 2015 at 3:18 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zhovti_Vody

yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 4:35 am
Zakharchenko commentary on Porky yesterday signing of the "de-communization" law:

"When the law mandates that people who hung children to telegraph poles with barbed wire, and who murdered tens of thousands of Poles – that these people must be regarded as heroes… What do you think? Can such a nation have a future? No, it cannot have a future. Only partition and chaos await such a nation. When butchers are declared to be heroes.

"In Donetsk, we will not allow this. We have our own path, and we are not ashamed of it."

marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 9:02 am
Very well said, I think. I was a little iffy on Zakharchenko at first, mostly because I was dazzled by Strelkov's battle tactics – which were amazing for someone many consider to be a nut – but he is daily taking on more and more the appearance of a statesman and leader.
yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Strelkov is a talented soldier, but Zakharchenko has shown himself to be a statesman as well as soldier.
Warren, May 16, 2015 at 4:37 am
Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 4:47 am
По Крещатику прошло шествие против повышения тарифов ЖКХ

В центре Киева собрались не менее 5 тысяч человек

Along the Khreschatyk has passed a protest march against the increase of tariffs on housing and communal services

In the centre of Kiev have gathered no fewer than 5 thousand people

On Saturday, May 16, in the centre of the Ukrainian capital a protest march has started.

At 10 am no fewer than five thousand people with different slogans gathered on the Khreschatyk, which at weekends becomes a pedestrian area.

The main message of the campaign is a protest against an increase in utility tariffs. At the same time, protesters have posters with a variety of messages: "Yatsenyuk means poverty for the Ukraine" and "For Ukrainians – a Ukrainian government", "Not able to work – go work as a shop assistant at "Roshen" (this slogan is directed at President Poroshenko – ed.)

People are carrying national flags. The protesters are behaving calmly and are not shouting.

According to the "Vesti" correspondent, some people are apparently from the regions and arrived by bus early this morning at the metro station "Leo Tolstoy"; some of the protesters are residents of the capital.

The procession is moving from the Bessarabian Market along the Khreschatyk and on to Europe Square.

kirill, May 16, 2015 at 6:28 am
This is the only thing these idiots will respond to. Their personal pocketbook pain. Having their country stolen from them and operated by foreign sponsored lunatic killers is clearly not a problem for them.
yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 5:10 am
Very good, but also very lengthy piece on the failure of the shale gas revolution in Ukraine. I only have time for quick summary:

SUMMARY
Poland, Great Britain, EU as a whole are disappointed by a wave of news (just reaching them) that the "shale-gas revolution" on the continent has been postponed indefinitely.
Back to face hard reality that they depend on Russia for their gas needs.

Europeans had believed American tall tales about the rosy future of shale gas on the continent. However, they just got a dose of reality from Bloomberg this past week. [yalensis: not sure which Bloomberg link they are talking about but it might be this one.]

For example, British company Cuadrilla Resources has tried and failed for 6 years to open so much as one gas well in Poland. And Poland was supposed to be the European country best endowed with shale gas, so they were supposed to be the poster child.
But now everybody is bailing out: Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, Total and Marathon OIl have all bailed out of Poland.
All of this history partially pre-determined Ukraine role as sacrificial lamb. In 2010, Exxon Mobil and Shell obtained licenses to scout for shale gas in Ukraine. In fall of 2012, Shell began drilling in Kharkov region.
At the same time, Naftogaz began negotiations with American firms. Yanukovych government concluded all kinds of secret deals with foreign companies. Which the piece compares to American Indians selling their natural resources for beads and mirrors.
These secret deals would have literally given Ukrainian underground mineral resources as private property to these European and American investors. (Point #37.1 in the secret deal with Shell.)
These deals encoded a type of "eminent domain" situation, which would deed over the land itself to the companies drilling for shale gas. Even if that land belonged to somebody else.

With these deals, Yanukovych and the Azarov government were willfully serfing Ukraine into bondage to these foreign corporations for the next 55 years. Until the very moment when he fled the country, Yanukovych was completely devoted to his "shale gas" project that would have sold the Ukrainian people into slavery. And the Americans were always there, behind the scenes, this was part of their strategic vision to replace Russian gas with Ukrainian gas, for Europe.
[yalensis: Azarov also emerges in this piece as a villain, on the same level as Yanukovych.]

After the Maidan revolution, nothing changed substantially. Some of the same players, and the same oligarchs (such as Sergei Taruta), who formerly accused (rightfully) Yanukovych of betraying the national interest; were now involved in exactly the same deal-making with Western companies.
In fact, the project now steamed ahead full on steroids, now that America has a pliant puppet government in Kiev.
As shown by the appearance of Hunter Biden and Burisma Holdings, etc. Along with Hunter, another key figure in Burisma is John Kerry's family friend Devon Archer.

Then came the civil war in Donbass. The plan was to use heavy artillery and destruction of infrastructure to drive out the native population; once the land was cleared of the pesky humans, then the gas companies could drill to their heart's content, without worrying about people and eminent domain, etc. This was tried and true method, employed by European colonists in America, etc.

Everything was going as planned, but then in the middle of August (2014), the "gas revolution" suddenly started to collapse of its own volition, and the investors began to bail out. Having wasted billions of dollars on a project that did not bear any fruits. But at least the investors knew not to throw good money in after bad.
So, they have left.
But first having destroyed Ukraine and left the country in tatters.

marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 9:22 am
Great exposé, Yalensis! Given that the present government in Kiev is so vile, there's always a temptation to exalt Yanukovych, but maybe there's an opportunity here to inspire a bit of sympathy for ordinary Ukrainians who were desperate to have him gone because they believed – quite rightly it seems – that he was a thieving bag of shit. How were they to know that a self-enriching thief (and he couldn't have been too far along with any such plan, because the much-ballyhooed international hunt for his stolen billions has turned up zip) would be replaced by Nazi-worshiping ideologues?

Poor Ukrainians – they get fucked over by every leadership no matter who they choose. You just have to love democracy, right? Choose Thief A or Thief B.

I didn't really buy the war as a coherent plan to drive the regional inhabitants fleeing to surrounding countries so as to empty it for exploitation, but it is starting to look more plausible. If true, it was a grotesque failure on two counts; they reckoned without the inhabitants' determination to hold onto their towns even when they were just loose piles of bricks, and there were never enough recoverable resources there to justify such a purely-evil scheme in the first place. There isn't a gallows big enough for all those who deserve to be hung.

Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 5:33 am
"As for why the photos are all of men, I am not sure, but I think the movement is mostly about soldiers who fell in battle against the Horde. In any case, that is a valid criticism, IMHO."

Further to Yalensis' comment quoted above, and posted here because of the narrowing of the thread above:

Pictures taken by Elena Denisovna whilst participating in the "Immortal Regiment" march, Moscow, May 9, 2015:

If you look carefully, the portraits of some women are discernible. In fact, in the second of the above photographs, a "fake" participant is proudly holding high a woman's portrait by means of the longest placard handle that I have seen amongst the very, very many pictures of the event.

Elena Denisovna bore on that day a photograph of her great-great uncle, Aleksandr Stepanovich, who fell in battle in 1942 whilst serving in the Red Army infantry some 58 years before his great-great niece was born.

My elder daughter, Elena, is immensely proud of the fact that her great-great uncle fell in battle whilst defending his Motherland.

Kreakly, of course, and other such Russia-hating "progressives", would ridicule such pride that my daughter bears.

And they would label her a "fake", I presume.

kirill, May 16, 2015 at 6:33 am
Since they have photos that have been magnified and put on placards this must have been organized. Since it was organized, it must have been Putin's doing. Therefore this is nothing but artificial propaganda theater.

The above is the retarded logic I am seeing. It is actually beyond retarded. People who spout it in Russia need to be chased down, beaten severely and then put on the next plane for their promised land in NATO.

marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 9:32 am
It is impossible for the western media to disguise the fact that the Parade of the Immortal Regiment was a game-changing event, a physical expression of nationalist pride that should leave the hopes of those who believe they can break Russia's will as ashes in their mouths.

Sanctions which were intended to make the Russian people suffer so that they would blame their leader and turn against him have failed spectacularly in more ways than one – they have failed because they did not achieve their goal, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

They failed because they showed the west to the Russian people as it really is, and buried any hope of an eventual fruitful partnership if Russia would just bend a little more, accept a little less, give up something else. Russia should thank the west for the sanctions regime, because it did more to disarm and render harmless the precious kreakly than any other single action could have done short of war. And in fact the failure of sanctions may prevent the latter.

[May 17, 2015] Usage of missionaries for promoting color revolution

kirill, May 16, 2015 at 6:34 am

It is the Spanish conquista model. The missionaries were the foot soldiers of the invasion. The USA is using the same tricks against Ukrainians. Well, they deserve it.
Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 7:45 am
I think the Ukraine has more Baptist congregations than there are in Russia, and there are plenty of them here. I have worked with a few Russian Baptists.

The Sky Pilot is in the Ukraine, in the "former Soviet Union" as he repeatedly says, and he is at a place where the leaders of Russian ministries have gathered, he says, "to talk about new crises that have taken place within their culture", such as HIV, which is rampant in what the speaker describes as "this Russian culture, predominantly".

That was in 2008.

Again from 2008:

Catch 'em young!

Warren, May 16, 2015 at 8:58 am
It makes sense for the US perspective the predominance of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and Russia is an obstacle to US power. It is no coincidence the strongest support for the West and the most hostile towards Russia, is in Western Ukraine/Galicia. This can be attributed to the fact the people in Western Ukraine/Galicia are overwhelming Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic/Uniate.

By proselytizing Ukrainians, converting them from Orthodoxy to a Protestant denomination you can undermine and break the bonds Ukrainians have with Russia.

The next step is to change the Cyrillic alphabet to a Latin Alphabet, this will complete Ukraine Civilisation transformation and pivot from Eastern Orthodoxy to Western Europe.

Calls for Latinization of Ukrainian Alphabet On 'Civilizational Grounds' Anger Russians

http://www.interpretermag.com/calls-for-latinization-of-ukrainian-alphabet-on-civilizational-grounds-anger-russians/

Game plan for the West to permanent conquer Ukraine:

1. Replace Eastern Orthodoxy with Protestantism and Catholicism.
2. Replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet.

cartman, May 16, 2015 at 9:20 am
Turchita is also a Baptist. (And Yats is a member of that other cult – Scientology.)

What evangelicals do cannot conceivably be called Christianity, though. Most worship chaos as a means of bringing about the end times.

PaulR, May 16, 2015 at 9:46 am
One of my Soviet room-mates in Minsk took me along to a Baptist service there, though I left before the end because it was very long (though not as long as the interminable Orthodox services). Anyway, the point is that the Baptists have been active in that part of the world for quite a while, even in Soviet times.
yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Russian diaspora in Western Massachussets area contains a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses.

They are fairly innocuous, as far as I can see; apolitical, for the most part.
Since I don't understand religion, I give them a pass.

Jen, May 16, 2015 at 5:42 pm
Hmm … I see something in Ukraine adopting the JW religion as its state religion. The Banderites would have to kick out Red Cross as accepting blood transfusions is against the Watchtower principles.
marknesop, , May 16, 2015 at 1:36 pm
Yes, I went to an Orthodox christening once for an acquaintance's child. I was completely unprepared for that singsong delivery and wondered what the hell was going on at first, and since I could not understand a word of it, it seemed even longer than it was. Which was long enough that I remarked quietly to my wife that they might just as well segue straight into the infant's wedding. Perhaps even her funeral.

[May 17, 2015] Telegraph presstitutes are full of it

And the Telegraph still has this story, no corrections having been made since it appeared on May 7:
.
How not to park a tank: Russian soldiers struggle to load armoured vehicle onto truck
.
And it's the same place, the same self-propelled howitzer and the same Yukie knobheads as in the clip on the Russian web, which is clearly titled (in Russian): Ukrainian army unsuccessfully loading a self-propelled artillery unit onto a flat-back truck.
Hunter, May 16, 2015 at 7:14 am

Hey all, very interesting discussions.

Nice article Mark.

I have an observation though and a question:

First the observation – you suggest that the EU will come to blame America for the soured relationship with Russia.

I think that's a little bit too simplified to properly describe what might occur in Europe (I would imagine that only SOME EU members' populations will come to blame America, others will blame Russia for the EU's soured relationship with Russia) and it is a bit too much like the assumptions made by American and EU policy makers who originally thought that sanctions would get the Russian people to blame Putin. Just as how that assumption was faulty, the assumption that the EU will come to blame America could also probably be faulty and likely is given the deepset Russophobia in many parts of Europe.

Secondly the question, With regards to the video (which is on the Telegraph website by the way, not the Daily Fail/Mail) you said that just behind the three guys watching at the moment the artillery piece falls off the truck there is an oil drum with a Ukrainian flag standing in it. At around that moment there are I believe two groups of three guys watching the loading operation. One group closer to the camera man and another group farther away. Is it the group that is farther away that you are referring to? Because the clip ends pretty quickly after the artillery piece topples from the truck and I haven't spotted the oil drum with the flag yet (by the way, how does anyone spot anything in that video? The quality is pretty poor). Is there any possibility of doing a screenshot of the moment you are referring to?

Moscow Exile,

The oil drum is further along the road in the upper left distance and beyond three men, who are standing middle-distance, left-centre.

The blue and yellow Ukraine flag is visible through the foliage of trees that line the road to the left. Locate the oil drum, and above it you will catch glimpses of the flag.

The flag is visible between 00:00 and 0018, after which time the camera zooms in to the flatbed truck upon which the men are attempting to load a self-propelled howitzer, not a tank..

Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 8:03 am
You cannot see the flag on the Telegraph clip.
marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 10:04 am
Coincidentally, I'm sure. It's not as if they knew it was there, and edited it out.
marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 9:58 am
Hi, Hunter; thanks! Yes, the flag is hard to see even in the best of clips, you can just catch it for a second or two as it flutters, but it is definitely the Ukrainian flag. Sorry I messed up the newspapers, it seems no matter how carefully I research, I always get something wrong. However, I would put the Daily Mail and the Telegraph roughly equal in their penchant for disinformation.

I see Moscow Exile has provided guidance, and the information comes from his original assessment anyway; the men are also identified as part of a Ukrainian unit in other information which appeared with the clip they used as a source.

Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 8:38 am
It's at 00:27 where the flag goes off the shot and where the cameraman's finger can be seen.

And there are not three men to the left, there are four (I think): one appears from behind of one of the other three.

Here's the clip as it appears on the Russian web:

And it says in Russian:

ВСУ неудачная погрузка САУ на трал ЖЕСТЬ

ВСУ = Ukraine Armed Forces

САУ = self-propelled artillery unit

Drutten May 16, 2015 at 9:04 am
Yes, that's a Ukrainian flag alright, and the self-propelled gun is a 2S3 Akatsiya conspicuously painted in Ukrainian "ATO" colors at that.
Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 9:17 am
And the Telegraph still has this story, no corrections having been made since it appeared on May 7:

How not to park a tank: Russian soldiers struggle to load armoured vehicle onto truck

And it's the same place, the same self-propelled howitzer and the same Yukie knobheads as in the clip on the Russian web, which is clearly titled (in Russian): Ukrainian army unsuccessfully loading a self-propelled artillery unit onto a flat-back truck.

Here's the Telegraph frozen frame from the clip above it, which has the first 20 seconds or so that is on the original removed, during which time the flag can be seen. And, of course, the Russian title of the clip has been removed:

All of which points out to me, at least, that this is not a gaffe by the Telegraph, where nobody can read, let alone speak Russian: the deceitful bastards knew what they were doing.

james, May 16, 2015 at 10:20 am
wonder who will point it out to them and if they ever make a public retraction? i doubt it..tells one all they need to know about the telegraph if so..
Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 10:29 am
I checked: no readers' comments.

I checked when the story first appeared in the DT.

Drutten, May 16, 2015 at 8:59 am
Roland Oliphant, the man behind one (or several?) "Russian invasion!" scoops in Ukraine (and who later couldn't back anything up) has apparently authored this fantastic article for the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11609783/Mapped-Just-how-many-incursions-into-Nato-airspace-has-Russian-military-made.html

Words fail me… The article purports to show "Russian incursions" into "NATO airspace" and yet all it does is to show a number of Russian exercise flights in international airspace (i.e. no "incursions" whatsoever). It also shows few random submarine-related events, none of which have been proven to be about Russia by anybody (and several are actually entirely unconfirmed, and in a few of them the relevant authorities have actually stressed that no nationality can be determined). Oh, and it shows a few Russian ships transiting international waters off Britain, just like all other navies of the world do.

The map also contains an outline claiming to show "UK airspace" that is seemingly entirely made-up. It doesn't correspond to actual British airspace, it doesn't correspond to territorial water boundaries, it doesn't even correspond to the extended "exclusive economic zone" (which stretches into international waters and as such is free to sail in for anybody).

james, May 16, 2015 at 10:22 am
sustained propaganda war on the part of the telegraph… hopefully someone calls bullshit on their work…
Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 12:31 pm
An insight into the mindset of certain Telegraph readers, albeit that several have commented that Oliphant wrote nonsense about "NATO airspace" and that the MoD quietly concedes that no violation by the Russian armed forces of UK/EU – NATO? – territorial waters and/or airspace has taken place, as voiced in this readers's letter:

What a garbled piece of drivel this article is!

Suspected incursions into Nato airspace? So Nato have now invaded and own international airspace?

Not once have any Russian aircraft infringed UK airspace – grudgingly confirmed by the MoD
.
The submarine activity. The actual national identity of these submarines is suspected, never ever proven. Sheer speculation to ratchet-up the propaganda.

If the DT are going to produce these primary school drawings – why not detail Nato flights and submarine activity close to Russian territorial limits.

General Gerasimov (Chief of the General Staff) recently complained over increased Nato activity around his country – yet this doesn't even get a mention!

Enter idiot, who responds thus:

Well presumably the good General is free to complain in the Moscow Times about the NATO activities, and their comment thread is likewise full of people with dodgy Google translate skills, defending the practice and b*tching about ratcheting up propaganda. As is the case here; the DT runs a story, lots of posters dog-pile in and a pleasant few hour of discussion is had by all. What's not to like?

The blithering ignoramus clearly thinks that the Moscow Times is a Russian newspaper of importance and which enjoys a sizable readership, whereas, in fact, it has no importance whatsoever for Russian society and that the last thing the Russian COGS would do would be to voice in that worthless propaganda rag his concern over any perceived NATO violation of Russian sovereignty.

Furthermore, the Telegraph dolt seems unaware of the fact that readers' comments to MT stopped quite a while ago. It is interesting, therefore, that he talks of the MT comment thread being "full of people with dodgy Google translate skills" who use MT to spout propaganda for the Empire of Evil.

Does the idiot really believe that Putinbots write to MT to further the Evil One's cause?

And these dodgy language skills that the commenter sneeringly accuses his imagined MT Putinbots of and which force the Kremlin trolls to use Google Translate? I take it then that the sneering piece of shit that wrote that Telegraph comment speaks Russian fluently and has no need of dictionaries or machine translation programmes.

Moscow Exile, May 16, 2015 at 9:05 am
Can you see the flag?

kirill, May 16, 2015 at 9:09 am
There is a double white stripe on the Acatsiya. It is Kiev regime equipment.
yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 12:16 pm
The Ukrainian flag is on the left on the oil drum, below the tree, and just to the left of the man.
I saw this clip before, it is pretty clearly Ukie troops and equipment.
yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 12:18 pm
P.S. – even if it were Russian, it wouldn't prove anything, except that some guys are idiots.
Since it is Ukies, it STILL doesn't prove anything, except that some guys are idiots.
And that some newspapers are highly dishonest.
marknesop, May 16, 2015 at 6:18 pm
It is the latter that is most telling to me, and it suggests they just looked around until they found something in Cyrillic that had people acting stupidly, and punched it out there as Russians fucking up as usual.

[May 17, 2015] Zuckerberg put Porky and other Ukie nationalists in their place

yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 12:39 pm

Sorry, but I cannot leave this Facebook story alone, since it is so satisfying to me that Zuckerberg put Porky and other Ukie nationalists in their place.

Zuckerberg said that he did some research and found that the Ukrainian posts taken down included elements of ethnic slurs and hate speech towards Russians. Posts with such content are not allowed on Facebook, he said.

"I think we did the right thing according to our policies, in taking down those posts and I agree that we must not support hate speech," said Zuckerberg.

I like very much that

(1) Zuckerberg defended the actions of his staff and did not throw them under the bus to service anti-Russian agenda of Washington. I really respect the guy for doing that.

(2) that Zuckerberg put Ukrainians in their place: he made it clear they are not special people, he doesn't care if their President appealed to him, he is not impressed by Porky's power; and Ukies don't have the right to post murderous hate speech if other people don't have the same right.

Having said that, Russia's version of Facebook "V Kontakte", is obviously more loosy-goosy than Zuckerberg's Facebook, since they tolerate just about anything. In fact, they sponsor the page of Vita Zaverukha, with her swastikas galore and photos of murdered Odessans; and comparing the scorched bodies to Kentucky Fried Colorado Beetles, etc etc.

Having said that, Zuckerberg's Facebook enforces a code of conduct which excludes ethnic hate speech or calls to violence; and it is commendable that they actually enforced those rules even when the targets of the hate speech were the much-despised Russian ethnos.

yalensis , May 16, 2015 at 12:48 pm
The comment section to this piece is quite telling:

"Czech Friend" who is some pro-Banderite troll calls Zuckerberg a kiss-up to totalitarian dictators, and then encourages every "freedom-loving" person to stop using Facebook.

"puttypants", who is pro-Banderite, pro-Fifth Column, agrees with this, and repeats the slander (as stated in the movie "Social Network") that Zuckerberg is a plagiarist, who stole the Facebook idea from his college friends.

"Mick Jones" then points out that he has seen examples of the kind of Ukie hate speech which call Russians "Mongols" (as if being a Mongol is a bad thing).

"Calibra" replies to a comment that was deleted – I read the comment earlier, before it was deleted, I don't remember the exact words, but the person said some mean things and then dropped the ultimate threat: To quit their Facebook account. "Calibra" replies: "O my god, i'm sure Mark [Zuckerberg] will not sleep tonight knowing you left, how could you."

Russ M. points out how Zuckerberg's nerd brigade laughed their asses off when Porky sent in a question. God, how embarrassing, I would cringe if I were Ukrainian myself…
Having such a joke for a President. Oh wait! Russians used to have Yeltsin…

Moscow Exile , May 16, 2015 at 12:58 pm
At least Yeltsin used to knock back the vodka and take a bite out of a salted gherkin like the true provincial muzhik he was, the bastard, and not sip at Frog cognac and nibble at ladies' chocolate assortments as Porky Porosyonok does.
Jen , May 16, 2015 at 2:46 pm
Porky's still head of Roshen, hasn't divested himself of his business investments, so it's his (as he sees it) duty to scoff all the chocolates his fat snout can snuffle out.

There's another reason for him to indulge in his favourite comfort foods and beverages: he's been caught constructing a new mansion on a plot of land right by a historic district in Kiev which he obtained through an arrangement involving a private company that morphed into a fake housing co-op.

yalensis, May 16, 2015 at 12:58 pm
But wait there's more!

Regarding Ukraine's epic fail on the Facebook front, get this:
Ukrainian svidomites are so upset by Zuckerberg's comments that they have decided to organize a boycott of Facebook.

And how, pray tell, have they organized this boycott?
Why, through social media, naturally.
And which social media, you might ask?
Why, on Facebook, of course!

You can't make this stuff up!

As the author of this piece notes:

Svidomites and Logic – 2 things that are completely incompatible, one with the other.

[May 17, 2015]Snowden cost US control of 'geopolitical narrative' – former NSA official

Warren, May 15, 2015 at 2:52 pm

Snowden cost US control of 'geopolitical narrative' – former NSA official

http://rt.com/usa/259101-nsa-counsel-snowden-secrets/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

marknesop, May 15, 2015 at 6:31 pm
For one thing, this sounds an awful lot like an official admission that the USA did something wrong rather than Snowden.

For another, it is important to remember that the "control of the geopolitical narrative" he speaks of was based on lying and secret snooping, and there is no reason to believe the USA would ever have stopped doing it on its own, or taken steps to admit it was doing it, so long as secret intelligence continued to keep them on top.

[May 15, 2015]Why I Wept at the Russian Parade Information Clearing House

May 14, 2015 "Information Clearing House"

Something extraordinary just took place in Russia and it may have moved our disturbed world one major step nearer to peace and away from a looming new world war. Of all unlikely things, what took place was a nationwide remembrance by Russians of the estimated 27 to perhaps 30 million Soviet citizens who never returned alive from World War II. Yet in what can only be described in a spiritual manner, the events of May 9, Victory Day over Nazism, that took place across all Russia, transcended the specific day of memory on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1945. It was possible to see a spirit emerge from the moving events unlike anything this author has ever witnessed in his life.

The event was extraordinary in every respect. There was a sense in all participants that they were shaping history in some ineffable way. It was no usual May 9 annual show of Russia's military force. Yes, it featured a parade of Russia's most advanced military hardware, including the awesome new T-14 Armata tanks, S-400 anti-missile systems and advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets. It was indeed impressive to watch.

The military part of the events also featured for the first time ever elite soldiers from China's Peoples' Liberation Army marching in formation along with Russian soldiers. That in itself should shivers down the spines of the neoconservative warhawks in the EU and Washington, had they any spines to shiver. The alliance between the two great Eurasian powers-Russia and China-is evolving with stunning speed into a new that will change the economic dynamic of our world from one of debt, depression, and wars to one of rising general prosperity and development if we are good enough to help make it happen.

During his visit, China's President XI, in addition to his quite visible honoring of the Russian Victory event and its significance for China, met separately with Vladimir Putin and agreed that China's emerging New Silk Road high-speed railway infrastructure great project will be integrated in planning and other respects with Russia's Eurasian Economic Union which now consists of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia with several prospective candidates waiting to join. While it may seem an obvious step, it was not at all certain until now.

The two great Eurasian countries have now cemented the huge oil and gas deals between them, the trade deals and the military cooperation agreements with a commitment to fully integrate their economic infrastructure. Following his meeting with Xi, Putin told the press, "The integration of the Eurasian Economic Union and Silk Road projects means reaching a new level of partnership and actually implies a common economic space on the continent."

It's Zbigniew Brzezinski's worst geopolitical nightmare come to fruition. And that, thanks to the stupid, short-sighted geopolitical strategy of Brzezinski and the Washington war faction that made it clear to Beijing and to Moscow their only hope for sovereign development and to be free of the dictates of a Washington-Wall Street Sole Superpower was to build an entire monetary and economic space independent of the dollar world.

[May 15, 2015] The west talks about a new cold war. For Russians it has already started

This article is definitely a deviation from the regular NN/TGA crap Guardian runs. While this Guardian pressitute tried to pretend that she is not a regular neocon hawk, the standard "MI5" working set of lies is used. Quote: Look at the people (think tanks) around Masha Gessen en Dawisha. The figure of $70-200 billion also comes from them. " The author failed to stay away from the silly and sometimes cold war era rhetoric. "Empire", "insecurity", "damaged ego," "feeling excluded." That's a stupid thing to say about the nation.
May 14, 2015 | The Guardian

The west talks about a new cold war. For Russians it has already started. By continually freezing out the Kremlin, the west is refuelling old resentments ...

I've been travelling in the heartlands of Russia for 30 years, witnessing everything from the euphoric wishfulness at the fall of communism to prosperity and, more recently, political despair. Yet going there for the first time since the annexation of Crimea, I was still shocked by what I saw.

I encountered a country braced not for some frozen conflict, nor for proxy war, but for the real thing: all-out war against the west. Never have my friends been more loving – but this time it was the concern of people who were unsure when and how we would meet again.

It is true that this state of mind has been brought about by the Kremlin's unremitting media campaign of the past year. But I quickly came to understand that most of them share their government's dim view of the west, with its "hollow concepts" of democracy and freedom.

Since the regime is fixated on the idea of getting its empire back, a major conflict really does seem possible. Russian aircraft and submarines are playing war games around the coasts of Europe. But a plane crossing into Baltic air space could trigger Nato retaliation with conventional arms, which could in turn could spark a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia – a strategic response born of a fear of weakness in the face of superior American military power.

... ... ...

How have we drifted into this absurd and dangerous situation? At the end of the cold war the Russians imagined that they would be becoming part of an expanded Europe. Instead, through a combination of triumphalism and ignorance we have played to Russia's ancient fears of exclusion and victimhood.

The conventional view in the west is that the blame lies with Putin and his kleptocratic regime. According to this narrative, the regime went into attack mode after the oil price collapsed. It distracted attention from its own failure to diversify the economy by lashing out against an external enemy, and launching a brilliant propaganda campaign.

This version of events, while not untrue, lets the west off the hook far too easily. When the Soviet regime ended, free-market thinking was in the ascendancy in the west. People in positions of authority really did swallow the idea that we were living through "the end of history": that in a unipolar world foreign policy was going to be exclusively about a battle for markets.

In America and Britain, government support for research on old Soviet bloc countries was slashed. The State Department and Foreign Office disbanded research units that kept politicians informed. Embassies focused on opening up commercial opportunities. Meanwhile, the press, facing its own economic crisis, also cut back on foreign correspondents. The west simply stopped thinking seriously, and in depth, about Russia and its neighbours.

And yet when it came to defence we did not behave as though we were facing the end of history. Rather than disbanding our cold war defence arrangement, Nato, we reinvented it as an alliance that could be construed only as being arrayed against Russia. We kept expanding it ever eastward, closer to Russia's borders. In response, Russia turned aggressive – first in Georgia, then in Crimea and Ukraine – at this intrusion into its sphere of influence.

The west dismissed this, saying the concept of spheres of influence belonged to a bygone age. But geography is unchanging, as are the sensibilities created by it. US policy on Cuba in the post-Soviet era has, until now, been founded on precisely this principle. Cuba had long-since ceased to pose a military threat to the US. But it was deemed outrageous that any nation so close to US borders should cleave to a "hostile" ideological allegiance.

The end of the cold war has not changed history either. History continues to inform identity, as it always has. Take Ukraine: Kiev really is the birthplace of the Russian nation. This matters, just as it still matters that America's founding fathers came from Britain.

Russia's sense of its identity, poised on the edge of Europe in a borderless landmass, has always been pathologically insecure. Identities are tangled, allegiances split. Take Donbas, for example, at the heart of the conflict area. This is the homeland of the Don Cossacks, whose cavalry regiments famously served Russia's tsars for generations. During the Soviet period, the Cossacks were greatly persecuted for their Tsarist allegiances. But the region was also the birthplace of that icon of Soviet labour, Alexei Stakhanov, who mined 227 tonnes of coal in a single shift. Stakhanov was the poster boy for a heroic generation of Soviet labour, all based in Donbas. In this region of conflicted allegiances, it is hardly surprising that the Kremlin has been fighting its propaganda war with particular intensity here.

The decision by western leaders to boycott Russia's 70th anniversary victory parade on Saturday might have seemed like common sense in the light of events on Ukraine's border. But it failed to recognize how emotive a concept fascism still is for Russians. Westerners have for years been giggling at 'Allo 'Allo and John Cleese's goosestep, but fascism is no laughing matter in this country. Russians ask me how in Lithuania marches can be permitted that honour Nazi collaborators who murdered 200,000 Jews. How, they ask, can the west welcome into the EU and Nato "ethnocracies" such as Estonia and Latvia that radically discriminate against their Russian subjects.

The 62% popular support which Vladimir Putin enjoys according to the Levada Centre reflects not only that ancient geographical sense of insecurity Russians feel; not just the unshakeable love Russians feel for their country. It represents wounded pride at the west's apparent determination to treat Russia as the enemy. Continued western sanctions will only fuel his popularity. Because Putin is a merely a symptom of the present crisis. There is more to Russia than Putin, a great deal more.

... ... ...

stonedage 15 May 2015 12:54

Putin announced that he would take a salary cut of 10% this year; but since estimates of his true, shadowy wealth range between $70bn and $200bn, it is unlikely he'll feel the pinch

The western press keeps repeating this line with absolutely no proof. If Putin is this rich, why isn't he spending the money? Why isn't his children? It's illogical for someone to hoard this amount of wealth without spending lavishly. Is he trying to pass the money down to his family? The lying western press wants us to believe something so preposterous without offering a single proof, yet they don't write about the corrupt leaders like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair....who are gladly hoarding blood money and pimping it out on young women. Please tell me how the Clinton's went from being a broke ex president to amassing over 200 million within a decade.....Mr. Blair has done the same and I know Obama can't wait to cash in.

Me109BfG6 15 May 2015 11:35

"...It is true that this state of m i n d has been brought about by the Kremlin's unremitting media campaign of the past year. But I quickly came to understand that most of them share their government's dim view of the west, with its "hollow concepts" of democracy and freedom..."

I can see a throng of Russian visitors invading these pages permanently. However, I can't see any reason to do so. The Russians do have a great science that launched the first ever satellite in 1957, the true, real European science that is never reachable to the Anglo-Saxons with their exclusive empiricism as the only principle of science. The Russians are great in culture generally. Schopenhauer suggested once to prove the greatness of a nation by comparing their composers, as their most abstract job is of the greatest value compared. Well, here after finding the names of a certain Mr Purcell along with Mr Britten we would have to make a stop rather than to mention the Beatles who brought up 20 billions of pounds to the British crown.

Not that in Russia, with a multitude of composers ranging from Scriabin, Prokofiev, and Rakhmaninov up to Shostakovitch and Schnittke in the 20th century only. Now, concluding, just think that a Brit applying his / her 'mind' is not aware of the true sense of this word, which has ever been given by Kant in his "Verstand"= рассудок und "Vernunft"= разум, while an ordinary Russian is also aware of a mere ум. How can such a British "mind" be criticizing, say, the Dialectical Materialism?! - Nothing to mention of the Russian ballet school, also not reachable.

So, the Russians are great and not reachable, as seen from the outside, alas.

Dannycraig007 15 May 2015 10:56

This Reuters article I have linked here shows the US is possibly throwing their Ukrainian Nazis under the bus. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/05/14/putin-ties-ukraines-government-to-neo-nazis-a-new-law-seems-to-back-him-up/

This is major.

  1. It's Reuters which is the US lead news organization.
  2. It's Josh Cohen who gets major coverage in the US, he's also one of the main USAID reps.
  3. It clearly points out Putin was right and vindicates him.
  4. It clearly points out the WW2 Ukrainian Insurgent army killed 80,000 Poles.
  5. It talks about the current law to make the Nazi supporters honored.
  6. It points out the Right Sector led Maidan.
  7. It mentions the Ministerial positions of the fascists.
  8. It mentions 'Cyberspace" which mean we are winning this information war.
  9. It points out that the Nazis have been given free reign to commit atrocities.

All these things have been covered up in the US media until now. This article most likely means that after the meeting in Sochi with Kerry and Lavrov that the US has decided to throw their Nazis under the bus as it is too difficult to hide them any longer and they are proving to be a liability at this point.

Юля Пашковская -> MentalToo 15 May 2015 10:53

Sorry. Whose interests are protecting Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Alexander Ilichev -> MentalToo 15 May 2015 10:49

Basically this double standards problem and hypocrisy goes a long way before global politics. All countries and men proclaiming their will for good always and really believe this, but when it comes to their needs they will fight for it with low morality and fake moral reasons. Question who of them is self deluded still. If someone from US, UK or Russia believes only in good part of himself he is part of this problem.

Though comparing Russia and NATO actions from the point of morality for past decades it seems most obviously who is the real aggressor here.

Alexander Ilichev -> jezzam 15 May 2015 10:35

And it's not equally illegal. Even not close to that. There are millions of Russian people living in Ukraine and Kiev just started bombing them after they rioted as well as Maidan protest made that 4 months before. Is it ok for you too?

BTW, if Iraq is considered illegal was your country reprimanded for it like you reprimanding Russia now? Can you sanction yourself maybe?

Alexander Ilichev -> jezzam 15 May 2015 10:32

Iraq? How about Serbia, Syria, Lebanon? Is it ok for you? There are hundreds of thousands of dead civilians caused by your government.

ANd it's not the matter how disastrous was it for Russia, what is matter how is it for local people of Ukraine, Iraq or any other country.

During Ukraine conflict only 3-5 thousands civilians died and degree of RUssian government involvement in it is still under question as well as it's legitimacy due to there were russian people there dying from Kiev army.

And USA and UK destroyed whole countries killing more million people with no problems at all. Go to them and tell how they should behave first.

Jeff1000 -> jezzam 15 May 2015 09:41

The main ain of the West is to get the basic institutions of democracy installed in all countries; Fair elections, rule of law, independent judiciary, free press.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

Volkovolk -> jezzam 15 May 2015 09:37

You are either really naive or really ignorant. Or both.

The main goal of the West is to preserve it's dominance that it get after Gorbachev trew all interests and chivements of USSR in wondow. Economical, politicall. Means to reach this goal are rally simple - to install their system, their values and their ideas as the major ones in the world. To create a system that that it's creator (US) can easily manipulate. For example to use this free press and bla-bla-bla-bla to overtrow governments where and when they feel the need to do so, like it was done on maidan and during so calles Arabian Spring.

The evidience are overwhelming? Tell that to Greec. The economy of US and Europe os working on basis of expansion, of assimilation of lesser economies. And this is another reason of this cover war of US for spheres of influence.

No ideas, no idealogy, just pragmatism and need to get benefit for US.

Alexandra_Aleshina 15 May 2015 09:33

"all-out war against the west"

It is absolute baloney! There is no aggression against west in Russia! Yes, Russia is ready for war, but for protection only. Russia does not want it. So please stop to portray Russia as a world aggressor, because it is not so!

jezzam -> Volkovolk 15 May 2015 09:29

You say the West's actions are "A cover for secret carving of world in one big sphere of influence. Western and basically US influence."

The main ain of the West is to get the basic institutions of democracy installed in all countries; Fair elections, rule of law, independent judiciary, free press. True it is in the West's interests to do this, but it is also in the interest of the populations of every country. The evidence is overwhelming that countries with these institutions have populations that are happier, richer and healthier than those without them. The only European country that does not have them now is Russia.

Volkovolk -> MentalToo 15 May 2015 09:20

Because NATO near borders of Russia is both danger to russian safety and kinda indulgence for antirussian policy of Lithuania. NATO is offensive war alliance that was created to fight against Soviet Union that was led, basically, by Russia. So NATO is antiRussian alliance from the beginning.

jezzam -> Alexander Ilichev 15 May 2015 09:18

Misdeeds by the West do not justify misdeeds by Russia. I assume you are referring to Iraq - generally accepted as illegal and disastrous for the West. Putin's Ukraine invasion was equally illegal and even more disastrous for Russia.

Volkovolk -> MentalToo 15 May 2015 09:16

Igor Girkin can mumble all he want because he is not a politician or any influential figure. And why he fortified Slavyansk? Perhaps because of neonazi rampage?

Putin... send... Girkin? Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!! Oh, you are funny. Girkin came himself because he is kinda glory hound. According to facts.

Nice and simple would be smashing of ukrainian neo-nazism and no anti-russian propaganda that foolish ukrainian elite decided to use to validate independence of Ukraine. But as we both know it is not nice and not simple, yeah, Bizarro?

MentalToo -> Volkovolk 15 May 2015 09:15

They are free to do what is not harming interests of others, more influential and powerful states and of other nations on their territory.
So because Russia is more powerful than Lithuania, Lithuania was not allowed to join Nato?


Z'ing Sui -> alpamysh 15 May 2015 07:30

So you're saying India has more industrial know-how and has a better education level overall that Russia? Again, are you being serious? That Russia doesn't have, say, cheap sneakers and t-shirt industry doesn't mean much in my book, especially when the factories, patents and know-how are more likely to belong to transnational corporations anyway.

I already said, that I find these commonplace economy arguments (size, diversification) weak. USSR lacked or was hopelessly behind in economy by these metrics, yet it was a superpower that sometimes almost rivaled the US and Europe combined. Russia is no Soviet Union, yet the goal is not to dominate half the world, but simply to be one of about 6 or 8 global powers acting independently in its own region of the world. Seems entirely manageable for Russia.


John Smith -> Malcolm Ronald Davis 15 May 2015 06:54

That would not have happened had not Slobodan Milosevic been undertaking a brutal ethnic war against the Kosovars, having already contributed to an equally brutal war against the Bosnian Muslims. I think the 1999 Kosovo conflict is an excellent example of 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P).

And how things are there in Langley?

KLA was on the US list of terrorist organisations 1998. They were killing police, army, postmen and even Albanians with less extremist views from Rugova's party which in any way didn't collaborate with Miloshevich ( they were boycotting the elections). Albanians had education, universities, TV and press in their own language. Miloshevich became famous for his words at Kosovo: "No one can beat you!", replying to Serbs complaining of harassment by Albanian policemans whom were dominant in numbers.

They have chosen terrorism, like 2001 and again today in Macedonia to make the Great Albania. Are they suppressed in Macedonia today? They are in the government, they had two defence ministers in a former governments, what is wrong now?

KLA is the US lapdog, they trained them and armed them and what recent events show didn't disarmed them at all after 1999. They had even pretty exotic AMAC 1500 in their possession. And the US will use them anytime when they want to destabilize the region.

Z'ing Sui -> alpamysh 15 May 2015 06:33

These speeches about Russia being a third-world hellhole some people on the Internet just love, they're crazy, and they're as easy as a google search or a wikipedia to disprove. I mean you're saying that like in Russia sucks compared to India. Are you actually, really, being serious?

And when it comes to Russia not having a great chance to be a power in the future because of low population, it's a good argument, a little better than the economic one, but still not decisive. To me it seems obvious that Russia has enough technological, military and political edge to stay a world power for a long while yet.

oleteo -> Sceptical Walker 15 May 2015 06:18

Red Army was able to turn the tide as you formulated not after the regrouping further but because they were ready to die for their soil and relatives while a peaceful life continued in European countries.

This invader came or the other one, some nuisance at last for the most part of Europeans.

Or can you allege the majority of them didn't live their lives and took the ams in the hands?

Russians has to be slaves or exterminated and they had no habit to surrender. There is no equality between communism and fascism as no equality between murderer and victim

Jeff1000 -> alpamysh 15 May 2015 06:10

You are a racist lunatic, with a strange agenda.

17 posts on this topic in 90 minutes. That's once every 5.3 minutes. Slower than your usual rate, but hey, it's Friday.


ijustwant2say -> kraljevic 15 May 2015 04:48

"That power was Russia."

Actually, let's be honest, Russia's sacrifice, large though it was, had little to do with freeing Europe. It had everything to do with fighting for Russia's very existence after Hitker reneged on his pact with Stalin and attacked Russia.

The actual power that had no reason to enter the fray but did - and unlike Russia took no territory afterwards - was the U.S. Russia, and to a lesser extent Britain had no choice but get involved, America CHOSE to put its blood and treasure on the line, And then they left.

That must be worth something, surely, especially considering how Russia occupied all the territories that became the USSR, substituting one extremist regime Fascism with another Communism.

And don't forget that without US and UK aid and supplies Russia would not have held Stalingrad.

As the great man said: those who don't learn from history are likely to repeat it.


Z'ing Sui -> AnhTay 15 May 2015 03:11

Come on, world is clearly not multipolar, not yet. But if it ever become one, Russia would be a center of power, if a much smaller one than the US, EU or China. Militarily and politically, there's really no sign that Russia is going away. People saying "~but Russia's economy is so small" should be pointed at the idea of this article I very much agree with. That idea is that economy is not everything.

Russia could easily be a power on par with India in this new world, and it would almost certainly be much more influential in global affairs than South Korea, which has little chance of ever becoming its own center of power because of closeness to China.

Kata L -> EmperorWearsNoCloths 15 May 2015 00:26

that's why you trolls can earn your bag of rubleys

if you have nothing to say

The time has come for the United States to formulate and prosecute an integrated, comprehensive, and long-term geostrategy for all of Eurasia. This need arises out of the interaction between two fundamental realities:

- America is now the only global superpower

- Eurasia is the globe's central arena.

Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy.

by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Harvard International Review
Winter 1997/1998

But, on 31 December 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the Constitution of Russia, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation.

Bob Schmitz -> TecchnoExpertThanx 15 May 2015 00:16

Look at the people (think tanks) around Masha Gessen en Dawisha. The figure of 70- 200 billion also comes from them.

Indeed strange that a rather balanced article leans heavily on this incredibly biased source, which obtains half of its info through mindreading of Putins´ head.

Gessen is probably a must-read for journalists.

Subhasis Sengupta -> Subhasis Sengupta 14 May 2015 23:43

the best part is Russia invaded guatemala, changed regime in iraq, libya, vietnam, panama, mexico, syria and US just did afghanistan... when these reporters write, all i can think of is laugh and tell these reporters and the oped writers, do u have a backbone, r u independent thinking, or get well soon buddy.

Subhasis Sengupta -> Subhasis Sengupta 14 May 2015 23:40

the US and EU apart from germany and france and austria and 50% of netherlands, finland, needs a war, why the very fast decline of the US economic system coming to an end... war is money, inventory buildup will be sold, new orders will be sold, new gas field will be in private control in ukraine and arctic... and bingo... consumer sentiment will rise so will be the rise of manufacturing... so the US economy grows.... we definitely need a war... and some fools still support that idea...

Subhasis Sengupta 14 May 2015 23:38

good to see american british propaganda running at full pace.... oops sorry american british piece of editorial are news... others are propaganda... news for peace and prosperity... peace when u have 350 military bases all over the world surrounding russia and china... prosperity when the 1% owns everything and a divided society is created... freedom of press when only what i say is correct, and even if i dont say the truth and say wrong things what i say is correct... oops i am a russian troll...

HollyOldDog -> Botswana61 14 May 2015 23:36

Chechnya was an internal problem. Georgia invaded South Ossetia while it was protected by an UN mandate and killed UN Peacekeepers. As the west dithered Russia drove the Georgians back to their own country. Russia has not invaded Ukraine though there is a Civil War occurring in Ukraine where West Ukraine has repeatedly violated the Minsk2 agreement. The Crimean citizens, after repeated attempts to become independent of Ukraine has voted to rejoin Russia ( Crimea rejoices each day that they are now with Russia - no military attacks from West Ukraine).

The West Ukrainian government is now so vile that they now punish any descent from their own citizens, with imprisonment or death. Western Powers have now become truly despicable.

HollyOldDog -> PacificPlasticPatch 14 May 2015 23:11

Does any Russian trust the actions of Western Powers when they have repeatedly sought to asset strip friends (Ukraine fracking) and foe alike? In Iraq the museums containing the rare antiquities from that country were allowed to be looted while the Oil Ministry building was heavily guarded.

Why was Iraq invaded since any supposed WMD's were destroyed years previously ( and documented). Best guess is that Iraq stopped having wars with Iran.

Natalia N -> UncleSam404 14 May 2015 22:19

Ukraine wanted to become Europe.
Ukraine has become even poorer.
People from Ukraine massively move to Russia.
WTF?

TecchnoExpertThanx 14 May 2015 21:45

Alluding to the Donbass region, the author concludes that...

it is hardly surprising that the Kremlin has been fighting its propaganda war with particular intensity here.

The moment Poroshenko labelled the entire region terrorists and the military campaign an ATO, cutting of pensions and services right at the start of the campaign and then not to mention both targeted and indiscriminate shelling of civilians.... ANY Kremlin propaganda would just be a waste of money.

greatwhitehunter -> Botswana61 14 May 2015 21:24

On the contrary only 20% of the USA,s export earnings are made from physical exports the rest is basically made from clipping the ticket or stealing if you like.

take Boeing and military out of this and what do you have left.

As an example the ukraine crisis came about not for the reasons that we read about in the media but because russia china india were in the process of replacing the $ as the worlds trading currency.

The economy of my country is quite small but we saved billions of dollars every year by making our currency trade-able with the yuan. The continuation of the cold war in effect maintains the USA,s ability to tax the world .


John Smith -> oresme 14 May 2015 20:04

Kiev was a Khazar city. It was not founded by Normans, And the Normans is a maybe wrong term, Vikings or Varyags as Russians called them would be more appropriate.
Russians went there with a Viking leadership and trick them and took the city.
Recently one historical document was found in Cairo from a late 800's I think, where it was written that the government of Kieb, Khazars called it that way, tried to arrange some ransom money for one of the citizens that was captured.

All of the names ( local government) were Khazar/Jewish, no Slavic or 'Nordsman'
names there.

But Nevertheless, you're correct and there was an astonishing influence of Vikings/Norseman to our civilisation not only in exploring, but also they invented/ reinvented accounting that haven't changed much till or times thousand years after (that was in Sicily).


John Smith Malcolm -> Ronald Davis 14 May 2015 19:29

And you're completely lost with that wall of text.

Russia hasn't invaded anything, they had more than 16.000 soldiers there.
The parliament of Crimea voted for a referendum and people of Crimea voted to rejoin Russia. The vast majority of Ukrainian soldiers joined the Russian army.

Is NATO a defensive alliance ? What was NATO defending in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Afghanistan ?

Nemtsov had zero influence in Russia like the most of the 'liberal' ( read payed from the west) opposition. Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky, those are opposition leaders that people vote for. You wouldn't like to see them in power for sure.

You can forget about 'Maidan' in Moscow, those few thousands can run around and shout what they like ( I saw Ukrainians last year shouting very offensive words about Putin and nothing happened), that's just a clown parade.

What aggression in Georgia and Estonia?

Georgians attacked the peacekeepers, check what OSCE said about that.
Not to mention who armed and trained Georgians. NATO training is a pure BS. Georgians, Iraqis, Afghani... what they learned from those trainings? Nothing
Whom was NATO fighting with to have a combat experience to train someone ?
Iraqi Army in the collapse at the level of the 70s and ill-equipped insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq they burned them with phosphorus and in Afghan have not achieved anything, last week some westerners were captured in a hotel in Kabul. What would that look like if Russians sold them some Strela's to fight against the aviation support ? They would be massacred.

The best advice would be keep your nose out those places, your governments just brought a destruction, failure and misery wherever they sticked them.


Bouduain bloomday 14 May 2015 18:56

Kremlin's constant harping on about Ukranian fascism

You harp on about "harping on." I suspect it is not the unyielding denial you were seeking from this article. And of course Russia has its fascists. Little nazi's are a world wide plague. In America, they're called patriots; and their political wing is the Tea-baggers.

A heady mix of ultra conservative Ultras (yobs heavy on idiocy), and fully declared proto-fascists, largely from a relatively small range in western Ukraine, took over neo-liberal origins of the protest and ran Yanukovic out of office. EuroMaiden was not fascist inspired, or organized, but hard core nationalists, fascists, protofascists, ... however you wish to slot the idiots ... took it over, and ended it with bricks, fire, and a good deal of pointed guns.

Ultra right wing, self-identified fascists - ultimately concentrated in deep west where all the few seats virtually reach back to, - with ties to former brutal "glories" of nasty elements allied not just with Hitler Germany, but Mein Kempf ideology - only took, something, like 7% of the vote during the Poroshenko election. Oddly, they were awarded the most dangerous ministry; internal security.

Beyond control of security (state police, central intelligence, etc) that tiny representation of fascist Ukraine also has its own politically allied military units - graciously serving under Kiev's command. (Sarcasted emphasis mine). They have two full battalions in the Ukrainian national army, if you can call whatever that is, a national military. Hell, there is an oligarch with his mercenary army badgering Dombass. There is no single Ukrainian military command.

Ukraine is not a fascist state. It is virtually a failed state; but its large numbers hardly voted fascist. The majority of what's left of Ukraine hardly shares the fascist inspirations of the controlling minority in Rada. My faith, and heart, went out to rational Ukrainians when vast numbers of certain conscripts split the country or simply holed-up with neibours where they couldn't be found; when western Ukrainian mothers burned call-up notices on the road while cameras rolled; or the shear volume of "switched one corrupt oligarch for another" type decent from original neoliberal-liberal EuroMaidan protestors that is suppressed today.

Poroshenko is no fascist, at least not over the wee share of the Ukraine he splits with Yatsenuk. At worst I peg him a neocon, a dodgy oligarch who is hardly in full control of anything - least not the military. I'd probably place Yats in the fascists' camp, but he's dodged that official declaration so far. Not so with the over-compensated, outright Bandera worshipers who made it into the Rada. They openly promote it.

The fascist element in this mess is a problem. By no popular authority should they have been given armed wings of the government. They should have been relegated to positions that fit 7% popularity - back behind the friggin back benches!

The article was measured - almost journalism. A decent read from the regular NN/TGA crap Guardian runs. I did find it bit of a illogical walk about; and certainly par for Guardian editorial positions: a decent whitewash of the whole fascist taint in Kiev. She hardly talked about it ... except it is somehow connected to the prerequisite charge of "propaganda"; and that Russians fear it more then me, and many others like me out here in the west who take it very seriously. Denial seems to be your domain.

Ukraine needs to shed the stink of fascists and start acting like a responsible state ... a state that will never force Crimea or Dombass back into the fold. Hell ... give Lviv its independence too, and send the viscous fools home. Definitely relegate them to the political hinterlands where they belong. Maybe Ukraine will have a nation they can govern.

(W)ith no dissenting view allowed in the Russian media to counter, …

I'm far more concerned with the one line we are getting fed west of Winchester. McCain, Harper, Abbott, Cameron WEST. (Pick one or insert yours into the western MSM mix if they fit).

vr13vr 14 May 2015 17:58

It wouldn't be a reasonable article if the author stayed away from the silly and sometimes cold war era rhetoric. "Empire", "insecurity", "damaged ego," "feeling excluded." That's a stupid thing to say about the nation. How about a more straight talk - we don't threaten them and don't try to hurt them and they will not threaten us?

nnedjo 14 May 2015 17:19

Since the regime is fixated on the idea of getting its empire back, a major conflict really does seem possible. Russian aircraft and submarines are playing war games around the coasts of Europe. But a plane crossing into Baltic air space could trigger Nato retaliation with conventional arms, which could in turn could spark a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia – a strategic response born of a fear of weakness in the face of superior American military power.

I've read so far all kinds of accusations against Russia, but I have to admit that such outrageous accusation I have not read so far. Thus, the author of this article directly accuses Russia of a possible nuclear war, which practically means the end of civilization, at least as we have known so far.

However, at the same time it shows how accusations of any kind when it comes to Russia, are completely meaningless.

So if one day really came to nuclear war, and if humanity ceases to exist, whether it will be important at all who is to blame? Or better said, the big question is whether it will be left at least one man who could blame anyone for that.

Therefore, if we will not be able to blame Russia after that, then let's to blame in advance. And in that blame should not have a limit, it should go beyond every limits. Even behind a nuclear war, and the end of human history.

John Smith -> VladPutil 14 May 2015 17:02

No -the first action was armed Russian special forces "disguised" as little green men took over government building in East Ukraine

You forgot taking over government buildings in Kiev and earlier in the West Ukraine in January where they took some 1500 AK's ?
Very selective memory from your side.


Ruslan Zigangirov -> Sceptical Walker 14 May 2015 16:46

I hope that does not happen. I hope that Poland will be enough reason not to deploy a missile defense system, which represents a mortal danger to Russia on its territory. The US missile defense system is designed so that the system can manage only the Americans. In fact, Poland will be holding a gun with a remote control aimed at Russia.

If the Poles are stupid and do it, then the elements of the missile defense system will be destroyed blow tactical missiles or using special forces operations. It will be a lot of screaming and sanctions, but if you think that the US president or the president of France ad war on Russia risking a nuclear attack on its capital for Poland, you are naive.

Ruslan Zigangirov -> VladPutil 14 May 2015 16:22

You absolutely do not understand what happened in South Ossetia and Moldova (no Romania). The conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia began in 1918, but since the entry of these territories into the Soviet Union, this conflict has been frozen. When the Soviet Union broke up, Georgia by military force tried to take control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the war began. Russia intervened and stopped the war, the conflict has been frozen. Compliance agreements provide Russian peacekeepers on the border between Georgia and South Ossetia. When Saakashvilli became president of Georgia, he began to seek NATO membership for Georgia. The Americans helped him, they are fully equipped and trained the Georgian army, but there was one problem. For domestic reasons Saakashvilli could not refuse to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia considers the territory of his own. Georgia's accession to NATO with unresolved territorial disputes was impossible.

In 2008 Saakashvilii launched a military operation to seize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russian peacekeepers have not missed his army on the border and what he did? He killed them. I do not know what he relied, perhaps he thought that Russia will quietly watch as Saakashvilli killing Russian peacekeepers. Further everyone knows. Russia has destroyed the Georgian army and restore the status quo, Georgia has not been had occupied.

nnedjo 14 May 2015 15:51

The conventional view in the west is that the blame lies with Putin and his kleptocratic regime. According to this narrative, the regime went into attack mode after the oil price collapsed. It distracted attention from its own failure to diversify the economy by lashing out against an external enemy, and launching a brilliant propaganda campaign.

This version of events, while not untrue, lets the west off the hook far too easily.

This is an obvious nonsense. Joining of Crimea to Russia, as well as demonstrations in the southeast of Ukraine took place in March last year, to immediately afterwards broke out armed conflict. On the other hand, the fall in the price of oil began in June 2014. So how is it possible to claim that what happened earlier was the result of what happened later?

nnedjo -> Terry Ross 14 May 2015 15:20

At the time of the Soviet Union, there was the Eastern bloc countries, or the Warsaw Pact. However, all these countries have had strong borders that could not be crossed without a passport, and, at least officially, there are not numerous commissioners, among whom also Enlargement Commissioner. Also, It could not happen that some supranational commission ban any of those countries to establish economic cooperation with third countries or, for example, to ban the already signed agreements on gas pipeline construction.

And all of this you have now in the European Union.

Imagine for example, that during the Cold War, Stalin, Khrushchev or Brezhnev, are sending their "Enlargement Commissioner" in one of the Western European countries to check the progress of work on the harmonization of legislation of these countries with the legislation of the countries of the Warsaw Pact.

So, this is perhaps one drastic comparison, but it helps to get a picture of what is happening in recent years. Some in the West may have recognized that enlargement of the EU is also kind of expansionism, but a kind of "peaceful" and "voluntary" expansionism. However, what kind of "peaceful expansionism" is that, if it is accompanied also by occasional revolutions and even wars.

Terry Ross 14 May 2015 14:38

I cannot believe that someone has spent 30 years travelling to Russia and knows so little about its geopolitics. The author makes a point about about Russian expansionism, thus: 'Since the regime is fixated on the idea of getting its empire back' The comment although widely held in the West, has little evidence to support it.

The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and Putin came to power in 2000. During that time, 14 years snce Putin first becoming president and 23 years since the end of the Soviet Union, there has not been a single case of ANY Russian expansionism prior to Crimea last year. The whole argument hinges on Crimea and its referendum.

Several Western polling companies have tried to demonstrate that the results of that referendum were were not representative of Crimean wishes, but they all failed: Gallup, Pew Research and GfK all reported confirmation of the referendum result with figures ranging from 83% to 93% approval.

Crimea seceded from Ukraine and sought reunification with Russia. Whatevere the arguments of 'little green men' facilitating such a process, the facts are clear. This was a Crimean choice.

So that means that there has not been a single case of Russian expansionism after 1991.
One mast ask then, what is the justification for making a comment such as, ''Since the regime is fixated on the idea of getting its empire back''?

Autoclave 14 May 2015 14:37

Who stands to gain by escalating tensions towards WW3? Only 2 years ago, remember the news stories about NATO's very existence being questioned. Then conveniently we see a Western backed overthrow of Kiev by an unelected fascist neo-nazi government. Would this have happened if Ukraine wasn't on the doorstep of Russia, or they weren't the main channel of Russian natural gas into Europe? No. There's big money to be made by expanding NATO and allowing Western companies to get a foothold in the country and control its resources reminiscent of the Halliburton expansion after the Iraq invasion of 2003. Forget the Cold War rhetoric. Follow the money.

kraljevic -> ijustwant2say 14 May 2015 14:28

I don't minimize the critical importance of the battle of Britain and the bravery of those who fought in it. It bought much needed breathing space and hope to millions who were becoming resigned to Nazi dominance.Nobody is suggesting otherwise but even Churchill knew it was a holding action that could only be of real benefit to Britain if another major power entered the war.That power was Russia and if the battle of Britain was a down payment towards final victory the balance of the account was paid for almost entirely by Russian blood and sacrifice!

nnedjo -> EnviroCapitalist 14 May 2015 14:18

Actually the $5 billion was over 2 decades. The biggest single item is remedial works at the Chernobyl nuclear power station.

Two decades, of course, and the "Orange Revolution" took place a decade ago. So after another decade, another 'Maidan revolution. "Besides that, Victoria Nuland did not include Chernobyl at all in those $5 billion. She said that these $5 billion has been invested to "support democracy" in Ukraine.

John Smith -> alpamysh 14 May 2015 14:15

Ukropithecus nazi at his best. That is their way, bombing schools, hospitals, they don't know how to fight, that would need some brains.

Kieran Woods -> bovinescatology 14 May 2015 14:14

Well said Agnes,

The US / NATO onward march of sanctions, military intervention, coups, support of evil regimes and general creation of misery continues.
Too bad that Putin, with practically no military bases outside his own soil, unlike the Washington war monger's hundreds, has proved to be a formidable opponent who will never be a push over or puppet.

JoeCorr -> PacificPlasticPatch 14 May 2015 14:00

Ukraine is a sovereign nation deciding its own course,

Nope. The CIA and Victoria Nuland are deciding Ukraine's course. Another example of America blundering around outside its own borers up to it ass in a culture it doesn't understand.

The EU have the wealth and political talent to put an end to American interference in European affairs. I wish to fuck they'd start to undo Americas mistakes before it's too late.

elias_ -> geedeesee 14 May 2015 13:55

Yes. Now 14 months on where are we? EU confirms no more EU expansion for 10 years. With no prospect of EU membership what was the Maidan really for? Ukraine seems to be screwed now. Their economy is toast, massive inflation, civil war, gas transit fees stopping in a few years, Crimea lost, antagonism with their biggest trading partner, Oligarchs still in charge and still stealing....

Q: Do you think the Ukrainian people are happy with their new leadership? Do you think they are grateful for all the Nuland cookies?

kraljevic -> alpamysh 14 May 2015 13:48

The history books say otherwise. The course of the war was decided in the east and Britain and France were reduced to being largely spectators as their fate was being determined along with everybody else by the tenacity and bravery of the Russian Muzhik bringing the Germans to their knees.

That's not a very palatable outcome for two powers used to being the cornerstone of the European order and it is natural that they both try to bring down the new/old upstart down a peg or two.

But still their efforts cannot compare with that of Soviet Russia as the German casualty lists testify! As for the climate the Germans were already suffering setbacks and defeats in 1941(as at Yelnya) on a much greater scale than in the west even before the winter set in!

nnedjo -> PacificPlasticPatch 14 May 2015 13:44

Interesting your assumption that any embrace between Ukraine and the West is "illegal".

It is not "any embrace." When someone invests billions of dollars in "training opposition" of a sovereign nation, then for months supports violent demonstrations against the sovereign president of a sovereign nation, and strictly prohibit the sovereign president to disperse the demonstrators who burn tires and erected tents on the square in the capital, and at the end recognize a government that is not recognized by most of the sovereign nation, then I do not see what's legal in all this.
Imagine that Russia acted in the same way in relation to Ukraine, or, for example, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, ..., and so on to Hungary, Poland or former Czechoslovakia. Would west just watched it idly, and thought that it was all legal?

nnedjo 14 May 2015 13:19

Westerners have for years been giggling at 'Allo 'Allo and John Cleese's goosestep, but fascism is no laughing matter in this country.

In fact, this whole article reminds me of one of the usual scenes from the series "Alo, Alo":

Every time Mrs. Edith finds her husband Rene embraced by some of the lovely waitress, he said to her something like: "You stupid woman, don't you see I'm helping Michelle to pull out the speck that fell in her eye!"
:-)))

So Western narrative when it comes to Russia, mainly reminiscent of the tactics of the culprit caught in the act, that Rene is abundantly practiced in the series "Alo, Alo".

Illegal embrace between the West and Ukraine, in the West are generally interpreted as a harmless attempt to "remove the speck from eye", while Russia is behaving like a "too jealous wife" who sees everything as bad intentions.

Beckow -> Corsair1972 14 May 2015 13:05

"Putin has shadowy wealth of $70bn and $200bn"

And you know who else does? Hitler.

RRRRiiight, I stopped reading at that point. If this is an "understanding" article, we are really done here.

Beckow -> Slo27 14 May 2015 13:02

"Supporting protesters and occupying a country whose territorial integrity you are formally guaranteeing just cannot be compared"

How about "helping to overthrow an elected government in Kiev and allowing for self-determination of a majority in Crimea just cannot be compared".

See, how flexible words can be?

But I sense that we are done here, words have been misused so much, that there is no point in all this talk. And I do think that Western media has had a major part in this.


Dimmus -> alpamysh 14 May 2015 12:47

"Putin STARTED a war in Ukraine--when every responsible leader in Ukraine was trying to resolve things peacefully..."

1) The war started when anti-Russian actions started and the first move was made not by Russia;

2) "when every responsible leader in Ukraine" - about which leaders and about which Ukraine do you speak? About those who started to rule without impeachment of the president and supported killing of pro-federalization people?

Agnes Maria 14 May 2015 12:40

The Russian regime is not 'fixated on getting its empire back'. It is focused on developing and sustaining a now rapidly progressing system that has been mercilessly interrupted by the EU and US, in what can only be called an affront against civilised society itself and not some kind of containment strategy against Russia. Russia is not going to capitulate, bend over backwards, surrender or otherwise dishonour itself with begging for leniency. The only major regimes hell-bent on expansionism are those of the USA, EU and NATO, and they do this by any means necessary, as evidenced by their calloused ability to function as the enemies of humanity by infiltrating popular movements worldwide with extremist sentiments of every kind, from Islamic to Christian to White Supremacist to outright neo-Nazi. And they do this not for democracy, but for profit and for kicks, like a spoiled child who just figured out that they can manipulate their environment but does not yet have the capacity to consider or care about the consequences of their actions. Leaving ruin in their wake, the West leaves those with eyes to see and ears to hear no choice but to meet them with distrust. Naturally we will prepare for war, hopefully it will not come to war. Those who do not want to submit to the West and its hysterical propaganda-fuelled, veiled expansionist will not hold out hope for logic and reason to prevail and lead to a sensible solution. Nations being most used as weapons against Russia are most heavily infiltrated with this propaganda, which preys and plays on their unresolved historical pain that has not been met with straight, simple compassion from any side. These nations people, for the most part, know only self-victimisation due to this propaganda and so they are dangerous. However, they are virtual slaves, mental and emotional slaves, and that means they need to be freed from this misconstrued thinking. They cannot get over their pain and move on as long as Russia does not care about them, straight from the heart, and it really is that simple. They also cannot stop fearing Russia and giving NATO an excuse to encroach closer on Russia's borders unless Russia actively creates a new bond with them. There is no other way, and it will not go away if ignored. Those nations will not go their own way after being cut loose, like young people going to start their own lives after leaving home. Action to do something about this needs to be taken now, and not put on the back burner or not taken seriously enough. The future is up to Russia, not the mad West that does not even have a clue who and what they are engaging. They do not understand the spirit of Russians any more than they understand their way of thinking and feeling, and yet they purport to deal with them according to what is allegedly appropriate. It is not appropriate to sanction a well developed society full of modern people who are not about to do your bidding. Everyone has work cut out for them in this case, but only those who are friends of humanity, of all nations, actually care to do it right. And even they have procrastinated too long and can afford to lose no more time.

[May 14, 2015]War-Crazed Western Propaganda Machine Rages at Its Growing Insignificance

russia-insider.com

Atlantic Alliance media apparatus lashing out like a dying demon at the reality of being successfully confronted by the truth

This article originally appeared at CounterPunch

In mid-April, hundreds of U.S. paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived in western Ukraine to provide training for government troops. The UK had already started its troop-training mission there, sending 75 troops to Kiev in March. [1] On April 14, the Canadian government announced that Canada will send 200 soldiers to Kiev, contributing to a military build-up on Russia's doorstep while a fragile truce is in place in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian Embassy in Ottawa called the decision "counterproductive and deplorable," stating that the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine have "called for enhanced intra-Ukrainian political dialogue," as agreed upon in the Minsk-2 accords in February, and that it would be "much more reasonable to concentrate on diplomacy…" [2]

That viewpoint is shared by many, especially in Europe where few are eager for a "hot" war in the region. Nor are most people enamoured of the fact that more billions are being spent on a new arms-race, while "austerity" is preached by the 1 Per Cent.

But in the Anglo-American corridors of power (also called the Atlantic Alliance), such views are seen to be the result of diabolical propaganda spread through the Internet by Russia's "secret army." On April 15, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Ed Royce (R-Calif.), held a hearing entitled "Confronting Russia's Weaponization of Information," with Royce claiming that Russian propaganda threatens "to destabilize NATO members, impacting our security commitments." [3]

The Committee heard from three witnesses: Elizabeth Wahl, former anchor for the news agency Russia Today (RT) who gained her moment of fame by resigning on camera in March 2014; Peter Pomerantsev, Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute (a right-wing UK think-tank); and Helle C. Dale, Senior Fellow for Public Diplomacy at The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing U.S. think-tank. [4] The Foreign Affairs Committee website contains video clips of the first two witnesses – well worth watching if you enjoy Orwellian rhetoric passionately delivered.

The day before the hearing, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Royce wrote,

"Vladimir Putin has a secret army. It's an army of thousands of 'trolls,' TV anchors and others who work day and night spreading anti-American propaganda on the Internet, airwaves and newspapers throughout Russia and the world. Mr. Putin uses these misinformation warriors to destabilize his neighbors and control parts of Ukraine. This force may be more dangerous than any military, because no artillery can stop their lies from spreading and undermining U.S. security interests in Europe." [5]

In her formal (printed) submission, Ms. Wahl referred to the Internet's "population of paranoid skeptics" and wrote: "The paranoia extends to believing that Western media is not only complicit, but instrumental in ensuring Western dominance."

Helle C. Dale warned of "a new kind of propaganda, aimed at sowing doubt about anything having to do with the U.S. and the West, and in a number of countries, unsophisticated audiences are eating it up."

Peter Pomerantsev claimed that Russia's goal is "to trash the information space with so much disinformation so that a conversation based on actual facts would become impossible." He added, "Throughout Europe conspiracy theories are on the rise and in the US trust in the media has declined. The Kremlin may not always have initiated these phenomena, but it is fanning them…Democracies are singularly ill equipped to deal with this type of warfare. For all of its military might, NATO cannot fight an information war. The openness of democracies, the very quality that is meant to make them more competitive than authoritarian models, becomes a vulnerability."

Chairman Royce called for "clarifying" the mission of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the U.S. federal agency whose networks include Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Marti). [6]

The BBG is apparently in disarray. According to Helle Dale's submission, on March 4, 2015, Andrew Lack, the newly hired CEO of BBG's International Broadcasting, left the position after only six weeks on the job. On April 7, the Director of Voice of America, David Ensor, announced that he was leaving.

Andrew Lack was formerly the president of NBC News. As Paul Craig Roberts has recently noted, Lack's first official statement as CEO of the BBG

"compared RT, Russia Today, the Russian-based news agency, with the Islamic State and Boko Haram. In other words, Mr. Lack brands RT as a terrorist organization. The purpose of Andrew Lack's absurd comparison is to strike fear at RT that the news organization will be expelled from US media markets. Andrew Lack's message to RT is: 'lie for us or we are going to expel you from our air waves.' The British already did this to Iran's Press TV. In the United States the attack on Internet independent media is proceeding on several fronts." [7]

Ironically, however, it's likely that one of the biggest threats (especially in Europe) to Anglo-American media credibility about Ukraine and other issues is coming from a very old-fashioned medium – a book.

Udo Ulfkotte's bestseller Bought Journalists has been a sensation in Germany since its publication last autumn. The journalist and former editor of one of Germany's largest newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, revealed that he was for years secretly on the payroll of the CIA and was spinning the news to favour U.S. interests. Moreover he alleges that some major media are nothing more than propaganda outlets for international think-tanks, intelligence agencies, and corporate high-finance.

"We're talking about puppets on a string," he says, "journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what's really going on, you get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets." [8]

In another interview, Ulfkotte said: "The German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return, and I am going to stand up and say…it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, all over Europe." [9]

With the credibility of the corporate media tanking, Eric Zuesse recently wrote, "Since Germany is central to the Western Alliance – and especially to the American aristocracy's control over the European Union, over the IMF, over the World Bank, and over NATO – such a turn away from the American Government [narrative] threatens the dominance of America's aristocrats (who control our Government). A breakup of America's [Atlantic] 'Alliance' might be in the offing, if Germans continue to turn away from being just America's richest 'banana republic'." [10]

No wonder the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on April 15 had such urgent rhetoric, especially from Peter Pomerantsev, Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute – a London-based international think-tank whose motto is "Prosperity Through Revitalizing Capitalism and Democracy" and whose stated mission is "promoting prosperity through individual liberty, free enterprise and entrepreneurship, character and values."

At the end of March, Conservative London mayor Boris Johnson (named as a potential successor to David Cameron) helped launch the Legatum Institute's "Vision of Capitalism" speakers' series, whose rallying cry is "It's time for friends of capitalism to fight back." [11] The sponsor of the event was the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA), whose membership comprises "more than 500 influential firms, including over 230 private equity and venture capital houses, as well as institutional investors, professional advisers, service providers and international associations." It is not clear whether the BVCA is also sponsoring the Legatum Institute's "Vision of Capitalism" series.

The Legatum Institute was founded by billionaire Christopher Chandler's Legatum Ltd. – a private investment firm headquartered in Dubai. According to The Legatum Institute's website, its executives and fellows write for an impressive number of major media outlets, including the Washington Post, Slate, the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, New Republic, the Daily Telegraph, The Times, the London Review of Books, the Atlantic, and the Financial Times.

Nonetheless, the Legatum Institute's Peter Pomeranzev told the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs that "Russia has launched an information war against the West – and we are losing."
Chairperson Ed Royce noted during the hearing that if certain things are repeated over and over, a "conspiracy theory" takes on momentum and a life of its own.

Pomeranzev said the Kremlin is "pushing out more conspiracy" and he explained, "What is conspiracy – sort of a linguistic sabotage on the infrastructure of reason. I mean you can't have a reality-based discussion when everything becomes conspiracy. In Russia, the whole discourse is conspiracy. Everything is conspiracy." He added, "Our global order is based on reality-based politics. If that reality base is destroyed, then you can't have international institutions, international dialogue." Lying, he said, "makes a reality-based politics impossible" and he called it "a very insidious trend."

Apparently, Pomeranzev has forgotten that important October 2004 article by Ron Suskind published in the New York Times Magazine during the second war in Iraq (which, like the first, was based on a widely disseminated lie). Suskind quoted one of George W. Bush's aides (probably Karl Rove): "The aide said that guys like me [journalists, writers, historians] were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality…That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'." [12]

It's a rather succinct description of Orwellian spin and secrecy in a media-saturated Empire, where discerning the truth becomes ever more difficult.

That is why people believe someone like Udo Ulfkotte, who is physically ill, says he has only a few years left to live, and told an interviewer, "I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don't like to have this situation again, because war is never coming from itself, there is always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too…We have betrayed our readers, just to push for war…I don't want this anymore, I'm fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom…" [13]

Recently, as Mike Whitney has pointed out in CounterPunch (March 10), Germany's newsmagazine Der Spiegel dared to challenge the fabrications of NATO's top commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, for spreading "dangerous propaganda" that is misleading the public about Russian "troop advances" and making "flat-out inaccurate statements" about Russian aggression.

Whitney asks, "Why this sudden willingness to share the truth? It's because they no longer support Washington's policy, that's why. No one in Europe wants the US to arm and train the Ukrainian army. No wants them to deploy 600 paratroopers to Kiev and increase U.S. logistical support. No one wants further escalation, because no wants a war with Russia. It's that simple." [14] Whitney argued that "the real purpose of the Spiegel piece is to warn Washington that EU leaders will not support a policy of military confrontation with Moscow."

So now we know the reason for the timing of the April 15 U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, "Confronting Russia's Weaponization of Information." Literally while U.S. paratroopers were en route to Kiev, the hawks in Washington (and London) knew it was time to crank up the rhetoric. The three witnesses were most eager to oblige.

[May 12, 2015] GOP antics may lead to a 'de-Americanized world'

10/15/13 | MSNBC

When there's a global economic crisis, investors from around the world have spent the last several generations doing one thing: they buy U.S. treasuries. The reasoning, of course, is that there is no safer investment, anywhere on the planet, than the United States of America – which has the strongest and largest economy on the planet, and which always pays its bills.

All of these assumptions, of course, were cultivated over generations, and pre-date the radicalization of the Republican Party.

But what happens when U.S. treasuries are no longer considered safe, Americans can no longer be counted on to pay its bills, and the nation's most powerful economy chooses to default on purpose? The world starts reevaluating old assumptions, that's what.

In Britain, Jon Cunliffe, who will become deputy governor of the Bank of England next month, told members of Parliament that banks should be developing contingency plans to deal with an American default if one happens.

And Chinese leaders called on a "befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world." In a commentary on Sunday, the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua blamed "cyclical stagnation in Washington" for leaving the dollar-based assets of many nations in jeopardy. It said the "international community is highly agonized."

I know I've been pushing this thesis in recent weeks, but it's important to remember the unique role the United States plays in global leadership and the extent to which Republican antics in Congress will change the dynamic that's been stable for the better part of the last century.

No major western power has defaulted since Hitler's Germany, so this week may add some history to the potentially catastrophic economic consequences, and the world is watching closely.

Indeed, try to imagine explaining this ongoing crisis to a foreign observer who doesn't fully appreciate the nuances of domestic politics. "Yes, we have the largest economy on the planet. Yes, we want to maintain global credibility. Yes, the process of extending our borrowing authority is incredibly easy and could be completed in about 10 minutes. No, some members of our legislative branch have decided they no longer want the United States to honor its obligations and pay for the things they've already bought."

I suspect global observers would find this truly inexplicable. As it happens, I'd agree with them.

Ezra Klein added yesterday that to the rest of the world, "the United States looks insane right now."

They're dealing with real problems that their political systems are struggling to solve. The United States' political system is creating fake problems that it may choose to leave unsolved.

"The United States was the one bright spot in the world recovery," says OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria. "It was leading the recovery! Leading the creation of jobs! This unfortunate situation with the budget and debt happens at the moment it was looking good." […]

At best, the United States is slowing its recovery – and that of the rest of the world. At worst, it's going to trigger another global crisis. That's why, Gurria says, his concern isn't that the United States' economy is weak, but that its political system is.

It's heartbreaking that so much of the world is now laughing at us, not because we have crises we can't solve, but because members of one party – the one that lost the most recent national elections – insist on manufacturing new crises to advance their unpopular agenda.

To reiterate what we discussed last week, there's a global competition underway for power and influence in the 21st century. Americans have rivals who are playing for keeps. We can either be at the top of our game or we can watch others catch up.

And it's against this backdrop that House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican colleagues shut down the government, threaten default, fight tooth and nail to strip Americans of their health care benefits, and keep spending levels so low we're kicking children out of Head Start centers while our global competitors invest heavily in education.

It's as if some have a vision in which we no longer lead and we aim for second place on purpose.

Great nations can't function the way we're struggling to function now. The United States can either be a 21st-century superpower or it can tolerate Republicans abandoning the governing process and subjecting Americans to a series of self-imposed extortion crises.

It cannot do both.

China is talking about "a de-Americanized world." It's time for Republicans to decide whether they intend to help them.

[May 12, 2015] Merkel-Ferkel yesterday in the Kremlin

Quote: Thanks for the hour of duelling histories. Made me realise what a great agitprop resource history is for those who would like to "shape" current narratives.
You have the white-hat / bad-hat lust for an – ideally, ego-stroking – answer multiplied by the my-eyes-glaze-over factor. Result: maximum impact.
Best, this can all be deployed while seeming judicious and balanced to those not checking "facts-not-mentioned."
Moscow Exile , May 11, 2015 at 3:02 am

Merkel-Ferkel yesterday in the Kremlin:

I have arrived in Moscow today during a difficult situation for German-Russian relations. It was important for me, together with President Putin, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of world war II to honour those who died. I have laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and thus I want to say to the Russian people, that I, as German Chancellor, kneel in front of the millions of victims of a war that was unleashed by Nazi Germany. We shall be constantly aware of the fact that the share of the peoples of the former Soviet Union and Red Army soldiers accounted for the majority of casualties in that war. I remind you that the war in the East was carried out as a brutal race war and a war of extermination, and that it brought untold suffering to millions of people.

The occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end WWII is on August 15, 2015.

The occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of the German-Soviet War was on the day before her arrival in Moscow.

She could not be in Moscow on 9 May because she had been told not to attend the celebrations.

Putin should have said to his "partner": Fick dich, Arschloch!
:-(

Tim Owen says:

May 11, 2015 at 3:49 am

Stalin offered in 1939 to send 1 mln troops to stop Hitler if Britain, France agreed to anti-Nazi pact; they refused http://t.co/46cwbt0x7y

- exiledonline.com (@exiledonline) May 10, 2015

"Papers which were kept secret for almost 70 years show that the Soviet Union proposed sending a powerful military force in an effort to entice Britain and France into an anti-Nazi alliance.

Such an agreement could have changed the course of 20th century history, preventing Hitler's pact with Stalin which gave him free rein to go to war with Germany's other neighbours."

Pavlo Svolochenko, May 11, 2015 at 4:01 am

A forlorn hope, since the Ango-French idea of an alliance was that the USSR would do the fighting while the western allies made sympathetic noises and gathered up the spoils afterward.

Tim Owen, May 11, 2015 at 5:16 am

Get a load of this: The Body Language of a Liar http://t.co/mtHCnFCNu3

- Joel Harding (@Joel_Harding) May 11, 2015

Erika, May 11, 2015 at 6:47 am

What countries signed treaties with Hitler but they only tell you about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? #Victory70 … Héctor A. on Twitter What countries signed treaties with Hitler but they only tell you about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

- Héctor A. (@GrinchEtor) May 6, 2015

marknesop, May 11, 2015 at 9:59 am

That's a pretty good rundown. A handy list to keep for reference.

Tim Owen, May 11, 2015 at 9:55 pm

"Sympathetic noises" is a great phrase. An emotional gesture without any underlying meaning or commitment. It therefore also has a charge of implied violence to it.

I admire your cynicism.

Warren, May 11, 2015 at 5:20 am

Listen to Michael Parenti's lecture on the real causes of WW2:

http://noliesradio.org/archives/32286

Warren, May 11, 2015 at 7:56 am

If you want the official Western version on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact listen to this:

As Putin defends the Nazi-Soviet pact, here's our podcast interview on "The Devils' Alliance" http://t.co/EesRFkuQQr Matt Lewis on Twitter As Putin defends the Nazi-Soviet pact, here's our podcast interview on The Devils' Alliance http--t. (pic.twitter.com/Q32RMOfl4I)

- Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) May 11, 2015

cartman , May 11, 2015 at 9:28 am

I see the UK is on the list above, making a "Devils' Alliance"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_potato_(game)

Moscow Exile, May 11, 2015 at 9:49 am

The UK made that Naval Treaty with Nazi Germany behind of France's back. The Frogs were none too pleased at the time.

Max, May 11, 2015 at 3:41 pm

prima facia nonsense because Stalingrad.

Tim Owen, May 11, 2015 at 9:46 pm

Thanks for the hour of duelling histories. Made me realise what a great agitprop resource history is for those who would like to "shape" current narratives.

You have the white-hat / bad-hat lust for an – ideally, ego-stroking – answer multiplied by the my-eyes-glaze-over factor. Result: maximum impact.

Best, this can all be deployed while seeming judicious and balanced to those not checking "facts-not-mentioned."

Warren, May 11, 2015 at 7:49 am

Neocon Writer Anne Applebaum Covers up the Role West Played in Looting Russia http://t.co/6ekZbQFkdm #ColdWar pic.twitter.com/V4akXBUeIE

- Russia Insider (@RussiaInsider) May 11, 2015

astabada, May 11, 2015 at 8:46 pm

Has an American or British political dissident, opposed to the policies of his own government, ever won a Nobel Prize?

I don't know whether you can consider Pintor a political dissident. However he certainly did not approve the policies of his own government, as clearly stated in his beautiful Nobel Prize lecture.

The trick there was the usual one, namely not to silence dissent but to drown it in noise.

marknesop , May 11, 2015 at 9:46 pm

Great find; I had never heard of Harold Pinter – shows what an uncultured Philistine I am. The lecture is indeed a thing of beauty, and one paragraph of it may be perfect for my next post, which is in the works. Thanks!!

[May 12, 2015] Kerry set to meet Putin in first visit to Russia since start of Ukraine crisis

The problem that West and first of all the USA and Germany face now is that Ukraine is another Greece. To keep it afloat financially requires tremendous and continues investment. 40 billions from IMF is only a start. Economic ties with Russia are destroyed. And without tens of billions of annual aid that means death sentence. Allowing it to fail with shake Western financial system and we do not know how many derivatives were written on Ukrainian debt and who holds them.
.
Looks like MentalToo was on duty for this article with support of usual gang. There was even some backlash against "Hillary bots", specifically against alphamysh.
May 12, 2015 | The Guardian

Beckow -> StrategicVoice213 11 May 2015 22:26

By paying a price I clearly meant the very expensive support for Ukraine that EU has to provide, about 40 billion so far. The Ukraine's economy is down about 14% from just three years ago - this is going to get very, very expensive.

If you want to compare Russia's and EU's losses due to sanctions, they have been very substantial for both. EU has so far lost about 10 billion in exports and in the long run it is not clear who will end up losing more. Russia's GNP will drop by 3% after years of high growth (more than double in 10 years). EU has been largely stagnant and many countries there are still below where they were in '09 (Italy, Spain, ...).

Finally, militarily all that matters is who has local superiority. Russia has it in eastern Ukraine. You can squirm, hallucinate, cry all you want, there is no f...ing way that Nato can defeat Russia there.

They know it, thus the coming deal.

Dannycraig007 -> MentalToo 11 May 2015 21:34

You would prefer I use the corrupt and obviously biased mainstream Western media as sources I assume, rather than first person video accounts from the victims themselves? Award winning war correspondent and Guardian journalist John Pilger has a few words for you. http://www.discussionist.com/101459708 This is a must watch video about how the Western media operate from a man who was once a part of the establishment here at the Guardian.

Standupwoman -> Captain_Underpants 11 May 2015 17:08

Yep. I think my own Pollyanna moment is already beginning to seep away.

But the stakes are so high! NATO's revival of the 'hotline' has unilaterally put us back on a Cold War footing, and at a time when the Doomsday clock is already set at 3 minutes to midnight. Putin has shown incredible restraint so far, but if the provocations don't stop then I'm genuinely worried about what might happen.

Bosula -> samanthajsutton 11 May 2015 20:43

Neither side is very open about what support it provides.

Russia says openly it doesn't stop volunteers from Russia, often family, cross the border to fight with the East Ukrainians. They are also probably supplying weapons, but we don't really know. And no Russian troops have been captured despite the huge battles. To capture a Russian soldier in a fighting zone would be worth gold in terms of PR value.

The Eastern Ukrainian are having difficulties training all their volunteers (just too many) with a million refugees, many based in camps in Russia, providing a fertile source of volunteers. The West provides no humanitarian help - a short sighted strategic decision, maybe?

The US and their allies are also pretty secret about what support they provide - best estimates are around 1,500 advisers, trainers - and 'volunteers' fighting alongside privately funded far right militias and the Ukrainian army.

The US are not really in a position to take the self- righteous moral high ground in a civil war tens of thousands of kilometres from their home.

nnedjo -> MentalToo 11 May 2015 20:17

What little influence US has on events in Ukraine is irrelevant.

Because of this "little influence" the whole Ukrainian government has become irrelevant. You know, the fact that you do not see the strings that move their limbs does not mean that they are not puppets on the strings. And that guys from Washington hold the ends of the strings, that's probably clear to everyone after the cookies of Victoria Nuland. Or Toria, as poster Dipset called her.:-)))

Funny guy that Dipset, wonder why he is not here yet.

Standupwoman 11 May 2015 20:09

'Although the 300 US trainers are operating in the west of the country'

Are we really sure of this? Yes, Kiev has predictably denied Russian claims that American troops have been spotted in the Donbass, but the odd thing is that several pro-Kiev supporters have uploaded this footage of American training under the following description:

In Severodonetsk, Luhansk region instructors from Georgia, Israel and the US carried out military exercises with the soldiers of the special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine

Luhansk is in the ATO region - and Severodonetsk is very, very near to the front line.

geedeesee -> MentalToo 11 May 2015 20:05

Irrelevant ...?

Just the CIA advisers, military trainers, $billions of dollars, political cover, a propaganda machine.

geedeesee -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:59

Not proper interviews, are they? Just clips of sentences without knowing the question that is being answered. They wrap narrative around the comment. Not one of those nine soldiers admits to fighting in Ukraine, and the claim of written evidence from NGOs is negated towards the end of the article with the caveat that 'Ukraine' wasn't actually mentioned in the NGO's documentary evidence.

You're easily duped by propaganda.

Standupwoman -> ID5868758 11 May 2015 19:50

Understood. If governments had to actually fight the wars they started, the world would be a very different place...


Dannycraig007 -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:35

If your still doubtful about what the Kiev regime do to people who post unflattering information online, I present to you them demonstrating firsthand what happens when people step out of line. Graphic warning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXnNDbJ7r0k&feature=youtu.be

geedeesee -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:31

"What about the guys in military uniforms with weapons, mortars, mines, grenades, anti-tank weapons..."

What about them? They're defending themselves - the self-defence activists - after the Kiev regime sent tanks and aircraft to attack the protesters in what they called an Anti-Terror Operation as this example shows (see all four videos)..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27035196


Dannycraig007 -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:30

Your question answers itself, in that the Kiev Regime have been tracking down people who post videos on the internet and in social media that criticize the regime, hence the lack of video out of Slavyansk now.

Watch this Ukrainian parliamentarian call for the genocide of Ukrainians of ethnic Russian origin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQ2CVz2Cyk

Of course, there's also this tidbit from last summer.

http://slavyangrad.org/2014/08/14/residents-of-slavyansk-have-disappeared-the-town-is-being-re-populated-with-migrants-from-western-ukraine/

The Residents of Slavyansk have disappeared; the town is being re-populated with migrants from Western Ukraine.
POSTED BY S. NAYLOR ⋅ AUGUST 14, 2014 ⋅ 27 COMMENTS
In Slavyansk, occupied by Ukrainian troops, the local residents have practically disappeared. The town is being inundated with migrants speaking in a foreign dialect, who take over the housing of those who left to escape the Ukrainian bombing campaign.

This is reported by one of very few residents of Slavyansk who, trusting Ukrainian official propaganda, made the decision to return to his native city. The picture that he saw is terrifying. He realized that the information about residents of Slavyansk returning home is nothing but a vile lie.

"Please, heed our plea! The people have disappeared from Slavyansk!

"I am a native of Slavyansk, residing here already for twenty-seven years. Or better to say 'I was residing', having left the town three months ago, when it was becoming dangerous to stay. During this time I found refuge with relatives in Odessa. I made a decision to return when all the Ukrainian media started saying that everything in Slavyansk was back to normal, that over sixty percent of residents have come back.

"In the three months of my absence my apartment remained untouched by shells from the junta's bombardment or by its marauding thugs. I had already started to unpack when I heard the sound of my neighbour's doors opening across the hallway. I thought it must have been my neighbour, Sergey Ivanovich, but then I saw a young man unknown to me. To my question about his identity he replied that he was Sergey Ivanovich's son.


geedeesee -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:27

Here's an example:

Slaviansk: 10 self-defense activists and some 30 unarmed civilians killed

http://rt.com/news/156584-right-sector-deaths-ukraine/

Notice in the video some places look pretty deserted.


nnedjo -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:25

... in Slavyansk since it was liberated by Ukrainian forces...
You mean, liberated like Odessa:
Occupation of Russian Hero-City Odessa 2014-2015 | Eng Subs
,or liberated like Kharkiv
Kharkiv Welcomes May: Army Patrols, BTRs, Machine guns, etc

And, speaking of Slavyansk , it is also interesting. In "liberated" Slavyansk it seems that nobody believes "liberators".

Slavyansk residents trust Putin and not Poroshenko - Ukraine Hromadske TV March 2015


Bosula -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:10

Can you tell us how many people have been killed in Slayvansk?

Dannycraig007 -> mlubiank 11 May 2015 19:06

Here's another video for you that proves the Kiev regime are Nazis as it shows them marching through Kiev in uniform holding the Waffen SS Wolfsangel flag and was filmed by Poroshenkos very own Chanel 5 TV outlet.

The rest of the hour and a half long video is a bloodbath showing them killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Get back to me after you've cleaned your conscience.

Ukraine Crisis: Death and destruction continues in Eastern Ukraine / [ENG SUB]
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b10_1417842060#e1hSYTkJlw3TQgXs.99


mlubiank -> ID5868758 11 May 2015 19:06

Is Reuters good enough for you or is that all lies?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/10/us-ukraine-crisis-soldiers-specialreport-idUSKBN0NV06Q20150510


Dannycraig007 11 May 2015 18:57

Investors, such as Franklin Templeton and George Soros' Foundation, who planned to make blood money and placed their bets off of the inside information right before the coup back in November 2013, have a combined $7 billion at stake in Ukraine.

The IMF is trying to convince them to take a haircut on the massive amount and get put on the back burner for the time being, but Russia put it's $3 billion loan in strict terms back in 2012 and has payback priority.

Those human flesh eating Western sharks want their money. This makes those 1%ers and their IMF vassals very upset as they didn't actually expect to lose money......they thought they were gonna double their billions with the rape of Ukraine. Now it's hard earned.


Standupwoman ID5868758 11 May 2015 18:41

I completely understand that. It's a very sensitive subject, and must be far more so for those with personal experience.

Part of the problem is the difference between what we knew then and what we know now. At the time, as you say, we all thought My-Lai was a 'one-off' by a few bad apples, but now so much material has been declassified a very different picture has emerged.

BUT there's still a world of difference between 'a lot' and 'all', and we must never allow those war crimes to taint the reputation of the good soldiers, or to belittle what they endured. It is indeed wrong to apply excessively broad brush-strokes, and I want to apologize to you personally, because I think in my post I was guilty of doing just that.


SoloLoMejor -> geedeesee 11 May 2015 18:40

Yep all good points and there's definitely some push back from Merkel and Hollande. I just don't think the US can relinquish control of our military or monetary systems as would happen if Europe developed independently and naturally became close to European Russia. This is a superpower making sure that it stays a superpower. That said, this is Europe & Russia, not the under developed middle East so they may not get it all their own way but 6000 lives so far is tolerable collateral damage for them


Beckow -> Alderbaran 11 May 2015 18:37

There are 1,000 American, British, Polish and Canadian troops in Ukraine. Officially. Plus endless civilian advisors, agents, private security companies, etc...

Maybe Russians have more people there, but it is after all on their border.

"given control of Ukraine's border back to Ukraine, in contravention of the Minsk II agreement"

No. The Minsk II specifically says that the border will be returned to Kiev control AFTER the Donbass area gets autonomy. Where is the "autonomy"? You can't cherry-pick from an agreement.

If Nato steps over the line in Ukraine, as they are about to do, the nuclear option will be on the table. It is absolutely horrible, but that's where we are heading. Try to get your head out of your behind to understand what is going on there - it is playing with a huge fire on the border of a nuclear power that said they will not allow Nato missiles 400 km from Moscow. You want to test them?


nnedjo -> Tattyana 11 May 2015 18:32

I believe there is no need in any meetings for any further escalation as well.
That's right, Tattyana, that's exactly what I said. My only criticism was related to Miss Marie Harf, who apparently recited a prepared statement, which aims only to reduce the importance of the visit of John Kerry to Russia.
By the way, a true pleasure for me is to watch the exchange of opinions between US spokeswoman Marie Harf and her favorite "reporter", Matt Lee, at the State Department press conferences.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Marie+Harf+Matt+Lee

Standupwoman -> geedeesee 11 May 2015 18:23

Yes, that all makes good sense - but I still think personal integrity can have an (admittedly tiny) role to play. Carter is a case in point.

I'm even (don't laugh!) inclined to extend that to Obama. Yes, he's technically responsible for this mess, and he must have supported Nuland and Pyatt in the original coup, but I still think things would be very much worse if either Biden or HRC had been at the helm.

Obama (like Putin) has hawks screaming at him for being weak, but the fact he's holding out suggests there's a little shred of integrity still there.

It's not much, but it's all we've got. Sometimes it feels as if the whole world is screaming for war, and in the centre is this little patch of stillness where two men are holding firm against the madness. If anything happens to either Barack Obama or Vladimir Putin then I think we really are sunk.

geedeesee -> SoloLoMejor 11 May 2015 18:22

Yes, there clearly is a strategic plan being played out, though I don't think it has gone to plan for the Americans. The release of the Nuland/Hyatt phone call obviously came from Russian intelligence, which was an embarrassment for US. I suspect this is all a prelude to the coming clash for stakes in Arctic oil. There are a number of competing nations but US probably wants to minimise Russian access.

However, there is a lot of strain within the EU at the moment, and we know the views of EU leaders were disregarded by Nuland last year ("Fvck the EU").

It's possible the whole thing has gone far enough for EU leaders (see link below to comments identifying reasons) and they're pushing back on US behind the scenes to cool it down now.

See the original post by Beckow and replies. Link direct to individual comment number:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/11/john-kerry-meet-russian-foreign-minister-talks--ukraine-syria-yemen#comment-51974992


nnedjo 11 May 2015 18:04

Although the 300 US trainers are operating in the west of the country, well away from the conflict zone, Russia has questioned their purpose.

So I do not see how it could be otherwise. Had the US sent their "trainers" in the conflict zone in the east of Ukraine, it is possible that in that case Russia would not complain at all.

In that case, Russia would also send their "trainers" who would soon be found "in the west of the country [Ukraine], well away from the conflict zone".:-)))


normankirk -> MaoChengJi 11 May 2015 18:04

and the German gold still locked up in US vaults


Popeyes 11 May 2015 17:53

Once again on Saturday Putin completely outclassed the West, and the decision by Western leaders to stay away in the end showed their total irrelevance.

Closer ties between China and Russia is Washington's worst nightmare, and a very different new World Order is emerging from the rubble of the post-Cold War period. Today Russia proposed that Greece become the 6th member of a new Development Bank set up by the BRINCS, and with some European leaders desperate to end sanctions things are not going as planned for the empire.


Dannycraig007 -> Bradtweeters 11 May 2015 17:52

Oh, I'm an 'authentic' Guardian reader alright. i'm on my 20th account after being constantly banned this past year for posting the truth about Ukraine. And when they bane me again I'll be right back. True Brits don't give up so easily.


ID5868758 -> Dannycraig007 11 May 2015 17:51

Well, it's printed in English only, given away free in places like the Metro and coffee houses, so it's not like it's the Russian equivalent of the New York Times, to begin with. My son says it's read mostly by ex-pats in Russia, tourists, that kind of audience, it's certainly not anything that Russians read on a regular basis.

ID5868758 -> salthouse 11 May 2015 17:45

Good grief, what fiction. Vladimir Putin's only problem is that he is not Boris Yeltsin, opening the door to the international banks and the multinational corporations to continue their rape of the assets and resources of the Russian people. He is slowly but surely returning Russia to Russians. Contrast that to Ukraine, going in the opposite direction, with the privatization of the assets and resources of the people just beginning, and the predators like Monsanto, Cargill, Chevron, banging at the gate.

normankirk -> salthouse 11 May 2015 17:44

Oh I know! its his nature! He can't help it! And vindictively, at home, he's raised the standard of living and life expectancy! the bastard, only a lunatic would do so.And when he walks among the people he's forcing them ... at gunpoint!.... to put on forced smiles you can tell by looking. he.s a maniac! getting Assad to give up his chemical stores! crazy!


Kaiama -> BMWAlbert 11 May 2015 17:43

There was some indication that the ships could not be sold without the explicit permission of the Russians - probably because they provided the middle part of the hull and if they were feeling bad have the right to ask for it to be cut out and given back to them.


nnedjo 11 May 2015 17:42

"This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure US views are clearly conveyed," state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a written statement.

I do not see what it was unclear so far in the views of the State Department at the Ukrainian crisis. I mean, if John Kerry is going to Sochi to repeat the usual accusations against Russia, which US officials have said so far, then there's really no need for him to go to Russia only because of this, nor Putin is interested to hear it one more time.
Thus, rather it will be some other reason behind this visit, about which we can now only guess. And none of us is so naive to believe that the Ukrainian crisis can be resolved without direct negotiations between the United States and Russia. So, either to make a deal, or to enter a further escalation of the military conflict.
I am inclined to believe that the latter, less predictable solution, is not in anyone's interest.


Kaiama -> Metronome151 11 May 2015 17:41

Maybe, but if the US did cut Russia off of SWIFT for instance, the Russians have already said that they would regard it as a declaration of "war". The US might start it but the Russians will definitely finish it.


MichaPalkin -> salthouse 11 May 2015 17:40

It finally happened: A REAL nutjob.

Now why don't you put your money where you mouth is, you pos and go join the fight against Putin yourself um?.. See? Told ya.


geedeesee -> Standupwoman 11 May 2015 17:31

On the glimmer of hope, I think you maybe right, though its early days. History books on 20th century show that when there's been a stand-off for sometime an intermediary, or unofficial envoy, is often sent to explore the basis for talks. And the history books also show confidence-building measures are used, such as making an announcement via the media acknowledging part of the grievance of the other side which can use for domestic purposes.

This happened with the IRA talks, for example, both in 1970s and 1990s. Last week Jimmy Carter visited Putin in Moscow, not on its own remarkable, but what suggested this wasn't an initiative of his own volition was the interview he gave to Voice of America (official US Gov. channel) immediately after the meeting in Moscow - indicating they'd travelled with him.

The narrative is for the press and the accompanying 45 second video of Carter saying all the right things for the Russians can be used by Russian TV/media in news reports.

Narrative:
http://www.voanews.com/content/carter-pleased-with-russia-embrace-of-minsk-agreement/2743389.html

45 second Carter video:
http://www.voanews.com/media/video/2743506.html

You'll be disappointed if you look for integrity with the players at this level, because it doesn't exist. They have their plans and self-interests; integrity doesn't come into it.


Dannycraig007 -> dmitryfrommoscow 11 May 2015 17:30

The Moscow Times is actually operated out of Scandinavia and their readership has been dropping due to the obvious anti-Russian propaganda.


ID5868758 -> Standupwoman 11 May 2015 17:27

Well, My-Lai was, of course, just a horrific example of evil behavior on the part of a few of our troops, but Kerry came home and, without personal knowledge, painted the entire military with the same broad brush, made up stories, and just so disgraced himself with this nation that he would never have won a Senate seat if he had not run in Massachusetts.

I still to this day cannot listen to him speak for more than a few minutes at a time, his betrayal of the men who were fighting and dying in the hellhole that was Vietnam will stay with me forever.


dmitryfrommoscow -> Havingalavrov 11 May 2015 17:26

The Moscow Times is one of those pro-Washington mouthpieces which, according to the claims by Putin's critics, have been ruthlessly wiped out of the scene.


SoloLoMejor 11 May 2015 17:15

I saw the Merkel Putin press conference in full. Merkel fully acknowledged and apologised for the horrors inflicted on the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, and quite rightly.

When asked specifically about what she still blamed Russia for with respect to Minsk she became a lot less clear and rambling and very non specific. I couldn't make out what her beef was although I really wanted to know.

She's going to need some very clear reasons to reinstate EU sanctions on Russia and the phrase Shaun Walker regurgitates in virtually every piece he writes, "mounting evidence" of Russian involvement (but without producing any) won't be enough this time round.


MichaPalkin -> alpamysh 11 May 2015 17:15

l though I find your comments stupid, and what is absolutely amazing is that guests such as you have had zero effect on anything.

Some fascist parties did once praise you and still do, ahem, "purely for the funding you was willing to give". Some grammar problems here eh.

But this has had no effect on nothing, or the policy of the EU in general.

One does not even see you loonies demonstrating in the street, shouting "hail" to Poro & Co."

Poro's only real "western" base of support comes from RFE and probably Guardian. Even Americans begin having their reservations now.

Period

Indeed, we may well have all your clownish incompetence to thank for your highly unsuccessful trolling.

OK, klopets?


John Smith -> Alderbaran 11 May 2015 17:06

You can forget about Crimea.

Nothing will come out from this talks because the US will not let off their 'great prize'
as the NED head called it. Unfortunately for Ukrainians.

ID5868758 -> Standupwoman 11 May 2015 16:31

Standupwoman, I rarely disagree with you, but as an American who lived through Vietnam as the wife of a Marine Corps officer, and the sister of a brother in country as a cryptologist, may I just tell you that John Kerry's actions in front of Congress were not seen by most as heroic at all, not borne of courage and integrity, especially since he had spent only a very short time in country, and had awarded himself 2 or 3 purple hearts, but strangely enough, has no scars of those wounds remaining today. He lied, it was a performance that caused much of America to shun him even today, and that's the truth.

Igor1980 -> GoodOldBoy1967 11 May 2015 16:29

I am in Sochi now, a navy ship is patrolling the area of the Residence and many police cars can be seen. It is not surprising . I was surprised by the number of cars with Ukrainian license plates. The hosts say that many Ukrainian citizens moved to the area on the coast with their money.


Standupwoman -> cabaret1993 11 May 2015 16:22

I agree. If this were HRC rather than Kerry I'd think we were doomed. Do you remember her hilariously rabble-rousing claim that Putin had no soul - 'He's KGB, it's a given!' - and Putin's dry response? That woman ought never to have been allowed within a hundred miles of foreign affairs, and if she ever becomes President then it'll be time to start stocking up on the potassium iodide...


Igor1980 -> Beckow 11 May 2015 16:12

Great and sober analysis. The reality is harsh for both parties and very painful for the USA: the people in the West are not ready to die for the cause of the American dominance.

It is easy to hate Putin, it is difficult to sacrifice your lives in a war to punish Russia for a little border change in the most unpleasant part of Eastern Europe.


MaoChengJi -> DogsLivesMatter 11 May 2015 16:11

state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a written statement

That's just standard bs. What do you expect them to say.


Standupwoman 11 May 2015 16:06

Maybe I'm having a Pollyanna moment, but I wonder if there isn't just the littlest, tiniest glimmer of hope in this. The fact the US is prepared to talk to Russia on its own ground is definitely a step in the right direction, and the fact it's John Kerry is even better.

Because Kerry was once an honest man. Back in 1971 he testified to Congress about American war crimes in Vietnam, and showed the kind of courage and integrity it's almost impossible to mention in the same sentence as 'politician'. He talked openly about the everyday reality of rapes, torture, desecration of the dead, and killing civilians for fun – the American toolbox we're all familiar with in Afghanistan and Iraq, but which in 1971 was genuinely shocking news. Nationalists hated him, but I think he showed genuine American patriotism when he explained: 'We feel that because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it - not the Reds, not redcoats, but the crimes which we're committing are what threaten it – and we have to speak out.'

OK, he's a politician now, and his words have frequently been used against him to show the hypocrisy of his support for America's current wars, but deep down he's still in some way the same man he was then. He and Lavrov certainly used to have a good relationship until he made that unbelievably stupid remark about Russians 'lying to his face'.

That kind of populist rudeness plays well with the 'Murica, F*ck yeah!' mob, but grown-up countries tend to choose a calmer, more courteous approach when it comes to negotiations which could lead to the threat of nuclear war. Kerry will need to apologize for that (even if only in private) if he hopes to get in the same room as President Putin.

But maybe he will. Maybe he'll even confound the words of that Psaki-Manqué Harf and actually listen as well as talk. If he does, and if there's any integrity left in him, then maybe, just maybe, there'll really be a chance of peace.


PlatonKuzin -> oleteo 11 May 2015 16:03

The Ukies think that the US and EU do them gifts for granted. And they were very suprised as they knew that, for example, in Poland, an organization named "Restitution of Kresy" was established that in the nearest future will expropriate, from Ukraine, the property belonging to the Poles.

And more than 100,000 such Poles are now ready to start proceedings to return their property from there.


Dannycraig007 -> PlatonKuzin 11 May 2015 15:57

Agreed on the 50,000. I am just citing the US/MSM 'official' number. I have been keeping up with the real numbers also. Petri Krohn has done a great job establishing a proper count of the dead form various events and battles. The majority of those 50,000 dead are Ukrainian conscripts and Kievs Baghdad Bob intentionally played the numbers way down in order to not have to pay dead soldiers families and hide the truth of the war, which the US and EU media simply parroted with no investigation whatsoever. Here's a link to the numbers:

http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Ukraine_war_casualties

His site is an amazing geo-political resource. Lots of really interesting MH-17 material there too. http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Special:AllPages


greatwhitehunter -> MentalToo 11 May 2015 15:55

The US could have prevented all this by keeping there nose out of Ukraine . In the words of Obama we brokered the change of government in Ukraine.

Now their are 6000 plus people dead . east of Ukraine destroyed, Crimea gone never to return.

Only the US could imagine you could get away with this.\


Beckow -> Alderbaran 11 May 2015 15:54

Hmmm...don't fool yourself, he meant the Maidan crowd in Kiev. The problem Kiev government has is that as economy gets worse, the large cities like Kharkov, Odessa, etc... will become ungovernable. Except through brute force.

How do you "join EU" if you have to be suppressing large portion of your population? I am sure EU would love to look the other way, but the cognitive dissonance might get too much, with YouTube, refugees, etc...


Captain_Underpants 11 May 2015 15:52

Kerry will offer to swap Ukraine for Assad's head + no S300 missiles to Iran + sanction relief.

Putin and Lavrov will tell Kerry to stick the offer where the sun don't shine and then it's back to square one.

Obumbler won't be involved, he's too busy on the golf course, watching the NBA playoffs, and making hollow speeches filled with platitudes about race issues and police violence.

Meanwhile back in the increasingly irrelevant Euroweenie land, the NSA-compromised Frau Merckel has a desk and a phone and will do as told by her masters

Dannycraig007 -> DIPSET 11 May 2015 15:47

I'd still like to see what those US spy satellites saw the day MH-17 was shot down. They first said they had proof Russia did it, then they went quiet, then they relied on social media BS, then they said they had a drunk Ukrainian that made a confession that the rebel put on Ukrainain uniforms, then they stayed quiet. All the while they had ships in the Black Sea monitoring that airspace and they had AWACS flying over Europe.

They obviously know what really happened but they have chosen no to show that 'evidence'....there can only be one reason.......because it implicates the Kiev regime...and thereby....themselves.


geedeesee -> MentalToo 11 May 2015 15:42

"...the army of Ukraine is not at war with "protesters"."

Yes they are, they called it an Anti-Terror Operation and not war against an army. The facts are against you. Hard luck. ;-)


Dannycraig007 -> MaoChengJi 11 May 2015 15:40

Many people have no idea that Merkels father was in the Hitler youth. Sad but true fact. Hence, maybe that partly explains her allegiance to Ukraine.

Horst Kasner
Biography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Kasner
Kasner was born as Horst Kaźmierczak in 1926, the son of a policeman in the Pankow suburb of Berlin, where he was brought up. His father Ludwig Kaźmierczak (born 1896 in Posen, German Empire) - died 1959 in Berlin) was born out of wedlock to Anna Kazmierczak and Ludwik Wojciechowski.[1] Ludwig was mobilised into the German army in 1915 and sent to France, where he was taken prisoner of war and joined the Polish Haller's Army fighting on the side of Entente.[2] Together with the army he returned to Poland to fight in Polish-Ukrainian war and Polish-Soviet war.[3] After Posen had become part of Poland, Ludwig moved with his wife in 1923 to Berlin, where he served as a policeman, and changed his family name to Kasner in 1930.

Little is known about Horst Kasner's wartime service, and he was held as a prisoner of war at the age of 19. During his high school years he was a member of the Hitler Youth, with the last service position of a troop leader.[citation needed] From 1948 he studied theology, first in Heidelberg then in Hamburg. He married Herlind Jentzsch, an English and Latin teacher, born on 8 July 1928 in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) as the daughter of Danzig politician Willi Jentzsch, and their daughter Angela was born in 1954.

PlatonKuzin -> Kaiama 11 May 2015 15:38

There is another side of this medal: Novorussia said that, if Ukraine violates the ceasefire one more time, the Army of Novorussia will make no stops any longer and will free Kiev.


Beckow -> MichaPalkin 11 May 2015 15:35

Threats are simply a part of making deals. When one threatens, there is an implicit understanding of what the alternatives are. It is how countries negotiate.

Look at it from Russia's point of view: they prefer to deal with useless twats. Putin has been smart to keep all his threats, options and deals to himself. He speaks very diplomatically and applies pressure on the ground. There is a Russian saying: "let the punishment tell" - that's what Russia is doing and it drives the likes of Kerry crazy.

Unless US escalates into a nuclear confrontation, Russia has the upper hand in the long run. That was obvious from the beginning. So the question is why did Peace Price Winner do this? Why did he start? Is he and people around him that stupid or that desperate? I hope, it is just stupidity.

"Poro & Co would be applying for the political asylum in the US" - that's going to happen anyway, but I think Canada will take the bulk of them...


Beckow -> Alderbaran 11 May 2015 15:24

Let's be clear: Kerry is flying in with a proposal to review with Lavrov. If Russia accepts, Kerry will meet Putin. If not, we will know that sh..t is about to escalate - on both sides.

Regarding "military involvement": both sides are heavily militarily involved with arms, training, "advisors" of all kinds, intelligence, logistics. And both sides downplay it ("lie", if you prefer). Why is that even an issue? Or "news"?

It is infantile to discuss it. In a war there is always "military involvement". And this is a war, has been for about a year, this is the way wars are fought now (see Syria, Libya, etc...).

And yes, of course Putin can change weather. Anyone with enough nukes can.


BMWAlbert 11 May 2015 15:15

Looks like India's participation in the Moscow parade is also paralleled by the cutting of 80% of the French fighter order (remembering that the govt. in New Delhi stated several months ago that its confidence in France as a supplier would be related to its vulnerability to political pressuring vis a vis the RU ships that will end-up being scrapped or bought by by a third party, and it might be that said party, if also participating in said parade, might sell in turn to RU for a 'cut'). IDK if this is related, big new orders from India for SU's:

https://www.ibcworldnews.com/2015/04/20/why-the-brahmos-armed-sukhoi-is-bad-news-for-indias-enemies/

These cannot be made in Russia, in any event, as Russia is entirely isolated.


Dannycraig007 11 May 2015 15:09

The US has really hurt itself with the WW2 remembrance ceremony snub. Russia won't be soon forgetting what the US has been doing in Ukraine and Europe either. After all the 7,000 people killed by the Kiev regime that came to power through the US backed coup were all ethnic Russian Ukrainian civilians. So many lives could have been saved if only the US would have allowed federalization of the obviously ethnically diverse regions of the country.

For those that missed it, here's link to the amazing WW2 Red Square commemoration concert. It truly was a sight to behold.

Absolutely Stunning! The Entire Russian "Road To Victory" Concert Spectacle -2015 Epic Masterpiece Rivals Olympic Ceremonies
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9c1_1431271822#esjFeSXyZqIlzoY8.99


SonnyTuckson 11 May 2015 14:15

Turn Ukraine into a federation. Of a rich pro western part that is member of the EU and a poor pro Russian part that is member of the Eurasian Union.

In ten years time the East Ukrainians will have had enough of their Russian propaganda-ridden life without a decent standard of living. We will then have another Euromaidan, but this time in Donbass.

History always discloses propaganda lies. In the end the people of Donbass will understand they have been used by Russia for its geopolitical games. And chose for a prosperous future in Europe as well.


Beckow -> geedeesee 11 May 2015 14:14

Yes, there are huge problems.

But if US accepts a de facto defeat in Ukraine, they are done in many other places too. My guess is that they will try to weasel out of it by offering a deal to Russia:

- US backs down, Kiev goes back in the box (over time), things quiet down, BUT no victory speeches or remarks by Russia. US has to be able to maintain that they "won".

It is a disease for insecure people. They fear being seen as losers more than anything else. Thus we might still see the fire-works if Russia refuses to oblige.


vr13vr 11 May 2015 14:09

"Unfairly blaming Russia for the crisis in Ukraine, which was actually in the main provoked by the US itself, Obama's administration in 2014 went down the road of ruining bilateral links, announced a policy of 'isolating' our country on the international stage, and demanded support for its confrontational steps from the countries that traditionally follow Washington."

Why does the press want us feel so amazed about this quote? What part of it isn't true?

1. US did and does blame Russia for crisis in Ukraine.
2. US did provoke the crisis.
3. US did go down the road of ruining bilateral links.
4. It did announced a policy of "isolation."
5. And it did demand support for its steps from other countries in Europe.

Putin actually appears to be a straight talker.


vr13vr -> caliento 11 May 2015 14:05

"The first question asked should be... "

Kerry doesn't get to ask questions as if he were running a deposition. He can talk politely and be nice. Outside of the US police TV show and court drama, nobody in the world allows anyone to speak like this, especially in the diplomatic talks with Russia.


vr13vr 11 May 2015 14:03

"Russia believes that the US is meddling in Ukraine..."

No, it's not just Russia believes. It is a fact. And everyone knows it, not just Russia.


geedeesee -> Beckow 11 May 2015 13:46

Add to your list:

EU unity under considerable strain. Divisive issues on it's plate include Greece and Grexit, UK referendum and possible Brexit, UK Human rights exit, unresolved Eurozone crisis, migrant quotas, all made worse by further US spying revelations and German betrayal of EU businesses to the benefit of US companies.

Putin now supporting/funding anti-EU parties in Europe.

MH17 report and voice recorder info, clearly delayed for political reasons, is due this summer.

Obama administration needs cooperation at UNSC on Iran nuclear deal.

Putin supplying arms to Iran is giving Obama more problems from Netanyahu.

If Obama has plans for a last attempt at cracking Israel/palestine then he'll need as much international support as he can muster.

Russia opening spying and military bases in Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.


BunglyPete 11 May 2015 13:46

Russia has engaged in a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I've seen since the very height of the cold war,

That suggests that it is equivalent to the RFE/RL campaigns of the Cold War.

The reports they produced in 1984 relating to showing the Ukrainian nationalists in a good light were described by Richard Pipes as "blatant anti-semitic propaganda". Not my words, the words of Richard Pipes.

These same reports are reprinted today in the Guardian and if you disagree you are a "Putin propagandist". Even though Richard Pipes agrees that it is distasteful propaganda.

Other activities involved sending millions of balloons across eastern Europe, campaigns in the US to ask for "Truth Dollars" to fund said balloon campaigns, leaflets pretending to come from a fictional resistance organisation intended to militarise citizens against their governments, and much much more. There are many books and articles on the subject.

Senator Royce said in May 2014, in an instruction to Victoria Nuland at a senate subcommitee hearing, he wants them "producing the stuff they did years ago". Indeed they granted more money than they did during the cold war to BBG campaigns.

In comparison to the rather pathetic RT, the US campaigns are far more serious in scope and effects.


madeiranlotuseater 11 May 2015 13:27

and to ensure US views are clearly conveyed," state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a written statement

In other words, do as the USA says or we shall continue to hound you.

"Russia has engaged in a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I've seen since the very height of the cold war," Kerry said in February. "And they have been persisting in their misrepresentations, lies, whatever you want to call them, about their activities to my face, to the face of others, on many different occasions."

There speaks the nation that admits to being involved in forcing regime changes all over the world since 1947. To arm twisting and invading Iraq on the basis of a known lie. If Mr Kerry believes he has been lied to he should present his evidence. We can all relax then. But he doesn't. He says to trust him to tell the truth. Why should we. The USA is a massive war machine intent on ruling the world. China and Russia are not interested in being bullied.


Beckow -> deathbydemocracy 11 May 2015 12:53

I see that even indirect criticism of the media coverage is not allowed. Interesting, but somehow understandable.


DIPSET 11 May 2015 12:31

First when they thought they thought they were "winning" they did not want to talk and instead, instructed their media to do the talking for them.

Okay.

Then reality happened hahaha

As a consequence, we now have all sorts of chatter coming out of Washington and the urgent need to talk to Russia. So now it's......

Let's "talk" about East Ukraine
Let's "talk about Iraq
Let's "talk" about Syria
Let's "talk" about Yemen
Let's "talk about Iran
Lets "talk" about Latin America

Funny how seeing China and Russia stand next to each other has sharpened some minds across the Atlantic.

Pity they could not "talk" before Crimea was 'liberated' right in front of the American satellites circling in space lol

;-)

Fascinating times


Ilja NB 11 May 2015 12:28

Which mounting evidence ??? I haven't seen a single one provided ?

**The Russian foreign ministry said: "We continue to underline that we are ready for cooperation with the US on the basis of equality, non-interference in internal affairs, and that Russian interests are taken into account without attempting to exert pressure on us."**

Of-course USA will never agree with it, since USA wants to put it's nose in everyone's affairs.


BMWAlbert -> BunglyPete 11 May 2015 11:55

Mr. Semenchenko is clearly referring to Greater Ukraine here that extends east into the Kuban, including some buffer areas around the mount Elbrus region (intruded upon on this 2008 occasion) to the south, and north to the Middle Don and Upper Donets basins, to include Beograd and steppe lands east of Voronezh.

Beckow -> miceonparade 11 May 2015 11:40

Kerry is going to make a deal. Probably surrender after one more chest-beating threat. If Putin doesn't meet him (also possible), we will have a very hot summer in Ukraine. And maybe elsewhere.

Beckow 11 May 2015 11:34

Kerry is going for a reason, and it is not to restate US views. The reality is:

  • - Ukraine cannot win the war in its east
  • - Ukraine is going bankrupt
  • - EU has just basically said no to Ukraine in EU for foreseeable future (decades?)
  • - EU denied visa-free access for Ukrainians
  • - the whole f...ing adventure in Kiev is getting really, really expensive
  • - time is on Russia's side, they can sit and watch Kiev collapse or West spending billions to prop it up
  • - EU cannot currently survive without Russia's gas. Russia has deals with China and Turkey, in 3 years EU will be screwed or pay a lot, lot more

These realities on the ground drive US crazy. They don't like to deal with reality, it is too hard. They prefer the fantasy play world where US is god-like, others are scared and geography, resources and other realities are wished away. Infantile. Stupid. Self-defeating. Russia is actually doing US a favor by bringing them back to the real word.

I feel sorry for the Ukrainians; they will suffer for years enormously. They rebelled against a miserable life, were used by a few hustlers from Washington, Berlin and a few Polish ultra-nationalists, now they will pay for it all. Those are the wages of naivete...

emb27516 miceonparade 11 May 2015 11:32

Yes, especially if they wrestle.

BunglyPete 11 May 2015 11:32

"Mr Putin, look at these images provided to our Senator Inhofe, from Mr Semenchenko of Ukraine's official government designation to Washington.

As you can see, these images from Georgia in 2008 clearly show you invaded Ukraine last year. We feel these images prove the invasion so strongly, Senator Inhofe wrote a bill authorising arms to Ukraine, and we passed this quite easily.

What, Mr Putin, will you do about this? If you continue to send tanks to Georgia in 2008 then we will assume you have no interest in fulfilling the terms of Minsk accord and will enact necessary measures to ensure the stability of Ukraine."

alsojusticeseeker Jeremn 11 May 2015 11:27

"He may be a son of a b..., but he is our son of a b...". Just another typical example of US hypocrisy.

BMWAlbert 11 May 2015 11:25

If only his brain were as big as his hair (obviously, not the bald one).

warehouse_guy 11 May 2015 11:25

"Western leaders mainly boycotted the parade in protest at Russia's actions in Ukraine."

Aka people's will in Crimea, and Russian people's will to help Donbass, they are not exactly hiding it there are donation kiosks all over the country almost in every major city. Not on government level though. There are no on duty Russian troops in Ukraine.

RudolphS 11 May 2015 11:24

So, Barry is too chickenshit to go to Russia himself?

Jeremn 11 May 2015 11:19

Americans should be asking why their government is supporting a Ukrainian governmnet which honours veterans of an insurgency which massacred Poles, Jews and Russians across Ukraine in 1943 and 1944.

Here they are, members of the UPA-OUN. Rehabilitated by Poroshenko's governmnet. It was an organisation which formed the Nachtigall Battalion, in German service, and tasked with clearing the Lvov ghetto, and which took men from SS auxiliaries (Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201), which cleared Belarus of partisans and Jews.

Most notoriously, the UPA ran a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Poles in Ukraine, killing some 100,000 of them (mostly women and children).

So there are the veterans, in Ukraine's parliament. Here's a history of one of their massacres.

America, you should know.

Steve Ennever 11 May 2015 11:15

"The US has placed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine"

It has indeed. And badgered Europe into sanctioning Russia further. All of which has affected the US little but has been an immense pain economically for it's "allies."
Strangely though, in 2014, business between the US & Russia actually increased by 7%.

Honestly, you get taken for a ride as recently as Iraq & Libya & you still don't learn a thing.

StatusFoe11 May 2015 11:08

"This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure US views are clearly conveyed,"

i.e. "If you don't do what we say and submit to our will there'll be more costs."

warehouse_guy 11 May 2015 11:00

"While Washington has pointed to mounting evidence of Russian military involvement in the east of the country."

Yet unable to provide any concrete evidence for over a year...

[May 11, 2015] Why Ukraine Still Cant Break Ties With Russian Aggressor State by Simon Shuster

Already Ukraine is approaching that point. With most of its scarce resources focused on fighting Russia's proxies in the east, Ukraine's leaders have watched their economy fall off a cliff, surviving only by the grace of massive loans from Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which approved another $17.5 billion last month to be disbursed over the next four years. But that assistance has not stopped the national currency of Ukraine from losing two-thirds of its value since last winter. In the last three months of 2014, the size of the economy contracted almost 15%, inflation shot up to 40%, and unemployment approached double digits.
Notable quotes:
"... "Personally, I do not consider Russia to be an aggressor," he said, looking down at his lap. ..."
"... Its economy cannot survive, he says, unless trade and cooperation with the "aggressor state" continue, regardless how much Russia has done in the past year to sow conflict in Ukraine. ..."
"... Already Ukraine is approaching that point. With most of its scarce resources focused on fighting Russia's proxies in the east, Ukraine's leaders have watched their economy fall off a cliff, surviving only by the grace of massive loans from Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which approved another $17.5 billion last month to be disbursed over the next four years. But that assistance has not stopped the national currency of Ukraine from losing two-thirds of its value since last winter. In the last three months of 2014, the size of the economy contracted almost 15%, inflation shot up to 40%, and unemployment approached double digits. ..."
"... About 40% of its orders normally come from Russia, which relies on Turboatom for most of the turbines that run its nuclear power stations. ..."
"... So for all the aid coming from the state-backed institutions in the U.S. and Europe, Cherkassky says, "those markets haven't exactly met us with open arms." ..."
Apr 13, 2015 | TIME

Having survived an assassin's bullet, a revolution and a war, Gennady Kernes now faces a fight over Ukraine's constitution

One afternoon in late February, Gennady Kernes, the mayor of Kharkov, Ukraine's second largest city, pushed his wheelchair away from the podium at city hall and, with a wince of discomfort, allowed his bodyguards to help him off the stage. The day's session of the city council had lasted several hours, and the mayor's pain medication had begun to wear off. It was clear from the grimace on his face how much he still hurt from the sniper's bullet that nearly killed him last spring. But he collected himself, adjusted his tie and rolled down the aisle to the back of the hall, where the press was waiting to grill him.

"Gennady Adolfovich," one of the local journalists began, politely addressing the mayor by his name and patronymic. "Do you consider Russia to be an aggressor?" He had seen this loaded question coming. The previous month, Ukraine's parliament had unanimously voted to declare Russia an "aggressor state," moving the two nations closer to a formal state of war after nearly a year of armed conflict. Kernes, long known as a shrewd political survivor, was among the only prominent officials in Ukraine to oppose this decision, even though he knew he could be branded a traitor for it. "Personally, I do not consider Russia to be an aggressor," he said, looking down at his lap.

It was a sign of his allegiance in the new phase of Ukraine's war. Since February, when a fragile ceasefire began to take hold, the question of the country's survival has turned to a debate over its reconstitution. Under the conditions of the truce, Russia has demanded that Ukraine embrace "federalization," a sweeping set of constitutional reforms that would take power away from the capital and redistribute it to the regions. Ukraine now has to decide how to meet this demand without letting its eastern provinces fall deeper into Russia's grasp.

The state council charged with making this decision convened for the first time on April 6, and President Petro Poroshenko gave it strict instructions. Some autonomy would have to be granted to the regions, he said, but Russia's idea of federalization was a red line he wouldn't cross. "It is like an infection, a biological weapon, which is being imposed on Ukraine from abroad," the President said. "Its bacteria are trying to infect Ukraine and destroy our unity."

Kernes sees it differently. His city of 1.4 million people is a sprawling industrial powerhouse, a traditional center of trade and culture whose suburbs touch the Russian border. Its economy cannot survive, he says, unless trade and cooperation with the "aggressor state" continue, regardless how much Russia has done in the past year to sow conflict in Ukraine.

"That's how the Soviet Union built things," Kernes explains in his office at the mayoralty, which is decorated with an odd collection of gifts and trinkets, such as a stuffed lion, a robotic-looking sculpture of a scorpion, and a statuette of Kernes in the guise of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union. "That's how our factories were set up back in the day," he continues. "It's a fact of life. And what will we do if Russia, our main customer, stops buying?" To answer his own question, he uses an old provincialism: "It'll be cat soup for all of us then," he said.

Already Ukraine is approaching that point. With most of its scarce resources focused on fighting Russia's proxies in the east, Ukraine's leaders have watched their economy fall off a cliff, surviving only by the grace of massive loans from Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which approved another $17.5 billion last month to be disbursed over the next four years. But that assistance has not stopped the national currency of Ukraine from losing two-thirds of its value since last winter. In the last three months of 2014, the size of the economy contracted almost 15%, inflation shot up to 40%, and unemployment approached double digits.

But that pain will be just the beginning, says Kernes, unless Ukraine allows its eastern regions to develop economic ties with Russia. As proof he points to the fate of Turboatom, his city's biggest factory, which produces turbines for both Russian and Ukrainian power stations. Its campus takes up more than five square kilometers near the center of Kharkov, like a city within a city, complete with dormitories and bathhouses for its 6,000 employees. On a recent evening, its deputy director, Alexei Cherkassky, was looking over the factory's sales list as though it were a dire medical prognosis. About 40% of its orders normally come from Russia, which relies on Turboatom for most of the turbines that run its nuclear power stations.

"Unfortunately, all of our major industries are intertwined with Russia in this way," Cherkassky says. "So we shouldn't fool ourselves in thinking we can be independent from Russia. We are totally interdependent." Over the past year, Russia has started cutting back on orders from Turboatom as part of its broader effort to starve Ukraine's economy, and the factory has been forced as a result to cut shifts, scrap overtime and push hundreds of workers into retirement.

At least in the foreseeable future, it does not have the option of shifting sales to Europe. "Turbines aren't iPhones," says Cherkassky. "You don't switch them out every few months." And the ones produced at Turboatom, like nearly all of Ukraine's heavy industry, still use Soviet means of production that don't meet the needs of most Western countries. So for all the aid coming from the state-backed institutions in the U.S. and Europe, Cherkassky says, "those markets haven't exactly met us with open arms."

Russia knows this. For decades it has used the Soviet legacy of interdependence as leverage in eastern Ukraine. The idea of its "federalization" derives in part from this reality. For two decades, one of the leading proponents of this vision has been the Russian politician Konstantin Zatulin, who heads the Kremlin-connected institute in charge of integrating the former Soviet space. Since at least 2004, he has been trying to turn southeastern Ukraine into a zone of Russian influence – an effort that got him banned from entering the country between 2006 and 2010.

His political plan for controlling Ukraine was put on hold last year, as Russia began using military means to achieve the same ends. But the current ceasefire has brought his vision back to the fore. "If Ukraine accepts federalization, we would have no need to tear Ukraine apart," Zatulin says in his office in Moscow, which is cluttered with antique weapons and other military bric-a-brac. Russia could simply build ties with the regions of eastern Ukraine that "share the Russian point of view on all the big issues," he says. "Russia would have its own soloists in the great Ukrainian choir, and they would sing for us. This would be our compromise."

It is a compromise that Kernes seems prepared to accept, despite everything he has suffered in the past year of political turmoil. Early on in the conflict with Russia, he admits that he flirted with ideas of separatism himself, and he fiercely resisted the revolution that brought Poroshenko's government to power last winter. In one of its first decisions, that government even brought charges against Kernes for allegedly abducting, threatening and torturing supporters of the revolution in Kharkov. After that, recalls Zatulin, the mayor "simply chickened out." Facing a long term in prison, Kernes accepted Ukraine's new leaders and turned his back on the separatist cause, refusing to allow his city to hold a referendum on secession from Ukraine.

"And you know what I got for that," Kernes says. "I got a bullet." On April 28, while he was exercising near a city park, an unidentified sniper shot Kernes in the back with a high-caliber rifle. The bullet pierced his lung and shredded part of his liver, but it also seemed to shore up his bona fides as a supporter of Ukrainian unity. The state dropped its charges against him soon after, and he was able to return to his post.

It wasn't the first time he made such an incredible comeback. In 2007, while he was serving as adviser to his friend and predecessor, Mikhail Dobkin, a video of them trying to film a campaign ad was leaked to the press. It contained such a hilarious mix of bumbling incompetence and backalley obscenity that both of their careers seemed sure to be over. Kernes not only survived that scandal but was elected mayor a few years later.

Now the fight over Ukraine's federalization is shaping up to be his last. In late March, as he continued demanding more autonomy for Ukraine's eastern regions, the state re-opened its case against him for alleged kidnapping and torture, which he has always denied. The charges, he says, are part of a campaign against all politicians in Ukraine who support the restoration of civil ties with Russia. "They don't want to listen to reason," he says.

But one way or another, the country will still have to let its eastern regions to do business with the enemy next door, "because that's where the money is," Kernes says. No matter how much aid Ukraine gets from the IMF and other Western backers, it will not be enough to keep the factories of Kharkov alive. "They'll just be left to rot without our steady clients in Russia." Never mind that those clients may have other plans for Ukraine in mind.

[May 11, 2015]Anglo-American Bankers Organized World War II

May 11, 2015 | Voltaire Network

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Victory against Nazism, we publish a study of Valentin Katasonov on financing of the NSDAP and the rearmament of the Third Reich. The author deals with new documents that confirm the organization of the Second World War by US and UK Bankers, covered by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the hope of destroying the USSR. This study raises new questions that will be addressed in a future article.

The war was not unleashed by frenzied Fuhrer who happened to be ruling Germany at the time. WWII is a project created by world oligarchy or Anglo-American "money owners". Using such instruments as the US Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England they started to prepare for the next world conflict of global scale right after WWI. The USSR was the target.

The Dawes and Young Plans, the creation of Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the Germany's suspension of reparations payments it had to pay according to Paris Peace Treaty and the acquiescence of Russia's former allies in this decision, large-scale foreign investments into the economy of Third Reich, the militarization of German economy and the breaches of Paris Treaty provisions – they all were important milestones on the way of preparing the war.

There were key figures behind the plot: the Rockefellers, the Morgans, Lord Montagu Norman (the Governor of the Bank of England), Hjalmar Schacht (President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the Hitler's government). The strategic plan of Rockefellers and Morgans was to subjugate Europe economically, saturate Germany with foreign investments and credits and make it deliver a crushing blow against the Soviet Russia so that it would be returned into the world capitalist system as a colony.

Montagu Norman (1871 - 1950) played an important role of go-between to keep up a dialogue between American financial circles and Germany's business leaders. Hjalmar Schacht organized the revival of Germany's defense sector of economy. The operation conducted by "money owners" was covered up by such politicians as Franklin Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. In Germany the plans were carried out by Hitler and Hjalmar Schacht. Some historians say Hjalmar Schacht played a more important role than Hitler. Simply Schacht kept away from spotlight.

The Dawes Plan was an attempt following World War I for the Triple Entente to compromise and collect war reparations debt from Germany. The Dawes Plan (as proposed by the Dawes Committee, chaired by Charles G. Dawes) was an attempt in 1924 to solve the reparations problem, which had bedeviled international politics following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (France was reluctant to accept it got over 50% of reparations). In 1924-1929 Germany got $2, 5 billion from the United States and $ 1, 5 billion from Great Britain, according to Dawes Plan. In today's prices the sum is huge, it is equal to $1 trillion of US dollars. Hjalmar Schacht played an active role in the implementation of Dawes Plan. In 1929 he summed up the results, saying that in 5 years Germany got more foreign loans that the United States in the 40 years preceding WWI. As a result, in 1929 Germany became the world's second largest industrial nation leaving Great Britain behind.

In the 1930s the process of feeding Germany with investments and credits continued. The Young Plan was a program for settling German reparations debts after World War I written in 1929 and formally adopted in 1930. It was presented by the committee headed (1929–30) by American industrialist Owen D. Young, creator and ex-first chairman of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who, at the time, concurrently served at board of trustees of Rockefeller Foundation, and also had been one of representatives involved in previous war reparations restructuring arrangement – Dawes Plan of 1924. According to the plan, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) was created in 1930 to make Germany pay reparations to victors. In reality the money flows went in quite a different direction - from the United States and Great Britain to Germany. The majority of strategically important German companies belonged to American capital or were partly under its control. Some of them belonged to British investors. German oil refinery and coal liquefaction sectors of economy belonged to Standard Oil (the Rockefellers). Farbenindustrie AG, chemical industry major was moved under the control of the Morgan Group. 40% of telephone network and 30% of Focke Wulf shares belonged to American ITT. Radio and AEG, Siemens, Osram electrical industry majors moved under the control of American General Electric. ITT and General Electric were part of the Morgan's empire. At least 100% of the Volkswagen shares belonged to American Ford. By the time Hitler came to power the US financial capital practically controlled all strategically important sectors of German industry: oil refining, synthetic fuel production, chemistry, car building, aviation, electrical engineering, radio industry, and a large part of machine-building (totally 278 companies). The leading German banks - Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Donat Bank and some others - were under US control.

***

On January 30, 1933 Hitler was named the Chancellor of Germany. Before that his candidacy had been thoroughly studied by American bankers. Hjalmar Schacht went to the United States in the autumn of 1930 to discuss the nomination with American colleagues. The Hitler's appointment was finally approved at a secret meeting of financiers in the United States. He spent the whole 1932 trying to convince the German bankers that Hitler was the right person for the position. He achieved the goal. In mid-November 1932 17 German largest bankers and industrialists sent a letter to President Hindenburg expressing their demand to make Hitler the Chancellor of Germany. The last working meeting of German financiers before the election was held on January 4, 1933 in Kölnat the home of banker Kurt von Schröder. After that the National Socialist Party came to power. As a result, the financial and economic ties of Germany with Anglo-Saxons elevated to a higher level.

Hitler immediately made an announcement that he refused to pay postwar reparations. It put into doubt the ability of England and France to pay off WWI debts to the United States. Washington did not object to the Hitler's announcement. In May 1933 Hjalmar Schacht paid another visit to the United States. There he met with President Franklin Roosevelt and big bankers to reach a $1 billion credit deal.In June the same year Hjalmar Schacht visited London to hold talks with Montagu Norman. It all went down smoothly. The British agreed to grant a $2 billion loan. The British offered no objections related to the Germany's decision to suspend debt payments.

Some historians say the American and British bankers were pliant because by 1932 the Soviet Union had fulfilled the 5-year economic development plan to make it achieve new heights as an industrial power. A few thousand enterprises were built, especially in the sector of heavy industry. The dependence of USSR on import of engineering production has greatly dwindled. The chances to strangle the Soviet Union economically were practically reduced to zero. They decided to rely on war and launched the runaway militarization of Germany.

It was easy for Germany to get American credits. By and large, Hitler came to power in his country at the same time as Franklin Roosevelt took office in the United States. The very same bankers who supported Hitler in 1931 supported Roosevelt at the presidential election. The newly elect President could not but endorse large credits to Germany. By the way, many noticed that there was a big similarity between the Roosevelt's "New Deal Policy" and the economic policy of the German Third Reich. No wonder. The very same people worked out and consulted the both governments at the time. They mainly represented US financial circles.

The Roosevelt's New Deal soon started to stumble on the way. In 1937 America plunged into the quagmire of economic crisis. In 1939 the US economy operated at 33% of its industrial capacity (it was 19% in the heat of the 1929-1933 crisis).

Rexford G. Tugwell, an economist who became part of Franklin Roosevelt's first "Brain, a group of Columbia University academics who helped develop policy recommendations leading up to Roosevelt's New Deal,wrote that in 1939 the government failed to reach any success.There was an open seatill the day Hitler invaded Poland.Only the mighty wind of war could dissipate the fog. Any other measures Roosevelt could take were doomed to failure. [1] Only the world war could save the US capitalism. In 1939 the money owners used all leverage at their disposal to put pressure of Hitler and make him unleash a big war in the east.

***

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) played an important role during the Second World War. It was created as an outpost of American interests in Europe and a link between Anglo-American and German businesses, a kind of offshore zone for cosmopolitan capital providing a shelter from political processes, wars, sanctions and other things. The Bank was created as a public commercial entity, it's immunity from government interference and such things as taxes collection was guaranteed by international agreement signed in the Hague in 1930.

The bankers of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who were close to the Morgans, Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England, German financiers: Hjalmar Schacht (President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the Hitler's government), Walther Funk (who later replaced Hjalmar Schacht as President of the Reichsbank) and EmilPuhl – all of them played an important role in the efforts to establish the Bank. The central banks of Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and some private banks were among the founders. The Federal Bank of New York did its best to establish the BIS, but it was not listed as a founder. The US was represented by the private First National Bank of New York, J.P. Morgan and Company, the First National Bank of Chicago – all parts of the Morgan's empire. Japan was also represented by private banks. In 1931-1932 19 European central banks joined the Bank of International Settlements. Gates W. McGarrah, a banker of Rockefeller's clan, was the first BIS chairman of the board. He was replaced by Leon Fraser, who represented the clan of Morgans. US citizen Thomas H. McKittrick was President of the Bankduring the war years.

A lot has already been written about the BIS activities serving the interests of Third Reich. The Bank was involved in deals with different countries, including those Germany was at war with. Ever since Pearl Harbor the Bank of International Settlements has been a correspondent bank for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was under Nazi control during the war years, no matter American Thomas Huntington McKittrick was the Bank's President. Soldiers were dying on the battlefields while the leadership of BIS held meetings in Basel with the bankers of Germany, Japan, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain and the United States. There, in the Swiss offshore zone, it was all peaceful, the representatives of belligerents quietly worked in the atmosphere of mutual understanding.

Switzerland became the place where gold seized by Germany in different corners of Europe was transported to for storage. In the March of 1938, when Hitler captured Vienna, part of Austrian gold was transferred to BIS vaults. The same thing happened with the gold of Czech National Bank (48 million USD). As the war started, the flows of gold poured into the Bank of International Settlements. Germany got it from concentration camps and as a result of plundering the wealth of occupied countries (including whatever belonged to civilians: jewels, gold crowns, cigarette cases, utensils…). It was called the Nazi Gold. The metal was processed into ingots to be stored in the Bank of International Settlements, Switzerland, or outside Europe. Charles Higham in his Trading With The Enemy: An Expose of The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 wrote that during the war Nazi transferred $378 million into the accounts of Bank of International Settlements.

A few words about the Czech gold. The details surfaced when after the Bank of England's archives were declassified in 2012. [2] In the March of 1939 Germany captured Prague. Nazi demanded $48 million of national gold reserves. They were told that the sum had already been transferred to the Bank of International Settlements. Later it became known that the gold was transferred from Basel to the vaults of Bank of England. Upon the command from Berlin the gold was transferred to the ReichsbankBIS account. Then the Bank of England was involved in transactions done upon the orders of Reichsbank given to the Bank of International settlements. The commands were retransmitted to London. There was collusion between German Reichsbank, the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. In 1939 a scandal broke out in Great Britain because the Bank of England executed the transactions with Czech gold upon the commands coming from Berlin and Basel, not the Czech government. For instance, in the June of 1939, three months before the war between Great Britain and Germany started, the Bank of England helped Germans to get into their accounts the amount of gold equal to 440 thousand pounds sterling and transfer some gold to New York (Germany was sure that in case of German intervention into Poland the United States would not declare war).

The illegal transactions with Czech gold were implemented with tacit approval of the government of Great Britain which was aware of what was going on. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon and other top officials did their best to hide the truth, including outright lies (the gold was returned to the lawful owner or had never been transferred to Reichsbank). The recently declassified materials of Bank of England reveal the truth and show that the government officials lied to cover up themselves and the activities of the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements. It was easy to coordinate the joint criminal activities because Montagu Norman, the head of Bank of England, served as the chairman of the board of Bank of International Settlements. He never made secret of his sympathy for fascists.

The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II. The conference was held from 1 to 22 July 1944. All of a sudden the issue of the Bank of International Settlements hit the agenda. It was reported that the bank collaborated with fascist Germany. Leaving many details aside, I'd only mention that with great difficulty (some US delegates opposed the motion) the delegates reached an agreement to close the BIS. The decision of international conference has never been enacted. All the discreditable information related to the BIS wartime activities was classified. Today it helps to falsify the history of the Second World War.

Finally, a few words about Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970) who served as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the fascist Germany's government. He was a key figure controlling the economic machine of Third Reich, an extraordinary and plenipotentiaryambassador representing Anglo-American capital in Germany. In 1945 Schacht was tried at Nuremberg to be acquitted on October 1, 1946. He got away with murder. The same way it happened to Hitler. For some unexplained reasons he was not in the 1945 leading wartime criminals list. More to it, Schacht returned to his profession like if nothing happened and founded Schacht GmbH in Düsseldorf. This detail may go unnoticed, though it serves as another testimony to the fact that Anglo-American "money owners" and their plenipotentiary representatives in Germany prepared and, to some extent, influenced the outcome of the Second World War. The "money owners" want to rewrite the history of the war and change its results.

Valentin Katasonov

Source
Strategic Culture Foundation (Russia)

[1] P.Tugwell, The Democratic Roosevelt, A Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, New York, 1957, p 477.

[2] http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/arch...


Source : "Anglo-American Money Owners Organized World War II", by Valentin Katasonov, Strategic Culture Foundation (Russia), Voltaire Network, 7 May 2015, www.voltairenet.org/article187508.html

Valentin Katasonov Professor, Department of Moscow State Institute of International Finance, doctor of economic sciences, corresponding member of the Academy of Economics and Commerce. He was consultant of the United Nations (1991-1993), member of the Advisory Council to the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (1993-1996), head of the Department of international monetary relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Russia (2001-11).

[May 10, 2015] Battle Tested, Ukraine Troops Now Get U.S. Basic Training

May 09, 2015 | NYTimes.com

YAVORIV, Ukraine - The exercise, one of the most fundamental in the military handbook, came off without a hitch. A soldier carrying a length of rope and a grappling hook ran to within 20 feet or so of a coil of concertina wire and stopped.

For a moment, he twirled the rope in his hands like a lasso, then threw the hook over the wire, and tugged hard, testing for explosives.

When nothing happened he signaled two comrades, who ran up and started snipping the wire with cutters.

Although this was a typical training exercise for raw recruits in an elemental soldierly skill, there was nothing typical about the scene. Far from enlistees, these soldiers were regulars in the Ukrainian National Guard, presumably battle-hardened after months on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. And the trainer was an American military instructor, drilling troops for battle with the United States' former Cold War foe, Russia, and Russian-backed separatists.

... ... ...

The training included simulations of a suspect's detention. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

The course on cutting wire is one of 63 classes of remedial military instruction being provided by 300 United States Army trainers in three consecutive two-month courses.

Here in western Ukraine, they are far from the fighting, and their job is to instill some basic military know-how in Ukrainian soldiers, who the trainers have discovered are woefully unprepared. The largely unschooled troops are learning such basic skills as how to use an encrypted walkie-talkie; how to break open a door with a sledgehammer and a crowbar; and how to drag a wounded colleague across a field while holding a rifle at the ready.

... ... ...

The United States is also providing advanced courses for military professionals known as forward observers - the ones who call in targets - to improve the accuracy of artillery fire, making it more lethal for the enemy and less so for civilians.

Photo

The training also included simulations of a home raid. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Oleksandr I. Leshchenko, the deputy director for training in the National Guard, was somewhat skeptical about the value of the training, saying that "99 percent" of the men in the course had already been in combat.

... ... ...

American officers described the course work as equivalent to the latter months of basic training in the United States. The courses will train 705 Ukrainian soldiers at a cost of $19 million over six months. The Ukrainian National Guard is rotating from the front what units it can spare for the training. American instructors intend to recommend top performers to serve as trainers within other Ukrainian units, and in this way spread the instruction more broadly.

... ... ...

[May 10, 2015] The New York Times does its government s bidding Here s what you re not being told about US troops in Ukraine

Notable quotes:
"... American soldiers in Ukraine, American media not saying much about it. Two facts. ..."
"... Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia. ..."
"... Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border? ..."
"... And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect. ..."
"... Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this paragraph. Speechless. ..."
"... Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential. ..."
"... Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.) ..."
"... In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that 300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it, there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation, a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed. ..."
"... The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers." ..."
"... He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it. ..."
May 09, 2015 | NYTimes.com

Reprinted from May 07, 2015 article at Salon.com

As of mid-April, when a Pentagon flack announced it in Kiev, and as barely reported in American media, U.S. troops are now operating openly in Ukraine.

Now there is a lead I have long dreaded writing but suspected from the first that one day I would. Do not take a moment to think about this. Take many moments. We all need to. We find ourselves in grave circumstances this spring.

At first I thought I had written what newspaper people call a double-barreled lead: American soldiers in Ukraine, American media not saying much about it. Two facts.

Wrong. There is one fact now, and it is this: Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia.

One cannot predict there will be one. And, of course, right-thinking people hope things will never come to one. In March, President Obama dismissed any such idea as if to suggest it was silly. "They're not interested in a military confrontation with us," Obama said of the Russians-wisely. Then he added, unwisely: "We don't need a war."

Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border?

The pose of American innocence, tatty and tiresome in the best of times, is getting dangerous once again.

The source of worry now is that we do not have an answer to the second question. The project is plain: Advance NATO the rest of the way through Eastern Europe, probably with the intent of eventually destabilizing Moscow. The stooges now installed in Kiev are getting everything ready for the corporations eager to exploit Ukrainian resources and labor.

And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect.

In the past there were a few vague mentions of an American military presence in Ukraine that was to be in place by this spring, if I recall correctly. These would have been last autumn. By then, there were also reports, unconfirmed, that some troops and a lot of spooks were already there as advisers but not acknowledged.

Then in mid-March President Poroshenko introduced a bill authorizing-as required by law-foreign troops to operate on Ukrainian soil. There was revealing detail, according to Russia Insider, a free-standing website in Moscow founded and run by Charles Bausman, an American with an uncanny ability to gather and publish pertinent information.

"According to the draft law, Ukraine plans three Ukrainian-American command post exercises, Fearless Guardian 2015, Sea Breeze 2015 and Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015," the publication reported, "and two Ukrainian-Polish exercises, Secure Skies 2015, and Law and Order 2015, for this year."

This is a lot of dry-run maneuvering, if you ask me. Poroshenko's law allows for up to 1,000 American troops to participate in each of these exercises, alongside an equal number of Ukrainian "National Guardsmen," and we will insist on the quotation marks when referring to this gruesome lot, about whom more in a minute.

Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this paragraph. Speechless.

It was a month to the day after Poroshenko's bill went to parliament that the Pentagon spokesman in Kiev announced-to a room empty of American correspondents, we are to assume-that troops from the 173rd Airborne were just then arriving to train none other than "National Guardsmen." This training includes "classes in war-fighting functions," as the operations officer, Maj. Jose Mendez, blandly put it at the time.

The spokesman's number was "about 300," and I never like "about" when these people are describing deployments. This is how it always begins, we will all recall. The American presence in Vietnam began with a handful of advisers who arrived in September 1950. (Remember MAAG, the Military Assistance Advisory Group?)

Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential.

I am getting on to apoplectic as to the American media's abject irresponsibility in not covering this stuff adequately. To leave these events unreported is outright lying by omission. Nobody's news judgment can be so bad as to argue this is not a story.

Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.)

To cross the "i"s and dot the "t"s, as I prefer to do, the Times did make two mentions of the American troops. One was the day of the announcement, a brief piece on an inside page, datelined Washington. Here we get our code word for this caper: It will be "modest" in every mention.

The second was in an April 23 story by Michael Gordon, the State Department correspondent. The head was, "Putin Bolsters His Forces Near Ukraine, U.S. Says." Read the thing here.

The story line is a doozy: Putin-not "the Russians" or "Moscow," of course-is again behaving aggressively by amassing troops-how many, exactly where and how we know is never explained-along his border with Ukraine. Inside his border, that is. This is the story. This is what we mean by aggression these days.

In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that 300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it, there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation, a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed.

At this point, I do not see how anyone can stand against the argument-mine for some time-that Putin has shown exemplary restraint in this crisis. In a reversal of roles and hemispheres, Washington would have a lot more than air defense systems and troops of whatever number on the border in question.

The Times coverage of Ukraine, to continue briefly in this line, starts to remind me of something I.F. Stone once said about the Washington Post: The fun of reading it, the honored man observed, is that you never know where you'll find a page one story.

In the Times' case, you never know if you will find it at all.

Have you read much about the wave of political assassinations that erupted in Kiev in mid-April? Worry not. No one else has either-not in American media. Not a word in the Times.

The number my sources give me, and I cannot confirm it, is a dozen so far-12 to 13 to be precise. On the record, we have 10 who can be named and identified as political allies of Viktor Yanukovych, the president ousted last year, opponents of a drastic rupture in Ukraine's historic relations to Russia, people who favored marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of the Nazis-death-deserving idea, this-and critics of the new regime's corruptions and dependence on violent far-right extremists.

These were all highly visible politicians, parliamentarians and journalists. They have been murdered by small groups of these extremists, according to reports readily available in non-American media. In my read, the killers may have the same semi-official ties to government that the paramilitary death squads in 1970s Argentina-famously recognizable in their Ford Falcons-had with Videla and the colonels.

The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers."

Kindly place, Kiev's parliament under this new crowd. Washington must be proud, having backed yet another right-wing, anti-democratic, rights-trampling regime that does what it says.

And our media must be silent, of course. It can be no other way. Gutless hacks: You bet I am angry.

* * *

I end this week's column with a tribute.

A moment of observance, any kind, for William Pfaff, who died at 86 in Paris late last week. The appreciative obituary by the Times' Marlise Simons is here.

Pfaff was the most sophisticated foreign affairs commentator of the 20th century's second half and the first 15 years of this one. He was a great influence among colleagues (myself included) and put countless readers in a lot of places in the picture over many decades. He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it.

Pfaff was a conservative man in some respects, which is not uncommon among America's American critics. In this I put him in the file with Henry Steele Commager, C. Vann Woodward, William Appleman Williams, and among those writing now, Andrew Bacevich. He was not a scholar, as these writers were or are, supporting a point I have long made: Not all intellectuals are scholars, and not all scholars are intellectuals.

Pfaff's books will live on and I commend them: "Barbarian Sentiments," "The Wrath of Nations," "The Bullet's Song," and his last, "The Irony of Manifest Destiny," are the ones on my shelf.

Farewell from a friend, Bill.

Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist. More Patrick L. Smith.

[May 10, 2015] Battle Tested, Ukraine Troops Now Get U.S. Basic Training

May 09, 2015 | NYTimes.com

YAVORIV, Ukraine - The exercise, one of the most fundamental in the military handbook, came off without a hitch. A soldier carrying a length of rope and a grappling hook ran to within 20 feet or so of a coil of concertina wire and stopped.

For a moment, he twirled the rope in his hands like a lasso, then threw the hook over the wire, and tugged hard, testing for explosives.

When nothing happened he signaled two comrades, who ran up and started snipping the wire with cutters.

Although this was a typical training exercise for raw recruits in an elemental soldierly skill, there was nothing typical about the scene. Far from enlistees, these soldiers were regulars in the Ukrainian National Guard, presumably battle-hardened after months on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. And the trainer was an American military instructor, drilling troops for battle with the United States' former Cold War foe, Russia, and Russian-backed separatists.

... ... ...

The training included simulations of a suspect's detention. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

The course on cutting wire is one of 63 classes of remedial military instruction being provided by 300 United States Army trainers in three consecutive two-month courses.

Here in western Ukraine, they are far from the fighting, and their job is to instill some basic military know-how in Ukrainian soldiers, who the trainers have discovered are woefully unprepared. The largely unschooled troops are learning such basic skills as how to use an encrypted walkie-talkie; how to break open a door with a sledgehammer and a crowbar; and how to drag a wounded colleague across a field while holding a rifle at the ready.

... ... ...

The United States is also providing advanced courses for military professionals known as forward observers - the ones who call in targets - to improve the accuracy of artillery fire, making it more lethal for the enemy and less so for civilians.

Photo

The training also included simulations of a home raid. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Oleksandr I. Leshchenko, the deputy director for training in the National Guard, was somewhat skeptical about the value of the training, saying that "99 percent" of the men in the course had already been in combat.

... ... ...

American officers described the course work as equivalent to the latter months of basic training in the United States. The courses will train 705 Ukrainian soldiers at a cost of $19 million over six months. The Ukrainian National Guard is rotating from the front what units it can spare for the training. American instructors intend to recommend top performers to serve as trainers within other Ukrainian units, and in this way spread the instruction more broadly.

... ... ...

[May 10, 2015] After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. tried to help Russians

More correctly Clinton administration vigorously tried to help Russia to became a vassal state...
April 15, 2015 | antiwar.com
May 07, 2015 | The Washington Post

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin recently was interviewed for a fawning Russian television documentary on his decade and a half in power. Putin expressed the view that the West would like Russia to be down at the heels. He said, "I sometimes I get the impression that they love us when they need to send us humanitarian aid. . . . [T]he so-called ruling circles, elites - political and economic - of those countries, they love us when we are impoverished, poor and when we come hat in hand. As soon as we start declaring some interests of our own, they feel that there is some element of geopolitical rivalry."

Earlier, in March, speaking to leaders of the Federal Security Service, which he once led, Mr. Putin warned that "Western special services continue their attempts at using public, nongovernmental and politicized organizations to pursue their own objectives, primarily to discredit the authorities and destabilize the internal situation in Russia."

Mr. Putin's remarks reflect a deep-seated paranoia. It would be easy to dismiss this kind of rhetoric as intended for domestic consumption, an attempt to whip up support for his war adventure in Ukraine. In part, it is that. But Mr. Putin's assertion that the West has been acting out of a desire to sunder Russia's power and influence is a willful untruth.

The fact is that thousands of Americans went to Russia hoping to help its people attain a better life. The American and Western effort over the last 25 years - to which the United States and Europe devoted billions of dollars - was aimed at helping Russia overcome the horrid legacy of Soviet communism, which left the country on its knees in 1991. It was not about conquering Russia but rather about saving it, offering the proven tools of market capitalism and democracy, which were not imposed but welcomed. The United States also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make Russia safer from loose nukes and joined a fruitful collaboration in outer space. Avid volunteers came to Russia and donated endless hours to imparting the lessons of how to hold jury trials, build a free press, design equity markets, carry out political campaigning and a host of other components of an open, prosperous society. The Americans came for the best of reasons.

Certainly, the Western effort was flawed. Markets were distorted by crony and oligarchic capitalism; democratic practice often faltered; many Russians genuinely felt a sense of defeat, humiliation and exhaustion. There's much to regret but not the central fact that a generous hand was extended to post-Soviet Russia, offering the best of Western values and know-how. The Russian people benefit from this benevolence even now, and, above Mr. Putin's self-serving hysterics, they ought to hear the truth: The United States did not come to bury you.

Vatnik, 5/7/2015 2:33 PM EDT [Edited]


I think, that everyoune in US must to know. As i wrote below

"we think that Navalny & Co paid by the west. they ususally call themselves "opposiotion", and one of them (Nemtsov) was frieinds with McCain (as i realized after reading McCain twitter, after Nemtsov was killed)."

"we think that our real opposition are these political parties: CPRF, LDPR. We believe them."

i write it, because i think, that when we talk that our(russian) opposition is bad and paid from the west, you think that we talk about our politic parties. but it is wrong, we talk about Navalny & Co.

MeriJ, 5/7/2015 3:08 PM EDT [Edited]

Thanks. That is a useful clarification. But I still find it odd that you would consider a member of your nation's opposition a traitor or "tool" simply because they have friends in the West.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main difference between people like Navalny versus the CPRF/LDPR is that Navalny thinks the current system is corrupt. Whereas individuals and political parties currently benefiting from the current system think it's fine.

Those are not the thoughts of a traitor. To get to that conclusion you would need to define the current system and those who currently benefit as being "Russia." Oppose them and you oppose the Motherland.

But Putin and his new-generation oligarchs and his deputies at the Kremlin are not Russia. They are a bunch of guys who currently run things there.

Vatnik, 5/7/2015 3:47 PM EDT [Edited]

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main difference between people like Navalny versus the CPRF/LDPR is that Navalny thinks the current system is corrupt."

CPRF and LPDR know about corruption, and even they think that our non-systemic opposition (Navlny & Co) are traitors. And they (CPRF , LDPR) talk about corruption and another bad things of our gov even in Duma. for example, this is what said the leader of LDPR on one tv show

"коррупцию создала советская власть, кпсс, единая россия плавно подобрала у нее все инструменты коррупции и сегодня эта страстная болезнь поразила все органы и всю структуру"
google translated it:
"Corruption established Soviet power, the Communist Party, United Russia gently picked her all the tools of corruption and now this passionate disease struck all the organs and the whole structure"
and
"у вас фракция половина бизнесмены, воры, жулики, грабители, вся остальная половина агенты спецслужб"
google translated:
"you have a fraction of a half businessmen, thieves, swindlers, robbers, the rest of the half secret service agents"
he adressed it to our main politic party in Duma, "United Russia"

I can find more than one video where he talk about falsifications of elections, right in Duma.

but these are just examples.

P.S. oh, and here i found video, specially for you(americans) where our non-systemic opposition visited US Embassy in Moscow in July 4th.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-54U6V-Bc

Baranovsly71, 5/7/2015 12:11 PM EDT [Edited]

BTW, this is not true that "Americans were not in charge". I red memoirs of Eltsyn's ministers (Korzhakov, Burbulis, you can read memoirs of deputy secretary of state of that time Strobe Talbott in English, the same is there), and it's clear that in 90s Russia de facto was American colony.

For example, ministers in Russian government could not be assigned without US State Department approval. Even Russian TV anchors were instructed by US representatives.

Skeviz, 5/7/2015 12:05 PM EDT

MeriJ
6:42 PM GMT+0300 [Edited]
Putin has convinced you...


USA had popularity in Russia in 1990 more than Putin now, but to 1999 when Putin became prime-minister USA had less than 20% approve. It was not Putin who destroyed USA's popularity, reverse your policy created Putin.

You very often replay this your phrase, but it is lie. Did Putin created NATO, did Putin used Russia's weakness and increased NATO, did Putin bomb Kosovo, did Putin violated agreements that was done after WWII and separated Kosovo from Serbia, did Putin destroyed Russia's democracy in 1996 and in 1993, did Putin paid Chechnya terrorists to kill Russians, did Putin pressure Chechens create Islamic State (prototype of ISIL) in Chechnya, did Putin in any article said that it will be great if terrorists will created their own state (and after that will be do permanent wars against Russia)? NO, you did it before there appeared Putin.

Skeviz, 5/7/2015 12:14 PM EDT

MeriJ
5:48 PM GMT+0300
Much of the aid they are referring to was not lending but grants to help build civil society -- independent media, health organizations and the like. No strings attached.

You did not created Russia's civil society, you destroyed it when you created did all what was possible to lure high educated Russians in West countries. You falsified Russia's election in 1996 (and all international observers under pressure of USA supported it). You in 1993 supported Yeltsin's military operation in Moscow. You paid Chechnya terrorists to kill Russians and destabilize Russia's society. Is it civil society???

"independent media"??? Not, they was created by our oligarchs, not by you, and you payed only for those media who represented USA's point of view as your propaganda did in time Cold War. It was the continuing Cold War, not help.

" health organizations" ??????????????

USSR's health organizations was significantly better than USA, and infinity better than current Russia's organizations.

There was not "and like" we ceased Cold War, we by free will dismantled all "USSR's Empire", we by free will destroyed ideology, we ceased war, but you continued it, you continued the war all last 25 years, and NATO is the best example of it.

MeriJ, 5/7/2015 12:24 PM EDT

We lured well-educated Russians to the West? Seriously?

This is the nature of free markets and open borders. Your response should be to compete to lure them back. Give them something to come home for. Most people long to go home.

Instead you talk about anyone who doesn't hate the West as if they were traitors. Why would any well-educated Russian ex-pat want to come home now?

Skeviz, 5/7/2015 12:48 PM EDT

Seriously. Your government created very comfortable ways for engineers (and for some another categories of USSR's people), to take them on West. You are economist, so I suppose you know the reception: lure good manager from another company, it will increase your power, and it decrease power of your competitor.

MeriJ, 5/7/2015 12:51 PM EDT [Edited]

By "seriously?" I didn't mean I disagreed with your facts. I disagree that this was surprising or hostile. That is the nature of open markets -- if you see excellence, you try to recruit it.

There are only two responses I know of: Close your borders and your markets; or compete more effectively.


MeriJ, 5/7/2015 12:20 PM EDT

You are truly incorrect, my friend, and it saddens me that you see it this way.

The antagonistic relationship you describe is more true at the moment, due to the events of the last year, but not true back in the decades before that. During the Cold War, we were indeed enemies, so such motivations then were a given.

Skeviz, 5/7/2015 12:24 PM EDT

Ok, then try to explain, why USA had more 80% [popularity in polls] in Russia in 1990 and less than 20% in 1999. There was not Putin, how can you explain it?

Volkovolk, 5/7/2015 12:27 PM EDT [Edited]

He is correct. One can say that Cold War never ended - it just took place for some decades on our land in form of guerilla war. After Gorbachev and Yeltsin abandoned all interests of USSR and Russia you decided to press the advantage and to take Russia of the board [permanently]. Is it so big surprise that we are angry about it?

Joseph Volgin, 5/7/2015 11:01 AM EDT

Alert! Attention, danger! Putin trolls get into American journalism:

"...Or, as a Fred Hiatt of the 1870s might have commented about Native Americans who resisted the well-intentioned Bureau of Indian Affairs and didn't appreciate the gentleness of the U.S. Army or the benevolence of life on the reservations: "Above Sitting Bull's self-serving hysterics, Indians ought to hear the truth: The white man did not come to exterminate you."

Baranovsly71, 5/7/2015 8:22 AM EDT

Thank you, but I lived in Russia in 90s and remember very well Americans who started to come at that time - arrogant money-grabbers the only thing they were interested in is how to make money - on everything, from oil to export of Russian children to US. They stole billions from Russians and continue to do so.

Please, Americans, don't help us - go away and take your democracy with you.

Bob Bobo, 5/7/2015 7:51 AM EDT

Russia help? Yes like that Khodorkovsky Yukos submitted on a silver platter Rothschild. It would Americans like it if they can plunder the Russian mineral resources. But when Putin to allow such a persona non grata.

Larysa Mahal, 5/7/2015 6:30 AM EDT

The best article for those who do not know history and events in Russia. I think a lot of people feel a tears of emotion when they read this article. Bravo!

When author quotes Putin's speech "they love us when we are impoverished, poor and when we come hat in hand." he has forgotten to say that after these words Putin thanked all those who helped to Russia in its difficult time. Author has forgotten to give example about free help "devoted billions of dollars". Nothing was free and Russia had to pay if not money then the disadvantages agreements or concessions. But oh well it. Talk about a paranoia. Author calls the leader of the biggest country "paranoid". But this man has stood up Russia from knees during 15 years only. Think about it 15 years only! Author calls "paranoid" the man who are supported by 75 % population in Russia. The man who was addressed Crimea, insisting on joining with Russia. Are all of these people paranoid like Putin?

Then you can say about President of Poland who sad that the Victory Parade in Moscow is a threaten to all Europe. What is it, paranoia in a cube? But author does not see that because for him to write articles is a work but to know truth is for domestic use only.

I want to ask everybody to see around and say how many prosperous, beautiful countries in Europe face before a threaten to be section, detached some parts like UK, Italy. But to Russia with her "paranoid" leader want and join huge territories with huge amount of people. Think about it. In last year one man standing in a long queue on the sea crossing from Crimea to Russia sad that they are willing to endure all the inconveniences because the main thing is they are with Russia. Think about it.

Lucky_Barker, 5/7/2015 5:45 AM EDT [Edited]

The United States supported the destruction and burning of the parliament in Moscow, the murder of civilians in 1993, the bombing of Grozny in 1994-1995-m, and the killing of civilians in Chechnya. All crimes Yeltsin was American influence and American advices.

It's very like the oficial America. Manu people call "Yeltsin era" as "Time of Americans" or "Time of Prostitutes".

Restoration of parliamentary democracy, Mr. Putin did not like top US.
Putin's war in Chechnya without massive bombing did not like owners of US newspapers and US parties.

The Chechens believe that the Americans supported Yeltsin genocide Chechen civilians in 1nd Chechen war and strongly resent and hate peace in Chechnya after the 2nd Chechen war.

Tsarnaev was prepared in US as a terrorist for Syria or Chechnya - but was shot too early.

We must always remember that Al Qaeda and الدّولة الإسلاميّة at an early stage was the US-Saudi projects.

Volkovolk, 5/7/2015 5:24 AM EDT [

What a hipocrisity.
Your "volunters" with their "proven tools" provoked desolation of russian economy and defolt. The results of their actions were nothing short of economical genocide. The so-called free press you build are just a puppets of yours, instruments of your influence and of your lies. Your advises in building of democracy led to anarchy and to the brink of collapse of Russia. Yes, you tried to bury us. Guess what? You failed. And we will never forgive you.

Danila Ivanov, 5/7/2015 5:19 AM EDT

But past wrongs do not matter... now Russia and the USA on the brink of war... the war is already at a distance of 600 kilometers from Moscow, the American puppets killed thousands of ethnic Russians.

Russia is a nuclear power, such action is suicide. We all have to prevent needless and stupid war... I ask you to help.

Danila Ivanov, 5/7/2015 4:56 AM EDT

4) Let the author will call the name of at least one program, which spent a billion dollars... which would have improved the lives of ordinary Russians. At least one program (I don't know, although he lived in Russia at that time). All American billion were used to purchase depreciating assets industry of the USSR ("privatization"), actually looting people.

5) "Thousands of activists and volunteers" were actually thousands of Yeltsin's advisers... it was on the advice of these advisers was launched economic programme "shock therapy" (economic Holocaust). When Federal employees and the military is not specifically paid a salary (although the money was) ... a few years (to reduce the money supply), the economy was dead, just do not have the money, the base rate of the Central Bank was 2000% (I'm not kidding)... people were hungry... you know what hunger is? I know... The country was falling apart, if not for Putin.
6) Free press this is the press... which is verbatim from CNN, BBC, Foxnews? What is its "freedom" of this media?

7) the Oligarchs, corrupt officials... and who brought them to power, who collaborated with them, who gave them money to purchase assets? American corporations...

P. S. I don't know why the author is lying, but I would never wish the Americans in the US... to experience the poverty and hopelessness... you have experienced the Russians in the 90-ies in Russia, when the US "gave us a hand"...

Danila Ivanov, 5/7/2015 4:26 AM EDT

I accuse the author of lying... and paid propaganda.
1) Russia is satisfied with the U.S. government only when it is weak. In 1993 Boris Yeltsin ordered to shoot from tanks to the Parliament (similar to the U.S. Congress) killed many people-elected deputies, and unarmed people in the square who came to support the deputies, they were killed at close range with machine guns. Hundreds of corpses.... NO ONE representative of the United States, has condemned the event. Nobody. Everything is fine, democracy!!!
The author of the article is lying. Putin is telling the truth.
2) Almost all non-governmental organizations of Russia officially get the money of US taxpayers. Their leaders defiantly go to the American Embassy. (in other 196 embassies of the countries of the world don't go)... and declare that their goal is "revolution and overthrow the President." Opposition leaders Russia (Navalny, Nemtsov, Kasparov, Chirikov, Ponomarev) was trained in the U.S. and regularly travel to the USA... (for example ... Imagine the leaders of "Occupy Wall Street" would have officially get money from the Russians, and walked to the Russian Embassy. Presented? ) The author is lying, Putin is not lying.
3) There is No "military adventure in Ukraine." Lies about "Russian aggression" hides that Ukraine is a civil war and the destruction and arrests of thousands of unarmed ethnic Russians (they inhabit the East of Ukraine)... who disagree with an armed overthrow of the President. Near the border of Russia (31 km) is a major Ukrainian city Kharkiv... it unguarded, why in Kharkov there are no "hordes of Russian troops or the rebels?... If Putin attacked the Ukraine and began a military adventure"?
The author lied again.

Owan Skirlan, 5/7/2015 3:20 AM EDT

Okay, dear Americans, thanks for fish and sort of that, but, really - Make Your Own Buisness! Somethere between US borders, not out

Brekotin, 5/7/2015 1:07 AM EDT

Very funny article. Washington PRAVDA!
to author: please check the graph of GDP in Russia and the United States 1985-2015.
Clearly shows how redistribute wealth of the USSR was reditributed.

P.S.: teach macroeconomics and history.

Andrey Belov, 5/7/2015 12:39 AM EDT

I by the way I wonder what is so wrong left Russia communism? Developed industry and agriculture, United state, connected in the common economic space, a powerful culture and the arts, advanced science, the successful solution of social problems. And against that you have spent billions to destroy all? Lord you Americans really believe that we should be grateful for assistance in the destruction of our country?

Skeviz, 5/6/2015 11:48 PM EDT

"After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. tried to help Russians"
Really???
- USA in 1990 had popularity 80%, but to 1999 (before Putin) USA had popularity 20% in Russia, is it because USA had tried help Russia? (De facto USA did all what was possible to create politician like Putin).
- USSR had dismissed Warsaw pact by free will (and USSR dismissed USSR by free will), USSR destroyed all what was linked to Cold War, did USA the same? Did USA dismissed NATO?
- USA used Russia's weakness and increased NATO (now hypocrite Americans say that it was done by will of those countries, interesting enough do they really believe in the BS? USSR could also said that E. Europe's countries became ally of USSR because they was afraid Germany).
- USA used Russia's weakness and attacked Serbia the Russia's ally (hypocrite Americans said that there was ethnic cleansing, BUT USA killed more men there than Milosevic did, moreover after war created by USA there was new ethnic cleansing and Albanians killed Serbians, why hypocrite Americans closed eyes about it?). In day when USA began war against Kosovo they loss all support that had between youth.
- USA payed Chechnya terrorists and USA do great media support to Chechnya terrorists (after 11 September 2001 it was ceased but to the time was killed many Russia's humans including children, now hypocrite Americans prefer do not remember which media support they did for creation Islamic State on Russia's south border, it was prototype of ISIL).
- USA used Russia's weakness and dismissed all agreements that interfere create anti-missile system.
- USA destroyed Russia's democracy when supported falsification of election 1996 in Russia, because USA was afraid communists in Russia, and preferred support Yeltsin. USA violated election and supported Yeltsin, who had destroying Russia.
- USA paid for many color revolutions on Russia's borders.

Skeviz, 5/6/2015 11:59 PM EDT

  • - USA instead to help Russia create new economy preferred create more easy way to emigration high educated Russians in USA and another Europe's countries.
  • - USA separated Kosovo (and destroyed all system of agreements that existed after WWII, now hypocrite Americans try show that it was did in Crimea, but really Russia did nothing that USA had not make in Serbia).
  • - When Putin began pressure Russia's oligarchs to pay salaries and taxes, USA began media war against Putin.

I could continue the list very long, but I have not time now.
So all USA's sayings about "trying to help Russia" is hypocrite lie from alpha to omega. All what wanted USA destroy country that they had afraid half century. USA didn't use Russians free will and trying end Cold War, USA continued it and I can suppose it will be great problem for USA in future. Certainly Russia is weak country now, but Russia can give very significant help to China, especially in military question (if China will be need use power, but do not show that they use power).

Irene Guy, 5/6/2015 9:34 PM EDT

"For fifty years, our policy was to fence in the Soviet Union while its own internal contradictions undermined it. For thirty years, our policy has been to draw out the People's Republic of China. As a result, the China of today is simply not the Soviet Union of the late 1940s"
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State
Remarks to National Committee on U.S.-China Relations
New York City
September 21, 2005"
Enough said...

[May 10, 2015] Obama s Petulant WWII Snub of Russia by Ray McGovern

Notable quotes:
"... Though designed to isolate Russia because it had the audacity to object to the Western-engineered coup d'état in Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, this snub of Russia's President Vladimir Putin – like the economic sanctions against Russia – is likely to backfire on the U.S. ..."
"... Obama's boycott is part of a crass attempt to belittle Russia and to cram history itself into an anti-Putin, anti-Russian alternative narrative. ..."
"... Even George Friedman, the president of the Washington-Establishment-friendly think-tank STRATFOR, has said publicly in late 2014: "Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d'état organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history." ..."
"... So there! Gotcha! Russian aggression! But what the Post neglected to remind readers was that the U.S.-backed coup had occurred on Feb. 22 and that Putin has consistently said that a key factor in his actions toward Crimea came from Russian fears that NATO would claim the historic naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, representing a strategic threat to his country. ..."
"... Last fall, John Mearsheimer, a pre-eminent political science professor at the University of Chicago, stunned those who had been misled by the anti-Russian propaganda when he placed an article in the Very-Establishment journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault." ..."
"... Much of this American tendency to disdain other nations' concerns, fears and points of pride go back to the Washington Establishment's dogma that special rules or (perhaps more accurately) no rules govern U.S. behavior abroad – American exceptionalism. This arrogant concept, which puts the United States above all other nations like some Olympic god looking down on mere mortals, is often invoked by Obama and other leading U.S. politicians. ..."
"... Putin added, though, "I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism," adding: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." ..."
May 09, 2015 | antiwar.com
President Barack Obama's decision to join other Western leaders in snubbing Russia's weekend celebration of the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe looks more like pouting than statesmanship, especially in the context of the U.S. mainstream media's recent anti-historical effort to downplay Russia's crucial role in defeating Nazism.

Though designed to isolate Russia because it had the audacity to object to the Western-engineered coup d'état in Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, this snub of Russia's President Vladimir Putin – like the economic sanctions against Russia – is likely to backfire on the U.S. and its European allies by strengthening ties between Russia and the emerging Asian giants of China and India.

Notably, the dignitaries who will show up at this important commemoration include the presidents of China and India, representing a huge chunk of humanity, who came to show respect for the time seven decades ago when the inhumanity of the Nazi regime was defeated – largely by Russia's stanching the advance of Hitler's armies, at a cost of 20 to 30 million lives.

Obama's boycott is part of a crass attempt to belittle Russia and to cram history itself into an anti-Putin, anti-Russian alternative narrative. It is difficult to see how Obama and his friends could have come up with a pettier and more gratuitous insult to the Russian people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel – caught between Washington's demand to "isolate" Russia over the Ukraine crisis and her country's historic guilt in the slaughter of so many Russians – plans to show up a day late to place a wreath at a memorial for the war dead.

But Obama, in his childish display of temper, will look rather small to those who know the history of the Allied victory in World War II. If it were not for the Red Army's costly victories against the German invaders, particularly the tide-turning battle at Stalingrad in 1943-1944, the prospects for the later D-Day victory in Normandy in June 1944 and the subsequent defeat of Adolf Hitler would have been much more difficult if not impossible.

Yet, the current Russia-bashing in Washington and the mainstream U.S. media overrides these historical truths. For instance, a New York Times article by Neil MacFarquhar on Friday begins: "The Russian version of Hitler's defeat emphasizes the enormous, unrivaled sacrifices made by the Soviet people to end World War II " But that's not the "Russian version"; that's the history.

For its part, the Washington Post chose to run an Associated Press story out of Moscow reporting: "A state-of-the-art Russian tank on Thursday ground to a halt during the final Victory Day rehearsal. After an attempt to tow it failed, the T-14 rolled away under its own steam 15 minutes later." (Subtext: Ha, ha! Russia's newest tank gets stuck on Red Square! Ha, ha!).

This juvenile approach to pretty much everything that's important - not just U.S.-Russia relations - has now become the rule. From the U.S. government to the major U.S. media, it's as if the "cool kids" line up in matching fashions creating a gauntlet to demean and ridicule whoever the outcast of the day is. And anyone who doesn't go along becomes an additional target of abuse.

That has been the storyline for the Ukraine crisis throughout 2014 and into 2015. Everyone must agree that Putin provoked all the trouble as part of some Hitler-like ambition to conquer much of eastern Europe and rebuild a Russian empire. If you don't make the obligatory denunciations of "Russian aggression," you are called a "Putin apologist" or "Putin bootlicker."

Distorting the History

So, the evidence-based history of the Western-sponsored coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, must be forgotten or covered up. Indeed, about a year after the events, the New York Times published a major "investigative" article that ignored all the facts of a U.S.-backed coup in declaring there was no coup.

The Times didn't even mention the notorious, intercepted phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in early February 2014 in which Nuland was handpicking the future leaders, including her remark "Yats is the guy," a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk who – after the coup – quickly became prime minister. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine."]

Even George Friedman, the president of the Washington-Establishment-friendly think-tank STRATFOR, has said publicly in late 2014: "Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d'état organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history."

Beyond simply ignoring facts, the U.S. mainstream media has juggled the time line to make Putin's reaction to the coup – and the threat it posed to the Russian naval base in Crimea – appear to be, instead, evidence of his instigation of the already unfolding conflict.

For example, in a "we-told-you-so" headline on March 9, the Washington Post declared: "Putin had early plan to annex Crimea." Then, quoting AP, the Post reported that Putin himself had just disclosed "a secret meeting with officials in February 2014 Putin said that after the meeting he told the security chiefs that they would be 'obliged to start working to return Crimea to Russia.' He said the meeting was held Feb. 23, 2014, almost a month before a referendum in Crimea that Moscow has said was the basis for annexing the region."

So there! Gotcha! Russian aggression! But what the Post neglected to remind readers was that the U.S.-backed coup had occurred on Feb. 22 and that Putin has consistently said that a key factor in his actions toward Crimea came from Russian fears that NATO would claim the historic naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, representing a strategic threat to his country.

Putin also knew from opinion polls that most of the people of Crimea favored reunification with Russia, a reality that was underscored by the March referendum in which some 96 percent voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia.

But there was not one scintilla of reliable evidence that Putin intended to annex Crimea before he felt his hand forced by the putsch in Kiev. The political reality was that no Russian leader could afford to take the risk that Russia's only warm-water naval base might switch to new NATO management. If top U.S. officials did not realize that when they were pushing the coup in early 2014, they know little about Russian strategic concerns – or simply didn't care.

Last fall, John Mearsheimer, a pre-eminent political science professor at the University of Chicago, stunned those who had been misled by the anti-Russian propaganda when he placed an article in the Very-Establishment journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault."

You did not know that such an article was published? Chalk that up to the fact that the mainstream media pretty much ignored it. Mearsheimer said this was the first time he encountered such widespread media silence on an article of such importance.

The Sole Indispensable Country

Much of this American tendency to disdain other nations' concerns, fears and points of pride go back to the Washington Establishment's dogma that special rules or (perhaps more accurately) no rules govern U.S. behavior abroad – American exceptionalism. This arrogant concept, which puts the United States above all other nations like some Olympic god looking down on mere mortals, is often invoked by Obama and other leading U.S. politicians.

That off-putting point has not been missed by Putin even as he has sought to cooperate with Obama and the United States. On Sept. 11, 2013, a week after Putin bailed Obama out, enabling him to avoid a new war on Syria by persuading Syria to surrender its chemical weapons, Putin wrote in an op-ed published by the New York Times that he appreciated the fact that "My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust."

Putin added, though, "I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism," adding: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

More recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drove home this point in the context of World War II. This week, addressing a meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe, Lavrov included a pointed warning: "Today as never before it is important not to forget the lessons of that catastrophe and the terrible consequences that spring from faith in one's own exceptionalism."

The irony is that as the cameras pan the various world leaders in the Red Square reviewing stand on Saturday, Obama's absence will send a message that the United States has little appreciation for the sacrifice of the Russian people in bearing the brunt – and breaking the back – of Hitler's conquering armies. It is as if Obama is saying that the "exceptional" United States didn't need anyone's help to win World War II.

President Franklin Roosevelt was much wiser, understanding that it took extraordinary teamwork to defeat Nazism in the 1940s, which is why he considered the Soviet Union a most important military ally. President Obama is sending a very different message, a haughty disdain for the kind of global cooperation which succeeded in ridding the world of Adolf Hitler.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods in all four of CIA's main directorates.

[May 10, 2015] Putin voices grievances as huge parade marks 70th anniversary of victory

Now we have new forces that push the world to the war much like in 30th of XX century. One of the key problem of modern world is the USA elite attempt to maintain world hegemony. The post WWII security architecture was dismantled by the USA and its allies and after the collapse of the USSR. Instead the regime of unconditional domination of the USA was put in place by Clinton's government. This switch was signified by the attack on Serbia and treatment of Russia (as well as other xUSSR countries) after the dissolution of the USSR. Russia as all other xUSSR countries were mercilessly economically raped, which provided to the USA (and EU) another 10 years of economic expansion and only in 2001 crisis hit again. And it never ended with the second wave of the same crisis coming in 2008 and the third wave being in the wings right now (whether it'll materialize in 2016 or 20120 is an open question). With the current level of world debt and, especially, the USA debt the situation changed, Also the USA economy is smaller in comparison with other world economies then ever before (Germany and Japan economies fully recovered from WWII, and China became a new world economic power). This create a drive against the US hegemony and "dollar regime" (with EU and euro as one such development). Recent US adventures in Iraq, Libya and Syria were met with understandable resistance which due to decline of the US manufacturing base threatens the current US domination in world affairs. Only in Ukraine they managed to secure a victory by using nationalists as a Trojan horse for establishing full hegemony over the country (but at the expense of partitioning the country). Due to those threats and instability of world financial system "audacious oligarchy" that rules the USA is becoming more and more reckless. Neocons continue dominate the State Department and we have a chance of neocon becoming the next US president (not the Clinton., Bush II or Obama were substantially different in this respect). Which provoked rearmament of Russia and armament of China making the world again more dangerous. Putin took a "independence" stand (may be prematurely, failing to wait for the time when Russia would be ready, forced by the events in Ukraine) which now greatly complicates US geopolitical position and expantion of its neoliberal empire (which come to the screeching end in any case because the Earth is a finite size) . Troubles with cheap oil availability ("plato oil" or "end of cheap oil") were just the straw that broke the camel back. And without continues expansion of markets neoliberalism enters deep crisis. Understandably no love left between the US elite and Russia and Ukraine was only a pretext to put Russia "in place". The USA and EU desperately need to acquire the control over Russian energy sector, but with Putin in power this is not possible.
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All is fine in Guardian Russian-Ukrainian forums. Alpamysh, GreatMountainEagle, jezzam, Botswana61, Metronome151 and company perform their usual roles. We have some newcomers such as some1here
May 10, 2015 | The Guardian

freedomcry -> some1here 10 May 2015 10:36

An apologist is not necessarily a supporter. The bottom line is, you're repeating the exact things Hitler's propaganda used to justify the invasion of the USSR which were contradicted both later, in the way the Nazis behaved on occupied territories, and earlier in Mein Kampf where Hitler had laid out quite bluntly the Lebensraum argument for colonising Russia and Ukraine.

Aneesia 10 May 2015 10:36

The behavior of the West was childish in this matter. They are looking for a fight to keep their economies growing...and will do all they can to provoke one.....like the spoiled brat in a sandbox. Russia was by far the most mature.


Abiesalba -> Carly435 10 May 2015 10:33

And what percentage of Western Europeans are neo-fascists, in your opinion?

If you define Nazi-fascist ideology for what it really is, namely 'us against them' and 'superior' vs 'inferior' nations, then I think at least 10% of the population, if not more.

It is now acceptable for parties with such ideologies to even run in elections, e.g. Wilders, Le Pen, Farage etc., and they get rather high support.

This dangerous 'us and them' ideology has different forms and undertones with respect to the local context. For example, here is Slovenia I would count among such divisive and potentially very dangerous parties the party which won 20% in our 2014 elections (their main target for discrimination are the 'Southerners' = immigrants from other Yugoslav nations).

I think it is very dangerous that Europe is largely turning a blind eye. They also did not confront neither Hitler, nor Mussolini, and more recently nor Milošević until it was too late.

Freedom of speech is not unlimited; it is limited by the rights of others. The right of individuals and groups to human dignity and to not be discriminated against on any grounds has a priority over the right to freedom of expression. In other words, hate speech should be unacceptable, yet parties with hate ideologies are making it to European national parliaments and to the EU parliament. Very worrying.

I suppose that Slovenes are very sensitive to such developments. We have been oppressed by the Austrians/Germans for more than a thousand years. After WWI, Slovenes in Italy were the first nation in Europe to experience the Nazi-fascist terror, so Slovene writers and poets had very early premonitions of a new, even more sinister war coming (which indeed happened - WWII). See for example Srečko Kosovel's poem Ecstasy of Death about the death of western Europe in a sea of scorching blood. Kosovel published this poem in 1925, when he was 21 (and this was 15 years before WWII, and before Hitler rose to power).

Kosovel died at the age of 21, but he was a true European visionary. He stood for Europe of peace and brotherhood of nations. I suspect he would be horrified by the recent developments in Europe if he were alive today. Maybe he would write the Ecstasy of Death all over again.

Vladimir Makarenko -> alpamysh 10 May 2015 10:28

this is what is called "black agitprop" or in a lay man talk - lies.

Vladimir Makarenko -> Metronome151 10 May 2015 10:27

Since when you started to be heartbroken about Russian interests?

CoastalBrake1 -> Abiesalba 10 May 2015 10:24

"With all due respect to the US, the US role is not even remotely comparable to the sacrifice in the Soviet Union. The Red Army was by far the decisive power in defeating Nazi Germany" No shlt, because the Red Army had no other choice under the thumb of one of the most vicious and ignorant military leaders in history.

Yes, Russia clearly paid the biggest price for victory, but many of The Red Army casualties were simply a result of their own military strategies and the fact they had way more troops in the first place compared to other allied powers.

freedomcry -> Carly435 10 May 2015 10:23

Russians are loath to reflect too deeply on the meanings of that war.

That is one big filthy lie. I can see how a certain amount of intelligence went into its making: the fact that the Russian predicament during the war was more about survival than almost anyone else's, creates the possibility that the war impressed itself as something that's more about defeating the invader than understanding what had made them into what they were. And once you have that possibility, you go ahead and just blurt out the claim - it being the nature of ubiquitous Russophobia that any judgement of the Russians automatically rings true.

But seriously, it's so completely false, so diametrically the opposite of how we actually see the war that I'm reeling a little. And I thought I'd heard every insult of Russians out there, from the crudest to the most intricate.

Vladimir Makarenko -> GreatMountainEagle 10 May 2015 10:22

Hm all complaints please to greedy sharks which draw the Versaille treaty. As those with brains can see the WWII started the moment it was signed.

Metronome151 -> Popeyes 10 May 2015 10:22

Indeed it is a win win situation for China at Russia's expense.

Botswana61 -> BeatonTheDonis 10 May 2015 10:21

[stalin]"took the Soviet Union from a devastated agrarian economy to an industrial power that defeated Nazi Germany and was able to compete with the USA and Western Europe."

Soviet Union has never been able to compete economically, industrially with the Western Europe, let alone the U$A.

It collapsed not only because it had an insane political system, but also because it had a lunatic economic system which could not produce any quality products (especially consumer goods) for its populace.

Btw. Putinesque Russia still cannot.

[have you seen any Russian 4G cell phones, laptops, tablets, supercomputers, video cameras, HDTV large screens, modern-wide-body passenger planes or even attractive passenger cars sold anywhere in the world?]

alpamysh -> FraidyMan 10 May 2015 10:18

I think that Merkel's actions, as usual, have been the best.

Boycotting the military parade sends a clear message.

And a German chancellor honouring fallen Russians the next day sends one just as powerful...

Popeyes 10 May 2015 10:17

I hope the Russia/China agreements and the pacts they have made between themselves work out and just maybe the U.S. will climb back into its box. The alliance between Russia/China is Washington's worst nightmare. Russia with the world's largest land mass, richest natural resources and it would seem the most advanced technology together with China who has the world's largest population, and the largest producer and exporter of manufactured goods.


bailliegillies ID5868758 10 May 2015 10:15

We haven't and are fully aware of its consequences. Chamberlain's problem was that Britain was not yet ready to face the might of an emerging Germany. Home Chain was nowhere near ready, nor was Fighter Command, it had plenty of Hurricanes but the Spitfire squadrons were still being formed as was the integrated defence system that the RAF relied on in 1940. Chamberlain and others in government knew that when the war came the main threat that Britain was going to face was from the air. Chamberlain bought the country the time needed to prepare. All the same Munich is not something the country is proud off.

MyFriendWillPay -> sztubacki 10 May 2015 10:14

Murdering their own people when they should be killing other people?

Here is a more human ideal, currently practiced by "you know who"!

* Get agents provocateur to let off a few bombs to create civilian casualties.

* Pin the blame on people you want to get rid of.

* Apply to UN for no-fly zone to protect the civilians.

* Bomb the shit out of anything that moves anywhere in the country.

* Fly in local exiles from US with geologists and lawyers to secure mineral rights

* Conclude regime change

* Escape ensuing chaos to plan next regime change.

* Have your President nominated for Nobel Peace Prize!

Botswana61 -> ijustwant2say 10 May 2015 10:14

One huge difference between UK and RF.

UK has reconciled itself to the loss of the (huge) British Empire after WWII;
never looked back, but moved forward, today being more successul economically than many other EU member states.

[Modern Turkey has also reconciled itself to the loss of its huge Ottoman Empire]

But Russia has not. It still dwells in the past, relieves its past 'glories' and yearns for return of times when everybody feared it.

While still unable to transform itself into a modern, democratic, prosperous country which could have a meaningful, successful future.


Vladimir Makarenko -> dyst1111 10 May 2015 10:12

Hm, what is then the point of NATO expansion in the time when Russia was making drastic reduction in its weapons and army size?

Ukraine coup d'etat? Or should it be called what it is - a highway robbery of Russia's most important trade market?

Well, Russians successfully made it a EU disaster.

As to new generations of weapons - Russians do feel better, they know that for sure Western Europe or whoever will not repeat the 1941 mistake.

kraljevic -> MiltonWiltmellow 10 May 2015 10:10

The Russian power elites are no more pernicious than the American ones. The supposed anti-red, anti-commie Republicans are now the most vocal defenders of Big Commie himself Lenin's perverse internal borders. Lenin arrived at those borders not through democratic legitimacy but through the "blood" of millions of Russian patriots who wanted to preserve the unity of their nation and fought against his monstrous tyranny.

Although supposedly ideological enemies the likes of Breedlove and McCain on one side and Lenin and Trotsky on the other are in perfect harmony when it comes to rigging borders so that the Russian people come away with as little as possible and become the big losers!

The sudden devotion of the American right wing establishment to Lenin's "unitary" Ukraine is motivated purely by the anti-Russian nature of the new Government in Kiev and the damage and shelling and killing it can inflict on the pro-Russian population in the east!

MyFriendWillPay -> MahsaKaerra 10 May 2015 10:07

"A series of UN mandates that Russia deemed so threatening that they either voted in favor of the military interventions or didn't bother to express an opinion one way or the other. For all the US's military actions there have been zero Russian vetoes."

That's because the Yanks are so disingenuous;

* Get agents provocateur to let off a few bombs to create civilian casualties.
* Pin the blame on people you want to get rid of.
* Apply to UN for no-fly zone to protect the civilians.
* Bomb the shit out of anything that moves anywhere in the country.
* Fly in local exiles from US with geologists and lawyers to secure mineral rights
* Conclude regime change
* Escape ensuing chaos to plan next regime change.
* Have your President nominated for Nobel Peace Prize!

Abiesalba -> sztubacki 10 May 2015 10:04

It was estimated about half a million of American soldiers casualties to conquer Japan.

The Soviet Union lost about 10 million soldiers and 15 million civilians.

About 1.6 million German soldiers were killed in WWII, of which 1.1 million in the Eastern (Soviet) front. So out of 10 dead German soldiers, 7 died fighting the Red Army.

In Europe, 9 in 10 Jews were killed.

In Poland, 1 in 5 people were killed, many civilians.

In my country Slovenia, 1 in 10 were killed, many civilians. And about 10% is among the highest national death rates in WWII.

With all due respect to the US, the US role is not even remotely comparable to the sacrifice in the Soviet Union. The Red Army was by far the decisive power in defeating Nazi Germany.

And it is highly hypocritical and disrespectful that the 'west' ignored the celebration of the end of WWII in Europe in Moscow.

Was perhaps the role of the US and the UK in WWII ignored by everybody due to the recent illegal and catastrophic US/UK Iraq invasion? I thought not. There were also no sanctions etc.

Carly435 -> Nat1978 10 May 2015 10:03

Though I'm not a fan of what-aboutism, the horrific scale of German war crimes against Russian POWs has never gained the attention it deserves in the West.

BeatonTheDonis -> alpamysh 10 May 2015 10:00

Luckily for them he is back "on brand" with his latest book, about two-thirds of which is devoted to the Eastern Front, which Beevor believes redresses the balance of previous histories of the Second World War. "Ninety per cent of all Wehrmacht losses were on the Eastern Front. As far as the Germans were concerned, we were a sideshow. But each country sees the war from its own perspective and memories."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11093344/Antony-Beevor-I-deserved-to-fail-history.-I-was-bolshie....html

WayneB1 10 May 2015 09:53

Unfortunately the West (i.e., the America and its key European allies) refuse to recognise the realities as far as the Russians are concerned. it was understood - blatantly - that Russia did not want countries on its doorstep, including Ukraine, made members of NATO. Yet the West and Ukraine itself persist.

As for WWII. It is callous for the everyman Russian to hear that the country's then leaders - by initially siding with the Nazis and also annihilating their own people - were accountable for so many of the losses they suffered. But regardless of any and all of this, the West should have attended this commemoration in full force. Sanctions, snubbings and petty political manoeuvring is not the way to move forward. The West screwed up royally with Ukraine (and Crimea) and should accept and amend the fact that it is an insensitive behemoth guilty of the utmost arrogance and pushing for the 'unipolar world' suggested by Mr. Putin.

The only thing that will change this is Russia (and other nations) pushing back. Indeed, with the likes of Russia and China establishing relations with South America, it will only be a matter of time that America might find itself the the 'enemy' at its doorsteps.

sodtheproles -> Vijay Raghavan 10 May 2015 09:47

How dare you!? How dare you dishonour and disfigure the memory of British and American exploitation of colonised peoples, and, above all, on a day like this!? Don't you realise how lucky they were to be given the chance of dying for democracy, a chance which was simply not open to them in their home countries!? How the very dare you, Mr Raghavan!?

Eugene Weixel -> Roguing 10 May 2015 09:51

Had Neville Chamberlain and company not given Czechoslovakia to Hitler and nudged him eastward there would have been no pact between the USSR and Hitler. This pact was a response to the Dr facto Hitler Chamberlain accord.

kraljevic -> dyst1111 10 May 2015 09:50

Since the majority of the Balkan peoples are eagerly allowing their territories to be used as forward bases for NATO and American attempts to contain and encircle Russia I wouldn't have wasted a single Russian bullet freeing them from Nazi rule! Many of them schemed with Hitler and took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union with great enthusiasm!They are definitely no angels and since most of them were hostile to the Russian presence and the Americans wouldn't have been in any great hurry to free them if it meant costing them lives there was little reason for the Russians to come to their rescue!

MyFriendWillPay -> Rudeboy1 10 May 2015 09:43

If you unscrambled your comment, it would be more readable but just as wrong.

When the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union (SU) on 22 June 1941, three million German soldiers and almost 700,000 allies of Nazi Germany crossed the border, and their equipment consisted of 600,000 motor vehicles, 3,648 tanks, more than 2.700 planes, and just over 7,000 pieces of artillery.[

The Nazis expected their blitzkrieg to bring total collapse of the SU within two months, and British Intelligence assessed the timescale as 8 - 10 weeks.

However, events unfoulded rather differently as, within the first 3 4 weeks of the campaign, Admiral Canaris, head of German Military Intelligence, confided to a German general on the easter front, that everything about the campaign now looked "black". Even Goebells at that time wrote entries in his diary about how bad German progress was in the first month.

By mid October 1941 - six weeks after the scheduled Nazi victory over the SU - various agencies, from the Swiss Secret Service to the Vatican, predicted that the Nazis would lose the war.

By the start of December 1941, when the Germans ground to a halt just 20 miles from the Kremlin - exhausted, frozen and with over-extended supply lines - the Soviets prepared to strike. Their offensive began on 5 December and it pushed the Nazis back 60 - 170 miles, whereupon Hitler postponed the assault on Moscow until Spring 1942. Significantly, the success of this Soviet offensive prompted the German Armaments Minister to suggest to Hitler that a negotiated peace might be sought. Hitler was not prepared to negotiate, although his inner circle and Hitler himself, evidently realized that the war was lost.

The Nazis fought on, hoping to seize the oilfields in the southeast, but this dream ended with the surrender of their army at Stalingrad in early 1942 and the long retreat to Berlin. During the retreat, a new dream emerged as the Nazis hoped to make peace with the western allies, and then turn their combined forceas against the Soviets. However, that was not to be, and the war ended in berlin on 9 May 1945.

In summary, the Soviets were always going to win this war after Operation Barbarossa failed to crush them during the Summer of 1941. The Nazis had failed to seize Soviet materiel - from food to oil - and, unlike the Soviets, they were not able to go on replacing casualties with high quality manpower. Also, importantly, the Soviets were not merely fighting for freedom as their western allies were doing, they were fighting for their very survival as a people, hence their monumental sacrifices.

The die for the outcome of this war was cast before the first shipments of material support to the Soviets, welcome as they were, and almost three years before the Normandy landings. But the cost to the SU was enormous: vast destruction of infrastructure, and the loss of fighters and civilians killed at 30 times higher than the combined losses of the British Empire and the United States!

That is why the western WW2 allies' boycott of the Memorial Parade was churlish.

Eugene Weixel -> Abiesalba 10 May 2015 09:43

UZ troops had their way with destitute women in Germany and Italy the price of a candy bar for years.

Abiesalba -> Carly435 10 May 2015 09:40

Russians and Russian history textbooks gloss over what was at stake in WWII. For them, it's all about defeating an enemy

Americans and Britons completely fail to understand the difference between having the territory of your own nation occupied and sending soldiers and/or planes to fight in another country.

Having the enemy on your doorstep in terrible. And having Nazi-fascists on your doorstep was much worse in Slavic countries than in the occupied western European nations, becuase Hitler, Mussolini and allies waged ethnic cleansing of 'inferior' Slavs. On the other hand, the Aryan people of the occupied western Europe were spared this horror.

I am from Slovenia, which was brutally occupied in WWII by Germany, Italy and Hungary. For two decades before WWII, Italian fascists pursued ethnic cleansing in western Slovene territory. This ethnic cleansing only intensified in WWII.

For Slovenes, WWII meant having to choose between fear and courage every day.

We had a very strong resistance movement, including the guarilla partisan fighters.

But members of the resistance knew how brutal the revenge of the occupiers against their families and Slovenes can be. When the father joined the partisans, the mother and the children had to go underground. The occupiers frequently shout 10 civilian hostages for every of their soldiers killed by the resistance. They burnt down whole villages on suspicion that they support the partisans. Oh, and the use of the Slovene language was prohibited. And Slovenes were tortured, sent to concentration camps etc.

In fact, our strong resistance drove the occupiers crazy. Italians encircled the capital of Slovenia, Ljublana, with 35 km of barbed wire and bunkers, hoping that they will defeat the resistance. In essence, they converted Ljubljana to the largest concentration camp in Europe. But people still strongly fought back, including the increasingly strong partisan units.

The people of the Soviet Union faced a similar dilemma. They fought incredibly heroically for every inch of their homeland. In fact, they largely defeated Nazi Germany themselves. The Eastern Front was the largest military combat in history.

And while the people of the Soviet Union, Slovenia and other occupied nations fought for their very existence, it seems to me, with all due respect, that the resistance in the occupied western countries was very weak, and often their regimes in effect sided with Germany.

Now, what would you do if you had the enemy on your doorstep? Would you chose fear or courage?

It is a tough personal choice and a tough decision for a nation. But under such circumstances, the true spirit of the nation shines through.

freedomcry -> lizgiag 10 May 2015 09:39

The anti-Russian feelings you encounter are really the product of decades of anti-Soviet propaganda.

It's much older than that, I'm afraid. Anti-Soviet propaganda was a continuation of an already well-established prejudice against Russians. And the sad thing is, notwithstanding the West's present obsession with fighting stereotypes and hate speech, many a Westerner nowadays would read Rudyard Kipling's ridiculous The Man Who Was and find it entirely convincing because those are the exact same cardboard Russians with horns and tails that their media and Hollywood keep showing them.

Laudig 10 May 2015 09:38

Compare the situation in the Crimea and the situation in Hawaii. The vote was held promptly in Crimea. 3 or 4 generations later in Hawaii. The USG has no moral standing to complain. It is an empire that needs to collapse so the country can exist.

Vijay Raghavan 10 May 2015 09:38

I think the President of Russia & President of China being very powerful should ask the exceptional president of America to pay pension dues for war veterans of second world war.They should take this matter up in security council & discuss this promptly.If the British & Americans claim that their values are exceptional then how come they have not paid the pensions for millions of war veterans for 70 years.

I think the exceptional president should ask his federal printing press to print a little more dollars & send it to all countries who have been paying pensions on their behalf.

BBC can do like this instead of wasting their time on silly documentaries they should produce documentaries on their war veterans & ask the moral question are they responsible for paying war veterans pensions or not.

lizgiag -> MiltonWiltmellow 10 May 2015 09:37

Great rant! But if you take a look at any country's history you will find the same - Britain, Spain, France, Germany - bloody wars instigated everywhere all for the glory of empire & resources.

Now its the turn of the EU & USA - these empires are re-branded, they no longer call themselves empires, but the outcome is the same - a geo-political land & resource grab!

Be in NO DOUBT the populace comes way down on the list of concerns - look at what is happening the world over, the middle east is in a mess because of the involvement of the West recently but also for decades past.

Do not be fooled, the New American Century is upon us...google it!


freedomcry -> Botswana61 10 May 2015 09:25

And it probably originates with Nazi propaganda about the advancing barbarous subhuman Russian hordes.

This is not to be taken as a denial that the Red Army committed any rapes at all. Rather, I'm pointing to the fact that mass rapes are just the sort of thing that specifically Russian soldiers were likely to be accused of, whether they did it or not. And the core of that prejudice still survives more or less intact.

Vijay Raghavan -> GreatMountainEagle 10 May 2015 09:16

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/World-War-II-pensioners-get-pittance-from-government/articleshow/4741980.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/World-War-II-veterans-get-only-Rs-1000-pension/articleshow/19923091.cms

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/102212/govt-directed-reconsider-pension-world.html

Those who fought for the British only got a middle finger.BBC has been so callous it does not even put in a word to British government to reimburse pension for those who fought for them.....that has been their attitude.

The total number of people for whom the British government has not paid pension is 1.5MM people for their 2nd world war.Indian governemnt had to pay their pensions & they have been paying with all courts saying it is India's responsibility.The cost per year would be 1.Billion for 60 years we had paid 60Billion dollars that is just your world war 2....add another 30 Billion for your world war 1.I think the Guardian and BBC should write a article about that and ensure British Government promptly repays back 100Billion dollars to India.If we add up Nepal that will also be huge claim on British government.

We can do a deal like this you can pay 50% for our schools & another 50% for the roads & hospitals.or May be you can give a interest free loan to Nepal for 100 billion against pension amount payable to India as they need that money badly for fixing their country after earth quake.

Standupwoman -> MentalToo 10 May 2015 09:15

'Rapes committed by western allies ground troops against German civilians are not, for the very good reason nothing like that happened.'

That is not true. There is considerable evidence to suggest the majority of rapes were committed by the Red Army (whose own civilian population had suffered in a way ours never had) but the other Allies were guilty of a lot of it too - one estimate quoting a figure of 11,040 for the Americans alone. Don't forget the Australian journalist who accompanied the American army and claimed:

I know for a fact that many women were raped by white Americans. No action was taken against the culprits. In one sector a report went round that a certain very distinguished army commander made the wisecrack, 'Copulation without conversation does not constitute fraternisation'.

Rape is always wrong, and even if the Red Army had considerably more provocation than we did, that still doesn't excuse them. But neither does it give us the right to lie about them, or about our own share in the atrocities. Can't we at least show some integrity about that?

BeatonTheDonis -> ijustwant2say 10 May 2015 09:14

The history on Churchill's role in the Bengal Famine and Allied torture and murder of German and Japanese POWs is quite recent, so you must be pretty young if you covered it at school.

You haven't provided any evidence for Putin's revisionism affecting Russian schools. From what Putin has said, it seems he acknowledges Stalin's crimes but places them in the context of the challenges Stalin faced and he compares Stalin to other historical figures whose crimes against humanity haven't seen them completely written off as monsters - Oliver Cromwell, for example.

Stalin was a murderer who terrified his populace into submission. But he was also in power for 30 years and took the Soviet Union from a devastated agrarian economy to an industrial power that defeated Nazi Germany and was able to compete with the USA and Western Europe. Life expectancy in the USSR when he died had increased to 63 for men and 69 for women.

After the fall of the USSR, life expectancy for men fell to under 60 - that is the context which sees Putin lauded by many Russians.

Tattyana -> Carly435 10 May 2015 09:13

It is easy. We can not find any single point your ideology is ever better.

You insist our media keep to lie? You think so because YOUR media told you so? I can read both - yours and ours. I can read Ukrainian as well. And I can compare. Can you?

I can continue, but unlike you I do aware, there are some bad pages in history of every country or people. And I never start to talk with any of Germany people from the point "Do you remember that Hitler killed millions of Russians?"

Though here is much more truth than in your points which should blow hatred to Russians.

Abiesalba -> Barkywoof 10 May 2015 09:10

Was nothing learned from that awful war ?

Unfortunatelly, not much. Except that it is now not politically correct in western Europe to specifically target the Jews.

However, it is very popular to specifically target the horrible 'Eastern and Central European' immigrants. The term 'Eastern and Central European' immigrants predominantly means the Slavs.

According to the Nazi ideology, Slavs were at the very bottom of the race hierarchy, below the Jews. And oppression of 'inferior' Slavs by the 'Aryan' race has more than a thousand years of history. Hitler planned a genocide of Slaves, and the Nazis killed many millions of Slavs due to their 'inferior' ethnicity.

I find it very disturbing that in the 21st century in nations which Hilter declared to be the Aryan superior race, targeting the Slavs is acceptable. Take Wilders in the Netherlands or Farage in the UK, or neo-Nazis in Austria and neo-fascists in Italy, etc.

moongibbon Carly435 10 May 2015 09:09

This is the spectacle presented in the Western media and it's not representative of Russians at all, for whom today is about remembering those who died in WWII to save their country from destruction.

Lafcadio1944 10 May 2015 09:08

The Guardian's "coverage" of Russia is pathetic. Anyone could have written this article far from Moscow by just watching TV. It is really disgraceful propagandist "reporting" just throw up some insult and scary warning about evil Putin/Russia and go home - well done.

There are huge - some even positive - things going on in Russia, China and India which count for a huge % of the global population and China is the 2nd largest economy and has launched one of the biggest global trade initiatives of modern times yet not a word about it.

The Guardian just regurgitates propaganda about these nations written by the CIA or US State Department it has no reporters in these places and just ignores any positive developments. Thu leaving its readers fearful of the "mysterious" East - purposely.

Dimmus -> Isanybodyouthere 10 May 2015 09:06

"like claims to Russian speaking populations being endangered " - everything depends on the point of view of course. Even when pro-Russian people in Ukraine were burned alive they were not endangered from the point of view of anti-Russian nationalists.

When many russian journalists were killed in Ukraine - it is not much mentioned, it is not interesting.

When one US journalist killed somewhere - country is bombed and all the media for long time are full of discussions and moaning.

When pro-Russian people (Ossetians) in Georgia were bombed by heavy artillery by order of Georgian president it was not endangering of those people because the president was a US-friendly president.

And there are many more examples of western nationalizm. Just believe, that there are many people around the world who are really feel endangered by nationalists, including western nationalism.

Eugene Weixel -> raffine 10 May 2015 09:06

Had the West not awarded Czechoslovakia to Hitler and nudged him eastward three never would have been that pact, and many fewer on all sides would have suffered and died.

teurin_hgada -> GreatMountainEagle 10 May 2015 09:05

Rotenberg is jew. TimchenKO is ukrainian. Those evil nazi russians!!

teurin_hgada -> Metronome151 10 May 2015 09:03

Poland invaded Russia somedays before that. That was revenge. 'Who will come with us with a sword will dye from a sword' very old russian proverb. Chingiskhan, Napoleon, and Hitler knew that. Obobo still dont know

kraljevic -> sztubacki 10 May 2015 09:02

Facts speak for themselves Russia emerged the victor in WW2 but its an irony that if anyone sticks up for the Russians they are accused of being a fascist!Many eastern European nations especially western leaning ones look down on Russians as oriental savages and there's no doubt many of them hated their Russian liberators more than they did the Germans even though the latter treated them like scum! That's why the Russians should have stopped when they liberated their own territories and let the Eastern Europeans stew in their in their own juices and liberate themselves.Why should a Russian mother lose her precious son to free a Pole or Czech or Hungarian who hates him with a passion and would stab him in the back first chance he got!

freedomcry nobblehobble 10 May 2015 08:58

Like I said: Russian neo-Nazis exist. Your links tell a lot about the level of attention they get from Western media (who happily follow the old trope of "take an issue that's hot in the West and make it look like it's much worse in Russia" - never fails to sell well) than about the actual scale of the problem. Did you even know Tesak is in jail now? Or that Belov (if you even know who that is) is under house arrest?

Do you know what phrase famously, and ridiculously, landed Konstantin Krylov a conviction for hate speech in 2013? Did you know last year's Russian March was pro-Ukrainian? No? Then leave me alone.

No; apologise for the paid troll libel, then leave me alone.

Eugene Weixel -> bumcyk 10 May 2015 08:51

Russia is being demonized and confronted by the West as though it was the USSR. It is in Russia and some former Soviet republics that the victory over Nazism is unambiguously seen as something positive.

Barkywoof 10 May 2015 08:58

There are a bunch of psychos always at the ready on all sides if allowed to take the reins. The Russians did terrible things. The Nazis did terrible things. Then the USA killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese women and children with a new and horrifying weapon.

I don't think it's a case of 'We Are Good... They are Bad.'
Was nothing learned from that awful war ?

teurin_hgada -> Roguing 10 May 2015 08:58

Half of Europr and Japan were Hitler allies. Ask them. And USSR just signed pact of no attack with Hitler. It is not the same that to be allies

sodtheproles -> Isanybodyouthere 10 May 2015 08:57

So what should be done when Russian speaking populations who see themselves as Russian are 'endangered', and that's 'endangered' in the sense of raped, bludgeoned, shot, beaten and burnt to death 'endangered'

Eugene Weixel -> nonanon1 10 May 2015 08:56

Good enough reason as Putin underlines the fact that his name is not Manuel Noriega.

sodtheproles -> ID5868758 10 May 2015 08:53

It's Shaun of all credibility journalism

Eugene Weixel -> Koppen616 10 May 2015 08:53

A necessary show of force, determination and support by the world's largest nation's, and many others as well.

Vladimir Makarenko -> ChristineH 10 May 2015 08:51

Hm, "dinosaur era" is marked by destroying countries by choice and then walking away cursing "f*ck, it is again didn't work..."

Military parade commemorating staggering sacrifice is internal matter of Russia and for Russia, outsiders are welcome to watch and think twice.

oAEONo -> Nolens 10 May 2015 08:50

What "well documented fact" are you talking about, can you please give me a link?

Books by Noam Chomsky would provide you with a huge amount of carefully documented facts. Some are even mentioned on this thread alone. That you missed them up until now simply beggars belief. Makes me wonder if you are interested in facts at all.

SHappens 10 May 2015 08:50

"We have seen attempts to create a unipolar world, and we see how forced bloc thinking is becoming more common."

Because of the attitude of the United States, but also because of the cowardice of European leaders, this May 9, 2015 has confirmed the division of the world in two. It symbolizes the opposition of an "old world", the Atlantic Basin and this new world emerging around Asia, which constantly attracts to itself new countries.

During his speech in Munich in 2007, Putin talked about a multipolar world. Because even the most powerful and richest country cannot alone ensure the stability of the world. The US project exceeds the US forces. But instead of listening, since this speech there was an acceleration of the US demonization of Putin.

It is important to break this dynamic of the political blocs to return towards a dynamic of a multipolar world. Beyond the shame and anger we feel for the attitude of the western leaders, beyond the disgust we feel for the insult not only to the Russian people but also to Chinese and Indian people, as well as to all others who came to Moscow on 9 May, we must realize that by calculation or cowardice, Western leaders, by abdicating their natural role, are helping to plunge the world towards a future of wars and conflicts.

It is a mistake- as we know from Talleyrand - the policy mistakes are worse than crimes.

Standupwoman , 10 May 2015 08:47
Are YOU remembering the massacre of Poles at Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by Ukraine's own newly celebrated UPA? Where estimates of the dead vary between 60,000 and 100,000?

Russia has at least admitted Soviet responsibility for the Katyn massacre - and officially condemned Stalin for it. Ukraine, on the other hand, has just declared Roman Shukhevych a Hero, and prohibited 'disrespect' for the UPA.

No country should be denied honour for genuinely heroic deeds, no matter what else it's done. As long as that country also admits and is sorry for its crimes, then it is also worthy our respect. Unlike Ukraine under its current regime, Russia merits

Michael A -> sztubacki 10 May 2015 08:46

Thank you for sharing MIKHAIL SHISHKIN's honest, candid and insightful words. I share his morality. He is correct in his assumptions and conclusions and he mirrors my felling about the hypocrisy that has shaped too much of my American lifetime.

The shame of the disintegration of relations between our two spheres is not the goals sought but the myopic way both sides have gone about achieving them.

Unfortunately the old American saw that our children grow up with, "it matters not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game", is almost inevitably and totally reversed in adulthood to, "it matters whether you win or lose, not how you played the game". The idealism and honesty of youth is replaced with greed and shortsightedness as age creeps in.

I thank the Russian people for the horrible sacrifices they made on behalf of victory over fascism. I also thank my American, British, French, etc, etc brothers and sisters for the their sacrifice. Sacrifice is to be commended not by degree but by intent. Thank you all.

Goodthanx -> Metronome151 10 May 2015 08:42

The number of Poles who died due to Soviet repressions in the period 1939-1941 is estimated as at least 150,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939%E2%80%9346)

Ukrainian nationalists[edit]
Main article: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia
Ukrainian nationalists organized massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia during which (according to Grzegorz Motyka) approximately 80,000-100,000 Poles were killed.[5]

An OUN order from early 1944 stated: "Liquidate all Polish traces. Destroy all walls in the Catholic Church and other Polish prayer houses. Destroy orchards and trees in the courtyards so that there will be no trace that someone lived there... Pay attention to the fact that when something remains that is Polish, then the Poles will have pretensions to our land"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Poles_from_the_USSR

And these are now your friends???
says a lot.

MiltonWiltmellow kraljevic 10 May 2015 08:41

Its a sad reflection of today's selfish blinkered and short sighted world that the usual Russophobes and closet Nazis are given so much space and airtime to spread their pernicious ideology which consists of almost exclusively denigrating everything Russian.

Where are the thundering armies of the Tsar trampling the upstart Napoleon at Borodino?

Where are the Tsar's great Cossacks rousting quiet villages to pay the Tsar's new taxes during the Balybostock Pogram (1906) while terrified Russians fled into the night, onto the steppes, into the ocean...

And, as I'm a bit of an ettymologitst, where did the term "pogram" actually originate.

Where are the murderers of the Tsar's family whose blood spattered the cellar of a small estate? Who was Pavel Medevedev?

There's one Russian truth. Not this glorious past upon which Putin attempts to rebuild a lost and imperious empire, but a series of killings in the night of the Russian people by those waving saber and lance against defenseless people.

Exhortations like this this belong in the history books of Germany, Imperial Russia, and many of the religiously motivated wars that has turned Europe's soil a deep, rich crimson from which has arisen -- like a virginal saint roused from slumber-- as kingmakers and various petty tyrants lick their bloody wolf lips.

Nobility in war is about as common women and children left unmoslested by maurading troops.

Go badk to your Tolstoy ... or is it your pastiche writer Sholokov? ... to find your vanished glory, because there's little glory in Russian History. It's mostly a history of endurance and suffering.

Says Kasparov:

Arguably the world's best chess player ever, Garry Kasparov is on a new mission. He hopes to convince the world that the biggest threat to global unrest is not the Islamic State, al-Qaida or North Korea. Instead it is Vladimir Putin, Russia's president from 2000 to 2008 and then again from 2012 to today. [http://news.yahoo.com/bianna-golodryga-interviews-garry-kasparov-093317385.html]

mrkhawaja1944 -> Roguing 10 May 2015 08:41

Ask the Russians they will give you better answer but I am not talking about invaders Russians or no Russians but do you know any country invaded America I know of one and they are very good friends now but give you list of countries invaded and occupied by America and Europe I do not think you can name any country in present days world not invaded by so called western powers.

But I was taking about Russian who died in millions defending the country not invading other countries.

Vladimir Makarenko -> Debreceni 10 May 2015 08:36

Let's make some sorting of apples from oranges: not "Ukrainians" but Western Ukrainians or how they called themselves "Galicians". Galicia never was a part of Russia but divided between Hungary and Poland. Its pro independence movement made alliance with German Nazis in the beginning of 30-ties.

When Nazis made a call for SS division "Galicia" more than 100,000 volunteered, 27,000 were admitted. Their training was in first turn anti guerilla actions. Their fate was sealed during three days battle of Brody with regular experienced Soviet troops which without particular difficulty eliminated this bunch wannabe warriors. The remnants (about 7,000) escaped and ended up in Italy and after war across the pond, mostly to Canada. (Hence Canada attitude to Russia today).

This explains why there will be no peace between Donbass and Eastern Ukraine (which was a center of resistance then as it is today) and pro Galician (today) Kiev.

itsanevolvething 10 May 2015 08:36

A serious lack of respect and error of judgment by scameron and other western nations to not recognise the sacrifice of the Red Army in WW2 and send representation to this event. There is zero wisdom out there right now..just battle lines being drawn up.

nnedjo -> Omniscience 10 May 2015 08:33

Not sure, hope that wouldn't clash with the Victory over Czechoslovakia celebrations.

Czech President Milos Zeman met with Putin yesterday and, among other things, said the following:
President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman (in Russian):

Thank you, Mr President.

You know, politics are like the weather: it cools off and then it gets warmer. A person is happy when it warms up after a cool-down. This is one thing.

The other is that I have stated several times in public that I am here primarily to pay tribute not only to those soldiers who died on the territory of the Czech Republic, but to all the 20, or some say 27 million Soviet citizens, both soldiers and civilians, who died during the Great Patriotic War. This was the first purpose of my visit.

Abiesalba -> J00l3z 10 May 2015 08:32

He would do as well to remember that Stalin consigned a great number of the returning servicemen who had seen the west to death in Gulags. And that Russia exterminated more of her own people than Hitler did in concentration camps. Shmoozing despots says a lot about the nasty party !

The UK and all other imperial powers would do well to remember how many countries they forcefully occupied and then ruthlessly exploited their hunam and natural resources for centuries, including slavery. The UK and others had colonies well after WWII.

How many dead people from the activities of these most glorious empires based on Nazi-like ideologies of the 'superior' nation vs the 'inferior' nation?

And did these most democratic western powers ever pay reparations to their former colonies for the huge damage they have caused?

johhnybgood 10 May 2015 08:29

In the US the population knows nothing about the Russian involvement in the war.

Even in Europe only 13% of the population know the real story. This of course is because the history has been rewritten. If you watched the ceremony in Moscow, you realised just how deep feelings still run throughout the whole population. Few families escaped without loss.

This is why the West is playing with fire through its NATO encroachment provocation. The West's foreign policy regarding Russia is totally self defeating. Only the politicians are responsible -- the general populations have no desire for war with Russia - quite the reverse, Russia and China represent the future of global trade.

mrkhawaja1944 10 May 2015 08:18

Shameful act of revenge by western leaders not people by not attending ceremony in Russia as if their dead were better then Russians who lost millions.

They did not attend just because they do not like one man happened to be president making excuse of Ukrainian problem but who started it paid demonstrators by CIA known fact like the Arab spring where no flowers bur rubbles pile up in middle east spread to Europe thanks to American freedom loving policies.

Russians who died in millions deserver to be remembered with respect like the one in western countries who's leaders absence is disgraceful act.

Abiesalba -> HHeLiBe 10 May 2015 08:12

Sad that the hallmarks of expansionism and extreme nationalism are now most evident in Russia.

How about the illegal US/UK Iraq invasion?

How about the US relationships with its neighbours? A Berlin Wall along its border with Mexico. Decades of embarge against their neighbour Cuba. Cuba is, however, good enough for the US to have its Guantanamo concentration camp there. Oh, and how about racism in the US, and the status of the native Indians.

The UK financially supported the rise to power of Mussolini and his fascists in Italy who pursued brutal policies of ethnic cleansing of 'inferior' races long before Hitler rose to power in Germany. After WWII, the UK prevented extradition of 1,200 Italian fascists accused of war crimes to Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia. These war criminals were never put to trial, and the UK kept supporting Italian pro-fascist politicians after WWII. The general acceptance of Italian fascism in the UK was also reflected in the English football team Sunderland appointing the Italian extreme Mussolini fan and self-declared fascist Paolo Di Canio as the manager in 2013.

Meanwhile, Italy keeps denying its WWII atrocities and neo-fascism is very alive. Every year, in Italy people march to celebrate the anniversary of Mussolini's march on Rome, which led to Mussolini's fascist regime taking the power in Italy (video of the march in 2014 here.) The most democratic 'western' states do not protest about it and the western media just avoid this scandal.

And there is much more. For example, in February 2015 (three months ago), the Italian GOVERNMENT (!) gave medals of honour to 300 Mussolini's fascists, including 6 accused of war crimes.

And neo-Nazism is alive and well also in Austria. Surely the EU members demanded in 2002 that neo-Nazi Jörg Haider is expelled from the Austrian government. But after that happened, nobody cared about the fact that Haider went on to be the elected (!) governor of the Carinthia region of Austria until 2008 (he was not voted out; he died in a reckless car crash) where he pursued apartheid-like policies against the Slovene minority in Carinthia. Slovenes are Slavs, and according to Nazi and fascist ideology they are an 'inferior' race and should be eradicated. The Slovene minorities in Austria and Italy keep being oppressed and attacked by neo-fascists and neo-Nazis, often also via the attitudes of the Italian and the Austrian governments.

Germany is the only Nazi-fascist country which fully admitted its war atrocities and apologized for them. Germany is now at least very watchful about neo-Nazis, and is trying to crack down on groups with neo-Nazi and similar ideologies. Even so, neo-Nazism is rising its ugly head also in Germany.

Many other European states keep denying their involvement in Nazism and fascism. In these states (e.g. Austria, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, the Netherlands etc. etc.), the state of denial enables Nazi and fascist ideologies to thrive. In Hungary, the neo-fascist Jobbik party won 17% of the votes in the 2010 elections and 20% in 2014. In Slovakia, a neo-Nazi won regional elections in 2013. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' party is the third largest in the parliament. In the UK, UKIP just got 13% of the votes and is the third largest party by the number of votes.

Besides, all western European states (including the UK) are collectively in denial about their centuries-long support of Nazi-like ideologies. The imperialistic Nazi-like ideology of 'superior' vs 'inferior' nations/races fuelled centuries of forceful occupation, oppression and exploitation of human and natural resources (including slavery) of many 'inferior' nations around the world.

Across western Europe, there is rising discrimination against 'Eastern and Central European' immigrants. These unwanted immigrants are largely Slavs. The specific targeting of 'inferior' Slavs has a long history in Europe (over a thousand years) and was also reflected in Hitler's hierarchy of races, where the Slavs were at the very bottom of under-humans (below the Jews). Hitler had plans for extensive genocide of Slavs, and Nazis killed many millions of them (e.g. Poles, Ukarinians).

In this historical context, I find the specific targeting of 'inferior' Slavs by various xenophobic groups in western Europe rather disturbing. This is nothing but re-painted Nazi-fascist ideology. Notably, such ideology thrives in particular in nations which Hitler declared to be the superior race = Herrenvolk = Aryan race: Germans, British, Irish, Dutch, Northern French, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes etc.

It seems to me that it would not be acceptable in modern Europe to specifically target the Jews. On the other hand, it is very acceptable to specifically target the Slavs.

Rudeboy1 -> Batleymuslim 10 May 2015 08:11

The first rule of war is logistics, logistics , logistics...in that order.

I don't underestmate the Russians, far from it. It's a realistic view on their real capabilities and re-equipment in recent years. They're running to stay still at present. They have block obsolescence on the horizon for most of their kit and can't afford to replace it at the required levels. The Russian Navy is a case in point, their latest SSN was actually laid down 15 years ago and has yet to enter service. For surface ships they're done for as they either don't have the skills or they no longer have powerplants for them (their marine GT's were all built in the Ukraine).

The recent excitement over their new armour was a tad over the top. Have a look at them. The Kurganets? Is it as good as a German Puma? Bumerang? Is it really as good as a German Boxer? The Armata is an attempt to try and close the gap to western designs, but it's 25+ years too late. They'll never manage to build 2000 of them, they don't have the funds or the production capabilities.

The point about the F22 and F35 is still valid. I'm not counting the F35's as they're yet to hit IOC. The West has done all this in an era of declining military spending, with next to no effort.

In contract the Russians are spending increasing proportions on defence although they have announced some cuts recently). The Russian's simply aren't a military threat, and they know it. The last thing we need is an over-reaction. If the Armata is anything like previous Russian tanks once we get our hands on one we'll find that it was never all that anyway, still it keeps defence spending a little higher I suppose...

nnedjo -> Bradtweeters 10 May 2015 08:05

This is not a commemoration of the war dead. The commemoration of the war dead are being made at monuments to war victims. So, this is a celebration of the victory over fascism, and not any commemoration.

But, anyway, Putin is not a priest, he is a politician, and from politicians are expected on such occasions to give a political message too. Especially, if he complains that there is not enough cooperation in the world. It should be the political agenda of all politicians in the world, and not only of Putin.

lizgiag -> Natalia Volkova 10 May 2015 08:01

Privet Natalia! The anti-Russian feelings you encounter are really the product of decades of anti-Soviet propaganda. For decades there was really nothing positive said about the Soviet Union, years and years of negativity (not just about the system but also the people) meant that it is a deeply rooted feeling which was very easy to resurrect in the past few years.

Whilst this is not new, the more sinister side of this is the re-writing of history, so that the events of World War 2 are re-interpreted to the extent that the Soviet Union is now slowly being seen as the aggressor to fit in with the current narrative for the West's geo-political strategy.

Frustrating as this is, it makes it even more important that Russia's point of view is put forward even if it seems futile.

kraljevic 10 May 2015 07:59

Its a sad reflection of today's selfish blinkered and short sighted world that the usual Russophobes and closet Nazis are given so much space and airtime to spread their pernicious ideology which consists of almost exclusively denigrating everything Russian.

You could almost see some of them them practicing their Heil Hitler salutes in front of the mirror!

But however many of them delude themselves into believing that victory was snatched from their grasp by a set of unlucky circumstances rather than relentless Russian resistance then they will continue to try to kid the world that Russia's victory was a fluke!

The next step is to revive the myth that the SS and their allies stood for humane values and the defence of freedom and European civilization! But none of this relentless drivel will affect the attitude of the majority of people who continue to be inspired by the incredible, unimaginable and superhuman bravery and defiance of the Russian people in a life and death struggle unmatched in the annals of history!

geedeesee -> airman23 10 May 2015 07:46

"Crimea belongs to Ukraine"

Things change, nothing is fixed forever. Scotland may leave the UK. The Declaration of Independence by the Republic of Crimea was in accord with the provisions in the UN Charter.

Standupwoman -> sztubacki 10 May 2015 07:46

I don't actually disagree with you about the leadership. Stalin (a Georgian, as you know) was a murderous tyrant in his own right, and the Russian people suffered as much as any other Soviet country under his rule.

But Victory Day isn't about Stalin, except as a figurehead. It's about the ordinary men and women who fought and died and achieved the most incredible victory the world has ever seen. How could anyone want to take away from that?

dyst1111 -> Manolo Torres 10 May 2015 07:42

"Then we have the Royals that attended Nazi parties and married Nazis and even conspired against Britain with the Nazis."

And what of this? Nothing. They had no power.

Halifax was sidelined because of his attitude and Churchill made PM.

Soviet Union worked with the Nazis AFTER the war had broken out. Worked closely on many levels.

And there is one more aspect - what Britain and France did is regarded today with disdain as cowardly acts. What USSR did is desperately being whitewashed by Russia. So even if they acted more less the same, only Russia thinks it was OK.

John Smith -> Omniscience 10 May 2015 07:33

The US companies had some 500 mln$ investments in German war industries.

Standard Oil, General Motors, General Electric, ITT, Ford...
IG Farben ( Standard Oil) financed Hitler's rise to power.

CaptTroyTempest -> Kaikoura 10 May 2015 07:31

According to Wikileaks, Petro Walzmann (aka Poroschenko) has been in the pockets Washington's pocket since 2006. Probably just a coincidence.

http://scgnews.com/leaked-documents-ukraines-new-president-works-for-the-us-state-department?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

juster 10 May 2015 07:25

Soviets may have won the war but they got pasted in the subsequent PR department.

I've seen interesting public opinion polls in France that immediately after the war showed 80+% people said mostly SU won the war and 60 year on 80+% people said the US played that role.

Because SU was branded the empire of evil and the US the force of good and people bought it ignoring the fact there is precious little difference. And still to this day Obama speaks of say the Vietnam war with praising the american troops for their righteous and good fight for freedom in the jungles. Clearly, he's never seen the Winter Soldier. The one from 1972 with testimonies of veterans that was and is de facto censored in the US for 40 years now, not the Cpt. America one.

Manolo Torres -> Botswana61 10 May 2015 07:24

Are you joking?!

In a new international ranking, the United Kingdom ranks first, while the U.S. performs poorly across almost all health metrics.

According to the world health organization you are second to 36 countries in 2000. Morocco, Singapore and Costa Rica have better healthsystem than you.

teurin_hgada -> AlfredHerring 10 May 2015 07:21

Your democrazy is nukong civilians in Japan after theirs capitulation. To kill Vietnam with WMD. Serbia, Syria, Lybia, Iraq.

Do you know that democracy eas invited in Greece and means slavery. There are citizens in democracy, and there are slaves, which brings prosperity to citizens. We dont want to be slaves of successors of criminals from whole word which made genocide to indeans civilization 300 years ago

Kaiama 10 May 2015 07:21

Read and Enjoy (2/2)

Dear friends,
We welcome today all our foreign guests while expressing a particular gratitude to the representatives of the countries that fought against Nazism and Japanese militarism.
Besides the Russian servicemen, parade units of ten other states will march through the Red Square as well. These include soldiers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Their forefathers fought shoulder to shoulder both at the front and in the rear.
These also include servicemen from China, which, just like the Soviet Union, lost many millions of people in this war. China was also the main front in the fight against militarism in Asia.
Indian soldiers fought courageously against the Nazis as well.
Serbian troops also offered strong and relentless resistance to the fascists.
Throughout the war our country received strong support from Mongolia.
These parade ranks include grandsons and great-grandsons of the war generation. The Victory Day is our common holiday. The Great Patriotic War was in fact the battle for the future of the entire humanity.
Our fathers and grandfathers lived through unbearable sufferings, hardships and losses. They worked till exhaustion, at the limit of human capacity. They fought even unto death. They proved the example of honour and true patriotism.
We pay tribute to all those who fought to the bitter for every street, every house and every frontier of our Motherland. We bow to those who perished in severe battles near Moscow and Stalingrad, at the Kursk Bulge and on the Dnieper.
We bow to those who died from famine and cold in the unconquered Leningrad, to those who were tortured to death in concentration camps, in captivity and under occupation.
We bow in loving memory of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, comrades-in-arms, relatives and friends – all those who never came back from war, all those who are no longer with us.
A minute of silence is announced.

Minute of silence.

Dear veterans,
You are the main heroes of the Great Victory Day. Your feat predestined peace and decent life for many generations. It made it possible for them to create and move forward fearlessly.
And today your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren live up to the highest standards that you set. They work for the sake of their country's present and future. They serve their Fatherland with devotion. They respond to complex challenges of the time with honour. They guarantee the successful development, might and prosperity of our Motherland, our Russia!
Long live the victorious people!
Happy holiday!
Congratulations on the Victory Day!
Hooray!

Kaiama 10 May 2015 07:20

Read and Enjoy... (1/2)

Fellow citizens of Russia,
Dear veterans,
Distinguished guests,
Comrade soldiers and seamen, sergeants and sergeant majors, midshipmen and warrant officers, Comrade officers, generals and admirals,
I congratulate you all on the 70th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War!
Today, when we mark this sacred anniversary, we once again appreciate the enormous scale of Victory over Nazism. We are proud that it was our fathers and grandfathers who succeeded in prevailing over, smashing and destroying that dark force.
Hitler's reckless adventure became a tough lesson for the entire world community. At that time, in the 1930s, the enlightened Europe failed to see the deadly threat in the Nazi ideology.
Today, seventy years later, the history calls again to our wisdom and vigilance. We must not forget that the ideas of racial supremacy and exclusiveness had provoked the bloodiest war ever. The war affected almost 80 percent of the world population. Many European nations were enslaved and occupied.
The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the enemy's attacks. The elite Nazi forces were brought to bear on it. All their military power was concentrated against it. And all major decisive battles of World War II, in terms of military power and equipment involved, had been waged there.
And it is no surprise that it was the Red Army that, by taking Berlin in a crushing attack, hit the final blow to Hitler's Germany finishing the war.
Our entire multi-ethnic nation rose to fight for our Motherland's freedom. Everyone bore the severe burden of the war. Together, our people made an immortal exploit to save the country. They predetermined the outcome of World War II. They liberated European nations from the Nazis.
Veterans of the Great Patriotic War, wherever they live today, should know that here, in Russia, we highly value their fortitude, courage and dedication to frontline brotherhood.
Dear friends,
The Great Victory will always remain a heroic pinnacle in the history of our country. But we also pay tribute to our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
We are grateful to the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the Victory. We are thankful to the anti-fascists of various countries who selflessly fought the enemy as guerrillas and members of the underground resistance, including in Germany itself.
We remember the historical meeting on the Elbe, and the trust and unity that became our common legacy and an example of unification of peoples – for the sake of peace and stability.
It is precisely these values that became the foundation of the post-war world order. The United Nations came into existence. And the system of the modern international law has emerged.
These institutions have proved in practice their effectiveness in resolving disputes and conflicts.
However, in the last decades, the basic principles of international cooperation have come to be increasingly ignored. These are the principles that have been hard won by mankind as a result of the ordeal of the war.
We saw attempts to establish a unipolar world. We see the strong-arm block thinking gaining momentum. All that undermines sustainable global development.
The creation of a system of equal security for all states should become our common task. Such system should be an adequate match to modern threats, and it should rest on a regional and global non-block basis. Only then will we be able to ensure peace and tranquility on the planet.

Manolo Torres -> dyst1111 10 May 2015 07:19

Lets see the other side as well then:

Huge trade, far bigger, just the investment of GM in Nazi Germany was 25% of the total amount their trade with the Soviet Union, if we add Standard Oil and Ford it will probably be already much more, and we are not throwing in the bankers that are the ones that made the most profit.

Then we have the Royals that attended Nazi parties and married Nazis and even conspired against Britain with the Nazis.

Then we have France and Britain giving Hitler (and the Polish) parts of Czechoslovakia. Talking about congratulatory letters we know about one from British deputy prime minister:

"Herr Chancellor, on behalf of the British Government I congratulate you on crushing communism in Germany and standing as a bulwark against Russia" (1a)

- Lord Halifax then British Deputy Prime Minister (later Foreign Secretary) addressing Adolf Hitler, November 1937.

Standupwoman 10 May 2015 07:17

I'm having a hard time believing both the tone of this article and the venom in some of the comments. On Russia's own Victory Day? Really? Are we sunk as low as that?

The only excuse I can find is that maybe some people simply don't know what this day really represents. This piece in The Hill, for example, actually states:

The Soviet victory in World War II - also known as the "Great Patriotic War" in Russia - can in terms of mythological importance be compared to D-Day for Americans

OK, this might be an unusually crass and insensitive writer, but could anybody with even a smattering of education make such a comparison? How could the events of one day in which 2,500 Americans died conceivably equate to the events of four years in which 27 million Soviet citizens were killed - nearly 14 million of them Russian? We know how Americans feel about 9/11, but even if they'd suffered a new 9/11 every day for four years, it would still be less than half what was done to Russia.

Even the British struggle to comprehend that degree of loss. We too suffered from Nazi attack, we too saw women and children killed in their own homes, we too saw our great cities pulverized and our history smashed - like Coventry Cathedral, for a start. But the German army never set foot here, because we were saved by the English Channel, the best airforce in the world - and the fact that the Russians held out long enough to turn the tide.

No-one in the West can really imagine what Russia went through, and there isn't space to say it here. Do some reading - or better still, watch the BBC's 'The World at War' and 'Nazis: A Warning from History'. The latter programme even interviews a former German soldier who describes how they treated the 'sub-human Slavs' of their occupied territories - 'We'd kill the children first in front of their mothers, and then the mothers.' Imagine it. Try. Imagine the desperate courage of that defence, at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Look again at the Victory Day footage, and note how young some of the veterans are - because even children took part in the sieges of their homes. At Sevastopol in 2011 I met one woman who'd been throwing Molotov cocktails against German tanks when she was seven years old.

And they won. The tide was turned before the Americans even joined, and the momentous Battle of Kursk for the first time put the Germans on the run. Yes, we retook France and Italy, but it was the Red Army who drove the Germans back from the East all the way to Berlin. Britain has many victories of which she can be rightfully proud, but none on the scale of that one. No-one has.

Of course they celebrate it - and so should we. Politics should never be allowed to rewrite history, and I'm utterly ashamed that my country chose this day to insult 27 million dead. God bless Russia, and I hope and pray they can forgive us some day. I'm not sure I ever can.

Debreceni -> jezzam 10 May 2015 07:11

What is the connection? There was apartheid in the American South in the 1930s and 1940s. Sill, you do not question or try to trivialize American contribution to the victory over Japan or Nazi Germany.

The debate about dictatorhip, politial oppresion belong to a different page. You do not go to a funeral to bring up the widow's past.


AlfredHerring veloboldie 10 May 2015 07:11

If only Truman listened to Patton,

Yep, we could have liberated Moscow within 6 months. Easy, just cut off all the lend lease crap and drop the big one on Moscow during that stupid parade of German prisoners that Stalin was watching and the whole thing would have been ripe for free elections. Thanks to the war a 'well regulated militia' was already in place, just would have had to hunt down those NKVD motherfuckers.


Hants13 sztubacki 10 May 2015 07:10

How many dictators do you know that are happily united in many multi-polar relationships with like minded nations?

Over 85% of the people of Russia support their leader and Government and these are a few reasons why:

Russia was bankrupt in 2000, when Putin first came to power. Since then:

He sorted out the oligarchs.
The average Russian lives an additional ten years since 2000.
There is a rise in the middle class sector.
Russia is now a creditor nation.
Christian Orthodox Russia paid off the $45 billion debt of the Communist Soviet Union (including when the Bolsheviks and Lenin overthrew the Russian Empire).
Russia paid off the $16.5 billion RF debt.
Russia has the 12th largest currency reserves (around $420,000,000,000)
Russia has the 5th largest gold reserves and can almost back the ruble with gold, rather than printers and paper.
Russia has minimal debt (11% GDP Debt)
Russia has control of her vast wealth of natural resources.

How is the West, up until 2019 going to pay for Russian gas? Rubles or gold. After that, there are no contract with EU countries and much of the Russian gas will be going to China and no doubt India.

No wonder Russia loves their President and his cabinet. Can any other Western Nation and the USA say the same?


Mungobel samanthajsutton 10 May 2015 07:01

I fully agree that the UK's failure to join in honouring the memory of the millions of Russians and other Soviet citizens who lost their lives in the struggle to resist the Nazi onslaught in WWII was a shaming thing. Worse still, while the Russians and others were preparing to celebrate the hard won end to that war, the UK joined with it's NATO friends in playing US-led war games on Russia's doorstep - as if intent on provoking yet another blood-letting across the globe.


Reco1234 Hants13 10 May 2015 07:00

The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight. Thus it denies the value of personality in man, contests the significance of nationality and race, and thereby withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence and its culture. As a foundation of the universe, this doctrine would bring about the end of any order intellectually conceivable to man. And as, in this greatest of all recognizable organisms, the result of an application of such a law could only be chaos, on earth it could only be destruction for the inhabitants of this planet.

-Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf

Hmmm, Hitler was a fan of the ideology of Karl Marx........nice one, moron.


Hants13 MentalToo 10 May 2015 07:00

You are aware that the Ukrainian Krushchev took Crimea from Russia in 1954?

Using international law and self determination, the people of Crimea voted to return home to Russia in 2014. Aided by the words of the Ukrainian Presidential Candidates and what they wished to do to the 8,000,000 Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine did the same, but not to be ruled by Ukraine.

The argument is explained in the 1970 United Nations Report, Self Determination and Territorial Integrity. In fact NATO used the same argument in their final report, Kosovo in an International Perspective: Self Determination, Territorial Integrity and the NATO Interpretation. Then if you study the foundations of the United Nations Charter, it was based around self determination.

By the way, Russia leased Sevestopol (which NATO wanted) at a substantial cost and owing to the agreement, they were allowed 25,000 serving members of the military (no specifics on ranks, grades or trades). At the time that the people of Crimea voted to return home to Russia, there were only 20,000 out of the 25,000 little green men in Crimea.

plumrose799999 10 May 2015 06:59

The Observer(one of limited vision) is so obsessed with its Putin prodding that it fails to acknowledge Russia's part in winning the war which might not have been won by our side had it not been for the Russian people.

I don't know whether Putin is as bad as the western media make out but thankfully their is one leader left in the world who is still capable of standing up to the USA and dictorial colonist aspirations.


Liberator37 10 May 2015 06:57

Without for a moment endorsing its bloodthirsty liquidation of more helpless civilians than Hitler killed, Eric Margolis has a crackerjack and fact-filled article out today in praise of the Soviet contribution to the WW-II victory. The Western boycott of Putin's celebrations is downright churlish.


BunglyPete 10 May 2015 06:50

Lets go back 31 years to 1984.

RFE/RL was broadcasting into the USSR, what one of the most anti Russian US officials in history, Richard Pipes, called "blatant anti semitic propaganda".

His concerns, which were echoed by other US officials, were based upon an RFE/RL report that painted the Ukrainian nationalists that fought alongside Hitler in a good light.

Fast forward to 1984, sorry I mean 2015, and those messages are now reproduced in the Guardian and are enshrined in Ukrainian law and celebrations.

If Richard Pipes thought it was an issue, can't you see Russia's concern when it leads to the downfall of Ukraine?


MyFriendWillPay -> Amanda Katie Bromley 10 May 2015 06:48

It's clear that those who have criticised your comment have done so from a position of ignorance.

Operation Barbarossa, the German-led Blitzkrieg of 4 million men against the Soviet Union (SU), on 22 June 1941, was expected to bring SU defeat within weeks, which is why the Germans only stockpiled 2 months of supplies for the campaign, and even British Intelligence expected the SU to collapse within 8 - 10 weeks. However, within less than a month, the head of German Military Intelligence, Admiral Canaris, confided to a general on the eastern front that he could only see a "black outlook" for the war in the east. Even Goebells himself noted in diary entries in July 1941 of the allarming lack of progress towards victory.

By mid October 1941, the previously euphoric Vatican had decided that Germany would lose the war in the east, as had the Swiss Secret Service and other neutral intelligence agencies.

By the start of December 1941, with German forces less than 20 miles from the Kremlin, their campaign had ground to a halt due to troop exhaustion, the Russian winter and over-extended supply lines. Then, on 5 December 1941, the Soviets launched a massive attack that drove the Germans back 60 - 170 miles. Hitler then ordered the campaign to take Moscow delayed until the following Spring, although he then realised, apparently, that he would lose the war, and that was more than a year before the iconic Soviet victory at Stalingrad.

Two imprtant points can be drawn from the initial weeks of Operation Barbarossa. Firstly, the US material support in war was going to the German side until it became apparent that they would not win. Most supplies of vital material, such as oil and rubber, came from the US via Spain and Vichy France. For example, 44% of Germany's vital engine oil came from the US in July 1941, and this rose to 94% in September 1941. This means that, important as subsequent western supplies were to the SU's war effort, they started arriving after it was recognised that the SU would defeat Germany and her allies. It was a fundamental issue of resources - manpower as well as materiel - that the SU had, and Germany didn't.

Secondly, even accepting the destruction of Germany's heavy water facility, if Operation Barbarossa had succeded, Germany would have had four whole years to catch-up the US's possession of a few low-yield atomic bombs in August 1945. Taking Germany's rapid programme for the V1 & V2 rockets in the last months of the war as an example of her capability for technological development, few could seriously doubt her potential to produce the atomic bomb.

As someone who lost a father in the west and a grandfather in the east - both during WW2 - I try to view history objectively. And, in this case, I regard the boycot by western wartime allies of Russia's celebration of WW2 victory over fascism as very disappointing indeed.

[May 10, 2015] Obama s Petulant WWII Snub of Russia by Ray McGovern

Notable quotes:
"... Though designed to isolate Russia because it had the audacity to object to the Western-engineered coup d'état in Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, this snub of Russia's President Vladimir Putin – like the economic sanctions against Russia – is likely to backfire on the U.S. ..."
"... Obama's boycott is part of a crass attempt to belittle Russia and to cram history itself into an anti-Putin, anti-Russian alternative narrative. ..."
"... Even George Friedman, the president of the Washington-Establishment-friendly think-tank STRATFOR, has said publicly in late 2014: "Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d'état organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history." ..."
"... So there! Gotcha! Russian aggression! But what the Post neglected to remind readers was that the U.S.-backed coup had occurred on Feb. 22 and that Putin has consistently said that a key factor in his actions toward Crimea came from Russian fears that NATO would claim the historic naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, representing a strategic threat to his country. ..."
"... Last fall, John Mearsheimer, a pre-eminent political science professor at the University of Chicago, stunned those who had been misled by the anti-Russian propaganda when he placed an article in the Very-Establishment journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault." ..."
"... Much of this American tendency to disdain other nations' concerns, fears and points of pride go back to the Washington Establishment's dogma that special rules or (perhaps more accurately) no rules govern U.S. behavior abroad – American exceptionalism. This arrogant concept, which puts the United States above all other nations like some Olympic god looking down on mere mortals, is often invoked by Obama and other leading U.S. politicians. ..."
"... Putin added, though, "I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism," adding: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." ..."
May 09, 2015 | antiwar.com
President Barack Obama's decision to join other Western leaders in snubbing Russia's weekend celebration of the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe looks more like pouting than statesmanship, especially in the context of the U.S. mainstream media's recent anti-historical effort to downplay Russia's crucial role in defeating Nazism.

Though designed to isolate Russia because it had the audacity to object to the Western-engineered coup d'état in Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, this snub of Russia's President Vladimir Putin – like the economic sanctions against Russia – is likely to backfire on the U.S. and its European allies by strengthening ties between Russia and the emerging Asian giants of China and India.

Notably, the dignitaries who will show up at this important commemoration include the presidents of China and India, representing a huge chunk of humanity, who came to show respect for the time seven decades ago when the inhumanity of the Nazi regime was defeated – largely by Russia's stanching the advance of Hitler's armies, at a cost of 20 to 30 million lives.

Obama's boycott is part of a crass attempt to belittle Russia and to cram history itself into an anti-Putin, anti-Russian alternative narrative. It is difficult to see how Obama and his friends could have come up with a pettier and more gratuitous insult to the Russian people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel – caught between Washington's demand to "isolate" Russia over the Ukraine crisis and her country's historic guilt in the slaughter of so many Russians – plans to show up a day late to place a wreath at a memorial for the war dead.

But Obama, in his childish display of temper, will look rather small to those who know the history of the Allied victory in World War II. If it were not for the Red Army's costly victories against the German invaders, particularly the tide-turning battle at Stalingrad in 1943-1944, the prospects for the later D-Day victory in Normandy in June 1944 and the subsequent defeat of Adolf Hitler would have been much more difficult if not impossible.

Yet, the current Russia-bashing in Washington and the mainstream U.S. media overrides these historical truths. For instance, a New York Times article by Neil MacFarquhar on Friday begins: "The Russian version of Hitler's defeat emphasizes the enormous, unrivaled sacrifices made by the Soviet people to end World War II " But that's not the "Russian version"; that's the history.

For its part, the Washington Post chose to run an Associated Press story out of Moscow reporting: "A state-of-the-art Russian tank on Thursday ground to a halt during the final Victory Day rehearsal. After an attempt to tow it failed, the T-14 rolled away under its own steam 15 minutes later." (Subtext: Ha, ha! Russia's newest tank gets stuck on Red Square! Ha, ha!).

This juvenile approach to pretty much everything that's important - not just U.S.-Russia relations - has now become the rule. From the U.S. government to the major U.S. media, it's as if the "cool kids" line up in matching fashions creating a gauntlet to demean and ridicule whoever the outcast of the day is. And anyone who doesn't go along becomes an additional target of abuse.

That has been the storyline for the Ukraine crisis throughout 2014 and into 2015. Everyone must agree that Putin provoked all the trouble as part of some Hitler-like ambition to conquer much of eastern Europe and rebuild a Russian empire. If you don't make the obligatory denunciations of "Russian aggression," you are called a "Putin apologist" or "Putin bootlicker."

Distorting the History

So, the evidence-based history of the Western-sponsored coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, must be forgotten or covered up. Indeed, about a year after the events, the New York Times published a major "investigative" article that ignored all the facts of a U.S.-backed coup in declaring there was no coup.

The Times didn't even mention the notorious, intercepted phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in early February 2014 in which Nuland was handpicking the future leaders, including her remark "Yats is the guy," a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk who – after the coup – quickly became prime minister. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine."]

Even George Friedman, the president of the Washington-Establishment-friendly think-tank STRATFOR, has said publicly in late 2014: "Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d'état organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history."

Beyond simply ignoring facts, the U.S. mainstream media has juggled the time line to make Putin's reaction to the coup – and the threat it posed to the Russian naval base in Crimea – appear to be, instead, evidence of his instigation of the already unfolding conflict.

For example, in a "we-told-you-so" headline on March 9, the Washington Post declared: "Putin had early plan to annex Crimea." Then, quoting AP, the Post reported that Putin himself had just disclosed "a secret meeting with officials in February 2014 Putin said that after the meeting he told the security chiefs that they would be 'obliged to start working to return Crimea to Russia.' He said the meeting was held Feb. 23, 2014, almost a month before a referendum in Crimea that Moscow has said was the basis for annexing the region."

So there! Gotcha! Russian aggression! But what the Post neglected to remind readers was that the U.S.-backed coup had occurred on Feb. 22 and that Putin has consistently said that a key factor in his actions toward Crimea came from Russian fears that NATO would claim the historic naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, representing a strategic threat to his country.

Putin also knew from opinion polls that most of the people of Crimea favored reunification with Russia, a reality that was underscored by the March referendum in which some 96 percent voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia.

But there was not one scintilla of reliable evidence that Putin intended to annex Crimea before he felt his hand forced by the putsch in Kiev. The political reality was that no Russian leader could afford to take the risk that Russia's only warm-water naval base might switch to new NATO management. If top U.S. officials did not realize that when they were pushing the coup in early 2014, they know little about Russian strategic concerns – or simply didn't care.

Last fall, John Mearsheimer, a pre-eminent political science professor at the University of Chicago, stunned those who had been misled by the anti-Russian propaganda when he placed an article in the Very-Establishment journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault."

You did not know that such an article was published? Chalk that up to the fact that the mainstream media pretty much ignored it. Mearsheimer said this was the first time he encountered such widespread media silence on an article of such importance.

The Sole Indispensable Country

Much of this American tendency to disdain other nations' concerns, fears and points of pride go back to the Washington Establishment's dogma that special rules or (perhaps more accurately) no rules govern U.S. behavior abroad – American exceptionalism. This arrogant concept, which puts the United States above all other nations like some Olympic god looking down on mere mortals, is often invoked by Obama and other leading U.S. politicians.

That off-putting point has not been missed by Putin even as he has sought to cooperate with Obama and the United States. On Sept. 11, 2013, a week after Putin bailed Obama out, enabling him to avoid a new war on Syria by persuading Syria to surrender its chemical weapons, Putin wrote in an op-ed published by the New York Times that he appreciated the fact that "My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust."

Putin added, though, "I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism," adding: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

More recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drove home this point in the context of World War II. This week, addressing a meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe, Lavrov included a pointed warning: "Today as never before it is important not to forget the lessons of that catastrophe and the terrible consequences that spring from faith in one's own exceptionalism."

The irony is that as the cameras pan the various world leaders in the Red Square reviewing stand on Saturday, Obama's absence will send a message that the United States has little appreciation for the sacrifice of the Russian people in bearing the brunt – and breaking the back – of Hitler's conquering armies. It is as if Obama is saying that the "exceptional" United States didn't need anyone's help to win World War II.

President Franklin Roosevelt was much wiser, understanding that it took extraordinary teamwork to defeat Nazism in the 1940s, which is why he considered the Soviet Union a most important military ally. President Obama is sending a very different message, a haughty disdain for the kind of global cooperation which succeeded in ridding the world of Adolf Hitler.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods in all four of CIA's main directorates.

[May 10, 2015] The New York Times does its government s bidding Here s what you re not being told about US troops in Ukraine

Notable quotes:
"... American soldiers in Ukraine, American media not saying much about it. Two facts. ..."
"... Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia. ..."
"... Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border? ..."
"... And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect. ..."
"... Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this paragraph. Speechless. ..."
"... Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential. ..."
"... Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.) ..."
"... In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that 300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it, there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation, a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed. ..."
"... The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers." ..."
"... He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it. ..."
May 09, 2015 | NYTimes.com

Reprinted from May 07, 2015 article at Salon.com

As of mid-April, when a Pentagon flack announced it in Kiev, and as barely reported in American media, U.S. troops are now operating openly in Ukraine.

Now there is a lead I have long dreaded writing but suspected from the first that one day I would. Do not take a moment to think about this. Take many moments. We all need to. We find ourselves in grave circumstances this spring.

At first I thought I had written what newspaper people call a double-barreled lead: American soldiers in Ukraine, American media not saying much about it. Two facts.

Wrong. There is one fact now, and it is this: Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia.

One cannot predict there will be one. And, of course, right-thinking people hope things will never come to one. In March, President Obama dismissed any such idea as if to suggest it was silly. "They're not interested in a military confrontation with us," Obama said of the Russians-wisely. Then he added, unwisely: "We don't need a war."

Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border?

The pose of American innocence, tatty and tiresome in the best of times, is getting dangerous once again.

The source of worry now is that we do not have an answer to the second question. The project is plain: Advance NATO the rest of the way through Eastern Europe, probably with the intent of eventually destabilizing Moscow. The stooges now installed in Kiev are getting everything ready for the corporations eager to exploit Ukrainian resources and labor.

And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect.

In the past there were a few vague mentions of an American military presence in Ukraine that was to be in place by this spring, if I recall correctly. These would have been last autumn. By then, there were also reports, unconfirmed, that some troops and a lot of spooks were already there as advisers but not acknowledged.

Then in mid-March President Poroshenko introduced a bill authorizing-as required by law-foreign troops to operate on Ukrainian soil. There was revealing detail, according to Russia Insider, a free-standing website in Moscow founded and run by Charles Bausman, an American with an uncanny ability to gather and publish pertinent information.

"According to the draft law, Ukraine plans three Ukrainian-American command post exercises, Fearless Guardian 2015, Sea Breeze 2015 and Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015," the publication reported, "and two Ukrainian-Polish exercises, Secure Skies 2015, and Law and Order 2015, for this year."

This is a lot of dry-run maneuvering, if you ask me. Poroshenko's law allows for up to 1,000 American troops to participate in each of these exercises, alongside an equal number of Ukrainian "National Guardsmen," and we will insist on the quotation marks when referring to this gruesome lot, about whom more in a minute.

Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this paragraph. Speechless.

It was a month to the day after Poroshenko's bill went to parliament that the Pentagon spokesman in Kiev announced-to a room empty of American correspondents, we are to assume-that troops from the 173rd Airborne were just then arriving to train none other than "National Guardsmen." This training includes "classes in war-fighting functions," as the operations officer, Maj. Jose Mendez, blandly put it at the time.

The spokesman's number was "about 300," and I never like "about" when these people are describing deployments. This is how it always begins, we will all recall. The American presence in Vietnam began with a handful of advisers who arrived in September 1950. (Remember MAAG, the Military Assistance Advisory Group?)

Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential.

I am getting on to apoplectic as to the American media's abject irresponsibility in not covering this stuff adequately. To leave these events unreported is outright lying by omission. Nobody's news judgment can be so bad as to argue this is not a story.

Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.)

To cross the "i"s and dot the "t"s, as I prefer to do, the Times did make two mentions of the American troops. One was the day of the announcement, a brief piece on an inside page, datelined Washington. Here we get our code word for this caper: It will be "modest" in every mention.

The second was in an April 23 story by Michael Gordon, the State Department correspondent. The head was, "Putin Bolsters His Forces Near Ukraine, U.S. Says." Read the thing here.

The story line is a doozy: Putin-not "the Russians" or "Moscow," of course-is again behaving aggressively by amassing troops-how many, exactly where and how we know is never explained-along his border with Ukraine. Inside his border, that is. This is the story. This is what we mean by aggression these days.

In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that 300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it, there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation, a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed.

At this point, I do not see how anyone can stand against the argument-mine for some time-that Putin has shown exemplary restraint in this crisis. In a reversal of roles and hemispheres, Washington would have a lot more than air defense systems and troops of whatever number on the border in question.

The Times coverage of Ukraine, to continue briefly in this line, starts to remind me of something I.F. Stone once said about the Washington Post: The fun of reading it, the honored man observed, is that you never know where you'll find a page one story.

In the Times' case, you never know if you will find it at all.

Have you read much about the wave of political assassinations that erupted in Kiev in mid-April? Worry not. No one else has either-not in American media. Not a word in the Times.

The number my sources give me, and I cannot confirm it, is a dozen so far-12 to 13 to be precise. On the record, we have 10 who can be named and identified as political allies of Viktor Yanukovych, the president ousted last year, opponents of a drastic rupture in Ukraine's historic relations to Russia, people who favored marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of the Nazis-death-deserving idea, this-and critics of the new regime's corruptions and dependence on violent far-right extremists.

These were all highly visible politicians, parliamentarians and journalists. They have been murdered by small groups of these extremists, according to reports readily available in non-American media. In my read, the killers may have the same semi-official ties to government that the paramilitary death squads in 1970s Argentina-famously recognizable in their Ford Falcons-had with Videla and the colonels.

The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers."

Kindly place, Kiev's parliament under this new crowd. Washington must be proud, having backed yet another right-wing, anti-democratic, rights-trampling regime that does what it says.

And our media must be silent, of course. It can be no other way. Gutless hacks: You bet I am angry.

* * *

I end this week's column with a tribute.

A moment of observance, any kind, for William Pfaff, who died at 86 in Paris late last week. The appreciative obituary by the Times' Marlise Simons is here.

Pfaff was the most sophisticated foreign affairs commentator of the 20th century's second half and the first 15 years of this one. He was a great influence among colleagues (myself included) and put countless readers in a lot of places in the picture over many decades. He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it.

Pfaff was a conservative man in some respects, which is not uncommon among America's American critics. In this I put him in the file with Henry Steele Commager, C. Vann Woodward, William Appleman Williams, and among those writing now, Andrew Bacevich. He was not a scholar, as these writers were or are, supporting a point I have long made: Not all intellectuals are scholars, and not all scholars are intellectuals.

Pfaff's books will live on and I commend them: "Barbarian Sentiments," "The Wrath of Nations," "The Bullet's Song," and his last, "The Irony of Manifest Destiny," are the ones on my shelf.

Farewell from a friend, Bill.

Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist. More Patrick L. Smith.

[May 08, 2015] Obamas Real Motive Behind The Iran Deal A Backdoor Channel To Sell Weapons To Saudi Arabia

Notable quotes:
"... Cooperation and coordination between China and Russia are needed to maintain the international balance of power and preserve the post-war world order. The participation of the leaders of the two countries in mutual events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Victory in World War II indicates that Russia and China, as the largest countries in the world and members of the United Nations, intend to maintain international order. ..."
May 06, 2015 | Zero Hedge
For a long time there was confusion about the "quo" to the Saudi Arabian "quid" over its agreement to side with the US on the Iranian "nuclear deal" (which incidentally looks like it will never happen simply due to the Russian and Chinese UN vetoes).

Then over the weekend we finally got the answer thanks to the the WSJ, which reported that "Gulf States want U.S. assurances and weapons in exchange for supporting Iran nuclear deal."

The details are quite familiar to anyone who has seen the US Military-Industrial Complex in action: the US pretends to wage an aggressive diplomatic campaign of peace while behind the scenes it is just as actively selling weapons of war.

Leading Persian Gulf states want major new weapons systems and security guarantees from the White House in exchange for backing a nuclear agreement with Iran, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

The leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, plan to use a high-stakes meeting with President Barack Obama next week to request additional fighter jets, missile batteries and surveillance equipment.

They also intend to pressure Mr. Obama for new defense agreements between the U.S. and the Gulf nations that would outline terms and scenarios under which Washington would intervene if they are threatened by Iran, according to these officials.

The Persian Gulf countries say they need more drones, surveillance equipment and missile-defense systems to combat an Iranian regime they see as committed to becoming the region's dominant power. The Gulf states also want upgraded fighter jets to contain the Iranian challenge, particularly the advanced F-35, known as the Joint Strike Fighter.

A senior U.S. official played down chances that the administration would agree to sell advanced systems such as the F-35 fighter to those nations-though the planes will be sold to Israel and Turkey-because of concerns within the administration about altering the military balance in the Middle East.v

There is much more but a question already emerges: why does the "Gulf Cooperation Council" need so many ultramodern weapons to "defend" against an Iran which is supposedly halting its nuclear program and is in the process of showing its allegiance to the west by endorsing a peace process.

Unless it was all merely a ruse to arm the Middle East from the very beginning?

And now the "end" is near because when it comes to matters of revenue and profitability for the US Military-Industrial complex, seek and ye shall find. According to Reuters, "Obama is expected to make a renewed U.S. push next week to help Gulf allies create a region-wide defense system to guard against Iranian missiles as he seeks to allay their anxieties over any nuclear deal with Tehran, according to U.S. sources."

The offer could be accompanied by enhanced security commitments, new arms sales and more joint military exercises, U.S. officials say, as Obama tries to reassure Gulf Arab countries that Washington is not abandoning them.

Not only is Obama not abandoning "them", but the entire Iran "negotiations" farce increasingly appears to have been produced from the very beginning to give the US a diplomatic loophole with which to arm the biggest oil exporter in the world. Sure enough:

Gulf Arab neighbors, including key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, worry that Iran will not be deterred from a nuclear bomb and will be flush with cash from unfrozen assets to fund proxies and expand its influence in countries such as Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

U.S. officials with knowledge of the internal discussions concede that Obama is under pressure to calm Arab fears by offering strengthened commitments. "It's a time to see what things might be required to be formalized," a senior U.S. official said.

All of this should come as a surprise to precisely nobody as the US takes advantage of its waning years as a global hegemon, and seeks to sell US weapons far and wide to the benefit of a select few Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed shareholders.

And yet something peculiar emerges: in the Reuters piece we read that "Obama is all but certain to stop short of a full security treaty with Saudi Arabia or other Gulf nations as that would require approval by the Republican-controlled Senate and risk stoking tensions with Washington's main Middle East ally Israel."

Which brings up another interesting regional player: Israel. Because while we now know the real reason for Saudi's complicity in the Iran "nuclear deal", a key middle east player is none other than Israel, which under Netanyahu's control has puffed and huffed against the Iran deal, and yet has done nothing. Why? Here Bloomberg provides some very critical perspective which introduces yet another major player in the global military exports arena.

Russia.

Bloomberg has the details:

Last month, when President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced plans to sell a powerful anti-missile system to Iran before the lifting of international sanctions, Israel was quick to join the U.S. in expressing shock and anger.

But behind the public announcements is a little-known web of arms negotiations and secret diplomacy. In recent years, Israel and Russia have engaged in a complex dance, with Israel selling drones to Russia while remaining conspicuously neutral toward Ukraine and hoping to stave off Iranian military development. The dance may not be over.

...

One of those issues is Israel's neutrality toward Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have waged war over the past year. Israel has held back from selling weapons to the government in Kiev, which is backed by the U.S. and European Union, in the hope of keeping Russia's S-300s away from Iran.... "Israel has come under a lot of pressure for not joining the all-Western consensus on the Ukrainian crisis," said Sarah Feinberg, a research fellow at Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies. "It was a difficult decision for the Israeli government, which was concerned about possible Russian retaliatory moves in the Mideast - such as selling the S-300 to Iran."

The issue at hand is the delivery of Israeli drones: whether to Ukraine, where such a deal was recently scuttled following internal dissent by opposition within the Israel government, or to Russia, which already has received Israel UAVs.

Russia expressed interest in buying Israeli drones after coming up against them during the 2008 war with Georgia. In 2010 Russia concluded a deal to purchase 15 of them from IAI, and to set up a joint venture to produce drone technology.

An Israeli familiar with the matter said the drone deal with Russia carried an unwritten quid pro quo: It would proceed only if the Kremlin suspended its announced S-300 sale to Iran. Now having gotten the Israeli technology, the Israeli said, that promise is no longer a factor in Russian considerations.

In other words, now that Israel - which is the world's largest exporter of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - no longer has leverage over Russian military needs as Moscow has long ago reverse-engineered the Israeli technology, Israel may have no choice but to provoke Russia in the middle east.

"Sending drones or other arms to Ukraine would be an ineffective, even inconsequential Israeli response to Russia selling the S-300s to Iran," said Feinberg. More effective, she said, would be for Israel to lift its political neutrality on the Ukrainian conflict, or take actions in the Middle East against Russian regional allies such as the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

For now however, Israel's full on engagement in Syria (or Iran) appears to have been prevented: "On April 23 Russia did appear to backtrack somewhat on its earlier announcement of the S-300 sale to Iran, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov telling the Interfax news agency that delivery won't occur soon, and would only happen after political and legal issues were resolved. In his April 16 call-in show on Russian television, Putin acknowledged that Israeli objections had scuttled a potential S-300 sale to another Mideast nation, reportedly Syria."

To attempt a summary: under the pretext of Iran negotiations for peace, the US is preparing to quietly arm virtually all Gulf states with the latest US military technology, even as Israel has given Russia some of its latest drone technology which means Russia may at any moment proceed to arm Iran and Syria with modern Surface to Air missiles, while Israel is contemplaring retaliation not only against Iran but Syria as well: the country which nearly led to a global proxy war in the mdidle east in the summer of 2013.

In other words, we have, for the past few years, been on the edge of a razor thin Middle Eastern balance of power equilibrium which prevented any one nation or alliance from garnering an outsized influence of military power.

All of that is about to change the moment the MIC figurehead known as president Obama greenlights the dispatch of billions of dollars in fighters, drones, missile batteries, and surveillance equipment to Saudi Arabia and its peers, in the process dramatically reshaping the balance of power status quo and almost certainly leading to yet another middle eastern war which will inevitably drag in not only Israel and Russia at least in a proxy capacity, but ultimately, the US as well.

Just as the US military industrial complex wanted.

Because as every Keynesian fanatic will tell you: in a world saturated by debt, and where organic growth is no longer possible, there is only one remaining option.

War.

* * *

And just to assure the required outcome, moments ago John Kerry arrived in Riyadh to conclude the deal.

Kerry arrives in Riyadh #Saudi Arabia.

pic.twitter.com/2CPIP69Ut0

- Conflict News (@rConflictNews) May 6, 2015

Pool Shark

Why do they need a 'backdoor,' when they've been selling arms to the Saudis through the front door since time began?...

Skateboarder

Barry insists there be a backdoor, for uh, personal reasons.

Looney

Reggie Love: Did I hear "Backdoor Channel"? ;-)

weburke

the real question is how does Israel view it. Netanyahu has not endorsed any of this. I would guess Israel has no friend in Obama and his controllers, and will soon take action of their own.

What possible gain is it for Israel to have the fucking tyrant insane neighbors get all armed up? hello war.

Oh regional Indian

This is very good insight.

Bastids...

By the way, India is totally thumbing it's nose at the US led non-coalition of the unwilling in continuing to deal with Iran for all manner of goods and services. Big barter deals, gold payments via Turkey for oil...

So there is that going on in Iran's Eastern flank. Iran, by the way, was rumored to have a "Perfect Plate" from the US mint via Henry Kissinger (or some spook) and during Shah of Iran time were the world's largest counterfeiters of the USD, only thing, they had a perfect Plate. Obviously CIA controlled.

All that money, EuroDollars, Petrodollars....black money, drug dollars (Iran is a major heroine transit point).

Nothing is as it seems...

Sequence 15 for discerning ears ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP4NGb8HJbk

jdtexas

Simply idiotic war propaganda

Jumbotron

Reagan just called from the grave. He wants his Iran Contra back.

F0ster

PetroDollar = Defending Saudi Arabia with US military.

PetroDollar now collpasing thanks to Russia, China, Iran which forces Saudi Arabia to spend their USD's with the MIC to defend themselves.

Endgame for the PetroDollar system.

Mike Masr

The backdoor, wasn't this the aircraft used to covertly bring all the Saudi's back home on 911 when all the other aircraft were grounded?

TahoeBilly2012

Anyone with a brain could guess the Iran deal was always a scam of some sort. Why? Well, because everything is a scam from these people and there is no peace, ever, not the goal. It amazes me the rest of the world even engages with the Zionist shitshow called the USA.

Anunnaki

President Peace Prize needs MOAR war in the Middle East before he "leaves" office. He is at proxy war (for now) with Russia. That was quite a feat so:

Why not take on Iran while he is at it. Two birds with one big stone and all that.

Bill of Rights

Hmm is this like the Clinton China for Arms deal...Face it folks all US Politicians are scum of the earth, sum are just more scummy than the others.

Kaiser Sousa

Cooperation between Russia and China is necessary to maintain the balance of power in the world, China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cheng Guoping said Monday.

The high-ranking Chinese diplomat said that Russian-Chinese relations had reached a new level of development and the forthcoming visit of Xi Jinping to Moscow would facilitate further cooperation between Beijing and Moscow. The Chinese president will pay a three-day visit to Moscow on May 8-10, attending the Victory Day Parade on May 9 at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Cooperation and coordination between China and Russia are needed to maintain the international balance of power and preserve the post-war world order. The participation of the leaders of the two countries in mutual events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Victory in World War II indicates that Russia and China, as the largest countries in the world and members of the United Nations, intend to maintain international order."

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150504/1021703550.html#ixzz3ZCuelpFm

Farmer Joe in Brooklyn

9/11 exposed the unholy alliance between the US and the Saudis (for anyone with enough intellectual curiosity to seek the truth). This true axis of evil has a symbiotic relationship that knows no moral bounds.

Nothing new here...

Monty Burns

In 9/11 the Saudis provided the finance and the patsies. The event was organized by Mossad and Ziocons in the USA.


juicy_bananas

Just in time for next year's SOFEX, bitchez! The war economy has to get paper somehow. Peace Prizes for EVERYBODY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_3Qg-SADY

g'kar

2010: "US Congress notified over $60bn arms sale to Saudi Arabia"

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/21/us-congress-notified-arms-s...

They didn't backdoor that sale. Whatever President Jarret is trying to sell, it isn't to the Saudi's.


Jacksons Ghost

Anyone that thinks the House of Saud will go quietly is fooling themselves. We sell them out, how quickly will they pivot towards China and Russia. We abandon The House of Saud, you can guarentee that they will abandon the Dollar. Reserve Status of Dollar is most important to our money printers...

falak pema

No amount of US material will save the Sunni Kingdoms from their fate, as the bigger the Military spending becomes the bigger the millstone of its proliferation to its enemies grow.

Iran will play the same game of attrition, feeding the enemies of their strategic enemy, and guerrilla warfare that Giap and Ho Chi Minh did.

Remember Vietnam, USA, the cancer of opposition now runs deep in the region on all fronts and it will feed the instability of an ivory towered kingdom like poison ivy wrapping itself around the healthy tree.

The spiral is now a sign of runaway MIC malinvestment of huge proportions. Those Sauds will never have an army to match their rivals, who are as hungry as the hounds of hell and fed by the kingdom's never-ending and obscurantist fed hubris. Guns didn't save South Vietnam.

How do you avoid the same blowback that Nam has demonstrated?

Same corruption, same endgame now being concocted in a region that goes from Paki to deep Africa?

The kiss of the US MIC is the kiss of death to its allies.

Saud at the cross roads-- cut and run-- or stay US suppot like Nam.

g3h

nyt

Sale of U.S. Arms Fuels the Wars of Arab States

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/world/middleeast/sale-of-us-arms-fuels...

One World Mafia

You're leaving out two very important parts of the proxy war situation. Russia forced Syria to give up her chemical weapon defenses which led to the US & its brothers in the Brotherhood of Darkness Gulf Cooperation Council to use their proxy, ISIS, to pounce on Syria.

Remember what happened with MINSK? The breakaway republics were pressured to give up their gains since September.

Not very good for the balance of powers. The Brotherhood of Darkness won't need a real WW3 to get what they want.

RichardParker

These guys (MIC) are going to make a fucking killing. No pun intended. The whole video is excellent. Here are some highlights;

[May 08, 2015] The latest political murder: Oleg Kalashnikov, former Parliament Deputy for Party of Regions.

May 15, 2015 | informationclearinghouse.info
Apr 16, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

yalensis, April 16, 2015 at 3:15 am

Meanwhile, back in Banderaland, more info is coming out about the latest political murder. Oleg Kalashnikov, former Parliament Deputy for Party of Regions.
.
According to the VZGLIAD piece, Kalashnikov was organizing and planning to hold some kind of march to celebrate the 70 anniversay Victory Day in Kiev. One of his relatives reported to the press, that he (Oleg) had received death threats in conjunction with these activities. He had also been threatened by SBU types.

During the time in the Rada (2006-2007) Oleg had made several important political enemies, including Julia Tymoshenko and Anatoly Gritsenko.

On the eve of his assassination, Kalashnikov wrote a letter to a friend, including the following words:
"Открытый геноцид инакомыслия, угрозы физического уничтожения и постоянные грязные оскорбления за открытый призыв к празднованию 70-летия Победы в Великой Отечественной войне стали нормой в оккупированной нацистами сегодняшней Украине, – писал Калашников. – Этот "подарок" я получил 13 апреля вместе с очередной порцией угроз и оскорблений", – говорится в письме.

TRANSLATION
"The open genocide of dissident thinking, threats of physical extermination, and the constant, dirty insults (directed at my) calls to celebrate the 70th Anniversay or Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War – these have become the norm in today's Ukraine, which is occupied by Nazis," Kalashnikov wrote. "This so-called 'gift" was received by me on 13 April…"
END OF TRANSLATION

By "gift" what Oleg meant was that, all of his personal demographic info, including his address, was published in the publication called "Mirotvorets" on April 13. "Mirotvorets" is a "resouce" which publishes all known info about separatists. This resource is under the purview of Anton Gerashchenko, one of the big-shots in the junta government.

Within a day of his data being published, Oleg Kalashnikov was gunned down and assassinated near his home.

The piece adds, intriguingly, that this "Mirotvorets" database of separatist info, is supposedly only accessible to Ukrainian Internal Police and SBU. Therefore, the implication is, that this was a government-sanctioned assassination of a political opponent.

yalensis , April 16, 2015 at 3:34 am
Continuing with more info from above piece (is a long article):

Kalashnikov had ended his letter with the following words:
"Маски сброшены! Нацизм со звериным оскалом жаждет крови, чтобы скрыть свои преступления против многострадального народа современной Украины!" – так заканчивает свое письмо Калашников.

TRANSLATION
"The masks are off! Nazism with its beastly grin, is thirsty for blood, and tries to hide its crimes against the long-suffering people of contemporary Ukraine."
END OF TRANSLATION

On the eve of his assassination, Kalashnikov's friends begged him to flee the country.
He said he could not, for 2 reasons: (1) He was an officer in the intelligence services, and (2) he could not in conscience leave his fellow-thinkers behind.

Political writer Vladimir Kornilov confirms, that Kalashnikov was very worried about all his personal, demographic data being published in "Mirotvorets", which he calls a "stool-pigeon rag".

A few months ago, back in January, Gerashchenko proudly presented his new plan of tracking political dissidents. In a separate comment, I will translate a bit (if I have time) of Gerashchenko's "presentation" of this totalitarian project for tracking and eliminating dissidents. For now, suffice that the title of Gerashcheno's "oeuvre" is called: "Gifts for Christmas: or Every Creature gets what he deserves".

Meanwhile Ukrainian totalitarian media are all over this too, the general tone being:
(1) Kalashnikov was an odious "Regional" who deserved to die; however
(2) It was probably his Russian "sponsors" who whacked him, maybe because he was about to spill some beans, or something like that….

Around the murder itself, some strange events:

Oleg was shot dead with 4 shots.
Oleg's wife heard the noise and rushed out, as husband was being gunned down.
She immediately called the police.
Within minutes, according to her, police from Internal Ministry were on the spot.
While this was going on, Oleg's daughter-in-law was suddenly mugged; somebody grabbed her purse, right there at the crime scene.

Pavlo Svolochenko , April 16, 2015 at 3:42 am
Likely as not the mugger was also the shooter.
yalensis , April 16, 2015 at 3:46 am
Here, by the way , is the site Mirotvorets. This is the site where you go if you are Ukrainian and want to denounce your neighbour as a separatist.

Just skimming through the site, one gets a glimpse into Gerashchenko (aka "Fat Bastard") sick Nazi mind. For example, scroll down a bit to see him bragging about collecting a database of 20,500 "individuals" (with more negative connotation than English equivalent).


Иначе этих нелюдей назвать не можем, поскольку именно они принесли беду в наш общий дом: изменники родины, сепаратисты, террористы и боевики, наемники российского происхождения, военные преступники из вооруженных сил РФ, а также пособники разных мастей всей этой нечисти.

TRANSLATION
We don't know what else to call these in-humans, since they have brought woe into our common home: traitors of the motherland, separatists, terrorists and militants, mercenaries of Russian origin, war criminals from the army of the Russian Federation, and also collaborators of various stripes of all this filth.
END OF TRANSLATION

The rest of the site has the same tone: all heavily anti-Russia and in your face, tone is basically that of some loud-mouth mobster bully.
Which is exactly what Gerashchenko is.

yalensis, April 16, 2015 at 3:58 am
Here is Mirotvorets post from March 16, pertaining to Crimean citizens:

В последнее время к нам неоднократно официально обращаются представители ряда государственных ведомств Украины с просьбой предоставить имеющуюся информацию об изменниках Родины, сепаратистах, пособниках российских оккупантов и боевиках НВФ, проживающих в настоящее время на временно оккупированной территории АР Крым (Украина). Учитывая эти просьбы, а также в полном соответствии с действующим Законодательством Украины, мы решили открыто разместить на сайте Центра "Миротворец" указанную информацию в форматах, удобных для интеграции в любые автоматизированные системы обработки. Данные представлены в формате CSV. С учетом постоянного накопления данных, список периодически будет обновляться. По состоянию на 16 марта 2015 года в Чистилище находится информация о более чем 7500 особей, большую часть из который представляют изменники Родины.

TRANSLATION
Recently we have been approached officially by representatives of a series of governmental authorities of Ukraine, with a request to present all the information we have pertaining to traitors of the motherland, separatists, collaborators with Russian occupiers, and fighters in illegal formations who dwell at the current time on the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine).
Taking into account these requests, and also in full accordance with existing legislation of Ukraine, we have decided to place on the "Mirotvorets" site the information indicated, in formats convenient for integration into any automated databases. The data is presented in the .CSV format [yalensis: ASCII text file with comma-separated fields]. Taking into account the continuous accumulation of data, the database will be refreshed periodically. As of 16 March 2015, in our database we have information on more than 7500 individuals, the major portion of whom are traitors to the motherland.
END OF TRANSLATION

yalensis: And now, in April, the database is up to 20K traitors.
All in their comma-delimited traitorous glory.

Pavlo Svolochenko, April 16, 2015 at 4:05 am
Writing in Russian of course.
marknesop , April 16, 2015 at 6:56 am
"Fighters in illegal formations", Dear God, you could scream. According to the Ukrainian constitution, all formations except for the state military and law enforcement are illegal. But only half-hearted attempts are made to "legalize" the volunteer battalions, which are not even paid by the government, or were not until Benny's bottomless purse flew away with him. And the ever-alert-for-illegal-behavior west which brought you the suggestion that Ukraine could ignore its debt to Russia as "odious debt" says not a word about Kiev's own making up what is legal as it goes along.
marknesop, April 16, 2015 at 6:52 am
It's like a caricature of reality, as if someone either not too imaginative or with the brilliant talent for mockery that results in films like "Springtime for Hitler" were making an educational film about the growth of fascism in a fertile society.

All this, I'm sure, contributes to Brussels' ambition to make a close partner and chum of Ukraine. It certainly displays European values. Of course, you never know how much they know and how much they are just pretending not to know.

cartman, April 16, 2015 at 8:59 am
"This is the site where you go if you are Ukrainian and want to denounce your neighbour as a separatist."

These are European values.

Does anyone remember the Stalinism for Android app, which allowed people to report and disappear their neighbors from their mobile phones?

PaulR, April 16, 2015 at 5:40 am
They seem to have moved on from politicians to journalists: 'Pro-Russian journalist killed in Kiev':
PaulR, April 16, 2015 at 6:11 am
More on this. Anton Gerashenko, senior advisor to the Interior Minister, is blaming it on the Russians: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/16/pro-russia-journalist-shot-killed-ukraine-kiev-oles-buzyna
marknesop, April 16, 2015 at 7:55 am
"pro-Russia" and "Russia-leaning" and "Kremlin-friendly" are the new "nothing to see here; move along" in Ukrainian discourse. What a name that benighted nation is making for itself! I must confess – somewhat guiltily, because there is nothing funny about the desperate situation of ordinary Ukrainians – that I get a great deal of amusement over the west's continuing hamfisted attempt to portray this hellhole as a brave emerging country stumbling towards democracy. It is nothing of the kind – it is like some sort of college frat party spun out of control in which the most wicked and deviant of the population are allowed to fully indulge their secret fantasies.
marknesop, April 16, 2015 at 7:01 am
It seems you can kill just about anyone with impunity in the brave new Ukraine provided you put "pro-Russian" before their occupation. I am becoming steadily more supportive of all Ukraine except the southeast, without any source of income and crazy as a bedbug, going to the EU. They deserve to live cheek by jowl with their project and the result of their meddling.
PaulR, April 16, 2015 at 6:03 am
The 'Russian economy returns to growth' headline is actually a little misleading, because although the stock exchange and currency are up, it still seems as though GDP will decline this year. That said, the rise in the ruble will reduce inflation which will allow the Central Bank to cut interest rates, which should permit GDP to start rising again sooner than expected. So not all is rosy, but the Russian economy is looking much more resilient than critics had suggested.
marknesop, April 16, 2015 at 7:48 am
Yes, that's true – "stabilized" would have been more accurate. But I believe stability is going to look like growth in today's economic climate; countries that were struggling are going to be desperate, while those who were on shaky ground are going to have an increasingly hard time of it. And that's going to be without a coalition of the most prosperous countries all united in an effort to take them down. Russians have good reason to be more confident, because indeed the sanctions, long-term, are going to have hurt those who imposed them much more than those upon whom they were imposed.

Is there a video of your TV appearance? I'd like to see it. How did it go?

et Al, April 16, 2015 at 7:44 am
What has impressed me is how the bad news about western sanctions was handled. Rather than the usual "There's nothing to see. Move on!.", they explained the potential consequences, the reasons for it and most importantly of all, a reasonable time scale of when it should be over.

I also strongly suspect that they deliberately overplayed the figures of potential damage to the economy knowing that it would be highly unlikely that the figures would ever play out as such, the flip side being that any performance better than those figures is a victory.

On the one hand it gives a pyrrhic victory to the Pork Pie News Networks, western politicians and Russophobes for Russia to admit it will be significantly damaged and importantly allows Western states to claim they are taking tough and decisive action against Russia when they have not done so despite having multiple opportunities to do so – a very useful face saving exercise.

The sanctions could have been much, much worse.

So both sides get something. The West pretends to slap on draconian sanctions and swing its gigantic pot belly and balls aggressively to its own adoring congregation proving that they are indispensable and exceptional nations that the rest of the world should be modelled on, Russia plays the "I'm sexy and I know it" card to the rest of the world. Everyone is pleased.

[May 08, 2015] Power The Essence of Corrupt Banking and Politics Is to Grow and Control the Debt

May 04, 2015 | Jesse's Café Américain

"Events have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the American people, that the mischiefs and dangers which flow from a national [central] bank far over-balance all its advantages. The bold effort the present bank has made to control the Government, the distresses it has wantonly produced, the violence of which it has been the occasion in one of our cities famed for its observance of law and order, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it."

- Andrew Jackson, Sixth Annual Message, December 1, 1834

"Another cause of today's instability is that we now have a society in America, Europe and much of the world which is totally dominated by the two elements of sovereignty that are not included in the state structure: control of credit and banking, and the corporation.

These are free of political controls and social responsibility and have largely monopolized power in Western Civilization and in American society. They are ruthlessly going forward to eliminate land, labor, entrepreneurial-managerial skills, and everything else the economists once told us were the chief elements of production.

The only element of production they are concerned with is the one they can control: capital."

- Professor Carroll Quigley, Oscar Iden Lecture Series 3, 1976

Money is power. And those who control the money, if they have the will for it, can use it as a means to incredible power, to create debt, and to control it, thereby controlling the debtors, both as individuals, as communities, as regions, and whole nations.

This is the story of global trade deals, the Dollar, and the foul marriage between politics, money, and central banking. The more discretion and secrecy that is granted to those who create money and debt, the more vulnerable is the freedom of the people.

This is the story of Cyprus, of Greece, and of the Ukraine.

And there will be more.

This will to power is as old as Babylon, and as evil as hell.

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations.

Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

Professor Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966


"He promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them.

He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods.

Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

John Henry Newman

Posted by Jesse at 8:03 PM

Category: audacious oligarchy, central banks, debt slavery, Federal Reserve, financial corruption, modern monetary theory, money corruption, political corruption

[May 08, 2015] The Choice Before Europe

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

Washington continues to drive Europe toward one or the other of the two most likely outcomes of the orchestrated conflict with Russia. Either Europe or some European Union member government will break from Washington over the issue of Russian sanctions, thereby forcing the EU off of the path of conflict with Russia, or Europe will be pushed into military conflict with Russia.

In June the Russian sanctions expire unless each member government of the EU votes to continue the sanctions. Several governments have spoken against a continuation. For example, the governments of the Czech Republic and Greece have expressed dissatisfaction with the sanctions.

US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged growing opposition to the sanctions among some European governments. Employing the three tools of US foreign policy–threats, bribery, and coercion–he warned Europe to renew the sanctions or there would be retribution. We will see in June if Washington's threat has quelled the rebellion.

Europe has to consider the strength of Washington's threat of retribution against the cost of a continuing and worsening conflict with Russia. This conflict is not in Europe's economic or political interest, and the conflict has the risk of breaking out into war that would destroy Europe.

Since the end of World War II Europeans have been accustomed to following Washington's lead. For awhile France went her own way, and there were some political parties in Germany and Italy that considered Washington to be as much of a threat to European independence as the Soviet Union. Over time, using money and false flag operations, such as Operation Gladio, Washington marginalized politicians and political parties that did not follow Washington's lead.

The specter of a military conflict with Russia that Washington is creating could erode Washington's hold over Europe. By hyping a "Russian threat," Washington is hoping to keep Europe under Washington's protective wing. However, the "threat" is being over-hyped to the point that some Europeans have understood that Europe is being driven down a path toward war.

Belligerent talk from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from John McCain, from the neoconservatives, and from NATO commander Philip Breedlove is unnerving Europeans. In a recent love-fest between Breedlove and the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by John McCain, Breedlove supported arming the Ukrainian military, the backbone of which appears to be the Nazi militias, with heavy US weapons in order to change "the decision calculus on the ground" and bring an end to the break-away republics that oppose Washington's puppet government in Kiev.

Breedlove told the Senate committee that his forces were insufficient to withstand Russian aggression and that he needed more forces on Russia's borders in order to "reassure allies."

Europeans have to decide whether the threat is Russia or Washington. The European press, which Udo Ulfkotte reports in his book, Bought Journalists, consists of CIA assets, has been working hard to convince Europeans that there is a "revanchist Russia" on the prowl that seeks to recover the Soviet Empire. Washington's coup in Ukraine has disappeared. In its place Washington has substituted a "Russian invasion," hyped as Putin's first step in restoring the Soviet empire.

Just as there is no evidence of the Russian military in Ukraine, there is no evidence of Russian forces threatening Europe or any discussion or advocacy of restoring the Soviet empire among Russian political and military leaders.

In contrast Washington has the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which is explicitly directed at Russia, and now the Council on Foreign Relations has added China as a target of the Wolfowitz doctrine.

The CFR report says that China is a rising power and thereby a threat to US world hegemony. China's rise must be contained so that Washington can remain the boss in the Asian Pacific. What it comes down to is this: China is a threat because China will not prevent its own rise. This makes China a threat to "the International Order." "The International Order," of course, is the order determined by Washington. In other words, just as there must be no Russian sphere of influence, there must be no Chinese sphere of influence. The CFR report calls this keeping the world "free of hegemonic control" except by the US.

Just as General Breedlove demands more military spending in order to counter "the Russian threat," the CFR wants more military spending in order to counter "the Chinese threat." The report concludes: "Congress should remove sequestration caps and substantially increase the U.S. defense budget."

Clearly, Washington has no intention of moderating its position as the sole imperial power. In defense of this power, Washington will take the world to nuclear war. Europe can prevent this war by asserting its independence and departing the empire.

Reprinted with permission from author's website.

[May 06, 2015] Chaos – not Victory – is Empire's Name of the Game By Peter Koenig

May 05, 2015 | Information Clearing House - ICH

"Once again a country "liberated" by the West is sinking deeper and deeper into chaos." - This could be anyone of the countries in conflict, where Washington and its Western and Middle Eastern stooges sow war – eternal chaos, misery, death – and submission.

This is precisely the point: The Washington / NATO strategy is not to 'win' a war or conflict, but to create ongoing - endless chaos. That's the way

(i) to control people, nations and their resources;

(ii) to assures the west a continuous need for military - troops and equipment - remember more than 50% of the US GDP depends on the military industrial complex, related industries and services; and

(iii) finally, a country in disarray or chaos, is broke and needs money - money with hardship conditions, 'austerity' money from the notorious IMF, World Bank and other associated nefarious 'development institutions' and money lenders; money that equals enslavement, especially with corrupt leaders that do not care for their people.

That's the name of the game - in Yemen, in Ukraine, in Syria, in Iraq, in Sudan, in Central Africa, in Libya.... you name it. Who fights against whom is unimportant. ISIS / ISIL / IS / DAISH / DAESH / Al-Qaeda and whatever other names for the mercenary killer organizations you want to add to the list - are just tags to confuse. You might as well add Blackwater, Xe, Academi and all its other successive names chosen to escape easy recognition. They are prostitutes for the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon Empire, prostitutes of the lowest level. Then come elite prostitutes, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and other Gulf States, plus the UK and France, of course.

... ... ...

And since the US army and its big brother (or sister) NATO cannot be everywhere, doesn't want to be seen everywhere, they hire to kill. Washington invents and creates, then funds with its endless money stream, the ISILs, Daesh's, AlQaedas – and the repertoire grows as the masters please – to fight for them, to kill for them, to produce chaos and false flags – so that eventually they – NATO and the Pentagon bulldozer – can come in and make believe 'destroying' those mercenaries that they generated in the first place. But the mainstream media won't tell you the truth.

They have you believe that the Houtis, a secular humanitarian left-leaning group of Shias, and the Sunnis are fighting each other in Yemen for power; that the Saudis and their GCC cronies are just freeing Yemen from a bunch of terrorists; that the Houtis are supported by Iran (a predominant Shia country) – recently vehemently denied by a UN official – so, the Houtis have to be subdued. At the same time there is more reason for Washington to put yet another blame on Iran. Once the Houtis are dominated and killed off in sufficient numbers, a puppet president will be put in place, like the ex-President Saleh, or his successor Hadi, so that Washington can keep calling the shots – oppressing the country's population to maintain unlimited access to the strategic port of Aden – and to the Gulf.

Ukraine is the same: Are ISIS / ISIL/ Daesh, AlQaed, or whatever their names may be, in the Ukraine? – You bet they are, under the command of CIA and some 6,000 US troops, trainers of course. They train the Kiev troops how best and fastest to kill their brothers in the Donbass; they train them how to create lasting chaos. And if the soldiers refuse to be trained to kill their brothers, the Kiev Nazi regime will shoot them as traitors. Point blanc. So easy. So that nobody will resist.

Not least, the US military 'advisors' and CIA with the help of their hired killers, the Kiev Nazis, the ISIS / Daesh / AlQaeda, are attempting to provoke President Putin into war – possibly a third World War. Yes, the third in less than hundred years, potentially devastating Europe, and possible the world. So far, the world has been spared this disaster, largely thanks to Mr. Putin's wise strategy of non-confrontation.

So – no question whether the ISIS / Daesh / AlQaeda are in the Ukraine. They are everywhere the empire orders them to be. That's what they are paid for. That's what prostitutes do. Especially created prostitutes; well-paid prostitutes. Ideology is just a fig leave, conveniently used by the western media – so we all may believe that the Muslims are evil, some even more than others. The west must fight them, because they are a serious and present danger for our freedom, our liberty our democracies - and especially our neoliberal everything-goes free market values.

Because that is the ultimate goal: humans as a market commodity, dispensable, reducible to cannon fodder, to be killed off in masses by (poisoned) genetically modified food, by drones, by bombs, by artificially created famine, so that at the end the survivors are serfs to a small elite which controls the four corners of the globe and ALL its resources, to maintain a lifestyle of exceptional people – yes, the exceptional nation, will be reduced to a bunch of exceptional people living in grand splendor.

Remember Henry Kissinger's infamous words, the vision of one of the most atrocious war criminals still alive today – another Nobel Laureate (sic) – spoken some fifty years ago:

"Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world."

These words ring truer every day. But only as long as we allow it; as long as We, the People, We the 99.999% of the globe's inhabitants, allow it.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.

[May 03, 2015] US Goes Ballistic Over Ukraine as Both Sides There Wage Peace By William Boardman,

March 10, 2015 | readersupportednews.org

US and UK deploy troops to Ukraine, but they're just "advisors"

American combat troops deployed in Ukraine will soon number in the hundreds, at least, but US officials claim they're there only as "advisors" or "trainers," not as an in-place threat to Russia. Whatever advising or training they may do, they are also an in-place threat to Russia. US officials are also lobbying to arm Ukraine with "defensive" anti-tank rockets and other lethal weapons in hopes of escalating the fighting, maybe even killing some Russians. In other words, American brinksmanship continues to escalate slowly but recklessly on all fronts.

To the dismay of the Pentagon, the White House war crowd, and the rest of the American bloviating class of chickenhawk hardliners, the warring sides in Ukraine are disengaging and the ceasefire has almost arrived (March 7 was the first day with no casualties). The government in Kievand the would-be governments of the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have been acting as if they're not hell-bent on mutually assured destruction after all. They've exchanged prisoners. They've agreed to double the number of ceasefire monitors to 1,000. They've pulled back their heavy weapons. Both sides have stopped the random shelling that has caused "heavy civilian tolls of dead and wounded," according to theMarch 2 report from the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.

The calmer heads of Europe, in Germany and France particularly, are presently prevailing over the fear-mongered countries closer to Russia who seem bewitched by US enthusiasm to subject Europe to yet another devastating war in which those near-Russia countries would be the first to feel the pain. But for now, most of Europe seems willing to accept the notion that the Russians have a rational view of their reasonable security needs, that the cost of further Russian advances outweighs any rational gain, and that all the mad babbling of bellicose Americans is just unprocessed cold war hysteria amplified by the need to deny decades of imperial defeats.

What is it with exceptional American irrationalists' love of war?

Still the manic American willingness to risk war with Russia, including nuclear war – over what, exactly? – keeps spinning out of Washington:

  • Ashton Carter, President Obama's choice as Secretary of Defense, assured senators during his confirmation hearing in February that he would push for more aggressive military action for the rest of Obama's term, that he favors lethal arms for Ukraine, and that he would not be pressured into faster release of innocent prisoners held in Guantanamo.
  • John Kerry, Secretary of State, advocated in early February in favor of sending arms to the Ukraine government. Since April 2014, Kerry has been demonizing Russia, blaming Russia for growing violence in eastern Ukraine even as Kiev militias were attacking the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists, calling them "terrorists." Kerry, the highest ranking American diplomat, recently and publicly accused the Russians of lying to his face.
  • James Clapper, director of national intelligence, has told the Council on Foreign Relations that he wants to give "lethal- defensive weapons" to the Kiev government to "bolster their resolve" and persuade them "that we're with them." Clapper was calling Russia one of the greatest threats to the US as early as 2011.
  • Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, jumped on the arm-Ukraine bandwagon March 3, saying "I think we should absolutely consider lethal aid." (He didn't add that the big danger of non-lethal aid is that it might help people settle differences without killing each other.)
  • Victoria Nuland, formerly security advisor to Dick Cheney, now an assistant secretary of state for European affairs, has long engaged in working for regime change in Russia. Nuland is famous for her "f-k the EU" attitude during the Maidan protests in 2014. On March 4 she became the first US official to call Russian actions in eastern Ukraine "an invasion." She claimed there were hundreds of Russian Tanks in eastern Ukraine, though no credible evidence supports the claim.

"NATO now exists to manage the risks created by its existence."

– Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine

From the Russian perspective, NATO aggression has continued for the past 20 years. Secretary of State James Baker, under the first President Bush, explicitly promised the Russians that NATO would not expand eastward toward Russia. For the next two decades, at the behest of the US, NATO has expanded eastward to Russia's borders and put Ukrainian NATO membership in play. The unceasing madness of "US and NATO aggression in Ukraine" is argued forcefully by attorney Robert Roth in Counterpunch, who notes that US-sponsored sanctions on Russia are already, arguably, acts of war.

NATO continues to maintain nuclear weapons bases around Russia's periphery while adding more anti-missile missile installations. Anti-missile missiles to intercept Russian missiles are generally understood to be part of the West's nuclear first strike capability.

Then there's the months-old, expanding Operation Atlantic Resolve, an elaborate US-sponsored NATO show of force deploying thousands of troops to NATO countries that are also Russia's near-neighbors. Beginning in April 2014, Operation Atlantic Resolve started sending troops to Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland) that border Russia. Those troops remain, and Defense News reported that more US saber-rattling is coming:

The US military's plans to send troops into Romania and Bulgaria as a deterrence to Russian aggression could expand to include Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia's southern neighbor, Georgia…. by the end of the summer, you could very well see an operation that stretches from the Baltics all the way down to the Black Sea….

In the Black Sea itself, NATO forces continue to project force through "training exercises" involving the Navies of at least seven nations: US, Canada, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria. NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove complained in late February that Russia had deployed "air defense systems that reach nearly half of the Black Sea" – as if it were surprising that Russia would respond to hostile military activity close to one of its oldest and largest naval bases, Sevastopol, in Crimea. Breedlove admits that NATO naval forces have approached Crimea, provoking Russian naval responses. Breedlove's warmongering reportedly upsets German officials, but they don't object publicly to American lies.

This pattern of provocation and response is familiar to those who know the Viet-Nam War, when similar US tactics provoked the so-called "Tonkin Gulf incident." That manipulated set of events, deceitfully described by the White House and dishonestly amplified by most American media, was used to gull a credulous and lazy Congress into passing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving the president authority to wage that disastrous, pointless war. Watch for the sequel coming to a Black Sea theatre of war near you.

Congress is as eager for Ukraine War as it was for Iraq and Viet-Nam

War mongering has a large, noisy cheering section in Congress. Eleven American lawmakers including House Speaker John Boehner have signeda bi-partisan letter to President Obama demanding in the shrillest tones ("defend against further aggression") that the US ship lethal arms to the Kiev government now. The eleven Congress members (8 predictable Republicans and three veteran, dimwit Democrats) write about Ukraine what they had never had the wit or courage to say about US aggression in Iraq. They assert with grotesque oversimplification and false premises about "the crisis in Ukraine" that:

It is a grotesque violation of International law, a challenge to the west, and an assault on the international order established at such great cost in the wake of World War II.

Fatuous warmongering. At the end of World War II, Crimea was indisputably part of Russia (within the USSR) and the anti-Russian military alliance of NATO did not exist, much less had it pushed its existential security threat to the Russian border. You want an all-out, unambiguous assault on international law, look to Iraq and all the "little Iraqs" that the American hegemon executes with impunity and nearly endless destructiveness to peace, order, and culture.

The weak-kneed Democrats mindlessly signing on to this reflexive Republican rage to kill someone are: Eliot Engel of New York (Westchester County), lawyer – first elected in 1988, he's been a strong supporter of violence in Palestine, Kosovo, and Iraq (voting for the war in 2002); Adam Smith of Washington (Seattle), lawyer – first elected 1997, he's supported violence in Afghanistan and Iraq (voting for the war in 2001) and he sponsored a bill to allow the US government to lie to the people; and Adam Schiff of California (Burbank), lawyer – he's supported violence in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria (voting for the Iraq war in 2002). "Bi-partisanship" is pretty meaningless when the imperial warmaking ideology is monolithic, as in this basic lie also in the Boehner letter:

We should not wait until Russian troops and their separatist proxies take Mariupol or Kharkiv before we act to bolster the Ukrainian government's ability to deter and defend against further aggression.

The core of this lie is those "separatist proxies." That's an Orwellian phrase used to turn the roughly 5 million residents of the Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk into un-persons. These 5 million people are predominantly Russian-speaking and ethnic-Russian. They have legitimate, longstanding grievances with Ukrainian-dominated governments in Kiev, especially with the current illegitimate one which is neo-Nazi-tinged and Russo-phobic.

It is important for these 5 million people seeking self-determination to disappear from the American argument for war sooner rather than later. The American war justifiers require "Russian aggression" as a crediblecasus belli, but the would-be war makers offer no credible evidence to support that propaganda claim ("Remember the Maine!").

The American news bubble distorts and excludes the world's realities

The blandly mindless media repetition of the phrase "Russian aggression" is a reliable measure of how much the news reports the government propaganda, at the expense of something like real world complexity. Dissenting voices are few in America's media world, and seldom heard, especially those who ask: "What aggression?"

Somehow, in the well-washed American collective brain, it's aggression when an oppressed minority declares its independence from its oppressors, the coup-installed Kiev government (and some of its predecessors). But that same scrubbed brain believes it's not aggression when another minority, aligned with foreign interests, carries out a violent overthrow of Ukraine's legitimately elected government.

Newsweek has demonized Russian president Vladimir Putin for months now, including on a cover with the headline "The Pariah" over a picture showing Putin in dark glasses that seem to reflect two nuclear explosions. (This imagery worked with deceitful perfection in 2002 when President Bush and Condoleezza Rice terrified audiences with the possibility that the "smoking gun would be a mushroom cloud.") Newsweek has even called for regime change in Russia. Newsweek is hardly alone in demonizing Putin without considering the realities of his situation. Others, like CNN, simply resort to calling him "completely mad," even though Russian actions have been largely measured and limited, especially when considered in the context of two decades of western provocation.

The New York Times got suckered by the Kiev government into running pictures "proving" Russian troops were in Ukraine, when they proved no such thing. This was not an anomaly among American media, according toRobert Parry in Consortium News:

At pivotal moments in the crisis, such as the Feb. 20, 2014 sniper fire that killed both police and protesters and the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 killing 298 passengers and crew, the U.S. political/media establishment has immediately pinned the blame on Yanukovych, the ethnic Russian rebels who are resisting his ouster, or Putin. Then, when evidence emerged going in the opposite direction – toward "our side" – a studied silence followed, allowing the earlier propaganda to stay in place as part of the preferred storyline.

When reality intrudes upon propaganda, reality must be discredited

In a somewhat mocking story about Russia's denunciation of US troops arriving in Ukraine as a threat to Russia security, the Los Angeles Timesgive roughly equal time to a NATO commander denouncing the Russian denunciation. The casual reader who stops halfway through the story is easily left with the impression that the Russians are behaving badly again and maybe sending lethal weapons is a good idea. Only in the last two paragraphs does the Times, quite unusually, report some real things that matter about Ukraine:

Ukraine, which proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 as the communist-ruled federation was collapsing, had pledged to remain nonaligned, and in any case would need years to carry out reforms and assimilation of its armed forces with those of NATO before it could be inducted into the Western defense alliance.

But since the Russian-backed insurgency began ripping Ukraine apart, Kiev authorities have renounced the nonalignment pledge and set their course for eventual NATO membership.

The first of these two paragraphs is a partly reasonable explanation of why Russia would feel betrayed by the US and NATO. A nonaligned Ukraine remains an obvious possible alternative to the present conflict ignited by decades of NATO aggression.

The second paragraph serves as a warning, packaged as a justification based on a lie. The lie is that it's a Russian-backed insurgency that's ripping Ukraine apart, when Ukraine has been ripping itself apart for years, a reality that led to the coup-government in Kiev. The explanation – which is false – is that the insurgency has forced the Kiev government's hand, even though the government took power with EU and NATO links obviously in mind. The warning is that Ukraine may just join NATO as soon as it can.

Until Americans – and especially American policy makers – face fundamental realities in and about Ukraine, the risk that they will take the rest of us into an unjustified, stupid, and potentially catastrophic war will remain unacceptably high. One of the realities Americans need to face is that the Ukraine government is corrupt, as corrupt an some of the most corrupt governments in the world, and nothing the US has done is likely to change that any time soon. What any war would ultimately be about is: who gets to benefit from that corruption?

Ukrainians know this and despair as, for example, Lilia Bigeyeva, 55, a violinist and composer did when she told her family's storyfrom Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine:

I was born in Melitopol, raised in Zaporizhzhya, and have spent all of my adult life in Dnipropetrovsk. It hasn't been easy, this past year in Ukraine. The loss of Crimea is a tragedy, the war is a tragedy. And it's far from clear that our government and our people are really prepared to institute rule of law….

The war is very close to us, here in Dnipropetrovsk. Every day there's bad news. But we continue to play music, my pupils and I. Culture and art, these are the things that have always helped us through frightening times.

This was published in The Moscow Times on March 6, but it was originally recorded and distributed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In other words, there's no excuse, for anyone on any side, to say they didn't know what was happening to the Ukrainian people for the sake of geopolitical greed.

END NOTE: HOW YOU CAN HELP THE WEST'S WAR EFFORT

[Craigslist posting, edited, from Orange County, California, March 3, 2015.]

Ukrainian/Russian Men Needed $19/Hr (Oceanside, CA)

GTS (Glacier Technology Solutions LLC) – We are military contractors working directly with the US Marine Corps assisting them with their immersive simulation training program.

Currently, we are looking for role players of Ukrainian and/or Russian ethnicity and language skills. Need MEN ranging 18-65 years of age.

This is temporary, part time, on-call work based on need and availability.

At the moment, we are staffing for an upcoming training to take place on: March 29-31, 2015. The scheduled hours will vary from 8-12 hours per working day.

Compensation is $15.17/hr. plus another $4.02/hr. Health and Welfare benefit for up to 40 hours of work in a workweek. (Overtime rates will be paid if necessary). Register for work at: www.Shiftboard.com/wforce


William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Activista 2015-03-10 13:22

rt.com/op-edge/239205-baltic-states-us-military-troops/
NATO uses 'Russia threat' as excuse to halt defense cuts ...
these are make up threats to keep profit/militari sm/NATO going ...
EU does not want to pay 2% GDP to NATO ...
and US military expenditure and debt is growing ..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#mediaviewer/File:Top_ten_military_expenditures_in_$_in_2013.jpg.jpeg

jdd 2015-03-10 18:52

You have it backwards. While it may be less disturbing to believe that NATO exists merely to justify military spending, you have missed the point. NATO's was originally created as a military alliance against the Soviet Union, even though the Warsaw Pact was later dissolved, NATO was maintained and expanded to threaten and encircle Russia. Nuland, Carter and other believe that they can cause "regime change" in Russia, or alternatively win a "first strike" victory in a "limited nuclear war." Now, in response to the successful cease-fire, made possible by Putin's cooperation, we have EU Commissioner Juncker calling for an EU army to confront Russia. The response from a prominent Russian parliamentarian :

"In a nuclear age, extra armies do not provide any additional security. But they surely can play a provocative role...One should presume that a European army is seen as an addendum to NATO...never, even in the darkest days of the Cold War, had anyone dared to make such a proposal." If only it were merely about military spending.

and continue to provoke the Russians

lorenbliss 2015-03-11 02:13

If I did not know better, I would assume there is someone in the State Department channeling Hitler, someone in the Defense Department channeling Goering, someone at Homeland Security channeling Himmler and someone at the head of the media monopoly channeling Goebbels.

And in their resurrected madness -- exactly as in 1941 -- they are forgetting the lessons the Scythians taught the Persians and the Scythians' Russian descendants taught the Teutonic Knights, the Mongols and Bonaparte, not to mention the lessons Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Goebbels were themselves taught by the Russian "untermenschen."

Such are the darkest times in our species' history...

REDPILLED 2015-03-10 17:13

The 11th COMMANDMENT:

No nation shall DARE defy the United States and its Puppets by attempting to be truly independent! That right is reserved only for the God-chosen United States.

wantrealdemocracy 2015-03-10 20:06

Too bad the "God chosen United States" is not independent. Our nation is under the control of Israel. Israel wants this war against Russia, and all those wars in the Middle East, so that the Christians and Muslims will kill each other leaving Israel the winner. The state of Israel and the Zionists will then control the whole world. That is the 'New World Order' you have heard about.

arquebus 2015-03-10 17:20

NATO aggression? When you see NATO tanks rolling across the border in an armed attack against Russia, then come talk to me about aggression. Has not happened and is unlikely to happen.

What we really have here is Putin and the Russians paranoia and inability to get over the German invasion of 1940...something that happened 75 years ago.

skeeter 2015-03-10 19:07

Quoting arquebus:
NATO aggression? When you see NATO tanks rolling across the border in an armed attack against Russia, then come talk to me about aggression. Has not happened and is unlikely to happen.

What we really have here is Putin and the Russians paranoia and inability to get over the German invasion of 1940...something that happened 75 years ago.

Let's get real...the Europeans are threatening to bring Ukraine into NATO, a military alliance established and maintained to challenge the Soviet Union. No Russian leader in his right mind could stand by and let this happen. Imagine if the Soviets had approached Mexico or Canada a few years ago and tried to convince them to join the Warsaw Pact. The Russians paranoid...can you blame them?

Agricanto 2015-03-10 19:23

First I read the (very excellent) piece of journalism from people like William Boardman.

Then I "scroll to the troll" and give the predictable right wing doublethink a thumbs down.

Then I go to PayPal and give RSN 10bux all the while complaining that trolls don't pay to clog up important discussions on RSN. Penny a word from the troll factory is all I ask.

Merlin 2015-03-10 21:05

Agricanto 2015-03-10 19:23

Spot on and well said!

jsluka 2015-03-11 00:15

If Russian troops began to maneuver on the US border, like US troops (NATO) are now doing on the Russian border, the US would go "ballistic." That's called "hypocrisy," by the way.

MJnevetS 2015-03-13 14:52

"Russia already did that and invaded killed people and are feeding a false insurgency that is being dubbed freedom fighters .. they even shot down a domestic airliner in the summer flying over that territory over the UKraine from Amsterdam. don't you know the news even on this subject"

There is a sad lack of facts in these statements. NY Times had to retract the allegations of a 'Russian Invasion', as the evidence proved to be fabricated. The only 'false insurgency' was the coup initiated by the US and with regard to the shooting down of the commercial liner, show me one SINGLE piece of evidence that Russian backed rebels were involved. It was a false flag operation and when people demanded evidence over propaganda, the news story magically disappeared, as the evidence would show that it was a terrorist attack by the Nazis currently in control of Ukraine.

jdd 2015-03-11 08:15

When you "see NATO tanks rolling across the border in an armed attack against Russia" it will not be the time to converse with you, but rather then you may kiss your loved ones a final goodbye as that will be the beginning of a war of human extinction, all over within an hour.

Thank goodness for Putin and s few sane voices in the West who are trying to avoid ever getting to that point while others in the West, such as the Newland gang, seem hell-bent on making it happen.

Activista 2015-03-11 20:36

... see NATO bombers in Libya, Yugoslavia .. US troops in Kosovo US Sending 3,000 Troops To Latvia, Estonia ...
www.ibtimes.com/ukraine-crisis-us-sending-...
International Business Times
2 days ago - An Abrams main battle tank, for U.S. troops deployed in the Baltics as part of NATO's Operation Atlantic Resolve, left the port in Riga, Latvia ....

Trish42 2015-03-10 18:03

When will Americans ever get their collective head out of their ass and start looking at the world from others' points of view? We have gotten sucked into the propaganda about Ukraine, never checking other sources or verifying what we "know" to see if there was any evidence that would support our intervention. Sound familiar? We've got to get the war-mongers out of DC!!

Kev C 2015-03-10 21:19

Allow me to explain why they won't. Education. The entire system is based on US centric thinking and behaviour. There is limited information available about the rest of the world and what there is is painting the US as the God Given Saviour of humanity. Hell they won the war after all. Single handed. They saved the UKs ass by coming to our rescue didn't they? Not!

Until the vast majority of Really decent but hypnotized Americans get the real info they will continue to believe what they are told because there isn't really an alternative to the Faux news/MSN bullshit and the pre programmed education system. Its not the peoples fault. The system was rigged long before they were born.

dsepeczi 2015-03-11 09:38

Quoting Trish42:
When will Americans ever get their collective head out of their ass and start looking at the world from others' points of view? We have gotten sucked into the propaganda about Ukraine, never checking other sources or verifying what we "know" to see if there was any evidence that would support our intervention. Sound familiar? We've got to get the war-mongers out of DC!!
Sadly, I'm starting to believe the answer to your question is ... "Never". If Iraq wasn't a big enough, loud enough, and obvious enough mistake to wake up ALL Americans to the fact that our government lies to us and we should take everything they say with a grain of salt and request that they provide solid proof of their allegations against another nation ... I can't think of any event that will. :(

pbbrodie 2015-03-11 09:45

"get warmongers out of Washington."
Yes, especially the complete idiots who are making insane comments about "limited nuclear war." There is no such thing as limited nuclear war. Once one is exploded, it is all over.

Johnny 2015-03-10 18:15

How soon we forget. The U.S. must punish Russia, and, more importantly, divert the attention of Russia from the Middle East, because Russia has supported Syria, which is an obstacle to open war against Iran, because Iran arms Hezbollah, and the last time the Zionists invaded Lebanon, Hezbollah chased them out. Hezbollah is an obstacle to annexation of the whole area by Israel. And now that the Zionists smell the opportunity to induce the U.S. to attack Iran, they are creating another front on which Russia must try to defend itself and its allies. The U.S. Congress is not the only part of the U.S. government that Jewish supremacist banksters have bought, lock, stock, and barrel. (Before some asshole starts to howl about anti-Semitism, let him explain why we should not criticize other proponents of racism, such as white supremacists; Zionism, after all, is merely warmed over Nazism, with a different "chosen" people and different victims.)

dquandle 2015-03-10 20:05

In fact, the neo-nazis now in control in the US/NATO supported Ukraine have been blatantly anti-semitic for decades, having supported the Nazis at that time and are even more egregious now.

"For the first time since 1945, a neo-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism in the borderland through which Hitler's invading Nazis took millions of Russian lives. They were supported by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), responsible for the massacre of Jews and Russians they called "vermin". The UPA is the historical inspiration of the present-day Svoboda Party and its fellow-travelli ng Right Sector. Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok has called for a purge of the "Moscow-Jewish mafia" and "other scum", including gays, feminists and those on the political left."

Taken from

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/11/on-israel-ukraine-and-truth/

And these, fully supported and paid for supported by the ostensibly "Jewish" Nuland and Obama's heinous State Department.

See also e.g.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/the-neo-nazi-question-in_b_4938747.html

Radscal 2015-03-11 00:24

In addition to Ms. Nuland and her PNAC founding husband, Robert Kagan, two of the three Democrats cited by Mr. Boardman as signees on the "arm Ukraine" letter are Jewish. In fact, Congressman Engel is of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry.

As the "protests" in Ukraine grew in late 2013/early 2014, Ukrainian Jewish groups reported skyrocketing cases of anti-Semitic rhetoric and attacks. But those reports were buried by Zionist organizations who insisted that Russia was the real threat to Ukrainian Jews, not the frigging Nazis in Ukraine!

At first, this sort of thing confused me, before I realized it wasn't a Jew against Jew thing. This is Zionist fascists supporting Nazi fascists.

Vardoz 2015-03-10 22:23

Sorry it just boils down to profits and power and any excuse to wage endless war for profits period end of story.

L.S. 2015-03-10 20:06

I do not agree with these conclusions. I don't believe that the U.S. and U.K. are invested in military action. Those troops are advisors and instructors. This interpretation is very cynical and pessimistic and I don't buy it.

My background is International Relations and I am watching the chess pieces on the board and I challenge this interpretation and find it very unhelpful and in itself can be contributing towards War rather than supporting the diplomatic actions towards Peace.

Merlin 2015-03-10 21:02

L.S. 2015-03-10 20:06

So talk to me about the advisors that Eisenhower put in Viet Nam. Then talk to me about Kennedy expanding on their number. Then talk to me about the Viet Nam War.

You state:

"My background is International Relations and I am watching the chess pieces on the board and I challenge this interpretation"

I challenge YOU because either you a not what you claim or you sure did not learn very much.

Kev C 2015-03-10 21:24

If you don't see what is happening now then your a lousy chess player. Don't give up though. Practice makes perfect. However beware there are not many nations left that haven't been smeared then bombed by the US and we are running out nations and out of time before the US blow all our asses off the face of the planet for that self serving act of pathetic vanity which will be countersigned in hell with 'Property of The US Military.'

jsluka 2015-03-11 00:17

"Advisors and intructors" - Don't be naive. And what happens when some of them get killed? What is the likelihood or statistical probability of escalation after that? This is clearly provocative and dangerous and does absolutely nothing for "peace" or "security" of anyone.

Radscal 2015-03-11 00:27

L.S. "...I am watching the chess pieces on the board..."

Does your use of that analogy imply that you read Ziggy Brzezenski's 1998 book, "The Grand Chessboard," in which he explains why the U.S. must take control of Ukraine as key to controlling Eurasian resources, and ultimately to conquer Russia and China?

RODNOX 2015-03-11 05:14

history has shown the USA always has some underhanded agenda--some self serving plan---and often plays BOTH sides of the problem--just to escalate it----WHEN WILL WE STOP THEM ????? THIS IS TRULY THE 1 % IN ACTION--WE--THE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM

wrknight 2015-03-12 20:47

Quoting L.S.:
I do not agree with these conclusions. I don't believe that the U.S. and U.K. are invested in military action. Those troops are advisors and instructors.

Like the advisors the U.S. sent to South Vietnam in the 1950's.

Archie1954 2015-03-10 20:16

Exceptional, indispensable? More like irrational, despicable! What we need is for Putin to call up Obama and tell him point blank that if the US doesn't get the hell out of Ukraine, Russia will make it! If you don't think it can, think again!

jsluka 2015-03-11 00:20

I appreciate your emotion here, but that would be really really scary because I imagine the US would respond with even greater belligerance and "justify" it by saying "Putin is threatening us" - even though, ironically, it is the US that is doing all the threatening.

Vardoz 2015-03-10 21:17

It's more like war madmen then warmongers and it's all very frightening. Putin is crazy too and we have no right getting involved so that the Fuking military can make profits!!!! Enough!!!!! Our military is out of control with a suicidal war agenda and they don't care about the consequences or the collateral damage. It's just war all around, kick out the jams no matter how many die- they don't give a damn. Seemed like Germany was making some constructive headway and Merkel should tell the US where to go. This is all so dirty and obscene and wrong.

Radscal 2015-03-11 00:33

You do know that the U.S. was not even invited to the peace talks, right?

Similarly, it was EU members, Russia and then-president Yanukovych who signed the agreement with the Maidan Protest leaders on 2/21/14 in which Yanukovych acquiesced to every one of their demands.

That was when Vickie Nuland's "Fuck the EU" plan went into action and the neo-nazis stormed the government buildings, including the Parliament and drove about 2 dozen Members of Parliament and the President to flee for their lives.

And that, is why those who followed the events call it a "coup."

jdd 2015-03-11 07:28

The ceaae-fire came about because the "Normandy Four" excluded the US and UK, whose participation would have guaranteed failure. Now the efforts of all, but especially that of Putin have led to a fragile peace. The response from a disappointed Victoria Nuland crowd continues to speak of sending arms and "advisors" to Ukraine in order to throw gasoline on the embers.

dsepeczi 2015-03-11 08:21

Quoting ericlane:
Another moronic article. Who do you think was behind the peace deal?
Ummm. I believe the organizers of that peace deal were Europe, Ukraine and Russia. The US, wisely, was not invited to the table.

jsluka 2015-03-11 00:13

Is "US Goes Ballistic" a scary pun here? I.e., as in "nuclear armed ballistic missiles". Also, isn't that how it all started in the Vietnam War - with "advisors"? This is batcrap crazy, but then many people have now begun to realise that US politicians have become homocidally psychotic. It's "back to the future" and return of Dr. Strangelove.

[email protected] 2015-03-11 06:22

We have no business in Ukraine, we have no business antagonizing the Russians. We Slavs have been demonized, mocked and denigrated as imbeciles and barbarians by the West for centuries. Stay the hell away from us, already. We don't need to be like you.

Buddha 2015-03-11 17:10

"To the dismay of the Pentagon, the White House war crowd, and the rest of the American bloviating class of chickenhawk hardliners, the warring sides in Ukraine are disengaging and the ceasefire has almost arrived (March 7 was the first day with no casualties)."

John McCain's dick just got limp again. Oh well, there is always ISIS and Iran to try to stoke up WWIII, right Uncle Fester?

Kootenay Coyote 2015-03-16 10:12

"Until Americans, and especially American policy maker, face fundamental realities in and about Ukraine….". Or any fundamental realities, for that matter: cf. Global Warming. The nearest thing to reality that's considered is that of the weapon makers & warmongers, & that's pretty meagre.

[May 03, 2015] How U.S. Journalists Inflame Middle East Sectarianism - e.g. Liz Sly

May 03, 2015 | moonofalabama.org

Sectarianism in the Middle East is regularly inflamed by the Sunni Salafi/Wahhabi groups and countries in the Middle East. It is directed against all other strains of Islam as well as against all other religions.

But as the "western" governments and media favor the Saudi Arabian side and often denigrate the "resistance" side, be it Shia, Sunni or whatever else, they insist that it is the Shia side that is preaching sectarianism. One can often experience this with reports on speeches of Hizbullah leader Nasrallah who is always very careful to not ever use sectarian language. When Nasrallah condemns Takfiri terrorists like AlQaeda and the Islamic State as non-Muslim and calls them the greatest danger to Sunnis, Shia and Christians alike the "western" media like to report that he warns of Sunnis in general and is thus spreading sectarianism.

Many such reports come from "western" reporters who are stationed in Beirut, speak no Arabic and depend on the spokespersons and translators in the offices of the Saudi-Lebanese Sunni leader Hariri. For an ever growing collection of typical examples see the Angry Arab here and here.

The finding of non-existent sectarian language in "resistance" leaders' communications and the emphasizing of it has been internalized by "western" reporters. You can clearly see the process in the exemplary Twitter exchange copied below.

Liz Sly is the Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post in Beirut and does not speak Arabic. Elijah J. Magnier is Chief International Correspondent for the Kuwaiti TV station AL RAI. He speaks Arabic and has covered the war on Iraq and other wars on the ground for decades.

The issue at hand is a defense bill in front of the U.S. Congress which refers to Sunni militia, Kurds and other groups in Iraq as distinguished "countries" which are to be armed separately from the state of Iraq. "Divide and rule" writ large. Many Iraqi politicians including the Prime Minister have spoken out against it. The Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr warned of the consequences should the bill go through which he says would include an unleashing of his troops against U.S. interests.

Notice how Liz Sly insist on a sectarian aspect/intent in Sadr's proclamation even when there clearly is none. She keeps in insisting on it even after she gets pointed to an official denial of any sectarian intent by a Sadr spokesperson. The exchange:

Liz Sly 17h17 hours ago
Moqtada Sadr to the US: if you arm Iraq's Sunnis, we will fight Americans in Iraq. https://twitter.com/jihadicas/status/593512749235249152 …

Elijah J. Magnier 8h8 hours ago
@LizSly Moqtada didn't say that https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai/status/593324552437903360 …

Liz Sly ‏ 6h6 hours ago
@EjmAlrai Didn't mean literally fighting US troops, but to fight against US presence in Iraq. Presumably would hit embassy, personnel etc?

Elijah J. Magnier 6h6 hours ago
@LizSly U r right as Moqtada said he will fight USA in Iraq and abroad but didn't say if Sunni are armed.

Elijah J. Magnier ‏ 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly "We shall hit US interest in Iraq & abroad, as possible, ', if US approves supporting each religion independently",

Liz Sly ‏ 5h5 hours ago
@EjmAlrai Right, he means if Sunnis are armed directly by the US under that weird bill

Elijah J. Magnier 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly I spoke to S. Ali Seism who said it is not directed to Sunni but 2 all religions (incl Kurds) as there are more than Sunnis in Iraq.

Elijah J. Magnier ‏ 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly In fact the communique' doesn't say in any line the word "Sunni" but "all religions".

Liz Sly ‏ 5h5 hours ago
@EjmAlrai The bill is aimed at arming Sunnis and my tweet makes it clear Muqtada is against the US arming Sunnis, not against arming them

Elijah J. Magnier 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly Moqtada communique' clearly didn't mention Sunni: "Not arming religions": Fayli, Turkman, Sunni, Shia, Yazidi... Feel free.

Liz Sly ‏ 5h5 hours ago
@EjmAlrai Ok, but it's clear he's against a bill whose goal is to permit the US to directly arm Sunnis, not eg Fayli. As are many Iraqis.

The last paragraph of Sadr's statement says:

American should know that if it wants to exacerbate sectarian sentiment, we would continue to tread on the path of national unity. Let sectarianism fall out of existence! This is the very sectarianism that seeks to create [artificial] borders.

The U.S. Congress introduces a law that would exacerbate sectarianism in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr responses with a statement explicitly speaking out against sectarianism. Liz Sly insist that it is therefore Sadr who is playing a sectarian card.

Is this insistence by Liz Sly on sectarian "Shia leader Sadr is against Sunnis" justified by anything but sly, willful exaggeration, and even falsification, of what Sadr wrote? Who is the sectarian here?

Posted by b at 11:24 AM | Comments (54)


Mike Maloney | Apr 30, 2015 11:56:41 AM | 1

Another good example of this is the NYT story from yesterday, An Eroding Syrian Army Points to Strain, about various religious sects and ethnic groups in Syria losing confidence in the SAA. Penned by Anne Barnard and Eric Schmitt, it is clearly a CIA-sponsored tale, built mostly out of quotes from an anonymous "Syrian with security ties."

The chief target of the anonymous source's ire is of course Hezbollah.

Amer | Apr 30, 2015 3:03:25 PM | 2

Non-sectarian nature of the resistance...This point needs to be made over and over again.

Funny that this Scott Horton interview from 2 days ago focuses exact same point about Syrian government as in reality non-sectarian and pluralistic: http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2015/04/28/42815-brad-hoff/

Based on bizarre story of military vet moving to live in Syria: https://medium.com/@BradRHoff/a-marine-in-syria-d06ff67c203c

james | Apr 30, 2015 3:39:11 PM | 4

thanks b. given the background on this, i'm inclined to believe it's intentional. or is it that it fits with the constant mantra on the problem in the middle being one of sectarian conflict that the usa and the west want to always present?

@2 mike. thanks more of the same bs from the same sources, in this case cia, although i they aren't referenced in the article.. nyt - cia/blackhouse mouthpiece..

KerKaraje | Apr 30, 2015 4:04:42 PM | 5

The "Hooligan theory"...
http://radioyaran.com/2015/04/30/the-hooligan-theory-and-syria/

"It is extremely delusional and childish to assume that tens of thousands of well-armed and battle-hardened Jihadists who have gotten accustomed to roaming their (and other people´s) country to kill "infidels", "apostates", "traitors" (e.g. fellow Sunnis who fight in the Syrian army) or simply "Shabiha" (a derogatory expression used to defame and dehumanize all kind of Sunni and non-Sunni militias and civilians who reject the rebels) would lay down their weapons and re-enter their ordinary civilian life on the day the Syrian government falls and Assad is killed..."

Wayoutwest | Apr 30, 2015 5:03:43 PM | 7

Al Sadr and his Iranian allies don't want any US involvement in Iraq. He certainly doesn't want the Kurds armed by anyone for obvious reasons and the Sunni tribes are considered a possible threat especially because they remember how Sadr's Mahdi Army carefully planned and viciously executed the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad's Sunni civilian population. Actions speak much louder than words.

Nasrallah has to carefully chose his words because the Shia are a minority in Lebanon but again actions are more telling than words. Hezbollah attempted to overthrow the government of Lebanon to create a Shia led Islamic Republic which I think is still their goal.

Deebo | Apr 30, 2015 5:20:57 PM | 8

I wonder what would happen if the media started talking about US support for Jewish terror groups ???

@ WOW as per usual your talking shit. Maybe you should ask sadr about his father and unclear death, while their killers were at the time roaming around free under US protection, kinda the same as KSA now

I really do admire your methods of being a paid propagandist -- Whether your in India or Tel Aviv or receive your pay checks from them, you really do have a way of talking doo doo

Yes maybe you should ask the nuns of maloola that your friends Way Out West seemed to have forgotten about if Hezbollah wants a Islamic Republic

You clearly are a Zionist because you seem to know enough about the Middle East, yet those who know as "much" as you so would not generally distort the truth unless they had an agenda, and most people who tread your path and masturbate heavily Iran Syria Hezbollah are generally yids

Sorry dude u have been exposed

I also wonder if Israel will comply with UNIFIL new resolution demanding they withdraw from all Lebanese territory and stop violating its air space

Israel sure is a funny country shame they cant beat a "rag tag" militia lol

jfl | Apr 30, 2015 6:34:50 PM | 10

' sly, willful exaggeration, and even falsification ' is the basis for the US aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine ... the issue is not so much the sly exaggerators and falsifiers in the government ... all 546 of those at the top are owned lock, stock and barrel by the aggressors, and so, of course, are their mouthpieces and hired hands ... but us, zombified cogs on the wheels of imperial slaughter, sitting on our thumbs and switching from cnn, to foxx, to msnbc eating popcorn and the 'news' along with. At what point do you call our self-delusion willful, and how long ago was that point passed?

The only people among us asserting ourselves are Americans of color, who've been pinched, lynched, and gunned down in the streets long enough. For far too long, of course, but now, with a black president and successive attorneys general leading the charge against them, black Americans have given up all hope of help from above/outside their own ranks.

White/Black - Sunni/Shia - Xtian/Muslim ... divide, devastate and destroy worldwide. The US is as monstrous in 2015 as Germany was in 1935, but no one seems to notice. And the EUnuchs, Israel and the KSA are filling in for Italy and Japan.

Jen | Apr 30, 2015 7:19:59 PM | 11

I see this tweet exchange between Sly and Magnier as an example of Sly having been told by her employer (and probably the US govt through its embassy) to ratchet up the Sunni / Shia sectarian divide whenever and wherever possible. In addition Sly seems quite brainwashed and primed to see sectarianism even where it doesn't exist. This would explain her idiotic responses to Magnier's tweets.

The US govt is using identity politics as part of its "divide and rule" strategy to set different religious and ethnic groups at one another's throats. To their credit, people like Moqtada al Sadr and Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah among others recognize that this strategy encourages tensions between and among various groups leading to continuous instability, turbulence and chaos that the US and other foreigners can use to their advantage.

The Western media is also at fault for deploying to the Middle East and other areas around the world as foreign correspondents people who have no background knowledge or understanding of the peoples, languages and cultures in the areas they have to report on.

Virgile | Apr 30, 2015 8:44:33 PM | 12

Liz Sly and Ann Barnard are the mini-version of the notorious Judith Miller, the NYT journalist that has been the promoter of lies that lead to the Iraq war.

Judith Miller was on Israel payroll. Whose payroll Liz Sly and Ann Barnard are on?

Lone Wolf | Apr 30, 2015 10:59:21 PM | 15

@b

Thanks for yet another enlightening post about the inner workings of the so-called MSM. Their efforts to reproduce a narrative that combines official government views with those of the WaPo's editorial board are truly pathetic.

@mcohen@3

why do we not hear from liz sly herself... hey liz what do you think of these allegators made against you in this article by the blogger

i await your reply

Good try, but no cigar. You will wait until hell freezes over. She cannot step down from her clay feet pedestal to answer a commoner's question. No sir. She would be fired if she does for violation of...submission.

@Wayoutwest@7

Hezbollah attempted to overthrow the government of Lebanon to create a Shia led Islamic Republic which I think is still their goal.

This time, Way-out-there outdid himself, his ignorance about Hezbollah, Lebanon and the Shia, of galactic proportions.

@Jen@11

I see this tweet exchange between Sly and Magnier as an example of Sly having been told by her employer (and probably the US govt through its embassy) to ratchet up the Sunni / Shia sectarian divide whenever and wherever possible. In addition Sly seems quite brainwashed and primed to see sectarianism even where it doesn't exist. This would explain her idiotic responses to Magnier's tweets.

Bingo. Great summary of the whole guacamole. Thanks.

mcohen | May 1, 2015 7:33:08 AM | 20

Re: lone wolf.15

.....this chick has got the goods....British intellectuality and all

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/emma-sky

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/20/petraeus-the-islamic-state-isnt-our-biggest-problem-in-iraq/

liz sly and emma sky........

..wondered what happened to the biographer....maybe she got the cigar

lol?.......league of liars

mcohen | May 1, 2015 7:57:01 AM | 21

emma sky wrote this in 2014.....now petraeus is back in iraq looking almost a year later and .....and .......and liz on the sly is tweeting about ........not sure what .....anyone understand this stuff,

there is so many billions up for grabs the whole thing looks like one big criminal exercise.....

one thing is for sure ....sectarianism is just a cover, surely a religion would not stoop this low

In his June 19 statement, U.S. President Barack Obama said,

"Iraqi leaders must rise above their differences and come together around a political plan for Iraq's future. Shia, Sunni, Kurds -- all Iraqis -- must have confidence that they can advance their interests and aspirations through the political process rather than through violence."

Obama is right to pressure Iraqi politicians to form a new government, rather than insisting that they support Maliki. He correctly recognized that any military options would be effective only if they were in support of an overall political strategy that a new broad-based government agreed to.

The United States has a key role to play in helping broker a new deal among the elites that creates a better balance among Iraq's communities. A new broad-based Iraqi government will need to win back the support of Sunnis against ISIS -- and the Obama administration should be prepared to respond positively to requests for assistance to do so.

farflungstar | May 1, 2015 12:26:13 PM | 25

From Feb 22 - old news, I know:

General Clark reveals that Daesh is an Israeli project
http://www.voltairenet.org/article186827.html

"General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO, told CNN that the Islamic Emirate ("Daesh") had been "created by our friends and allies to defeat Hezbollah."

General Clark thus clearly put into question the responsibility of Israel.

Since 2001, General Clark has been the spokesman for a group of senior officers opposed to Israeli influence on the foreign policy of the United States, its aggressive imperialist developments and the remodeling of the "Greater Middle East". He had opposed the deployment of troops in Iraq, and wars against Libya and against Syria." (With accompanying video).

Some reminder regarding pretend-journalists/model-type cupcakes you may wanna put the boots to (well not Emma Sky) slanting stories to influence people to believe that USSA, Israel and KSA ONLY are fighting ISIS, Daesh, ISIL, Al-Qaeda, whatever name their bosses want to give them this week.
Selling lies thru their fascist party dolls taking pouty selfies on the side.

Lone Wolf | May 1, 2015 7:34:26 PM | 38

@Wayoutwest@7

Addendum

Even Wikipedia had to give in and publish a marginal note about "Israeli censorship" (sure, they don't call it lies.) FYI.

2006 Lebanon War

"...Hezbollah rocket attacks also targeted and succeeded in hitting military targets in Israel. The Israeli military censorship was, however, very strict and explicitly forbade Israel-based media from reporting such incidents. The war time instruction to media stated that "The Military Censor will not approve reports on missile hits at IDF bases and/or strategic facilities."[131] A notable exception was the rocket attack 6 August, on a company of IDF reservists assembling in the border community of Kfar Giladi, which killed 12 soldiers and wounded several others. Initially Israel did not confirm that the victims were military but eventually relented..."

So? Figures lie and liars figure...

guest77 | May 1, 2015 8:43:15 PM | 40

In fact the subject of this post and that of the last Ukraine famine post are very similar. It is the same game being played, with many of the same methods. Make no mistake: given its position so far from.the consequences of sparking these deep-seated ethnic conflicts, the sheer fact of any fighting, no matter what the outcome, is a "victory" for.our cynical masters. Nothing new - similar games were.played in Nicaragua w the Miskito (sorry for spelling). Its quite remarkable display the.power.to split people and turn them against one another. People w/ hundreds of years of peaceful coexistence.

Lone Wolf | May 1, 2015 11:28:10 PM | 44

@Laguerre@36

...It's been evident for some months that Israel was trying to turn Hizbullah's flank.

Good point. No better proof can be found of the proxy links between ISIS and Israel than ISIS drive into the Qalamoun Mountains. mcohen@30, 34 is way off line with his opinions about Hezbollah's "miscalculations." Just recently, Syria's Defense Minister visited Iran and got all the support Syria needs, and more to continue its existential fight against the Axis of Terror, US/Israel/KSA et al.

The war on Syria has geopolitical repercussions beyond the region, and neither Iran, nor Iraq, or Russia will allow the fall of Assad. Hezbollah will not allow the taqfiris control of the Qalamoun and surroundings, for obvious strategic reasons; ISIS would have direct access to the Bekaa Valley. Iran will not permit the taqfiris to succeed in their efforts to drive a strategic wedge against Hezbollah, which will expose Syria's northern front and Lebanon; Iraq cannot afford losing Syria to the taqfiris and get surrounded by a hostile sea of Sunnis, and Russia will support Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah efforts to avoid cutting Syria in two on a SW/NE axis, that will effectively isolate the port of Tartus, Russia's naval base on the Mare Nostrum.

Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah is not a man prone to miscalculations, whether political or military and he learns from his mistakes. For example, he admitted the Israeli response to the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers that ignited the 2006 Summer War, was a surprise for Hezbollah, which didn't expect such a reaction, even though Israel had concrete plans after getting kicked out of southern Lebanon in 2000, to bomb Lebanon as a punishment for not disarming Hezbollah. Hezbollah intervention in Syria, after Nasrallah deemed the taqfiris an "existential threat" for the Shiites and Lebanon has been confirmed correct by later developments.

Martin | May 2, 2015 8:18:24 AM | 49

Washington Post is making laugh of itself:

"If what is happening in Baltimore happened in a foreign country, here is how Western media would cover it:

International leaders expressed concern over the rising tide of racism and state violence in America, especially concerning the treatment of ethnic minorities in the country and the corruption in state security forces around the country when handling cases of police brutality. The latest crisis is taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, a once-bustling city on the country's Eastern Seaboard, where an unarmed man named Freddie Gray died from a severed spine while in police custody.

Black Americans, a minority ethnic group, are killed by state security forces at a rate higher than the white majority population. Young, black American males are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than white American males.

The United Kingdom expressed concern over the troubling turn of events in America in the last several months. The country's foreign ministry released a statement: "We call on the American regime to rein in the state security agents who have been brutalizing members of America's ethnic minority groups. The equal application of the rule of law, as well as the respect for human rights of all citizens, black or white, is essential for a healthy democracy." Britain has always maintained a keen interest in America, a former colony.

Palestine has offered continued assistance to American pro-democracy activists, sending anti-tear-gas kits to those protesting police brutality in various American cities. Egyptian pro-democracy groups have also said they will be sharing their past experience with U.S.-made counter-protest weapons.

A statement from the United Nations said, "We condemn the militarization and police brutality that we have seen in recent months in America, and we strongly urge American state security forces to launch a full investigation into the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. There is no excuse for excessive police violence." The U.N. called on the United States to make a concerted effort to make databases of police violence public to improve transparency and cut down on corruption in the justice system.

International analysts predict the seeds of a so-called "American Spring," fomented by technology. "It's amazing what social media is doing for the cause of justice in America," said a political rights analyst based in Geneva. "The black youth of America are showing what 21st-century civil rights activism looks like, using technology, social media and a decentralized organizing strategy to hold authorities accountable and agitate for change. These kids represent what modern-day freedom fighting looks like. The revolution will be tweeted, Periscope-d and Snapchatted."

Local leaders in the American township of Baltimore imposed a state of martial law this week after peaceful protests turned violent. In response, countries around the world have advised darker-skinned nationals against non-essential travel to areas noted for state violence against unarmed people of color, especially in recent hot spots such as New York, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Ohio, California, Michigan, Virginia and now Maryland.

International human rights groups have appealed to the global community to facilitate asylum for America's ethnic black minorities. When asked whether the European Union was willing to take on more black refugees risking their lives in fleeing American state violence, an E.U. human rights spokesman said: "More black refugees? We are dealing with our own Mediterranean crisis, so now is not really a good time for that for us. Furthermore, we believe in American solutions to American problems." The African Union has not responded to requests for comment.

American government officials took to state media, characterizing the protesters as "thugs," a racially coded word increasingly used to describe black males in America. Commentators in national media have frequently compared the protesters and riots to various characters and events from the popular television series "The Wire," set in early-2000s Baltimore.

America's ethnic blacks have been displaced from many of their communities due to a phenomenon experts on the region call "gentrification," when wealthier residents move into a lower-income area. Baltimore is no exception to this trend, with some areas seeing home values rise as much as 137 percent after corporate dollars move in on opportunities in poverty-stricken areas.

Resident Joe Smith, a member of the white majority ethnic group, said outside of a brand-new Starbucks near Baltimore's Inner Harbor, "I don't know why these blacks are destroying their own communities. Why don't these people follow Martin Luther King's example? Those guys got it good from the police back then too, but they didn't try to rise up and fight back and make everyone uncomfortable, you know?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/04/30/how-western-media-would-cover-baltimore-if-it-happened-elsewhere/

Jesrad | May 2, 2015 8:02:41 PM | 51

The media in Mordor has been all "sectarianism" all the time, since late 2003. They needed an explanation for the ongoing violence in Iraq, besides "guerilla war", which was completely unacceptable with an election approaching.

So they invented the nonsense that the Iraqis were attacking themselves and the noble Orcs were desperately trying to prevent it. I think the nonsense was that al-Ciada was targeting the anti-occupation Arabs to provoke a civil war thereby forcing the occupation to continue since they were 'winning' and about to leave. Apparently al-ciada hadn't heard about the permanent bases. This protection conveniently involved treating the Arab population like the Palestinians and putting them under guard behind concrete and barbed wire wherever possible.

Why the pro-occupation Kurds didn't need to be forced into dozens of bantustans, was something I've never seen asked by anyone. That the Iraqi population was heavily intermarried and had never had a 'civil war' or any history of 'sectarian violence' was also deemed not newsworthy.

After 10+ years of even the 'alternative' media repeating this garbage it has become accepted as fact among the limited portion of the population who are even vaguely aware of the endless colonial wars.

U.S. Hasn't Helped Kiev's "Endless Dysfunction" by Michael S. Rozeff

Criticism of Kiev's administration and its war against Donbas likewise strikes some as pro-Russian. This too is a false conclusion. The making of war by any state against breakaway regions or regions seeking autonomy or constitutional changes or secession is anti-libertarian.
LewRockwell.com

Balazs Jarabik, who is associated with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and who focuses on Ukraine, has an article titled "Ukraine: The War Must Go On?". It's a pertinent article because both sides are re-arming and both sides are more skilled now at war. Renewed fighting, if serious war breaks out again, will be more devastating than the earlier engagements. It will likely enter new areas and, in the process, undermine Ukraine altogether.

Jarabik writes "As terrible as it sounds, Kyiv's endless dysfunction is the Kremlin's most powerful ally in the current crisis-a point that is glossed over in Western policy debates on sending lethal aid to Ukraine."

Critics of the libertarian positions on Ukraine should read and heed what the non-libertarian Jarabik says about Kiev and Ukraine. U.S. and NATO aid, bank financing, training and military advice are not helping Ukrainians. Quite the opposite.

The libertarian refrain calling for U.S. disengagement from Ukraine (and other of the Empire's venues) strikes some as being either pro-Russian or not anti-Russian enough. This is a false conclusion that doesn't follow from a non-interventionist stance. It only follows from a non-libertarian perspective of supposing that the U.S. should be helping Ukraine achieve independence from Russian pressures. But such so-called help is destroying Ukraine and promises worse to come.

Criticism of Kiev's administration and its war against Donbas likewise strikes some as pro-Russian. This too is a false conclusion. The making of war by any state against breakaway regions or regions seeking autonomy or constitutional changes or secession is anti-libertarian.

Both U.S. disengagement from Kiev and criticism of Kiev's war-making are policies that will help, not harm, ordinary Ukrainians. Sons will not be drafted, ill-trained, ill-equipped and sent into unwinnable and destructive wars. The government won't go bankrupt in the process. Huge debts won't be levied on generations of Ukrainians. The currency won't crash, as it has, destroying the wealth of anyone holding it, small savers or holders of debt denominated in that currency. Resources can be put toward peaceful purposes. Similarly, people in Donbas won't face the severe destruction wrought by war. Refugees can come home. People won't be driven from their homes. Population centers, ranging from villages to major cities, won't be shelled.

The war-making and other related decisions are promoted by the U.S. and NATO. The U.S. is re-arming one side and improving the weaponry. The Russians are re-arming the other side, and that side too will bring in new ways of fighting. The level of destructiveness can only escalate as a consequence of a U.S. and Kiev decision to bring Donbas back into Ukraine by military means.

Libertarian calls for the U.S. completely out of Ukraine are for the good of Ukrainians themselves, although surely not all of them. This policy doesn't satisfy Ukrainian nationalists who insist on union of west and east, come hell or high water. Hell it may be.

[May 02, 2015] US Foreign Policymakers Cannot Be Trusted by Sheldon Richman,

April 23, 2015 | Antiwar.com

The megalomaniacs of the Washington power elite actually think they can mold the Middle East to their specifications. No calamity resulting from their clumsy machinations ever causes them to rethink this preposterous conceit.

Look at some of their more recent handiwork. In 2003, on the basis of shoddy intelligence if not conscious lies, President George W. Bush had the U.S. military overthrow Iraqi dictator (and former ally) Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim whose secular regime discriminated against the Shia majority. With Saddam gone and his Ba'ath party dispersed, the Shiites inevitably assumed power, assisted by American forces that put down a Sunni insurgency and enabled Shiite militias to ethnically cleanse most of the capital, Baghdad. Millions were killed, injured, and displaced.

Next door, of course, is the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been America's bête noir since 1979, when a revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed autocratic shah and militants held American hostages, 26 years after the CIA helped to oust a prime minister and restore the shah to power. Iraq under Saddam had also been Iran's enemy; he launched an eight-year war of aggression against the Islamic Republic in the 1980s, aided by the United States. (Among other assistance, US satellite intelligence helped Saddam wage chemical warfare against the Iranians.) In balance-of-power terms, Saddam was the counterforce that checked Iranian influence. But now Saddam's regime was gone.

One did not need to be an expert to know that Iran would benefit. Iraq's sectarian Shiite prime minister from 2006 to 2014, Nouri al-Maliki, was favored by Iran, as is his successor, Haider al-Abadi. Even Bush administration's original pick to lead post-Saddam Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi, had long been close to Iran.

So despite some 30 years of America's cold, covert, cyber, and proxy war against Iran, the Bush administration was indispensable in helping Iran gain greater influence in the Middle East.

This influence has grown even greater now with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which was a predictable consequence of Saddam's overthrow and sectarian Shiite rule, before which there was no Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq, much less ISIS, its even more virulent offshoot. The Obama administration has assumed the lead in the effort to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, which is officially regarded as a "threat to the homeland," but Obama's method is largely confined to airpower, with only a small force on the ground. Most analysts believe that airpower alone will not suffice. The fight on the ground in Iraq is being handled by that country's Shiite army and an assortment of vengeful Shiite militias, making the Sunnis fearful of sectarian violence and even accepting of the brutal and intolerant ISIS. Who advises these forces? None other than Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani of the Iranian Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and commander of the Quds Force, a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Soleimani reportedly is playing a major role in the current effort to retake Takrit, Saddam's hometown, from ISIS.

This objectively places the United States on the same side as Iran, but the Obama administration cannot acknowledge this without granting Iran prestige. Indeed, American and Israeli officials worry that the price of defeating ISIS will be a Middle East dominated by Iran as never before.

Of course, ISIS also controls territory in next-door Syria, which is ruled by Iran's ally Bashar al-Assad, a member of a minority Shiite sect whose regime is embroiled in a civil war. Obama has called for Assad's departure, but Assad is also fighting ISIS (as well as Syria's al-Qaeda franchise), putting him, too, objectively on America's side.

The question arising from this tangled tale is: What were the American and Israeli advocates of war with Iraq thinking back in 2003? Was their plan to build up Iranian influence in order to justify war and regime change? That would explain why advocates of the Iraq policy are trying to torpedo multilateral talks with Iran over its nonexistent nuclear weapons program. But war with Iran, which is much larger and more populous Iraq, would be a catastrophe.

In light of all this, should Americans trust their lives and well-being to the arrogant Washington power elite?

Sheldon Richman is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, which is based in Oakland, California.

[May 02, 2015] radio C-SPAN

Mar 10, 2015 | annbeaker
Listened on the way to work the record of the meeting of the Senate Committee on Ukraine and anti-Russia. First, the names of speakers and respondents. Kornblum, Kantor, Nudelman and joined them boy Bobby Corker and others have wives from Ukraine, they said. Second, Putin is such a chronic incarnation of Satan that he looks larger them even the whole country. Now there are even concepts in his name, for example - "Putin's economy", what a beast it is unclear, but in the minds of American senators it's definitely evil. And just a bad person who alone lives in seven rooms and actively that fact that the members of the Congress did not like one bit and expressed strong desire to move him to something with less rooms. the third is that those gentlemen with the German-Yiddish surnames discussed the entire countries and territories as if they were just deserts, forests and steppes. As if there no population on this territories, who may have their own views on the subject, distinct from opinion by Committee members. Fourth, in some moments of the meeting, reminded the congregation in the local synagogue, and sometimes the PTA meeting which analyzed the behavior of poor students.

Main memes and beliefs expressed at the meeting:

  1. Russia backward and unable to progress and development of the country.
  2. In Russia there is no infrastructure.
  3. Russia lives from the sale of oil and only.
  4. Russia is financing all and with all the oil revenue.
  5. Russia is very aggressive.
  6. She attacked Ukraine. The existence of civil war not only not denied, this concept is just not even considered by Committee members. That completely changes everything, not war within one nation, when brother rose up against brother, and external invasion of a neighbor!
  7. Russia is aggressive towards the Baltic States and the Baltic States should be armed.
  8. Tomorrow Russia will attack Estonia.
  9. America has vital interests in Ukraine.
  10. To return the Crimea to Ukraine is America's vital interests.
  11. Putin is enemy No. 1.

There were suggestions from the field. For example, start to give Ukraine the money for one billion dollars a year for three consecutive years. This money, Ukraine will buy weapons from the USA and defend against Putin. We must begin to arm Estonia and to send battalions because there is a lot of Russians and Putin's aggression will be the first thing sent to Estonia. This was repeated several times and in different ways. I.e. looks like you have already decided to arrange provocations in Estonia. As this is done, he starts revealing to cut Russian compactly living in Narva or Estonia will satisfy the invasion by type Saakashvilis, only where? In Narva? He then tried to attack South Ossetia which was legally in Georgia, but not inhabited by the same nationality as the rest of the country and there was revolt. In Estonia like no no revolt. But it is clear that the next for some expensive and stupid military supplies is Estonia. Funny, Yes?

evolt. But it is clear that the next for some expensive and stupid military supplies is Estonia. Funny, Yes?

[May 01, 2015] From Protocol of interrogation of the Ukrainian oligarch Firtash today in Vienna, Austria

In general, if anybody tells you that you have gone crazy and suffer from paranoia and that the USA wants us only good as well as naive blabbering about the "independent choice of the Ukrainian people", please show them this piece."
kolobok1973.livejournal.com

Writes SIP:

"From the Protocol of interrogation of the Ukrainian oligarch Firtash today in Vienna, Austria:

The judge: I Repeat the question: how are you supported Yanukovych?

Firtash: I traveled around the country, I personally campaigned people, communicated with the trade unions on the subject of support for Yanukovych.

C: did You Finance it?

F: No. Then, when Yanukovych won in 2010, we began to light the differences. And in 2012 I became clear that Yanukovych will not have to carry out reforms. And then I realized that the country needs a strong candidate who will run for elections and win them. And in the meanwhile I found a Klitschko. He is very famous person in the country and the world, young, athlete. He has achieved a lot in sports and I was sure that he would be able to achieve this and in politics. And when Klitschko made a political force of the BLOW, I supported him financially. Then, in 2013, the conflict between Russia and the USA was already obvious. I realized the struggle begins, begins the tug of war. America understands that I have my own position regarding the fate of Ukraine and it does not coincide with their position. In August 2013, the serious conflict begins – trading, I am persuaded that it is necessary to settle differences peacefully, because Russia for us is a huge market.

And then the American government created a case against me and tried to blackmail this way Yanukovych (you will be next). Then took place the meeting of Yanukovych with Putin. At the same time Americans start pressing charges against me . Then comes European Commission to persuade Yanukovych to sign the Association agreement. Then Nuland arrives and says:

1. Sign Association with EU.

2. Release Tymoshenko for treatment abroad.

3. Give Kharkiv field to Chevron.

And Yanukovich promises Nuland everything she wanted. And you remember, after they finished a meeting, in an hour they dropped drop the charges against me.

Victoria Nuland (eng. Victoria Nuland born. 1961, new York) is an American diplomat and politician, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department from 2011 to 2013, Then - assistant Secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.

In general, if anybody tells you that you have gone crazy and suffer from paranoia and that the USA wants us only good as well as naive blabbering about the "independent choice of the Ukrainian people", please show them this piece."

[Apr 28, 2015] Ten Years Later, What Paul Wolfowitz 'Owes to the Country' by James Fallows

The Atlantic

Andrew Bacevich has a wonderful essay, in the form of an open letter to Paul Wolfowitz, in the current Harper's. You have to subscribe to read it -- but, hey, you should be subscribing to any publication whose work you value. This essay isolates the particular role Wolfowitz had in the cast of characters that led us to war. As a reminder, they included:

  • Dick Cheney, who was becoming a comic-book churl by this stage of his public life;
  • Colin Powell, the loyal soldier, staffer, and diplomat whose "Powell Doctrine" and entire life's work stood in opposition to the kind of war that he, with misguided loyalty, was to play so central a role in selling;
  • Tony Blair, the crucial ally who added rhetorical polish and international resolve to the case for war;
  • Donald Rumsfeld, with his breezy contempt for those who said the effort would be difficult or long;
  • Paul Bremer, whose sudden, thoughtless dismantling of the Iraqi army proved so disastrous;
  • Condoleezza Rice, miscast in her role as White House national-security advisor;
  • George Tenet, the long-time staffer who cooperated with the "slam-dunk!" intelligence assessment despite serious disagreement within the CIA;
  • and of course George W. Bush himself, whose combination of limited knowledge and strong desire to be "decisive" made him so vulnerable to the argument that the "real" response to the 9/11 attacks should be invading a country that had nothing to do with them.

But Paul Wolfowitz was in a category of his own because he was the one who provided the highest-concept rationale for the war. As James Galbraith of the University of Texas has put it, "Wolfowitz is the real-life version of Halberstam's caricature of McNamara" [in The Best and the Brightest].

Bacevich's version of this assessment is to lay out as respectfully as possible the strategic duty that Wolfowitz thought the U.S. would fulfill by invading Iraq. Back before the war began, I did a much more limited version of this assessment as an Atlantic article. As Bacevich puts it now, Wolfowitz was extending precepts from his one-time mentor, Albert Wohlstetter, toward a model of how the United States could maximize stability for itself and others.

As with the best argumentative essays, Bacevich takes on Wolfowitz in a strong rather than an oversimplified version of his world-view. You have to read the whole thing to get the effect, but here is a brief sample (within fair-use limits):

With the passing of the Cold War, global hegemony seemed America's for the taking. What others saw as an option you, Paul, saw as something much more: an obligation that the nation needed to seize, for its own good as well as for the world's....

Although none of the hijackers were Iraqi, within days of 9/11 you were promoting military action against Iraq. Critics have chalked this up to your supposed obsession with Saddam. The criticism is misplaced. The scale of your ambitions was vastly greater.

In an instant, you grasped that the attacks provided a fresh opportunity to implement Wohlstetter's Precepts, and Iraq offered a made-to-order venue....In Iraq the United States would demonstrate the efficacy of preventive war.... The urgency of invading Iraq stemmed from the need to validate that doctrine before the window of opportunity closed.

Bacevich explains much more about the Wohlstetter / Wolfowitz grand view. And then he poses the challenge that he says Wolfowitz should now meet:
One of the questions emerging from the Iraq debacle must be this one: Why did liberation at gunpoint yield results that differed so radically from what the war's advocates had expected? Or, to sharpen the point, How did preventive war undertaken by ostensibly the strongest military in history produce a cataclysm?

Not one of your colleagues from the Bush Administration possesses the necessary combination of honesty, courage, and wit to answer these questions. If you don't believe me, please sample the tediously self-exculpatory memoirs penned by (or on behalf of) Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Bremer, Feith, and a small squad of eminently forgettable generals...

What would Albert [Wohlstetter] do? I never met the man (he died in 1997), but my guess is that he wouldn't flinch from taking on these questions, even if the answers threatened to contradict his own long-held beliefs. Neither should you, Paul. To be sure, whatever you might choose to say, you'll be vilified, as Robert McNamara was vilified when he broke his long silence and admitted that he'd been "wrong, terribly wrong" about Vietnam. But help us learn the lessons of Iraq so that we might extract from it something of value in return for all the sacrifices made there. Forgive me for saying so, but you owe it to your country.

Anyone who knows Andrew Bacevich's story will understand the edge behind his final sentence. But you don't have to know that to respect the challenge he lays down. I hope Paul Wolfowitz will at some point rise to it.

For another very valuable assessment of who was right and wrong, when, please see John Judis's piece in The New Republic.

[Apr 22, 2015] M of A - Ukraine Both Sides Touched By NATO Related Murder Of The Other Side

Apr 22, 2015 | moonofalabama.org

The Washington Post's Michael Birnbaum invented a new funny way to equalized victims and perpetrators of serious crimes:

MOSCOW - A pro-Russian Ukrainian journalist was gunned down in Kiev on Thursday, authorities said, a day after a Ukrainian politician supporting Moscow was found dead.

The killing of Oles Buzyna, 45, raised fears of a new wave of back-and-forth violence in the streets of Ukraine after a string of unsolved deaths that has touched both sides of the conflict between Ukraine's Western-allied government and pro-Moscow separatists.

Indeed the "unsolved deaths" "touched both sides" with eleven people on one side getting murdered while the other side covered up these murders as "suicides" and very likely also provided the killers.

Eight politicians of the Party of Region of former president Yanukovich, ousted in a U.S. inspired coup, were killed as were three journalists un-sympathetic to the now ruling coup government.

There is some curious connection between some of the recent killings and NATO. As RB at NiqNaq provides (recommended):

On Apr 14, a profile of Oles' Buzina was added to https://psb4ukr.org/ site (where Ukrainian government encourages people to fink the authorities on the people suspected of separatism); on Apr 15, Oles' Buzina was killed near his home with 4 shots. I (my correspondent – RB) looked up the Web address where they posted Buzina's address, and found that it's hosted on a NATO server.

The Niqnaq post provides details and screenshots demonstrating the connection to NATO. (A short take is also here.) I was myself researching the issue for MoA when I found that Niqnaq post and I can confirm the findings and add a bit.

Two names and personal data of persons recently assassinated in Ukraine were posted on a "nationalist" website shortly before those persons were killed. That website, screenshot) screenshot), is headlined:

"Peacemaker"

RESEARCH CENTRE FEATURES OF CRIMES AGAINST UKRAINE'S NATIONAL SECURITY, PEACE, SECURITY AND HUMANITY international law
Information for law enforcement authorities and special services about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.

Next to some news pieces the site carries a list for download with some 7,700 names of "saboteurs" and "terrorists".

On a first view the name "psb4ukr.org" is anonymously registered through the U.S. company Wild West Domains.

A "traceroute" command shows that Internet Protocol requests to the server "psb4ukr.org" end in a datacenter in Dallas, Texas at dallas-ipc.com and the IP number 208.115.243.222.

A "nslookup" command with the input "psb4ukr.org" confirms in its output the registered IP Number to be "208.115.243.222" (screenshot).

A reverse "nslookup" command with the input "208.115.243.222" provides the output "psb4ukr.nato.int". (screenshot).

"nato.int" is the Internet domain namespace registered and reserved for NATO. Why is a server for a website which is hunting for dissidents in Ukraine - some of whom have been killed - registered within the NATO Internet namespace?

After some additional research we find that the non-anonymous registration to "psb4ukr.org" is to one Vladimir Kolesnikov, 98 Lenin St, Velyka Oleksandrivka, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine.

Further searching for Vladimir Kolesnikov we find that Mr. Kolesnikov has registered several other websites through Limestone Networks, Inc in Dallas, Texas.

Some of these website seem to be concerned with crypto payment, teletraining and unrelated stuff. Some others are related to the nasty "nationalist" side of the Ukraine conflict. Operativ.info asks for tip offs about "saboteurs" and "terrorists" and their operations while informnapalm.org is a general "nationalist" news collection.

There is no hint of any NATO-relation in these other sides. A reverse nslookup like the one that shows a relation like between "psb4ukr.org" and "psb4ukr.nato.int" does not deliver such results for the other website registered to Mr. Kolesnikov.

One possible explanation for the "psb4ukr.nato.int" lookup result might be that the website was originally build or tested within the NATO namespace and later transferred outside without cleaning up some of the original name references.

Posted by b on April 17, 2015 at 03:06 PM | Permalink

james | Apr 17, 2015 5:45:27 PM | 1

thanks b.. any connection to nato is really riveting if true.. the fact all the people murdered are opposed to the present gang in kiev speaks volumes as well.. i hope some western msm will pick some of this up, but i highly doubt it.. it will be more bs like the wapo is famous for.. spewing propaganda 24/7, these media outlets make the prvada of previous times look like amateurs..

jfl | Apr 17, 2015 6:33:22 PM | 2

Excellent work, b. It is true that the MSM sill never publish anything like this ... but it is also true that the 'market' for news has been bifurcated at this point : those who want to know the truth are engaged in the search for it on their own and those who definitely do NOT want to know the truth are reading, viewing the MSM.

Attending to the MSM has become an act of complicity with the crimes of the empire in itself.

JerseyJeffersonian | Apr 17, 2015 6:43:55 PM | 3

So, death squads on the menu?

Ah, takes me back to those golden times in Iraq, El Salvador...

Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 17, 2015 11:55:44 PM | 5

I've come to appreciate the value of the "both sides" meme.

It's a 24ct guarantee that USrael or one of their "good friends" has been caught perpetrating inexcusable atrocities, upon civilians, which need to be urgently diluted.

The "Israelis" have turned it into an art form - an absolute necessity given that ALL the victims of the Shitty Little Country's insane anti-Palestinian hubris have been civilians.

It's quite clever in a cowardly, sneaky, "Israeli" kind of way...

Fete | Apr 18, 2015 12:41:56 AM | 604/17/2015 19:57

Russian Spring

Commenting an appeal of Donbass community to the guarantors of the Minsk agreements, Presidents of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and François Hollande as well as Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, the Chairman of Peoples Council of Donetsk Republic Andrey Purgin assumed that today's Kiev moves toward Ukrainian Nazism.

"Mass arrests and intimidation are common. Those who disagree to live with the Ukrainian ethnic nazism are prosecuted. The most active ones are incarcerated", asserted Purgin

According to him, thousands are jailed for their political convictions.

"Of course, there are calls to (international) community, to Merkel, Europe to interfer. Unfortunately, those live in framework of different (double) standards and are not going to do anything. Instead, they call to yield to Ukraine, where arrests and burning houses are taking place", added Purgin.

@b

Why is a server for a website which is hunting for dissidents in Ukraine - some of whom have been killed - registered within the NATO Internet namespace?

Russian Defense Minister summed it up very well, at Moscow's annual security conference.

"The United States and its allies have crossed all possible lines in their drive to bring Kiev into their orbit..."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/16/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-idUSKBN0N70W820150416

Lone Wolf | Apr 18, 2015 2:05:47 AM | 7

JerseyJeffersonian@3 is right on target reminding us of the infamous "Death Squads" in El Salvador and Iraq. Targeting of opposition figures by parallel security forces killing not-so anonymously, is an integral part of any regime hell-bent on imposing by force a quasi-fascist form of government.

The purpose is to inflict terror on a massive scale, a psychological war that aims at paralyzing others from opposing the regime. It is the ABC of any counterinsurgency manual, and it clearly shows the hand of the CIA behind the systematic killing of Yanukovich allies, perceived or real pro-Russian individuals/organizations/regional or city governments, as it happened recently in Kharkov, and a couple of days ago in Odessa.

This is lustration on a higher level, not just firing from government posts all of those considered "opposition," not enough for the Ukrainian neo-nazis, they have to be physically eliminated. As bastard children of nazi ideologues, they have to follow their German masters in their "purification" of society (lustration from Latin = purification), cleansing it from any elements that could endanger the "purity" of their new fascist dystopia.

The WaPo, a mouthpiece of Neoconland/Deep State, is an accomplice to murder not only in Ukraine, and has played a crucial role white-washing the crimes of the criminal Kiev junta from day one. Shame on you, Michael Birnbaum, you're justifying the slaughter of innocents just to keep a miserable job writing horseshit, and killing them a second time with your blatant lies.

CTuttle | Apr 18, 2015 2:23:51 AM | 8

Aloha, b...! Salon has a great interview with Stephen Cohen... The New York Times "basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say": Stephen F. Cohen on the U.S./Russia/Ukraine history the media won't tell you

And here's a great article from Jeff Kaye... CIA Intervention in Ukraine Has Been Taking Place for Decades

james @1
i hope some western msm will pick some of this up, but i highly doubt it.

The western msm have picked up on it but to claim that an anti-Kiev oligarch who funded the Party of Regions is killing them off to cover his tracks over that funding.

Posted by: blowback | Apr 18, 2015 8:41:03 AM | 10

An organisation called the 'Ukrainian Insurgent Army' has claimed responsibility for the murders of Chechetov, Peklushenko, Miller, Kalashnikov and Buzina.

https://z5h64q92x9.net/proxy_u/ru-en.en/http/antifashist.com/item/ukrainskaya-povstancheskaya-armiya-vzyala-na-sebya-otvetstvennost-za-rasstrel-buziny-i-kalashnikova.html

Posted by: Yonatan | Apr 18, 2015 9:29:19 AM | 11

CTuttle at 8 --

I second your recommendation. I spotted some short extracts at Russia Insider, and I share their recommendation that you read the whole piece. Here's a small sample, .

Q: In a historical perspective, do you consider Russia justified?

Well, I can't think otherwise. I began warning of such a crisis more than 20 years ago, back in the '90s. I've been saying since February of last year [when Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in Kiev] that the 1990s is when everything went wrong between Russia and the United States and Europe. So you need at least that much history, 25 years. But, of course, it begins even earlier....

Q: I take Kiev's characterization of its war in the eastern sections as an "anti-terrorist campaign" to be one of the most preposterous labels out there right now.

But, then, why did Washington say OK to it? Washington has a say in this. Without Washington, Kiev would be in bankruptcy court and have no military at all. Why didn't Washington say, "Don't call it anti-terrorist?" Because if you call it "anti-terrorism" you can never have negotiations because you don't negotiate with terrorists, you just kill them, a murderous organization with murderous intent....

So the United States has been deeply complicit in the destruction of these eastern cities and peoples....

Ever since the Clinton administration, we've bleated on about the right to protect people who are victims of humanitarian crises. You've got a massive humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine.... Where is Samantha Power, the architect of "right to protect?" We have shut our eyes to a humanitarian crisis in which we are deeply complicit. This is what's shameful, whether you like or don't like Putin. It's got nothing to do with Putin. It has to do with the nature of American policy and the nature of Washington-and the nature of the American people, if they tolerate this.

See also his comments on Yeltsin. Increasing ill and under the thumb of the oligarchs, he cozied up to Washington. Cohen reports that Medvedev, a number of years ago, advised that Zyuganov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation had actually won the election that gave Yeltsin his final term.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 18, 2015 11:04:39 AM | 12

Terror in Odessa: mass arrests of protesters: 53 people reported detained at demonstration in support of local autonomy;

New detentions of peaceful protesters in Odessa: 30 people reported detained at Odessa rally for cultural autonomy and a peaceful solution to the civil conflict: "The People's Council [of Bessarabia] is the grassroots, peaceful initiative."

So far the People's Council of Bessarabia is looking like an effort to use what legal space seems to exist under current junta law to organize "within the system," while the Odessa People's Republic appears to be extralegal and separatist. But the reality is that there is no legal space within fascism for any opposition to organize:

Ukrainian Neo-Nazi march in Odessa

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 18, 2015 11:43:21 AM | 13

jj, lw, bb at 3, 7 & 10 --

Extrajudicial repression has been a staple of the ruling class since antiquity. See the murder of Tiberius Gracchus in the 2nd. cent. BC. But along with creating "insurgencies" (Nicaragua, Afghanistan) the Amercan Century has really made it one of its art forms. A sort of "Abstract Repressionism;" we're disinclined to think of the human cost, let alone accept responsibility for it.

Fort Russ has this report that the "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA) claimed responsibility for recent murders of regime opponents. Translator K. Rus says it could either be "the far right taking matters into their hands" or an attempt by the regime to distance itself, after posting the "wanted" notice.

If you want some good fantasy fiction writing, I'd recommend the Kyiv Post's weirdly informative article, Murders of two journalists, ex-lawmaker spook Kyiv. It begins, "The atmosphere was spooky in Kyiv on April 16 as news broke about the murder of a third prominent person in four days." Quite lit'ry, weren't it? It's the Party of Regions, it's the Russian, it's a scheme to disrupt Victory Day.

It goes on to some highly negative spin about Kalashnikov and Buzina, and finishes with short accounts of rash of "suicides" amongst regime opponents.

Meanwhile, repression is spreading in Odessa. A mixed group of local Maidan activists, police, and PravSek militiamen detained protesters. They wanted a free trade zone and were unhappy with utility prices and pensions. A clear and present danger. Whereabouts presently unknown. -- VR at 13, just saw yrs. I'll have to ck'out the NeoNazi bit.

It will be then no suprise that figures close to Poroshenko are arguing for mass internment and deportations for dissenters. The administration itself is advising on how to distort the Second World War for fun and profit. "Current defenders of Ukraine should be considered as successors of the winners over Nazism."

All one can say is, how bizarre!

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 18, 2015 12:20:55 PM | 14

VR -- well that was depressing. In part 'cause it lead me to what the link called "Drunk With Permissiveness: Nazis Execute Journalist Buzina, Promise New Bloodshed." The page itself is a little more mundane, Ukrainian Insurgent Army Claims Responsibility for Death of Reporter Buzina. It provides further details than the Fort Russ account above.

It links the rise in violence to the recent proclamation of the collaborators as victors over their fascist patrons, taken as a green light for a bit of the ultra-violence. They promise "a ruthless insurgent battle against the traitors of the Ukrainian regime and Moscow henchmen..." They seem as good as their word. Too bad....

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 18, 2015 12:44:54 PM | 15

Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

The Thomas a Becket school of oppo neutralization...

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Apr 18, 2015 12:45:23 PM | 16

Another intresting find..


1. WHOIS dingbatter.com

and you will get:

Admin Name: Ophelia Dingbatter
Admin Organization:
Admin Street: Box B 646
Admin City: Black Diamond
Admin State/Province: Alberta
Admin Postal Code: T0L 0H0
Admin Country: Canada
Admin Phone: +1.4039337890
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: [email protected]
Registry Tech ID:

2. Tech Name: Helmut Morscher

Tech Organization: Webby Inc
Tech Street: Box 646
Tech City: Black Diamond
Tech State/Province: Alberta
Tech Postal Code: T0L 0H0
Tech Country: Canada
Tech Phone: +1.4039337890
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: [email protected]
Name Server: NS.WEBBY.COM


3.
Google Helmut Morscher
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/helmutmorscher

"International Media Liaison
Maidan Alliance"

and
"International issues advisor
Maidan web-site"

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 18, 2015 12:48:32 PM | 17

These incidents are so historically familiar. When reading your article b, I couldn't help thinking about Italy and the murders and terrorism that occurred through out the 1950's to 1980's. Incorrectly, many of our contemporaries believe that the Gladio which was created by NATO, the UK and the US is defunct. As revealed by Professor Daneile Ganser, Gladio is a live and well and operates globally. Yes, NATO is the culprit. Just as it was the instrumental culprit that was used as a tool in Kosovo for US interests. As for the monsters in Kiev, Reinhard Gehlen, one of the Nazi architects of the stay-behind-network would be proud.

Posted by: A.E.W | Apr 18, 2015 1:01:36 PM | 18

en1c at 15 -- Very droll! It's been renamed "plausible deniability" to suite modern sensibilities.

vr at 13 -- I followed your link.

Depressing, in part 'cause I followed this link there, "Drunk With Permissiveness: Nazis Execute Journalist Buzina, Promise New Bloodshed." It provides further details than the Fort Russ item cited at 14. Folks will have to find it on their own, I'm afraid. It wouldn't post my link from Sputnik -- though the link in the preview worked. Others have had that problem.

"We are unfolding a ruthless insurgent battle against the traitors of the Ukrainian regime and Moscow henchmen...." They claim five murders, including Kalashnikov and Buzina. So they look to be as good as their word. Too bad.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 18, 2015 1:07:53 PM | 19

@18 Poroshenko will call it Russian propaganda. MSM will just ignore it.

Posted by: dh | Apr 18, 2015 1:32:55 PM | 20

Thank you for your links, CTuttle @ 8. I don't know Stephen Cohen very well, but I took a dislike to Katherine his wife way back when the Nation came out so strongly against Ralph Nader as a candidate, and seeing her on Charlie Rose didn't warm me to her either. There are some folk on the 'left' who need to come right out and admit they have been wrong to endorse anti-common-folk principles in the past, due to the damage they have caused by supporting the oligarchs.

They are taking a page out of Putin's book: he was in government during the Yeltsin era when policies were strongly skewed to get along with US oligarchies and Russia's own. Putin has changed course, no two ways about it, and his people as a consequence love him. I just hope these folk will have the same intention - Katherine, you will have to stop sniping at Ralph if you want us to love you.

Posted by: juliania | Apr 18, 2015 3:45:28 PM | 21

The problem of Ukrainian nationalism is that they do not have "democratic template", heroes of the past were hetmans, otamans and fascists. To be patriotic, you have to be bloody minded. So patriots are murdering enemies of the people, and the West gives green light by giving aid and not raising stink. [disclamer: I do not despise patriotism, but like love and religion, it can motivate excesses including murder, mass murder, lies, mass lies and so on, emotional attachment can be a positive force, but as we know, it is not always the case. Below, "patriot" describes the self-assessment.]

The Newsweek story http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/17/ukraine-plagued-succession-unlikely-suicides-former-ruling-party-320584.html that b found is extremely symptomatic. American patriots in the media are following the official clues how to cover stories from the confusing lands outside our borders. Apparently, in the case of Ukraine, one has to follow explanations of Ukrainian patriots. And the version plied in Newsweek was that an oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, is ordering murders of his former confidants and benefactors to "remove witnesses", somehow failing to consider the following clues: murders are being covered up by the current authorities, the minister in charge of police is a fascist (according to Guardian, "there is only one fascist in Ukrainian cabinet"), and Akhmetov is not allied with the current authorities.

Since 1945, members of UPA and related organizations were cooperating with CIA, so when American government want to find reliable familiar faces in Ukraine they will always start with "fascists". In the West (due to the limits of my education, that means USA and UK) one can see somewhat weird disputes if those people are really fascist. In Russia they get "fascist" label automatically, in Poland few would think that "banderowcy" label is any better than "fascist" (for parochial reason, as they murdered ca. 100,000 Poles).

A mixed blessing is that Obama administration is liberal, which apparently translates into "moderate mayhem", contrasting with much more grandiose approach advocated by GOP and neocons (who can be Democrats and Republicans).

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 18, 2015 4:45:25 PM | 22

From article I wrote in 2010:

In 1976, journalist Peter Watson was at a NATO conference in Oslo, when a U.S. Navy psychologist, Dr. Thomas Narut, from the U.S. Naval Hospital in Naples told Watson and New Jersey psychologist Dr. Alfred Zitani, that the Navy sought men to train as assassins in overseas embassies. The following is from the London Sunday Times, "The soldiers who become killers," September 8, 1974, but reproduced from a conspiracy site, as the original, and most references to it, plentiful even when I first read about it some years ago, are limited now to a few dozen conspiracy sites. The story is also told at some length in Watson's book (out of print), War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology, published by Basic Books in 1978.
[Narut's] naval work involved establishing how to induce servicemen who ma[y] not be naturally inclined to kill, to do so under certain conditions. When pressed afterwards as to what was meant by "combat readiness units," he explained this included men for commando-type operations and – so he said – for insertion into U.S. embassies under cover, ready to kill in those countries should the need arise. Dr. Narut used the word "hitmen" and "assassin" of these men.

The method, according to Dr. Narut, was to show films specially designed to show people being killed and injured in violent ways. By being acclimated through these films, the men eventually became able to dissociate any feelings from such a situation. Dr. Narut also added that U.S. Naval psychologists specially selected men for these commando tasks, from submarine crews, paratroops, and some were convicted murderers from military prisons. Asked whether he was suggesting that murderers were being released from prisons to become assassins, he replied: "It's happened more than once."

http://pubrecord.org/law/8527/assassination-court-argues-legal/

Posted by: Jeffrey Kaye | Apr 18, 2015 5:23:49 PM | 23

Or how about this:

"For the first time, U.S. officials acknowledge that in 1965 they systematically compiled comprehensive lists of Communist operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres. As many as 5,000 names were furnished to the Indonesian army, and the Americans later checked off the names of those who had been killed or captured, according to the U.S. officials," Kathy Kadane wrote for South Carolina's Herald-Journal on May 19, 1990. [Kadane's article also appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on May 20, 1990, the Washington Post on May 21, 1990, and the Boston Globe on May 23, 1990.]

The Indonesian mass murder program was based in part on experiences gleaned by the CIA in the Philippines. "US military advisers of the Joint US Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) and the CIA station in Manila designed and led the bloody suppression of the nationalist Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan," notes Roland G. Simbulan (Covert Operations and the CIA's Hidden History in the Philippines).

http://www.infowars.com/cia-assassination-program-revealed-nothing-new-under-the-sun/

Posted by: Jeffrey Kaye | Apr 18, 2015 5:31:45 PM | 24

@PB #21:

In the West (due to the limits of my education, that means USA and UK) one can see somewhat weird disputes if those people are really fascist. In Russia they get "fascist" label automatically, in Poland few would think that "banderowcy" label is any better than "fascist"

One often hears Novorossiyans and Russians saying that the present Banderites are actually worse than the German Nazis were. I concur with that view.

As for American attitudes to Ukie fascism, that's not hard to understand. All you have to think about is the US training death squads in Central America. Fascist thugs are a tool of US foreign policy, in the same way that Islamist terrorists are. This is now a commonplace in the progressive blogosphere.

A mixed blessing is that Obama administration is liberal, which apparently translates into "moderate mayhem"

I recently ran across an interview witb a Ukrainian political scientist who had to flee to Moscow, in which he said that Europeans are finally cottoning on to the true nature of the Kiev regime, so the US no longer has any reason to restrain the fascists. Hence the recent slew of assassinations and terror. (Sorry, I'm too lazy to dig up the link.)

Posted by: Demian | Apr 18, 2015 7:29:07 PM | 25

@24 You are probably thinking of this...

http://thesaker.is/rostislav-ishchenko-about-the-assassination-of-oles-buzina/

Poles know what's going on too.

http://newcoldwar.org/top-polish-military-advisor-completely-withdraws-his-support-of-ukraine-govt/

Posted by: dh | Apr 18, 2015 7:51:36 PM | 26

@dh #25:

Hey, thanks, man. I forgot it was a video. I just remembered it being in Russian, which confused me. Well worth watching, IMO. Americans have no idea of what Russians think.

To repeat myself, the prevailing Russian view (and with the Internet, the collapse of communism, and Putin's revival of Russia, I think that pretty much all Russians are on the same page except for the 10% or less of the Russians who are "liberals") seems to be that the EU was totally eager to make Ukraine an economic colony of the West, but unlike the US, it does not want war in Ukraine. So the views of the US and the EU on the Ukraine diverge significantly, although net everyone here thinks that. (Of course, Russian policy towards the Ukraine since the coup has been largely predicated on that.)

And thanks for the second link.

His change of view is prompted by the law passed by the Ukrainian Parliament on April 9 glorifying World War.
It was pretty predictable that this would happen eventually. And then it turns out that Poles are saying what Russians have been saying since last May:
Their savagery was beyond human imagination. Nazi Germany did not come up with what those Ukrainians were doing
The American public has no idea of this. (In Europe, it's probably only England and the pesky Balts.)

Posted by: Demian | Apr 18, 2015 9:28:56 PM | 27

"Poles know what's going on" ... it is more complex than that. The government and more established media took very pro-American and anti-Russian perspective. The main opposition party build its current set of slogans around anti-Russian paranoia. That said, in Communist times the issue of the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and other regions with mixed population was almost hidden by the authorities, but now it is common knowledge, and after the law acknowledging the perpetrator as heroes the critique of the government is increasingly mainstream.

In particular, the U-turn of Gen. Skrzypczak is related to perceived "slap in the face". Polish president made a speech to Ukrainian parliament with very warm support, and the law that is extremely irritating to Poles was passed "few hours later", and that was duly noted by leftist opposition in the Parliament. That is not insignificant, because there are good chances that the ruling party will be forced into a coalition with those people.

As nationalists go, Ukrainian ones seem worse than most. The last election were preceded with massive nationwide intimidation campaign and few little massacres. The really have a cult of force and violence, which is reflected in putting boxers in the parliament, and -- surprise, surprise -- getting fist fights in that parliament. The lie compulsively -- recall American senators who got photos taken in Georgia as the proof of Russian columns in Ukraine (see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Franz_Roubaud._Count_Argutinsky_crossing_the_Caucasian_range._1892.jpg ). They seem to care nothing about the economy, instead, they want to eliminate Communism and Russian language. Poor Ukrainian people seemed to have the choice of hopelessly corrupt and hopelessly insane, so kicking out the previous corrupt lot is not as much of an improvement as Western liberals (and the Russian emigrants who are cited in the mainstream media) perceive.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 18, 2015 9:37:20 PM | 28

@27 Well I should have said 'some' Poles know what's going on. No doubt there is a range of opinion in Poland.

The BBC mentioned the killings albeit with an anti-Russian spin..

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32361718

Not to worry. Poroshenko has promised a full and thorough investigation.

Posted by: dh | Apr 18, 2015 9:47:11 PM | 29

@rufus magister@14

All one can say is, how bizarre!

Yup, it's a bizarro world out there. It's a total land of confusion

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Apr 18, 2015 10:40:38 PM | 30

dh @25

Thanks for the link to the Polish military adviser. Links like that, where a guy with impeccable 'pro-West' credentials says the right things about Ukraine, can be used to persuade our 'normal, conventional' friends.

LET'S DO IT.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 19, 2015 12:41:23 AM | 31

Warmongering by one fucking American NATO commander Lt. Gen. Frederick Ben Hodges , an interview across the western compliant media:

Europe faces a 'real threat' from Russia, warns US army commander

Posted by: Oui | Apr 19, 2015 5:57:29 AM | 32

More, Europe has two enemies Russia and ISIS …

European Union Army Plan Aims to Protect Continent from Russia, ISIS

Posted by: Oui | Apr 19, 2015 5:57:59 AM | 33

About European Union Army: there is a whiff of hilarity there. On one hand, the dangers from ISIS and Russia are both quite remote, so they are not treated seriously. The force being pencilled is about as large as the part of Ukrainian army that was encircled in Debaltsevo (should there be a Wiki entry "Debaltsevo debacle"?). Of course, it makes some sense of practicing coordination of national units so it is not a moronic project, but a very smallish project with very outsized among of debates, announcements, analysis and so on.

While Europe has few problems defending itself against some putative onslaught, "projecting force" is another matter. The French can do it in Chad, Mali etc., but how large a European Corps should be to make a difference in conflicts between local nationalists of Georgia and Ukraine with Russian-supported internal opponents? It is like trying to defend Paraguay against the forces of Triple Alliance: we could promise economic sanctions on Argentina, Brasil and Uruguay would they invade Paraguay again, but above all, we would urge Paraguay not to pick fights with the neighbors. (Incidentally, currently Paraguay has a "pro-Western" government, and the three former opponents, "anti-Western", so it is a good case study for comparisons.)

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 19, 2015 9:05:36 AM | 34

side board

On : Eight politicians of the Party of Region of former president Yanukovich, ousted in a U.S. inspired coup, were killed as were three journalists un-sympathetic to the now ruling coup government.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/04/16/the-murderers-of-kiev/

I suspect there are many names of murdered unknown, unlisted.

Political 'covert' or open, blatant assassinations are unfortunately normal in such situations. Tallying them is arduous, because the murderous impulse is reflected right down into the street, it is not just a State - Power - Corp enterprise.

Viktor, 33, son of Viktor Yanukovych died in March 2015, in an accident on Lake Baikal. His vehicle, with 6 on board, went through the ice, 5 survived, he died. He was the driver.

one garbled article, the telegraph

http://tinyurl.com/ly8csrl

I'm not advocating he should be added to that list. Abandonment (one article suggested that all scrambled to save themselves thus leaving Viktor with no help..) is part of that…

Just to say, that lists like this are dodgy and depend on the MSM, snippets from blogs and the like. Viktor Junior might easily have been included, his death is exremely suspicious, etc. Or it might be considered a typical rich son demise due to hubris, stupidity, assumed invicibility forging ahead in a risky 'sport.'

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 19, 2015 1:05:25 PM | 35

Lone Wolf at 29 -- "Land of Confusion" is a good call, suits the time now better than it did before. Unfortunately the vid you linked to was not available in my loc. But I happen to have it in my browser history, for anyone that missed their daily dose (or yearly allotment) of Genesis. And let me throw in my favorite early Peter Gabriel track, Here Comes the Flood. The problems of global warming give it a different meaning now than in 80's. Best live version, IMHO. "It'll be those who gave their island to survive...."

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 19, 2015 6:07:59 PM | 36

@rm 35:

Thanks for the link. I couldn't figure out what the song was from the title. Sorry, but Phil Collins' voice always reminds me of Miami Vice.

Speaking of people in music videos with fat faces, consider this (which I have probably posted here before):

Rammstein: America

I don't think that there's much doubt that the Apollo program was America's pinnacle. (As is the case with other great human achievements, it took a German to make it happen.) Compared to when America made it to the moon, the country is now absolutely pitiful and pathetic, and I think everyone understands that on one level or another.

I read up on the Apollo program at Wikipedia recently. It really was a mind boggling achievement. Think of the self-confidence those scientists and engineers must have had to work out such a project, when no one had any experience of being in space. No wonder there is a conspiracy theory that it was all a hoax. (Of course, the Russians deserve some credit even here, since it was they who provided the motivation to the Americans to get to the moon.)

How could America fall so low from such a peak? To hazard a guess, what made the Apollo program possible was the inheritance from the US WW II effort. Not just Werner von Braun, but also central economic planning and the restraint of avarice by a sense of national purpose.

Perhaps America's fate was sealed when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. That made the dollar an international reserve currency that could be printed without limit, removing any pressure from the US to be economically competitive or have a manufacturing base. Thus the current situation, in which the main way that the US interacts with the outside world is by waging one war after another, all to keep the dollar in place.

And finally, since we're sharing music videos again, here is an 80s antidote to Genesis:

Flying Lizards: Sex Machine

Posted by: Demian | Apr 19, 2015 7:35:55 PM | 37

P. Berman at 33 -- While I've not followed it too closely (I stay busy watching the Banderaists), the problem of the EuroForce is puzzling. It's the kind of rapid reaction force that the French have had for decades with Foreign Legion -- professional interventionists. And as they were volunteers, often foreign, little political cost for use.

So you'd think in principle it's well with the the organizational and logistical capabilities of the Eurozone. Clearly the problems are political, around domestic sovereignity and foreign entanglement. As well as the one you raise, who will it be used against, and where?

I'm not sure the Paraguay analogy fits, but I'd have to bone up on that one. I'm glad that we've drawn someone capable of bringing it up, good fit or bad. I always find it hard to think of land-locked Paraguay has having been a power frightful enough to unite its neighbors against it in the late 1800's.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 19, 2015 10:32:16 PM | 39

The Phoenix Program comes to Ukraine.

Posted by: guest77 | Apr 20, 2015 8:08:59 PM | 45

Posted by: Demian | Apr 20, 2015 10:12:19 PM | 48

And now, for just a minute, anyway, back onto the Ukraine.

Fort Russ has Vladimir Lepekhin explaining Why the Ukrainian army is doomed to defeat.

The main source of power of the Ukrainian military machine... is in its reliance on wide array of means of waging war in pursuit of "Ukrainianness".

This machine is based on lies, cruelty, direct terror, the use of forbidden weapons (I think that if the regime had nuclear weapons it would have used them by now), and the lowest imaginable methods of warmaking, such as the destruction of the civilian population, hostage-taking, torture, and the murder of prisoners of war and opponents....

It is not especially subordinate to the political leadership, but instead is purposed for, to some extent or another, the destruction of everything that does not fit into the "one state-one nation-one idea" conception.

The power of the Ukrainian military machine also resides in the fact that it is backed by the entire "civilized world" which is rendering Kiev moral, political, financial, military, and legal support.

He goes on to note that the Ukrainians have no effective leadership, capable of inspiring the ranks to sacrifice and victory. This is in part due no cohesive, appealing ideology.

As translator J. Hawk points out about Ukrainian nationalism, "Everyone who's ever adopted it, lost. They did not merely lose badly, they lost ugly, and made the ideology appear even more despicable and monstrous than it was before." Having cut themselves off from the Russian and Soviet past, they're left with Bandera and the OUN-UPA atrocities as models of "Ukrainainness."

I sadly expect this run of bad luck on the part of the heroes of the Ukraine will continue.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 20, 2015 10:52:01 PM | 50

@Demian,

If you're trying for true anonymity, you've already failed because this web site records IP addresses of all who post, unless you've already sought ways to block or falsify your IP address from the very beginning.

Equally email access has the same problem: irrespective of what information the email provider requires you to give, all a surveillance agency would need would be to access the IP addresses from which a given account is logged into.

True, the IP address isn't necessarily very accurate - typically in the 3-5 mile range - but additional filtering can narrow that down considerably, especially if traces are then put on said IP address to look for patterns of behavior (times of day a target typically uses the internet, writing/grammar patterns, lists of web sites frequented, etc).

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Apr 21, 2015 10:51:54 AM | 53

@⇂ɔ #53:

I am not trying for true anonymity. I just don't want my identity to be obvious to any fascist (at this current point in history, the word "fascist" is more or less synonymous with "Ukrainian") idiot who might be reading this blog.

@ALL:

If Atlantos were civilized, they would commit harikiri: Bridge Burning: EU to Bring Antitrust Charges against Gazprom http://t.co/8TrQ4LWoze

- Adalbrand (@Adalbrand) April 21, 2015

Now, on a lighter note: Kiev junta magic underwear???

Patriotic Underwear to Increase Morale

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 21, 2015 5:50:44 PM | 56

All I can say about this, yes, it seems serious. Patriotic underwear to increase morale of the Ukrainian army. So you can't say you weren't briefed on the new dress code.

On a darker note, here's a very well-made threat for you. Security forces say "Ukrainophobes" ought to "lower their rhetoric to zero". Senior SBU investigator Vasiliy Vovk, speaking officially, said "I think that... when we are practically at war... we should not have people... who are speaking out against Ukraine and against Ukrainianness. I advise them to do it because nothing good will come of it."

When asked if he could define "Ukrainophobia," Vovk said "No. But we know what we are talking about."

You might need a laugh after that. With All of Ukraine Blocked by the Gridlock From Successive Russian Invasions, arrangements are being made for overflow parking in Poland and Belarus.

[April 20, 2015] Another Idiotic Plan to Hurt Russia by MIKE WHITNEY

April 20, 2015 | CounterPunch

"The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests…..We must, however, be mindful that…Russia will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia and the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States."

-The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the original version of the Defense Planning Guidance, authored by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained."

-THE GRAND CHESSBOARD – American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, page 30, Basic Books, 1997

The Laussanne negotiations between Iran and the so called P5+1 group (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany) have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation. They are, in fact, another attempt to weaken and isolate Russia by easing sanctions, thus allowing Iranian gas to replace Russian gas in Europe.

Laussanne shows that Washington still thinks that the greatest threat to its dominance is the further economic integration of Russia and Europe, a massive two-continent free trade zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok that would eventually dwarf dwindling US GDP while decisively shifting the balance of global power to Asia. To counter that threat, the Obama administration toppled the elected government of Ukraine in a violent coup, launched a speculative attack on the ruble, forced down global oil prices, and is presently arming and training neo-Nazi extremists in the Ukrainian army. Washington has done everything in its power to undermine relations between the EU and Russia risking even nuclear war in its effort to separate the natural trading partners and to strategically situate itself in a location where it can control the flow of vital resources from East to West.

Laussanne was about strategic priorities not nukes. The Obama administration realizes that if it can't find an alternate source of gas for Europe, then its blockade of Russia will fail and the EU-Russia alliance will grow stronger. And if the EU-Russia alliance grows stronger, then US attempts to extend its tentacles into Asia and become a major player in the world's most prosperous region will also fail leaving Washington to face a dismal future in which the steady erosion of its power and prestige is a near certainty. This is from an article titled "Removing sanctions against Iran to have unfavorable influence on Turkey and Azerbaijan":

"If Washington removes energy sanctions on Iran…then a new geopolitical configuration will emerge in the region. Connecting with Nabucco will be enough for Iran to fully supply Europe with gas…

Iran takes the floor with inexhaustible oil and gas reserves and as a key transit country. Iran disposes of the 10% of the reported global oil reserves and is the second country in the world after Russia with its natural gas reserves (15%). The official representatives of Iran do not hide that they strive to enter the European market of oil and gas, as in the olden days. Let's remember that the deputy Minister of Oil in Iran, Ali Majedi, offered to revive project of Nabucco pipeline during his European tour and said that his country is ready to supply gas to Europe through it…

"Some months earlier the same Ali Majedi reported sensational news: 'two invited European delegations' discussed the potential routes of Iranian gas supply to Europe," the article reads." … It is also noted that the West quite materially reacted to the possibility of the Iranian gas to join Nabucco." (Removing sanctions against Iran to have unfavorable influence on Turkey and Azerbaijan, Panorama)

So, is this the plan, to provide "energy security" to Europe by replacing Russian gas with Iranian gas?

It sure looks like it. But that suggests that the sanctions really had nothing to do with Iran's fictitious nuclear weapons program but were merely used to humiliate Iran while keeping as much of its oil and gas offline until western-backed multinationals could get their greasy mitts on it.

Indeed, that's exactly how the sanctions were used even though the nuclear issue was a transparent fake from the get go. Get a load of this from the New York Times:

"Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America's 16 intelligence agencies." (U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb, James Risen, New York Times, February 24, 2012)

See? The entire US intelligence establishment has been saying the same thing from the onset: No Iranian nukes. Nor has Iran ever been caught diverting nuclear fuel to other purposes. Never. Also, as nuclear weapons physicist, Gordon Prather stated many times before his death, "After almost three years of go-anywhere see-anything interview-anyone inspections, IAEA inspectors have yet to find any indication that Iran has - or ever had - a nuclear weapons program."

The inspectors were on the ground for three freaking years. They interviewed everyone and went wherever they wanted. They searched every cave and hideaway, every nook and cranny, and they found nothing.

Get it? No nukes, not now, not ever. Period.

The case against Iran is built on propaganda, brainwashing and bullshit, in that order. But, still, that doesn't tell us why the US is suddenly changing course. For that, we turn to an article from The Brookings Institute titled "Why the details of the Iran deal don't matter" which sums it up quite well. Here's a clip:

"At heart, this is a fight over what to do about Iran's challenge to U.S. leadership in the Middle East and the threat that Iranian geopolitical ambitions pose to U.S. allies, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia. Proponents of the deal believe that the best way for the United States to deal with the Iranian regional challenge is to seek to integrate Iran into the regional order, even while remaining wary of its ambitions. A nuclear deal is an important first step in that regard, but its details matter little because the ultimate goal is to change Iranian intentions rather destroy Iranian capability." (Why the details of the Iran deal don't matter, Brookings)

Notice how carefully the author avoids mentioning Israel by name although he alludes to "the threat that Iranian geopolitical ambitions pose to U.S. allies". Does he think he's talking to idiots?

But his point is well taken; the real issue is not "Iranian capability", but "Iran's challenge to U.S. leadership in the Middle East". In other words, the nuclear issue is baloney. What Washington doesn't like is that Iran has an independent foreign policy that conflicts with the US goal of controlling the Middle East. That's what's really going on. Washington wants a compliant Iran that clicks its heals and does what its told.

The problem is, the strategy hasn't worked and now the US is embroiled in a confrontation with Moscow that is a higher priority than the Middle East project. (The split between US elites on this matter has been interesting to watch, with the Obama-Brzezinski crowd on one side and the McCain-neocon crowd on the other.) This is why the author thinks that easing sanctions and integrating Iran into the predominantly US system would be the preferable remedy for at least the short term.

Repeat: "The best way for the United States to deal with the Iranian regional challenge is to integrate Iran into the regional order." In other words, if you can't beat 'em, then join 'em. Iran is going to be given enough freedom to fulfill its role within the imperial order, that is, to provide gas to Europe in order to inflict more economic pain on Russia. Isn't that what's going on?

But what effect will that have on Iran-Russia relations? Will it poison the well and turn one ally against the other?

Probably not, mainly because the ties between Iran and Russia are growing stronger by the day. Check this out from the Unz Review by Philip Giraldi:

"Moscow and Tehran are moving towards a de-facto strategic partnership, which can be easily seen by the two groundbreaking announcements from earlier this week. It's now been confirmed by the Russian government that the rumored oil-for-goods program between Russia and Iran is actually a real policy that's already been implemented, showing that Moscow has wasted no time in trying to court the Iranian market after the proto-deal was agreed to a week earlier. Providing goods in exchange for resources is a strategic decision that creates valuable return customers in Iran, who will then be in need of maintenance and spare parts for their products. It's also a sign of deep friendship between the two Caspian neighbors and sets the groundwork for the tentative North-South economic corridor between Russia and India via Iran." (A Shifting Narrative on Iran, Unz Review)

But here's the glitch: Iran can't just turn on the spigot and start pumping gas to Europe. It doesn't work that way. It's going to take massive pipeline and infrastructure upgrades that could take years to develop. That means there will be plenty of hefty contracts awarded to friends of Tehran –mostly Russian and Chinese–who will perform their tasks without interfering in domestic politics. Check this out from Pepe Escobar:

"Russia and China are deeply committed to integrating Iran into their Eurasian vision. Iran may finally be admitted as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the upcoming summer summit in Russia. That implies a full-fledged security/commercial/political partnership involving Russia, China, Iran and most Central Asian 'stans'.

Iran is already a founding member of the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); that means financing for an array of New Silk Road-related projects bound to benefit the Iranian economy. AIIB funding will certainly merge with loans and other assistance for infrastructure development related to the Chinese-established Silk Road Fund…" (Russia, China, Iran: In sync, Pepe Escobar, Russia Today)

Get the picture? Eurasian integration is already done-deal and there's nothing the US can do to stop it.

Washington needs to rethink its approach. Stop the meddling and antagonism, rebuild relations through trade and mutual trust, and accept the inevitability of imperial decline.

Asia's star is rising just as America's is setting. Deal with it.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Apr 18, 2015] The New York Times "basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say" Stephen F. Cohen on the U.S.-Russia-Ukraine history

Quote: "The [crisis now] grew out of Clinton's policies, what I call a "winner take all" American policy toward what was thought to be-but this isn't true-a defeated post-Cold War Russia, leading people in the '90s to think of Russia as in some ways analogous to Germany and Japan after World War II: Russia would decide its internal policies to some extent, and it would be allowed to resume its role as a state in international affairs-but as a junior partner pursuing new American national interests."
From comments: When one looks at the American empire one must think of it in terms of economics, like the British empire before it. This empire isn't run primarily for military purposes, or for other purposes, but to make money. It is run as a huge project to export money from places with less power to the US. At the end of the cold war the former Soviet Union found itself in the position of having natural resources and being in a subservient position.

The New York Times "basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say": Stephen F. Cohen on the U.S./Russia/Ukraine history the media won't tell you

There's an alternative story of Russian relations we're not hearing. Historian Stephen Cohen tells it here

It is one thing to comment in a column as the Ukrainian crisis grinds on and Washington-senselessly, with no idea of what will come next - destroys relations with Moscow. It is quite another, as a long exchange with Stephen F. Cohen makes clear, to watch as an honorable career's worth of scholarly truths are set aside in favor of unlawful subterfuge, a war fever not much short of Hearst's and what Cohen ranks among the most extravagant expansion of a sphere of influence-NATO's-in history.

Cohen is a distinguished Russianist by any measure. While professing at Princeton and New York University, he has written of the revolutionary years ("Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution," 1973), the Soviet era ("Rethinking the Soviet Experience," 1985) and, contentiously but movingly and always with a steady eye, the post-Soviet decades ("Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia, 2000; "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives," 2009). "The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin" (2010) is a singularly humane work, using scholarly method to relate the stories of the former prisoners who walk as ghosts in post-Soviet Russia. "I never actually lost the uneasy feeling of having left work unfinished and obligations unfulfilled," Cohen explains in the opening chapter, "even though fewer and fewer of the victims I knew were still alive."

If I had to describe the force and value of Cohen's work in a single sentence, it would be this: It is a relentless insistence that we must bring history to bear upon what we see. One would think this an admirable project, but it has landed Cohen in the mother of all intellectual disputes since the U.S.-supported coup in Kiev last year. To say he is now "blackballed" or "blacklisted"-terms Cohen does not like-is too much. Let us leave it that a place may await him among America's many prophets without honor among their own.

It is hardly surprising that the Ministry of Forgetting, otherwise known as the State Department, would eschew Cohen's perspective on Ukraine and the relationship with Russia: He brings far too much by way of causality and responsibility to the case. But when scholarly colleagues attack him as "Putin's apologist" one grows queasy at the prospect of a return to the McCarthyist period. By now, obedient ideologues in the academy have turned debate into freak show.

Cohen, who is 76, altogether game and remembers it all, does not think we are back in the 1950s just yet. But he is now enmeshed in a fight with the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, which last autumn rejected a $400,000 grant Cohen proposed with his wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, because the fellowships to be funded would bear Cohen's name. Believe it, readers, this is us in the early 21st century.

The interview that follows took place in Cohen's Manhattan apartment some weeks after the cease-fire agreement known as Minsk II was signed in mid-February. It sprawled over several absorbing hours. As I worked with the transcript it became clear that Cohen had given me a valuable document, one making available to readers a concise, accessible, historically informed accounting of "where we are today," as Cohen put it, in Ukraine and in the U.S.-Russia relationship.

Salon will run it in two parts. This is an edited transcript of the first. Part two follows next week.

What is your judgment of Russia's involvement in Ukraine? In the current situation, the need is for good history and clear language. In a historical perspective, do you consider Russia justified?

Well, I can't think otherwise. I began warning of such a crisis more than 20 years ago, back in the '90s. I've been saying since February of last year [when Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in Kiev] that the 1990s is when everything went wrong between Russia and the United States and Europe. So you need at least that much history, 25 years. But, of course, it begins even earlier.

As I've said for more than a year, we're in a new Cold War. We've been in one, indeed, for more than a decade. My view [for some time] was that the United States either had not ended the previous Cold War, though Moscow had, or had renewed it in Washington. The Russians simply hadn't engaged it until recently because it wasn't affecting them so directly.

What's happened in Ukraine clearly has plunged us not only into a new or renewed-let historians decide that-Cold War, but one that is probably going to be more dangerous than the preceding one for two or three reasons. The epicenter is not in Berlin this time but in Ukraine, on Russia's borders, within its own civilization: That's dangerous. Over the 40-year history of the old Cold War, rules of behavior and recognition of red lines, in addition to the red hotline, were worked out. Now there are no rules. We see this every day-no rules on either side.

What galls me the most, there's no significant opposition in the United States to this new Cold War, whereas in the past there was always an opposition. Even in the White House you could find a presidential aide who had a different opinion, certainly in the State Department, certainly in the Congress. The media were open-the New York Times, the Washington Post-to debate. They no longer are. It's one hand clapping in our major newspapers and in our broadcast networks. So that's where we are.

The Ukraine crisis in historical perspective. Very dangerous ground. You know this better than anyone, I'd've thought.

This is where I get attacked and assailed. It's an historical judgment. The [crisis now] grew out of Clinton's policies, what I call a "winner take all" American policy toward what was thought to be-but this isn't true-a defeated post-Cold War Russia, leading people in the '90s to think of Russia as in some ways analogous to Germany and Japan after World War II: Russia would decide its internal policies to some extent, and it would be allowed to resume its role as a state in international affairs-but as a junior partner pursuing new American national interests.

That was the pursuit that Clinton and Strobe Talbott, who's now very upset about the failure of his policy, in the Yeltsin era. That's what they wanted, and thought they were getting, from Boris Yeltsin. You can read Talbott's memoir, "The Russia Hand," and know that all the official talk about eternal friendship and partnership was malarkey. Now it's all gone sour, predictably and for various reasons, and has led us to this situation.

The problem is that by taking the view, as the American media and political establishment do, that this crisis is entirely the fault of "Putin's aggression," there's no rethinking of American policy over the last 20 years. I have yet to see a single influential person say, "Hey, maybe we did something wrong, maybe we ought to rethink something." That's a recipe for more of the same, of course, and more of the same could mean war with Russia….

Let me give you one example. It's the hardest thing for the American foreign policy elite and the media elite to cope with.

Our position is that nobody is entitled to a sphere of influence in the 21st century. Russia wants a sphere of influence in the sense that it doesn't want American military bases in Ukraine or in the Baltics or in Georgia. But what is the expansion of NATO other than the expansion of the American zone or sphere of influence? It's not just military. It's financial, it's economic, it's cultural, it's intermarriage-soldiers, infrastructure. It's probably the most dramatic expansion of a great sphere of influence in such a short time and in peacetime in the history of the world.

So you have Vice President Biden constantly saying, "Russia wants a sphere of influence and we won't allow it." Well, we are shoving our sphere of influence down Russia's throat, on the assumption that it won't push back. Obviously, the discussion might well begin: "Is Russia entitled to a zone or sphere in its neighborhood free of foreign military bases?" Just that, nothing more. If the answer is yes, NATO expansion should've ended in Eastern Germany, as the Russians were promised. But we've crept closer and closer. Ukraine is about NATO-expansion-no-matter-what. Washington can go on about democracy and sovereignty and all the rest, but it's about that. And we can't re-open this question…. The hypocrisy, or the inability to connect the dots in America, is astonishing.

The nature of the Kiev regime. Again, there's a lot of fog. So there're two parts to this question. The coup matter and the relationship of the Yatsenyuk government to the State Department-we now have a finance minister in Kiev who's an American citizen, addressing the Council on Foreign Relations here as we speak-and then the relationship of the Kiev regime with the ultra-right.

It's a central question. I addressed it in a Nation piece last year called "Distorting Russia." One point was that the apologists in the media for the Kiev government as it came to power after Feb. 21, and for the Maidan demonstrations as they turned violent, ignored the role of a small but significant contingent of ultra-nationalists who looked, smelled and sounded like neo-fascists. And for this I was seriously attacked, including by Timothy Snyder at Yale, who is a great fan of Kiev, in the New Republic. I have no idea where he is coming from, or how any professor could make the allegations he did. But the argument was that this neo-fascist theme was Putin's, that what I was saying was an apology for Putin and that the real fascists were in Russia, not in Ukraine.

Maybe there are fascists in Russia, but we're not backing the Russian government or Russian fascists. The question is, and it's extremely important, "Is there a neo-fascist movement in Ukraine that, regardless of its electoral success, which has not been great, is influencing affairs politically or militarily, and is this something we should be worried about?"

The answer is 100 percent yes. But admitting this in the United States has gotten a 100 percent no until recently, when, finally, a few newspapers began to cite Kiev's battalions with swastikas on their helmets and tanks. So you've gotten a little more coverage. Foreign journalists, leaving aside Russians, have covered this neo-fascist phenomenon, which is not surprising. It grows out of Ukraine's history. It should be a really important political question for Western policy makers, and I think it is now for the Germans. German intelligence is probably better than American intelligence when it comes to Ukraine-more candid in what it tells the top leadership. Merkel's clearly worried about this.

It's another example of something you can't discuss in the mainstream media or elsewhere in the American establishment. When you read the testimony of [Assistant Secretary of State] Nuland, this is never mentioned. But what could be more important than the resurgence of a fascist movement on the European continent? I'm not talking about these sappy fascists who run around the streets in Western Europe. I'm talking about guys with a lot of weapons, guys who have done dastardly things and who have killed people. Does that warrant discussion? Well, people said, if they exist they're a tiny minority. My clichéd answer is, "Of course, so was Hitler and so was Lenin at one time." You pay attention and you think about it if you learn anything from history….

We say we're doing everything we're doing in Ukraine and against Russia, including running the risk of war, for a democratic Ukraine, by which we mean Ukraine under the rule of Kiev. Reasonably, we would ask to what extent Kiev is actually democratic. But correspondents of the Times and the Washington Post regularly file from Kiev and basically re-write whatever the Kiev authorities say while rarely, if ever, asking about democracy in Kiev-governed Ukraine.

Rewriting handouts. Is that actually so?

Until recently it was so…. I haven't made this a study, and one could be done in a week by a sophisticated journalist or scholar who knew how to ask questions and had access to information. And I would be willing to wager that it would show that there's less democracy, as reasonably understood, in those areas of Ukraine governed by Kiev today than there was before Yanukovych was overthrown. Now that's a hypothesis, but I think it's a hypothesis the Times and the Post should be exploring.

I take Kiev's characterization of its war in the eastern sections as an "anti-terrorist campaign" to be one of the most preposterous labels out there right now.

But, then, why did Washington say OK to it? Washington has a say in this. Without Washington, Kiev would be in bankruptcy court and have no military at all. Why didn't Washington say, "Don't call it anti-terrorist?" Because if you call it "anti-terrorism" you can never have negotiations because you don't negotiate with terrorists, you just kill them, a murderous organization with murderous intent.

By saying that this is not a civil war, it's just Russian aggression-this omits the human dimension of the entire war, and also the agency of the people who are actually fighting in the east-the hairdressers, the taxi drivers, the former newspaper reporters, the school teachers, the garbage men, the electricians, who are probably 90 percent of those fighting. There are Russians there, from Russia. But Ukraine's army has proved incapable of defeating or even holding off what began as a fairly ragtag, quasi-partisan, ill-equipped, untrained force.

The horror of this has been Kiev's use of its artillery, mortars and even its airplanes, until recently, to bombard large residential cities, not only Donetsk and Luhansk, but other cities. These are cities of 500,000, I imagine, or 2 million to 3 million. This is against the law. These are war crimes, unless we assume the rebels were bombing their mothers and grandmothers and fathers and sisters. This was Kiev, backed by the United States. So the United States has been deeply complicit in the destruction of these eastern cities and peoples. When Nuland tells Congress there are 5,000 to 6,000 dead, that's the U.N. number. That's just a count of bodies they found in the morgues. Lots of bodies are never found. German intelligence says 50,000.

Ever since the Clinton administration, we've bleated on about the right to protect people who are victims of humanitarian crises. You've got a massive humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine. You've got 1 million people or more who have fled to Russia-this is according to the U.N.-another half a million having fled elsewhere in Ukraine. I don't notice the United States organizing any big humanitarian effort. Where is Samantha Power, the architect of "right to protect?" We have shut our eyes to a humanitarian crisis in which we are deeply complicit. This is what's shameful, whether you like or don't like Putin. It's got nothing to do with Putin. It has to do with the nature of American policy and the nature of Washington-and the nature of the American people, if they tolerate this.

You've written about the second Minsk accord as the only hope we've got left. Tell me briefly your take on Minsk II and whether there's a chance it will hold.

The second Minsk Accord has a lot of moving parts. The primary part is the cease-fire and the withdrawal by both sides of heavy artillery. It would appear that this has been significantly accomplished, but the cease-fire is very unstable. The political parts are supposed to come now. Kiev is supposed to pass certain constitutional reforms, giving a certain autonomy to the eastern regions. The eastern regions are supposed to hold new elections that in some way comply with Ukrainian law. If all that happens by December, then the Ukrainian-Russian border will be turned over to the Kiev authorities along with some European monitors. The political parts are going to be the hardest because there is no political support for this in Kiev.

[President] Poroshenko went to Minsk because he had no choice: Merkel told him he had to sign Minsk II. But Kiev is ultra-nationalist. They want no concessions to the east or to Russia. Getting Minsk II through parliament in Kiev will be very difficult. But the main fact for now is that Minsk II is the last, best choice to avoid a wider war that might well cause a direct war with Russia. [Since this interview the Kiev parliament has passed legislation either contradicting or negating the Minsk II terms.]

Minsk II was Merkel's initiative with President Hollande of France, and why, at the last minute, she suddenly realized that the situation was different than she thought-desperate-I don't know. And remember, this is a woman with enormous executive responsibilities for the economic crisis of the European Union and Greece. The enemies of Minsk II…

I think the main enemy is Washington.

That's right. I wouldn't call them the enemy, but we can't be children about this. Washington controls the IMF. Washington controls NATO. NATO and the IMF are the two agencies that can make war happen on a broader basis in Ukraine and in regard to Russia, or stop it. Whoever is the decider in Washington, if it's Obama, if it's somebody else, now has to make the decision.

All the enemies of Minsk II speak freely and are quoted in the papers and on the networks as rational people. And yet there's not one dissenting voice from the establishment. Outwardly, it appears to be a very uneven struggle. One hopes that somewhere in dark corridors and dimly-lit rooms in Washington, serious conversations are taking place, but I don't think so. [One March 23, 48 members of Congress did vote against sending weapons to Kiev, a point Cohen commended in an email note.]

Our post-Soviet politics after 1991, it turns out to be war by other means. The Cold War never ended, in my view. The tactics changed, perhaps the strategy did, too, but there was very little by way of even a pause.

It's complicated. The main problem today of getting the American political class to think freshly is Putin. They use Putin as the excuse to do whatever they want and not rethink anything. But Putin came much later.

The historical facts are not convenient to the triumphalist narrative, which says that we defeated the Soviet Union and thereby ended the Cold War, and therefore and therefore. According to Gorbachev, Reagan and Bush, the Cold War ended either in 1988 or 1990. When Reagan left the White House-I think he wrote in his diary in January 1989, "We have ended the Cold War"-so he thought he had ended it with Gorbachev. I was in Moscow when he walked across Red Square in that heat, I think it was July 1988, and somebody shouted to him "President Reagan, is this still the Evil Empire?" And he, in that affable way, said "Oh, no, that was then… everything's changed."

The Cold War was a structural phenomenon. Just because the president says its over doesn't mean it's over, but then there was Malta in December 1989, when [George H.W.] Bush and Gorbachev said the Cold War was over, and that continued all through the reunification of Germany. Between '88 and '90 we were told repeatedly by the world's leaders that it was over. Jack Matlock, Reagan's ambassador to Russia, has written very well about this, and because he was there as a personal testimony, of how this truly was. So the conflation of the end of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War is an historical mistake.

Bush then continued to maintain the official line that he had pursued with Gorbachev that there were no losers at the end of the Cold War, everybody had won. Bush maintained that position until the polls showed he was running behind Clinton in his reelection campaign. And then he declared in 1992 that we, and he in particular, had won the Cold War. I saw Gorbachev shortly thereafter. My wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and I had been friends with him for several years. He was deeply, deeply hurt, with a sense of betrayal. He's forgiven Bush, being a forgiving man.

But at that moment, '91 and '92… well, words are words, but as Russians say, words are also deeds. By announcing that we had won the Cold War, Bush set the stage for the Clinton administration's decision to act on an American victory, including the expansion of NATO.

This history brings us to where we are today.

What has changed in U.S. policy toward Russia between 1991 and now, and what hasn't?

I think the history that we know is what I just told you. Behind the scenes, there were clearly discussions going on throughout the '90s, and there were different groups. Big historical decisions, whether we talk about the war in Vietnam, or, a subject that interests me, why slavery and segregation lasted so long in the American South, where I grew up, can never be explained by one factor. Almost always they're multi-factored. But you got, in the 1990s, some people who genuinely believed that this was the moment for an enduring post-Cold War, American-Russian, full-scale strategic partnership and friendship between equals. There were these Romantics, so to speak.

On this side of the ocean?

I think there were people who believed in this. Just like there're people who really believe in democracy promotion as a virtuous profession-some of my students have gone into it. They believe in it: It's a good thing. Why not help good countries achieve democracy? The dark side of democracy promotion for them is either not visible or not in their calculation. People are diverse. I don't judge them harshly for their beliefs.

There were others who were saying Russia will rise again, and we have to make sure that never happens. To do that, we need to strip Russia of Ukraine, in particular. Brzezinski was writing that. At some point during this time he wrote that Russia with Ukraine is a great imperial power, without Ukraine it's a normal country. But there were people in Washington, the same people I heard in private discussions, saying that Russia's down and we're going to keep it down. They were feeding opinion into the Clinton administration, and that clearly helped lead to the NATO expansion.

They use the excuse that everybody wants to join NATO. How can we deny them the right? It's very simple. People say every country that qualifies has a right to join NATO. No, they do not. NATO is not a junior Chamber of Commerce. It's not a non-selective fraternity or sorority. It's a security organization, and the only criterion for membership should be, "Does a nation enhance the security of the other member countries?" The Ukrainian crisis proves beyond any doubt, being the worst international crisis of our time, that the indiscriminate expansion of NATO has worsened our international security. That's the end of that story. I don't know what they think NATO is. Is it like AARP membership and you get discounts in the form of U.S. defense funds? It's crazy, this argument.

But then you got these guys who are either Russophobes or eternal Cold Warriors or deep strategic thinkers. You remember when [Paul] Wolfowitz wrote this article saying Russia had to be stripped of any possibility ever to be a great power again? These people were all talking like…

It goes back to your comparison with Japan in '45.

The question is why Clinton bought into this. That would then take you to Strobe Talbott. Strobe was a disciple of Isaiah Berlin, who taught that if you want to understand Russia, you have to understand the history, the culture and the civilization. And certainly if you took that view, you never would have done, as George Kennan said in 1996 or 1997, you never would have expanded NATO. I knew George during my 30 years at Princeton. George's social attitudes were deeply alarming, but about Russia he had a very important idea. Russia marches to its own drummer, let it, don't try to intervene or you'll make things worse. Be patient, understand Russian history, the forces in Russia. That was Isaiah Berlin's position. Once, that was Strobe's position. Look at Strobe Talbott today: We have to send in weapons and overthrow Putin and turn Russia around. Now it's all outside agency.

How did this guy go from A to B?

Well, they say power corrupts, or at least changes people. He had been Clinton's roommate at Oxford, and he ended up in the White House as a Russia aide, very smart guy. I think Russia disappointed him. One phenomenon among Russia-watchers is that you create an artifice, and that's your Russia. And when it disappoints you, you never forgive Russia. Check out Fred Hiatt at the Washington Post. Fred was writing from Moscow during the '90s that democracy was going to be great. So did most the guys who are now were still in editorial positions. Russia let them down. They can't forgive Russia anymore than they can the ex-wife who cheated on them. They can't think anew. It's a phenomenon, probably not only American, but it's particularly American. You cannot reopen any discussion with these people who bought into Yeltsin's Russia in the 1990s and were certain that though the road was rocky, as they liked to say… "Failed Crusade" is about this. They can't get over it.

Part of it also had to do with Yeltsin. He was so desperate, not only for American affirmation but for American affection. He was so insecure, as his health declined and he became more and more the captive of the oligarchs, that he wanted to mean as much to Washington as Gorbachev had. He was getting close to virtually giving Washington anything, saying anything, until the Serbian war. Then it dawned on him that Washington had a certain agenda, and the expansion of NATO [was part of it], but by then it was too late, he was a spent force.

Later, when Dmitri Medvedev was president [2008-12], I think, he told a group of people that Yeltsin hadn't actually won the election, that Gennadi Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party, had. So assuming that Medvedev wasn't lying and assuming he was in a position to know, all this talk of American support for democracy, when it comes to Russia, at least, is, shall we say, complex.

Let's go to Putin. What is your view here? What is he trying to accomplish?

It's impossible to answer briefly or simply. This is a separate university course, this is a book, this is for somebody with a much bigger brain that I have. This really is for historians to judge.

I wrote an article in, I think, 2012 called the "The Demonization of Putin," arguing that there is very little basis for many of the allegations made against Putin, and that the net result was to make rational analysis in Washington on Russian affairs at home and abroad impossible, because it was all filtered through this demonization. If we didn't stop, I argued, it was only going to get worse to the point where we would become like heroin addicts at fix time, unable to think about anything except our obsession with Putin. We couldn't think about other issues. This has now happened fully. The article was turned down by the New York Times, and an editor I knew at Reuters published it on Reuters.com.

The history of how this came about [begins] when Putin came to power, promoted by Yeltsin and the people around Yeltsin, who were all connected in Washington. These people in Moscow included Anatoly Chubais, who had overseen the privatizations, had relations with the IMF and had fostered a lot of the corruption. He came to United States to assure us that Putin was a democrat, even though he had been at the KGB.

When he came to power, both the Times and the Post wrote that Putin was a democrat and, better yet, he was sober, unlike Yeltsin. How we got from 2000 to now, when he's Hitler, Saddam, Stalin, Gaddafi, everybody that we have to get rid of, whom we know killed Boris Nemtsov because from the bridge where Nemtsov was killed [on February 27] you can see the Kremlin…. Well, remember, Sarah Palin could see Russia from Alaska! It's preposterous. But the demonization of Putin has become an institution in America. It is literally a political institution that prevents the kind of discussion that you and I are having.

Kissinger had the same thought. He wrote, last year, I think, "The demonization of Putin is not a policy. It's an alibi for not having a policy." That's half correct. It's much worse now, because they did have a policy. I think the "policy" growing in some minds was how to get rid of Putin. The question is, "Do they have the capacity to make decisions?" I didn't think so, but now I'm not so sure, because in a lot of what comes out of Washington, including the State Department, the implication is that Putin has to go.

I asked a question rhetorically several years ago of these regime changers: Have you thought about what would happen in Russia in the event of regime change? If what you say is true, if Putin is the pivot of the whole system, you remove Putin the whole system collapses. Russia has every known weapon of mass destruction in vast quantities. What would be the consequence of that conceit on your part-that we're going to get rid of Putin-for the rest of the world?

So this Putin phenomenon has to be explained. How did he go from a democrat for sure, now to maybe the worst Russian leader since Ivan the Terrible. How do you explain it? Does that tell us more about Putin or more about us?

I think his sin is an unacceptable take on, broad-brush terms, Eastern ethos vs. Western ethos, and on narrower terms a rejection of a neoliberal economic regime in the Washington consensus style. Although he's got a lot to answer for, I think, in this respect, he's not an evangelist for what he's doing. What does he face domestically? What's he trying to do?

Let me tell you just briefly. When I ask Russians, they think the answer is American presidential envy. We've had a lot of unsuccessful presidents lately. Clinton left basically in disgrace, Bush left not beloved for the war that he had got us into and lied about, Obama is before our eyes a shrinking, failing president. And here's Putin, now in his 15th year of growing stature inside Russia.

And by the way, until recently the preeminent European statesman of his time, no doubt of this. In the 21st century, only Merkel can stand anywhere near him as a European statesman, whether you like what a statesman does or not. This, of course, changes everything. Not to take the famous cop-out, but let history judge. X number of years from now, when we've joined the majority, as Lenin used to say, historians will undoubtedly look back and do the pluses and minuses, and it's going to be a very close call.

For my short-term take on Putin, he was put in power to save the Yeltsin family from corruption charges, and the first decree he signed upon becoming acting president was to exempt the Yeltsin family from future prosecution. He has honored that, by the way. One of the beefs against Putin in Russia is that he's honorable to his friends and appointees to an extreme; he can't bring himself to fire anybody. He's got this KGB code of honor. I kind of like it. I'd rather that than people stab you in your back….

I operate under the assumption that no matter how or why people come to power, when in power they begin to ponder what their mission is, what history asks of them. For Putin it was quite clear: The Russian state had collapsed twice in the 20th century. Stop and think what that means. It had collapsed in the 1917 Revolution and the Soviet Union didn't collapse in 1991- it was plucked apart- but then the state collapsed and the result was what Russians call smuta, a time of troubles. It means misery; it means foreign invasion; it means civil war; it means that people fall into poverty. This is the Russia that Putin inherited. Remember, when he came to power in 2000, Russia was on the verge of collapsing for a third time as a result of Yeltsin's policies. The governors were corrupt, were not obeying the law, were not paying taxes, were running criminal fiefdoms in scores of regions. Russia was highly vulnerable, NATO was expanding, Russia had no influence in world affairs.

Putin comes to power and perceives that his first mission has to be to stop the collapse of the Russian state- which he calls the vertical, because Russia has always been governed from the top down, which has made it ungovernable because it's so big- and, most of all, to make sure it never, ever, ever happens again. In Russian history, the worst thing that can happen to Russia is smuta, when the state collapses. Stop and think: Between 1917 and 1991, it happened twice in the largest territorial country in the world. Is there any precedent for that in history? How a leader could come to power and not see that….

The second piece of this conversation will run next week.

Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.

More Patrick L. Smith.

Americans are like Legos, designed to be manipulated, used, to build structures whose existence is unknown to them. Part of the design is their incapacity to deal with an idea that would threaten the structure of which they are the fundamental element. And so we see in these comments the ingredients of the very plastic from which they are made: deflection, ad hominemism, demonization, etc. By the time they are finished the discussion will be about someone's character, or the exchange of speculative analyses of some historical event that didn't happen. The comments are a reduction in scale of what happens at the level of diplomacy and policy.

Smith an Cohen know this, and yet they carry on trying to educate and inform against great resistance. They have my respect.

fizzed

Since 1990, the US is the only nation that's faught wars against nations not on its border. Only the US has military bases nearly everywhere on earth. Only the US routinely violates nations' sovereignty, and we do so seemingly every week. We've even classified the number of nations we're bombing. And still, our hawks yearn for more. A recent world Gallup poll found that the world views us as the greatest threat to workd peace by a huge margin, Russia was 2nd by over 20 points. If, by some miracle, we've not become insane, it's impossible fo know because we've classified the evidence. Which may be itself evidence for insanity.

bandeapart

It's funny how people can't even say "I think Cohen is wrong about this." They have to say he's a "Putin apologist" or "on the Kremlin payroll." They're so offended that anyone could even suggest that Putin in 2015 isn't the contemporary equivalent of Hitler in 1938 that they have to resort to obvious falsehoods. That alone should tell you something: This demonization of Putin isn't about the facts.

It's also striking how many of the ideologues attacking Cohen, from Cathy Young to Anne Applebaum, are apologists for George W. Bush's illegal war of unprovoked aggression in Iraq.

(Sorry, posted the fragment below by accident and ran out of time to edit it.)

Jane Cullen

@bandeapart

It's also striking how many of the ideologues attacking Cohen, from Cathy Young to Anne Applebaum, are apologists for George W. Bush's illegal war of unprovoked aggression in Iraq.

Those warmongers are incapable of learning, even from recent disaster.

And this is what happens when Obama refused to prosecute Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the other monsters responsible for all of that destruction and death. Had we had the war crimes trials America desperately needed, even the tools on this very thread would have gotten a thorough education, and perhaps even a clue.

Lora

@PGrajnert @markwriter @Bitter Scribe It is naive , borderline stupid to think that Washington's aim is to defend the Baltics or former subservient Slavs from a Russian boot. Washington uses fear at home and abroad to reach one ultimate goal: economic gain (a.k.a. profit). Simplification some say, well Washington is not that complex just look who has been in charge in the past 40 years. US policies of late are obnoxiously primitive and transparent, but not to American audience.

mykry

Isn't it funny how Cohen thinks 'The New York Times basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say' when he himself seems to shadow and echo the Kremlin narrative ad verbatim. Is Cohen not aware of the lack of independent Russian media portals and echo chambers (domestic and international) that are bought and paid for by the Kremlin? Does Mr. Cohen not see the distortion and disinformation he helps spread? If he does not, then his lack of objectivity makes him simply a Stalinist (or in this case Putinist) apologist. However, if he does, then he is certainly on the Russian payroll---in some form or another---and is no better than the Russian trolls residing in St. Petersburg.

stuinmich

@mykry baseless libel.

jsmith499

It's really amazing with people like Noam Chomsky become imperialists. Russia invades Chechnya, Georgia, now Ukraine, and it's all OK. So we should have invaded Cuba, or any other country nearby that decides to make a treaty with Russia or China. There are people who think that, but you have to go to some really extreme right wing xenophobic imperialistic new sites to find them. Who would have thought that the likes of Noam Chomsky (and someone like Patrick Smith) would become imperialists? I guess you think NATO is an empire ruled by the Pope or someone? Yeah, NATO is the Holly Roman Empire of neocons, right? Is that really what you think Patrick? It is one thing to be against neoconservatism, it is another to take your dislike of it so far that you become an imperialist, it's like something out of the 17th century.

jab670

@jsmith499

I agree with you.

Chomsky and Smith strike me as people who if they were Russians, living in Russia, they would be supporting the United States. They are natural dissenters to public opinion. That's a great thing to have, especially when it's well-researched and articulated.

The problem is that they cannot get past their American-centric views. It's always about what America is doing, to whom, and why. They excuse the actions of other countries as purely reactionary.

The truth is likely somewhere in between and overlapping with good, bad and survivalist intentions from both sides. And the truth is that with a globalized economy, this fading superpower (United States) and former superpower (Russia) are trying to maintain their polarity in this multipolarized world that no longer needs either of them, and their ideologies, to survive.

Lora

@jsmith499 Invading Cuba? You have tried and failed, killing Castro? You have tried and failed. You got your fav. pres. shot for failing so many times to return investments to US mafia. NATO is a tool and it is used by IMF and Washington for one ultimate goal: economic advantage. Your childish arguments reveal how incapable you are at analysis. Read what informed people are writing and grow intellectually by accepting the shades of gray in RL. This is not discussion about baseball.

Pacific Blue

What is it about the threat of putting an op-positional military alliance at the doorstep of a potential adversary that the America does not get? Would we tolerate a federation of Soviet alliances to put troops, missiles, armaments, missile defense systems, and nukes in Canada and Mexico aimed primarily at all of the US major cities.

Please people. Get some sense. Drunken Yeltsin let Bill Clinton humiliate Russia by expanding NATO into countries like Poland and Hungary after the US previously promised Gorbachev that they would not do so. Putin is a different animal.

He knows that what happened in the Ukraine was engineered by neo-cons. He knows we can't be trusted (thank you Bill Clinton). He saw our attempt to get our fingers into Georgia. Remember John McCain's "We're all Georgians now." He knows that the NATO alliance is waiting to bring the Ukraine into their fold both economically and militarily. He's drawn a red line and said, "No more."

We'd be wise to heed it and back off. Russia has her back against the wall and it's dangerous for us to keep playing this game of empire with such a country.

markwriter

@Pacific Blue I don't think making an argument that the US should back away out of fear of an unstable Russia is the best one to make for the pacifist viewpoint. If that's what this is.

fizzed

The argument is not that anyone is unstoppable. Rather, it's that we seem to have forgotten MAD. Russia and the US are the world's only nations capable of destroying the planet in s few hours, We used to know the dangers and the necessary protocals, things we must have forgot to teach our current generation in gradeschool history.

Even in conventional wars the US hasn't won anything since WW2, but we leave unimaginable misery in our wake and excell at creating enemies with our continuous wars. Can anyone give a rational explanation to US foreign policy since 1995?

brucewhain

Are they talking about William Randolph Hearst? Hearst was a pacifist, certainly vis-a-vis Roosevelt's military assistance to Russia starting back in the 30's, and all the subversive influence behind him - and Churchill.

The point is our State Department - anyone with half a brain - knew from the beginning what Russia's reaction would be if we installed this new (sleazebag) government in Ukraine. It's our inheritance from England's Lower Danube Policy, and it's stupid, criminal, suicidal for both the named combatants.

Any action to bring about the Ukraine "regime change" of 2014, as with practically all our regime-change-actions over the long haul, including that dispatching Hitler, have been criminally motivated.

bandeapart

@brucewhain I think they're referring to Hearst's role in whipping up war fever prior to the Spanish-American War.

Jane Cullen

US forces are now operating in Ukraine, not that the MSM cares. The troops real function is to act as a tripwire for war.

Led by blind Neocons, we are that aggressive, that stupid, that suicidal.

http://www.stripes.com/news/us-paratroops-convoy-to-western-ukraine-for-training-mission-1.339858

jab670

@Jane Cullen

They are about 800 miles from the eastern front. American troops in Ukraine is a small step of provocation, but you're carelessly misrepresenting the truth.

Jane Cullen

@jab670

So Russian paratroops, in an unstable, civil-warring Mexico, would be "a small step of provocation", eh?

Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

jab670

@Jane Cullen @jab670

Did I say nothing to worry about? Again, you distort the truth. If we are looking to equate things, then the truthful claim is that the are Russian paratroopers on the border of Guatemala, across the entire country from our southern border, who are training Mexicans.

It's a concern, but I would not be so careless to imply they are near the battlefields, nor would I (unlike you) deny that there are covert American soldiers fighting in Mexico to destabilize, let's say Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.

Jack Hughes

The problem with US foreign relations -- especially with countries perceived as "adversaries" such as Russia and Iran -- is that we neglect to consider their point-of-view.

Worse, we neglect to consider that they might even have a point-of-view that differs from our own.

This is usually the result of the idiotic concept of "American exceptionalism" that presupposes that we are always good and that therefore our opponents are, by definition, bad -- instead of simply pursuing what they perceive as rational self-interest.

This is a childish worldview that guarantees conflict.

How would we react if the Russians were establishing military ties with Canada and Mexico? Would we react differently than the Iranians if other countries demanded that we eliminate our nuclear industries or be subject to trade embargoes or military action?
Jane Cullen 2 days ago

@spriddler

US and NATO military forces do not belong on Russia's borders, any more than Russian forces belongs on ours.

Neocon apologists want the US sphere of influence to span the globe, while Russia's sphere has been shrunk to nothing. That's not paranoia, that's recent history.

Jane Cullen

@spriddler

The alleged "wants" of a subset of Ukranians do not come close to justifying the risk of global thermonuclear war.

But get back to the root of the problem - the US sponsored coup of Feb, 2014, and ongoing US support of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Because, you cannot explain those things away on the basis of nebulous Ukrainian "wants".

What explains those things is the Neocons' PNAC agenda (look it up). Jane Cullen

@markwriter

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/

markwriter

@Jane Cullen @markwriter Aha. This is all based on that secretly taped and released (by Russia) conversation between US diplomats. The conversation was about trying to prevent a hero boxer with no expertise from becoming a senior political leader of the uprising, amidst a general tone of trying to catch up to events on the ground, including the UN wanting to step in to mediate as well.

The US certainly was in favor of what was happening, we can agree upon that. But the uprising and eventual coup was organic and a direct result of the government's violent action and killing of its own citizens.

To call it US (or UN, for that matter) 'sponsored' is inaccurate and is a deliberate word chosen on purpose to evoke comparisons to other US blunders and the 'neo-cons running amok' narrative, some of which you might be surprised to learn I would agree with.

I would close with this: although I completely disagree with the "sponsored" designation, bringing up that taped call is relevant for this discussion, kudos.


ComradeRoger

@Jane Cullen @spriddler Jane, you lose all credibility when you blather on about a 'coup' inKiev while totally ignoring the actual coups that happened in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and Slavyansk at the hands of Russian forces.


You are just a typical Kremlin propagandist, perhaps even one of the paid ones judging from your posts.

Jane Cullen

@ComradeRoger

Ah hah. I'm a Kremlin propagandist.

In decades past, the likes of you called antiwar activists pinkos, Reds, commies. A decade ago, anyone opposing the Neocons was called a Saddam apologist.

I wear your absurd personal attack as a badge of honor.

Jane Cullen

@macnic1

A random Rocky & His Friends ep has more intelligence and insight than Obama's State Dept plus both houses of Congress.

Lora

@ComradeRoger How many coups one country can have? Lol.

Jane Cullen

@spriddler

No, the issue is whether we risk GTW in fealty to the PNAC agenda.

Pacific Blue

@spriddler @Jane Cullen Well the problem is the Ukrainians want different things. Isn't that what the conflict is all about. First they had an election and then they had a coup. Then they had an election in which the opposition opted out.

Some Ukrainians want to break away from Ukraine. Besides, you're underestimating the amount of manipulation occurring on both sides of the conflict.

We have outside forces on both sides meddling in the Ukraine but I'll tell you this. Russia has much more at stake than we do.

jab670

@Pacific Blue @spriddler @Jane Cullen

I need to celebrate your knowledge! You're the first person who understands this break in Ukraine (something Smith and Cohen forget, since neither are Ukrainian scholars).

However, I will argue they do not want to separate Ukraine, even though the west has historical ties to Poland and Austria-Hungary, and the east and south has ties to Russia (and Turkey).

90% of Ukrainians, including those in the east, want to stay Ukrainians. If they wanted to be Russians, they could have easily immigrated there long ago (as the second-largest nationality in Russia is Ukrainian).

In many ways, it's like the old North and South or liberal and conservative views of America. They have their own views of what America is and the will of its people. Perhaps it would have been beneficial to allow the ideological break in America to occur. Similar to the old American North, Russia is far more willing to see the country split than we are.

It's a difficult question where both sides have some merit. But Russia has shown with its breakaway regions in Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and now Crimea, they do not take care of them. Maybe it's a complete disregard, maybe its corruption in the government, and maybe it's a poor economy that cannot afford to finance the size of its territory. A problem America has with its own infrastructure across the country.

Lora

@spriddler @Jane Cullen Wait a second are we living in the same World? How did you deduced from a small radical Maidan protest helped by US what all Ukranians want? Ukrainians have expressed their will through elections, no not the traveling circus that put Poroshenko in charge the real elections before. Amazing isn't it that a bunch of American ignoramuses proclaim they know what Ukrainians want. (shakes it's head)

Share Jane Cullen

@ComradeRoger

The Neocon aggression in Ukraine is absolutely unprecedented, and Norway is in no way equivalent to Ukraine, sitting as it is next to the heart of Russia, and containing Russia's main port to the Atlantic.

But I'm sure that you'll be proud of your lobbying for war, those few minutes between the WEA alert on your cell phone, and the end of all you know.

markwriter

As best as I can tell, Cohen's arguments are:

Russia has collapsed twice and almost 3 times in the last 100 years, and is ungovernable except by ruthless central control since any other governing system leads to an immediate threat of the internal disintegration of the country.

Therefore, the US should have realized it was forbidden from engaging with countries that have suffered due to Russia and are terrified by it, because of Russia's secret feelings that it's falling apart.

Furthermore, intervening in the Balkans against genocide was a terrible mistake because Serbians share the same church or something with Russia, and it threatened Russia.

And, according to Cohen, Ukraine was the final straw in this disastrous US policy of trying to pay attention in Europe. The Maidan protests against overwhelming corruption should be completely discredited because it responded in kind when some protesters were killed, and... fascism.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine is being fought by hero hairdressers and taxi drivers. The efforts by the Ukrainian government to respond are war crimes.

Merkel, the German leader, is responsible for Greece, and therefore is another misguided leader who dangerously threatens Russia by refusing to push her "Kiev agrees to Minsk II" button that's on her desk. The fact that the agreement has a "II" in its title because the first one a few months ago was untenable within the first day is immaterial.

Russia is always allowed to disappoint, because Russia. Smart scholars like myself, Stephen Cohen, know this is so, and know how to move on. By the way, I have no idea about Putin except that he's somehow holding his country together, one day at a time, just doing what he has to do.

Man, that Putin, he's so unknowable and loving to his friends. My god, compare him to Obama who doesn't even know how to circumvent term limit protections! I think he's one of the best, and all my future imaginary historian friends agree with me. You'll see when you can listen to them too.


Stuart Forrest

The core problem with this interview, and the many articles making similar points, is that they start from an assumption that the perspectives and feelings of Russians matter more than those of the people living in the nations that used to be in the Warsaw Pact but now are in NATO or would like to be in NATO.

The people of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, etc. have resisted Russian influence for centuries. For most of that time, they have ruled themselves and associated with western Europe or, in the case of Poland, tried to do so. These ties run deep; for example, their dominant churches have been Roman Catholic; not Eastern Orthodox.

The same is true for the western half of Ukraine. It is culturally part of western Europe and has been for a very long time.

Given centuries of conflict with Russia and their natural affinity with the nations of NATO, it is not wrong for western European people to want to belong to NATO. Nor was it wrong for NATO to expand to include these nations after the end of the Warsaw Pact.

Russia's hurt feelings here, for the most part, are grounded in the loss of its expanded sphere of influence after WWII. There are two ways of viewing this: maybe Russia fears another invasion from the West; or perhaps Russia is upset that it's former client states prefer to associate with their historical allies and patrons. If it is the former, then the USA and NATO need to do more to make it clear that they will not attack Russia. If it is the latter, however, then it is right for the West to disregard Russia's hurt feelings.

Although there may be a good deal of truth in what Stephen Cohen and Patrick L Smith write regarding the treatment of Russia by the West, and by the USA in particular, their argument largely fails because it does not explain why Russia legitimately fears an invasion from the West. If, indeed, Russia does have such a fear instead of just bemoaning the loss of influence it never legitimately had.

jab670

@Stuart Forrest

A voice of moderate reason! Rather than viewing this as either/or, I'd assume that all the claims about Russia and United States are correct. Russia does feel a loss of influence, Russia does fear a military threat, and Russia does dislike Ukraine's interest in affiliating with the West. United States does want to expand influence, United States does want to remove corruption from Ukraine, and United States does want a strategic location against both Russia and the Middle East. There's also probably a corporate element too, where corporations want to open markets in Ukraine and find the corruption too infringing on this ability to expand, so they lobby western governments to intervene.

There's also something revealing about Putin's past claim that "Ukraine is not a real country." It's borders and its peoples have been re-drawn and forced to migrate dramatically over the last 100 years. So, it's easy to see how Russia feels claim over Ukraine, especially when one is raised under the Soviet Union as a brotherhood. But, the fact is that Ukraine is now a country in its own right.

To me, Russia and United States' biggest failings over Ukraine was not foreseeing (or for political reasons, willing choose) potential conflict. Ukraine should have immediately, after banishing Yanukovych, moved to model itself after Canada (who balances French and English backgrounds) and militarily & diplomatically commit to neutrality like Switzerland.

author0072002

I am the person with Russian background , who came to the uSA for good in spring of 1990. I am american citizen, I have no Russian citizenship, as, when I immigrated it was required to denounce Soviet citizenship. I am intelligent (two Ph.Ds.) and I am unbiased. So, the truth and, the very obvious one, is that Clinton's policies and what happened further, brought to the world the much heavier than before shape of cold war between two most powerful nuclear country of the world.

I like Putin, like his understanding of his duties, his role in world's history, and his code of behavior. More important that the overwhelming majority of Russians like him also, as all polls show. I can write a lot of how idiotically I have been treated here, in the USA. But i've been here for 25 years, the treatment has been fully idiotic and very damageable for those, who were treating me this way, and I do not have here enough space to describe even a little bit of this despicable stupidity.

What I want, nevertheless, to emphasize, is that I completely can't understand how democrats could, currently even think, not even advertise, that Mrs. Clinton, one of main architect of Clinton's time international policies, if not the leading person of them, should become their nominee for 2016 presidential run. This person is heavily responsible for the obvious return and the heavy escalation of the cold war, not mentioning her numerous internal achievements. How is it possible AT ALL to present her as the future nominee, ah?

nyabingi

@author0072002 My sentiments exactly. There are American officials and other well-connected people who are obsessed with making Russia another client state in much the same way the Baltic states are now: An outlet for American goods and a source of cheap labor, lax environmental laws and other sorts of exploitation, and outposts for the expansion of American military power (via NATO).

Putin has always acted to American provocations in a calm, measured manner and I think it drives the American powers-that-be insane. Hillary Clinton was a very hawkish secretary of state and all indications are that she will act similarly if we are unfortunate enough to see her elected president.

Jane Cullen


@nyabingi

The Megathatcher has compared Putin to Hitler, and to Saddam. The woman is a dangerous fool.
She will push, hard, for war with Russia, if the world hasn't already burned by the time she's elected.

jab670

@Jane Cullen @nyabingi

Finally something we agree on.

Aranfell

@Jane Cullen @nyabingi Now, who was it who said "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"? Who STILL wants to bomb Iran? Who opposes diplomatic solutions. Republicans. It's really crazed to think voting for a Republican President is the path to peace with ANYONE.

jab670

@Aranfell @Jane Cullen @nyabingi

Neither mainstream party has offered an acceptable candidate. Maybe I could conceivably take some of the tolerable positions from each of the candidates and create a Frankenstein Republocrat to vote for, but our choices in 2016 make me want to write in Nader.

Aranfell

@author0072002 I'm sorry to hear that you've been treated badly in the USA. Even someone who likes the way Putin governs shouldn't be treated badly. But my question for YOU is: why would you vote for someone whose response to other countries not doing what they want is to bomb or invade them?

Those are your ONLY choices on the Republican side. Don't confuse their admiration for "tough guys" like Putin as any sort of support for Russia. And if you are still being treated badly, why would you vote for a party that brags about being hostile to immigrants?

RaisingMac

@Aranfell @author0072002 Where in his post did he endorse any Republicans? He didn't even mention them.

Aranfell

@RaisingMac @Aranfell @author0072002 He can't believe the Democrats would nominate Hilary Clinton. But so far as I can tell, EVERY Republican who might be nominated is much more of a war-monger than Hilary, even assuming that his claims about her are correct. That's my point. Does he really think that US policy toward Russia would have been or will be friendlier with a Republican as President? If so, I'd sure be interested in his reasoning.

RaisingMac

@author0072002 I am sorry to hear about how you have been treated in the US. You've probably been here long enough by now to realize that Democrats and Republicans really aren't all that different on foreign policy (among other things). The main differences have to do with culture-war.

Your old USSR was a one-party state; our USSA is a one-and-half-party state. Sad, but that's how it is.

susan sunflower

Would that more people felt this way: "" People are diverse. I don't judge them harshly for their beliefs.""

The elephant in the living room seems to be that we are hell-bent for regime change -- via the usual method that fails time and time again -- economic sanctions, destroying the economy in the belief that "the people" will force him out.

Didn't work in Iraq, didn't work with Iran, probably won't work in Russian if only because the BRICS will not let it succeed. No one knows who's next. The poorly-thought-through demonization of Putin is reminiscent of our character assassinations of Assad, Hussain, Karzai, Maliki, Kim Jong II, etc. - all "bad men" who we discovered were not actually easy to replace. Too many fingers in too many pies.

Kyeshinka

The Times has never gotten it right about Russia. Not once. I can still hear Thomas Friedman telling us that Yeltsin giving trillions in state assets the oligarchs is good for capitalism. Those old Stalin ladies on the street selling packs of Prima cigarettes for a ruble apiece to pay skyrocketing electric bills should just deal with it. They would never, ever vote for someone who promised to put a stop to the whole thing and take on the West.

Philadelphia Steve

I do not doubt the lies from Kiev. But using War Criminal Henry Kissinger as a source is about as reliable as using Bill Kristol.

susan sunflower

@Philadelphia Steve I think the original quote -- which I cannot find -- was that the problem was that Obama has a "stance" wrt Russia and Putin, but lacked a policy ... which at the time seemed a very good way to describe various gesture-like reactions by Obama to Putin and escalating sanctions on Putin's "inner circle"... very whack-a-mole ...

Possibly because Obama was cowardly avoiding having a stated policy (see other F.P. situations) or because (my personal guess) serious lack of consensus among his various advisors and advising agencies (see also Syria). It has seemed as if Nuland has prevailed simply by ad hoc actions taken (See Cohen on the Obama/Putin deal struck on the eve of the ouster). Both Susan Rice and Samantha Power are at the top of the best reasons not consider voting for Clinton ... and their silence (and apparent recent low profile generally) on the Ukranian humanitarian crisis (and god knows the Syrian/Iraqi humanitarian crisis.... etc.) is stunning as Cohen brought up. Obama also apparently has a stance on R2P, but not a policy that might force his hand or limit his "flexibility" -- end whack-a-mole -- for something with a goal or end-point, y'know coherent or decisive.

(see Seumas Milne's recent report on our remote control continuing wars).

nyabingi

@PGrajnert He quoted Kissinger in one instance, and you're assuming he's basing his "analysis of history" on that? Quoting someone isn't the same as saying you agree with that person or their actions 100%. Calm down man.

Adams

@jab670 @Jane Cullen @battleaxe "Russia is likely encouraging a destabilized/breakaway territory..." Yes, as the US of A encouraged the destabilization and overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine, no?

"Russian military are operating in eastern Ukraine." Yes, as the US of A is operating overtly and covertly in Ukraine, no?

ComradeRoger

@Adams The US military is there at the invitation of the Ukrainian government.

That would hardly be covert, now would it?

jab670

@Adams @jab670 @Jane Cullen @battleaxe

Why is it with you folks who have to always make it a "Yes, but you..." argument.

The United States doesn't benefit from destabilization as Russia does. The reason? We don't share a border with Ukraine. We actually need the opposite, which has benefited from the destabilization Russia and separatists have caused in the east.

Look at political, historical, religious, linguistic, etc. maps of Ukraine and you'll see that with Donetsk and Lugansk's regions' voices being diminished due to violence, and now the exclusion of Crimea, the Ukrainian government is actually more stabile and more pro-western aligned.

Of course, there are many fractured between pro-western and pro-Ukrainian nationalist factions, but the notion America would want destabilization is no represented by the facts. It IS troubling though. It is America post-Civil War where the South's electoral power was greatly diminished. It is undemocratic. It's a "chicken or the egg" situation until violence stops, which can only happen with granting the east more autonomy, but the Ukrainian government cannot do that at gun point.

Jane Cullen

@Adams

I'm not laughing, I'm mocking.

Sadly, the reference will be lost on most of the authoritarians who applaud the latest, suicidal Cold War with Russia, because a Democratic State Dept is leading the charge.

Nicholai

As a Russian, I should say that Mr. Cohen's understanding of "cause - effect" dependency, in application to present U.S.-RF tensions, is clear and logical.

Mr.Cohen tries to stay focused on the main confrontation line. Obviously, there are dozens and dozens of issues directly or indirectly related.

Like "what is the present U.S. representative system and why is it called "democracy?"

In my view, we have a conflict between the U.S. plutocracy and the Russian national state.

However. Expanding the discussion to the level of institutions would be too much for this format. So Mr. Cohen is trying to avoid such issues.

The same way the author doesn't mention the world outside Russia and U.S + 32 U.S.-aligned national states.

I liked this aspect - staying focused.

And I will be waiting for Part Two.

I am truly intrigued how Mr. Cohen is going to assess president Putin.

Brian Burman

In the past three days, three opposition figures have been murdered in Kiev, two journalists and one ex-MP. Comparing the total lack of media coverage of these (and a whole wave of "suicides" of opposition figures in the past months) to the front page headline coverage of the Nemtsov murder in Moscow shows the complete double standard of the Western media. The NY Times isn't writing that even if he didn't give the orders, Poreshenko is personally responsible for creating an "atmosphere" in which journalists can be gunned down in the streets. It's much easier to ignore it, because it doesn't fit the media narrative of a democratic, Western-striving Ukraine. It's like only Russia is allowed to be bad in that part of the world. And as Cohen says, that's OUR problem, because the corrupt, oligarch-run Kiev regime is propped up with US tax dollars and EU money in the name of democracy. Meanwhile, Ukraine's parliament passed a law proclaiming the Ukrainian Nazi-collaborators in WWII (who murdered hundreds of thousands of people) to be "freedom-fighters", as Kiev (and the US) continues arming neo-Nazi battalions and sending them to kill Ukrainians. By turning a blind eye, the West is helping foster and nurture, as well as funding these fascist tendencies in Europe, all in the name of Western values. If that's what they lead to, those Western values aren't worth much.

PGrajnert

@C_COOK @Frank Knarf You are correct that our US-led system suck. But that does not take away the fact that living under Muscovite rule sucks more. It'd be great for the EU to get our sh-t together and create an alternative... But until that's the case, we have to chose sides. And Patrick and Stephen, cowards who have never lived under the Muscovite boot, are simpleton scumbags for thinking that people should be forced to.

Jane Cullen


@PGrajnert

So those few speaking up against more Neocon war are cowards, and simpleton scumbags.Sounds exactly like the filthy slurs used against those few who stood up to Neocon war against Iraq.

The immorality of the Neocon warpigs who brought death and dismemberment to Iraq is the same now as then, as is the immorality of their chickenhawk enablers.

jab670

@Aranfell @Proteusar

There's a tremendous abuse of the facts by all media on Ukraine, including Russian, Ukrainian and American media. Cohen offers a good perspective, but it's only a Russian perspective. But the media is failing us because they keep turning to Russian scholars. Would Russia report on the United States by talking to a Mexican scholar? It can tell part of the story, but you never hear Smith or Cohen mention the historic divide in Ukraine between East and West.

usxpat

Puleeeze. Enough of the Bull$hit already.

I know I am probably a conspiracy theorist, but here goes.

When one looks at the American empire one must think of it in terms of economics, like the British empire before it. This empire isn't run primarily for military purposes, or for other purposes, but to make money. It is run as a huge project to export money from places with less power to the US. At the end of the cold war the former Soviet Union found itself in the position of having natural resources and being in a subservient position.

Remember Marc Rich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich ? I remember he had many dealing with the Russians. This allowed the US to diminish its dependence on South Africa resources and probably contributed to South Africa's collapse. I suspect that this could happen because Russian governmental leadership supported the Russian oligarchy and gave western businessmen a small cadre of Russian businessmen to negotiate with. I suspect Yeltsen supplied these relatively easy connections and they had the same deal with Putin. And now those Western businessmen would like access to Russian oil. Especially now that the Middle East is going pear shaped thanks to Bush the Junior.

The American reaction to that time period is best summed up by Jeffery Sachs book which has a chapter on the American intervention in the Russian economy after his success in the Polish economy. That chapter is unsatisfyingly short and goes something like, the Russian economy was way too complex and I failed because it is impossible to understand.

I think he ran into American/Russian forces that were way more powerful than he, and that they were rushing to the money and ran he and his team over.

I would be very interested in someone writing more about this time period in Salon. I suspect that these writings would help people understand many of today's attitudes driving politics in the the region, and specifically attitudes driving Putin.

I also remember vaguely a story about a Russian female banker working for one of the major US banks who was in effect laundering money and how she was caught. I bet she was getting money out for the oligarchs. Her story would also be interesting.

susan sunflower

""The history of how this came about [begins] when Putin came to power, promoted by Yeltsin and the people around Yeltsin, who were all connected in Washington. These people in Moscow included Anatoly Chubais, who had overseen the privatizations, had relations with the IMF and had fostered a lot of the corruption. He came to United States to assure us that Putin was a democrat, even though he had been at the KGB.""

I was utterly shocked by the PBS/Frontline report stating baldly that "the Kremlin" -- the FSB from Wiki:

"" The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and Volgodonsk on 16 September. A similar explosive device was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 22.[1] The next day then-Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[2] A few hours later, three FSB agents who had planted this device were arrested by the local police. The incident was declared to be a training exercise. These events led to allegations that the bombings were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimize the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to power.[4]

The Russian investigation concluded on the other hand:

"" The official Russian investigation of the bombings was completed in 2002 and concluded that all the bombings were organized and led by Achemez Gochiyaev, who remains at large, and ordered by Islamist warlords Ibn Al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif, who have been killed. Five other suspects have been killed and six have been convicted by Russian courts on terrorism-related charges.

Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Berezovsky, David Satter, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky, and the secessionist Chechen authorities claimed that the 1999 bombings were a false flag attack coordinated by the FSB in order to win public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya, which boosted Prime Minister and former FSB Director Vladimir Putin's popularity, and brought the pro-war Unity Party to the State Duma and Putin to the presidency within a few months. This theory has been criticized byRobert Bruce Ware, Henry Plater-Zyberk, and Simon Saradzhyan.""

It's pretty shocking to me -- myself having mixed feelings about Chechnya until Beslan (2004) and as I recall at that time there was no suggestion that the apartment bombing and Chechen suppression had been a "false flag" to put Putin into power -- rather that he had shown impressive leadership. ... Wikipedia has even more conspiracies within conspiracies that make 09/11 Truther Movement's main tenets appear boy-scout simple

Am I remembering wrong? As far as I can tell, there was a drastic sea change -- likely spurred by the death/assassination of

Alexander Litvinenko, but involving allegations from that camp apparently dating back to 1998.

{wiki Litinenko: "In 2007, Sergey Dorenko provided The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal with a complete copy of an interview he conducted in April 1998 for ORT, a television station, with Litvinenko and his fellow employees."" }

I am at a loss to understand that "honeymoon" period Cohen speaks of in light of what I what I would guess was freely shared intelliegence by Putin's rivals (including the late Mr. Nemtsov --- widely interview in the Frontline prior to his death -- who as I recall lost-out-to Putin -- also back in 1998). It feels like the Russian people don't buy into this false flag conspiracy somehow only gained currency 5-6 years after the event, despite claimed "evidence" almost immediately.

Putin is getting the Saddam Hussain treatment in which the past cooperation and applause is erased in favor of a damning portrait of a ruthless murderer to rival the Borgias, etc. -- or as Cohen references Ivan the Terrible. As I felt wrt to the Truther movement, It's really "something" to accuse a sitting administration of the deliberate murder of hundreds or thousands of citizens for political gain ... I'm fascinated by the repetition of "Putin's alleged crimes" -- seems so reckless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

susan sunflower

Oh, and the martyred Litvinenko also claimed Beslan was another false flag ... making him sound like Thierry Meyssan or something ... Unified theory of everything

wiki Beslan

"Several hostage-takers, including one of the leaders, Vladimir Khodov had been previously involved in terrorist activities, but released from government custody prior to the attack despite their high profiles. According to a publication in Novaya Gazeta, "the so-called Beslan terrorists were agents of our own special forces – UBOP [Center for Countering Extremism] and FSB."[236] According to FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian secret services must have been aware of the plot beforehand, and therefore they themselves must have organised the attack as a false flag operation. He said that the previously arrested terrorists only would have been freed if they were of use to the FSB, and that even in the case that they were freed without being turned into FSB assets, they would be under a strict surveillance regime that would not have allowed them to carry out the Beslan attack unnoticed"

In for a penny, in for a pound. Looking forward to next week -- Thank you Patrick ...

The BBC has been ramping up the alarm for the last few days wrt to the imminent entire breakdown of that oh-so-imperfect cease fire which has already exceeded everyone's dire predictions at its inception.

Hifisnock

If you've read Cohen before, there won't be any surprises here. He obviously has a valid point in reference to the US overplaying it's hand in the Ukraine and generally with the expansion of NATO. It was clumsy and shortsighted thinking to believe a former (now-semi) superpower wouldn't respond to our attempt at militarizing its borders.

On the flip side, the author complains about Cohen being branded 'Putin's apologist', but Cohen rarely delves into Putin's failures as a leader. And Cohen's bugle call that were on the edge of a 'more dangerous Cold War' is pure talking-head hyperbole. The world has changed a bit since the last Cold War and most of that change has diminished Russia's ability to project power. Unfortunately, with Putin in charge for the foreseeable future, we are left with tried and true 'containment' as our best policy going forward. Pushing beyond containment just plays into Putin's hands and makes him appear a 'strong' leader at home (and to Fox News).

susan sunflower

@Hifisnock Have you factored TPP in your calculations? Between TPP and TIPP, we're doing our damnedest to lock Russia in and out ... and we're actively courting China and India -- Pretty chilly

wp: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/02/06/trade-partnerships-are-an-opportunity-not-to-be-missed/

obviously this article thinks both are Tony Tiger grrrreaaaat ... but there's no subtlety

""First, Russian aggression is an unpleasant balance of power problem that is unlikely to go away any time soon. TTIP isn't a panacea, but it would strengthen the West's balance of power position. It would help European economies grow, provide more opportunities for European companies to turn from Russia to the United States and enhance the prospects for further trans-Atlantic economic policy coordination. The United States and its European allies need to prepare for more rounds of economic sanctions against Russia in the near term, and they have to build a stronger, more united economic front for the long haul.

Second, turning to the Pacific, the rise of China is the great balance of power challenge of our time. The TPP isn't a Pacific panacea, but it is an important part of the equation. It would reinforce the United States' position in the region and provide strategic reassurance to the many Asia-Pacific countries that worry about China's rise – that is, everyone except North Korea. It would be a new, strong multilateral accord in a region that very much needs more multilateral frameworks. These would be stability-enhancing developments.""

RaisingMac

@susan sunflower @Hifisnock Yes, TPP and TTIP are more or less transparent schemes to lock down Europe and East Asia before they drift into the Russo-Chinese orbit. That's why they both exclude Russia and China.

[Apr 18, 2015] Vladimir Putin's phone-in with Russia – as it happened

Difficult time for Hillary bots. Botswana61 even complained: "How come that posters who clearly hate The Guardian and its editorial policy keep coming back to its portal day after day".
Apr 18, 2015 | The Guardian

Colin Robinson -> tigi , 18 Apr 2015 17:13

"He is an evil monster" Calling any human being a "monster" is demonisation.

popsiq , 18 Apr 2015 17:12

EUkrainians need to spend less time making fun and more time trying not to destroy their country.

F*cking yourself is neither productive or fun. If you can get it on video it will sell on the US market.

John Smith -> Mike_UK , 18 Apr 2015 16:38

You can continue with you crap but no one with a brain and a little effort to inform himself/herself wouldn't buy it.

fairandreasonabletoo -> MoonbaseAlpha, 18 Apr 2015 16:23

What will be funny is when your "military advisers" start coming home in pieces because the Kiev hill billies they are training can't cut it in the field….

fairandreasonabletoo , 18 Apr 2015 16:18

Just for some balance you understand…….theres waaaay too much pro (and distorted ) nonsense coming from pro Kiev elements within the Guardian.

http://slavyangrad.org

fairandreasonabletoo -> AlfredHerring , 18 Apr 2015 16:14

These kind of owls perhaps?

http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/f032_Owl.htm

Keep smoking the bowl/pipe guy…..my money is on the Kremlin for this gig….

Enjoy your moon howling……..

AmounRah -> tigi , 18 Apr 2015 16:02

Accorddiinnggg tooooooo....??? Oh, that's right. The headlines.

I love how Putin morphed within the past 2 years.

I mean there he was...no one knew about him....he didn't bother anyone, he was never a terrorist and there was never Russian aggression....

Now, all of a sudden, when he is talking about dropping US$ and pushing BRICS, he is a terrorizing nazi Kremlin KGB monster.

Give me a break.

Rainmaker21 -> MoonbaseAlpha , 18 Apr 2015 15:49

Katrina Vanden Heuvel: It's far simplier to demonise Putin than to come up with informed analysis

Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44f_1428812523#ftIF0ftW4Wf8bR1w.99

Rainmaker21 , 18 Apr 2015 15:48

This video should tell you all you need to know about the lies of the Kiev regime- Video Shows the Beautiful Terrorists the US Financed the Ukrainian Nazi National Guard Battalions To Kill. When you see them you will realize that you have been lied to all along.

Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c64_1427739018#CbBUfqSPfkXjaibZ.99

retsdon -> MaoChengJi , 18 Apr 2015 15:22

...incidentally, is it normal for the guardian now to cooperate openly with RFE/RL, cold-war propaganda tool of the US government? ..... How long has this been going on?

Good question. The really big change occurred after MI5 smashed the Guardian's computer hard drives with sledge hammers.

Nobody from the Guardian was ever charged under Official Secrets legislation, and the Guardian never sought any redress or compensation for the damage.

It's not rocket science.

Sarah7 -> MentalToo , 18 Apr 2015 14:56

Kremlin Troll Army Myth Deconstructed
http://russia-insider.com/en/whos-trip-trapping-my-bridge-fable-putins-troll-army/5565

Anyone arguing against stereotyping of Russia, its leader and its policies, who substantiates his or her argument with solid reasoning and historical or contemporary fact, must be paid by the Russian government:

A few days ago, I was thinking that I might do a post on the bellyaching and caterwauling from the Russophobes about Moscow's supposed army of "paid trolls," who are reimbursed by the Russian government for clogging western comment threads with fallacious arguments and childish insults which detract from – or derail entirely – thoughtful and informative commentary, often ridiculing the post itself in the bargain.

Read on and follow the links to the related pieces quoted therein for a fuller discussion.

Kremlin trolls? Actually, there is much less there than meets the eye -- that is, for those still capable of seeing with some degree of clarity.

nnedjo -> Botswana61 , 18 Apr 2015 14:32

How come that posters who cleary hate The Guardian and its editorial policy keep coming back to its portal day after day

Listen, Botswana, who authorized you to be attorney for The Guardian editorial policy. You have enough of your Swahili media in Botswana, so go there to play the role of an attorney.:-)

Mike_UK -> todaywefight , 18 Apr 2015 14:08

Odessa = Was that after Russian's invaded Crimea and Luhansk?
Was that more Russian's chancing their arm at starting civil war in Odessa?
Who left theie Molotov cocktails on the stairwells of the buiding they were in?

HollyOldDog -> MichaelMorin , 18 Apr 2015 13:03

While trying to peer into the mists on misinformation from Kiev, I use this test to verify the truth.

If it looks like a Duck,swims like a duck and Quacks like a duck then in all probability its a duck

Or you might prefer the Elephant test but this reserved for legal cases.

MaoChengJi -> Botswana61, 18 Apr 2015 12:47

Botswana, dear, you sound agitated and disoriented. Relax, take it easy. There's nothing more important than your health, believe me.

HollyOldDog -> Botswana61, 18 Apr 2015 12:41

German and Poland brown coal open cast sites. The Brussels is going to take them to the cleaners over the huge pollution this will cause. Polish farmers are already Upset as the will lose 1000 hectares of their farm land - this is probably why they are going to Brussels to protest. EU countries are no longer free to make their own decisions that have the potential to harm the environment and increase the threat of Global Warming - on this point ' are we not all in it together'.

nykstys -> uracan , 18 Apr 2015 12:40

It's not going to happen- Lithuania has no money for that, just about have enough wherewithal to ran charitable APC from 60 and 70.... but from what I hear munitions production ramped up to resupply koshermafia entrenched in Ukraine. Bizarre as French keep saying.:)

HollyOldDog -> Botswana61, 18 Apr 2015 12:27

I noticed that 2 bits of your info was incorrect Cuba has been released from the debt it owes to Russia and that Russia is welcome to invest in Cyprus (South), Cyprus (North ) is awaiting confirmation from Turkey.

[Apr 18, 2015] Petro Poroshenko's REAL Problem (And It's Not Russia) by Raymond Sontag

Quote: "If basic rule of law and tolerance for dissent are not observed, what chance does Ukrainian democracy have? Therefore, it is in Poroshenko and Ukraine's interest to see that the fighting in the east stops for good, even if it means the country de facto loses control of that territory, at least temporarily. If such a loss proves to be part of the price Ukraine pays for a functioning democracy, it will be well worth it. It is also in the interest of Poroshenko and his supporters to not misdiagnose political violence and radicalism as a purely foreign import or as something that hurts the country only to the extent that it discredits the current government."
Apr 18, 2015 | The National Interest

Ukraine has had a string of opposition figures die in 2015. Between late January and early March, seven former officials associated with deposed President Viktor Yanukovych died in apparent suicides, but many suspect they were murdered. Then this week, Oles Buzina, a pro-Russian journalist, Oleh Kalashnikov, a former member of parliament from Yanukovych's political party, and Sergey Sukhobok were shot and killed. On Friday, Kiev political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko wrote on his Facebook page that he had received a letter from a group called the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) claiming responsibility for the murder of Buzina and Kalashnikov and for three of the seven "suicides." UPA, incidentally, was the name of the Ukrainian partisan paramilitary force that fought Soviet and German armies in the 1940s, suggesting Ukrainian nationalists were taking credit.

... ... ...

...Of course we do not know if the note Fesenko received is genuine, or who committed these murders, or how many were actually murders, as opposed to suicides. We do know, though, that Ukraine has a serious problem with radical politics and politically motivated violence and that these problems are greatly exacerbated by the war in the east.

Unable to raise an army sufficient to fight the Russian-backed separatist movement, the government has relied on nationalist paramilitary groups to do a good part of the fighting. While this strategy may be a necessity, it does raise questions about the government's ability to control these groups or even to defend itself from them, should it need to. Last fall, right-wing protesters clashed with police outside the parliament building, and this spring, the Dnipro-1 paramilitary group briefly took a state-owned oil company as part of dispute between the government and the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. The war has also sparked proliferation of weapons in Ukraine, with gun violence on the rise across the country.

Beyond the dangers posed by paramilitary groups and freely available arms, the war has seriously aggravated divisions within Ukrainian society between those who feel culturally or linguistically closer to Russia and those who are more oriented toward western Europe. As these recent killings would seem to show, these divisions can be deadly even outside of areas where the war is being fought.

If basic rule of law and tolerance for dissent are not observed, what chance does Ukrainian democracy have? Therefore, it is in Poroshenko and Ukraine's interest to see that the fighting in the east stops for good, even if it means the country de facto loses control of that territory, at least temporarily. If such a loss proves to be part of the price Ukraine pays for a functioning democracy, it will be well worth it. It is also in the interest of Poroshenko and his supporters to not misdiagnose political violence and radicalism as a purely foreign import or as something that hurts the country only to the extent that it discredits the current government. As Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko put it,

"In this twisted logic the far right are criticized first of all for putting their partisan interests above Ukraine's national interests. In other words, they are criticized not for being anti-democratic, reactionary, xenophobic and for propagating discriminatory ideas, but for not being nationalist enough."

... ... ...

Raymond Sontag is an adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for The National Interest

[Apr 17, 2015] Will Ukraine Push the US Into War

As for question "What are the forces that have us "stumbling to war"?" the answer is chick hawks ("liberal interventionalists" which are indistinguishable from neocons) from current administration and military industrial complex.
Apr 17, 2015 | The American Conservative
"Could a U.S. response to Russia's action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?" This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest.

The answer the authors give, in "Countdown to War: The Coming U.S. Russia Conflict," is that the odds are shortening on a military collision between the world's largest nuclear powers. The cockpit of the conflict, should it come, will be Ukraine.

What makes the article timely is the report that Canada will be sending 200 soldiers to western Ukraine to join 800 Americans and 75 Brits on a yearlong assignment to train the Ukrainian army.

And train that army to fight whom? Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine whom Vladimir Putin has said will not be crushed, even if it requires Russian intervention. Says Putin, "We won't let it happen."

What are the forces that have us "stumbling to war"?

On our side there is President Obama who "enjoys attempting to humiliate Putin" and "repeatedly includes Russia in his list of current scourges alongside the Islamic State and Ebola." Then there is what TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn calls the "truculent disposition" that has become the "main driver of Republican foreign policy." A "triumphalist camp," redolent of the "cakewalk war" crowd of Bush II, is ascendant and pushing us toward confrontation.

This American mindset has its mirror image in Moscow.

"Putin is not the hardest of the hard-liners in Russia," write the authors. "Russia's establishment falls into … a pragmatic camp, which is currently dominant thanks principally to Putin's support, and a hard-line camp" the one Putin adviser calls "the hotheads."

The hotheads believe the way to respond to U.S. encroachments is to invoke the doctrine of Yuri Andropov, "challenge the main enemy," and brandish nuclear weapons to terrify Europe and split NATO. Russian public opinion is said to be moving toward the hotheads.

Russian bombers have been intruding into NATO air space. Putin says he was ready to put nuclear forces on alert in the Crimea. Russia's ambassador has warned Copenhagen that if its ships join a NATO missile defense force, Denmark could be targeted with nukes.

In coming war games, Russia will move Iskander missiles into the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad on Poland's northern border. "Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," brays the director of the television network Rossiya Segodnya.

As of now, the "pragmatists" represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov retain the upper hand. They believe Russia can still do business with the United States and Europe. "The 'hotheads' take the opposite view," the authors write, "they argue that NATO is determined to overthrow Putin, force Russia to its knees, and perhaps even dismember the country."

In Ukraine, Putin has drawn two red lines. He will not permit Ukraine to join NATO. He will not allow the rebels to be crushed.

Russia hard-liners are confident that should it come to war in Ukraine, Russia would have what Cold War strategists called "escalation dominance." This is what JFK had in the Cuban missile crisis-conventional and nuclear superiority on sea and land, and in the air around Cuba.

With Ukraine easily accessible to Russian forces by road and rail, sea and air, and Russia's military just over the border while U.S. military might is a continent away, the hard-liners believe Russia would prevail in a war and America would face a choice-accept defeat in Ukraine or escalate to tactical atomic weapons.

The Russians are talking of resorting to such weapons first.

The decisive date for Putin to determine which way Russia will go would appear to be this summer. The authors write:

Putin will attempt to exploit the expiration of EU sanctions, which are scheduled to expire in July. If that fails, however, and the European Union joins the United States in imposing additional economic sanctions such as excluding Moscow from the SWIFT financial clearing system, Putin would be tempted to respond, not by retreating, but by ending all cooperation with the West, and mobilizing his people against a new and 'apocalyptic' threat to 'Mother Russia.'

As a leading Russian politician told us, 'We stood all alone against Napoleon and against Hitler.'

As of now, the Minsk II cease-fire of February seems to be holding. The Ukrainian army and pro-Russian rebels have both moved their heavy weapons back from the truce lines, though there have been clashes and casualties.

But as Ukraine's crisis is unresolved, these questions remain: Will the U.S. train the Ukrainian army and then greenlight an offensive to retake the rebel-held provinces? Would Russia intervene and rout that army? Would the Americans sit by if their Ukrainian trainees were defeated and more Ukrainian land was lost?

Or would we start up the escalator to a war with Russia that few Europeans, but some Americans and Russians, might welcome today?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority. Copyright 2015 Creators.com.

[Apr 17, 2015] China's AIIB Challenge How Should America Respond

April 17, 2015 | The National Interest

Elvis

Highly optimistic of the author to make this recommendation. Now I would recommend the US join the AIIB, yet I also know that is highly unlikely.

  1. First, the US has never joined an international institution that was not founded by the US.
  2. Second, the US would never join an international institution that they could not dominate - in this case since non-Asian member states only get 25% of the vote, it's a given the US could never dominate.
  3. Third, American pride would prevent us since we degenerated the AIIB and pressured others not to join, doing a turnabout would be too much for our political elites.
  4. Fourth, joining may give the impression that the US is accepting the creation of a parallel non-US dominated financial system, which to Washington DC is unacceptable.
  5. Fifth, the GOP is dominated by the Tea Party and they want to reduce US expenditures, including foreign aid and contributing to the AIIB would not go well with them.
  6. Sixth, the neocons of the GOP would likewise pressure said party to resist joining the AIIB.
Natural Order, April 17, 2015 9:24 PM

" The Chinese record as a lender to developing nations is spotty at best. Too often it has provided loans to kleptocratic regimes that finance Chinese companies using imported Chinese workers on projects that mainly ship energy and raw materials back to Chinese industry; sometimes bribes grease the way, while the local environment and economy can suffer. Some experts say the Chinese record in Africa, for example, is no better than that of 19th century European colonialists. "

The author must have "full knowledge that U.S. companies don 't import American labors", and instead hire domestic workers? As I understand it, it is a standard practice, and frankly, show a remarkable lack of self awareness.

"Governing board members elected from other member states, such as Great Britain and Canada, are expected to ensure those guidelines are followed."

There is a pretense that China is so bad, but the record shows more that IMF, and WB are really bad for developing countries. Objections to the IMF, and WB are abundant, Getting countries into dollar debts, and forcing them to sell their public assets to foreigners. so why if anything is Western countries be so clean?

"The claim is nonsense-the bank is not that important, and the United States remains the world's leading economy, most powerful military force, and a central figure in the region; most Asian states want to keep close relations with America...

All this produced soft diplomacy gains for China at America's expense, undermining the official U.S. policy of tilting Asia's way."

Author is very conceited. He is not very critical. Why do st***p people make so much assumptions?

EU pushing Ukraine towards trilateral free trade, with Russia

et Al, April 16, 2015 at 9:31 am

euractiv: EU pushing Ukraine towards trilateral free trade, with Russia
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/europes-east/eu-pushes-ukraine-toward-trilateral-free-trade-including-russia-313816

Fearing that Russia could retaliate against Ukraine following the entry into force of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) later this year, the European Commission is now pushing Ukraine to agree to a trilateral trade format, including Russia.

On Wednesday (15 April), a Ukrainian parliamentarian reacted angrily to messagess from EU officials, who said that Ukraine should seek to accommodate its EU free trade agreement with an older arrangement his country had with Russia.

Ironically, it was Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich who appealed for such an approach two years ago, which was flatly rejected by Brussels…

…Neighbourhood Commissioner Johannes Hahn backed the main conclusions of the paper in the following terms:

"The study rightly recognises that integration [for Ukraine] with Russia and EU are not in principle mutually exclusive. The study goes on to suggest that at least partial restoration of links with Russia, and the so-called Eurasian Economic Union will be important to Ukraine's economic recovery, and that Ukraine should diversify its export markets and develop trade relations in many directions."

The Commissioner said that the EU wasn't looking for an exclusive economic relationship with Ukraine.

"This is important to be stressed. There is nothing in our new agreement that would stop Ukraine from continuing to export products to Russia. Approximation with EU standards will not prevent Ukraine from trading with Russia," he went on. In his terms, the Association Agreement left Ukraine free to determine its own trade policy.

"Ukraine already has preferential trade relations with the members of the Eurasian economic union within the framework of the Community of Independent States free trade area. These are perfectly compatible with the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, and there is no reason why they should not be maintained. So the EU-Ukraine bilateral DCFTA does not impose a false choice on Kyiv. Those who say so are wrong or may have their own agenda," Hahn said….
####

More at the link.

So Brussels admits failure and that it was wrong? No. Brussels has got the message from Germany and others that they will not take over Russia's former subsidy of the Ukraine.

So there you have it – Brussels wants this unfortunate misunderstanding brushed under the table with the backing of EU states that still want to continue sanctions against Russia. Silence from the US.

[Apr 17, 2015] Graham Allison on World War I, Ukraine and Realism

Apr 17, 2015 | The National Interest
https://youtu.be/hR3HakDTlLo?list=UUgp3Ipjacu00pea4DD1bU_w

Please Note: The following is a note from The National Interest's Editor, Jacob Heilbrunn.

Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillon professor of government and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School and a member of the National Interest's Advisory Council, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career both in academia and government. His accomplishments include his landmark book Essence of Decision, a study of the Cuban missile crisis as well as serving as assistant secretary of defense for policy and plans in the Clinton administration. His approach to realism in foreign policy -- a habit of thought that he calls an "endangered species" -- is grounded in a practical and hardheaded understanding of international affairs. As he notes in this interview, it was Henry Kissinger who profoundly influenced his thinking. Other Harvard professors who helped shape his thinking include Samuel Huntington and Ernest May, both of whom were keen students of history and international relations.

In his numerous essays and books, Allison focuses on statesmanship -- averting and ending crises. His most recent book, together with Robert D. Blackwill, consists of extended interviews with Lee Kuan Yew, the former leader of Singapore who, as Kissinger puts it in a foreword, is "not only one of the seminal leaders of our period, but also a thinker recognized for his strategic acumen."

Currently, Allison is completing a book on what he calls the Thucydides Trap -- the moment when an established power is challenged by a rising one, as, for example, Wilhelmine Germany sought to surpass the British empire with calamitous results both for itself and the rest of Europe. Indeed, with a number of contributions to the National Interest web site, Allison has examined the legacy of World War I for contemporary events, asking whether the crisis in Ukraine might, as the Balkans once did, presage a larger and even more sanguinary conflict that could menace the very foundations of the Western world that has existed since the end of World War II. It's an unsettling thought. But then again, Allison is a provocative thinker who is rarely satisfied with what passes for conventional wisdom in Washington, DC or elsewhere.

In the lively and engaging interview above, he discusses his understanding of how the past may shape the present, the deep impression left upon him by Kissinger, and what lessons World War I and the Cuban missile crisis may offer. Perhaps most provocatively, he dismisses the notion that President Obama has failed in foreign policy, withholding great praise for Obama but also noting that he disagrees with the prescriptions offered by leading neoconservatives. Nuanced, cogent, meditative -- these are all adjectives that might be appropriately applied to Allison, who knows that simple truculence cannot substitute for discerning diplomacy when conducting foreign affairs.

Articles by Graham Allison

Vladimir Putin's Dicey Dilemma: Russia Stands at a Fateful Fork in the Road

Despite the Obama administration's narrative of a Russia that is not a player in global affairs -- Moscow matters. Yet, major challenges remain if the Ukraine crisis remains unresolved.

Graham Allison Is America on the ISIS Hit List?

"To whom does ISIS pose the most imminent and even existential threat?"

Graham Allison Graham Allison on World War I, Ukraine and Realism

TNI's editor speaks with Harvard's Graham Allison.

Graham Allison How to Solve the Ukraine Crisis

"If Ukraine is to have a chance to succeed as a modern nation, it will require a degree of acceptance and cooperation from Russia as well as its Western neighbors."

Graham Allison Could the Ukraine Crisis Spark a World War?

We should not forget that in 1914, the possibility that the assassination of an Archduke could produce a world war seemed almost inconceivable.

Graham Allison Good News From Ukraine: It Doesn't Have Nukes

Looking back at Kiev's risky, carefully negotiated decision to give up its nuclear weapons after it escaped the Soviet Union.

Graham Allison A "Belgian Solution" for Ukraine?

"Given the reality that is Ukraine today, an internationally-recognized neutral state within its current borders would be a victory for all."

Graham Allison Putin's Olympic Gamble

A report from Sochi.

Graham Allison 2014: Good Year for a Great War?

Prospects for peace seemed to be looking up in 1913, as in 2013. What are the chances we're wrong again?

Graham Allison An Interview with Graham Allison

A conversation on the Syria deal, Russia's power, the Iran overtures, and more.

Graham Allison Lee Kuan Yew, Grand Master of Asia

Singapore's éminence grise sees China rising and India falling.

Robert D. Blackwill The Coming Clash Over Iran

Relations between the United States and Israel may soon be dominated by disagreements about the Islamic Republic.

Shai Feldman The Three 'Nos' Knows

In the previous issue of The National Interest, John Mueller argued that the threats from nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war are exagger

Graham Allison Apocalypse When?

Graham AllisonJoseph CirincioneWilliam C. PotterJohn Mueller

Churchill, Not Quite

With America facing grave threats, the Bush Administration has failed to demonstrate a willingness to establish a hierarchy of priorities.

Graham AllisonDimitri K. Simes In Brief: Thoughts on National Security

Graham AllisonIan BremmerHarlan UllmanDerek Chollet Not If, but When: Imagining a Nuclear 9/11

As unpleasant and as frightening as it may be, the United States must come to grips with the prospect of facing a terrorist strike using nuclear materials--a "nuclear 9/11"--within the coming decade.

Graham Allison The New Containment

Forging a U.S.-Russian alliance to prevent nuclear terrorism should be America's top priority in the post-September 11 world; here is a blueprint for one.

[Apr 16, 2015] Chaos And Hegemony - How US Dollar Imperialism Dominates The World

Quote: "However, when at the beginning of the 21st century the new economic giants China and India, with their almost inexhaustible hunger for energy, started organizing their own supply, the U.S.-dominated oil regime collapsed. The oil markets henceforth followed the pricing laws for exhaustible goods; oil prices therefore rose drastically and have subsequently been guided by market mechanisms."

Apr 16, 2015 | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Mohssen Massarat via CounterPunch.org,

With last fall's U.S. Congressional elections, the Barack Obama 'era' has entered its final phase. Shortly before coming to power, the new U.S. president had sparked a massive uproar when he proclaimed a new 'Pacific century.' Since then, roughly two years before the end of his term in office, we can see more clearly. First and foremost, the proclamation of an allegedly new orientation towards the Pacific served the purpose to put Europe, and particularly Germany, under pressure so that they fill the allegedly emerging security gap. In reality, however, it is not the Pacific that forms the epicenter of U.S. geostrategic interests, neither – despite the Crimea crisis – is it the 'old (European) world,' but it is still the Middle East. For the latter's fate defines whether American hegemony stands or falls.

America's interest in this region is as old as the discovery of enormous Mideast oil reserves – albeit not at the moment, as is generally but falsely suggested, because of her own domestic oil supply. Thanks to its immense domestic energy resources, historically the U.S. has since the dawn of the last century been independent from importing oil. And with the current widespread use of fracking technology, it is once again about to become self-sufficient. As the new hegemonic power in the wake of the Second World War, the U.S. quickly realized that it could make rivaling world powers dependent on it by way of controlling the Middle East with its tremendous reserves of oil – the global economy's fuel. Originally, the U.S., together with Saudi Arabia – its main ally in the region – established a global oil supply regime that could provide the West, China, and all BRICS countries with energy security. In this regime, Saudi Arabia arranged for constant overproduction. Thanks to this system that was politically controlled by the U.S., both its Western allies and its rivals enjoyed unimpeded oil supply at low prices – and all this despite great political turbulence raging during the entire second half of the last century. At the same time, the U.S. dollar, pegged to the oil price, acted as the global reserve currency.

However, when at the beginning of the 21st century the new economic giants China and India, with their almost inexhaustible hunger for energy, started organizing their own supply, the U.S.-dominated oil regime collapsed. The oil markets henceforth followed the pricing laws for exhaustible goods; oil prices therefore rose drastically and have subsequently been guided by market mechanisms.

The irony of history: Albeit the U.S. has lost the ability to steer the oil price – one of its central political leverages –, it has in another way been able to drastically strengthen its hegemony via the new prices set by the global market. For the high oil prices have multiplied the percentage share of oil trade within global trade, which caused massively higher demand for dollars and U.S. government bonds. As a result, for the foreseeable future the U.S. dollar will thereby remain the indisputable reserve currency.

It is precisely here that we can identify the actual basis for U.S. dominance: By way of an unlimited creation of the dollar as the globe's reserve currency, the U.S. constitutes the only economy in the world that can finance several mega-projects at once – such as the bailing-out of banks and gigantic defense spending – through public debt and the issuing of government bonds. After the 2008 crash, no other national economy could have managed the banking crisis on its own without suffering any severe consequences. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), whose financial basis is essentially formed by the U.S Treasury's government bonds, provided the U.S. with the required capital. The FDIC is an institution specifically created by the U.S. Congress to promote "stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system." Thereby, in fact, in 2009 the United States successfully nationalized all ailing banks in order to dispose its debt, and subsequently privatized them again. Meanwhile, in the European Union the banking crisis turned into a sovereign debt crisis.

Nonetheless, the global economic figures for the U.S. are anything but rosy: Its trade balance has witnessed deficits uninterruptedly since 1987, which until 2013 had led to an accumulated deficit of $9,627 billion. This is caused by the fact that the U.S. economy in parts, for a long time now, is no longer competitive vis-à-vis its main competitors – the EU, China, and Japan. Moreover, the fiscal deficit has chronically been on the rise, as result of from drastically growing defense spending. For decades, various U.S. administrations have 'solved' both problems – the trade deficit and concomitantly the constantly rising fiscal deficit – by allocating government bonds and engaging in money creation.

Technically, both objectives are being realized as follows: In order to conduct current government expenditures, the U.S. Treasury swaps government bonds with the FED in exchange for the latter's freshly printed dollars – in 2013 alone, $1,100 billion were thus brought into circulation. The FED in turn places those government bonds on the world market and thereby continuously channels new capital into the U.S. economy, which provides for the balancing of the trade deficit. The price for this policy of money creation is the gigantic U.S. public debt, which climbed from $6,731 billion in 2003 to $17,556 billion in 2013. In the same time period, the public spending ratio rose from 60% to 108% (in comparison that of the EU 'only' rose from 60% to 87%).

No surprise then that such an economy suffering from trade as well as budgetary balance deficits has transformed into a consumptive surplus economy – amassing the largest national debt of all time. Between 2001 and 2013 only, these consumption surpluses accounted for a total of $11,550 billion. To put it plainly, per year an average $962.5 billion – capital corresponding with real economic performance – flowed from the rest of the world to the United States, while the latter confined itself to printing new money and bringing it into circulation.

To make it even more clear: In 2012, the $1,250 billion that flowed into the U.S. made up 7.9% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). This additional capital stock flowing into the economy also explains why the saving rate in the U.S. had drastically sunk during that period. Americans consumed nearly the totality of the goods and services they produced, while the rest of the world paid for investments allowing the U.S. economy to keep going.

Essentially, the U.S. has become to resemble Arab rentier states. Instead of oil, the U.S. uses the dollar – the international reserve currency – as leverage for appropriating its global purchasing power. While Saudi Arabia at least exports oil in exchange for other countries' goods and services, the U.S. merely pumps paper into the global cash cycle.

The dollar as leverage

Here is the reason why: The significantly largest part of world trade is still being processed in dollars. This is why international demand for dollars is enormous, and is rising in proportion to world trade. Therefore, with the assistance of FED, the U.S. can continuously inject dollars into circulation, thereby financing its trade balance and budgetary deficits (and ultimately its constantly growing government debt). Hence, Nobel economics laureate Roger B. Myerson does not bother too much about U.S. debt: "U.S. debts are in dollars and the U.S. can print dollars. […] We may have inflation. But we are sure we can pay back the debt."

Yet, contrary to Myerson's contention, in reality the U.S. will never pay back its debt, which has already been clear in the 1970s to U.S. economist Michael Hudson:

"To the extent that these Treasury IOUs are being built into the world's monetary base they will not have to be repaid, but are to be rolled over indefinitely. This feature is the essence of America's free financial ride, a tax imposed at the entire globe's expense."

In truth, the U.S. can simply absorb the excess purchasing power that is created all over the world. All of this, however, only works as long as oil is being traded in dollars and the status of the U.S. currency is not being jeopardized by other potential reserve currencies, such as the euro or China's renminbi. After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1973, almost without anyone noticing, the gold standard got replaced by oil henceforth backing the dollar: oil was increasingly in demand by all countries – except for oil exporters; it is a homogeneous and scarce commodity with rising prices. As such, oil trade as a proportion of world trade continuously rose from 1.7% in 1970 to 6% in 2001, and to 12% in 2011 – resulting in a massively rising demand for dollars. Moreover, the 'oil standard' freed the U.S. from all shackles of the Bretton Woods agreement; it could henceforth accumulate new debt even more uninhibitedly than before.

The military as instrument

Yet, ensuring that the global oil trade will be carried out in dollars for decades to come requires a Middle East controlled by the U.S. as complete as possible. This can be done through regime changes wherever necessary in order to nip possible anti-dollar alliances in the bud. In this vein, the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was from the very start targeted towards such a direction, with its willingness to create a 'Greater Middle East' that ought to be subordinated to the U.S. to the greatest possible extent. In PNAC documents there is no mention of creating conditions for peace but instead for wars, for expanding military bases all around the world, for military superiority on land, in water and in the air, for nuclear defense shields in the earth's atmosphere, and above all for further increases in defense spending.

Over the last decade, the U.S. with its annual defense budget of $500 billion to $800 billion has spent as much on armaments as the rest of the world combined. Any other national economy would have collapsed long ago under such tremendous unproductive spending. Indeed, the arms race during the Cold War did lead to the demise of the Soviet Union. In contrast, after the end of the bloc confrontation U.S. arms spending rose exponentially from $150 billion in 1990 to the astronomic sum of $739 billion in 2011. The share of military expenditure as a proportion of GDP is currently 4% in the U.S., more than twice that of other Western industrialized nations. The opposition, otherwise loudly opposing administration policies of increasing other budget items, refrains from criticizing military spending as a matter of principle, the exception being when an increase in military spending is deemed too low. Nor is this massive military spending subject to any substantial debate in the media or in society at large. But how can these enormous arms expenditures be explained and how are they justified to the people? Ultimately, this is done by the fact that the U.S. also covers its military spending by government debt and printing money. Instead, financing the costs of war via direct taxes would mobilize people against any war. Both World Wars were financed by public debt, not only by European but also all U.S. administrations. Through the continuity of wars, especially since the First World War, the U.S. public debt has continued to grow.

The de facto monopoly over world money explains how a national economy like that of the U.S., which in many areas is simply not competitive and shows chronic trade balance deficits, can finance not only such mega-projects as the military-industrial complex and various quite expensive wars, but also has a relatively stable financial sector and a currency that attracts magnet-like surplus capital from all over the world.

A world without order and chaos as opportunity – for the U.S.

To maintain its hegemony, the U.S. must by all means prevent the emergence of rival powers and impede possible current as well as future threats that could emanate from oil states. The ideal condition for enforcing its own goals at a low cost would be the fragmentation of antagonistic power centers through ethnic and religious strife, civil wars, chaos and deep-seated mistrust in the Middle East – always following the well-known premise of 'divide and rule.' In this way, for decades to come no other power would be able to even consider trading oil in a currency other than dollars. In addition, as all the opponents need petrodollars to purchase weapons, the oil wells gush merrily on – as they currently do in Iraq despite daily acts of terror and chaos paralyzing the country.

In fact, we are currently experiencing tremendous changes towards such a chaotic state of affairs. Meanwhile, there have been regime changes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In all these countries, discord and distrust, tribal conflicts, territorial separations among ethnic lines and mutual terror have been raging – particularly from Sunnis against Shi'ites. However, the regime change project has not ended here. Now, Syria and Iran have been put in crosshairs: U.S. neo-cons have spared no efforts to torpedo the nuclear negotiations with Iran. And Al-Qaeda – officially the main reason for the U.S. 'war on terror' – has in the meanwhile attained unprecedented strength. This prowess provides, in turn, the best basis of legitimacy for the U.S. military-industrial complex.

The old military-industrial complex

This way all the strands of 'dollar imperialism' come together: oil, dollars, and the military. The military-industrial complex is the main beneficiary of the 'new American century' of New Wars. Especially in the Middle East both a nuclear and a conventional arms race is taking place, which is increasingly putting the arms race of the 1970s that had led to three Gulf Wars in the shade. While the recycling of petrodollars for weapons has resulted in a dangerous vicious circle which could at any time trigger a conflagration across the whole region, the U.S. defense sector can remain confident: All U.S. administrations, regardless of their political persuasion, will continue with impunity the policy of public debt and thus keep on financing the military budget. Thanks to the rising demand for dollars and the FED's continued money printing (also under the new Board of Governors Chair, Janet Yellen), the U.S. banking system has such extensive money reserves that the politically dangerous U.S. military industry can be easily financed.

However, 'dollar imperialism' is fundamentally a highly unstable construction, producing absurdities difficult to imagine.

  • On the one hand, it keeps alive a gigantic apparatus of violence in the U.S. – at the expense of (and ultimately financed by) the whole of humanity.
  • On the other, this construction is based on chaos, violence, and civil wars, particularly in the oil-rich regions that may therefore collapse at any time, plunging the world into serious crises.

In short, what could be more absurd than the fact that money belonging to all of us helps finance an industrial sector whose ultimate survival depends on there never being peace on the planet? Even the NSA scandal – revealed thanks to Edward Snowden – appears in a new, very particular light when seen against the background of the prevailing dollar imperialism. For, of course, this highly unstable construction generates a seemingly limitless greed for the widest possible control of all communication channels, including spying on the heads of all foreign administrations, even those of friendly states. Despite worldwide outrage, in his January 2014 speech, Barack Obama emphasized that "[o]ur intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of governments [...] around the world."

The massive U.S. security apparatus is being legitimized – today as in the past – exclusively on the grounds of national interests. When the NSA was founded in 1952, there was no talk of Al-Qaeda and '9/11,' rather of the benefits and interests of a then aspiring hegemonic power. Today, the NSA is above all concerned with recognizing in due time all the steps and movements in the world that could endanger the current status of the U.S. currency, and nipping them in the bud by any means necessary. It thus functions in the interest of the influential alliance between the military-industrial complex and the U.S. financial sector, which is dependent on such knowledge for its own survival.

On the other hand, it has become clear that the NSA poses the biggest threat to democracy in the U.S. and in the West as a whole – and in a way in which President Dwight Eisenhower could not even imagine when he warned about the military-industrial complex in his farewell address on January 17, 1961: "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. […] In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

Roughly 50 years after Eisenhower's warning, the U.S. has taken a major step 'forward.' This powerful complex has been struggling for its continued existence since the end of the bloc confrontation and has done everything possible to permanently consolidate American hegemony. It is indeed not the case, as was eagerly anticipated, that the world has become safer and more peaceful since 1989. On the contrary, it has become more insecure and warlike – as was the case at the dawn of the last century. This makes it even more urgent that the international community finally – and still perhaps just in time – defends itself against this highly dangerous development.

The alternative: The global energy transition and the diversification of reserve currencies

The question of democratizing the global economy by abolishing the U.S. monopoly over world money must definitely be placed on the global political agenda. In the long term, this goal can be most effectively attained by a global energy revolution – away from fossils and towards extensively expanding renewable energies. In the short term, a range of reserve currencies can and ought to be established, which would finally account for the real economic balance of forces.

One such alternative would also serve the long-term interests of American citizens and would contribute to the U.S. finally offloading the parasitic and ultimately unproductive parts of its economy – namely, the alliance between finance and the military. On the other hand, the example of Barack Obama, who had to move away from nearly all his positive reform initiatives, shows that America on her own and using her own abilities is barely capable of pushing back this all-powerful alliance including the political forces sustaining it.

This leads to Europe and Asia assuming responsibility: Only a new reserve currency – pushed forward by the EU and China – can help the U.S. leave its previous path of increasing prosperity through imperialist methods, to the benefit of its own immeasurable productive potentials. The BRICS countries' establishment in Brazil in July 2014 of an international development bank and a monetary fund could evolve into a serious competitor to the Bretton Woods system. You could imagine the dollar being no longer the only world currency, and necessarily losing its stability in a lively international competition involving the euro and renminbi. International excess capital would then be withdrawn, to a considerable extent, from the U.S. and invested in the euro or renminbi zone. The previous U.S. policy of public debt by issuing government bonds would stall, and the bipartisan taboo on tackling military spending would lose its validity. In order to reduce chronic budget deficits, U.S. administrations would then have no other choice but to drastically cut the disproportionately high military budget.

How would such a new situation impact American hegemony? Inside the U.S. there would – finally – emerge a fierce debate over the sense and non-sense of military spending as well as its global military capacities (including over 800 bases) – with the prospect of the U.S. demilitarizing to a level corresponding to its actual economic weight. As such, the U.S. would no longer be the 'only remaining superpower,' but merely one among several world powers. Wholly new global power structures and balances of power would then become conceivable: Asia but also the Middle East, South America, Africa, and even Europe would have real opportunities to come together in cooperative and common-security regional architectures. At the same time, nationalistic and racist resentments and conflicts would strongly lose traction. Perhaps international cooperation would also finally shrink the financial sector to a reasonable level – in so doing also significantly increasing the possibility of an equitable distribution of income.

In short, we would finally have the prospect of a world with more justice and less financial speculation – a more democratic and peaceful world. Yet, the losers of such a scenario would be the military-industrial complex, the financial sector and its beneficiaries, and above all the neoconservatives. This is why we must expect fierce resistance. However, in the interest of a more just and peaceful world, this fight is nothing less than inevitable.

[Apr 14, 2015] ​Western ISIS adventurism, Israel behind Hamas - new Assange revelations

Apr 14, 2015 | RT News
Julian Assange has given an interview to an Argentinian paper from his Ecuadorian embassy asylum where he spent more than 1,000 days. He spoke about why US meddling in Ukraine led to civil war, how the West helped ISIS and Israel supported Hamas.

US has long wanted to bring Ukraine to West

The United States has spent "a lot of time trying to bring Ukraine to the West," the WikiLeaks founder said in an interview to Pagina/12, Argentinian newspaper on Monday.

"If it cannot be with a NATO membership, at least it becomes independent from Moscow's sphere of influence, to reduce Russian industrial-military complex and its naval bases in Crimea."

Kiev first step closer to NATO was in December 2014, when President Petro Poroshenko signed a law canceling the Ukraine' non-bloc status and promised to hold a national referendum on NATO accession in the next five to six years.

In January, Kiev authorities announced that the Ukrainian army would take part in 11 international military drills in 2015 to bolster NATO standards in troops.

One more attempt of US and Europe to 'bring Ukraine closer to the West' was spending "billions of dollars on the creation of NGOs," said Assange , adding that "through these institutions, the West promised to end corruption in Ukraine."

ISIS -- result of Western adventurism

Meddling of Western countries in the Middle East led to creation of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), an Islamist group that is currently gaining a massive following across the wider Middle East and Africa, Assange said.

"The IS is a direct result of the adventurism of the West," Assange said.

He says the "adventurism" of Western countries has already destroyed the Libyan and Syrian society and now is "destroying Iraq for oil and other geopolitical reasons."

Many people know that arms are being transported to Syria, that there are attempts to reduce Iranian influence in postwar Iraq by supporting the Sunnis, he said. But "what we don't know is that in recent years in recent years Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have increased their power and managed to gain certain independence form the US."

As a result, Washington ceased to be "the only geopolitical actor" pushing developments in the Middle East, believes Assange.

Israel supported Hamas in its infancy

The WikiLeaks founder accused Israeli authorities of supporting Hamas group at its early stages in order to divide the Palestinian resistance.

"Our cables reveal that Israel supported Hamas in its infancy, that Hamas was used as an instrument to divide the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] and the Palestinian resistance," Assange told the paper.

Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London while awaiting safe passage to the Central American country, where he has been granted asylum. Staking out the building, in case the Australian should leave the premises, has already cost British taxpayers a hefty £10 million, according to govwaste.co.uk.

Assange has not been charged with a crime, but is wanted for questioning in Sweden regarding allegations of sexual misconduct brought against him in 2010.

An arrest warrant was issued for Assange in 2010 in the of wake sexual assault allegations leveled against him by two Swedish women. He denied the allegations of sexual misconduct and rape and managed to avoid extradition to Sweden by seeking refuge in the embassy in 2012.

He repeatedly announced that he is ready to answer all questions concerning his sexual assault allegations within the sanctity of the embassy. However, Swedish prosecutors were reluctant to do so until March this year.

"If Assange gives his consent, the prosecutor will promptly submit a request for legal assistance to the British authorities to further continue the investigation," the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement.

Assange's Swedish lawyer welcomed the Swedish prosecutors' request to interview Assange in London, but added that the whole process of questioning could take time.

"We welcome [this] and see it also as a big victory ... for Julian Assange that what we have demanded is finally going to happen," Per Samuelson said.

Assange supporters fear that if he is deported to Sweden he will likely face espionage charges in America over his role in publishing sensitive, classified US government documents.

But even if Sweden drops the case, he faces arrest by UK police for jumping the bail granted while the British courts considered a European arrest warrant issued by Stockholm.

In June 2014, 56 international human rights and free media organizations signed a letter addressed to US Attorney General Eric Holder calling upon the US government to end all criminal investigations into Assange's actions as editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and to cease harassing the organization for publishing materials in the public interest.

Read more:

[Apr 14, 2015] Nuland Ensconced in Neocon Camp Who Believes in Noble Lie

Mar 5, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
RPI Director Daniel McAdams is interviewed on RT. Transcript below; video here.

Victoria Nuland's anti-Russian rhetoric comes from the neocon camp of US politics, seeking to stir the Ukraine crisis, thrilled by the prospect of defense industry expansion and more arms sales, Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Peace Institute told RT.

RT: World leaders and international monitors agree the situation in Ukraine is generally improving. Why are we still witnessing aggressive rhetoric from some US officials?

Daniel McAdams: Because the US does not want peace to break out. The US is determined to see its project through. But unfortunately like all of its regime change projects this one is failing miserably. Victoria Nuland completely disregards the role of the US in starting the conflict in Ukraine. She completely glosses over the fact that the army supported by Kiev has been bombarding Eastern Ukraine, as if these independent fighters in the east are killing themselves and their own people. Victoria Nuland was an aid to Dick Cheney; she is firmly ensconced in the neocon camp. The neocons believe very strongly in lying, the noble lie… They lied us into the war in Iraq; they are lying now about Ukraine. Lying is what the neocons do.

RT: Nuland listed a lot of hostile actions by Russia without providing any reliable proof. Do you think she can she be challenged on these topics?

DM: Maybe she is right but the US hasn't provided one piece of proof, except for Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt's Rorschach tests he passes off as a satellite photo. Maybe they are true but we have to present some evidence because we've seen now the neocons have lied us into the war. This is much more serious than the attack on small Iraq. This has the potential for a global nuclear war. So I think they should be held to a higher level of scrutiny. Thus far they have not provided any. We do know however that the US is providing military aid. As the matter of fact this week hundreds of American troops are arriving in Ukraine. Why is that not an escalation? Why is it only an escalation when the opponents of the US government are involved?

RT: How probable is that the Western nations ship lethal aid to Ukraine?

DM: It is interesting because Victoria Nuland this week spent some time with Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the fascist party in Ukraine and I believe one of the founders of the Joseph Goebbels Institute. She met with him this week and had a photo taken with him. He came back to Ukraine and assured his comrades that the US will provide additional, non-lethal weapons - whatever that means - and felt pretty strongly that they would provide lethal weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey has been urging the US government to provide lethal weapons as has the new US defense secretary [Ashton Carter], both of whom come from the military industrial complex which is thrilled by prospect of a lot more arms to be sold.

RT: Nuland has said the State Department is in talks with EU leaders for another round of sanctions on Russia. Do you think the EU will agree?

DM: I think they will be pressured into agreeing. It is interesting that Nuland said that the new Rada, the new Ukrainian parliament, in this first four months has been a hive of activity. I was just watching some videos from the fights in the Ukrainian parliament. So that was one bit of unintentional humor probably in her speech. It looks like a fight club over there.
Related

[Apr 14, 2015] The New Militarism: Who Profits?

Quote: "So who is the real enemy? The Russians? No, the real enemy is the taxpayer. The real enemy is the middle class and the productive sectors of the economy. We are the victims of this new runaway military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even donated to charities that help the needy."
Apr 12, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new "threats" that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda.

Here are just a few examples:

The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more "Leopard" tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country's inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country.

The US Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, which was all but shut down in the 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is being brought back to life. The Pentagon has committed nearly a billion dollars to upgrading the facility to its previous Cold War-level of operations. US defense contractor Raytheon will be the prime beneficiary of this contract. Raytheon is a major financial sponsor of think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War, which continuously churn out pro-war propaganda. I am sure these big contracts are a good return on that investment.

NATO, which I believe should have been shut down after the Cold War ended, is also getting its own massively expensive upgrade. The Alliance commissioned a new headquarters building in Brussels, Belgium, in 2010, which is supposed to be completed in 2016. The building looks like a hideous claw, and the final cost – if it is ever finished – will be well over one billion dollars. That is more than twice what was originally budgeted. What a boondoggle! Is it any surprise that NATO bureaucrats and generals continuously try to terrify us with tales of the new Russian threat? They need to justify their expansion plans!

So who is the real enemy? The Russians?

No, the real enemy is the taxpayer. The real enemy is the middle class and the productive sectors of the economy. We are the victims of this new runaway military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even donated to charities that help the needy.

One of the most pervasive and dangerous myths of our time is that military spending benefits an economy. This could not be further from the truth. Such spending benefits a thin layer of well-connected and well-paid elites. It diverts scarce resources from meeting the needs and desires of a population and channels them into manufacturing tools of destruction. The costs may be hidden by the money-printing of the central banks, but they are eventually realized in the steady destruction of a currency.

The elites are terrified that peace may finally break out, which will be bad for their profits. That is why they are trying to scuttle the Iran deal, nix the Cuba thaw, and drum up a new "Red Scare" coming from Moscow. We must not be fooled into believing their lies.


Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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[Apr 12, 2015] No Longer Quiet On The Eastern Front (Part 3)

...Vaclav Klaus .... stating that Western lies about Russia are 'monstrous'.
Apr 12, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Submitted by Kevin Virgil of Emerging Frontiers,

This is the final installment in a three-part series that explores the ongoing economic standoff in Greece and the Ukrainian civil war, and how these events are converging to launch what will soon become known as the Second Cold War. - By Kevin Virgil, CEO of Emerging Frontiers

* * * * *

Writing a short series of articles about geopolitics carries some risks - namely, that current events can unfold faster than I can hit the 'send' button on my next edition. It appears that I am releasing this missive in the nick of time, as the coming days promise more dramatic developments in the Greek economic crisis and, of particular interest, that country's growing closeness with Russia.

Let us quickly review what has been covered thus far in this series. In part one, we focused on economic tensions between the European Union and Greece, and how the past five years of austerity and hardship may compel the new Greek government to seek stronger ties with Russia. Part two reviewed last year's disintegration of Ukraine, and the chain of events that sparked its ongoing civil war.

Civil unrest in Kiev. Photo courtesy: The Times of London

In this final segment, we will attempt to view both of these conflicts from the Russian perspective, and to provide some insight into (if not a defense of) the Greek point of view. I do not consider myself to be a "Kremlinologist", or even an expert on Russian political affairs. That being said, I do believe that I can offer a relatively informed perspective that comes from living in both Athens and Moscow over the past ten years, at times when both countries were facing economic crises. I also believe that mainstream Western media outlets have thoroughly and utterly failed in their duty to provide a balanced perspective on the causes behind the growing chasm between Russia and the West.

We will begin with a look at the Russian point of view on Ukraine, and then shift our focus back to Greece in an effort to better understand what both Athens and Moscow stand to gain from the perception of closer cooperation against the EU. We will then quickly review other potential flashpoints along the EU's eastern borders, and show how Europe is rapidly losing its appetite for US-led sanctions against Russia. Finally, we will wrap up this adventure tour with an upcoming event that might provide a prophetic glimpse into Russia's future sphere of influence.

With that in mind, let's get started.

-----------------

Any casual watcher of CNN or Sky News is familiar with the Western narrative on Ukraine's last 12 months. Here is a brief summary; for a bit of entertainment, try to imagine Wolf Blitzer's droning voice reading this next paragraph from his teleprompter:

"The Ukrainian people, yearning for democracy in their troubled land, launched the spontaneous Maidan protests to bring down the evil Yanukovych regime. The people succeeded, but Russian President Vladimir Putin exploited the ensuing chaos by waging a propaganda war in Crimea, and a military offensive in the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, to take back what Russia lost in the Soviet Union's collapse. And of course, this is only the first step in Putin's grand plan to re-unite the former Soviet Union."

Contents of the previous paragraph resonate well with the American people, who are strangely comforted whenever their media does its best to scare them out of their wits. Which, distressingly, is a constant and unrelenting process these days; I can't watch the first ten minutes of my local six o'clock news without feeling the impulsive need to pack atropine injectors and distress beacons in my kids' school lunches.

Now let's look at events from the Russian perspective.

But first, let's set some ground rules before we take this any further. My intent for this column is neither to defend nor apologize for the Russian government, its foreign policy or its president. To that end, please suppress any indignant references you might want to make regarding the Boris Nemtsov assassination, Sergei Magnitsky, the apartment bombings, Pussy Riot, Sochi's twin toilets, or any other (alleged) Russian transgressions. This is not a nomination essay for the Nobel Peace Prize, but a column about geopolitics.

With that out of the way, let's move on...

Ukraine

It will most likely come as a surprise to Westerners, and particularly Americans, that Russia maintains that it was forced to take action in Ukraine in response to US provocations in Kiev. For the past twenty years Moscow has watched the US attempt to lead NATO expansion into former Soviet satellites such as Ukraine and Georgia, an affront that Russia considers to be a serious threat.

With regard to Crimea, Moscow maintains that the region - which houses an ethnic Russian majority -- has repeatedly sought annexation from Russia since Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev bequeathed it to Ukraine in 1954. The Crimean regional parliament has voted for and announced independence in 1992, again in 1994, and of course in 2014. Yet Russia has ignored all previous requests for annexation - a fact which has been well-documented - and only took action in 2014 when the Yanukovych government was overthrown amidst credible evidence of foreign (US) influence.

The Russians maintain that they have also exercised restraint with the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine. Even though both regions - which also contain significant Russian populations - announced separation from Ukraine in April and May 2014, Moscow has refused to officially recognize the sovereignty or independence of these regions even though many of Russia's political elite are calling for that, and even for the annexation of those regions.

Russia has always bitterly opposed any Ukrainian bid for membership in NATO. Recall that in the previous segment of this series, we discussed how the US had pushed for accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO in 2008, but were rebuffed by European partners - notably France and Germany - who had absolutely no interest in deploying military forces into a possible confrontation with Russia. At the time, tensions between the US and Russia were high (though not nearly as high as they are today) because the Bush administration was planning to emplace interceptor missiles in Poland and an advanced radar system in Poland. Though these weapons were ostensibly installed to address the threat of long-range missile strikes from Iran, the Russian government clearly saw their installation as a direct threat to their security and sovereignty, and warned Kiev that any move to join NATO would be met with Russian missiles targeting Ukraine.

In a joint Russian-Ukrainian news conference, held in Moscow in 2008, Putin stated that Russia would be forced to respond if Ukraine joined NATO. "Russia could target its missile systems at Ukraine," he said. "Imagine that for a second. It's horrible to say and even horrible to think." That threat certainly gave pause to Ukraine's attempts to court NATO, but even Putin's rhetoric paled in comparison to the sledgehammer that Russia wields over Ukraine and ultimately most of continental Europe - namely, Gazprom. Eighty percent of Russia's natural gas supplies to Western Europe are transported along pipelines through Ukrainian territory, elevating Ukraine to the vaunted and much-desired status of 'energy transit country' with estimated revenues of nearly US$ 2 billion per year (equivalent to 3% of its national budget). Consequently, neither Ukraine nor Western Europe have felt any particular need to poke the Russian bear any further on this issue, and even the US chose to drop plans for its 'missile shield' as part of the Obama administration's much-vaunted (and, plainly by now, failed) "reset" with Russia.

US diplomat Victoria Nuland, providing snacks to anti-Yanukovych protestors in Kiev. Russian media exploited this image to further portray the US as the aggressor in Ukraine. Source: US Department of State

The Russian position is that the US has been the aggressor nation in Ukraine from the outset. Russian media outlets have honed in on US attempts to influence and strengthen the Maidan protests and remove Yanukovych from power. They have been particularly effective at painting US diplomatic envoy Victoria Nuland (featured in part two of this series) as the villain and chief architect of American covert influence in Ukraine, in order to insert a more Western-friendly government that has been seduced by the allure of NATO and the West. From their perspective, movements to annex Crimea and deploy military forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine were necessary to stop the Kiev government's offensive against ethnic Russians in those regions.

From Moscow's perspective, US indignation over its actions in Ukraine is deeply hypocritical. Russian news and propaganda outlets have very effectively portrayed US efforts to establish a missile shield, to implement economic sanctions, and the toppling of the Yanukovych government as a long-term containment strategy designed to limit Russia's influence in eastern Europe. Consequently, anti-American sentiment is higher in Russia today than it has been since the first Cold War. Recent polls indicate that 87% of Russians distrust or carry negative opinions of the United States, and that as many as 62% believe that their country is 'on the right track'.

Most Russians see little reason to negotiate with, or even engage in dialogue with, the Obama Administration which seems to have little interest in Russia other than to marginalize the country or insult their leader. A quick perusal of recent Western stories on Putin seems to confirm this (examples here, here and here); mainstream newspapers regularly portray Putin as a thuggish buffoon whose grip on power is at risk of collapsing any day now.

I will point out the obvious here. Love him or hate him, Vladimir Putin has outmaneuvered and outwitted the Obama Administration at nearly every turn since it first occupied the White House in 2009. Whether in Libya (by refusing to support the United Nations coalition that destabilized that country), Syria (forcing the Americans to back down from planned military action, and driving a wedge between the UK and US), his refusal to extradite Edward Snowden, and now in Ukraine where that country has virtually disintegrated, Putin is proving to be the USA's most accomplished adversary on the global geopolitical stage.

... ... ...

Over the past year I have begun to notice an unmistakable trend amongst both politicians and the general public: there are an increasing number of Putin admirers in Europe, and even in the US. This clearly is not attributable to any newfound sympathy or support for Russia, or Putin's geopolitical agenda. Instead, I believe his rising popularity is driven by a grudging admiration that is naturally felt for a strong leader who gets things done and protects the interests of his people. Nigel Farage, a UK politician and prominent Eurosceptic, caused a stir last year when, asked which current world leader he most admired, replied: "As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin."

Nearly every country in Europe now has at least one political party that is broadly pro-Russian. In Greece's case, Syriza is now in power while Podemos, another left-wing party in Spain, has become a credible threat to Madrid's political establishment even though it was only formed last year. Close ties with Russia are not restricted to socialists; France's National Front is making waves with a far-right nationalist agenda, and its leader Marine Le Pen is an admirer of Putin, stating that "I admire his cool head…because there is a cold war being waged against him by the EU at the behest of [the] United States, which is defending its own interests."

Even Poland, probably the most hostile country toward Russian influence in the EU, now has a party whose primary stance is the condemnation of Western sanctions against Russia. Zmiana ("change") claims it will win as much as 12% of the popular vote ahead of general Polish elections later this year. It is easy to marginalize such parties as fringe extremists – though some caution might be required here as that is exactly what the Spanish establishment said about Podemos a year ago.

A quick look at other events on the EU's eastern borders further supports this point of view. Throughout the region, governments are increasingly voicing skepticism on continued sanctions against Russia, and openly doubting US motives and intentions behind their use.

Let's take a quick tour of some other potential hotspots in the region:

Hungary

EU officials are objecting to a recent decision to award a €10 billion contract for construction of two nuclear reactors to Rosatom, the Russian state-owned company. Hungarian President Viktor Orban, formerly an active anti-Soviet dissident in the 1990s, has recently begun to pursue closer relations with Russia. Hungary has stopped short of objecting to EU and US sanctions against Moscow, but was the first EU country to invite Putin for a bilateral summit since Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine last year - a disaster for which the West blames Russia, and Russia denies. Until recently Hungary had put the bidding process up for tender, but awarded the contract to Rosatom after Russia offered attractive financing terms for 80% of the project over 21 years. US-Japanese construction giant Westinghouse was previously considered the front-runner and is lobbying aggressively with the EU to be awarded the contract.

Czech Republic

Last September Czech President Milos Zeman caused a diplomatic stir when he openly voiced opposition to EU and US sanctions against Russia, referred to the Ukrainian conflict as a "civil war" and refused to denounce Russia's actions in that country. Earlier last year he proclaimed that sanctions against Russia would work no better than those that had been enforced against Cuba for the past fifty years, and called for them to be dropped altogether. His predecessor Vaclav Klaus has gone even further, calling for the EU to be scrapped and stating that Western lies about Russia are 'monstrous'.

Events in Prague took an even more interesting turn last week when the US Ambassador told Czech television that it would be "awkward" should Zeman attend the upcoming Russian Victory Day celebrations in Moscow as the only head of state from an EU country. (Which is untrue, since both Alexis Tsipras of Greece and Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus also plan to attend - more on that a bit later). Zeman is not known for his soft-spoken diplomacy, and has now barred the US ambassador from further access to Prague Castle.

Greece

Ah, Greece. The country offers so much low-hanging fruit for geopolitical bloggers and late-night comedians that it's impossible to resist talking about it again, even though the entire first installment of this series focused on their ongoing crisis. We seem to be approaching an endgame and a potential 'Grexit'; as of this writing the Greek government has made a €458m (US$ 503m) payment to the IMF that was due on 9 April. However, with another €1.2 billion coming due within the next month it is increasingly difficult to see how Athens can meet both its foreign and domestic obligations.

Meanwhile, new Greek President Alexis Tsipras has just returned from a visit to Moscow where, on 8 April, he and Putin agreed to "restart and revive" bilateral relations in a calculated move that was surely intended to put the world on notice that their two countries are at least considering a collaboration against their mutual adversary in Brussels.

... ... ...

Over the past few weeks rumors have increased that Greece and Russia may reach some sort of accord that provides the former with critical financial assistance, and the latter with increased leverage against the European Union. The EU is due to debate and vote on continued Russian sanctions in June of this year, and renewal will require a unanimous vote from its 28-member bloc. As already mentioned above, support for continued sanctions is increasingly shaky and both the Greeks and Russians have much to gain by using these much-hyped overtures as leverage against the West.

It is increasingly clear that Tsipras has little to lose as a 'Grexit', or Greece's exit from the Eurozone, becomes more likely. Regardless of whether an exit is forced or voluntary, the result will almost certainly be a move away from Europe and toward Moscow's sphere of influence. Greece shares an Orthodox religious heritage with Russia and cultural ties are arguably stronger between the two countries than any affiliation that Greece shares with northern Europe. Their increasingly adversarial relationships with the EU will only serve to strengthen that relationship.

As with Ukraine, when analyzing the Greek financial crisis it is important to contrast the Western narrative with the Greek point of view. It is nearly impossible to defend Greece's fiscal policies since joining the Euro; in hindsight, it was plainly a mistake to admit a country that had no chance of fulfilling the economic guidelines required for admission. However, the EU's strategy to resolve the crisis - to punish its people for the profligacy of its ruling class - is clearly doomed to failure.

Last week I came across the following column from the Daily Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, which very effectively describes the flaws in the EU's approach toward Greece:

"IMF minutes from 2010 confirm what Syriza has always argued: the country was already bankrupt and needed debt relief rather than new loans. This was overruled in order to save the euro and to save Europe's banking system at a time when EMU had no defences against contagion"

Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis rightly calls the EU austerity plan 'a cynical transfer of private losses from the banks' books onto the shoulders of Greece's most vulnerable citizens'...Marc Chandler, from Brown Brothers Harriman, says the liabilities incurred – pushing Greece's debt to 180% of GDP - almost fit the definition of "odious debt" under international law. "The Greek people have not been bailed out. The economy has contracted by a quarter. With deflation, nominal growth has collapsed and continues to contract," he said."

The Greeks know this. They have been living it for five years, victims of the worst slump endured by any industrial state in 80 years, and worse than European states in the Great Depression. The EMU creditors have yet to acknowledge in any way that Greece was sacrificed to save monetary union in the white heat of the crisis, and therefore that it merits a special duty of care. Once you start to see events through Greek eyes – rather than through the eyes of the north European media and the Brussels press corps - the drama takes on a different character."

Mr. Evans-Pritchard also points out that no developed country has ever defaulted on a payment to the IMF. Given the arduous path being forced upon Greece by its EU creditors, I believe that the IMF's ratio of 'non-performing loans' (banker-speak for 'default') is about to see an increase.

----------------

The next twelve months are going to be a defining era for the European Union, which is dealing with several crises in parallel - a significant downward move in the euro's value, its potential (and in my opinion, inevitable) eviction of a member country, and a pending decision on whether to further extend Russian sanctions.

Those first two problems are difficult enough to deal with, but it is the third that may ultimately drive a wedge between the US and the EU. As mentioned in the second part of this series, the US is indifferent to Russian sanctions - trade with Russia comprises less than 0.3% of US GDP. Yet Russia is normally a significant importer of EU agricultural goods - which Moscow banned in response to last year's sanctions. Loss of that market is proving catastrophic to several large European agricultural and industrial companies, leading many politicians - including the Italian foreign minister - to call for an end to sanctions. This transatlantic divergence of economic interests may prove to be the ultimate undoing of America's anti-Russian containment strategy.

I also believe that another factor may prove to have even more of an impact - namely, America's plummeting reputation in foreign policy circles when it comes to hot air and broken promises. Putting aside its incompetent and capricious foreign policy in the Middle East - immortalized in this Twitter quote - the Obama Administration is making no friends in eastern Europe. Take Ukraine, for example, where US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged to "stand by" the Ukrainian government even though less than half of the aid it promised last year has been delivered. Instead of the aid promised, the Ukrainians received a speech from Kerry with a long list of platitudes and tough talk, but no commitment to action or clarity on when or whether promised aid will actually be delivered.

... ... ...

European governments are increasingly employing 'realpolitik' when it comes to their dealings with America, as evidenced by widespread interest in joining China's new infrastructure investment bank despite strong US lobbying. This new reality is also playing out in eastern Europe, where decision-makers are comparing historical US and NATO commitment against Putin's resolve and track record.

Given the past year's events, it is perhaps not surprising that Europe's eastern periphery is rapidly becoming more pragmatic in its dealings with Russia.

---------------

The best way to wrap up this series does not involve further analysis of the past. Instead, we should search for indicators that provide any insights for what the future holds with relations between Russia and the West.

One event worthy of a close look is the upcoming Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, as mentioned earlier. This will be the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the Russians - who absorbed more of the burden in defeating the Nazis than any other country - take the event seriously. In past years the event has been well-attended by Western heads of state, to include US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This year, nearly all Western leaders will boycott the event - with the exceptions of Greece, Cyprus and the Czech Republic. Twenty-six other heads of state are reportedly on the confirmed attendee list, to include Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, President Xi Jinping of China, and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. The latter two are particularly interesting in light of Russia's increasing focus toward the opening of new export markets and alliances in North Asia - which as I have previously commented, will see a greater economic transformation in the next twenty years than any other region on Earth. On 9 May, the VIP reviewing stand in Red Square will provide a telling glimpse into Russia's expanding sphere of influence.

-------------

Less than three years ago US President Obama mocked his political opponent Mitt Romney for citing Russia as the USA's primary geopolitical threat, stating "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because the Cold War has been over for 20 years."

Politicians are not known for issuing mea culpas, and this particular President is certainly not known for speaking with journalists who ask tough questions - but I would gladly buy a ticket to any studio broadcast today where the interviewer played that sound bite for the President and asked him whether he still believes that to be true.

Russia certainly has many flaws and weaknesses - some of the world's worst demographic statistics, its "one-trick pony" export economy, and frequent hostility toward foreign investors - but its near-monopoly on natural gas supplies, nuclear arsenal and military force projection capabilities shall ensure that it retains a position of strength relative to the European Union for the foreseeable future.

If Western leaders want to contain a resurgent Russia and limit the damage of another Cold War, they would be well-advised to drop unhelpful rhetoric, seek an immediate end to anti-Russian sanctions, and adjust economic policies that are pushing periphery EU countries into Moscow's orbit.

The Middle East's ongoing descent into chaos and China's impending ascendancy to the status of global superpower are just two of the many threats that the US, European Union and Russia all share. Each of these issues should certainly occupy a higher position on their respective agendas than the breakup of Ukraine or the insolvency of Greece. Leaders of all three governments would be well-advised to set aside their differences, or at least to prevent those differences from obstructing cooperation on more important issues. Unlike its predecessor, the Second Cold War will not be bilateral. Today's world is far more chaotic, kinetic and dangerous than it was fifty years ago.

[Apr 10, 2015] Ukraine's dilemma Creditors refuse to write off $10bn debt

In other words Ukraine is cooked for dinner by Western banks and local kleptocrats and economically clueless nationalists like Yutshchenko and Yatsenyuk ...
Notable quotes:
"... "speedy resolution" ..."
"... "without any principal debt reductions," ..."
"... "provides Ukraine with the necessary financial liquidity support," ..."
"... Meanwhile, Ukraine has to reach an agreement with creditors by the end of May to save $15.3 billion over 4 years as a condition for receiving the next tranche of a $17.5 billion International Monetary Fund loan which comes in exchange for economic, budget and monetary reforms in the country. ..."
"... "This is how restructuring negotiations always start, with unrealistic proposals. For sure, the creditors will try to achieve a deal with no principal reduction, but realistically it is not viable, ..."
"... "Ukraine's debt-to-GDP is much too high and the economy is shrinking," ..."
"... "Now it's official that major bondholders will be resisting a haircut," ..."
"... "But frankly speaking, it might be very, very difficult to push through a 'no haircut' idea, given the IMF's target." ..."
Apr 10, 2015 | RT Business
A committee of Ukraine's private creditors that hold about $10 billion in Ukrainian bonds is against any write-downs in its debt-restructuring deal. The bondholders' terms jeopardize Ukraine's bailout package from the IMF.

Ukraine's creditors are expecting a "speedy resolution" to negotiations "without any principal debt reductions," the committee said in a statement released by Ukraine's biggest bondholder Blackstone Group, Bloomberg reported Friday. The group was working on a plan that "provides Ukraine with the necessary financial liquidity support," according to the statement.

Ukraine has to pay about $10 billion to service its debt this year, including corporate and sovereign loans and bonds. The total debt of Ukraine is currently estimated at $50 billion. Public sector debt rose to 71 percent of Ukraine's gross domestic product, and is due to rise to 94 percent of GDP in 2015, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has to reach an agreement with creditors by the end of May to save $15.3 billion over 4 years as a condition for receiving the next tranche of a $17.5 billion International Monetary Fund loan which comes in exchange for economic, budget and monetary reforms in the country. A debt-to-gross domestic product ratio of below 71 percent by 2020; and the budget's gross financing needs at an average of 10 percent of GDP from 2019 to 2025 are also among the restructuring demands from the IMF.

"This is how restructuring negotiations always start, with unrealistic proposals. For sure, the creditors will try to achieve a deal with no principal reduction, but realistically it is not viable," Michael Ganske, who helps manage $6 billion as head of emerging markets at Rogge Global Partners in London, told Bloomberg.

"Ukraine's debt-to-GDP is much too high and the economy is shrinking," Ganske added.

Russia is Ukraine's second-biggest creditor as it holds a $3 billion Eurobond issued in December 2013 with a maturity in December 2015. Moscow is not going to demand early repayment of the loan, despite the fact that one of the contract's conditions was violated as Ukraine's national debt exceeded 60 percent of the GDP, according to RIA Novosti.

Financial dilemma

Meanwhile, Ukraine is seeking to restructure at least $21.7 billion of its public debt. The country's central bank reserves fell dangerously below $5.6 billion in February, and the national currency, the hryvnia, has lost more than half of its value in the past six months and emerged as the worst performing currency in 2014. Ukraine has thus been forced into negotiations with the bondholders.

The weakening currency has led to massive inflation, which has reached 272 percent last year by some estimates. Officially it was 34.5 percent in annual terms as of February and is expected to reach 30 percent for the whole of 2015. Ukraine also has outstanding Russian energy debts now standing at about $2 billion that it must pay if it wants to continue receiving natural gas.

In return for the IMF funds, Ukraine has embarked on tough economic reforms, which include cutting pensions, raising the retirement age, trimming the state budget, and getting rid of wasteful gas subsidies.

"Now it's official that major bondholders will be resisting a haircut," Giuliano Palumbo, a money manager who helps oversee $3 billion in emerging-market debt for Arca SGR in Milan, including Ukrainian bonds, told Bloomberg. "But frankly speaking, it might be very, very difficult to push through a 'no haircut' idea, given the IMF's target."

Read more

[Apr 10, 2015] Ukraine's dilemma Creditors refuse to write off $10bn debt

In other words Ukraine is cooked for dinner by Western banks and local kleptocrats and economically clueless nationalists like Yutshchenko and Yatsenyuk ...
Notable quotes:
"... "speedy resolution" ..."
"... "without any principal debt reductions," ..."
"... "provides Ukraine with the necessary financial liquidity support," ..."
"... Meanwhile, Ukraine has to reach an agreement with creditors by the end of May to save $15.3 billion over 4 years as a condition for receiving the next tranche of a $17.5 billion International Monetary Fund loan which comes in exchange for economic, budget and monetary reforms in the country. ..."
"... "This is how restructuring negotiations always start, with unrealistic proposals. For sure, the creditors will try to achieve a deal with no principal reduction, but realistically it is not viable, ..."
"... "Ukraine's debt-to-GDP is much too high and the economy is shrinking," ..."
"... "Now it's official that major bondholders will be resisting a haircut," ..."
"... "But frankly speaking, it might be very, very difficult to push through a 'no haircut' idea, given the IMF's target." ..."
Apr 10, 2015 | RT Business
A committee of Ukraine's private creditors that hold about $10 billion in Ukrainian bonds is against any write-downs in its debt-restructuring deal. The bondholders' terms jeopardize Ukraine's bailout package from the IMF.

Ukraine's creditors are expecting a "speedy resolution" to negotiations "without any principal debt reductions," the committee said in a statement released by Ukraine's biggest bondholder Blackstone Group, Bloomberg reported Friday. The group was working on a plan that "provides Ukraine with the necessary financial liquidity support," according to the statement.

Ukraine has to pay about $10 billion to service its debt this year, including corporate and sovereign loans and bonds. The total debt of Ukraine is currently estimated at $50 billion. Public sector debt rose to 71 percent of Ukraine's gross domestic product, and is due to rise to 94 percent of GDP in 2015, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has to reach an agreement with creditors by the end of May to save $15.3 billion over 4 years as a condition for receiving the next tranche of a $17.5 billion International Monetary Fund loan which comes in exchange for economic, budget and monetary reforms in the country. A debt-to-gross domestic product ratio of below 71 percent by 2020; and the budget's gross financing needs at an average of 10 percent of GDP from 2019 to 2025 are also among the restructuring demands from the IMF.

"This is how restructuring negotiations always start, with unrealistic proposals. For sure, the creditors will try to achieve a deal with no principal reduction, but realistically it is not viable," Michael Ganske, who helps manage $6 billion as head of emerging markets at Rogge Global Partners in London, told Bloomberg.

"Ukraine's debt-to-GDP is much too high and the economy is shrinking," Ganske added.

Russia is Ukraine's second-biggest creditor as it holds a $3 billion Eurobond issued in December 2013 with a maturity in December 2015. Moscow is not going to demand early repayment of the loan, despite the fact that one of the contract's conditions was violated as Ukraine's national debt exceeded 60 percent of the GDP, according to RIA Novosti.

Financial dilemma

Meanwhile, Ukraine is seeking to restructure at least $21.7 billion of its public debt. The country's central bank reserves fell dangerously below $5.6 billion in February, and the national currency, the hryvnia, has lost more than half of its value in the past six months and emerged as the worst performing currency in 2014. Ukraine has thus been forced into negotiations with the bondholders.

The weakening currency has led to massive inflation, which has reached 272 percent last year by some estimates. Officially it was 34.5 percent in annual terms as of February and is expected to reach 30 percent for the whole of 2015. Ukraine also has outstanding Russian energy debts now standing at about $2 billion that it must pay if it wants to continue receiving natural gas.

In return for the IMF funds, Ukraine has embarked on tough economic reforms, which include cutting pensions, raising the retirement age, trimming the state budget, and getting rid of wasteful gas subsidies.

"Now it's official that major bondholders will be resisting a haircut," Giuliano Palumbo, a money manager who helps oversee $3 billion in emerging-market debt for Arca SGR in Milan, including Ukrainian bonds, told Bloomberg. "But frankly speaking, it might be very, very difficult to push through a 'no haircut' idea, given the IMF's target."

Read more

[Apr 10, 2015] Mission Accomplished? ISIS Leaders Are All Ex-Saddam Hussein Army Officers

Apr 06, 2015 | zerohedge.com
Thirst Mutilator

Not really... If you're a typical Chinese or Indian... You hardly ever hear about these fucking clowns...

The only get 'REPORTAGE' time in Western culture [who are born, bred, & trained sychophants]...

[Apr 09, 2015] Ukraine The Global Corporate Annexation

Notable quotes:
"... 'For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, It's a Gold Mine of Profits' ..."
Apr 21, 2014 | Jesse's Café Américain
"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

There is certainly a long established difference between a just war, a defensive war, and a war of adventure or aggression. No one understand this better than those who suffer loss in fighting them.

Like quite a few people I found myself asking, 'Why the Ukraine? Why the sudden push there, risking conflict with Russia on their own doorstep?' Why are we suddenly risking all to support what was clearly an extra-legal coup d'état?'

It is telling perhaps that one of the first things that happened after the coup d'état is that all of the Ukraine's gold was on a flight to New York, for the safekeeping by those same people who have managed to misplace a good portion of the German people's gold. It is the most transportable and fungible store of wealth, where the transfer of less portable assets by computerized digits may lag.

Follow the money...

GlobalResearch
Ukraine: The Corporate Annexation
'For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, It's a Gold Mine of Profits'
by JP Sottile

As the US and EU apply sanctions on Russia over its annexation' of Crimea, JP Sottile reveals the corporate annexation of Ukraine. For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, there's a gold mine of profits to be made from agri-business and energy exploitation.

The potential here for agriculture / agribusiness is amazing production here could double Ukraine's agriculture could be a real gold mine.

On 12th January 2014, a reported 50,000 "pro-Western" Ukrainians descended upon Kiev's Independence Square to protest against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Stoked in part by an attack on opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko, the protest marked the beginning of the end of Yanukovych's four year-long government.

That same day, the Financial Times reported a major deal for US agribusiness titan Cargill.

Business confidence never faltered

Despite the turmoil within Ukrainian politics after Yanukovych rejected a major trade deal with the European Union just seven weeks earlier, Cargill was confident enough about the future to fork over $200 million to buy a stake in Ukraine's UkrLandFarming...

Read the entire report here.

[Apr 09, 2015] Ukraine The Global Corporate Annexation

Notable quotes:
"... 'For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, It's a Gold Mine of Profits' ..."
Apr 21, 2014 | Jesse's Café Américain
"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

There is certainly a long established difference between a just war, a defensive war, and a war of adventure or aggression. No one understand this better than those who suffer loss in fighting them.

Like quite a few people I found myself asking, 'Why the Ukraine? Why the sudden push there, risking conflict with Russia on their own doorstep?' Why are we suddenly risking all to support what was clearly an extra-legal coup d'état?'

It is telling perhaps that one of the first things that happened after the coup d'état is that all of the Ukraine's gold was on a flight to New York, for the safekeeping by those same people who have managed to misplace a good portion of the German people's gold. It is the most transportable and fungible store of wealth, where the transfer of less portable assets by computerized digits may lag.

Follow the money...

GlobalResearch
Ukraine: The Corporate Annexation
'For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, It's a Gold Mine of Profits'
by JP Sottile

As the US and EU apply sanctions on Russia over its annexation' of Crimea, JP Sottile reveals the corporate annexation of Ukraine. For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, there's a gold mine of profits to be made from agri-business and energy exploitation.

The potential here for agriculture / agribusiness is amazing production here could double Ukraine's agriculture could be a real gold mine.

On 12th January 2014, a reported 50,000 "pro-Western" Ukrainians descended upon Kiev's Independence Square to protest against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Stoked in part by an attack on opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko, the protest marked the beginning of the end of Yanukovych's four year-long government.

That same day, the Financial Times reported a major deal for US agribusiness titan Cargill.

Business confidence never faltered

Despite the turmoil within Ukrainian politics after Yanukovych rejected a major trade deal with the European Union just seven weeks earlier, Cargill was confident enough about the future to fork over $200 million to buy a stake in Ukraine's UkrLandFarming...

Read the entire report here.

[Apr 04, 2015] The majority of Maidan supporters are experiencing severe impoverishment instead of welfare bonanza from EU they expected

Notable quotes:
"... The vast majority of the Maidan supporters were expecting some sort of welfare bonanza "when they joined the EU" after signing the association agreement. Instead they are experiencing impoverishment. ..."
"... I think there is a fair chance it will be the equivalent of an european Afghanistan. ..."
marknesop.wordpress.com

kirill, April 3, 2015 at 6:11 am

Ukraine will be a consolidated fascist state without an economy. Right. It was mentioned elsewhere that the only thing keeping the regime in power is the war. It sure isn't the economy. But eventually the economic decline will break the bubble.

The vast majority of the Maidan supporters were expecting some sort of welfare bonanza "when they joined the EU" after signing the association agreement. Instead they are experiencing impoverishment.

So this ridiculous delusion is going to break down. But delusions are very resilient things.

et Al, April 3, 2015 at 2:49 pm
I think there is a fair chance it will be the equivalent of an european Afghanistan. In a sense it already is with various oligarchs controlling bits of territory and sort of cooperating in Kiev. Elections are not much more than a Afghan Jirga.

Still, it is interesting to see Russia play the long game, the latest being a $285 three month gas contract with Kiev. When the Ukraine finally implodes, Russia can clearly point out how it could have pulled the plug at any time it wanted but it didn't because it has the best interests of its closest neighbor in mind. It also sets a benchmark for all the promises from the EU and US to be compared to, the latter far more likely to creatively reinterpret supposedly solid agreements than Russia especially if Kiev doesn't sing from the same hymnbook 200%. It is also a warning to Berlin and the EU – we pull the plug and it's all yours baby!

marknesop, April 3, 2015 at 3:16 pm
Yes, the people of Ukraine will never stand for this ridiculous substitution – a goose-stepping Nazi police state in place of the cushy streets-paved-with-gold paradise they were led to expect in exchange for their support for Maidan and the coup. They would probably put up with anything if it meant widespread prosperity, but they are indisputably much worse off now than they were prior to The Great Ukrainian Leap Forward and the trend is remorselessly downward for at least another year – even the IMF forecasts a considerably worse contraction of a further 10% rather than the 6% it forecast earlier. And that's with the most lipstick The New Atlanticist – a relentlessly pro-western publication whose current headlines include Wesley Clark's prediction of a Russian Spring offensive, the manifestly ridiculous contention that "Putin's war against Ukraine" has had the effect of uniting Ukrainians, and Russia's paranoid fantasies about the west representing a threat are all in its head – can put on it. Moreover, there is likely to be zero growth in 2016 as well. That assessment probably assumes certain realities that do not now exist, such as Kiev bringing the east back under its thumb, rather than it slipping further from its control and perhaps even expanding its territory.

[Apr 03, 2015] Were not cattle Kiev protesters throw manure at US embassy

Apr 03, 2015 | offguardian

Life News reports:

About two and a half thousand Ukrainians surrounded the US embassy in Kiev on the first of April. People who disagree with the appointment of foreigners to the Ukrainian government, as well as the intervention of the Americans and Europeans in the public administration of the country, holding banners saying "We are not cattle!" And they made sounds imitating animals.

Besides the protesters braying and bleating, they were eating cabbage, which was distributed by the organizers of the protest.

They also kept two-meter carrots with the symbols of the European Union. By the end of the demonstration of dissent Kiev residents pelted the US embassy with manure.

It is noteworthy that the video from the protest was removed from all the Ukrainian sites and users were blocked. Local journalists hardly covered the event.

[Apr 03, 2015] U.S. Trained Fascists To Storm Kiev

Notable quotes:
"... Enough baksheesh spread around this way, and you have built a nice local tier of warlord support. ..."
Apr 01, 2015 | M of A

barrisj | Apr 1, 2015 1:08:35 PM | 8

It seems as though the Yanks have revived the notion behind "The School of the Americas" era, where American Special Forces operatives would train up various battalions of "security forces", National Guard, "Presidential Guards", whatever, expressly to support Latin American fascistic dictatorships and to keep their respective countries on-side in the "war against Communism" in the Western Hemisphere.

So, today we have boatloads of Special Forces contingencies in the Middle East, in Africa, in South Asia, and now in Eastern Europe or in the former States of the Soviet Union (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, et al), all with the specific task of supporting autocrats and dictators against their own respective peoples.

And the gullible US public is being sold this as "advancing the democratic agenda"...so blatant and so pathetic. This to promote US "leadership", and to create proxy military forces to advance US "strategic goals". Blowback, blowback, we don't see no steenkin' blowback!

rufus magister | Apr 1, 2015 10:23:52 PM | 9

Alberto at 6

Germany was both Protestant and Catholic. The Catholic Centre Party opposed the Nazis; I believe you'll find the Lutheran state churches of northern Germany the most accepting of their regime. Lutheran Scandinavia produced generous nos. of collaborators and volunteers for the Waffen-SS "Viking" Division. Bulgaria and Romania both had collaborationist governments drawn from local fascists.

en1c at 1

I think they plan on using brute force to keep power. There are several reports at Fort Russ about about a purge and revamping at the SBU.

Nalivaychenko, its leader, says it's going to be schooled in the Banderaist/OUN school of political repression. And here is a comprehensive guide to their methods.

Meanwhile, searches at the Ministry of the Interior have begun.

At Russia Insider, Rostislav Ishchenko argues that War in the East Is the Only Thing Preventing Ukraine Collapse. Which will not be pretty when it happens.

There is nothing good in store for Ukraine. I think during this year it will sustain a military defeat and the disintegration of its army, another coup and the collapse of what is left of its government agencies, all-out chaos, the total destruction of the economy and the start of subsistence farming for survival.... Survivors will be set back a century in terms of living standards and civilization. This is why foreign intervention to restore law and order to Ukraine after the collapse of Project Ukraine will be inevitable.

I hope he's exaggerating about that century thing.

Some good news -- miners near Kharkov are fighting to be paid.

Fete | Apr 1, 2015 11:39:02 PM | 10

04/01/2015 23:59

Russian Spring

Eduard Basurin, the Deputy Commander in Chief of Donetsk Republic Defense, read out to journalists excerpts of an intelligence obtained plan of Ukrainian special operation, which, in particular designated "special mobile groups to assault key infrastructure objects and crowded places".

Basurin said that this plan "of a special operation in sector B has been approved by the Ukrainian side and is being implemented". Therefore, the end of March intelligence about sending approximately thirty five Ukrainian subversion-reconnaissance group to areas of Shirokino and Donetsk to arrange provocations under disguise of combatants is confirmed.

According to the presented documents, the subversives were also tasked with liquidation of Donetsk Republic leaders, spreading panic among locals, opening random mortar and small arms fire from Donetsk and the airport toward settlement Peski, where positions of the Ukrainian forces are installed.

jfl | Apr 2, 2015 4:27:24 AM | 13

@9
The purge going on in Western Ukraine may be the sign that they have given up on war with the East ... that would have been their instruction from the CIA, in that case ... and are preparing to internalize the war. I'm probably quoting J Hawk or K Rus. Everything is so wrong in Ukraine ... and getting daily wronger ... that they desperately need some overarching threat to 'keep everyone's mind off the pain'. The poor, poor Ukrainians.

I don't think the author at Russia Insider meant that the collapse of the Ukraine would last 100 years, 'just' that the 'lifestyle' of the Ukrainians would be more similar to their lifestyle 100 years ago than to their 21st century fantasies. The ground is the place to build up from. And slowly and thoughtfully, with an appreciation for what is real and what is not, is the way to go.

It is not only the Ukrainians who will be in this position in the near future. I agree with Mike Maloney@7 ... "how can all this not end up becoming globalized total war?"

ǝn⇂ɔ | Apr 2, 2015 9:19:48 AM | 16

"US training" in practice seems more an economic outcome than a military one. Much like sourcing the F35 - US training of indigenous troops presents limitless opportunities for kickbacks, theft, and other means of securing payment for local warlords. Trainers have to be fed, housed, and protected - all activities which generate income. Trainees have to be furnished equipment - which can be stolen and sold. Training itself consumes resources: ammunition, food, etc which also can be stolen and sold.

Enough baksheesh spread around this way, and you have built a nice local tier of warlord support.

rufus magister | Apr 2, 2015 11:05:14 PM | 26
It's Official – All Kiev's Investigations of Maidan Crimes Deadlocked

"Council of Europe report finds that official Ukrainian investigations into crimes committed during the Maidan protests are a total shambles and are going nowhere."

Harold | Apr 3, 2015 2:56:26 AM | 28

As billmon predicted the Ukraine has called Russia's number -- for now: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/02/us-ukraine-crisis-gas-idUSKBN0MT0B420150402
Richard Steven Hack | Apr 3, 2015 1:44:14 PM | 31

Obama fully intends to get a war or at least threat of war started in the Ukraine between Russia and NATO in order to boost the military-industrial complex and the US military budget.

The alleged intent of the Ukraine crisis was to make Ukraine into a NATO base on Russia's borders. But Russia will never stand for that. And it's not certain that everyone in the Beltway was ignorant of that. These people can read the articles that pointed out that Russia would not stand for that.

But Russia didn't take the bait and invade Ukraine. Instead they merely supported the anti-Kiev forces in the east.

So Obama has to up the ante. The only way to do that is to support the far-right neo-Nazi forces in the Ukraine and get them to take over the government. This is because Russia will never accept a Nazi-led Ukraine, either.

The goal is to force Russia to deal militarily directly with Ukraine, thus justifying a NATO threat response, which will boost the Cold war and boost the US and EU military-industrial complex.

Never forget that Obama is owned and operated by his masters in Chicago who are both Israel-Firsters and stock holders in the military-industrial complex.

Demian | Apr 3, 2015 2:14:25 PM | 32

Funny that this isn't showing up on Western news channels:

offguardian: "We're not cattle": Kiev protesters throw manure at US embassy (with video)

Note that unlike the EuroMaidan, this protest is peaceful.

Demian | Apr 3, 2015 5:58:20 PM | 33

Republicans see Obama as a greater threat to the US than Putin. For once, they are right.
jfl | Apr 3, 2015 6:11:32 PM | 34

@31,32
Looks like the Ukrainians are finally beginning to understand just how badly they have been played. Maybe they will no longer stand for a Nazi-led Ukraine, either?

I mean ... how have they benefited at all from NAZI rule?

[Apr 03, 2015] U.S. Trained Fascists To Storm Kiev

Notable quotes:
"... Enough baksheesh spread around this way, and you have built a nice local tier of warlord support. ..."
Apr 01, 2015 | M of A

barrisj | Apr 1, 2015 1:08:35 PM | 8

It seems as though the Yanks have revived the notion behind "The School of the Americas" era, where American Special Forces operatives would train up various battalions of "security forces", National Guard, "Presidential Guards", whatever, expressly to support Latin American fascistic dictatorships and to keep their respective countries on-side in the "war against Communism" in the Western Hemisphere.

So, today we have boatloads of Special Forces contingencies in the Middle East, in Africa, in South Asia, and now in Eastern Europe or in the former States of the Soviet Union (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, et al), all with the specific task of supporting autocrats and dictators against their own respective peoples.

And the gullible US public is being sold this as "advancing the democratic agenda"...so blatant and so pathetic. This to promote US "leadership", and to create proxy military forces to advance US "strategic goals". Blowback, blowback, we don't see no steenkin' blowback!

rufus magister | Apr 1, 2015 10:23:52 PM | 9

Alberto at 6

Germany was both Protestant and Catholic. The Catholic Centre Party opposed the Nazis; I believe you'll find the Lutheran state churches of northern Germany the most accepting of their regime. Lutheran Scandinavia produced generous nos. of collaborators and volunteers for the Waffen-SS "Viking" Division. Bulgaria and Romania both had collaborationist governments drawn from local fascists.

en1c at 1

I think they plan on using brute force to keep power. There are several reports at Fort Russ about about a purge and revamping at the SBU.

Nalivaychenko, its leader, says it's going to be schooled in the Banderaist/OUN school of political repression. And here is a comprehensive guide to their methods.

Meanwhile, searches at the Ministry of the Interior have begun.

At Russia Insider, Rostislav Ishchenko argues that War in the East Is the Only Thing Preventing Ukraine Collapse. Which will not be pretty when it happens.

There is nothing good in store for Ukraine. I think during this year it will sustain a military defeat and the disintegration of its army, another coup and the collapse of what is left of its government agencies, all-out chaos, the total destruction of the economy and the start of subsistence farming for survival.... Survivors will be set back a century in terms of living standards and civilization. This is why foreign intervention to restore law and order to Ukraine after the collapse of Project Ukraine will be inevitable.

I hope he's exaggerating about that century thing.

Some good news -- miners near Kharkov are fighting to be paid.

Fete | Apr 1, 2015 11:39:02 PM | 10

04/01/2015 23:59

Russian Spring

Eduard Basurin, the Deputy Commander in Chief of Donetsk Republic Defense, read out to journalists excerpts of an intelligence obtained plan of Ukrainian special operation, which, in particular designated "special mobile groups to assault key infrastructure objects and crowded places".

Basurin said that this plan "of a special operation in sector B has been approved by the Ukrainian side and is being implemented". Therefore, the end of March intelligence about sending approximately thirty five Ukrainian subversion-reconnaissance group to areas of Shirokino and Donetsk to arrange provocations under disguise of combatants is confirmed.

According to the presented documents, the subversives were also tasked with liquidation of Donetsk Republic leaders, spreading panic among locals, opening random mortar and small arms fire from Donetsk and the airport toward settlement Peski, where positions of the Ukrainian forces are installed.

jfl | Apr 2, 2015 4:27:24 AM | 13

@9
The purge going on in Western Ukraine may be the sign that they have given up on war with the East ... that would have been their instruction from the CIA, in that case ... and are preparing to internalize the war. I'm probably quoting J Hawk or K Rus. Everything is so wrong in Ukraine ... and getting daily wronger ... that they desperately need some overarching threat to 'keep everyone's mind off the pain'. The poor, poor Ukrainians.

I don't think the author at Russia Insider meant that the collapse of the Ukraine would last 100 years, 'just' that the 'lifestyle' of the Ukrainians would be more similar to their lifestyle 100 years ago than to their 21st century fantasies. The ground is the place to build up from. And slowly and thoughtfully, with an appreciation for what is real and what is not, is the way to go.

It is not only the Ukrainians who will be in this position in the near future. I agree with Mike Maloney@7 ... "how can all this not end up becoming globalized total war?"

ǝn⇂ɔ | Apr 2, 2015 9:19:48 AM | 16

"US training" in practice seems more an economic outcome than a military one. Much like sourcing the F35 - US training of indigenous troops presents limitless opportunities for kickbacks, theft, and other means of securing payment for local warlords. Trainers have to be fed, housed, and protected - all activities which generate income. Trainees have to be furnished equipment - which can be stolen and sold. Training itself consumes resources: ammunition, food, etc which also can be stolen and sold.

Enough baksheesh spread around this way, and you have built a nice local tier of warlord support.

rufus magister | Apr 2, 2015 11:05:14 PM | 26
It's Official – All Kiev's Investigations of Maidan Crimes Deadlocked

"Council of Europe report finds that official Ukrainian investigations into crimes committed during the Maidan protests are a total shambles and are going nowhere."

Harold | Apr 3, 2015 2:56:26 AM | 28

As billmon predicted the Ukraine has called Russia's number -- for now: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/02/us-ukraine-crisis-gas-idUSKBN0MT0B420150402
Richard Steven Hack | Apr 3, 2015 1:44:14 PM | 31

Obama fully intends to get a war or at least threat of war started in the Ukraine between Russia and NATO in order to boost the military-industrial complex and the US military budget.

The alleged intent of the Ukraine crisis was to make Ukraine into a NATO base on Russia's borders. But Russia will never stand for that. And it's not certain that everyone in the Beltway was ignorant of that. These people can read the articles that pointed out that Russia would not stand for that.

But Russia didn't take the bait and invade Ukraine. Instead they merely supported the anti-Kiev forces in the east.

So Obama has to up the ante. The only way to do that is to support the far-right neo-Nazi forces in the Ukraine and get them to take over the government. This is because Russia will never accept a Nazi-led Ukraine, either.

The goal is to force Russia to deal militarily directly with Ukraine, thus justifying a NATO threat response, which will boost the Cold war and boost the US and EU military-industrial complex.

Never forget that Obama is owned and operated by his masters in Chicago who are both Israel-Firsters and stock holders in the military-industrial complex.

Demian | Apr 3, 2015 2:14:25 PM | 32

Funny that this isn't showing up on Western news channels:

offguardian: "We're not cattle": Kiev protesters throw manure at US embassy (with video)

Note that unlike the EuroMaidan, this protest is peaceful.

Demian | Apr 3, 2015 5:58:20 PM | 33

Republicans see Obama as a greater threat to the US than Putin. For once, they are right.
jfl | Apr 3, 2015 6:11:32 PM | 34

@31,32
Looks like the Ukrainians are finally beginning to understand just how badly they have been played. Maybe they will no longer stand for a Nazi-led Ukraine, either?

I mean ... how have they benefited at all from NAZI rule?

[Apr 03, 2015] West is trying to buy allies of Russia

This is extremely strong move by the US diplomacy (EU vassals were just token players, extras in the play) which considerably weakens Russia political and economic position. It also shows that drop of oil prices was a well though out strategic move with several possible surprises in the sleeves.
Apr 03, 2015 | svpressa.ru

How the lift sanctions against Iran will affect the position of Russia in the world

Lengthy negotiations the six world powers (Russia, USA, UK, France, Germany, China) in Lausanne ended with agreement on the lifting of restrictions against Iran. Foreign Minister of this country Mohammad Zarif called the historical results of the negotiations. Similar opinion is shared by U.S. President Barack Obama, who compared the agreements with agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union during the reign of Reagan and Nixon. The world market after the statements of the leaders of the six responded to a decrease in oil prices. But the question arise: will the economy of Russia suffer as a result of this shrewd move, and will Russia be able to maintain a trusting relationship with its ally in the Middle East or it will change camps.

The EU and the US sanctions against Iran seriously limited the foreign trade of Tehran. They were introduced under the pretext of preventing Iran's development of its own nuclear weapons. Iran argued that solely interested in building on their own territory of the nuclear power plants and is not intended to have weapons of mass destruction. But the official representatives of the West did not believe statements by Iran leadership, fearing that obtaining a nuclear weapon by Iran will seriously alter the geopolitical balance in the middle East.

In recent years tensions between Iran and the West only grew. This played against attempts to isolate Moscow, which, after the reunification of the Crimea with Russia was forced to start organizing the "anti-Western coalition." to counter Western sanctions. But Tehran clearly did not enjoyed its permanent status of a "rogue state" assigned by the USA, and the new President of Iran Hassan Rouhani began to hint that he might compromise and accept the demands of the West.

Concluded at Lausanne agreements, Iran accepted an obligation for 15 years not to build new facilities for uranium enrichment and not to enrich uranium to the level of over to 3.67%, while also reducing the number of centrifuges from the current 19 thousand to six thousand. In response to the Tehran gets the opportunity to export the energy to the West.

The appearance on the world market of oil and gas from a new player at the current moment of low energy prices might trigger further collapse in the price of "black gold" which will jeopardize the economy of Russia. At the same time, the removal of restrictions on the development of the Iranian nuclear program will enhance the ability of Russian companies to participate in construction of nuclear power plants. It also indirectly created a new prospects for cooperation in military-technical sphere.

It is possible that the West went to the lifting of sanctions, based on geopolitical considerations. Shiite Iran is supporting the rebels Houthis in Yemen and efforts of the coalition led by Saudi Arabia may not lead to success. This can threatens oil supplies to Europe and the USA. In addition, Iran has long expressed his desire to join the Shanghai cooperation organization, collective security Treaty organization and BRICS. Here West was forced to give Tehran a bone to block or slow down such moves.

The lifting of the sanctions on Iran may lead in the near future to the fall in oil prices. But this probably will be a short-term phenomenon caused by excessive speculation. In itself, the lifting of sanctions in the future for a few months will not affect the market, " said the Director of the Center for the study of world energy markets energy research Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences Vyacheslav Kulagin. No additional quantities of oil and gas on the market will be added to market immediately. But if the current economic situation in the world will stay then in the future the lifting of the sanctions on Iran will led to significant changes. Iran will obtain access to Western investments and technology. But again, in a short term the world energy market is not affected.

But if we talk about the future after 2020, Iran could become a leading exporter of oil and gas. Oil and gas production will increase. It is worth noting the value of the field "South Pars". Even before the sanctions, there were dozens of projects in this field, including some with the participation of Russian companies. If those projects will be revived, then they will have a serious impact. But this impact will be felt in 2020 or even 2030. In this timeframe Russia will get a serious competitor in the commodities market.

It is worth considering the geopolitical factor, in particular, the current situation in Yemen. Iran supports the Shiite population of this country, but does not yet have the financial capacity to significantly affect the situation. But in the future if the investment is going in Iran, such opportunities will appear. Accordingly, re-configuration of forces in the Middle East will be a bigger question than it is today.

Rationalizing Lunacy The Policy Intellectual as Servant of the State

March 9, 2015 | naked capitalism

Yves here. Andrew Bacevich excoriates policy intellectuals as "blight on the republic". His case study focuses on the military/surveillance complex but he notes in passing that the first policy intellectuals were in the economic realm. And we are plagued with plenty of malpractice there too.

by Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations emeritus at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies. He is writing a military history of America's War for the Greater Middle East. His most recent book is Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. Originally published at TomDispatch

Policy intellectuals - eggheads presuming to instruct the mere mortals who actually run for office - are a blight on the republic. Like some invasive species, they infest present-day Washington, where their presence strangles common sense and has brought to the verge of extinction the simple ability to perceive reality. A benign appearance - well-dressed types testifying before Congress, pontificating in print and on TV, or even filling key positions in the executive branch - belies a malign impact. They are like Asian carp let loose in the Great Lakes.

It all began innocently enough. Back in 1933, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first imported a handful of eager academics to join the ranks of his New Deal. An unprecedented economic crisis required some fresh thinking, FDR believed. Whether the contributions of this "Brains Trust" made a positive impact or served to retard economic recovery (or ended up being a wash) remains a subject for debate even today. At the very least, however, the arrival of Adolph Berle, Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and others elevated Washington's bourbon-and-cigars social scene. As bona fide members of the intelligentsia, they possessed a sort of cachet.

Then came World War II, followed in short order by the onset of the Cold War. These events brought to Washington a second wave of deep thinkers, their agenda now focused on "national security." This eminently elastic concept - more properly, "national insecurity" - encompassed just about anything related to preparing for, fighting, or surviving wars, including economics, technology, weapons design, decision-making, the structure of the armed forces, and other matters said to be of vital importance to the nation's survival. National insecurity became, and remains today, the policy world's equivalent of the gift that just keeps on giving.

People who specialized in thinking about national insecurity came to be known as "defense intellectuals." Pioneers in this endeavor back in the 1950s were as likely to collect their paychecks from think tanks like the prototypical RAND Corporation as from more traditional academic institutions. Their ranks included creepy figures like Herman Kahn, who took pride in "thinking about the unthinkable," and Albert Wohlstetter, who tutored Washington in the complexities of maintaining "the delicate balance of terror."

In this wonky world, the coin of the realm has been and remains "policy relevance." This means devising products that convey a sense of novelty, while serving chiefly to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise. The ultimate example of a policy-relevant insight is Dr. Strangelove's discovery of a "mineshaft gap" - successor to the "bomber gap" and the "missile gap" that, in the 1950s, had found America allegedly lagging behind the Soviets in weaponry and desperately needing to catch up. Now, with a thermonuclear exchange about to destroy the planet, the United States is once more falling behind, Strangelove claims, this time in digging underground shelters enabling some small proportion of the population to survive.

In a single, brilliant stroke, Strangelove posits a new raison d'être for the entire national insecurity apparatus, thereby ensuring that the game will continue more or less forever. A sequel to Stanley Kubrick's movie would have shown General "Buck" Turgidson and the other brass huddled in the War Room, developing plans to close the mineshaft gap as if nothing untoward had occurred.

The Rise of the National Insecurity State

Yet only in the 1960s, right around the time that Dr. Strangelove first appeared in movie theaters, did policy intellectuals really come into their own. The press now referred to them as "action intellectuals," suggesting energy and impatience. Action intellectuals were thinkers, but also doers, members of a "large and growing body of men who choose to leave their quiet and secure niches on the university campus and involve themselves instead in the perplexing problems that face the nation," as LIFE Magazine put it in 1967. Among the most perplexing of those problems was what to do about Vietnam, just the sort of challenge an action intellectual could sink his teeth into.

Over the previous century-and-a-half, the United States had gone to war for many reasons, including greed, fear, panic, righteous anger, and legitimate self-defense. On various occasions, each of these, alone or in combination, had prompted Americans to fight. Vietnam marked the first time that the United States went to war, at least in considerable part, in response to a bunch of really dumb ideas floated by ostensibly smart people occupying positions of influence. More surprising still, action intellectuals persisted in waging that war well past the point where it had become self-evident, even to members of Congress, that the cause was a misbegotten one doomed to end in failure.

In his fine new book American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity, Christian Appy, a historian who teaches at the University of Massachusetts, reminds us of just how dumb those ideas were.

As Exhibit A, Professor Appy presents McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser first for President John F. Kennedy and then for Lyndon Johnson. Bundy was a product of Groton and Yale, who famously became the youngest-ever dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, having gained tenure there without even bothering to get a graduate degree.

For Exhibit B, there is Walt Whitman Rostow, Bundy's successor as national security adviser. Rostow was another Yalie, earning his undergraduate degree there along with a PhD. While taking a break of sorts, he spent two years at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. As a professor of economic history at MIT, Rostow captured JFK's attention with his modestly subtitled 1960 book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, which offered a grand theory of development with ostensibly universal applicability. Kennedy brought Rostow to Washington to test his theories of "modernization" in places like Southeast Asia.

Finally, as Exhibit C, Appy briefly discusses Professor Samuel P. Huntington's contributions to the Vietnam War. Huntington also attended Yale, before earning his PhD at Harvard and then returning to teach there, becoming one of the most renowned political scientists of the post-World War II era.

What the three shared in common, apart from a suspect education acquired in New Haven, was an unwavering commitment to the reigning verities of the Cold War. Foremost among those verities was this: that a monolith called Communism, controlled by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden behind the walls of the Kremlin, posed an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but to the very idea of freedom itself. The claim came with this essential corollary: the only hope of avoiding such a cataclysmic outcome was for the United States to vigorously resist the Communist threat wherever it reared its ugly head.

Buy those twin propositions and you accept the imperative of the U.S. preventing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. North Vietnam, from absorbing the Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. South Vietnam, into a single unified country; in other words, that South Vietnam was a cause worth fighting and dying for. Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington not only bought that argument hook, line, and sinker, but then exerted themselves mightily to persuade others in Washington to buy it as well.

Yet even as he was urging the "Americanization" of the Vietnam War in 1965, Bundy already entertained doubts about whether it was winnable. But not to worry: even if the effort ended in failure, he counseled President Johnson, "the policy will be worth it."

How so? "At a minimum," Bundy wrote, "it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own." If the United States ultimately lost South Vietnam, at least Americans would have died trying to prevent that result - and through some perverted logic this, in the estimation of Harvard's youngest-ever dean, was a redeeming prospect. The essential point, Bundy believed, was to prevent others from seeing the United States as a "paper tiger." To avoid a fight, even a losing one, was to forfeit credibility. "Not to have it thought that when we commit ourselves we really mean no major risk" - that was the problem to be avoided at all cost.

Rostow outdid even Bundy in hawkishness. Apart from his relentless advocacy of coercive bombing to influence North Vietnamese policymakers, Rostow was a chief architect of something called the Strategic Hamlet Program. The idea was to jumpstart the Rostovian process of modernization by forcibly relocating Vietnamese peasants from their ancestral villages into armed camps where the Saigon government would provide security, education, medical care, and agricultural assistance. By winning hearts-and-minds in this manner, the defeat of the communist insurgency was sure to follow, with the people of South Vietnam vaulted into the "age of high mass consumption," where Rostow believed all humankind was destined to end up.

That was the theory. Reality differed somewhat. Actual Strategic Hamlets were indistinguishable from concentration camps. The government in Saigon proved too weak, too incompetent, and too corrupt to hold up its end of the bargain. Rather than winning hearts-and-minds, the program induced alienation, even as it essentially destabilized peasant society. One result: an increasingly rootless rural population flooded into South Vietnam's cities where there was little work apart from servicing the needs of the ever-growing U.S. military population - hardly the sort of activity conducive to self-sustaining development.

Yet even when the Vietnam War ended in complete and utter defeat, Rostow still claimed vindication for his theory. "We and the Southeast Asians," he wrote, had used the war years "so well that there wasn't the panic [when Saigon fell] that there would have been if we had failed to intervene." Indeed, regionally Rostow spied plenty of good news, all of it attributable to the American war.

"Since 1975 there has been a general expansion of trade by the other countries of that region with Japan and the West. In Thailand we have seen the rise of a new class of entrepreneurs. Malaysia and Singapore have become countries of diverse manufactured exports. We can see the emergence of a much thicker layer of technocrats in Indonesia."

So there you have it. If you want to know what 58,000 Americans (not to mention vastly larger numbers of Vietnamese) died for, it was to encourage entrepreneurship, exports, and the emergence of technocrats elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Appy describes Professor Huntington as another action intellectual with an unfailing facility for seeing the upside of catastrophe. In Huntington's view, the internal displacement of South Vietnamese caused by the excessive use of American firepower, along with the failure of Rostow's Strategic Hamlets, was actually good news. It promised, he insisted, to give the Americans an edge over the insurgents.

The key to final victory, Huntington wrote, was "forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power." By emptying out the countryside, the U.S. could win the war in the cities. "The urban slum, which seems so horrible to middle-class Americans, often becomes for the poor peasant a gateway to a new and better way of life." The language may be a tad antiseptic, but the point is clear enough: the challenges of city life in a state of utter immiseration would miraculously transform those same peasants into go-getters more interested in making a buck than in signing up for social revolution.

Revisited decades later, claims once made with a straight face by the likes of Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington - action intellectuals of the very first rank - seem beyond preposterous. They insult our intelligence, leaving us to wonder how such judgments or the people who promoted them were ever taken seriously.

How was it that during Vietnam bad ideas exerted such a perverse influence? Why were those ideas so impervious to challenge? Why, in short, was it so difficult for Americans to recognize bullshit for what it was?

Creating a Twenty-First-Century Slow-Motion Vietnam

These questions are by no means of mere historical interest. They are no less relevant when applied to the handiwork of the twenty-first-century version of policy intellectuals, specializing in national insecurity, whose bullshit underpins policies hardly more coherent than those used to justify and prosecute the Vietnam War.

The present-day successors to Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington subscribe to their own reigning verities. Chief among them is this: that a phenomenon called terrorism or Islamic radicalism, inspired by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden away in various quarters of the Greater Middle East, poses an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but - yes, it's still with us - to the very idea of freedom itself. That assertion comes with an essential corollary dusted off and imported from the Cold War: the only hope of avoiding this cataclysmic outcome is for the United States to vigorously resist the terrorist/Islamist threat wherever it rears its ugly head.

At least since September 11, 2001, and arguably for at least two decades prior to that date, U.S. policymakers have taken these propositions for granted. They have done so at least in part because few of the policy intellectuals specializing in national insecurity have bothered to question them.

Indeed, those specialists insulate the state from having to address such questions. Think of them as intellectuals devoted to averting genuine intellectual activity. More or less like Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter (or Dr. Strangelove), their function is to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise.

The fact that the enterprise itself has become utterly amorphous may actually facilitate such efforts. Once widely known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, it has been transformed into the War with No Name. A little bit like the famous Supreme Court opinion on pornography: we can't define it, we just know it when we see it, with ISIS the latest manifestation to capture Washington's attention.

All that we can say for sure about this nameless undertaking is that it continues with no end in sight. It has become a sort of slow-motion Vietnam, stimulating remarkably little honest reflection regarding its course thus far or prospects for the future. If there is an actual Brains Trust at work in Washington, it operates on autopilot. Today, the second- and third-generation bastard offspring of RAND that clutter northwest Washington - the Center for this, the Institute for that - spin their wheels debating latter day equivalents of Strategic Hamlets, with nary a thought given to more fundamental concerns.

What prompts these observations is Ashton Carter's return to the Pentagon as President Obama's fourth secretary of defense. Carter himself is an action intellectual in the Bundy, Rostow, Huntington mold, having made a career of rotating between positions at Harvard and in "the Building." He, too, is a Yalie and a Rhodes scholar, with a PhD. from Oxford. "Ash" - in Washington, a first-name-only identifier ("Henry," "Zbig," "Hillary") signifies that you have truly arrived - is the author of books and articles galore, including one op-ed co-written with former Secretary of Defense William Perry back in 2006 calling for preventive war against North Korea. Military action "undoubtedly carries risk," he bravely acknowledged at the time. "But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater" - just the sort of logic periodically trotted out by the likes of Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter.

As Carter has taken the Pentagon's reins, he also has taken pains to convey the impression of being a big thinker. As one Wall Street Journal headline enthused, "Ash Carter Seeks Fresh Eyes on Global Threats." That multiple global threats exist and that America's defense secretary has a mandate to address each of them are, of course, givens. His predecessor Chuck Hagel (no Yale degree) was a bit of a plodder. By way of contrast, Carter has made clear his intention to shake things up.

So on his second day in office, for example, he dined with Kenneth Pollack, Michael O'Hanlon, and Robert Kagan, ranking national insecurity intellectuals and old Washington hands one and all. Besides all being employees of the Brookings Institution, the three share the distinction of having supported the Iraq War back in 2003 and calling for redoubling efforts against ISIS today. For assurances that the fundamental orientation of U.S. policy is sound - we just need to try harder - who better to consult than Pollack, O'Hanlon, and Kagan (any Kagan)?

Was Carter hoping to gain some fresh insight from his dinner companions? Or was he letting Washington's clubby network of fellows, senior fellows, and distinguished fellows know that, on his watch, the prevailing verities of national insecurity would remain sacrosanct? You decide.

Soon thereafter, Carter's first trip overseas provided another opportunity to signal his intentions. In Kuwait, he convened a war council of senior military and civilian officials to take stock of the campaign against ISIS. In a daring departure from standard practice, the new defense secretary prohibited PowerPoint briefings. One participant described the ensuing event as "a five-hour-long college seminar" - candid and freewheeling. "This is reversing the paradigm," one awed senior Pentagon official remarked. Carter was said to be challenging his subordinates to "look at this problem differently."

Of course, Carter might have said, "Let's look at a different problem." That, however, was far too radical to contemplate - the equivalent of suggesting back in the 1960s that assumptions landing the United States in Vietnam should be reexamined.

In any event - and to no one's surprise - the different look did not produce a different conclusion. Instead of reversing the paradigm, Carter affirmed it: the existing U.S. approach to dealing with ISIS is sound, he announced. It only needs a bit of tweaking - just the result to give the Pollacks, O'Hanlons, and Kagans something to write about as they keep up the chatter that substitutes for serious debate.

Do we really need that chatter? Does it enhance the quality of U.S. policy? If policy/defense/action intellectuals fell silent would America be less secure?

Let me propose an experiment. Put them on furlough. Not permanently - just until the last of the winter snow finally melts in New England. Send them back to Yale for reeducation. Let's see if we are able to make do without them even for a month or two.

In the meantime, invite Iraq and Afghanistan War vets to consider how best to deal with ISIS. Turn the op-ed pages of major newspapers over to high school social studies teachers. Book English majors from the Big Ten on the Sunday talk shows. Who knows what tidbits of wisdom might turn up?

[Mar 31, 2015] Ukraine s Bloody Civil War No End in Sight

It is very difficult to access the real situation in Donbass. there is a distinct Russian interference and the US interference in the conflict, so it is better to be viewed as a proxy war between the US and Russia. Somewhat similar to Syrian conflict. Where the Ukraine is just a victim of geopolitical games.
Mar 31, 2015 | The National Interest

After spending several days in and around Donetsk last week, I found it hard to escape the conclusion that the second Minsk ceasefire is rapidly unraveling. Nearly continuous artillery shelling and machine-gun fire could be heard for the better part of Thursday morning in the city's Oktyabrskaya neighborhood, not far from the airport, where fighting is said to have continued without surcease.

The OSCE reported that the main railway station in the city was shelled on March 25, and a visit to it the day after showed that to be so. Rebel tanks could be seen participating in exercises on the rural outskirts of Donetsk on the 26th. The sound of sporadic artillery fire could be heard in the city's centrally located Leninsky District well into the early hours of the 27th.

The mood among many in Donetsk-noncombatants as well as rebel fighters who comprise what is known as the Army of Novorossiya-indicates little interest in a rapprochement with Kiev. This is, given the conditions of the city after nearly a full year of war, rather understandable. Many bitterly complain of Kiev's chosen moniker for the military campaign it is waging against the separatist fighters, the "Anti-Terrorist Operation." Ordinary citizens and combatants alike view it as an attempt to dehumanize them as a whole by grouping the entire population of the region in with likes of ISIS.

Interactions with several rebel rank-and-files and a briefing from two rebel officers reveal even less of an appetite for a way back into the Ukrainian fold. As one senior officer put it: "Ukraine is dead. It was killed on May 2 in Odessa." Questions regarding Russian involvement were met with scoffs-though one did admit that "[their] Russian brothers" did provide food supplies to the area.

This is not to say Russia's support to the rebels is limited to nonlethal aid, just that it was quite obvious that all involved would be loath to admit it. In any event, despite repeated accusations of Russian malfeasance by Washington and Brussels, even the Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, admitted in late January that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

Interestingly, the rebels seem to have a similar mindset to those U.S. Congressmen who overwhelmingly voted to supply Kiev with lethal military aid last week: that the remilitarization of the conflict is simply inevitable. One rebel commander said that he expects Kiev to launch a new major offensive "within a week" and added, matter-of-factly: "We are ready." And ready, he claims, for the long haul.

The separatist forces, according to this commander, are prepared to fight for the next five to seven years for "Russky Mir" (which he defined as "Russian culture") to rid all Ukraine of what he called "Nazis" and "fascists." Pressed for details, the commander said he did not wish to impose a "Russian world" on Ukraine, but rather that each province ought to hold a referendum to decide its fate, apparently in a fashion similar to the referendum that was held in Crimea. The commander claimed to have (but did not provide) intelligence showing that over $3 billion of the $5 billion tranche of IMF assistance that recently went to Kiev is being used to shore up its military. In short, it quickly became blindingly clear that these people are in no mood to settle; and the idea that Kiev will emerge victorious anytime soon after the twin military defeats it suffered at Debaltseve and at the Donetsk airport-with or without American lethal aid-borders on the preposterous.

Yet it seems that the Washington establishment's (though, interestingly, it seems not the president's) preferred policy choice is to send lethal aid to Kiev because it is believed, no doubt sincerely, that a supply of javelin anti-tank missiles will somehow increase the number of Russian fatalities to such an extent that public opinion would turn against Putin-thereby forcing him to back down.

This is nothing more than a fantasy dressed up as a strategy because it attributes little to no agency on the part of the rebel fighters or, for that matter, the area's noncombatants. The simple, undeniable fact is that even if Russia was to be persuaded-via sanctions or via a significant uptick in military casualties-to wash its hands of the region, there is almost no chance that the indigenous military forces in the region would simply melt away. What is continuing to unfold in the Donbass-despite repeated protestations from Kiev's representatives in Washington-is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security.

[Mar 31, 2015] Ukraine s Bloody Civil War No End in Sight

It is very difficult to access the real situation in Donbass. there is a distinct Russian interference and the US interference in the conflict, so it is better to be viewed as a proxy war between the US and Russia. Somewhat similar to Syrian conflict. Where the Ukraine is just a victim of geopolitical games.
Mar 31, 2015 | The National Interest

After spending several days in and around Donetsk last week, I found it hard to escape the conclusion that the second Minsk ceasefire is rapidly unraveling. Nearly continuous artillery shelling and machine-gun fire could be heard for the better part of Thursday morning in the city's Oktyabrskaya neighborhood, not far from the airport, where fighting is said to have continued without surcease.

The OSCE reported that the main railway station in the city was shelled on March 25, and a visit to it the day after showed that to be so. Rebel tanks could be seen participating in exercises on the rural outskirts of Donetsk on the 26th. The sound of sporadic artillery fire could be heard in the city's centrally located Leninsky District well into the early hours of the 27th.

The mood among many in Donetsk-noncombatants as well as rebel fighters who comprise what is known as the Army of Novorossiya-indicates little interest in a rapprochement with Kiev. This is, given the conditions of the city after nearly a full year of war, rather understandable. Many bitterly complain of Kiev's chosen moniker for the military campaign it is waging against the separatist fighters, the "Anti-Terrorist Operation." Ordinary citizens and combatants alike view it as an attempt to dehumanize them as a whole by grouping the entire population of the region in with likes of ISIS.

Interactions with several rebel rank-and-files and a briefing from two rebel officers reveal even less of an appetite for a way back into the Ukrainian fold. As one senior officer put it: "Ukraine is dead. It was killed on May 2 in Odessa." Questions regarding Russian involvement were met with scoffs-though one did admit that "[their] Russian brothers" did provide food supplies to the area.

This is not to say Russia's support to the rebels is limited to nonlethal aid, just that it was quite obvious that all involved would be loath to admit it. In any event, despite repeated accusations of Russian malfeasance by Washington and Brussels, even the Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, admitted in late January that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

Interestingly, the rebels seem to have a similar mindset to those U.S. Congressmen who overwhelmingly voted to supply Kiev with lethal military aid last week: that the remilitarization of the conflict is simply inevitable. One rebel commander said that he expects Kiev to launch a new major offensive "within a week" and added, matter-of-factly: "We are ready." And ready, he claims, for the long haul.

The separatist forces, according to this commander, are prepared to fight for the next five to seven years for "Russky Mir" (which he defined as "Russian culture") to rid all Ukraine of what he called "Nazis" and "fascists." Pressed for details, the commander said he did not wish to impose a "Russian world" on Ukraine, but rather that each province ought to hold a referendum to decide its fate, apparently in a fashion similar to the referendum that was held in Crimea. The commander claimed to have (but did not provide) intelligence showing that over $3 billion of the $5 billion tranche of IMF assistance that recently went to Kiev is being used to shore up its military. In short, it quickly became blindingly clear that these people are in no mood to settle; and the idea that Kiev will emerge victorious anytime soon after the twin military defeats it suffered at Debaltseve and at the Donetsk airport-with or without American lethal aid-borders on the preposterous.

Yet it seems that the Washington establishment's (though, interestingly, it seems not the president's) preferred policy choice is to send lethal aid to Kiev because it is believed, no doubt sincerely, that a supply of javelin anti-tank missiles will somehow increase the number of Russian fatalities to such an extent that public opinion would turn against Putin-thereby forcing him to back down.

This is nothing more than a fantasy dressed up as a strategy because it attributes little to no agency on the part of the rebel fighters or, for that matter, the area's noncombatants. The simple, undeniable fact is that even if Russia was to be persuaded-via sanctions or via a significant uptick in military casualties-to wash its hands of the region, there is almost no chance that the indigenous military forces in the region would simply melt away. What is continuing to unfold in the Donbass-despite repeated protestations from Kiev's representatives in Washington-is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security.

[Mar 30, 2015] Nuland's Mastery of Ukraine Propaganda By Robert Parry

In other words, many of the "free-market reforms" are aimed at making the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder – by cutting pensions, removing work protections, forcing people to work into their old age and making them pay more for heat during the winter.
March 11, 2015 | consortiumnews.com
Exclusive: In House testimony, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland blamed Russia and ethnic-Russian rebels for last summer's shoot-down of MH-17 over Ukraine, but the U.S. government has not substantiated that charge. So, did Nuland mislead Congress or just play a propaganda game, asks Robert Parry.

An early skill learned by Official Washington's neoconservatives, when they were cutting their teeth inside the U.S. government in the 1980s, was how to frame their arguments in the most propagandistic way, so anyone who dared to disagree with any aspect of the presentation seemed unpatriotic or crazy.

During my years at The Associated Press and Newsweek, I dealt with a number of now prominent neocons who were just starting out and mastering these techniques at the knee of top CIA psychological warfare specialist Walter Raymond Jr., who had been transferred to President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council staff where Raymond oversaw inter-agency task forces that pushed Reagan's hard-line agenda in Central America and elsewhere. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Victory of 'Perception Management.'"]

One of those quick learners was Robert Kagan, who was then a protégé of Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams. Kagan got his first big chance when he became director of the State Department's public diplomacy office for Latin America, a key outlet for Raymond's propaganda schemes.

Though always personable in his dealings with me, Kagan grew frustrated when I wouldn't swallow the propaganda that I was being fed. At one point, Kagan warned me that I might have to be "controversialized," i.e. targeted for public attack by Reagan's right-wing media allies and anti-journalism attack groups, like Accuracy in Media, a process that did indeed occur.

Years later, Kagan emerged as one of America's top neocons, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, which opened in 1998 to advocate for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, ultimately gaining the backing of a large swath of the U.S. national security establishment in support of that bloody endeavor.

Despite the Iraq disaster, Kagan continued to rise in influence, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a columnist at the Washington Post, and someone whose published criticism so alarmed President Barack Obama last year that he invited Kagan to a White House lunch. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Obama's True Foreign Policy Weakness."]

Kagan's Wife's Coup

But Kagan is perhaps best known these days as the husband of neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, one of Vice President Dick Cheney's former advisers and a key architect of last year's coup in Ukraine, a "regime change" that toppled an elected president and touched off a civil war, which now has become a proxy fight involving nuclear-armed United States and Russia.

In an interview last year with the New York Times, Nuland indicated that she shared her husband's criticism of President Obama for his hesitancy to use American power more assertively. Referring to Kagan's public attacks on Obama's more restrained "realist" foreign policy, Nuland said, "suffice to say … that nothing goes out of the house that I don't think is worthy of his talents. Let's put it that way."

But Nuland also seems to have mastered her husband's skill with propaganda, presenting an extreme version of the situation in Ukraine, such that no one would dare quibble with the details. In prepared testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Nuland even slipped in an accusation blaming Russia for the July 17 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 though the U.S. government has not presented any proof.

Nuland testified, "In eastern Ukraine, Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage; MH-17 was shot down."

Now, it's true that if one parses Nuland's testimony, she's not exactly saying the Russians or the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine shot down the plane. There is a semi-colon between the "unspeakable violence and pillage" and the passive verb structure "MH-17 was shot down." But anyone seeing her testimony would have understood that the Russians and their "puppets" shot down the plane, killing all 298 people onboard.

When I submitted a formal query to the State Department asking if Nuland's testimony meant that the U.S. government had developed new evidence that the rebels shot down the plane and that the Russians shared complicity, I received no answer.

Perhaps significantly or perhaps not, Nuland presented similarly phrased testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday but made no reference to MH-17. So, I submitted a new inquiry asking whether the omission reflected second thoughts by Nuland about making the claim before the House. Again, I have not received a reply.

However, both of Nuland's appearances place all the blame for the chaos in Ukraine on Russia, including the 6,000 or more deaths. Nuland offered not a single word of self-criticism about how she contributed to these violent events by encouraging last year's coup, nor did she express the slightest concern about the actions of the coup regime in Kiev, including its dispatch of neo-Nazi militias to carry out "anti-terrorist" and "death squad" operations against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Nuclear War and Clashing Ukraine Narratives."]

Russia's Fault

Everything was Russia's fault – or as Nuland phrased it: "This manufactured conflict - controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers' expense - has cost the lives of more than 6,000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russians sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies."

Nuland was doing her husband proud. As every good propagandist knows, you don't present events with any gray areas; your side is always perfect and the other side is the epitome of evil. And, today, Nuland faces almost no risk that some mainstream journalist will dare contradict this black-and-white storyline; they simply parrot it.

Besides heaping all the blame on the Russians, Nuland cited – in her Senate testimony – some of the new "reforms" that the Kiev authorities have just implemented as they build a "free-market state." She said, "They made tough choices to reduce and cap pension benefits, increase work requirements and phase in a higher retirement age; … they passed laws cutting wasteful gas subsidies."

In other words, many of the "free-market reforms" are aimed at making the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder – by cutting pensions, removing work protections, forcing people to work into their old age and making them pay more for heat during the winter.

Nuland also hailed some of the regime's stated commitments to fighting corruption. But Kiev seems to have simply installed a new cast of bureaucrats looking to enrich themselves. For instance, Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko is an expatriate American who – before becoming an instant Ukrainian citizen last December – ran a U.S. taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine that was drained of money as she engaged in lucrative insider deals, which she has fought to keep secret. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ukraine's Finance Minister's American 'Values.'"]

Yet, none of these concerns were mentioned in Nuland's propagandistic testimony to the House and Senate – not that any of the committee members or the mainstream press corps seemed to care that they were being spun and even misled. The hearings were mostly opportunities for members of Congress to engage in chest-beating as they demanded that President Obama send U.S. arms to Ukraine for a hot war with Russia.

Regarding the MH-17 disaster, one reason that I was inquisitive about Nuland's insinuation in her House testimony that the Russians and the ethnic Russian rebels were responsible was that some U.S. intelligence analysts have reached a contrary conclusion, according to a source briefed on their findings. According to that information, the analysts found no proof that the Russians had delivered a BUK anti-aircraft system to the rebels and concluded that the attack was apparently carried out by a rogue element of the Ukrainian military.

After I published that account last summer, the Obama administration went silent about the MH-17 shoot-down, letting stand some initial speculation that had blamed the Russians and the rebels. In the nearly eight months since the tragedy, the U.S. government has failed to make public any intelligence information on the crash. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Danger of an MH-17 'Cold Case.'"]

So, Nuland may have been a bit duplicitous when she phrased her testimony so that anyone hearing it would jump to the conclusion that the Russians and the rebels were to blame. It's true she didn't exactly say so but she surely knew what impression she was leaving.

In that, Nuland appears to have taken a page from the playbook of her husband's old mentor, Elliott Abrams, who provided misleading testimony to Congress on the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s – and even though he was convicted of that offense, Abrams was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush and thus was able to return to government last decade to oversee the selling of the Iraq War.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Friend (MakePeaceNotWar), March 11, 2015 at 7:25 pm

I'm terribly sorry, but I would like to post this small joke from the other side of the ocean. The knowledge of geography and facts shown by representatives of the U.S. State's Department is so overwhelming that one can proudly claim:

"1 nuland = 100 psakis"

Thank you for your attention, please don't be insulted.

PS Jane Psaki and Marie Harf are inventors of the Belarussian sea (Belarus is a landlocked country), Rostov mountains (Rostov region in Russia consists of flatlands only) and the dependence of Russian on European export and gas (it's the opposite in reality). For Europeans it's like saying Grand Hill of America instead of the Great Canyon and Lincolnton instead of Washington.

PSS Mrs. Nuland claimed that Crimeans are mostly unhappy about joining Russia (well, according to the German GfK survey published in BloombergReview only 4% are unhappy – but it's of course a lie, evil Putin must have put pressur eon GfK to puvlish these data).

dennis morrisseau, March 11, 2015 at 8:12 pm

Cookie Nudelman is perhaps beginning to lose some of her chocolate chips?

2LT Dennis Morrisseau USArmy [armor – Vietnam era] retired.

xxx, March 11, 2015 at 9:15 pm
The crash occurred over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists, during a battle in Donbass, in an area controlled by the Donbass People's Militia. According to American and German intelligence sources, the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from the territory which they controlled. The Russians denied any and all access to the wreckage, contravening standards for investigating civilian aircraft disasters. Evidence from open sources indicated that separatists in Ukraine were in control of a Buk missile launcher on 17 July and transported it from Donetsk to Snizhne.

Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media website attributed to Igor Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatists, claiming responsibility for shooting down an AN-26, but after it became clear that a civilian aircraft had been shot down, the separatists denied any involvement, and the post was taken down. Malaysia said intelligence reports on the downing of MH17 were "pretty conclusive", but more investigation was necessary to be certain that a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane.

US sources attributed the downing to a missile fired from separatist-controlled territory, with their judgment based on sensors that traced the path of the missile, analysis of shrapnel patterns in the wreckage, voice print analysis of separatists' conversations in which they claimed credit for the strike, as well as photos and other data from social media sites.

The underlying assumptions of this and other articles by Mr. Parry on this and other questions regarding Russia is that anything the West says is always a lie and anything Putin says is always the truth.

What absurdity!

Gregory Kruse, March 11, 2015 at 11:04 pm

You should apply for a job at the State Department, but I have a few points to question.
1. The territory held by the "separatists" is so small that it would be impossible to determine that anything occurred "over" that territory.
2. According to German and US propaganda, the plane was shot down by ….etc.
3. The Russians denied any and all access to the wreckage, but the US analyzed the shrapnel patterns and there was plenty of pictures and other data from social media.
4. There were sensors all over the place but there has been no presentation of such data.
5. Some separatists admitted to downing the plane, proven by "voice print analysis of their conversations".
6. Parry thinks the West always lies, and Putin always tells the truth. This is called personalization. How about, " the West always lies, but the East always tells the truth". Or, Victoria Nuland always lies, and Putin always tells the truth". None of these ways of saying it are true, but the first one seems less absurd because it is clever propaganda, and that's the point.

Nick Gibbon, March 12, 2015 at 3:13 am

If from this article you don't question US sources on, oh, most things these days then pity you.

Meanwhile here's some proper, rational analysis about MH17:-

http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/133434.html

Joe B, March 12, 2015 at 8:36 am

Your sources are not credible at all. None of those "analyses" have any value at all, and the suppression of information by the US proves the deception.

1. "sensors that traced the path of the missile"
In fact no such evidence was presented or claimed: the whole debate would be different if that existed. The US denied any such photos and presented none. Russia claimed photos showing Ukraine fighter planes near the plane.

2. "analysis of shrapnel patterns in the wreckage"
The evidence was concealed, reports were of shrapnel vs. bullets although photos showed bullet-like holes. If a missile it might have just as well have been air-launched. If ground-launched, both sides had SAMs in the area.

3. voice print analysis of separatists' conversations … from social media sites.

This evidence is absurdly vague and suspect. If such persons so claimed, it was apparently gossip; we are of course not given the contrary gossip.

The fact that the USG suppressed the aerial photos, flight recorder data, ATC communications, etc., and accused Russia repeatedly of sending in armored divisions with no evidence whatsoever, proves the intent to deceive We the People by any and all means whatsoever. No USG "evidence" in this matter has any credibility, and those who accept it at face value merely state a lack of concern for truth and justice.

Joe L, March 12, 2015 at 10:31 am

Have you read Robert Parry's article "Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case" (October 20, 2014)? I believe this article is based on a Der Spiegel article where German Intelligence, the BND, claim that they believe that the "rebels" shot down MH-17 but they did it with a "captured" BUK missile system from a "Ukrainian Military Base"! Also in the article it points out that the German BND dismiss Russian evidence of an SU-25 shoot-down but also that photos provided by the Ukrainian Government of MH-17 "have been manipulated". Also, you are using "evidence" from "social media" as evidence? Well for me, if this truly was shot down by Russia or the "rebels" I am sure that the US would have satellite data since I believe there was a satellite overhead on that day and the US being the largest surveillance apparatus on the planet. With such surveillance power available to the west, why has the investigation of MH-17 devolved to mainly evidence from "social media"?

By the way, here is the article to Mr. Parry's article.

Consortium News: "Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case" (October 20, 2014):
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/20/germans-clear-russia-in-mh-17-case/

spktruth200, March 11, 2015 at 10:41 pm

Russia told the EU that they had a sat image proving Kiev Right Wing Nazis in charge of the Kiev military actually shot down the plane in an effort to blame Russia. Immediately Merkel and Holland made a desperate trip to Moscow to keep them from responding…Notice, not one corporate media has ever brought that issue up again. EU and foreign governments also know who really did 911, and PUTIN threatened to go public on that issue too.

madeleine, March 12, 2015 at 12:32 am

thank you for showing how deceitful these neocons really are.

seems like the US is the new USSR !

Huley, March 12, 2015 at 1:36 pm

No, that is totally wrong: The necon-US is getting more and more a HITLER-style regime, a NAZI-regime, mentally sick, preparing and organizing chaos, regime-change, war, ethnic clensing all over the world: "Exceptionalsm", "leader of the world", "to be the first", are nothing but synonyms for conquering the world. The US is getting the most hatetd state in the world.

The neocons should be eliminated before they take their chance destroying the world.

Andrew Nichols, March 12, 2015 at 12:43 am

Nuland is of the Goebbelsian propaganda school where it doesnt matter whether or not what she says is true, it becomes the truth because its repeated enough. I do wonder if she thinks she can survive nuclear war. We live in dark times a pivotal moment where the Empire really is upping the ante. We may not survive it.

Mary, March 12, 2015 at 1:18 am

Nuland and her hubby - war pigs.

Sydney Vilen, March 12, 2015 at 2:08 am

Why did Hillary Clinton bring Nuland, former adviser to VP Dick Cheney, into the State Department? The answer to this seems very relevant to the next presidential election.
Bob, March 12, 2015 at 12:48 pm
I completely agree, the answer to this question may well be the answer to All of our perplexing questions…

jimbo, March 12, 2015 at 11:49 am

I have been with Parry and his view that the Russians are the better guys in this conflict but I am being swayed in another direction especially due to a report on Vice which shows how active duty Russian soldiers had been killed in the Ukraine.

Huley, March 12, 2015 at 1:18 pm

This rotten mad creature should be brought to justice like the complete bunch of neocon organized criminals and fascists.

Tom Coombs, March 12, 2015 at 2:24 pm

Hey Robert keep up the good work. I was checking my bookmarked "Project for New American Century" today (it's been a long time since i visited the site) the website is gone, is there anyway to get an archived copy? I was introducing your website and your books to a friend of mine who is the editor of the "Valley Voice" a bi-weekly paper in the Slocan Valley of British Columbia in Canada. I lent her the four books of yours and was trying to show her the American Century website. Could you e-mail me and let me know how i can get a copy of their manifesto, i consider it the mein kamf of our time…Tom Coombs

Charron, March 12, 2015 at 2:35 pm

I saw the testimony Ms. Nuland gave before the Senators of the Foreign Affairs Committee last week on CSpan. After hearing a number of questions and comments by the Senators of the Foreign Relations committee I was extremely depressed. I have never heard such drivel in all my 84 years.

One Senator wanted assurance that we would install a nuclear missile system in the Ukraine, and I well remember what our reaction was when we learned that Soviet Russia was installing missile systems in Cuba. They were so cocksure and oblivious to reality I felt we were being governed by mad men.

I mean I came away extremely scared. They were all so unconnected with reality, it was unbelievable, and the Democrat Senators on the committee were as bad as the Republican. They had no understanding of what was going on in the Ukraine! You would think that as Senators they would have some slight understanding but they were all posturing as defenders of freedom and protectors of America from the evil Putin. They were all playing out a role in the morality play that they had created, that had no connection with reality. I mean I am used to baloney from our members of Congress, but this was on another level. Unbelievable!

[Mar 28, 2015] Psaki was very careful to avoid answering questions about what role the US played in the Ukrainian coup, but sometimes her answers were extremely cynical

Quote: "she apparently forgot how Obama had recently boasted to Congress that because of US sanctions, the Russian economy was in tatters."

Mar 28, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile, March 28, 2015 at 4:07 am

This is what Psaki says, as I posted 3 days ago after seeing an article about the Dozhd TV interview in Komsomolskaya Pravda:

I thought Sobchak had fucked off, anyway, because her life is in danger – allegedly: I wish she would.

Джен Псаки: Смещение Путина не является нашей целью, мы хотим изменить курс России

Jen Psaki: The ousting of Putin is not our goal: we want to change the direction that Russia is taking

Extracts and précis:
-----------------------------------The official U.S. state Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki is soon to go on maternity leave and will quit her post, which has become famous even in distant Russia. But before doing that, on Wednesday night Jen gave an interview with Ksenia Sobchak in a live "Dozhd" transmission.

Psaki: We cooperate with Russia on many issues, but we have serious disagreements about the Ukraine. About a year ago, Russian separatists invaded the Ukraine, and we had serious differences of opinion about this. We have drawn different conclusions as regards whether this action meets international standards.

Psaki then said what would happen following the U.S. Congress request that Obama begin arms shipments to the Ukraine:

Psaki: Congress gives authority for the president to act, but it is up to him to decide whether to take any action. Of course, our goal is to make Russia and Pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine strictly comply with the Minsk agreement. We are not going to wage a proxy war with Russia, but we are considering different options depending on what is happening. We are only talking about defensive weaponry, but weighing all the facts, we are trying to understand what decision will bring a resolution to the conflict in the Ukraine. There are many other levers: the introduction of new sanctions, negotiations with our external partners. The USA has a lot of options…

Russia and Pro-Russian separatists have encroached into Ukraine territory. There are Russian troops there, so there are good reasons for what Congress has recommended.

Asked by Sobchak if she thought Putin was a dictator, Psaki answered:

It is a pity that he seems to have ignored the economic decline of the country, which is having a direct impact on the Russian people, and is focusing on unlawful interference in Ukrainian affairs. Political leaders in America would be prosecuted if they chose such a path.

Sobchak: Is the purpose of the US to oust Putin?

Psaki: No, that is not our goal. Our goal is to stop the illegal invasion by Russia and pro-Russian separatists of Ukrainian territory. This is not about changing the leadership of the country. This should be the choice of the Russian people. But Russia is taking action specifically in Ukrainian matters, and Russia has the opportunity to change its course of action.

Psaki was very careful to avoid answering questions about what role the US played in the Ukrainian coup, but sometimes her answers were extremely cynical as, for example, in the case of the expulsion of Yanukovych.

Psaki: We tried to work with Yanukovych, but he left the country. There was chaos, and we are reminded of this today- and with deep regret.

Sometimes Psaki clearly deviated from the general line of the US leadership. For example, she apparently forgot how Obama had recently boasted to Congress that because of US sanctions, the Russian economy was in tatters. She said:

"We do not consider Russia as an opponent. We wish you success and prosperity."

Psaki did a lot of talking about cooperating with Russia – over both achievable and desirable goals. However, the sincerity of her statements did not lend itself to be very much believed.
-----------------------------------

End of excerpts and précis.

kat kan, March 28, 2015 at 4:40 am

About a year ago, Russian separatists invaded the Ukraine, and we had serious differences of opinion about this. We have drawn different conclusions as regards whether this action meets international standards.

Hmmm…. good question., What ARE international standards about people living where they live? When does living in your own house turn into an invasion?

colliemum, March 28, 2015 at 5:29 am

When someone else wants to have your house?

[Mar 27, 2015] Obama's Drone Policy Crashes and Burns BY Leonard C. Goodman

But until we end the partnership between government and corporate power, three things will remain constant: Our foreign policy will be expensive for U.S. taxpayers, profitable for the war contractors and disastrous for everyday people.
In These Times
The unraveling of Yemen should be a wake-up call for Obama loyalists. Obama was elected in large part because of his opposition to the disastrous Iraq War and his promise of a smarter Middle East policy, one less reliant on invasion and occupation. Nevertheless, in office, Obama has supported the occupation of Afghanistan and the NATO-led overthrow of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, which led to chaos.

Still, as Obama explained in a September 2014 foreign policy speech, the centerpiece of his strategy in the Middle East has been a more long-distance approach: "taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines." In other words: air strikes, drones and military aid. He touted the success of this strategy in Yemen and Somalia.

Indeed, Yemen has been the poster child for Obama's Middle East strategy. Using the U.S. military bases that surround Yemen, we have propped up the corrupt and repressive regimes of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his successor, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi (i.e., our "partners on the front lines"). In exchange, they let us incinerate alleged militants. And when we slaughter innocents (like 35 women and children in a 2009 bombing, or 12 members of a wedding party in a 2014 drone strike), our partners help cover up our crimes, even jailing the Yemeni journalist who exposed the U.S. role in the 2009 attack.

Of course, the cover-up was effective only in the United States, where most of our news comes from corporate sources that almost never challenge official pronouncements about military or CIA missions. The Yemeni people know all too well our criminal acts. Last September, 13-yearold Mohammed Tuaiman al-Jahmi told the Guardian that "he lived in constant fear of the 'death machines' in the sky that had already killed his father and brother" in 2011, as they were out herding the family's camels. In February, Mohammed himself was killed by a U.S. drone.

The Obama "success story" in Yemen had already come to an end in January, when Houthi rebels took control of the presidential compound in Sanaa, ousting Hadi, his prime minister and his entire cabinet. The motto of the new leaders is "Death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam." On February 10, the State Department confirmed that it had closed the U.S. embassy in Yemen, the third in an Arab country since 2012.

In truth, Obama's foreign policy is similar to George W. Bush's. The war contractors want to keep the rivers of taxpayer cash flowing into their coffers, while multinational energy firms want the U.S. to keep supporting brutal, undemocratic regimes that keep their boots on the necks of restive citizens who might object to foreign firms exploiting national resources. And as long as our laws permit corrupt ties between corporate interests and politicians, we will continue to see disastrous failure after failure of our foreign policy.

In February, Obama led a three-day summit on countering violent extremism. The president's remarks at this summit, of course, made no mention of our odious drone policy. No citizens of Yemen or Pakistan were invited to speak about how living with the constant anxiety caused by armed drones buzzing in the sky drives residents to join anti-U.S. terror groups. Nor was there any talk of the blowback caused by the U.S. military bases which garrison the greater Middle East, or of the corrupt, repressive regimes that those U.S. bases support. Instead, leaders of some of those regimes attended the summit.

Obama did offer empty rhetoric about how we are not at war with Islam. Such words are unlikely to impress Muslims outside the United States, who know that it's Muslims who populate Obama's kill list, who are indefinitely detained at Guantánamo without charges and whose systematic torture by the CIA was swept under the rug by Obama.

Americans, who are ill-informed about our actions overseas, will hear Obama's empathetic rhetoric and quite rationally conclude that the reason we are losing in places like Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is because Obama is too soft. Perhaps our next president will be someone who promises to get tougher on Muslim extremists.

But until we end the partnership between government and corporate power, three things will remain constant: Our foreign policy will be expensive for U.S. taxpayers, profitable for the war contractors and disastrous for everyday people.

[Mar 26, 2015] Ukraine pleads for quick restructuring of debts by Larry Elliott

"I guess at some point last year they made the strategic decision that any credibility amongst those who are well informed could be sacrificed. Very few Westerners (especially in the Anglosohere) will make the effort to find alternative sources, and the rest can easily be gulled." ... "How embarassing for the Guardian; history will not be kind to the complicit, useful idiots who have prostituted their credibility on the altar of propaganda." This neocons who run the show has thrown Ukrainian people into abysmal poverty and horrors of civil war and now want to sell all the assets for pennies on the dollar. Note activity of Psakibots (psigone, jessam, nickpossum, Mike_UK, etc) in comments. Quote: "I notice the Graun finally reported on the Kolomoisky situation. Only a week after he sent his armed gangs to occupy corporate HQs in Kiev. Not bad, not bad at all. I guess it takes time to be sure what the party line is in such delicate situations. Safer to say nothing than the wrong thing."

Mar 24, 2015 | The Guardian

Finance minister Natalie Jaresko wants to see debt cut and interest on remainder reduced so Ukraine can move towards stability

Jeremn -> MartinArvay 26 Mar 2015 09:04

It is Shock Therapy II. Deregulation. Privatisation ("privatization of everything that can be privatized and we plan to start it this year," she said on 13 March). Selling off assets. Firing staff.

See the number of staff being sacked from state institutions. 50% from the economic ministry alone. The minister helpfully remarked

"One can't do anything with old staff."

OldStickie -> Goodthanx 26 Mar 2015 06:53

East European oligarchs usually buy themselves Israeli citizenship. There is no extradition from Israel so that is where you go when justice begins to catch up with you.

sodtheproles Goodthanx 26 Mar 2015 05:47

Common sense dictates federalisation for the whole of Ukraine. The existing situation benefits only the US, and their arms manufacturers, no one else

61gvern 25 Mar 2015 21:12

I notice the Graun finally reported on the Kolomoisky situation.

Only a week after he sent his armed gangs to occupy corporate HQs in Kiev. Not bad, not bad at all. I guess it takes time to be sure what the party line is in such delicate situations. Safer to say nothing than the wrong thing.

nnedjo 25 Mar 2015 17:37

As far as I understand, with Ukraine is happening now something similar with the patient over which performs open-heart surgery. So, while the surgeons do not complete the operation, they must attach a patient to the artificial heart and artificial lungs, otherwise he would have died.

Similarly, the Ukraine until recently was inextricably linked with Russia's economic and industrial complex. Severing those ties were equally to the separation of man from his heart during surgery. And, IMF now plays the role of an artificial heart, which should maintain the patient's bloodstream until they implanted a new heart to him. How long the operation will last, and whether it will ever be successful, it is obvious that neither the IMF knows himself. Because, as Natali Jaresko said, Ukraine is a very big country, and throughout the EU is currently a major crisis.

Also, it is not known how the patient (Ukraine) will pay "the cost of the operation" to the IMF, if one day he really healed, and will he ever be able to do so.

sodtheproles -> Gonzogal 25 Mar 2015 17:12

I meant for ability to use government to line her own pockets, certainly not for her investment 'skills'

Jeff1000 25 Mar 2015 17:02

Prof. Steven Cohen, of Princeton and NYU, calls the Ukraine situation "the worst international crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWzHhW_qNiM

He's probably just a Putin-bot.


Gonzogal -> sodtheproles 25 Mar 2015 16:22

That $150 million WNISEF fund handed by Jaresko has lost more than a third of its value since the Ukrainian economy tanked. As she steps into office, Kiev's foreign reserves are down to $10 billion and shrinking, while inflation roars at 22 percent.

albatros18 -> todaywefight 25 Mar 2015 16:06

http://tass.ru/en/world/784470

my sources mostly Russian and Ukrainian news agencies or blogs. There has been occupations and clashes between the regime forces and battalions in Kiev, Dniepr and also in Odessa.

However my best independent source is Colonel Cassad.

Gonzogal 25 Mar 2015 15:43

Some background on Natalie Jaresko:

Ukraine's new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a former U.S. State Department officer who was granted Ukrainian citizenship only this week, headed a U.S. government-funded investment project for Ukraine that involved substantial insider dealings, including $1 million-plus fees to a management company that she also controlled.

Jaresko served as president and chief executive officer of Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) with $150 million to spur business activity in Ukraine. She also was cofounder and managing partner of Horizon Capital which managed WNISEF's investments at a rate of 2 to 2.5 percent of committed capital, fees exceeding $1 million in recent years, according to WNISEF's 2012 annual report.

The growth of that insider dealing at the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF is further underscored by the number of paragraphs committed to listing the "related party transactions," i.e., potential conflicts of interest, between an early annual report from 2003 and the one a decade later.

In the 2003 report, the "related party transactions" were summed up in two paragraphs, with the major item a $189,700 payment to a struggling computer management company where WNISEF had an investment.

In the 2012 report, the section on "related party transactions" covered some two pages and included not only the management fees to Jaresko's Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) but also WNISEF's co-investments in projects with the Emerging Europe Growth Fund [EEGF], where Jaresko was founding partner and chief executive officer. Jaresko's Horizon Capital also managed EEGF.

From 2007 to 2011, WNISEF co-invested $4.25 million with EEGF in Kerameya LLC, a Ukrainian brick manufacturer, and WNISEF sold EEGF 15.63 percent of Moldova's Fincombank for $5 million, the report said. It also listed extensive exchanges of personnel and equipment between WNISEF and Horizon Capital.

Though it's difficult for an outsider to ascertain the relative merits of these insider deals, they could reflect negatively on Jaresko's role as Ukraine's new finance minister given the country's reputation for corruption and cronyism, a principal argument for the U.S.-backed "regime change" that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.

Read more: https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/05/ukraines-made-in-usa-finance-minister/

DerFremde -> Jeff1000 25 Mar 2015 15:02

That's nothing their president Poroshenko has been on the American payroll since at least 2006.

Wikileaks Cable 06KIEV1706_a

frankverismo -> psygone 25 Mar 2015 14:30

"Russian President Putin's game plan now in Ukraine is to turn it into a failed state as an example to the others in his EurAsian (customs) Union."

As if Putin and Lavrov need to do anything - it's already a failed state. All thanks to Washington, its NATO stooges and a woefully naive Ukrainian population.

Jeff1000 -> psygone 25 Mar 2015 13:07

Ukraine is a disaster - anybody can see that. Your decidedly odd efforts to convince...somebody...that Ukraine is about to turn around and become a healthy economy is, frankly, mad.

If there isn't another coup, or at least huge unrest in Kiev, by the end of the year it will be a near miracle.

HollyOldDog -> SHappens 25 Mar 2015 10:38

The foundations of the bridge between Russia and Crimea are due to go in this spring though the bridge completion could take 2years. Has anyone heard of how the pipelines from Russia to Crimea are progressing - one for gas and the other for water. I think it's best for Crimea to be totally physically seperated from Ukraine for the safety of the Crimean citizens.

Griffon79 -> nnedjo 25 Mar 2015 10:09

pretty sure the shadow government in the US has decided to destroy the US - the social compact has been broken - no longer do they act in national interests, but private, commercial ones.

I give them about a half century before collapse followed by civil war.

Griffon79 -> UncleSam404 25 Mar 2015 10:05

Incorrect, but either your juvenile patriotism, or ignorance, or possibly payola prevents you from seeing the absurdness of your position.

Luckily, the rest of the world as they say is not so dim.

Griffon79 -> Jonathan Stromberg 25 Mar 2015 10:01

No, there isnt. This little coup has made that clear to the intellectuals in the West - you know, the ones not in government in journalism, the ones who make the society tick, that our media is at least as, if not more corrupt than any media, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, with the possible exception of North Korea.

So, I guess the elite thought we would either swallow this, after Syria, Iraq, Libya and countless other misadventures, or that they could retain some credibility after this propaganda assault.

Wrong on both counts.

Griffon79 -> Jonathan Stromberg 25 Mar 2015 09:58

Alleged? ALLEGED? Please.

Here, from the fine Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/05/ukraine-women-fighting-frontline

Check out the insignia on the vehicle behind 'anaconda'. Really great people our 'leaders' have elected to ally with eh?

Just to defend against your next deflection, it is in fact the neonazo simple 1488, as the Guardian, under pressure BTL, was forced to admit.

I bet some poor staffer got in trouble for that.

Griffon79 -> Mike_UK 25 Mar 2015 09:55

Ukraine was not attacking anyone until they had a coup, didnt like resistance in the East, and so sent a bunch of neonazi hooligans and their poorly equipped army to attack civilian populations.

Facts. Unsubjective ones. You feel me, Guardian?

Griffon79 -> psygone Mar 2015 09:52

Yes, and America will be nowhere to be seen. America likes to talk big but when it comes down to the wire, they will sacrifice their 'allies' in a heartbeat.

Griffon79 -> Mike_UK 25 Mar 2015 09:42

They weren't Ukrainian nuclear weapons ; they were Russian. The Russians were taking back what they owned. Also, given recent history, its probably a good thing the nutcases in the Ukrainian coup government do not have nukes, n'est pas?

What do you think happens to the US economy when oil is no longer being traded almost exclusively in US dollars?

Just curious what the Langley view is.

Griffon79 -> rogermell1e 25 Mar 2015 09:38

This point, from the HEAVENS:

"This is really a victory for Russia, because at one time a substantial part of the intelligentsia had some trust in the western MSM. This has now almost completely evaporated."

Griffon79 -> Systematic 25 Mar 2015 09:35

They don't conform to their dishonest narrative, so they wont report on it.
Right now meetings are being held to determine the best possible way to spin the news for the few dullards who remain supportive in Western nations of the Ukrainian coup government.

Griffon79 -> TOR2000 25 Mar 2015 09:34

ah yes but don't expect the vaunted Guardian to report that; they think we are rubes who will swallow their outrageous lies hook line and sinker

newsflash, kids in short pants, you are the ones killing your creditibility, not us

johnbonn -> Goodthanx 25 Mar 2015 09:31

You are on fire today, 'how are you'. Keep it going.

Griffon79 -> GreatMountainEagle 25 Mar 2015 09:31

Erm. Ukraine can. Ukraine is like a child that does not understand why her parents wont give her more money after she spends her allowance on candy.

Only instead of candy, she is spending her money on weapons with which to attack her own (former) citizens.

Griffon79 -> Demi Boone 25 Mar 2015 09:26

Its getting bad then since this has been true from the start.

How embarassing for the Guardian; history will not be kind to the complicit, useful idiots who have prostituted their credibility on the altar of propaganda.

johnbonn -> retsdon 25 Mar 2015 09:25

How else was the US going to conduct a regime change. And speaking of thugs and carpet baggers Joe Biden fits in nicely.

And why would you put the words western and credibility together - - a contradiction in terms.

Griffon79 -> jezzam 25 Mar 2015 09:19

"Ukraine will not be allowed to founder by the West whatever "

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Are you really that naive? Explains a lot, if you are Ukrainian. Idealists, not realists.

Griffon79 -> Vladimire_Poutine 25 Mar 2015 09:16

Well, as a Canadian, I certainly don't support your blatant lies and distortions.

The misinformation campaign headquartered in Langley has failed, miserably. People are only too aware of how our corrupt governments have connived in order to support a coup. People are only too aware that the coup government is a mashup of neonazi nationalists, corrupt oligarchs and poorly trained and equipped (and led - look at Debaltseve) conscripts who are deserting in droves.

We are aware the vast majority of the roughly 1 MILLION refugees fled East, to Russia. Not West, to the people trying to kill them. We are aware the vast majority of the killed civilians were killed by the Ukrainian coup government using artillery and that those same forces are being trained and equipped by our subservient governments.

We are aware Ukraine is a financial black hole that our governments will throw taxpayer dollars into, despite a crumbling domestic economy.

Oh - on the neonazis, dont even try to deny it. The Guardiane even posted an article about 'women of the revolution' unintentionally exposing their neonazi leanings when they were photogrpahed next to a van showing the brigade insignia of the SS (yes, that SS, WAFFEN SS)

Long and short, the battle for 'hearts and minds' is long lost. If the US agitates for WWIII to save their bankrupt state, I think the leaders best check their heads are still attached to their shoulders. People are the power, not the banksters and their puppets.

This conflict has done more to awaken Western citizens to the utter abrogation of our soverignity to US aggression than any of their previous illegal adventures. We dont like what we see.

sodtheproles -> MaiKey Dee 25 Mar 2015 08:34

That's why they called shelling their own citizens an anti-terrorist operation. The Americans have a lot to answer for, not least their abuse of the English language. Anyone remember 'collateral damage'?

MaiKey Dee 25 Mar 2015 08:26

I thought the IMF was not permitted to lend to countries in a state of civil war

todaywefight 25 Mar 2015 08:08

Poroshenko: Ukrainian army among five strongest in Europe

Yet they have to "orderly" retreat in the middle of the night from Debaltsevo leaving dead and injured behind as well as equipment. Furthermore they keep on begging for more money to arm these army while the population cannot afford to feed itself...

retsdon 25 Mar 2015 07:56

As this well-researched article at the Saker makes evident, the Ukrainian leadership is a rat's nest of criminals, thugs, and carpet-baggers. It debases western credibility entirely that we even deal with such people at all, leave alone support and court them. And it dirties the rest of us by association.

http://thesaker.is/kolomoisky-finishing-ukraine-up/

ivan2034 -> Drifterrus 25 Mar 2015 07:47

Victoria Nuland's background is even more telling. Quite frightening in fact.

todaywefight -> Standupwoman 25 Mar 2015 07:28

I have taken the liberty to copy your post to a series of documents that I keep since the beginning of this sad episodes...as your comment is one of the very few posts that is solid and deeply relevant, as such it affects ones feelings just as deeply, thank you.

sodtheproles -> HollyOldDog 25 Mar 2015 07:03

Robert Parry
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/05/ukraines-made-in-usa-finance-minister/

SHappens 25 Mar 2015 06:49

Moody's has downgraded Ukraine's "long-term issuer and government debt ratings to Ca from Caa3" with a "negative" outlook. The ratings agency said in a press release that its move "reflects Moody's expectation that Ukraine's government and external debt levels will remain very high, in spite of the debt restructuring and plans to introduce reforms."
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Ukraines-sovereign-ratings-to-Ca-outlook-remains-negative--PR_320764

Meanwhile:

Crimea has been experiencing an upsurge in development following its reunification with Russia thanks to the country's investment in the republic. "Crimea has not developed at such a pace as it has in the past year over the past twenty years.

Unfortunately, the 23-year-long tenure in Ukraine has been the time of regression for Crimea. The Ukrainian government did not invest a single penny into Crimea, at the same time it sucked out all possible resources from here," Polonsky told Sputnik, stressing that Russia "is taking an entirely different route" which is making a "drastic" difference on the peninsula. But even if Crimea residents were told not to expect any investment from the Russian government a year ago, they would have "still made the choice of becoming part of Russia," the minister stressed. The social standards, salaries and the level of medical services in Crimea grew sharply in the past year.

Standupwoman 25 Mar 2015 06:49

"Everybody in the free world should be doing more to help Ukraine. This is a country that has given its life for democracy and is protecting Europe from an aggressive neighbour".

Listen, Ms 'Insider Trading' Jaresco, and I'll tell you what you and your country have actually done to Britain.

You've damaged our economy by unjust sanctions, and used our taxpayers' money to fund your murderous war on your own people. British citizens are reduced to living off food banks, but you're demanding we divert our spending into NATO defence – to fight an enemy that would never have been a threat if you hadn't interfered in the first place.

You've released a poison into Europe that will take generations to cure. You've split us in two, revived old racial hatreds, and brought back the spectre of Nazism to the countries that suffered from it most. You've forced us into provocations that have brought us to the very brink of war – and one that threatens to destroy us all.

You've insulted our war dead by your revision of history. You've hailed Hitler as a liberator, deified those who committed mass murder under the Nazi flag, and defiled monuments to those who resisted him. You've made our war sacrifices worthless, and forced us to stand by while Nazi sympathizers glorify their heroes at the site of our own Cenotaph. You've forced us to insult our war allies by snubbing the May 9th acknowledgement of the millions of Russian dead whose sacrifice enabled our own country to survive. You've dishonoured us all.

You've taken away our self-respect, and put us for ever on the wrong side of history. You've forced us to condone the destruction of democracy, and made us complicit in war crimes. You've put us in breach of the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions, the Vienna Conventions for the protection of Embassies, and even made us abandon the presumption of innocence. God knows we didn't have much moral credibility after our colonial past, but you've taken from us every last little shred of decency we had left.

And now you want us to pay for the privilege?

No, Ms Jaresco. You can take your begging bowl back to Washington and tell them, 'You broke it – you own it.' Get them to stop the war, bring justice to the innocent, and give freedom to the people of the East. Get them to help those ordinary decent Ukrainians who only wanted the chance of a better life, and were misled by you to their ruin. Get them to rebuild Donbass, give back homes to the 1.5 million displaced people, help and compensate the bereaved families of those 60,000 dead. And when they've done all that, then it'll be time to start thinking about what reparations you can make to us…

sodtheproles -> Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:49

Let's hope she's booked her ticket
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/Saigon-hubert-van-es.jpg

Goodthanx -> oleteo 25 Mar 2015 06:43

Its fantastic isnt it? You couldnt script better characters than a self styled President in rent a Prop Poroshenko, Pre Menstraul Yatsintook, 'Its a miracle i can walk' Tymoshenko.. The list goes on..

TrueBrit1066 -> Jeff1000 25 Mar 2015 06:42

Thanks for this. Why does this not surprise me? :)

oleteo -> Jeff1000 25 Mar 2015 06:37

I'd wish a success to Ukies but ultranationalism can't be a success

HollyOldDog -> justTR 25 Mar 2015 06:37

Except for those countries who refuse to keep filling the pot.

Sargv_ -> jezzam 25 Mar 2015 06:35

> The only countries in recent history that have resorted to mass killings of their own people are Russia, China and Cambodia

USSR was not Russia, not even by a long shot. For starters, Russians were a minority on all levels of early-days soviet state machine, and were, by far, the most oppressed nation during communist rule. Consider the gains and losses for all the nations occupied by bosheviks prior to communist revolution, and after the Soviet collapse.

It's Russians, Chechens Russian Germans who lost the most, while Georgia - a homeland of Stalin, and Ukraine - a homeland of Kruschev and Brezhnev, gained enormous territories and industries. They lost most of this in just 25 years, but that's anothe story.

todaywefight -> Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:32

Sorry I don't see any mention of demonstrations and the army getting ready mate..just give me a link please

Albatros18 -> todaywefight 25 Mar 2015 06:32

she is the only candidate who does not scream for war. People, especially his allies, are fed up with Yatsenyuk's foul, nonsense, warmongering language. Let's see who will be the winner of this fight for power.

todaywefight -> Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:28

Thank you very much

oleteo 25 Mar 2015 06:27

Good girl, good start.

At the beginning there was the begging for money, now and then there would be an incessant begging to write off.

Albatros18 -> todaywefight 25 Mar 2015 06:27

Porkoshenko's website.

Verbum -> jezzam 25 Mar 2015 06:25

The US spent 5 billion between 1991 and 2014 on the development of standard democratic institutions in Ukraine

Is Kolomoisky and his private army one of the 'standard democratic institutions' funded by the US in Ukraine?

Verbum -> Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:23

Kolomoisky, Poroshenko, Yats... Is it the 'democracy' the Yanks spent 5 billion dollars on? The dollar doesn't seem to buy much nowadays. And Nuland's cookies to top it all up... All wasted.

Sargv_ 25 Mar 2015 06:21

With all that constant 'donate for the good cause' narrative here and there, Ukraine should finally drop the idea of being a sovereign state (as they are clearly suck at this) and register as a World-first 45mln-strong charity organisation instead.

Goodthanx -> Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:19

I say let them! The fighters of DPR are looking forward to the resupply!


Jeff1000 25 Mar 2015 06:18

Finance minister Natalie Jaresko...

Interesting notes on the career/life of Ms Jaresko:

- Born in America, still a US citizen.
- Not a Ukrainian citizen until 2014, Poroshenko pushed a special law through parliament in order to make her FM.

- Her dual citizenships are illegal under Ukrainian law (they seem to be OK with it).

- Held jobs at: The US State Dept, the US Treasury and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Just another sign that the USA has absolutely NOTHING to do with the mess in Kiev, and it certainly isn't about grabbing money, influence and/or natural resources.

Goodthanx -> todaywefight 25 Mar 2015 06:17

I have never lived there, but a close examination and reading of history plus an attitude that remembers we are talking about human life.. Is enough to convince me to the virtues of this cause.

ID075732 -> Parangaricurimicuaro 25 Mar 2015 06:16

But it's no secret where she came from!

todaywefight -> Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:16

Apparently he resigned... and Poroshenko accepted his resignation and installed one of his followers to the position.

Do you have any links to the rest of your post? if that lady becomes the PM Ukraine is gone for all money.

Sargv_ -> nickpossum 25 Mar 2015 06:15

> Two simple truths. The West does not want a war with Russia. If Russia attacks the West, it will be destroyed.

If Russia attacks the West, it'll attack the part it can reach, which is, obviously, the EU.

So the outcome will be slightly more complicated: Russia attacks The West, EU and Russia are both destroyed, while The Rest of The West grab all the gains (nobody will ever mention that $17tln debt; there'd be no high-end market competition wit US goods - and so on, and so forth).

There's only one winner in this conflict, no matter how hot it will get: the USoA. Europeans are predefined to the role of economical donor for pro-US Ukraine at best, WW3 cannon fodder at worst.

todaywefight -> Goodthanx 25 Mar 2015 06:12

What is sad is that, having lived in the country for many years I feel so sorry for the people, the normal people, not the Gucci, Ferragamo and Zegna brigade the guys wearing $4000 suits wth a black tee shirt, the ones that their idea of being part of parliament is to sit the whole day in Passage, or go to Da vinci fo lunch or go to Mafia for dinner and look important when their chauffeurs open the door of the black mercs a disgusting low life.

It will never be the same, forces were unleashed last year by Nuland that helped create a generational hatred and the loss of life not to mention the lose of 1/5 of the country and if Poroshenko or anyone else think that the eggs can be unscrambled I can advise them that they do not need the IMF but a bunch of Clinical Psychiatrists

HollyOldDog vr13vr 25 Mar 2015 06:09

But it won't last. The Anericans always screwup.

Sargv_ -> geedeesee 25 Mar 2015 06:06

> "Jaresko said that, in five years, she wanted to see a Ukraine at peace"

"In five years I want to be a five years sober." We definitely need an international AA for country-wide hangovers caused by 'we are the people' riots.

HollyOldDog -> someoneionceknew 25 Mar 2015 06:05

But the USA fallout is to destroy whatever is left of the Ukraine economy leaving it citizens with far higher food and fuel costs.

While Russia is finding new friends and markets the World over. Strange how many countries are now learning that if you don't protect your back then expect an USA knife trying to rip your guts out .

DerFremde -> HollyOldDog 25 Mar 2015 06:05

wag the dog, Holly, wag the dog

first law of democratisation, you will open your markets to us in full. nationalised assets will be privatised and you will take out IMF loans to do the 'restructuring' not the so-called investors. this debt will be paid for by the population in due course.

Albatros18 25 Mar 2015 06:03

Kolomoisky sacked by Poroshenko, the former's private army is on alert to attack government buildings, hundreds protest in Kiev asking Yatsenyuk's head, the reports suggest that the finance minister, the Chicago born lady to become PM, the junta still shells Donetsk towns, and what the Americans want: send more weapons. Only continuing conflict would save the Americans' crooks in Kiev in short term.

todaywefight -> Goodthanx 25 Mar 2015 05:57

Yes actually I saw one of the interviews, she wants the Russians not to call the debt, she also wants peace and then she turns the switch on and talks like Nuland and proceeds to shit all over Russia, It think the girl will be done like a dinner in no time...

todaywefight -> jezzam 25 Mar 2015 05:47

Probably the most important part about your posts is that they are totally disconnected from reality, and, as such we do not really have to even give you the courtesy of an answer.

todaywefight -> jezzam 25 Mar 2015 05:42

...the 2,000,000 to 3,600,000 killed in Vietnam and the millions left without limbs and the destruction of their cities. How about the hundreds of thousands dead in latin america due to the intervention of the US...the exceptional country...the thing is that all these deaths were based on lies invented by your country

AlexRS -> psygone 25 Mar 2015 05:41

Don't lie. Russia defaulted only on its internal debt in 1998. Russia cleared Soviet debt by 2006 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2945924/Reborn-Russia-clears-Soviet-debt.html

todaywefight -> jezzam 25 Mar 2015 05:37

What exactly do you call the targeted wooden buildings and the firebombing of these buildings by 300 b29s killing an US official "100000" and two days later the bombing of Hyrishima and Nagasaky, the 1,000,000 killed in Ira


Goodthanx -> Vladimire_Poutine 25 Mar 2015 02:36

As a Jew myself, i can tell you that Kolomovsky and the likes of him, does not represent me or the greater Ukrainian Jewish community. Referencing a 'dial-a-jew', does not provide validity to your argument, just provides further fuel to the propoganda fire.

Lastly i believe the question was, 'who do you work for?'

MSM is full of articles and comments that demonise Putin and Russia. The problem is, there is no where near enough attention and scrutiny brought towards the country that staged a violent coup helped by neo nazis who now control critical ministerial positions in the Rada, declared an ATO on their own civilian population in the east, murdered opposition and intimidate the rest, burn thru international funds and pocket the rest, war crimes..etc

These are the issues.

PlatonKuzin 25 Mar 2015 02:04

Kolomoisky id no longer a governor but the questions remain and the conflict between the oligarchs in Ukraine gains strong momentum. What next?

todaywefight 25 Mar 2015 01:58

In 1887, the struggle for control of Hawaii was at its height as David Kalakaua was elected to the Hawaiian throne. King Kalakaua signed a reciprocity treaty with the United States making it possible for sugar to be sold to the U.S. market tax-free, but the haole - or "white" - businessmen were still distrustful of him. They criticized his ties to men they believed to be corrupt, his revival of Hawaiian traditions such as the historic Hula, and construction of the royal Iolani Palace. A scandal involving Kalakaua erupted in the very year he was crowned, and it united his opponents, a party of businessmen under the leadership of Lorrin Thurston. The opposition used the threat of violence to force the Kalakua to accept a new constitution that stripped the monarchy of executive powers and replaced the cabinet with members of the businessmen's party. The new constitution, which effectively disenfranchised most native Hawaiian voters, came to be known as the "Bayonet Constitution" because Kalakaua signed it under duress.

Replace Nuland for Thurston and there you have a good example of there is no reason for reinventing the wheel.

irishinrussia -> UncleSam404 25 Mar 2015 01:16

Russia is not broke by any stretch of the imagination. It has a very low debt to GDP ratio. It still has $360 billion in reserves (even if that figure continues to decline at its current rate - unlikely as the rouble has stabilised - that would still give them almost three years before that money ran out). The budget deficit for last year was very small. This year it is projected to be around 3% (incidentally, about what the US deficit was last year and is projected to be for the next ten years). It continues to run a balance of payments surplus even with lower oil prices. The situation in Russia is certainly not peachy, but it is a far cry from "broke".

Demi Boone -> Vladimire_Poutine 25 Mar 2015 01:09

Oh Vlad, take a look at the marches honoring the Ukranian SS that just took place across Ukraine where thousands showed up, or the SS armbands worn by extreme right participants in the Maiden or the Azov Battalion who brags of their SS devotion (but they are quick to denounce the atrocities of WW2) I challenge you to show any article promoting NeoNazi's in Russia. You have obviously not read any Russian History to know the hatred these people have for the idea of the Nazi. Your accusations of Nemstov's murder are pure speculation based on your biased opinion. There were no Nuclear threats made by Russia rather they were saying that all systems were on alert. When a Russian plane flies close to the UK you had better believe they are on the same high alert. With regards to your statement about News credibility most media sources in the US whitewash the news. Did you read anything in any major papers about the people who were run over by Ukranian forces and given permission to "shoot to kill" if the crowd got too out of hand and began to fight back?

someoneionceknew -> Goodthanx 25 Mar 2015 00:57

What is it by the way, with her numerous investments in Ukraine and Moldova?

CIA, buddy. She's a company gal.

someoneionceknew 25 Mar 2015 00:51

"The good news is that we have made great progress on stability."

Words fail me.

These CIA types certainly can gild a lily when required.


Jerome Fryer normankirk 25 Mar 2015 00:44

The Russian economy in GDP terms is expected to have a 5% contraction year on year, then pick up growing. That assumes no favourable changes in oil price, and doesn't factor in Putin's attempts to steer the Russian economy into greater self-sufficiency. Oil is likely to recover, and the attempt to shift / diversify the economy could go either way.

(At a minimum, they will be replacing as much of Ukraine's former supply of critical components as quickly as possible. Russia have been handing out citizenship papers and jobs like candy to any Ukrainians that were working in the defense related industries. Putin isn't trying to rebuild the USSR, but he is trying to maintain the capabilities of the USSR by drawing critical personnel -- and allegedly machinery -- into Russia.)


Jerome Fryer -> BorninUkraine 25 Mar 2015 00:33

It is very sad.

Western propaganda used to be a lot smarter, presumably because of the 'clash of ideologies' background. Now we are back to the old, pre-Communist threat, standard of "The Kaiser eats babies".

Most people tend to only 'believe' this nonsense at a superficial level, though. Ask them about the 'reporting' and you'll find that they consider the assertions dubious. Effective propaganda is intended to operate at more of a subliminal / emotional level, and bypass our thinking abilities.

Jerome Fryer -> pantaraxia 25 Mar 2015 00:25

He is also president of European Council of Jewish Communities, which probably translates into backing from powerful Jewish interests in the US and Israel.

That is debatable, and incorrect. See here for why he resigned from the ECJC and started his own "European Jewish Union".

Kolomoisky is no less divisive than Poroshenko. He is, however, very much an 'old school' Jewish mafia type -- and prone to blatant aggressive behaviour such as the recent takeover of the UkrTransNafta building by his 'private security'.

Oh, and it appears that Poroshenko has gone with the option to try to arrest Kolomoisky's 'private security', as a start. (Source seems to be RT, though, so about as reliable / unreliable as the BBC.)

todaywefight -> Vladimire_Poutine 25 Mar 2015 00:17

Are you from the newly created Ministry of Truth in Kyiv? or "ukraine tomorrow"?
The former is an oxymoron Truth and Ukraine should never be on the same sentence unless it says Ukraine failed to tell the truth...that is acceptable...

I dont know Vladimire...in view of the current events and the little fight amongst the Oligarchs...and accusations against Kolomoisky, his partners and his rather strong response, I am not sure who the crazy ones are here.

HollyOldDog ID075732 25 Mar 2015 00:15

I could be wrong but I half remember a political cartoon depicting the USA as a Wreaking Ball against some other economy. I will have to check later.

BorninUkraine rogermell1e 25 Mar 2015 00:04

Wow! The circus keeps going.

Poroshenko relieved Kolomoisky of duties of Dniepropetrovsk governor (directive 173/2015).

In response, Kolomoisky promised to take his battalions from the war zone with LNR/DNR and direct them to take over Kremenchug power plant and the office of Ukrtransgas (Ukrainian "state" company involved in transport of natural gas). Mega-thieves started all-out struggle, revealing the criminal nature of current Ukrainian state for all to see in the process.

How can Western media report such a piece of evidence directly incriminating the US and EU?

Old_Donkey 24 Mar 2015 23:53

Let's hope that Natalie Jaresko's skills as a financier are better than her skills as a diplomat. She's asking Russia to accept a haircut on $3 billion of debt, and Ukraine's situation is so desperate that you can't blame her for trying. But if she wants the Kremlin to "buy into this vision", she will need to learn some manners and show Russia some more respect first. Jaresko presents Ukraine as a country that is "protecting Europe from an aggressive neighbour". No one who wanted to persuade Vladimir Putin to restructure the debt would say that unless they were either very stupid or dutifully repeating State Department propaganda (or both).

The fundamental problem with the Ukrainian government is that it is incapable of restoring stability to Ukraine and instead seems hell-bent on a continuation of the civil war. The Kiev government remains absolutely opposed to finding a political solution to the problems in Eastern Ukraine and refuses to recognize the authority of the rebel leaders, who, in Donetsk and Lugansk, are clearly "the only game in town". Jaresko's own government is busily wrecking the Minsk 2 agreement and has thereby enormously increased the political risks attached to any new loans. Already, Ukrainian forces have violated the ceasefire by firing on Russian journalists and OSCE observers near Shirokino.

The purpose of an IMF loan is not to enable a country to rearm or to continue fighting a civil war but to help it to rebuild its financial system. Until we can be confident that Kiev is committed to implementing Minsk 2, all IMF loans to the Kiev government would therefore be irresponsible and offered on a dishonest basis. The IMF is specifically prohibited from offering war loans by its own charter. At the moment, it looks as though Kiev needed Minsk 2 merely for form's sake, so that it could screw some more cash out of Christine Lagarde to pay for a reconquest of the Donbass once spring arrives.

Madame Lagarde's career has always benefitted from American support, and her eagerness to return the favour is understandable. She knows how the game is played but she also knows that loyalty to a patron has its limits. So if Jaresko and her State Department controllers expect Madame Lagarde to violate the IMF's own rules by continuing to fund Ukraine's neo-Nazi war machine, they may find themselves disappointed. Madame Lagarde still has a reputation to protect but Jaresko lost hers as soon as she joined the criminal regime in Kiev.

Goodthanx 24 Mar 2015 23:46

"we are lucky to have the support of the IMF."

Yes well according to Jaresko's biography which includes very cosey relationship with the IMF, i dont think luck played any hand in it.

What is it by the way, with her numerous investments in Ukraine and Moldova? Conflict of interest? Or just business as usual?

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=70651&privcapId=23915&previousCapId=47577789&previousTitle=Shatkin%2520Arbor,%2520Inc.

ID075732 24 Mar 2015 23:43

Jaresko said she could not complain that Ukraine had been ignored while the European Union tried to sort out the problems of Greece.

It's a joke isn't it?

Jaresko parachuted in by the US to help shore-up the coup they created financially and think it should have the same status as Greece. Now claiming a similar restructuring package that the EU refused for Tsipras?

The difference being that Ukraine is not part of the EU, nor part of NATO.

Jaresko is claiming that Russia is a threat to Europe? We all know Putin's big idea was for more trade integration with Europe that was the actual threat the US didn't want. So they turned Ukraine into a buffer against this happening, although its become more of a punch bag.

Another wreaking US intervention, we're all wise to this now. And when it's wreaked buy it cheap - great for Amerika's business. A win win for US backed business, a lose lose for the Ukrainian people!

EugeneGur 24 Mar 2015 23:31

Well, the oligarch war in Ukraine is intensifying. Kolomoiskyi threatened the head of Naftogas to take his battalions out of the war zone and to occupy the office of Ukrtransgas and Kremenchug power station. Poroshenko just fired Kolomoiskyi from his position of the Governor of Dnepropetrovsk region, which Kolomoiskyi is not about to give up, of course. The Ukrainian parliament, Rada, in the meantime is considering privatization of Privatbank owned by Kolomoiskyi, the move that could crush whatever is left of the Ukrainian financial system. Curiouser and curiouser.

I do hope that even those people in the West who had no clue before now realize that kind of personages their governments brought to power in Ukraine. Ukraine is in chaos, there is no government to speak of, and all these colorful individuals keep their personal airplanes ready for immediate departure.


Goodthanx 24 Mar 2015 23:09

"There is always a risk of a default," she added, noting that several factions in Ukraine's parliament were demanding that the government go down that route.

In Ukraine, we call it the classic 'Ha Ha..screw you maneuver.'

twiglette 24 Mar 2015 23:04

This absurd narrativeve that Ukraine is a beacon of Western democracy! It is a corrupt racist state whose current elite came to power in a U.S. inspired coupe that threw out the elected government that wished to join Russia. It has fought a viscous war against its Russian east. It deserves nothing.


rogermell1e 24 Mar 2015 23:03

Looks like Kolomoiskyi has had it. The "Kyiv Post" just ran an article in which they mention that Kolo has (gasp) "connections to organised crime".
:-D

Last week they were *very* careful about what they said about Kolomoiskyi to the point of barely reporting the events. But now the rats are fleeing the sinking ship.

Kolo had better skedaddle before we see yet another mysterious defenestration.

OneTop 24 Mar 2015 22:58

Natalie Jaresko wants to see debt cut and interest on remainder reduced so Ukraine can move towards stability

Jaresko is a US citizen who was appointed by Nuland [Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs] to run the finance ministry of the Ukraine. (the Ukraine granted her citizenship -- to give the appearance of legitimacy).

The Ukraine is run by very powerful oligarchs who have to date, much more political and real power than the western installed and supported Poroshenko.

There is no doubt the US / West will continue to support Poroshenko as he desperately needs US support to maintain his position, the more powerful "other" oligarchs with their private armies do not.

Jaresko is simply parroting US diktat (her paymasters) which is building the narrative that Ukraines' debt to Russia (primarily for energy) be legally declared as odious debt.

Which means that the Ukraine could stiff Russia for the billions it owes for goods and services already rendered.

In plain words, Jaresko is a mindless mandarin installed by America in an effort to wrest Ukraine from their evil Russian masters.


Vaska Tumir Kata L 24 Mar 2015 22:11

America's Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, has now informed him, in no uncertain terms, that "the law of the jungle" must end in Ukraine.

Ambassador Pyatt's statements are taken very seriously by Ukrainian Government officials.

Really?

They ARE the "law of the jungle" enforcers in Ukraine, as Pyatt knows perfectly well. In this instance, what we have is a situation in which a set of criminals of exactly the same sort as those in power but currently not in the government itself (Kolomoysky and his lot) is stronger than the set of criminals the USA put in power in Kiev. That's what comes from having a foreign policy based on pure banditry.

ChristopherMyers 24 Mar 2015 22:09

I realize this may be a very bizarre thought, but the situation here in the Ukraine bears a striking resemblance to the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 by the United States.

BorninUkraine -> rogermell1e 24 Mar 2015 21:57

It's not only the media, it is much broader than that. When I left USSR in 1991, most educated people believed BBC, Voice of America, and Western media in general, and had fairly good feelings about the US and Europe.

When I started reading Russian news sites last year (simply because the Western narrative about Ukrainian crisis made no sense to someone who has friends and relatives all over Ukraine), I was appalled by the level of anti-American and anti-EU feelings. Americans are called almost invariably "pindós" [Cyrillic spelling пиндос], which is a pretty derogative term, the US is called "pindostan", and most people think that Western media lie almost as much as Ukrainian media, which are notorious for ludicrous lies (like the story that Russia used nukes in the fight for Lugansk airport).

In the USSR I always knew that Soviet media are spewing propaganda, using half-truths and blatant lies. However, compared to current reporting on Ukraine in the Western media, even Soviet papers look truthful. It is very sad.

pantaraxia 24 Mar 2015 21:45

It will be fascinating to see which way the US goes with Kolomoisky vs. Poroshenko.

On the one hand a lot of time and energy has been expended propping up the Poroshenko gov't. In spite of this he is rapidly losing popularity with the populace and may be seen as expendable. A convenient scapegoat for the failed military operation in eastern Ukraine. However another regime change at this point would threaten the country with absolute chaos and would make external financing arrangements problematic to say the least.

Kolomoisky is hooked into the US state department, via Bursima, the murky gas company where both VP Biden's son and Kerry's stepson(?) are members of its Board. He is also president of European Council of Jewish Communities, which probably translates into backing from powerful Jewish interests in the US and Israel. Kolomoisky and Nuland seem to be kindred spirits both in their advocacy for a military solution as well as their general ziocon tendencies.

Interesting times indeed.


whitemangotnodreamin -> normankirk 24 Mar 2015 21:41

Because they are probably under instructions to support Poroshenko and his side kick no matter what..lest they want their hard drives smashed to smithereens in the carpark as it happened before. They did it with Iraq, Libya, Syria, Torture and Kidnapping, Diego Garcia...all of these glossed over...lately even the "suicide" of 7 party of regions members they reported as 4 and did not open for comments...such is life


frankverismo -> Chirographer 24 Mar 2015 21:39

"I don't think anybody really wants to lend or give the Ukraine any money because of the rampant corruption and "mismanagement" referred to in the article."

I don't think you get how this works. Or you simply don't wish to see the sheer depth of the venality at work. Jaresko has been put there by Washington. The plan is exactly the opposite of granting Ukraine its sovereign independence but rather to put it even further into debt thus putting it completely at the mercy of outside forces. It's already a black hole - and she's asking for the death blow.

"And the Ukraine's problems didn't start with the war or Yanukovich. While he might have been the biggest crook who ruled the country, he has competition for that title from previous leaders too."

Correct.

"Russia's aggression and policy of destabilisation is a huge aggravating factor at present"

Kindly tell us all about this 'aggression'. Be specific. You are, I assume, aware that Russia has had its Black Sea Fleet stationed in Crimea since the 18th century? What was Russia going to do when a US-backed coup happened on her doorstep? Hand her naval base over to NATO and let Kiev do to Crimea what they've been doing in Donbass? Really? Be honest. What would you have done?

"Ukraine's failing economy is another anchor, with low oil prices and western sanctions, tied to the feet of a sinking Russia."

Were the Russian economy remotely similar to the US' this might be so. But it isn't. It has a low debt-to-GDP ratio, an expanding manufacturing base and countries other than Europe and the US perfectly willing to trade with it (and not in US$). The sanctions are certainly an annoyance as is the low oil price but long-term this will only serve to further divorce Russia from the West's sick fiat system - a very healthy thing.

rogermell1e Systematic 24 Mar 2015 21:34

"I wonder how long can The Guardian & Co."

I guess at some point last year they made the strategic decision that any credibility amongst those who are well informed could be sacrificed. Very few Westerners (especially in the Anglosohere) will make the effort to find alternative sources, and the rest can easily be gulled.

This is really a victory for Russia, because at one time a substantial part of the intelligentsia had some trust in the western MSM. This has now almost completely evaporated.

TOR2000 24 Mar 2015 21:33

Kiev continues to violate the ceasefire (OSCE):

Between 09:40 and 10:40hrs, whilst at an observation point in the eastern outskirts of Sopyne (government-controlled, 15km east of Mariupol, 2.5km west of Shyrokyne) the SMM heard heavy engagement of small arms, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers and mortars, including 70 outgoing 82mm and 120mm mortar shells. The SMM assessed that the fire originated from one kilometre to the east and was directed further east of the SMM's position. An additional ten 82mm mortar shells hit 400m east of the SMM's position, some of which detonated in the air indicating that they were fitted with distance or time delay fuses. Due to the security situation, the SMM relocated to another observation point 4km north-west of Shyrokyne ("DPR"-controlled, 20km east of Mariupol, 102km south of Donetsk). Between 11:33 and 12:06hrs the SMM observed three incoming 82mm mortar shells exploding above Ukrainian Armed Forces positions north of Berdyanske (government-controlled, 18km east of Mariupol). It also heard small arms and light weapons fire as well as ten mortar detonations but was not able to ascertain the direction and calibre.
The SMM unarmed/unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) monitored both sides of the contact line east of Mariupol. At 17:38hrs, in Shyrokyne the SMM UAV observed outgoing mortar fire from a Ukrainian Armed Forces position.

The SMM revisited four Ukrainian Armed Forces heavy weapons holding areas, all of which comply with the respective withdrawal lines and remain in situ. All serial numbers are consistent with previous visits. Additionally, the SMM intended to monitor two additional holding areas, but these sites no longer contained any heavy weapons.

BorninUkraine -> rogermell1e 24 Mar 2015 21:33

Yes, the competition between two mega-thieves, Kolomoisky and Poroshenko, intensified in the last few days. Considering that the head of SBU (Ukrainian KGB) Nalivaichenko, who is CIA agent and US citizen, took the side of Poroshenko, the US plans to play against Kolomoisky. This does not guarantee Poroshenko win, though: this is about a lot of money to be made on oil, gas, etc, and then on grain that will be paid by farmers in return for credits for gas, diesel, and lubricants they need for planting.

It is well known (not in the West, I am sure, where people are fed ridiculous lies) that for this amount of money Kolomoisky would kill his own mother, let alone Poroshenko or even US ambassador.

So buying some popcorn is a good idea.

whitemangotnodreamin -> Jerome Fryer 24 Mar 2015 21:21

No prospect to repay 'loans' makes those loans unlikely.

Precisely, what Jaresko is essentially saying is give us the money but don't ask for it back... Nick is a confused soul...or a purposely confused one.


whitemangotnodreamin 24 Mar 2015 20:41

I actually watched one of her interviews on Bloomberg, full of softballs, she seldom if ever answered a question, in particular what would happen if Russia demands payment at the end of the year, and the fact that they are asking creditors to take a rather large haircut. The softest thing about this woman are her teeth, but as we will see being hard does not translate to being tough, hit a brick in the right place and it breaks.

So let's see who is Natalie Jaresko:

" A Chicago-born investment banker who received her Ukrainian citizenship in December 2014, she. is Ukraine's finance minister and in total control of Ukrainian financial policy. In the late '80s and early '90s, she just so happened to hold several positions at the US State Department before taking the position of Chief of the Economic Section of the US Embassy in Ukraine. She also managed the USAID-financed Western NIS Enterprise Fund, which kindly provided funds for 'pro-democracy' movements in Belarus, Moldova and, predictably, Ukraine. "

Ms.Jaresko, is involved in court proceedings, again. This time for breaching US passport laws. She was previously a US State Dept. employee and was granted Ukrainian citizenship so she could take the job.

She has previously been in court over the misappropriation of US funding through her previous company Horizon Capital. This company just happened to be a partner of Yatsenyuk's pre maidan campaign. The other party in the case is her husband who she has been attempting to silence by court order. She has also so far managed to silence her former husband spilling the beans of some significant loan improprieties.

But, hey what would one expect of a President who, was secretly palling up to the US's embassy in Kyiv when he was a minister for 3 different administrations in Ukraine, a man whose latest Human resource success was the employment of "Help me or I'll eat my red tie" Saakashvili a man wanted in Georgia who was being kept quietly in the US until now.

bobby_fisher 24 Mar 2015 20:33

US citizen, financial shaister and former State Department employee Natalie Jaresko is well positioned as Finance minister of Ukraine to oversee implementation of the H.R. 5859, the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, that among other things gives control to Washington over Ukrainian Energy policies, provides protections to American oil, gas, biotech, financial corporate interests over legitimate interests of Ukrainian people.

This seals the fate of Ukraine as US colony, instead of an independent state.

Chirographer 24 Mar 2015 20:32

I don't think anybody really wants to lend or give the Ukraine any money because of the rampant corruption and "mismanagement" referred to in the article.

And the Ukraine's problems didn't start with the war or Yanukovich. While he might have been the biggest crook who ruled the country, he has competition for that title from previous leaders too.

Russia's aggression and policy of destabilisation is a huge aggravating factor at present, but there will have to be real and substantial changes in the way Ukrainians conduct their businesses and government before they're going to get the kind money the finance minister is asking for.

It does seem fitting though, that given the economic ties between the two countries, Ukraine's failing economy is another anchor, with low oil prices and western sanctions, tied to the feet of a sinking Russia.


HollyOldDog DerFremde 24 Mar 2015 20:23

The Russian Steppes? The Ukrainian fracking has not shown commercial quantities of gas/oil. To try the same techniques in East Ukraine would mean closing down the existing coal mines first and even then there is a serious risk of contaminating the fresh water both underground and surface waters. All this with only minor prospects of finding commercial quantities of Fracked oil/gas.

If the existing cialthey mines in East Ukraine were closed down then where would West Ukraine get its coal of a suitable quality to be used in its coal fired power stations?

HollyOldDog Manolo Torres 24 Mar 2015 20:11

And not forgetting the looting of the Iraq museums by any sneak theif who walked through the unguarded doors . Only the Oil Ministry was important to the Americans.


pantaraxia HollyOldDog 24 Mar 2015 20:09

The Japanese had been attempting to surrender months before Hiroshima. The back channels went through the USSR with no constructive response from the American side.

According to a number of analysts there was another reason for dropping the nuclear bombs - to showcase to the USSR and the world the raw power available to the US military. A scare tactic.

Manolo Torres -> DIPSET 24 Mar 2015 19:30

That seems indeed a very good book, but one may end up extremely disgusted after reading it. From the review, to give our friends an idea of what Mrs Jaresko might be up to now and why her urgent plead:

An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad's Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq. The Washington Post's former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the Zone; into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America-a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot-'em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service- much of it run by Halliburton

In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions-a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production.

Mordantdude 24 Mar 2015 19:14

Everybody in the free world should be doing more to help Ukraine. This is a country that has given its life for democracy and is protecting Europe from an aggressive neighbour," she said.

Meanwhile with the little help from "the free world" Ukraine downgraded further into junk by Moody's. Do you need more?

pantaraxia 24 Mar 2015 19:14

The whole IMF program is a con job, transferring debt onto the Ukrainian government and its taxpayers (with the inevitable austerity and privatization programs to follow), while leaving the back door wide open to systemic abuse by well-connected oligarchs.

As for where the IMF money which has been paid into the Ukrainian banks has gone, the report discloses … the banking system faced large foreign currency outflows (US$3.1 billion). Capital controls likely prevented larger outflows, but were not fully effective in stemming them."

In short, of the $3.2 billion disbursed to the Ukrainian treasury by the IMF at the start of May, $3.1 billion had disappeared offshore by the middle of August.

The looting continues.

HollyOldDog -> nickpossum 24 Mar 2015 19:08

There is a history of the other side of the coin with the actions of the USA. When Japan was on the point of defeat and negociations for Japan's surrender to the USA and its allies were occuring , the USA decided to drop nuclear bombs on Japan. A senior military spokesman from that period gave the reasons why.

1. To force Japan to surrender more quickley and solely under the terms Givern solely by the USA.

2. If it saved only ONE DAY of negociations then dropping nuclear bombs on Jalan would be worth it.

Millions of Japanese citizens died either through the the blasts themselves or by radiation sickness just for the Americans to save ONE DAY of negociations.


pantaraxia 24 Mar 2015 18:36

For the sordid backstory on the IMF loan to Ukraine:

THE IMF IS POSTUREPEDIC, SO IGOR KOLOMOISKY CAN SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=12944#more-12944

some excerpts:

The new loan terms announced by the IMF last week, postpone reform by the commercial banks until well into 2016. In the meantime, the IMF says it will allow about $4 billion of its loan cash to be diverted to the treasuries of the oligarch-owned banks. That is almost one dollar in four of the IMF loan to Ukraine.

The biggest beneficiary of last year's IMF financing is likely to repeat its good fortune, according to sources close to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). This is PrivatBank, controlled by Igor Kolomoisky , governor of Dniepropetrovsk region and financier of several units fighting on Kiev's side in the civil war.

snip

…Kolomoisky has been assured by the IMF that he is one of the few Ukrainian taxpayers to be safe from an increase in income tax.

snip

The justification for the PrivatBank payout, …
For collateral, Gontareva (NBU Governor) has accepted a shareholding in the bank, plus an undisclosed number of airplanes owned by Kolomoisky, or by airlines associated with the Privat group. …. They are all bankrupt, and so the asset value is uncertain and the subject of creditor claims pending in several countries

and the punch line:

…." A Geneva banker with an office close to Kolomoisky's residence in the city comments: "Not even the Swiss have thought of war financing like this – funding civil war, then taking international loans for compensation, then banking the profit margin in Geneva."


DIPSET Manolo Torres 24 Mar 2015 18:17

Be fair, most of that money to rebuild Iraq was stolen by the same homicidal maniacs that destroyed the country in the first place.

True that.

You won't find a better tome than this book on the whole debacle and financial corruption the Yanks got into in Iraq.....

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Imperial_Life_in_the_Emerald_City.html?id=Tz2LT0gL_pYC&redir_esc=y

Some juicy bits........

Because of bureaucratic delays, only 2 percent of the $18.4 billion Supplemental had been spent. Nothing had been expended on construction, health care, sanitation, or the provision of clean water, and more money had been devoted to administration than all projects related to education, human rights, democracy, and governance combined. At the same time, the CPA had managed to dole out almost all of a $20 billion development fund fed by Iraq's oil sales, more than $1.6 billion of which had been used to pay Halliburton, primarily for trucking fuel into Iraq.

Or this......

The first guy who was assigned to help rebuild Iraq's health sector was named Skip Burkle. And Skip is physician. He has a Master's degree in public health. He has four postgraduate degrees. He teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He had worked in Kosovo, in Somalia and in Northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. He also was employed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and a USAID colleague called him the single most talented post-conflict public health specialist in the U.S. government. But a few weeks after the fall of Saddam's government, Mr. Burkle was informed by an email from a superior at USAID that he was being replaced. He was told that the White House wanted, quote/unquote, "a loyalist" in the job. And I write in the book that Burkle had a wall of degrees, but he didn't have a picture with the President.

In his place was sent Jim Haveman. Jim Haveman does not have a medical degree. He was a social worker, and he was the former Director of Community Health in the State of Michigan. Prior to his stint in government, he had a little bit of international experience, but it was largely in the context of being a director for International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that promotes Christianity in the developing world in conjunction with development assistance. And prior to that, he headed up a large adoption agency in the State of Michigan that urges pregnant women not to have abortions.

Well, Haveman showed up, and his view was that, look, Iraq didn't need a huge infusion of money to rebuild its hospitals, even though I and other people who have been to Iraqi hospitals have seen them to be thoroughly decrepit and really, you know, in need of an overhaul, and particularly with the violence that's wracking that country today and the number of injured from insurgent attacks. You would think that really putting resources toward rebuilding emergency rooms would be a top priority.

Instead, Haveman devoted resources to other projects.

And now they have moved onto Ukraine.

Good luck is all i can say......

Bosula -> Mike_UK 24 Mar 2015 17:56

Ukraine is a country not a business. The interests of countries are very different from fund mangers, hedge funds, etc.

Very unusual to bring in a foreigner to a country to run a finance ministry when there are serious legal allegationS about propriety hanging over her head.

Could you imagine bringing in a Sate Department official to run the finances of the UK?

Ukraine has a lot of smart people...

Another Nuland buddy meddling in Ukrainian affairs.


DIPSET BunglyPete 24 Mar 2015 17:53

now emblazined with Bransons face in giant ads as testament to the corporate takeover

Ah yes, the faustian pact and it's tentacles are eating Ukraine up (and soon to spit out an empty husk) right in front of our eyes.

Remember that American company that brought up all that pure and rich soil and agricultural land in Ukraine ?

Look what's been happening back at the ranch in Yankee Land......

After paying an original sum of $2.4 million to reimburse farmers for contaminating their fields with genetically modified wheat that had not even yet been approved for farming, Monsanto has been forced to pay another $350,000 in order to settle a class action lawsuit brought upon by numerous farmers from over seven different states.

The news comes amid economic struggles for the biotech juggernaut that have resulted in the loss of share value and poor projections for the long term future. In last year's fourth quarter, Monsanto reported a loss of $156 million. And for the multi-billion dollar company, it's not about the monetary figure, but the future of its genetically modified creations that the public just simply isn't buying.

In the latest legal settlement, we find that Monsanto's new method of simply paying off farmers just isn't going to cut it when it comes to international trade. Following the news that GMO wheat had contaminated nearby wheat supplies, Japan and South Korea suspended a number of wheat orders from the United States - a blow towards the national economy in full thanks to Monsanto.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-hit-with-fine-for-genetically-contaminating-wheat-supply/5438551

And these are the "friends" Ukraine have placed their trust in since this whole think kicked off last year.

Who needs enemies, eh ?

Fascinating times...

frankverismo -> nnedjo 24 Mar 2015 17:36

"Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad, while allowing its own infrastructure to crumble untended? Why do we even think of that as "policy"?

The Wolfowitz Doctrine is a giant boot sworn to crush national self-determination wheresoever on the globe it may be found. If ordinary Americans have to pay the bill, so be it.

It's not much of a policy - but it's what happens when Washington is taken over by those the White House used to rightly refer to as 'The Crazies'.

BunglyPete DIPSET 24 Mar 2015 17:30

9

10

It gets better! Pinchuk made donations to the Clinton fund before Maidan, and not only this he was the top contributor.

Back in September 2013 they all met with Blair, Branson, IMF and more to hash it all out in Yalta at a Pinchuk bash.

Check vesti-ukr.com a Ukraine news site now emblazined with Bransons face in giant ads as testament to the coporate takeover. Fantastic stuff.

Reply | Pick

Report


nnedjo -> nnedjo 24 Mar 2015 17:27

Here's another interesting article on the same topic:
How Not to Reconstruct Iraq, Afghanistan -- or America
Peter Van Buren

Some images remain like scars on my memory. One of the last things I saw in Iraq, where I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44 billion American taxpayers put up to "reconstruct" that country, were horses living semi-wild among the muck and garbage of Baghdad. ...

I flew home that same day, a too-rapid change of worlds, to a country in which the schools of my hometown in Ohio could not afford to pay teachers a decent wage. Once great cities were rotting away as certainly as if they were in Iraq, where those horses were scrabbling to get by.

To this day I'm left pondering these questions: Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad, while allowing its own infrastructure to crumble untended? Why do we even think of that as "policy"?

Canigou 24 Mar 2015 17:24

I like the picture at the top of the article-----it shows burning tires, tired and hungry-looking men sitting on makeshift seats and shivering, trash strewn about, some motley men in the background standing about doing nothing, some sinister-looking smoke rising as a backdrop. A bleak, hellish, desperate, post-apocalyptic landscape.

It seems to be from the Maidan riots of last year, but makes a fitting image for an article about the Ukraine economy of 2015.

EugeneGur 24 Mar 2015 17:23

Well, people of Europe, it's time to open up your wallets to pay for the handiwork of your leaders. Ukraine is indeed a large country on the verge of economical collapse marred in a civil war. The present "government" did everything in its power to ruin the economy succeeding quite well. They alienated and then destroyed Donbass responsible for a good part of the country's economic output. They disrupted economic ties with Russia, the main trading partner, so most enterprises have closed or are closing throwing workers out on the streets.

Give these people more money - and they'll spend some on the war they'll lose, and steal the rest. It is hard to tell whether they are more inept or corrupt - I guess they are just well-rounded individuals combining the highest degree of greed and corruption with utter stupidity/ineptitude and total disregard for their country's interests. One example: Ukraine is short on coal, but the miners in Volyne region, the only coal deposit outside of Donbass, haven't been paid for months and are now on strike. Is that what they mean by "structural reforms", not paying salaries any more?


HollyOldDog -> UncleSam404 24 Mar 2015 17:23

Interesting, so you agree with the Ukrainian Oligarts having a right to plunder the assets of Ukraine - Let the People eat cake. Perhaps this attitude that the West has to Ukraine will bolster the undercurrent of discontent within West Ukraine citizens to boot out its current government and Western Freeloaders.

A French style revolution baring the gillotine is in the cards.


nnedjo 24 Mar 2015 17:19

Jaresko said the IMF loan was enough to stabilise the economy but not sufficient to "reorganise and renew" it.

The intention to "reorganise and renew" Ukraine's economy is very generous indeed. However, before accepting this job, Ms. Jaresko should draw some lessons from previous unsuccessful attempts of the kind:

The U.S. has spent more reconstructing Iraq and Afghanistan than it did rebuilding Germany after World War II. And it's not done yet.

Released: January 18, 2013

The United States has invested more reconstructing Iraq and Afghanistan than it did rebuilding Germany after World War II. $60.45 billion has been spent in Iraq, more than $100 billion in Afghanistan. For comparison, the U.S. spent less than $35 billion in today's dollars in Germany from 1946 through 1952...
These are reconstruction costs only; the total cost to the U.S. of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts exceeds $1.4 trillion.


babalua Mike_UK 24 Mar 2015 17:18

Ukraine is not to be compared to anything, let alone to a company. Parasite living off Russia, EU and everyone else. Should not really be a state. With crooks in power? Not only crooks, but literally scum?! You call it a country and compare it to whatever? Oh, god, wake up. You know , the funnu thing is that this black hole of Europe even wants to compete with Russia. Who are these people from U? Are they taking LSD?


DIPSET BunglyPete 24 Mar 2015 17:17

She also recently spoke at the Brookings insitute of which Nulands husband is a key member. Theyre all in it together in one big circle of dodgy deals and kickbacks.

:-)

As always, you are spot on Sir.

I'm sure you have read this but sharing is caring as they say lol..........

Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have a great mom-and-pop business going. From the State Department, she generates wars and – from op-ed pages – he demands Congress buy more weapons.

......a new Cold War took shape. Prominent neocons, including Nuland's husband Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century which masterminded the Iraq War, hammered home the domestic theme that Obama had shown himself to be "weak," thus inviting Putin's "aggression."

In May 2014, Kagan published a lengthy essay in The New Republic entitled "Superpowers Don't Get to Retire," in which Kagan castigated Obama for failing to sustain American dominance in the world and demanding a more muscular U.S. posture toward adversaries.

According to a New York Times article about how the essay took shape and its aftermath, writer Jason Horowitz reported that Kagan and Nuland shared a common world view as well as professional ambitions, with Nuland editing Kagan's articles, including the one tearing down her ostensible boss.

Though Nuland wouldn't comment specifically on her husband's attack on Obama, she indicated that she held similar views. "But suffice to say," Nuland said, "that nothing goes out of the house that I don't think is worthy of his talents. Let's put it that way."

Horowitz reported that Obama was so concerned about Kagan's assault that the President revised his commencement speech at West Point to deflect some of the criticism and invited Kagan to lunch at the White House, where one source told me that it was like "a meeting of equals."

I found this bit even more fascinating......

And, whenever peace threatens to break out in Ukraine, Nuland jumps in to make sure that the interests of war are protected. Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande hammered out a plan for a cease-fire and a political settlement, known as Minsk-2, prompting Nuland to engage in more behind-the-scenes maneuvering to sabotage the deal.

In another overheard conversation - in Munich, Germany - Nuland mocked the peace agreement as "Merkel's Moscow thing," according to the German newspaper Bild, citing unnamed sources, likely from the German government which may have bugged the conference room in the luxurious Bayerischer Hof hotel and then leaked the details.

Picking up on Nuland's contempt for Merkel, another U.S. official called the Minsk-2 deal the Europeans' "Moscow bullshit."

Nuland suggested that Merkel and Hollande cared only about the practical impact of the Ukraine war on Europe: "They're afraid of damage to their economy, counter-sanctions from Russia." According to the Bild story, Nuland also laid out a strategy for countering Merkel's diplomacy by using strident language to frame the Ukraine crisis.

"We can fight against the Europeans, we can fight with rhetoric against them," Nuland reportedly said

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/20/a-family-business-of-perpetual-war/

Yikes!!!

Europe has got itself entangled in some bullshit it is going to regret for a looooong time.

Hope them cookies tasted good and were worth it.

BunglyPete 24 Mar 2015 16:57

Jaresko is quite possibly the most poorly judged person to be in her position, nevermind make these claims.

She is not only a US citizen ex State Dept employee who was granted Ukrainian citizenship just to take the job, she is involved in other affairs that seriously question her credibility.

Firstly she is involved in a lawsuit filed by her ex husband who claims she missappropriated USAID funds through her Ukrainian company Horizon Capital. She had a court injuction taken out to prevent her husband discussing the case.

Furthermore, Horizon Capital funded Yatsenyuk's Open Ukraine campaign in the years before he came to power.

The whole idea of the new government was to get rid of corruption and outside influence and move to a new honest and accountable system.

Now we have a foreigner trying their hardest to push more IMF debt which benefits very few people other than those friendly to Jaresko; which would be, western financial and corporate interests, the main IMF stakeholders and the Yatsenyuk government.

Ukrainian citizens lose pensions and fight over food in supermarkets as Jaresko is chaffeuered around in the most expensive car her ministry has ever bought.

She also recently spoke at the Brookings insitute of which Nulands husband is a key member. Theyre all in it together in one big circle of dodgy deals and kickbacks.

nnedjo -> Mike_UK 24 Mar 2015 16:56

What the hell was the problem before the Russians invaded that justified armed take over of police stations and tanks being sent into Ukraine.

The government which the Ukrainian people voted in the previous election was violently overthrown in Kiev, by the people for which the people from the Donbas not only never voted, but in many cases not even know them.

So, it's very simple. People from Donbas took care to protect their police stations and other government buildings that foreign visitors would not have entered into them.

frankverismo 24 Mar 2015 16:56

"Everybody in the free world should be doing more to help Ukraine. This is a country that has given its life for democracy and is protecting Europe from an aggressive neighbour," she said.

Was a more incorrect statement ever made? The 'democracy' of which she speaks was, sadly, Victoria Nuland's idea of democracy: "the democracy Ukraine deserves".

Does Ukraine really 'deserve' to be torn apart by warring oligarchs while being used by Washington as a proxy war theatre to bait Russia into a wider conflict? Should the Ukranian people have seen this coming? Probably. Did they ever have much choice in the matter? Little, if any. A bloody tragedy.


brianboru1014 psygone 24 Mar 2015 16:44

Russian economy going down the tubes?
I very much doubt it. They have what the West needs, and lots of it

The article is about this Ukrainian Foreign Minister, a woman with a begging bowl and really zero to offer the West except a monstrous headache. Too bad Bush's neocon Victoria Nuland (who should have been dismissed by Obama, but wasn't) but was able to poison everything in this particular part of the world with her now famous obscene comment referring to the European Union.[11] After discussing Ukrainian opposition figures Nuland stated that she preferred the United Nations as mediator, instead of the European Union, adding "Fuck the EU,".
So as a result, the EU will give her zero.

nnedjo 24 Mar 2015 16:34

"Everybody in the free world should be doing more to help Ukraine. This is a country that has given its life for democracy and is protecting Europe from an aggressive neighbour," she [Mrs Jaresko] said.

So, practically until yesterday, in its economic existence Ukraine relied on its "aggressive neighbor." This is what Russian PM Medvedev wrote about it in his article, at the end of last year:

How Russia supported the Ukrainian economy

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of this (including the gas transport system) went to Ukraine. In addition, Russia took on the entire Soviet debt. Ukraine entered a new era in its history, free of any burden. That is why in 1991 its initial conditions for economic growth were among the best in the post-Soviet space. And that's precisely why the economy of independent Ukraine managed to remain afloat. Until recently, Ukraine was using its past achievements to survive. It continued to rely on cooperation with Russia. And it used our resources.

Does Mrs. Jaresko thought to this when she said that "Ukraine protects Europe from its aggressive eastern neighbor." Okay, no problem. Aggressive eastern neighbor no longer needs to pumped gas and money to Ukraine with its invasive methods. As of this moment its "less aggressive" Western friends can take on this responsibility. In particular, the country of origin of Mrs. Jaresko, United States, could take care of it. It is also a very big country, and besides, they constantly boast to their economic superiority over Russia.
Well then, if you wanted, here you go, be our guest!

SHappens -> Mike_UK 24 Mar 2015 16:26

It's the same with ISIS supporters and ISIS terrorists, they need each other for their terrorist activities to spread

Indeed, what we do not hear about is that while we fight the Islamic State, alias ISIS, in Iraq and Syria, Washington and the Caliphate are fighting on the same side in Ukraine.

Nobody is paying attention to the role played by the Dudayev Battalion, a fighting force of Islamic radicals consisting of Chechens, but also including fighters from the Caucasus and some Ukrainians.

geedeesee -> Mike_UK 24 Mar 2015 16:24

"What the hell was the problem before the Russians invaded..."

If the Russians had invaded it would be a war, whether declarations had been made or not. The Ukraine-Russian War. But there is no war between the two states. Kiev instead calls it an "anti-terror operation". Objective observers like me would call it a civil war.

Steve Ennever 24 Mar 2015 15:48

That's American, Natalie - I'm Ukrainian now - Jaresko, right? Strange, even David Cameron had some thoughts on this subject...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEwREymsSNU

It appears supporting the overthrow of one democratically elected president because you didn't like him & he was corrupt, apparently doesn't remove the corruption.
But other things should be raising the eyebrows of lenders right now, & Jaresko.

Power grabs are in play. The Oligarch, Kolomoysky, worth an estimated $6 billion, is currently causing problems for Poroshenko & his fragile presidency.
http://redpilltimes.com/kolomoysky-calls-for-federalisation-of-ukraine-ukrnafta-building-in-kiev-seized-by-dnepr-1-battalion-us-ambassador-pyatt-warns-kolomoysky/


normankirk 24 Mar 2015 15:34

This is a country that has given its life to democracy......

The major loss of life has been in the Donbass, where its civilians have been killed in the tens of thousands.They are the ones who can be said to have given their lives to democracy.

Once again "democracy" has been the trojan horse for corporate interests and the Wolfowitz doctrine.

I hope that one day Ukraine does achieve a true democracy,but it wont be through the efforts of the criminal Nuland-Pyatt crowd.

DIPSET 24 Mar 2015 15:24

C'mon Larry, it ain't a plea for "help".

It's pure, unprincipled, without a sliver of self pride and shame begging.

Beg for gas
Beg for coal
Beg for weapons
Beg for money
Beg for EU membership
Beg for money again
Beg for cookies
Beg for a football tournament to be cancelled
Beg for men to be sent to die in the East

After they stupidly get the real war and invasion they have been moaning for, watch them *beg for mercy.

*Shout out to G-Unit for those that know ;-)

Watch them in the next couple of weeks beg Russia to not call in that 5 Billion loan repayment that is due.

2015 is going to be one helluva year.....

brianboru1014 24 Mar 2015 14:58

Ukraine is protecting Europe from an aggressive neighbor she said with a straight face.
She says the country had 70 years of Communism, which it had, and 23 years of incomplete reforms.

She should have said 23 years of thievery because the people of Ukraine didn't see too much benefit. Twenty three years of neo liberalism. That's a very hard sell.

[Mar 24, 2015] Are NGOs Agents of Subversion by Patrick J. Buchanan

March 24, 2015 | Antiwar.com

Though "Bibi" Netanyahu won re-election last week, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will still look into whether the State Department financed a clandestine effort to defeat him.

Reportedly, State funneled $350,000 to an American NGO called OneVoice, which has an Israeli subsidiary, Victory 15, that collaborated with U.S. operatives to bring Bibi down.

If we are now secretly pumping cash into the free elections of friendly countries, to dump leaders President Obama dislikes, Americans have a right to know why we are using Cold War tactics against democracies.

After World War II, my late colleague on CNN's "Crossfire," Tom Braden, delivered CIA cash to democratic parties in Europe imperiled by communist parties financed from Moscow.

But that was done to combat Stalinism when Western survival was at stake in a Cold War that ended in 1991.

Hopefully, after looking into OneVoice and V15, the Senate will expand its investigation into a larger question: Is the U.S. using NGOs to subvert regimes around the world? And, if so, who decides which regimes may be subverted?

What gives these questions urgency is the current crisis that has Moscow moving missiles toward Europe and sending submarines and bombers to probe NATO defenses.

America contends that Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and backing for pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine is the cause of the gathering storm in Russian-NATO relations.

Yet Putin's actions in Ukraine were not taken until the overthrow of a democratically elected pro-Russian regime in Kiev, in a coup d'etat in which, Moscow contends, an American hand was clearly visible.

Not only was John McCain in Kiev's Maidan Square egging on the crowds that drove the regime from power, so, too, was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

In an intercepted phone call with our ambassador in Kiev, Nuland identified the man we preferred when President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. "Yats," she called him. And when Yanukovych fled after the Maidan massacre, sure enough, Arseniy Yatsenyuk was in power.

Nuland also revealed that the U.S. had spent $5 billion since 1991 to bring about the reorientation of Ukraine toward the West.

Now, bringing Ukraine into the EU and NATO may appear to Nuland & Co. a great leap forward for freedom and progress.

But to Russia it looks like the subversion of a Slavic nation with which she has had intimate ties for centuries, to bring Ukraine into an economic union and military alliance directed against Moscow.

And if NATO stumbles into a military clash with Russia, the roots of that conflict will be traceable to the coup in Kiev that Russians believe was the dirty work of the Americans.

If the U.S. had a role in that coup, the American people should know it and the Senate should find out whether Nuland & Co. used NGOs to reignite a Cold War that Ronald Reagan brought to an end.

And if we are now using NGOs as fronts for secret operations to dump over regimes, we are putting all NGOs abroad under suspicion and at risk.

Not in our lifetimes has America been more distrusted and disliked. And among the reasons is that we are seen as constantly carping at governments that do not measure up to our standards of democracy, and endlessly interfering in the internal affairs of nations that do not threaten us.

In this new era, U.S. foreign policy elites have boasted of the "color-coded" revolutions they helped to foment in Belgrade, Kiev, Tbilisi. In 2003, we helped to overthrow the Georgian regime of Eduard Shevardnadze in a "Rose Revolution" that brought to power Mikheil Saakashvili. And Saakashvili nearly dragged us into a confrontation with Russia in 2008, when he invaded South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers.

What vital interest of ours was there in that little nation in the Caucasus, the birthplace of Stalin, to justify so great a risk?

Nor is it Moscow alone that is angered over U.S. interference in its internal affairs and those of its neighbor nations.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt has expelled members of U.S. NGOs. Beijing believes U.S. NGOs were behind the Occupy-Wall-Street-style street blockages in Hong Kong.

If true, these U.S. actions raise a fundamental question:

What is the preeminent goal of U.S. foreign policy?

Is it to protect the vital interests and national security of the Republic? Or do we believe with George W. Bush that, "The survival of liberty" in America "depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

If it is the latter, then our mission is utopian – and unending.

For if we believe our liberty is insecure until the whole world is democratic, then we cannot rest until we witness the overthrow of the existing regimes in Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Belarus, most of the Arab and African nations, as well as Venezuela and Cuba.

And if that is our goal, our Republic will die trying to achieve it.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

[Mar 24, 2015] Russia Under Attack by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Mar 24, 2015 | CounterPunch

The Return of Dr. Strangelove

While Washington works assiduously to undermine the Minsk agreement that German chancellor Merkel and French president Hollande achieved in order to halt the military conflict in Ukraine, Washington has sent Victoria Nuland to Armenia to organize a "color revolution" or coup there, has sent Richard Miles as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan to do the same there, and has sent Pamela Spratlen as ambassador to Uzbekistan to purchase that government's allegiance away from Russia. The result would be to break up the Collective Security Treaty Organization and present Russia and China with destabilization where they can least afford it. For details go here.

Thus, Russia faces the renewal of conflict in Ukraine simultaneously with three more Ukraine-type situations along its Asian border.

And this is only the beginning of the pressure that Washington is mounting on Russia.

On March 18 the Secretary General of NATO denounced the peace settlement between Russia and Georgia that ended Georgia's military assault on South Ossetia. The NATO Secretary General said that NATO rejects the settlement because it "hampers ongoing efforts by the international community to strengthen security and stability in the region."

Look closely at this statement. It defines the "international community" as Washington's NATO puppet states, and it defines strengthening security and stability as removing buffers between Russia and Georgia so that Washington can position military bases in Georgia directly on Russia's border.

In Poland and the Baltic states Washington and NATO lies about a pending Russian invasion are being used to justify provocative war games on Russia's borders and to build up US forces in NATO military bases on Russia's borders.

We have crazed US generals on national television calling for "killing Russians."

The EU leadership has agreed to launch a propaganda war against Russia, broadcasting Washington's lies inside Russia in an effort to undermine the Russian people's support of their government.

All of this is being done in order to coerce Russia into handing over Crimea and its Black Sea naval base to Washington and accepting vassalage under Washington's suzerainty.

If Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, and the Taliban would not fold to Washington's threats, why do the fools in Washington think Putin, who holds in his hands the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, will fold?

European governments, apparently, are incapable of any thought. Washington has set London and the capitals of every European country, as well as every American city, for destruction by Russian nuclear weapons. The stupid Europeans rush to destroy themselves in service to their Washington master.

Human intelligence has gone missing if after 14 years of US military aggression against eight countries the world does not understand that Washington is lost in arrogance and hubris and imagines itself the ruler of the universe who will tolerate no dissent from its will.

We know that the American, British, and European media are whores well paid to lie for their master. We know that the NATO commander and secretary general, if not the member countries, are lusting for war. We know that the American Dr. Strangeloves in the Pentagon and armaments industry cannot wait to test their ABMs and new weapons systems in which they always place excessive confidence. We know that the prime minister of Britain is a total cipher. But are the chancellor of Germany and the president of France ready for the destruction of their countries and of Europe? If the EU is of such value, why is the very existence of its populations put at risk in order to bow down and accept leadership from an insane Washington whose megalomania will destroy life on earth?

Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Roberts' How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format. His latest book is How America Was Lost.

[Mar 24, 2015] The MSM ignore and blatantly lie about the nature of the regime the West is backing

Mar 22, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.6com

Tim Owen, March 22, 2015 at 9:35 am

This strikes me as very good big picture analysis:

"So there are two ways by which the current stand-off will play out.

  • The first one, and arguably the less likely one, is that Russia backs down and ultimately, under continued economic pressure, agrees to privatize its national monopolies or even sell them directly to Western firms, and thus become a sort of Saudi Arabia of the North.
  • The second one is that Russia fends off this latest Western encroachment, forcing the West to re-examine the structure of its post-Cold War political economy. With economic expansion no longer on the table, the West will have a choice of rediscovering the benefits of redistributive policies, or embark on exclusionary policies that would have to be backed by a police state."

http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/03/the-end-of-history-third-way-and.html

cartman, March 22, 2015 at 10:17 am

If the MSM will ignore and blatantly lie about the nature of the regime the West is backing, then Western governments will take what they have learned from the junta and apply them to their own societies.

Fern, March 23, 2015 at 6:23 am

Tim, thanks for posting the 'fortruss' article by J Hawk – a very good analysis. FWIW, my own thoughts are that it is absolutely essential for the EU and the West generally that Crimea does not prosper. i would go so far as to say that, to a large extent, the future of the neo-liberal economic order depends on Crimea becoming an economic disaster zone. For what has happened as a result of its reunification with Russia, almost an accidental bi-product, you might say, is that the world and its wife has the opportunity to watch two different development models in action, literally side by side. In Ukraine, there's the IMF 'austerity' model – privatisation, asset stripping, foreign ownership of key parts of the economy, cutting back the role of the state to the bare minimum, poverty for much of the population etc. In Crimea's there's a different model, one that sees a role for the state as well as private enterprise – much like the mixed economies of the west in the 1970's before the neo-liberals grabbed control – and where's there's genuine job-creating, value-adding investment in infrastructure planned and already happening.

If Crimea delivers a much higher standard of living for its people than is achieved in Ukraine, then what price neo-liberalism, what lessons might Greece, Spain, Portugal etc learn? Crimea cannot be allowed to succeed, the threat of a good example is too dangerous.

marknesop, March 23, 2015 at 7:49 am

An excellent point, Fern, and that might make a good subject for a post in the not-too-distant future.

Oddlots, March 23, 2015 at 9:10 am

I think you are dead right. The stakes could barely be higher.

It's funny, Russian politics kind of reminds me of Canada in the 70s under Trudeau. Before the southern strategy and the radical "government is the problem, not the solution" ideology of Reagan, Thatcher etc. it was still possible in the west to voice a common purpose that roughly mapped onto government initiative. After 30 years of this pro-oligarchy drivel we can barely conceive of a common purpose. The parasite has taken over the host's mind.

et Al, March 23, 2015 at 9:45 am

I would quibble with this:

However, while Globalization was marketed as a win-win proposition for both the global North and South, in reality the developing states have gotten the losing side of the bargain.

The smaller southern states have been picked off but are fighting back, as we see in Ecuador, Venezuela, Boliva. The 'Developing World' successfully stopped the Doha round of globalization talks because the North wanted full liberalization of their markets at drop of a hat so that they can waltz in and buy anything worthwhile.

Brazil has refused this, India has (for example its textile and other industries) and Africa was mostly ignored because the North is racist and thinks they have nothing to offer except South Africa and a few northern bits (which is blatantly wrong as China has been the trailblazing investor in Africa with serious money, development and actually building roads, hospitals and infrastructure – followed eventually by Japan, India & the US).

I think that maybe the North's dismissing of Africa may well be part of its undoing.

As for the rest of it, I can agree, but I am weary of being presented with such a limited number of outcomes.

rymlianin, March 23, 2015 at 11:05 am

Noam Chomsky agrees . Free markets are for the third world, so that 1st world countries can easily get rid of their excess products.

yalensis, March 22, 2015 at 10:28 am

Here we go again! At first I thought this item was from a few days ago, but it's from today. Then I thought it was GroundHog Day!

Because Kolomoisky has done it again, and his guys (maybe not him personally) have invaded a different oil company, this time UkrNafta (not to be confused with UrkTransNafta, which is a different company). Benny's guys have barricaded themselves inside the company HQ, at Nesterovsky Street in Kiev.

A spokesperson says this siege is a continuation of the story (explained by Jen, in comment above) whereby the rules were changed for what constitutes a quorum among shareholders.

The Ukrainian government owns (50% + 1) share of UkrNafta. Now, just like the previous case, the government wants to put in its own management, while expelling Benny's henchmen from the big boardroom.

The article states that Benny must not have listened to Pyatt's warnings.

[yalensis: I mentioned in comment, above, that Benny is a proud and stubborn man, who listens to nobody.]

james, March 22, 2015 at 12:35 pm

thanks for these kolowonky updates… what i find fascinating is a guy being allowed to have a goon squad and parading around ukraine with the goon squad doing these kinds of acts.. what would happen if he had some competition and goon squads started to lock themselves into privatbank locations?

how do ordinary citizens of ukraine view this guy? there are no parallels in western societies that i am aware of!

james, March 23, 2015 at 3:49 pm

article today suggests that my question from earlier is being answered here – http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/03/kolomoisky-vs-poroshenko-kiev-junta.html

2. Poroshenko ordered to disarm all armed guards near the office of "Ukrnafta".

3. Continuing the theme, Poroshenko said:

"Territorial defense will obey the clear military vertical of power and no Governor will be allowed to have his own pocket UAF (armed forces of Ukraine).

see the article for more..

marknesop, March 23, 2015 at 11:05 pm

He is setting himself up for a mini civil war in Kiev if he thinks to order Benny to disperse his private army now, because they are loyal to their employer – Benny, who pays them directly, when they know all too clearly they are not going to be allowed to have this much fun roughing up and killing people ever again while getting paid for it – and the time to do it was the second it became known Benny was doing it, because the constitution forbids it and Porky always knew that.

He let him get away with it because it was useful, and there is no use in his attempting to stand on the law now: funny how when you trample on the law every day and only obey what suits you, how difficult it is to get back to the world of law when you need to. And what else does Porky have but the moral high ground he is attempting to claim? Would the Ukie army obey him if he ordered them to wipe out Benny and his boys? Glad it's not my decision. If you run for it now, Porky, you might avoid being turned into bacon. Yes, I said it. Bacon.

Moscow Exile, March 24, 2015 at 12:08 am

Bacon butty, anyone? The heat is on? Breaking: Kolomoysky raids Ukrnafta

yalensis, March 24, 2015 at 2:29 am

VZGLIAD is taking online poll as people place their bets on their cock-fight.

Results so far (of 11609 people voting):
64.6% think Benny will win the fight
15.7% think Porky will win.
19.7% say it will end in draw

I explained my reasons in above comment, I placed my bets on Porky, and I went ALL IN!
(or "va bank" as the Russians say!)

Moscow Exile, March 24, 2015 at 3:03 am

The Germans also use the expression "Va banque" – sometimes spelt "Vabanque".

A well known usage of this term allegedly took place during a conversation between Hermann Göring und Adolf Hitler on their hearing of the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3rd, something which they had not expected to happen as a result of the German invasion of Poland two days earlier and had therefore considered that invasion a risk worth taking.

Apparently, Göring said to Hitler:

"Wir wollen doch das Vabanque-Spiel lassen", worauf Hitler antwortete: „Ich habe in meinem Leben immer Vabanque gespielt.

"We should go for broke", whereupon Hitler answered: "I have my whole life always gone for broke".

It means to play against the bank, to lay all your stakes against what the bank has; if you win, you win big time: if you lose, you lose everything.

The vulgar expression where I come from is "shit or bust".

So rephrasing Hermann and Adolf's little exchange above:

– Well, it looks like it's shit or bust.

– All my life it's been shit or bust with me.

Only thing is, Adolf didn't use dirty language.

And he liked dogs as well.

And he was a veggie.

yalensis, March 22, 2015 at 11:00 am

Roman Bochkala, Ukrainian journalist and patriot.

  1. Four months ago: We must not surrender the airport to the Separatists!"
  2. Two days ago: Ukraine has plunged into poverty .
TRANSLATION (of piece done by Bochkala on Ukrainian TV)

The (Ukrainian) people are suffering real poverty. Here is just one sad example:
Yesterday I happened to be in Zaporozhie. We popped into a deli. Ahead of me in the queue was a young girl and an old woman. And some very basic products on the belt. The girl was purchasing yogurt, some hot dogs, margarine, and eggs. All this came to around 70 or so.
When she was ready to pay, she studied the receipt, and discovered that the real price was higher than what was marked (on the products). "What you have on the price tags is lower than this," she told the check-out clerk. She said this matter-of-factly, not like she was disputing the price, just complaining about it.

"We didn't have time to change the price tags. Sorry," the young clerk apologized. I concluded that the young girl had calculated in her head how much she would pay, when selecting her products. In other words, for her this was a serious sum. She doesn't have the option of just buying yogurt, without factoring in the price. Then my attention was turned to the sound of coins clanking.

The old woman was pouring out of a cellophane (baggie) a small heap of coins, of varying denominations. "That's all I have," she said. "I don't have any more money." The old woman was neatly dressed, but looked hopeless.

The clerk methodically moved the coins from one heap to another (while counting them). "You need 27.5 but you only have 25," he concluded, counting the money again. It became an issue (for her): what should she put back, the bread, or the flour?

I took out 200 hryvnas and gave it to the woman. She looked at me, with the look of a dog who has been many times abused and deceived.

Then she burst out crying.

And such people are ever more numerous in Ukraine.

marknesop, March 22, 2015 at 11:39 am

I don't have the words to tell you how sad that is to me.

kirill, March 23, 2015 at 6:03 pm

Not a single squeak about this theme in the whole western media.

Quite the propaganda chorus the western media is.

Moscow Exile, March 22, 2015 at 11:16 am

Igor Mosiychuk heads a meeting in mourning for and dedicated to the victims of the Holodomor.

kirill, March 22, 2015 at 11:31 am

I should take this opportunity to point out, once again, that the western Ukraine did not live through Holodmor. All of western Ukraine not just some part of it. But the Donbas did live through Stalin's forced collectivization famines.

So we have the Nazi allied Bandera vermin using the deaths of people in the Donbas as a pretext to kill people in the Donbas. Sick.

But they have the following logic: Before the Holodomor the Donbas was populated by virgin ethnic Ukrs. The residents of the Donbas after the famine are all Russian squatters. My relatives believe this SHIT. I need to stop treating them as my relatives.

Some facts about the Donbas:

  1. There are many Ukrainians living there, which is inconsistent with the genocide claim. Genocides totally remove demographic traces. You can see this in western Ukraine where there are no longer Poles and Jews in regions they previously populated in large numbers.
  2. There are Serbs and Greeks still living in eastern Ukraine. Did Stalin settle them there?
  3. We should ask the current residents of the Donbas who tend to graves going back into the 1800s what they think about the Banderite claims.

kirill, March 22, 2015 at 11:43 am

Ignore this BS map in the east. Novorossia was not part of Ukraine until the Soviets.

marknesop, March 22, 2015 at 11:42 am

I don't suppose he sees any irony at all in commemorating an event in which people starved to death when he himself displaces roughly as much water as a Buick Skylark.

kirill, March 22, 2015 at 11:47 am

To be fair, he likely has a thyroid disorder and insulin resistence. Obesity is not simply due to stuffing your face and it is a fact that thin people can consume more calories than obese people.

This applies to the insulin resistant who instead of turning glucose into heat (as "normal" people do) turn it into fat. Calorie restriction for insulin resistant metabolism types is guaranteed to fail.

They need high fat, low carbohydrate type diets.

Jen, March 22, 2015 at 7:49 pm

Symptoms of iodine deficiency include obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes. They go together in a vicious circle and teasing out which causes which almost amounts to time-wasting Titanic deckchair rearrangements.

Max, March 22, 2015 at 9:06 pm

Not so fast…

https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/more-on-the-fake-holodomor/

The 7 million figure was invented after World War 2 by Ukrainian nationalists, many of whom had fought with the Nazis and killed many Jews by participating in the Holocaust. The 7 million figure was invented by these people to be higher than the 6 million Jews killed by Hitler in the Holocaust. In other words, Stalin was worse than Hitler, and Hitler was right to go to war against Judeo-Bolshevism. Get it?

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 5:22 pm

Seven million people? Peanuts!

More like TWO HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE! Killed by commies, yeh!

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 5:32 pm

Interesting footnote, which I saw in above wiki piece. (To be specific: footnote #12 – the word "Crimea" caught my eye").

Here is link to footnote:

So, one year after George W. Bush dedicated the monument, designed to exasperate the Chinese government, then the first anniversary of this exercise in extreme hypocrisy, was held in Crimea, with Tatars playing the role of "victims du jour".

The event organizers had selected Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as the background music. This well-known symphony is regarded a symbol of both the beginning and the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. In 1918, the top Communist leaders, including Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, participated in the first anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution by attending a performance at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Seventy-one years later, shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein conducted the Ninth Symphony on Christmas Day in West Berlin.

It was very touching to see more than 20 wreaths lined up in the grassy area adjacent to the Memorial site waiting to be presented at the ceremony. They were in alphabetical order, starting with Afghanistan and ending with Ukraine. (……)

The Crimean Tatar wreath was presented in the name of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (Assembly), Simferopol, by the International Committee for Crimea (ICC), Washington, DC. The inscription on one of the ribbons read: "Honoring the memory of more than 200,000 victims of famine, deportation and political repression." I had the honor of presenting the Crimean Tatar wreath in person. We are grateful to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation for providing a platform where we can link to other people of different national, ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds, who were victimized by Communist authorities. Together we can support the Foundation and work toward the common goal of educating the public about Communism's crimes against humanity.

Plus ça change, plus ça la même chose!

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 5:37 pm

P.P.S. – one link leads to another . ICC still exists, and still sobbing about violated Tatars rights. Meanwhile, in reality Tatars have more rights now, in Russian Crimea, than they ever had in Ukie Crimea.

ICC logo appears to be a Ukie trident flipped upside down and ready to sink into the Black Sea…

Maybe like a sinking boat?

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 5:38 pm

http://www.iccrimea.org/

colliemum, March 23, 2015 at 10:29 pm

It's how things work: once a group of people has become a designated 'victim group', they can do no wrong in the eyes of the MSM and of course their supporters in the West. It doesn't matter if these designated 'victim groups' are in foreign countries or actually living on the soil of a Western country.

I have no idea how the process of selecting a 'victim group' works. For example, in the UK Pakistani and Bangladeshi muslims are 'victims' – Kurds, who've been persecuted by various Turkish regimes, are not. And it's not about skin colour either, because neither Sikhs nor Hindus are 'victim groups' …

I think someone ought to do a bit of research into this!

(Not me – I'm pounding the pavements and doing other electioneering, until May 7th)

Moscow Exile, March 22, 2015 at 11:57 am

Referring back to the previous posting concerning Psaki's replacement, Rathke, and Harfe and how Matt Lee tackles these double-talking spokespersons for the State Department:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfEIXy64HL0

Warren, March 22, 2015 at 2:43 pm

Published on 22 Mar 2015

MORE DOCUMENTARIES HERE: http://www.youtube.com/RTDocumentaries/

Miguel Francis, a Los Angeles film school graduate, travels to Crimea to discover how life there has changed since it was reunited with Russia. He explores the beautiful peninsula's history and cultural heritage, as well as taking in some of Crimea's tourist attractions while talking to locals about their attitudes to becoming Russian citizens.

Tim Owen, March 22, 2015 at 6:05 pm

Did he graduate?

Jen, March 22, 2015 at 5:24 pm

Miguel Francis Santiago also made a documentary on Donetsk and the Donetsk rebels. From memory, I think he visited the airport with the rebels and talks to Givi.
http://rtd.rt.com/films/donetsk-an-american-glance/

davidt, March 22, 2015 at 3:28 pm

For a change of pace and emphasis, the American University in Moscow website has a nice, and interesting, interview with Charles Bausman, of Russia Insider fame.
http://us-russia.org/3032-orthodox-american-crowdfunds-a-major-volunteer-media-watchdog-site.html

I think it's worth reading.

Warren, March 22, 2015 at 5:40 pm

With that announcement on #Syria the #UK breaks international law OFFICIALLY & should shut up about #Russia forever. pic.twitter.com/j6oufVHQC0

- Jason Han (@hanjixin) March 23, 2015

Warren, March 22, 2015 at 5:53 pm

EXCLUSIVE: Detained by #SBU, beaten by #RightSector – Story of French businessman in #Ukraine http://t.co/49YFrNd6M5 pic.twitter.com/bNx0Ct5INf

- Russia Insider (@RussiaInsider) March 21, 2015

Pavlo Svolochenko, March 22, 2015 at 8:27 pm

http://ria.ru/world/20150322/1053911387.html

Benny admits DNR and LNR defacto authorities in Donbass.

http://www.politnavigator.net/nachinaetsya-kolomojjskijj-potreboval-finansovojj-federalizacii.html

Benny wants 90% of regions' tax take to stay with regional authorities.

So much for the champion of edina Ukraina.

kat kan, March 23, 2015 at 12:07 am

He'd love them to stay separate. With 90% of taxes? he has a racket worked out already for taking it off them. Whereas they're of a bent to nationalise things they believe were illegally obtained.

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 3:07 am

American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine fires its president , most probably for his "pro-Russian" views.

Namely, Bernard Casey was outspoken in his views against Maidan as a violent coup, and felt that Crimea should return to Russia.

KievPost "exposed" Casey; after their expose, he was toast, and then he got fired from his job.

Casey apparently hails from San Jose California [yalensis: I have been there, it's actually a lovely place, the local inhabitants keep their property in perfect shape, almost obsessively landscaping their yards], anyhow Casey's expertise is small business and start-up companies.

Nothing in Casey's bio that suggests that he is a rebel, or even anything "ethnic" going on there…

Maybe he is simply an honorable man who tells the truth as he sees it, and pays the consequences for that?

kirill, March 23, 2015 at 5:47 am

He is definitely a heretic. NATO is even going to establish rapid internet reaction forces to stop the spread of Russian false narratives. We are back in the era of the crusades.

marknesop, March 23, 2015 at 8:05 am

Because everyone knows the people are too stupid and unwordly to know for themselves that they are being fed bullshit. In fact, NATO's successful transmission of its own narrative depends on it.

james, March 23, 2015 at 8:46 am

thanks yalensis.. the kiev post is an interesting american publication, or at least that is what it looks like to me! reading the article on caseys views which were also published in the kiev post confirms the fact he was looking for objectivity in an atmosphere which was opposed to it..i am surprised the kiev post let his thoughts be known!

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/chamber-disavows-ex-presidents-remarks-supporting-russias-annexation-of-crimea-384197.html

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 4:53 pm

KievPost has the WORST commenters, bunch of low-IQ, prejudiced Banderite diaspora trash.

Like this one, for example:

A commenter called "OlenaG" makes gratuitous attack not only against Mr. Casey but entire San Jose State University, which is actually a component of the California State University system (which is highly respected educational system, even internationally):

"He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the San Jose State University and an MBA degree at Santa Clara University."

Anyone that knows the reputation of San Jose State as a "Party College" (rated by U.S. News and World Report in its annual College ratings) and knows the Political Correctness of Santa Clara County both in California and in South San Francisco Bay would know to not have hired Casey.

(….)

Talk about ad hominem attacks! This idiot has no proof whatsoever that Mr. Casey spent his time partying instead of studying electrical engineering; and moreover, the very fact that Mr. Casey joined the Chamber of Commerce probably indicates that he was NOT politically correct at all!

Pavlo Svolochenko, March 23, 2015 at 5:23 pm

The worst American university would still compare favourably with the best Ukrainian one, I suspect.

yalensis, March 24, 2015 at 3:34 am

Well, Ukraine USED to have good universities, especially in Soviet times.
Now, I am not so sure…

yalensis, March 23, 2015 at 3:24 am

More on Kolomoisky's antics.

Linked piece is entitled: "Kolomoisky goes va-banque", which is a Russian phrase (actually French), meaning, as Americans would say, in a poker game, "all in".

In other words, Benny continues to occupy the UkrNafta company offices in Kiev.
(Not to be confused with the other oil company, UkrTransNafta, which Benny had to cede.)

To beef up the ranks of his goons, Benny sent his personal battalion "Dnepr-1″. Leaving the war zone of the "Anti-Terrorist Operation", this battalion arrived back in Kiev to seize UkrNafta.

Benny has explained that his military operation against UkrNafta is necessary to thwart the "raider" attempt by his (Benny's) arch-enemy, Igor Eremeev. Eremeev is a fellow oligarch and also a member of Ukrainian Parliament.

This exciting event is all happening on Monday, March 23.

There was a confrontation when one of Porky's allies, the deputy named Mustafu Nayem, attempted to enter the building. Benny's goons would not allow Mustafu inside. Ukrainskaya Pravda reported that Mustafu was beaten up. (see the video)
Mustafu elucidated on his Facebook that he was roughed up, but not badly beaten.
According to the description of the video (which I have not had time to watch), Mustafu asked Benny: "What are you doing here, Igor Valeryevich?"
To which Benny replied: "I came to see a Parliamentary Deputy. And who are you, a journalist or a deputy?"

Mustafu replied that within 2 months, UkrNafta will be a nationalized company belonging to the state.

Benny shot back, that this will not happen, because UkrNafta is a private company, and that he himself (=Benny) owns 42% of it.

And on and on… lots more… but the thrust of the article is that things are getting serious now.

james, March 23, 2015 at 8:58 am

yalensis, i am confused by these actions. in most countries where the rule of law supposedly operates, the police would come and evict these squatters… why isn't this happening here? or is this the type of system they have where oligarchs goon squads can do whatever their goon demands they do without any legal ramifications?

james, March 23, 2015 at 3:51 pm

2. Poroshenko ordered to disarm all armed guards near the office of "Ukrnafta".

3. Continuing the theme, Poroshenko said:

"Territorial defense will obey the clear military vertical of power and no Governor will be allowed to have his own pocket UAF (armed forces of Ukraine).
http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/03/kolomoisky-vs-poroshenko-kiev-junta.html

Jen, March 23, 2015 at 4:08 pm

Kolomoisky funds at least five paramilitary battalions including Aidar, Azov, Dnepr-1, Dnepr-2 and Donbass which are part of the National Guard.

A good proportion of his "goons" are probably members of these battalions. Whatever passes for the police (under Arsen Avakov's authority) in Kiev doesn't have a hope against these people.

marknesop, March 23, 2015 at 11:10 pm

Baby, what you said. Hopeless. Run for it, Porky.

yalensis, March 24, 2015 at 2:05 am

Are we in the process of placing bets? Because I am still betting on Porky. To be sure, he doesn't have much of an army.

But he has Geoffrey Pyatt and the American marines behind him. That has to count for something!

"From the halls of Montezuma, to the walls of UkrNafta…"

(or something like that)

colliemum, March 24, 2015 at 2:23 am

He's also got a squad of UK army 'instructors' …
;-)

Moscow Exile, March 24, 2015 at 2:33 am

Which side is Yats Rats on? I reckon he's the one that runs the show there: he's Nudelman's boy after all.

james, March 23, 2015 at 6:29 pm

more info/subjective angle – http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/150328.html

yalensis, March 24, 2015 at 2:08 am

Yeah, see, Cassad agrees with me. Benny is toast!

davidt, March 23, 2015 at 5:46 am

Alastair Crooke has posted two new articles at Conflicts Forum. The first discusses a possible Iran agreement. To quote from the article:

"Iran has already dropped the dollar as a means of trading. And as the non-dollar economic system expands with a SWIFT financial clearing system already launched, with Central Bank non-dollar currency swaps in place and a putative non-dollar jurisdiction banking system under construction by China and Russia, Iranians are now seeing the alternative, and getting fed up with hanging on the eternal "will they/won't they" lift sanctions hiatus."

http://www.conflictsforum.org/2015/how-would-an-iran-agreement-impact-on-irans-geo-political-situation/

davidt, March 23, 2015 at 5:57 am

The second of Alastair Crooke's posts considers Greece's travails with the EU "system", which he sees as similar to Russia's conflict with the global "system".

http://www.conflictsforum.org/2015/widening-geo-political-linkages-and-the-middle-east/

... ... ....

Moscow Exile, March 24, 2015 at 12:08 am
Bacon butty, anyone? The heat is on?

Breaking: Kolomoysky raids Ukrnafta

marknesop, March 24, 2015 at 11:15 am

Kolomoisky is out of control – before any of those too-rich-to-give-a-fuck oligarchs start thinking about an armed takeover, they should consider how their plan meshes with the west's plan. Because if they are in competition rather than harmony, that oligarch will be squashed. And Benny is embarrassing – it was already inconceivable that Ukraine would be accepted for membership in the European Union, the west just wants to use it as a "stone frigate" against Russia, but how much more inconceivable is it now, with Benny's antics? Besides, he did not even make Nuland's "A" list, so obviously the notion of his being the rebel King of Ukraine was never entertained. Nuland wants Yats, who is watching with interest to see who will emerge victorious from this street fight.

On a totally unrelated subject, I just picked up Mrs. Stooge from the Ferry home; she spoke glowingly of your handsomeness, enviable bearing and manner. Mrs. Exile will have to keep you on a short leash, you lady-killer. For the prizewinners Jen and James, I have acquired perhaps the only set of metal Novorossiyan soldiers in Canada. I haven't seen them yet, the missus just dropped me off at work and headed home without even taking her suitcase out of the car, but I will get about the business of sending them forthwith. I think I will save Strelkov for last or for the 100,00th comment, but once I have a look at them I will describe the others for the winners' choice – Jen first, and then James.

et Al, March 23, 2015 at 12:16 pm

RT OpEd: Anti-Russian propaganda is 'unconvincing', because Western narrative is false

http://rt.com/op-edge/243237-eu-russia-propaganda-counter-war/

###

Neil Clark doesn't mess about and it is not complicated. The West's response to the failure of the general public to swallow hook, line and sinker its bs line on Ukraine is because it is bs an people know it. Their strategy to counter 'Russian propaganda' is nothing more than shouting louder. Now how retarded is that? As I posted from an earlier piece from euractiv, Brussels would like a return on this investment! That's Planet Brussels for you!

marknesop, March 23, 2015 at 1:38 pm

In other news, there was no protest in Odessa yesterday, it was all a faked, crappy provocation by a Kremlin-sponsored TV station that provided not only the phony protesters, but phony Right Sektor goons to attack them. Totally phony, from the word "Go". Nothing to see here, return to your homes.

Moscow Exile, March 23, 2015 at 1:16 pm

By way of Russia Insider by A. Karlin:

The Moor Has Done His Duty*

Freedom! Don't ya'll just love the sound of that word!

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press! You just cannot get enough of it in the Land of the Free.

From a comment to the above:

I even think that Putin, where [sic] he a sane man, could have obtained the return of Crimea peacefully had he not been a psychotic killer.

Another Internet clinical psychiatrist, I presume.

* "The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go" .

From Schiller's "Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua" [Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa]: Der Mohr hat seine Schuldigkeit getan, der Mohr kann gehen, meaning "once you have served your purpose, you are no longer needed".

[Mar 24, 2015] The Deep State

February 28, 2014 | theamericanconservative.com

Steve Sailer links to this unsettling essay by former career Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, who says the "deep state" - the Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you think. The partisan rancor and gridlock in Washington conceals a more fundamental and pervasive agreement. Excerpts:

Excerpts:

These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya, and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government was somehow able to commit $115 million to keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay at least £100m to the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over and access to that country's intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During that same period of time, the government spent $1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined. A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive every single trace of your electronic life.

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment." All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.

More:

Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes. One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity. On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy." This, from the chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically abolished the constitutional right to trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice - certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee. [3]

The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General David Petraeus joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance. General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior fellow at theBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.

Lofgren goes on to say that Silicon Valley is a node of the Deep State too, and that despite the protestations of its chieftains against NSA spying, it's a vital part of the Deep State's apparatus. More:

The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face."

Read the whole thing. Steve Sailer says that the Shallow State is a complement to the Deep State. The Shallow State is, I think, another name for what the Neoreactionaries call "The Cathedral," defined thus:

The Cathedral - The self-organizing consensus of Progressives and Progressive ideology represented by the universities, the media, and the civil service. A term coined by blogger Mencius Moldbug. The Cathedral has no central administrator, but represents a consensus acting as a coherent group that condemns other ideologies as evil. Community writers have enumerated the platform of Progressivism as women's suffrage, prohibition, abolition, federal income tax, democratic election of senators, labor laws, desegregation, popularization of drugs, destruction of traditional sexual norms, ethnic studies courses in colleges, decolonization, and gay marriage. A defining feature of Progressivism is that "you believe that morality has been essentially solved, and all that's left is to work out the details." Reactionaries see Republicans as Progressives, just lagging 10-20 years behind Democrats in their adoption of Progressive norms.

You don't have to agree with the Neoreactionaries on what they condemn - women's suffrage? desegregation? labor laws? really?? - to acknowledge that they're onto something about the sacred consensus that all Right-Thinking People share. I would love to see a study comparing the press coverage from 9/11 leading up to the Iraq War with press coverage of the gay marriage issue from about 2006 till today. Specifically, I'd be curious to know about how thoroughly the media covered the cases against the policies that the Deep State and the Shallow State decided should prevail. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy here, not at all. I'm only thinking back to how it seemed so obvious to me in 2002 that we should go to war with Iraq, so perfectly clear that the only people who opposed it were fools or villains. The same consensus has emerged around same-sex marriage. I know how overwhelmingly the news media have believed this for some time, such that many American journalists simply cannot conceive that anyone against same-sex marriage is anything other than a fool or a villain. Again, this isn't a conspiracy; it's in the nature of the thing. Lofgren:

Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. Government life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00 in the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist. After a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles off steel plate: "You mean the number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew, at least until I had had a couple of years away from the government to reflect upon it.

When all you know is the people who surround you in your professional class bubble and your social circles, you can think the whole world agrees with you, or should. It's probably not a coincidence that the American media elite live, work, and socialize in New York and Washington, the two cities that were attacked on 9/11, and whose elites - political, military, financial - were so genuinely traumatized by the events.

Anyway, that's just a small part of it, about how the elite media manufacture consent. Here's a final quote, one from the Moyers interview with Lofgren:

BILL MOYERS: If, as you write, the ideology of the Deep State is not democrat or republican, not left or right, what is it?

MIKE LOFGREN: It's an ideology. I just don't think we've named it. It's a kind of corporatism. Now, the actors in this drama tend to steer clear of social issues. They pretend to be merrily neutral servants of the state, giving the best advice possible on national security or financial matters. But they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization. And they believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is boots on the ground everywhere, it's our right to meddle everywhere in the world. And the result of that is perpetual war.

This can't last. We'd better hope it can't last. And we'd better hope it unwinds peacefully.

I, for one, remain glad that so many of us Americans are armed. When the Deep State collapses - and it will one day - it's not going to be a happy time.

Questions to the room: Is a Gorbachev for the Deep State conceivable? That is, could you foresee a political leader emerging who could unwind the ideology and apparatus of the Deep State, and not only survive, but succeed? Or is it impossible for the Deep State to allow such a figure to thrive? Or is the Deep State, like the Soviet system Gorbachev failed to reform, too entrenched and too far gone to reform itself? If so, what then?

[Mar 24, 2015] Regime Change America's Failing Weapon Of International Deception

Zero Hedge
Authored by Ben Tanosborn,

For years, Winston Churchill's famous quote, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried," has served as Americans' last word in any political discussion which requires validation of the US government, no matter how corrupt or flawed in its behavior, as the best in the planet, comparatively or by default. Never mind the meaning that Mr. Churchill had intended back in 1947, or how the international political panorama has changed during the past seven decades.

These remarks were made by Britain's prime minister before the House of Commons a few months before there was a changing of the guards in the "Anglo-Saxon Empire" as the Brits gave away their colonial hegemony in favor of the super-influential economic and military power represented by the United States. And that was symbolically marked by Britain's relinquishing its mandate in Palestine, and the creation of Israel.

Such reference to democracy in the quote, explicitly defining it as a "government by the people," basically applied to Britain and the United States at the close of World War II; but such condition has deteriorated in the US to the point where the "common people" no longer have a say as to how the nation is run, either directly or through politicians elected with financial support provided by special interests, undoubtedly expecting their loyalty-vote. Yet, while this un-democratization period in our system of government was happening, there were many nations that were adopting a true code of democracy, their citizens having a greater say as to how their countries are governed. Recognizing such occurrence, however, is a seditious sin for an American mind still poisoned by the culture of exceptionalism and false pride in which it has been brainwashed.

And that's where our empire, or sphere of influence, stands these days… fighting the windmills of the world, giants that we see menacing "American interests," and doing it under the banner of "for democracy and human rights." Such lofty empire aims appear to rationalize an obscene military budget almost twice as large as those of Russia, China, India and United Kingdom combined! Americans, representing less than 5 percent of the world's population, are footing a military bill almost twice as large as that expended by half of the world's population. If that isn't imperialistic and obscene, it's difficult to image what other societal behavior could be more detrimental to peace and harmony in this global village where we all try to co-exist.

Empires and global powers of the past most often resorted to deposing of antagonistic foreign rulers by invading their countries and installing amicable/subservient puppet rulers. The United States and the United Kingdom, perhaps trying to find refuge, or an excuse, in their democratic tradition, have resorted to regime change "manipulations" to deal with adversary governments-nations. [Bush43's Iraq invasion stands as a critical exception by a mongrel government: half-criminal (Dick Cheney-as mentor), and half-moronic (George W. Bush-as mentee).]

Regime change has served the United States well throughout much of the Americas from time immemorial; an endless litany of dictators attesting to shameless in-your-face puppetry… manipulations taking the form of sheer military force, or the fear of such force; bribery of those in power, or about to attain power – usually via military coup; or the promise of help from the Giant of the North (US) in improving economic growth, education and health. Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress proved to be more political-PR than an honest, effective effort to help the people in Latin America… such program becoming stale and passé in Washington by decade's end; the focus shifting in a feverish attempt to counter the efforts by Castro's Cuba to awaken the revolutionary spirit of sister republics in Central and South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua…).

After almost two centuries of political and economic meddling in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine (1823) banner, much of it involving regime change, the US is finally coming to terms with the reality that its influence has not just waned but disappeared. Not just in nations which may have adopted socialist politics, but other nations as well. US' recent attempt to get other regional republics to label Venezuela (Maduro's leftist government) as a security threat not only met with opposition from the twelve-country Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) but has brought in the end of an era. It's now highly unlikely that secretive efforts by the CIA to effect regime change in Latin America will find support; certainly not the support it had in the past.

To Washington's despair, similar results, if for other reasons, are happening throughout North Africa and the extended Middle East; certainly not the results the US had hoped for or anticipated from the revolutionary wave in the Arab Spring, now entering its fifth year. It is no longer the flow of oil that keeps Washington committed to a very strong presence in the Middle East. It is America's Siamese relationship with Israel.

But if regime change is no longer an effective weapon for the US in Latin America or the Middle East, the hope is still high that it might work in Eastern Europe, as America keeps corralling Russian defenses to within a holler of American missilery. Ukraine's year-old regime change is possibly the last hurrah in US-instigated regime changes… and it is still too early to determine its success; the US counting on its front-line European NATO partners to absorb the recoil in terms of both the economy and a confrontational status now replacing prior smooth relations.

Somehow it is difficult to envision an outcome taking place in Ukraine which would allow the United States a foothold at the very doorsteps of Russia; something totally as inconceivable as if China or Russia were contemplating establishing military bases in Mexico or any part of Central America or the Caribbean.

The era of using regime change as a weapon of mass deception may have already ended for the United States of America… and hopefully for the entire world.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 22:46 | 5920475 JustObserving

America has always lied itself to war - few believe US lies now. Obama almost lied his way to a war with Syria about sarin:

Lies: An Abbreviated History of U.S. Presidents Leading Us to War

8. Vietnam (Kennedy, Johnson, 1964) -- Lies: Johnson said Vietnam attacked our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in August, 1964.Truth: The US didn't want to lose the southeast Asia region, and its oil and sea lanes, to China. This "attack" was convenient. Kennedy initiated the first major increase in US troops (over 500).

9. Gulf War (G.H.W. Bush, 1991) -- Lies: To defend Kuwait from Iraq. Truth: Saddam was a threat to Israel, and we wanted his oil and land for bases.

10. Balkans (Clinton, 1999) -- Lies: Prevent Serb killing of Bosnians. Truth: Get the Chinese out of Eastern Europe (remember the "accidental" bombing of their embassy in Belgrade?) so they could not get control of the oil in the Caspian region and Eastward. Control land for bases such as our huge Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, and for the proposed Trans-Balkan Oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea area to the Albanian port of Valona on the Adriatic Sea.

11. Afghan (G.W. Bush, 2001) -- Lies: The Taliban were hiding Osama. Truth: To build a gas/oil pipeline from Turkmenistan and other northern 'xxstan' countries to a warm water (all year) port in the Arabian Sea near Karachi (same reason the Russians were there), plus land for bases.

12. Iraq (G.W. Bush, 2003) -- Lies: Stop use of WMDs -- whoops, bring Democracy, or whatever.Truth: Oil, defense of Israel, land for permanent bases (we were kicked out of Saudi Arabia) to manage the greater Middle East, restore oil sales in USD (Saddam had changed to Euros)

http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/13-lies-abbreviated-history-of-us.ht...

Lies and Consequences in Our Past 15 Wars

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/9419-lies-and-consequences-in-our-pas...

gdogus erectus

Even articles like this erroneously refer to the US as a democracy. WTF. The programming runs deep.

"A republic...if you can keep it."

cornfritter

Very poorly written article. Better to say that Andy Jackson was about the last bad ass to fight of the banksters and die a natural death, then Salmon Chase and his buddies passed the legal tender laws, and shortly thereafter (or possibly before) London dispatched the Fabian socialists with their patient gradualism. We were firmly back under the yoke of London banking cartel come 1913. And you are correct, a republic is an EXTREMELY limited form of democracy (not truly akin to traditional 51% takes it democratic concepts at all). The elected leader's function was supposed to be to guard the principles of the Constitution and the limited Republic, and history will remember that, despite this cruft of an article.

In the eyes of many who founded this nation, it was only a stepping stone to a global government, the new Rome - but the new Rome will be the UN with a global bank, and the multinational corporations holding court, and then the end come.

Then again, I may be wrong.

negative rates

What passes for gvt is silly these days, we are a legend in our own minds.

suteibu

"Governments would become political churches"

Like in the Middle East? And you will counter by saying that people are forced to live under those governments and, yet, thousands are freely going there from around the world to join ISIS.

Otherwise, such a system would work right up until one government church decided there wasn't enough room in the area for competitors (probably within a year, maybe six months). Let the political/religious tribal wars begin.

anusocracy

Bankers couldn't be banksters without government.

Maybe it's the monopoly of force thingy you don't understand.

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[Mar 24, 2015] Why Ron Paul is Right about Ukraine by Dan Sanchez

Mar 24, 2015 | antiwar.com

How should libertarians assess the crisis in Ukraine? Some would have us believe that a true commitment to liberty entails (1) glorifying the "Euromaidan revolution" and the government it installed in Kiev, (2) welcoming, excusing, or studiously ignoring US involvement with that revolution and government, and (3) hysterically demonizing Vladimir Putin and his administration for Russia's involvement in the affair. Since Ron Paul refuses to follow this formula or to remain silent on the issue, these "NATO-tarians," as Justin Raimondo refers to them, deride him as an anti-freedom, anti-American, shill for the Kremlin.

Dr. Paul takes it all in stride of course, having endured the same kind of smears and dishonest rhetorical tricks his entire career. As he surely knows, the price of being a principled anti-interventionist is eternal patience. Still, it must be frustrating. After all he has done to teach Americans about the evils of empire and the bitter fruits of intervention, there are still legions of self-styled libertarians whose non-interventionism seems to go little further than admitting that the Iraq War was "a mistake," and who portray opposition to US hostility against foreign governments as outright support for those governments.

"Yes, the Iraq War was clearly a mistake, but we have to confront Putin; we can't let Iran 'get nukes;' we've got to save the Yazidis on the mountain; we must crush ISIS, et cetera, et cetera. What are you, a stooge of the Czar/Ayatollah/Caliph?"

Some of these same libertarians supported Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012, and presumably laughed along with the rest of us when the neocons tried to paint him as "pro-Saddam" for opposing the Iraq War and for debunking the lies and distortions that were used to sell it. Yet, today they do not hesitate to tar Dr. Paul as a "confused Pro-Putin libertarian" over his efforts to oppose US/NATO interventions in Ukraine and against Russia. Such tar has been extruded particularly profusely by an eastern-European-heavy faction of Students for Liberty which might be dubbed "Students for Collective Security."

It should be obvious that Ron Paul holds no brief for Putin and the Kremlin. Let me inform the smear-artists and their dupes what Ron Paul is trying to do with his statements and articles about Ukraine and Russia. He is not trying to support Putin's government. He is doing what he has always done. He is trying to prevent US intervention. He is trying to stop war.

Some NATO-tarians have responded to this assertion by asking, "If that is so, why can't he just limit himself to simply stating his principled opposition to intervention? Why must he go beyond that, all the way to reciting Kremlin talking points?"

First of all, this is one of the most egregious fallacies that Ron Paul's critics regularly trot out: the allegation that, "because A voices agreement with B about statements of fact, then A must be doing so in the service of B."

To see the fallacy involved clearly, let us draw out the Iraq War comparison a bit more. Before and during that war, in spite of Bush Administration and media propaganda to the contrary, Ron Paul argued that Saddam Hussein did not have a weapons of mass destruction program or ties to Al Qaeda. Saddam argued the same thing. So was Ron Paul just "reciting Baghdad talking points" back then? Was he being a "confused pro-Saddam libertarian"? No. Do you know why Ron Paul was saying the same thing as Saddam? Because it was true. As is widely accepted today, Saddam did nothave a WMD program or ties to Al Qaeda. Is it valorizing Saddam to admit that he told the truth? Again, no; it is simply to abstain from hysterically demonizing him. Of course Saddam was a head of state, and as such, he was a lying murderer. But in this instance, telling the truth happened to serve his interests, which included trying to avoid a war in which he might be overthrown and killed. Ron Paul also told the truth, because he's not a lying murderer, and because he also wanted to prevent such a disastrous war: although of course not for Saddam's sake, but for the sake of avoiding all the catastrophic results that would surely (and did) flow from it.

Ron Paul had no love for Saddam then or for Putin today, just as, notwithstanding endless smears to the contrary, there was no love nurtured by Murray Rothbard for Khrushchev, Justin Raimondo for Milosevic, Lew Rockwell for Lukashenko, or Jacob Hornberger for Chavez. Rather, it just so happens that, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, the truth has a well-known anti-war bias. That is the only reason why, when speaking about the same international crises, principled anti-war voices so frequently find themselves in agreement over points of fact with tyrants who want to avoid being attacked. The truth can, in some cases, happen to serve the purposes of both good and evil men. That doesn't stop it from being the truth.

Similarly, there are a great many true (and intervention-disfavoring) points of fact concerning Ukraine and Russia that are being completely ignored by the media, which instead regurgitates the intervention-favoring propaganda it imbibes directly from Washington, London, and the NATO bureaucracy. These truths are broadcasted, and this propaganda refuted, both by the Kremlin and by Ron Paul. But again this coincidence does not occur because the two are in cahoots. The Kremlin engages in this broadcasting and refuting because it considers avoiding US/NATO intervention to be in its state interest. Ron Paul does so because, again, it is the truth, and because he considers avoiding US/NATO intervention to be moral and in the interest of humanity in general (Americans, Russians, and Ukrainians, included).

What is this propaganda that Ron Paul labors to refute, along with his Institute for Peace and Prosperity, and like-minded alternative media outlets like Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com?

According to the Washington/NATO/Kiev/neocon narrative, a peaceful protest movement emerged in Kiev against an oppressive government, was met with a deadly, unprovoked, and uncompromising crackdown, but ultimately prevailed, causing Ukraine's dictator to flee. A popularly-supported, freedom-loving, self-determination-exemplifying government then emerged. But dastardly Putin horribly invaded and conquered Crimea, and engineered a "terrorist" revolt in the east of the country. Putin is the new Hitler, and if the US and Europe don't confront him now, he will continue his conquests until he has recreated the Soviet Empire and re-erected the Iron Curtain.

The reality of the situation, which Dr. Paul and only a handful of others strive to represent, is far different.

First of all, the chief grievance of the protesters was not about domestic oppression; it was over foreign policy and foreign aid. They wanted closer ties with the west, and they were angry that (the duly elected) President Viktor Yanukovych had rejected a European Union Association Agreement over its severe stringency.

Far from "organic," the movement was heavily subsidized and sponsored by the US government. Before the crisis, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragged about the US "investing" $5 billion in "helping" Ukraine become more western-oriented.

Once the anti-government protests in Kiev were under way, both Nuland and Senator John McCain personally joined the demonstrators in Maidan Square, implicitly promising US support for a pro-western regime change. Nuland even went so far as to pass out cookies, like a sweet little imperial auntie.

Far from peaceful, the protesters were very violent, and it is not clear which side fired the first gunshot. The Foreign Minister of Estonia, while visiting Kiev, was shown evidence that convinced him that protest leaders had hired snipers to shoot at both sides. And the BBC recently interviewed a Maidan protester who admitted to firing on the police before the conflict had become pitched.

In fact, the hard core of the Euromaidan movement, and its most violent component, was comprised of Nazis. And no, I don't mean to say "neo-Nazi," which is a term really only appropriate for people who merely glean inspiration from historical Nazis. On the other hand, the torchlight marching fascists that spearheaded the Ukraine coup (chief among them, the Svoboda and Right Sector parties) are part of an unbroken lineal tradition that goes back to Stepan Bandera, the Nazi collaborator who brought the Holocaust to Ukraine. Even a pro-Maidan blogger wrote for The Daily Beast:

"Of course the role that the Right Sector played in the Euromaidan cannot be underestimated. (…) They were the first to throw Molotov coctails and stones at police and to mount real and well-fortified barricades."

Maidan protesters bearing armbands with the neo-Nazi wolf's hook symbol

More fundamentally, what is often forgotten by many libertarians, is that revolutionary street and public square movements like Euromaidan are not "the people," but are comprised of would-be members of and partisans for a new state, every one of which is inherently an engine of violent aggression. What we saw in the clash at Maidan Square was not "Man Vs. State," but "Incoming State vs. Outgoing State."

Far from being completely intransigent, Yanukovych agreed to early elections and assented to US demands to withdraw the riot police from the square. As soon as he did that, the government buildings were seized. The city hall was then draped with white supremacist banners.

Far from being supported and appointed popularly and broadly, the new government's backing is highly sectional and heavily foreign. It was installed by a capital city street coup, not a countrywide revolution. In a deeply divided country, it only represented a particularly aggressive component of one side of that divide. Moreover, its top officeholders were handpicked by Nuland, and its installation was presided over by the US Vice President, as was famously revealed in an intercepted and leaked telephone recording.

And the only thing saving the extravagantly warlike new government from bankruptcy is the unstinting flow of billions of dollars in aid from the US, the EU, and the IMF, as well as "non-lethal" military aid (including drones, armored Humvees, and training) from the US.

Far from being freedom-loving, top offices are held by an ex-bankster (Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom Nuland handpicked when she said "Yats is our guy" in the above recording), a corrupt oligarch (chocolate magnate Petro Poroshenko), and, yes, Nazis (including Andriy Parubiy, until recently the National Security chief, and Oleh Tyahnybok, also mentioned by Nuland in the recording as a key advisor to the new government, and pictured at the top of this article with Nuland and "Yats").

Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the far-right Svoboda Party, formerly the "Social-National Party." Get it? Social-National: National Socialist?

Far from being an exemplar of self-determination, the new regime responded to eastern attempts to assert regional autonomy with all-out war, shelling civilian centers (with cluster bombs, even) and killing thousands. Of course Nazis have also played a key role in the war. As the famous journalist Robert Parry wrote:

"The U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is knowingly sending neo-Nazi paramilitaries into eastern Ukrainian neighborhoods to attack ethnic Russians who are regarded by some of these storm troopers as "Untermenschen" or subhuman, according to Western press reports.

Recently, one eastern Ukrainian town, Marinka, fell to Ukraine's Azov battalion as it waved the Wolfsangel flag, a symbol used by Adolf Hitler's SS divisions in World War II. The Azov paramilitaries also attacked Donetsk, one of the remaining strongholds of ethnic Russians opposed to the Kiev regime that overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February."

Plagued by failure and desertion in spite of massive western aid, the "pro-freedom" new regime in Kiev has resorted to conscripting its non-rebeling citizens. Meeting stiff draft resistance and opposition to the war, it has jailed a journalist for merely advocating draft-dodging, prepared a law restricting the travel of draft-age citizens, contemplated conscripting women over 20, and passed a law allowing the military to shoot deserters on the spot.

And the Nazis have also played in key role in the stifling and crushing of internal dissent as well. After the coup, Right Sector began patrolling the streets and squares of Kiev. And in Odessa, Right Sector toughs joined a mob in trapping and burning to death 38 anti-Maidan protesters in the Trades Union House.

Whatever involvement Moscow has in it, the revolt in the east is far from engineered. People there do not need Russian money and threats to know they had absolutely no say in the regime change in distant Kiev, and that it was executed by their political enemies. Russian-speaking and heavily industrial, it would have suffered grievously, both economically and politically, had it been dragged into a new expressly anti-Russian order. It was made abundantly clear which way the wind was blowing when Tyahybok's Svoboda, as the Christian Science Monitor put it, "pushed through the cancellation of a law that gave equal status to minority languages, such as Russian," even if the cancellation was temporary.

Far from "terrorists," the rebels are not trying to destabilize or overthrow the government in Kiev, but are seeking to establish autonomy from it. If anything, it is Kiev, with its high civilian death toll, that has been more engaged in terrorism.

And far from Soviet revanchism, Russian policy has been largely reactive against US aggressiveness. Since Moscow dropped its side of the Cold War by relinquishing its empire, including both the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the US has taken advantage by progressively expanding NATO, an explicitly anti-Moscow military pact, all the way to Russia's borders: a policy that even Cold War mastermind George Kennan, in 1998, predicted would prove to be tragic. Moscow warned Washington that Russia could not abide a hostile Ukraine, which would be a bridge too far.

But Washington blithely pushed on to snatch Ukraine anyway. The sheer flippancy of it can be seen most vividly when Gideon Rose, editor of the US foreign policy establishment organ Foreign Affairs (published by the Council on Foreign Relations) went on The Colbert Report in the midst of the crisis and jocularly boasted about how "we want to basically distract Russia" with the shiny Olympic medals it was winning at the Sochi Olympics while getting Ukraine "to flip sides." Colbert aptly characterized this geopolitical strategy as, "Here's a shiny object! We'll just take an entire country away from you," to which Rose enthusiastically responded, "Basically!" (Perhaps to atone for such an embarrassing and pandering display of naïveté and frivolity, Rose later published an excellent article by respected establishment foreign policy expert John Mearsheimer arguing "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault." Even that old CFR-associated murder-monger Henry Kissinger has urged reconsideration.)

The takeover included Crimea which is heavily Russian-speaking and has been under effective Russian control since the 18th century. Unsurprisingly, Washington's brilliant "Shiny Object" doctrine failed miserably, and rather than see its only warm-water port pass under the sway of an increasingly antagonistic rival, Russia asserted control over Crimea, doing so without loss of life. Later, following a referendum, Crimea was formally annexed.

Of course this act was not "libertarian"; hardly anything that a state does is. But it is simply a warmongering distortion to characterize this bloodless foreign policy counter-move as evidence of reckless imperial Russian expansionism, especially when you compare the "invasion" of Crimea with the bloody havoc the US has wreaked upon the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia for the past 14 years.

As for whatever meddling Russia is guilty of in eastern Ukraine, let's try to put it in perspective without absolving it. Just imagine what the US would do if Russia had supported a coup in Ottawa that installed an anti-American Canadian government right on our border, and then perpetually re-armed that government as it bombed English-speaking separatists in British Columbia. Compared to what you'd expect to follow that, Russia's response to a US-sponsored, anti-Russian junta bombing Russian speakers right on its border has been positively restrained.

After all, it is Putin who has been constantly pushing for ceasefires against American militant obduracy and European reluctance, just as, in 2013, it was Putin who successfully pushed for a deal that prevented the US from launching yet another air war, this time against the Syrian government.

Again, this is not to claim that any foreign intervention on the part of Moscow is at all justified on libertarian grounds, or to argue that Putin is anything more than a lying murderer who happens to be more intelligent and sane than our own lying murderers. It is only to make clear that in this respect too, Russia's involvement in the affair is hardly evidence of grand imperial designs.

As an aside: Putin's foiling of neocon war aims in Syria (and potential future such foilings) may be the reason that the anti-Russian putsch in Ukraine, and the new Putin-threatening Cold War it engendered, was advanced by Nuland, who is a neocon holdover from the Bush Administration and the wife of leading neocon Robert Kagan, in the first place.

To think that any country is too big or too dangerous (especially if destabilized) to be targeted by neocons for regime change would be naïve. And to think Putin is too naïve to know this would be equally naïve.


So much for the Washington/NATO/Kiev/neocon narrative. Now to return to the NATO-tarian objection from above: why must Ron Paul stress these points of fact, especially when they make wicked Putin look better, or at least not-so-wicked? Why can't Dr. Paul merely state his principled opposition to intervention?

It might make sense for him to do so if that were enough to make a difference. But the thing is, it's not. The sad but inescapable fact is that the American people are not operating under the same moral premises as Ron Paul and other principled libertarians. As such, the public is susceptible to war lies and distortions. And the Washington/NATO/Kiev/neocon narrative about Ukraine and Russia is nothing but a tissue of war lies and distortions.

As the warmongers are abundantly aware, if Kiev is sufficiently falsely valorized, Washington/NATO sufficiently falsely absolved, and Putin and the eastern separatists sufficiently falsely demonized, then American opinion will provide cover for US intervention, regardless of what principled libertarians say. So the only way to practically stop such intervention is to go beyond statements of principle and to debunk those war lies and distortions; moreover, to debunk them bravely and forthrightly, even if the Kremlin is also trying to debunk them, and even if simple-minded or lying critics will use that parallel to smear you as an agent of a foreign power.

Besides, if Ron Paul's statements really are part of some ulterior pro-Putin agenda, how could he possibly hope for his efforts to advance such an agenda? He couldn't. He is not writing in or speaking Russian; he has zero effect on Putin's domestic support. The only real effect he has is on opinion and policy in the English-speaking world. So, as it concerns the Ukraine crisis, the only real impact he could hope to have is to dissuade intervention.

So much for Ron Paul's "ulterior motives." But what about some of his critics? A question actually worth asking is as follows: Why are some of his avowedly libertarian critics, many of whom profess not to favor intervention (or at least studiously avoid talking about that question concretely) so absolutely livid over Ron Paul's challenge to their narrative? Their English-language blasts against Dr. Paul are also not likely to effect Putin's domestic support one way or the other. Their only possible impact is also on US foreign policy. So, why are they so extremely sensitive about the acceptance in America of a narrative that lends itself toward intervention and confrontation? The question answers itself.

Let me close with a few additional questions.

Why is it "defending tyranny" for Ron Paul to agree with Putin on points of fact, but not for "libertarians" to hail a government that rose to power in a violent putsch, that welcomes outright Nazis in its ranks, that conscripts its people, and that drops cluster bombs on civilians?

What exactly is "libertarian" about NATO, which amounts to an hegemonic, dual-hemisphere, nuclear tripwire, species suicide pact?

What is so secure about a state of "collective security" in which petulant, reckless nationalists in small eastern European countries can drag the whole world into nuclear war over a border dispute?

And finally, why should a new Cold War be launched, and the risk of nuclear annihilation for all our families and hometowns be heightened over the question of which clique rules a particular river basin on the other side of the world?

Ron Paul has excellent, solidly libertarian answers to all these questions. Do his critics?


Also published at Medium.com. Follow Dan Sanchez via Twitter, or TinyLetter.


Dax

Wow, what a sad mess the U.S. government is. It's quite frustrating how little say we peons have on what our rulers arbitrarily do to other countries that are no threat to us whatsoever. And these wannabe Ukrainian Nazis...I had no idea they were so powerful in number. Are their attacks on ethnic Russians some sort of "cosmic revenge" for the Soviet Union's starvation of Ukrainians in the 30's? The whole thing is a nightmare. May our leaders burn in hell for the misery they've helped create.

johndavit66

Besides, if Ron Paul's statements really are part of some ulterior pro-Putin agenda, how could he possibly hope for his efforts to advance such an agenda? He couldn't. He is not writing in or speaking Russian; he has zero effect on Putin's domestic support. The only real effect he has is on opinion and policy in the English-speaking world. So, as it concerns the Ukraine crisis, the only real impact he could hope to have is to dissuade intervention. Thank for share
Friv 100000

Michael

mind blowingly rational stream of conscious and geo-political conscience! It makes tremendous sense particularly if you feel we have been recently duped into 20 or so highly profitable (for oligarchs and financial institutions) wars. Assuming they are going to have another real war with Russia for fun and neo-con profit, where are they going to live in blissful retirement to spend the loot without getting attacked or dripped-on by glow-in the dark irradiated zombies? Are some wars better not started regardless of the causus belli or opportunity for plunder? Is setting-up a game of nuclear armed chicken with the second most powerful alliance on the planet still a good idea if you were planning to retire and spend time growing rhodos and fishing and playing baseball with your grandchildren?

Do neo-cons have a we-were-just-kidding plan "B" or are they truly to committed to a global sepuku / samson option if they / we lose? Do neo-cons do anything other than dream big about obliterating evil comic book enemies and ruling the world? Is it too late to invent a drug or make a video game or addictive snuff porn to keep them better occupied? How come all the neo-cons are moving to the USA and no one elsewhere is complaining about a shortage of them?


Claus Eric Hamle

It is really like 2+2=4: Deployment of missiles in Eastern Europe (Poland and Romania) leads to Launch On Warning (probably by 2017) and Suicide by accident/mistake. What else can the Russians do to defend themselves ? Will they even announce when they adopt Launch On Warning=Suicide Guaranteed. The crazy Americans asked for it -- The Russians want to be certain that they won't die alone. Stupid, crazy, bloody fools in the Pentagon !!!

[Mar 24, 2015] The New Brand of Authoritarianism

March 21, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com

From Vox EU:

The new authoritarianism, by Sergei Guriev, Daniel Treisman, Vox EU: The changing dictatorships Dictatorships are not what they used to be. The totalitarian tyrants of the past – such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot – employed terror, indoctrination, and isolation to monopolize power. Although less ideological, many 20th-century military regimes also relied on mass violence to intimidate dissidents. Pinochet's agents, for instance, are thought to have tortured and killed tens of thousands of Chileans (Roht-Arriaza 2005).

However, in recent decades new types of authoritarianism have emerged that seem better adapted to a world of open borders, global media, and knowledge-based economies. From the Peru of Alberto Fujimori to the Hungary of Viktor Orban, illiberal regimes have managed to consolidate power without fencing off their countries or resorting to mass murder. Some bloody military regimes and totalitarian states remain – such as Syria and North Korea – but the balance has shifted.

The new autocracies often simulate democracy, holding elections that the incumbents almost always win, bribing and censoring the private press rather than abolishing it, and replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West (Gandhi 2008, Levitsky and Way 2010). Their leaders often enjoy genuine popularity – at least after eliminating any plausible rivals. State propaganda aims not to 'engineer human souls' but to boost the dictator's ratings. Political opponents are harassed and defamed, charged with fabricated crimes, and encouraged to emigrate, rather than being murdered en masse.

Dictatorships and information

In a recent paper, we argue that the distinctive feature of such new dictatorships is a preoccupation with information (Guriev and Treisman 2015). Although they do use violence at times, they maintain power less by terrorizing victims than by manipulating beliefs. Of course, surveillance and propaganda were important to the old-style dictatorships, too. But violence came first. "Words are fine things, but muskets are even better," Mussolini quipped. Compare that to the confession of Fujimori's security chief, Vladimir Montesinos: "The addiction to information is like an addiction to drugs". Killing members of the elite struck Montesinos as foolish: "Remember why Pinochet had his problems. We will not be so clumsy" (McMillan and Zoido 2004).

We study the logic of a dictatorship in which the leader survives by manipulating information. Our key assumption is that citizens care about effective government and economic prosperity; first and foremost, they want to select a competent rather than incompetent ruler. However, the general public does not know the competence of the ruler; only the dictator himself and members of an 'informed elite' observe this directly. Ordinary citizens make what inferences they can, based on their living standards – which depend in part on the leader's competence – and on messages sent by the state and independent media. The latter carry reports on the leader's quality sent by the informed elite. If a sufficient number of citizens come to believe their ruler is incompetent, they revolt and overthrow him.

The challenge for an incompetent dictator is, then, to fool the public into thinking he is competent. He chooses from among a repertoire of tools – propaganda, repression of protests, co-optation of the elite, and censorship of their messages. All such tools cost money, which must come from taxing the citizens, depressing their living standards, and indirectly lowering their estimate of the dictator's competence. Hence the trade-off.

Certain findings emerge from the logic of this game.

  • First, we show how modern autocracies can survive while employing relatively little violence against the public.

Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently. Dictators win a confidence game rather than an armed combat. Indeed, since in our model repression is only used if equilibria based on non-violent methods no longer exist, violence can signal to opposition forces that the regime is vulnerable.

  • Second, since members of the informed elite must coordinate among themselves on whether to sell out to the regime, two alternative equilibria often exist under identical circumstances – one based on a co-opted elite, the other based on a censored private media.

Since both bribing the elite and censoring the media are ways of preventing the sending of embarrassing messages, they serve as substitutes. Propaganda, by contrast, complements all the other tools.

Propaganda and a leader's competency

Why does anyone believe such propaganda? Given the dictator's obvious incentive to lie, this is a perennial puzzle of authoritarian regimes. We offer an answer. We think of propaganda as consisting of claims by the ruler that he is competent. Of course, genuinely competent rulers also make such claims. However, backing them up with convincing evidence is costlier for the incompetent dictators – who have to manufacture such evidence – than for their competent counterparts, who can simply reveal their true characteristics. Since faking the evidence is costly, incompetent dictators sometimes choose to spend their resources on other things. It follows that the public, observing credible claims that the ruler is competent, rationally increases its estimate that he really is.

Moreover, if incompetent dictators survive, they may over time acquire a reputation for competence, as a result of Bayesian updating by the citizens. Such reputations can withstand temporary economic downturns if these are not too large. This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez). While a major economic crisis results in their overthrow, more gradual deteriorations may fail to tarnish their reputations significantly.

A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative spending on these as the economy crashes. As Turkey's growth rate fell from 7.8% in 2010 to 0.8% in 2012, the number of journalists in jail increased from four to 49. Declines in press freedom were also witnessed after the Global Crisis in countries such as Hungary and Russia. Conversely, although this may be changing now, in both Singapore and China during the recent decades of rapid growth, the regime's information control strategy shifted from one of more overt intimidation to one that often used economic incentives and legal penalties to encourage self-censorship (Esarey 2005, Rodan 1998).

The kind of information-based dictatorship we identify is more compatible with a modernized setting than with the rural underpinnings of totalitarianism in Asia or the traditional societies in which monarchs retain legitimacy. Yet, modernization ultimately undermines the informational equilibria on which such dictators rely. As education and information spread to broader segments of the population, it becomes harder to control how this informed elite communicates with the masses. This may be a key mechanism explaining the long-noted tendency for richer countries to open up politically.

References

Esarey, A (2005), "Cornering the market: state strategies for controlling China's commercial media", Asian Perspective 29(4): 37-83.

Gandhi, J (2008), Political Institutions under Dictatorship, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Guriev, S and D Treisman (2015), "How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression", CEPR Discussion Paper, DP10454.

Levitsky, S, and L A Way (2010), Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the cold war, New York: Cambridge University Press.

McMillan, J, and P Zoido (2004), "How to subvert democracy: Montesinos in Peru", Journal of Economic Perspectives 18(4): 69-92.

Rodan, G (1998), "The Internet and political control in Singapore", Political Science Quarterly 113(1): 63-89.

Roht-Arriaza, N (2005), The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Peter K.:

"A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative spending on these as the economy crashes."

Instead of military Keynesianism, it's "police state" Keynesianism.

More social spending coupled with more social control.

ilsm:

The corporation runs the governors.....

"Investor State Dispute Settlement" is a new twist where the actions of government, like investor "losses" from shuttering frackers would be compensated by a standing unelected nor appointed by the locals "board" filled with corporate cronies to take sovereignty from governments when foreign investors are denied pillaging "rights".

"Investor State Dispute Settlement" is why you should oppose TPP fast track.

The kleptocarcy is well advanced in the US!

GeorgeK:

..."This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez"...

Guess your definition of authoritarian leaders depends on who's Ox is being gored. If you were wealthy or upper middle class Chavez was a failure, if you were poor or indigenous he was a savior.

..."Chávez maintains that unlike other global financial organizations, the Bank of the South will be managed and funded by the countries of the region with the intention of funding social and economic development without any political conditions on that funding.[262] The project is endorsed by Nobel Prize–winning, former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said: "One of the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those in the south," and that "It is a good thing to have competition in most markets, including the market for development lending."[263]"...
Guess nobody told Stiglitz about Chavez's authoritarian incompetence.

Julio -> anne...

Seems clear enough to me. Consider "freedom of the press": the US needs to only be mildly interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime.

But in a government attempting left-wing reforms, and where the government is less stable, there is less room for the government to accept the unanimity and hostility of the press; it may need to intervene more strongly to defend itself. Take e.g. Ecuador where Correa has been accused of suppressing press liberties along these very lines.

anne -> Julio...

Seems clear enough to me. Consider "freedom of the press": the US needs to only be mildly interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime....

[ Thinking further, I realize that the United States is wildly aggressive with governments of countries considered strategic and does not hesitate to use media in those countries when our "needs" do not seem met. I am thinking even of the effort to keep allied governments, even the UK, France and Germany, from agreeing to become members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that China has begun. ]

Peter K. -> GeorgeK...

"Guess your definition of authoritarian leaders depends on who's Ox is being gored."

This is how I see it. There are no objective standards.

Lefties criticize Obama for going after whistle blowers. Snowden is treated as a hero. Then guys like Paine and Kervack defend the behaviro of a Putin or Chavez because the U.S. doesn't like them.

Peter K. -> Peter K....

I think a lot of the older left is stuck in a Cold War mind set.

Opposing America is good because you're opposing multinational capitalism. So they'll provide rhetorical support to any nutjob who opposes the West no matter how badly he mistreats his people.

Peter K. -> Peter K....

It's the flipside to the Dick Cheney-Security State rationalizations of torture and police state tactics like warrantless surveillence.

It's okay if we do it, because they're trying to destroy us.

The ends justify the means.

hyperpolarizer -> Peter K....

I am the older left (born right after WW II). I grew up with the cold war, but -- despite its poisonous legacy (particularly the linking of the domestic labor movement to international communism)-- I have assuredly left it behind.

In light of the New American Police State, post 9-11, it is clear to me that the United States has undergone a coup d'etat.

Roger Gathmann -> anne...

Defending Chavez doesn't seem like a bad thing to do. So, Peter K., do you defend, say, Uribe? Let's see - amended constitution so he could run again - Chavez, check, Uribe check. Associated with paramilitaries, Uribe, check, Chavez, demi-check. Loved by the US, Uribe, check, Chavez, non-check. Funny how chavez figures in these things, and Uribe doesn't.
https://www.citizen.org/documents/TalkingPointsApril08.pdf

Peter K. -> Roger Gathmann...

I never said a thing about Uribe. I said there should be single standards across the board for Uribe, America, Chavez, Putin, China, etc...

Roger Gathmann -> Peter K....

Right. Double standard. That is what I am talking about. The double standard that allows US tax dollars to go into supporting a right wing dictator like Uribe. I don't have to piss off. You can piss off. I doubt you will. I certainly won't. It is adolescent gestures like that which make me wonder about your age.

Are you going to slam the door next and saY I hate you I hate you I hate you?
You need to get a little pillow that you can mash. Maybe with a hello kitty sewed on it.

Nietil -> Roger Gathmann...

I don't see how any of these criteria has anything to do with being an autocrat.

Autocracy is an answer to the question of the source of legitimacy (democratic, autocratic, or theocratic). It has nothing to do with either the definition of the sovereign space (feudal, racial or national) or with the number of people running the said government (anarchy, monarchy, oligarchy).

The UK for example was a national and democratic monarchy for a long, long time. Now it's more of a national and democratic oligarchy. And it can still change in the future.

DrDick -> Peter K....

I really do not think that is at all accurate. While there are certainly some like that, it is far from the majority. Most of us back Chavez, Morales, or Correa for the policies they have followed in their own countries to the benefit of the great masses of the poor and their refusal to put the interests of international capital ahead of their people.

Much of that support is also conditional and qualified, for reasons that have been mentioned here. All evaluations of current leaders is conditioned by both past history in the country and region, as well as the available alternatives. By those standards, all of the men I mentioned look pretty good, if far from perfect.

anne:

http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10454

March, 2015

How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression
By Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman

We develop an informational theory of dictatorship. Dictators survive not because of their use of force or ideology but because they convince the public--rightly or wrongly--that they are competent. Citizens do not observe the dictator's type but infer it from signals inherent in their living standards, state propaganda, and messages sent by an informed elite via independent media. If citizens conclude the dictator is incompetent, they overthrow him in a revolution. The dictator can invest in making convincing state propaganda, censoring independent media, co-opting the elite, or equipping police to repress attempted uprisings -- but he must finance such spending with taxes that depress the public's living standards. We show that incompetent dictators can survive as long as economic shocks are not too large. Moreover, their reputations for competence may grow over time. Censorship and co-optation of the elite are substitutes, but both are complements of propaganda. Repression of protests is a substitute for all the other techniques. In some equilibria the ruler uses propaganda and co-opts the elite; in others, propaganda is combined with censorship. The multiplicity of equilibria emerges due to coordination failure among members of the elite. We show that repression is used against ordinary citizens only as a last resort when the opportunities to survive through co-optation, censorship, and propaganda are exhausted. In the equilibrium with censorship, difficult economic times prompt higher relative spending on censorship and propaganda. The results illuminate tradeoffs faced by various recent dictatorships.

[ This is the discussion paper, which I find more coherent than the summary essay. ]

JayR:

Wow quite a few countries, maybe even the US with Obama's war on whistle blowers, could fit this articles definition if the authors actually though more about it.

Roger Gathmann -> Peter K....

Yes, the people of Greece can vote to leave the Eurozone, just like the people of Crimea can vote to leave the Ukraine, or the people of Kosovo could vote to leave Serbia. There are many ways, though, of looking at soft dictatorship. I think the EU bureaucrats have been busy inventing new ones, with new and ever more onerous chains. To say Greece can vote to leave the EU is like saying the merchant can always defy the mafioso, or the moneylender. It isn't that easy.

Roger Gathmann:

and then of course there are the death squads:
https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/wikileaks-on-colombia-uribe-%E2%80%9Cviews-military-success-in-terms-of-kills%E2%80%9D-army-commander-ospina-tried-to-initimidate-witnesses-to-extrajudicial-executions/ ....

[Mar 22, 2015] Economist's View 'Controlling the Past'

March 22, 2015 | economistsview.typepad.com

Simon Wren-Lewis:

Controlling the past: In his novel 1984 George Orwell wrote: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." We are not quite in this Orwellian world yet, which means attempts to rewrite history can at least be contested. A few days ago the UK Prime Minister in Brussels said this:

"When I first came here as prime minister five years ago, Britain and Greece were virtually in the same boat, we had similar sized budget deficits. The reason we are in a different position is we took long-term difficult decisions and we had all of the hard work and effort of the British people. I am determined we do not go backwards."

In other words if only those lazy Greeks had taken the difficult decisions that the UK took, they too could be like the UK today.

This is such as travesty of the truth, as well as a huge insult to the Greek people, that it is difficult to know where to begin. ...

The real travesty ... is in the implication that somehow Greece failed to take the 'difficult decisions' that the UK took. 'Difficult decisions' is code for austerity. A good measure of austerity is the underlying primary balance. According to the OECD, the UK underlying primary balance was -7% in 2009, and it fell to -3.5% in 2014: a fiscal contraction worth 3.5% of GDP. In Greece it was -12.1% in 2009, and was turned into a surplus of 7.6% by 2014: a fiscal contraction worth 19.7% of GDP! So Greece had far more austerity, which is of course why Greek GDP has fallen by 25% over the same period. A far more accurate statement would be that the UK started taking the same 'difficult decisions' as Greece took, albeit in a much milder form, but realized the folly of this and stopped. Greece did not get that choice. And I have not even mentioned the small matter of being in or out of a currency union. ...

pgl:

Cameron's fiscal austerity has been awful for the UK but he refuses to admit his incompetence. So he finds an economy doing even worse than the UK - Greece. Why is it doing worse? Because it was forced to have even more fiscal austerity than Cameron choose to impose. But did I not say Cameron refuses to admit austerity was a mistake? So what does he do - accuse Greece of not doing enough austerity. Hey - incompetent political leaders lie a lot.

Op said in reply to pgl...

Incompetence

You idiot

he's a bald face liar serving the interests of "the city"
He's a demagogue and a shit faced hog in a clean suit
Tory politicians should end with a cabinet full of em hanging from a gallows in trafalgar square

Spluttering about travesty
Hardly encompasses the grotesque inhumanity of these eight legged monstrosities

That said

I blame new labor for all this

They enabled such idery ghouls to regain power

pgl said in reply to Op ...

I see that you flunked pre-K reading comprehension. I said he lied. And he is incompetent too. But do babble on.

Op said in reply to pgl...

He is profoundly not incompetent
He got the results he was after
He deflected blame wiliest cutting back on the recovery rate

You need to use words
as they are customarily used
Or explicitly define your use
To you incompetent is just a slur
Much like shit head

Peter K. said in reply to Op ...

I don't have any problem with what Wren-Lewis and pgl have written.

Cameron says austerity works. It doesn't. That's incompetence. He's also dishonest which makes it worse.

It's also possible he's lying about wanting to be competent, but why speculate? Why bother?

What does it matter?

paine said in reply to Peter K....

The tory cabinet wanted a slow recovery
they have little concern about deficits per se

They use scare tactics

paine said in reply to Peter K....

The pm does not give a wit about austerity working

He wanted a stag

Cui bono

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to pgl...

Cameron's coalition partner, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Dems, has said Enough With The Austerity already. Not so much that the coalition is threatened,
y'know, but, please...

We can end austerity, Clegg tells activists http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nick-clegg-promises-end-era-8844662

paine said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...

Barrys twin

Fred C. Dobbs said...

I have read that in recent years, Greece has made much progress, increasing exports, etc.

Under austerity, they have also laid off a whole lot of guv'mint employees, resulting in 25% unemployed, a LOT of whom would like their jobs back. Would that also be something the Brits dealt with?

anne said...

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10O8

January 15, 2015

Government debt and trade balance as shares of Gross Domestic Product for Greece, 2000-2012

(Percent)


http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10TQ

January 15, 2015

Government debt and trade balance as shares of Gross Domestic Product for Greece, 2007-2012

(Percent)

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=11aE

January 15, 2015

Government debt and trade balance as shares of Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, 2000-2012

(Percent)


http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=152R

January 15, 2015

Government debt and trade balance as shares of Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, 2007-2012

(Percent)

anne said in reply to anne...

Where government debt as a share of GDP for the United Kingdom was 44.8% in 2007, debt as a share of GDP in Greece in 2007 was 120.4%. The trade balance was -2.6% in the UK in 2007 and -6.5% in Greece.

Where government debt as a share of GDP for the United Kingdom was 97.2% in 2012, debt as a share of GDP in Greece in 2012 was 163.6%. The trade balance was -5.5% in the UK in 2012 and -9.4% in Greece.

anne said...

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=152T

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom and Greece, 2000-2013

(Percent change)


http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=152W

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom and Greece, 2007-2013

(Percent change)

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=152X

November 1, 2014

Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for United
Kingdom and Greece, 2000-2011


http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1530

November 1, 2014

Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for United
Kingdom and Greece, 2007-2011

mulp said...

"And I have not even mentioned the small matter of being in or out of a currency union. ..."

Yeo, if Greece were to still be on the drachma, then Greece could simply print infinite drachma to buy all the imports, especially oil, that it needs because in a free market, the buyer dictates to the seller the price and terms in all cases.

This is a core principle of free lunch economics!

If housing subsidies and food stamps were eliminated, then the working poor would be able to buy sirloin and prime rib for 10 cents per pound because that is as much as they can afford, but the buyer sets the price and terms for all sellers. If rent subsidies were eliminated, the number of 1200 sq-ft rentals at $200 per month would explode because the working poor renter can dictate the size of the apartment and rent. That's why its called the free market. Market goods are freely available and free in a free market!

The problem in Greece is that too many people believe in free lunch economics. They consider taxes theft and paying taxes to be stupidity. But worse, international bankers believe in free lunch economics where they can loan other people's money to people who can not afford to repay the loans, but the high debt creates wealth and that will create more debt funded spending which will pay for all the past debt.

I don't see any wing of economists willing to reject free lunch economics and return to the principles of capitalism that were established by FDR and then promoted by government until the 70s when conservatives sold Americans on pillage and plunder, on free lunch economics.

And those free lunch economic principles have been sold all over the world, especially to Greece when international bankers told Greece they can borrow and spend to infinite, trust them.

[Mar 21, 2015] Propaganda Shouldn't Pay by NICK COHEN

July/August 2014 | standpointmag.co.uk

Spinner-in-chief: Every tinpot PR now thinks he is Alastair Campbell

As with Nye Bevan and Conservatives so with me and PR departments: "No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for press officers. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." Or as the BBC's economics editor Robert Peston put it in his recent Charles Wheeler lecture, "I have never been in any doubt that PRs are the enemy."

Let me explain how they are the nearest thing to prostitutes you can find in public life. You might say that biased reporters look more like sex workers, as they try to satisfy their readers' every whim. But there is a small difference. The biased journalist occasionally tells the truth. He might produce propaganda, but his bias or that of his editor will cause him to investigate stories conventional wisdom does not notice. Right-wing journalists uncover truths about corruption in the European Union. Left-wing journalists discover truths about the crimes of Nato armies. They look at scandals others ignore precisely because they do not think like level-headed and respectable members of the mainstream.

Press officers have no concern with truth. It is not that all of them lie - although many do - rather that truth and falsity are irrelevant to their work. Their sole concern is to defend their employers' interests. That they can manipulate on behalf of central government, local authority and other public bodies is an under-acknowledged scandal. The party in power that wishes to stop public scrutiny, or the NHS trust whose executives wish to maintain their positions, use taxpayer funds to advance their personal or political interests. If anyone else did the same, we would call them thieves.

It makes no difference who is in office. Conservatives complained about the spin and manipulation of New Labour but they are no different now. Indeed they are playing tricks those of us who lived through the Blair years haven't seen before.

They withhold information from journalists in the hope of killing a story. If reporters publish nevertheless - as they should - the government tells their editors and anyone else who will listen that they are shoddy hacks who failed to put the other side of the story. An alternative tactic is for press officers to phone up at night, just after an article has appeared online, and try to bamboozle late-duty editors into making changes. I have had the Crown Prosecution Service and the BBC try to pull that one on me. That neither institution is in the political thick of it only goes to show that every dandruff-ridden PR in every backwater office now thinks he is Alastair Campbell.

Politicians and senior civil servants do not rate state-sponsored propagandists by their ability to tell the public what is done in their name with their money. Like corporate chief executives and celebrities, they judge them by their ability to keep uncomfortable stories out of the press.

Compare PRs with other despised trades. Journalists have blown the whistle on journalistic malpractice. Bankers have blown the whistle on financial malpractice. But I have never heard of a press officer going straight and coming clean by explaining how his government department or corporation manipulated public opinion.

Once you could have said that my comparison between press officers and prostitutes was unfair - to prostitutes. Poverty and drug addiction drives women on to the street. Press officers are not heroin addicts or the victims of child abuse. Nor do the equivalent of sex traffickers kidnap media studies graduates and force them to work in "comms". PRs do not do what they do because a cruel world has left them with no alternative to selling their souls, but because they want to.

But that is no longer quite right. As the web destroys the media's business model, PR is where the jobs are. Students leave university and go straight into PR or hang around newsrooms for a few years on internships and petty payments before giving up and joining the former reporters in PR departments.

A profound shift in the balance of power is under way, and the advantage lies with those who can buy coverage. You can see it on the screen and in the press. Television royal coverage is run by Buckingham Palace - I always tell foreigners that if they want to know what Britain would look like if it were a dictatorship, they should watch how the BBC reports the monarchy. Travel journalism is advertising in all but name. Press offices give travel "journalists" free holidays and they repay the favour in kind copy. Political coverage is still of a high quality, but the state-funded BBC is always open to attack from the state's spin doctors. Meanwhile most serious news, business and arts journalism remains clean, but Private Eye has reported anger among Daily Telegraph journalists about the advertising department's attempts to influence what they write.

Such conflicts will grow. The web has made most newspapers imitate most television stations. They give away their content and rely on advertising for an income. At the same time, the web has lowered the price of advertising by making a vast number of new outlets available to advertisers. In his speech, which is worth reading in full online, Peston said: "News that is a disguised advert, or has been tainted by commercial interests, is not worth the name." But the need for money is pushing newspapers into creating more cloaked commercials.

Without sales revenue or conventional advertising revenue, media marketing departments are offering what they call "native" advertisements: commercials disguised as news features. Peston says BBC executives are thinking of doing the same - though how they could hope to retain public funding if they do is beyond me. Readers may not be aware that the videos they are watching or the stories they are reading are "sponsored content", and that is the point. Manipulation works best when no one realises it is happening. PR departments aren't just influencing or stifling news, but creating it, and passing off advertisements as independent journalism.

We are heading towards a media future that is not worth having. To avoid it we will need strict controls, backed by criminal sanctions, against the use of public money for propaganda, and a popular revolt against a pestilential trade. A start could be made by journalists. We should refuse to speak to press officers unless we intend to give them the ridicule and contempt they deserve.

Anonymous

September 8th, 2014
8:09 PM

I don't know whether to laugh or cry and the irony and stupidity of the comparison between PR's and 'sex workers'. This is written by someone who is clearly unable to cast a critical eye on the propaganda campaign which upholds the nasty power structures between men and the women that they demonise in order to exploit. Maybe he can have a decent opinion on propaganda without being aware of how it is saturated into his own understanding of the world but dear God what a way to undermine oneself only a few lines into to a rant against propaganda. Laugh or give up all hope? The predictable defences, outrage and mocking of the other commenters in response to this will probably means hopelessness is the appropriate response.

Captain Nemo Vero

July 30th, 2014
7:07 PM

Cohen ignores (among so much else) the blithe and cosy relationship between the BBC and Guardian on the one hand and "campaigning organizations" on the other. When Greenpeace claimed what they called "bottom-trawlering" (must be something done on Hampstead Heath; I think they mean "bottom trawling", or dredging) "destroyed 10,000 species", they did so without one shred of scientific evidence. Nonetheless, the story was given a DPS in the Times and The Guardian before the PR department at a fishing industry body forced a retraction.

The same PR department won an apology from The Times over inaccurate posters in the London underground falsely repeating Daniel Pauly's now-recanted saw that there would be no fish left in the sea by 2048; and so on and so on.

The liars and whores among journalists (since when is it a "profession" by the way? That implies a barrier to entry, and there is no such thing in journalism)also need exposition, and to ignore this fact is to ignore reality.

Anon

July 28th, 2014
4:07 PM

Nick makes the good point that the balance of power is changing. There used to be lots of journalists with enough time on their hands to properly research a story. That isn't the case now. It means that an increasing amount of copy is PR-generated. Given the financial travails of most media outlets I can't see that changing. A journalist under pressure to fill his/her publication must be tempted to believe any old guff. There is an answer - the internet. I see very many well-informed blogs. I learn more from them than I do from the BBC or newspapers. It's a shame that so few people read them.

Countdown2

July 10th, 2014
2:07 PM

Surely Robert Peston doesn't think the output of a future BBC which would have to pay its way by giving advertisers what they want can be any worse than the current outfit which acts like the propaganda wing of the Green Party?

Richard Whipple

July 9th, 2014
6:07 PM

So, now I have read and digested the article and I see a bunch on my colleagues in this discussion here and I have to ask: WHERE ARE YOUR VOICES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF OUR TRADE (I refuse to demean the term profession)? True press agentry is not the sum total of PR's potential to be a voice in business but how many clients call up a PR agency for a Corporate Conscience. And just where and by whom is this work taught? After three decades work on multiple continents with Fortune 100 companies I am willing to intuit that a good 99% of calls into the name brand PR agencies, which are all controlled by three corporations, are for perception management rather than Corporate Conscience/Governance work.

*** Press officers have no concern with truth. truth and falsity are irrelevant to their work. ***

This is spot on. PRSA pays lip service to ethics but without a revocable professional license, the service to the public is meaningless spin. And they do not want to pursue a licensing agenda. Rather they shame whistleblowers (contrary to policy).

*** They withhold information from journalists in the hope of killing a story. ***

How we have fallen from the management of information to withholding it altogether. Technically, still information management. Amazing what multitude of sins good phrasing can cover up, no? But let's not stop there. Let's consider what PR did for the tobacco industry or in the case of American Express vs. Edward Safra.

*** I have never heard of a press officer going straight and coming clean by explaining how his government department or corporation manipulated public opinion. ***

You would have if you were in PR: Scott McClellan, Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee and others who are/were vilified. My mentor called for licensing and freely admitted his role in black public relations work for everyone: a real gun for hire. He wrote clearly worded books entitled Propaganda and Crystallizing Public Opinion. And that's where I get to the point that this trade will not be a profession – an independent symmetric voice for the public inside institutions to do the kind of work Glenn M. Broom and David M. Dozier detailed in Using Research in Public Relations.

But there is no money in that kind of Corporate Conscience work when you get crowded out of a market managed by an oligarchy of corporations, DSM IV qualified sociopathic. Better financially to play ball and those university students have debt to pay. http://earthisnotround.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/the-10-companies.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5hEiANG4Uk WHERE ARE OUR FEARLESS VOICES? They are not working for the three corporations that own 90% of the industry.

andygreencreativity

July 6th, 2014
1:07 PM

Lively stirring up of debate here - and highlights the need for coherent, robust and relevant theory and definitions of what constitutes 'PR' and 'propaganda'. Can I alert you to an independent, not-for-profit global initiative which would help all sides in this debate, called #PRredefined. It currently covers issues such as 'truthiness', 'integrity' and 'values' and 'propaganda' and welcomes your input at wwww.prredefined.org

wtloild

July 3rd, 2014
2:07 PM

Fantastic piece on an point that doesn't get raised enough. I worked in local govt for 20yrs & the cancerous impact of this spin culture annoyed me throughout. However...I'll make one point in their defence - there are numerous instances where council clients go to the press attacking the authority with their very one-sided story, often a pack of lies, yet because of confidentiality rules, the council is unable to denounce those blatant untruths. I'd suggest that where an individual chooses to share their story, they then waive some right to confidentiality, and the public body can respond with the facts of the case.

Mary WillowAnonymous

July 3rd, 2014
1:07 PM

The problem is the definition of 'lie' is as difficult to pin down as a definition of 'truth' A witness under oath promises to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth- not simply to tell the 'truth'. PR is just PR speak for propaganda whenever its purpose is to deceive or mislead. If PR people had ever attended a Catholic primary school they would know from their catechism that it is perfectly possible to lie by omission and that St Peter at the pearly gates has no tick box for letting you off on a technicality.

Anon

June 27th, 2014
10:06 AM

If PRs were named by whoever quotes them the lies would reduce drastically. The anonymity they enjoy is the fuel that allows them to lie.

Oldster

June 27th, 2014
9:06 AM

'Twas ever thus, as you will recall from John Betjeman's poem "Executive" and Malcolm Muggeridge's description of PR as "organised lying".

James Matthews

June 27th, 2014
8:06 AM

Prostitutes should sue.

reluctant_pseudonym

June 26th, 2014
5:06 PM

"I have never heard of a press officer going straight and coming clean by explaining how his government department or corporation manipulated public opinion." => Damian McBride?

Tim Almond

June 26th, 2014
4:06 PM

"Compare PRs with other despised trades. Journalists have blown the whistle on journalistic malpractice. Bankers have blown the whistle on financial malpractice. But I have never heard of a press officer going straight and coming clean by explaining how his government department or corporation manipulated public opinion." Know what else PRs do? They protect business people from giving a reasonable and honest interview that is twisted into a sensational story that paints them as a villain by pushing certain elements to the fore and omitting certain aspects completely.

Julian Kavanagh

June 26th, 2014
4:06 PM

I think Nick needs to have more faith in journalists and the democratic nature of information in the internet age. I work for a FTSE100 company as a corporate PR (Julian Kavanagh is a pseudonym, by the way). When I speak to journalists (and I do so most days) I push the company line - of course - but my main job is to help journalists navigate the vast swathes of information and opinion already out there and provide background detail and context (often political) to the news that we're announcing. The point about the Telegraph is interesting. In my experience, the woeful journalism at the Telegraph is a result of Telegraph journalists being chained to their desks providing web content rather than going our and getting stories. I should also add that while my loyalty to the company is clear, the first rule of a good PR is that there are no circumstances under which it is acceptable to lie. If you don't like a question or don't want to compromise yourself, then reach for 'no comment.' If my CEO asked me to lie to a journalist, I would resign. Finally, both Robert Peston and Nick Cohen have given the impression with their diatribes against PR that they are on the side of the angels. They and their fellow journalists are clearly not - journalists have their agendas too. If they were on the side of the angels, would CEOs and other feel there is a need for press officers?

Harold

June 26th, 2014
3:06 PM

But even worse are the 'journalists' who get a by-line for regurgiating a slightly altered press release.

[Mar 21, 2015] The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton

After Israeli elections and Ukrainian coup d'état the key question is "to what extent [...] the contemporary right [is] linked to classical fascism". And the picture is complex. As one reviewer of the book Fascism and Neofascism Critical Writings on the Radical Right in Europe noted "contrary to common perception, the Nazi movement was not repressive towards sex. In fact, it sneered at Christian morality much the same way that modern libertines and leftists do, and favored both premarital and extramarital sex. Attempts were made to discredit the Catholic Church by accusing priests in general of being homosexuals (sound familiar?). Much as modern feminists and other humanists, the Nazis accused Christianity of having a dislike for the human body and for showing disrespect towards women. This was supposed to be a carryover of "the Oriental attitude towards women." Similarly hate toward particular ethnic or racial group was never absolute: Among Nazi Germany fascist brass there were notable number of Jews. Also Italian fascism was quite different from German as well as the level of Social Darwinism adopted.
Neofascism movement share with classic fascism the belief in the necessary of hierarchical (authoritarian) world with the dominant and subordinate groups, as well as ethos of masculine violence. It is deeply rooted in European culture with and as Adorno noted that "totality" is a mode of domination that lies implicit in the Enlightenment drive to de-mythologize the world. In this sense "totalitarism" in not unique to fascism and communism but also is inherent in "consumer capitalism", which, as such, represent a potent background for emerging neofascist groups and movements. Fascist myths were the means of constituting identity and as such not tat different form mass advertizing . That also entails deep similarities of Hollywood and Nazi films. At the same time, new radical right movement and groups are clearly distinct from fascist of the past. While fascism emerged partially as a reaction to brutalities and injustices of WWI, new radical right is in large part the result of unease with the neoliberalism. Several members of Western European far right groups fight in Donbass with Donbass militia as they consider Kiev junta to be Washington puppets promoting its globalization agenda. At the same time several members of white supremacist groups fight with Kiev junta para-military formations (death squads) which openly brandish Nazi symbols.
Neofascist movements are using "invented historical context" or myths as a powerful means for making sense of human differences and organizing societies. Nationalism, based on however fictive consent of national identity, is powerful mean of organizing the society along of axis of domination and subordination, inclusion and exclusion. Racism and nationalism while not the same things are closely linked together. In a sense any political system that operate on the base of nationality of race is a neofascism in its essence. that includes Israel and Baltic states. In this sense neither the USA nor Russia can be classified as neofascist regimes became they do not adhere to the concept of "ingenious nationality" or white race supremacy. That does not exclude existence of groups that adhere to this mythology.
It is extremely interesting those football fans, skinheads and hooligans, who often utilized the gesture of rebellition against the society to trigger predictable outrage against the general population were mobilized during EuroMaydan events. Behaviors once deemed antisocial and vandalistic were harnessed in the service of the nationalist discourse and the they served as a part of storm troopers for the coup of February 22, 2014. Ultimately like in Serbia before unruly football hooligans were recruited into paramilitary formations that played important role in civil was in Donbass (like Serbia paramilitary formation in wars of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo) and committed the most horrendous crimes against civil population. .
Ukrainian events definitely correlated with disillusionment of the neoliberalism in specific form of crony capitalism of Yanukovich regime. In a way marginalization of extreme right from 1945 to 1991 was more exception the a rule Western societies, especially European, tend to generate powerful extreme right movements. In a few states neofascist have chances of coming to power (Ukraine is actually is not a good example as events here were externally driven).
Amazon.com

Panopticonman on May 1, 2004

Whose Reich Is It Anyway?

The Marquis de Morés, returning to 1890s Paris after his cattle ranching venture in North Dakota failed, recruited a gang of men from the Parisian cattle yards as muscle for his "national socialism" project -- a term Paxton credits Morés' contemporary Maurice Barres, a French nationalist author, with coining. Morés' project was potent and prophetic: his national socialism was a mixture of anti-capitalism and anti-Semitism. He clothed his men in what must have been the first fascist uniform in Europe -- ten-gallon hats and cowboy garb, frontier clothes he'd taken a shine to in the American West. (Author Paxton suggests the first ever fascist get-up was the KKKs white sheet and pointy hat). Morés killed a French Jewish officer in a duel during the Dreyfus affair and later was killed in the Sahara by his guides during his quest to unite France to Islam to Spain.

Morés had earlier proclaimed: "Life is valuable only through action. So much the worse if the action is mortal."

Here assembled together are all of the elements of what Paxton would classify as first stage fascism: "the creation of a movement." Most fascist movements stall in this first stage he notes -- think, for instance, of the skinheads, the American Nazi Party and Posse Comitatus.

Paxton's other stages are

  1. the rooting of the movement in the political system;
  2. the seizure of power;
  3. the exercise of power; and
  4. the duration of power, during which the regime chooses either radicalization or entropy.

He notes that although each stage

"is a prerequisite for the next, nothing requires a fascist movement to complete all of them, or even to move in only one direction. The five stages permit plausible comparison between movements and regimes at equivalent degrees of development. It helps us see that fascism, far from static, was a succession of processes and choices: seeking a following, forming alliances, bidding for power, then exercising it. That is why the conceptual tools that illuminate one stage may not necessarily work equally well for others." pg. 23.

Paxton also tentatively offers a definition of fascism, but only after tracing the rise of various movements from their beginnings in the 19th century through the present day. Other historians and philosophers, he suggests, have written brilliantly on fascism, but have failed to recognize that their analyses apply to only one stage or another. He also notes that often definitions of fascism are based on fascist writings; he maintains that fascist writings while valuable were often written as justification for the seizure of power, or the attempted seizure, and that what fascists actually did and do is more critical to understanding these movements. Indeed, the language of fascism has changed little since the days of the Marquis De Mores.

He hesitates in offering both his definition and his analytical stages, saying that he knows by doing so he risks falling into the nominalism of the "bestiary." He demonstrates that this is a common failing of definitions of fascism which are often incomplete or muddled as they typically describe only one or two typically late stages.

Other historians, for instance, split fascism into Nazism or Italian fascism, avoiding the problem of understanding their common elements by concentrating on their differences, insisting that they are incommensurable. Finally in the last pages, Paxton offers up this fairly comprehensive and useful definition:

"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Paxton is particularly strong in showing how the circumstances in post WWI Germany and Italy -- the demobilized mobs of young soldiers, sent to war by elites who had no conception of the destruction and suffering they had unleashed upon the younger generation -- were ripe for fascism's appeals. For many, liberalism, conservatism and socialism all seemed equally complicit in the crack-up of Europe in the Great War. Fascism, rising from the ashes, employed the socialistic tools of mass marches, the military techniques of terror learned in the war, and as they gained power, the new tools of mass communication and propaganda developed in the US during WWI.

Fascists also reacted astutely to public discomfort toward the mass migrations from southern and eastern Europe coming in the wake of political and economic distress in those regions, using that fear to increase their power through scapegoating and its attendant rhetoric of purity.

Fascism is both charged and blurry word these days, used by both the left and the right to assail their critics and enemies.

The Nazi remains the evildoer par excellence in popular and political culture, invoked for a thrill of fear or the disciplinary scare or emotional incitement. In this masterful synthesis of writings in politics, history, philosophy and sociology, Paxton untangles the vast literature fascism has generated, establishes some essential ground rules for coming to grips with its many expressions, stages, and manifestations, and clears a space for further, better focused research.

Although academic in its orientation, it is well and clearly written. Finally, for the reader who is not familiar with modern European history, it is a very useful and informative text as it takes into its scope by necessity much of European and American history over the past one hundred years. Absolutely required reading.

[Mar 21, 2015] Guest Post How Putin Can Win The Economic War Against The West by Ron Holland

Zero Hedge

03/18/2015

pravda.ru

... ... ...

Some experts believe that the reason of economic crisis in Russia are not the Western sanctions, but decrease in oil price. What do you think?

While I think it is an organized action by the US and Saudi Arabia, it's success to date in dramatically lowering oil prices has been possible because of the global recession and worldwide drop in demand for oil. The price of oil would have pulled back in any case but the policy has made the downtrend worse and of a longer duration.

But understand this is a complicated situation not just aimed at Russia as this also dramatically cuts revenue for Iran another nation in opposition to US hegemony. Also Sunni Saudi Arabia rightly fears Shia Iran, as most of the Saudi oil resources are right across the Persian Gulf from Iran including the world's largest, the Ghawer field and most of the 15% Saudi Shite minority population lives in the area where the reserves are located. Remember the Shite/Sunni divide in Islam makes the Israel/Arab conflict pale in comparison and the Saudi Shites are treated quite badly so they and the Saudi oil reserves could become a fertile ground for Iranian actions.

Is it an organized act by the US and Saudi Arabia? If it is so, then Obama deliberately endangered the shale miracle in the US, didn't he?

Yes, as I answered in the question above it is an organized act by the US and Saudi Arabia but the leadership of Saudi Arabia jumped both at the chance to close the fracking and shale oil production competition in the United States as well as to put pressure on their arch enemy Iran.

Also much of the oil production industry votes and supports Republican candidates rather than the Democrats so Obama is not paying a huge political price. Finally although shale oil production is not profitable unless oil is near $100 a barrel, the public had already loaded up on these junk bonds and Wall Street had made their money so it was time to fleece the unsophisticated investors. Regardless of US shale oil production or losses, the opportunity to bring financial pressure against Iran and Russia was worth the cost to the Washington political leadership.

What is needed for the oil price starting to rise at last? Tyler Durden believes that it is Putin who should surrender Bashar al-Assad, who does not give permission for gas pipeline installation from Qatar to Europe. Do you agree?

It is too late to surrender Bashar al-Assad and allow the Qatar pipeline as Washington has bigger fish to fry, ie. Russia and Iran the last major energy suppliers outside of US domination and control. Two events have to happen before oil gets expensive again.

First, the price of oil will rise when the global recession has ended and the world economy picks up again. I believe the recession in China and the rest of the world is just starting and it is related to overhanging amount of government debt and bonds floating around the world. I really don't know how governments and the central banks get us out of the looming debt crisis without wholesale debt repudiation.

Second, Washington must decide that the disadvantages of artificially low oil prices hurt the US economy more than the intended victims Iran and Russia.

As for Germany and the EU, Hitler's violent goal of lebensraum for living spaces to farm, trade and grow food for the Reich at the expense of the Russian people has today been modernized to a longing for Russian natural resources ranging from timber, mining to oil and gas in order to benefit Europe and Washington. I believe their goal is economic rather than a military threat and this is just an expansion of an ongoing natural resource grab outside the Middle East as the long-term challenge for world supremacy between Washington & Wall Street VS China and the Asian tigers slowly develop.

The issuance of unredeemable government debt and bonds are the ultimate control mechanism by the Western interests utilized in order to keep politicians, national leaders and nations in line and march in lockstep to their economic programs. Russia under Putin is not over indebted like almost all other western nations thus allowing Putin to exercise leadership independent of European and Washington demands and this makes Russia in their eyes a threat to the continuation of the fake debt democracy system across the West.

The ultimate goal is to destabilize Russia by destroying the economy and limiting government revenue and growth by holding oil prices at historically low levels. To do this they must depose Putin, the national leader with the highest poll approval rating in the world and replace him with a compliant quisling type of leadership submissive to western interests as has been done in Ukraine. This goal could be achieved due to Russia's extreme over dependence on energy resource revenue.

In my view it wasn't the arms race, total failure of Russian communism to benefit the masses nor the inability to compete with the western market economies that overthrew the communist party leadership in the former Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries. Rather it was the government debt burden of Moscow and it's other eastern European client states that eventually destroyed the Eastern Bloc as political leaders increasingly tried to improve their low standards of living and satisfy consumers through government borrowing from western banks.

This policy worked for the West and the Soviet style communism is thankfully no more but this is the same policy used today by Washington and in the European Union in order to control the destiny and leadership of what should be independent national governments. As you see with Greece, even in voting democracies where the citizens demand a change, there can be no change because all politicians are subservient to powerful foreign banking interests.

I would suggest that Washington is indeed acting rationally if their goal is to preserve their power base as well as the support of powerful banking and economic interests. The US Empire has indeed reached it's zenith of power and authority in the world and as America heads downhill as have all major empires in the past. Therefore it is crucial to buy time by attempting to conquer or control energy resources around the world hence why the US is involved across the Middle East and increasingly in the Ukraine and is surrounding Russia and Iran.

Their goal for Russia, now the ultimate ally of a resurgent China is economic vassalage, territorial dismemberment and the development of "spheres of influence" just like Great Britain did to India and the western countries including Russia did to a weakened China in the 19th century.

Will Putin go the length of it?

Well this is a tough question for a non-Russian to comment on. He is the best politician on the planet evidenced by his poll numbers and there is no question he is a patriot and wants the best for his country, the people and of course your powerful oligarchs.

I love the Washington propaganda always lambasting the evil Russian oligarchs because every country including the United States have their own powerful interests or oligarchs that seek to use government as a tool for their best interests. This is nothing new or sinister as government and politicians everywhere have always operated this way.

Yes, I believe Putin and Russia will survive this attack on Russian sovereignty and it's over emphasis on energy resource revenue which is a mistake made by Russia not by western interests. This economic war will end in stalemate because Russia cannot be subdued by invasion, history shows us that and the increasing alliance with China and other BRICS will help with better economic growth.

But I don't consider a standoff as a victory for Putin or Russia. It is just maintaining the status quo with Russia still at risk from western expansionism and the control of your natural resources. Russia is now engaged in an asymmetrical war with the American and European Union primarily over resources and the strategy and tactics really differ between the West and Russia. Washington failed in goading Russia into a military invasion of Ukraine as this could have drawn in other European nations thus further weakening the Russian economy but the economic, currency and financial warfare will continue hopefully short of military action.

To date Russia only reacts to western sanctions and economic warfare against your energy industry thus there is neither real pain for the west nor any reason for them not to ratchet up the sanctions against individuals, banking and other interests. They are logically attacking your weakest link, the energy and financial sectors and they certainly do not expect a major response from your side. Still dumping Treasury debt by Russia or China would probably be counter productive and both nations would be smart of liquidate US dollar debt in an organized regular fashion during this near term period of tremendous dollar strength. This is probably your last chance to unload US Treasury debt at a profit.

A defensive war strategy even in an economic war is not a recipe for victory but rather a guarantor of future wars or ultimate defeat. Putin and Russia can win this economic war quite easily if you think and act outside the box so to speak. The West is legitimately attacking your economy at its weakest link, your over dependence on the energy sector hence why low oil prices and the gas pipeline revolution in the Ukraine were smart moves by your energy adversaries.

Utilize your strengths and western weaknesses in your peaceful economic and financial responses to the challenges they have made to your country. I've spent my entire career in the financial industry and this is not rocket science on how to successfully counter western political moves against you.

The weakness of the Western banking and economic interests are massive government debt, the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency and nationalism within the EU. There is no way citizens or companies can escape the high taxes, massive debt service costs and the inability of citizens or companies within Europe to escape their high tax, regulatory environment that is killing the economy of Europe in order to defend the primarily German banking interests. Financial privacy and all wealth in Europe are at risk from future bail-ins where depositor's funds are used to pay for excessive bank lending losses. We've already seen it in Cyprus and soon it will happen in Greece and the PIGGS countries.

To win, you must have other powerful economic interests outside Russia who can benefit and profit from a sovereign independent Russia. The US has destroyed financial privacy and confidentially around the world and no nation can stand up to their powerful threats to other banking interests which means the private wealth of the entire West will eventually be at risk of bank bail-ins, confiscation of retirement funds and confiscatory tax rates when the bond crisis finally hit because there is no secure alternative to protecting honest earned wealth

As I've written in earlier editorials, Russia can win the financial/energy/economic war only by finding new sources of revenue outside the energy sector and playing on its unique strengths. A low tax rate and friendly regulatory environment to attract European/American industry and money is a start. It appears Russia is now moving to offer economic citizenships and tax advantages in order to attract entrepreneurs as I wrote a couple of months ago and this will help.

For example, I'm a skier and where can you ski in the winter and enjoy a tropical climate the other 6 months outside of a couple of very expensive locations in Switzerland, Italy and France? You have skiing at Krasnaya Polyana less than an hour from Sochi on the Russian Riviera the site of the 2014 Olympics that could become another Hong Kong with the climate advantages and low taxes and secure banking opportunities. Plus you have a relatively empty Olympic village that could be remodeled into condos and flats for foreign entrepreneurs and investors.

Finally Russia must get aggressive in the economic war. You can win this economic contest in 24 months, if certain special zones in Russia simply are allowed to copy Swiss banking rules and regulations, as wealth will always flow to secure locations where taxes are low. You know what banking privacy and security did for Switzerland, it made a poor country with few natural resources the wealthiest nation in the world. You will have foreign banks and financial institutions lining up to open offices in Russia if you can guarantee financial privacy to a degree and wealth protection in total.

This will break the monopoly of West in financial and banking as well as their power to threaten you. The coming bond debacle guarantees this will work as I've written earlier every nation has wealthy interests and their own oligarchs so why not build support for Russia from wealthy foreigners as they transfer a portion of their wealth as taxable income at a very low rate to your nation. This will end the economic war.

Will there be set peace in Ukraine in the near future? Which role will the US have in it?

No the Ukraine is caught between competing sides in the East VS West conflict. Sadly it will likely end up like Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan as a battleground and non functioning state at least economically and maybe militarily caught between the US and EU verses Russia. Russia will protect the Russian speakers and likely will open a land route to the Crimea and maybe as far west as Odessa thus cutting off the Ukraine from the Black Sea. Still all Russia needs is a Ukraine non-aligned with the West or a member of NATO. The US will continue to promote instability in the Ukraine for the foreseeable future.

Ron Holland

Ronald Holland is the author of several books as well as numerous special reports and hundreds of articles on finance, investments, history and politics. He speaks and moderates frequently at financial and free-market conferences and has developed Swiss oriented financial products in the US and Switzerland and his lived and worked in the US, Switzerland and Canada. He was head of a bank trust department, president of an investment firm licensed in 47 states and involved in resort real estate marketing and sales. He consults with a wide range of individuals, corporations and entities.

[Mar 20, 2015] Rethinking the National Interest by Condoleezza Rice

If you compare this with Nuland's recent testimony, it's clear Condoleezza Rice was higher quality diplomat then Victoria Nuland. Both are neocons although Ms. Rise was less supportive of Israel. But true to neocon doctrine when she said "especially because in 2000 we hoped that it was moving closer to us in terms of values." she means neoliberal values (aka "Washington consensus") under which Russia should play the role of vassal of the USA (like all other countries). A colony.
You should replace "democratization" with "neoliberalization" globally in the text to understand the real interests she defends.
July 1, 2008 | Foreign Affairs

Listen to this essay on CFR.org

What is the national interest? This is a question that I took up in 2000 in these pages. That was a time that we as a nation revealingly called "the post-Cold War era." We knew better where we had been than where we were going. Yet monumental changes were unfolding -- changes that were recognized at the time but whose implications were largely unclear.

And then came the attacks of September 11, 2001. As in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States was swept into a fundamentally different world. We were called to lead with a new urgency and with a new perspective on what constituted threats and what might emerge as opportunities. And as with previous strategic shocks, one can cite elements of both continuity and change in our foreign policy since the attacks of September 11.

What has not changed is that our relations with traditional and emerging great powers still matter to the successful conduct of policy. Thus, my admonition in 2000 that we should seek to get right the "relationships with the big powers" -- Russia, China, and emerging powers such as India and Brazil -- has consistently guided us. As before, our alliances in the Americas, Europe, and Asia remain the pillars of the international order, and we are now transforming them to meet the challenges of a new era.

What has changed is, most broadly, how we view the relationship between the dynamics within states and the distribution of power among them. As globalization strengthens some states, it exposes and exacerbates the failings of many others -- those too weak or poorly governed to address challenges within their borders and prevent them from spilling out and destabilizing the international order. In this strategic environment, it is vital to our national security that states be willing and able to meet the full range of their sovereign responsibilities, both beyond their borders and within them. This new reality has led us to some significant changes in our policy. We recognize that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest. And in the broader Middle East, we recognize that freedom and democracy are the only ideas that can, over time, lead to just and lasting stability, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As in the past, our policy has been sustained not just by our strength but also by our values. The United States has long tried to marry power and principle -- realism and idealism. At times, there have been short-term tensions between them. But we have always known where our long-term interests lie. Thus, the United States has not been neutral about the importance of human rights or the superiority of democracy as a form of government, both in principle and in practice. This uniquely American realism has guided us over the past eight years, and it must guide us over the years to come.

GREAT POWER, OLD AND NEW

By necessity, our relationships with Russia and China have been rooted more in common interests than common values. With Russia, we have found common ground, as evidenced by the "strategic framework" agreement that President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in Sochi in March of this year. Our relationship with Russia has been sorely tested by Moscow's rhetoric, by its tendency to treat its neighbors as lost "spheres of influence," and by its energy policies that have a distinct political tinge. And Russia's internal course has been a source of considerable disappointment, especially because in 2000 we hoped that it was moving closer to us in terms of values.

Yet it is useful to remember that Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is neither a permanent enemy nor a strategic threat. Russians now enjoy greater opportunity and, yes, personal freedom than at almost any other time in their country's history. But that alone is not the standard to which Russians themselves want to be held. Russia is not just a great power; it is also the land and culture of a great people. And in the twenty-first century, greatness is increasingly defined by the technological and economic development that flows naturally in open and free societies. That is why the full development both of Russia and of our relationship with it still hangs in the balance as the country's internal transformation unfolds.

The last eight years have also challenged us to deal with rising Chinese influence, something we have no reason to fear if that power is used responsibly. We have stressed to Beijing that with China's full membership in the international community comes responsibilities, whether in the conduct of its economic and trade policy, its approach to energy and the environment, or its policies in the developing world. China's leaders increasingly realize this, and they are moving, albeit slowly, to a more cooperative approach on a range of problems. For instance, on Darfur, after years of unequivocally supporting Khartoum, China endorsed the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the deployment of a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force and dispatched an engineering battalion to pave the way for those peacekeepers. China needs to do much more on issues such as Darfur, Burma, and Tibet, but we sustain an active and candid dialogue with China's leaders on these challenges.

The United States, along with many other countries, remains concerned about China's rapid development of high-tech weapons systems. We understand that as countries develop, they will modernize their armed forces. But China's lack of transparency about its military spending and doctrine and its strategic goals increases mistrust and suspicion. Although Beijing has agreed to take incremental steps to deepen U.S.-Chinese military-to-military exchanges, it needs to move beyond the rhetoric of peaceful intentions toward true engagement in order to reassure the international community.

Our relationships with Russia and China are complex and characterized simultaneously by competition and cooperation. But in the absence of workable relations with both of these states, diplomatic solutions to many international problems would be elusive. Transnational terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change and instability stemming from poverty and disease -- these are dangers to all successful states, including those that might in another time have been violent rivals. It is incumbent on the United States to find areas of cooperation and strategic agreement with Russia and China, even when there are significant differences.

Obviously, Russia and China carry special responsibility and weight as fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council, but this has not been the only forum in which we have worked together. Another example has emerged in Northeast Asia with the six-party framework. The North Korean nuclear issue could have led to conflict among the states of Northeast Asia, or to the isolation of the United States, given the varied and vital interests of China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. Instead, it has become an opportunity for cooperation and coordination as the efforts toward verifiable denuclearization proceed. And when North Korea tested a nuclear device last year, the five other parties already were an established coalition and went quickly to the Security Council for a Chapter 7 resolution. That, in turn, put considerable pressure on North Korea to return to the six-party talks and to shut down and begin disabling its Yongbyon reactor. The parties intend to institutionalize these habits of cooperation through the establishment of a Northeast Asian Peace and Security Mechanism -- a first step toward a security forum in the region.

The importance of strong relations with global players extends to those that are emerging. With those, particularly India and Brazil, the United States has built deeper and broader ties. India stands on the front lines of globalization. This democratic nation promises to become a global power and an ally in shaping an international order rooted in freedom and the rule of law. Brazil's success at using democracy and markets to address centuries of pernicious social inequality has global resonance. Today, India and Brazil look outward as never before, secure in their ability to compete and succeed in the global economy. In both countries, national interests are being redefined as Indians and Brazilians realize their direct stake in a democratic, secure, and open international order -- and their commensurate responsibilities for strengthening it and defending it against the major transnational challenges of our era. We have a vital interest in the success and prosperity of these and other large multiethnic democracies with global reach, such as Indonesia and South Africa. And as these emerging powers change the geopolitical landscape, it will be important that international institutions also change to reflect this reality. This is why President Bush has made clear his support for a reasonable expansion of the UN Security Council.

SHARED VALUES AND SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

As important as relations are with Russia and China, it is our work with our allies, those with whom we share values, that is transforming international politics -- for this work presents an opportunity to expand the ranks of well-governed, law-abiding democratic states in our world and to defeat challenges to this vision of international order. Cooperation with our democratic allies, therefore, should not be judged simply by how we relate to one another. It should be judged by the work we do together to defeat terrorism and extremism, meet global challenges, defend human rights and dignity, and support new democracies.

In the Americas, this has meant strengthening our ties with strategic democracies such as Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Chile in order to further the democratic development of our hemisphere. Together, we have supported struggling states, such as Haiti, in locking in their transitions to democracy and security. Together, we are defending ourselves against drug traffickers, criminal gangs, and the few autocratic outliers in our democratic hemisphere. The region still faces challenges, including Cuba's coming transition and the need to support, unequivocally, the Cuban people's right to a democratic future. There is no doubt that centuries-old suspicions of the United States persist in the region. But we have begun to write a new narrative that speaks not only to macroeconomic development and trade but also to the need for democratic leaders to address problems of social justice and inequality.

I believe that one of the most compelling stories of our time is our relationship with our oldest allies. The goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace is very close to completion. The United States welcomes a strong, united, and coherent Europe. There is no doubt that the European Union has been a superb anchor for the democratic evolution of eastern Europe after the Cold War. Hopefully, the day will come when Turkey takes its place in the EU.

Membership in the EU and NATO has been attractive enough to lead countries to make needed reforms and to seek the peaceful resolution of long-standing conflicts with their neighbors. The reverse has been true as well: the new members have transformed these two pillars of the transatlantic relationship. Twelve of the 28 members of NATO are former "captive nations," countries once in the Soviet sphere. The effect of their joining the alliance is felt in a renewed dedication to promoting and protecting democracy. Whether sending troops to Afghanistan or Iraq or fiercely defending the continued expansion of NATO, these states have brought new energy and fervor to the alliance.

In recent years, the mission and the purpose of the alliance have also been transformed. Indeed, many can remember when NATO viewed the world in two parts: Europe and "out of area," which was basically everywhere else. If someone had said in 2000 that NATO today would be rooting out terrorists in Kandahar, training the security forces of a free Iraq, providing critical support to peacekeepers in Darfur, and moving forward on missile defenses, hopefully in partnership with Russia, who would have believed him? The endurance and resilience of the transatlantic alliance is one reason that I believe Lord Palmerston got it wrong when he said that nations have no permanent allies. The United States does have permanent allies: the nations with whom we share common values.

Democratization is also deepening across the Asia-Pacific region. This is expanding our circle of allies and advancing the goals we share. Indeed, although many assume that the rise of China will determine the future of Asia, so, too -- and perhaps to an even greater degree -- will the broader rise of an increasingly democratic community of Asian states. This is the defining geopolitical event of the twenty-first century, and the United States is right in the middle of it. We enjoy a strong, democratic alliance with Australia, with key states in Southeast Asia, and with Japan -- an economic giant that is emerging as a "normal" state, capable of working to secure and spread our values both in Asia and beyond. South Korea, too, has become a global partner whose history can boast an inspiring journey from poverty and dictatorship to democracy and prosperity. Finally, the United States has a vital stake in India's rise to global power and prosperity, and relations between the two countries have never been stronger or broader. It will take continued work, but this is a dramatic breakthrough for both our strategic interests and our values.

It is now possible to speak of emerging democratic allies in Africa as well. Too often, Africa is thought of only as a humanitarian concern or a zone of conflict. But the continent has seen successful transitions to democracy in several states, among them Ghana, Liberia, Mali, and Mozambique. Our administration has worked to help the democratic leaders of these and other states provide for their people -- most of all by attacking the continental scourge of HIV/AIDS in an unprecedented effort of power, imagination, and mercy. We have also been an active partner in resolving conflicts -- from the conclusion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the civil war between the North and the South in Sudan, to active engagement in the Great Lakes region, to the intervention of a small contingent of U.S. military forces in coordination with the African Union to end the conflict in Liberia. Although conflicts in Darfur, Somalia, and other places tragically remain violent and unresolved, it is worth noting the considerable progress that African states are making on many fronts and the role that the United States has played in supporting African efforts to solve the continent's greatest problems.

A DEMOCRATIC MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT

Although the United States' ability to influence strong states is limited, our ability to enhance the peaceful political and economic development of weak and poorly governed states can be considerable. We must be willing to use our power for this purpose -- not only because it is necessary but also because it is right. Too often, promoting democracy and promoting development are thought of as separate goals. In fact, it is increasingly clear that the practices and institutions of democracy are essential to the creation of sustained, broad-based economic development -- and that market-driven development is essential to the consolidation of democracy. Democratic development is a unified political-economic model, and it offers the mix of flexibility and stability that best enables states to seize globalization's opportunities and manage its challenges. And for those who think otherwise: What real alternative worthy of America is there?

Democratic development is not only an effective path to wealth and power; it is also the best way to ensure that these benefits are shared justly across entire societies, without exclusion, repression, or violence. We saw this recently in Kenya, where democracy enabled civil society, the press, and business leaders to join together to insist on an inclusive political bargain that could stem the country's slide into ethnic cleansing and lay a broader foundation for national reconciliation. In our own hemisphere, democratic development has opened up old, elite-dominated systems to millions on the margins of society. These people are demanding the benefits of citizenship long denied them, and because they are doing so democratically, the real story in our hemisphere since 2001 is not that our neighbors have given up on democracy and open markets; it is that they are broadening our region's consensus in support of democratic development by ensuring that it leads to social justice for the most marginalized citizens.

The untidiness of democracy has led some to wonder if weak states might not be better off passing through a period of authoritarian capitalism. A few countries have indeed succeeded with this model, and its allure is only heightened when democracy is too slow in delivering or incapable of meeting high expectations for a better life. Yet for every state that embraces authoritarianism and manages to create wealth, there are many, many more that simply make poverty, inequality, and corruption worse. For those that are doing pretty well economically, it is worth asking whether they might be doing even better with a freer system. Ultimately, it is at least an open question whether authoritarian capitalism is itself an indefinitely sustainable model. Is it really possible in the long run for governments to respect their citizen's talents but not their rights? I, for one, doubt it.

For the United States, promoting democratic development must remain a top priority. Indeed, there is no realistic alternative that we can -- or should -- offer to influence the peaceful evolution of weak and poorly governed states. The real question is not whether to pursue this course but how.

We first need to recognize that democratic development is always possible but never fast or easy. This is because democracy is really the complex interplay of democratic practices and culture. In the experience of countless nations, ours especially, we see that culture is not destiny. Nations of every culture, race, religion, and level of development have embraced democracy and adapted it to their own circumstances and traditions. No cultural factor has yet been a stumbling block -- not German or Japanese "militarism," not "Asian values," not African "tribalism," not Latin America's alleged fondness for caudillos, not the once-purported preference of eastern Europeans for despotism.

The fact is, few nations begin the democratic journey with a democratic culture. The vast majority create one over time -- through the hard, daily struggle to make good laws, build democratic institutions, tolerate differences, resolve them peacefully, and share power justly. Unfortunately, it is difficult to grow the habits of democracy in the controlled environment of authoritarianism, to have them ready and in place when tyranny is lifted. The process of democratization is likely to be messy and unsatisfactory, but it is absolutely necessary. Democracy, it is said, cannot be imposed, particularly by a foreign power. This is true but beside the point. It is more likely that tyranny has to be imposed.

The story today is rarely one of peoples resisting the basics of democracy -- the right to choose those who will govern them and other basic freedoms. It is, instead, about people choosing democratic leaders and then becoming impatient with them and holding them accountable on their duty to deliver a better life. It is strongly in our national interest to help sustain these leaders, support their countries' democratic institutions, and ensure that their new governments are capable of providing for their own security, especially when their nations have experienced crippling conflicts. To do so will require long-term partnerships rooted in mutual responsibility and the integration of all elements of our national power -- political, diplomatic, economic, and, at times, military. We have recently built such partnerships to great effect with countries as different as Colombia, Lebanon, and Liberia. Indeed, a decade ago, Colombia was on the verge of failure. Today, in part because of our long-term partnership with courageous leaders and citizens, Colombia is emerging as a normal nation, with democratic institutions that are defending the country, governing justly, reducing poverty, and contributing to international security.

We must now build long-term partnerships with other new and fragile democracies, especially Afghanistan. The basics of democracy are taking root in this country after nearly three decades of tyranny, violence, and war. For the first time in their history, Afghans have a government of the people, elected in presidential and parliamentary elections, and guided by a constitution that codifies the rights of all citizens. The challenges in Afghanistan do not stem from a strong enemy. The Taliban offers a political vision that very few Afghans embrace. Rather, they exploit the current limitations of the Afghan government, using violence against civilians and revenues from illegal narcotics to impose their rule. Where the Afghan government, with support from the international community, has been able to provide good governance and economic opportunity, the Taliban is in retreat. The United States and NATO have a vital interest in supporting the emergence of an effective, democratic Afghan state that can defeat the Taliban and deliver "population security" -- addressing basic needs for safety, services, the rule of law, and increased economic opportunity. We share this goal with the Afghan people, who do not want us to leave until we have accomplished our common mission. We can succeed in Afghanistan, but we must be prepared to sustain a partnership with that new democracy for many years to come.

One of our best tools for supporting states in building democratic institutions and strengthening civil society is our foreign assistance, but we must use it correctly. One of the great advances of the past eight years has been the creation of a bipartisan consensus for the more strategic use of foreign assistance. We have begun to transform our assistance into an incentive for developing states to govern justly, advance economic freedom, and invest in their people. This is the great innovation of the Millennium Challenge Account initiative. More broadly, we are now better aligning our foreign aid with our foreign policy goals -- so as to help developing countries move from war to peace, poverty to prosperity, poor governance to democracy and the rule of law. At the same time, we have launched historic efforts to help remove obstacles to democratic development -- by forgiving old debts, feeding the hungry, expanding access to education, and fighting pandemics such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. Behind all of these efforts is the overwhelming generosity of the American people, who since 2001 have supported the near tripling of the United States' official development assistance worldwide -- doubling it for Latin America and quadrupling it for Africa.

Ultimately, one of the best ways to support the growth of democratic institutions and civil society is to expand free and fair trade and investment. The very process of implementing a trade agreement or a bilateral investment treaty helps to hasten and consolidate democratic development. Legal and political institutions that can enforce property rights are better able to protect human rights and the rule of law. Independent courts that can resolve commercial disputes can better resolve civil and political disputes. The transparency needed to fight corporate corruption makes it harder for political corruption to go unnoticed and unpunished. A rising middle class also creates new centers of social power for political movements and parties. Trade is a divisive issue in our country right now, but we must not forget that it is essential not only for the health of our domestic economy but also for the success our foreign policy.

There will always be humanitarian needs, but our goal must be to use the tools of foreign assistance, security cooperation, and trade together to help countries graduate to self-sufficiency. We must insist that these tools be used to promote democratic development. It is in our national interest to do so.

THE CHANGING MIDDLE EAST

What about the broader Middle East, the arc of states that stretches from Morocco to Pakistan? The Bush administration's approach to this region has been its most vivid departure from prior policy. But our approach is, in reality, an extension of traditional tenets -- incorporating human rights and the promotion of democratic development into a policy meant to further our national interest. What is exceptional is that the Middle East was treated as an exception for so many decades. U.S. policy there focused almost exclusively on stability. There was little dialogue, certainly not publicly, about the need for democratic change.

For six decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, a basic bargain defined the United States' engagement in the broader Middle East: we supported authoritarian regimes, and they supported our shared interest in regional stability. After September 11, it became increasingly clear that this old bargain had produced false stability. There were virtually no legitimate channels for political expression in the region. But this did not mean that there was no political activity. There was -- in madrasahs and radical mosques. It is no wonder that the best-organized political forces were extremist groups. And it was there, in the shadows, that al Qaeda found the troubled souls to prey on and exploit as its foot soldiers in its millenarian war against the "far enemy."

One response would have been to fight the terrorists without addressing this underlying cause. Perhaps it would have been possible to manage these suppressed tensions for a while. Indeed, the quest for justice and a new equilibrium on which the nations of the broader Middle East are now embarked is very turbulent. But is it really worse than the situation before? Worse than when Lebanon suffered under the boot of Syrian military occupation? Worse than when the self-appointed rulers of the Palestinians personally pocketed the world's generosity and squandered their best chance for a two-state peace? Worse than when the international community imposed sanctions on innocent Iraqis in order to punish the man who tyrannized them, threatened Iraq's neighbors, and bulldozed 300,000 human beings into unmarked mass graves? Or worse than the decades of oppression and denied opportunity that spawned hopelessness, fed hatreds, and led to the sort of radicalization that brought about the ideology behind the September 11 attacks? Far from being the model of stability that some seem to remember, the Middle East from 1945 on was wracked repeatedly by civil conflicts and cross-border wars. Our current course is certainly difficult, but let us not romanticize the old bargains of the Middle East -- for they yielded neither justice nor stability.

The president's second inaugural address and my speech at the American University in Cairo in June 2005 have been held up as rhetorical declarations that have faded in the face of hard realities. No one will argue that the goal of democratization and modernization in the broader Middle East lacks ambition, and we who support it fully acknowledge that it will be a difficult, generational task. No one event, and certainly not a speech, will bring it into being. But if America does not set the goal, no one will.

This goal is made more complicated by the fact that the future of the Middle East is bound up in many of our other vital interests: energy security, nonproliferation, the defense of friends and allies, the resolution of old conflicts, and, most of all, the need for near-term partners in the global struggle against violent Islamist extremism. To state, however, that we must promote either our security interests or our democratic ideals is to present a false choice. Admittedly, our interests and our ideals do come into tension at times in the short term. America is not an NGO and must balance myriad factors in our relations with all countries. But in the long term, our security is best ensured by the success of our ideals: freedom, human rights, open markets, democracy, and the rule of law.

The leaders and citizens of the broader Middle East are now searching for answers to the fundamental questions of modern state building: What are to be the limits on the state's use of power, both within and beyond its borders? What will be the role of the state in the lives of its citizens and the relationship between religion and politics? How will traditional values and mores be reconciled with the democratic promise of individual rights and liberty, particularly for women and girls? How is religious and ethnic diversity to be accommodated in fragile political institutions when people tend to hold on to traditional associations? The answers to these and other questions can come only from within the Middle East itself. The task for us is to support and shape these difficult processes of change and to help the nations of the region overcome several major challenges to their emergence as modern, democratic states.

The first challenge is the global ideology of violent Islamist extremism, as embodied by groups, such as al Qaeda, that thoroughly reject the basic tenets of modern politics, seeking instead to topple sovereign states, erase national borders, and restore the imperial structure of the ancient caliphate. To resist this threat, the United States will need friends and allies in the region who are willing and able to take action against the terrorists among them. Ultimately, however, this is more than just a struggle of arms; it is a contest of ideas. Al Qaeda's theory of victory is to hijack the legitimate local and national grievances of Muslim societies and twist them into an ideological narrative of endless struggle against Western, especially U.S., oppression. The good news is that al Qaeda's intolerant ideology can be enforced only through brutality and violence. When people are free to choose, as we have seen in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq's Anbar Province, they reject al Qaeda's ideology and rebel against its control. Our theory of victory, therefore, must be to offer people a democratic path to advance their interests peacefully -- to develop their talents, to redress injustices, and to live in freedom and dignity. In this sense, the fight against terrorism is a kind of global counterinsurgency: the center of gravity is not the enemies we fight but the societies they are trying to radicalize.

Admittedly, our interests in both promoting democratic development and fighting terrorism and extremism lead to some hard choices, because we do need capable friends in the broader Middle East who can root out terrorists now. These states are often not democratic, so we must balance the tensions between our short-term and our long-term goals. We cannot deny nondemocratic states the security assistance to fight terrorism or defend themselves. At the same time, we must use other points of leverage to promote democracy and hold our friends to account. That means supporting civil society, as we have done through the Forum for the Future and the Middle East Partnership Initiative, and using public and private diplomacy to push our nondemocratic partners to reform. Changes are slowly coming in terms of universal suffrage, more influential parliaments, and education for girls and women. We must continue to advocate for reform and support indigenous agents of change in nondemocratic countries, even as we cooperate with their governments on security.

An example of how our administration has balanced these concerns is our relationship with Pakistan. Following years of U.S. neglect of that relationship, our administration had to establish a partnership with Pakistan's military government to achieve a common goal after September 11. We did so knowing that our security and that of Pakistan ultimately required a return to civilian and democratic rule. So even as we worked with President Pervez Musharraf to fight terrorists and extremists, we invested more than $3 billion to strengthen Pakistani society -- building schools and health clinics, providing emergency relief after the 2005 earthquake, and supporting political parties and the rule of law. We urged Pakistan's military leaders to put their country on a modern and moderate trajectory, which in some important respects they did. And when this progress was threatened last year by the declaration of emergency rule, we pushed President Musharraf hard to take off his uniform and hold free elections. Although terrorists tried to thwart the return of democracy and tragically killed many innocent people, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani people dealt extremism a crushing defeat at the polls. This restoration of democracy in Pakistan creates an opportunity for us to build the lasting and broad-based partnership that we have never achieved with this nation, thereby enhancing our security and anchoring the success of our values in a troubled region.

A second challenge to the emergence of a better Middle East is posed by aggressive states that seek not to peacefully reform the present regional order but to alter it using any form of violence -- assassination, intimidation, terrorism. The question is not whether any particular state should have influence in the region. They all do, and will. The real question is, What kind of influence will these states wield -- and to what ends, constructive or destructive? It is this fundamental and still unresolved question that is at the center of many of the geopolitical challenges in the Middle East today -- whether it is Syria's undermining of Lebanon's sovereignty, Iran's pursuit of a nuclear capability, or both states' support for terrorism.

Iran poses a particular challenge. The Iranian regime pursues its disruptive policies both through state instruments, such as the Revolutionary Guards and the al Quds force, and through nonstate proxies that extend Iranian power, such as elements of the Mahdi Army in Iraq, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon and around the world. The Iranian regime seeks to subvert states and extend its influence throughout the Persian Gulf region and the broader Middle East. It threatens the state of Israel with extinction and holds implacable hostility toward the United States. And it is destabilizing Iraq, endangering U.S. forces, and killing innocent Iraqis. The United States is responding to these provocations. Clearly, an Iran with a nuclear weapon or even the technology to build one on demand would be a grave threat to international peace and security.

But there is also another Iran. It is the land of a great culture and a great people, who suffer under repression. The Iranian people deserve to be integrated into the international system, to travel freely and be educated in the best universities. Indeed, the United States has reached out to them with exchanges of sports teams, disaster-relief workers, and artists. By many accounts, the Iranian people are favorably disposed to Americans and to the United States. Our relationship could be different. Should the Iranian government honor the UN Security Council's demands and suspend its uranium enrichment and related activities, the community of nations, including the United States, is prepared to discuss the full range of issues before us. The United States has no permanent enemies.

Ultimately, the many threats that Iran poses must be seen in a broader context: that of a state fundamentally out of step with the norms and values of the international community. Iran must make a strategic choice -- a choice that we have sought to clarify with our approach -- about how and to what ends it will wield its power and influence: Does it want to continue thwarting the legitimate demands of the world, advancing its interests through violence, and deepening the isolation of its people? Or is it open to a better relationship, one of growing trade and exchange, deepening integration, and peaceful cooperation with its neighbors and the broader international community? Tehran should know that changes in its behavior would meet with changes in ours. But Iran should also know that the United States will defend its friends and its interests vigorously until the day that change comes.

A third challenge is finding a way to resolve long-standing conflicts, particularly that between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Our administration has put the idea of democratic development at the center of our approach to this conflict, because we came to believe that the Israelis will not achieve the security they deserve in their Jewish state and the Palestinians will not achieve the better life they deserve in a state of their own until there is a Palestinian government capable of exercising its sovereign responsibilities, both to its citizens and to its neighbors. Ultimately, a Palestinian state must be created that can live side by side with Israel in peace and security. This state will be born not just through negotiations to resolve hard issues related to borders, refugees, and the status of Jerusalem but also through the difficult effort to build effective democratic institutions that can fight terrorism and extremism, enforce the rule of law, combat corruption, and create opportunities for the Palestinians to improve their lives. This confers responsibilities on both parties.

As the experience of the past several years has shown, there is a fundamental disagreement at the heart of Palestinian society -- between those who reject violence and recognize Israel's right to exist and those who do not. The Palestinian people must ultimately make a choice about which future they desire, and it is only democracy that gives them that choice and holds open the possibility of a peaceful way forward to resolve the existential question at the heart of their national life. The United States, Israel, other states in the region, and the international community must do everything in their power to support those Palestinians who would choose a future of peace and compromise. When the two-state solution is finally realized, it will be because of democracy, not despite it.

This is, indeed, a controversial view, and it speaks to one more challenge that must be resolved if democratic and modern states are to emerge in the broader Middle East: how to deal with nonstate groups whose commitment to democracy, nonviolence, and the rule of law is suspect. Because of the long history of authoritarianism in the region, many of the best-organized political parties are Islamist, and some of them have not renounced violence used in the service of political goals. What should be their role in the democratic process? Will they take power democratically only to subvert the very process that brought them victory? Are elections in the broader Middle East therefore dangerous?

These questions are not easy. When Hamas won elections in the Palestinian territories, it was widely seen as a failure of policy. But although this victory most certainly complicated affairs in the broader Middle East, in another way it helped to clarify matters. Hamas had significant power before those elections -- largely the power to destroy. After the elections, Hamas also had to face real accountability for its use of power for the first time. This has enabled the Palestinian people, and the international community, to hold Hamas to the same basic standards of responsibility to which all governments should be held. Through its continued unwillingness to behave like a responsible regime rather than a violent movement, Hamas has demonstrated that it is wholly incapable of governing.

Much attention has been focused on Gaza, which Hamas holds hostage to its incompetent and brutal policies. But in other places, the Palestinians have held Hamas accountable. In the West Bank city of Qalqilya, for instance, where Hamas was elected in 2004, frustrated and fed-up Palestinians voted it out of office in the next election. If there can be a legitimate, effective, and democratic alternative to Hamas (something that Fatah has not yet been), people will likely choose it. This would especially be true if the Palestinians could live a normal life within their own state.

The participation of armed groups in elections is problematic. But the lesson is not that there should not be elections. Rather, there should be standards, like the ones to which the international community has held Hamas after the fact: you can be a terrorist group or you can be a political party, but you cannot be both. As difficult as this problem is, it cannot be the case that people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us. Although we cannot know whether politics will ultimately deradicalize violent groups, we do know that excluding them from the political process grants them power without responsibility. This is yet another challenge that the leaders and the peoples of the broader Middle East must resolve as the region turns to democratic processes and institutions to resolve differences peacefully and without repression.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF IRAQ

Then, of course, there is Iraq, which is perhaps the toughest test of the proposition that democracy can overcome deep divisions and differences. Because Iraq is a microcosm of the region, with its layers of ethnic and sectarian diversity, the Iraqi people's struggle to build a democracy after the fall of Saddam Hussein is shifting the landscape not just of Iraq but of the broader Middle East as well.

The cost of this war, in lives and treasure, for Americans and Iraqis, has been greater than we ever imagined. This story is still being written, and will be for many years to come. Sanctions and weapons inspections, prewar intelligence and diplomacy, troop levels and postwar planning -- these are all important issues that historians will analyze for decades. But the fundamental question that we can ask and debate now is, Was removing Saddam from power the right decision? I continue to believe that it was.

After we fought one war against Saddam and then remained in a formal state of hostilities with him for over a decade, our containment policy began to erode. The community of nations was losing its will to enforce containment, and Iraq's ruler was getting increasingly good at exploiting it through programs such as oil-for-food -- indeed, more than we knew at the time. The failure of containment was increasingly evident in the UN Security Council resolutions that were passed and then violated, in our regular clashes in the no-fly zones, and in President Bill Clinton's decision to launch air strikes in 1998 and then join with Congress to make "regime change" our government's official policy in Iraq. If Saddam was not a threat, why did the community of nations keep the Iraqi people under the most brutal sanctions in modern history? In fact, as the Iraq Survey Group showed, Saddam was ready and willing to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction programs as soon as international pressure had dissipated.

The United States did not overthrow Saddam to democratize the Middle East. It did so to remove a long-standing threat to international security. But the administration was conscious of the goal of democratization in the aftermath of liberation. We discussed the question of whether we should be satisfied with the end of Saddam's rule and the rise of another strongman to replace him. The answer was no, and it was thus avowedly U.S. policy from the outset to try to support the Iraqis in building a democratic Iraq. It is important to remember that we did not overthrow Adolf Hitler to bring democracy to Germany either. But the United States believed that only a democratic Germany could ultimately anchor a lasting peace in Europe.

The democratization of Iraq and the democratization of the Middle East were thus linked. So, too, was the war on terror linked to Iraq, because our goal after September 11 was to address the deeper malignancies of the Middle East, not just the symptoms of them. It is very hard to imagine how a more just and democratic Middle East could ever have emerged with Saddam still at the center of the region.

Our effort in Iraq has been extremely arduous. Iraq was a broken state and a broken society under Saddam. We have made mistakes. That is undeniable. The explosion to the surface of long-suppressed grievances has challenged fragile, young democratic institutions. But there is no other decent and peaceful way for the Iraqis to reconcile.

As Iraq emerges from its difficulties, the impact of its transformation is being felt in the rest of the region. Ultimately, the states of the Middle East need to reform. But they need to reform their relations, too. A strategic realignment is unfolding in the broader Middle East, separating those states that are responsible and accept that the time for violence under the rubric of "resistance" has passed and those that continue to fuel extremism, terrorism, and chaos. Support for moderate Palestinians and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for democratic leaders and citizens in Lebanon have focused the energies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the states of the Persian Gulf. They must come to see that a democratic Iraq can be an ally in resisting extremism in the region. When they invited Iraq to join the ranks of the Gulf Cooperation Council-Plus-Two (Egypt and Jordan), they took an important step in that direction.

At the same time, these countries look to the United States to stay deeply involved in their troubled region and to counter and deter threats from Iran. The United States now has the weight of its effort very much in the center of the broader Middle East. Our long-term partnerships with Afghanistan and Iraq, to which we must remain deeply committed, our new relationships in Central Asia, and our long-standing partnerships in the Persian Gulf provide a solid geostrategic foundation for the generational work ahead of helping to bring about a better, more democratic, and more prosperous Middle East.

A UNIQUELY AMERICAN REALISM

Investing in strong and rising powers as stakeholders in the international order and supporting the democratic development of weak and poorly governed states -- these broad goals for U.S. foreign policy are certainly ambitious, and they raise an obvious question: Is the United States up to the challenge, or, as some fear and assert these days, is the United States a nation in decline?

We should be confident that the foundation of American power is and will remain strong -- for its source is the dynamism, vigor, and resilience of American society. The United States still possesses the unique ability to assimilate new citizens of every race, religion, and culture into the fabric of our national and economic life. The same values that lead to success in the United States also lead to success in the world: industriousness, innovation, entrepreneurialism. All of these positive habits, and more, are reinforced by our system of education, which leads the world in teaching children not what to think but how to think -- how to address problems critically and solve them creatively.

Indeed, one challenge to the national interest is to make certain that we can provide quality education to all, especially disadvantaged children. The American ideal is one of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. This is the glue that holds together our multiethnic democracy. If we ever stop believing that what matters is not where you came from but where you are going, we will most certainly lose confidence. And an unconfident America cannot lead. We will turn inward. We will see economic competition, foreign trade and investment, and the complicated world beyond our shores not as challenges to which our nation can rise but as threats that we should avoid. That is why access to education is a critical national security issue.

We should also be confident that the foundations of the United States' economic power are strong, and will remain so. Even amid financial turbulence and international crises, the U.S. economy has grown more and faster since 2001 than the economy of any other leading industrial nation. The United States remains unquestionably the engine of global economic growth. To remain so, we must find new, more reliable, and more environmentally friendly sources of energy. The industries of the future are in the high-tech fields (including in clean energy), which our nation has led for years and in which we remain on the global cutting edge. Other nations are indeed experiencing amazing and welcome economic growth, but the United States will likely account for the largest share of global GDP for decades to come.

Even in our government institutions of national security, the foundations of U.S. power are stronger than many assume. Despite our waging two wars and rising to defend ourselves in a new global confrontation, U.S. defense spending today as a percentage of GDP is still well below the average during the Cold War. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have indeed put an enormous strain on our military, and President Bush has proposed to Congress an expansion of our force by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines. The experience of recent years has tested our armed forces, but it has also prepared a new generation of military leaders for stabilization and counterinsurgency missions, of which we will likely face more. This experience has also reinforced the urgent need for a new kind of partnership between our military and civilian institutions. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the provincial reconstruction teams that we deploy in Afghanistan and Iraq are a model of civil-military cooperation for the future.

In these pages in 2000, I decried the role of the United States, in particular the U.S. military, in nation building. In 2008, it is absolutely clear that we will be involved in nation building for years to come. But it should not be the U.S. military that has to do it. Nor should it be a mission that we take up only after states fail. Rather, civilian institutions such as the new Civilian Response Corps must lead diplomats and development workers in a whole-of-government approach to our national security challenges. We must help weak and poorly functioning states strengthen and reform themselves and thereby prevent their failure in the first place. This will require the transformation and better integration of the United States' institutions of hard power and soft power -- a difficult task and one that our administration has begun. Since 2001, the president has requested and Congress has approved a nearly 54 percent increase in funding for our institutions of diplomacy and development. And this year, the president and I asked Congress to create 1,100 new positions for the State Department and 300 new positions for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those who follow us must build on this foundation.

Perhaps of greater concern is not that the United States lacks the capacity for global leadership but that it lacks the will. We Americans engage in foreign policy because we have to, not because we want to, and this is a healthy disposition -- it is that of a republic, not an empire. There have been times in the past eight years when we have had to do new and difficult things -- things that, at times, have tested the resolve and the patience of the American people. Our actions have not always been popular, or even well understood. The exigencies of September 12 and beyond may now seem very far away. But the actions of the United States will for many, many years be driven by the knowledge that we are in an unfair fight: we need to be right one hundred percent of the time; the terrorists, only once. Yet I find that whatever differences we and our allies have had over the last eight years, they still want a confident and engaged United States, because there are few problems in the world that can be resolved without us. We need to recognize that, too.

Ultimately, however, what will most determine whether the United States can succeed in the twenty-first century is our imagination. It is this feature of the American character that most accounts for our unique role in the world, and it stems from the way that we think about our power and our values. The old dichotomy between realism and idealism has never really applied to the United States, because we do not really accept that our national interest and our universal ideals are at odds. For our nation, it has always been a matter of perspective. Even when our interests and ideals come into tension in the short run, we believe that in the long run they are indivisible.

This has freed America to imagine that the world can always be better -- not perfect, but better -- than others have consistently thought possible. America imagined that a democratic Germany might one day be the anchor of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. America believed that a democratic Japan might one day be a source of peace in an increasingly free and prosperous Asia. America kept faith with the people of the Baltics that they would be independent and thus brought the day when NATO held a summit in Riga, Latvia. To realize these and other ambitious goals that we have imagined, America has often preferred preponderances of power that favor our values over balances of power that do not. We have dealt with the world as it is, but we have never accepted that we are powerless to change the world. Indeed, we have shown that by marrying American power and American values, we could help friends and allies expand the boundaries of what most thought realistic at the time.

How to describe this disposition of ours? It is realism, of a sort. But it is more than that -- what I have called our uniquely American realism. This makes us an incredibly impatient nation. We live in the future, not the past. We do not linger over our own history. This has led our nation to make mistakes in the past, and we will surely make more in the future. Still, it is our impatience to improve less-than-ideal situations and to accelerate the pace of change that leads to our most enduring achievements, at home and abroad.

At the same time, ironically, our uniquely American realism also makes us deeply patient. We understand how long and trying the course of democracy is. We acknowledge our birth defect, a constitution founded on a compromise that reduced my ancestors each to three-fifths of a man. Yet we are healing old wounds and living as one American people, and this shapes our engagement with the world. We support democracy not because we think ourselves perfect but because we know ourselves to be deeply imperfect. This gives us reason to be humble in our own endeavors and patient with the endeavors of others. We know that today's headlines are rarely the same as history's judgments.

An international order that reflects our values is the best guarantee of our enduring national interest, and America continues to have a unique opportunity to shape this outcome. Indeed, we already see glimpses of this better world. We see it in Kuwaiti women gaining the right to vote, in a provincial council meeting in Kirkuk, and in the improbable sight of the American president standing with democratically elected leaders in front of the flags of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the future state of Palestine. Shaping that world will be the work of a generation, but we have done such work before. And if we remain confident in the power of our values, we can succeed in such work again.

[Mar 20, 2015] Alexander Lebedev gives up bankrolling Russia's Novaya Gazeta by Roy Greenslade

Mar 20, 2015 | The Guardian

Asimpleguest -> Havingalavrov 20 Mar 2015 15:00

I found more lies and disinformation in the Western news than in the Russian news

in fact the info found on Itar-Tass, Interfax, Sputnik, RT, russia-insider, etc - can be easily verifiable and is reliable...

and another positive aspect - they do NOT use vitriolic aggressive hysterical language when writing about Western politicians - their approach is very PROFESSIONAL, polite, and down-to-earth

the Western media would re-gain their audience if they will start to report HONESTLY from both sides, unbiased...

after the lies we were fed when the press manipulated people to believe in the justice of US invading Afghanistan and Iraq - nobody in his/her right mind believe anything Western politicians said about Libya, Syria and Ukra

enough is enough - we are sick of so many lies

in Ukra the power was taken by the oligarchs after a violent armed coup staged by amer (the vulgar nullity said it clearly in the ''f**k EU'' conversation)

the democratically elected president was threatened that he will be killed like Qaddafi and run away with his family (Obama recognized that US brokered the gov change in Kiev)

President Putin - knowing that Crimeans are majority in the favour of being united with Russia and wanting to protect their military naval base in Crimea - helped Crimea to do a referendum to reunite with Russia - then US mafia was outfoxed - they imagined the NATO will easily take over Russia's base

Biden recognized that US pushed EU to apply anti-Russia sanctions (Obama admitted that US has the habit to twist the arms to make the other countries do want they want)

Donbass asked for the same rights as Crimea had with Ukraine's border
criminal illegitimate Kiev gov launched ATO - sending the far-right punitive private battalions to kill Eastern Ukrainians

Poroshenko promised PEACE and RECONCILIATION during his electoral campaign - after he was elected - he continued killing civilians in the Eastern Ukraine...

Poroshenko, Yats and their criminal gang in Kiev LOST the moral right to govern the Eastern Ukrainians!

Виталий Седин -> JohnNewcomb 20 Mar 2015 11:47

"Estonia - a country that ranks a very high #10 on RSF's World Press Freedom Index 2015."(c)

...and where 15% residents do not have basic civil rights.

Perfect example of Real Democracy (TM) for Russian Bloody Dictatorship (TM).


ijustwant2say -> Виталий Седин 20 Mar 2015 11:14

You still name nothing similar in UK/US, I note.

Are you being serious? Almost every paper or news channel you care to mention in this country has at some stage attacked the government of the day (because governments here change). Just watch Fox News in the US and see what it says about the US President. Watch the Daily Show in the US. Read this newspaper, on which you spend an inordinate amount of time commenting. The Snowden revelations weren't revealed by a Russian newspaper - but by this one and the New York Times. Stop pretending that Russia's, Kremlin controlled media, which has some of the worst press freedoms in the world, is on the same planet as media in the West. In the global press freedoms index, the UK is ranked 34, the US 49 (neither perfect), but Russia comes in at an appalling 152 out of 180 countries . Must make you proud.

ijustwant2say -> Виталий Седин 20 Mar 2015 10:45

Here's one unstoppable national-wide source of anti-Putin hysteria: http://www.echo.msk.ru/

You can only name one, I note. Most papers in this country will happily criticise the actions of the government if they feel it is justifiable. Most regard it as part of their raison d'etre. Don't try and pretend that Russia, which has some of the worst press freedoms in the world, is on the same level as the press over here. I know the press in Russia and I know the press in Europe and the US. The West has some appalling stations (e.g. Fox News) but there is a vast mainstream choice of factually based reporting. Not so much in Russia where most get their news from TV and each of the three major National TV stations are controlled by the Kremlin. How do you think Putin has managed to stay so popular in Russia, while being reviled and distrusted most other places?

Renfrow -> kolarg 20 Mar 2015 10:07

I know in Ukraine all the papers are bankrolled by various oligarchs and each one prints information in accordance with their owners' views and/or interests. Sort of like FOX and MSNBC t.v. stations in the U.S.A. piping their own particular outlook in the world events

Виталий Седин 20 Mar 2015 07:52

Is there smth. comparable with Novaya Gazeta in UK?

ID075732 20 Mar 2015 07:45

Lebedev is basically a thug. A black not a white swan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxYuHySd0LY

[Mar 19, 2015] Paul Tudor Jones Warns This Disastrous Market Mania Will End By Revolution, Taxes, Or War

Mar 19, 2015 | Zero Hedge
"This gap between the 1% and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist," warns renowned trader Paul Tudor Jones during his recent TED Talks speech, as he addressed the question - can capital be just? Hoping to expand the "narrow definitions of capitalism," that threaten the underpinnings of society, Tudor Jones exclaims, "we're in the middle of a disastrous market mania," adding "one of worst of my life." Perhaps most ominously, he concludes, historically this ends "by revolution, higher taxes or wars. None are on my bucket list."

As TED blog reports,

Can capital be just? As a firm believer in capitalism and the free market, Paul Tudor Jones II believes that it can be. Tudor is the founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation and the Tudor Group, which trade in the fixed-income, equity, currency and commodity markets. He thinks it is time to expand the "narrow definitions of capitalism" that threaten the underpinnings of our society and develop a new model for corporate profit that includes justness and responsibility.

It's a good time for companies: in the US, corporate revenues are at their highest point in 40 years. The problem, Tudor points out, is that as profit margins grow, so does income inequality. And income inequality is closely linked to lower life expectancy, literacy and math proficiency, infant mortality, homicides, imprisonment, teenage births, trust among ourselves, obesity, and, finally, social mobility. In these measures, the US is off the charts.

"This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist," says the investor.

"Historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars. None are on my bucket list."

Tudor proposes a fourth way: just corporate behavior. He formed Just Capital, a not-for-profit that aims to increase justness in companies. It all starts with defining "justness" - to do this, he is asking the public for input. As it stands, there is no universal standard monitoring company behavior. Tudor and his team will conduct annual national surveys in the US, polling individuals on their top priorities, be it job creation, inventing healthy products or being eco-friendly. Just Capital will release these results annually – keep an eye out for the first survey results this September.

Ultimately, Tudor hopes, the free market will take hold and reward the companies that are the most just. "Capitalism has driven just about every great innovation that has made our world a more prosperous, comfortable and inspiring place to live. But capitalism has to be based on justice and morality…and never more so than today with economic divisions large and growing."

This is not an argument against progress, Tudor emphasizes. "I want that electric car, or the jet packs that we all thought we'd have by now." But he's hoping that increased wealth will bring with it a stronger sense of corporate responsibility. "When we begin to put justness on par with profits, we get the most valuable thing in the world. We get back our humanity."

Niall Of The Ni...

Yeah, I'm sure our masters will get right on that. Justness? For them, justice is whatever your bank account and access to weapons of mass destruction will let you get away with. Morality is for fools and slaves.

Higher taxes? That's what second passports are for.

Your revolution won't get far, not if it's for real. Who do you think all those nukes are for? Someone who can shoot back? If the banksters are forced to cash out, they will take us with them.

That leaves war, which is precisely what we're looking at.

The class war is in full swing. Unfortunately for Marx, not only are the capitalists winning, but their goal is total victory. The people who do all the work will be kept around only for as long as it takes to develop robots able to do anything proles can do and do it better---the Singularity. Then we'll be polished off completely. The Marxists will get the classless society they thought they wanted, and will soon wish they only had to choke on it. The first act of the robotic New Socialist Men will be to exterminate them.

You know, this is why things have gotten as bad as they have. The good guys don't understand that the bad guys only care about winning (and getting the wherewithal to do so), not fair play. That's why the bad guys are winning.

The good guys want to get into heaven. The bad guys won't think twice about sending them there.

The_Dude

Here is a Tudor quote from the talk:

"Capitalism has driven just about every great innovation that has made our world a more prosperous, comfortable and inspiring place to live. But capitalism has to be based on justice and morality…and never more so than today with economic divisions large and growing."

And that is the crux of the problem. We are now a divided country with no shared morality. 50 years ago you could have said we had a shared historical, religious and cultural background. Not any more. We are leaning into becoming a fragmented society and likely fragmented nation.

Capitalism does rely on on justice and morality like he said. The problem now is that we have destroyed any common morality and view of justice through multiculturalism and diversity. Effectively we have weakened the foundation that the country sits upon and it is only a matter of time for the building to come down.

Almost like it was planned......

Radical Marijuana

"Legal fictions" tend to slip through, gradually at first, then become more and more blatant, as legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. The status of corporations as "persons" in the context of American law appears to have started as a court report:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

... the court reporter, Bancroft Davis, noted in the headnote to the opinion that the Chief Justice Morrison Waite began oral argument by stating, "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." While the headnote is not part of the Court's opinion and thus not precedent, two years later, in Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania – 125 U.S. 181 (1888), the Court clearly affirmed the doctrine, ...

http://www.batr.org/totalitariancollectivism/corporationsandlaw.html

Corporation:

Ingenious device for obtaining profit
without any individual responsibility.

-- Ambrose Bierce

alien-IQ previously made this comment:

To assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. ... Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."

Corporations especially "have more rights and freedoms than individuals" because flesh and blood individual must die, while corporations have potential immortality with the established social systems. Thus, within the established social pyramid systems based upon legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, corporations are psychopathic demigods.

Beam Me Up Scotty

It's not the 1%, its the .01%. Married couples making $250k/year who are "allegedly" in the "top 1%" are NOT living like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Just wanted to clarify that point.

nope-1004

"Just corporate behavior"? Give me a break. Sounds to me like "just defecation", or teaching a dog exactly where to crap everytime. Animal instincts are animal instincts, and greed is probably the most powerful. In fact, Paul stated that all sin stems but from one emotion: Greed.

This sounds way too simple and idealistic. War is inevitable IMO.

JR

Production goes down, morale goes down and chaos goes up. "It not good." But thank God the U.S. economy is in "recovery" … with just 44% of U.S. adults working full-time, and "full-time" work no longer meaning 40 hours a week but 30 hours or more a week. Which means, 56% of U.S. employees now work less than 30 hours a week. Which is pretty shabby for a "superpower" work force, if you ask me.

And even at that, Jim Clifton, Gallup's CEO, says the government's employment figures are a lie.

I guess the truth is, Yen, you can't build an economy with paper. You can make paper airplanes, you can make paper dolls, but you can't make a paper economy. Poor Janet.

By the way, Yen, I don't drink coffee either; it's tea, too, for me.

Lore

I agree. This is simplistically-naive, altruistic-sounding ideological claptrap, a diversion, like the recent "divestment" talk among fund managers and like most of the "sustainability" prattle marketed as part of Agenda 21.

We're supposed to believe that the same "God's work" control freaks who create all the imbalances can be depended on to clean up their own mess? Sorry, it never works that way. Con men simply move on to the next con, leaving a trail of rape, pillage and destruction behind them.

You really want to create a "just" environment for capital formation and investment? CUT THROUGH THE GREAT LIES AND TAKE POWER AWAY FROM PSYCHOPATHS.

Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes


TruthInSunshine

Here's your latest Yellen balance sheet:

News Headline Summary

US Fed balance sheet liabilities increased to USD 4.458trl in the latest week from USD 4.451trl

http://headlines.ransquawk.com/headlines/us-fed-balance-sheet-liabilitie...

Yaaaay! 5 trillion is not far away!

Thirst Mutilator

What's the OFF balance sheet?... Or do I need a bloody secret decoder penis ring to find out?

TruthInSunshine

Yeah, they definitely keep 2 sets of books.

outamyeffinway

Was it justice when Jones worked out with Goldman how they would rip off clients with MBS's? What a dick. Him and Nick and the rest of the <1%'ers. Pitchforks and Torches, bitchez!

Againstthelie

Againstthelie's picture


"Capitalism must be just."

It would be too funny, if it wasn't so tragic.

Compound interest debt based money creates the necessity of exponential growth and is the driving force behind the fact, that everything is being measured as capability to make profit. GROWTH. GROWTH. GROWTH.

Capitalism = money makes money.

Why should a company that takes care of elderly need to growth? Why should the fattest nation consume more and more?

Just another try to avoid talking about the main problem: exponential growth on a limited planet does not work and that compound interest is the most evil concept ever created.

OLD YELLER

Or it could be just another way for the alphabetes (FBI, NSA, GESTAPO, ect.) to draw opposition into the open, and then? Heinz, take them away! We'll let the good Doctor interrogate them!

Just kidding. It can't happen here.

Manthong

"narrow definitions of capitalism"

If he was honest about the situation he would be lambasting the wide presence of fascism and totalitarianism rather than denigrating capitalism by implying that there is any of it left in this centrally manipulated economy.

Lore

Precisely. "The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves." - V.I. Lenin

On the plus side, the whole thing is bound to fail. Unfortunately, barring some sort of broad-based awakening, the human cost is going to be horrific (as if it isn't already).

ersatz007

What's funny is that any attempt to constructively criticize capitalism is immediately jumped on as "denigration" and then twisted into some ridiculous notion that if one criticizes capitalism they must be either a socialist or progressive pansy or an evil totalitarian or fascist.

Most of these same people then lament that if only capitalism were allowed io function as it was intended then all would be right in the world. Well the same could be said for socialism or communism. But invariably, humans figure out ways to game and rig whatever system they operate in to their own benefit. And that usually means that someone else gets fucked over in the process.

The problems that result from ANY AND ALL socio-economic-governmental systems are due to HUMAN imperfection. So trying to blame our problem on the fact that capitalism just hasn't been allowed to work freely is like saying the reason I couldn't hammer the nail in was because my a was wrong even though my hammer is broken in the first place.

None of these systems is perfect. There is no such thing as perfect capitalism...because humans aren't perfect. The market will always be rigged because people will find a way to rig them.

So the discussion instead should be knowing that each system is gonna manipulated, which system is least susceptible and how do we achieve that. Getting rid of the Fed would probably be a good start. Taxing only income and NOT wages might be another.

dogbreath

I find the people that talk about capitalism the most are socialist who think it has to be fixed or changed some how. But like you the capitalism they talk about is the debt based fiat banking capitalism that pays for our equity law socialism and makes the political class rich and powerful. And like you the socialists confuse this perverted capitalism with the libertarian free market capitalism as it was intended that made the producer, the thrifty, the innovative wealthy without having to sell their souls.

2handband

The capitalism you're talking about will never exist outside of your imagination. Neither will the socialism Marx dreamed of. Any big system is going to lead to what we have right now. Nobody has ever found a good way to prevent large concentrations of wealth from being leveraged into power.

Buckaroo Banzai

""Just corporate behavior"? Give me a break. Sounds to me like "just defecation", or teaching a dog exactly where to crap everytime. Animal instincts are animal instincts, and greed is probably the most powerful."

Indeed, however, you can't ascribe human moral deficiencies like greed to a corporation. Corporations are artificial legal constructs that are, by definition, amoral entities. Trying to associate human values like "justice" to an artificial legal construct is an absurd and pointless exercise. Paul Tudor Jones is either a tool, a jackass, or a deliberate misinformer.

You want justice? Turn the clock back 200 years, to a time when Corporate charters were limited to specific purposes, with limited life spans, and were legally subsidiary to-- instead of legally superior to-- natural human beings.

2handband

Make it even better: every time a corporation's actions cause harm to citizens, prosecute every stockholder and every member of the board to the limit of the law. Eliminate profit without responsibility. But wait... if you did that, businesses would either be sole proprieterships, or made up of two or three individuals who trust one another absolutely. Perfect!

seek

Yes, they will raise taxes, and once again it will benefit the non-taxpayers on both ends of the spectrum. The inequality will remain, so they will raise them again.

They're going to blow way past the Laffer curve near the end. It'll effectively be communism without delivering any of the promised equality (so, communism.) Thankfully the system will blow itself apart just as this is being implemented. I'm sure they'll try to keep it going in the 2.0 version, but when TPTB find they can't get even basic medicines or technology because the key workers are starving at home trying to tend a window garden for food, they'll probably back off a notch or two.

maskone909

we are in my opinion, waaayyy past the laffer curve. there is simply no way to pay down our liabilities by conventional income taxation. i truely believe this is the real agenda behinde QE.

Joe Sichs Pach

As so many here have already said, the machinations of the system of the market in it's current iteration need to be removed so some semblance of "fairness" returns. Of course, the Market Makers have always had inside information and can front run orders or steal a bid in the pits, etc -BUT- there are actual humans behind those actions operating at the speed a human can operate. None of this laser driven, back-bone attaching, automated algo ordering bullshit.

The markets no longer exist as they once did not all that long ago. The outright theft that has taken place with these changes is enormous. A step in the right direction, not a fix by any means, but a step to improve things would be to ban electronic trading and/or put realistic limitations on what they can do.

Who determines those limitations? Ahh, isn't that the bitch of it. Someone is always gonna have the upper hand and inside information.

These things really need to change and I do not know how it's going to happen.

Model T

Exactly, it's ridiculous. The Corps. kill thousands of people every year for profits and this windbag thinks they're going to listen to words.

He either plans to get paid off, or he's in love with the sound of his own voice; I don't have time to listen to this bullshit.

ajax

What war? Shut the fuck up about some more war. No one wants more war. No one who I know wants anything to do with war.

For too many of you 'war' has become a perverse, grotesque solution for unemployment and your own personal gripes with cultures you won't even try to understand let alone live with even from afar.

If Israelis didn't look and act like slimmer, healthier versions of Americans you'd be advocating war with Israel instead of funding their every disgrace the way you do. And they know it.

Freddie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpYUW0ekPSA

Here is a better TED speech.

dogbreath

napoleon

rsnoble

Funny how war is seen as the 'solution'. LOL. What a fucked up species we are, to conclude our solution is destroying the planet.

Have you ever noticed other places are going the way of Greece, including the US, they are just lagging? Look at millenials in the US for example. No jobs, sitting at home smoking weed and playing video games. Damn, almost jealous. LMAO. Joking aside, pretty damn pathetic.

Village-idiot

Over the millennia the elite have always been overthrown by various means, usually by violence. Sometimes from internal forces; sometimes by external forces.

The problem we have today is that the ruling elite know they have always been overthrown and are getting ready to prevent it from happening this time.

They're going to use (they think) technology to watch the 99% and to eliminate the trouble-makers, natural leaders, truth-tellers and prophets. These will be incarcerated, indoctrinated, bribed, murdered, etc..

They are going to use whatever means they can to eliminate the "useless mouths", by indoctrination, vaccinations, withholding health care, supplying them with illegal drugs, police executions, etc..

Slow deterioration of the health of the average citizen by poisons, GMOs, pesticides in the food, empty calories in over processed food, pushing the use of unnecessary drugs and vaccinations, legalization of formerly illegal drugs, lowering the legal age for alcohol consumption, etc.. By these means people will slowly self-destruct.

Pushing the ideas of abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc..

They will not succeed, because while they are doing all these things, and more, they're literally poisoning the planet. So, in the end, they're just shitting in their own drinking water!

PirateOfBaltimore

Capital can neither be just or unjust.

How it is created and used is another matter. It is unjust to create money out of thin air and distribute it to banks. It is unjust to print money and devalue the meager savings of the poor, while blowing asset bubbles that benefit the rich.

The above are not that capital is unjust, but that central banks and fiat currency (in which capital is valued) are operating in an unjust fashion.

End the Fed. Stop the gravy train to the already rich, and let capital flow to where it is truly productive, not where it can front run future injections.

JR

An apt description.

Capitalism involves the private ownership of the means of production: it does not mean stealing the means of production by private use of a government-sanctioned printing press.


Here is a vignette by a blogger back in 2010 that describes America's dilemma; her banker-controlled economy:

How many times can we recycle this same tired story?

The show is over. There will be no curtain call. The piper has demanded payment. But I read the story line a little differently: it wasn't about free markets, imo, it was more akin gangsterism. As one reviewer put it:

What is with this tendency to have Goldman Sachs alumni in all sectors of decision making? Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner! These apparatchiks are akin to the nomenclatura of the communist party. They are spread throughout our society to be the keepers of the faith. They are the heads of the economic inquisition. Any HERETIC will pay the price! In 1998, Brooksley Born who had been appointed the head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission had the HERETICAL CONCEPT PERCEPTION that the (OTC) OVER THE COUNTER DERIVATIVES HAD TO BE SUPERVISED.

The Rubin-Goldman Mafia ran her out of town, and here we are with a FRANKENSTEIN OF OVER THE COUNTER DERIVATIVES THAT ARE MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN THE SUBPRIME DEBT TRIGGER THAT CREATED THE CASCADE OF TIGHTLY COUPLED FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS INTO A CREDIT FREEZE. When you make heretics pay the price of telling the truth to power, your society has no place but down. In a democracy, there can be no heresy! All ideas must be tested and falsified and adopted if truly functional. THIS IS INHERENT IN EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION.

"It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, can it hunt mice". We as a society decided that only greedy cats who ate our steaks and left us the mice to eat were going to run the financial system.

Are we morons? Even worse, we now want these greedy cats to literally eat our flesh and leave us as a skeleton country in total debt. The mice are the derivatives that are totally separate from the subprime mortgage crisis. The greedy cats will eat the flesh and the mice will eat the bones.

EITHER THE GOVERNMENT TAKES CONTROL FROM THE GREEDY CATS, and resets the system to be regulated, or we will fail. We will fail for the same reasons the communists failed. They were inefficient apparatchiks who ran the system for their purposes and subjugated the people with totalitarian ideas.

The financial elite is the same! They just use more subtle and stealthy methods developed in Madison Avenue. They manufacture consent and root out the heretics.

Totentänzerlied

"This gap between the 1% and the rest of America" is perfectly and completely in line with the historical norm of all agricultural societies period. Everyone who continues to take the utterly incredible exception of the 20th century as a baseline rather than a picture of the greatest 6-standard-deviations move in human socioeconomic configurations is a FOOL - it is like expecting one person to hit the two greatest lottery jackpots of all time AND having the idiocy/nerve to be upset when said expectation is dashed.

What these morons do not understand is that income and net worth inequality are not problems to be solved. They are natural consequences of random processes. Do these braindead fucks not understand that it took half of all the crude oil and most of all the coal generated by this planet over the course of 4 BILLION years to eliminate chattel slavery and compress the inequality spread to Leave It To Beaver 1950s America levels - and this only in the select few luckiest societies on Earth - which is still nothing even remotely approaching conditions of true egalitarian socialism let alone post-state communism.

All the usable hydrocarbons this planet will ever produce would not be enough to accomplish what these people truly believe should be possible at no cost if we just want it badly enough. Truly. Un. Fucking. Believable.

izzee

To add to this.

"Democracy" as we currently define it, has existed for roughly 200 -250 years in all of "recent ( 4000years) recorded" history. The Norm is some variation of the Lords and Serfs/Slaves theme. The one innovation that propelled "democracy" is mechanization. All the way from farming to basic household drudgery.

Yes but some still "employ help" to run the vaccum and stuff the washer/drier.

Toolshed

People are confusing wealth and standard of living. In the 1980's the average CEO made approx. 40X what the average employee in his corporation made. That number now exceeds 200X. That would be a good place to apply a bit of justice.

Is Jamie Thieving Scum Diamond worth his pay? Or Blankenfuck? Not hardly. They should be making whatever the pay is for stamping out license plates in the pen.

rsnoble

Oxymoron of the day: Corporate responsibility.

pebblewriter

Loved these comments by Yardeni.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-19/even-ed-yardeni-admits-not-inve...

Not sure I agree with all his conclusions, but this quote is spot on:

"This is not investing," exclaims Ed Yardeni in this brief clip, "it is all about central bankers... these markets are all rigged."

pebblewriter

"This gap between the 1% and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist"

For all the talk re the haves and have nots in the US, there's scant little re between the US and the rest of the world. I remember in the depths of the crisis seeing countless books and articles advising investors to dump dollars and put all their money in euros. Flash forward to the present, and it's pretty obvious from the way oil prices and the dollar index are acting that the US is more than happy to throw the rest of the world under the bus.

The clash between the yen, euro and stocks, oil and the dollar yesterday was a rare opportunity to witness so clearly the blatant manipulation going on behind the scenes. None of it makes much sense until you consider central bankers' true objectives and -- given the corner they've painted themselves into -- their limited choices. All I know is that the Fed won't go down without a fight, even if it means sacrificing the ECB and BOJ.

First There Is ...

"Typically" means shit today. Historically, as far as most of us are concerned anyway, this ends in a festering orgy of ambivalence and do nothing apologist excuse making resulting in shoulder shrugging.

Revolution? When? Before or after iWatch goes on sale? Bitch fucking please. Sick and tired of hearing how fed up the American people are. Cowardly bitch ass trick motherfuckers aren't going to do a goddamn thing and they know it.

As long as their are table scraps (forget bread) and circuses, the show will go on.....

hangemhigh77

And exporting our wealth engine, manufacturing. oooops too late. War is the product of Amerika now. We have flyboys in Newburgh NY Stewart ANG driving Mercedes.

Murdering people and stealing their shit pays well. And you get to wear fancy clown suits with shiny metal and all the stupid sheeple wave flags at you and thank you for your service.

Ahahahahaha, if only they knew that you SERVE the BANKS and you'll do ANY EVIL to serve them. Yea, murdering women and children is very proftable.

SubjectivObject

Anything about captured regulatory agencies; about corporape purchase of Gimmemint? Corporape Citizens United against sitizens collected (in the oddience)?

Thought so.

What a perfect misdirection's screed. The attending ovators think this is great; their fawning acceptance of his framing of the issues. Hey, but we all feel good to be invited here!

Which is worse ...

"This gap between the 1% and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist,"

Unfortunately, completely wrong. It existed for 1000 years during the European Middle Ages. You can't look at the 50s, 60s, and 70s and call that the norm and declare other periods an anomaly.

Radical Marijuana

AFTER ridiculously higher taxes, and runaway death insanities, provoked by debt insanities which are mathematically impossible to solve within the established systems, THEN Re-evolution, or (R)evolution. Indeed, runaway taxation and criminally insane wars are still the same old-fashioned "solutions" within the established systems, which are almost nothing but organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition. Those continue to be, by far, the most probable future scenarios.

Without being able to actually watch that TED Talk, which does not yet seem to be publicly available (?), but based only on reading the article above, that presentation was merely more of the same old-fashioned reactionary "revolution" promoted by controlled opposition, which gets applauded by the mainstream morons who want their "solutions" to not force them to go through the severe cognitive dissonance required to more fully understand what the problems are.

Anyone familiar with my kinds of comments posted on Zero Hedge for the last couple of years would be familiar with my views that:

REVOLUTION IS RE-EVOLUTION.

Or, as trader1 wrote: (R)evolution.

A genuine revolution should be based upon a convergence, to create a new starting point, from which regular evolution could again begin to diverge ... There should be a creative synthesis of post-modernizing science with ancient mysticism, such as begins with an appreciation that ENERGY IS SPIRIT, and continues through a radical critique of the concept of entropy, which became historically inverted, so that the understanding of thermodynamics and information theory could remain consistent with the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which inverts and perverts everything, by presenting everything through ways that result us living in a Bizarro Mirror World, or Wonderland Matrix, of backward absurdities, which includes the bogus "solutions" promoted by the controlled opposition groups, which criticize the established systems of organized crime, whereby governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, who are currently the banksters.

"Capitalism" should be understood through an approach based on general energy systems, wherein human beings and human civilizations are perceived as entropic pumps of energy flows (where that is also done in ways that reverse the historical inversion of the concept of entropy, as well as appreciate more that ENERGY IS SPIRIT.)

IF one actually desires some form of "capitalism" that is just and moral, then one has to track back to the source of just morality, the principle of the conservation of energy, which is currently the possibly more scientific way to approach an understanding of God, while a better understanding of entropy is the more scientific way to understand evil. However, the presentation outlined in the article above appeared to me to still be based upon understanding the real mechanisms backwards, and therefore, continues to be based upon old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, which will continue to backfire badly, and cause the opposite to actually happen in the real world.

The BASICS are that money is measurement backed by murder, as the most abstract form of private property being based on backing up claims with coercions. Capitalism somewhat operates as entropic pumps of energy flows, however, that has included the development of enforced frauds, whereby the debt controls were backed by the death controls.

The ONLY genuine ways to change "capitalism" is to change the death control systems which were central to the control of everything else. The currently established forms of "capitalism" are due to the best organized gangs of criminals, the biggest gangsters, the banksters, and the big corporations that have grown up around those big banks as the source of the public "money" supply, as government enforced frauds by those big banks. The ability of the best organized gangs of criminals to apply the methods of organized crime to the political processes has resulted in the the powers of "We the People" being effectively privatized, and used to rob them blind, since enforced frauds are symbolic robbery, and those actually are the foundation of the currently established political economy.

Real, radical revolution would change who controls the public "money" supply. Such a change cannot be achieved without addressing the ways that money is necessarily measurement backed by murder, because human realities are always organized lies operating robberies, because human beings are always operating as entropic pumps of energy flows, which are able to build mental models of their world, which include mental models of themselves within their mental models of their world.

At the present time, we are witnessing the growing Grand Canyon Chasms between progress in physical sciences, without any matching progress in political science. Therefore, within the life time of those alive today, there have developed globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs ... IF we are going to survive that, then there must be sufficient series of intellectual scientific revolutions in the basic perceptual paradigms through which we comprehend political science, which apply to the combined money/murder systems, so that perceiving those differently enables us to eventually operate those differently.

While it is theoretically possible to do that, the number of people that want to is vanishingly small at the present time. Prodigious progress in physical sciences has been achieved by understanding general energy systems better, by going through a series of profound paradigm shifts in physical sciences. However, so far, nothing remotely close to being like that has yet happened in political science. I have hinted at what that would take in my comment above. However, I expect that to continue to be mostly ignored by the mainstream morons and reactionary revolutionaries, who want their "solutions" to continue to be expressed through the DUALITIES of false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, rather than through the UNITARY MECHANISMS of changing the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies.

To save capitalism from the runaway fraudulent "capitalism" that is developing more and more blatantly before us, would take better understanding of real "capitalism" as entropic pumping of energy flows. While that is theoretically necessary, the vast majority of people, inside both the established systems of organized crime, and their controlled opposition groups, would have to go through (R)evolution in the ways that they think!

I would not hold my breath while waiting for that to happen. Rather, I would expect the established monetary and taxation systems to continue to become more criminally insane, and so, their runaway debt insanities to provoke death insanities ... Meanwhile, I would endeavour to hold on to the irrational hopes that those events may force enough people to being to think in sufficiently different ways about those events, that there might emerge more genuine, revolutionary, resolutions of those problems?

[Mar 18, 2015] The 'Opportunity Cost' of America's Disastrous Foreign Policy by Vlad Sobell

Mar 18, 2015 | Russia Insider

Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy... European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy

The avalanche of commentary since the Ukrainian crisis erupted a year ago has overshadowed any reflections on the immense forgone benefits (technically speaking, the "opportunity cost") of what might have been if Washington had been working for peace and stability instead of war and chaos.

Imagine the following: After the unraveling of the Communist bloc, Europe, in partnership with the US, had forged a new security system in which Russia was treated as a valued and equal partner – one whose interests were respected. Russia, decimated by a century of wars and Communist imperialism, would doubtless have eagerly reciprocated in kind. Most countries of the former Soviet Union would have then proceeded to build a new Eurasian structure of which Russia would have served as the natural umbrella, given its long-standing interaction with the region's diverse nations and cultures.

Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis communautaire). The rising Far Eastern economic powerhouse, with the world's most populous country, China, at its centre, would have linked up with the world's largest economy (the EU). An enormous Eurasian production and financial bloc would have been created – one that drew primarily on secure supplies of Russian energy and other natural resources. Untold investment opportunities would have opened up in Siberia and Russia's Far East as well as in Central Asia. Hundreds of millions of people in Eurasia and elsewhere would have been lifted out of poverty. And, not least, the EU would have been refashioned as an integral part of the dynamic trans-Eurasian economy (rather than as a German-centred empire, as appears to be the case today), thereby making a major contribution to overcoming the ongoing global economic depression.

All of this was not to be, however. Why not? First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state" officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way?

European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy

In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe, while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule". Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine. And in what is eerily reminiscent of Stalinist "bloc discipline", the EU/NATO nomenclature was ordered to implement the absurd strategy of severing the Russian economy from the EU. For their part, the cowering Eurocrats willingly obliged by imposing sanctions on Russia that, perversely, have had a negative impact on their own economies (but, let it be stressed, not that of the US). No questions raised and no public debate on the wisdom of such a strategy permitted.

Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all.

This abuse and humiliation of Europe is unparalleled. The continent that gave the world the wonders of the Antiquity, modern democracy, the industrial revolution and what is arguably the greatest tradition of philosophy, fine arts and classical music is being bullied by its oversized offspring. Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant, ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. War and extermination camps are etched into the European DNA. America "knows" about them only from afar – and, not least, from the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. The so-called European "leaders" are colluding with them in plunging Europe into the abyss and thereby risking nuclear confrontation.

America, too, is a loser

But this is not just a tragedy for Europe and Eurasia. We are also witnessing the wilful misrule of America and, by default, of the entire West. Indeed, Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy. The "democracy-promoters" running Washington's foreign-policy apparatus apparently do not understand that America has nothing to lose and a lot to gain from the Eurasian economic project: the rising tide of global economic welfare would lift everyone's boats, including its own. Why should it matter to Washington if the rising tide comes from other quarters beyond its control?

Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine – Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. If it continues to support such forces against Russia, united Europe will lose not only its backbone but its very soul. The moral consequences of this loss will be enormous and could lead to the precipitous erosion of Western democracy.

The 'autocrats' want to work with the West, not against it

US and EU leaders believe that the Russian and Chinese "autocrats" are out to destroy the West because the latter hate freedom (as George W. Bush might have put it). And hence, they argue, the autocrats must be stopped in their tracks. The simple truth is that Western leaders are too blinkered to understand that far from desiring to destroy the West, Russia and China want it to prosper so that they can work with it to everyone's benefit. Having enjoyed a privileged position over several centuries and having attained unprecedented prosperity in recent decades, the West simply cannot understand that the rest of humanity has no interest in fomenting the "clash of civilizations" but rather craves peace and stability so that it can finally improve its economic lot.

Perhaps, however, all is not yet lost. It is still possible that reason – and economic forces – will prevail and force the West to correct the errors of its ways. What we need, perhaps, more than ever is the ability to step out of the box, question our fundamental assumptions (not least about Russia and China) and find the courage to change policies that have proved disastrous. After all, critical thought, dispassionate analysis and the ability to be open to new ideas is what made the West so successful in the past. If we are to thrive once again in the future, we must resurrect these most valuable and unsurpassed assets.

Vlad Sobell teaches political economy in Prague and Berlin
Europeans Look On as US Sows Discord on the Continent
Wed, Nov 2

Tom Welsh

What I cannot understand is the naive belief that elected politicians would act in the interests of those whom they represent. Under what other circumstances do we see human beings act with disinterested altruism? So why would a bunch of people who have been ruthlessly selected for selfishness, arrogance, and callousness - a bunch of carefully chosen psychopaths, if you will - behave in that way?

'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'.

- Paul Craig Roberts

jabirujoe

"Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy".

Not only it's foreign policy but it's domestic policy as well. Let's call it for what it really is. The Wall Street/Corporate policy which is the driving force behind behind everything the US does

Toddrich

"We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it."
-- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]

"When we're done with the U.S. it will shrivel up and blow away."

-- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]

The welfare or future of the American people are not part of the equation.

[Mar 16, 2015] Three Maps for Professor Muravchik by Adam L. Silverman

Sic Semper Tyrannis

As the Beaver just noted in a comment to The 47ers post, The Washington Post has published a guest editorial from Joshua Muravchik - a Fellow at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced Military Studies. Dr. Muravchik's argument is that war with Iran is the best option for dealing with their nuclear weapons program. One of the most important thing that those who develop policy and strategy need is an understanding of the human geography of the problem sets they are looking at in order to establish more fully informed objectives and develop the ways and means to achieve them. An understanding of the socio-cultural context that shows the interaction of people, places, and things (both natural and man made) is always illuminating when trying to explain this type of context in support of policy formation, strategic development, and planning. Using annotated maps is especially helpful. There are three maps that demonstrate why Dr. Muravchik's thesis is not the best option.

The first map details Iran's nuclear sites:

Iran-nuclear-map *

The second map shows where Iran's military sites are as of 2002:

Iran_2000 **

The third map shows where Iran's population centers are and what the population densities are for those locations:

Iran_pop_density_629 ***

All three maps where found with the following simple keyword searches using Google Image search: Iranian nuclear sites, Iranian military sites map, and Iranian population centers map. We are not talking or typing rocket science here.

So what does this all have to do with Dr. Muravchik's thesis that going to war with Iran is our best option? If you compare the three maps you notice some important features. First, a significant number of Iran's nuclear sites, military sites, and population centers are all located in proximity to each other. This is not, in itself, surprising. The same natural and man made infrastructure necessary for a municipality is also necessary for military sites, and especially so for research and development sites. The ability to get personnel and supplies where they need to be in a timely manner means taking advantage of already existing infrastructure.

However, access to infrastructure for logistics' purposes is not the only reason for some of this co-location. For instance, the nuclear facility near Qom is not an accident. It was placed there in order to make it difficult for a US commander to approve a strike on it. Collateral damage from a strike that damages Qom is going to enrage Shi'a everywhere and reinforce support for the Iranian government. And this is where we really get to what the three maps are telling us. When you compare the locations of the nuclear sites, the military sites, and the population centers it becomes clear that an attempt to militarily reduce Iran's nuclear facilities, let alone degrade their military facilities, essentially amounts to reducing Iran. The potential for radioactive fallout from the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities, combined with other forms of collateral damage, would likely create a humanitarian crisis of almost unprecedented proportions. The only state with the strategic capabilities to provide the necessary humanitarian relief is the US - no one else has our strategic lift and response capabilities.

Basically, a successful reduction of Iran's nuclear facilities and capabilities will create a humanitarian crisis that only the US can successfully respond to. A response that would have to be amongst a population that is suffering because of the humanitarian crisis that the US just created. And all of this for what most agree would be a modest setback for Iran in developing a nuclear weapon. Even Dr. Muravchik recognizes this, which is why he brushes it off by asserting we can just attack again and again if need be. This does not even include the consideration that Iranians would rally around their government or what forms of overt and covert responses Iran would take.

As a result, Dr. Muravchik's recommendation fails the questions of feasibility, acceptability, and suitability. Attacking Iran to destroy their nuclear sites is not feasible - it would not set back any program for a significant amount of time; would rally support for the Iranian government amongst the Iranian population; would create an almost unprecedented and unseen humanitarian crisis; and would lead to significant overt and covert reprisals. It is also not acceptable.

While the initial coverage of the air strikes on cable and broadcast news would likely play in Peoria, once the reality sinks in; the reprisals start; US civilian and military personnel are put at risk in the aftermath of the attacks; and the costs to the American and global economies kick in; whatever popular support such a course of action might have will fall off dramatically. Moreover, it will certainly not be acceptable among our allies - it might play in Peoria, but it won't play in London, Paris, or Berlin.

There will certainly be no UN Security Council Resolution providing legitimacy. Finally, it is not suitable. Whatever good will the US has as a global force for good, will be quickly lost if we unilaterally strike at Iran's nuclear facilities. What Dr. Muravchik has proposed will not actually achieve any of America's goals in regard to Iran and the Middle East. It will not significantly set back Iran's nuclear program. It is unlikely to actually lead to a change in Iranian government. It would actually further destabilize the Levant and increase the risk to the US and our allies. What Dr. Muravchik is really proposing is war for war's sake, which should never be an option.

  • * The map of Iran's nuclear sites was found at Business Insider.
  • ** The map of Iran's military sites as of 2002 was found at Wikipedia.
  • *** The map of Iran's population center's and densities was found at the BBC.

[Mar 16, 2015] A Green Light for the American Empire by Ron Paul

March 14, 2015 | ronpaulinstitute.org

The American Empire has been long in the making. A green light was given in 1990 to finalize that goal. Dramatic events occurred that year that allowed the promoters of the American Empire to cheer. It also ushered in the current 25-year war to solidify the power necessary to manage a world empire. Most people in the world now recognize this fact and assume that the empire is here to stay for a long time. That remains to be seen.

Empires come and go. Some pop up quickly and disappear in the same manner. Others take many years to develop and sometimes many years to totally disintegrate. The old empires, like the Greek, Roman, Spanish and many others took many years to build and many years to disappear. The Soviet Empire was one that came rather quickly and dissipated swiftly after a relatively short period of time. The communist ideology took many decades to foment the agitation necessary for the people to tolerate that system.

Since 1990 the United States has had to fight many battles to convince the world that it was the only military and economic force to contend with. Most people are now convinced and are easily intimidated by our domination worldwide with the use of military force and economic sanctions on which we generously rely. Though on the short term this seems to many, and especially for the neoconservatives, that our power cannot be challenged. What is so often forgotten is that while most countries will yield to our threats and intimidation, along the way many enemies were created.

The seeds of the American Empire were sown early in our history. Natural resources, river transportation, and geographic location all lent itself to the development of an empire. An attitude of "Manifest Destiny" was something most Americans had no trouble accepting. Although in our early history there were those who believed in a powerful central government, with central banking and foreign intervention, these views were nothing like they are today as a consequence of many years of formalizing the power and determination necessary for us to be the policeman of the world and justify violence as a means for spreading a particular message. Many now endorse the idea that using force to spread American exceptionalism is moral and a force for good. Unfortunately history has shown that even using humanitarian rhetoric as a justification for telling others what to do has never worked.

Our move toward empire steadily accelerated throughout the 20th century. World War I and World War II were deadly for millions of people in many countries, but in comparison the United States was essentially unscathed. Our economic power and military superiority steadily grew. Coming out of World War II we were able to dictate the terms of the new monetary system at Bretton Woods as well as the makeup of all the international organizations like NATO, the United Nations, and many others. The only thing that stood in America's way between 1945 and 1990 was the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Significant events of 1990 sealed the fate of the Soviet Empire, with United States enjoying a green light that would usher in unchallenged American superiority throughout the world.

Various names have been given to this war in which we find ourselves and is which considered necessary to maintain the empire. Professor Michael Rozeff calls it the "Great War II" implying that the Great War I began in 1914 and ended in 1990. Others have referred to this ongoing war as "The Long War." I hope that someday we can refer to this war as the "The Last War" in that by the time this war ends the American Empire will end as well. Then the greatness of the experiment in individual liberty in our early history can be resumed and the force of arms can be replaced by persuasion and setting an example of how a free society should operate.

There are several reasons why 1990 is a significant year in the transition of modern day empires. It was a year that signaled the end of the USSR Empire and the same year the American Empire builders felt vindicated in their efforts to assume the role of the world's sole superpower.

On February 7, 1990 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union met and ceded its monopoly political power over its empire. This was followed in a short period of time with the breakup of the Soviet system with 15 of the 17 republics declaring their independence from Moscow. This was not a total surprise considering the fact that the Soviets, in defeat, were forced to leave Afghanistan in February 1989. Also later that year, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall fell. Obviously the handwriting was on the wall for the total disintegration of the Soviet system. The fact that the Communist Party's leaders had to concede that they no longer could wield the ominous power that the Communist Party exerted for 73 years was a seminal event. None of this could have been possible without significant policy changes instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev after his assuming power as president in 1985, which included Glasnost and Perestroika-policies that permitted more political openness as well as significant economic reforms. These significant events led up to the Soviet collapse much more so than the conventional argument that it was due to Ronald Reagan's military buildup that forced the Soviets into a de facto "surrender" to the West.

The other significant event of 1990, and not just a coincidence, was the "green light" message exchanged between April Glaspie and Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. Though the details of this encounter have been debated, there is no doubt that the conclusion of it was that Saddam Hussein was convinced that the United States would not object to him using force to deal with a dispute Iraq had with Kuwait. After all, the US had just spent eight years aligning itself with him in his invasion and war with the Iranians. It seemed to him quite logical. What he didn't realize was the significance of the changes in the world powers that were ongoing at that particular time. The Soviets were on their way out and the American Empire was soon to assert its role as the lone super power. The US was anxious to demonstrate its new role.

When one reads the communications between Washington and Iraq, it was not difficult to believe that a green light had been given to Saddam Hussein to march into Kuwait without US interference. Without this invasion, getting the American people to support a war with Iraq would have been very difficult. Before the war propaganda by the US government and the American media began, few Americans supported President Bush's plans to go to war against an ally that we assisted in its eight-year war against Iran. After several months of propaganda, attitudes changed and President Bush was able to get support from the US Congress, although he argued that that was unnecessary since he had obtained a UN resolution granting him the authority to use his military force to confront Saddam Hussein. The need for Constitutional authority was not discussed.

US ambassador April Glaspie was rather explicit in her comments to Saddam Hussein: "we have no opinion on Arab – Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." The US State Department had already told Saddam Hussein that Washington had "no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait." It's not difficult interpreting conversations like this as being a green light for the invasion that Hussein was considering. Hussein had a list of grievances regarding the United States, but Glaspie never threatened or hinted about how Washington would react if Hussein took Kuwait. Regardless, whether it was reckless or poor diplomacy, the war commenced. Some have argued that it was deliberate in order to justify the beginning of the United States efforts in rebuilding the Middle East – a high priority for the neoconservatives. Actually whether the invasion by Saddam Hussein into Kuwait was encouraged or permitted by deliberate intentions or by miscalculations, the outcome and the subsequent disaster in Iraq for the next 25 years was a result of continued bad judgment in our dealing with Iraq. That required enforcing our goals with military intervention. The obvious failure of this policy requires no debate.

On August 1, 1990, one week after this exchange between ambassador Glaspie and Saddam Hussein, the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq occurred. Immediately following this attack our State Department made it clear that this invasion would not stand and President Bush would lead a coalition in removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait. On January 17, 1991, that military operation began. The forced evacuation of Iraqi troops from Kuwait was swift and violent, but the war for Iraq had just begun and continues to this day. It also ushered in the climactic struggle for America's efforts to become the official and unchallenged policeman of the world and to secure the American Empire.

President Bush was not bashful in setting the stage for this clearly defined responsibility to assume this role since the Soviet Empire was on the wane. A very significant foreign policy speech by Bush came on September 11, 1990 entitled, "Toward a New World Order." This was a clear definition of internationalism with United States in charge in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt. In this speech there was a pretense that there would be Russian and United States cooperation in making the world safe for democracy-something that our government now seems totally uninterested in. Following the speech, the New York Times reported that the American left was concerned about this new world order as being nothing more than rationalization for imperial ambitions in the middle 1980s. Obviously the geopolitics of the world had dramatically changed. The green light was given for the American hegemony.

This arrogant assumption of power to run the world militarily and to punish or reward various countries economically would continue and accelerate, further complicating the financial condition of the United States government. Though it was easy for the United States to push Hussein back into Iraq, subsequent policy was destined to create havoc that has continued up to the present day. The sanctions and the continuous bombing of Iraq were devastating to the infrastructure of that country. As a consequence it's been estimated that over 500,000 Iraqis died in the next decade, many of them being children. Yet there are still many Americans who continue to be mystified as to why "they – Arabs and Muslims – hate us." By the end of 1991, on Christmas Day, the final blow to the Soviet system occurred. On that date Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, thus officially ending the Soviet Empire. Many had hoped that there would be "a peace dividend" for us since the Cold War was officially ended. There's no reason that could not have occurred but it would have required us to reject the notion that it was our moral obligation and legal responsibility to deal with every crisis throughout the world. Nevertheless we embarked on that mission and though it continues, it is destined to end badly for our country. The ending of the Soviet Empire was a miraculous event with not one shot being fired. It was a failed system based on a deeply flawed idea and it was destined to fail. Once again this makes the point that the use of military force to mold the world is a deeply flawed policy. We must remember that ideas cannot be stopped by armies and recognize that good ideas must replace bad ones rather than resorting to constant wars.

It should surprise no one that a policy endorsing the use of force to tell others how to live will only lead to more killing and greater economic suffering for those who engage in this effort, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Twenty five years have passed since this green light was given for the current war and there's no sign that it will soon end. So far it has only emboldened American political leaders to robustly pursue foreign interventionism with little thought to the tremendous price that is continuously paid.

During the 1990s there was no precise war recognized. However our military presence around the world especially in the Middle East and to some degree in Africa was quite evident. Even though President George HW Bush did not march into Baghdad, war against the Iraqi people continued. In an effort to try to get the people to rebel against Saddam Hussein, overwhelming sanctions and continuous bombing were designed to get the Iraqi people to rebel and depose Hussein. That did not work. Instead it worked to continue to build hatred toward America for our involvement in the entire region.

Our secretive influence in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation had its unintended consequences. One was that we were fighting on the side of bin Laden and we all know how that turned out. Also, in an effort to defeat communism, the CIA helped to promote radical Islam in Saudi Arabia. Some argue that this was helpful in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. This most likely is not true since communism was doomed to fail anyway, and the cost to us by encouraging radical Islam has come back to haunt us.

It has been estimated that our policies directed at Iraq during the 1990s caused the death of thousands of Iraqis, many of these coming from the destruction of their infrastructure and creating a public health nightmare. When Madeleine Albright was asked about this on national TV she did not deny it and said that that was a price that had to be paid. And then they wonder why there is so much resentment coming from these countries directed toward United States. Then George Bush Junior invaded Iraq, his justification all based on lies, and another 500,000 Iraqis died. The total deaths have been estimated to represent four percent of the Iraqi population. The green light that was turned on for the Persian Gulf War in 1990 stayed lit and even today the proponents of these totally failed wars claim that the only problem is we didn't send enough troops and we didn't stay long enough. And now it's argued that it's time to send ground troops back in. This is the message that we get from the neoconservatives determined that only armed might can bring peace to the world and that the cost to us financially is not a problem. The proponents never seem to be concerned about the loss of civil liberties, which has continued ever since the declaration of the Global War on Terrorism. And a good case can be made that our national security not only has not been helped, but has been diminished with these years of folly.

And the true believers in empire never pause. After all the chaos that the US government precipitated in Iraq, conditions continue to deteriorate and now there is strong talk about putting troops on the ground once again. More than 10,000 troops still remain in Afghanistan and conditions there are precarious. Yemen is a mess as is also Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Ukraine - all countries in which we have illegally and irresponsibly engaged ourselves.

Today the debate in Congress is whether or not to give the President additional authority to use military force. He asked to be able to use military force anyplace anytime around the world without further congressional approval. This is hardly what the Founders intended for how we dealt with going to war with other nations. Some have argued, for Constitutional reasons, that we should declare war against ISIS. That will prove to be difficult since exactly who they are and where they are located and how many there are is unknown. We do know it is estimated that there are around 30,000 members. And yet in the surrounding countries, where the fighting is going on and we are directly involved, millions of Muslims have chosen not to stand up to the ruthless behavior of the ISIS members.

Since declaring war against ISIS makes no more sense than declaring war against "terrorism," which is a tactic, it won't work. Even at the height of the Cold War, in a time of great danger to the entire world, nobody suggested we declare war against "communism." Islamist extremism is based on strong beliefs, and as evil as these beliefs may be, they must be understood, confronted, and replaced with ideas that all civilized people in the world endorse. But what we must do immediately is to stop providing the incentive for the radicals to recruit new members and prevent American weapons from ending up in the hands of the enemy as a consequence of our failed policies. The incentives of the military-industrial complex along with the philosophy of neoconservatism that pushes us to be in more than 150 countries, must be exposed and refuted. Occupation by a foreign country precipitates hatred and can never be made acceptable by flowery words about their need for American-style "democracy." People who are occupied are always aware of the selfish motivation of the occupiers.

The announcement by President George HW Bush on September 11, 1990 about the new world order was well received. Prior to that time it was only the "conspiracy theorists" who constantly talked about and speculated about the New World Order. Neoconservative ideas had been around for a long time. They were endorsed by many presidents and in particular Woodrow Wilson with his goal of spreading American goodness and making the "world safe for democracy" – none of which can be achieved by promoting war. In the 1990s the modern day neoconservatives, led by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, enjoyed their growing influence on America's foreign policy. Specifically, in 1997 they established the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) for the specific purpose of promoting an aggressive foreign policy of interventionism designed to promote the American Empire. This policy of intervention was to be presented with "moral clarity." "Clarity" it was, but "moral" is another question. Their goal was to provide a vision and resolve, "to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interest."

It was not a surprise that admittedly the number one goal for the New World order was to significantly increase military spending and to be prepared to challenge any regime hostile to America's interests. They argued that America had to accept its unique role as the sole superpower for extending international order as long as it served America's interests. Although neoconservatives are thought to have greater influence within the Republican Party, their views have been implemented by the leadership of both Republicans and Democrats. First on PNAC's agenda was to continue the policy designed to undermine Saddam Hussein with the goal of eventually invading Iraq – once they had an event that would galvanize public support for it. Many individuals signed letters as well as the statement of principles and most were identified as Republicans. Interestingly enough, the fourth person on the list of signatories for the statement of principles was Jeb Bush, just as he was planning his first run for governor of Florida. The neoconservatives have been firmly placed in a position of influence in directing America's foreign policy. Though we hear some debate between the two political parties over when and whom to strike, our position of world policeman is accepted by both. Though the rhetoric is different between the two parties, power always remains in the hands of those who believe in promoting the empire.

The American Empire has arrived, but there's no indication that smooth sailing is ahead. Many questions remain. Will the American people continue to support it? Will the American taxpayer be able to afford it? Will those on the receiving end of our authority tolerate it? All empires eventually end. It's only a matter of time. Since all empires exist at the expense of personal liberty the sooner the American Empire ends the better it will be for those who still strive to keep America a bastion for personal liberty. That is possible, but it won't be achieved gracefully.

Though the people have a say in the matter, they have to contend with the political and financial power that controls the government and media propaganda. The powerful special interests, who depend on privileges that come from the government, will do whatever is necessary to intimidate the people into believing that it's in their best interest to prop up a system that rewards the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. The nature of fiat money and the privileges provided to the special interests by the Federal Reserve makes it a difficult struggle, but it's something that can be won. Unfortunately there will be economic chaos, more attacks on our civil liberties, and many unfortunate consequences coming from our unwise and dangerous foreign policy of interventionism.

Since all empires serve the interests of a privileged class, the people who suffer will constantly challenge their existence. The more powerful the empire, the greater is the need for the government to hold it together by propaganda and lies. Truth is the greatest enemy of an abusive empire. Since those in charge are determined to maintain their power, truth is seen as being treasonous. Whistleblowers and truth tellers are seen as unpatriotic and disloyal. This is why as our empire has grown there have been more attacks on those who challenge the conventional wisdom of the propagandists. We have seen it with the current administration in that the president has used the Espionage Act to curtail freedom of the press more than any other recent president. Fortunately we live in an age where information is much more available than when it was controlled by a combination of our government and the three major networks. Nevertheless it's an uphill struggle to convince the people that it is in their best interests to give up on the concept of empire, foreign interventionism, allowing the special interests to dictate foreign policy, and paying the bills with the inflation of the money supply provided by the Federal Reserve. The laws of economics, in time, will bring such a system to an end but it would be nice if it would be ended sooner through logic and persuasion.

If it's conceded that there was a dramatic change with the green light given by April Glaspie and President Bush in 1990, along with the collapse, almost simultaneously, of the Soviet system, the only question remains is when and who will turn on the red light to end this 25 year war. Sometime it's easier to establish an empire than it is to maintain and pay for it. That is what our current political leaders are in the business of currently doing and it's not going well. It appears that a comparatively small but ruthless non-government entity, ISIS, is playing havoc with our political leaders as well as nearly all the countries in the Middle East. Because there is no clear understanding of what radical Islam is all about -since it is not much about Islam itself - our policies in the Middle East and elsewhere will continue to drain our resources and incite millions more to join those who are resisting our occupations and sanctions. The day will come when we will be forced to give up our role as world policeman and resort to using a little common sense and come home.

This will only occur when the American people realize that our presence around the world and the maintenance of our empire has nothing to do with defending our Constitution, preserving our liberties, or fulfilling some imaginary obligation on our part to use force to spread American exceptionalism. A thorough look at our economic conditions, our pending bankruptcy, our veterans hospitals, and how we're viewed in the world by most other nations, will compel Americans to see things differently and insist that we bring our troops home – the sooner the better.

Vocal proponents of the American Empire talk about a moral imperative that requires us to sacrifice ourselves as we try to solve the problems of the world. If there was even a hint this effort was accomplishing something beneficial, it might be more difficult to argue against. But the evidence is crystal-clear that all our efforts only make things worse, both for those we go to teach about democracy and liberty and for the well-being of all Americans who are obligated to pay for this misplaced humanitarian experiment. We must admit that this 25-year war has failed. Nevertheless it's difficult to argue against it when it requires that that we not endorse expanding our military operations to confront the ISIS killers. Arguments against pursuing a war to stop the violence, however, should appeal to common sense. Recognizing that our policies in the Middle East have significantly contributed to the popular support for radical Islam is crucial to dealing with ISIS. More sacrifices by the American people in this effort won't work and should be avoided. If one understands what motivates radical Islam to strike out as it does, the solution would become more evident. Voluntary efforts by individuals to participate in the struggle should not be prohibited. If the solution is not more violence on our part, a consideration must be given to looking at the merits of a noninterventionist foreign policy which does not resort to the killing of hundreds of thousands of individuals who never participated in any aggression against United States - as our policies have done since the green light for empire was given.

How is this likely to end? The empire will not be ended legislatively or by the sudden embrace of common sense in directing our foreign policy. The course of interventionism overseas and assuming the role of world policeman will remain for the foreseeable future. Still the question remains, how long will that be since we can be certain that the end of the empire will come. Our military might and economic strength is now totally dependent on the confidence that the worldwide financial markets give to the value of the US dollar. In spite of all the reasons that the dollar will eventually be challenged as the world reserve currency, the competition, at present, by other currencies to replace it, is nil. Confidence can be related to objective facts such as how a country runs its fiscal affairs and monetary policy. Economic wealth and military strength also contribute artificial confidence to a currency. Perceptions and subjective reasons are much more difficult to define and anticipate. The day will come when the confidence in the dollar will be greatly diminished worldwide. Under those conditions the tremendous benefits that we in the United States have enjoyed as the issuer of the reserve currency will be reversed. It will become difficult if not impossible for us to afford huge budget deficits as well as very large current account deficits. National debt and foreign debt will serve as a limitation on how long the empire can last. Loss of confidence can come suddenly and overwhelmingly. Under those conditions we will no longer be able to afford our presence overseas nor will we be able to continue to export our inflation and debt to other nations. Then it will require that we pay for our extravagance, and market forces will require that we rein in our support for foreign, corporate, and domestic welfare spending. Hopefully this will not come for a long time, giving us a chance to educate more people as to its serious nature and give them insight into its precise cause. Nevertheless we live in a period of time when we should all consider exactly what is the best road to take to protect ourselves, not only our personal wealth but also to prepare to implement a system based on sound money, limited government, and personal liberty. This is a goal we can achieve. And when we do, America will enjoy greater freedom, more prosperity and a better chance for peace.


Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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Related

Is Putin ill? 'Everything is fine' despite cancelled meetings and old photos

Looks like Putin has a fly by Guardian things otherwise ;-). I just love the twisted Guardianista thinking that we get on here from time to time....
The Guardian

BradBenson -> 14 Mar 2015 10:15

Well young man, I only talk down to clowns. If you had something reasonable to say in your original comment, you might have avoided being patronized. You reap what you sow.

The US is no better or worse than the Russia. You get zero news on our TV Media except that which 'unnamed government sources' claim. How is that any different than what the Russian People see? Moreover, YOU don't know what the Russians see or know and can't know it unless you are living in Russia, which you aren't.

Right now, even as I type, the so-called 'liberal' station, MSNBC, is reporting that Putin hasn't been seen for a week, when, in fact, he was seen live and in person twice this past week and it was reported elsewhere in the European Media. But we have to keep him in the news because he's the current "evil enemy du jour" and until we can come up with some new 'outrage' committed by Putin, this is the best they can do.

People on the 'All-Israel-all-the-Time' Station, CNN Amerika, have even gone so far as to suggest that Putin's been overthrown by hardliners bent on restoring the borders of the old USSR. Quick! Throw open the siloes. We have to take them out now before these hardliners attack poor innocent Amerika!

At the commercial break, there will be yet another advertisement for Boeing or Northrup Grumman just to keep us in that Cold War mood until the talking heads come back on. Meanwhile, even though none of us could ever possibly buy a Boeing or Grumman product, 'liberal' MSNBC is bought off with advertising money so that they won't ever criticize the new Cold War. Nor will you ever see a negative story about Boeing or Grumman contract cost overruns, especially not during the coming war with Iran (which has no bomb vs. poor Israel, which has at least 250 bombs).

Meantime, we are also being told that there is no mass surveillance. Of course not, it's just "bulk collection". I'm sure that you find that reassuring, but I've been around long enough to remember when this would never have been permitted--that is, of course, without a "new pearl harbor" (google it and learn something about PNAC, while you're at it).

In a country in which:

1. all of your communications are collected and analyzed;
2. the regular police forces are now full-scale armed para-military units;
3. the National Defense Authorization Act permits the President to impose martial law anywhere in the country and to actually house US Military Personnel in our homes as required;
4. the new Patriot Act permits indefinite incarceration without habeas corpus for American Citizens; and,
5. people are shot in the streets on a regular basis by uniformed thugs;

you have no basis whatsoever to claim that life in Amerika is any better than it is in Putin's Russia.

Finally, young man, I'm 64 and you can call me a "young man" any time you want. At my age, it's a compliment. In the future, should you want to discuss things, dispute something I've said or make a counter-argument to something I've said, as some do, you will be treated with respect. If all you bring is ignorance and snark, rest assured you will be patronized. After all, we have standards here in the threads and I'm not allowed to tell little punks like you to just F-off.

sheikhoftheprairies Adabsiz1 13 Mar 2015 14:36

The Gazprom is a sponsor of the `Echo of Moscow`, many newspapers (like `The New Izvestiya`) of the so called liberal opposition. The state-owned corp. supports the opposition! How can it be explained? The Kremlin masochism? Curioser and curioser! Wonderland! Who gonna be Alice?

Adabsiz1 13 Mar 2015 14:29

Amazingly, and despite Western sanctions on Russia, not to mention attacks on the person of President Putin ....
GAZPROM, the largest Russian oil company, is the SOLE sponsors of not only the UEFA Champions League ...... but also FC Schalke 04 (a premiere German club) !!!

(https://www.gazprom-germania.de/en/sponsorship/sports-sponsorship/fcschalke04.html)

WOW --

Do we speak with forked tongues ??

Cigars -> sheikhoftheprairies 13 Mar 2015 13:27

The Central Intelligence Agency was created to gather intelligence.

Collecting intelligence through human sources and by other appropriate means, except that he shall have no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers or internal security functions;
Correlating and evaluating intelligence related to the national security and providing appropriate dissemination of such intelligence;
Providing overall direction for and coordination of the collection of national intelligence outside the United States through human sources by elements of the Intelligence Community authorized to undertake such collection and, in coordination with other departments, agencies, or elements of the United States Government which are authorized to undertake such collection, ensuring that the most effective use is made of resources and that appropriate account is taken of the risks to the United States and those involved in such collection; and
Performing such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President or the Director of National

sheikhoftheprairies -> psygone 13 Mar 2015 13:06

CNN is a source for the masses. To be more or less informed persons need other sources of information. My choice is the Lloyd List. It writes nothing about policy, only marine industry, yet you can judge the real state of affairs in the international economy, cos maritime transportation is blood of the world`s economy. Even the FT is not very reliable for me. I prefer figures and graphs to the words.

worried 13 Mar 2015 12:43

"competent leaders who embraced the western world because they cared more about maximizing the prosperity of their people than stealing their national wealth"

....HO HO HO !!

I just love the twisted Guardianista thinking that we get on here from time to time....NOT.

Read all about it : ' they cared more about maximizing the prosperity of their people than stealing their national wealth" ....

Does this win the 2015 Orwellianspeak prize of the year?


BradBenson -> brendonn 13 Mar 2015 10:52

Fact are facts. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? Sounds to me as if you don't have the education or acquired knowledge to dispute what I said. Perhaps you should check out our standing against the rest of the world.

Since I've traveled all of my life and lived as an expatriate in Germany for ten years, I've had the opportunity to see the differences myself. Since you've never been outside of your trailer park, let alone your state, you will have to go to the net to find out the truth.

Make that your assignment for today young man and run along.

HollyOldDog -> romans 13 Mar 2015 10:42

By manning the Concentration Camps where their extreme brutality was noted by the Gestapo but the Ukrainians cowardice was evident when the Soviet forces discovered the Auschwitz Concentration camp where the Ukrainian guards discarded their uniforms and tried to hide within the prisoners. But they stood out like a sore thumb as they were overweight whereas the true prisoners were 'stick thin' and obviously starving and awaiting their place in the que for the gas chambers.

jgbg -> huzar30 13 Mar 2015 10:29

Strongmen always eliminate potential rivals, and surround themselves with competent sycophants.

Yeah - the Russians could end up with someone weak, like Vladimir Zhirinovsky : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhirinovsky

Be careful what you wish for.

(Strangely, despite giving the impression of being a complete madman, Zhirinovsky made a fairly accurate prediction on a Ukrainian TV programme in 2006, about what would happen in Ukraine if the nationalists and their far right chums in Svoboda seized power)

Conniston -> romans 13 Mar 2015 10:27

Romans, they sure got their revenge at the Treblinka death camp. They were Catholic Christians with a deep hatred of Jews, communists and Orthodox Christians. Just to rub it in the new prime minister was seen with the Pope only a few days after the coup in Kiev. It may be 70 years ago but they still believe in priestcraft. It's a good job they have a saviour-god who is going to forgive all the rotten things they do while on Earth.

valeronfreza -> Daniel Simkins 13 Mar 2015 10:15

It creates resonance. But it really stupid. He's a president, a busy guy, he has lots of things to do, which are way more important than making new photos. There are plenty of them, already, he's not a TV serial so people would wait a new portion of him every two days or so. In spite of intensions of medias to turn his life and actions into series.

HollyOldDog -> Havingalavrov 13 Mar 2015 09:57

It's probably due to Poroshenko asking for an emergency Asylum due to all the murders of Russian Speaking politicians in West Ukraine but the armed road blocks around Kiev are posing problems for his safe escape plan.

samlebon23 13 Mar 2015 09:55

The Cancer Inducing Agency is hard at work.

StatusFoe -> RealityCheck2014 13 Mar 2015 09:42

He has not busy working hard with Western nations to secure a mutually beneficial reconciliation

What was he doing in Minsk a couple of weeks ago then?

fully integrate Russia into the global economy, promote positive and respectful relationships with foreign markets for Russia's products,

Under Putin Russia has become a member of the WTO, the Russian Middle Class has grown enormously. Sure, the bureaucracy is still stiffling and huge reforms are still needed to promote SMEs. On the other hand, Putin has stopped the western energy corps from taking over Russia's resources in the way they do in the third world, Nigeria for example. That resistance has irked the US led western corporate cabal and thus the campaign in western MSM to demonize Putin and vilify Russia as a whole.

Ida Barnes -> Metronome151 13 Mar 2015 09:40

Huge dollop of whataboutery

Whataboutery. Newspeak noun: used as a desperate attempt by people with poor reasoning skills to deflect attention from their double standards

VladimirM -> VladimirM 13 Mar 2015 08:10

There were two other presidents in Russia. Everybody knew and could see themselves how healthy Yeltsin was. But I can't remember a single story about Medvedev's health during his tenure.

The youth don't remember Politburo and even Yeltsin's presidency seems to be far away. So it's a bit rich to call it 'scares' and compare it to the early 80s.

Dr_Delaney 13 Mar 2015 08:01

One has to understand that Mr Putin has had to defend his nation from the war of economic aggression that a minority of US-connected countries have waged on his country. I say minority because their actions are not supported by the world community - far from it indeed.

Mr Putin is also working hard on the 2018 World Cup - which is expected to be the bes so far in the competitions history.

Socraticus -> SHappens 13 Mar 2015 07:46

Matt Lee is one of the few journalists that consistently challenges the official government narrative and points out their hypocrisy during press briefings. The MSM need many more individuals like him.

SHappens -> linzter 13 Mar 2015 07:31

The US would never lie, never do such things, check Psaki's statement:

As a matter of long-standing policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means."

The response from reporters may surprise you.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/journalist-cant-contain-his-laughter-when-white-house-spokesperson-says-the-us-has-a-long-standing-policy-against-backing-coups/

Dr_Delaney 13 Mar 2015 07:29

It's Nato that's empire-building, not Putin....Peter Hitchens in The Spectator magazine

"Two great land powers face each other. One of these powers, Russia, has given up control over 700,000 square miles of valuable territory. The other, the European Union, has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. Which of these powers is expanding"?

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9459602/its-nato-thats-empire-building-not-putin/

SirHenryRawlins -> tomash76 13 Mar 2015 07:16

Crimea would have been flattened if the nationalists had invaded. Luckily the people of Crimea acted swiftly and succeeded from Ukraine. Yes, it was all illegal but lives were saved. Western liberal interventionists should have supported Russia.

Dr_Delaney -> SHappens 13 Mar 2015 07:13

This is quite true. The western game of denegration of a whole nation has backfired on them.

They appear NOT to have learnt from past mistakes from history: 1812 (France invaded Russia), 1914 (Germany invaded Russia) and 1942 (Germany again invaded Russia). On each occasion Russia came out stronger.


SHappens 13 Mar 2015 07:08

"Something remarkable is taking place in Russia, and it's quite different from what we might expect. Rather than feel humiliated and depressed Russia is undergoing what I would call a kind of renaissance, a rebirth as a nation. This despite or in fact because the West, led by the so-called neo-conservatives in Washington, is trying everything including war on her doorstep in Ukraine, to collapse the Russian economy, humiliate Putin and paint Russians generally as bad. In the process, Russia is discovering positive attributes about her culture, her people, her land that had long been forgotten or suppressed."

Read more: http://thesaker.is/russias-remarkable-renaissance/

Putin probably needed a break to look with satisfaction at what the West has achieved so far, and that is nothing constructive for the EU.

sheikhoftheprairies -> gewillia21 13 Mar 2015 07:03

Chechnya`s part of the Russian Federation. It was and is. South Ossetia was saved by Russia. Georgians planned their genocide. Ukraine became a victim of the coup d'état like in LA in the 70s. Crimea? Now we see what ordeal this peninsula would undergo if not Russia`s help. Ukraine is a part of the Russian world, Russian populated universe, and therefore the EU and US are wrong when they try to trespass this thin, invisible but real red line. It is not our business. Let the Russian (Ukrainians are the Russian too) do like they can, we should not interfere with their Civil war. `Mad Vlad` is a vocabulary of hongweibings and dazibaos, as to the white overalls they won`t move their fingers until paid for their service. Who will pay them, you? Vlad won`t do it.

Putin is a great national leader and the best friend of Chechnya, that Muslim republic. Visit Grozny (capital of the republic), it`s a fairy tale in the mountains. Putin built it anew.

StatusFoe -> SirHenryRawlins 13 Mar 2015 06:37

Indeed, it's very scarry. Thankfully it's been relatively very quiet in East Ukraine these last few days.... the hawks are surely not happy. And now the US establishment's official mouthpiece, tyhe Washington Post is berating the UK for not spendiing more on defence and not being sifficiently aggressive:

In the two conflicts that most directly imperil Europe today, Britain has been largely ­invisible.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/behind-tough-british-bark-on-russia-and-islamic-state-is-very-little-bite/2015/03/12/ae63a442-c727-11e4-bea5-b893e7ac3fb3_story.html?hpid=z4

RoyRoger -> Chirographer 13 Mar 2015 06:29

7 political imbeciles !!.

Obama, Kerry, Rasmusseen, Nuland, McCain, Hague & Ashton. The '' hug a, Kiev, fascist'' - lets have a coup d' etat' in a sovereign and democratic country - gang.

And, Putin, sat back whilst the above mentioned incompetence actions dropped into Putin's and the Russian's lap - Crimea and 20% of Ukraine.

And now the fucking political imbeciles are planning a war with Russia.

Socraticus 13 Mar 2015 06:25

Good lord! Do any of you anti-Putin fanatics ever once bother to investigate the claims presented in the MSM rather than take them as fact at face value?

A simple cursory check of the Russian Presidential website would have easily dispelled the disinformation being disseminated, as it provides a listing of Putin's various meetings held over the past week and beyond (including photos taken at those meetings and links to the press releases of same).

Further, those meetings can also be validated via the video coverage of them found on YouTube (including the Women's Day on March 8th), as well as postings made on other governmental websites that pertain to the individuals he met with. Here are just a few of those links so you can see for yourself...

http://eng.kremlin.ru/news
http://gov.karelia.ru/gov/index_e.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3mbtEZcio0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBVwq8Xw64

Conniston 13 Mar 2015 06:25

Things have become clearer following the 'Yesterday' TV programme that told the harrowing story of the death camp at Treblinka in Poland - March 10th. The guards killing the Jews were Ukrainian. Many Ukrainians joined the German army when they attacked the USSR in June 1941.

With this in mind we can now begin to understand why the Russians are, rightly or wrongly, calling those in Kiev Nazis.

Pateric -> GreatMountainEagle 13 Mar 2015 06:24

Why not, if even after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya....the Westerners believe in their
"exclusive" democracy as they, obviously, believe in the above 108-124%.

Vladimire_Poutine 13 Mar 2015 06:23

Where's Wally? *

*Wally = common Anglicization of Vladimir.

sheikhoftheprairies 13 Mar 2015 06:04

Churchill: `Stalin took over Russia when it had just a plough and left it with nuclear weapons`.

Putin took over Russia when it had just plights, and now Russia is a liberal, democratic, capitalist country. Its only guilt is it does not want to be anybody`s fool, victim. Putin is a real leader, not just a formal President. I wish him every success. I`d recommend politicians of other countries to follow his example for the sake of their nations.

[Mar 15, 2015] British security services recruit Russian-language speakers again

Mar 15, 2015 | The Guardian

robertinjapan -> ErnestfromClapham 14 Mar 2015 11:14

Funny you mention that, that bloke you shared an apartment with, did he play up front for Tranmere Rovers, occasionally head the ball in? Anyway I've heard he's operating out of Stamford Bridge these days helping logistics for hotel bookings when Chelsea play away ties in Europe. Rumour round the camp fire has it he got a promotion recently for his efforts in securing excellent booking rates for Chelsea fans in the Clichy-sous-Bois region of Paris. Now to section where you state:

"We were all rather pleased about the end of the Cold War and it is a crime that it is being restarted over a bit of local trouble in the far corner of Ukraine"

What makes you think the cold war ever ended? What peace treaty was signed? What new arrangements were agreed upon? Finally, if Russia agreed to the unification of Germany and essentially the rearming of a nation that twice in the twentieth century came close to obliterating Russia. What concessions did the West concede in this so called ending of the cold war?

grubbedout -> HollyOldDog 15 Mar 2015 14:08

Starting pay?

Civil Servant pay isn't all that great, plus the new 'Alpha' pension scheme has all the credibility of supermarket fuel vouchers.

Me109BfG6 -> Botswana61 15 Mar 2015 00:06

These lands have traditionally been Russian with the Russian majority of the whole population.
Now, what would you say if in Germany the Bavarian dialect should be forced as the only 'state language' instead of the standard German? Quite resembling the situation in the Baltics, where they have forced their aborigine languages while prohibiting the Russian: Less science, less culture, less medic, etc,


Alexandra_Aleshina 14 Mar 2015 04:11

"Russia's "aggressive behaviour" posed a significant threat to the UK"
How Russian "aggressive behavior" poses a threat to the UK, please tell me?
And what is the "Russian aggressive behavior"? Let's only leave aside, these absurd stories about Russian invasion of Ukraine. This lie has already made me pretty tired.


ambivabloke 14 Mar 2015 00:44

I started my Russian language degree in 88 when Russian departments were flush with cash. The bottom dropped out of the field with a little help from Gorby (no, not Ronny).

The CIA was often rumoured to stalk the halls of academe, waiting to pluck students like me who were, unfortunately for the CIA, more interested in Oblomov than Star Wars (Reagan's moronic missile shield).

Come to think of it that's exactly the demographic Mi6 and the CIA should recruit, Russian/English speakers whose only ideology is an appreciation for the depth and complexity of Russian history and culture.


HollyOldDog transplendent 13 Mar 2015 21:53

A Russian speaker from an English University cannot understand the Russian mentality from your stated standpoint. If that is one of the requirements by the British secret services then they can only attract poor quality students.


HollyOldDog RichWoods 13 Mar 2015 21:42

Well if the West Ukrainians started to pay off their gas payment debt instead of stealing gas then no warnings need to be made by Russia about possible interrupted gas supplies beyond Russian control.


Antidyatel 13 Mar 2015 20:47

Ok.OK. I will send my resume. Obviously my track record on this forum is enough to qualify for this job. Fluent English and Russian and good knowledge of history, including all the disgusting nature of western culture.

Inhumanoid -> Speenhamland 13 Mar 2015 20:45

However, these days the net is cast far wider. For a couple of days this week if you entered "Russian language" and "university" into Google's UK search engine, above the results popped a jaunty, paid-for advertisement. "Understand Russian?" it asked. "Help protect the UK." A link took you to MI5's careers website.
Reading, eh? Who has the time?

hogsback -> CaptainFlack 13 Mar 2015 20:08

Erm, there is no tap on the shoulder any more. That's the whole point.
You can apply for a job at any of the three agencies directly online:
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/careers/
https://www.sis.gov.uk/careers.html
http://www.gchq-careers.co.uk/index.html


hogsback -> Linguistician 13 Mar 2015 20:04

No, they recruit from across the entire UK - it's just that if you are recruiting Russian language specialists you are pretty limited in where you can recruit from, but you can guarantee that the students at Durham, Oxford, Bristol, Exeter etc will also have been approached.

hogsback -> Ilja NB 13 Mar 2015 19:46

The only ghetto in which Arabic is widely spoken is Mayfair. Are you suggesting all those millionaire Saudis and Emiratis are up to something? (other than annoying the neighbours by revving their Ferraris at 1am).

RichWoods -> puskascat 13 Mar 2015 19:17

The CIA running shoulder-launched missiles to the Afghan mujahideen via Peshawar? Remind me how that turned out.

ApfelD 13 Mar 2015 18:17

"The war against Russia is an important chapter in the German nation's struggle for existence. It is the old battle of the Germanic against the Slavic people, of the defense of European culture against Muscovite-Asiatic inundation and of the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism. The objective of this battle must be the demolition of present-day Russia and must therefore be conducted with unprecedented severity.

Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron resolution to exterminate the enemy remorselessy and totally. In particular no adherents of the contemporary Russian Bolshevik system are to be spared"
1941


musubi transplendent 13 Mar 2015 17:26

"I'd rather have Russia as an enemy than a friend. At least you know where you stand." So some people apparently feel a need to demonise others in order "to know where they stand".

Oh dear, oh dear, there seems to be little hope for humanity.

ApfelD 13 Mar 2015 16:14

The cold war managed returns as farce
Russians are buying our family brilliants, houses, football clubs and yachts
zillions of Russian speakers are walking around
the Internet is full of Russians
we need spies
LOL


Linguistician Marc de Berner 13 Mar 2015 15:27

I don't think they seriously expect them to be able to pass as Russian. I expect a lot of the job revolves around SIGINT these days, just listening and interpreting. The poster also indicates that they expect their linguists to have spent time in the country and/or have cultural knowledge, i.e. not just sat in a classroom having learnt the cases and conjugations.

Grumpymiddleagedman ID6945587 13 Mar 2015 14:41

I spent years learning German Russian and Portuguese on the back of government promises about employment opportunities in the early 90's. Never saw a single job I could apply for except translating in some awful agency. Stuff the security services. And Up Russia.

CaptainFlack 13 Mar 2015 14:26

I have a background in engineering, and speak Chinese after spending time in the far east when I was younger, but I never got a tap on the shoulder. The most important thing for the security services, like most of the senior military and civil service jobs, is that you come from the "right" schools, because they assume this makes you decent, upright citizens rather than the kind of oikish commonfolk that are the real enemy to them.

Anette Mor 13 Mar 2015 13:34

They already killed trade with Russia, now they are killing of the sources for the UK overseas students. Russia (and Kazakhstan) had state budget sponsored kids sent to universities here, forgot about them from next year. It is already impossible to chat in any of the Russian forums in the UK because of no stop pro-Ukrainian abuse. When you force somebody away so badly you eventually make them an enemy.

Paranoia, abuse, total surveillance - great place to live the UK.

[Mar 15, 2015] Neocons Probably Going Wobbly On Bombing Iran

Mar 15, 2015 | M of A

Fred Hiatt's funny pages again and again come up with ever same demand "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran". But the neocon crew now seem a little bit unsure about the issue.

Today's funny page "Bomb Iran" piece is by the notorious neocon Joshua Muravchik. It has astonishingly a somewhat qualified headline: War with Iran is probably our best option.

One wonders why this is qualified. Why only probably? Why not the guaranteed best option? Why not for sure?

Joshua Muravchik, a one trick bomb Iran pony, is usually much more assertive when calling for bombing Iran.

[W]e must stop Iran's nuclear program, and the only likely way to achieve this is by military means.

It was always "bomb Iran" demanded as response to the ever false claim that Iran is striving for nukes. Bombing Iran was not "probably" the best option but "the only likely way". "Bomb Iran!" straight away, fully lunatic and unqualified.

Why is it now only probably good to bomb Iran?

jfl | Mar 14, 2015 1:55:32 PM | 2

He's preaching to a wider audience than to his usual choir? It was OK to be crazy with them, but now that the neo-cons are really pressing for delivery instead of just sounding off, he has to make a show of an argument to the as yet 'unconvinced?

dh | Mar 14, 2015 2:12:58 PM | 3

Hedging his bets. Netanyahu isn't too popular in Washington right now.

notlurking | Mar 14, 2015 2:26:25 PM | 4

Good article about the nutty professor Dr Muravchik.....

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/03/three-maps-for-professor-muravchik.html

Laguerre | Mar 14, 2015 3:22:25 PM | 5

Is it really surprising? Netanyahu's speech was a disaster. Even the most right-wing patriotic anti-Obama GOP politician must hesitate at enfeebling the US presidency as an institution. Once the presidency delegitimized, future Republican presidents may also find their authority weakened.

Netanyahu's speech has also led to a weakening of his support in Israel, and he may lose in the election. There the thinking is different - has Netanyahu put the vital US alliance in question? That associated with Netanyahu's incompetence on the Israeli economy.

It was a weak speech. He didn't come up with any new definitive justification against Iran. That failure was vital, as he effectively bet a high stake in deciding to go ahead.

Piotr Berman | Mar 14, 2015 4:14:16 PM | 9

Muravchik can safely ply his mental product, because no military will heed it, unless its leadership is profoundly retarded. As we discussed, there was a rehearsal of what may happen: the war of Israel with Hezbollah. Countermeasures of Iran:

  • Plan A. Bombing causes superficial damage, victory declared, US humiliated.
  • Plan B. Bombing causes major damage, Iran declares waters near its shore close to maritime traffic on the account of hostilities. Even now, with oil glut, that would be a major blow to the world economy (check Strait of Hormuz and its significance for oil trade).

Follow-up to Plan B. American response: bombing near Strait of Hormuz to stop Iranian missile batteries. Here is where the experience of 2006 comes in: the countermeasure has the form of hundreds or thousands of plausible outlets of tunnels where the missile launchers and missile can survive the bombing. Follow-up: send Marines. Iran is familiar with effective tactics for that alternative, again, lots of tunnel and short range missiles. Follow-up: Dahiya doctrine, slam population centers.

Would that happen, China and Russia will go "ballistic" and European support is far, far from certain. We are talking about prelude to WWIII in all its thermonuclear glory. At the very least, China and Russia will declare all sanctions on Iran null and void, and Russia will offer supplies of most advanced anti-aircraft systems, and perhaps anti-naval systems to boot, and perhaps nuclear umbrella to secure those supplies from preventative bombing (Diego Garcia is the best retaliatory target, being free of civilian casualties).

What will follow is probably multilateral mediation with Iran offering re-opening the waters to maritime trade in exchange for reparations and non-aggression guarantees.

This scenario is speculative, but there were various signals that China and Russia have "red lines". For example, why USA backed down so easily from the idea of attacking Syria? Other example include various remarks in speeches, and concrete actions so far. Moreover, this scenario is so disastrous that one has to ask: what percentage of probability that it would happen is "worth it"?

Piotr Berman | Mar 14, 2015 4:33:26 PM | 10

I read Porter's article, and I differ on one point: there is a divorce between AIPAC and neocons on Iran issue.

AIPAC is still a force in D.C., but divided AIPAC, not so much. Democratic part of AIPAC derided the letter of 47, perhaps not through the mouths of AIPAC officials, but various commentators who are connected to the "liberal part" of the Establishment, like Tom Friedman. Basically, powerful donors of Democrats where fully in synch with Administration on that one. Keep in mind that Obama is bold ONLY after checking the support.

Porter attributed the support of the letter of 47 to AIPAC, but his links are going back to his story, and details all point to Adelson's wing of AIPAC (more precisely, ZOA, EIC etc.) Basically, the establishment sometimes works in concert (e.g. when any sanctions on Israeli behavior have to be thwarted, or in respect to the policy on Ukraine), but sometimes it splits into cliques of "wimps" and "morons" (Realists and Exceptionalists? there are many labels).

hans | Mar 14, 2015 4:46:34 PM | 11

~70% of Americans are OK with a ME war now, today. Think about that. Then consider any one of the current crop of clowns running for president sitting in the White House with a Rethuglican House and Senate.

These guys mean it. They aren't joking. Just the other day "Lindsey Graham: As president I would deploy the military against Congress" to force the Congress to fund war... Think about it hard.

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/11/8193751/lindsey-graham-military-coup

Alberto | Mar 14, 2015 6:24:08 PM | 13

I hate to burst everyone's power bubble but Russia, Iran, Syria, have a mutual defense pact. So in essence Iran and Syria have offensive nukes in their arsenals. And an existential attack on either brings Russia into the conflict. Like Johnny Rotten said "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-russia-iran-syria-mutual-defense-treaties-the-western-media-missed

Willy2 | Mar 14, 2015 7:44:21 PM | 14

"'Mistrust Is Growing': European Leaders Blast GOP Senators for Letter to Iran"

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/13/mistrust-growing-european-leaders-blast-gop-senators-letter-iran

guest77 | Mar 14, 2015 7:59:34 PM | 15

Was a revival of chatter surrounding Russia's sale of the S-300 to Iran in Jan. 2015, as well of Iran showing off their own DIY system. Both probably another result of Idiot Netanyahu's war-mongering. Since Ukraine, I really don't see any reason for Russia to hold back.

Russia and Iran sign defense deal, 'may resolve' S300 missile delivery issue RT
Russia may send S-300 missile system to Iran JPost
Russia may send S-300 missile system to Iran - media Reuters

Debka, that old rag, even mentioned the S-400.

-------
"TWO CHEERS - Second Thoughts on the Bush Doctrine"
He seems to have failed to distinguish between "second thoughts" and "wet dreams".

guest77 | Mar 14, 2015 8:03:34 PM | 16

You have to love this quote:

"The potential sale of the S-300 defense system will jeopardize prospects for resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy," Reps. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) and Ted Deutch (D., Fla.) wrote to Kerry.

I had to laugh. It won't jeopardize prospects for resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through "diplomacy", it will jeopardize prospects for resolving the issue through an aerial attack on the country though...

[Mar 15, 2015] Why our leaders can't be heroes any more by Jonathan Powell

Note the the author never used the word "neoliberalism" in the article. This is what "identity politic" is about. for example tony Blair essentially sold his party to banksters and was royally remunerated for that. He also served as lapdog for Bush II neoconservative adventures. Personalities serve as a smoke screen to hide issues of attack of banksters on wellbeing of people. And the key task of neoliberal politician is to deceive people. Quote from comments: "Beyond terrible, an irrelevant article. There is simply no point being made, just a slapdash bundle of clichés thrown out in sequence in the vain hope of forming an argument." and another "Mr Powell kindly take my advice and fuck off, give your old china another award for his international legacy, shut up and be grateful you'll never face a criminal investigation for your part in the Iraq war."
Mar 13, 2015 | The Guardian

We yearn for politicians to fill the shoes of their all-powerful predecessors. But there are terrible dangers in trying to be superman

There is a general lament about the Lilliputian nature of our current leaders. Where are the towering figures of the past? Why do we have such uninspiring leaders who can't even eat a bacon sandwich, or resist chillaxing on the job, or, in the case of the Greens, even remember their policies?

There is, of course, nothing new about this. If you look back at the newspaper columns of the 1960s you will find commentators demanding to know where were the current-day Churchills and Bevans, and in the 1930s they wanted to know where leaders of the stature of Gladstone and Disraeli had gone. It is the familiar syndrome – from which I suffer – that as you get older, policemen look younger and younger.

Nonetheless it is indisputably true that at the moment there is an unusual lack of strong, charismatic leaders, not just in the UK but in Europe too.

It has come to something when Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is the dominant figure in Europe. I admire her quiet and subtle style of leadership, and she towers over her colleagues, but she is scarcely a colossus in the mould of a De Gaulle or even a Kohl. I vividly remember the first time Tony Blair met her, in the new British embassy in Berlin in 2004. Then the leader of the opposition in Germany, the soon-to-be chancellor plonked herself down in front of him and said disarmingly, "I have 10 problems" – and then began to list them, starting with a lack of charisma.

The dearth of strong leaders is more than just the usual feast and famine – or it wouldn't extend across the west

... ... ...

So maybe we should be careful what we wish for. Maybe strong leaders are not quite as alluring as we think, and we should celebrate the fact that our leaders are just like us. Just because one candidate can't remember his whole speech and the other likes to put his feet up on the job doesn't mean they can't govern. It could be that in the more constrained environment of developed democracies and a globalised economy, we actually want and need leaders in shades of grey rather than the towering figures of the past.


Dani123 15 Mar 2015 01:09

I don't want a "Führer", it's good for war and bloodshed only.
In peaceful times grey technocrat manager are maybe abit color- but also bloodless.

People from the past would envy us for our oh-so-boring kind of politicians.

You wish for interesting times with interesting "personalities", well I don't.
I like my lame and uninteresting times quite well, thank you....

VelvetRevolutionary 14 Mar 2015 12:44

Do you want to know why our political "...leaders can't be heroes anymore."? Our 21st century leaders are sorely lacking in human integrity, and they have completely lost their moral compass. That's why.

dilawar 14 Mar 2015 02:20

The French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, a great observer of man's affairs, while witnessing the birth of democracy in America, thought that the age of democracy will be the age of mediocrity. There will be a dead level plane of achievement in almost every kind of activity. A democratic person, due to various reasons he explains lucidly, does everything in hurry. He is always satisfied with "pretty well" and does not pause for an instance to think what he is doing.

"His curiosity is at once insatiable and cheaply satisfied; for he cares more to know a great deal quickly than to know anything well: he has no time and but little taste to search things to the bottom". To make matter worse, "men of democracy worship chance, and are much less afraid of death than of difficulty".

Despite his strong attachment to democracy, Tocqueville took great pains to point out what he thought to be a negative side of democracy: it will be an unheroic age. Tocqueville maintained that there wont be heroes in democratic societies because democracies are inherently incapable of producing them.

But modern democracies were not able to do without heroes and this was also foreseen by Tocqueville with much misgivings. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that unlike aristocracy, there will not be a proper place for heroes or hero-worshipers in democracies, and when they arose they would sooner or later turn into despots. Modern democracy may or may not do without heroes but they certainly can not do without leaders. And in this modern age, which breeds them in great profusion, the problem is to know what to do with them.

Democracies are no longer restricted to Europe or United States. They are now in many parts of this world in their own peculiar forms. They have acquired some distinct features of the societies in which they are able to grow. Human societies value heroes or charismatic personalities but some among are always more obsessed with them. These days, people seems to be somewhat tired of their politicians but it is not that people are tired for charisma; it only moves from politics to other area of public life. People reserve their praise and transfer their adulation for movie starts, sadhus and sants, sports-personalities and sometimes, for man of sciences.

Here in India and neighbourhood, charismatic people from various fields have been using their charisma in politics. Some have been quite successful. NTR missed becoming the prime minister of India, Imran Khan is trying the same in Pakistan. The appeal of charisma, by which I mean the personal quality that secure instant and unquestioned devotions to the leader of his followers, is in decline everywhere. Not only there is no Nehru today, there is no de Gaulle and Winston Churchill. The consideration of this for the prospect of democracy and health of its institutions deserves some serious attention.

Banditolobster 14 Mar 2015 01:37

I don't particularly want our leaders to be heroic or devastatingly charismatic, I would settle for them being quietly competent and un corrupt, it amuses me that Merkel gets some stick in this article, she strikes me as a better leader by simply getting on with it, than many other leaders who are trying to summon up shades of Churchill and De Gaulle

danielarnaut -> StTrevorofIlford 13 Mar 2015 17:17

Thank you for your interest, though I lived in Britain most of my life I am of Catalan origin so I have always been interested in the ill fortune of some of the men and women who scape the Franco regime on the other side of the Pyrenees, so I started visiting the many concentration camps the Vichy regime built for the republican Spaniards in French soil.

My neighbour in Newbury told me a weird story of Austrians in Frith Hill, or Frimley, near Camberley in Surrey. I heard of concentration camps for Irish freedom fighters in Shewsbury and Bromyard. I haven't got any information about those apparently in Tipperary and Southend. However, there are lots of information and literature on several concentration camps near Douglas and Peel in the Isle of Man which were built during the II WW.

The BBC reported about a concentration camp near Leicester, Donnington Hall.
But the most bizarre discovery I made was this one : I was just driving in the Dordogne (France) in 2010 when I came across a program in France Inter (radio) called " La bas si j'y suis ", I was speechless.

A British historian was being interviewed about thirty concentration camps where more than two hundred thousand unemployed British guys were deported and put to hard labour, after the 1929 crash; these camps were in use up to 1939 ; that means the period under the labour government of Ramsey MacDonald. The idea was called: a New Deal (does it remind you of Tony's campaign for power?)

People were forced to go these camps maybe to stop riots in certain cities. If they refused to go to the camps they had their benefit stopped at once. The inmates lived under awful conditions. They were treated like slaves and put to work for ten hours a day, forced to build roads, chop trees and crack stones.

These were the years previous to the II WW and these concentration camps provided cheap labour before being sent to fight for king and country.

HolyInsurgent, 13 Mar 2015 23:06

Jonathan Powell: In part this vacuum is the result of a familiar pattern that normally a strong leader is immediately followed by a weak one. Margaret Thatcher was followed by John Major, Blair by Gordon Brown, Ronald Reagan by George Bush Sr, and so on.

The theory is obviously meaningless. In each case, which one was the strong leader and which the weak one? Who decides?

Without a substantial army they cannot take a leading role in world affairs. And as part of Nato and the European Union, their scope for independent foreign policy initiatives is severely limited.

Considering NATO is America's military branch to enforce its foreign policy, the UK is simply an American client state. There is nothing to stop NATO from being dissolved and the EU pooling its separate countries' militaries as a united force. But of course America won't allow NATO to be dissolved. Why would it?

No one in Russia would complain that they suffer from weak leaders at the moment.

The Russian people voted for Putin. The West can think what they like of him, but he was elected.

In China, with "Papa Xi", the cult of personality has returned virtually to the levels under Mao.

What does the author suggest be done about it?

Beyond terrible, an irrelevant article. There is simply no point being made, just a slapdash bundle of clichés thrown out in sequence in the vain hope of forming an argument.

VarmintRaptScallion 13 Mar 2015 14:11

I don't think you can get through Michael Sandal's Justice lecture series without acknowledging that the battle between moral principles and moral utilitarianism forces a leader to wade into some pretty grey areas.

As a society it is probably better that we accept the inevitable corruption that takes hold in leaders and design political systems that take account of this. The concept of heroes and villains is at the heart of propaganda and only serves the status quo.

Just like the erroneous belief that the current political paradigm is somehow the pinnacle of human evolution.

BlogAnarchist 13 Mar 2015 13:23

Got up to here and realised this article was a joke piece.

In part this vacuum is the result of a familiar pattern that normally a strong leader is immediately followed by a weak one. Margaret Thatcher was followed by John Major, Blair by Gordon Brown, Ronald Reagan by George Bush Sr, and so on. It is very hard for a new strong leader to grow up in the shadow of an existing strong leader. Their successors are nearly always lower-key figures.

Nathaniel P -> Cape7441 13 Mar 2015 13:21

I noticed this. Politicians are basically allowed no respite, and their very characters are dissected in the media. It is almost as if they are not allowed to be human. It seems to me that the rivalry is just too strong- while debating and having different views is of course central to democratic politics, politicians should never be spiteful and nasty to rival politicians because they have a different political view- they should even feel comfortable complimenting their rivals' ideas and promises if they feel the need, but this never happens because the rivalry was too strong.

Apparently, PM Stanley Baldwin used to politely chat to politicians in Parliament buildings, regardless of their party- maybe if this kind of thing was increased, politicians would be followed and seen as 'heroes' as they would be seen as human beings like the rest of us and not participants in slagging matches!

greyskies 13 Mar 2015 13:15

A politician should be a hero. They have the power to affect the lives of millions and should feel the weight of that responsibility every day. There are thoughtful and responsible MPs in our current parliament: Rory Stewart, Douglass Carswell, David Davis, Sarah Wollaston, Tom Watson, Margaret Hodge to name a few that I can respect. Unfortunately thoughtful MPs are rarely seen because they feel they should be loyal to their party or because they are rightfully afraid of being misunderstood. We need our MPs to be more heroic and put themselves out there and argue for their visions of the future of the country.

socialistnotnulabour -> TwigTheWonderKid 13 Mar 2015 13:01

You don't live in the real world if you think anyone just basing their arguments on evidence.

I make my arguments based on evidence but I'm not so conceited to believe my beliefs don't have some effect on how I view the evidence.

Zealots seem to believe they are the ones with the only correct view of evidence and are inflexible to believe anything else despite being shown they have come to the wrong conclusion.

You should always be open to the fact that your conclusion from the evidence may actually be wrong.

Even in the scientific world, evidence and facts are not always used in a truthful way.


Bryced 13 Mar 2015 12:38

The Labour Party. A man of the stature of Nye Bevin to the likes of puppet Tony B-lair and his collaborators. Yikes. Times have certainly changed. Deep, no deeper than that, endless bloody sigh. Makes you want to weep.

HumanistLove 13 Mar 2015 12:17

Accountable, intelligent, promise keeper, not beholden to special interests, consensus oriented, domestic issues as priority, sensitive to the most vulnerable in society...a mensch for, by and of the people.

I believe a leader's personal life should be respected as private, as we all wish for ourselves.

kippers 13 Mar 2015 11:42

The Butler Report into the lack of WMD in Iraq criticised "sofa government". This was a polite way of criticising the way decisions were taken by Tony Blair and a small group of unelected advisors without the knowledge of Cabinet (and sometimes contrary to what had been decided in Cabinet). Jonathan Powell was one of those advisors. His response to that criticism was that this was the way things were done these days.

Few people want leaders to be heroes. They want accountable government. That would reduce the risk of small groups of people seizing the controls and making erroneous assumptions like "it is an established fact that Iraq has WMD" and "the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan will be short and sharp".

Krishnamoorthi 13 Mar 2015 11:20

This a typical syndrome affecting every aspect of capitalist society. Individuals have their limitations and it is the system of government and the state apparatus which makes or unmakes an individual! Even if Churchill was not there there would have been another one to replace him. Giving too much of credit to individuals is just flattery! Individuals like Mandela are products of a wider Picture! To reduce the achievements or failures on a single person is just a simpleminded argument!

stuartMilan 13 Mar 2015 11:07

and the Graun stands up for British decency again..?

Mr Powell kindly take my advice and fuck off, give your old china another award for his international legacy, shut up and be grateful you'll never face a criminal investigation for your part in the Iraq war.

Ricardo111 13 Mar 2015 10:50

Competent would be good. And honest. And principled.

Instead what we have is corrupt, two-faced snake-oil salesmen in posh style.

As for the "superhero" politicians of the past, they were no such thing: only the ignorant of history and weak of spirit would deify past leaders.

weematt 13 Mar 2015 10:36

We do not need leaders.It is silly to expect politicians to be leaders in the class struggle.

Politicians are elected to run capitalism in the interests of the business class 1-5%. In a representative democracy this is diametrically opposed to the interests of workers 95-99%.

All the economic clout is with the corporations and landowners, owned by a tiny minority of people, possibly around 5 percent. Owning the means of production allows them to cream off a profit or a surplus for themselves, and they do this by exploiting the rest of us. Their economic power is backed up by political power. The state is there to try and manage the status quo, and protect the interests of those with all the wealth. This doesn't mean that they have control over the economy, though. Market forces fluctuate between growth and slump regardless of what politicians and corporate strategists want.

This arrangement leads to massive inequalities in wealth, not just within this country, but across the globe. Goods and services only go to those who can afford them, not to those who need them. Those who can't afford the basics risk falling into a lifestyle of poverty it's hard to escape from. Living in an unequal world where everything is rationed creates divisions between us, leading to prejudice and discrimination. Even those of us with a reasonable standard of living never have enough real involvement or sense of ownership in where we work and live.

To solve the problems in society, we have to change the way society is structured. This means going from our world where the means to produce and distribute wealth are owned by a minority, to one where those resources and facilities are owned by everyone in common. Then, goods would be produced and services would be run directly for anyone who wants them, without the dictates of the economic market. Industries and services would be run just to satisfy people's needs and wants.

All this could only be achieved by fundamentally changing the way society is organised, a revolution. The kind of revolution we want is one which involves the vast majority of people across the world. Every country now is part of an integrated global economy and class structure. So, people across the world would have to want to change society. The only legitimate and practical way this could be achieved is by organising equally and democratically. This means voluntary, creative work, with decisions and responsibilities agreed through everyone having an equal say. This would mean a much broader and more inclusive use of democracy than we're used to today. Different democratic organisations or procedures would apply in different circumstances. This doesn't mean having leaders or groups with more authority than others.

"I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands." Eugene Debbs

mespilus 13 Mar 2015 10:14

If you are one of the 1%,
there have been several Supermen in the last 5 years;

George Osborne has lowered the upper rate of income tax, and given a bountiful tax break to hedge funds.

Andrew Lansley has made it much easier to divert public funds towards contracted out private health care providers.

Michael Gove has given away untold wealth by handing over school premises to Academy chains, and diverted local authority destined funds towards 'Free School's.
Vince Cable sold the Royal Mail for a song, and the share in Eurostar will soon join HS1 in private hands.

Supermen one & all.

I'm sure you can add a few more.

Matthew2012 13 Mar 2015 10:14

I think that our modern politicians read Nietzsche and decide that they are supermen (ubermensch) not men.

It matters little to them what we want - if they can get our vote.

The problem is that they don't think that they need to listen

ClericPreston 13 Mar 2015 10:09

Leaders are not leaders of much any more.

They don't have to be strong, they have to be fair, consistent and honest. The difficulty arises in the 2 dimensional thought that they have to do something big, stamp their mark, start some war or other to be the Big man (or woman in the case of Thatch).

Cameron will never appear strong because he's obviously a bought man, too many vested interests leaning on him. How can you look up to a person who can be "swayed" so readily for donations and has lied on so many occasions?

A lot of the day to day business of the country is now run by outsourcing companies, they don't answer to any elected leader, you would think this would allow a leader to develop in a more focused way, but this hasn't materialised, far from Cameron rolling up his sleeves at an appropriate time (rather than an opportunistic moment) and getting on with something for the people he seems to have spent his entire premiership publicising his party and raising funds to further drive that process not just for the last month or two but since the day he took office, 5 years! I don't think that even at the height of Thatcher's time can it be said that so much time has been spent on such things by a PM.

Our leader, imho, is a Publicity machine first, a Tory second and a PM last. To me that is the wrong way around.

Caroline Kennedy 13 Mar 2015 10:09

As we all know, Jonathan Powell is one of Tony Blair's most simpering apologists. He, like many other Blair sycophants, ended up on the board of Save the Children.

Hence the tainted "Global Legacy Award" for Blair, a man responsible for the deaths, injuries and long term disabilities of literally tens of thousands of children in Iraq, Afghanistan and across areas of the Middle East. Not to mention the number of orphans he has created.

To compare Tony Blair with any politician other than those we already despise for their despotic rule, such as Robert Mugabe, Emperor Bokassa, Ferdinand Marcos etc is to insult those we admire such as Roosevelt, Kennedy and Mandela.

Matthew2012 JayEnn 13 Mar 2015 10:09

or about Gordon Brown being ugly?

Media influence and vacuums in real substance.

In WWII no one really cared what Churchill looked like in comparison to his policies.

When we see so little integrity in our politicians, no accountability, ignoring expert advice and influence of vested interests? How do we judge the difference in our politicians?

We have issues such as climate change where we are being failed in the most fundamental respect by politicians everywhere. And rather then debate it - we are faced with a 3 party agreement not to discuss it.

The ideologies have become stale and the centre vote is all that is pursued. So whether you agree with issues or not it is no longer a matter of principles but about getting voted in.

The UK government is being treated like a middle manager job and we don't see a great deal of proven competence by any of them.

danielarnaut 13 Mar 2015 09:32

Quite ingenuously, or lack of knowledge, Churchill is described by most of you as a great war leader. I am surprised people don't remember the famine provoked in southern Asia, the threat of military heavy handed action against the miners, or simple his own declarations admitting adhering to fascism. Without a Furher, Britain could have easily slipped into a dictatorship. And we had all the ingredients such as inflicting fear, massacres, starvation, imposition of twisted rules, concentration camps built even in the north of England for the unemployed and wherever a country fell on the hands of the sacro saint british empire people were forced to change behaviour, culture, language... to embrace the new deal and be civilised. Human loss was considerable. Churchil could have continue this trend.

excathedra 13 Mar 2015 09:20

Thatcher wasn't a strong leader, she was a lunatic hell bent on destroying the working class and the social advantages the post war consensus had brought.

As for leaders I, and I suspect many others, just want honesty, decency and an end to the greed, hubris and vanity projects. If they want war then they ought to be in the front not organising and garnering contacts for future use.

Wishful thinking I know but the alternatives are not worth continuing with.

tobymoore 13 Mar 2015 08:57

Trapped in an economic system which is clearly no longer capable of providing the society that people want, or could have if it we were solely limited by human ingenuity, the main job of our so-called leaders is to "manage expectation", i.e. to tell us what we can't have.

There is no room left for visions of a better future. In any case, the obsession with leaders is infantile and leaves the door wide open for frauds and demagogues.

crinklyoldgit 13 Mar 2015 06:56

This article is hopeless. The issue here is that politicians and their appointees have become able to evade accountability by legal clever stepping . Blair is untouchable, legally speaking, but no one is under illusions about his abuse of privilege. All else is meaningless drivel until we can claw some meaningful accountability into the way affairs are managed, and make those who would abuse their powers think twice.

Jimcomment 13 Mar 2015 04:50

The difference with the Press shows the key difference here - international corporations have huge power these days. Politicians whose interests do not align with theirs find that media and funding strategies quickly go against them.

Right or wrong, previous leaders held firm convictions. Cameron shows very clearly that he has none - he is a PR man with no interest in working as a politician, let alone being PM. But this suits those who wield economic and media power, and so he is financially backed and applauded by much of the Press.

JonPurrtree 13 Mar 2015 04:23

I'm not sure Hollande ever was on a pedestal. And if it wasn't for those pesky americans, Strauss-Kahn would have been President, no questions asked about his wandering hands and worse.

But how on earth did we end up with the likes of Hollande and Milliband2 ?
I'd be happy with boring yet competant looking people like Darling or Major, but such people seem to have been culled.

No matter what Russia does, US neo-cons will always go for Cold War

quote: I think that Der Spiegel article that you mention is accurate, I read it myself, and I think we need to place it within the overall context of the US global policy which is of course to launch these pressures around the world so as to maintain a hegemonic position. And to maintain a hegemonic position the concept is to sort of break-up or reduce the effectiveness of the BRICS countries, and of course to divide Russia from China, and to divide Russia from Europe. It's part of a global strategy and thus we have to discuss US-Russia relationship in the overall context of the US hegemonic global policy.

Thus the US launched the coup d'état in Ukraine.

RT Op-Edge

Dominant neo-conservatives in the US are pursuing a very anti-Russian policy and seem to be hysterical and delusional in it, Dr. Clifford A. Kiracofe, Jr., former Senior Professional Staff Member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told RT.

The US is going to send more non-lethal military aid to Ukraine US Vice President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a phone conversation.

RT: We've heard from Victoria Nuland and David Cameron last week, both of whom alluded to "keeping the pressure on Russia", including with more sanctions. Why do you think they keep blaming Russia for everything that's happening in Ukraine, and what is your forecast for the future of US-Russia relations?

Dr. Clifford A. Kiracofe:The tendency here in Washington is just to keep the so-called pressure which means economic sanctions which is a form of economic warfare of course, and also the propaganda this information warfare that's another aspect of the so-called pressure. So this information warfare, economic sanctions are part of the package of so-called tools. I mean we can also see NATO is kind of rattling sabers, etc. So a combination of this is coordinated through Washington, the White House, and State Department with allies in Europe. I think the Europeans appear to me to be getting a little bit tired of too much pressure and may not continue the so-called economic sanctions. I think the Europeans are divided. Some Europeans sort of slavishly want to follow Washington. But on the other hand there are some more sensible people in the EU who seek a more independent policy from Washington and therefore would try for bettering relations with Russia after we get through this crisis. So I think the Europeans are divided among themselves and also from Washington. In terms of Washington and the future of Russian relations, the US will certainly continue the Cold War if you wish…actually it's worse than the Cold War, because it was more stable during the Cold war… But I think Washington will continue along this anti-Russian line and you can see reactions in Congress and commentary from the White House that indicated a continuing hard-line toward Russia.

RT: Germany's Der Spiegel magazine goes as far as asking whether the Americans are trying to thwart the peace efforts promoted by Germany and its EU partners. What do you think?

CK: I think that Der Spiegel article that you mention is accurate, I read it myself, and I think we need to place it within the overall context of the US global policy which is of course to launch these pressures around the world so as to maintain a hegemonic position. And to maintain a hegemonic position the concept is to sort of break-up or reduce the effectiveness of the BRICS countries, and of course to divide Russia from China, and to divide Russia from Europe. It's part of a global strategy and thus we have to discuss US-Russia relationship in the overall context of the US hegemonic global policy.

Thus the US launched the coup d'état in Ukraine. President Obama has already admitted that he indeed was responsible for this so-called power transition. The coup d'état in Ukraine and the destabilization of Central Europe generally is part of this process to go on with the offensive against Russia, to try to block Russian-European relations. Obviously if we want to move to a new type of international system, a more modern type of international relations in terms of a multi-polar world, polycentric world or a pluralist world of course the NATO alliance is obsolete. But the intention of the US in to continue to promote the NATO alliance, to use it against other powers in the world and to impose hegemony. The opposite would be to have the NATO alliance dissolved… the Warsaw Pact of course has dissolved…and to have as Russian side put forward a Common European House, a project to have a common European space where Russians, the EU could cooperatively work together.

I think the main instrumentality for blocking Russia that Washington is trying to use is this obsolete NATO alliance which is increasingly being strengthened and expanded and aimed at Russia. We have to remember that that most Americans have no idea of the geography: "Ukraine border from Moscow? What are we talking about? 300 miles, something like that?" So these issues of Ukraine and the stability in Eastern and Central Europe are extremely sensitive matters for not only Russia but also for the West Europeans which I think is reflected in the Der Spiegel article, it's reflected in the sentiments of more sophisticated Germans and French and others who have a grasp of the historical context as well. I mean Russia has been a part of Europe for many centuries, how can you isolate Russia from Europe? Of course Russia has an Asian dimension too and an Asian destiny as well. But you cannot isolate Russia historically from Europe - it's a part of Europe. So the US policies, the neo-conservative point of view - which is dominant in Washington - is fundamentally anti-Russian, no matter what Russia will do the neo-cons will always go for a Cold War or worse with respect to Russia.

RT: Many in the West are calling on Russia to exert more pressure on the rebels in East Ukraine. Do you think the West will be doing the same to the Kiev government, to stop this conflict?

CK: Yes I do. As I said before more sophisticated thoughtful Europeans are concerned about the US perhaps manipulating NATO or the EU and we do have that call from Ms. Nuland about her attitude to the EU. What we have now in Washington… the psychology, the mindset at the moment is almost hysteria with respect to Russia and a very Cold War sentiment here in Washington. And this is being propelled by the very dominant neo-conservative thinking and advisors throughout the Congress and the executive branch. So in my own view while there are Europeans who would like to see a better relationship with Russia as well as with the US, a more equal relationship with the US… I think Europe is split. It's better for Europe to distance itself at the moment from the US particularly when Washington is so delusional; I've never seen it this delusional before, except for the instance of the Iraq war… It's just this delusion and hysteria in Congress and a very aggressive attitude in the State Department. One would think diplomats would be more diplomatic…

I believe that the Europeans are somewhat divided: more thoughtful ones are reflecting the dangers of the Ukrainian crisis potentially causing instability in Europe and moving out of Eastern and Central Europe into Western Europe. I think irrespective of some language of some leadership elements in Europe, I think there is well-known voices have been speaking out in favor of trying to get behind this crisis and repair relations with Russia.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

2ndiceberg yesterday at 18:13

Benoit ZuccarellI

You know, something stinks about this whole set up. China has been made wealthy by the West sending all manufacturing

more...

Not just neo-con but neo-liberal. Double whammy.

Enrique at 08:10 the day before yesterday

The NeoCon Mafia is the worst danger for World stability, worse than their ISIL puppets.

Remo Gutierrez at 00:26 the day before yesterday

The US is still trying to push TTIP trade deal with Europe. With Russia out of the picture US corporations figure it will pressure Europe into signing the deal.

Jonni H. 3 days ago 19:58

That last comment from "the Word of God" is an uneducated point of view from someone that has probably never been outside there precious USA. People in the US need to understand that there government lies just like every other government. To even make statements like this is totally delusional.

What's going on in Ukraine is just another bunch of lies from the US Government. I have been there and I have seen what's going on. The media in the US is totally filled with lies about what is really happening. I only feel for the people of Ukraine. They are the real losers in all of this. This is all about controlling the natural resources, nothing more. Civil Wars just make a good cover story!

The Word of God 3 days ago 19:28

Russians will always find someone prominent among 330 million Americans with an opinion they like and can use for propaganda. This is because there is every possible opinion about everything among them. Whatever the truth is, Russia's actions are aggressive, hostile, violate treaties it signed, are illegal, and are not acceptable to most Americans and many in Europe. They do warrant a new cold war, a war Russia will lose just the way it lost the last one. It was given a chance to become a civilized nation, a part of the world in the 21st century. Instead its government chose to behave like a 19th century imperial power. When it loses this time, it won't be given a second chance.

Benoit ZuccarellI 3 days ago 19:11

You know, something stinks about this whole set up. China has been made wealthy by the West sending all manufacturing jobs there, 70 million of them, so they are not going to double-cross the West. So with no problems with China, what does it matter about Russia.....?

Its starting to look as if this is all a big charade to induce world-wide 'austerity' on the 99% while the 1% gets rich and the 1% then tells the 99% all about the big bad boogeyman that doesn't even exist.

Enrique Ferro 3 days ago 18:41

If the US is thinking to drive a wedge between Russia and China, I think it is going to be a disappointment. Likewise isolating Russia from the BRICS looks like a hard die mission. As for Europe, there is a trend to repent. It has become even a fashion to go to Moscow for talks, the last pilgrim was, yesterday, the Spanish FM, who is not a Podemos Minister, but from the PP government, the same party which had Sr Aznar as its PM!!!

[Mar 14, 2015] The Coming Chinese Crackup

Mar 14, 2015 | Zero Hedge
TheFourthStooge-ing

Giving the boot to US NGOs like USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, et al., would make an ideal pressure relief valve.

YHC-FTSE

Sounds like one of those articles you see as a prelude to a colour revolution being cooked up in a corner office at Langley to get the public to accept that the chaos they create is real and spontaneous. Funny how these things pop up just after the Chinese deals with Russia, announcing to the world the future implementations of CIPS and the BRICS New Development Bank (Alternative to the IMF & World Bank).

I think the chinese already got the memo about Operation Gladio B and the shit the CIA sponsored Turks are pulling with the Uighurs. If they don't have contingency plans for a "spontaneous" colour revolution then they're all idiots. I thought the neo-cons would use Japan to start a pivot in the East, but I guess they are going to try the cheap and cheerful propaganda crap they used on HK first.

These days all you have to do is follow the US State Dept travel itinerary to predict where riots, wars, murders, and terrorists will strike in the next few months.

reader2010

From what I read online it seems the student protest in Hong Kong last year was financed and supported by a major foreign power. The Chinese state-controlled media capped the casualty data of a numerous Islamic suicide attacks on civilians and police in Xijiang region (rumor mill saying about 400 people had died since the beginning of 2015). There are credible sources pointing to a major western power that is financing and training those Chinese Islamic militants in the nearby boarding countries.

Apostate2

Hmm, 'what you read online". Well perhaps you didn't read that the HK Federation of Students who funded the campaign have opened their books to show no foreign donations or influence. The internet is a dangerous and faulty source without due diligence. And the Xinjiang attacks and response have not been verified, though many reports in the Chinese press. If anyone is training those militants it is the Islamists not your so-called 'west'.

YHC-FTSE

You might want to do a bit of due diligence yourself.

Leaders of the HK occupy movement have been busted. GW did a good expose of them here. The student leader Mr.Wong spent some time as a guest in Macau in 2011 at the invitation of the American Chamber of Commerce. Where did this meeting take place? Venetian Macao owned by the Sands Corp - yep the very one owned SHELDON ADELSON, the American oligarch behind Benjamin Netenyahu. Sometimes I seriously cannot believe these zionists popping up at the centre of every disgusting criminal plot to make this world even more unpleasant than it already is.

As for the Uighurs, you might want to google "Sibel Edmonds - Operation Gladio B" to verify beyond any doubt that there is a serious concerted effort to foster terrorism in NW China by the CIA Although I don't share her views on Edward Snowden, her research is very thorough and verifiable on the subject of Gladio B.

Here's a youtube interview to get you started: Sibel Edmonds interview. It was a shocking revelation for me when I first saw it.

WhyWait

No doubt the Empire is cooking up a color revolution in China. And we have to ask, what on earth were they doing letting a WSJ reporter into their inside conversations?

Yet, the elite moving themselves their money and their children out of China is certainly telling us something, and the story of officials and Party members speaking the party line without conviction is eerily familiar.

Missing from this article is the fact that this all is happening in the context of what is shaping up to be a global economic collapse of historic proportions, which China as a country that has jumped into capitalism with both feet is about to experience full force.

If China were about to experience a collapse like that of the Soviet Union, the elite would be preparing to inherit it, jockying for their place, looking forward to the great plundering of public resources and the remaining state-owned companies begins. But instead they're fleeing en masse. Evidently they're expecting something else.

Deng Jiao Peng proposed that China had to undergo capitalist accumulation first, then build socialism. The coming collapse of the world and Chinese economies is just what Marx predicted - and Marx is part of China's state religion. The hard-pressed over-worked and over-exploited millions in China's privately owned factories, and the Communist Party members among them, have that doctrine as part of their legacy. They are by all acounts already in a state of pre-revolutionary ferment and anger, as witnessed by thousands of strikes and protests per year, and they are about to get thrown into a crisis of survival.

The resulting revolutionary upheaval may make the Cultural Revolution look like a dress rehearsal.

Foreseeably this will open huge opportunities for the US and Japan to engage in mischief, and will put Russia in a very difficult position with its new strategic partner incapacitated.

WhyWait

Elaborating a bit on how I'm framing this:

China and Russia have both already had profound anti-capitalist revolutions followed by a kind of counterrevolution and a partial restoration of capitalism. In Russia this counterrevolution was marked by the collapse of Communist Party rule. In China it involved a takeover of the leadership of the Communist Party by capitalist kleptocrats and oligarchs. Thus the collapse of Communist Party rule in China, while inevitable, will be of an entirely different character. Without the global collapse of the capitalist economic system it might have devolved into a liberal democratic system more like those of Western Europe. In the present context that is not an option and what we will see instead is a counter-counter-revolution, i.e. a revolution.

goldhedge

"The elites getting their kidz out of China" is probably more to do with Chinese Expansionism.

These will be rich and therefore powerful ppl in their new found homes and still have "some" allegiance to their motherland.

Its all by design.

silverlamb

"A more secure and confident government would not institute such a severe crackdown. It is a symptom of the party leadership's deep anxiety and insecurity"...

A government that feels safe should not militarize the police and try to control the Internet ... but USA is doing . There are not good countries, only good people and corrupt or weak governments ...

shovelhead

Norinco. The PLA's corporate face of the Chinese MIC. They own our West Coast port facilities under various shell co. names.

I imagine, like any army, that political factions in Govt. can only purge dissident military leaders after carefully assessing that they have a majority in the clique of power that will remain loyal.

I also imagine that the political /miltary power structure is a fluid balance of interlocking sheres of influence and interests. When it becomes unbalanced in the US, you end up with dead Kennedys.

reader2010

China embraced liberal market ideology right after the collapse of the Soviet Union thanks to the propaganda engineered by Wall Street. However, in the Aftermath of 2008 financial meltdown, China finally realized that was purely a bullshit. And particularly after the Pivotal to Asia led by Washington, China was made to understand that Washington sees it as the "rogue state". So they started to engage the West in a different light completely. Getting rid of the 5th column (many of them came to study in the US in the 70s and early 80s) is what Xi has been doing in the name of anti-corruption. That's what's happening in real time, folks.

Md4

We cannot predict when Chinese communism will collapse, but it is hard not to conclude that we are witnessing its final phase. The CCP is the world's second-longest ruling regime (behind only North Korea), and no party can rule forever."

China is in the mess its in mostly because the west, having outsourced much the its middle class wealth producing jobs to the east, is mostly broke, and suffering a dramatic and on-going decline in income with which to consume. While life has never been easy for the mostly poor peasant class of Chinese, they were led to believe an insatiable appetite in the west for the goods once produced there would endlessly enable them to enjoy a rising (even if very modestly by western standards) standard of living.

When you come from rice paddy, rural and antiquated agrarian poverty for generations, even a shanty town life in the shadow of new and empty high rises and mega factories are a step up. At least you're working, making a steady wage and eating a little meat once in awhile. If this keeps up, you think, you might actually be able to have something for yourself one day...

But then, that's not how it's all turning out.

What the idiots, in a bonsai rush to outsource western manufacturing and middle class wealth-producing industries apparently never considered, is, what do workers in an emptied-out west do for income when the old jobs are gone, and how will western spending-dependent economies inheriting those former American industries survive without western spending?

Eventually, like the west, the east will implode, of course.

And that's what we're seeing. China is the most visible because it's the largest, most talked about of the beneficiaries of western outsourcing. But it is certainly not the only EM in trouble. What's worse are all of the commodity spin offs heavily dependent on supplying the giant manufacturing engine China became. They, too, are beginning to suck air, as China doesn't need production inputs if the outputs aren't selling much.

The outputs are seriously declining in demand because western incomes are in serious decline. We're witnessing a global train wreck, with each car beginning to slam into the one ahead of it. Eventually, and because of the state of affairs that bonsai outsourcing set into motion, these cars will derail.

The world has never been here before. It is clear to me it doesn't know what to do about what is a checkmate. All of the old easy monetary games aren't working because they can't work. If anything, they're making the inevitable collapse just that much tougher to overcome. This cannot be fixed, but it sure as hell can be screwed up more.

My gut tells me the world will likely fracture into smaller and smaller pieces when the calamity finally takes hold. Human nature more often circles wagons into tighter groups under extreme pressures of disintegration. That may ultimately look like the break up of the Warsaw Pact, or it may look more like the north and south of antebellum America. Much depends upon what any people feel is their best shot at some kind of peaceful prosperity while weathering an unprecedented storm.

But...the collapse HAS to happen first.

The world remains checkmated until it does, and there is no way back to before.

m

scatha

What a crap. ZH could do better then re-posting WSJ excretions. Did author ever read anything about China's history or US for that matter? The Chinese Xi guy's just doing what his predecessors were doing for thousands of years namely purging old clique, replacing it with new clique who helped him to power.

This happens everywhere where there is any REAL change of power. Not in US where the same regime continues for almost 240 years without any change. Not one iota. Nothing, the same British imperial aristocrats with support by courtiers and domestic slaves from Britain colonies like Kenya.

China is much further from collapsing then these US where hordes of oligarchs escape US to Asia to find shelter for their money and their families before this whole shit collapses, joined there by tens of thousands of US expatriates looking for better life in Asia or even Russia or Europe.

Thanks to Japanese renewed militarism and fascist leaning government as well as US aggressive behavior vs. Russia average Chinese learn to stick to evil they know. The popularity of so-called communist party but actually nationalist party surged over last 10 years but not due to economics since it raised standard of living for only about 100 millions (8% of population) but because they learned a lesson that they cannot be divided by the West, never again, otherwise they know they'll return to western slavery as it was for several centuries.

This is Chinese philosophy of life. It hard to believe but vast majority of Chinese are ready to put on gray uniform and jump on a bike dropping all those western useless gadgets at a whim. And if WSJ does not know about it, it does not know anything about China.

So we have to judge this piece for what it is, pure propaganda, unleashed to prep brain damaged Americans for dying for.. few rocks in the ocean or nothing.

Free_Spirit

Unlikely, the instant catastrophic collapse vis USSR was caused by the leaders (drunk yeltsin) choosing to write the nation into history, and wasn't caused by the people. Granted a spineless Gorbachev fataly weakened the system, but what really destroyed the soviet system was lack of reliable food and basic consumer goods supply. Teachers couldn't attend school because they had to queue for food all day. Nor factory workers, whose factories closed for lack of attending workers. Food rrotted in railway sidings because there were no reliable drivers and locos to keep the supply chain going. This above all else was the breakdown of the system. So long as China avoids such a breakdown of supply and basic services, and retains focused leadership the CPP will survive. I don't see any senior CCP leader who rivals Gorby for spinelessness or Yeltsin for drunken stupidity. If we ever do, then it'll be time to talk collapse.

[Mar 14, 2015] Michael Hudson on the IMF's Tender Ministrations in Ukraine and Greece naked capitalism

Mar 14, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com

This RT interview with Michael Hudson focuses on the appalling state of the Ukraine economy and the role of the IMF, both in its policy-violating rescue package there and on a more general basis. Hudson points out that the IMF was always a vehicle of policy, and is operating as an adjunct to the Pentagon. What is left unsaid is that the IMF loan is being used as an alternative to a Congressional appropriation to fund the government in Kiev against the aspiring breakaway region in the east.

The section with Hudson starts at 13:45.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLM9PqxxRjQ

Yves Smith Post author March 14, 2015 at 3:36 pm

They are not alone. Ukrainians are fleeing the country in record numbers: since February 2014, 600,000 Ukrainians have sought asylum or other forms of legal stay in neighboring countries, and thousands more have moved to the U.S. and the European Union. Others have fled illegally: Poland reported a 100 percent increase in the number of detentions of illegal Ukrainian immigrants last year.

But the emigrants are not only asylum seekers. They are the Western-leaning intelligentsia, the professional classes with relatives abroad, and the students of the Maidan who first organized protests against former President Viktor Yanukovych's kleptocratic and violent government in November 2013.

Mark, March 14, 2015 at 5:04 pm

Interesting long comment at that article by one of the people interviewed for the article..

part of which was

"yeah, well, the only thing which they conveniently left out, is that everybody in this article decided to leave long ago before the revolution."

[Mar 14, 2015] A Review of 'Frontline Ukraine' by Richard Sakwa

Mar 05, 2015 | hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk

You might have thought that a serious book on the Ukraine crisis, written by a distinguished academic in good clear English, and published by a reputable house, might have gained quite a bit of attention at a time when that country is at the centre of many people's concerns.

But some readers here now understand that publishing, and especially the reviewing of books, are not the simple marketplaces of ideas which we would all wish them to be.

And so, as far as I can discover, this book :

'Frontline Ukraine : Crisis in the Borderlands , by Richard Sakwa. Published by I.B.Tauris

…though it came out some months ago, has only been reviewed in one place in Britain, the Guardian newspaper, by Jonathan Steele, the first-rate foreign correspondent whose rigour and enterprise (when we were both stationed in Moscow) quite persuaded me to overlook his former sympathy for the left-wing cause (most notably expressed in a 1977 book 'Socialism with a German Face' about the old East Germany, which seemed to me at the time to be ah, excessively kind).

Mr Steele's review can be read here

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/19/frontline-ukraine-crisis-in-borderlands-richard-sakwa-review-account

I have said elsewhere that I would myself be happier if the book were more hostile to my position on this conflict. Sometimes I feel that it is almost too good to be true, to have my own conclusions confirmed so powerfully, and I would certainly like to see the book reviewed by a knowledgeable proponent of the NATO neo-conservative position. Why hasn't it been?

But even so I recommend it to any reader of mine who is remotely interested in disentangling the reality from the knotted nets of propaganda in which it is currently shrouded.

Like George Friedman's interesting interview in the Moscow newspaper 'Kommersant' ( you can read it here http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/01/20/2561 ) , the book has shifted my own view.

I have tended to see the *basic* dispute in Ukraine as being yet another outbreak of the old German push into the east, carried out under the new, nice flag of the EU, a liberal, federative empire in which the vassal states are tactfully allowed limited sovereignty as long as they don't challenge the fundamental politico-economic dominance of Germany. I still think this is a strong element in the EU's thrust in this direction.

But I have tended to neglect another feature of the new Europe, also set out in Adam Tooze's brilliant 'The Deluge' – the firm determination of the USA to mould Europe in its own image (a determination these days expressed mainly through the EU and NATO).

I should have paid more attention to the famous words 'F*** the EU!' spoken by the USA's Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, in a phone call publicised to the world by (presumably) Russian intelligence. The EU isn't half as enthusiastic about following the old eastern road as is the USA. Indeed, it's a bit of a foot-dragger.

The driving force in this crisis is the USA, with the EU being reluctantly tugged along behind. And if Mr Friedman is right (and I think he is), the roots of it lie in Russia's decision to obstruct the West's intervention in Syria.

Perhaps the key to the whole thing (rather dispiriting in that it shows the USA really hasn't learned anything important from the Iraq debacle) is the so-called 'Wolfowitz Doctrine' of 1992, named after the neo-con's neo-con, Paul Wolfowitz, and summed up by Professor Sakwa (p.211) thus: 'The doctrine asserted that the US should prevent "any country from dominating any region of the world that might be a springboard to threaten unipolar and exclusive US dominance"'.

Note how neatly this meshes with what George Friedman says in his interview.

Now, there are dozens of fascinating things in Professor Sakwa's book, and my copy is scored with annotations and references. I could spend a week summarising it for you. (By the way, the Professor himself is very familiar with this complex region, and might be expected, thanks to his Polish ancestry, to take a different line. His father was in the Polish Army in 1939, escaped to Hungary in the chaos of defeat, and ended up serving in Anders's Second Corps, fighting with the British Army at El Alamein, Benghazi, Tobruk and then through Italy via Monte Cassino. Then he was in exile during the years of Polish Communism. Like Vaclav Klaus, another critic of current western policy, Professor Sakwa can hardly be dismissed as a naif who doesn't understand about Russia, or accused of being a 'fellow-traveler' or 'useful idiot'.

He is now concerned at 'how we created yet another crisis' (p xiii) .

But I would much prefer that you read it for yourself, and so will have to limit my references quite sternly.

There are good explanations of the undoubted anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathies of some strands in Ukrainian politics. Similar nastiness, by the way, is to be found loose in some of the Baltic States. I mention this n because it justified classifying the whole movement as 'Neo-Nazi', which is obviously false, but because it tells us something very interesting about the nature of nationalism and Russophobia in this part of the world. No serious or fair description of the crisis can ignore it. Yet, in the portrayal of Russia as Mordor, and the Ukraine as Utopia, western media simply leave out almost everything about Ukraine that doesn't appeal to their audiences, the economic near collapse, the Judophobia and Russophobia (the derogatory word 'Moskal', for instance, in common use), the worship of the dubious (this word is very generous, I think) Stepan Bandera by many of the Western ultra-nationalists, the violence against dissenters from the Maidan view ( see http://rt.com/news/ukraine-presidential-candidates-attacked-516/). The survival and continued power of Ukraine's oligarchs after a revolution supposedly aimed at cleaning up the country is also never mentioned. We all know about Viktor Yanukovych;s tasteless mansion, but the book provides some interesting details on President Poroshenko's residence (it looks rather like the White House) , which I have not seen elsewhere.

The detailed description of how and why the Association Agreement led to such trouble is excellent. I had not realised that, since the Lisbon Treaty, alignment with NATO is an essential part of EU membership (and association) – hence the unavoidable political and military clauses in the agreement.

So is the filleting of the excuse-making and apologetics of those who still pretend that Yanukovych was lawfully removed from office: the explicit threat of violence from the Maidan, the failure to muster the requisite vote, the presence of armed men during the vote, the failure to follow the constitutional rules (set beside the available lawful deal, overridden by the Maidan, under which Yanukovych would have faced early elections and been forced to make constitutional changes) .

Then here we have Ms Nuland again, boasting of the $5 billion (eat your heart out, the EU, with your paltry £300 million) http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2013/dec/218804.htm which the USA has 'invested in Ukraine. 'Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We've invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.

It's worth noting that in this speech, in December 2013, she still envisages the supposedly intolerable Yanukovych as a possible partner.

Other points well made are the strange effect of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, which has created the very tension against which it now seeks to reassure border nations, by encouraging them, too, to join, the non-binding nature of the much-trumpeted Budapest memorandum, the lack of coverage of the ghastly events in Odessa, the continuing lack of a proper independent investigation into the Kiev mass shootings in February 2014 .

Also examined is the Russian fear of losing Sevastopol, an entirely justified fear given that President Yushchenko had chosen to say in Georgia, during the war of August 2008, that Russia's basing rights in the city would end in 2017. The 'disappearance; of the 'Right Sector' and 'Svoboda' vote in recent elections is explained by their transfer to the radical Party led by Oleh Lyashko.

Professor Sakwa also explores Russia's behaviour in other border disputes , with Norway and China, in which it has been far from aggressive. And he points out that Ukraine's nationalists have made their country's life far more difficult by their rigid nationalist approach to the many citizens of that country who, while viewing themselves as Ukrainian, do not share the history or passions of the ultra-nationalists in the West.

Likewise he warns simple-minded analysts that the conflict in the East of Ukraine is not desired by Russia's elite, which does not wish to be drawn into another foreign entanglement (all Russian strategists recall the disastrous result of the Afghan intervention). But it may be desired by Russian ultra-nationalists, not necessarily controllable.

He points out that Russia has not, as it did in Crimea, intervened decisively in Eastern Ukraine to ensure secession. And he suggests that those Russian nationalists are acting in many cases independently of Moscow in the Donetsk and Lugansk areas. Putin seeks to control them and limit them, but fears them as well.

In general, the book is an intelligent, well-researched and thoughtful attempt to explain the major crisis of our time. Anybody, whatever he or she might think of the issue, would benefit from reading it. It is shocking that it is not better known, and I can only assume that its obscurity, so far is caused by the fact that it does not fit the crude propaganda narrative of the 'Putin is Hitler' viewpoint.

How odd that we should all have learned so little from the Iraq debacle. This time the 'WMD' are non-existent Russian plans to expand and/or attack the Baltic states. And of course the misrepresentation of both sides in the Ukrainian controversy is necessary for the portrayal of Putin as Hitler and his supporters as Nazis, and opponents of belligerence as Nazi fellow-travellers. The inconvenient fact , that if there are Nazis in this story , they tend to be on the 'good' side must be ignored. Let us hope the hysteria subsides before it carries us into another stupid war.

March 5, 2015 Comments (54) Categories: Cold War , History , New Cold War , Russia , Ukraine | Permalink

Comments

LornaJean | 10 March 2015 at 09:00 AM

There should be a proper inquiry into who really started this conflict I recall watching on TV as the boxer who was leading the Kiev mob came out of lengthy negotiations with the 3 EU ministers and the crowds booing and erupting The infamous Julia also appeared on the scene. this was of course after only a few hours previously that Obama announced that he had agreement with Putin to have a peaceful resolution and elections in 3 months.

As I watched the eruption of the mob I Thought this will end badly and at that point the EU should have withdrawn. However the subsequent violence and the removal of the elected leader followed. All interviews with the people in the East and Crimea showed their distrust of the Kiev crowd and it was clear that the oligarchs on the East who had many workers and controlled the manufacturing would not support the East. Putin is a nasty man but to suggest that he deliberately caused this situation is a travesty.Russia with refugees pouring over the border reacted to the situation and who can blame them.? Now a less belligerent and frankly dishonest approach needs to be taken by the EU I can not see that the Kiev regime can ever win the loyalty of the East after this bitter war.the only solution is some sort of autonomous regios that allows the Esst of Ukraine to rule themselves.

Bill Jones | 10 March 2015 at 01:28 AM

This made me smile:

" I would certainly like to see the book reviewed by a knowledgeable proponent of the NATO neo-conservative position. Why hasn't it been? "

Because to be knowledgeable is not to be a Neo-conservative.

Mr Rob | 09 March 2015 at 02:45 PM

@Mike B

"I haven't responded to your comments on McCain and Nuland because I thought that I had made it clear that I thought external interference from any quarter was undesirable and I accept that there has been such interference from both sides."

Oh really? You do not remember writing this then?

"It was Ukrainians, not the EU, who ousted Yanukovych. They should be allowed to deal with their internal disputes and decide their future alliances and associations."

or this?

"However, the EU, whatever its faults (and, believe me, it is not my "beloved" EU) did not organise his removal. It was carried out by, and on behalf of, Ukrainians. It was an internal matter and, whatever the faults on either side, should have been left at that."

And on this thread you had not even mentioned the USA involvement. You have been consistently dishonest by omission. Well, at least you're consistent.

And now you manage the immortal words

"I do maintain, though, that the interference of the EU and USA" [well done for mentioning them at last],"which cannot be denied" [but can, it seems, be ignored...] "and which was reflected in Russia's own behaviour cannot be compared with Russia's subsequent blatant military involvement in a sovereign country's internal conflict."

So on the one hand the EU and the USA have interfered, but on the other it is an "internal conflict".

Priceless.

Roy Robinson | 08 March 2015 at 05:48 PM

@Alan Thomas By my reading of certain facts I deduce there is a de facto alliance between Russia and China. These facts being that Russia trades arms to China but the USA will not trade arms to either. On May 8th Xi Jingping will attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow accompanied by his junk yard dog Kim Jong Un of North Korea. No Western leaders as far as I know will be in attendance. De facto alliances such as the one Britain had with France in 1914 are always hard to call because unlike formal ones such as Nato there is nothing in writing. I also suspect that one reason China has not tried to match America in nuclear weapons so far is because Russia already does so. North Korea is also very useful in that it can be used to threaten Japan without China appearing to be the aggressor.

Mr Rob | 08 March 2015 at 11:16 AM

@ Mike B

I see you have ignored my request to answer the questions I posed to Hector (who has also yet to respond) about the US presence at the Maidan. Perhaps you needed to ignore my request in order to write this drivel with a straight face:

Re Yanukovych: "However, the EU, whatever its faults (and, believe me, it is not my "beloved" EU) did not organise his removal. It was carried out by, and on behalf of, Ukrainians. It was an internal matter and, whatever the faults on either side, should have been left at that."

Some Ukrainians carried out the WW2 massacre at Khatyn (not Katyn) - does that mean that all Ukrainians are responsible for it, approved of it, or that it was carried out on behalf of Ukrainians? Of course not.

You have also studiously avoided mention of the presence at the Maidan of US Senator McCain and US Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, and the latter's meetings with the Maidan leaders, co-ordinated with US Ambassador Pyatt.

You have also somehow omitted to mention Yatseniuk's ("Yats") lightning visit to Washington days after the overthrow of Yanukovych, or the visit of CIA Director Brennan to Kiev.

And just for the record, I have first-hand oral evidence of people in Minsk, Belarus, being offered money to go to the Maidan - so even that the Maidan crowd was completely Ukrainian is probably untrue.

You accuse Mr Klimenko of bias, and yet you yourself give and repeat a dishonest account of what is known to have happened at the Maidan.

Such behaviour has no place in proper debate.

Ian | 08 March 2015 at 11:04 AM

To Mike B and others...

It's all very well to agonize about what Ukrainians may or may not want. We could all weep huge quantities of crocodile tears over Ukraine's thwarted "self determination", but the essential fact is that Ukrainians are not agreed about what they want. Some appear to want closer ties with the EU, some appear to want to maintain the status quo and some appear to want closer ties with the Russian Federation.

All of which is "interesting" until different factions within Ukraine start calling on their preferred partners to back them up. It seems to me that the US and the EU have contributed more than one would reasonably expect to the discord in Ukraine and silly expectations in a great many Ukrainians. To describe this as "irresponsible" is something of an understatement.

We are now in a situation where the "preferred partners" might come to blows over the confused and discordant expectations of Ukraine. In such a situation. it would be hard for me to care less about what Ukrainians want especially when some of Ukraine's politicians sound as though they would happily see the world burn if only it ensures "territorial Integrity" for Ukraine.

It's a very old trick for which "socialists" should be famous. Describe a group as deserving, noble and disadvantaged... and use this supposed circumstance to justify the most ridiculous, regressive and destructive policy the human mind can invent. Of course, with our own "socialists", the all important thing is that they are not only well rewarded with a reputation for being "caring sharing human beings"... but also very well paid for the disasters they inflict on us.

Edward Klimenko | 08 March 2015 at 10:50 AM

@MikeB

'did not organise his removal. It was carried out by, and on behalf of, Ukrainians. It was an internal matter'

What the EU did was the equivalent of persuading one party in a Mexican stand-off to lower his weapon so that the other can shoot him safely. Yes, the EU most certainly organized Yanukovich's removal - the EU normally takes a dim view of governments established by putsch, but recognized this particular band of putschists almost immediately.

And why was it not an internal matter when Ukrainian police were attempting to clear Maidan of the lawless occupying mob, but instead a human rights crisis demanding sanctions against everyone from the Prosecutor-General to Yanukovich's barber?

'You should note, however, that he fled his country on the same day that he announced an agreement with his opponents.'

You are mistaken, he did not flee the country the day the agreement was made. He left the city of Kiev for Kharkov, his motorcade coming under fire as he did so. As the putsch developed, he called a conference in Kharkov of regional governors still loyal to the rightful president, the participants agreeing to administer their own regions until lawful authority could be reestablished in the rest of the country.

Two factors brought about the failure of this effort: the first was the success of Valentin Nalivaichenko's takeover of the SBU, and the second was the cowardly betrayal by Kharkov regional governor Mikhail Dobkin and Kharkov city mayor Gennady Kernes, who panicked and fled when they heard that the SBU was after them (both would later cut deals with the Maidan regime for their own survival). Fearing capture by the SBU and feeling unable to trust anybody, Yanukovich then departed for the Crimea.

You might think this would be safe place for him to make his stand. You would be wrong - the mood in Crimea at the time was one of utter disgust for Yanukovich and the Regions Party on account of their utter failure to defend the state and the people, which only grew after it came to light that the scum Yanukovich had appointed as mayor of Sevastopol had been conspiring to surrender the city to the Right Sector. Crimea wanted out of the Ukraine, and had no interest in helping Yanukovich get his seat back. Out of options, he finally fled to the Russian mainland on or about February 26.

As for the rest, I'll say it again: the 'Holodomor' is a fiction, an attempt to portray a famine that affected a vast swathe of the USSR as campaign against Ukrainians specifically, when in truth it most heavily affected the non-Ukrainian Donbass region. It is invoked by western Ukrainians whose ancestors did not experience it to justify their racial hatred for eastern Ukrainians whose ancestors did. You ought to be ashamed of spreading such rot, and you should stop trying to frame your own biases as 'objectivity'.

Grant | 07 March 2015 at 08:32 PM

I listened to that.

Everything Peter said was spot on. That other bloke who was challenging you is a dangerous idiot. You pointed out to him that we do not call Chinese regime tyrants, or the Saudis, yet he immediately replies calling Putin a vile tyrant. Totally obvious to what you just told him like he is a brainwashed stuck record.

NATO is now the armed wing of EU expansion. They intentionally sent Russia that message during the Kosovo war by including the Luftwaffe bombing in previous Russia spheres of influence.

mikebarnes | 07 March 2015 at 07:13 PM

@ Edward Klimenko

If nothing else I like your style . Many contributors here think they know. And a few think you know more than them. I think on this subject you certainly know more than I . Whether your correct is unknown at least by me . But.

Oh that our snot brained, could have need for the dentistry they so deserve.

No matter whose in the right here , and I suspect neither are. Its their business and that of the federation they once belonged . Just as northern Island was our business . But Clinton poked his snout in .

The compromise, killers and bombers running the country might well be repeated with a split country just like the many created since the chaos following WWII.

Roy Robinson | 07 March 2015 at 05:42 PM

@Alan Thomas The Eurasian hard men such as Putin, Erdogan , Modi and XI Jinping all seem to understand one another and are doing business together.

They all lead countries which have been on the receiving of Western aggression over the last few centuries Modern Westerners with their naive PC outlook like to overlook this but the people in those countries have not forgotten from which direction the threat to them has usually come from and the past losses and humiliations which resulted.

When someone sees themselves as a benefactor to mankind but others see as a thief with a violent history there is always going to be room for a big understanding.

Alan Thomas | 07 March 2015 at 03:44 PM

Roy Robinson

Perhaps, when it comes to China, the 'west' cannot see a solution, in which case hurling - or even simply registering - criticism might be seen as a waste of time and effort. In any case, since when did it make sense to ignore lesser villains simply because one can't take on the bigger ones?

Steve Jones | 07 March 2015 at 03:11 PM

I suspect the neocons are now looking at the General Patton play of outsourcing a war against Russia to Germany.

Germany should leave the EU together with France and the PIGS using the euro as an excuse. Their departure might shake out a few others like Croatia, Hungary and Austria plus a few more. Let the banks fail then go in with Russia and the other BRICS.

Edward Klimenko | 07 March 2015 at 02:04 PM

@MikeB

' Are you so sure that Ukrainians wanted their now ex-president?'

Almost twelve and a half million Ukrainians voted for him in 2010, and that is a far better indicator of what Ukrainians wanted than the actions of around ten thousand Nazi terrorists in February 2014.

' It was Ukrainians, not the EU, who ousted Yanukovych'

What a nonsensical and disingenuous remark. Yanukovich was the democratically -elected president(most likely the last that the Ukraine will ever have). EuroMaidan was an assembly of Nazi terrorists and their apologists. Europe used threats and blackmail to prevent Yanukovich from doing his duty and protecting the country from this violent mob. Europe then tricked him into signing a 'peace agreement' and pulling back the police from their positions, allowing the terrorist mob and its sponsors to rampage freely through Kiev and seize the institutions of the state.

You will probably cite the lack of an immediate militant response to the putsch as proof that Ukrainians wanted this abomination of a government. Well, there we have democracy according to Mike! No need for elections, might makes right and proves the existence of an underlying consensus! Brilliant.

Let's take your logic a bit further. The rebellion now rules in Donbass, and no armed movement has arisen there to demand the return of the region to Ukrainian rule. Do you accept this as evidence of the people's wish not to be ruled by the Maidan regime? If the rebels break the Ukrainian lines, and take control of the rest of the country, will you shrug and conclude that Ukrainians wanted to be with Russia after all?

' , I would prefer people to be aggressive with me by throwing money in my direction, rather than launching rockets,

Throwing money at the Ukraine enables the Maidan regime to throw rockets at Ukrainian citizens. Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk have no legal authority to rule over anybody, yet your beloved EU insists that these putsch-installed thugs are the government of the Ukraine, and that all Ukrainians must obey them or die.

' Nothing the EU has done, though, justifies Russian military intervention in Ukraine'

Everything the EU has done justifies everything Russia has done, and would justify a good deal more. The European officials who formulated European policy toward the Ukraine in the past year are responsible for the war and for all the crimes of the Maidan regime, and they should all face the death penalty - starting with Ashton.

Think on this: if not for the Crimea operation, all the depravity that the Ukraine has heaped upon Donetsk would have been visited upon Crimea. You think that Crimeans would have been better off being shelled, shot, raped and tortured by the Ukrainian military? Go and tell them so!

Just make sure that your health insurance covers reconstructive dentistry first.

Paul Taylor | 07 March 2015 at 12:00 PM

Hector. You clearly have no idea about Hitler and Germany in the late 1930s.Germany was just taking back land that was stolen in June 1919. Hitler had mass support from the Germanic people in those parts and in some areas such as parts of Austria he was even more popular than he was in Germany itself.

It was madness that we went to war against Germany,we should have remained neutral like Spain or Switzerland and let Hitler defeat Stalin on his own.

Paulus M | 07 March 2015 at 10:46 AM

@ kevin 1

"Personally, I have difficulty with this quote because I don't think facts do change, that's why they are called facts. New information may come to light but the facts though temporarily hidden from view remain constant. But that's just my opinion."

It all depends on whether the facts/evidence supports the hypothesis. If they don't then no matter how erudite it appears - it's wrong. What our media don't want you to question or look at is who started this conflict. From day one, I've never been in doubt that Washington is the main driver and the EU the junior partner. The Nato alliance acts as a bind and a figleaf. Time and again the facts sindicates that the "west" is an aggressor bloc which tramples over sovereignty and makes a mockery of supposed international law.

Mr Rob | 07 March 2015 at 10:08 AM

Are you claiming that prior to the "removal" of Yanukovych

US Senator McCain did not appear at the Maidan,

and that US Assistant Secretary of State Nuland did not appear at the Maidan,

and that she did not hold a series of meetings with its leaders,

and that she and US Ambassador Pyatt did not co-ordinate these efforts with a clear aim as to who they wanted to see in power (our man "Yats"),

and that only days after Yanukovych fled,

Yatseniuk was not shaking hands with US President Obama at the White House

and that US Director of the CIA Brennan was not in Kiev?

Do you claim that the US was leaving Ukraine to "sort out it's [sic] own issues"?

Please do respond rather than lapse into silence, I'd be fascinated to see how you have reached your conclusions in the face of the known facts.

Kevin 1 | 07 March 2015 at 09:27 AM

@ Ronnie

I think you'll find that, in circumstances such as those you describe, PH tends to quote the famous retort attributed to Keynes, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" I'm just surprised that he hasn't done so (yet) in this instance.

Personally, I have difficulty with this quote because I don't think facts do change, that's why they are called facts. New information may come to light but the facts though temporarily hidden from view remain constant. But that's just my opinion.

N.Belcher | 07 March 2015 at 01:28 AM

Dear Mr Hitchens

In December 2011 The U.S Federal Reserve bailed out European banks to the
tune of Billions of Dollars.
It is reported that they tried to keep this bailout a secret at the time.

Do you think that this , and the latest E.U initiative to have The Ukraine
are linked ? i.e that it was a condition of the U.S bailout or expected of The
E.U that they continue to expand into The Ukraine in return for these U.S Dollars?
Yours N.Belcher.

Roy Robinson | 07 March 2015 at 01:04 AM

While the West obsesses about the supposed threat from Putin it seems totally oblivious to the rise of Xi Jinping a Chinese leader who looks like being of the magnitude of Mao.

He has described himself as the leader of a party wedded to the ideology of Lenin, Stalin and Mao and is concentrating all the power in his own hands.

There is no Western propaganda campaign against him yet although think about it, ten years ago there wasn't one against Putin.

Xi has stated that he gets on well with Putin as they have similar personalities.

Edward Klimenko | 06 March 2015 at 08:44 PM

'Might there be the slightest chance of Ukrainians' wishes being given some consideration?'

Capital idea. But you know what the Ukrainians wanted? They wanted Viktor Yanukovich as President and they wanted the Parliament they elected in 2012. What scant regard America and Europe gave their wishes!

Bob | 06 March 2015 at 06:42 PM

Ronnie that purported paper was presented in early Feb 2014 well after Maidan was underway, not exactly planned from day one. It was also Kiev at the behest of the US who started the ATO, resorting to violence away from the Franco-German and Russian negotiations.
I might add the anti Russian propaganda in the media had started well before Sochi started. This was all planned a while back and not by Russia.

Ian | 06 March 2015 at 03:49 PM

It does not seem to me there is a "change of mind" or any inconsistency implied in Mr Hitchens's recommendation of Richard Sakwa's book. There may be a slight change of emphasis but it was always understood and mentioned that the US of A was an additional driving force to events in eastern Europe. It does not alter the validity of the view that the EU is "Germany by other means" and that the EU/Germany covets "lebensraum" in the east. So far as I can see, it can only be of academic interest whether the developing crisis is primarily EU or US led.

Nor has Mr Hitchens ever attempted to exonerate President Putin or Russia, giving more than sufficient emphasis to "Russian interests" and "Russia's perceived sphere of influence" ... to crudely paraphrase. It does not matter if Russia is or is not entitled to these perceptions. That the perceptions exist should be a major consideration in the policy of any other "player" who would prefer a continued, peaceful existence.

What is important is whether either side can afford to "back down" and which side is "most guilty" with regards creating this crisis. It seems fairly obvious that it is the US and the EU who can best afford to "back off"... and it is the US and the EU whose posturing and behavior have contributed most to the current situation.

For those who adhere to the "bad Putin"/"Naughty Russia" model, rest assured that the US and the EU are unlikely to give up on this one. They are determined to give the big bad bear a spanking.

I fear that they have got it badly wrong, seriously misjudged Russia's president and relied to heavily on dated intelligence about Russian capabilities.

Posted by: Incognito | 06 March 2015 at 12:41 PM

John,

I think it's an oversight on PH's part (we're all human, right?) to have placed so much emphasis on Germany in his analysis of the the crisis, and, in so doing to have tacitly downplayed the role of the US. Plainly put Germany-although it is the de facto seat of power in the EU- doesn't have the brass to so flagrantly antagonise Russia without back-up.

Moreover, if anyone doesn't think the EU is 'briefed' on foreign policy by the US state department, they are living in an alternate reality. America is a continuation of the British Empire by other means.

Grant | 06 March 2015 at 12:23 PM

Pat Davers "Indeed, I think that European leaders acted naively in aligning with the US, and were genuinely dismayed at the outcome of their tacit support for the coup in Ukraine"

I do wish people would study the comments made by the EU leaders when initial proposals for third way consultations with the Russians was proposed, they said things like "the last people we would speak to over this would be the Russians".

The EU leaders detest everything Russia stands for, as they are enlightened supra nationalists. It was precisely their arrogant and dismissive attitude that led to armed conflict and only after thousands had died did they come to meet Putin in Russia to seek a peace.

Pat Davers | 06 March 2015 at 11:46 AM

"Are we witnessing a Hitchens change of mind?"

I think we are seeing a shift of opinion as to who has the been the main driver behind the Ukraine conflict; it was not so much EU (ie German-led) expansionism as NATO (ie US-led) imperialism that brought us where we are now, as of course many people have been saying all along.

Indeed, I think that European leaders acted naively in aligning with the US, and were genuinely dismayed at the outcome of their tacit support for the coup in Ukraine, and are probably now regretting their actions. The fact that is was Merkel and Hollande who brokered the Minsk agreement without US involvement would seem to support this.

Bob | 06 March 2015 at 10:51 AM

Ronnie you have clearly have never done any scenario planning or read position papers, obviously the Kremlin would have several plans of action for the breakdown of the Ukraine. Regardless of the document's validity, the title is invalid. "Direct interstate relations" cannot exist between Moscow and regions annexed to Russia, the plan is obviously talking about a political breakup of Ukraine, not annexation. Even then though, i dont entirely believe it.

If Russia's plan was to break up Ukraine into statelets, I see no reason why it still hasn't recognized the independence of LPR and DPR and instead continues to treat them, in both language and action, as regions of Ukraine seeking federalization. A federal and perhaps confederate Ukraine would obviously be to Russia's interest. Complete breakup of Ukraine -maybe but it's difficult to see how.

Weak.

Daniel | 06 March 2015 at 07:25 AM

Dear Peter,

Thank you for another thought-provoking article. It's nice to have some measured thinking amongst the media-mob's clamour.

A little off the current topic but I was expecting to see a comment on the recent ACMD report in which the scientist's covering letter states: 'international evidence suggests many popular types of prevention activity are ineffective at changing behaviour, and a small number may even increase the risks for drug use' . Paradoxically, thought not unexpectedly, the report ends up stating the that the solution is more drugs education in schools.. Just thought it may be worth flagging as it reminded me of your previous posts regarding sex education and its supposed 'benefits'.

S. Coleman | 05 March 2015 at 09:36 PM

I would not be alone here in welcoming PH's recognition of the importance of the role of the US. I think Brian Meredith also expressed this view.

Michael Hudson (the American economist) expresses it up pithily: the US is saying to Europe, 'Let's you and Russia fight' and Europe in going along with this invitation is damaging her own vital interests.

Edward Klimenko | 05 March 2015 at 08:31 PM

The Ukrainian Parliament has already moved 'Defender of the Fatherland Day' to October 14th - the official founding date of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. If anybody thinks that this is a coincidence, they haven't been paying attention.

This very Thursday the Parliament of Ukraine reached a milestone - honoring with a minute's silence the memory of UPA genocidaire Roman Shukhevich. I won't bother listing in detail the depravities that Shukhevich organised in his capacity as a UPA commander - suffice it to say that women and children were favourite targets, and blades were generally preferred to bullets - but those not familiar with the subject are encouraged to look it up. In particular, search the name 'Zygmunt Rumel' to find out what comes of trying to negotiate with Ukrainian nationalists.

The only consolation is that the Maidan project is less a political movement than organised mental illness, and that failure is written in its DNA.

[Mar 14, 2015] The women fighting on the frontline in Ukraine

The Guardian is now hand-in-hand with "new east network." A somewhat disreputable amalgam of George Soros, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, National Endowment for Democracy and Radio Free Europe.
It's hard to imagine anything it promotes is reliable, unbiased or credible. Best to read it with a sense of humour.
Mar 06, 2015 | The Guardian

CalvinTucker -> LesiaUkrainka 7 Mar 2015 13:30

The ladies in the story use the word 'Nazi' about themselves. They paint the insignia on their vans. And you think they are "amazing" and "brave".

musolen -> LesiaUkrainka 7 Mar 2015 09:17

That's utter rubbish.

If the West stopped playing global politics for financial gain and had the dignity to stick to pre agreed treaties regarding the expansion of NATO to Russian borders then peace would still be in Ukraine.

This conflict was started by agitation of Neo-cons like Jon McCain 15 months ago and was a deliberate policy to destabilise the country. As has been successfully achieved. Just like it was in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc. It's the same policy. It's a war for profit
.

This, like every other war is not about the people, democracy or the good of the people. It's about power and money.

CalvinTucker -> mikiencolor 7 Mar 2015 07:59

They're not promoting them for goodness sake, they are simply recording their views for the benefit of readers.

Following the storm of protest here, the Guardian has now folded and changed the caption from:

'Anaconda says she is well treated by the men in her battalion, but is hoping that the war will end soon.'

To a caption that closely resembles my suggestion: 'Anaconda alongside a van displaying the neo-Nazi symbol 1488. The volunteer brigade is known for its far-right links.'

Bosula -> Kapusta 7 Mar 2015 02:58

Yes. Don't you agree this symbolism on these Ukrainian uniforms is important?

As for Russians there troopers maybe in East Ukraine. Most would appear to be volunteers but I don't know. No proof. if the Ukies could catch a Russian soldier posted to East Ukraine alive they would be worth their weight in gold in terms of publicity.

The point is any army that wears fascist symbols is a worry - don't you think, seriously?

jonsid -> RudolphS 6 Mar 2015 12:20

The Guardian is now hand-in-hand with "new east network." A somewhat disreputable amalgam of George Soros, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, National Endowment for Democracy and Radio Free Europe.
It's hard to imagine anything it promotes is reliable, unbiased or credible. Best to read it with a sense of humour.

[Mar 13, 2015] Ukraine or the Rebels Who Won in Minsk The National Interest Blog by Nicolai N. Petro

Rebels got a temporary pause from shelling and destruction of infrastructure. Everything else while Turchinov and Co sits in Kiev is wishful thinking. They are hell-bent on military victory.
Notable quotes:
"... Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk , Interior Minister Arsen Avakov , and the former speaker, now head of the National Security and Defense Party, Oleksandr Turchinov , are on record as committed to military victory in Donbass. ..."
"... This concession by Kiev allowed the negotiations to proceed without getting bogged down in disputes over territory which, in any case, are supposed to be resolved by the Law on "Temporary status of local self-administration in certain regions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblast," commonly referred to as the Law on Special Status. ..."
"... after full implementation of the peace plan.--[ which will never happen while turchinov an co sit in Kiev] ..."
"... whether the sides are actually willing to withdraw to their respective demarcation lines. ..."
"... broader question of President Poroshenko's ability to deliver on the promised constitutional reforms, ..."
"... There is intense political infighting within the current parliamentary coalition and, at this point, it is hard to imagine a majority in the Rada agreeing to designate which territories fall within the Law of Special Status, and therefore where local elections under Ukrainian law ought to be held. Point Four of the "Package of Measures," however, stipulates that this must be done within thirty days, and this will be the first real test of the political feasibility of these accords. ..."
"... Past evidence suggests that it will not. ..."
"... n the willingness of the members of the Trilateral Contact Group to put direct pressure on their respective constituencies (the EU and United States on Kiev; Russia on Donbass) to abide by the political and economic portions of this agreement. ..."
Feb 13, 2015 | nationalinterest.org
Comparing the "Package of Measures to Ensure the Implementation of the Minsk Accords" to the Protocol Document submitted by the representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics, it is readily apparent that the document signed on February 12 is largely based on the rebels' proposals.

The only omission worth noting is the absence of any mention of ending the military campaign in the East, which is referred to by Kiev as the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). This is understandable, since it is highly unlikely that such a measure could pass in the Ukrainian parliament, where several influential political actors, including Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, and the former speaker, now head of the National Security and Defense Party, Oleksandr Turchinov, are on record as committed to military victory in Donbass.

The most significant rebel achievement was getting Kiev to recognize a second de facto demarcation of force line, and a withdrawal of forces to the maximum line of separation of forces, which will now be between 70 and 140 kilometers. This concession by Kiev allowed the negotiations to proceed without getting bogged down in disputes over territory which, in any case, are supposed to be resolved by the Law on "Temporary status of local self-administration in certain regions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblast," commonly referred to as the Law on Special Status.

Yet, it should be noted that the proposals presented by the rebels in their Protocol Document made a number of significant concessions to Kiev at the very outset. Among these:

  • No mention of federalism or autonomy. The rebels even used Poroshenko's own term-"deep decentralization"-to define regional self -government.
  • No mention of language, cultural, or religious rights;
  • Specific dates for the withdrawal of forces, passage of the Law on Special Status, and passage of an amnesty law. These laws have already been passed by the parliament, just not signed into law and implemented;
  • The holding of internationally monitored local elections under Ukrainian law , specifically the Law on Special Status;
  • OSCE monitoring of border between Ukraine and Russia now under rebel control, after full implementation of the peace plan.--[ which will never happen while turchinov an co sit in Kiev]

It so happens that language rights, a key issue in this conflict, were added into the notes in the Package of Measures, but they were already mentioned in the Law on Special Status.

Thus, one might say that, while the latest accords follow the blueprint laid out by the rebels, that blueprint was already quite favorable to Kiev. Angela Merkel suggests that this was due, at least in part, to Putin's pressure on the rebels.

The most vexing issue that now remains is whether the sides are actually willing to withdraw to their respective demarcation lines. Power abhors a vacuum, and, frankly, it is surprising that some sort of external peacekeeping forces were not a part of this agreement. Their absence is clearly a weak point, since the implementation of the original Minks accords broke down almost immediately because of the unwillingness of the parties to disengage.

Second, there is the broader question of President Poroshenko's ability to deliver on the promised constitutional reforms, which involve decentralization and special status for these regions. In fact, his foreign minister already appears to be walking away from this crucial commitment.

There is intense political infighting within the current parliamentary coalition and, at this point, it is hard to imagine a majority in the Rada agreeing to designate which territories fall within the Law of Special Status, and therefore where local elections under Ukrainian law ought to be held. Point Four of the "Package of Measures," however, stipulates that this must be done within thirty days, and this will be the first real test of the political feasibility of these accords.

Will this new agreement prove to be the long awaited road map to peace in Ukraine? Past evidence suggests that it will not. The willingness of the conflicting parties-Kiev and Donbass-to reach a settlement is still absent. The key to success lies, first, in placing a peacekeeping buffer force on the ground between the two armies; and second, in the willingness of the members of the Trilateral Contact Group to put direct pressure on their respective constituencies (the EU and United States on Kiev; Russia on Donbass) to abide by the political and economic portions of this agreement.

[Mar 13, 2015] Europe's Desperate Hail Mary to Save Ukraine by Nikolas K. Gvosdev

February 13, 2015 | The National Interest
Left unaddressed in the Minsk talks, of course, are U.S. proposals to begin training and equipping Ukrainian government forces. The United States did not take part in the Minsk process, and while the cease-fire may be cautiously welcomed, it will not diminish the momentum, particularly on Capitol Hill, for shipping arms to Ukraine. The separatists cannot be unmindful of the Croatian precedent, where a long-term program to strengthen the Croatian military facilitated the operation that destroyed the Serbian separatist entity in eastern Croatia. Already some separatists are grumbling that Ukraine is not committed to a settlement, but will use the time to strengthen its forces and go back on the offensive later this year. Those suspicions, in turn, may cause them to be less than thorough in their own observation of the agreement's provisions. The Germans and the French hope that the accord will cause Washington to put its plans on hold.

And what does Vladimir Putin hope to gain? All the reports suggest that Putin put enormous pressure on the separatists to accept the deal. In turn, he may be expecting that once the cease-fire takes hold, the Europeans will move on sanctions relief. But if that is not forthcoming, what will be his continuing commitment to the agreement? Also left unaddressed are Russian demands for the "neutralization" of Ukraine. The deal as currently structured would not give the eastern regions veto power over Ukraine's foreign policy.

The Minsk deal appears to be the last hope for any sort of a political settlement. If this agreement breaks down-and it has many vulnerabilities-there will not be a fourth attempt. We will see if all sides have the political will to make it work.

Nikolas Gvosdev, a professor of national security studies and a contributing editor at The National Interest, is co-author of Russian Foreign Policy: Vectors, Sectors and Interests (CQ Press, 2013). The views expressed here are his own.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Mstyslav Chernov/CC by-sa 3.0

[Mar 13, 2015] The Most Outlandish Empire Semantics

Looks like the US elite decided that it's time for regime change in Venezuela
Mar 13, 2015 | moonofalabama.org

The government of the Unites States (GDP US$ 16,768,100 million) declares that the situation in Venezuela (GDP US$ 371,339 million):

... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States

This, the White House says, requires to:

... declare a national emergency to deal with that threat

"Why," ask the Venezuelans, including the U.S. sponsored opposition, "do you think we are an unusual and extraordinary threat which requires you to declare a national emergency?

"We do not believe for a moment that you are an unusual and extraordinary threat which requires us to declare a national emergency", is the answer:

Officials in Washington said that declaring Venezuela a national security threat was largely a formality.

"A formality?" ask Venezuelans. "Why is it a formality to see us as an unusual and extraordinary threat to your national security? That does not make sense. What's next? Will it be a simply a formality to kill us?"

"It is formality needed to be able to sanction some of your government officials," an anonymous U.S. senior official explains. "To do so the law requires that we declare you to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security which requires us to declare a national emergency."

"But we ain't no such threat. You yourself says so. So why would you sanction our officials when you yourself say that there is no real basis for this? On what legal grounds are you acting? Why these sanctions?"

"Because the the situation in Venezuela ... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States which requires us to declare a national emergency to deal with that threat."

"That is like declaring war on us. That does not make sense".

"Well, it's just a formality."

---

On might have hoped that the above would be the "most outlandish" nonsense the U.S. government could produce. But that is not yet the case.

The Venezuelan President Maduro responded in the National Assembly:

"The aggression and the threat of the government of the United States is the greatest threat that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our country, has ever received," he said to applause, [...] "Let's close ranks like a single fist of men and women. We want peace."

He spoke of past American military interventions in Latin America and warned that the United States was preparing an invasion and a naval blockade of Venezuela.

"For human rights, they are preparing to invade us," he said, ...

During the last 125 years the U.S. intervened in South America at least 56 times through military or intelligence operations. This ever intervening country is the same country that just declared Venezuela to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States that requires to declare a national emergency.

It is certainly not outlandish for Maduro to believe that such a declaration will be followed by one of those continued interventions. Especially not when disguised U.S. officials travel around Venezuela and distribute money to opposition parties. Maduro is not alone in seeing the threat of another U.S. intervention. All South American nations have condemned the U.S. declaration and even pro-American opposition politicians in Venezuela were outraged about it.

But for the ever anonymous U.S. officials it is the victim of their outlandish exaggerations that doth protest too much:

"It's remarkable that the [Venezuelan] government can say the most outlandish things about the U.S. government - what is this, the 16th or 17th coup attempt that we're doing? And now we're invading?" the official said. "The shelf life of all of these accusations is what, a day or two? Even the dullest of media consumers is going to see that there is no invasion."

Noting the U.S. doublespeak in this whole affair it advise to be very careful in believing that "there is no invasion" claim.

Posted by b on March 12, 2015 at 11:01 AM | Permalink

nmb | Mar 12, 2015 11:31:02 AM | 1

Venezuela: A plan for coup d'état and assassination of Maduro

Wayoutwest | Mar 12, 2015 12:09:23 PM | 2

I doubt the US is going to be invading or blockading Venezuela any time soon. This asinine proclamation was necessary for the increased sanctions the US has imposed and it is definitely a ratcheting-up of pressure and intimidation. It also appears to be designed to cause the Maduro government to overreact and institute decisions that can be demonized as harsh and undemocratic.

I hope the people of Venezuela and the other progressive countries of SA are ready and willing to really confront these aggressive US moves.

Dan | Mar 12, 2015 12:20:15 PM | 3

The current government of Venezuela is a clear threat to the financial interests of the oligarchs who control the US government.

Wayoutwest | Mar 12, 2015 1:26:51 PM | 11

For me the most interesting part of the US proclamation was not the National Security threat but the claim of a threat to US Foreign Policy. This illustrates the power of the Bolivarian Revolution to sever much of SA from US dominance and the level of US Ruling Class fear because of their diminishing power and influence worldwide.

Some Guy | Mar 12, 2015 3:02:11 PM | 16

Ah yes. The old tried and true "making the economy scream" in preparation for a coup ploy. Venezuela has held out so far but I have confidence in The Empire®. Their psychopathic persistence should be able to turn that country into what Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia are--a chamber of fucking horrors.
Piotr Berman | Mar 12, 2015 3:50:30 PM | 17
As a geography Nazi, I would insists that the list that was linked showed only four cases of interventions in South America. Indeed, interventions in Central America and Caribbean are dime a dozen, and probably the count was partial, South America is more distant and the countries are a bit too large for open interventions. Diplomacy was almost always friendly to non-leftist military regimes or death squads, but a direct engagement like coordination of the attempt to depose Chavez by military means were rare.

For some reason, it is almost 15 years that Jihad was declared in USA against Venezuela, and formal fatwa proclaimed on TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DykgMyTjWU4 (this video was from 2009, when Rev. Robertson wonder why Chavez was not assassinated yet). Since USA is a democracy, and the people are Christian, it is a duty of the government to follow the will of the Christian folks and at least attempt to execute fatwas of Christian clerics. However, I do not know enough about Robertson's Christianity to figure out how the fatwa came about.

diogenes | Mar 12, 2015 4:04:41 PM | 19
According to a link from the website of TeleSUR, a Venezuelan television station, on Feb. 28, 2015 an employee of NED (ie American agent) travelled to Venezuela for a secret meeting with opposition figures (ie bought and paid for greedy foreign stooges) to settle an argument about the distribution of millions of dollars previously contributed by NED.

The agent used a forged or stolen passport in a false name, and disguised her appearance to match with the photo in the passport; and travelled to the meeting in a vehicle with forged or stolen plates.

This agent, whose real name is Sarah Kornblith, a few months previously had written an article in NED's "scholarly journal" denouncing the Chavez and Maduro regimes and also:

"lauding the political arrangement that existed in Venezuela before Chavez. Known as the Punto Fijo Pact, under that system, two traditional parties would alternate in power, deliberately excluding the voices of Venezuela's poor majority."

You mean like Democrats and Republicans? You can't make this stuff up!

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NED-Official-Meets-With-Venezuelan-Opposition-Figures-20150312-0007.html

lysias | Mar 12, 2015 5:43:03 PM | 22

I'm just now reading a book about Gen. Vernon Walters, Der Drahtzieher: Vernon Walters -- Ein Geheimdienstgeneral des Kalten Krieges, by Klaus Eichner and Ernst Langrock, which details all the coups and secret chicanery that general was involved in, both in Latin America and in Europe.

Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 12, 2015 11:40:14 PM | 29

In 2002 I thought Chavez was toast. Given the last century of US intervention in South America it seemed obvious that Chavez would be over thrown by the US. But then the war in Iraq went very badly. The US was was distracted and had to focus its energy on the Iraq war. Chavez was spared the focus of US imperialism. For some time I thought the silver lining in the failed US war in Iraq was that it distracted our interests away from South America. This permitted a number of Latin American countries to drift away from US influence, not just Venezuela but also Bolivia and Nicaragua and some of the other countries elected left wing governments.

The US has spent the last century trying to prevent governments arising that actually represent all of the people and not just the upper middle classes that are eager to please US corporations. I think what we are seeing today is that the US is now refocusing on South America and are willing to devote resources towards removing those governments that have arisen that attempt to represent the poor and not just the bourgeois elements. This has been happening over the last few years. In Obama's first few years he threw his support (behind the scenes as it developed) behind the Honduran upper classes that removed the popularly elected government of Manunel Zelaya.

In any case, I think the Manuela government in Venezuela is going to be deposed through US intervention and next will be the government in Bolivia. And there is little that the rest of world can do to stop it. After all, the Monroe Doctrine has given the US that right and there is no outside force that can stop us unless they are willing to engage in nuclear war.

However, the more the US flexes its muscle in Latin America, the less effective it will be in pushing its policies in Ukraine and towards the 'pivot to Asia' that was supposed to be one of Obama's signature policies. And this is not to mention Obama's efforts for more war in Iraq and Syria. So to the extent that Venezuela might suffer today other parts of the world will be provided some respite from US attention. The US is thoroughly over committed.

[Mar 12, 2015] Eurosceptics playing into Vladimir Putin's hands, says Labour

Mar 12, 2015 | The Guardian

ID5868758 12 Mar 2015 00:49

I often wonder what the Middle East would look like today had the advice of that "evil Putin" been followed by the "exceptional Americans" and their allies. He was opposed to the war in Iraq. He was opposed to the attacks on Ghaddafi and Liibya, but overruled by Medvedev, who was president at the time. And of course he was against the US and their obsessive campaign against secular Assad and Syria.

But somehow we are supposed to believe that this man is the danger in the world, that everything would be fine and dandy if we could just get rid of Putin? Please.

Me109BfG6 11 Mar 2015 19:58

Stop better the mad house of s.c. "Ukraine". Until you can't find it on a map, you can't argue anything. I personally know a brigade of house constructors of 6 persons, of which 2 are Ukrainians and who have procured their passports somewhere is the Baltics for money. Now, do realize how you would once have to notice those 45 M Ukrainians standing on all street crossings in the UK and in the EU as well while beggaring. Yes, do realize that instead of any abstract demagogy and propaganda insulting Russia and Putin along with all the Russians in the s.c. "Ukraine". Stop the Nazis over there instead. The West Ukraine will elong to the Poland. The East Ukraine will belong to Russia or remain independent in order to speak freely Russian instead of that South Russian dialect called "Ukrainian" which is spoken - to the Forbes - by some 17% of the whole population in Ukraine only.

T_Wallet 11 Mar 2015 18:46

This article is nonsense. If there was no such thing as NATO then maybe it would have a credible point.

The EU is about as Democratic as Russia. Both want, like US and China, to extend their spheres of influence. Empires by other names.

JoseArmando0 -> psygone 11 Mar 2015 01:24

Money money money only thing yanks understand cant take it with you in the end anyway poetic justice

HARPhilby -> jezzam 11 Mar 2015 16:04

Rockefeller and JP Morgan financed hitler in 1929, 1931 and 1933. Read free pamphlet HITLER'S SECRET BACKERS by Sidney Warberg which came out in Holland in 1933 and was suppressed after 4 days.

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/Warburg_Hitler's%20Secret%20Backers.pdf

vr13vr -> Damocles59 11 Mar 2015 14:31

UN chapter or not, but not everything in life is done according to legal interpretations. It's shouldn't be about bunch of lawyers arguing about legalese, it's about 10 million people. Why does UN chapter give more rights to 1.5 million people in Lithuania than to 10 million people in Donbass and South Ukraine?

It's about principles, not about legalese.

irishmand -> psygone 11 Mar 2015 11:11

The largest trading partners of both China and India: the EU and the US.

But not the exclusive partners. India and China will continue to trade with everybody. They are making honest money and don't care about US ambitions for world domination and its bad habit of toppling governments.

Don't take me wrong, I don't hate americans. The most of you are just brain washed regular citizens. It is not your fault, except for what you allowed your government to do with your school system. But I also see the extremism is growing in american society and that is the result of people being told about how exceptional they are comparing to the rest of the world. Germans started the same way in 30's...

anewdawn 11 Mar 2015 10:19

Listen to the Victoria Nuland tapes.
Other evidence that the Ukraine is a US military coup

And more from the Guardian.

Russian aggression from the Blairites is about as believeable as Iraqs weapons of mass distraction.
I am a Labour supporter - I feel ashamed of them. They should be kicked out just like militant was - and for much better reasons - lies and war criminality. The Libdems and Tories are no better.

Ross Vassilev -> jezzam 11 Mar 2015 09:56

Jezzam, you're either an idiot or a liar. NO ONE in the US wants a war with Russia except the neo-cons in Washington. And the dismembering of Serbia is proof that not all countries are entitled to territorial integrity, including Ukraine.

Ross Vassilev jezzam 11 Mar 2015 09:52

At least Russia is only invading neighboring countries. There's hardly a country in the world the US hasn't bombed or invaded.


Калинин Юрий Bosula 11 Mar 2015 09:22

The guys there always need somebody to blame. They have to justify their existence by pointing their fingers to an enemy. The enemy unites the nation and you can sell to this nation all kind of junk as a needed stuff to fight this enemy.

People love to believe is some mystic junk - invisible Russian threat, coup theory of communists in Moscow against Washington DC, etc.


igoraki Sceptical Walker 11 Mar 2015 08:14

Would like to recommend you a book to read, "L'Europe est morte à Pristina" by Jacques Hogard.You can learn a lot about all the good West and NATO did on Kosova and also you will see how the Albanians treated Serbs once our army retreated from Kosova.


madeiranlotuseater jezzam 11 Mar 2015 08:03

I am NOT a Kremlin supporter. The corruption sponsored by the state at home in Russia is appalling.
That is not my point. The USA has intervened in countless countries since the end of WW2. The problems in Ukraine are of the USA's making. It hasn't gone well for you. Europe (apart from Desperate Dave) doesn't want to use your hawkish methods to achieve a solution. How lovely of you to believe that you can have a war in our back yard. People such as Merkel and Hollande almost certainly did not get it okayed by your lot. More probably they told you how is was going to be, so get used to it.

America believes that killing people is the answer to find peace. It isn't.


Babeouf 11 Mar 2015 07:26

Well who would have guessed it the the Labour Party doesn't recognize US imperialism anywhere on planet earth. And if Labour form a government and the US/Iran negotiations fail they will happily join the next US coalition of the Shilling. On the substantive point apparently the I.MF won't loan Ukraine the billions of Euros unless the truce holds together. Now that really does help Vlad'the West is led by US sycophants and outright morons' Putin. But so has the entire US coup in Ukraine. There certainly is some Russian agent helping to formulate US State Department policy.


Orangutango 11 Mar 2015 07:14

It is utterly incoherent for our prime minister to call for tougher European action against President Putin in one breath and then threaten to leave the EU in the next. Security is the unspoken dimension of this European debate.

"This is no time for democratic nations to consider breaking from their allies. While Eurosceptics crave the breaking of ties to the EU, the security situation demands common action and resolve."


The Origin of the 'New Cold War'


http://rinf.com/alt-news/featured/origin-new-cold-war/

Eric Zuesse


decaston 11 Mar 2015 04:57

Euroscepticism (sometimes Euroscepticism or Anti-EUism) is the body of criticism of the European Union (EU), and opposition to the process of political European integration, existing throughout the political spectrum.
A survey in 2012, conducted by TNS Opinion and Social on behalf of the European Commission, showed that, for the European Union overall, those who think that their country's interests are looked after well in the EU are now in a minority (42%) About 31% of EU citizens tend to trust the European Union as an institution, and about 60% do not tend to trust it. Trust in the EU has fallen from a high of 57% in 2007 to 31% in 2012, while trust in national governments has fallen from 43% in 2007 to 28% in 2012.
Trust in the EU is lowest in the United Kingdom (16% trust, 75% distrust)

Spain is ranked the second most distrustful of the European Union, making it one of the three most Eurosceptic countries in the EU, along with the UK and Greece. 72 per cent of the Spanish people do not trust the EU, comparing to only 23% that trust this Union.
Portugal is the 8th most eurosceptic country in the European Union (not counting with Croatia) as shown by the "The Continent-wide rise of Euroscepticism", with 58% of the people tending not to trust the EU, behind Greece (81%), Spain (72%), UK (75%), Cyprus (64%), Sweden (62%), Czech Republic (60%) and Germany (59%).[57] The Eurosceptic parties currently hold 24 out of 230 seats in the parliament. The Euroscepticism of the left wing prevails in Portugal.
The Irish people voted no to initial referendums on both the Nice and Lisbon Treaties. There were second referendums held on both of these issues, and it was then, following renegotiations that the votes were swayed in favour of the respective 'Yes' campaigns.
In relation to both the Nice and Lisbon treaties, the decision to force second referendums has been the subject of much scrutiny and widespread criticism. It is claimed that rejection of the Irish peoples decision to vote no stands testament to the European Union's lack of regard for democracy and lack of regard for the right of people of nation states to decide their futures.
In Italy The Five Star Movement (M5S), an 25.5% of vote in the 2013 general election, becoming the largest anti-establishment and Eurosceptic party in Europe. The party also in 2013 the party was particularly strong in Sicily, Liguria and Marche, where it gained more than 30% of the vote.
In France in the European Parliament election, 2014, the National Front won the elections with 24.85% of the vote, a swing of 18.55%, winning 24 seats, up from 3 previously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroscepticism


Ilja NB Tom20000 11 Mar 2015 03:32

You can't even clean up your own mess ( Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, former Yougoslavia ).


Parangaricurimicuaro PlatonKuzin 11 Mar 2015 03:28

Victoria Nuland is looking for a way out for her and her politics (save face). She realizes that Europe is not happy with the way that the State Department hijacked the whole Ukrainian crisis


Budanevey 11 Mar 2015 03:22

The emergence of Redneck Labour is one of the genuine mysteries of our politics that historians will one day ponder, a Party that adopted American Sub Prime finance, State Department Foreign Policy, neo-liberal corporatism, neo-con wars, NSA total surveillance, waterboarding, secret prisons, secret justice, indefinite detention, Anglophobia, TTIP and a de facto Eurodollar, and now the fear tactics of Commies and Terrorists everywhere to keep us servile to the interests of Washington and their agenda for an expanding US empire via a cloned United States of Europe, fears that were similarly misused during the Cold War when the American umbrella was first being used to envelop us.

Didn't Labour learn anything from WW2 when we went to war to protect Polish independence, only to have Washington give it to Stalin, along with the rest of Eastern Europe, and then surrender our own commonwealth and independence to Washington's creature in Brussels? Who is pulling the strings when we see demands for the UK to subordinate its interests to EU expansion in the East, just as we see northern Eurozone interests being compromised to keep hold of southern Europe - Washington.

The largest country on Earth, Russia, has long been a sub prime performer because of its own extreme history of imperialism and arbitrary government, which makes it an investors' nightmare and a paradise for corporate, criminal and political gangsterism preying on its long-suffering people and their unfortunate neighbours. The Yeltsin Privatisation era following the White Revolution compounded the problem by making new oligarchies and dubious billionaires, leading to the latest twist in Putinism.

The answer to these differing examples and extremes of imperialism is not to join in new imperialisms, but to re-assert the value of honesty and accountability in business, government, the rule of law, and international relations. Redneck Labour has completely lost the plot.

madeiranlotuseater 11 Mar 2015 03:21

Soap Box Dave really believes he can hold onto power by scaring Europe into believing there is a threat from Russia. Past UK Premiers have done well with wars, Maggie, John and Tony all got re-elected. But Dave pitched for free flights on Air Force One and sucking up to POTUS whilst many of us felt that the whole game plan in Ukraine was of the CIA making. Poke the Bear enough and you will get a response. Germany and France saw through this and quickly side lined Davy and Kerry. Result: Dave, at a stroke, has reduced Britain's influence in the world to little more than not a lot.

elias_ 11 Mar 2015 02:19

All organisations are judged on the results of their actions. In the court of world opinion we can apply this logic to states. So let's see:
1. Iraq. We lied, killed a million people and now it is haven for Isis.
2. Libya. Far far worse now than under gadafi.
3. Syria. We wanted war but putin stopped it.
4. Egypt. Worse now than when we intervened.
5. Ukraine. Supporting neocon Victoria f*** the EU nuland doing violent regime change on Russia's borders and expecting Russia to sit idly by. Yes the protests were about oligarchy but then got hijacked by hired goons without which power would have transitioned peacefully.

Q. Is it any wonder we are losing credibility outside the west? Especially as many of these actions went without UN approval.


Peter Schmidt UncleSam404 11 Mar 2015 02:14

There is no British 'foreign policy'. They do as the US says.


irishmand jezzam 11 Mar 2015 02:13

Proof that Putin planned to annex Crimea and invade E Ukraine before Yanukovych was deposed.

Who said it is truth, it is propaganda, I don't believe a word of this bull.... The western media lied so many times, there is no credibility.


irishmand SystemD 11 Mar 2015 02:10

One might ask you for proof of CIA plots, except that there is none. Are you prepared to provide the same standard of proof of your allegations that you demand of others?

One might. We got Crimea, that's right. And Russia is helping the rebels. Well, US is helping the nazies in Kiev, so to make the chances equal...
Now, CIA What was CIA director doing when he was secretly visiting Ukraine? A vacation... And those CIA operatives in Kiev Speigel wrote about? A vacation...


Калинин Юрий jezzam 11 Mar 2015 01:48

Putin sending his troops to Ukraine? Then you know way much more then CIA, MI-5, Mossad, etc all together. Finally all these countries do not have to spent billions on the intelligence since you alone do all the job and have all the possible evidences to present to the world.

By the way yesterday the Russian troops used secret space waves on the drivers in Ukraine so 2 of British old APC's are out of service and in a ditch outside the road. This is the proof of the Russian regular army and thousands of dead Russian soldiers as well as billions of wounded in the Russian hospitals. Russia sends trains to Donetsk to take out all of them and OSCE at the border crossing station inspect them together with the Ukranian customs. Those, that have no chances to escape are captured by the Ukranian army and been exchanged for the Ukranian soldiers in front of hundreds of journalists. Anyway, Russian army is the most invisible army in the world.


Goodthanx 11 Mar 2015 01:20

According to McFadden, are we to presume that like NATO, one of the EU functions was/is the 'containment' of Russia?

A sign of EU immaturity is that member countries cant voice independent views and questions of sovereignty, without the scaremongers reducing their arguments to todays bogey man, Putin.


irishmand jezzam 10 Mar 2015 23:43

What you say is entirely true, To Kremlin supporters though, facts don't have any objective reality. They believe that facts are simply tools in the propaganda campaign. Thus in their eyes inventing "facts" is perfectly OK. They believe that the West does it as well - the depth of cynicism in Russia is hard to fathom.

What facts were invented?
ultra right coup in Kiev supported by US
bombardments of Donbass civilians by Kiev
relentless russophobic campaign in US and EU
Nuland saying F...the EU
Nazi elements in the Ukranian government
Crime voting to join Russia


BorninUkraine irishmand 10 Mar 2015 23:36

The objective of current US propaganda campaign is to prevent EU and Russia from cooperating to the point of creating a credible US competitor. As you could have noticed, this BS for European consumption works admirably: Europe just lost its last chance of becoming something of consequence.


irishmand MentalToo 10 Mar 2015 22:50

It is only an expense to Russia preventing other urgent investments to improve living conditions of the people in Russia. Russian leaders urgently needs to realize cooperation based on mutual respect of both sovereignty of nations as well as civil rights of individuals is the only way to improve relations to Europeans countries. Trying to use military force either directly or by coercion harms Russia more than anything. Russia is not in a competition to win over it neighbor states. Russia's mission is to win over it's own past through gaining trust of it's neighbors by peaceful cooperation.

It is a declaration of good will, which, unfortunately, is not supported by any actions in reality.
What have US/EU did recently:

  • organized a coup in Ukraine,
  • imposed sanctions,
  • unleashed shameless wild russophobic propaganda campaign in the media,
  • issued countless insults about Russians and their President.

Where is the mutual respect you are talking so much about? Where is your freedom of speech?
How can Russians trust you when you behave like bunch of liars and bullies, threatening to destroy Russia and celebrating every time something bad happens in Russia?
To get respect from Russia you have to show your respect too.
What saved Russia from american/NATO invasion? The very same army and the nuclear weapons. If it wouldn't be for them, americans would attack 6-8 months ago.
So, before you start teaching Russia manners turn around and look in the mirror of your society. You are not a democracy anymore. You became a bunch of power drunk, profit greedy warmongers who only understand "I want" and ready to sacrifice other people's lives in other countries for your personal well being.

[Mar 12, 2015] This Is a Declaration of War by Bruce K. Gagnon

March 12, 2015 | informationclearinghouse

At times I feel completely overwhelmed by the current US-NATO military operations aimed at Russia. It's growing rapidly - one can't help but wonder if the recent 'victory' of the self-defensive forces in eastern Ukraine wasn't allowed by Washington and Kiev as a way to get public opinion behind the already well established plans for even more NATO escalation.

It's all just far too neat and tidy to be seen otherwise. This is not a conspiracy but a well designed military plan to take down Moscow. They are playing with fire. In some respects the 'project' is now impossible to stop. The question for the moment is how long will this attack on Russia go on and what level of conflict will result? Will it go nuclear? If so the world is fucked.

The Pentagon role now is to send legions of NATO trainers into Ukraine to "push Kiev's [reluctant] troops forward" in order to "deter Russian aggression." It's a long term military operation that is going to be exceedingly expensive. It's got to be sold to the American people and folks throughout Europe. In order to make this public relations campaign successful the perpetrators have to flip the switch - turn the story ass backwards - blame the other side for doing what US-NATO are in fact doing.

The source of the aggression is quite clear to me. US-NATO are all over Russia's border. I learned today that the current right-wing Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves grew up in New Jersey and went to Columbia University. It's funny how the US is able to continually put their agents into office in key nations around the world.

Go back to post WW II and note how fascist Syngman Rhee lived in the US and was then put in power in South Korea to ensure Washington's control. Recall the many fascist dictators that the US repeatedly put in place in Vietnam, Iran, Indonesia and throughout Latin America and the African continent. It's called good corporate planning.

More recently in 2008 we saw Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (also trained in the US at George Washington University) launch an attack on Russian speaking republics South Ossetia and Abkhazia along Russia's border. Russia responded to the Georgian military strike against the people there by counter-attacking Georgia. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region which borders the Middle East.

I'll never forget watching the first US politician to arrive in Georgia after the 2008 shooting war subsided. It was then Sen. Joe Biden who made that visit, just months before being selected as Obama's running mate. Biden came back slinging much anti-Russian rhetoric and most importantly threatened Russia with dire consequences if it did not do as instructed by Washington and Brussels. Biden of course also led the effort in the Senate to send more weapons and US military 'trainers' to Georgia. So this is all a familiar story.

Just this morning NPR (National Public Radio) had an interview with a Russian woman who 'fingered' Putin as the one who called for the killing of Boris Nemtsov this past weekend in Moscow. It's all so damn convenient - the pieces just keep tumbling into place as the case is made for war with Russia in order to contain the 'evil Putin'. Can you see Manuel Noriega (Panama), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), and Muammar Qaddafi (Libya) all over again? It's a tried and true twisting of the truth in order to set up supposed 'obstacles' for take down. It's always sold though as the mighty super-moral US swooping in to protect 'freedom and democracy'. Walt Disney couldn't have done this any better.

The US-NATO expansion of the conflict in Ukraine is indeed a declaration of war against Russia. And from what I can make out the Russian people see the writing on the wall - they can hear the train coming. Sadly the American people have no clue what is going on nor do most of those in Europe.

This project has been set up with criminal precision. After all the CIA and the Pentagon have had alot of practice over the years. This is what Washington does best.

Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire. http://space4peace.blogspot.ca/

[Mar 12, 2015] Victoria Nuland Knowingly Deceives Senate, Displays Ardent Support For Fascist Junta by Andrew W. Griffin

In Robert Parry words "Nuland offered not a single word of self-criticism about how she contributed to these violent events by encouraging last year's coup, "
Mar 12, 2015 | themillenniumreport.com

Neocon Nuland spins wild tales for Senate Foreign Relations Committee; plays into fascist hands

OKLAHOMA CITY – Neoconservative warmonger Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland, America's Assistant Secretary of State, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – with a straight face – that Crimeans are "suffering a reign of terror" under the control of the Russians.

Nuland, who makes a living deceiving lawmakers and anyone else who crosses her path, told the committee this week: "Today Crimea remains under illegal occupation and human-rights abuses are the norm, not the exception, for many at-risk groups there."

The "at-risk groups," Nuland said, included Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians who refuse to surrender their passports, gays and lesbians, journalists and "others," according to an AFP report.

Additionally, Nuland, an apologist for the pro-Nazi Svoboda and Right Sector fascists who are the actual ones leading a reign of terror against innocents in eastern Ukraine, said pro-Russian separatists in the those areas of Lugansk and Donetsk "unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage."

However, the exact opposite is true.

Sputnik News, a Russian news outlet, offered a tongue-in-cheek article today headlined "Life 'Under a Reign of Terror': What Nuland Doesn't Want You To See," countered each statement from Nuland with recent photographs of the beautiful Black Sea coast, including a fantastic photo of a "sand sculpture" celebrating the 70th anniversary of the February 1945 Yalta Conference (aka Crimea or Argonaut Conference) with the Big Three – Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt – there in Crimea, which was a part of the Soviet Union, and a traditional vacation spot for the czars and later for other Russian leaders and workers. (As historian Webster Griffin Tarpley has reported, Roosevelt was assassinated shortly after the conference and Truman – who replaced pro-Soviet, peace-seeking VP Henry Wallace – leading to the kick off of the Cold War).

A year after Crimea became part of Russia once again, "82-percent of those polled said they fully supported Crimea's inclusion in Russia, and another 11 percent expressed partial support. Only four-percent spoke out against it," reports Sputnik News.

Additionally, despite Nuland's denunciations, 51-percent of Crimeans "reported that their well-being had improved in the past year" and that Crimean retirees "have started receiving much higher Russian pensions."

And believe it or not, as Nuland claims that Moscow is salting the earth of Ukraine, Sputnik News reports that the Crimean peninsula will "receive 47 billion rubles (equivalent to $705 million in US dollars), or 75 percent of its budget, from Russia." The news report notes that when Crimea was under Ukrainian control they never financed Crimea at anything near that level.

And yet the US/Kiev axis continues to deny they are behind the crimes in the Donbass region, while claiming those aforementioned thuggish Ukrainian Nazis (friends of John McCain's, of course) are liberating democrats. And it certainly doesn't help that the Obama administration is infested with Nuland-esque neocons and raving Russophobes, particularly as NATO ramps up military maneuvers in the Black Sea and the US sends 600 paratroopers to Ukraine to train that country's fascist army. Russia, meanwhile, has flatly stated that any efforts to threaten Russia's security, bad things will start to happen. Are we seeing a new Cold War or are we rapidly heading to a hot war?

And let's not forget, Ms. Nuland, that your Ukrainian "freedom fighters" – namely one crazed Ukrainian MP named Yuriy Bereza brazenly promised – on Ukrainian national television – to "burn down Crimea, with all of its residents if needed." It starts to make sense that the Crimeans are far happier under Russian rule.

And as Webster Griffin Tarpley stated on World Crisis Radio this week, Victoria Nuland is an "embarrassment" to the United States and our anti-fascist traditions. He added that Nuland is "crude, scurrilous, ignorant and boiling over with venom." #ImpeachNuland.

German Historian Tells Poroshenko 'Be Careful of American Support'

Sputnik International

German professor of history Michael Pesek wrote an open letter to Petro Poroshenko, in which he advised the Ukrainian President not to expect a long-lasting friendship with the United States, as the White House could change its attitude towards him in the blink of an eye when political trends shift Washington.

German historian Michael Pesek wrote an open letter to Petro Poroshenko, in which he told the Ukrainian president not to get too cozy with the White House, warning him that being a close ally of the United States might not be the beginning of a long-lasting friendship.

"You should be warned that this might not be the beginning of a long-living love affair that inevitably ends with an account full of dollars, an army equipped with the finest stuff ever produced to kill your enemies," said Pesek, who teaches courses in history and political science at the University of Hamburg and Free University of Berlin.

Pesek went on to compare Poroshenko with other dictators, who were puppets of the United States in the past, but then became the enemies of the White House after the tides shifted in Washington.

In particular, the historian reminded Poroshenko of Saddam Hussein, who was Washington's close ally in the Middle East during the 1980s. However, after Cold War ended and the Americans changed their views on the Middle East, Hussein was useful as an enemy rather than as a friend. The rest is history: the former dictator was captured sitting in a hole and soon hanged in the dark of the night.

Pesek also talked about Mobuto Sese Seko, the long-standing former ruler of the Congo, and Manuel Noriega of Panama who were both initially supported by the United States when its interests were at stake, but were quickly disposed of when US political trends changed their direction.

"Lesson learned? You can kill as much as enemies of the US as possible, you can sell your natural resources, but it will not shield you, when the storm from Washington takes another direction," Pesek said.

On a final note, the German historian told Poroshenko that at the end of the day he will always be an outsider in the United States, "a useful idiot in your best days" and a "burden" when the White House changes its priorities or loses its interest.

"As a former apparatchik you will never know if your conversion to a democrat and capitalist is taken seriously by your American allies. You will be under suspicion as all the other converted ex-terrorists, ex-Marxists, ex-dictators, who bow to the American flag." – concluded Pesek.

See also:

[Mar 12, 2015] US to send Ukraine small drones and armoured Humvees

Mar 11, 2015 | The Guardian
BloodOnTheWattle -> psygone 11 Mar 2015 23:39

Does that history include the army of the Taliban by the USA..try to see some of the pics in which bonsay Bush was hosting the murderers...you may continue dancing on the head of a pin, precious and defend the indefensible all you want

irishmand ShanghaiGuy 11 Mar 2015 23:22

And vice versa remember komrade... Putin likes to remind the world not to mess with a nuclear state... indeed very good advice, some that paranoid sociopath to also consider

Don't call me comrade, I am not your friend. Paranoid sociopaths are in US government and they are not going anywhere.

BloodOnTheWattle psygone 11 Mar 2015 23:13

oh dear...now I have seen revisionism but you take the cake psy you really do...you come here and spout all this bullshit and, like your country does with the world you expect people to believe you...not many do any more...

irishmand BloodOnTheWattle 11 Mar 2015 23:12

I was just looking at BBC news... it is interesting, apparently the Iran/Iraq coalition are pushing back ISIS from Tikrit. The people in the liberated suburbs are coming on the streets to welcome these fighters. Conversely I never witnessed that when it came to the US's invasions...or for that matter the welcoming of Ukrainian soldiers in East Ukraine.

It is a good news indeed. The danger now US may pump more money into ISIS.

BorninUkraine SirHenryRawlins 11 Mar 2015 22:59

You are mistaken, censor.net.ua is not a conspiracy site. It is the Ukrainian site best known for ludicrously inaccurate claims (less polite word is "lies"), like the use of Russia of nuclear weapons in the battle for Lugansk airport. Most Russians say that it's much funnier than Comedy Club.

BloodOnTheWattle BlackStork 11 Mar 2015 22:56

What awaits you? is to make peace with the East and whatever the results are to live with them as brothers and sisters and to give them a saying in their fate as citizens, lest you want generations of hatred and wars

BloodOnTheWattle BlackStork 11 Mar 2015 22:54

Just a comment from a citizen, I also notice that you omitted 8 million citizens, that says a lot. Be that as it may:

"I, as a native of Feodosia will answer you:

I remember 1992 very well, 1st Crimean referendum, when Crimea revolted and wanted to sail to Russia and how a state of emergency was introduced, and Berkut was brought from Western Ukraine on armored personnel carriers. As they stood at each intersection with Kalashnikov's and put anyone face first in the dust, whom they didn't like. How they pulled over cars and threw on the pavement all the contents of the trunks, tore the covers from doors and ripped the seats. Why? Just because. For fun.

How they dispersed the march to Simferopol in defense of the First President of Crimea, Meshkov, firing from automatic weapons above the heads. How the Russian officers left with tears in their eyes, who did not want to live under Ukraine. Remember how they forced to wear [Ukrainian national shirts] on the first day of school, and forced our children to learn [Ukrainian language]. How they shut off Russian TV channels and planted their corrupt appointees. How they cut a hundred year-old rosary in the Botanical garden and built villas for Kiev bozos, and made gates to the garden to walk their dogs.

And how did we suddenly become traitors? How can you betray the occupiers? From occupiers one can only be freed. And about God and Karma, this is what's happening now. My ancestors who shed blood for Crimea and Sevastopol, would not allow for the treacherous Ukry to sell my native Crimea to pin doses [Americans] for their base.

WE WILL STARVE, AS LONG AS WE ARE WITHOUT YOU!!!"

BorninUkraine moncur 11 Mar 2015 22:45

Donbass people are defending their land, the troops Kiev sent are intruders, and they suffer typical fate of intruders: inglorious defeat or death, both deserved for mass slaughter of Donbass civilians.
That's exactly why Donbass people fight willingly, unlike forcibly conscripted Ukrainian solders looking for any opportunity to run away.

I have first-hand knowledge of that, as I grew up in Lugansk and have friends and relatives in Donbass.

irishmand -> GreatMountainEagle 11 Mar 2015 22:43

Russians love coke and McDonalds

Not everybody and not everything. I don't like McDonalds, but I like coke. Some people don't like either of them. There are a lot of local food chains and drinks in Russia now. No need to drink coke and eat McDonalds all the time.

irishmand -> ContraryToDogma 11 Mar 2015 22:40

If the risk was understood everyone would be shaking from fear. This is not a game.

Exactly, but US and UK don't care. They just want to sell weapons and make money. Business as usual...

irishmand Trader -> SeerStrategy 11 Mar 2015 22:38

"Take over the world" - naive communistic talk, US just supporting new democracy and market capitalism that finally has a chance to be build in Ukraine instead of state managed economy...

Like Iraq, Libya and Afganistan. Yea, smashing success...

BloodOnTheWattle -> GreatMountainEagle 11 Mar 2015 22:34

Actually, yes these drones could do that and demonstrate how your heroes have bombarded their own citizens and secondly they can send some proof of a russian invasion something which thus far have failed to do...As per usual your contributions are based on insults and try to blanket humiliate Russians and or ethnic Russians who are federalists who are fighting against the coup aided and abetted by the west...now go back and stick your head under the pillow or whatever you do.

ShanghaiGuy irishmand 11 Mar 2015 22:30

and vice versa remember komrade... Putin likes to remind the world not to mess with a nuclear state... indeed very good advice, some that paranoid sociopath to also consider

ShanghaiGuy ContraryToDogma 11 Mar 2015 22:17

if it walks like a putinbot, talks like a putinbot then maybe it is a putinbot...
we do tend to be up to our arses here with Pro kremlinites and apologists.
at laest the early shills with their Anglo sounding names have either pissed off or become more sophisticated.

BloodOnTheWattle psygone 11 Mar 2015 22:13

Well you would say that wouldn't you but you must remember that your "exceptional; force for good nation" has spent 93% of its existence in wars... To go to Afghanistan the Russians did not use any false flags as the US did with the Tonkin Bay. Incidentally you lot are slow learners the same guys you armed to fight Russia are fighting you today, similar to Libya, and Syria. Essentially the poster is right you are comedy hour and ameteur hour at that.

BloodOnTheWattle paiduputinbot 11 Mar 2015 22:02

That is such an inane comment. There is a cease fire and it appears to be working. Frankly although I am anti US I dont see any issues with Humvees and drones on the contrary. See? apparently they have sent drones before and even these have no discovered columns of Russian tanks.

Ukraine is an Independent country and thy can purchase weapons from whomever they want. Then again, they can complain if the Russians put 100,000 close to the border?

BloodOnTheWattle Trader SeerStrategy 11 Mar 2015 21:57

"market capitalism" ? you mean like Lyibia or what happened in latin america for 40 years? you mean a market based on bail outs to pay fund managers while people live in austerity compounded by a 34.5 % inflation rate in Feb 2015 and an implied inflation of 272% the highest in the world? You mean a market economy in which budgets are passed without readings and when VH's members want to discuss said budgt are essentially barred from commenting of punched in the face? is this what you want for this wonderful country?

ContraryToDogma Trader SeerStrategy 11 Mar 2015 21:53

Pardon me but the US has a very well developed state managed economy of its own and market capitalism is just a myth. Oligarchs run all these countries and they would never risk a true free market subject to catastrophic economic crashes. It's not as simple or as black and white as you believe.

ContraryToDogma 11 Mar 2015 21:38

A kid's cap gun in an Old West Six Gun revolver style will be awarded to the first loony commenter to use the "Putinbot" moniker. Any takers?

ContraryToDogma 11 Mar 2015 21:31

Putin denies arming rebels, Obama denies arming and fomenting fake revolutions pushed by corporate & arms dealer interests. Tit for tat. Would the US enjoy Russian meddling in Mexico or Canada? Not likely. Let's grow up about who is provoking whom and stop trying to take over the world. The days of empire and war are obsolete except for armchair warriors and lunatics who lust for nuclear war and nuclear winters who dream of bomb shelters with shelves of canned food and bottled water.

Bud Peart 11 Mar 2015 21:26

US vice-president Joe Biden told Ukraine's president on Wednesday the US will send more aid to the country, which US officials said will include small drones and armored Humvees.

Are these for protecting Hunter Biden's gas interests in Ukraine?

Either way any weapons the US send Russia will send more to the separatists, the only result will be more deaths and instability. But I guess that was the aim for the state department the whole time.

How is Ukraine paying for this? IMF loans for weapons? Great way to spend money.

irishmand kolf 11 Mar 2015 21:25

As I'm sure you're aware that is a very long way from even approaching an answer to the question. Both sides in this conflict have claimed a great many things on their respective TV outlets without sufficient evidence, made claims that have never been independently verified or which have later turned out to be completely false.

Great points. I am just enjoying how the roles have switched after the rebels started presenting the evidence of the west supplying arms to the Ukis army. Now the west is signing the song "do you have any evidence?". I am glad to see the west demonstrating once more the lack of honesty and readiness to lie. I don't ask you to believe me, but for myself, I've seen enough to believe ukies used NATO weapons.

1) Has anyone backed up this claim, apart from the separatists and their Russian backers?
2) For example, did they submit this to any international monitoring body (eg OSCE in the area - which contains Russian as well as western observers so they should have no problem with that) for independent assessment?

No, I couldn't find any OSCE reports. OSCE is leaning towards Ukrainian side in this conflict. They may or may not be reporting 100% honestly.

3) Are the weapons in question merely of a type used by NATO but also used by others or available on the arms market (as the wording of the claim"typical NATO firearms" suggests), or of a type used exclusively by NATO (which has not actually been claimed, as far as I can tell)? This is very important, if the claim is of direct NATO supply or involvement.
4) Would it be possible for Russia be able to source such items and supply them to the separatists for the purposes of a propagandist press conference? Is there evidence of where they were collected, again is this verifiable by people not connected to the separatists themselves? The coincidence of timing with Putin's claim that NATO were involved is quite significant here.

They are just standard NATO weapons, not the weapons exclusively used by NATO. Ukies themselves could have sold the weapons to rebels or the weapons could have been captured.

irishmand toadvine 11 Mar 2015 21:05

Even when peace agreement WAS achieved and largely held, Americans still send arms to UKR. The only goal of that?? If you have brains it's easy to see it

Americans just need to get rid of obsolete weapons.

irishmand moncur 11 Mar 2015 21:01

"DPR" + "LPR" = Russian forces. Easy.

That's just trolling. Do you have any thoughts?
Reply | Pick

kolf nnedjo 11 Mar 2015 20:37

For this I have no comment because I do not have access to the details of the investigation. Let's wait until the investigation is completed, and then, if it would be even a trial, to comment on it.

Link to the ongoing UK public inquiry is here. Most details of the investigation are already in the public domai, so you do have access to them:
https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/

Obviously there isn't going to be a trial because the chief suspect Andrey Lugovoi is immune from extradition and has been rewarded for his, ahem, business trip to London with a seat in the State Duma. It's a strange condition you're attaching - that it can only be discussed after a trial has taken place, i.e. never?

[Mar 12, 2015] Who is Aleksandr Dugin

Mar 12, 2015 | Crooked Timber

bob mcmanus 03.10.15 at 8:24 pm

Oh my, an interesting day of posts on Crooked Timber! Is there a link to the Vinyard of the Saker in there somewhere?

"(hence he sometimes goes so far as cast Sunni extremists as if they were allies of the West)"; "Sunnis aligned with the West, it would seem"

Out liberal-capitalist-rationalist-pluralist allies in Saudi Arabia, I presume.

Looking more like war everyday.

Hidari 03.10.15 at 8:32 pm

As regards the Ukraine (and many other countries round the world), I have noticed that even (or especially) to liberals who are prepared to admit, in a highly abstract way, that the United States is an imperial power, there is a distinct unwillingness to think through what that means, and what it implies about the way the US will probably behave, in most situations.

It may be true (or it may not) that Putin is 'reasserting' Russian imperial ambitions, but when did the US ever unassert its own?

Cian 03.10.15 at 8:33 pm

While I dislike Putin immensely, yeah the Ukraine government pretty much was asking for it. First of all they stoked ethnic tensions needlessly. An ethnicity that happens to be the same as their powerful neighbor. Then when this resulted in moves towards secession – rather than defusing it politically, they attacked them with the army.

So yeah, Putin might be an opportunist (though one in this case who's being pushed from multiple segments of the Russian elite – it's not entirely clear who's driving) – but who gave them an opportunity, then presented it in such a way that Russian public/elite opinion meant that he really had no option but to take it.

Harold 03.10.15 at 8:44 pm

Hmm. What it means to be an imperialist? Let us turn to wikipedia to find out:

The Grand Chessboard

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives is one of the major works of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski graduated with a PhD from Harvard University in 1953 and became Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University before becoming the United States National Security Advisor during 1977-1981 under the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

Regarding the landmass of Eurasia as the center of global power, Brzezinski sets out to formulate a Eurasian geostrategy for the United States. In particular, he writes, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger should emerge capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America's global pre-eminence.

Much of his analysis is concerned with geo-strategy in Central Asia, focusing on the exercise of power on the Eurasian landmass in a post-Soviet environment. In his chapter, dedicated to what he refers to as the "Global Balkans", Brzezinski makes use of Halford J. Mackinder's 1904 Heartland Theory [Also known as the Geographical Pivot Theory of History.]

§See also
American imperialism
Geopolitics
Geostrategy in Central Asia
The Great Game
Zbigniew Brzezinski
*****
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
The Geographical Pivot of History
EXCERPTS:
The Geographical Pivot of History, sometimes simply as The Pivot of History is a geo-strategic theory, also known as Heartland Theory.

"The Geographical Pivot of History" was an article submitted by Halford John Mackinder in 1904 to the Royal Geographical Society that advanced his Heartland Theory. In this article, Mackinder extended the scope of geopolitical analysis to encompass the entire globe.
**********
Influence of the theory on foreign and military policy

In Germany up to 1945
Some influential Germans, such as Karl Haushofer both before and during the Third Reich, found this theory compatible with their desire to control Mitteleuropa and to take Ukraine. The intention to take the latter was indicated by the slogan Drang nach Osten, or "drive to the east".

In the Western powers
Mackinder identified the geopolitical nightmare that was to haunt the world's two sea powers during the first half of the twentieth century - Great Britain and later on the United States. The nightmare was that if Germany or Russia were allowed to control East Europe then this could lead to the domination of the Eurasian land mass by one of these two powers as a prelude to mastery of the world.

Jeff Martin 03.10.15 at 9:47 pm

But then it turns out to be an excavated piece of Dissent anti-communism adapted to the enemy of liberalism of the day. Meh.

There must always be a reason to avoid confronting the fact of the American Empire, to spoon with it for just a little while longer. If that reason cannot be an actual geopolitical threat, a marginal intellectual figure will do, provided his oeuvre can be conflated with the strategic doctrine of a nation-state. Look, I think it's simple: some on the Left are terrified of going back to the Seventies, when the Right, and the media, demonized them as unpatriotic and anti-American; hence they try to confabulate ways of being both progressive and indirectly supportive of the American Empire, which is rather unprogressive. But whatever.

Harold 03.10.15 at 10:25 pm

Q OP, "Why would any sane person want to do it all over again…"

A. There's a lot of money to be made in the short run.

http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/02/27/kredite-aus-steuergeldern-saatgut-konzerne-kaufen-land-in-der-ukraine/

Excerpt: Seed producers have a strong interest in Ukrainian lands (Google translated):

Ukraine is one of the promising growth markets for seed producers Monsanto and DuPont. It is feared that Monsanto has exerted great pressure on the authorities in Ukraine to enforce its demands for an expansion of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Last year, Monsanto has invested 140 million to increase the potential for future production. "

German companies are also benefiting this Ukrainian land grab.:

Examples of German companies that profit from land grabbing in Eastern Europe include AGRARIUS AG, founded in 2007 and headquartered in Bad Homburg, which "offers investment in farmland" and "services related to the purchase of land"; Hamburg-based German agricultural CEE GmbH lures investors with returns of 100 percent from the "most attractive agricultural market in the world"; and KTG Agrar SE, also based in Hamburg, advertises organic products that promise to yield "much higher profit margins".

Multinational and national companies receive financial, development, and EU subsidies, enabling agricultural corporations to build in Ukraine for ten years, and more for the production of rape seed oil, due to the EU's growing demand for biofuels. About 90 percent of rape seed is exported to the EU and processed there. The German Federal Government reports that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) awarded 2,014 loans to a total of 131 Ukrainian and 55 international agroholdings.

The German Federal government did not specifically respond to the Left Party's question as to whether DuPont and Monsanto would receive KfW loans for its operations in Ukraine. The government's response states:

"The publication of information on lending by the KfW bank group involves trade and business secrets of the undertakings concerned. The public response to the question of whether and to what extent a company finances its business activities, and over which type of loan generally serves to give competitors information not only about the financial resources of a company, but also about its strategy and positioning in the market. "

[Mar 11, 2015] The Gathering Storm

Mar 1, 2015 | Jesse's Café Américain
"I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice...

At the close of that [revolutionary] struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or brother, a living history was to be found in every family-- a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related-- a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.

But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more.

They were the pillars of the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.

Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington.

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'"

Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838

Gold and silver did very little today, despite the brisk sell off in equities. The denizens of the bucket shops were busy picking pockets in other markets.

The global economy is in a very difficult circumstance, and the Fed is at the heart of it. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever, because they have placed themselves there, repeatedly, by their actions and omissions as manager of the world's reserve currency and key regulator of one of the world's most influential financial markets.

Will the Fed raise rates as they have now led the world to expect, or will they do nothing, and essentially cut them by once again kicking those who believe them in the expectations?

Most Americans do not understand what is going on in the rest of the world. It is not pretty. Europe is hanging by a much thinner thread than I think the plutocrats in Frankfurt and Brussels realize.

The emerging markets are absorbing a great deal of inflation being generated and exported by the US. It would be extremely interesting to have access to a reliable estimate of Eurodollars. I think we are experiencing yet another Eurodollar short squeeze as the debts contracted for by overseas companies in dollars feel the stress of a disjointed global financial system.

It took a little over twenty years for the unease that Lincoln describes above to explode upon the landscape in a bloody civil war. It might be worth reading his entire Lyceum speech. It surely does not describe what we might think of as domestic tranquility and pastoral bliss. The republic endured, but at a terrible cost.

In our age reason and morality and honour have fallen to the despicable cheapness of 'greed is good' and the foul god of the market.

Have a pleasant evening.

[Mar 11, 2015] U.S. oil production still surging

Mar 11, 2015 | econbrowser.com | 26 Replies

The EIA is now reporting that U.S. field production of crude oil averaged almost 8.7 million barrels a day in 2014. That's up 1.2 mb/d from 2013, and is only 0.9 mb/d below the all-time U.S. peak in 1970.

Production of oil by means of fracturing shale and other tight formations is the main reason. The EIA drilling productivity report estimates that production from the Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Niobrara– the main tight oil producing areas– was 1 mb/d higher in 2014 compared to the previous year. I used that estimate to update my graph of U.S. production by source. The tight oil story is pretty dramatic.

U.S. field production of crude oil, by source, 1860-2014, in millions of barrels per day.  Updated from Hamilton (2014) based on data reported in [1], [2].

U.S. field production of crude oil, by source, 1860-2014, in millions of barrels per day. Updated from Hamilton (2014) based on data reported in [1], [2].

And it seems to be continuing. The February drilling report estimates production from those 4 regions will be almost 0.3 mb/d higher this month than it was in December. That's leading to record levels of U.S. inventories.

Source: EIA.

Source: EIA.

How much longer will production keep going up? Much of the new production can't be profitable at current prices, and the number of drilling rigs operating in the tight oil areas has fallen 12% since September.

Combined oil rig count for Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Niobrara, January 2007 to January 2015.  Data source: EIA.

Combined oil rig count for Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Niobrara, January 2007 to January 2015. Data source: EIA.

That presumably means less than a 12% reduction in production from new wells, for two reasons. First, it is the least promising new prospects that will be cut first. Second, there has been a learning curve improving productivity of new wells.

Average oil production per rig (in barrels per day) across Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Niobrara, January 2007 to January 2015.  Data source: EIA.

Average oil production per rig (in barrels per day) across Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Niobrara, January 2007 to January 2015. Data source: EIA.

Working against these is the fact that production from existing wells continues to decline. But at the moment, it seems further adjustments on the part of drillers will be necessary in order to bring the supply of oil in balance with the demand.

This entry was posted on March 8, 2015 by James_Hamilton.

Selected Skeptical Comments
Jeffrey J. Brown March 8, 2015 at 10:25 am

Because of declining production, Mexico no longer has sufficient domestic light, sweet crude oil production to meet the domestic demand from refineries designed to process light crude, so they are going to have to start importing light crude, although they remain a net oil exporter.

In any case, the Pemex official quoted in the following article had an interesting comment about condensate (which is basically natural gasoline that is not of much use as feedstock for producing distillates like diesel fuel).

As I have previously noted, in my opinion it is very likely that actual global crude oil production (45 and lower API gravity crude oil) probably peaked in 2005, while global natural gas production and associated liquids–condensate and NGL's–have so far continued to increase.

And when the EIA refers to "Crude Oil," they define it as actual Crude Oil + Condensate (C+C). Just as we don't know for sure what the Condensate to C+C ratio is for US production, we don't know what the ratio is for US C+C inventories, but in both cases, I suspect that the Condensate to C+C Ratio has increased substantially in recent years.

In any case, US imports of crude oil remain relatively high, at about 44% of the C+C inputs into refineries. I suspect that refiners continue to import a lot of crude oil, because they have to, in order to get the product output that they need.

Mexico's Pemex aims to start importing light crude this year (2014)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/mexico-pemex-idUKL1N0QX2TL20140828

Aug 28 (Reuters) – Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex wants to launch light crude oil imports later this year, potentially reaching up to 70,000 barrels per day (bpd) and aimed at boosting refinery output, the head of its commercial arm said.

The imports would mark an abrupt shift from a decades-old devotion to crude oil self-sufficiency in Mexico, long a major exporter to the United States. It also comes after a sweeping energy sector overhaul which seeks to reverse many years of declining output and export volumes.

"Our objective is that (crude imports) will begin this year," said Jose Manuel Carrera, chief executive officer of PMI Comercio Internacional, Pemex's oil trading arm. His comments are the strongest signals to date on both the timing and potential volumes of light crude imports to Mexico. . . .

While U.S. companies Pioneer Natural Resources and Enterprise Products Partners have secured permission to ship a type of ultralight oil known as condensate to foreign buyers, Carrera all but ruled out the possibility.

"Condensate is not necessarily what Mexico needs. It needs crude," he said.

Jeffrey J. Brown March 8, 2015 at 10:30 am

A product yield by gravity chart follows, which explains why Pemex, and other refiners, need crude oil, not condensate. Note the substantial decline in distillate yield, just going from 39 API gravity to 42 API gravity (labeled as "Condensate" on the chart):

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/Refineryyields_zps4ad928eb.png

And a graph showing API gravity versus sulphur content for several grades of global crude oil (note that the chart scale tops out at 40 API gravity):

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/APGravityVsSulfurContentforCrudeOils_zpsc28e149c.gif

Jeffrey J. Brown March 8, 2015 at 1:46 pm

EIA Forecast for US Crude + Condensate Production by Type

Note the forecast for the very modest increase in 40 API gravity and lower crude oil production, versus the total increase in US C+C production:

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/US%20Crude%20Oil%20Production%20by%20Type_zpsso7lpqgq.png

2slugbaits March 8, 2015 at 11:12 am

Second, there has been a learning curve improving productivity of new wells.

The standard learning curve formulae and learning curve tables that I know and use typically show a very sharp increase initially and then the curves go very flat very quickly.

rjs March 8, 2015 at 1:29 pm

so, i've got a question…if oil inventories are at a record high 444.4 million barrels, up 22.2% from the same period a year ago, as your EIA graph shows, then why did we continue to import 7.4 million barrels a day during the last week of February, 89,000 barrels a day more than we imported during the previous week?

Jeffrey J. Brown March 8, 2015 at 1:49 pm

Perhaps because the bulk of the increase in US Crude + Condensate production and inventories consists of condensate?

SPENCER March 9, 2015 at 6:09 am

We are probably importing more oil because speculators are to bring home and selling stocks that had been held in tankers offshore as a bet on higher prices.

They have to cut their loses at some point.

rjs March 9, 2015 at 6:51 am

i answered my own question above here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/09/1369526/-rig-counts-for-February-and-the-week-just-ended-and-what-are-we-gonna-do-with-all-this-oil
in a word, contango

Randall Parker March 8, 2015 at 10:11 pm

Jeffrey J. Brown, Peak oil has been delayed by technology for extraction of tight oil. The future is uncertain. The doomsters of 10 years ago were excessively pessimist. Care to own up to excessive pessimism? I'm guilty.

The $100 trillion dollar question: can tight gas extraction be made to work outside USA?

Jeffrey J. Brown March 9, 2015 at 6:46 am

To be clarify slightly, in my opinion tight/shale plays have delayed Peak Liquids, while the trillions of dollars spent on global upstream capex since 2005 have just kept us on an undulating plateau of actual crude oil production.

Note that when we ask for the price of oil, we get the price of actual crude oil (45 and lower API gravity crude), but when we ask for the volume of oil, we get some combination of crude + condensate + NGL + biofuels.

Following is a chart showing normalized values for global gas, global natural gas liquids (NGL) and global Crude + Condensate (with 2005 values = 100%), through the year 2012 (similar trends for 2013):

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/Slide1_zps45f11d98.jpg

The following chart, posted up the thread, really tells the tale. It shows the EIA's own projection for the composition of US C+C. As noted up the thread, the distillate yield from 40 and higher API gravity liquids drops tremendously, and what refineries need, in order to meet refined product demand, is mostly 40 and lower API gravity crude (as expressed by the Pemex CEO), while the vast majority of the increase in US liquids production is from 40 and higher API gravity liquids.

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/US%20Crude%20Oil%20Production%20by%20Type_zpsso7lpqgq.png

Condensate & NGL are byproducts of natural gas production, and in my opinion the only reasonable interpretation of the available data is that actual global crude oil production (45 and lower API gravity crude oil) effectively peaked in 2005, while global natural gas production and associated liquids, condensate and NGL, have so far continued to increase.

The end of civilization as we know it March 9, 2015 at 7:44 am

@ Jeffrey J. Brown

Great charts!

They go a long way in explaining why, in many parts of the US, gasoline now sales for more than low-sulfur diesel. Fifteen years ago that never happened.

I'm no refinery expert, but I believe many, if not most, of the myriad petroleum byproducts we depend upon also come from the lower-gravity crude oils. See, for example, A partial list of products made from Petroleum (144 of 6000 items). "One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline," the heading reads. "The rest (over half) is used to make things like:"

I would add a caveat to your discussion. The decision to send Mexico's low-gravity, high-sulfur Mayan crude to the Gulf Coast for refining also has to do with the high-sulfur content of the crude. It's not all about gravity. Like I said, I'm no refinery expert, but I remember reading that Mexico's current refinery infrastructure lacks the capability to refine high-sulfur crude oils. The Gulf Coast refineries, on the other hand, have a surfeit of this type of refining capability. I do not know how much of the decision to send much of Mexico's low-gravity, high-sulfur Mayan crude to the Gulf Coast has to do with gravity, how much has to do with sulfur content, and how much has to do with other factors, such as US geopolitical exigencies (as is the charge frequently leveled here in Mexico). However, these factors are worth looking into.

Jeffrey J. Brown March 9, 2015 at 10:43 am

To clarify slightly, my analysis suggests that gasoline may be in surplus*, relative to distillates like diesel, and the most recent data put the US average retail price for gasoline at $2.46 versus $2.93 for diesel. *Or to be more accurate, refiners don't need any more condensate input.

I think that the following EIA chart, which shows that US 40+ API gravity C+C liquids increased from 1.4 mbpd in 2011 to an estimated 4.2 mbpd in 2015 (an increase of 2.8 mbpd), versus a projected increase of only about 0.7 mbpd in 40 and lower API gravity crude from 2011 to 2015, really tells the tale, especially when combined with the refinery yield chart that shows that Cat Feed + Distillates drops from about 52% at 39 API gravity to about 20% at 42 API gravity:

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/US%20Crude%20Oil%20Production%20by%20Type_zpsso7lpqgq.png

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/Refineryyields_zps4ad928eb.png

40 API and lower crude accounted for 75% of US C+C production in 2011, but the projection was that it would only account for 54% of US C+C production in 2015.

And as noted elsewhere, it took about half the global rig fleet (targeting oil and gas reservoirs) just to show a projected increase of about 0.5 mbpd in quality crude oil production (40 API gravity and lower) from 2011 to 2014.

Jeffrey J. Brown March 9, 2015 at 8:25 am

Re: The $100 trillion dollar question: can tight gas extraction be made to work outside USA?

In areas where tight/shale plays may be commercially feasible outside the US and Canada, the key question is whether operators in a given play can drill and complete wells fast enough to offset the declines from existing wells and add new production. Early last year, US rigs accounted for about half of the total global rig count, which gives one an idea of the scale of the drilling and completion effort that it would take to replace the output from giant declining global oil and gas fields with the output from high decline rate tight/shale plays.

It's interesting to look at some regional declines in US oil and gas production, e.g., marketed Louisiana natural gas production (the EIA doesn't have dry processed data by state).

According to the EIA, the observed simple percentage decline in Louisiana's annual natural gas production from 2012 to 2013 was 20%. This would be the net change in production, after new wells were added. The gross decline rate (from existing wells in 2012) would be even higher. This puts a recent Citi Research estimate in perspective.

Citi estimates that the gross underlying decline rate for overall US natural gas production is about 24%/year. This would be the estimated year over year decline in production if no new wells were put on line.

Based on the Citi report, the US would have to replace 100% of current natural gas production in about four years, just to maintain current gas production for four years*.

*Of course existing production would not decline by about 100% in four years at a 24%/year decline rate, but I am stipulating a "What if" steady state production scenario.

The end of civilization as we know it March 9, 2015 at 7:04 am

This is an extremely bad example of reporting. Does it get any worse than this?

What it does is to take the official spin being evangelized by the EIA and other members of the "drill baby drill" crowd - folks like ExxonMobil's chief executive Rex Tillerson - and faithfully and uncritically parrots it.

It's the same old boilerplate, for example, that we got a couple of days ago from the Financial Times. In its drive to perpetuate what Michael Klare calls the "Reign of Carbon," the Times sublimely reported that:

Oil production in the Eagle Ford is not going to fall away any time soon: with the benchmark West Texas Intermediate at about $50 a barrel on Friday, it is profitable to keep pumping from most established wells. On Wednesday, Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil's chief executive, said US shale production would be more resilient than many had expected.

If the crude price rebounded to $80 or $100, the good times could return.

Those not enamored of being part of Karl Rove's defactualized "create-your-own-reality" universe, however, might want to go over to the Texas Railroad Commission's Online Research Queries to see what is actually going on in the Eagle Ford shale play.

Those who do so will make a shocking discovery: Crude oil and condensate production from the Eagle Ford peaked in August 2014 at 356 million barrels (total production for the entire month). By December 2014 it had fallen to 319 million barrels for the month. And this was well before the precipitous decline in the number of drilling rigs operating in the Eagle Ford. In the first week of September 2014, Baker Hughes reports that 202 drilling rigs were actively drilling in the Eagle Ford. That number by the first week of March 2015 had dropped to 149.

For those skeptical of the future carbon Utopia being touted from inside the Beltway, being spun by the likes of the EIA and Rex Tillerson, IHS has done significant research, and offers a dissident point of view:

IHS study suggests U.S. oil production to halt by mid-year

The end of civilization as we know it March 10, 2015 at 9:14 am

That should read:

Crude oil and condensate production from the Eagle Ford peaked in August 2014 at 356 35.6 million barrels (total production for the entire month). By December 2014 it had fallen to 319 31.9 million barrels for the month.

AS March 9, 2015 at 9:12 am

The End
Could you repeat your comments is a more succinct way (bullet points?) perhaps without sarcasm. If readers are busy, it is difficult to determine your point without reading all the citations. I am interested in what you have to say, but find it difficult to follow your thread without a lot of clicking.

The end of civilization as we know it March 9, 2015 at 12:00 pm

@ AS

Well I'm not sure that the complexity of the human condition or the universe can be reduced to bullet points. However, I'll give it my best shot:

  • The need to slay the energy vampire (and Russia, Venezuela and Iran at the same time) for fun and profit is great.
  • The US right-wingers have their preferred silver bullet to slay the energy vampire: the US's fabled and highly touted shale gas and oil resource plays. (US left-wingers also have their preferred silver bullet to slay the energy vampire - the envisioned future Green energy Utopia - but that is a topic for a different discussion.)
  • Because the need to slay the energy vampire is so great, there's a lot of lying and wishful thinking going on when it comes to shale gas and oil.
  • As it turns out, the right-winger's silver bullet is a blank. It is little more than a flash in the pan.
  • The Barnett Shale play was the first major US shale play.
  • In 2013, the world was shocked when the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas concluded that the average EUR from the 16,000 wells in the Barnett Shale would be only 1.44 billion cubic feet.
  • This was a time when industry, and those advocating for US full-spectrum dominance, were still touting average EURs from wells in the Barnett at between 2 and 3 bcf per well.
  • When the University of Texas released its study in February 2013, many felt that even it was too optimistic. Jim Fuquay, for instance, asked in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "But what about producers' estimates of 2 or even 3 bcf?"
  • Fuquay pointed out that at that time, even though many of the Barnett shale wells had already been producing for years, "Only 512 wells in the Barnett Shale, or less than 3 percent, have produced 2 bcf in their lives." He added that "A mere 70 wells, less than 1 percent, have hit 3 bcf or more."
  • As it turns out, the University of Texas study was too optimistic. If one takes a pen and traces actual production from the Barnett Shale for the past four years over the graph of the study's production forecast, what we see is that production for a couple of years exceeded the forecast, but then production went into a steep nosedive and has declined much more rapidly than the researchers had predicted.
  • Average EUR from a Barnett Shale well now looks to be well below 1 bcf, or a half, a third or even less of what producers had hyped.
  • There is a long history of distortions and exaggerations, which find fertile ground with true believers in American exceptionalism and full-spectrum dominance, being perpetrated by shale oil and gas producers.
  • There exists considerable evidence which suggests that these distortions and exaggerations have not stopped, and that they continue unabated to this very day.
  • As I said, the need to believe in a silver bullet to slay the energy vampire, despite all factual evidence to the contrary, is great.
AS March 9, 2015 at 12:39 pm

The End

Thanks for your comments. If I understand you correctly you agree with Jeffrey Brown and I think Professor Hamilton that we are past peak oil and that world oil harvesting is in decline, since the harvesting of tight oil is not going to rescue an energy hungry world. What now then for energy sources?

Nick G March 10, 2015 at 10:52 am

Well, personal transportation accounts for the majority of oil consumption.

Personal transportation is easily done with EVs – a Chevy Volt costs less to own and operate than the average US passenger vehicle, and gets 200MPG. A Nissan Leaf is the lowest cost vehicle on the road.

EVs can be ramped up pretty quickly – They're 3-4% of sales right now (including hybrids). Production volume could be doubled essentially overnight, and doubled every two years thereafter. In 8 years you could be at 80% of new vehicles, and in another 5 years they'd account for 50% of vehicle miles driven. In another 6 years they'd account for 75% (vehicles less than 6 years old account for 50% of VMT). Ethanol accounts for about 10% of passenger transportation fuel, so a fleet of Chevy Volts could be powered with no oil at all.

There's a pretty straightforward path forward, if we needed a short term fix to get us through a period of fast depletion, or another oil shock while we were transitioning to EVs. The US could reduce passenger fuel consumption by 50% essentially overnight by raising the average passengers per vehicle from 1.2 to 2.4. Look at Uber, look at smartphones for connectin with people. There are very, very few destinations in the US that no one else is going to. On almost any road, look around: there are other people on the road, going in the same direction.

With an ad hoc smartphone based system, you could find someone going in your direction almost anywhere. And, even with old-fashioned employer-based systems, about 10% of Americans carpool to work right now.

Carpooling – the horror.

Mason Inman March 9, 2015 at 4:42 pm

Dr. Hamilton-I was curious where you got the data points for offshore oil production statistics during the early years (~1950 to 1980).

The EIA pages that are cited as the sources of the data appear to only have data separated into on-shore and off-shore going back to 1981. Elsewhere, I've seen EIA data showing this split, going back to 1970, but not any earlier than that.

James_Hamilton Post author March 9, 2015 at 7:05 pm

Mason Inman: See Annual Energy Review, Table 5.2.

Mason Inman March 10, 2015 at 1:27 pm

Thanks so much! I hadn't seen that data set before.

Steven Kopits March 10, 2015 at 3:16 pm

Are we surprised there's corruption and incompetence?

http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/10/news/economy/world-leaders-salaries/index.html?iid=HP_LN

Anonymous March 11, 2015 at 4:29 pm

I wonder if it is possible to do an econometric analysis of fuel prices and actual consumption levels.

We've seen very modest appreciation in fuel efficiency and less driving in the passenger transportation side considering the near tripling of real costs, i.e, how much households spend on gasoline as a percentage of their income.

So, at what price point does elasticity of demand really kick in, and can we do any realistic quantitative projection, controlling for such factors as employment levels and necessity costs (those households who have no alternatives but to pay more – they can't don't have any substitutes in transit or can't afford to buy more efficient vehicles) .

[Mar 11, 2015] Testimony on Ukraine Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Victoria Nuland

March 10, 2015 | http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2015/mar/238722.htm

Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs

Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC

...the situation in the country remains precarious. Ukraine's leaders, in the executive branch and the parliament, know they are in a race against time to clean up the country and enact the difficult and socially painful reforms required to kick start the economy, and meet their commitments to their people, the IMF and the international community. The package of reforms already put forward by the government, and enacted by the Rada, is impressive in its scope and political courage.

Just last week:

  • They passed budget reform expected to slash the deficit this year, and strengthen decentralization by giving more fiscal control to local communities;
  • They made tough choices to reduce and cap pension benefits, increase work requirements and phase in a higher retirement age;
  • They created a new banking provision to stiffen penalties for financiers for stripping assets from banks at the public's expense, a common practice among oligarchs;
  • And, they passed laws cutting wasteful gas subsidies and closing the space for corrupt middlemen that buy low, sell high and rip off the Ukrainian people. These laws will also enhance corporate efficiency, incentivize domestic production, and use $400 million in increased revenue from state-owned gas companies to help care for the poor including some of the 1.7 million people driven from their homes by the conflict.

With U.S. support-including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in foreign assistance and technical advisors-the Ukrainian government is:

  • helping insulate vulnerable Ukrainians from the impact of necessary economic reforms;
  • improving energy efficiency in homes and factories with metering, consumer incentives and infrastructure improvement;
  • building e-governance platforms to make procurement transparent and basic government services cleaner and publicly accessible;
  • putting a newly trained force of beat cops on the streets of Kyiv who will protect, not shake down, the citizens;
  • reforming the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) - supported by U.S. law enforcement and criminal justice advisors - and helping energize law enforcement and just prosecutions;
  • moving to bring economic activity out of the shadows;
  • supporting new agriculture laws-with the help of USAID experts-to deregulate the sector and allow family farms to sell their produce in local, regional and wholesale markets; and
  • helping those forced to flee Donetsk and Luhansk with USAID jobs and skills training programs in places like Kharkiv.

And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of $513.5 million-almost six times more than our FY14 request-to build on these efforts.

To turn the page, Ukraine's hard work must continue. Between now and the summer, we must see budget discipline maintained and tax collection enforced across the country-notably including on some of Ukraine's richest citizens who have enjoyed impunity for too long. We need to see continued reforms at Naftogaz and across the energy sector; final passage of agriculture legislation; full and impartial implementation of anti-corruption measures, including a commitment to break the oligarchic, kleptocratic culture have has decimated the country.

... ... ...

Throughout this conflict, the United States and the EU have worked in lock-step to impose successive rounds of tough sanctions-including sectoral sanctions-on Russia and its separatist cronies as the costs for their actions. In Crimea, we have shown through our investment sanctions that if you bite off a piece of another country, it will dry up in your mouth. Our unity with Europe remains the cornerstone of our policy toward this crisis.

And it is in that spirit that we salute the efforts of German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande in Minsk on February 12th to try again to end the fighting in Ukraine's East. The Minsk Package of Agreements-September 5th, September 19th and the February 12th implementing agreement-offer a real opportunity for peace, disarmament, political normalization and decentralization in eastern Ukraine, and the return of Ukrainian state sovereignty and control of its territory and borders. Russia agreed to it; Ukraine agreed to it; the separatists agreed to it. And the international community stands behind it.

For some eastern Ukrainians, conditions have begun to improve. Along long areas of the line of contact, particularly in Luhansk Oblast, the cease-fire has taken hold; the guns have quieted in some towns and villages; some weapons have been withdrawn; some hostages have been released.

But the picture is very mixed. Since the February 15th cease-fire, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has recorded hundreds of violations. Debaltseve, a key rail hub beyond the cease-fire lines, fell to the separatists and Russian forces six days after Minsk was signed and three days after the cease-fire was to come into effect. In Shchastya, in villages near the Donetsk Airport, in Shyrokyne and other towns around Mariupol the shelling continues, as verified by OSCE Special Monitor Authority.

In the coming days, not weeks or months-here is what we need to see:

  • A complete cease-fire in all parts of eastern Ukraine;
  • Full, unfettered access to the whole conflict zone including all separatist-held territory, for OSCE monitors; and
  • A full pull-back of all heavy weapons-Ukrainian, Russian and separatist-as stipulated in the agreements, under OSCE monitoring and verification.

... ... ...

[Mar 10, 2015] The Disintegrating Empire Of Controlled Chaos by Dmitry Orlov

Mar 10, 2015 | Zero Hedge via Club Orlovb blog,
The term "chaos" has been popping up a lot lately in the increasingly collapse-prone world in which we find ourselves. Pepe Escobar has even published a book on it. Titled Empire of Chaos, it describes a scenario "where an American] plutocracy progressively projects its own internal disintegration upon the whole world." Escobar's chaos is tailor-made; its purpose is "to prevent an economic integration of Eurasia that would leave the U.S. a non-hegemon, or worse still, an outsider."

Escobar is not the only one thinking along these lines; here is Vladimir Putin speaking at the Valdai Conference in 2014:

A unilateral diktat and imposing one's own models produces the opposite result. Instead of settling conflicts it leads to their escalation, instead of sovereign and stable states we see the growing spread of chaos, and instead of democracy there is support for a very dubious public ranging from open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.

Why do they support such people? They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals but then burn their fingers and recoil. I never cease to be amazed by the way that our partners just keep stepping on the same rake, as we say here in Russia, that is to say, make the same mistake over and over.

Indeed, Escobar's chaos doesn't seem to be working too well. Eurasian integration is very much on track, with China and Russia now acting as an economic, military and political unit, and with other Eurasian states eager to play a role. The European Union is, for the moment, being excluded from Eurasia because it is effectively under American occupation, but this state of affairs is unlikely to last due to budgetary problems. (To be precise, we have to say that it is under NATO occupation, but if we dig just a little, we find that NATO is really just the US military with a European façade hammered onto it Potemkin village-style.)

And so the term "empire" seems rather misplaced. Empires are ambitious undertakings that seek to exert control over their domain, and what sort of an empire is it if its main activity is stepping on the same rake over and over again? A silly one? Then why not just call it "The Silly Empire"? Indeed, there are lots of fun silly imperial activities to choose from. For example: arm and train moderate opposition to a regime you want to overthrow; find out that it isn't moderate at all; try to bomb them into submission and fail at that too.

Some people raise the criticism that the empire does in fact function because somebody somewhere is profiting from all this chaos. Indeed they are, but taking this as a sign of imperial success is tantamount to regarding getting mugged on the way to the supermarket as a sign of economic success. Success has nothing to do with it, but Escobar's "internal disintegration" does seem apt: the disintegrating empire's internal chaos is leaking out and causing chaos everywhere.

Still, the US makes every effort to exert control, mainly by exerting pressure on friends and enemies alike, and by demanding unquestioning obedience. Some might call this "controlled chaos."

But what is "controlled chaos"? How does one control chaos, and is it even possible? Let's delve.

Chaos Theory

There is a branch of mathematics called chaos theory. It deals with dynamic systems that exhibit a certain set of behaviors:

  • For any causal relationship that can be observed, tiny differences in initial conditions cause large differences in outcome. The hackneyed example is the "butterfly effect" where the hypothetical flapping of the wings of a butterfly influences the course of a hurricane some weeks later. Or, to pick a more meaningful example, if the stock market were a chaotic system, then investing a million dollars in an index fund might result in a portfolio of about a million dollars a few months later; whereas investing a million and one dollars might result in a portfolio of minus a trillion dollars and change.
  • Unpredictability beyond a short time-period: given finite initial information about a system, its behavior beyond a short period of time becomes impossible to predict. Since information about a real-world system is always finite, being limited by what can be observed and measured, chaotic systems are by their nature unpredictable.
  • Topological mixing: any given region of a chaotic system's phase space will eventually overlap with every other region. Chaotic systems can have several distinct states, but eventually these states will mix. For example, if a certain bank were a chaotic system, with two distinct states-solvent and bankrupt-then these states would eventually mix.

Mathematicians like to play with models of chaos, which are deterministic and time-invariant: they can run a simulation over and over again with slightly different inputs, and observe the result. But real-world chaotic systems are non-deterministic and non-time-invariant: not only do they produce wildly different outputs based on very slightly different inputs, but they produce different outputs every time. What's more, even if deterministic chaotic systems did exist in nature, they would be indistinguishable from so-called "stochastic" systems-ones that exhibit randomness.

Control Theory

Another branch of mathematics deals with ways of controlling dynamic processes. A typical example is a thermostat: it maintains constant temperature by turning a heat source on if the temperature drops below a certain threshold, and off again if it rises above a certain other threshold. (The difference between the two thresholds is called "hysteresis.") Another typical example is the autopilot: it is a device that computes the difference between the programmed course and the actual course (called an "error signal" and applies that error signal to a control mechanism to keep the boat or the plane on course. There are many variations on this theme, but the overall scheme is always the same: measure system output, compare to reference, compute error signal, and apply it as negative feedback to the system.

In order to apply control theory to a system, that system must obey certain principles. One is the superposition principle: output must be proportional to the input. Left rudder always causes the boat to turn left; more left rudder causes it to boat to turn left faster. Another is time-invariance: the boat reacts to changes in rudder angle the same way every time. These are necessities; but most applications of control theory make an additional assumption of linearity: that changes in system behavior are linearly proportional to changes in control input. Since all real-world systems are non-linear, an effort is usually made to endow them with a relatively linear flat spot in the middle of their useful range. Turn a boat's rudder a little bit, and the boat turns as expected; turn it too far, and it stalls and no longer works.

Applying control theory to chaotic systems is tricky, because of the issue of "controllability": is it possible to put a system in a particular state by applying particular control signals? In a chaotic system, very small error signals can produce very large differences in system output. Therefore, a chaotic system cannot be controlled. However, an uncontrollable system can sometimes be stabilized and made to cycle around within a particular, useful, or at least non-lethal, part of its phase space. Generally, to stabilize the system, it must be observable: it must be possible to measure the output of the system and use it to issue corrections. However, even an an unobservable system can still be stabilized, by detecting its state periodically and applying a control signal to push it incrementally in the right direction.

Here is a real-world example. Suppose you are hurtling along a slush-covered highway in a subcompact car with bald summer tires. At some point a very minor perturbation of some sort will transform this controllable system into an uncontrollable one: the car will start spinning. Since it can no longer be steered, it will slide toward the barrier on one side of the highway or the other. It will also become unobservable: with the driver spinning along with the car, it will become impossible to observe the car's trajectory based on short glimpses of the roadway spinning past. Can this situation be stabilized?

Yes, it turns out that it can be. This is a trick I learned from a jet fighter pilot, which I was then able to apply to the exact scenario I just described. If a jet starts tumbling out of control, the pilot's job is to get it to stop tumbling and to get it back to level flight. This is done by twisting one's head back and forth in rhythm with the spin, catching glimpses of the horizon, and working the yoke, also in rhythm to the spin, to slow it down, and to make the horizon go horizontal.

In a car, the driver's job is to get the car to stop spinning without hitting the barrier on either side of the highway. This is done by twisting one's head in rhythm to the spin, catching glimpses of the barriers on each side of the road, and working the steering wheel, also in rhythm to get the car to stop spinning while keeping it away from either barrier. If the car is spinning clockwise, then a clockwise twist to the steering wheel will move it forward, a counterclockwise twist will move it backward, and a stomp on the brakes will slow down its forward or backward motion somewhat.

This is typically the best that can be done in controlling chaos: using small perturbations to keep the system within a certain range of safe, useful states, keeping it out of any number of useless or dangerous ones. But there is one more caveat: such applications of control theory to chaotic systems require finding out the properties of the chaotic system ahead of time. That's rather tricky to do if a system evolves continuously in response to these small perturbations. In situations that involve politics or military matters, applying the same control measure twice is about as effective as telling the same joke twice to the same audience: you become the joke.

* * *

The moral of this story should be obvious by now: as with the car on a slush-covered highway, any fool can get it to spin out, but that same fool is then unlikely to have the presence of mind, the skill and the steel nerves to keep it from hitting one of the barriers. Same goes for the would-be builders of an "empire of controlled chaos": sure, they can generate chaos, but controlling it in a manner that allows them to derive some benefit from it is rather out of the question, and even their ability to stabilize it, so that they are not themselves hurt by it, is in grave doubt.

[Mar 10, 2015] Sheldon Adelson – The Dangerous American Oligarch Behind Benjamin Netanyahu

Mar 10, 2015 | Zero H4edge
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

"What are we going to negotiate about? What I would say is, 'Listen, you see that desert out there? I want to show you something,'" Adelson said at Yeshiva University. "You pick up your cellphone, and you call somewhere in Nebraska, and you say, 'okay, let it go.' So there's an atomic weapon goes over - ballistic missiles - in the middle of the desert that doesn't hurt a soul."

Adelson continued: "Then you say, 'See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran.' So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development.

– From the Washington Post article: Adelson: Obama Should Fire Nuke to Send Message to Iran

That a handful of extraordinarily rich and powerful oligarchs as well as mega-corporations have completely hijacked the American political process is hardy news. It's been the key topic of discussion here at Liberty Blitzkrieg and elsewhere for many years (see: New Report from Princeton and Northwestern Proves It: The U.S. is an Oligarchy).

What makes their control so effective is the use of an army of lobbyists, lawyers, Super PACs and bought and paid for politicians to do their dirty work, thus employing an opaque network of well-heeled minions created to conceal who is really pulling the strings.

Of all the commentary written about Netanyahu's embarrassing political stunt in front of the U.S. Congress last week, the most important angle was largely overlooked. That is, it sort of represented a coming out party for the American oligarch from behind the curtain.

Sheldon Adelson, by all accounts a vile and violent sort of the worst kind, has made entirely controlling the Republican party his lifelong achievement. Additionally, and quite significantly to U.S. and Israeli citizens, Mr. Adelson has transformed himself into the puppet-master behind Benjamin Netanyahu. Just so there's no misunderstanding about who Sheldon Adelson is, let's revisit a post from last year titled, Inside the Mind of an Oligarch – Sheldon Adelson Proclaims "I Don't Like Journalism". Here's an excerpt:

Billionaire casino mogul and conservative donor Sheldon Adelson said Sunday that the Palestinians are a made-up nation which exists solely to attempt to destroy Israel.

At the conference, which also featured top Democratic funder Haim Saban, Adelson also said Israel would not be able to survive as a democracy: "So Israel won't be a democratic state, so what?" he asked Saban, adding that democracy, after all, is not mentioned in the Torah,and recommended that the country build a "big wall" to protect itself, saying, "I would put up a big wall around my property."

Saban and Adelson should buy The New York Times together in an effort to bring more "balance" to the newspaper's coverage of Israel and the Middle East, Adelson suggested to wild applause.

"I don't like journalism," Adelson said, highlighting what he said was the media's insistence on focusing on the empty half of the glass.

Bill Moyers recently hit the nail on the head when it comes to Sheldon Adelson and his war catalyzing puppet, Benjamin Netanyahu. He writes:

Everything you need to know about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress Tuesday was the presence in the visitor's gallery of one man – Sheldon Adelson.

The gambling tycoon is the Godfather of the Republican Right. The party's presidential hopefuls line up to kiss his assets, scraping and bowing for his blessing, which when granted is bestowed with his signed checks. Data from both the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity show that in the 2012 election cycle, Adelson and his wife Miriam (whose purse achieved metaphoric glory Tuesday when it fell from the gallery and hit a Democratic congressman) contributed $150 million to the GOP and its friends, including $93 million to such plutocracy-friendly super PACs as Karl Rove's American Crossroads, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, Winning Our Future (the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC) and Restore Our Future (the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC).

Yet there's no knowing for sure about all of the "dark money" contributed by the Adelsons – so called because it doesn't have to be reported. Like those high-rise, multi-million dollar apartments in New York City purchased by oligarchs whose identity is hidden within perfectly legal shell organizations, dark money lets our politicians conveniently erase fingerprints left by their ink-stained (from signing all those checks) billionaire benefactors.

Adelson owns the daily Israel Hayom, a leading newspaper, as well as Makor Roshon, the daily newspaper of Israel's Zionist religious right and NRG, a news website. He gives Israel Hayom away for free in order to promote his hardline views – the headline in the paper the day after Obama's re-election was "The US Voted [for] Socialism."

More important, he uses the paper to bang the drum incessantly for Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud Party, under the reign of which Israel has edged closer and closer to theocracy. As Hebrew University economist Momi Dahan put it: "De facto, the existence of a newspaper like Israel Hayom egregiously violates the law, because [Adelson] actually is providing a candidate with nearly unlimited resources."

In fact, as Israel's March 17 election approaches, Adelson has increased the press run of Israel Hayom's weekend edition by 70 percent. The paper says it's to increase circulation and advertising, but rival newspaper Ha'aretz reports, "Political sources are convinced the extra copies are less part of a business plan and more one to help Netanyahu's re-election bid." Just like the timing of Netanyahu's "State of the Union" address to Congress this week was merely a coincidence, right? "I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political," Netanyahu told Congress. "That was never my intention." Of course.

So Netanyahu gets the best of both of Adelson's worlds – his powerful propaganda machine in Israel and his campaign cash here in the United States. Combined, they allow Netanyahu to usurp American foreign policy as he manipulates an obliging US Congress enamored of Adelson's millions, pushing it further to the right on Israel and the Middle East.

There you have it: Not only is this casino mogul the unofficial head of the Republican Party in America ("he with the gold rules"), he is the uncrowned King of Israel - David with a printing press and checkbook instead of a slingshot and a stone. All of this came to the fore in Netanyahu's speech on Tuesday: the US cannot determine its own policy in the Middle East and the majority in Congress are under the thumb of a foreign power.

Everything you need to know about Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress Tuesday was the presence in the visitor's gallery of that man. We are hostage to his fortune.

Don't forget the quote at the top where he suggested scaring Iran into submission by threatening to drop a nuke on Tehran. Who's the aggressor again?

This whole thing takes on a much greater level of significance given Adelson's near total control of the U.S. Republican party, as well as his control over Israel's Prime Minister. The man is not only the 8th richest man in the world, he's also a menace to civilized society, and people need to start paying a lot more attention to him.

I think the following illustration from Haaretz sums it up best:

Divine Wind
Stop firing missiles into our territory.

Stop sending suicide bombers into our territory.

Remove from your charter the destruction of Israel.

It really is that simple.

Start here, and perhaps we will stop punching you in the face.

Greenskeeper_Carl
http://original.antiwar.com/rothbard/2010/03/02/war-guilt-in-the-middle-...

here you go, people. read this and learn something. Before you start in with your "thats anti-semitic" crap and repeat the same bullshit that any criticism of Isreal is jew hating, keep in mind this was written by Murray Rothbard, a Jew. And, it was written in 1967.

cornfritter

Here's a badass summary of these critters... they are trouble, and there are people fighting them - MUST READ

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/08/the-hidden-history-of-the-incred...

Peace

PS - I always liked rothbard - straight talker

YHC-FTSE

If you want to see why people equate Israel with ISIS, look no further than the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who said that Israeli arabs disloyal to the State of Israel should have their heads chopped off. How about ISIS terrorists being treated in Israeli hospitals to be sent back out to fight again? These Israelis are sick fucks who deserve all the insulting epithets I can muster to describe their actions.

I cannot for the life of me understand the psychopaths who support Israel. I implore jewish folks to join all of us to voice their displeaure instead of keeping silent about the pernicous evils of zionist nazis who founded and control that terrorist apartheid state of genocidal lunatics.

[Mar 10, 2015] Frontline Ukraine: How Europe failed to slay the demons of war by Richard Sakwa

March 10, 2015 | The Guardian

In an extract from his new book, historian Richard Sakwa argues that the current conflict has its roots in the exclusion of Russia from genuine partnerships since the end of the cold war

In 2014, history returned to Europe with a vengeance. The crisis over Ukraine brought back not only the spectre but the reality of war, on the 100th anniversary of a conflict that had been spoken of as the war to end all war. The great powers lined up, amid a barrage of propaganda and informational warfare, while many of the smaller powers made their contribution to the festival of irresponsibility.

This was also the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the second world war, which wreaked so much harm on central and eastern Europe. The fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years earlier and the subsequent end of the cold war had been attended by expectations of a Europe "whole and free".

These hopes were crushed in 2014, and Europe is now set for a new era of division and confrontation. The Ukrainian crisis was the immediate cause, but this only reflected deeper contradictions in the pattern of post-communist development since 1989. In other words, the European and Ukrainian crises came together to devastating effect.

The "Ukrainian crisis" refers to profound tensions in the the country's nation and state-building processes since it achieved independence in late 1991, which now threaten the unity of the state itself.

These are no longer described in classical ideological terms, but, in the Roman manner, through the use of colours. The Orange tendency thinks in terms of a Ukraine that can finally fulfil its destiny as a nation state, officially monolingual, culturally autonomous from other Slavic nations and aligned with "Europe" and the Atlantic security community. This is a type of "monism", because of its emphasis on the singularity of the Ukrainian experience.

By contrast, Blue has come to symbolise a rather more plural understanding of the challenges facing Ukraine, recognising that the country's various regions have different historical and cultural experiences, and that the modern state needs to acknowledge this diversity in a more capacious constitutional settlement. For the Blues, Ukraine is more of a "state nation", an assemblage of different traditions, but above all one where Russian is recognised as a second state language and economic, social and even security links with Russia are maintained. Of course, the Blue I am talking about is an abstraction, not the blue of former president Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions.

The Blues, no less than the Orangists, have been committed to the idea of a free and united Ukraine, but favour a more comprehensive vision of what it means to be Ukrainian. We also have to include the Gold tendency, the powerful oligarchs who have dominated the country since the 1990s, accompanied by widespread corruption and the decay of public institutions.

Since independence, there has been no visionary leader to meld these colours to forge a Ukrainian version of the rainbow nation.

The "Ukraine crisis" also refers to the way that internal tensions have become internationalised to provoke the worst crisis in Europe since the end of the cold war. Some have even compared its gravity with the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. The world at various points stood close to a new conflagration, provoked by desperately overheated rhetoric on all sides.

The asymmetrical end of the cold war effectively shut Russia out from the European alliance system. The failure to establish a genuinely inclusive and equal security system on the continent imbued European international politics with powerful stress points, which in 2014 produced the international earthquake that we now call the Ukraine crisis.

There had been plenty of warning signs, with Boris Yeltsin, the Russian Federation's first leader, in December 1994 already talking in terms of a "cold peace". When he came to power in 2000, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin devoted himself to overcoming the asymmetries.

In Greater Europe there would be no need to choose between Brussels, Washington or Moscow

The major non-state institution at the heart of the architecture of post-communist Europe, the European Union (EU), exacerbated the tensions rather than resolving them. The EU represents the core of what could be called "Wider Europe" – a Brussels-centric vision that extends into the heartlands of what had once been an alternative great-power system centred on Moscow. The increasing merger of Wider Europe with the Atlantic security system only made things worse.

Russia and some European leaders proposed not so much an alternative but a complementary vision to the monism of Wider Europe, known as "Greater Europe": a way of bringing together all corners of the continent to create what Mikhail Gorbachev in the final period of the Soviet Union had called the "Common European Home". This is a multipolar and pluralistic concept of Europe, allied with but not the same as the Atlantic community.

In Greater Europe there would be no need to choose between Brussels, Washington or Moscow. In the absence of the tensions generated by the post-cold war "unsettlement", the peace promised at the end of the cold war would finally arrive. Instead, the double "Ukrainian" and "Ukraine" crises combined with catastrophic consequences.

For me, this is both personal and political. The cold war division of Europe is the reason I was born and grew up in Britain and not in Poland, but, even before that, war and preparations for war had scarred my family. In the inter-war years my father, an agronomist by profession but like so many of his generation also a reservist in the Polish army, marched up and down between Grodno and Lwów (as it was then called).

He told of the 25kg he had to carry in his backpack, with all sorts of equipment and survival tools. The area at the time was part of the Second Polish Republic, and for generations had been settled by Poles. These were the kresy, the borderlands of Europe grinding up against the ever-rising power of the Russian empire. With the partition of Poland in the 18th century, Grodno and what is now the western part of Belarus was ceded to Russia, while Lemberg (the German name for Lwów) and the surrounding province of Galicia became part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

On gaining independence in 1918, and with Russia and the nascent Ukrainian state in the throes of revolution and civil war, the various armies repeatedly marched back and forth across the region. In the end the Polish state occupied an enormous territory to the east of the Curzon Line.

These were the lands occupied by Joseph Stalin, following the division of the area according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939. Poland was invaded on 1 September and against the overwhelming might of Adolf Hitler's armies the Polish forces fell back, only for the Soviet Union to invade on 17 September.

My father's unit soon came up against the Soviet forces, and when greeted initially by the Poles as coming to support them against the Germans, they were asked to disarm. My father escaped to Hungary, but many of his reservist comrades were captured, and eventually murdered in Katyn and other killing sites.

My father subsequently joined the Polish second corps under General Anders, and with the British eighth army fought at El Alamein, Benghazi, Tobruk and then all the way up Italy, spending six months at Monte Cassino. At the end of the war Poland was liberated, but it was not free. Unable to return to their homeland, the family was granted refuge in Britain. In the meantime, the Soviet borders were extended to the west, and Lwów became Lvov.

These were territories that had never been part of the Russian empire, and when Ukraine gained independence in 1991 they became the source of the distinctive Orange vision of Ukrainian statehood. Today Lvov has become Lviv, while its representation of what it means to be Ukrainian is contested by other regions and communities, notably the Blues, each of which has endured an equally arduous path to become part of the modern Ukrainian state.

As for the political, being a product of an ideologically and geographically divided Europe, I shared the anticipation at the end of the cold war in 1989–91 that a new and united Europe could finally be built. For a generation the EU helped transcend the logic of conflict in the western part of the continent by binding the traditional antagonists, France and Germany, into a new political community, one that expanded from the founding six that signed the Treaty of Rome in March 1957 to the 28 member states of today.

The Council of Europe, established in 1949, broadened its activities into the post-communist region, and now encompasses 47 nations and 820 million citizens, as its website proudly proclaims. The European Convention of Human Rights and its additional protocols established a powerful normative framework for the continent, policed by the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg. Russia in the 1990s actively engaged with the EU, signing a Partnership and Cooperation agreement in 1994, although it only took effect on 30 October 1997 following the first Chechen war, and the next year Russia joined the Council of Europe.

However, another dynamic was at work, namely the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). Also established in 1949 to bring together the victorious western allies, now ranged against the Soviet Union in what had become the cold war.

Nato was not disbanded when the Soviet Union disintegrated and the cold war came to an end. This was the source of the unbalanced end to the cold war, with the eastern part dissolving its alliance system while Nato in the 1990s began a march to the east.

An East German border guard looks through a hole in the Berlin Wall on 19 November 1989.

This raised increasing alarm in Russia, and, while notionally granting additional security to its new members, it meant that security in the continent had become divisible. Worse, there was an increasing perception that EU enlargement was almost the automatic precursor to Nato expansion.

The failure to create a genuinely inclusive and symmetrical post-communist order generated what some call a new cold war

There was a compelling geopolitical logic embedded in EU enlargement. For example, although many member states had reservations about the readiness of Bulgaria and Romania to join, there was a fear that they could drift off and become western versions of Ukraine. The project of European economic integration, and its associated peace project, effectively merged with the Euro-Atlantic security partnership, a fateful elision that undermined the rationale of both and which in the end provoked the Ukraine crisis.

The failure to create a genuinely inclusive and symmetrical post-communist political and security order generated what some took to calling a "new cold war", or, more precisely, a "cold peace", which stimulated new resentments and the potential for new conflicts.

It became increasingly clear that the demons of war in Europe had not been slain. Instead, the Ukraine crisis demonstrates just how fragile international order has become, and how much Europe has to do to achieve the vision that was so loudly proclaimed, when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, of a continent united from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

The Ukraine crisis forces us to rethink European international relations. If Europe is not once again to be divided, there need to be new ideas about what an inclusive and equitable political and security order encompassing the whole continent would look like. In other words, the idea of Greater Europe needs to be endowed with substance and institutional form.

Unfortunately, it appears that the opposite will happen: old ideas will be revived, the practices of the cold war will, zombie-like, come back to life, and once again there will be a fatal dividing line across Europe that will mar the lives of the generation to come. This is far from inevitable, but to avoid it will require a shift in the mode of political intercourse from exprobration to diplomacy, and from denunciation to dialogue.

Thus the personal and the political combine, and this book is much an exploration of failed opportunities as it is an account of how we created yet another crisis in European international politics on the anniversaries of the start of two world wars and a moment of hope in 1989. My father's generation suffered war, destruction and displacement, and yet the European civil war that dominated the 20th century still inflames the political imagination of the 21st.

To order Frontline Ukraine for £15.19 (RRP £18.99), go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846

Richard Sakwa is professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent

See also:

  • The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war | Seumas Milne
  • Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands by Richard Sakwa review – an unrivalled account



jakartamoscow Bud Peart 10 Mar 2015 10:44

When an objective article shows up, expect another 3500 anti-Russian article the following two months. SOP.


DIPSET 10 Mar 2015 10:29

The asymmetrical end of the cold war effectively shut Russia out from the European alliance system,

Which only served to accelerate the Russian pivot to China.

With the Chinese publicly and explicitly in the past week saying that they agree and support Russia's actions in Ukraine, battle lines are being drawn.

Today brings further confirmation of the rubicon being crossed........

China's long-awaited international payment system to process cross-border yuan transactions is ready, and may be launched as early as September or October, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

"The CIPS is ready now and China has selected 20 banks to do the testing, among which 13 banks are Chinese banks and the rest are subsidiaries of foreign banks," one of the sources told the agency.

For a while China has been exploring methods to cut dependence on the dollar and other hard currencies in international trade, hoping to settle more deals in yuan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/09/us-china-yuan-payments-exclusive-idUSKBN0M50BV20150309?irpc=932


Absolutely fascinating times......


SHappens 10 Mar 2015 10:27

Now that you are about to become a close ally of the US and a dictator at the same time, you should be warned that this might not be the beginning of a long-living love affair that inevitably ends with an account full of dollars, an army equipped with the finest stuff ever produced to kill your enemies, with the warm feeling of security because your American advisers taught your people how to get rid of your opponents, and with standing ovations at the UN Security Council for whatever you will say against Russians and other foes.

This is a little history lesson to remind you that the weather in Washington is much more capricious than the continental climate of Eurasia.

The US certainly won Cold War, but not necessarily their Allies. One of the first to experience that fine difference was Saddam Hussein, Washington's close ally in the Middle East for much of the 1980s. Hussein was a CIA asset to overthrow the Qassim-Regime, which was for the Americans too close to Soviet Union.

http://original.antiwar.com/michael_pesek/2015/03/06/an-open-letter-to-petro-poroshenko/ . A must read.

aprescoup 10 Mar 2015 10:22

The first narrative on Ukraine and Russia that makes sense to me. Why don't the others get it? Obama, Kerry, Nuland, Bildt, Merkel, Hollande? Because they are thick? Or because they don't want to get it?


irishmand -> Oskar Jaeger 10 Mar 2015 10:17

Russia has been demonised during the last year, yes, but deservedly so.
The ruins of Ukraine are the reason.

Who decides about Russia deserves demonising? The people who can possibly profit from it, because they want to supply more arms?

foolisholdman -> jasonbirder 10 Mar 2015 10:16

jasonbirder

Only after Stalingrad did the US President decide to circumvent the US Congress' specific ban in getting involved in the European War and help the UK

I'm confused...didn't the US declare war on Germany in December 1941...whereas the German Forces were defeated at Stalingrad in early 1943...over a year later!

Yes, you are confused. I think you have been deliberately confused. The USA did not declare war on Germany. Germany declared war on the USA.

So it is not President Rooseveldt whom we have to thank for bringing the USA into the war on the side of democracy and decency but Herr Hitler!


MoneyCircus Jonathan Stromberg 10 Mar 2015 09:46

An intelligent and detailed argument shot straight over your head, didn't it.

In his article Sakwa says that conflict was inevitable (if not over Ukraine, then over some other point) because - primarily - of the failure of countries and blocs to adapt to changing realities.

It has been clear for 20 years that the EU has forgotten its origins as a way to prevent war and has become a tool of commercial, mercantile and territorial expansion. The phrase "fortress Europe" is a clue.

I'll add to Sakwa's point - that the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 was not marked by the sort of reflection and self-analysis that many of us expected. And this was for good reason.

The build up of arms, the great game for resources and the alliances (launching wars of proxy terror against each other) recall the run up to WW1, far more than they do WW2.


oalexander BunglyPete 10 Mar 2015 09:44

This is your so-called western freedom of press:

http://thesaker.is/full-videos-of-the-cnn-and-ard-interviews-with-putin-in-russia-and-with-english-subtitles-updated/

The rest is lies and half-truths as can be found in the so-called pluralistic western media. There may have been a time in the past, but this has gone a long, long time ago.

Please also compare Cuba crisis and Kosovo with Nato east expansion and Crimea.

vr13vr jezzam 10 Mar 2015 12:10

"This crisis was triggered by Ukraine moving towards EU membership rather than Putins's Eurasian Union. Since EU rules require such things as recognition of the rights of minorities, it is hard to see how this could be any threat towards ethnic Russians in Ukraine."

From having the EU requirements to the mood on the street, the difference was huge. Whatever the requirements could have been, the mood on the street at the moment wasn't meeting those requirements. That "rather than Putin's Union" further instigated the anti-Russian mood.

That piled up on top of the fact that those areas never wanted to be part of Ukraine anyway. So you have the areas that were reluctant to be in Ukraine to begin with, coupled with the nationalistically energized mood on the streets elsewhere that would result in West Ukrainian desire to finally make those areas loyal. Even if it is against the EU rules.

And of course the fact that the government voted for by the East and the South voters was overthrown in violent uprising (for the second time in a decade) didn't give much confidence in the stability either.


TOR2000 jezzam 10 Mar 2015 11:50

"The Kremlin then proposed to Brussels that negotiations be conducted between the EU and the Eurasion Union -- directly between the two blocs of power. But European Commission President José Manuel Barroso refused to meet with the leaders of the Eurasion Union, a bloc he considered to be an EU competitor.

"One country cannot at the same time be a member of a customs union and be in a deep common free-trade area with the European Union," the commission president said on February 25. He said that Kiev had to decide which path it wanted to take. The message was clear: Kiev had to choose either Brussels or Moscow." (Summit of Failure: How the EU Lost Russia over Ukraine http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/war-in-ukraine-a-result-of-misunderstandings-between-europe-and-russia-a-1004706.html)


John Smith Sceptical Walker 10 Mar 2015 11:47

As for Libya, it was not a US business as you like to portray it. A large number of states were willingly involved to stop Khadaffi (like Assad) from killing his own people.

HaHa nice fairy tale )
Maybe they killed him because he wanted to sell oil in other currencies, and also wanted 160 bn$ from Goldman Sachs and more from other financial institutions back.
Libya under Gaddafi:
GDP per capita - $ 14,192.
* For each family member the state pays $ 1000 grants.
* Unemployment - $ 730.
* Salary Nurse - $ 1000.
* For every newborn is paid $ 7000.
* The bride and groom given away $ 64,000 to buy an apartment.
* At the opening of a one-time personal business financial assistance - $ 20,000.
* Large taxes and extortions are prohibited.
* Education and medicine are free.
* Education and training abroad - at the expense of the state.
* Store chain for large families with symbolic prices of basic foodstuffs.
* For the sale of products past their expiry date - large fines and detention
* Part of pharmacies - free
* For counterfeiting - the death penalty.
* Rents - none.
* Fees for electricity for households -none!
* Sales and use of alcohol is prohibited - prohibition.
* Loans to buy a car and an apartment - interest free.
* Real estate services were prohibited.
* Buying a car up to 50% paid by the state, militia fighters - 65%.
* Gasoline is cheaper than water. 1 liter - 0,14 $
-If a Libyan is unable to get employment after graduation the state would pay the average salary of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
- A portion of Libyan oil sale is, credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens
-Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project, known as the Great Man-Made River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country

TOR2000 psygone 10 Mar 2015 11:41

Weren't Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab, the main rebel leaders in Chechnya, trained in CIA-sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan?


DIPSET irishmand 10 Mar 2015 11:30

@irishmand

You nationality will, justifiably, make you wary but there is no evidence of them "stabbing" your lot in the back. China fully understand that after the Yanks try and crush you, they are next.

Call it a marriage of conveniance of you must.

A common enemy (hello America "exceptionalism" lol) has sharpened minds. As the little incident with Hong Kong last year showed, "freedom and democracy" is what they are itching to bring to the Chinese mainland.

Incidentally, the way they banned the UK officials from entering Hong Kong was hilarious as our MP's were reduced to moaning and whining on twitter that China was not playing fair lol.

In Lavrov you have a master diplomat who has ridden this redeo before and knows how to deal with the European puppets.

In Putin you have a man that will never allow Russia to be subjugated. Ever.

The rest is just semantics as they say......

2015 is that year, either way

BorninUkraine -> DIPSET 10 Mar 2015 11:24

Unipolar world is dead, RIP. Right now, China, India, much of the rest of Asia, and most of Latin America and Africa are happy to let Russia take the flak for standing up to the bully.

But they know that soon they will have to defend their own interests. That's why they side with Russia not so much because they support its policies, but because it is giving a black eye to the US.

geedeesee 10 Mar 2015 11:19

Professor Richard Sakwa can point to history, as if Obama was handed a difficult legacy, but it doesn't justify or mitigate the crisis which erupted in 2014. Obama had the opportunity to shed any past mistakes. Indeed, he recognised this with the "Re-Set' of US-Russian relations soon after taking office.

The current crisis has its beginnings well within the Obama administration. When, in November 2013, the Yanukovich government and civil-servant advisers decided the Russian offer was better than the EU offer, someone in the Obama administration decided they were going to overturn it. Victoria Nuland's speech the following month at the US/Ukraine Foundation in Washington, in which she revealed US had spent $5 billion, demonstrated their resolve to overrule the government of Ukraine:

...it would be a huge shame to see five years' worth of work and preparation go to waste if the AA [EU deal] is not signed in the near future. So it is time to finish the job.

Time to finish the job! A statement like that has the backing of senior level policy decision. Obama has to have authorised that policy given the impact on Russia. And so it played out. Victoria Nuland, again, caught out choosing the personalities in a new government in January. And then in February there was a coup!

This crisis begins in the Obama administration and, more specifically, in Obama's second term.


RudolphS ID075732 10 Mar 2015 11:15

'Why was Russia excluded from true partnership with Europe after 1989? By the same reasoning why was NATO not disbanded after the fall of the Berlin wall? The reason probably lies in the continued need for the US to maintain control and influence in Europe.'

Well, the reason is quite simple. As the victor of a 60 year-old cold war (communism vs. capitalism) you're of course temped to capitalize on it. But honest, the West should've known better. They should've gone the way how Germany was treated after WWII: Helping to re-build and intergrate the country within the international community, with as a result that the germans rapidly became the most loyal and valuable ally the West could hope for.


John Smith Havingalavrov 10 Mar 2015 11:14

(Reuters) - Western powers should take into consideration Russia's legitimate security concerns over Ukraine, a top Chinese diplomat has said in an unusually frank and open display of support for Moscow's position in the crisis.

Qu Xing, China's ambassador to Belgium, was quoted by state news agency Xinhua late on Thursday as blaming competition between Russia and the West for the Ukraine crisis, urging Western powers to "abandon the zero-sum mentality" with Russia.

He said the "nature and root cause" of the crisis was the "game" between Russia and Western powers, including the United States and the European Union.

He said external intervention by different powers accelerated the crisis and warned that Moscow would feel it was being treated unfairly if the West did not change its approach.

"The West should abandon the zero-sum mentality, and take the real security concerns of Russia into consideration," Qu was quoted as saying.

His comments were an unusually public show of understanding from China for the Russian position. China and Russia see eye-to-eye on many international diplomatic issues but Beijing has generally not been so willing to back Russia over Ukraine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/09/us-china-yuan-payments-exclusive-idUSKBN0M50BV20150309?irpc=932


irishmand psygone 10 Mar 2015 11:12

After the collapse of communism, where was Russia's attempt to truly diversify its economy away from the power oligarchs, commodities and oil/gas?

After the collapse of communism the oligarchs like Khodorkovsky were too busy helping US/EU corporations to plunder Russia. It was the moment Russians lost their trust in US/EU democracy.

[Mar 10, 2015] Vladimir Putin describes secret meeting when Russia decided to seize Crimea by Agence France-Presse

Mar 09, 2015 | theguardian.com

NotRevJimJones

I should have read the comments before posting mine. The extent of russophobia is mad, like when the pot was being stirred for the invasion of Iraq.

But then, Putin is the new Hitler, just like Saddam was.

As my maternal grandmother would have stated, all youse antiputinistas are feckin eejits...

normankirk -> NotRevJimJones 1h ago

Apparently you can fool most of the people most of the time
You'd think theyd learn!

TOR2000
A total of 82% of the population of the Crimea fully support Russia's annexation of the peninsula, according to a poll carried out by the GfK Group research institute in Ukraine, Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported on Wednesday. Another 11% of respondents said that they rather support the annexation of Crimea, while 4% were against it.
The poll was conducted on January 16-22, 2015
http://www.unian.info/politics/1040281-poll-82-of-crimeans-support-annexation.html

NotRevJimJones -> TOR2000

Begorrah! Yis talking sense, so the eejits are sure to ignore yer... TOR2000

Has someone hoped that sanctions would change Russia's behavior? Fire your advisers, Russia's anti-American fever goes beyond the Soviet era's: More than 80 percent of Russians now hold negative views of the United States, according to the independent Levada Center, a number that has more than doubled over the past year and that is by far the highest negative rating since the center started tracking those views in 1988.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russias-anti-us-sentiment-now-is-even-worse-than-it-was-in-soviet-union/2015/03/08/b7d534c4-c357-11e4-a188-8e4971d37a8d_story.html
The anger seems different from the fast-receding jolts of the past, observers say, having spread faster and wider.

The years of perceived humiliations have "led to anti-Americanism at the grass-roots level, which did not exist before," said Vladimir Pozner, a journalist who for decades was a prominent voice of the Soviet Union in the United States. More recently, he has to explain the United States inside Russia. "We don't like the Americans, and it's because they're pushy, they think they're unique and they have had no regard for anyone else."

NotRevJimJones -> TOR2000, 46m ago

Justified antiamericanism, no?

NotRevJimJones, 2h ago

The military operation was initially kept secret and despite the increasingly obvious actions of unmarked Russian forces on the ground, Moscow insisted that only locals were involved in the upheaval. Later, the Kremlin conceded that it had been behind the power grab.

This is false. Repeatedly, translations from Russian to English are manipulated to imply emphasis that is not apparent in the original Russian.
Crimean opolchenie blockaded Ukrainian military installations, with Russian forces ensuring there was no conflagration, and once Crimeans voted for secession, 70% of Ukrainian armed forces in Crimea chose to transfer to Russian authority. All the Kremlin admitted to was the deployment of forces to ensure the peaceful transfer of authority from rejected Kiev, first to Simferopol, and then by referendum, to Moscow.
Of course this accorded with the wishes of the Kremlin, but to puncture the conspiracy theorists' wild accusations, this transfer of authority happened to concur with the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Crimea.

So, ultimately, we have a populace, Crimeans, who are overwhelmingly Russian, who overwhelmingly want to be part of Russia, who have by plebiscite become part of Russia, and have avoided the carnage of Donbass because, unlike in Donbass, Russian forces were in situ to stop Kiev's punitive attacks.

And this is a bad thing?

normankirk -> NotRevJimJones, 1h ago

Well said.
NotRevJimJones -> normankirk, 49m ago
Yet no matter how frequently the obvious is stated, it feels like pissing in the wind...

luc001, 2h ago

Ukrainian commies did not take a vote to Annex Crimea from Russia, so none is required to Re-Unite Crimea with Russia.

Kaiama, 7h ago

The other side's point of view...via yandex machine translation superior to google.

According to the Russian President, "the ultimate goal was to give people the opportunity to Express their opinion about how they want to live". "We are the results of the referendum know", - said Vladimir Putin.

MOSCOW, 9 Mar RIA Novosti. Russian President Vladimir Putin told the details of the events of March last year, when the result of the referendum Crimea was joined to Russia. In the documentary "the Crimea. The way Home", a fragment of which showed the channel "Russia 1", he told me that shortly before the referendum conducted a sociological survey to find out how the idea of returning to the Russian Federation are Crimeans themselves.

"It turned out that those wishing to join Russia there 75% of the total composition. You understand, was held closed poll, outside the context of a possible accession. It became evident to me that if we get to it, the level or amount of those who would like to this historic event has occurred, will be much higher," said the Russian President.

"The ultimate goal was to give people the opportunity to Express their opinion about how they want to live.... I thought to myself, if people want, then so be it. It means that they will be there with greater autonomy, with some rights, but as part of the Ukrainian state. So let it be. But if they choose differently, then we can't leave them! We are the results of the referendum know. And we did as you were obliged to do," said Putin.

Crimea and Sevastopol became the Russian regions after held there in March 2014 referendum in which the majority of residents were in favour of joining the Federation. According to the Treaty of accession, all residents of Crimea are recognized as citizens of Russia, wrote a statement that I want to leave the citizenship of Ukraine. According to the FMS, the disclaimer from Russian citizenship filed only 3 427 people. Just Crimea is home to about 2 million people. Kiev, despite the results of the referendum, still considers the Crimea territory.

Crimea did not recognize the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian authorities decided to hold a referendum on the future of the region. The vote was held on 16 March 2014. In the Bulletin were made to two questions: "are You for the reunification of the Crimea with Russia on the rights of the subject of the Russian Federation?" and "are You for the restoration of the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea in 1992 and over the status of Crimea as part of Ukraine?"

The majority of voters (96,77%) when appearing in 83.1% of voted for reunification with Russia. The corresponding agreement was signed on 18 March, he was subsequently approved by the state Duma and the Federation Council. They also took the Federal constitutional law on the formation of two new subjects of the Russian Federation - Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed both documents. Previously, Putin said that the referendum in Crimea is consistent with international law and the UN Charter.

[Mar 10, 2015] A Europe-U.S. Divorce Over Ukraine

Mar 10, 2015 | moonofalabama.org

The German government finally wakes up, a little bit at least, and recognizes the obvious fact that U.S. neocons want to drag Europe into a war. It is now openly blaming certain circles within the U.S. government and NATO of sabotaging the Minsk ceasefire agreement. Especially offensive is the fantasy talk of U.S. and NATO commander General Breedlove:

For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.

The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

But Breedlove hasn't been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats.

Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel's diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove's bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

The U.S., including Obama, wants to strengthen the U.S. run NATO and thereby its influence in Europe. And Europe, by losing business with Russia and risking war, is supposed to pay for it.

The German public, despite tons of transatlantic propaganda, has well understood the game and the government can not escape that fact. It has to come back to some decent course and if that means trouble with Washington so be it. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and the U.S. are currently meeting in Paris and Secretary of State Kerry will not like what he will hear:

In Berlin, top politicians have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action. Additionally, the trans-Atlantic partners also have differing goals.

Whereas the aim of the Franco-German initiative is to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, it is Russia that concerns hawks within the US administration. They want to drive back Moscow's influence in the region and destabilize Putin's power. For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow.

Europe has no interest in regime change in Russia. The result would likely be a much worse government and leader then the largely liberal Putin.

The U.S., the empire of chaos, does not care what happens after a regime change. In the view of U.S. politicians trouble and unrest in the "rest of the world" can only better the (relative) position of the United States. If production capabilities in Europe get destroyed through war the U.S. could revive its export industries.

It seems that at least some European leaders now understand that they got played by Washington and they are pushing back. A Eurasian economic sphere is in Europe's interest. Will Obama accept their view and turn off the hawks or will he escalate and risk the alliance with Europe? A first sign looks positive. The U.S. called off, on short notice, a plan to train Ukrainian National Guard (i.e. Nazi) forces:

[O]n Friday, a spokesman for US forces in Europe, confirmed the delay in a statement and said: "The US government would like to see the Minsk agreement fulfilled."

"The training mission is currently on hold but Army Europe is prepared to carry out the mission if and when our government decides to move forward," the statement said.

Some Europeans, like the writers in the piece above, still see Obama as a reluctant warrior pushed to war by the hawks in his own government and the Republicans in Congress. But the surge in Afghanistan, the destruction of Libya, the war on Syria and the trouble in Ukraine have all been run by the same propaganda scheme: Obama does not want war, gets pushed and then reluctantly agrees to it. It is a false view. The buck stops at his desk and Nuland as well as General Breedlove and other official hawks concerned about their precious bodily fluids are under Obama's direct command. He can make them shut up or get them fired with a simple 30 second phone call. As he does not do so it is clear that he wants them to talk exactly as they do talk. Obama is the one driving the neocon lane.

The Europeans should finally get this and distance themselves from that destructive path.

Posted by b on March 7, 2015 at 01:09 PM | Permalink

Selected Skeptical Comments

Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 7, 2015 2:05:22 PM | 1

Great analysis b.
Loved this bit...

The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

It's rather insulting to the EU that the dumbass, gutless, Yankees would appoint a war-mongering chicken-hawk called Breedlove to lecture them about The Importance Of Being Ernest - about hating Putin.

jayc | Mar 7, 2015 2:47:21 PM | 2

"the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action."

Insisting that the "threat of military action" always be present during the practice of international diplomacy is a fundamental repudiation of international law as proscribed by the United Nations at the end of WW2. In the current Orwellian situation, the foreign policy hawks (in particularly the Anglo 5 Eyes countries) articulate policy informed by this repudiation while on the other hand insisting that they are motivated by upholding mid-century international law. Here is John Boehner speaking for a bi-partisan Congressional committee quoted today in the Washington Times:

"It is even more than simply a component of a revisionist Russian strategy to redraw international borders and impose its will on its neighbors,it is a grotesque violation of international law, a challenge to the west and an assault on the international order established at such great cost in the wake of World War II."

ToivoS | Mar 7, 2015 2:59:09 PM | 3

When this crisis in Ukraine first broke out last year it made no sense at all for Obama to have let Nuland carry on as she was doing. He could have defused the whole thing simply by firing Nuland or I thought. However, his actions over the past year seem to show that this was his policy as b says here.

It is hard to understand why He and Kerry have pursued this policy. For sure, as was predictable one year ago it has turned their widely touted 'pivot to asia' into irrelevancy. It has directly forced China and Russia into a stronger alliance. Those are some big prices to pay for our provocations against Russia.

So why did we do it? I will guess. Putin's 2010 speech proposing a common economic union from Vladivostok to Lisbon must have been seen as a very serious threat by some powerful forces in the US. Fear of losing or at least lessening US hegemony over Europe was probably a major factor in deciding to 'pivot back to Europe'. Our influence there must have seemed much more important than Asia or even the ME. Ukraine provided an opportunity to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe or so US power brokers thought. As a secondary reason, at least one that brought the US military on board with the new policy, is that a new cold war with Russia provided an opportunity to reinvigorate NATO, that has always been a favorite play thing the army and airforce. After the collapse of the Soviet Union it was very difficult to justify NATO's existence.

It would be ironies of ironies if this crisis now forces Germany to declare its independence and work harder to rebuild relations with Russia and in the process become a major player in the Eurasian Union. This is what Pepe Escobar just suggested this last week is a possibility.

Laurence | Mar 7, 2015 3:04:18 PM | 4

Some Europeans, like the writers in the piece above, still see Obama as a reluctant warrior pushed to war by the hawks in his own government and the Republicans in Congress. But ...

You may be correct. But:

You haven't established that the evident appearance of `reluctance' is a "false view". In theory, "The buck stops at his desk". The obvious fact that it hasn't, however, is -- at best -- by no means creditable.

I can hardly wait 'til the `progressive' Twittercrats start calling for Obama to "go nuclear" with Putin. ...

Colinjames | Mar 7, 2015 3:05:26 PM | 5

#2, I guess he's taking his cues from Noodles, here's some highlights from her Match 4 address to Foreign Affairs Committee, lifted from Stephen Lendman
  • calledd murdered US-funded, Boris Nemtsov a "freedom fighter, Russian patriot and friend."
  • ...called Ukraine "central to our 25 year Transatlantic quest for a 'Europe whole, free and at peace.'
  • Nuland called US planned and implements year ago Maidan violence using well-trained Nazi thugs "peaceful protest(s) by ordinary Ukrainians."
  • "They braved frigid temperatures, brutal beatings and sniper bullets…Ukraine began to forge a new nation…holding free and fair election…and undertaking deep and comprehensive economic and political reforms."

Claims-

  • "enhance(d) (Ukrainian) transparency in public procurement, reduce(d) government inefficiency and corruption, (laws) making the banking system more transparent, and measures to improve the climate for business"
  • "it's "building a peaceful, democratic, independent" nation
  • ... Crimea "under illegal occupation"
  • in Eastern Ukraine, Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage."
  • "MH17 was shot down. Hundreds of Russian heavy weapons and troops poured across the border, fueling the conflict."
  • "Sixteen Russian uninspected 'humanitarian convoys' entered Ukraine in violation of agreements with the Ukrainian government, the ICRC and the international community."
  • "Donetsk airport was obliterated…Debaltseve, a key rail hub beyond the ceasefire lines, fell to separatist and Russian forces six days after Minsk was signed…"
  • "This is a manufactured conflict controlled by the Kremlin, fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers' expense and costing the lives of young Russians…"

Bizzaro world. Completely upside down from reality. And no I'm not trying to one up you #2! It's just crazy stuff coming out of the mouths of every politician and official and media whore, I've never seen anything like it.

Wayoutwest | Mar 7, 2015 3:07:24 PM | 6

Good report, b especially including the fact that this is a bipartisan project led by the Liberal Democrats.

The European actions especially Germanys may be more or less than they appear to be. I doubt that Germany would or could stand in the way of US demands but they may be facilitating an escape path for the US to use to avoid a more dangerous confrontation with Russia.

james | Mar 7, 2015 3:25:46 PM | 7

thanks b.. some good points in your post which i strongly share, this one in particular - The U.S., the empire of chaos, does not care what happens after a regime change. In the view of U.S. politicians trouble and unrest in the "rest of the world" can only better the (relative) position of the United States.

when does this nightmare called us foreign policy die?

Piotr Berman | Mar 7, 2015 4:47:47 PM | 8

"Europe has no interest in regime change in Russia. The result would likely be a much worse government and leader then the largely liberal Putin."

What is wrong with those two sentences? First, "Europe", a landmass in western Eurasia usually demarcated by the crests of Ural and Caucasus mountain chains and Ural river. The text refers mostly to the governments of France and Germany. Who are "NATO hawks"? Danes and Norwegians, latter day Varangians? Or Latvians and Estonians who would like to have a re-match of Battle on Ice? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Ice_(Lake_Peipus)

Second, "The result …" This has to be a joke. "Europe" has many headaches with the governments of Greece and Hungary, but can they change them? Actually, in the case of Greece, this sentence could make sense, because in Greece they have a real opportunity of causing a government crisis and getting a more extreme government. But in the case of Russia, it is only a question of having a long-term gain in mutually assured economic destruction, or not.

Double-talk is bread and butter of diplomacy, but we simple folk can afford to express ourselves more directly. The real problem in arming Ukraine is that the government there is untrustworthy and it would probably use the aid to further neglect the economy and concentrate even more on futile military endeavor, and it could also commit some atrocities as it would be at it. Being "a little bit Nazi" is perfectly fine with Baltic governments and Croatia, plus USA and Canada, could be fine with Hungary but the leader there is constantly on the prowl for good deals and just now got one from Putin, and causes mixed feeling elsewhere.

So the trillion dollar question for most responsible European leaders is if US is more trustworthy than Poroshenko crew?

jfl | Mar 7, 2015 5:09:32 PM | 11

Yes, good analysis. Especially the Empire of Chaos' goal of reimplementing the aftermath of WWII : everyone outside North America flat on their backs and the US the colossus by virtue of still standing. But ...

' Will Obama accept their view and turn off the hawks or will he escalate and risk the alliance with Europe? ... Obama is the one driving the neocon lane. '

Whether it's the neocon line or in the neocon lane, Obama's not driving. Never has been. He was hired to sit behind the wheel of the neoliberal, neocon drone of state, operated by 'pilots' from Langley, the Pentagon, Wall Street - seemingly by all three, via rapid context switch in pseudo-parallel.

The reason US policy seems to lurch ever more violently toward disaster is because none of the actors actually implementing it by turn are identified. The Nihilist Nobel Peace Prize Laureate gets dunked everytime, hauls himself out of the tank, climbs back up on the stool, makes faces and jeers at the crowd throwing balls at the trip target ... all absurdly trying to effect a change in policy.

It's just a job ... 2,236 days down, 686 days till payday.

Mar 7, 2015 5:21:18 PM | 12

@8,9,10

Thanks for the analysis with Russia at the center rather than the USA. Catchy restatement of the difference between 'the chicken then the egg' vs 'the egg then the chicken'.

I'm rooting for Russia, and Putin's been in charge there. Of course, I'm really rooting for my USA, but for my USA to survive the present oligarchy must be defeated : the Chicken's neck must be wrung and its carcasse flung into the stew pot.

dan of steele | Mar 7, 2015 6:31:13 PM | 13

it is my opinion that the German government led by Mrs Merkel is a lot more involved in the crisis that is Ukraine than is being discussed in this forum. There was quite a lot of support for Tymoshenko from Merkel including her drive to boycott the Ukraine when Tymoshenko had been imprisoned for embezzlement.

she was also promoting Vitaly Klitschko for the longest time abruptly ending when Vickie Nuland let it be known that he was not accceptable as a leader of Ukraine.

The German government has been a very willing stooge of the US in causing or continuing the unrest in Ukraine. That many people in Germany have suffered due to this behavior from sanctions and embargoes on both the European side as well as the Russian side might be a consequence that the German elite decided they could live with rather than simply something forced upon them from the US.

As far as I can tell, the fecal matter hit the air moving device right after Yanukovich decided to maintain close economic ties with Russia rather than throw in with the EU. EU for all intents and purposes Germany.

just a thought. ymmv

JohnH | Mar 7, 2015 7:16:23 PM | 19

"The U.S., the empire of chaos, does not care what happens after a regime change. In the view of U.S. politicians trouble and unrest in the "rest of the world" can only better the (relative) position of the United States."

And it does not appear that the US cares what happens to Europe, either. If sanctions on Iran hurt European business, meh. If sanctions on Russia push Europe back into recession...meh.

Maybe someday Europe will get a clue...

Benu | Mar 7, 2015 8:02:30 PM | 20

I felt like I was reading the lyin-ass New York Times. (How do these so-called journalists get ANY work done with all that CIA/StateDept/JSOC cock in their mouth? Inquiring minds want to know. Anyway…)

Germany is presented like an old grandma, wringing her hands and saying, "Oh, mercy me! Can't we all just get along?" … If it wasn't for that dang Gen. Breedlove…except, well, he's actually right, don't you know, except, OK, he exaggerates a bit. There's LOTS of Russia aggression, and we have proof we won't show you…but not as much as he says. I mean, credibility, and all, right?…And that Vicki Nuland, well, she's bitch we all agree, but she gets things done and sometimes you need to get tough, don't ya know. She "loves Russia" (yeah, I bet…like I love a nice rare steak….sliced sooooo thin.) So…come on, dial it back a little won't you guys over in Langley…?

This seemed to me like CIA drizzle from Der Spigot!

A few carefully breaded pieces of True served with a piquant sauce of Lies and a side of Dissembling and Disinformation. One of those articles that is structured like, "yeah, true…BUT!"

ToivoS @ | 3

Putin's 2010 speech proposing a common economic union from Vladivostok to Lisbon must have been seen as a very serious threat by some powerful forces in the US.

So says Mike Whitney in an important post re Nemtsov's assassination over at Counterpunch. I agree with you and him. I wonder what Uncle Ruslan thinks? He must have some ideas, having lived with Graham Fuller for all this those years.

Colinjames @ 5

Those excerpts really infuriated me. I have the most terrible desire to bitch slap Vicki Nudelman until she falls down and begs me to stop. I see her face and my hand itches. I need to stop watching Jess Franco movies.

Wayoutwest @ 6

The European actions especially Germanys may be more or less than they appear to be. I doubt that Germany would or could stand in the way of US demands but they may be facilitating an escape path for the US to use to avoid a more dangerous confrontation with Russia.

Ayuh. I agree, with you (see above) --and dan of steele's very excellent and needful post at 13. Germany's in this shit up to their eyeballs. I recall reading in "The Brothers" that after WW2 the CIA just basically took over (and presumably still owns) German intelligence. Took their Nazis in and kept all the spy lines and assets. Gladio was an outgrowth of that, I guess.

But I don't think the blood-thirsty vampires in the US can dial it back. They are all up in that snatch (to slightly paraphrase a vulgar version of the Petraeus bio's title that actually got shown on US news.)

Piotr Berman's delightful rants at 18 @ 19

What interesting ideas and insights you bring to the discussion. If you don't mind saying, are you German? If I was a German citizen I would be very upset and I have read that, like here in the States, this Ukraine shit combined with NSA spying combined with that book about how all the media are CIA assets has caused a crisis of confidence between reasonably-informed citizens and dissembling government, media, military, etc.


I agree with all the posters here saying that Obama has never had hold of the levers of power. A few, yes. But what with the "tunneling" of political appointees transformed into civil servants at the end of the Bush admin…yeah, no. And that's not the only reason…just one.

jfl | Mar 7, 2015 8:11:20 PM | 21

@13

Certainly Germany is covetous of Russia/the Ukraine. And Merkel, like Obama, knows how to get along by going along with the ones who brung her. Used to be the Russians in East Germany, are now the Americans in West/Unified Germany.

Both are puppets, 'loyal' to the their puppeteers. The rest of the EU apparat are in the pocket of the US, and dance to the same tune piped to Obama.

Germany on its own is not capable of subduing Russia, yet hopes to be in position to reap the benefits of the US' destruction of same.

They're all losers, betting on making a killing, benefiting from their neighbors' collapse. Their neighbors have other ideas ... must have to survive. TIAA.

Benu | Mar 7, 2015 8:33:21 PM | 22

jfl @ 21

Love your vampires and vultures scenario. Tolstoy's Vourdalak or the folkloric Russian
Волколак or Volkolak is what I've been thinking of late, because I am a Mario Bava kind of gal.

You know, Russia is one of the few countries NOT 110% indebted to German/London/Wall Street/Brussels banks. Seems to me that definitely has something to do with all this. They've got something to plunder. (Lotta gold. yum!) I bet there's some truth to the assertion that the flaming tire of blame for global economic collapse is being readied for Russia's neck...just in case. We're very close.

NotTimothyGeithner | Mar 7, 2015 9:02:57 PM | 25

Demian @ 23

WTF did Germany THINK was going to come of this?

But perhaps there is no one Germany. I can only suppose that it must be like it is here in the US...different factions with their own power bases pulling their own levers.

Benu | Mar 7, 2015 8:48:57 PM | 24

@24 I think the plan was for a rapid victory in Ukraine and Putin just stomping his feet. Keeping Crimea, the uprisings, and the general thuggery/incompetence in Kiev weren't in the plans. The Chinese didn't defend Russia against accusations about flight #mh17, the Chinese openly scoffed at the West not even giving fools like Kerry the time of day.

German firms were supposed to win contracts replacing Russian firms not see the SCO grow and face losses from self-imposed sanctions. Merkel and people in her sphere overdid the rhetoric. Voters won't forget a major propaganda change, and Merkel and her ilk know this but can't see how to get out of the mess especially with Kiev in need of European cash.

PBenu | Mar 7, 2015 9:19:53 PM | 26

NotTimmeh @ 25

So, you seem to be saying that this is rather like what WoW maintains...an offering of an exit ramp to the US...because Germany really, really wants off this highway to hell.

Hideous to think they were all for it when it looked like easy rapings and little to no consequences.

International finance needs to be dismantled. That's what's behind all this shit. Bankster's wars.

Helena Cobban | Mar 7, 2015 9:31:25 PM | 27

The practices of Ms. Nuland (taking cookies out to support the demonstrators during the "Maidan" actions) echoed exactly those of Amb. Robert Ford in Syria. In both cases it was a strange perversion and repudiation of traditional standards of diplomatic practice. It was not just a Nuland aberration.

And we've seen the outcome, a few years later, in both these war-ravaged countries. God help the people of both countries.

Pluto | Mar 7, 2015 9:52:56 PM | 28

@3 ToivoS

Interesting points you make. I believe what we have here IS the pivot to Asia, - through the backdoor. The US is haunted by the inevitable rise of Eurasia as a superpower. And, the fact is, the "pivot" was unrealistic and a rather silly strategy. China's New Silk Road Economic Belt, both rail and maritime - stretching from Beijing through Russia and across Europe to Madrid (with spurs to India, Iran, the ME and down the African continent) - was a preemptive strike that neutered US aspirations. Even worse, it's already funded.

Picture the US on the globe: Isolated and alone, separated from the lively Eastern Hemisphere by two vast oceans. Adrift, stewing in its own juices, in desperate need of a world war to elevate it once again out of its economic doom and into super-stardom.

This is further evidenced by the US desperation over the TPP and TTIF. It has reached a fever pitch, with endless negotiations inside the super-secret US "cone of silence." For the US, these corporate-ruled trade agreements are their last hope for hegemony over global trade, especially now that the Petrodollar is dead. (Another consequence of the Ukraine stupidity.) But, both trade treaties seem to be failing badly (there are anti-TTIF demonstrations throughout Germany today). In any event, China rendered them both irrelevant with APEC and the New Silk Road, which popped into existence the very instant that the US stepped into the Ukraine tar pit. For China, they are done deals. Even Australia and New Zealand have come to their senses and seem to be climbing on board.

Surely, Europe already knows this. They've seen many empires decline. I suppose its only prudent to string the US along and contain the chaos....

Demian | Mar 7, 2015 9:58:02 PM | 29

@Helena Cobban #27:

God help the people of both countries.

Well, no one knows whether either one of them will continue to exist, do they? The Kremlin's intention is clearly to keep Ukraine's territory as it is (sans Crimea; that question is closed), but Ukraine is increasingly entering into full-spectrum social collapse, so wha the outcome will be is unpredictable, especially since the Ukraine was an artificial country to begin with, patched together from the territories of other countries.

As for Syria, I am all for secular states in the Islamic world, like Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya before the US destroyed them. Our fan of the Islamic State Wayoutwest can say much more about this than I can, but it is possible that states created by Sykes-Picot will disappear, to be replaced by a caliphate. In the larger scheme of things, that would be a good thing because

(1) even though the caliphate would initially have a regressive form of Islam, once Arabs are in control of their own destiny, they will not fear engaging in reforms;

(2) a caliphate would create one more pole for the emerging multipolar world.

NotTimothyGeithner | Mar 7, 2015 10:13:03 PM | 30

@26 They are giving Obama an out and blame can be heaped on Nuland and Breedlove. Rasmussen didn't make the Der Spiegel article, and he is completely deranged as anyone outside of GOP politics.

IMHO Obama only responds to extreme embarrassment. Offering him an out won't work without tying Obama and Nuland at the hip.

It's overlooked, but in 2012 when Obama came out for gay marriage, he cloaked his support in nonsense about state rights but only after his campaign machine had worked against an effort in North Carolina to defeat anti-gay/woman/child referendum. There were political reasons, but there was a growing anger. Biden saw this and just randomly announced Obama's pro gay marriage views. It took three days, but Obama got around to tepidly endorsing a form of gay marriage. Obama only acted because Biden forced his hand. It took almost two weeks after everyone in the U.S. knew Shinseki from the Veteran Affairs Department for Obama to dismiss him when Shinseki should have been fired right away, but Obama only acts when faced with total embarrassment.

fast freddy | Mar 7, 2015 10:14:08 PM | 31

Obama is a puppet. Cheney, Kissinger, Negroponte, GHWBush and friends, CIA, Brzezinski, Rockefeller, etc. Deep State pulls his strings. Obama was himself a CIA protege at BIC. There are no pesky principles to contend with.

And he is not allowed to fire Nuland or any other neocon warmonger.

Did you see what they did to JFK for stepping out of line?

@ jfl | 11

But exactly!

Obama's not driving. Never has been. He was hired to sit behind the wheel of the neoliberal, neocon drone of state, operated by 'pilots' from Langley, the Pentagon, Wall Street - seemingly by all three, via rapid context switch in pseudo-parallel.

The reason US policy seems to lurch ever more violently toward disaster is because none of the actors actually implementing it by turn are identified.

Pluto | Mar 7, 2015 10:45:33 PM | 34

Although it seems there are two schools of thought about that around here, this has been my assumption from the beginning.


@3 ToivoS

Forgot to mention,: You spoke of consequences. That is of particular interest, I believe, and speaks to the destiny of the US as it stumbles about on the world stage, without future awareness.

It is hard to understand why He and Kerry have pursued this policy. For sure, as was predictable one year ago it has turned their widely touted 'pivot to asia' into irrelevancy. It has directly forced China and Russia into a stronger alliance. Those are some big prices to pay for our provocations against Russia.

There are more than a few significant unintended consequences that have come in short order as a result of the Ukraine blunder. For example:

  • Certainly killing the Petrodollar is a big one, which was the natural result of pushing China and Russia into the biggest oil/gas deal in world history, specifically written to bypass the dollar.
  • Compelling Gazprom to divert the destination of the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea from Bulgaria to Turkey, with the distribution hub ending in Greece. So now Turkey and Greece control the fuel coming into West and South Europe. That's quite the geopolitical accomplishment.
  • Pushing Iran into the BRICS. Russian allies are pulling together in many interesting ways these days. US sanctions have become toothless.
  • The oil pricing scheme backfiring on the US economy. I'm of the school that oil overproduction was a direct attack on Russia and the usual suspects: Syria, Iran, and Venezuela. I'm also of the opinion that the US has lost control of OPEC.

The US is paying a mighty high price for its neocon folly.

Piotr Berman | Mar 7, 2015 10:55:20 PM | 35

In response to questions, I used my real name, I am Polish citizen living in USA.

European elite, including Germany and France, are almost instinctively aligning themselves with American elite, but they take exception to a favorite American trick: penciling a grandiose plan to be paid by EU.

Russian counter-sanctions fall on Europeans, and it is pointless to quibble if "dollar is dead" -- it is not, but USA will not pay to integrate Turkey and Ukraine with EU, to cite some of the grandiose ideas. German conservatives in particular are notorious bean counters, they generously paid to integrate Eastern Germany, but are much less enthusiastic to have foreign beneficiaries. (In Poland, the consensus is that it is OK to help Ukrainians, provided that it will not cost anything. There is also a minority that hates Ukrainians more than Russians, and younger folks seem not to care at all.)

As it is, EU duly enacted sanctions on Iran, Syria and Russia, and Merkel is resolute at sending mixed signals, so to some extend there is no "divorce". If anything, they are on the same wavelength as Obama. Recall how Europe resisted joining Bush jr. war in Iraq. "New Europe", including Poland, provided a bunch of little contingents, and that proved to be quite unpopular domestically. Even so, regime change in Libya was accomplished mostly by Europeans, and this is perhaps one of the unique successes in history that has a dearth of claimants. On the heals of that feat, even ever supine Brits rebelled when they had a chance to repeat the success in Syria. The belief that "Americans surely know what they are doing" is eroding even as we scribble. But so far, there is hardly any "European alternative".

I guess Putin will graciously lift sanctions on Hungarian and Greek produce, Ukraine will get some weapons and training, but not a hell lot -- seriously, what scale of military aid would truly make a difference?

TikTok | Mar 7, 2015 11:42:48 PM | 36

Harper has given citizenship to Yatsenyuk in case 'something goes wrong'. Fcuk. http://www.pravda.ru/news/world/formerussr/ukraine/06-03-2015/1251452-yacenyk-0/

james | Mar 8, 2015 12:02:59 AM | 37

@35 piotr.. thanks for pointing out euro's role in libya and how nothing is going to change, as i personally believe just like the usa is bought and paid for, so is germany and france.. to suggest there will be much of a fracture is to suggest the international banker mafia don't have these politicians on the same page. i think they do.. whether they get elected again, or the required politicians to do the job of the bankers do - i think they do..

as for obama being anything other then a rubber stamp - i agree with @31 fast freddy.. step out of line and look what you will get.. it is hard not to be cynical..

@36 tiktok.. what a pathetic pos we have for a leader here in canada, but like i say about most of these western leaders and to which i include harper - they are all beholden to the same narrow interests that have nothing to do with the common people's interest.. they continue to think we are stupid or worse..

Demian | Mar 8, 2015 12:04:56 AM | 38

@Piotr Berman #35:

so far, there is hardly any "European alternative".

There does not need to be any European alternative. And the EU is dominated by Germany, the intelligence services of which, as someone here observed recently, are infiltrated by the CIA (although there was a report that Germany is now setting up a branch of its intelligence service independent of USG). The alternative is Russia. It is too late for Europeans to come up with alternatives. (They did that first with Hegel and then with Marx, but neither attempt held.) Europeans just need to realize that since the world is becoming multipolar, they belong in the Eurasian pole, not a contrived Atlanticist one.

Russia has grave flaws, an Europeans can help Russians fix those, if Europeans make a break with the predatory and anti-human Anglosphere.

Nana2007 | Mar 8, 2015 12:16:52 AM | 40

The push back is far too late. The gorgon Nuland and Dr Strangelove himself Zed Breszinski testifying before the mouth breathers of the foreign affairs committee this week continued to ratchet up the rhetoric:
"I wonder how many people in this room or this very important senatorial committee really anticipated that one day Putin would land military personnel in Crimea and seize it. I think if anybody said that's what he is going to do, he or she would be labeled as a warmonger. He did it. And he got away with it. I think he's also drawing lessons from that. And I'll tell you what my horror, night-dream, is: that one day, I literally mean one day, he just seizes Riga, and Talinn. Latvia and Estonia. It would literally take him one day. There is no way they could resist. And then we will say, how horrible, how shocking, how outrageous, but of course we can't do anything about it. It's happened. We aren't going to assemble a fleet in the Baltic, and then engage in amphibious landings, and then storm ashore, like in Normandy, to take it back. We have to respond in some larger fashion perhaps, but then there will be voices that this will plunge us into a nuclear war

I'll tell you what Brezinski's real horror night dream is dying before the US attempts a full on takeover of Russia. Whether Germany likes it or not they'll continue to be a pawn in the dark lords 8 dimensional chess game. It's a little late to be thinking twice now that the breadbasket of Europe is a basket case. The hope is that the whooping that's coming to the USSA shakes out the aristocracy that brought it about and sends them fleeing with nothing but their assholes.

Harold | Mar 8, 2015 3:48:14 AM | 43

Oddly, Brzezinski himself not too long ago recommended the "Finlandization" of Ukraine. The neo-cons and armaments industry have adopted a cartoonish version of his theories -- which, in any case, hark back to the Geographical Pivot theory dating to 1904! It's become a crude dogma that doesn't even rise to the level of ideology.

Prosperous Peace | Mar 8, 2015 5:20:41 AM | 44

Decent analysis but misses two important points:

1) "Special British-US relationship" - US has been a British colony for at least last 100 years, ie. a muscle-man for the Rothschildes-Jewish-Zionist cabal with its HQ in the City of London, Israel plays a "mad dog" role for them, Canada, Australia, and many other in the Commonwealth have their parts to play too. Because Obama since the evening of his reelection turned against the Crow Corporation, they have been forced to increasingly rely on themselves and other subjects - notice rapidly intensifying British military presence in the Central (Poland, which is situated at the very heart of the continent) and Eastern Europe (Baltic republics), as well as in the ME - Bahrain, police force now on the Turkish-Syrian border. Also British lying propaganda has been very intense, by far the worst in the EU. The neocons, McCain, Soros et al respond to the Rothschildes, always have. The British have been leading the charge recently and you will see more and more of this soon.

2) Obama's team has been under the threats form the global criminal cabal many times itself. Security breaches at the White House, warnings of assassination, "third force" trying to start a civil war in the US by abusing the police powers and killing the police officers, fake social movements menacing the White House with "marches" like the one of Jewish Adam Kokesh...

Summing up - it's been the City of London pulling the strings all along and Obama have been in danger of a violent overthrow already for some time.

somebody | Mar 8, 2015 5:40:49 AM | 45

RE: Piotr Berman | Mar 7, 2015 10:55:20 PM | 35

You are right about the issue of paying for grandiose plans.

Seems though that Europeans are really pissed off.

Jean Claude Juncker calls for European Army with headquarters in Brussels

Key sentence

Juncker wies zugleich auf die organisatorischen und finanziellen Vorteile des Vorhabens hin. So würde es zu einer intensiven Zusammenarbeit bei Entwicklung und Kauf von militärischem Gerät führen und erhebliche Einsparungen bringen.

Brief translation: Juncker highlighted the organizatorial and financial advantages. Cooperation in the development and procurement of military equipment could be shared and save considerable amounts.

jfl | Mar 8, 2015 8:13:07 AM | 46

German official says Saudi Arabia top 'terror exporter' in Mideast
[Vice President of the German Parliament (Bundestag) Claudia] Roth called Riyadh "the top terror exporter in the Middle East," adding that "a large portion" of extremist militants in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq hail from Saudi Arabia.

Germany's guidelines on weapons exports make it "crystal clear that deliveries cannot be made to such countries," she stressed.

"Besides the weapons deals, Germany is also discussing other trade ties with Saudi Arabia," she said. "Pressure could certainly be brought to bear using these."

The results of a recent survey conducted for German daily Bild have shown that 78 percent of Germans believe Berlin should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, while a further 60 percent favor breaking off trade relations all together with the Persian Gulf monarchy due to its human rights violations.

Great place for the crack to open up/spread from/to Ukraine.

ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 8, 2015 10:42:49 AM | 49

I would note that Merkel working with Timoshenko was more likely a tactical move - one in which Germany would get some leverage vs. Russia regarding natural gas moving through Ukraine as well as benefits within Ukraine.

This is very different than the American tactic of exaggerating ethnic tensions on order to create a failed state a la Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, ad nauseam. American doesn't necessarily intend to create a failed state - the correct view is that the goal is a puppet regime, but a failed state in someone else's backyard is almost as good...or good enough.

I'd also note that this is different than the British Empire tactic - the British would also arm "their" rebels, but they would put skin in the game (soldiers on the ground) in order to ensure that they wound up with the correct puppet regime.

It is still unclear to me whether the American abridgement of Byzantine/Ottoman/British Empire tactics is an evolution or a devolution.

dh | Mar 8, 2015 11:02:42 AM | 50

@49 I think America has always attempted to maintain the 'good guy' facade. Since 911 it's been more like 'no more Mr. Niceguy'.

guest77 | Mar 8, 2015 11:05:10 AM | 51

If the EU and Russia can edge the United States out of the situation, it is a win/win for everyone except the US, who will have seen $5B and an old Cold War dream go up in smoke.

If the US can be ejected, it will be the EU and especially the Germans who have gained the most mightily by the Maidan. The partition of Ukraine - getting rid of those parts that did vote more heavily for the Party of Regions and the Communists, leaves the EU with a "Orange", oligarchical Ukraine forever. A Ukrainian horse that the EU can hitch their currently broken cart to, a huge area for Germany to dominate in the heart of Europe - (one of Germany's oldest dreams). It's not something I'd personally wish on the Ukrainian population, but Ukraine becoming a proper EU member would require the suppression of the Nazis who, if they are not, would at least be loud, violent, internal opposition allied with the trouble-making USA, or at worst would try and wage a disruptive terrorist war over Crimea and the East.

Would this situation be acceptable to Russia? Wins there would be the retention of Crimea with no question as to its return to the rump Ukraine, plus the advantage of having the US out of the Ukraine completely and having caused an EU/US fissure. The status of the East would have to be determined, but it would seem that independence or becoming part of Russia would be the best bets there now that they'd no longer be able to offset the vote of the far west.

Anyway, that's all details. The real good thing here - for people all over the globe - would be that the war-making US elite would have been ejected from another region where they've been making trouble.

chalo | Mar 8, 2015 11:26:00 AM | 52

Ah, the utopian dreams of the unwashable internet junky. Germany will never reject the US. You heard it hear first. LOL

Scott | Mar 8, 2015 11:42:29 AM | 53

So far when it comes to any "divide" all I've seen is rhetoric and posturing. Considering the Fourth Reich and it's vassals are owned and controlled by the same puppet-masters I don't see any actual schism happening. Small European countries that actively resist will find a "color" revolution brewing. Large nations who actually push back will be hit with economic warfare. The courage to stand up for their people and stop the lunatics in D.C. doesn't exist in the currant political actors in Europe. I truly hope I'm wrong, but until we see DEEDS instead of mere WORDS...the steady slide toward war will continue.

rufus magister | Mar 8, 2015 11:43:22 AM | 54

...To get back on topic, Russia Insider considers the broader question of the regime's attitudes; the open fascism of the junta is I think at root of much of European unease. Kiev's Drive to Dehumanize East Ukrainians is certainly a key component of that mentality.

purple | Mar 8, 2015 11:59:18 AM | 55

All the European leaders are compromised in some way, the NSA probably has everything they have written, said, or done in a database. Merkel looks to have been involved in some shady activities in East Germany if you look closely enough. Don't expect Europe to break from Pax Americana.

Wayoutwest | Mar 8, 2015 12:24:05 PM | 56

RM@54

I think that the unease in Europe about the rise of open fascism is superficial and more a PR concern than true opposition at least among the Ruling Class. So long as fascism serve their purposes and feeds their true agendas but remains obscured it is supported and protected.

OT again, many of us Oldies experienced music somewhat differently than today where albums or sides of albums were how we enjoyed the performances. Even radio DJs were judged by the way they programmed their shows and we were always in search of the perfect segway.

Anonymous | Mar 8, 2015 12:40:07 PM | 57

Divorce? Hardly. EU want an EU army, http://rt.com/news/238797-eu-joint-army-threat/

Another US puppet idea.

rufus magister | Mar 8, 2015 12:53:42 PM | 58

...On topic -- the fascism by itself is not too great a worry. That they're incompetent and it will cost someone lots of money to fix things more so. Events may not break up "the Allies" now, but with the proper moves and missteps by the varied parties involved.... Someone's planning a few moves ahead, and I don't think it's DC. Sadly, we can't overlook the power of short-sighted deviousness.

diogenes | Mar 8, 2015 1:20:48 PM | 60

It looks to me as if the differences between Obama and Merkel on Ukraine are tactical not strategic, viz:

Merkel doesn't have to deal with the infamous American "bottom line" every 90 days, and this gives her leisure to actually think about what she is doing.

German voters have a mind of their own and are not compliant stooges like American voters, who only require a few weeks of cheap propaganda to go along with the most crackpot of schemes. The saying "the burned child fears the fire" does not apply in their case.

The goal from Merkels point of view must be the neoliberal exploitation of Russia - not bringing Ukraine into NATO, which is only useful in an aggressive war against Russia; or for use as a provocation resulting in the removal of Putin.

Therefore Merkel has no qualms about putting the Western project against Russia on hold until a more opportune time.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 1:25:48 PM | 61

Hm, excellent article b, as always, though my first thoughts were, 'overly optimistic' ...

However, upon some reflection and reconsideration, there does seem to be a confluence/pattern of events occurring recently, which may signal that a real 'Newer Great Game' may be afoot, in our currently Unipolar, sole superpower, Empire dominated world.

The Minsk agreement was done without US involvement, in fact explicitly excluded US involvement, and the subsequent events of the EU players give every indication of having continued in that vein ... ie. Germany and France clearly acting independent of the Empire ... Poroschenko exposed as a powerless puppet, purely a pawn, a mere agent of influence of the US.

Now there are firm calls for no new sanctions by the EU, 'give Minsk a chance' ...

The reports re Breedlove/NATO and German governments new 'perspective' re Ukraine/Russia in this thread ... effectively denouncing the Empires warmongering, baseless propaganda, and willingness to have the EU 'go fuck itself' re Russia/Ukraine for no-ones benefit except the US. History, and US geopolitical strategy repeats ...

Now the EU (President Junckers) calling for the creation of an EU Integrated Army ... with only the UK and France so far having expressed concerns. France has always had a firm view to an independent military, regardless of NATO. UK view is irrelevant as they are merely viewed as the US suborned 'spoiler' in the EU, so again no surprise and no leverage/clout. Reports are Germany support the EU/Junckers proposal ... claims an integrated EU army would be far more effective and significantly less costly, as well as utilizing EU resources for the EU's benefit, not that of the US. Which would be quite true if micro and macro duplication at all levels was reduced by allocating specific functions and roles to relevant EU nations militaries within such a 'truly integrated' force ... for example, German Armored Corps, French Naval/Marine forces, Spanish Airborne/Airmobile, Italian Air Defence, a smaller member state to speciliaze as MPs, etc. The very proposal implicitly and explicitly would result in the dissolution of NATO, which has only ever been a US political-military agency within Europe serving exclusively the US interest. Such a proposal is NOT for the Empires benefit and very far from a trivial event. The Empire appears to have completely missed this coming ...

Reports the German government has created a new 'independent' offshoot of the BND, ie. a true German Intelligence service (or the seeds of ?) actually serving German National interests, as opposed to the US created and ever since suborned BND since the end of WWII ... is this also happening 'under the radar' in other EU states ?

Escalation of explicit diplomatic rhetoric calling out the prime US ally and Empire linchpin in the ME, Saudi Arabia, as the major source of terrorism, in the War on Terra ...

The extensive Snowden revelations, and fallout (latest blatant example - GEMALTO sims), re AUSCANUKUSNZ (Five-Eyes), could probably have led to the actual realization that there is the US and its four privileged 'Vassals', Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and New Zealand, first and foremost actually comprising the 'West' as far as the Empire is concerned, and only then so called 'third tier' pseudo allies, such as Germany, France, etc (which are treated as actual 'potential hostiles' by the five eyes), and then lastly all the rest of the 'Barbarians' in the world ... all the Empires sweet words and false comforts/assurances over the years may have finally come home to roost.

China and Russia, are clearly progressively entering ever closer into an integrated Political/economic/defence anti Empire bloc at multiple levels ... significant overtures between Egypt and Russia, Russia and Iran ... the BRICS economic and South American economic 'exit' from the domination of the Empires Petrodollar and previous economic/political exploitation/dominance.

Perhaps the Empire and the five eyes have been so busy attempting to 'collect it all' and endlessly pivot from here to there and back again, whilst playing divide and rule from one nation state to the other, filled to the brim with their own exceptionalism, that they have missed the bigger picture, missed seeing the new 'forest' emerging, having paid far to close attention to their brushfires and all those individual trees ...

OTOH, however, there would appear to be enough concurrent events occurring quickly enough to envisage the ground moving from under the feet of the Empire and the five eyes ... and in plain view ...

Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

Noirette | Mar 8, 2015 2:13:07 PM | 63

.. it is my opinion that the German government led by Mrs Merkel is a lot more involved in the crisis that is Ukraine than is being discussed in this forum. -- dan of steele at 13.

You bet. Merkel is an unexamined mover in these stories. (Germany has paid penance and is so cool…not.) Recall the break-up of Yugoslavia, under the radar Germany was the no 1 champion and mover, with the US.

Merkel has been meddling in Ukraine since forever, due to for a large part to up EU expansionism (Germany is the only country that benefits from the Eurozone, not in an evil or illegit way, all the other countries agreed..), to stretch out again, for more territory, cheap labor, factories run at low labor costs, the well-off in 'satellite' countries and elsewhere buying German products, finance ad loans, and so on. See Poland.

German expansionism! (Not that France is any better but they have less clout so are wimpy followers.) The Eurozone works like that: lend, give, money to poor 'southern' countries so that they buy your goods, when they stop buying or believing, you cut them off, and look for new markets. Or downscale etc.

Re. Ukraine, the fantasy was it could join the EU (not considered realistic by any reasoned analysts or actors unless talking about 20 years down the road without war) and Merkel pushed that.

Cuddled up to the US who had other aims, to make it short, provoke Russia, the whole thing was to be wrapped up with a lot of love-handshakes, as the Coup-Kiev Gvmt. was expected to maintain it's hold on a 'unitary' country which would be, it goes without stating, open to new 'industrialism', 'farming', 'reforms' (open up for foreign capital to make huge profits), and/or from the Nuland-type side, attack Russia by cutting ties, banning trade with Russia (see sanctions), forbidding Russian influence, media, commerce, and pushing for war, etc.

Donbass ppl objected, rose up, and it turned out that the Ukr. Gvmt could not deliver, - no army that could perform, no will, incompetence, also thieves...

These completely contradictory aims, of the EU and the US, are now public.

- one pov there are many others

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 2:40:02 PM | 64

@ Okie Farmer

Many 'perhaps's and certainly not clear yet what the EU Army proposal truly indicates yet, but Germany is clearly behind and for it ... Ultimately the EU is Germany-France and there are many new possibilities emerging.

The geopolitical consequences of the reality of the Snowden revelations re the five-eyes conduct/actions/objectives and falsity of supposed alliances for 'mutual' as opposed to exclusive benefit of the Empire at every level may well have triggered recalculations amongst the 'pseudo allies' governments, this may well be the case with Germany, at least.

Usually very pessimistic, in this instance 'overly optimistic', or momentarily envisioning an alternate possible ?

Is it really in the EU interests to take a hit for the Empires benefit re Cold War 2.0 or the possibility of WW3 or move towards a less Atlanticist future ?

ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 8, 2015 3:21:11 PM | 65

@dh #50
With the single exception of the Romans - because they literally ruled everything - every other empire always tries very hard to present the best front.

The British had their "White Man's Burden", the US had the "American Dream" but which has since been switched with the "War on Terror".

No doubt because only the least informed believe that old lie anymore.

Ed Lozano | Mar 8, 2015 3:25:29 PM | 66

Anonymous #57

An European Army would be the final act of the divorce from US, since it would be a de facto ending of NATO. No wonder why both US and their major "European" puppet UK radically oppose the idea. NATO's purpose was not only to counter Soviet military, but also to make sure Germany would never "rise again". That purpose is still biding and Germans know it. But under NATO umbrella, there's not much they can do to restore even a glimpse of the military power they had in the past. They "voluntarily" abdicate from developing nuclear weapons and most of their military spending is restricted to defensive air/ground capabilities, instead of means of projecting power such as naval vessels and long-range missiles. However, in an European unified defense system most of these restrictions should be lifted so to allow Germany to fulfill its obligations to the European allies. Most of American military bases would be rendered futile, and it's almost certain that NATO's nuclear silos stationed in Europe would have to be redeployed elsewhere, since an European defense agreement would demand full control of all military assets in European territory. Finally, Eastern Europe would turn to Germany and France instead of US when dealing with Russia, thus bringing more political stability to the region (violent "Maidans" would be less likely in the presence of foreign troops who, unlike Americans, have to answer for their actions when they come back home).

Needless to say, all these events would be catastrophic for US global domination strategy, since they would lose not only military control over strategic assets in Western Europe, but also major influence in the only part of the European Union they are actually welcome today. But one should remember none of this is new: since its creation European Union was conceived to have its own unified defense system, but this part of the European pact was sabotaged by British and Americans from the beginning. Even French nationalist leader De Gaulle became fond of the idea, but his efforts would be futile while Germany was not reunified and European Union was still a project. And one should notice an unified Europe is still a project today. Eurozone is crumbling, resentment among the periphery is running high and both Germans and French know it. One of the necessary solutions for preserving European Union is a unified defense system, for it would lift the minor associates defense spending burden while allowing the major ones to exert much more effective political influence among them, so to prevent that every economic crisis in those countries become a threat to the stability of the entire bloc itself.

Noirette #63

Undoubtedly Germany played a role in Maidan and there's enough evidence of that, but I don't think their objective was to produce a violent divorce between Ukraine and Russia. As far as I know German ambassadors were the major force in bringing to the negotiating table both President Yanukovitch and the opposition groups, who then signed the 21st of February agreement for Constitutional reform and anticipated elections. This agreement was also supported by Russia, and since Germany is the natural interlocutor for Moscow in "European" affairs, I assume the whole thing was arranged by Berlin. Problem is, no one really expected what happened the day after - except of course the Americans who had already decided to sabotage the deal and take it all for themselves, bypassing both Europe and Ukrainian "moderates" (like Yulia Timoshenko) through bribing the major oligarchs and former members of Yanukovitch's cabinet and the use of Right Sector thugs to attack Government buildings and seize power at once.

Germany won absolutely nothing with this outcome. Sure, Ukraine turned to West, but at what price? Now it's a devastated and bankrupted country with no control over a large portion of its own territory. And guess who will have to pay for their reconstruction? Yes, Germany. Merkel is anything but stupid. She knew from the beginning how Russia would react if threatened in her most sensitive interests. Georgia is not a far off memory for them. So yes, Germans would sure act to topple Yanukovicth if they had the chance, but only in a way "negotiated" with Russia. And that's exactly what they thought they had achieved in February 21st, 2014. Yanukovicth would be turned into a powerless President; there was to be new elections and Merkel's favorite Timoshenko would certainly win; Ukraine would join EU soon; and Russia would have to be satisfied with her Crimea's bases, and nothing more than that. The German plan was going too well, until Vic Nuland decided to f.. the EU once again. And here we are now.

Anonymous | Mar 8, 2015 3:26:40 PM | 67

Outraged

Did you miss that the EU mentioned Russia as the reason why EU wanted a EU army? Again, nothing but a US puppet proposal.

@63,64

jfl | Mar 8, 2015 4:20:37 PM | 68

It seems obvious to me that the EU - Germany - is much better off with Russia, the junior partner, than it is with the USA, the dominant partner.

Ok... but that's the way Germany sees itself vis a vis Russia and the way the US sees itself vis a vis Germany.

I guess the only question is on the downside of the switch ... how much pain can the US inflict on Germany thereafter?

And that's relative to how much pain the US' vicious, one-sided schemes can elicit for Germany (the EU) from the Russians. And that seems, everyday in every way, to be increasing.

I imagine that if the US does get a real war going with Russia they will have tipped the balance ... everything will then get unfrozen and move really quickly.

The reality will be apparent before news of it reaches our ears. Supersonically.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 4:25:08 PM | 69

@ Anonymous

If the intent is to replace NATO would you declare it or justify it 'falsely' by using the Empires propaganda justifications as a false cover ?

Again with the US puppet proposal crap, and why would the US want to create such a force when it would undermine nay invalidate NATOs very reason for existence for the last 60 plus years. NATO has been a political-military Trojan within Europe effectively controlled and literally commanded by the US, serving US interests for all that time.

Respectively, and reluctantly your 'point' suggests you are either naive, a fool or trollish, perhaps. Ed Lozano #66 touches on some relevant history and context if you are not aware of it ...

Ultimately nations only have and act on thier 'interests'.

okie farmer | Mar 8, 2015 4:53:54 PM | 70

Too much optimism in this thread. Heads of NATO, both European and US, have been urging NATO countries to "spend more on defense" - also many US politicians. There is a faction in Germany that have 'dreams' of their own MIC. Ukraine offers the chance to fulfill those dreams, they're pushing hard while they see the chance.

All but two of NATO members are headed by neoliberal scumbags, Greece and Hungary are the exceptions. France and Germany lead the way. Merkel has always been a neoliberal, Hollande has come to it only slightly reluctantly.

Neoliberalism is what US and EU have most in common - politically/economically. Very important. I don't think Germany has given up on buying up and privatizing as much of Ukraine as they can; and certainly the US based multinational corps are already buying Ukraine's assets - probably those corps in Europe too.

Perhaps the Spiegel article is a kind of false flag - or not; nonetheless it airs out what I see as a false resistance meme. Merkel, like Thatcher before her, is a committed neoliberal. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!

Ed Lozano | Mar 8, 2015 5:15:02 PM | 73

@Anonymous #71

The fact that the main "cause" for EU Army is the need containing Russia changes nothing on the discussion about EU-US "divorce". Containing Russia has always been the issue of any Western alliance. Problem is, US and EU have major divergences about how to do it. US favors a far more provocative and offensive approach, by positioning military bases, missile shields and naval fleets around Russian border, and encouraging Russia's neighbors to cut their ties with Moscow and join Western partnerships. Europe on the other hand advocate a strictly defensive pact, that respects Russia's interests and influence over its near abroad.

The main reason for this divergence is quite easy to understand. European leaders know that in the event of war with Russia, the battlefield will be in their own lands. US on the other hand has nothing to risk and much to gain with a conflict between Russia and Europe, unless of course Russia decides to end the World (but for some odd reason that possibility never comes into account for neocons). But again, the divorce between US and EU is quite clear in this case. And I believe it's needless to say Russia would strongly support an European Army proposal, even if it's main purpose was to counter Russian military. For threats should be perceived not by one's alleged purposes, but by the means one employs to achieve those purposes.

lysias | Mar 8, 2015 5:16:45 PM | 74

Yes, the powers that be did that to JFK when he stepped out of line. But they must know that, if they did the same thing to Obama, there would be riots all over the country. So Obama has power that JFK never had, but he's too cowardly or opportunistic to use that power.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 5:23:09 PM | 75

@ jfl

Agreed, though the US has always been cowardly, has always avoided risking open conflict with first world countries. It far prefers to have others fight it out between or amongst themselves and benefit from picking up the spoils at little cost afterwards. Everyone else is weaker thier economies damaged and the US relevant power enhanced.

See the Iran-Iraq war, see the US conduct in WWI, profiting handsomely throughout and only entering the conflict at the last moment once Germany was already on her knees and France and UK were crippled. Rinse and repeat in WwII letting the Nazis and Japanese Empire do their worst and handsomely profiting from all sides until they were dragged in on Dec 07 41. The cost exacted from 'helping' the UK was a takeover of their former empire and relegation to junior poodle vassal status. The UK was required to pay every single last dollar owed including interest accrued for Lend Lease during WWII and they only cleared the debt a few years ago.

The US doesn't want actual war with Russia, however, ongoing conflict both economic and low-medium military in Europe weakens all the europeans at no cost to and for the further benefit of the Five-eyes.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) works, unless miscalculations happen ...

It would seem the economic cost to Germany and to a lesser extent the rest of the EU regarding Russia is more than acceptable to the US, which ultimately has little skin in the game, for the US its a win-win, though apparently Germany and the EU? may be developing an entire different perspective, again all comes back to national 'interests'. And there appears to be no upside for Europe's interests re 'fuck the EU' ... even the somewhat rabid Poles are questioning the economic cost of Russia baiting re sanctions which are only hurting Russia and EU, US cost/pain=nil.

Anonymous | Mar 8, 2015 5:28:06 PM | 76

okie farmer

You are right, too much naive folks here suddenly. When people say that the EU army will somehow be "defensive" and will go against America's policies its just get too much to even comment further.

Outraged | Mar 8, 2015 7:21:58 PM | 78

@ Okie Farmer

The Military Commander of NATO (Supreme Allied Commander Europe - *barf*) is always a US General Officer and says publicly exactly what he is instructed to say by DC (ie. Breedlove), his counterpart the NATO Secretary-General supposedly speaks for all NATO members however due to the US largely rigging the appointments has most often been little more than a rabid Atlanticist warmonger also receiving his talking points from DC, former Anders Fogh Rasmussen having been one of the worst, and the current Jens Stoltenberg is no better (he's a champion for NATO getting its very own Nukes, yay), hence there isn't much room for other individual members of NATO to even get airtime re issues relative NATO.

Yes, the US Commander of NATO and the effectively US appointed Secretary-General sockpuppet and lots of US politicians want the Europeans to spend a lot more of their Euros on an expanded NATO military that the US commands, especially if its US armaments, and even more so if that caused the Russians to have to waste more money to further counter/offset a NATO expansion, for the benefit of US interests. Cost/pain to US=nil.

However, there has been little discernable success because of sustained resistance to this call for some time now by NATO member countries, regardless of the over-the-top US propaganda re Russia and Ukraine, as NATO members have better things to do with those Euros given the state of the EU economy (austerity - public antipathy to military expenditure) since the GFC and the only beneficiary would be the US including indirectly by further weakening the EU economy to further US economic advantage globally. The indications are that even the UK poodle intends to further cutback, not expand, its military budget after the upcoming election.

The selling points of this possible EU Army apparently being put forward by Junckers/Germany are an EU Commander (ie. Not a US officer, rotating national appointment ?), under EU command serving EU interests, supposedly greater effectiveness/efficiency/reduced duplication, and therefore purportedly costing less Euros overall re current military expenditure (compared to US controlled NATO ?).

Nah, can't for the life of me see why the UK and US would be adamantly opposed ... *cough*

ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 8, 2015 10:07:10 PM | 80

I would separate German policies in the rest of the EU/world with German policies within their own borders.
A strong proxy for the presence of neoliberal economic policies is property prices. Nations which undergo a property bubble - are almost always neoliberal. Germany in this respect had pretty much the lowest property price growth of any EU nation.

Debs is dead | Mar 8, 2015 10:08:00 PM | 81

If American foreign policy can engineer a war based around the Ukraine where European troops fight russian troops at the same time as a major schism develops in Europe between the 'new Europeans' of the Baltic states, Poland and the Czech republic and the old Europeans of France germany italy and spain, the amerikan empire will have killed two birds with one stone.

I reckon the European schism won't be splintering along such neat and tidy fault lines if it splinters at all, however.

While the old school euro politicians may be reluctant to go to war, I am unsure their military leadership shares that view.

For too long Nato command structures have been trained with an American ethos and a value set likely to see war as being 'a good thing'. The alacrity with which Nato tossed its European defense goal aside to jump into Afghanistan and then encouraged Nato members to deploy to then, despite both deployments being at odds with the wishes of their fellow citizens, ably illustrates the fault line between political and military leadership which successive euro pols have desperately tried to conceal from their voters

In the immediate post war period the euro governments had little say in the matter but with the occasional exception of france the bulk of european pols have been content to let amerika pick up the training tab for staff officers. With the short term goal orientation typical of elected leaders, most euro pols chose to believe they were getting 'free' training for their military commanders, rather than the truth - that europe was paying vast sums for a military whose commanders would dance the washington jig.

The short-sightedness of europe's pols has them choking their Greek brothers and sisters while the euro continues to decline yet the US$ arcs ever upwards, and never asking themselves "why are we working so hard to help amerika at the expense of fellow europeans?"

I have no doubt however much Merkel and co claim to oppose a full on war with Ukraine; instigated at least in part by their own military leaders whose patriotism must be open to question, that in the end they will acquiese to Nuland's strategy.

Not to do so would rquire vision and personal courage both of these in short supply among euro neo-liberals.

Especially for Merkel there is an easy out. All she needs to do is to tap into the just below the surface and rarely enunciated beliefs of a substantial number of her fellow citizens - that Germany has the 'right' to expand its influence further east.

whack | Mar 9, 2015 5:15:16 AM | 85

@Outraged 78

What a relief to see finally somebody who gets it. Bravo!

(Some hasbara trolls here pretend not to, in order to spread fear and disnfo).

Prosperous Peace | Mar 9, 2015 2:25:19 AM | 84

I think you give Obongo way too much credit.

He is "President" yes, but is he really? Or is he just a token face for the McCain´s and the other white House plantation owners to hold up for the 99%, a mere House n*gger?

Everytime the man open his mouth accompanied as always by his Telepromter or advisors, even then puerile stupidities ansd ridicolous threats comes out. I think he is doing a better characterization of himself than the North Koreans possibly could imagine...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-27/north-korea-trolls-obama-compares-us-president-monkey-tropical-jungle

Anonymous | Mar 9, 2015 6:17:16 AM | 87

@ Debs is Dead

The whole purpose of NATO from inception was to undermine and suborn the military command of the NATO members military forces to US control for the benefit of the Empire. To have leverage of those militaries and direct command influence outside of their 'sovereign' governments. To keep Germany 'down'. Many Non-US-UK NATO officers are very aware indeed of what NATO really is, US provided 'training' or not. De Gaulle was well aware of the threat and gave NATO 'the finger' many times.

Five-eyes military officers are routinely utilized by their intelligence agencies to actively and aggressively cultivate and suborn any military officer who is not Five-eyes. The same process is aggressively pursued by the intelligence agencies against their counterparts amongst their tier three and four pseudo-allies such as Germany, France, Italy, etc. This has been going on for many decades.

The Chinese learnt this lesson during WWII and under no circumstances allow any officer with Operational/Line command in the PLA to have direct contact with US military counterparts except under very strict circumstances. The PLA has a dedicated corps of officers to conduct such interaction and liasion who will never be given PLA Operational/Line commands in their career as a result. To say the least, this really pisses the US off no end. A PR/Liaison officer in the PLA is of no use as an agent or future agent of influence given such policies, bummer.

These 'harmless' military-military and intelligence-intelligence interactions have been the very basis/foundation stone of the vast majority of the coups and destabilization operations the US has conducted on every continent since WWII.

There is the Five-eyes and then every other country on the planet, who are merely given different ratings of 'hostile' or 'enemy' and treated accordingly, regardless of any public utterings re so called 'alliances' and 'partnerships'.

'Old Europe' has dragged its feet and more many times despite dictats from the US. Latin America provides many examples of where the US polices/actions are ultimately counter-productive, compare its current state to the 60's-70's-80's absolute US dominance.

Regardless of US Neoliberal politics/virus the serving militaries of NATO as a whole would be bound more tightly to their own communities and individual national interests, should push come to shove, me thinks, given histories lessons.

IF the EU is to get out from under US domination/control/influence which is more and more counter to its own and europes interests (and many of its individual nations interests), it has to create separation of its intelligence services from the Five-eyes and take back control of its own military commands and agencies. A very big IF indeed ...

Outraged | Mar 9, 2015 5:38:28 AM | 86

More proof for the naive folks here:
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/03/09/400990/Russia-MP-calls-EU-army-idea-provocative

[Mar 09, 2015] Boris Nemtsov ally: Islamist speculation over murder 'useful for Kremlin' by Shawn Walker

They still want to play the war propaganda game. Here we go. Shawn Walker writings. Foreign Office talking points. What not this Illya Yashin (not sure if he was co-leader of Nemtsov's opposition party then), involved with distribution to protesters several millions in West-supplied cash that were discovered at Ksenia Sobchak apartment during Russian color revolution of 2012 ?
Mar 09, 2015 | The Guardian

founderchurch

The NEW Cold War is back with a vengeance. Similar lineup but very different ideologies in conflict. Before you had atheistic communism against religious capitalism, now the roles are reversed. America and England are now resembling the old socialist USSR and Red China, while Russia and China are now increasingly coming to resemble the formerly religious and capitalistic America and England. What irony... OMG one thing is the same, eminent Nuclear War...

richiep40 -> Jose C. Sandoval

We will never know who started the fire in Odessa, The Guardian.

What happened to the open and transparent investigations into the shootings in Maidan, the fire in Odessa and the downing of the Malaysian aircraft I wonder ?

VladimirM

"Putin has said he has taken "personal control" of the investigation"

The phrase has sparked a sort of controversy here, some people are even using it as a proof of conspiracy. It's mainly because they are not aware of what this expression actually means.
The phrase "взять под личный контроль" in Russian does not mean that Putin is personally in charge of the team of investigators giving orders which line to follow or not, who to charge or arrest or not.

It simply means that police and security service are informing him regularly about the progress in the investigation, meetings or briefings may be held, reports are being made, etc., etc. The importance of the case is unprecedented, so the people, resources, etc. must be involved, engaged in the same unprecedented scale. The highest level of control is just facilitating all this as well as cooperation and coordination of law-enforcement agencies.
That's what this eye-catching phrase means.

Laudig, 2015-03-10,00:16:54

This is what a political assassination looks like American-style. "After two years of guerrilla warfare, leading Péralte to declare a provisional government in the north of Haiti, Charlemagne Péralte was betrayed by one of his officers, Jean-Baptiste Conzé, who led disguised US Marines Sergeant Herman H. Hanneken (later meritoriously promoted to Second Lieutenant for his exploits) and Corporal William Button into the rebels camp, near Grand-Rivière Du Nord.[1]:215-217" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_P%C3%A9ralte

Solongmariane 9 Mar 2015 14:41

Contrary to JFK & Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Isaac Rabin .!!!! .we get a lot of arrested suspects. It's a conjuration, and with so much complices it will possible to get informations. Objectivily, I don't see why Putin will need to eliminate physically Nemtsov, because he didn't exist before his assassination.

It was so easy to destroy him politically, with the kind of life he has ( too much women). It's the west who created a anti-Putin heros, for his propaganda..

Andrew -> Oldtruster

I think Ramzan Kadyrov said the truth. He illustrated the motivation of the killer. The killer seems a simple-minded person. It was easy to convince him that Nemtsov had outraged the prophet. This have nothing to do with real motives of the murder but we will never get to know them as a man who convinced the killer has died. Investigators are off the trail, case closed.

susandbs12 9 Mar 2015 14:38

Rather than speculation we should wait for the results of the investigation to be published.

The Russia haters are too quick to expect instantaneous results, and jump to preposterous conclusions based on nothing.

Wait for the investigation to be completed. This constant sniping will not have a positive effect on those who are doubtlessly working very hard to find out what happened and why.

seaspan -> Standupwoman 9 Mar 2015 15:13

Nemtsov's allies, the US/CIA, and Kiev.

Or Muslims...

The list was rather short for Sherlock, and you cant convict them all. Muslims are the perfect patsie and the crazy fundies can and are indirectly connected to any number of third "western" parties already. So all in all, a good choice. I can just see the conspiracy loons at RT and elsewhere busy connecting the dots, to defend their main man Putin.

Ciarán Here 9 Mar 2015 14:38

Boris Nemtsov ALLY and the guardian make fine cocktail Islamist speculation over murder 'useful for Kremlin' ....but not useful for the USA UK EU....

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves

Ciarán Here -> tjmars 9 Mar 2015 14:34

Yes you spotted it, it is called pointing the finger away from oneself - look over there! No not there in Detroit or Greece for example but there in Russia we need to demonize a enemy to distract the plebs from our mistreatment of them...and to justify our wars against those who simply say no and that we are a sovereign state not a vassal of your greed ...


aucontraire2 MasonInNY 9 Mar 2015 14:19

You are not naive if you are from NY. You know that the Putin saga is all a made up story to hide the failures of the west on the international scene.

The US is a failed leader now because it has failed the world in not providing justice to Palestinians. The world needs a moral leader. Obviously the Chinese aren't interested at becoming the world's moral leader, Russia can't become a moral leader for obvious reasons, Canada was on its way to take the leadership, but the US republicans saw to it by forcing a nutcase called Harper who hides in a closet at the first sound of firecrackers.

tjmars 9 Mar 2015 14:18

The Guardian Trusts's new way of keeping privileged access to governmental news is to promote propaganda pieces for the government. The Guardian had to do a 180 after Snowden, so we'll forever more get the likes of subjective opinions of young idealists from a Russian political party that couldn't afford a security detail for its leader.

I guess with the ceasefire in Ukraine and the arrests of two conspirators so far from Chechnya, they are running out of angles to spread the BS around with.

How about switching over to the not-so breaking news that globalization is devastating currencies and economies, politics and human rights and resources and environmernts; the monetising and marketing on everything worldwide.

Why report on the failure of politics and economics in one lousy country, when there's a "failure du jour" everyday caused by globalization.

Why not cover the wars resulting from it on a daily rotation?

Who could have predicted that World War 3 would be a protracted economic war that would plunge the world into a neo-Dark Age for hundreds of years?

The real wars are now suicides where people, who can't stand the stifling boredom of repititous consumer product variations, sign up to commit suicide en mass in a foreign country. That, adversely, is video gaming creating its own reality...

Standupwoman 9 Mar 2015 14:12

A predictable approach, but it misses something rather important. If the murder is indeed brought home to the Chechens, then that is very convenient for all the other and much more likely suspects - Nemtsov's allies, the US/CIA, and Kiev. Putin had no motive, but each of those three had much to gain from a Nemtsov assassination, and have been gleefully cashing in ever since.

If Putin wanted to deflect blame onto someone else, why on earth wouldn't he choose one of those? If Russia is the gangland state so many seem to think, then it would be simple to 'do a Kiev' and stage a 'confession' implicating the CIA, Poroshenko, or anyone it wanted. So why hasn't it?

Unless of course the investigation is genuine and the Chechens did it after all...

irishmand -> seaspan 9 Mar 2015 15:06

It is my understanding that his area of influence and political activity was limited to Moscow, the place Stalin over defended as he correctly surmised it was the brain of the USSR. Yeltsin also understood Moscow as the place to agitate to shake up the national leadership.

If you want to start a coup, you have to do it in Moscow. Nemtsov was losing his influence in Moscow. He was an member of the local duma in Yaroslavl'.

therealbillythefish 9 Mar 2015 15:05

Unfortunately for those on the West and their agents in Russia, the killers have been caught fairly quickly and at least one has already confessed.

So, better go find something else to scream and shout about.

irishmand McStep 9 Mar 2015 15:03

I have no shame. Sorry, I lost it somewhere on my way... Maybe, after reading the western press for a while, I started mimicking them.

But, in my defense, I only troll the trolls. If somebody wants to have a meaningful discussion I am ready to have it too..

artdeco McStep 9 Mar 2015 15:02

Yeah, suspected so (Not that there's anything wrong with being Russian!, to paraphrase Seinfeld) - the frequent absence of the little word the in sentences is a quite reliable "tell"...
;)

seaspan -> 1waldo1 9 Mar 2015 15:00

Why would he have to be in the "western press" to be considered important by the Kremlin? He was involved in Moscow and was assassinated for his political activity there, not in Chechnya or London. Doesn't Russia have its own independent domestic political dynamic?

No one else outside that venue should have given a damn about him.

rodney9 -> UBX525AEZ 9 Mar 2015 14:58

They even had a snow removal truck come by there to obstruct any potential witnesses at that exact moment of the murder.The snow truck seemed to be slowed down at the point of the murder to provide the killer or killers cover

You clearly belong to the Gary Kasparov school of en passant criminologists.

McStep -> crystaltips2 9 Mar 2015 14:55

mate, there are so many apparatchik trolls on this and other related threads, it's a joke. the laughable thing about them is that most Russians know their media system is woefully centrally controlled and censored, but they actually agree with this because they think the function of news media is to tell the people want they want to hear in order to maintain solidarity in times of trouble.

in essence, they know, or a part of them knows, that they're talking utter **** but i guess like some poor domestically abused partner it's a case, of, " SHUT UP, WHAT DO YOU KNOW??? HE LOVES ME!!!!!"

but it's understandable. if your leader is perpetuating generations of the indoctrinated notion that the tsar has every right to pillage the state, murder its people and incite conflict on a whim, then its probably is very difficult to come to terms with the abject sense of shame they should be feeling.

therealbillythefish

Unfortunately for those on the West and their agents in Russia, the killers have been caught fairly quickly and at least one has already confessed.

So, better go find something else to scream and shout about.

Fromrussia1976 -> therealbillythefish

Or you'd better to investigate who has downed that plane in the Ukraine... Half a year has left, but no result!

vr13vr

We don't know yet all the details and we are not sure what is behind this Chechen link. But no matter what the working hypothesis are and what the results are, this opposition is going to criticize it. That's why he is in anti-government opposition. There is no need to put his doubts into a front page article.

SonnyTuckson

Scripted by the Kremlin. Again. Nothing new here. Getting rid of one opponent by blaming another.

irishmand -> SonnyTuckson

Scripted by CIA Again. Nothing new here. Stage a murder, blame on somebody else.

rodney9

Perhaps it would be more to the point, and better journalism, to elaborate and contexualise the comments made by Nemtsov on Charlie Hebdo, or the German cartoon he published on his facebook side, as well as Nemtsov's personal attack on Kadyrov, rather than blanket denials that it has anything to do with insulting the prophet Mohammed. Fortunately, following a few links here in the comment section makes that all possible. That they are ignored here in the article is evidence once again of poor journalism, it's almost like being told don't bother to go there, it's not worth it, just keep on believing it was Putin. The Guardian published an editorial not so very long ago about " a cynical post-modern media strategy" all those Kremlin controlled channels manipulating the truth for daring to suggest 5 (sic) lines of enquiry, and how truth itself was "vanishing" in a flurry of what they called "weaponised relativism". CCTV cameras were conspicuously inoperative, some bigots speculated that a snow plough had been strategically sent in (Gary Kasparov) to mask the actual footage of the moment of the killing.

We realise that this must be very disppointing for all those who wanted this to be a sure fire mafia hit in a "mafia state" carried out by a mafia boss, rather than an act of Islamic terrorism from fanatics that we have recently seen elsewhere in Paris and Copenhagen.

We shouldn't forget that hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Chechnya against Charlie Hebdo, finding it all very provocative. I will probably watch France 24, that news channel might not be so hostile to looking at the real connections and Nemtsov's comments in depth rather than denials by an English newspaper.

Simon311 -> rodney9

Well the Guardian and others who have spent months telling us that the Russian media is not worth reading and watching, now quotes the Russian media when it agrees with thier view.

This is almost mental illness in its inconsistency.

Ludicrous - the Russian media is always wrong, until it says someting we like, then it is completely right.

MentalToo

Saw this headline at TASS:

First suspects in Nemtsov murder identified - Federal Security Service

Surprisingly it turned out the suspects was not FSB after all, but some of Kadyrov's lunatics arrested by FSB. Who could have guessed that.

It seems they have found some, who are even more crazy than he is.

daltonbernard

...some of Nemtsov's associates ... do not believe fanatics acting alone could have shot someone dead so close to the Kremlin.

I mean, that's just dumb. It's not hard to shoot somebody. I don't see how the proximity to the Kremlin makes it any more difficult. You just ... do it. It takes all of a second or two to pull a trigger a few times. Unless the Russians have installed some kind of electromagnetic field around the Kremlin that magically stops guns from firing. But the article doesn't say they have, so I'm at a loss as to how "some of Nemtsov's associates" could be so irrational.

seaspan -> daltonbernard

Rumour's are flying in Moscow, and lazy journalists will report whatever they hear without putting it into a more understandable context or making better sense of it. What I've heard that makes more sense is that a Chechen fanatic muslim "motive" doesn't make any sense, even though someone from there could have been hired to kill Nemtsov -- the important point is that the motive remains open and officially obscured...

Simon311 -> Havingalavrov

Howd o you know

a) He was a "complete professional"?

b) Criminals make mistakes all the time

c) You appear to be beleieving Russian media which you have said is full of lies.

So self contradictory pompous rubbish.

Yes you do not like Putin - got it.

BunglyPete

Make of this what you will but this seems to be the official line so don't expect much else

In 2007 Boris Nemtsov gave an interview to the magazine "Expert", in which he stated that all the measures of President Vladimir Putin are aimed at increasing the birth rate, primarily in the regions populated by Muslims, and it is "extremely dangerous for the future of Russia". After that Nemtsov was accused by well-known representatives of the Muslim world of Islamophobia.

In January 2015, the year after the execution of cartoonists from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the politician in his blog on the website of "Echo of Moscow" had justified the actions of the cartoonists, and wrote that "Islam is stuck in the middle ages", and called recent events the "Islamic Inquisition".

A few days later, Nemtsov said that "Everyone is tired of Kadyrov's threats", and "it is time to arrest him". This happened after the head of Chechnya said very unflattering things about the opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky and journalist Alexey Venediktov because of their support for the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo.

Zaur Dadaev decided that Boris Nemtsov offended Muslims, and out of a false sense of patriotism and defense of religion decided to punish the politician

http://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2015/03/08/1375743.html

Simon311 -> BunglyPete

The US, Russia and Germany - you can't beat any of them for producing weird types.

Simon311 -> RedTelecaster

Whatever a "Putinbot" may be. SOunds like a new word for "commie" as it was used 40 years ago.

Renfrow

Reading the posts here it is clear to me that people that blamed Putin for this will continue to do so regardless of what evidence to the contrary is presented simply because it suits their agenda.

FrancesSmith -> RedTelecaster

go on help the neocons destroy eastern europe. do nuland and breedlove pay you are or do you do it for free?

but in truth you just reveal the ugliness that lies at the heart of the demonisation of putin, and repel people. keep it up..................

midnightschild10

It's the silly season again. The Obama administration is demanding a thorough investigation of Nemtsov' s death. They don't want a whitewash. The US certainly knows a whitewash when it sees one. Our Justicell Department looked high and low in the White House and couldn't find one banker or CEO to hold responsible for the housing crises. ( They all hang out on Wall Street.) Given a second chance to do their job, they couldn't find any military/industrial contractor who committed fraud in either not building incinerators on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan or built them but they could not be used because of shoddy workmanship. ( Should have asked soldiers returning home with respiratory problems due to trash pits.) And finally the DOJ was unable to find anyone responsible for the torture and rendition programs ( could have found Cheyney on Fox News continuing to do interviews.)

So it shouldn't be too difficult for Russia to do a better job investigating the death of Nemtsov, since the US has set the bar so low.

irgun777

Shaun Walker writes about " Islamic speculation convenient for Kremlin '

One of the suspects blow himself in traditional Islamic suicide tradition, others were charged in court hiding their faces from reporters. This is where Mr Walker, the speculation stops.

[Mar 08, 2015] US Hawks Undermine Berlin's Peace Efforts in Ukraine - German Newspaper

Mar 08, 2015 | Sputnik International

The civil war in Ukraine has exposed a fundamental rift between the US and Europe in terms of vision and goals for the region, as powerful US hardliners are working tirelessly to escalate the crisis with a broader agenda in mind, Der Spiegel news magazine said.

US hawks, including the likes of Victoria Nuland, the head of European affairs at the US State Department, and General Philip Breedlove, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, are seeking to destabilize Russia and undermine its influence. To that end they are trying to heighten tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine, undermining peace efforts led by Germany and France. Although the US president currently supports the European initiative, he has "done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine," Der Spiegel said.

A relatively calm situation in Ukraine's eastern regions following the latest Minsk agreements does not play into the hands of US hawks. So instead of being cautiously optimistic that the ceasefire holds, General Breedlove warned in late February that the situation "is getting worse every day."

These and many other remarks made by the top NATO European commander with regard to Russia's alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis "stunned" and "alarmed" German leaders, since these claims are often not supported by the data provided by Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND, the news magazine said.

General Breedlove "repeatedly made inexact, contradictory or even flat-out inaccurate statements," Der Spiegel pointed out. However, he refused to revise them telling the media outlet that "it is normal that not everyone agrees with the assessments that I provide."

Berlin is concerned that Breedlove's stance "could harm the West's credibility," Der Spiegel said. Consequently, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is determined to discuss the issue with his American counterpart John Kerry to rule out any possible misinterpretations in the future. However, on Saturday, Steinmeier downplayed the US-German differences highlighted in Der Spiegel's article by emphasizing that German officials "have no interest in any dispute emerging from this."

Indeed, German authorities "have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute [between Germany and the US] is a fundamental one - and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action," Der Spiegel said.

Moreover, while Germany and France seek to stabilize situation in Ukraine, US hardliners seem to have a different goal in mind. "For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow," the magazine said.

See also:

[Mar 07, 2015] Washington's Cloned Female Warmongers By Finian Cunningham

What is it about America's women diplomats? They seem so hard and cloned - bereft of any humanity or intelligence. Smear Campaigns, Bullying, Flattery ... All set of tricks of female sociopaths...
February 09, 2014 | Information Clearing House

What is it about America's women diplomats? They seem so hard and cloned - bereft of any humanity or intelligence. Presumably, these women are supposed to represent social advance for the female gender. But, far from displaying female independence, they are just a pathetic copy of the worst traits in American male politicians - aggressive, arrogant and completely arrant in their views.

Take Victoria Nuland - the US Assistant Secretary of State - who was caught using obscene language in a phone call about the European Union and the political affairs of Ukraine. In her previous posting as a spokeswoman for the US State Department, Nuland had the demeanor of a robotic matron with a swivel eye.

Now in her new role of covertly rallying anti-government protesters in Ukraine, Nuland has emerged to sound like a bubblegum-chewing Mafia doll. In her leaked private conversation with the US ambassador to Kiev, the American female diplomat is heard laying down in imperious tones how a new government in Ukraine should be constituted. Nuland talks about "gluing together" a sovereign country as if it is a mere plaything, and she stipulates which members of the US-backed street rabble in Kiev should or should not be included in any Washington-approved new government in the former Soviet republic.

We don't know who actually tapped and leaked Nuland's private call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt. It could have been the Ukrainian or Russian secret services, but, regardless, it was an inspired move to reveal it. For the disclosure, which has been posted on the internet, lays bare the subversive meddling agenda of Washington in Ukrainian internal affairs. Up to now, the Americans have been piously pretending that their involvement is one of a bystander supporting democracy from afar.

But, thanks to the Nuland's foul-mouthed indiscretion, the truth is out. Washington, from her own admission, is acting like an agent provocateur in Ukraine's political turmoil. That is an illegal breach of international rules of sovereignty. Nuland finishes her phone call like a gangster ordering a hit on a rival, referring to incompetent European interference in Ukraine with disdain - "F...k the EU."

What we are witnessing here is the real, ugly face of American government and its uncouth contempt for international law and norms.

Next up is Wendy Sherman, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, who is also Washington's top negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Sherman is another flinty-eyed female specimen of the American political class, who, like Nuland, seems to have a block of ice for a heart and a frozen Popsicle for a brain.

Again, like Nuland, Sherman aims to excel in her political career by sounding even more macho, morose and moronic than her male American peers.

Last week, Sherman was giving testimony before the US Senate foreign affairs committee on the upcoming negotiations with Iran over the interim nuclear agreement. The panel was chaired by the warmongering Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, who wants to immediately ramp up more sanctions on Iran, as well as back the Israeli regime in any preemptive military strike on the Islamic Republic.

Sherman's performance was a craven display of someone who has been brainwashed to mouth a mantra of falsehoods with no apparent ability to think for herself. It's scary that such people comprise the government of the most nuclear-armed-and-dangerous state in the world.

Programmed Sherman accused Iran of harboring ambitions to build nuclear weapons. "We share the same goal [as the warmonger Menendez] to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." And she went on to repeat threadbare, risible allegations that Iran is supporting international terrorism. That is a disturbing indication of the low level of political intelligence possessed by the US chief negotiator.

"Iran also continues to arm and train militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Bahrain. And Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue," asserted Sherman without citing an iota of proof and instead relying on a stale-old propaganda narrative.

The number three in the US State Department went on to say of the interim nuclear deal with Iran: "What is also important to understand is that we remain in control over whether to accept the terms of a final deal or not. We have made it clear to Iran that, if it fails to live up to its commitments, or if we are unable to reach agreement on a comprehensive solution, we would ask the Congress to ramp up new sanctions."

Remember that Sherman and her State Department boss John Kerry are considered "soft on Iran" by the likes of Menendez, John McCain, Lyndsey Graham, Mark Kirk, and the other political psychopaths in Washington. So, we can tell from Sherman's callous words and mean-minded logic that the scope for genuine rapprochement between the US and Iran is extremely limited.

Sherman finished her performance before the Senate panel with the obligatory illegal threat of war that Washington continually issues against Iran: "We retain all options to ensure that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon."

In the goldfish-bowl environment of Washington politics, perhaps such female officials are to be even more feared. The uniform monopoly of America's political class is dictated by militarism – weapons manufacturers, oil companies and Zionist lobbyists. The only way to "succeed" in this cesspool is to be even more aggressive and imperialist than your peers.

Nuland and Sherman illustrate the cold-hearted logic at work in American robotic politics: it's a system programmed for imperialism and war, and it doesn't matter whether the officials are Democrat, Republic, male or female. They are all clones of a war criminal state.

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism.

This article was originally published at Press TV

[Mar 07, 2015] Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin "Stunned" At US Desire For War In Ukraine

Nuland somewhat reminds Madeleine Albright. Both are so fund of bulling their opponents, that probably might be classified as female psychopaths... As one commenters noted "I take it that "hard-charging" is an American euphemism for foul of mouth and coarse of temperament?"
Mar 07, 2015 | zerohedge.com

While Russia's envoy to NATO notes that statements by the deputy head of NATO testify to the fact that the leaders of the bloc want to intervene in Russia's internal politics, and are "dreaming of Russian Maidan," Washington has a bigger problem... Germany. As Der Spiegel reports, while US President Obama 'supports' Chancellor Merkel's efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin's approach. And NATO's top commander in Europe hasn't been helping either with sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda."

... ... ...

And as Der Spiegel reports, The Germans are not happy.

... ... ...

Nuland Diplomacy

Nuland, who is seen as a possible secretary of state should the Republicans win back the White House in next year's presidential election, is an important voice in US policy concerning Ukraine and Russia. She has never sought to hide her emotional bond to Russia, even saying "I love Russia." Her grandparents immigrated to the US from Bessarabia, which belonged to the Russian empire at the time. Nuland speaks Russian fluently.

She is also very direct. She can be very keen and entertaining, but has been known to take on an undiplomatic tone -- and has not always been wrong to do so. Mykola Asarov, who was prime minister under toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, recalls that Nuland basically blackmailed Yanukovych in order to prevent greater bloodshed in Kiev during the Maidan protests. "No violence against the protesters or you'll fall," Nuland told him according to Asarov. She also, he said, threatened tough economic and political sanctions against both Ukraine and the country's leaders. According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public.

Nuland has also been open -- at least internally -- about her contempt for European weakness and is famous for having said "Fuck the EU" during the initial days of the Ukraine crisis in February of 2014. Her husband, the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, is, after all, the originator of the idea that Americans are from Mars and Europeans, unwilling as they are to realize that true security depends on military power, are from Venus.

When it comes to the goal of delivering weapons to Ukraine, Nuland and Breedlove work hand-in-hand. On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the two gathered the US delegation behind closed doors to discuss their strategy for breaking Europe's resistance to arming Ukraine.

On the seventh floor of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the heart of Munich, it was Nuland who began coaching. "While talking to the Europeans this weekend, you need to make the case that Russia is putting in more and more offensive stuff while we want to help the Ukrainians defend against these systems," Nuland said. "It is defensive in nature although some of it has lethality."

Jurassic

general Breedwar or Breedhatred? Hes war maniac!

cossack55

Typical wingnut general. Notice you don't hear the grunts talkin' shit. Gotta go. Dr. Strangelove is about to start.

XqWretch

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

bania

Breedlove? Heading up an army? Can't make this stuff up!!!

Took Red Pill

"Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine." We all are!

chunga

Hmmm...Nudelman and Kagan aren't from Mars or Venus are they?

Urban Redneck

Frau Ferkel is just a muppet cocktease, and so is the "concern". It's nothing but political cover for the political whores. If they were seriously alarmed, they would simply revoke General Ripper's diplomatic credentials and issue an arrest warrant for the psychopath.

Lumberjack

Read this:

The Obscenely Easy Exile of Idi Amin

https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/164/28440.html

On a reporting trip to Saudi Arabia seven years ago, I went to Idi Amin's house. I had heard that Mr. Amin, the former Ugandan dictator who died last weekend at the age of 78, was living in Jidda, the Red Sea port, and I wanted to see for myself. Was it possible that a man who, in the 1970's, had ordered the deaths of 300,000 of his countrymen, raped and robbed his nation into endless misery and admitted to having eaten human flesh was whiling away his time as a guest of the Saudi government?

It was. There, in a spacious villa behind a white gate, Mr. Amin made his home with a half-dozen of his 30 or so children. He was not there the day I rang (a son said he was out of town), but locals said he could often be seen pushing his cart along the frozen food section of the supermarket, being massaged at the health club, praying at the mosque. He had long ago abandoned his British-style military uniform for the white robe of the Saudi man, but as an African measuring 6-foot-3 and nearly 300 pounds, he did not exactly blend in.

A former Sudanese colonel who worked as a manager at the local supermarket said, "People greet him and say, `Hello, Mr. President.' " Why? Wasn't he a savage dictator?

"Oh yes" he used to eat people," the manager replied, laughing. "But this is our nature. We forget."

But what would prompt the Saudi government to play host to such a man?

The answer, when the question was posed to Saudi officials, was an excursion into the desert habits of hospitality, and Mr. Amin's conversion to Islam. His support for the Arab boycott of Israel in the 1970's certainly also endeared him to his hosts.

During the nearly quarter-century of his soft exile, no nation tried to bring Mr. Amin to justice. A few years ago, after Spain's government went after Chile's former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, Human Rights Watch did bring up Mr. Amin's case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, but to no avail. Under international law, any nation, including Saudi Arabia, could have and should have prosecuted Mr. Amin.

But, as Reed Brody, special counsel for prosecutions at Human Rights Watch, says, "If you kill one person, you go to jail; if you kill 20, you go to an institution for the insane; if you kill 20,000, you get political asylum." Mr. Brody keeps a melancholy map on his wall of other tyrants gone free: Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay, lives in Brazil; Haiti's Raoúl Cedras is in Panama; Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia is in Zimbabwe; Hissí¨ne Habré of Chad lives in Senegal. Today there is the International Criminal Court, which can bring a future Amin to justice, although the United States is among 100 countries that have shortsightedly declined to participate in the court.

I was sorry not to have had a chance to talk to Mr. Amin directly. But those who did speak with him suggest that I missed little. An Italian journalist, Riccardo Orizio, asked him in 1999 whether he felt remorse. No, Mr. Amin replied, only nostalgia. Six years earlier, a British writer, Tom Stacey, saw him. At one point, Mr. Amin pulled from his pocket a paraphrase of Psalm 22 and commented: "Remember we are special to God. He sees a beauty in us few see."

Harbanger

"The term "neoconservative" refers to those who made the ideological journey from the anti-Stalinist LEFT to the camp of American conservatism."

-Straight from the definition for the morons that don't know how to do research..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

August

I continue to believe that the US goal in the Ukraine is to distract and bedevil Russia merely by expending a few billion zio-dollars, and thousands of Ukrainian lives, both of which are truly dirt cheap in Washington's calculus. This is to be followed by the USA's ultimately just walking away, leaving a broken Ukraine for its neighbors, chiefly Russia, to reconstruct.

Every now and then, though, some US spokes-toady makes statements that imply that the USA actually wants a major war... with Russia. I hope and pray that this is merely Grand Chessboard Theatre, but I am starting to have doubts. For a taste of the motivational fare now offered to US "conservatives", you might want to take a look at the recently posted anit-Russia piece posted at National Review, which openly calls for regime change in Moscow. It's a well-written polemic which makes some sense... provided that you accept that Washington and Brussels are citadels of freedom and human rights, Russians are ignorant, drunken blockheads, and Putin is evil incarnate.

sunaJ

"I continue to believe that the US goal in the Ukraine is to distract and bedevil Russia merely by expending a few billion zio-dollars,"

In your estimation is the second part of this Kansas City Shuffle being Syria and pipelines to Europe, or are they also symptoms of some greater neocon fear, ie. Russian oil dominance in a petrodollar world?

Jack Burton

Breedlove is talking his book. His glory and promotions would increase and his power would expand the more he can talk the NATO into war. Breedlove will be secure in the command bunker, and like the Iraq war command, be fully secure while his men faced possible death and mutilation.

The text book for this is Yugoslavia. Europe had brokered a few peace deals, but the USA stepped in and undercut them all with lies and flase intelligence, leading to several bloody wars. Right now Washington seeks the Yugoslavia solution, a long bloody war.

Ignatius

"According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public."

Did Nuland also say that about Occupy to the Obummer administation?

Escrava Isaura

Ohh Boy.

The US military industrial complex doesn't care about European press, or America press, for that matter. US military industrial complex doesn't' even care who the President is.

Do you think the US military complex cares if the US government bails out lots of big lemons-banks, insurance, auto makers, airlines, and food stamps to the working poor? No, they could care less, because US military industrial complex is immune to budget constraints and they are the biggest supporters of failing industries and projects.

Do you think that the US military complex cares for what industries the analysts and brokers at an investment firms such as JP Morgan, Goldman, or Rothschild's picks as winners for government contracts or a stock market bubble? Hell no, because they are the biggest winners.

So, the Germans are stunned about NATO? Are you kidding me?

Germany and NATO are branches of the US military industrial complex.

johngaltfla

Obama is a Neocon?

Who'dathunkit!??!!?

In reality, the world is sick of this bullshit. I'm sick of it. Rand Paul's approach is 1000% correct; quit meddling!

Germany is correct to object to this because if we get involved in the Ukraine with Poland then Russia will be outside of Berlin with several brigades of tanks in days. The US nor NATO are ready for a major multi-front conflict unless they use nukes.

Which wouldn't be all that bad because some of the US cities we would lose are a major part of the economic drag and societal/political problems we have at this time....

Never mind. Fire away boys.

krage_man

The instutute of US presidency is shockingly weak.

Basically, very little can Obama do if all career burocrats continue doing what they always doing.

Obama is not able to get control of the goverment staff which demonstrate how weak leader he is and how unimportant any political office change is for foregn policy.

Dems or Reps - no matter who is there will always be criminal actions on the world scine.

sunaJ

Germany needs to wake up NOW to the fact that this country is commanded by psychopathic, warmongering neocons, mitigated only by a willfully cluless and gutless president. NATO will prove a deathtrap for Germany.

max2205

Don't expect a lot of help from the old axis countries, Germany Italy Japan......neutered

Questan1913

Good point...but let's elaborate further: The US wrote the constitutions of Japan and Germany after the end of WWll. It also continues to occupy, militarily, both countries with approximately 50,000 military personnel in each and a huge naval presence in Japan.

Neither conquered country has been able to recover a shred of its former sovereignty for 70 years! They are vassal states subject to the most ruthless hegemonic power since the Roman empire.

ebworthen

If Germany were really concerned about NATO they'd kick the U.S. Armed Forces out.

This is political banter; the Germans need Russian NatGas and are playing both sides.

They have guilt over the death of 20+ million Russians in WWII, but Russia is en export market - and they don't want their Eastern flank open.

Just like Greece; they feel bad about WWII, but they want a downtrodden island to vacation on too.

And Neocons? Both the Left and the Right are war happy pumpers of the M.I.C. here in the U.S.A.

nope-1004

Dude.... it's US hegemony at risk here. Pipelines and what not. Read up, pull your head out of the sand, and watch US foreign policy implode on itself. After all, WTF is the US meddling in Europe for anyway? Why are they there? What does the Ukraine have that the US or Russia needs?

It's all about energy and how it flows to customers. The US has the most to lose, which is why they created the coup to overthrow the previously elected government in Ukraine.

They are, without question, the most hypocritical government to ever grace God's green earth. They say one thing publicly and do the opposite in practice. And it appears they've got you sucked in too.

malek

Two points:

1. The headline to me seems to indicate the path for the usual whitewash towards the "Democrats": currently a few US Neocons came to head the "Democratic" party like wolves in sheep clothing, but overall the leftists still hold the moral highground!

2. It is curious German magazine Der Spiegel doesn't mention it's own role in this, posting a headline STOP PUTIN NOW on it's frontpage after MH-17 had been shot down.

JustObserving

The Nobel Prize Winner and the Neocons have always wanted to put Russia in its place and the destabilization of Ukraine was the starting point. It was payback for Putin protecting Assad and granting asylum to Snowden. USA wants Russia on its knees and complete full spectrum domination with no one to question US hegemony and infinite spying. Unfortunately Putin stands in the way and he must be demonized and destroyed.
Victoria Nuland Lied to US Congress about Phantom Russian Hoards in Ukraine

On March 4, Nuland addressed House Foreign Affairs Committee members.

She called murdered US-funded, Boris Nemtsov a "freedom fighter, Russian patriot and friend."

She absurdly called Ukraine "central to our 25 year Transatlantic quest for a 'Europe whole, free and at peace.' "

Fact: Washington wants Ukraine used as a dagger against Russia's heartland – with menacing US bases on its borders threatening is sovereign independence.

Nuland called US planned and implements year ago Maidan violence using well-trained Nazi thugs "peaceful protest(s) by ordinary Ukrainians."

"They braved frigid temperatures, brutal beatings and sniper bullets…Ukraine began to forge a new nation…holding free and fair election…and undertaking deep and comprehensive economic and political reforms."

Fact: US-deposed President Viktor Yanukovych's police showed remarkable restraint.

Fact: Washington-supported Nazi thugs bore full responsibility for beatings, sniper killings and other violence.

Fact: Ukrainian parliamentary and presidential elections were farcical – with no legitimacy whatever.

Fact: So-called economic reforms involve crushing hardships on already impoverished Ukrainians in return for loan-shark-of-last-resort IMF blood money.

Fact: No responsible political reforms exist. None are planned. It bears repeating. Ukraine is a US-installed fascist dictatorship.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/victoria-nuland-lied-to-us-congress-about-p...

The Neocons have killed millions in Iraq and got away scot-free:


US Sponsored Genocide Against Iraq 1990-2012. Killed 3.3 Million, Including 750,000 Children

http://www.globalresearch.ca/victoria-nuland-lied-to-us-congress-about-p...

Ignatius

The basis of neocon philosophy is a LIE, that if you don't have a real enemy just make shit up.

How then can one "debate" a neocon with anything other than a baseball bat?

Their starting point is that neocons will lie if they have to and probably also just for the fun of it.

Psychopaths.

JustObserving

The Nobel Prize Winner has bombed 7 Muslim countries, destabilized Ukraine, attempted a coup in Venezuela, lied about sarin use in Syria to almost start a war, assassinated US citizens without a trial, regularly drones women and children and wedding parties and yet is the most admired man in the world in a Gallup poll in 2014. I would cry at humanity's stupidity, cruelty and corruption but I prefer to laugh. You love your lying war criminals then you will get lot more war.

yogibear

Meet Neocon "Doughnut Dolly" Victoria Nuland

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/12/18/meet-neocon-doughnut-do...

Nuland's career has been one of ensuring that the underpinnings of the Cold War never completely died out in Europe. Her State Department career began as the chief of staff to President Bill Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State and close friend, Strobe Talbott. It was under Talbott that Nuland helped completely fracture Yugoslavia and ensured that the U.S. slanted against the interests of Russia's ally, Serbia.

markar

Angie needs to end her triangulating charade and choose sides. Keeping a foot in the Russian door while appeasing her Neocon masters in the West won't work much longer. She knows Obama is a spineless puppet who won't back her and Ukraine is a failed state run riot by neo Nazi thugs and oligarchs.

What's it going to be Angie, an act of heroism or taking Germany down with the Western ship?

lesterbegood

Angie like Obama, Nuland, et al, is another political puppet/spokesperson for the power behind the money.

Winston Churchill

Which means her puppet masters are changing horses mid race.

No honor amongst thieves and/or psychopaths.

HowdyDoody

I wonder what on earth the CIA/NSA has on her that keeps her putting the interests of the US above her own country.

Wile-E-Coyote

Come on Germany tell the USA to fuck right off............................. won't happen.

css1971

35 US military bases in Germany say you are absolutely correct.

Son of Loki

Simply look at the quality of our State dept -- Nuland, etc -- The average IQ and emotional intelligence there has to be at an all-time low.

Gone are the days when you had brillant statespeople in the state dept who were thoroughly versed in history, politics, economics and debate.

yogibear

"Gone are the days when you had brillant statespeople in the state dept who were thorougly versed in history, politics, economics and debate."

People are used to dumb and dumber DC. It matches the rest of the country.

Stumpy4516

The statespeople may have been more intelligent at one time but their actions (covert murders, regime change, wars, etc.) have always been the same.

[Mar 07, 2015] The killing of my friend Boris Nemtsov must signal the death of appeasement by Garry Kasparov

This man can do anything for money. What a low-lifer. Looks like talent in chess does not extend to other human qualities. Of cause NED/IRI money does not smell, and that means its quite natural for Gary Kasparov to become a buddy of neocons. From comments: "The constant attacks on Putin from the MSM, are an indicator of just how desperate the elite are to instigate some form of rebellion against him in Russia -- hence the Nemtsov assassination. "

March 6, 2015 | The Guardian

ID4534229

Kasparov, you should be ashamed of yourself. A shill of the west, much like Klitchko. Are you really complaining about Russia when you share a platform with Saakashvili ? A man who is wanted back home for corruption? You are a useful idiot, like Klitchko and like Saakashvili. The only difference between you and the criminal and corrupt billionaires expelled from Russia is that you don't have the money.

Why do these "Russian" dissenters, once they leave their country, immediately end up in US Senate hearings and with US politicians who would love to see Russia reduced to a mess? Have you no shame?

caotama 6 Mar 2015 17:47

"Yesterday I was in Washington DC, speaking to a US Senate subcommittee about how and why the Russian dictator must be stopped". So you are buddies with the neocons? Case closed.

"Nearly every head in the room nodded in agreement as I and other invitees – such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili..." Isn't that discredited IMF puppet on some wanted list?

"Russian forces nearly reached Tbilisi before they turned back". Why did they turn back, Gaz?

irishmand -> Treabhar Mac Oireabaird 6 Mar 2015 17:31

If you don't like the West, why are you staying here?

I don't like what americans did to the west. The democracy we heard so much about is being dismantled quickly. The school education is ruined. University education is becoming less and less affordable. Medical system in US is almost the genocide of poor. The media are lying on industrial basis. The moods in the society are pro war, people want blood. I am trying to fight it explaining that the west is walking towards abyss but you don't want to listen. Many people call me a Kremlyn troll. I don't care, but it demonstrates the points I just made.

BMWAlbert

Meanwhile in Odessa, far from the front lines, all is tranquil...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HacQe4GYIY#t=138

MarVas

The "More than 100,000 people rallied to mourn Boris in Moscow" line links to a page that says "Police put numbers at 7,000, while those involved said the protest drew 50,000."

After the event police adjusted their numbers to 21,000 but apparently it is not worth mentioning.
Even if provided by promoters' numbers are correct, it's still less than 0.5% of Moscow population.
Is it a good reason to openly lie?

HollyOldDog -> MarVas

Strange how foreign newspapers always try to clutch at invisable straws. Protestors usually overestimate their numbers but the police on viewing airborne video have the advantage when estimating crowd numbers.

There was supposed to be a protest march in a city in Siberia where the protestors informed the police that thousands would turn up but only 12 were present on the day. The Police could be still searching for someone to pay for the extra police overtime for the non event.

PlatonKuzin

"Boris Nemtsov's whole career was not aimed at helping Russia, but at the interests of foreign states," said Nikolai Starikov, one of Anti-Maidan's leaders. "Boris Nemtsov is the first victim of the Maidan in Russia… He was killed by his American curators."

I also think so.

Obfusgator

Anti-negotiator Kasparov sounds like your proto-typical war and conflict addicted general, always ready to sacrifice millions of chess piece lives. He should stick to what he does best (playing games) and let his anger at Putin's Russia subside.

We're all seeing bloody red at the moment Garry, but aren't you sick of war? You could have mentioned in your article the US funded coup in the Ukraine that led to Russia moving to protect assets there and you omitted important details regarding the increasing encirclement of Russia by US/NATO forces.

In case you haven't noticed, when the US sticks its nose into rival countries' business (sanctions first closely followed by militarily assistance) things get out of control.

We don't need that playing out again, now do we?

Russia's problems are hers to sort out.

notEvenNibling -> Obfusgator

Ukraines problems are "hers" to sort out.

Obfusgator -> notEvenNibling

Ukraine's US coup problem.

Parangaricurimicuaro

Do you remember Iraks Ahmed Chalabi? The guy that pushed for the war? Kasparov is the 2015 version

Russia will always be my country, but it is difficult to imagine returning while Putin is still in the Kremlin.

EugeneGur

No, it aren't, my friend. Russia isn't you country - you betrayed it, you are openly inviting foreign powers to attack it. Just because you say "Putin" instead of "Russia", you think it makes a difference? Assuming the policy of "isolation and condemnation" is successful, do you think Putin will suffer or do you even suspect that ordinary Russians will feel the pain? Do you care?

This is a good article showing very clearly what kind of "opposition" this is. For the life of me, I cannot imaging an opposition of any kind, say, in the US or any European country, inviting foreign countries to start a war against the homeland and surviving. But it's perfectly fine in Russia. He is downright pleading with the West: don't be afraid, you won't have to defeat the entire Russian army or start WWIII. Just "inflict enough damage". The man is disgusting. He is also lying. It would be necessary to defeat the entire Russia, if it comes to that. Russia is not populated only by Karparovs.

The opposition movement that Boris and I believed in, and that Boris died for, should be openly supported, the way the west once championed the Soviet dissidents.

So, the "opposition" is a Western-paid performer, a.k.a. a whore.

Ronald Reagan told those of us behind the iron curtain that he knew it was our leaders, not us, who were his adversaries.

I do believe that. Personally, Garry did very well as did Nemtsov. But the rest of Russia did turn out to be Reagan's adversary, at least, it was treated as such.

I do hope you Westerners understand now and believe us when we say that this 'opposition" has absolutely no influence in Russia, and most people have nothing but contempt for them. You are wasting your money paying them.

PeregrineSlim

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts…The United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way….And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this - no one feels safe." Vladimir Putin, Munich 2007

willpodmore

The Minsk peace agreement's terms included 'Withdrawal of all foreign armed groups, weapons and mercenaries from Ukrainian territory'. In direct violation of the agreement, the US government announced in late February that it would send 300 troops to Ukraine to help train Ukraine's forces, and Prime Minister David Cameron announced on 24 February that 75 British troops would also be sent to help train Ukraine's forces.

AlexUspen

Kasparov: "More than 100,000 people rallied to mourn Boris in Moscow last Sunday, a number that gives the lie..."

Well, it really does.

The link gets you to a Guardian story, putting the number of rally participants somewhere between 7,000 and 50,000. The 100K figure is repeated in the picture caption… This is some very strange math.

PeregrineSlim

The opposition in Russia will go nowhere as long as they function as errand boys for the american empire.

MyDogLikesPorridge

With Nemtsov gone, Kasparov and his ilk will be again trying to sell Navalny as the next saviour of Russia. Below is an excerpt from an article published in May/2011. It is both frighteningly relevant and prescient of events to come.

"But the following interview was much more interesting. It's with The New Times, a Russian magazine... Navalny says "I think that the power in Russia will change not by an election process; they can elect whoever they like in March of 2012, but everything will be finished by April", and then clarifies – "by something like a Tunis scenario". Answering the question "Do you expect the wave from the bottom", he says – "No, I don't wait for it, I'm organizing it. We don't know when it will happen, but it's within our power to bring it closer. The current Russian authorities are thieves and swindlers. We must fight against them, exert pressure on them, create problems for them, and involve more and more people in creating problems. This pressure can be of different kinds – from simple negotiations to mobs on the streets that drag civil servants from their cabinets and hang them. And the faster authorities realize that and start negotiating, the less plausible the violent scenario becomes. I don't think that any political technologies or twitter can make people come out on the streets and chase away thieves and swindlers, so normal people could take over." (emphasis mine) .

Well… first of all, let's just recall that every state has the right to defend its constitutional system by force, and such citadels of democracy as the UK and the US have no qualms about invoking it. Secondly, the Russian criminal code has the article "Violent takeover of power or violent retention of power", punishable by from 12 to 20 years in prison. And I don't remember anything in the Constitution that says that hanging of government officials is a legitimized feature of a democratic process. The code also has the article "Calls to extremist actions". But let's leave that aside for a moment.

Navalny clearly states that he's working towards a typical colour revolution. First, I don't know what can be more undemocratic than a handful of raucous people changing power by riots and violence, simply because they don't like the government, the outcome of some election or any other quality. The opinion of the rest of the people is commonly ignored. It's also usually accompanied by tens or hundreds of corpses. Second, a common misconception is that power is transferred from bad authoritarian groups to "the people". That's a brazen lie; power simply gets transferred from one group to another, and the benefactor is well-known beforehand. Did anyone doubt that Yuschenko would become president when the Orange revolution succeeded? Or Saakashvili in Georgia? Third, and this is the most important point – there have been plenty of such revolutions. Has a single country benefited from it? Saakashvili's more and more authoritarian rule and the unleashed war are something that the Georgians dreamed of in 2003? Yuschenko's rating lying in the gutter is what the Ukranians stood in Maidan Square for? The deposing of Bakiev in 2010 by yet another revolution was worth launching the first one in 2005? Navalny suggests that "normal people will take over". Needless to say, that one statement will inspire laughter in any politologist worth his salt. Will these "normal people" spontaneously inherit another law framework and its institutions? Obviously, no. Then we have to take their word that after they come into power, these mysteriously benevolent "normal people" will start to limit their own authoritiy in favour of common people. Please remind me; how often has that happened in history? But OK, let's be believers for a while, so let's assume that they really are that incorruptible. In order to improve governance, the state should have better institutions and laws, so after the coup someone will have to write them. But what's stopping "normal people" from drafting them now, even promoting them? Maybe the current power will adopt them, so there will be no need for a revolution! And finally, who will determine the suitability of these people? Navalny?

I sincerely hope that this whole interview is just idle thoughts, and Navalny doesn't vest any serious meaning in them. But alas, evidence suggests the contrary. All the traditional components are present – branding authorities as hopelessly corrupt and despotic, the government's consummate demonization and alienation; praise from abroad of one group, presenting them as progressives; the preparing of key people in the West. It's also useful to attach to the big picture the recent interview of Kasparov, in which he repeats Vice-President Joe Biden's threat that if Putin should be reelected in 2012, the US will topple him with a colour revolution.

PeregrineSlim

The Washington War Party is shipping off its troops to the Ukraine in the coming week in defiance of the Minsk agreement.

sensitivepirate

It is not about right or wrong, because in this case there are wrongs on both sides.

Here we see the United States located on the other side of the world, standing up for its interests and investments in owning and controlling Ukrainian oil, gas, coal, manufacturing, transportation, strategic location, and agricultural resources in a country without any Americans.

Here we see Russia standing up for Russians.

Be careful what you wish for. With Russia, your ideals may never be realized.

henrihenri -> sensitivepirate

We live in world deprived of ideals. Money!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q&feature=player_detailpage

therealbillythefish

"with the belief that the days of changing Europe's borders by force"

The Serbs of Kosovo were disabused of that belief by NATO.

therealbillythefish Sceptical Walker

The KLA started a campaign of murder and were suppressed with much less brutality than the yanks showed in places like Fallujah.

NATO handed Kosovo to the human organ traffickers of the KLA with the result that non-Albanians have been driven out and the economy is a basket case with thoussnds of Kosovans attempting to claim asylum in the EU every month.

johnbonn

Sanctions are not appeasement, so what is he talking about. Kiev has already done its best to destroy the east where ethnic Russians live.

If he wants something stronger, don't worry. The UK and the US are preparing for the invasion by restarting the civil war.
The Guardian does not report that the largest oil companies in the west have paid large amounts of money to Ukraine for the rights to drill off the Crimean coast.

These companies can't get their money back, so the west must invade.

McCain and Kerry and Cameron will insure that he and Europe will soon get their war with Russia. Sadly this will bring a major realignment of the middle east to this major war.

frombrussels

....Elephants NEVER forget, they say ......People however are the worst "forgetters"!.....

The Ukraine mess and all its horrible consequences started when Nuland b*tch and CIA decided to orchestrate a coup against a democratically elected, yet pro russian president, as a consequence of which Putin took back HIS Crimea and people in E Ukraine decided they wanted to belong to Russia ......

It s as easy as that....let s make it complicated though, to justify deliverance of lethal weapons to Ukraine by "godfather" USA !

amcalabrese2

Or maybe we (the US in particular and the West in general) needs to realize that this is not our war. Is Russia really a threat to the us? Russia is not the Soviet Union. Unlike the days of the USSR, there are no armies of people in the west willing to do the party's bidding. Those days the Soviets were a deep threat to us. Had the Soviets won, freedom would have been extinguished. And the Soviets could have won. The Russians are having trouble paying their state employees.

nnedjo

Given that we are talking about a chess genius, and with regard to this very eloquent text that he wrote now, Garry Kasparov, without a doubt, is an extremely capable man. That is why it is a very pity that such a man has not found the right way to help his country. As I already said, this text of Kasparov is really very eloquently written, but besides that, it's full of nonsense. That a man of such intelligence can write so many things contrary to common sense, can only be explained by his blind hatred against Putin's Russia.

But, for now, I will mention only one of the nonsense that Garry Kasparov wrote here.
He says, "police state is very good at keeping the monopoly of violence for themselves, and given that prominent opposition politician was killed in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin, the chances that this occurred without any involvement of Russian security services is vanishingly small."

So, if the goal was to remove a vocal critic of the Kremlin, why was it necessary to do so near the very Kremlin? Does the state that holds the monopoly of violence could not do it in any other, less significant place. I do not see any sense in it, that the security services killed prominent opposition leaders at also prominent places, and not in some other places.

Especially those security services who are trying to maintain a monopoly of violence, as they are also trying to maintain the illusion of safety in the country, even when it is not like that. So, for Kasparov probably would not look anything absurd, even that Boris Nemtsov was killed at the same time when Putin and his entourage crossed the Red Square, and that the bullets that are missed Nemtsov whizzed around Putin's head. Or, perhaps Putin's involvement in the murder would be even more apparent for Kasparov that Nemtsov was killed in the lobby of Putin's office, and there would be no wonder that the Russian security services have not thought of it first.

I will repeat once again. In addition to being the chess genius Garry Kasparov is obviously a very talented writer. However, if he intends to devote to such a profession even more, I would recommend him not to write crime stories, but of another type, or from some other genre.

SalmanShaheen

It seems unlikely Putin had Nemtsov killed. What would he have to gain?

dropthemchammer -> SalmanShaheen

It would send a message to other around him.
If the sanctions are starting to bite and people close to Putin muttering then this action would get them to hold their tongues.

Oskar Jaeger -> SalmanShaheen

No man, no problem (J V Stalin).

henrihenri -> Oskar Jaeger

There was a man, true, but there wasn`t a problem.

FrancesSmith

I'm wondering. Here in the UK we could do with a better opposition, and we could also do with a better electoral system, and the ownership of the press is a serious issue, and the current government has appointed its close associates to run the BBC. And what about the way our political parties are funded, corrupt or what?

But what if there was some rich UK chess player went to the USA and started writing articles in the foreign press asking them to intervene and remove our elected government.

ok, we haven't invaded anywhere recently, and we haven't had an opposition leader shot dead, no need really they can't get past the tory press.

But just imagine how you would feel, putin demonisers, if there was someone from the UK talking about our government like this, and asking for intervention, and trying to impose a new government on us that has minimal support in the country.

ApfelD

The opposition movement that Boris and I believed in, and that Boris died for, should be openly supported

Kasparov makes me laugh
He is asking for the open support from the US
It's like Alex Salmond will ask Putin about the missile strike on London

PSmd

For all Kasparov's ideals for liberal transparency and a capitalist economy, what our press seems to not emphasise is that the Communists are the big opposition in Russia. They are the ones kept out possibly by United Russia, certainly by Yeltsin. They are big in towns and cities, among pensioners. In fact, theire following is a bit like UKIP, they recognise the grimmer past, but the certainties that came before the deracinatiing effects of globalisation.

BunglyPete

Its worrying just how easily history can be rewritten.

This BBC report titled Georgia 'started unjustifiable war' says

The shelling of Tskhinvali (the South Ossetian capital) by the Georgian armed forces during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 marked the beginning of the large-scale armed conflict in Georgia," the report says.
It adds later: "There is the question of whether [this] use of force... was justifiable under international law. It was not."
It also says Georgia's claim that there had been a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before the outbreak of war could not be "sufficiently substantiated", though it said there was evidence of a lower-level military build-up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8281990.stm

Now it does go on to say that Russia's response was over the top and illegal too, but the key point is it began with Saakashvili, Kasparov's ally, shelling a city.

Now we are told the conflict was provoked by Putin, is proof of his imperialistic plans, and that Saakashvili is a person we should take seriously.

If you want to do so I won't stop you, but to do so is foolish given the evidence against the Georgian regime from 2008.

Renfrow

Wow. Gary had turned into quite a radical. This article is definitely designed for the far right western audience. No wonder his support in Russia is close to 0.

aprescoup

Navalny is the first Russian opposition figure of any stature. Kasparov lost his credibility amongst Russians by becoming an obvious lackey of the West. Nemtsov never had any credibility amongst Russians because he could never clean himself of the tarnish of being associated with the Yeltsin years.

Navalny has an altogether different stature, and does have credibility with Russians, but probably only in the Moscow region. Navalny does not lick Western arses as much as Kasparov and Nemtsov because he knows what arse-licking of Westerners will do to his credibility amongst Russians.

In an October 2014 interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny said that he would not return Crimea to Ukraine if he were to become the President of Russia but that a "normal referendum" should be held in Crimea to decide what country the peninsula belongs to. Interestingly the West does not listen to the only Russian opposition figure with any proven credibility amongst Russians, hence Western policy-making towards Russia is becoming ad-hoc and ineffective.

MacCosham -> aprescoup

No, Zyuganov is the first opposition figure in Russia. The fact that he is not a US government stooge does not change this.

FrancesSmith -> MacCosham

But he's a communist! I just have a feeling, though I may be wrong, that these right wing neocons in the US wouldn't want to see Zyuganov replace Putin.

Though they should perhaps be a little careful what they wish for as according to wikipedia Boris Nemstov and others said after the 1996 election that the communists should have won.

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2107565,00.html

geedeesee -> Germaan

"The fact is that Putin unleashed war against Ukraine..."

Except it was Kiev regime which sent tanks over to Donbass to attack the separatists, and we saw the people come out and plead with the tank crews not to attack them. Then the Kiev regime sent aircraft to bomb the civilians - bombing their own people! Putin didn't tell the Kiev regime to send tanks and military aircraft to deal with civilians. The Kiev regime called it an anti-terror operation.

elias_ -> richard1

AFAIK the ruskies didn't invade georgia in 2008. Georgians attacked and killed numerous russian soldiers operating under UN mandate. In response russians gave the georgian military (partly trained by nato) a jolly good spanking before going back to where they were before.

aprescoup

Mexico's human rights crisis is even worse than Russia's, but no one in the West cares. The real reason Putin is so disliked by the West is not because Russians suffer under Putin, but because Russia under Putin (unlike Russia under Yeltsin) no longer takes orders from Washington. China's human rights crisis is also worse than Russia's, and again no one in the West cares, because everyone in the West knows that China is more powerful than the US, and that China will never take its orders from Washington. What particularly upsets Washington is that the US is losing its soft-power: the US has no soft power over China, no soft power over Russia under Putin, and no soft power over Israel under Netanyahu.

ID5868758

Is Kasparov's support in Russia 5%, or.5%?

MacCosham -> ID5868758

0.05%

JohnMc2015

I respect Mr Kasparov as an outstanding chess master very much, but his biting a cop in 2012 tells me that a chess player's skill has nothing to do with a serious opposition leader's decent behaviour who really could lead people. Even if such leader finds appropriate words, there appears to be some doubts concerning his adequacy in a critical situation. An opposition leader is supposed to be a cool cucumber.

PeregrineSlim

Kasparov seems to have lost sight of the fact that the chess board is in Ukraine and he is a long way from being able to move any pieces.

BloodOnTheWattle -> PeregrineSlim

he is still upset at Deep Blue...he cried rivers over the loss. so you must forgive him.

ID5868758

What the hell is the matter with the US Senate, hosting such a fringe politician from Russia, and one calling for the overthrow of the elected leader of a sovereign nation? Despicable behavior from the "land of the free", apparently you're "free" only if your opinion is in line with that of the US, otherwise we will make sure we help you change your mind.

StatusFoe ID5868758

What the hell is the matter with the US Senate

What do you mean? He's the US establishment's man in Russia, a Carrier of the Flame and honoured Bilderberger.

ApfelD Magyar2lips

let us nuke Hungary and Russia and that's all
wait a minute
and Azerbaijan
and Iran
and Ukraine (the most corrupted country according to Graun)
and Saudi Arabia (for gay rights)
and North Korea
and Switzerland+Lichtenstein (for the tax avoidance schemes)
and France (Madonna said that they looks like Nazis)
and Germany (they don't speak English)

BloodOnTheWattle ApfelD

and Germany (they don't speak English)

most germans do..but lets nuke 'em all the same...the bastards tried to talk to Putin about peace...peace imagine that Merkel escaped our firewall..

geedeesee

Russians are questioning events:

"Since the current US ambassador arrived in Russia, they killed Nemtsov, while he was in Georgia they killed Zhvaniya, and in Ukraine-Gongadze. Coincidence?"

Each of the three was a prominent opposition figure, and in each case his death had led to political upheaval. To quote Ian Fleming, "once is a happenstance, twice--a coincidence, three times--enemy action."

dmitryfrommoscow

Garri, why didn't you address the U.S. Congress with philippics in the 1990's when the oligarchs who propped up Yeltsin were pumping tens of billions of dollars out of Russia every month? When millions of your fellow-countrymen had to live from hand to mouth because the economy was totally divested of funds and lay dysfunctional? When people were dying at hospitals because there was nothing except aspirin there? When selling a bunch of homegrown dill or parsley at a local market was a matter of life and death for innumerable babushkas on a vast space from Vladivostok to the Baltic shores? Give us an answer...

aprescoup

As long as Russian opposition figures are arse-lickers of the West, cosying up with MPs, MEPs and Congress members, they will not mobilise Russians against Sistema Putin. The struggle between the West and Russia is between the West's idea of a Post-Westphalian order and Russia's (and China's and Israel's) preference for staying put with the Westphalian order that has been around since 1648. Anyone who does not understand the difference between a political Westphalian order (based around nation-States) and a technocratic Post-Westphalian order (based around technocratic organizations, eg Swift for finance payments, BIS for banking regulation, ICANN for Internet), and the consequences of the West's attempt to change its imperial control over the world from a Westphalian Empire to a Post-Westphalian Empire, is a fool. Ironically, it may have been the USSR that launched Post-Westphalianism with Comintern (Third International, 1919-1943).

willpodmore

Kasparov is another warmonger. NATO continues its march to the east. NATO aims to seize control of Ukraine, to complete the hostile glacis to Russia's west. The US government considered it had exclusive rights to run Ukraine: senior US diplomat Richard Holbrooke absurdly declared that Ukraine was part of 'our core zone of security'.

The US government is pursuing Zbigniew Brzezinski's strategy of trying to draw Russia into a 'prolonged and costly' war in Ukraine. Brzezinski had used this strategy in the 1980s, when he armed Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan as part of a proxy war against the Soviet Union. The US government aimed to do to Russia via Ukraine what it did to the Soviet Union via Afghanistan. Ukraine would become another wasteland of death and destruction, with the constant risk of a wider war, and Russia would descend into chaos.

US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the head of both the US European Command and NATO in Europe, insisted that we could not 'preclude out of hand the possibility of the military option' in Ukraine. At the Munich Security Conference, Republican senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham poured scorn on European negotiations with President Vladimir Putin. McCain summed up Merkel's speech at Munich, which included a statement of opposition to arming Ukraine, with one word: 'foolishness'. He added, "I can assure you that [Putin] will not stop until he has to pay a much higher price."

Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister, has called for 'full scale war' with Russia. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko stated, "there is no ceasefire, and so there is no precondition for a pull-back of heavy weapons." Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh announced that his private army and the Azov Battalion would ignore the agreement and fight on.

PeregrineSlim

As Milne points out, the West is already in the process of violating the Minsk agreement:

But it's certainly grist to the mill of those pushing military confrontation with Russia. Hundreds of US troops are arriving in Ukraine this week to bolster the Kiev regime's war with Russian-backed rebels in the east. Not to be outdone, Britain is sending 75 military advisers of its own. As 20th-century history shows, the dispatch of military advisers is often how disastrous escalations start. They are also a direct violation of last month's Minsk agreement, negotiated with France and Germany, that has at least achieved a temporary ceasefire and some pull-back of heavy weapons. Article 10 requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine.

ApfelD -> StatusFoe

it's difficult to understand why Russians don't like Kasparov

StatusFoe -> ApfelD

He certainly can come accross as an arrogant prick.

MacCosham -> richard1

What bollocks. Putin is not coming close to anyone. What is happening is that anti-establishment parties in Europe, whether left-wing (Die Linke, Podemos, Syriza), centrist (Five Stars) or right wing (FN, Fidesz) are following public opinion which sees that the establishment parties (socialists and conservatives) are puppets of US-based big money.

guster86

"I will continue to do whatever I can to draw support to the cause of returning Russia to the path of democracy."

Possibly sacrifice a few pawns.

dropthemchammer -> guster86

You say this after Putin had his opposition assassinated lol

Simon311 -> dropthemchammer

Did he? You have certain knowledge of this? Cause Global warming too did he.

jonno61

Kasparov has absolutely not credibility on this matter. Why the Guardian choose to publish his propaganda is beyond me ?

RobHardy -> jonno61

Fits into a general pattern of propaganda propagation by the Guardian in the last few years, probably much longer. no shortage of fellow travelers for the US management of Vichy Britain.

altergeist

"But we must cease to be surprised by the violence and hatred emanating from Russia today if we are to combat it successfully."

I am ceaselessly amazed by the near-complete unity in the chorous of anti-Russia/Putin propaganda.

" prominent critic of the regime,"

With roughly 5% popular support, and quite widely reviled for his part in the Yeltsin era pillage of Russia, when male life expectancy fell about 10 years in just 10 years - a spectacular collapse in living standards. 'Prominent' indeed. And certainly hardly a plausible electoral threat, his prominence and influence is largely hyped to western audiences. One could easily argue he was worth more to western sponsors dead than alive, while Putin had very little to gain from his murder, since it would be eagerly and predictably be blamed upon him... as we have seen: Many western media outlets were ready with their accusations.

"such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili - discussed the global danger presented by Putin's increasingly belligerent regime."

Says the belligerent in the recent, if brief, South Ossetian military adventure.

" cite the official statements of a dictatorship "

An elected dictator. Whatever next!?

Look I'm not saying Putin didn't do it, nor that I don't think he's capable of murdering his opponents, nor that I don't think he has murdered any in the past, but even the Russian opposition has quite broadly said it doesn't think he's responsible, that this is a 'provocation.' But shall we wait for some evidence to be in this time? It's all starting to smack a bit of MH17, Assad's chemical weapons, Iraq's WMDs, 45 minutes etc... Accusations without evidence, or bare-faced lies. It certainly does fit with a pattern of CIA led destabilization but then again, maybe Putin has used that plausibility as a cover. Who knows!?

What I do know is that this wholly unnecessary, largely western provoked West-East showdown is easily and singularly the most potentially dangerous geopolitical situation of my lifetime. Fascinating, but terrifying. Can't the US and Russian leadership just realise that they have a lot in common (democratic deficit, corrupted oligarchic rule, surveillance state, a long history of brutality) and get along?!

Socraticus

How much credence can be given to any of Kasparov's claims when he grossly exaggerates that "more than 100,00 people rallied to mourn Boris in Moscow last Sunday"?

According to the Guardian, the "Police put numbers at 7,000, while those involved said the protest drew 50,000".

Meanwhile, in other international publications the figure has been cited to be closer to 21,000 and "not tens of thousands as reported by some media outlets", further elaborating that "The reason why official estimates are closer to the real numbers is because all demonstrators had to pass through metal detectors before joining the march and were registered by computers".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/01/boris-nemtsov-marchers-moscow-honour-murdered-opposition-politician-live-updates)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/01/boris-nemtsov-marchers-moscow-honour-murdered-opposition-politician-live-updates#block-54f305cde4b011581586e731

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/simple-murder-boris-nemtsov-150302081839658.html

uracan

Kasparov really is an idiot.

If Putin for whatever reason is deposed, does he really think the traitorous liberals will get into power.

It is the communists with their 20% of the vote that will gain the most.

It will take decades for the liberals to regain any credibility amongst the Russian general population.

CharlesBradlaugh

I'm on the left of politics and view the USA's imperialism with disdain and fear, but I agree 100% with this article, you have to be blind not to see that Putin is a dangerous adventurer who will undertake any aggression that will bolster his position.

SirHenryRawlins -> CharlesBradlaugh

I don't believe for one second you are on the left. You view the USA's imperialism with disdain and fear, US meddling in Ukraine, the backing of government that took power after the coup, and then say Putin is the adventurer and the aggressor.

Gooddoggy -> CharlesBradlaugh

Absolutely true, I am still sickened by Milnes atrocious view that Putin Imperialism is somehow acceptable whereas US Imperialism is not....clearly any sane and decent human being knows that both are unacceptable and need to be fought against with the tools of liberal social justice and liberal left democratic values.

johhnybgood

More propaganda. The constant attacks on Putin from the MSM, are an indicator of just how desperate the elite are to instigate some form of rebellion against him in Russia - hence the Nemtsov assassination. However, my reading of the situation is, that the general public across Europe are not buying the rhetoric. It seems that people are becoming far more discerning in their analysis of the propaganda headlines -such as "Russian forces invade Ukraine", with no supporting evidence. The PTB are losing the information war; the genie is out of the bottle, and cannot be put back. At last people's BS meters are now on full alert.

Time for the MSM to start some independent reporting, especially where Russia is concerned.

aprescoup

Kasparov, you completely overestimate the influence that the West, even with its all-powerful dollar refinancing sanctions and quasi-monopolies on advanced technologies, can have on nudging Russians, both oligarchs and ordinary voters, into overthrowing Sistema Putin. If pathetically weak North Korea can continue to defy the West in the ways it does, then don't you think it more likely that a Russia isolated by further sanctions will become more like North Korea? Get real: Putin will not be pushed out of power by sanctions.

It is time for the West to ignore the Russian opposition: not because the opposition is wrong to condemn Putin as a dictator, but because the Russian opposition completely underestimates the total power that Sistema Putin already has, and the absolute impotence of the West to undermine that total power. The likes of Kasparov, Nemtsov and Navalny are fools: they have underestimated what they are up against, and they are paying for that underestimation with their lives, alternatively with exile or house arrest and an accompanying fear of assassination.

henrihenri

Garry Kasparov was afraid of attending Nemtsov`s funeral under the pretext of being killed in Russia. As he explained he was nit ready to buy one-way ticket! Wow! Now every single leader of opposition says, I`m next! It is so ridiculous that even `The Ekho Moskvy`, their radio, laughed at this trend of theirs for a while. The matter, however, is none needs them. It`s just their coquetry. As to Mr. Kasparov none remembers him in his fatherland. Too many new, much younger and more handsome male stars!

ID5868758

Same propaganda, different mouthpiece. And don't you find it ironic, Kasparov complaining about "Putin's oligarchs", when he himself is in league with the all the oligarchs who escaped Russia with their stolen billions, and now fight from places like London and Tel Aviv for a return of Russia to the "good old days" of Boris Yeltsin, when the assets and resources of the Russian people were being sold off to the banks and the multinational corporations for pennies on the dollar.

Junkets

For a start, the assumption that Putin was behind Nemtsov's murder still remains to be proved. Jumping to conclusions based on political agendas is not the way a good investigator would go about things. After a bit of light from Seumas, didn't you just know that the Guardian would revert to type.

Appeasement suggests Nazis. Are there concentration camps in Russia? Is Putin engaged in a process of mass-extermination? I remember when Saddam Hussein was compared to Hitler and Tony Blair was praised for his 'Churchillian' qualities. The hyperbole is all getting a bit too transparent.

Keep on banging the war-drums, Graun, you might just get what you are looking for.

FOHP46

Mr Kasparov and Mr Saakashvili..wow! what a tandem, poor sods! Was it not Mr Saakashvili who started a war with Russia in 2008 when his army killed some Russian peace keepers? Is he not wanted for crimes in his country of origin Georgia? Nevertheless, he now lives in Boston, USA, the land of the free. Unbelievable.

underbussen

What a terrible article. Sorry but what the hell has happened to journalism these days? Why is "Putins Russia" responsible of this murder? This is like saying "Obamas America" is responsible for all the police shootings in the USA - clearly ridiculous. This article has Putin tried, drawn and quartered before the investigations even get really started. This is NOT journalism, this is propaganda. Shame on you Guardian.

dropthemchammer Evgeny Petrov

its quite easy to outsiders but the RUssian people have little access to free media

Simon311 dropthemchammer

You mean Rupert Murdoch? Lucky them

Continent

Yesterday I was in Washington DC, speaking to a US Senate subcommittee about how and why the Russian dictator must be stopped. Nearly every head in the room nodded in agreement as I and other invitees – such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili – discussed the global danger presented by Putin's increasingly belligerent regime.

global danger ... how shocking. I haven't realized it. I has been thinking that ISIL and its terror acts, the violant instability in Afghanistan and North Africa (especially in Lybia), the wars in Iraq and Syria, the atrocities in Nigeria and Sudan, Ebola and the aftermath left on the economic and society of Liberia were the global dangers we would have to deal with.

Rialbynot

Kasparov: "Yesterday I was in Washington DC, speaking to a US Senate subcommittee about how and why the Russian dictator must be stopped. Nearly every head in the room nodded in agreement as I and other invitees – such as the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili – discussed the global danger presented by Putin's increasingly belligerent regime."

Groupthink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

RobHardy richard1

Has Britain ever been substantially different? We have Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind happily willing to sell their access to Chinese businesses. Media almost entirely controlled by corporate influences. Parliament and Civil Service increasingly manned by corporate lobbyists and loan staff. Our defence policy just a subdepartment of Pentagon policy making, GCHQ an outstation of the NSA.

Yes, we are different, there is the possibility of democracy in Russia, but nothing but a empty sham illusion of democracy in this country.

UnclePatsy -> dropthemchammer

Let's first agree on a definition for "invade". Possible definitions may include:
1. To enter by force in order to conquer
2. To move into
3. To infest or overrun.
4. To attack; to infringe; to encroach on; to violate.

I see civil internal strife within Novorussia and Kievan Ukraine aggravated by external forces, but not an outright invasion by NATO or Russia. Crimea was ceded to Ukraine SSR as a province along with Novorussia only in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev.

uracan -> jezzam

Don't you realize that what Putin is doing will consign Russia to poverty for a decade at least.

This is just wishful thinking.

Moreover Putin has destroyed any respect for Russia in the world

If your world consist of US/UK and assorted lackeys.

There is a bigger world out there than just the West and now that Russia has used the sanctions as an opportunity to do its own pivot to the cash , growing economies of the East, the future of Russia looks a whole lot better than the debt overburdened, decaying economies of the West.

cherryredguitar

The problem with the way that America has continually meddled in countries around the world for at least the last century is that every opposition leader in every country that America doesn't like starts looking like a neocon stooge. Because that's how the neocons work. It's their fault, not mine, that I think that way.

Ilja NB

Kasparov is a worthless peace of trash, he traveled all around the world on expense of Russian state, and then he suddenly decided he wanted to become a big shot politician, but instead of coming with some idea's that would benefit the country he only was bashing Mr. Putin while Mr. Putin was putting Russia on it's feet.

Pedro Garcia

That seems to be a law of life: you are good for one thing, you are bad for another. Kasparov is a despicable man, however a genius in chess. Just reading what he wrote, make me despise him. You don't like Putin, fine, but do you have to run into the US, too?

Nemtsov as a Politician was null for many years, Putin didn't need to do anything to him, because he didn't represented any threat: his popularity was less than 1%. Nobody, even in Russia, knew who he was till he was shot dead. Politkovskaya was shot dead on Putin's birthday, Nemtsov shot dead aside the Kremlim, don't you see it? The killer is desperately trying to point out Putin. This are not bread crumbs this are the whole chain of bakeries pointing at Putin.

This has happened before: Nisman in Argentina, to get rid of President Kirchner Party just before the elections, the killing of Hariri in Lebanon to blame Syria.

Look who is profiting from it and you'll find who's to blame.

Johhny Efex

With the end of the USSR the 'free west' had a golden opportunity to disband NATO. This would have given breathing-space for other democratic forms to develop naturally in all sorts of places, including Russia. But instead the USA thought they would go for broke with Full Spectrum Dominance and other ridiculous utopian plans like PNAC to 'install' democracy around the world. Too paranoid and power-hungry to relax their suffocating grip one tiny bit. This is one of the unfortunate consequences.

dropthemchammer Johhny Efex

"Full Spectrum Dominance"? NATO is a defense organisation. why disband it when USSR died. there were and are other threats around the world.

cherryredguitar dropthemchammer

NATO is a defense organisation


So why are Nato military generals continually making aggressive comments about Ukraine, which is not a member of Nato? Why is Nato defending non-member states? Because it is an expansionist organisation.

The original poster is right - Nato should have been disbanded at the end of cold war.


SASOVIET Johhny Efex

The North American Terrorist Organisation (NATO) has a new role since fall of USSR:
1. Terrorize Russians by annoying presence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland
2. Gang up against third world countries to remove leaders that doesn't support US foreign policy like Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc...

Old_Donkey

Mr Kasparov's views can be compared to the open letter which descendants of the white emigration published in France.

The white emigres declare their "Solidarity with Russia during the Ukrainian Crisis". They also object to the way in which "Russia has been accused of every kind of crime, without any proof, it is judged to be guilty a priori, whereas other countries benefit from a particularly disgusting leniency, in particular, where human rights are concerned."

The emigres go on to protest against "the calumnies which day after day are heaped on modern-day Russia, its leaders and its President, who have been subjected to sanctions and vilified in defiance of all common sense."

The descendants of the white emigration are prepared to give a KGB Colonel the benefit of the doubt. So why can't Garry Kasparov? At this point, no one can prove whether Boris Nemtsov died for the Russian opposition movement or not. The law is no respecter of persons and everyone should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, even the President of the Russian Federation.

http://www.russkymost.net/spip.php?article70&lang=fr
http://stanislavs.org/descendants-of-the-white-emigration-against-russophobia-in-western-msm/

Standupwoman

This is very sad. We must make allowances for the fact that Kasparov was brought up in the old USSR and is clearly unable to shake off that way of thinking, but he must have had a good mind once, and it's hard not to wonder if he mightn't be ill.

His arguments are frighteningly bad. First he claims Putin is a murderer on the sole ground that a lot of US senators and a discredited war criminal (Saakashvili) agree with him - the kind of argument we would expect from the lowest CiF troll. It's absolutely true that there have been politically-motivated and gangland style murders in Russia, but I have no idea if Putin was responsible for any of them - and neither can Mr Kasparov. What we do know is that if the West had even the slightest shred of evidence against him they'd have plastered it over the media long ago.

Then he starts rewriting history. After the initial rush of 'blame Putin' in 2008, even the EU was forced to admit that Georgia was not only the aggressor but also responsible for serious war crimes. A good piece in the Guardian gives links to much of this, including some excellent reporting by the BBC. Kasparov is basing his entire argument on a history of 'Russian aggression' which never happened.

Then worst of all, he sweeps away any concept of fairness and justice. Putin has no motive for killing Nemtsov, he had every motive for not doing so, and there is not the slightest evidence against him - but to even mention these things (as the BBC does) is to be Putin's 'defence lawyer'. There is no need for the presumption of innocence, no need for evidence and a trial, and finally no need even for 'investigation'. Putin is guilty because Kasparov says so, and anyone who disagrees is a Kremlin troll.

This is frightening on many levels, but not least for where it leads. The sub-headline echoes the hate-filled argument that the only thing that matters now is making Putin look like a loser - and it is precisely for that argument that people are dying. The conflict in Ukraine could stop tomorrow, but the US can't allow anything that suggests Putin has 'won'. Crimea could be resolved instantly by a second, properly monitored referendum, but (as the Lords Report pointed out) this would imply we were 'condoning' Putin. People must go on suffering and dying for as long as it takes - just to ensure the US doesn't lose face.

That's chilling. In a world where people care about both Russians and Ukrainians, it isn't even sane. So yes, to hear someone like Kasparov come out with this dribbling hate-rant is very sad indeed.

BunglyPete -> Standupwoman

Very well written as usual sir/m'am :)

I don't get why its such a big deal if Putin 'wins' either. If the case against him is so strong, even if pulling out the UAF leaves swathes of Ukraine in Russian control, you can sort it out through the UN later.

The primary goal has to be the end of violence, not the removal of Putin.

VladimirM

It has never occured to me how aggressive [neo]liberals may be, how radical and prone to violence they are. Peacemongering efforts of hawks of peace, whose hatred is so blind that they are not fussy about the means to pursue their agenda, will lead to chaos rather than to prosperity of Russia. They are ready to attack BBC presenters if they are on their way, they are close to calling names when it comes to the EU leaders not living up to liberal expectations when dealing with Russia.


"I will continue to do whatever I can to draw support to the cause of returning Russia to the path of democracy. "

You are too agressive, tov. Kasparov. I don't like it. Please, make revolutions somewhere else. For example somewhere you live in, there are problems over there no doubt.

If you really want to do something, start a charity to help children of Donbass instead of begging for weapons. That would be a decent move.

SHappens

Despite all attempts by Kasparov to revive Nemtsov through mouthpiece for the US/NATO, it will not change the fact that on a political point of view Nemtsov was a nobody. Sure he didnt deserve to die but we must ask whom this crime profits.

It is obvious that Putin has been the target of this attack, together with all of Russia and, being the target, it is highly unlikely that he has been the author of this assassination.

So now we have Kasparov going for his propaganda by calling Putin a dictator, and Russia a dictatorship, and advocating a full war to defeat the Russian army. Seems that Kasparov didn't learn anything during in glory years as a chess player because that is not a good strategy, this is a loosing strategy for him and the West, Europe in particular, and Ukraine with certainty.

Nemtsov's death will fall in oblivion in a few months, that is, he will return where he came from. Nobody at least in the West knew this guy before the media rant. He was not even popular in Russia except for the 3%. Nothing to worry the Kremlin.

ElmerFuddJr

Astoundingly poor quality commentary in this thread. Y'all sound like American Republicans, or Bibi defenders...utterly incapable of dealing with complex subjects which, given that blood is being shed, require a modicum of understanding of world history these last 40 years (at least) and a bit of nuance here and there...

Viktor Gofman ElmerFuddJr

Serious commentary is for a serious article. Kasparov's article is a circus... So there is a circus in the thread as a result.

PeregrineSlim

Engagement with Russia has never been tried.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the policy has been to drive NATO tanks to the Russian border.

American democracy is in a death spiral due to its militarism.

And America is hindering the peaceful and democratic development of other countries due to its interference in their domestic politics.

MacCosham

It is telling how Putin, who has got where he is by competitive elections is described as a "dictator" while president Mikheil Saakashvili who:

  • -Got his presidency by overthrowing the previous, democratically elected, government.
  • -Ran a sham election where he got 95% of the vote (no joke)
  • -Killed his main political opponent ("gas poisoning")
  • -Got kicked out as soon as real elections were held

is described as a former "president"

[Mar 07, 2015] Russia detains two men in Boris Nemtsov murder inquiry by Chis Johnston

Note: Guardian did not risked to open comments for this article. Should somebody put a tattoo on Chis Johnston right arm with the words "Cue Bono", the classic Roman approach to such crimes. Why Putin on peak of his popularity would decided to eliminate political cadaver by converting him into real, much more dangerous cadaver. But there are two parties who can benefit from this killing. As the guy who with Chubais and his friends from Harvard sold Russia assets, he incite such level of hate in Russia that even 1% of votes (that means strictly Moscow fifth column of neoliberal globalization) are way too much for him. Why Chris Johnson is so shy to name them is understandable and despicable. Even presstitutes should sometimes behave... Also analogies with Politkovskaya killing and Litvinenko killing are way to obvious to ignore. The USA now try to fight off the challenge that Putin version of state capitalism and Chinese version of "neoliberalism within communist dogma" present and rising tide of nationalism in Europe, which threatens the fundamental postulates of neoliberalism and the USA role as Kremlin of neoliberalism (if we consider this neoliberal globalization as replay of Communist International ideas on a new level). Ukrainian nationalists, while reasonably good at destruction of the economy, proved to be incapable to rule the country and face financial default. They can resort to desperate means to postpone the day of reckoning. Russian newspaper Vzglyad noted that version of the involvement of Chechens fighting in the Ukraine was one of the most plausible. "Izvestia" citing law enforcement sources reported that the organizer of the assassination could be the Ukrainian security services, and assassins - Chechen militants from the so-called battalion named Dzhokhar Dudayev, which fights in Ukraine against DND and LNR.
.
By the way, the commander of this detachment Adam Osmayev was previous held as defendant in the case of the preparation of the assassination of President Vladimir Putin. Perhaps the plan was to discredit the Russian government and destabilize the political situation in the country.
Mar 07, 2015 | The Guardian

Russian authorities have detained two men in connection with the murder of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

The pair were named as Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev, both from the North Caucasus, a volatile region of southern Russia plagued by insurgency.

Nemtsov was deputy prime minister in the 1990s in the government of Boris Yeltsin.

... ... ...

Putin has called the killing a "provocation", vowing that everything would be done to convict those who committed a "vile and cynical murder".

[Mar 05, 2015] The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war by Seumas Milne

Lebensraum was the ideology behind Drang Nach Ost. This EU expension is just more modern version of the same. This describes what EU/Nato is currently up to.
Mar 05, 2015 | The Guardian

yoron_ -> AlanC 5 Mar 2015 18:36

"The U.S. and Russia keep hundreds of missiles armed with thousands of nuclear warheads on high-alert, ready to launch with only a few minutes warning. High-alert status permits the launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before the arrival of a perceived nuclear attack.

Early Warning Systems (EWS), high-alert nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, and nuclear command and control systems, all working together, provide the U.S. and Russia the capability to Launch-on-Warning.

When Early Warning Systems warn of an impending nuclear attack, then decisions have to be made very quickly because the flight times of the missiles are very short. 30 minutes or less are required for a nuclear-armed land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) to travel between the U.S. and Russia and vice versa; 15 minutes or less for a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) to reach its target.

Thus, once the attack is detected, evaluated and passed up the chain of command, the U.S. and Russian president would have at most 12 minutes to make the decision to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before the arrival of the perceived attack.

In the event an attack is believed to be real, the president must decide whether or not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before the arrival of the perceived attack is confirmed by nuclear detonations. To launch a retaliatory nuclear strike based only upon electronic information derived from Early Warning Systems is to Launch-on-Warning. If the perceived warning turns out to be false but a retaliatory nuclear strike has already been launched, then accidental nuclear war will have occurred.

The US and Russia are the only two nations believed to have the capacity to carry out Launch-on-Warning (they both have nuclear C3I systems connected to their nuclear weapon systems which enable them to carry out LoW). "

Arthur_Pendragon 5 Mar 2015 18:46

There isn't any invasion of Ukraine. There hasn't been an invasion. And there never will be an invasion.

The Crimea incident wasn't an invasion or annexation at all. It was the will of the people - a popular uprising just like the one in Kiev. Self-determination is a right according to the UN. Well, that right was upheld on March 16th 2014.

The problems in East Ukraine, also, are connected with a popular uprising of the peoples who live there. They have been attacked by their own government and many civilians have died because Kiev and its western backers did not have the balls to give those people what they initially and peacefully requested - a referendum.

The people of Crimea have acted in the true spirit of democracy. The people of Donetsk and Lugansk have acted within the true spirit of democracy. The only party that didnt act within this spirit was Kiev. There was no vote to remove Yanakovych. There was no vote to join Europe.

The west has turned black into white again.

codeinesunrise -> Skalla 5 Mar 2015 18:41

Your arrogance betrays your historical ignorance. These 'old powers' that you refer to largely have the Marshall Plan to thank for their economic prosperity - an injection of money that dwarfs current EU investment (and that's what it is, investment - many European companies benefit from these contracts) in Eastern Europe.

It is important to also remember that a lot of the 'wealth' these countries created often came at the expense of its colonies, which it raped mercilessly. At least our 'poor little' Eastern European countries don't have this shameful legacy upon our conscience.

You would also do well to remember that Britain itself was bailed out by the IMF in 1976 when it was little better than a failed state. Have a little humility, nothing is more embarrassing than misplaced, fatuous triumphalism.

str8shtr -> Dzomba 5 Mar 2015 20:00

1. And of course NATO couldn't say "Sorry, we already have an important agreement, we can not include countries from Warsaw pact"? And wasn't it told to Hungary and others that joining NATO is the shortest way to become a part of EU and west?

I wonder about complains of Russian invasion after WWII. So u preferred to be under Nazi Germans and soviet solders paid their lives in vain? Or Russian troops had to go home leaving everything for US? Yes, you suffered from soviet framework and communist system, but it wasn't only Russian framework, it was soviet. You couldn't choose any other ideology except communist? So nobody in Ussr could. Everyone was equal in that)) In soviet Russia the regime was much more strict then in Warsaw pact countries. In east European countries national languages were taught, they had their own party (communist, of course), their own leaders (communist of course), constitution (communist) etc and the union invested a lot in recovering after the war and developing it economies. It doesn't look like a devastating invasion.

2. Everything is on the contrary. The problem was that Russia did not give a damn about Ukraine after the fall of communism, coz it had it's own huge problems till 2001. Meanwhile Ukrainian nationalism was rising. Communists invented country "Ukraine" in the beginning of the 20th century and started nationalism there, but during USSR existed it was under control. Also US started to invest in changing Ukrainian loyalty to anti-Russian in early 90s, same as in east Europe ("red invasion", "you were their slaves", "they used you", "you suffered enough" and so on), it was a bit more difficult then in east Europe but time and nationalism of west Ukraine helped them much.

3. Yanukovich was a weak president. He was trying to balance between EU/US, Russia and ukranian billioners interests trying to trade the best conditions for his country (for his family first of all). He played to much in that game.

4. I didnt read the text of the Minsk agreement, but if the advisers have ranks and are a part of military forces don't they are a military help?..

gnorblitz 5 Mar 2015 19:58

This is the ultimate fantasy for these threads. The Right and the Left actually spilling blood over ideology instead of the typers here on Guardian Commentary spitting bile at one another. No matter what camp you're in or who you think is the good guy, war is always murder. And the people in this region are the ones suffering. The rest of you are just ghouls, looking on and stroking your political peckers.

BloodOnTheWattle Strangest 5 Mar 2015 19:56

I am not sure actually, you make it sound like President Obama is more than a match for President Putin. I mean, he has sanctioned the killing of 5000 people by killer drones during the last 4 years, created havoc in Ukraine, cheerlead and assisted NATO in what is today a cauldron of terrorism in Lybia, picked the wrong guys (yet again in Syria), institutionalized, torture and kidnapping and arm twisting of nations by not acting on the perpetrators of these criminal acts.

So there you have it apparently Obama makes Putin look like a choir boy.


irishmand sikaniska 5 Mar 2015 19:42

The demonization of Russia risks paving way for a credible military defence capability in Europe.

Which will be a waist of money and will only help to US MIC. Russia is not going to attack any of the european countries. It doesn't need it.

geedeesee psygone 5 Mar 2015 19:50

It speaks volumes when you keep dodging these opportunities to show the Russian Army invaded Ukraine. :-)

irishmand LesiaUkrainka 5 Mar 2015 19:37

Moscow's ambitions are an obvious threat to the whole world because the Kremlin's aggressive tactics may not be limited to just Ukraine. If the EU and NATO fail to stand up to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, later Russia will very possibly turn against the Baltic states and/or Moldova.

Why are you not working hard to bring the Ukrainian economy back from ruins? You should be doing that instead of trying to create more hatred and fear in people. Or you only good at jumping?

geedeesee LiamIrl 5 Mar 2015 19:47

Ha ha - the protesters were nowhere that many. The Guardian said about 30,000. The more thuggish the protestors became, the smaller the crowd. The ultra-nationalist thugs appeared to number about 5000. But as I said, it's called a Coup when a government is overthrown violently by a small group. The democratic way is through elections, which were scheduled for later in the year.

irishmand LesiaUkrainka 5 Mar 2015 19:45

The Russian plan is clear. They will seize more of Ukraine and depose the government in Kiev if not checked in time. Only the swift and immediate action of the West to train and equip the Ukrainian army can stop Putin's strategy to deconstruct the trans-Atlantic architecture, to deconstruct the post-cold war order. Like a cancer, Putin and his elites, must be cut out.

1. How are you going "check" Russia?
2. Russia already had a chance to take over Ukraine and didn't do it. I don't see why it will decide to do it in the future.
3. Train ukis so they could kill more people and more efficiently?You want more blood? More dead bodies?


geedeesee -> Kamil Piwko 5 Mar 2015 19:16

Of course, we watched many reports of Ukraine Army defecting and joining separatists. Kiev lost many military barracks, depots and arsenals. We know Ukraine Armed Forces totalled around 220,000 men (and maybe some women). The head of the Ukraine Navy went over. Elite forces went over. We read the reports; we saw the TV. Over and over again it happened. We know all this. Just type "Ukraine Army defects" into Google or your search engine. Also type in "Ukraine Army defectors" for more. This is why anti-democratic Kiev Regime of ultra-nationalists passed new draconian law to shoot soldiers who do not obey orders

BUT - you have replied to a call for evidence showing and proving this huge Russian Army has invaded Ukraine, and yet you don't take the opportunity to reply with the evidence. Instead you tell us what is already known.

Rossiya 5 Mar 2015 16:25

What a wonderful and truthful article. Surprised it was published in so anti-Russia country/times/hysteria.

Every evening the meteorologists remind us how the bad weather always comes from Siberia, it never comes from Scandinavia or North Pole for instance...

Simply the Anglo-Saxons are born with 'hate Russia' genes unfortunately.
Perhaps it is right time to press Reset button and return to the Stone Age (?!)

yoron_ -> AXWE08 5 Mar 2015 17:15

AXWE. There are no clean hands in this. It's about geopolitical power and who will exploit what. Putins Russia is definitely no cleaner than USA, both though are superpowers, both have nuclear missiles, some of them modernised recently, directed at Stockholm some minutes away, with one of those superpowers calling itself democratic, making its moves at another continent.

No clean hands, and those that will lose to this stupidity are firstly Europeans, secondly Americans.

Pavel Prokofiev -> Roguing 5 Mar 2015 17:13

Ukraine was a colony of Russia?? What?? So, Russia was ruled by Georgian Stalin, by Ukraininan Khrushev and Brezhnev from Moldau, i.e. people from colonies?

We will discuss you question once a person of indian origin will become a king of the UK.

ID1439675 -> Evgeny Skorobogatko 5 Mar 2015 17:12

But yeah, the few instructors of another country is a major violation.

Although it's hard to disagree with much of what you have to say, you are incorrect on this point. The presence of British and US instructors does not violate the Minsk2 package of measures for two reasons. First, by virtue of the Budapest memorandum the US and the UK are both guarantors of Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty. That means, amongst other things, they are obliged to provide whatever support is deemed necessary to restore Ukrainian territorial integrity when it is adjudged to have been breached. Although not parties to the Minsk2 agreement it could be argued that by sending instructors the US and British are violating the UNSC resolutuon which amongst other things urged all parties to observe the Minsk2 package. However, a UNSC resolution cannot override an existing treaty obligation or agreement unless the resolution specifically allows for that. Secondly, were this matter taken before a court for adjudication the most likely judgement would be that the Minsk2 reference to the removal of foreign troops relates primarily to the disputed area and to Ukraine's demand during the agreement's formulation that Russian troops leave Ukrainian territory. It was never intended to refer to instructors from other countries invited in by the Ukrainian government to train its troops in areas well away from the line of contact and the disputed area.

Of course all this a moot point since neither the Russian Federation nor its proxies have fulfilled their obligations since the agreement was signed. Minsk2 is a convenient fiction for all but those who are still being killed, maimed and made homeless by the fighting. Those who believe otherwise should consult the OSCE sitreps and the Ukrainian casualty announcements (which are anyway widely believe to be understating the true figure). The hardcore fighting will resume when the Russian proxy army has reorganised its forces in preparation for the next part of its offensive - the capture of Mariupol, further territorial gains in the Donbas region and the capture of Kharkiv.

Evgeny Skorobogatko -> Pavel Prokofiev 5 Mar 2015 17:12

1) You changed topic from neo-nazis to something else. You lost.
To your other topic of anti-Russia rhetoric - what kind of rhetoric would you expect vis-a-vis an invading nation? Pro-invasion? The rest is unclear and unsubstantiated narrative that I can hardly understand. Can you try to first at least make a statement before you try to prove it?
2) Agreed, and Putin is one of those enemies, he's a dictator.
3) If only were you able to quote an article from the Minsk-2 agreement that allowed killing the army inside the self-defined encirclement past the start date.
4) both statements flat out lies. Prove them. Some of the many politicians participating in Maidan (incl. Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk) got a lot of popular vote in the coming general elections. Also, no one is forcing Ukraine into NATO (even if Ukraine wholeheartedly wanted that, it's like a ~10-year journey)
4') Another lie, no one is marching into any cities which haven't been invaded by the Russian army, special forces and paramilitary fighters.
5) See 4'. Didn't get the rest of the post re. population growth, not relevant to Russian invasion
6) Thanks for sharing your dreams.

wheresmewashboard -> Smileyosborne12 5 Mar 2015 17:05

Russians generally have such confidence in Putin that they believe that however difficult the problems may be that their president will find a way to overcome them.

I don't doubt that this is true, but the point that I was making is that if the Russian economy ends up suffering terribly due to the sanctions, both as they are now and how they may increase, then it is inconceivable that over time the Russian people wouldn't start to think that there are other options.

The admiration for Putin is mostly as a result of the fact that he brought stability to Russia. The force of his personality is not to be taken for granted I admit, but it is relatively superficial compared to the stability he and Medvedev have brought. If, however, this stability is lost, and Russia enters a protracted period of economic slump, or potentially worse, then his approval ratings, over time will surely begin to collapse. This has happened in every example of economic calamity within a democracy in history. Admittedly, it may take longer in Russia than in most Western countries, but to think that the Russian people will continue to support Putin regardless of the depths of economic hardship and for how long it goes on for is naive, to say the least. Russian people may well be stoical, but they are not masochists.

The potential problem from Putin's point of view, is that his actions in Ukraine are isolating him and therefore his country. The SEC rules the world of financial regulation, like it or not. No foreign banks / financial institutions will deal with Russian banks or businesses whilst they remain persona non grata with the SEC. Russia's reserves will see them right for a while longer but not forever. The new structure of the world financial system places a lot of power in the hands of American regulators, and this will cause all manner of problems for those who are blacklisted. Russia cannot hope to win in an economic battle with America.

Ukraine is a regional dispute in America's eyes. They are probably not likely to get involved in a proxy war with Russia. The damage they can do to Putin economically is enough.

Pavel Prokofiev -> Evgeny Skorobogatko 5 Mar 2015 16:48

To 1) What for Svoboda is needed, if Yatzenyk and Poroshenko have taken its role with "Heil Ukraine!" and full anti-Russian rhetoric. Who would vote for Tyagnibok if they see that he is not tolerated by the Europe and U? If Europe and US would make clear that they do not support violence of nazi on Maidan - there would be no nazi coup. If Europe and US would not support killings of civilians there would be civil war. Even Venediktov warned Ukrainians that "tituschkas" and "policemen" are also citizens and have rights and own views, but very well educated journalists ignored and ignore this. One can got an impression that such journalists represent the common view, but the truth is that they are in a minority. The truth is that the durty work including fighting with Kalashnikovs is done by other type of people. It is possible to ignore the reality for some time, but one day there will be a hard confrontation with it.

2) Murder of Nemtsov benefits only enemies of Russia.

3) Debaltsevo is just one of the cases of confrontation with reality. Poroshenko believed that there was no encirclement - reality proved to be different.

4) NATO expansion is ok, but why to use nationalistic minority (who could not get even 5% of votes) to make a coup and force a country into NATO?

4') Poroshenko promised that there would be no civil war and any fighting would end within hour after his election - same lies as all stories and policy itself in the current Ukraine. Uncontrolled bataillons are marching into your city - your action? This what people in Eastern Ukraine were doing. Trying to protect themselves from uncontrolled Nazi battalions.

5) Military solution?? Russia will pay high price? But it is the population in Eastern Ukraine, who disagree with Kyiw policy - they are the driving force. If do not want that some Nazi battalions are marching on their streets, you want to force them at any price? The question is, what price will then pay the Ukrainian people on both sides of the conflict, to make Russia to pay high price? This is the main question. The result will be the following: by birthrates Ukraine with 40 million people is now on the same level as Somalia with population of 10 million. During Soviet times each year almost one million people were born in Ukraine, now it is about 400 thousand. 60 years ago population of Ukraine was equal to population of Nigeria or Pakistan (was 1 to 1). Today in Nigeria or Parkistan each year are born 10 to 20 times more children. In Nigeria alone are born more children than in entire EU+Ukraine. At the end of the day we have now Ukraine and Russian and Europe with 30% population of pensioners, and in other countries we see for 40 years now non-stop demographic revolution. Western values against family values? Do you see, who will be the winner? Certainly not Russians, Ukrainians or Europeans.

6) Neutrality? No Neutrality but united and mutualy beneficial block from Roca to Dezhnev.

MysticMegsy -> Tonterias 5 Mar 2015 16:33

US bases are a relic of the cold war - they are of absolutely no strategic importance now - how could they be without tanks?

Both the US and Russia will have a large number of SLBMs parked off the coast of the other's country, so whining about bases and NATO encroachment in Europe is irrelevant. NATO and Russia could wipe out each other's cities regardless of how many bases they have, no matter how close to the other's border.
This argument that Putin 'feels threatened' by Ukraine joining the EU is a total smokescreen to justify his own expansionist agenda (to secure power at home), when the real danger lurks under the Barents Sea regardless.

nnedjo -> richard1 5 Mar 2015 16:28

Ukraine didn't want to be a part of Putin's Eurasian Union which triggered Russian invasion Russian Eurasian Union is a non starter without Ukraine, and Putin knows it.

Read what former Ukrainian prime minister says on this subject:

Top EU officials, rather than Russia, threatened Ukraine with a coup d'état if Kiev refused to sign an association agreement in 2013, Nikolay Azarov, Ukraine's former prime minister, said.

"I've never heard neither Putin nor Medvedev saying that if you sign an agreement with the EU, you'll have a different government. But I've heard [EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, Stefan] Fule, repeatedly saying that if you don't sign then the other government will sign it," Azarov said at the presentation of his book 'Ukraine at a crossroads. Prime Minister's notes' in Moscow.

EugeneGur 5 Mar 2015 16:27

The great writer Anton Chekhov wrote a short story "A letter to a learned neighbor ". The story has a personage whose favorite argument was: "It cannot be because it can never be". A lot of people commenting here strongly remind me of that personage. No amount of evidence or logic can possibly convince them of anything they prefer not to see.
Example:
Crimea referendum was under the gunpoint. You can point them to multiple perfectly anti-Russian sources showing that Crimeans voted not only willingly but happily - not, it was annexation, referendum illegal (because we say so), Crimea is occupied, and so on.

One question. If Crimea is occupied, and the population was forced to vote to join Russia, how come the West sanctions Crimea? Just recently the US said Crimea will be under sanctions until it returns to Ukraine. Does it make any sense to punish occupied people for something they had no control over?

I don't think even the US is that stupid. I think they know perfectly well that Crimea is heavily pro-Russian; they knew it before the referendum, after the referendum, and they know it now. They are punishing Crimeans precisely for that: for their desire to reunite with Russia, a.k.a. self-determination. A round of applause for our "democratic leader of the free world", please.


OldStickie Wolfsz 5 Mar 2015 16:16

Lebensraum was a component of Drang Nach Ost which describes what Nato is currently up to.

BorninUkraine -> richard1 5 Mar 2015 16:14

Because it's not Russians, it's the people of Donbass fighting for their freedom.

Before you ask, I grew up in Lugansk, I have lots of friends and relatives in Donbass. Every one of them knows that their cities are shelled and women and children are routinely killed by Kiev Nazis.

BunglyPete

A letter published from a NATO representative in the Guardian today disputes this articles assertions about NATO expansion

In an interview published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 15 October 2014, former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev said: "The topic of 'Nato expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years." As the man to whom the promise is said to have been given, his words carry weight.

This conviently misses out the rest of the interview

Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker's statement, mentioned in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and Genscher talked about it.

"Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled. The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. ...

"The decision for the US and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisively made in 1993. I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990. With regards to Germany, they were legally enshrined and are being observed."

http://m.rbth.co.uk/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html

While there was no written agreement the implication was that the US wouldnt take advantage,

Matlock recalled that Baker began his argument saying something like, "Assuming there is no expansion of NATO jurisdiction to the East, not one inch, what would you prefer, a Germany embedded in NATO, or one that can go independently in any direction it chooses." [emphasis added]

The implication was that Germany might just opt to acquire nuclear weapons, were it not anchored in NATO. Gorbachev answered that he took Baker's argument seriously, and wasted little time in agreeing to the deal.

Ambassador Matlock, one of the most widely respected experts on Russia, told me "the language used was absolute, and the entire negotiation was in the framework of a general agreement that there would be no use of force by the Soviets and no 'taking advantage' by the U.S."

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/15/how-nato-jabs-russia-on-ukraine/

Barry Klinger

I agree that there's been a lot of knee-jerk propaganda against Russia, and that NATO should not have expanded into the former USSR, and that arming Ukraine is probably a bad idea. But...

Last spring President Putin said that the "green men" in unmarked green uniforms were not Russian soldiers. Then a few weeks later he admitted that they were. Now he says Russia is not helping Ukraine... except for some volunteers going on their own initiative. Press reports of Russian hardware rolling into Ukraine, circumstantial evidence of war-fighting capability surprising for a revolt that just started months ago... Balance of forces have consistently looked to be in rebels favor, especially if they have Russia literally at their back. So who is more likely to be breaking the cease-fire, the ones who stand to gain or the ones who stand to lose?

To me, all this points to Russian aggression to shrink the independence of neighboring countries, independence that the US foolishly encouraged to be too aggressive. It looks like Russia started and continues to stoke the war in Eastern Ukraine, which is not a minor offense compared to any complicity US had in unrest in Kiev last year.

PlatonKuzin -> Barry Klinger

I guess that the most appropriate answer to all the questions you have raised in your post are the words said more than 130 years ago by genious German politician Otto von Bismarck. They refer to the economic relations with Russia but the general principles stated there are universal and absolutely every word in it is of great significance. Please, read carefully what he said:

Do not expect that once taken advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever. Russians always come for their money. And when they come – they will not rely on the Jesuit agreement you signed, that supposedly justify your actions. They are not worth the paper it is written. Therefore, with the Russians you should use fair play or no play.

Erik Lyng

Thank you. Is about time someone actually talked about this.

BorninUkraine -> Erik Lyng

Yes, it's the first sensible and balanced comment from the Guardian staff in a long time. It shows that not everyone in the media is blind (or paid enough to play blind). Thank you, Seumas Milne!

PlatonKuzin

I hope that shifting to a more balanced coverage of developments in Ukraine and Russia is caused both by the author's commitment to truth and change of the editorial policy in favor of truth.

PlatonKuzin

This is the first article written by a Western author in which he bona fide tries to provide the audience with a balanced and unbiased view on what happens in Ukraine, Russia and relations between Russia and the West. Bravo, Mr. Milne. For the first time ever I personally agree with major author's conclusions and ideas. A rare case for me with respect to the Guardian publications.

EugeneGur

Russia had been compliant with the West for far too long. And look where it got it? The fault line was, of course, the bombing of Yugoslavia. That was the first time Yeltsin opened his mouth and objected to anything the West did. Overnight he was transformed in the Western press from the glorious Russian leader into incompetent drunkard, which he undoubtedly was. Russians have been weary of NATO ever since.

That NATO operation is justified by many that it stopped genocide. Pardon me, but NATO killed people in Belgrade that weren't engaged in any genocide. It's like targeting civilians in a war or killing hostages. Both could be quite effective in a military or terrorist operation. But we wouldn't condone them, would we?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I can't recall a single defensive operation by NATO, although plenty of offensive ones. Beauty is as beauty does, isn't it?

Demi Boone

Putin is merely reacting to NATO expansionism that began with the Administration of Bill Clinton in 1993. He broke the promise of George Bush (I) who said he would not encroach on the boarders of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union by bringing Poland into NATO and arming them with missiles.

Then Clinton began talking about bringing in other countries as well as Ukraine. This was all done seeking little or no advice from experienced High ranking US Foreign Policy advisers and after it was done he received much criticism for doing it because it infuriated and alienated Russia's Western oriented politicians.

if NATO pushes into Ukraine then Putin will push back

this is what has been occurring (simmering) since the time of Clinton what the US is trying to tell the world is

if Putin pushes into Ukraine then NATO will push back

they are two completely different arguments......research the topic historically.

irishmand -> richard1

He's alienated Ukraine, EU and USA and strengthened NATO, meanwhile unleashing strong nationalist forces in Russia. He cannot win in Ukraine and if he's seen to loose Ukraine, in the Russian mind, (inevitable) these forces are going to "come for him" and his billions.

US/EU alienated Russia by sponsoring a nazi driven coup in Kiev and unleashing a wild russophobic propaganda campaign.

bokhar

Peace in Russia (see Nemtsov murder on the Kremlin steps), Ukraine and its neighbouring countries will only occur when the zombies who enable Putin and his cronies are woken from their slumber and realize how much Putin has stolen from the Russian state and how many innocent people he has killed (including many Russians - see Donbass, Moscow apartment bombings, Georgia).

SEUMUS WAKE UP! If you care about Russia and its future you should recognize that Putin is bad for Russia - he has done nothing but suppress and kill political opposition, independent media, all the while maintaining an ever tightening noose around the necks of ordinary Russian citizens.

EugeneGur -> bokhar

Somehow, ordinary Russia citizens disagree with this appraisal - but, of course, you know better, being an enlightened European as opposed to them zombies. Do you people even read what you've written before you post or does it come straight from the heart?

irishmand -> bokhar

Peace in Russia (see Nemtsov murder on the Kremlin steps), Ukraine and its neighbouring countries will only occur when the zombies who enable Putin and his cronies are woken from their slumber and realize how much Putin has stolen from the Russian state and how many innocent people he has killed (including many Russians - see Donbass, Moscow apartment bombings, Georgia).

How much? Give us numbers and maybe we will believe you. Or maybe we won't. Look how many people US/EU killed, are they sorry?

NaMorris

But we want war. It's our not so secret desire. We want to live, not watch, our favorite action and war movies. In war everyone can be a hero. In war there are only good and evil, nothing in between, no middle men. War is blissful simplicity. This is why we pave the way for war.

Eaglesson

Victoria Nuland just few days ago smiling shaking hands with Andriy Parubiy the same founder of Ukrainian Social National Party and also the founder of Joseph Goebbels Institute. The white supremacist was invited in US and he came back with promises that Pentagon will supply them with weapons very soon (as he declared)
Some people have no shame!!

SirHenryRawlins -> Eaglesson

Nuland is a neoconservative. Birds of a feather Parubiy and Nuland.

Danish5666 -> Hucker

"have a right as independent countries to choose who they see as their friends"

Russia is rank dilettantes when compared to the US. Covert United States foreign regime
change actions:

1949 Syrian coup d'état
1953 Iranian coup d'état
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état
1959 Tibetan uprising
1961 Cuba, Bay of Pigs Invasion
1963 South Vietnamese coup
1964 Brazilian coup d'état
1973 Chilean coup d'état
1976 Argentine coup d'état
1979–89 Afghanistan, Operation Cyclone
1980 Turkish coup d'état
1981–87 Nicaragua, Contras
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions

Smileyosborne12

Come ON the red arrows! I am an unashamed supporter of Vladimir Putin.

When one realises the severe problems,financial,military,politically,ecumenically and territorially the man faced when he took over I have a lot of time for him.Firstly he was preceded by a succession of Premiers who generally in succession just served to weaken the country.

Lenin,Stalin,Khruschev,Pavlov, Kosygin and the drunken megalomaniac Yeltsin, left Russia as weak as at any time in its modern history. Putin gave up the Muslim states which had weakened Russia since the days of Stalin and finally came to an understanding with Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya the most militant of them all. In spite of the best attempts of the UN,Nato, President Obama,Angela Merkel,David Cameron and Francois Hollande to ruffle and destabilise him he has almost twice the approval rating of any of them and survived a litany of attempts to tie him to murders of his "opponents" without any concrete evidence brought against him. Pretty good record I would suggest.

willpodmore

Matthew Parris wrote in The Times ('It's time we washed our hands of Ukraine', 28 February, p. 21) "Ukraine? With an inward groan, I write again what I wrote about Saddam's Iraq, about Gaddafi's Libya and about Assad's Syria. Intervention almost always makes things worse."

adoeli -> no_ref

Gas disputes are resolved in an international court of arbitration. Head of the Energy Commission of the European Union recognized the guilt of Ukraine in non-payment of supplies. Kiev just doesn't it, till won't come the Z-day. Russia itself depends on the supply of gas through Ukraine. The pipe goes through Ukraine to Europe. Moscow concerns about the reputation of the honest supplier. Moscow's role as an unscrupulous suppliers is profitable for US. Ukraine, that had become a puppet of the United States, is capable for any provocation. Moscow was glad to be rid of such an intermediary that it did in fact, has planned a new gas pipeline project with Turkey. Now are you happy? Neither Ukraine nor Bulgaria nor the other will depend on Russian gas supplies. What are the problems?

SHappens -> jezzam

Russia did not make a fuss on all those Eastern countries joining NATO even if, of course, it might not pleased them. The red line was passed with Ukraine. Crimea in particular.

In the past deals were made, promises were made, tacit agreements if you will and everybody was coping. But when the US decided to come and play in Russia's backyard with the intend to literally rob Ukraine to threat Russia, well Putin said stop. Now the US dont want to listen thus the assault on everything Russian through the conciliatory mass media.

If you think about it all objectively you can only agree that without the US meddling, Ukraine would have sorted its differences already.

ToddPalant -> Andrew Baldwin

Fight for reform? With the dissolution of the USSR Yeltsin had a tabula rasa. They could start from the beginning by founding a truly democratic Russia. Unfortunately Mr. Nemtsov presided, along with other western proteges, over the looting of the Russian public wealth, virtually delivering it in the hands of the "chosen" few. Nemtsov although pro western, was no reformer. In his later years he was, to put it simplistically, a repeater of Mrs. Nuland's and her husband's aggressive narrative (the "f**k soft politics, bring in the troops" kinna thingy )

jezzam -> SHappens

No. I still don't get it. If Russia did not make a fuss about all the other countries joining NATO, why make a fuss about Ukraine?

What does your statement that the US "intend to literally rob Ukraine to threat Russia," mean? In what way were the US intending to rob Ukraine? In what way would this have threatened Russia?

"without the US meddling, Ukraine would have sorted its differences already". I find it hard to agree with this statement as it is again difficult to understand. Do you mean that by now Putin would have imposed his will?

SHappens -> jezzam

I'll try to make it short, you know I can be prolific.

Crimea base lease, Fuck the EU coup using Maiden revolt, installation of a government chosen by her in Kiev.

Rob resources, gas Biden, cereals Monsanto, install NATO, control Russia and why not annihilate it + cheap human labour flooding in Germany and the EU for a more low leverage of EU wages.

By now there would have been the regular vote as planned in May 2014.

gnorblitz

This is Kiev and Moscow using centuries old blood feuds and nationalist fervor in a struggle over territory and its concomitant resources, infrastructure, tax revenue and political power. Washington is fueling it in order to widen its sphere of influence in the region, sell arms, entrench political back home and further contain Russia politically and economically. All three governments have the blood of the people in the region on their hands.

gnorblitz -> gnorblitz

That should read entrenching political support back home. Since the Second World War, standing up to Russia is guaranteed political currency in the U.S.

ToddPalant -> gnorblitz

If it were simply an isolated power play on the part of the US, although atrocious, it would not be as threatening as it is now. It seems like a culmination of a plan hatched in the late 40's.

It also looks like an act of desperation as the US having lost its economic "power house" status relies solely on its still impressive war machine, certainly a policy that has an expiry date.

When the dollar loses its reserve currency status, the US will have reached the point of no return. All three have blood on their hands, true. But the instigator, the accessory before the fact, is draped in stars and stripes

EugeneGur

A reasonable article in the Guardian? Sounds like an oxymoron. Someone must be sick on the editorial board to allow this.

The alternative is a negotiated settlement which guarantees Ukraine's neutrality, pluralism and regional autonomy. It may well be too late for that.

This was an alternative more than a year ago but it is no longer on the table. Under no circumstances Donbass will be a part of the present day Ukraine no matter how many sanctions are applied to Russia. Besides, the US wants a conflict with Russia, which means Kiev will fight on. What the US will do when Kiev gets its ass kicked for the third time, which will undoubtedly happen, I don't know. But everything they've done so far is bringing us all closer to the real possibility of a war.

jezzam -> EugeneGur

If what you say is true, it is obvious what will happen. E. Ukraine will effectively become part of Russia. Russia and its ill-gotten gains will be isolated culturally and economically and left to stew in their own juice. Is it worth it just to grab a useless piece of devastated territory?

EugeneGur -> jezzam

What I always admire is the "humanitarian" zeal of out western friends. They lecture us relentlessly on human right, European values, etc, but when it come to opposing Russia, all humanitarian concerns disappear like the smoke they really are.

This "useless piece of devastated territory" is populated by 8 millions of human beings, and it wasn't devastated by itself but by our Ukrainian brothers that claimed for some mysterious reason that land for itself. Russia didn't grab anything - Russia is helping these people to survive. Got something against it?

StanislavCh -> jezzam

Russia and its ill-gotten gains will be isolated culturally and economically

It's the most amazing part of Western narrative. Isolated from whom ? The whole world wants to cooperate with Russia , does it and will continue. If US and EU do not - fine, nobody cares , just piss off, but it's so ridiculous to call it isolation!

bananasandsocks

There was no democratic outcome ebcause there was no democratic vote.

There was a vote. And objective evidence from polling indicates that Crimeans overwhelmingly consider it free and fair. So there is democratic confirmation of its validity.

No option to vote for the status quo.

According to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

No independent oversight of vote counting.

According to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

No campaigning allowed for the Ukrainian side.

According to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

Voters intimidated by masked armed thugs.

Nonsense. But according to objective data, Crimeans don't care.

Roguing -> bananasandsocks

Do non-Russian populations currently living in Russia have the right to transfer sovereignty of their territory from Moscow to another state?

[Mar 05, 2015] Nuland ensconced in neocon camp who believes in noble lie

From comments: "Neo-con" is a polite term for "Neo-Nazi". They are all Nazi sympathizers - Nueland, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Rumsfeld, Bolton, Kagan, Kristol, Abrams, Woolsey, Armitage, Zoellick, Bennett, as well as the Bush family - and all should be tried, convicted and hung as such for their crimes against humanity. But even they take their orders from the central bankers who own the Federal Reserve, IMF, and ECB.
Mar 05, 2015 | rt.com

Victoria Nuland's anti-Russian rhetoric comes from the neocon camp of US politics, seeking to stir the Ukraine crisis, thrilled by the prospect of defense industry expansion and more arms sales, Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Peace Institute told RT.

RT: World leaders and international monitors agree the situation in Ukraine is generally improving. Why are we still witnessing aggressive rhetoric from some US officials?

Daniel McAdams: Because the US does not want peace to break out. The US is determined to see its project through. But unfortunately like all of its regime change projects this one is failing miserably. Victoria Nuland completely disregards the role of the US in starting the conflict in Ukraine. She completely glosses over the fact that the army supported by Kiev has been bombarding Eastern Ukraine, as if these independent fighters in the east are killing themselves and their own people. Victoria Nuland was an aid to Dick Cheney; she is firmly ensconced in the neocon camp. The neocons believe very strongly in lying, the noble lie… They lied us into the war in Iraq; they are lying now about Ukraine. Lying is what the neocons do.

RT: Nuland listed a lot of hostile actions by Russia without providing any reliable proof. Do you think she can she be challenged on these topics?

DM: Maybe she is right but the US hasn't provided one piece of proof, except for Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt's Rorschach tests he passes off as a satellite photo. Maybe they are true but we have to present some evidence because we've seen now the neocons have lied us into the war. This is much more serious than the attack on small Iraq. This has the potential for a global nuclear war. So I think they should be held to a higher level of scrutiny. Thus far they have not provided any. We do know however that the US is providing military aid. As the matter of fact this week hundreds of American troops are arriving in Ukraine. Why is that not an escalation? Why is it only an escalation when the opponents of the US government are involved?

RT: How probable is that the Western nations ship lethal aid to Ukraine?

DM: It is interesting because Victoria Nuland this week spent some time with Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the fascist party in Ukraine and I believe one of the founders of the Joseph Goebbels Institute. She met with him this week and had a photo taken with him. He came back to Ukraine and assured his comrades that the US will provide additional, non-lethal weapons - whatever that means - and felt pretty strongly that they would provide lethal weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey has been urging the US government to provide lethal weapons as has the new US defense secretary [Ashton Carter], both of whom come from the military industrial complex which is thrilled by prospect of a lot more arms to be sold.

RT: Nuland has said the State Department is in talks with EU leaders for another round of sanctions on Russia. Do you think the EU will agree?

DM: I think they will be pressured into agreeing. It is interesting that Nuland said that the new Rada, the new Ukrainian parliament, in this first four months has been a hive of activity. I was just watching some videos from the fights in the Ukrainian parliament. So that was one bit of unintentional humor probably in her speech. It looks like a fight club over there.

Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He served as foreign affairs advisor to US Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) for 12 years.

Frank Wolstencroft

Victoria Nuland was appointed as an assistant US Secretary of State by none other than Killary Klinton.

Armand Geddon

Tony Blair

May be europe should start financing mexico to retrieve its stolen land from the us. Texas , california & new mexico.more...

There no need. Obama and our corrupt Congress have already opened the border for the illegals to just walk right in and take it!

"Neo-con" is a polite term for "Neo-Nazi". They are all Nazi sympathizers - Nueland, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Rumsfeld, Bolton, Kagan, Kristol, Abrams, Woolsey, Armitage, Zoellick, Bennett, as well as the Bush family - and all should be tried, convicted and hung as such for their crimes against humanity. But even they take their orders from the central bankers who own the Federal Reserve, IMF, and ECB.

ifigeniaa

She is responsible for the thousands of death in eastern Ukraine.

Tony Blair

May be europe should start financing mexico to retrieve its stolen land from the us.Texas , california & new mexico. These jews in the white house like victoria newlandberg, john kerrberg & the rest of them look like ugly vultures sitting on the branches of a dead tree.

Brigitte Meier

Nulands lies are only a very complicated way of saying that the US policy in Ukraine failed. It was based on the assumption that the Ukraine army would make short shrift with the rebels. When that didn't work there really wasn't any plan B. That all what Nuland says is lies is already confirmed with the false photos Kiev sent to the US Congress of Russian tanks - which turned out to have been photographed in Georgia. "Who cares, its the only picture we've got of them Russian tanks". Good enough to admit under cover that Kiev lost the war and with it the US lost its policy goal. Russia isn't faltering despite the sanctions. Putin has a 86% positive rating. And Kiev is bankrupt and really can't move anymore. Time for the US to think of getting Ukraine's riches and split until more neo-Nazis can be trained in Poland to destabilize both the EU and Ukraine which hopefully will then be enough to throw Russia into turmoil too.

Nuland was funny: the destruction caused by the rebels in Donbas - not the destruction caused by the Ukraine army who attacked Donbas! The rebels destroyed the airport - but the Ukraine army did most of the destruction to make the airport unusable for the rebels. Now they have to go fight for Mariupol - I'm sure the Ukraine army wants to destroy the port there too so as not to leave it for use by the rebels. And Nuland can then describe it all again in inversions. What she was really saying is that the Ukraine army caused abhorrent devastation, specifically of residential areas - in the winter - to prevent the population of Donbas from staying in the Donbas. Clearly, an action of ethnic cleansing as the Israelis do in Palestine. it is also clear that the Congress understood that and is dismayed. It destroys the image of the US as the great bringer of democracy and freedom - especially with the bankruptcy, the cut in payments on all levels and hyperinflation of 272%. Genuine freedom to starve. And Kerry still wants to believe that the problem is just that the US isn't spending enough on PR! Does he really think that the Russians will look at US PR rather than at the reality in Donbas and Kiev? Why would any Russian still believe in the positive intentions and influence of the US? At best, people will make fun of the US ingenuity to invent PR.

[Mar 04, 2015] Russia's actions in Ukraine conflict an 'invasion', says US official US news by Alan Yuhas

The United States elite no longer bothers about limiting the conflict after color revolution and avioding civil war. It puts its cards on the table without fear and doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critics inside or outside the country, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a leash, the pathetic and supine Great Britain. (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html.)
Quote: "Let's be clear; "US interests" aren't the interests of the American people, either. They're the interests of military careerists and contractors hoping to profit from yet another conflict. "
Mar 04, 2015 | The Guardian

Comment by Victoria Nusland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, might be the first time a senior official has used the term publicly

piper909 -> Bud Peart 4 Mar 2015 22:08

Mineral resources, industrial development, lots of fertile cropland, and proximity to the Black Sea and Near East are all reasons enough for the Ukraine to be a prize for any conqueror, from the days when it was the breadbasket of the Athenian Empire to the Second World War when Hitler's lust for it caused him to overreach his armies' capacities in 1941 and 1942 (and probably saved Moscow and/or Leningrad from capture).

Now it's the Americans and NATO who want to control this territory, and complete the encirclement of Russia.

piper909 4 Mar 2015 22:00

This woman is an utter fraud. She's been actively promoting an agenda to orchestrate and control the entire Ukrainian revolution and aftermath. She is a paid tool of the not-so-secret US neo-con policy of encircling Russia with NATO puppets and doing anything possible to weaken Russia's ability to block American hegemonic interests or to court European allies. She has absolutely no credibility in this matter as any kind of spokesperson except as a known agent of the US state dept. and CIA if her tongue were any more forked it could be laid on the table next to a knife and spoon.

irishmand 4 Mar 2015 21:55

This is what Russians feel about all this (english subtitles available):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65SwzHAbes

AlexPeace 4 Mar 2015 21:52

Russia set troops, Russia sent troops... Where are then Russian POWs? Ukraine failed to produce a single one for the entire year! All proofs of Russian involvement are coming from Facebook and other similar sources.

US claimed that they have proofs, but would not show them because they are secret... How good is that? But still repeating their mantras-good only for complete f..wits

Chirographer -> Bob Vavich 4 Mar 2015 21:51

What about the Israeli PM speaking against Obama's policy in the US Congress? Should he have been arrested too?

annamarinja -> irgun777 4 Mar 2015 21:30

Would not it be better for humanity if Mrs. Nuland-Kagan were a bartender? Unfortunately for many, she pretends to be a diplomat, a person of knowledge and wisdom, whereas she is just a bad-mouth and a half-wit with poor manners and aggressive personality.

Aris Tsihlis -> greven 4 Mar 2015 21:19

Greven That's an extremely far stretch comparing Putin to Hitler! Me personally I haven't forgotten how things played out it started with a coup d'état sponsored by the US government!

And if I look at the map NATO is on Putin doorstep not the other way around! Stop trying to spin the facts I heard the conversations the witch above was having on who they were going to place in charge! Sell it to somebody else I ain't buying your narrative of the story!

BorninUkraine -> Metronome151 4 Mar 2015 21:18

Ukrainian joke.
Russians asks:
- If you believe that Russia annexed Crimea, why don't you fight for it?
- We aren't that stupid, there is Russian army there.
- But you say there is Russian army in Donbass?
- That's what we say, but in Crimea there really is Russian army.

BorninUkraine -> DoyleSaylor 4 Mar 2015 21:08

You are wrong, this was a success, although incomplete (NATO won't have a naval base in Crimea). The US stirred up s..t in Ukraine to force Europe to act against its interests and join the "sanctions". So, the US hit two birds, Russia and EU competitors, with one stone. If anyone was and still is dumb, it's Europeans following US orders.

bagart -> Old_Donkey 4 Mar 2015 20:57

Angela Merkel and this joker Hollande brokered only increased bloodletting and for a year opened Ukrainian border for Russia, like declaring inability of Ukraine to govern.

This was scam not peace brokering. For what purpose border was left to be controlled by Russia, if Russia is officially not engaged in conflict?

Aris Tsihlis -> bagart 4 Mar 2015 20:52

The Russians are not in the Ukraine! Russia volunteers probably but there are a lot of other volunteers from other countries also! Serbs, Greeks of Ukrainian origin etc.etc.

And do me a favor stop being a Neo-con apologist!

Bud Peart 4 Mar 2015 20:46

Yes Russia has sent troops and militias into Ukraine to support Eastern Ukrainians. I don't think many realistically deny this. Does it constitute and invasion? Probably yes.

Does the Ukrainian government's 'anti terror' operation constitute ethnic cleansing and war crimes? Probably yes.

Does Nuland's direct material support for the overthrow of an elected government in Ukraine constitute a coup? Probably Yes.

Does the Ukrainian government use Neo Nazi militias including foreign fighters from Poland and Croatia in its ethnic cleansing. Probably yes.

It would be nice if the 'liberal left' trendies at the Guardian could for once quit their pro establishment dribble and start providing objective analysis. This crisis has the potential to ignite a nuclear war and we need to start analyzing it without emoting Luke Harding style hysteria.


Cynndara -> Aris Tsihlis 4 Mar 2015 20:36

Let's be clear; "US interests" aren't the interests of the American people, either. They're the interests of military careerists and contractors hoping to profit from yet another conflict.

Playing nuclear chicken is in nobody's interests, and people like Nuland who think they can continuously poke at Putin WITHOUT raising the possibility of nuclear war are arrogant idiots, the kind who always think they're too smart to make a mistake until they do. And people die from it.

The NSA can add this comment to my copious file. Let me know when you're coming over, boys in black, and I'll bake a Devil's Food cake.

[Mar 01, 2015] US Pushes For Escalation, Arms Kiev By Laundering Weapons Through Abu Dhabi

Notable quotes:
"... Vadym Prystaiko, who until last fall was Ukraine's ambassador to Canada, says the world must not be afraid of joining Ukraine in the fight against a nuclear power. ..."
"... The U.S. will now disguise its arms-to-Kiev program by laundering it through its sponsored Middle East dictatorships: ..."
"... The United Arab Emirates is not known as arms producer. But it buys lots of U.S. weapons. It will now forward those to Ukraine while the U.S. will claim that it does not arm Ukraine. Who do they think will believe them? ..."
"... Not a peep from Merkel - her only disagreements with the Nobel Peace Prize winner about Ukraine are purely tactical. ..."
"... Basically, Germany was to spearhead the EU's expansion to Ukraine, while the US role was to facilitate Ukraine's inclusion in Nato. ..."
Mar 01, 2015 | moonofalabama.org

The U.S. is circumventing its own proclaimed policy of not delivering weapons to Ukraine and is thereby, despite urgent misgivings from its European allies, increasing the chance of a wider catastrophic war in Europe.

The Ukrainian coup president Poroshenko went to an international arms exhibition in Dubai. There he met the U.S. chief military weapon salesman.

ABU DHABI – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is expected to meet with U.S. defense companies Tuesday during a major arms exhibition here even though the American government has not cleared the firms to sell Kiev lethal weapons.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's acquisition executive is scheduled to meet with a Ukrainian delegation Monday evening, however Poroshenko is not expected to be there. Kendall, in an interview, said he will be bringing a message of support from the United States.

"I expect the conversation will be about their needs," Kendall told Defense One a few hours before the meeting. "We're limited at this point in time in terms of what we're able to provide them, but where we can be supportive, we want to be."

Poroshenko, urged on by his neocon U.S. sponsors, wants total war with Russia. Porosheko's deputy foreign minister, currently on a visit in Canada, relayed the message:

Ukraine's deputy foreign minister says he is preparing for "full-scale war" against Russia and wants Canada to help by supplying lethal weapons and the training to use them.

Vadym Prystaiko, who until last fall was Ukraine's ambassador to Canada, says the world must not be afraid of joining Ukraine in the fight against a nuclear power.

In the mind of these folks waging a "full-scale war" against a nuclear superpower like Russia is nothing to be afraid of. These are truly lunatics.

Russia says that U.S. weapons delivered to Ukraine would create real trouble. They mean it. To hint how Russia would counter such a move it just offered a spiced up S-300 missile defense system to Iran:

Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of the Russian defense corporation Rostec, said Tehran is considering its offer to sell an Antey-2500 anti-ballistic air defense system,

The Antey-2500 is a mobile surface-to-air missile system that offers enhanced combat capabilities, including the destruction of aircraft and ballistic missiles at a range of about 1,500 miles, according to its manufacturer, Almaz-Antey.

The system was developed from a less advanced version -- the 1980s-generation S-300V system -- which has a 125-mile range. A 2007 contract to supply the S-300 system to Iran was canceled in 2010, after the U.S. and Israel lobbied against it, ...

Such a system in Iran would, in case of a conflict, endanger every U.S. airplane in the Middle East.

But that threat did not deter the U.S. As the U.S. arms dealer in Abu Dhabi said: "where we can be supportive, we want to be". The U.S. will now disguise its arms-to-Kiev program by laundering it through its sponsored Middle East dictatorships:

Christopher Miller ‏@ChristopherJM

Poroshenko, UAE agree on "delivery of certain types of armaments and military hardware to #Ukraine."

The United Arab Emirates is not known as arms producer. But it buys lots of U.S. weapons. It will now forward those to Ukraine while the U.S. will claim that it does not arm Ukraine. Who do they think will believe them?

This is again a dangerous escalation of the conflict in Ukraine by U.S. machinations. It comes at the same moment that Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine meet in Paris to push for faster implementation of the Minsk 2 accord for a ceasefire and for a political solution of the civil war in Ukraine:

On Monday spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Yevhen Perebyinis said that during their Paris meeting, the foursome of foreign ministers will focus on the implementation of the Minsk agreements and withdrawal of heavy artillery in Donbas.

The Ukrainian government has said that it will not withdraw its artillery as long as there are still skirmishes around a few flashpoints along the ceasefire line. In Shirokyne east of Mariupol the government aligned neo-nazi battalion Azov continues to attack the federalists. The Ukrainian propaganda claims that the federalists plan an immediate attack on Mariupol. That is nonsense and the federalist have denied any plans for further fighting. Unlike the Ukrainian government the federalist started to pull back their artillery and will continue to do so.

The Ukrainian government is breaking the Minsk 2 agreement by not pulling back its heavy artillery from the ceasefire line. The U.S. is arming the Ukrainian army and will soon train its volunteer neo-nazi "national guard" forces.

The major European powers, Germany, France and Russia, try to tame the conflict down. The U.S. and its poodles in Kiev continue to poor oil into the fire. If the Europeans do not succeed in pushing back against Washington the Ukraine with burn and Europe with it.

In Further Escalation U.S. Delivery Of Weapons To Kiev Will Be Laundered Through Abu Dhabi

Posted by b at 10:20 AM | Comments (53)

Lone Wolf | Feb 24, 2015 11:20:39 AM | 1

@b

Thanks for a very good summary of the whole guacamole.

Another reason not to withdraw the artillery, being also used by Kerry to crank up the "let's-give-weapons-to-Ukraine" line, is the mopping of the Debaltsevo pocket, which Ukraine & Co. decided to ignore from the beginning, to use it now as a justification not to fulfill Minsk 2.0. The false-flag attack in Kharkov was a prelude of the up and coming internal repression, which will drown in torture, suffering and blood the little resistance there is to the continuation of the war and the IV Mobilization.

Whoever said that foreign policy is only an extension of domestic policy?

gersen | Feb 24, 2015 12:24:12 PM | 3

RE: Lone Wolf | Feb 24, 2015 11:20:39 AM | 1

I commented about a week ago that the ceasefire might hold if both sides in Ukraine pulled back their artillery - unless Obama acted to sabotage it. Now he has done so - not withstanding the withdrawal of federalist ordinance - by offering to rearm the gun-crazy fascists of the Ukrainian gov't, with not even a fig leaf of "plausible deniability" to cover his assets.

Not a peep from Merkel - her only disagreements with the Nobel Peace Prize winner about Ukraine are purely tactical.

As for Poroshenko, he doubtless has a helicopter gassed and ready, and a nice little hidey hole in Switzerland all prepared, and conveniently close to his billions. That's why he sent his family out of the country, because when he has to get out - he has to get out fast.

shargash | Feb 24, 2015 12:29:18 PM | 4

Re: (2) IhaveLittleToAdd

Like most criminal organizations, the US tries to take very good care of its agents that do what they're told and to be very brutal to those who don't. For examples of the former, check out all the South American criminals living in Miami as well as the perhaps more relevant example of Mikheil Saakashvili, who is strutting around Ukraine rather than being on trial in Georgia. For examples of the latter, check out Noriega, Saddam, or Bin Ladin.

While I suspect Porky is wondering how he got himself into this mess, I don't think he has much choice but to stick it out to the end. At least his family will be well taken care of.

sleepy | Feb 24, 2015 2:08:47 PM | 10

Re: IHaveLittleToAdd no. 2

Re: shargash no. 4

I have read recently in an article on another blog that in 2012 Poroshenko was being politically groomed for his future role by Germany's Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung institute, a think-tank wing of Merkel's Christian Democrats, as was Vitali Klitschko the present mayor of Kiev in 2011.

Basically, Germany was to spearhead the EU's expansion to Ukraine, while the US role was to facilitate Ukraine's inclusion in Nato.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/greece-dead-man-walking-2.html

Lone Wolf | Feb 24, 2015 3:19:08 PM | 14

@sid_finster@5

"Ukraine will go to war in late March"--Zakharchenko


..."We are beginning the withdrawal of heavy equipment, while Ukraine is bringing it up from Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. Seems to be there will be a provocation. Ukraine will go to war in late March or Early April. Ukraine needs war," Zakharchenko said during a Monday briefing.


J.Hawk's Comment: ...Because, to my mind, there seems to be a pattern of Ukrainian conflict activity: it is most likely to escalate when it just received foreign financial aid, and is the most likely to seek peace just as it needs another tranche...

sid_finster | Feb 24, 2015 8:42:45 PM | 22

$350m is not going to buy you many US weapons, especially as Parashka's contract is for $2.4 billion, less delivery, middlemen, financing, etc..

The IMF is another source, but that money hasn't arrived yet, and there are a lot of conditions attached. That's why the Fund is the lender of last resort.

Since arms are invariably sold subject to strict limits on resales, I suspect that either:
1. The sale is for domestic Ukrainian consumption, i.e Parashka's attempt to look like he is doing something;
Or
2.The US is secretly financing the sale, directly or indirectly. Such financing may be in the form of "we promise to aid your ISIS friends, or look the other way, if you 'sell' Ukraine these weapons and take a lenient attitude regarding repayment."

Lone Wolf | Feb 24, 2015 9:20:09 PM | 23

@Alberto@11

This is not because they disagree with his politics, but because Saakashvili is wanted on a multitude of criminal charges.

"Criminal charges?" Bingo! He fits the credentials for the job as Porky's "adviser." In reality, Saakashvili, a CIA crooked rat, is the CIA man in Ukraine, overseeing the entire anti-Russian effort, weapons needs, false-flag operations, internal repression, Ukinazi death squads, intel gathering and coordination, etc. Georgia's complaint to Ukraine was more of a wink to Saakashvili's newly found job, a show for domestic consumption, otherwise, Interpol would be looking for him, wouldn't it?

ProsperousPeace | Feb 24, 2015 9:37:53 PM | 24

Re: Isaakashvili sudden involvement with the "Ukrainian government": Kiev Snipers: Mystery Solved

It was reported several weeks ago in Interpress News that four of the snipers in Kiev were in fact Georgian nationals. The source for this story was Georgian General Tristan Tsitelashvili (Titelashvili), who later confirmed this in an interview with Rossiya TV.

Tsitelashvili claimed that at least four of the snipers shooting at people in Maidan Square were under the command of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is doing his best to destabilize his own country, and others if necessary, to find a way back into power.

Piotr Berman | Feb 24, 2015 11:28:51 PM | 25

How long did Saakashvili's war with Russia last? 48 hours? 72 hours? Good advisor to have.

Posted by: Crest | Feb 24, 2015 8:34:15 PM | 20

According to Wikipedia, the war started on Aug 8, minutes after midnight, and it definitely lasted at least 4 days. On fifth day, Georgians left a key city, Gori, and Russians entered on sixth day. On the other hand, the war was lost within 24 hours. The only chance of victory for heavily outnumbered Georgia was to surprise the Russians and Ossetians and take control of the only tunnel between South Ossetia and the Russian Federation (North Ossetia), which they did not. Thus Russian could retake all territory gained by Georgia on day one within two days, rather than a week. Georgia concentrated almost all forces against Ossetian, leaving the second border with good roads, with Abkhasia, practically undefended. Thus the only way to score a victory lasting more than one day was to risk loosing big majority of Georgian military in a cauldron -- Georgian forces in Ossetian mountain valleys would have Russian forces behind them, as only police checkpoints were delaying Russian advance from Abkhasia, (posting detours, issuing tickets for parking violations, violation of weight limits on bridges for tanks etc.???).

As a history buff, I have hard time finding a strategic plan of equal stupidity. To give the creator of that plan a key advising position seems suicidal. An anti-Russian Georgian owns a large (??? impressive web site) newspaper in Kiev.

Demian | Feb 25, 2015 3:02:07 AM | 28

Foreign Affairs poll of experts about whether the US should arm Ukraine:

4 strongly agree
5 agree
0 are neutral [they're experts, after all]
8 disagree
10 strongly disagree

brian | Feb 26, 2015 4:59:48 AM | 52

You can read the whole article for free if you register. You get two free articles per month. FA should be of interest to MoA readers.

By George Galloway. a great discussion about the Russian_Western struggle; its history and recent development.;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNaSGdYxm8M

guest77 | Feb 26, 2015 1:47:24 PM | 53

@52 Thanks for the Galloway show. His al Mayadeen show has always been difficult for me to find - and it is considerably better, I feel, than both Sputnik and Comment (which are fine shows themselves).

[Feb 27, 2015] Ukraine: UK and EU 'badly misread' Russia

British neocons start realizing the size of the damage Ukrainian coup d'état inflicted of GB & EU... But they still follow the US like an obedient poodle... And it is funny that the color revolution staged by the West in Ukraine they call "plans for closer relations with Ukraine"
bbc.com

The UK and the EU have been accused of a "catastrophic misreading" of the mood in the Kremlin in the run-up to the crisis in Ukraine. The House of Lords EU committee claimed Europe "sleepwalked" into the crisis.

The EU had not realized the depth of Russian hostility to its plans for closer relations with Ukraine, it said.

... ... ...

Sir Andrew Wood, former British ambassador to Russia, agreed with the report's assessment, calling the situation a "dangerous moment" because Russia's frustrations could overspill into other areas, with increasing pressure on Baltic states.

... ... ...

Poroshenko bruised by army retreat

[Feb 27, 2015] The EU's plan for an energy union would call Vladimir Putin's bluff by Natalie Nougayrède

Neocon cause is lost cause. No amount of propaganda can change this fact. This pressitute sings Anglo-American official tune with a little bit too much zeal... Even for Guardian pressitute... From comments: "A military empire (US + EU + NATO) with an hegemonic agenda which conquers territories either peacefully (the 28 EU countries) or violently when there is resistance by destabilization leading to war (Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Mali, Central Africa, Palestine and now Ukraine) or overthrow elected governments (Ukraine, Latin America), or both in total disregard of international law. "
Feb 27, 2015 | theguardian.com

... ... ...

It's easy to understand why the proponents of an EU energy union would use slightly grandiose language to sell their ideas. They have cast this plan as the "most ambitious European energy project since the Coal and Steel Community" of the 1950s. After all, energy solidarity is what Europe was all about at the start. Having France and Germany share their coal and steel was seen, in the words of Robert Schuman, one of the founders of the European project, as the best way to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible". Peace and prosperity were to flow from regional integration.

Last year, war broke out in the country (Ukraine) through which most of Russia's energy exports transit on their way to many of our homes. A key feature of Putin's Ukraine strategy has been to make sure this country of transit would never quite escape Moscow's domination – and that Gazprom would never lose the possibility of directly controlling Ukraine's gas pipelines to Europe.

The Brussels commission is right to push for a new union. Energy should be, along with freedom of movement for people, goods and services, a key dimension of the EU. It would help in dealing with Russia's behaviour as well as in tackling climate change. It is of huge strategic importance. Yet it has not happened – so far – because it is so difficult to build politically, and it will be expensive.

Energy is run nationally – not at EU level – at present. Key countries, especially the UK, France and Germany, have their own views on how energy policy should be run, and they are all different. The UK has a deregulated market, many private players, and no dependency on Gazprom. France is highly centralised, with a handful of , state-controlled big players and 75% of electricity generated by nuclear power (which is anathema to the Germans). Germany dislikes nuclear energy and wants to get rid of it, preferring to burn coal if they run out of gas or renewables. And they have had historically good relations with Gazprom. Poland burns a lot of coal (it prefers that to Russian gas), but Poles also want to look for shale gas. They don't worry that much about greenhouse gases. The list goes on.

There is a disorderly patchwork of energy policies across Europe. But questions that have been important for years need to be re-addressed. It is too late to settle scores over who wrecked Europe's previous chances of setting up a common energy policy. But Germany does have a special responsibility here. Its large and powerful energy companies, E.ON and RWE, were the first in the early 2000s to carve out long-term contracts with Gazprom without much consultation with European partners. Later, Germany unilaterally signed up to Russia's North Stream pipeline which the Baltic states and Poland could only perceive as an attempt to pressure them geopolitically.

The new EU plan doesn't aim to dismantle such realities but is pragmatic enough to try to deal with some of Europe's obvious weaknesses. Because energy has been mostly a domestic issue there are very few, interconnecting pipelines and grids. The plan is to build more. This would allow compensation for energy cut offs – such as the ones that Russia created in 2006 and 2009, causing thousands of eastern European homes to be left without heating for weeks.

Another idea is to diversify energy supplies by working on a southern gas corridor linking Europe to Turkey and Central Asia, or by setting up liquified natural gas hubs in northern Europe that could act as back-up in case of another gas crisis with Russia.

The complexities are numerous. Some energy business insiders point out that negotiating with a Central Asian country such as Turkmenistan is like landing on another planet. One told me about a meeting with 30 Turkmen government officials sitting immobile behind long tables in the Hall of the Peoples of Turkmenistan's capital, who didn't say a word but just stared. Turkmenistan is a big gas producer whose operatives have been known to sell the same quantity of gas several times over to various buyers (Russians, Chinese, etc).

... ... ...

Bosula -> Fencewalker , 27 Feb 2015 21:39

How am I an obvious Putinbot because I'm critical of neo cons and journalists who trot out one article after another on the same themes? Follow what this smiley faced right winger writes and you'll see.

These journalists should be criticised and that is the purpose of free speech and posting on this site.

Just because you disagree with my posts doesn't make me a Putin bot.

My family connections are with Ukraine - not Russia.

irishmand -> JamesPl , 27 Feb 2015 21:31

"I can't blame you for demanding Putin that pays you in a hard currency! Thanks to him, a rouble isn't worth using as toilet-paper, now.
A user name 'Irishmand' who only comments on Russian issues and always with a pro-Kremlin view - you know that Astroturf always looks fake, right?"
1. I am in Canada. Hence, Canadian Dollars.
2. Read my profile. It explains a lot.
3. Yes, I love Russia and I like Putin. What is wrong with it? I see the western media lies. Your media became a shame of this "free democratic" society.

sparrow10 -> joem , 27 Feb 2015 20:36

I also think the US is desperately trying to 'take out' sources of energy not under their control: for instance Russia and Venezuela.

We don't have sanctions on Russia because of trouble with Russia, we have trouble with Russia in order to have sanctions. Who do the sanctions hurt? Russia and the EU. Who do sanctions help and not hurt? The US. Cui Bono.

I see Joem, talking to yourself, is that because no-one else will listen.

Paul Greenwood , 27 Feb 2015 20:31

Britain should pay for Ukraine's gas by imposing VAT on newspapers. It seems unfair that Naftogaz should have to pay for gas when it is a natural resource. Britain gets gas free from Qatar shipped in charity tankers so people in Britain do not have energy costs, it is only fair that the EU guarantee free gas EU-wide and that energy be a free good in Greece as well as Britain.

Bosula jezzam, 27 Feb 2015 19:00

The US has no issues talking with many right wing undemocratic regimes. I don't follow your point.

Since WW2 the US have meddled in, waged war against or directly overturned popular and democratically elected countries in 69 UN member nations.

Bosula -> omasta, 27 Feb 2015 18:49

I've attending many Holodomor commemorations, but why I stopped going was that many other Ukrainians did not like hearing that millions of other Soviet citizens from across the Union were also starved and sent to Siberia. At this time a few million Russians also starved. With a Ukrainian family I agree the Ukrainians were affected the most, but you should recognise the millions of other Soviets including Russian people who also starved. The problem is that acknowledging Stalin's plans were not just against Ukraine weakens some of the propaganda that has kept into Holodomor.

Another point - not sure how this is relevant to greed and corruption in Ukraine by the Oligarchs, stealing Russian gas and not paying bills?

irishmand -> Polvilho, 27 Feb 2015 18:37

What do YOU know about Chechnya, my little far right ultra-nationalist buddy?
Also, why do you pretend to be Irish?


I was born in Russia lived there until 2004. I lived in Moscow when Chechens were blowing up residential buildings, buses and subway stations there. I lived in Moscow when Nordost happened. My farther was a high rank police officer, I also worked in the force myself. I worked in the office in Moscow and when Chechens didn't like something in the contract two Mercedeses full of Chechens with AK's came to the office. Chechen criminal group is one of the strongest in Moscow.
I know people who went to that war. It was a war, yes. It was horrible, yes. This war was going on for 300 years, with more or less intensity.

Bosula , 27 Feb 2015 18:29

Why does this neo con reporter not raise any questions about our Saudi oil friends and their support for Islamic extremism not to mention involvement in 9/11?

It is a pity is that the US State Department will give her another briefing this week and then we will receive another of her anti Russian sermons.

Any bets on her next topic?

Perhaps a critique of the EU for its diplomatic focus on East Ukraine rather than taking a hardline arming Kiev to the hilt, even sending in NATO troops.

Maybe her briefing by the State Department is still to blacken, demonise and soften up the public about everything Russia being awful and a threat.

irishmand -> Polvilho, 27 Feb 2015 18:25

Also, classy display of chauvinistic nationalism just to prove how "not a fascist" you are.
Heads up, your lot have shot Nemtsov, in a typically cowardly dick move.

1. I don't anything chauvinistic nationalism in what I said
2. There is a principal in Russia: when you speak about a dead person you either say goods things or nothing. I don't think Putin decided to eliminate Nemtsov, he was not a threat to him. It might have been a business issue.

irishmand -> Polvilho , 27 Feb 2015 18:22

No you didn't, unless you're over 80.
Also, why are you pretending to be Irish?

1. My grandfather died in the war.
2. I am not, please see my profile. It is just a nickname. I love Cranberries.

irishmand -> LinneaBorealis, 27 Feb 2015 18:19

It is a geographic fact that Russia EU/Europe a neighbours but you are totally deluded if you believe EU wants to be partners with a Russia that throws its military power about, bullies and threatens, annexes parts of a neighbouring country. Can't you see what damage Russia has done to itself bringing war and distruction to Ukraine? EU wants to co-operate as equal partners, not being bossed about, lied and dictated to.

You put too much blame on Russia. Turn around and look at US/EU who installed a fascist regime in Kiev.

Russia also wants to deal with the partners it can trust. But after what happened in Kiev, who will trust US/EU, only a madman. US/EU clearly demonstrated that the only way they deal with anybody is everybody has to accept US/EU's point of view, otherwise he is hitler, fascist and dictator. US/EU is also ready to lie through thier teeth to get what they want. Is it a democracy?

Bosula -> Tikibarwarrior, 27 Feb 2015 18:17

And he doesn't appear to have any links with Ukraine so my guess is he is working in some paid capacity for one of the US agencies that undertake this soft propaganda role ( there are many so it is not obvious which one it might be).

irishmand -> Rudeboy1, 27 Feb 2015 18:10

Putin can't afford to cut the gas off. Russia is completely reliant on gas exports. LNG shipping cannot replace pipelines efficiently. Any Russian moves to decrease reliance on supplying Europe dovetail roughly with how long Europe would take to be weaned off Russian gas.

1. Russia can't afford not to supply gas.
2. Europe cannot afford not to buy gas.
3. US wants to sell shale gas in Europe.
4. Hence, Maidan... US problem solved

It would take Europe 3-5 years to find an alternative for Russian gas. It will allow Russia to build pipes and LNG terminals to re-direct gas flow to Asia. Everybody is happy.

irishmand -> dropthemchammer, 27 Feb 2015 18:03

For those saying Russia has not used gas as a weapon :
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-putin-will-cut-gas-to-europe-unless-russia-is-paid-by-the-end-of-the-week-10071475.html

Yes, the whole theory here is the western media are saying truth, when they are not. So, all you links are just reference to another lie.

Tikibarwarrior -> maureen mcmillan , 27 Feb 2015 18:03

I'm in the same boat as you Maureen. I voted for Obama twice but this past year I had my eyes opened. I never thought I would see what I have seen on video in regards to Ukraine.....and I never thought I'd see the US back murderous neo-Nazi fascists. It is has been a truly horrifying, eye opening year.

mikedow -> ID5868758, 27 Feb 2015 18:01

This operation has been underway for decades. It's probably been in the planning stage ever since Western Europe made the gas deal with Russia in the beginning. Carter and Reagan both didn't like it back then.

irishmand -> Gangoffour, 27 Feb 2015 17:59

The Indians are tiny customers in comparison to the EU. Regardless, there are closer suppliers who easily undercut Gazprom on price.

1. 1.1B people it is definitely smaller market than EU one, no doubt.
2. Who is closer and cheaper supplier for India?

Polvilho -> irishmand, 27 Feb 2015 17:58

What do YOU know about Chechnya, my little far right ultra-nationalist buddy?

Also, why do you pretend to be Irish?

irishmand -> jezzam, 27 Feb 2015 17:57

Russia has lost the West as a market at a time when there is a glut of oil. It is now set to become China's cut-price gas station. I understand the deal with China was at such a low price that Russia will actually lose money on the deal. Another triumph for Putin's foreign policy. China will be a much worse master for Russia than the West would have been.

1. Have you seen the contract between Russia and China.
2. Europe partially lost Russian market. Few people in sane mind will trade with you and trust you after what US/EU did.

irishmand -> dropthemchammer, 27 Feb 2015 17:55

My point is that number is not bigger then the 30% of europes gas meaning Russia will be out of pocket.

You should try it, so far it was only empty words.

Tikibarwarrior -> omasta, 27 Feb 2015 17:55

New Ukraine, deserves the criticism. They are a failed fascist state (that is economically imploding due to mismangement and corruption) that has spent the last year bombing it's own citizens and killing over 10,000 of those citizens. Don't embarrass yourself.

Chirographer -> ID5868758, 27 Feb 2015 17:53

It's called a business decision. Based on a net profit. Even more than common sense, it's arithmetic.

Common sense comes under attack when political calculations are put into the equation.

irishmand -> dropthemchammer, 27 Feb 2015 17:53

all the pipes have the option to flow from other directions.

1. What direction?
2. How much the gas flown from another direction costs?
3. If Russia is so bad, you should stop dealing with Russia completely. Close your borders to Russians and break all the existing ties.

ID5868758 -> mikedow, 27 Feb 2015 17:50

And the US Congress votes to give Obama another $500 million tax payer dollars to arm and train those "moderate rebels" he's been arming and raining since the beginning of the phony "civil war" in Syria.

Tikibarwarrior -> psygone, 27 Feb 2015 17:50

Psygone, why should you care if they break ties, you've campaigned against Russia at the Guardian for the entire past year?

irishmand -> jezzam , 27 Feb 2015 17:49

"You miss the point. The EU is not unwilling to buy oil from Russia because it is a fascist dictatorship, but because it is an unreliable supplier. Other suppliers do not threaten to cut off supplies to further foreign policy aims."
1. Please provide the examples of Russia being "fascist dictatorship"
2. Please provide examples of Russia being "an unreliable supplier".

irishmand -> dropthemchammer, 27 Feb 2015 17:47

None of them have invaded their neighbors.

No they didn't. They had and have corruption, civil wars and genocide, but it is irrelevant, because their governments are loyal to US/EU. So, they are goods guys.

Don Scott, 27 Feb 2015 17:45

Maybe the US should have thought about the consequences of undertaking a coup in Ukraine and installing an anti-Russian government there.

irishmand -> dropthemchammer, 27 Feb 2015 17:43

He will not be in power next year. there is a general feeling that he will not win elections. THus he is not a dictator.

You are rrght, he is not, he is a brainless puppet. The puppeteers are not visible. In one year they will install another puppet. It is what's called "illusion of democracy". You an elect a president, but he or she is of no importance and in reality don't make any decisions.

Polvilho -> irishmand, 27 Feb 2015 17:41

Also, classy display of chauvinistic nationalism just to prove how "not a fascist" you are.

Heads up, your lot have shot Nemtsov, in a typically cowardly dick move.

irishmand -> Polvilho, 27 Feb 2015 17:33

"What, you fascists? I'm not surprised."
Another snappy answer.
We Russians, who standing united with other nations of USSR stopped german fascists and their ukrainian friends Bandera and Shukhevich. The Germans have learnt their lesson, but ukranians have not. Now ukranians fascists are back for another lesson, which is being taught to them as we speak.

irishmand -> Alderbaran, 27 Feb 2015 17:26

1. Exactly, this is what I was talking about: "Kievan Rus' begins with the rule (882–912) of Prince Oleg, who extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley..."

2. I would be stupid to argue that there is full blown democracy in Russia. However, Inet is not filtered, there are some opposition newspapers, TV channels and radio stations. You can also install a satellite dish and watch whatever you want. The only thing they will come on you very hard and quickly for is if you start calling for the change of government by force. But nobody in Russia will support this topic seeing what happened to Ukraine after Maidan. Nobody wants Maidan in Russia.

Also the meaning of the gay regulation law was twisted in the western media. The only thing it prohibits is promotion of gay values in public, which, I am sorry, I support.

irishmand -> Polvilho, 27 Feb 2015 17:12

Wow, snappy answer. You have no idea about manners, do you? Well, it is typical. It is how I see people of your kind.

1) You first, twinkle.
If it is my choice, then I say there is no funding and arming.

2) Russian fascists. In Ukraine. Lots of them. Hard to miss. One was Prime Minsister of the DPR before Zakharchenko, who's attitude towards Jews suggests he is also a fascist, despite not being Russian.
Again, no proof, empty words. No value.

3) You're right, Russia is clearly not financing the FN and other fascist parties. They must just all support Putin because they see in him a man after their own heart.

We love Putin. He finally slapped on the face people like you. You are pissed off, of course, but if you keep messing around, he will slap you more.

Gil Matos-Sequí -> psygone 27 Feb 2015 09:21

It is too early to say what the results of the suit will be. I think the suit has as much if not more to influence the power of the EU over it's constituent members in negotiating gas prices and contracts. Russia does not stand to loose much in negotiating one price for a huge block as opposed to smaller contracts. This will affect the price of course but it will most likely mean that smaller countries end up paying significantly more than they are paying. As far as the accusations about over pricing by Gazprom, it is ridiculous. The price of Gas is tied to the price of oil and each contract devises a formula relative to the specifics of the deal. Gazprom already envisages itself selling gas to Europe from gas hub via Turkey and Turkey already envisages itself a the major gas hub and transit point for Europe, wether it be gas from Russia, or Azerbaijan, or Turkmenistan, or wherever. This lawsuit will have very limited bearing on geopolitics or real-politik over which the EU frankly has little influence.

RVictor -> caliento 27 Feb 2015 09:18

former Chancellor Schroeder

It is due to Schroeder Germany has now uninterpretable gas supply through the Nord Stream.

RVictor -> elti97 27 Feb 2015 09:16

Solar energy, for example, already accounts for 6% of German electricity

Wow! 6%! Amazing! Especially in winter time on north parts of Germany - solar energy will for sure cover heating needs!

AtMyAge 27 Feb 2015 09:11

A key feature of Putin's Ukraine strategy has been to make sure this country of transit would never quite escape Moscow's domination – and that Gazprom would never lose the possibility of directly controlling Ukraine's gas pipelines to Europe.

OH come on! This is a key feature of the EU's policy - to force Russia to transit gas across Ukraine in order to force Russia to supply Ukraine at below market rates or face losing the EU market.

Russia has been doing EVERYTHING possible to bypass Ukraine and supply Europe by other routes - but the EU keeps blocking it. Russia fires up the south stream pipeline project and Brussels bullies Bulgaria to stop work on, so Russia announces an alternative route via Turkey, but again the EU refuses to commit to making the connections.

In short, the EU is using energy policy to attempt to bully Russia - not the other way around.

Asking to be paid for supplying gas is NOT bullying nor using energy as a weapon. Its called business. When you go to work, you expect to be paid at the end of the week/month the salary that you were promised not insulted and accused of bullying when the money you are owed is not paid and you are reluctant to continue to work for nothing...

Simon311 -> psygone 27 Feb 2015 08:58

"It's strategically important to see Gazprom lose its market share in the world's richest and largest trading bloc."

Is it? Does it make strategic sense to mix economics for a recovering economy with power politics?

Does it make strategic sense to provoke a nuclear power?

Tikibarwarrior -> Jeremn 27 Feb 2015 08:55

The EU is in the process of falling apart due to the misguided policies implemented in Ukraine. This article is past tense. It may have made sense previously but the Greeks are on the edge of leaving due to the huge austerity/ECB rip offs. What people need to understand is that Russia isn't the enemy of the European people. The real problem in Europe is the increasing poverty and growth of right wing extremism/neo-nazism due to crippling austerity policies conducted by the ECB/IMF/EU vassal leaders. The goal for the 1% has been to keep the publics eye on the left hand while it moves the money into their right hands.

Like the US bailout of 2007, the take a massive chunk of change from 'we the people', they then distribute that money to the banks and the 1%ers who run those banks. They loan it out and put countries into debt slavery. I recommend watching the film "The International" (with Clive Barker) to fully understand how this is done. It is a form of money laundering. The money doesn't trickle down after they create a bailout like the recent EU 500 billion euro self award. The debt is passed on to the public who pay it back ten fold over time. The countries, like Greece, are then trapped and held in debt slavery to the banker 1%. The EU vassals continue the cycle and send in their resource/utility extractors to buy up the assets of the countries, such as what is now going on in Ukraine.

The US destabilized it, then the EU/IMF give it massive loans it can't pay back, then the big corps/hedge funds come in and buy up all the assets/utilities/farming and fracking land. After the rape is complete the people are stuck in poverty, such as Greece is.

Look at Spain. Look at the UK these days. Germany has 12% of the population in poverty, but you will never hear this from the compliant, vassal media whose job it is to keep the people in the dark and never address the real root cause of the problem, the greedy 1% who rule us all.

For the EU, Russia is the least of your worries. Energy independence isn't the problem, sovereign nations and human independence is. The EU needs to break apart so people can be free again.

Simon311 -> psygone 27 Feb 2015 08:55

What a ridiculous remark. The last thing the EU needs is a trade war and a hostile stand off with Russia,

SHappens -> Havingalavrov 27 Feb 2015 08:40

There is a quiz about Russia on this site you should take.

I suppose we could say pretty much the same about the EU:

A single party (bipartisanship hides identical policies) that monopolizes power and denies opponents access to the power.

Leadership either unelected or elected in "rigged" elections, all deeply discredited in the eyes of people who no longer have any confidence in them as they are almost all at worst crooks or puppets, and, at best, incompetent and uneducated technocrats who have lost touch with reality.

Elected leaders (parliamentarians), co-opted (EU Commission) appointed (senior) and selected (CAC 40) all from the same "aristocracy" which repeats itself and that has nothing to envy to the one that had generated the Party in the USSR.

So unpopular leaders that they can not meet the true population. All press conferences and all "errands" of the rulers out of their bunkered palaces are all staged with "extras and accessories" mounted with the complicity of subsidized state media.

Paralysis of 'governance', incapable of reforming itself as it is mired in its heaviness, its incompetence, corruption, immorality and privileges apparently attempting to binge themselves as much as possible before everything collapses.

More separation of powers, but almost complete collusion between the executive, legislative, judicial, media, financial and thus criminalization and corruption powers, all accompanied by impunity.

A military empire (US + EU + NATO) with an hegemonic agenda which conquers territories either peacefully (the 28 EU countries) or violently when there is resistance by destabilization leading to war (Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Mali, Central Africa, Palestine and now Ukraine) or overthrow elected governments (Ukraine, Latin America), or both in total disregard of international law.

Media propaganda lying as they breathe and producing "evidence" sometimes even gross, to deceive and manipulate the public. With less and less success, which promises the collapse of the system.

The demonization of past victims (Serbs, Libyans, Afghans, Iraqis, etc.), present (Syrians, Ukrainians Autonomist, Palestinians, etc.) and desired (Russians).

Laws that dictate the story (Law memorial) with imprisonment to those who question the "official version." Liberal laws and laws drafts to prohibit meetings or shows that displease the "device" as well as control the Internet.

The witch hunt of dissidents, even the most peaceful, who are sometimes forced to flee Russia for having told the truth; this country has in fact become a heaven for dissidents of our system as we welcome former dissidents of the USSR.

Hatred of religion: slander and defamation attacks of all kinds against two religions in particular, Catholic and Muslim, seen as hotbeds of resistance to the proposed overhaul of liberal-libertarian society pursued by the regime.

The militarization of riot police used to repress peaceful demonstrations and dissenting, discredit the protesters by provocation under false flags.

The attack by the army of its own people (Ukraine for example).

Laxity towards real criminals protected by a corrupt "elite" and towards troublemakers.

Introduction of a "police of thought" (the equivalent of Soviet political commissioners) to give the power and the means to various groups and pro-system associations to denounce, discredit, sue and even physically attack dissidents.

Mass spying (NSA-Stasi) and encouraging denunciation.

And unlike the USSR this time, many things were completely free (health, culture, education, etc.) and where there was no unemployment, destruction of social rights and workers' rights in Europe.

Back in the USSR.

[Feb 26, 2015] Russia Heightens Dispute With Ukraine Over Natural Gas

Feb 26, 2015 | NYTimes.com

"Ukraine has not made prepayment for gas on time," Mr. Miller said at a news conference in Russia, local news agencies reported. He added that the time needed for Kiev to make a payment "will result in a total end to supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine in just two days, which poses serious risks for gas transit to Europe."

However, Ukraine says it has already paid for all the gas it requested for this year, and for an additional 287 million cubic meters not yet ordered. Kiev is now accusing Russia of violating an agreement reached in October, under which Ukraine paid $3.1 billion in past gas bills and Gazprom resumed supplies on a prepaid basis. That agreement was expected to keep Ukraine fully supplied with gas through the winter.

The dispute seems to hinge at least in part on the gas that Russia has delivered to the breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, which it says counts toward the total Kiev bought in advance. Earlier this month, Gazprom said it would supply natural gas directly to the regions, which are largely controlled by separatists, because it said the Ukrainian government had shut off supplies. Gazprom said that it would charge Ukraine for that gas, and that the amount of gas supplied to the east would be deducted from Ukraine's prepaid allotment.

Kommersant, the Russian business newspaper, reported that Gazprom had slowed deliveries over pipelines crossing Ukrainian-controlled parts of the border, while opening the spigots to two pipelines leading directly to rebel-held territory.

The gas diversion highlights a broader Russian strategy in eastern Ukraine of assuring its political and military control over the breakaway enclave while avoiding the economic burden of caring for the population, estimated at about three million people. In the truce talks, President Vladimir V. Putin held out for measures to ensure that the Ukrainian authorities would pay public-sector wages and pensions and reopen banks.

Gazprom, Kommersant reported, rejected the Ukrainian government's argument that gas delivered to rebel territory could not be counted against its prepaid volumes, at least because Naftogaz, the state energy company, could not send meter readers to the two border crossing points, Prokhorov and Platovo, to confirm deliveries.

As the gas Ukraine had already paid for flowed into their territories, separatist leaders went on local television to thank Russia and Mr. Putin. "We thank the Russian Federation and Vladimir Vladimirovich, as Russia is again extending its hand to help, giving warmth," said the leader of the Luhansk People's Republic, Igor Plotnitsky. "Thank you, Russia."

Mindful of how Russia has used gas as a political weapon, Ukraine has taken strong steps in recent months to reduce its dependence on it. Ukraine and Slovakia reached a deal for reverse piping of gas already purchased in Europe, and a separate deal to buy gas from Norway.

And despite Mr. Miller's comments, there was no reason to believe that Europe would find itself short of gas as a result of the dispute. Europe, too, has reduced its dependence on Russian gas by engaging other suppliers, and in recent months has built up reserves in anticipation of potential difficulties with Russia.

Russia, while controlling the supply, is in turn dependent on Ukraine to allow gas through its pipelines to other customers in Europe. Painfully aware of that reliance, Russia has sought to cut Ukraine out by building a new pipeline under the Black Sea and through Turkey.

The continuing gas dispute demonstrated the extent to which Ukraine would still be at Russia's mercy even without the war against Russian-backed separatists. Fighting, however, has continued despite the cease-fire brokered this month in Minsk, Belarus, and on Tuesday, the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met in Paris in a bid to get it back on track. It did not appear that they had much success.

In a statement after the meeting, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said the four nations remained committed to the Minsk accord and were demanding that all sides observe the truce without exception.

... ... ...

[Feb 26, 2015] This Is What Happens To Gold In A Hyperinflationary Currency Crisis Ukraine Edition

Feb 26, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Furthermore, according to RIA, on Tuesday, Ukrainian television channel Ukraina announced that with the new exchange rate, the minimum wage in Ukraine stands at around $42.90 per month, which according to the channel, is lower than in Ghana or Zambia.

There are currently no plans to raise the minimum wage until December.

Behold hyperinflation:

"Food prices among producers rose 57.1 percent, with the price for grains and vegetables rising 91 percent from January 2014 to January 2015, while the official inflation rate over the period totaled 28.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian consumers responded to economic difficulties by cutting their spending in hryvnias by 22.6 percent, which amounts to an almost 40 percent decrease in real consumption."

Nothing to fear though: we are sure all that hard-earned US taxpayer-lent money will be safe and sound.

Latina Lover

Exactly 1 year after the USSA sponsored Kiev Coup:

-tens of thousands killed in a civil war

-currency destroyed

-unemployment more than doubled

-millions of Ukie refugees in Russia

-central bank is bankrupt

-fascist oligarchs get even richer while the poorest earn less than most africans

-fracking and rampant GMO production, ruining the best farmland in europe.

Mission Accomplished!

Never One Roach

"The Ukraine is not Zimbabwe!"

My guess is the politburo in Kiev never miss a 7-course dinner ....

[Feb 25, 2015] Ukraine Enters The Endgame

We Weimar'd some folks via color revolution instead of WWI. Mission Accomplished... "Russia will cut off gas supplies to Ukraine if Kiev fails to pay in "three or four days," President Vladimir Putin said, adding that this "will create a problem" for gas transit to Europe."
Feb 25, 2015 | Zero Hedge

The Hryvnia weakened over the weekend to UAH 30 vs. the USD, prompting the Ukrainian authorities to tighten FX controls and to intervene by a reported US$80mn today, and causing a further weakening of the currency to UAH 40 on the black market as of this morning. While pressures have subsided somewhat (with black-market, mid-market spot now around UAH 33), in our view, the current FX controls are only likely to provide temporary relief to the currency and, thus, introduce risks that the authorities could tighten FX controls further

... ... ...

There are several causes for the weakening of the Hryvnia:

  • Net private capital outflows (excluding net IMF/official sector flows), which stood at an estimated US$10bn in 2014. This number excludes US$3.7bn in repayments to the IMF and about US$4.5bn in debt service on external sovereign bonds.
  • Current account and trade deficits, due to the collapse in exports and despite the fact that domestic demand has weakened sharply.
  • Monetary financing of Ukraine's fiscal deficits.

While Ukraine's current account and trade balances should close as domestic demand continues to contract and as the Hryvnia has weakened further, capital flight continues, with bank FX deposit outflows of US$600-700mn/month in November-January. Moreover, monetization of the deficit has accelerated as local banks are no longer able to absorb domestic bond issuance. The share of domestic government bonds owned by the NBU has risen to 71% in January, from 59% one year prior, with the share held by domestic banks falling by the same amount (to 20%). Meanwhile, narrow money continues to grow at around 15-20%yoy, at a time when domestic credit is now contracting by 10%yoy. While money supply growth in the mid-single digits in a context of weak credit growth may have been offset for most of 2014 by large-scale FX interventions by the NBU, withdrawing liquidity, FX interventions have slowed in H2-2014 and the NBU reportedly stopped intervening in February (although it intervened once again by US$80mn today). This has caused assets on the NBU's balance sheet to grow by about 60%yoy in recent months and by 8%mom in January (seasonally-adjusted). In our view, with the economy and cash demand weakening, domestic credit shrinking and an absence of liquidity withdrawal via interventions, money supply growth at the current pace will ultimately prove inflationary and will cause the Hryvnia to weaken further.

While monetary financing of the deficit may debase the value of the Hryvnia in the medium term, it is the shortage of FX in the system that has caused the proximate pressure on the currency, as NBU reserves declined to US$6.4bn in January (4 weeks of imports) and are likely to decline to US$5-5.5bn in February (3 weeks of import cover). These international reserves include about US$1bn in monetary gold, so the liquid amount of reserves is likely to fall to US$4-4.5bn in February (2.5 weeks of imports).

… raising short-term risks, until IMF funds arrive …

In our view, while the current FX controls may provide some temporary relief, pressure is likely to continue to build on the Hryvnia until expectations stabilize, confidence is restored, and the country's FX reserves are replenished. Given the poor liquidity and destabilization of expectations in the FX market, the ongoing conflict in Donbass that undermines confidence, and the continued need to import natural gas and other essential goods and make external debt payments, these factors are likely to continue to exert pressure on the Hryvnia, at least until the IMF Board approves the newly-agreed program and makes its first disbursement. However, this will likely take at a minimum 2-3 weeks and there are risks of delays. First, the authorities must fulfil their prior actions for the program, and notably the Rada must approve a new budget law. This is scheduled to take place in a session on March 3, although PM Yatseniuk is attempting to accelerate this process by holding an extraordinary Rada session to approve the legislation. Even if the session is moved forward, in our view, there is no guarantee that the law will be approved immediately and delays are possible. Once prior actions are fulfilled, the IMF Board can meet, approve the new program, then disburse funds shortly thereafter. Our base case is that this will take place in mid-March (the current board review date is reportedly scheduled for March 11), although it is possible that this could be delayed. With the current pace of reserve depletion and pressure build-up on the Hryvnia, it is possible that the IMF funds may not arrive quickly enough. This raises the short-term risk of a significant further increase in pressure on the Hryvnia.

… and implying potential need for emergency policy action

Given the balance of payments and monetary pressures on the currency, the authorities and international donors, in our view, have several policy options. First, the Ukrainian authorities could tighten FX controls further. In the extreme, this could potentially involve a bank deposit freeze, a ban on retail FX purchases and/or moratorium on external payments and complete closure of the capital account. Second, international donors (bilateral lenders and IFIs) could recognize the fragility of the current situation and the fact that the IMF timeframe may prove to be too slow to stabilize the currency. Thus, in our view, the international community could make available emergency funds in the coming days or weeks, effectively bridging financing for Ukraine until the IMF disbursement arrives. However, bureaucratic, legal and political hurdles may exist to any large-scale emergency disbursement to Ukraine, either bilaterally or multilaterally. Thus, there is no guarantee that such emergency funds could or would be made available. This introduces further short-term policy uncertainties.

Finally, the recent and sharp weakening of the Hryvnia, as well as significant recent shifts in money demand and supply, could necessitate an overhaul of some of the IMF's program assumptions and targets. In our view, this could require further technical work on the part of the IMF and could cause additional delays to disbursement of IMF funds. As the monetary and financial dynamics evolve rapidly, so may the IMF's working program assumptions and the parameters of the program.

actionjacksonbrownie

The truly crazy part of all this, is that the average ukrop "patriot" STILL thinks the u.s. is only there to help them, and russia is the root of all evil.

The farce is strong in this one.

Icelandicsaga.....

Mexico wont fade away .. we will harmonize . integrate . and become a bad case of Brazil disease .. top crust and the millions below.WE will blend into NORTH AMERIC the meme . .keep saying that NORTH AMERICA . . we are no longer USA . we are NORTH AMERICA .. say it over and over again .... we already got the cartels and corruption and 20 million illegals.. why not the entire enchilada. so to speak. Canada wont be too happy about it .. we already tried to scam their water resources to fix water shortages in the southeast .. they refused. but hey . there is always tomorrow... .

ThroxxOfVron

"Moreover, monetization of the deficit has accelerated as local banks are no longer able to absorb domestic bond issuance. The share of domestic government bonds owned by the NBU has risen to 71% in January, from 59% one year prior, with the share held by domestic banks falling by the same amount (to 20%). Meanwhile, narrow money continues to grow at around 15-20%yoy, at a time when domestic credit is now contracting by 10%yoy. While money supply growth in the mid-single digits in a context of weak credit growth may have been offset for most of 2014 by large-scale FX interventions by the NBU, withdrawing liquidity, FX interventions have slowed in H2-2014 and the NBU reportedly stopped intervening in February (although it intervened once again by US$80mn today). This has caused assets on the NBU's balance sheet to grow by about 60%yoy in recent months and by 8%mom in January (seasonally-adjusted). "

They are printing with complete wreckless criminal abandon: bonds and currency!

The level of monetization is way more than triple what The US Treasury and The FED have admitted to colluding together to float the system with as a gross percentage of bonds and currency en todo. ..& The FED had a huge stock of MBS to soak as well as the global payments system to disburse the emission to

This is a massive torrent of raw unsterilized counterfeiting of preposterous proportion to the existing stock.

Christine LaGarde presonally sent the Ukrainians letters telling them to flat out stop it or the IMF wouldn't give 'em any more emergency loans.

"We Weimar'd some folks."

This is gonna be one for the history books easily rivaling the German and Hungarian tsunamis of the last century.

There is no way in hell this can be reversed or mitigated at this point. Ukraine is doomed to suffer the full destructive force of a currency collapse. The damage is by no means completed...

IMHO, regretably, the Ukrainian citizenry would have been far better off being quietly wholly subsumed by Russia than face this tragedy. Everyone is trying to 'save' Ukraine ( for their own greedy purposes ) and they are burning it to the ground 'saving' it.

Disgusted and anguished do not fully convey the feelings I am experiencing...

IF you do such things as pray, you should pray for these people; -they are going to go straight through Hell.

Majestic12

"IMHO, regretably, the Ukrainian citizenry would have been far better off being quietly wholly subsumed by Russia than face this tragedy. "

Russia does not want their Nazi, lazy asses. Who would. The East is the center of industry and called "restive". Oh, and they all speak Russian?

Who knew. Hard-working, productive, hard playing people, and they're Russian?

ThroxxOfVron

Partition would have been a better answer than what is unfolding.

Who would actually want the 'Nazi, lazy'? Average Ukrainians, the EU, the British, the Israelis, the USA?

Unless I am mistaken the general consensus is that true Nazi types are not really welcome in most 'polite' company.

They would be a dangerous fringe element no matter the constitution of the nation unless they were to seize power and use it to disenfranchise the remainder, and any fringe/minority ideological element that seizes power and disemfranchises the remainder majority is unpopular no matter the ideology. See: Neocon, Neolib, Zionism, Feudalism, 1%er, Junta, Annanuki, etc...

The fact is that Ukraine only has a tiny minority that espouse such ideological concepts, and I suspect many of these only use the imagery as a front for more classic mobsterism and warlordism. Espoused Nazis may be a dominant militant organization in some parts of Ukraine; but, I am doubtful that Ukraine is generally predominantly dominated by Nazi ideology...

Motasaurus

That's what the support of the neo-Nazis is all about. They are just replaying WWII, only slight further to the West. After all the original German Nazis were funded, finances, politically supported and built by the Western powers terrified of being voraciously murdered in bolshevic revolutions.

Of course those "powers" were played for fools by those who fund them. I am fairly convinced that the entire 20th Century was simply a socio-psychological experiment to determine whether National Socialism or Communism was a better method for controlling the masses.

Jack Burton

The end game will have winners. Expect the usual suspects to walk away with some nice profits. And the Ukrainian farm lands, fracking potential and what little of industry remains, will all be sold to western baks for pennies on the dollar. Again, you can be certain the usual suspects, whose name can not be mentioned, will own Ukraine.

The people went to Maidan on the promise of a German lifestyle and EU passports which entail freedom of movement within the EU. Thus the mass exodus of youth for Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Madrid. In the flush of freedom, at least 2 million youth will move within weeks. More will follow as they arrange transport. Anywhere in Germany or west of Germany will be their target sites.

czarangelus

I am incredulous watching the human citizens of this world take careful, precise aim at their own feet. After thousands of years of written history of the same things not working!

NoDebt

We're not repeating the mistakes of the past because we're unmindful of history. We're being LED through this circle of rise and fall by the elites. That have it all mapped out. Not to the day, but they know damned well the waypoints to make the turns.

Let me ask you something. When was the last time you heard a politician or banker talk about avoiding the mistakes of the past? Never. They only talk about what "needs" to be done next. And they walk the world around in a big circle like at the pony rides.

Supernova Born

"Russia will cut off gas supplies to Ukraine if Kiev fails to pay in "three or four days," President Vladimir Putin said, adding that this "will create a problem" for gas transit to Europe."

-RT

DutchBoy2015

Putin should have done that LONG ago. Fuck the NeoNazis of Kiev

Buckaroo Banzai

The "NeoNazis of Kiev" will do just fine no matter what. It's the average Ukrainian that's going to get fucked.

suteibu

Our US democratically elected government, making friends...er...slaves all over the world.

It's like the War on Poverty gone international.

At some point in near future, Americans traveling abroad will be considered suspected terrorists requiring a local to vouch for an entry visa.

Motasaurus

Every "war on" in post WW2 history seems to have only created more of the thing. War on drugs? More drugs. War on poverty? More poverty. War on terror? More terror.

What we need is a good old fashioned, openly declared war, but this time put it on something useful like, manufacturing and the middle class.

We've got to stop this bullsh*t coming out of the ministry of truth where everything that is "being supported" gets destroyed and everything that has been declared war on thrives.

krage_man

The chance of getting the money is gettin slim with each second. The parlament is refusing to vote for the strings attached to it so far. It has a reason. Like after it, payments for basic services - heat, gas, electicity will exceed average monthly salary! Another condition is restructuring of the debt ( that is where 15bn come from) , which Putin refuses.

IMF may give the money under pressure from US/EU to preserve the gas flow but this will never be paid back. I question if donors would agree to lose money this way at all... Ukraine need about 150 billions to recover..

Now, Ukraine has a couple of billions left and this is it, huge debt on salary to goverment workers, no tax collection 30% fall of industrial output, etc. .... the state is failing.. we should expect emergency UN food shipment in a few months...

markar

The US/EU/IMF will be pouring billions down this rathole they call a country to the tune of trillions to keep this turd on life support-- until the asset stripping is completed. China, Russia & the BRICs better start demanding something besides worthless $s for their goods soon.

vincenze

Every Ukrainian will tell you that it's Putin's fault.

DutchBoy2015

I am sure Yats the Rat already has a couple of billion squirreled away and a place to bail out to...

DutchBoy2015

This is a pretty good video ''Crimea for Dummies''

Of course its BANNED in the USA LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1zvb_ottiw

WTFUD

From my extensive travels around eastern Europe i find it incomprehensible that the false lure of western riches by association still holds any sway.

In fact i struggle to find ANY evidence that any one of these countries has developed its infrastructure or raised its standard of living in the last 20/25 years.

Mini-cab drivers, hotel work and strip clubs remain the top 3 occupations for those who happen to escape.

The grass is not always greener. . . .

Advice - Look East

[Feb 25, 2015] Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands by Richard Sakwa review – an unrivalled account

Notable quotes:
"... It also requires an acceptance of bilingualism, mutual tolerance of different traditions, and devolution of power to the regions. ..."
"... the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych last year brought the triumph of the monist view, held most strongly in western Ukraine, whose leaders were determined this time to ensure the winner takes all. ..."
"... "fateful geographical paradox: that Nato exists to manage the risks created by its existence". ..."
"... Nato's role has been, in part, to maintain US primacy over Europe's foreign policy. ..."
"... Last year's "Fuck the EU" comment by Victoria Nuland, Obama's neocon assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, was the pithiest expression of this. ..."
"... Sakwa writes with barely suppressed anger of Europe's failure, arguing that instead of a vision embracing the whole continent, the EU has become little more than the civilian wing of the Atlantic alliance. ..."
"... Frontline Ukraine highlights several points that have become almost taboo in western accounts: the civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine caused by Ukrainian army shelling, the physical assaults on leftwing candidates in last year's election and the failure to complete investigations of last February's sniper activity in Kiev (much of it thought to have been by anti-Yanukovych fighters) or of the Odessa massacre in which dozens of anti-Kiev protesters were burnt alive in a building set on fire by nationalists or clubbed to death when they jumped from windows. ..."
"... A very well documented report and yet anti Russian thinking pervades relentlessly against the true facts as they are available. ..."
"... I'm impressed by what Sakwa says about the "monist" versus "pluralist" models of Ukrainian statehood. Indeed the recent "anti terrorist operations" can be seen as failed attempts by the monists to impose their model by force on the south and east. ..."
"... There is a conspiracy of silence in Washington and Kiev about the true nature of the Neo Nazis operating as regular units within the Ukrainian army. ..."
"... As in the endless accusations of being a "Putinbot" if you have the temerity to challenge the MSM script. ..."
"... I have a strong suspicion that the demonising of Putin is at least in part a method to draw attention away from US (and maybe Israeli) warmongering of the last decades, so I hope this book will give a fairly balanced account of what's really taking place in Crimea and Ukraine. Also I suspect that the CIA is, true to form, stirring up the Ukrainians so to destabilise Russian influence. ..."
Feb 19, 2015 | The Guardian

When Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's prime minister, told a German TV station recently that the Soviet Union invaded Germany, was this just blind ignorance? Or a kind of perverted wishful thinking? If the USSR really was the aggressor in 1941, it would suit Yatsenyuk's narrative of current geopolitics in which Russia is once again the only side that merits blame.

When Grzegorz Schetyna, Poland's deputy foreign minister, said Ukrainians liberated Auschwitz, did he not know that the Red Army was a multinational force in which Ukrainians certainly played a role but the bulk of the troops were Russian? Or was he looking for a new way to provoke the Kremlin?

Faced with these irresponsible distortions, and they are replicated in a hundred other prejudiced comments about Russian behaviour from western politicians as well as their eastern European colleagues, it is a relief to find a book on the Ukrainian conflict that is cool, balanced, and well sourced. Richard Sakwa makes repeated criticisms of Russian tactics and strategy, but he avoids lazy Putin-bashing and locates the origins of the Ukrainian conflict in a quarter-century of mistakes since the cold war ended. In his view, three long-simmering crises have boiled over to produce the violence that is engulfing eastern Ukraine.

The first is the tension between two different models of Ukrainian statehood.

  • One is what he calls the "monist" view, which asserts that the country is an autochthonous cultural and political unity and that the challenge of independence since 1991 has been to strengthen the Ukrainian language, repudiate the tsarist and Soviet imperial legacies, reduce the political weight of Russian-speakers and move the country away from Russia towards "Europe".
  • The alternative "pluralist" view emphasises the different historical and cultural experiences of Ukraine's various regions and argues that building a modern democratic post-Soviet Ukrainian state is not just a matter of good governance and rule of law at the centre. It also requires an acceptance of bilingualism, mutual tolerance of different traditions, and devolution of power to the regions.

More than any other change of government in Kiev since 1991, the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych last year brought the triumph of the monist view, held most strongly in western Ukraine, whose leaders were determined this time to ensure the winner takes all.

The second crisis arises from the internationalisation of the struggle inside Ukraine which turned it into a geopolitical tug of war. Sakwa argues that this stems from the asymmetrical end of the cold war which shut Russia out of the European alliance system. While Mikhail Gorbachev and millions of other Russians saw the end of the cold war as a shared victory which might lead to the building of a "common European home", most western leaders saw Russia as a defeated nation whose interests could be brushed aside, and which must accept US hegemony in the new single-superpower world order or face isolation. Instead of dismantling Nato, the cold-war alliance was strengthened and expanded in spite of repeated warnings from western experts on Russia that this would create new tensions. Long before Putin came to power, Yeltsin had urged the west not to move Nato eastwards.

Even today at this late stage, a declaration of Ukrainian non-alignment as part of an internationally negotiated settlement, and UN Security Council guarantees of that status, would bring instant de-escalation and make a lasting ceasefire possible in eastern Ukraine.

The hawks in the Clinton administration ignored all this, Bush abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty and put rockets close to Russia's borders, and now a decade later, after Russia's angry reaction to provocations in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine today, we have what Sakwa rightly calls a "fateful geographical paradox: that Nato exists to manage the risks created by its existence".

The third crisis, also linked to the Nato issue, is the European Union's failure to stay true to the conflict resolution imperative that had been its original impetus. After 1989 there was much talk of the arrival of the "hour of Europe". Just as the need for Franco-German reconciliation inspired the EU's foundation, many hoped the cold war's end would lead to a broader east-west reconciliation across the old Iron Curtain. But the prospect of greater European independence worried key decision-makers in Washington, and Nato's role has been, in part, to maintain US primacy over Europe's foreign policy. From Bosnia in 1992 to Ukraine today, the last two decades have seen repeated occasions where US officials pleaded, half-sincerely, for a greater European role in handling geopolitical crises in Europe while simultaneously denigrating and sidelining Europe's efforts. Last year's "Fuck the EU" comment by Victoria Nuland, Obama's neocon assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, was the pithiest expression of this.

Sakwa writes with barely suppressed anger of Europe's failure, arguing that instead of a vision embracing the whole continent, the EU has become little more than the civilian wing of the Atlantic alliance.

Within the framework of these three crises, Sakwa gives the best analysis yet in book form of events on the ground in eastern Ukraine as well as in Kiev, Washington, Brussels and Moscow. He covers the disputes between the "resolvers" (who want a negotiated solution) and the "war party" in each capital.

He describes the rows over sanctions that have split European leaders, and points out how Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, is under constant pressure from Nuland's favourite Ukrainian, the more militant Yatsenyuk, to rely on military force.

As for Putin, Sakwa sees him not so much as the driver of the crisis but as a regulator of factional interests and a temporiser who has to balance pressure from more rightwing Russian nationalists as well as from the insurgents in Ukraine, who get weapons and help from Russia but are not the Kremlin's puppets.

Frontline Ukraine highlights several points that have become almost taboo in western accounts: the civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine caused by Ukrainian army shelling, the physical assaults on leftwing candidates in last year's election and the failure to complete investigations of last February's sniper activity in Kiev (much of it thought to have been by anti-Yanukovych fighters) or of the Odessa massacre in which dozens of anti-Kiev protesters were burnt alive in a building set on fire by nationalists or clubbed to death when they jumped from windows.

The most disturbing novelty of the Ukrainian crisis is the way Putin and other Russian leaders are routinely demonised. At the height of the cold war when the dispute between Moscow and the west was far more dangerous, backed as it was by the danger of nuclear catastrophe, Brezhnev and Andropov were never treated to such public insults by western commentators and politicians.

Equally alarming, though not new, is the one-sided nature of western political, media and thinktank coverage. The spectre of senator Joseph McCarthy stalks the stage, marginalising those who offer a balanced analysis of why we have got to where we are and what compromises could save us. I hope Sakwa's book does not itself become a victim, condemned as insufficiently anti-Russian to be reviewed.

• Jonathan Steele is a former Guardian Moscow correspondent, and author of Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy. To order Frontline Ukraine for £15.19 (RRP £18.99), go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846

Susan O'neill -> Steve Ennever 25 Feb 2015 07:11
It must have because I remember that Moscow requested a special meeting of the UN security council in accordance with a treaty in Geneva. This was an attempt to negate the need for intervention in a foreign state by Russia (which would have delighted the US). Furthermore, both sides of the horror were armed to the teeth. Some perspective would be nice.
Susan O'neill -> willpodmore 25 Feb 2015 06:47
A very well documented report and yet anti Russian thinking pervades relentlessly against the true facts as they are available.

Until Britain decides to distance itself from the US anti Russian thinking (that means criticism of the McCarthy era) we will still be looking to root out "Reds under the beds" and routing anything(or anyone) who might seem to be pro-Russian. Thanks for the contribution.

AenimaUK -> jezzam 25 Feb 2015 05:12
I thought Ukraine was already unaligned before this crisis started.

Yes, before the undemocratic, right-wing, NATO-backed coup, it was.

It is true that NATO is totally dominated by the US - but this is because they spend considerably more on defence than the rest of NATO put together. To this extent, European foreign policy is dominated by the US - this is entirely Europe's own choice and fault though.

So your alternative is that the EU up its defence spending to match the absurd permanent war-economy levels of the US? And will the resources for that come from tax increases or public service cuts to match the US? Wasn't the point about the end of the Cold War that it was supposed to be the 'end' of the 'war'? Of course, those in charge of the US military-industrial complex and their chums in the DoD failed to get that memo (or rather, read it, decided it would threaten their economic and geo-political imperialism, and shredded it).

willpodmore -> MiaPia2015 25 Feb 2015 04:24

Not true MiaPia - Leading scholars of Russian history have refuted the claim that the famine was an act of genocide.

Terry Martin concluded, "The famine was not an intentional act of genocide specifically targeting the Ukrainian nation." David Shearer noted, "Although the famine hit Ukraine hard, it was not, as some historians argue, a purposefully genocidal policy against Ukrainians. no evidence has surfaced to suggest that the famine was planned, and it affected broad segments of the Russian and other non-Ukrainian populations both in Ukraine and in Russia." Diane Koenker and Ronald Bachman agreed, "the documents included here or published elsewhere do not yet support the claim that the famine was deliberately produced by confiscating the harvest, or that it was directed especially against the peasants of Ukraine." Barbara Green also agreed, "Unlike the Holocaust, the Great Famine was not an intentional act of genocide." Steven Katz commented, "What makes the Ukrainian case non-genocidal, and what makes it different from the Holocaust, is the fact that the majority of Ukrainian children survived and, still more, that they were permitted to survive." Adam Ulam agreed too, writing, "Stalin and his closest collaborators had not willed the famine."
Tauger explained, "The evidence that I have published and other evidence, including recent Ukrainian document collections, show that the famine developed out of a shortage and pervaded the Soviet Union, and that the regime organized a massive program of rationing and relief in towns and in villages, including in Ukraine, but simply did not have enough food. This is why the Soviet famine, an immense crisis and tragedy of the Soviet economy, was not in the same category as the Nazis' mass murders, which had no agricultural or other economic basis." He summed up, "Ukraine received more in food supplies during the famine crisis than it exported to other republics. Soviet authorities made substantial concessions to Ukraine in response to an undeniable natural disaster and transferred resources from Russia to Ukraine for food relief and agricultural recovery."

Hans Blumenfeld pointed out that famine also struck the Russian regions of Lower Volga and North Caucasus: "This disproves the 'fact' of anti-Ukrainian genocide parallel to Hitler's anti-semitic holocaust. To anyone familiar with the Soviet Union's desperate manpower shortage in those years, the notion that its rulers would deliberately reduce that scarce resource is absurd Up to the 1950s the most frequently quoted figure was two million [famine victims]. Only after it had been established that Hitler's holocaust had claimed six million victims, did anti-Soviet propaganda feel it necessary to top that figure by substituting the fantastic figure of seven to ten million "

Ellman concluded, "What recent research has found in the archives is not a conscious policy of genocide against Ukraine."

Vaska Tumir -> Vladimir Boronenko 24 Feb 2015 21:23

I beg to differ: there was nothing the matter with the Budapest Memorandum of Agreement of 1994 which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Unfortunately, in November 2013, the EU decided to violate the terms of the Budapest Memo by presenting the then government of Ukraine with an economic ultimatum (something expressly forbidden by Article 3 of that international document several EU countries were signatories to).

Had the EU honoured the terms of the Budapest Memo and had it agreed to the trilateral economic deliberations both Ukraine and Russia were asking for, nothing of the subsequent mess and the slaughter Kiev's brought to Donbass would have happened.

The situation can still be rectified by recognizing the new Donetsk and Lugansk Republics as parts of a federal state, along the lines of Switzerland, say, thus preserving Ukraine as a country. Such a solution to the chaos NATO and the EU have brought about would be part of what Jonathan Steele suggests by saying that "a declaration of Ukrainian non-alignment as part of an internationally negotiated settlement, and UN Security Council guarantees of that status, would bring instant de-escalation and make a lasting ceasefire possible in eastern Ukraine".

HollyOldDog Ecolophant 24 Feb 2015 17:44

America does not have a language of its own, it is more correctly called a Dialect of English.

HollyOldDog Dreikaiserbund 24 Feb 2015 17:33

Russian invasion? What invasion? It's just a myth created by the incompetent.

Colin Robinson 24 Feb 2015 17:04

I'm impressed by what Sakwa says about the "monist" versus "pluralist" models of Ukrainian statehood. Indeed the recent "anti terrorist operations" can be seen as failed attempts by the monists to impose their model by force on the south and east.

If the terms "monist" and "pluralist" come to be used more widely in discussion about the conflict, the world may begin to get more of a handle on what has been happening.

Kalkriese -> senya 24 Feb 2015 14:38

And you mean no-one on the US/Ukrainian side is not lying ?

There is a conspiracy of silence in Washington and Kiev about the true nature of the Neo Nazis operating as regular units within the Ukrainian army.

Putin is merely playing back by their rules and the fact he is successful in reclaiming Crimea is the cause of all the sour grapes emanating from Kiev.

Kalkriese -> jezzam 24 Feb 2015 14:30

"His last thesis - that the east-west reconciliation between Europe and Russia was somehow scuppered by the US and NATO is very hard to follow, or swallow."

Are you really so naive ? Or just disingenuous ?

Kalkriese -> prostak 24 Feb 2015 14:26

"Russian troops have been proven many times"
Really? By whom ? Where?
Let's have some proof...

StopPretending -> MiaPia2015 24 Feb 2015 14:08

there was no 'Ukraine' state until Stalin created it. Perhaps that was the problem?

MiaPia2015 24 Feb 2015 13:31

Steele's analysis, and Sakwas book have one fatal flaw. The origins of this crisis did not start in 1991 with the end of the cold war, but rather its end allowed tensions that had been simmering since the Holodomor of the 1930s when millions of ethnic Ukrainians were starved to death by Stalin in an orchestrated genocide that then allowed ethnic Russians to move into Ukrainian territory. The desire to have an independent, Ukraine-speaking nation have always been there and are no different from the desire of any other country. What we have now is almost an exact repeat of what happened then.

Steve -> Ennever 22 Feb 2015 19:57

An interesting article indeed.

The Odessa massacre if nothing else was evidence of the MSM's bias on this subject.

50+ people being burnt alive for expressing their opinions seems a choice topic for our "je suis charlie" fanatic press. And yet we heard.... crickets - because it didn't suit their "we support Kiev" agenda.

But Odessa wasn't the only atrocity in May 2014. The victory parade in Mariupol, May 9th. The National Guard arrive, possibly expecting a town full of Russian terrorists, but find civilians celebrating, understandably irate at the intrusion of military hardware and troops, who then open fire on them anyway.

Did this get reported in the west?

jezzam 22 Feb 2015 14:49

A serious commentator like Steele putting Russia's case is much needed. His comments about Yatsenyuk do not add much that is new though. Yatsenyuk is very anti-Russian - this was already known. His popularity has in fact been much boosted by anti- Russian feelings in Ukraine induced by Putin's military agression. His party is now the largest in the Ukraine parliament.

Steele's discussion of the Monist and pluralist views is all very well, but he does not discuss the kleptocratic view favoured by Putin and Yanukovych. The main cause of the revolution in Kiev was not the conflict between Monist and pluralist views, but the massive corruption and subversion of democracy in Ukraine, modelled on that of Russia. In Russia the ruling elite cream more than 30% of state income into their own pockets by corrupt practices. Yanukovych had established the same system in Ukraine. He was also well on the way to corrupting the judiciary. He had already locked up his main political opponent on a trumped up charge - again following the Putin model of government.

Steeles's solution of "a declaration of Ukrainian non-alignment as part of an internationally negotiated settlement, and UN Security Council guarantees of that status" sounds good. Is this to be imposed on Ukraine though? What does it mean? I thought Ukraine was already unaligned before this crisis started. They already had guarantees of their territorial integrity from Russia, the US and UK as well. Fat lot of good that has done them.

His last thesis - that the east-west reconciliation between Europe and Russia was somehow scuppered by the US and NATO is very hard to follow, or swallow. It is true that NATO is totally dominated by the US - but this is because they spend considerably more on defence than the rest of NATO put together. To this extent, European foreign policy is dominated by the US - this is entirely Europe's own choice and fault though.

As to Steele's claim that Putin is being demonised, insults between countries are not productive and leaders should be treated with respect by other countries. However it is difficult to treat with respect someone who does not keep his word and lies to your face, particularly when these lies are so transparent. Brezhnev and Andropov never did this - at least not so blatantly.

tiojo 22 Feb 2015 12:50

"......that Nato exists to manage the risks created by its existence".

Now if only the Guardian's current journalists would read this book we might get some decent coverage of events in Ukraine and Russia.

Marilyn -> Justice 21 Feb 2015 22:37

My only argument would be the assessment of blame re the snipers - 3 studies have shown them to be from 'the new coalition' and not old gov't, which is in line with the telephone call of Catherine Ashton and Urmas Paet,

Standupwoman 21 Feb 2015 21:02

Excellent, balanced article, and I really have to buy this book. I only wonder why the Guardian hasn't included this on its 'Ukraine' page for 19th February...

GuyCybershy -> sbmfc 21 Feb 2015 17:06

Especially in the US the public needs every issue distilled to good vs. evil. Anything more complex and they will reject it. This is the result of decades of "divide and conquer" politics.

Vladimir Boronenko 21 Feb 2015 08:21

"Even today at this late stage, a declaration of Ukrainian non-alignment as part of an internationally negotiated settlement, and UN Security Council guarantees of that status, would bring instant de-escalation and make a lasting ceasefire possible in eastern Ukraine." No it wouldn't. It is nothing but wishful thinking and delusion all over again. Ukraine had had that status already, and only scrapped it in December by a constitutional Parliament vote exactly because it showed its complete uselessness and impotence at the face of real-life threats. Just like the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 guaranteeing security of Ukraine, with one of the guarantors attacking and the other two looking on, although, if one was to stick to the letter of the Memo, of course, they are not bound to be involved unless its a nuclear threat.

Johnlockett 20 Feb 2015 19:21

Excellent article. Very balance and very near to the truth. Thank you
John Lockett

Statingobvious 20 Feb 2015 14:28

An exceptionally unbiased piece where otherwise Russia and Putin bashing (& twisting of facts & outright lying) is the rule.

mike42 20 Feb 2015 10:04

"The most disturbing novelty of the Ukrainian crisis is the way Putin and other Russian leaders are routinely demonised. At the height of the cold war when the dispute between Moscow and the west was far more dangerous, backed as it was by the danger of nuclear catastrophe, Brezhnev and Andropov were never treated to such public insults by western commentators and politicians."

Need more be said?

Dreikaiserbund Les Mills 20 Feb 2015 09:14

Challenging the 'MSM script' does not make you a Putinbot. Deriding anyone who supports Ukrainian sovereignty, who is opposed to the Russian invasion and trumpeting Vladimir as a great and wise leader - that is what makes you a Putinbot.

EnriqueFerro -> theshonny 19 Feb 2015 19:57

Thank you for the info on 'The War Against Putin' by M.S. King. I'll look for it, because even if it is pro-Putin, it is nonetheless interesting in order to check the rabid and massive anti-Putin and Russia-hating disease spreading out there.

EnriqueFerro -> Mari5064 19 Feb 2015 19:53

Mari, I'm afraid you read too many tabloids.

EnriqueFerro 19 Feb 2015 19:51

This is an excellent book, of which I'm finishing its reading now; it can be read avidly, because it says the truth, in a dispassionate and academic narrative, far from the typically stupid accounts in the Western media and in the mouths of our gullible and ignorant politicians. Read it and learn a lot about Ukraine, Russia, the EU, and the US/NATO.
Usually interesting books which don't follow the official record are not displayed in the mass bookshops such as Floyds or Waterstones (to name two of the more serious in the UK). It is a way of censorship, to make it difficult for the public to find critical stuff. I found a lone copy well hidden in the history section at WS. A miracle! I took it quickly, and wonder if it was replaced!!!

Les Mills -> leafbinder 19 Feb 2015 19:34

As in the endless accusations of being a "Putinbot" if you have the temerity to challenge the MSM script. Incidentally, I'm surprised that this article has only a handful of comments. I came here via a link on Google news so I can only assume that the Guardian have it hidden away on their site, which definitely fits the anti-Russian agenda.

leafbinder 19 Feb 2015 17:37

By far THE best analysis of what sounds like a most insightful book. The reviewer has done us all a great service, since without it we would have never heard about the book from any other "NATO-Western" source. Even worse, the author of the book would be accused of not being "real" as is often the accusation when a comment appears that does not swallow Western propaganda line-hook-and-sinker.

John Hansen 19 Feb 2015 14:31

Jonathan Steele:

Superb analysis of a significant book.

:-)

theshonny 19 Feb 2015 13:15

Bought 'The War Against Putin' by M.S. King a short while ago, and found it going so much pro-Putin that it lost its impact. So now I hope for a more balanced account.

I have a strong suspicion that the demonising of Putin is at least in part a method to draw attention away from US (and maybe Israeli) warmongering of the last decades, so I hope this book will give a fairly balanced account of what's really taking place in Crimea and Ukraine.

Also I suspect that the CIA is, true to form, stirring up the Ukrainians so to destabilise Russian influence.

sbmfc 19 Feb 2015 07:31

I think the demonisation of Putin stems from the influence of Hollywood narratives in our societal perception.

The idea of the villain is so commonplace that is widely assumed that anyone with a different agenda to ones own is perceived to be attempting to working directly against our own personal interests rather than in aid of their own different and completely independent interests.

Essentially everything has been so dumbed down that only a good/evil narrative can be comprehended and the labels are only fit one way. The facts themselves are irrelevant.

AnyFictionalName 19 Feb 2015 05:50

When PM Yatsenyuk said:

I don't want Ukrainian youths (i.e. those who consider their native language to be Ukrainian or Russian) to learn the Russian language, I want them to learn the English language.

Is that kind of racism, inferiority complex or just sheer stupidity?

[Feb 24, 2015] UK Journalist Calls Out Fraud on Readers in Coverage of HSBC

Notable quotes:
"... Even television spokesmodels and serial liars are considered credentialed journalists in good standing as long as they remain within the well defined bounds of the corporatist credibility trap. ..."
"... JP Morgan Tops New List of Risky Banks ..."
"... ying and yang ..."
Feb 24, 2015 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

"An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them. You know that even if you are robust you won't be supported and will be undermined...

The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Daily Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril."

A 'principled resignation' is a phenomenon somewhat unfamiliar to US readers. Rarely does a public figure or a politician resign because they is something they won't do to get along. They resign because they get caught doing something that is so repugnant to public sentiment that they are finished, at least for a while. We have a marvelous way of excusing and ignoring behavior in the selected elite that would shame a garbageman into changing their name and moving.

And so a decline in journalistic standards is not as great of an issue in the States, because the major media was captured by a handful of corporations in the 1990's, in part thanks to Bill Clinton's change in ownership rules.

So one might ask, what standards? What were the standards that allowed the lies that have led to war, that covered up mass spying and torture, and that allowed one of the greatest thefts of the public trust in history to occur in the 'bank bailouts,' with a coordinated suppression of any meaningful protest?

In the recent World Press Freedom Index, the US ranked 49th, in same tier as Romania, El Salvador, and Niger.

Their standards have long been so low that journalist may be more of a hollow title on a business card than a calling to a profession with time-honored standards.

In the States, journalistic independence and integrity were some years ago led down a blind alley, and quietly strangled.

The capture of key institutions of democracy are already well underway or in place. Where this leads, one cannot say. But it does not bode well.

Even television spokesmodels and serial liars are considered 'credentialed journalists' in good standing as long as they remain within the well defined bounds of the corporatist credibility trap.

Related: JP Morgan Tops New List of Risky Banks

Why I Have Resigned From the Telegraph

Peter Osborne

17 February 2015

...With the collapse in standards has come a most sinister development. It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart. There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed...

This brings me to a second and even more important point that bears not just on the fate of one newspaper but on public life as a whole. A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.

It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can't be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street...

This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is "the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend". HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts.

Read the entire article at OpenDemocracy here.

Here are some selections from financial television. I do not mean to pick on CNBC. Bloomberg and Fox are certainly no better, and in many ways probably worse.

And the mainstream media now pretty much follows the same patterns on its high gloss coverage whether it be on television or in print.

But if you watch the shows on Sunday morning where very serious people come to discuss important public and foreign policy issues of war and peace, basic freedoms, the economy, what you find is a pre-sorted selection of talking heads hurling the latest ying and yang of corporatist spin at each other, with the occasional honest individual, never to be invited again, who is harangued by the network 'journalist.'

[Feb 24, 2015] Pictures From a Currency War, With Narrative

'Color revolutions' were becoming popular, as one country after another was falling into chaos, the kind that produces fire sales in productive assets and the elimination of inconvenient local rivals to power.
Feb 18, 2015 | Jesse's Café Américain

I have noticed lately that the spinmeisters are now latching on to the term 'currency war,' but are trying to deflect it merely to an intensification of the beggar thy neighbor strategy of devaluing your currency to subsidize exports and penalize imports.

This has been going on for a long time, most notably by the Asian Tigers, led by Japan and then perfected by China. But make no mistake, the real heart of this process is in an Anglo-American banking/industrial cartel that intends to beggar everybody.

The multinational corporations went along with it. They were its great lobbyists, and their wealthy scions the founders of think tanks to provide it a rationale and respectability.

Walmart wrote a chapter in the new gospel of greed as a means of undermining wages and the American working class by insisting, as far back as the 1990's and the Clinton era, that suppliers start offshoring to China. And servile politicians opened the doors wide, and turned a blind eye to abuses that are still coming home to roost.

Part of the arrangement was a quid pro quo. The multinationals, who successfully staged a financial coup d'état in the States and Western Europe, were to extend the reach of their strong dollar policy and europression via foreign direct investments in resources rich overseas nations and foreign markets in order to consolidate their power into the non-democratic world.

But China and Russia balked at their end of the presumed bargain. They realized that opening their own doors to dollar exploitation, and allowing the economic hitmen to come in and pick up assets on the cheap, would lead to eventual political unrest, encirclement, and their own loss of power.

'Color revolutions' were becoming popular, as one country after another was falling into chaos, the kind that produces fire sales in productive assets and the elimination of inconvenient local rivals to power. And in Europe, the powers that be created a Eurozone structure that any decent economist would know was unsustainable, and destined to create an unstable situation of few winners and many big losers.

And so a consortium of nations began to resist. Some called them the BRICS. They became alarmed, and then convinced, that allowing a single nation or group of multinationals to control the world's reserve currency was like a Ponzi scheme that could only continue on until its acquired the whip hand of power everywhere.

They started to speak up in international monetary organizations, long dominated by the Anglo-American banking and industrial cartels. They demanded the establishment of a new monetary standard for international trade that was broadly based, to replace the failed Bretton Woods Agreement that had continuing on as the ad hoc dollar hegemony known as Bretton Woods II after Nixon arbitrarily broke the formal agreement with the closing of the gold window in 1971.

And so we see a new phenomenon today, in which the long term selling of gold to control its price, resulting in the post-Bretton Woods bear market that lasted over twenty years, has given way to net gold buying by the world's central banks, and in increasing size. And the creation of a paper gold market in parallel, through which the West seeks to control the price and supply of gold, to maintain their financial operation while they more aggressively pursue nation recycling and repurposing, draconian trade deals that supplant domestic governance, and when that fails, through internal insurgencies and at times, overt military action.

Simultaneously, there are a proliferation of bilateral trade deals in which currency arrangements are being made between countries, and even among small regional groups of nations, to conduct their business outside of the US Dollar system. They are even building up their own financial networks and infrastructure in response to increasingly aggressive use of sanctions and other forms of economic pressure.

The US and UK, like China and Russia, are not immune to concerns about domestic unrest. A strong dollar policy and the support for a policy of offshoring to increase corporate profits are wreaking havoc on one of the world's greatest popular economic achievements: the US middle class.

Increasingly concerned, the governments are cracking down on any sparks of domestic dissent, targeting leaders, vilifying and suppressing minorities, and increasing the surveillance of its own people. They are weaponizing the domestic police forces, and establishing the 'legal means' by which control can be maintained in the face of increasing misery and discontent at home.

It is not a pretty picture. It is an old story of greed and deceit, of empire and world conquest, of the desolating sacrilege of betraying those who have fought for freedom and civil rights to cash in for their own selfish gains.

Will this end in a new gold standard, as this article A New Gold Standard in the Making, which is the source of these graphs suggests? I surely do not know, and still do not think so.

If you have been following the thought process here, going back before even the establishment of this blog to 2000, I have felt that the most likely course will be the establishment of a new unit of international currency, similar to but not the same as the SDR, with a far broader composition of currencies and commodities included, so that no single group would be able to control it for their own purposes.

Stagflation is no natural phenomenon. It is the act of man in a policy intervention or policy error par excellence. Until OPEC was able to trigger a stagflation through their use of an oil embargo and price cartel in the 1970's in the favorable conditions created by economic rot introduced by years of discretionary, aggressive war in Southeast Asia and the ensuing debts, most economists thought it to be impossible, and certainly not a 'natural' outcome.

I think that domestic reform will be coming, and this is necessary because no new monetary standard is going to repair a system that has failed from within due to corruption and systemic injustice.

Old systems, even when they finally turn to visible abuse as they decline, can fail for a very long time, seemingly unbeatable, until they finally collapse from within. This is how it was for the fall of the old Soviet Union, and this is how it may be for the Anglo-American cartel and their attendant nations like Germany and Japan.

It is still possible that Russia and China could make a deal with the Anglo-Americans and establish a tri-partite world government, with their own spheres of control and interest. As you may recall this was the way George Orwell saw it in 1984. I have been watching for that possible development based on my own research on the growth of international capital markets and flows since 1990 at least. People bring this up and so I wish to address it now, once and for all. I am aware of the possible deeper significance of these developments from an eschatological perspective. But recall that even the great apostle, who was 'lifted up to the third heaven,' was mistaken in his estimation of it, thinking it a phenomenon of his own time. It is a mistake of vanity to go too far in such arcane and difficult subjects, in pursuit of sick thrills that only serve to distract us from our call to the work of the day, and the practical task of finding sanctity and salvation in the world.

How we will react to this individually is critical for our own long term survival as spiritual beings regardless, since we all face our own ends individually. Of this we can be sure. We are told that most will give in, despairing at the increase in wickedness, and seek for power and riches of their own beyond all reason and grace. And it requires no end time to see this happening through all ages.

Change is coming. It may be a new arrangement that brings with it the blessing of reform, transparency and justice through peaceful evolution. It may be delayed and more difficult. What cannot be sustained will not continue.

This will end. But perhaps not very well. To a great extent that is up to us, unless we stand by and do nothing. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." But what shall I to do? Begin with yourself, despising only the fear and the evil in you. Do as you have been instructed by the two great commandments, which have been implanted as a seed in your heart.

You are called. You choose the answer.

[Feb 23, 2015] On the way to war on Russia By Brian Cloughley

Quote: " This is nonsense, because there is no economic, political or military point in Russia trying to invade the Baltic States or any other country on its borders. There has been no indication of any such move - other than in bizarre statements by such as Mr Herbst and twisted reports in Western news media. It is absurd and intellectually demeaning and deceitful to suggest otherwise, and it is regrettable that someone of the superior intelligence of Mr Herbst could lower himself to say such a thing. But it makes good propaganda.
Feb 18, 2015 | Asia Times Online

Since the Soviet collapse - as Moscow had feared - [the NATO] alliance has spread eastward, expanding along a line from Estonia in the north to Romania and Bulgaria in the south. The Kremlin claims it had Western assurances that would not happen. Now, Moscow's only buffers to a complete NATO encirclement on its western border are Finland, Belarus and Ukraine. The Kremlin would not have to be paranoid to look at that map with concern. - Stars and Stripes (US Armed Forces newspaper), February 13, 2015.

The Minsk Agreement of February 12, 2015, was arranged by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine and contained important provisions concerning future treatment of citizens in the Russian-speaking, Russia-cultured eastern districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in Ukraine where there has been vicious fighting between separatist forces and government troops supported by militias.

Most Western media did not report that the accord was signed by the leaders of the provinces (oblasts) of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as representatives of Russia and Ukraine, but the former two matter greatly in implementation of its provisions.

To the disappointment of much of the West, and especially the United States, it appears that the great majority of the inhabitants of these regions are to be granted much of what they have been seeking (with robust support by Russia), which includes the right to speak and receive education in their birth-language; restitution of pension payments and other central revenue moneys that were stopped by the Kiev government; constitutional reform of Ukraine including "approval of permanent legislation on the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk"; and free local elections in the oblasts.

The way to peace will not be easy but the substance of the accord will go far to convincing the people of the eastern oblasts that they will not in future be treated as second-class citizens. They will be permitted an appropriate degree of decision-making in their regions, and if there is goodwill on the part of the Kiev government there is reason to believe that fair governance could apply. A major problem, however, is the attitude of the United States and Britain concerning Russia and Ukraine.

Neither the US nor the UK was privy to discussions between participants in the Minsk talks except through technical intercept by their intelligence agencies and more intimate but necessarily partial description by Kiev's President Petro Poroshenko, whose subordinates reported through US and British conduits.

London and Washington were excluded from negotiations because neither wishes a solution that could be agreeable to Russia and the Russian-cultured regions of east Ukraine.

Both are uncompromisingly intent on humiliating Moscow, and although Britain is verging on irrelevance in world affairs except as a decayed and limited associate of the US in whatever martial venture may be embarked upon by Washington, the US Congress and White House are for once in agreement and are determined to destroy Russia's economy and topple its president and are being provocatively challenging in pursuit of that aim.

There hasn't been such deliberate squaring-up politically and militarily since the height of the last Cold War. President Barack Obama's speeches about Russia and President Vladimir Putin have been bellicose, abusive and personally insolent to the point of immature mindlessness. He does not realize that his contempt and threats will not be forgiven by the Russian people who, it is only too often overlooked, are proud of being Russian and understandably resent being insulted.

Obama claimed last year that the US "is and will remain the one indispensable nation in the world", which was regarded with mild derision by many nations; but now Russians are realizing what he meant by his chest-pounding, because America has fostered the Ukraine mess in attempting to justify its stance of uncompromising aggression against them.

But Ukraine has nothing to do with the United States. It is on the border of Russia, not the US. It is not a member of NATO. It is not a member of the European Union. It has no defense or political treaty of any sort with the US. It is 5,000 miles - 8,000 kilometers - from Washington to Kiev and it is doubtful if more than a handful of members of Congress could find Ukraine on a map.

In March 2014, the province of Crimea declared itself to be separate from Ukraine. There was a referendum on sovereignty by its 2.4 million inhabitants. The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe was asked to monitor and report on the referendum, but refused to do so. Both referendum and declaration were strongly condemned by the United States.

Some 60% of the inhabitants of Crimea are Russian-speaking, Russian-cultured and Russian-educated, and they voted to rejoin Russia from which they had been separated by the diktat of Soviet chairman Nikita Khrushchev - a Ukrainian. It would be strange if they did not wish to accede to a country that welcomes their kinship and is economically benevolent concerning their future.

Russia's support for the people of eastern Ukraine - and there is indubitably a great deal of assistance, both political and military, similar to that of the US-NATO alliance for the people of the breakaway Kosovo region of Serbia in 2008 - is based on the fact that the great majority of people there are Russian-speaking, Russian-cultured and discriminated against by the Ukrainian government, just as Kosovans were persecuted by Serbs.

So it is not surprising that the majority of inhabitants of the eastern areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts want to "dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another" and be granted a large degree of autonomy - or even join Russia. The US refuses to admit that they might have even the slightest justification for their case.

There has been a US-led media campaign attempting to persuade the public, in the words of John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine, that President Putin's "provocations against the Baltic states, against Kazakhstan, indicate his goals are greater than Ukraine. If we don't stop Mr Putin in Ukraine we may be dealing with him in Estonia."

This is nonsense, because there is no economic, political or military point in Russia trying to invade the Baltic States or any other country on its borders. There has been no indication of any such move - other than in bizarre statements by such as Mr Herbst and twisted reports in Western news media. It is absurd and intellectually demeaning and deceitful to suggest otherwise, and it is regrettable that someone of the superior intelligence of Mr Herbst could lower himself to say such a thing.

But it makes good propaganda.

In similar vein, President Putin's statement to Ukraine's President Poroshenko that "If I wanted, in two days I could have Russian troops not only in Kiev, but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest" was reported by Britain's Daily Telegraph as "President Vladimir Putin privately threatened to invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states" - which was malicious misrepresentation of what he said.

Putin was making the point that Russia's armed forces could easily have taken successful military action against neighboring countries had they been ordered to do so - but he has no intention of doing anything so rash and stupid. What he and the Russian people want is justice and political choice for the ethnically Russian people in eastern Ukraine, as well as increasing bilaterally lucrative trade arrangements with adjoining countries. It would be insane for Moscow to hazard commercial links with any of its neighbors. Washington, on the other hand, is trying to break them.

Following the Minsk agreement, Canada, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, (together with France and Germany, the Group of Seven) mildly welcomed it - for of course they had no public alternative - but took the opportunity, according to the White House, to "again condemn Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea which is in violation of international law".

It appears that the US-stimulated nations of the G-7 demand that Crimea, with its 60% ethnic Russian population, should be in some fashion taken over by the Kiev government against the will of the majority of the people of that longtime Russian region.

This would satisfy the aim of the US-NATO alliance, which wished and still wishes Ukraine to become a member of that organization, joining those already positioned on Russia's border. For US-NATO, the problem, now, is that the massive seaport at Sevastopol is independent of Kiev and will therefore be denied to US-NATO as a base from which to dominate the Black Sea.

The US-led anti-Russia alliance continues to extend its influence along Russia's borders, and it is obvious that no matter what happens in Ukraine's eastern oblasts there will be continuing confrontation with Russia, led by Washington.

Mikhail Gorbachev - the man whose empathy with president Ronald Reagan so helped to end the first Cold War - observed about the stance of US-NATO that "I cannot be sure that the [new] Cold War will not bring about a 'hot' one. I'm afraid they might take the risk."

Given the intemperate and increasingly confrontational posture of the US and some of its NATO alliance supporters, the risk seems high. They are hazarding the lives of us all.

Brian Cloughley is a former soldier who writes on military and political affairs, mainly concerning the sub-continent. The fourth edition of his book A History of the Pakistan Army was published last year.

/neocons.shtml matches

(Copyright 2015 Brian Cloughley)

[Feb 22, 2015] The Maidan - one year later

Attempt to grab Ukrainian resources was so blatant that it reminds behaviour of Germany and the USA before WWI.
Today is the first anniversary of the deal made between Yanukovich and the "opposition" and guaranteed by foreign ministers Radosław Sikorski of Poland, Laurent Fabius of France and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany. As we all know, the deal resulted in a withdrawal of the security forces from the Kiev city center immediately followed by an armed insurrection which overthrew the government. Predictably, Poland, France and Germany did not object. I won't recount all of the events which happened since this infamous day, but I think that it is important to look at what has changed in a year. I think that it also makes sense to compare what I had predicted might happen with what actually happened simply to see if a person if a person with no access to any classified data and who is using only "open sources" for his analysis could have predicted what happened or if this was all a huge and totally unpredictable surprise.

So let's look at my predictions in a chronological order.

November 30th, 2013: in "The Gates of Hell are Opening for the Ukraine"

The supposedly "pro-Russian" Eastern Ukrainians
They have no vision, no ideology, no identifiable future goal. All they can offer is a message which, in essence, says "we have no other choice than sell out to the rich Russians rather than to the poor European" or "all we can get from the EU is words, the Russians are offering money". True. But still extremely uninspiring, to say the least.

The future of Yanukovich

I am beginning to fear that this will all explode into a real and very dangerous crisis for Russia. First, I am assuming that the the Eurobureaucrats and the Ukrainian nationalists will eventually prevail, and that Yanukovich will either fully complete his apparent "zag" and reverse his decision, or lose power. One way or another the the Eurobureaucrats and the Ukrainian nationalists will, I think, prevail. There will be more joyful demonstrations, fireworks and celebrations in Kiev, along with lots of self-righteous back-slapping and high-fiving in Brussels, and then the gates of Hell will truly open for the Ukraine.


The real risks for Russia

Being drawn into the inevitable chaos and violence with will flare up all over the Ukraine (including the Crimean Peninsula), stopping or, at least, safely managing a likely flow of refugees seeking physical and economic safety in Russia and protecting the Russian economy from the consequences of the collapse of Ukrainian economy. Russia will have to do all that while keeping its hands off the developing crisis inside the Ukraine as it is absolutely certain that the Eurobureaucrats and the Ukrainian nationalists will blame Russia for it all. The best thing Russia could do in such a situation would be to leave the Ukrainians to their private slugfest and wait for one side or the other to prevail before trying to very carefully send out a few low-key political "feelers" to see if there is somebody across the border who has finally come to his/her senses and is capable and ready to seriously begin to rebuilt the Ukraine and its inevitable partnership with Russia and the rest of the Eurasian Union. As long as that does not happen Russia should stay out, as much as is possible.

Sarajevo on the Dniepr
Right now, all the signs are that the Ukraine is going down the "Bosnian road" and that things are going to get really ugly.
It is hard to tell, but my sense is that when the local authorities in the southeastern Ukraine threaten not to accept any regime change in Kiev they probably do really mean it. This very much reminds me of the repeated warnings of the Bosnian-Serbs that they would not accept to live in an Islamic state run by an rabid fanatic like Itzebegovich. At the time, and just like today, nobody took these warnings seriously and we all know how that ended. The big difference between Bosnia and the Ukraine is first and foremost one of dimensions: Bosnia has an area of 19,741 square miles and a population of 3,791,622 while the Ukraine has an area of 233,090 square miles and a population of 44,854,065. That is a huge difference which make a direct foreign intervention a much more complicated endeavor.
And Russia in all that?

I can only repeat that Russia should stay out of whatever happens in the Ukraine. The Russian government should prepare for an influx of refugees and the Russian military should be placed on high alert to avoid any provocations or cross-border violence. A special goal for Russia should be to use all the means possible to avoid any violence on the Crimean Peninsula because of the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol which can find itself in the position of the 14th Army in Transdniestria when it simply had not other choice than to get involved due to the high number of officers with relatives living in the republic. If, God forbid, the nationalist try to militarily take over the Crimean Peninsula or Sevastopol I don't see how the Black Sea Fleet could stay uninvolved - that is simply impossible and this is why that situation needs to be avoided at all costs.

January 26th, 2014: Yanukovich's latest move might make a partition of the Ukraine unavoidable:
The partition of the Ukraine is inevitable
This has, of course, not been reported in the western Ziomedia, but the eastern Ukraine is now also bubbling with political actions. To make a long story short, the folks in the southeastern Ukraine have no desire whatsoever to let folks like Iatseniuk, Klichko or Tiagnibok rule over them. In fact, several local assembles - including the Parliament of Crimea - have adopted resolution calling on the President to restore law and order and warning that they would never accept a "regime change" in Kiev.
March 1st, 2014: Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine - now Russia is ready for war
Russia is ready for war
Something absolutely huge has just happened in Russia: the Russian Council of the Federation, the equivalent of the US Senate, has just UNANIMOUSLY passed a resolution allowing Putin to use Russian armed forces in the Ukraine, something the Duma had requested earlier. Before the vote took place, Russian senators said that Obama had threatened Russia, insulted the Russian people and that they demanded that Putin recall the Russian ambassador to the USA. I have never seen such a level of outrage and even rage in Russia as right now. I hope and pray that Obama, and his advisers, stop and think carefully about their next step because make no mistake about that RUSSIA IS READY FOR WAR.
April 23rd, 2014: The US plan for the Ukraine - a hypothesis
The US will try to force Russia to intervene in the Donbass
The eastern Ukraine is lost no matter what. So the junta in Kiev have to pick on of the following options:

a) Let the eastern Ukraine leave by means of referendum and do nothing about it.
b) Let the eastern Ukraine leave but only after some violence.
c) Let the eastern Ukraine leave following a Russian military intervention.

Clearly, option 'a' is by far the worst. Option 'b' is so-so, but option 'c' is very nice. Think of it: this option will make it look like Russia invaded the Eastern Ukraine and that the people there had no say about it. It will also make the rest of the Ukraine rally around the flag. The economic disaster will be blamed on Russia and the Presidential election of May 25th can be canceled due to the Russian "threat". Not only that, but a war - no matter how silly - is the *perfect* pretext to introduce martial law which can be used to crack down on the Right Sector or anybody expressing views the junta does not like. That is an old trick - trigger a war and people will rally around the regime in power. Create a panic, and people will forget the real issues.

As for the USA - it also knows that the Eastern Ukraine is gone. With Crimea and Eastern Ukraine gone - the Ukraine has exactly *zero* value to the Empire, to why not simply use it as a way to create a new Cold War, something which would be much more sexy that the Global War on Terror or the really old War on Drugs. After all, if Russia is forced to intervene militarily NATO will have to send reinforcements to "protect" countries like Poland or Latvia just in case Putin decides to invade all of the EU.

Bottom line - the freaks in power in Kiev and the USA *know* that the eastern Ukraine is lost for them, and the purpose of the imminent attack is not to "win" against the Russian-speaking rebels or, even less so, to "win" against the Russian military, it is to trigger enough violence to force Russia to intervene. In other words, since the East is lost anyways, it is much better to lose it to the "invading Russian hordes" than to lose it to the local civilian population.

So the purpose of the next attack will not be to win, but to lose. That the Ukrainian military can still do.

Two things can happen to foil this plan:

1) The Ukrainian military might refuse to obey such clearly criminal orders (and becoming a target of the Russian military might help some officers make the correct "purely moral" choice).
2) The local resistance might be strong enough to draw out such an operation and have to come to a grinding halt.

Ideally, a combination of both.

So let's summarize the above:
  1. Yanukovich will be overthrown. Check
  2. The Donbass will rise up. Check
  3. The Ukraine will be partitioned. Check
  4. A civil war will break out. Check
  5. The US will try to pull Russia in. Check
  6. Russia will protect Crimea. Check
  7. Russia will say out of the Donbass. Check
  8. Russia will have to deal with refugees. Check
  9. The US/NATO will not intervene like in Bosnia. Check
  10. The Ukrainian economy will collapse. Check
There is one point which I did really get wrong: the people of Novorussia. I saw them as very passive, interested only in getting paid (in Hrivnas or Rubles - doesn't matter) and with very little Russian national identity. Here I got it very wrong, but in my defense I would say that the Russian identity of people of the Donbass was awaken by the huge military assault of Ukrainian military and by the clearly russophobic and neo-Nazi rethoric and policies of the junta. But setting aside the motivations of the Novorussians, I did predict that the Donbass would rise up, and it did. In fact, it looks to me like my predictions resulted in a score of 10 out of 10.

My point is not to congratulate myself (I sincerely wish my pessimistic predictions would have turned out wrong), but to demonstrate that anybody armed with a) basic knowledge of Russia and the Ukraine b) access to open sources information c) basic common sense could have made all of these predictions.

There are, however, also events which I completely failed to foresee: the amazing inability of the Ukrainian military to get anything done. On July 1st, 2014, in a post entitled "Novorussia - Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and settle for anything in the middle" I wrote:

The worst which can happen is that a lot of Novorussian defenders get killed, that the towns of Slaviansk, Kramatorsk, Krasnyi Liman and others will get basically flattened and most of their inhabitants killed, that the road between Donetsk and Lugansk gets cut-off by the Ukies and that Ukie forces enter deep inside these two cities.
I have to be honest here, there is a pretty good chance that all of the above will happen in the next 24 hours.

If that happens, I would like to remind you all that entering into a city is one thing, taking control of it is quite another. Think Beirut, think Grozny, think Baghdad, think Fallujah, think Gaza, think Bint Jbeil. Even if Poroshenko announces that Donetsk and Lugansk have "fallen", this will be only a empty statement on par with Dubya's "mission accomplished". What will *really* happen is that the type of warfare taking place will change. Not only will it change, but the new (urban) type of warfare will almost completely negate the current huge advantage in aviation, artillery and armor of the Ukie side. So if these cities "fall" - please do not despair.

I hope that Novorussians will be able to resist the Ukie attack, but I also know that by all accounts the kind of firepower the junta is using now is truly huge - we are dealing with a merciless and massive attack with everything the junta could muster and we have to accept that the Novorussian Defense Forces might have to retreat deeper into the cities or even go underground. While heroic for sure, it is not smart to stay in the open when your enemy is using Smerch and Uragan MRLS against you or even the building you are in. During the first Chechen war the Chechen retreated deeply inside Grozny and did not even bother defending the outskirts, in part because the city center buildings were far stronger than the flimsy houses in the suburbs. I never studied the layout of the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk, but if they are typical of the way the Soviets liked to build, then retreating into the city center and giving up the suburbs would probably make sense.

The first defensive option is to let the Ukies enter the suburbs and then cut them off, envelop (surround) them, and then attack them. If that works, great! But if the Ukies clear the way with massive sustained strikes and flatten their way in, then it will become necessarily to switch to "plan B" and retreat deeper into the cities. If the Ukie advance is multi-pronged and too fast, or if the city center defenses were not adequately prepared (for whatever reason), then plan "C" is to go more or less underground and switch to an active mobile defense centered on short but intense ambushes followed by immediate retreats.
What really happened took my by complete surprise: initially the Ukrainian forces did move in, but soon they were bogged down and then gradually surrounded by the Novorussians. In fact, both during the junta's summer offensive and during it's winter offensive the Novorussians succeeded in crushing the Ukrainian forces even in open terrain: steppes, hills, fields and forests. The other amazing thing which happened is that for the first time in the past 200 years there were more combatants killed on the Ukrainian side than civilians. The German intelligences sources estimate the number of victims of this war at about 50'000. That figure sure makes sense to me. That kind of outcome and these kinds of figures can only be explained by a huge, truly immense, difference in combat capabilities between the junta forces and the Novorussians. Unimpressed as I was by the Novorussian behavior in February-March I failed to imagine that this rather passive and peaceful folk would turn into formidable combatants who would so radically defeat a vastly superior force (at least on paper), not once, but twice. Even as late as October 24th, in a post entitled "What could the next Junta offensive against Novorussia look like?" I again failed to predict the almost immediate defeat of the junta's winter offensive. I wrote:
What the Ukies are preparing is rather obvious. They will pick several key axes of attack along which they will unleash a massive artillery attack. This fire preparation will serve to prepare for a push by Ukrainian armored units (this time around we can expect the Ukrainian infantry to properly defend their tanks and not the other way around). The Ukrainians will not push deep into Donetsk or Lugansk, but rather they will try to, again, cut-off and surround Donetsk in a pincer attack and then negotiate some kind of quasi-surrender by the Novorussians. At most, they will try to enter a few important suburbs. I don't expect much action around Luganks - Donetsk is far more exposed. Now, if I am correct and this is what happens, then please understand and remember this: the correct Novorussian response to this plan is to begin by retreating. It makes no sense whatsoever for the Novorussians to sit and fight from positions which are densely covered by Ukrainian artillery strikes. During the first Ukrainian attack I was dismayed to see how many people clearly did not understand the importance retreats in warfare. The "hurray-patriots" in particular were adamant that the initial Novorussian retreat was a clear sign that, as always, "Putin had betrayed Novorussia" (when the NAF went on a long and brilliant counter-offensive, these "hurray-patriots" fell silent for a while until the moment when Moscow stopped the NAF from seizing Mariupol, at which point they resumed chanting their mantra). The fact is that retreating against a superior forces is the logical thing to do, especially if you have had the time to prepare for a two, possibly, three echelon defense. While I do not know that for a fact, this is what I expect the Novorussians have been doing during all the length of the ceasefire: preparing a well-concealed and layered defense. My hope and expectation is that once the JRF attacks the NAF will, again, carefully retreat, pull the JFR in, and then being to gradually degrade the attacking force. I particular hope that the Russians have finally send some much needed guided anti-tank weapons through the voentorg.
I was completely wrong. Not only did the Novorussians stop the junta offensive more or less along the line of contact, but they went on the counter-offensive where they seized the heavily fortified Donetsk airport and then the entire Debaltsevo cauldron. To say that I am extremely impressed is an understatement.

Military analyst always tend to be very cautious and assume the worst-case, and this is how it should be when lives are at stake, but I cannot explain away my complete failure to predict the Novorussian successes by some professional inclination. What happened is that I got the Novorussian mentality completely wrong by assuming that their initial passivity was a predictor of their ability to fight. A fundamentally flawed and mistaken assumption.

Still, I mostly got it right and so could have done all the advisors, analysts, area specialists, etc. working for the governments involved in that crisis and I bet you they did. But either the politicians did not want to listen, or they wanted precisely that outcome.

The shameful and utterly disgusting fact is that everything that took place was completely predictable. In fact, Putin, Lavrov and many more Russians officials *did* try to tell everybody that the Ukrainian people were cheerfully waltzing straight into a precipice, but nobody was willing to listen. Instead, western politicians blamed the Russians for everything, which is just about the most intellectually dishonest and hypocritical thing they could have done.

The next Ukie president?
In one year an entire country was destroyed, tens of thousands of people were murdered and millions are now left with nothing not even hope: the Ukraine is a failed state, having now gone through Dmitri Orlov's "five stages of collapse". Kiev is in the hands of a regime of incompetent Nazi freaks and the only alternative to them looks even worse.

Make no mistake, if the Donbass is now probably safe from any future junta attacks, the risks for the rest of the rump-Ukraine are still huge and an even bigger bloodbath could happen next.

What is evident is that Poroshenko is a "goner": this sad buffoon promised peace to the Ukrainian people and instead he gave them a year long bloodbath culminating in a strategic defeat which cost the Ukrainians about half of their more or less combat capable forces. The only thing which keeps Poroshenko in power now is the political support of the USA and the political recognition by the EU and Russia. But the rest of the freaks in power don't care one bit about the EU or Russia and I predict that they will try to eject him at the first possibility. When I look at list of freaks likely to succeed Poroshenko I get a knot in my stomach: if Poroshenko was a political prostitute and a spineless, incompetent imbecile, he was at least not clinically insane. Most of his likely successors are. As for Iats or Turchinov, I personally think that they are demoniacally possessed which is arguably even worse than being clinically insane.

In conclusion I will just say that if I believe that all the horrors of the past year were fully avoidable, I also believe that the horrors of the next, upcoming, year are not: the Ukraine has plunged over the cliff and is now heading for the very same future as Libya (another western "success story"). I hope that I am wrong and that I am missing something crucial, but I personally do not see any way to stop the implosion of the rump-Ukraine and my advise to anybody still living there would be to get out while you can.

In them meantime in Moscow there was a "anti-Maidan" demonstration planned for 10'000 people. 35'000-50'000 showed up to say "we will not forget, we will not forgive" and "no Maidan in Russia". This anti-Maidan movement which was just formed very recently has a very bright political future because after watching the horrors right across their border and accepting close to a million refugees from the Ukraine, the vast majority of Russians want nothing to do with a Maidan-like event in Russia. Combine that with the still 80%+ popularity of Putin in spite of western sanctions, and you will see that Russia is safe from the kind of events which happened in Kiev a year ago.

The virus which killed the Ukraine will act as a vaccine for Russia.

The Saker

[Feb 22, 2015] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68RErgHOzN8

One year of Maidan coup d'état.

tony p

+Martin John

Having a Russian wife and family in Russia indeed allows me see this crisis from two positions. I know first hand what's happening there, my government is a shameful lapdog of US hegemony. What you have posted is 99% fact, I'll let the 1% go because nothing is 100%.

Paul Meyer

MOST USEFUL INFORMATION, so the deal brokered by Germany, France and Poland did NOT MEET the U.S. requirements! THAT"S Why it had to be done via coup de' etat!

obyvatel

Stop blaming the "Western World". The countries of the West have long ceased fuctioning as democracies. Western politics is run by media mind-control, plutocratic government, and money monopoly.

Medicine, science, education, agriculture, and trade have all been turned into the servants of plutocracy. Truth is, we live under dictatorship. The spirit and much of the personnel of the dictatorship has been provided by the Jewish cult. 

BigSmartArmed

That is absolutely true, with one small clarification - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, all have laws that allow ownership of weapons. Even though anti-gun legislation is repeatedly pushed through legal systems, and people just surrender their rights, tens of million of people are still armed and have a choice of NOT to accepting totalitarianism, to reject consumerism and plutocracy.

All people have to do is say no, and stand firm. That's all it is. When the jackboots come, then it'll be a choice of submission to slavery, or fighting for freedom.

That's the choice East Ukrainians have made, and they didn't have weapons to begin with, they just stood firm against literal Nazis, that were trained, armed and paid for by the same bastards that are busy disarming the Western population to completely push it into total compliance.

Ukraine is a perfect example for what is planned for the West; surrender to the NWO and complete compliance with dictatorship, or fight against it. 

Ralph London

5 hours ago

Well done Martin, thanks for posting this. This is another nail in the HELL coffins of the US Government, poroSHITko, yats, and the others. This video should be remembered with the US PNAC: Project for the New American Century; the original wolfowitz doctrine;

Mearsheimer's article titled Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault at: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-crisis-is-the-wests-fault 'Although the full extent of US involvement has not yet come to light, it is clear that Washington backed the coup.

Nuland [wife of Robert Kagan - co-founder of PNAC] and Republican Senator John McCain participated in antigovernment demonstrations, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, proclaimed after Yanukovych's toppling that it was "a day for the history books." As a leaked telephone recording revealed, Nuland had advocated regime change and wanted the Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become prime minister in the new government, which he did.'

And obummer's quote mention in the video, but in print: 'and Yanukovych then fleeing after we had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine' - http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/02/01/pres-obama-on-fareed-zakaria-gps-cnn-exclusive/.

Also a good contextual read is the former US Marine General Smedley Butler's short but excellent booklet: War is a Racket'.

[Feb 21, 2015] 15yo NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 15 dramatic photos

Serbia later became another victim of "color revolution"... This was period of triumphal march of neoliberalism over the worlds, which left a lot of devastation behind... The only countervailing force for the US imperialism, USSR disintegrated in 1991 and victory of neoliberalism was complete at this point.
24.03.2014 | strategic-culture.org

2,000 civilians died during 78 days of devastating NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia in 1999, when citizens of a European country became accustomed to war-heads flying over their heads, hiding in bomb shelters and praying for their loved ones to stay alive.

US President Bill Clinton calls the bombing "humanitarian intervention" adding "It is also important to America's national interest".

[Feb 21, 2015] The art of provocation and Sacral victims of Maidan

Color revolution is a military operation in which protesters are just a tip of the iceberg. the key players are Embassy staff, three letter agencies, NGOs, bought and foreign owned neoliberal press, some orligrached (who might be pressed into submission with the threat of confiscating their assets), compradors and bought players within the government. It was by bought players within the government initial crashes with police were organized. One of the key instruments are huge cash flows in diplomatic mail that feed the protest ("bombing country with dollars"). In a sense in any neoliberal republic color revolution is designed to be a sucess, the fact which EuroMaidan proved quite convincingly. Ukraine actually was a very easy target. Yanukovich was essentially neutralized and paralyzed by threats from Biden. Security services were infiltrated and partially work for Americans. Several bought members of the government (Lyovochkon?) did their dirty job in organizing the necessity clashes with policy to feed the protest.

Former Prime Minister Azarov explained his version of events on the Maidan. The script writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told the NTV about how coup d'état of February of the last year was organized. According to him, the script of the coup d'état was written at the U.S. Embassy.

"The main puppeteers were not on the Maidan," Azarov said. The protests started because of the decision of Ukrainian authorities to suspend the signing of the Association agreement with the EU.

"There was, of course, the enormous pressure from the leaders of the European Union, from several European countries. The meaning of this pressure was the fact that we must put aside all doubts and to sign this agreement," said the former Prime Minister. "They just needed an excuse, a reason to overthrow our government. Because we were frankly told: "If you do not you sign this agreement, it will sign another government, another President,"

In this regard, according to Azarov, they needed a provocation to start protest and such a provocation became the use of force on Independence square in Kiev, where supporters of European integration were staying for several nights. "The action was slow. The organizers understood that without the sacred victims they will be unable to ignite the crowd. Suddenly around 3 am several TV crews arrive, set lights, camera. What to shoot? This ordinary situation, when people spend the night at the square?" - said Azarov.

Me and the whole Ukrainian people were cynically played. According to Azarov at this moment "prepared by gunmen in masks" arrived to the square. They started beating on duty policemen with metal sticks. When police called reinforcements instigators quickly disappeared. And when riot police began detention, "they detain generally innocent people who spend night at the square as a part of peaceful protest."

Speaking about the negotiations Yanukovich with the opposition, Azarov noted that the current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk "every day spend most of his time in the American Embassy and following their instructions to the letter."

In the end, an agreement was signed between the President and opposition leaders on the peaceful resolution of the conflict, the guarantor which were several European countries, but no one except the Yanukovich, fulfilled their obligations. "I still do not understand, how foreign Ministers of Poland, Germany, France, which signed an agreement on February 21 feel themselves. In the history of diplomacy this agreement will be included as an example of the utmost degree of cynicism and deceit," said Azarov.

See also

[Feb 21, 2015] Is Kiev Underestimating the Death Toll in the East of Ukraine

Tarik Cyril Amar is an assistant professor of history at Columbia University, specializing in the contemporary history of Ukraine and Russia, also associate of Columbia University's Harriman Institute. He recieved his BA from Oxford University, MSc from London School of Economics, PhD from Princeton University. Tarik is the former Academic Director of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv. He lived in Ukraine for five years and is currently preparing his book on the twentieth-century history of the city of Lviv for publication.

Transcript

SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. I'm in conversation with Tarik Cyril Amar. He is an assistant professor of history at Columbia University and an associate professor of Columbia University's Harriman Institute. Tarik's coming book is Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv: A Borderland City between Stalinists, Nazis, and Nationalists.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Tarik.

TARIK CYRIL AMAR, ASSIST. PROF. HISTORY, COLUMBIA UNIV.: Thank you.

PERIES: So, Tarik, in our earlier segment we discussed whether the peace agreement negotiated in Minsk is going to take hold and the difficulties that it may be having at the moment. And in this segment I'd like to take up the humanitarian situation, the humanitarian crisis that this conflict has generated. Now, one thing that I want to begin with is that just before Angela Merkel arrived in Washington last week--this was prior to the Minsk agreement--to discuss the situation in Ukraine, the German intelligence services leaked some information in relation to the death tolls. Now, there's a discrepancy between the official statistics being released by the United Nations being at somewhere around 5,500 and what the German intelligence leaked last week, saying that it might be up to 50,000. So what are the real numbers here and the number of people that have died from this conflict so far?

AMAR: I would not be in a position to guess, but I have to say that it seems very plausible to me, and it also seems plausible to a number of experts I sometimes talk to and whom I've asked about this. What seems plausible to me is that the United Nations figure is an underestimate, and probably a severe underestimate. Whether the German intelligence figure is close to the truth I couldn't tell, but it is simply not very believable that this conflict has been going on for quite a long time by now, and it has gone through several rounds of escalation. And at the same time we still have a very low number of casualties, and also a very low, a very slow increase of casualties. Of course, one could only be happy if the casualty numbers were as low. I mean, one person is actually already too many. But I think, unfortunately, it is safer to assume that the casualty number is significantly higher than what we get from the UN, and also what we get from the government in Kiev.

PERIES: Tarik, what's the interest of underestimating the number of people killed?

AMAR: Well, I mean, here I could only speculate. I mean, one reason that Kiev might have to be coy about this is not to let the population know how incredibly costly and devastating this war already is. You have to keep in mind that Kiev is officially not calling this a war, and it's also not calling this a civil war. Kiev is officially calling this a type of police operation, something they call antiterrorist operation, or the commonly used acronym in Ukrainian, /ate.ˈoa/, also ATO. So Kiev has an interest, as has happens in war, of pretending that this is less horrible than it actually is. That's one part of the story. The other one is Kiev has also been using fairly indiscriminate fighting methods, especially around cities in the East, around Donetsk and Luhansk, when the troops were still close to it. They're not now. And Kiev may very well also have an interest in not stressing the fact that more civilians may have died from its own shelling than it would like to admit.

PERIES: Now, speaking of civilians, their conditions are getting dire and the numbers are growing bigger in terms of the number of people displaced from this war. It said 1.5 million or so. What are the conditions for them that you're hearing? And last reports I saw, there was no water, there was no basic food supplies, and to--also clothing to survive in this wintry conditions there. Do you have any information about that?

AMAR: Yes, there are reports. And there also humanitarian organizations that are working in the war zone and beyond the war zone. And they deal with those civilians who remain in place and suffer where they are, and they also deal with the many civilians who now have been displaced. I have seen different figures for the number of displaced people, around a million at least everybody seems to agree on at this point, around a million. I have seen 920,000. I've seen it a little higher. But this is by any means already a very severe humanitarian crisis. The fate of those who remain in place, as you have described, is very much shaped by the breakdown of infrastructure, and it's also shaped by the fact that Kiev has quite deliberately cut these regions off from certain types of supply, from pensions, payments, from certain types of wages, of course. It has partly cut off the use of banks and so on and so on. So there is actually a siege practice that Kiev is applying to these territories, arguing that if they are under rebel control, the central government has no further business actually maintaining them. Now, this may to an extent be understandable, but what it is of course doing--and we hear this more and more--it is severely alienating the local population in the East. So Kiev is applying policies, I think, that are now polarizing people who were actually at the beginning of this conflict probably quite neutral. And they are getting reports that being shelled by Kiev, being put into very severe humanitarian distress by the Kiev government, plus, of course, the influence of Russian TV, which is being watched there, is leading to the fact that the population is actually getting even more antagonistic towards the central government. So that's quite a counterproductive outcome. The other thing talking about the displaced persons, they will get very different reports, you have to see that displacement operates in different directions and different distances. Some people are displaced, but they don't go very far. They just go to the place that is close but no longer, for instance, under rebel control, but under central government control. Some people go quite far, for instance, to Western Ukraine. They entirely leave the East or to Central Ukraine. And, of course, there are those who get displaced into Russia, too. And we know that the efforts to address the needs of these displaced people--they of course lose their livelihood, they lose their jobs. They are often traumatized psychologically. But we also know that these efforts are--they are certainly not insignificant, but as you might imagine under the circumstances, they're also very incomplete and imperfect, and there are even tensions, unfortunately, among displaced or refugees who end up in different parts of Ukraine and the local populations there. So the whole issue of the displaced populations, the displaced persons, is another major stress on the Ukrainian government.

PERIES: And also on the Russian side, some of these displaced people have actually fled to camps in Russia as well?

AMAR: We know that some people have fled to Russia, but the issue is not playing a large role. You have to consider that in Russia the media are very much controlled by the state, and in a very heavy-handed way. So you would not see that the Russian government would be put under public scrutiny or pressure because of the fate of displaced persons. That's not happening.

PERIES: Right. Tarik, I want to thank you so much for joining us and describing to us what's happening in Ukraine. And I hope to come back to you very soon for another update.

AMAR: Thank you very much.

PERIES: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

AMAR: Thank you. Bye-bye.<

Clearly the Ukropy are overjoyed with their success in their struggle for "freedom and democracy"

Moscow Exile, February 18, 2015 at 10:22 pm

That should have been above: "was reported last week to have increased ninefold in 2014″.

Clearly the Ukropy are so overjoyed with their success in their struggle for "freedom and democracy" and for their right to chose their own destiny without any interference whatsoever from the evil Moskali, which success has resulted in their being allowed to become an "associate member of the EU" and therefore, they believe, eventually full members of that wondrous organization, that they have been on a chocolate eating binge since last spring, the collapse of the Ukrainian economy, the soaring of inflation, the slump in the value of their real earnings, the military reversals in the East and the loss of the Crimea notwithstanding.

There's neowt as queer as folk!

ThatJ, February 18, 2015 at 10:31 pm
Glory to the Heroes!

marknesop, February 18, 2015 at 11:08 pm

I should not be surprised to learn that a lot of it is also being purchased, as a sign of patriotism, by the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and the USA.

Nearly every time we visit our Ukrainian friends, Roshen chocolates are handed 'round. They're quite good, too.

Probably a lot of it is brought in – in that particular instance – by their parents, who alternate six-month visits; now her parents, then his parents.

cartman, February 18, 2015 at 11:18 pm
You should remind them that it was founded by Russians, who were dispossessed by the Bolsheviks. It was later bought by Porko with money he made by selling teenage prostitutes.
ThatJ, February 18, 2015 at 3:22 pm
"If Kiev violates the agreement, Russia may refuse to recognize Ukraine's territorial integrity"-Vyacheslav Nikonov

If Kiev violates Minsk-2, Russia will consider itself freed from the obligation to recognize Ukraine's territorial integrity. During a plenary meeting of the State Duma on February 17, the United Russia Party deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov noted that the Minsk-2 agreement is a chance for peace in Ukraine, and a chance for Ukraine to exist as a state.

"If they don't want to take advantage of it, it will be only their fault. If the agreement is violated, Russia can also consider itself free from its provisions, which include the recognition of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, so I would not advise Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, Turchinov, and company to take this matter lightly."

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/if-kiev-violates-agreement-russia-may.html

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Global Politics – a war of meanings

In the course of life today, we've grown accustomed to using terms whose meaning we might not fully understand. We throw them around casually, not realizing that they lose their meaning and sometimes even come around to stand for their exact opposite. This is precisely why the sense has arisen today in society that there is a need to determine in a clear and understandable manner exactly what is happening on the global chessboard in front of all of our eyes – the Big Story, written online.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2015/02/global-politics-war-of-meanings.html

ThatJ: Saker reader "вот так" left this comment:

I like how Starikov refers to the ISIS terrorists as US assets. I assume the Russian leadership has long known that "al qaida" never stopped being a ZPC/NWO owned and run tool. One sees more and more exposure of this in Russian media and by Russian government associated people.

While I agree with much of what Starikov has written, I noticed several inconsistencies in the piece. the main one being this.

Starikov describes the western economic system's parasitism and its constant need for victims. He portrays the "Great Game" as being driven by this extra-national alliance of a predatory, monopolistic capitalist quest to control the world, essentially. But then proceeds to reduce this to country vs country, forgetting what he just wrote about the extra-national aspect of the forces aligned against Russia.

The western oligarchy aligned against Russia (Eurasia, really) are not national, but extra-national. They use nations the same way they use their subsidiaries. This is why I use terms like ZPC/NWO (zionist power configuration/new world order). They operate out of European countries and the USA without regard to national interests for the most part. This is why leaders of these countries (essentially ZPC/NWO hirelings) most often act against the real interests of their own countries.

There is one exception, that of Israel. The ZPC part of the oligarchy. While these oligarchs feel no loyalty to the countries they live in (those outside Israel), like the majority of the NWO oligarchs, they are loyal to the zionist ideology and Israel does garner their loyalty. This is what made them so powerful inside the oligarch structure of the west. Their solidarity with each other and their ideals is stronger than that of the rest due to that extra level of fanaticism.

That brings me to the second aspect of Starikov's analysis that I think is off. He doesn't mention the ZPC side of the oligarchy at all, but reduces the aggressor to just the USA. But if one looks at the people who betray Russia for the west (5th element), they are mostly equally or more connected to Israel as they are the USA. When they are busted, they as often flee to Israel as to the USA or Europe. The ZPC oligarchy is as strong in Europe and the Anglo ex-colonies as it is in the USA. That is they have complete veto power in the policy decision making process.

The same is true in the Ukraine, where the leadership is practically a who's who of the local assets of the Jewish mafia. This was also true of the Georgian regime of tie eater, which had as strong direct ties to Israel, as it had to the USA.

вот так

[ThatJ: What a naughty goy!]

Jen, February 18, 2015 at 2:57 pm
Is Poroshenko allowed to ask for EU peacekeepers or an EU-led peacekeeping mission from the UN? The EU is hardly an impartial third party. The rebels would have to accept a UN peacekeeping mission as well. Plus Poroshenko can't expect to use UN peacekeepers as a replacement army which I think is why he wants a UN peacekeeping mission led by the EU (hint: Poland, Lithuania).

"… UN Peacekeeping is guided by three basic principles:
1/ Consent of the parties;
2/ Impartiality;
3/ Non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate …"

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/peacekeeping.shtml

ThatJ, February 19, 2015 at 12:48 pm

Conflict in Ukraine Increasing US Resolve to Arm Kiev- Former US Ambassador

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The fighting that continues to take place in Ukraine's eastern provinces is increasing US Congress' resolve to provide lethal defensive military aid to Ukraine, former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told Sputnik on Thursday.

"There's no question that the ongoing offensive in the east [of Ukraine] by the Russians is increasing support in Congress to make this happen and happen quickly," Herbst said.

Herbst coauthored a report in early February calling for the US to authorize $3 billion for training, equipment, and lethal defensive military aid to Ukraine over the course of three years.

The funding request was introduced as legislation by the US House of Representatives on February 10.

"We've briefed many people about our report, including on Capitol Hill," Herbst said.

Asked whether members of Congress were concerned about the consequences of US arms provisions, Herbst said the arguments against arming Ukraine are not that strong, and "the Congress, I would say, agrees with that."

The report, coauthored with former NATO commanders and US President Barack Obama administration officials, calls on the United States to provide Ukraine with anti-armor missiles, counterbattery radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and any necessary training. The report's authors also call on other NATO allies to provide Ukraine with military equipment.

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150219/1018502569.html

ThatJ , February 19, 2015 at 1:35 pm
How Germany Is Blowing Up The European Union

If Greece gives in, Germany will have won, but its bully status will come to bite it in the face. European nations don't accept bullying, and certainly not from Germany. It'll be a Pyrrhic victory: the beginning of the end. If Greece however stands firm in its demands, it's also curtains for the EU. If Greece leaves, it won't leave alone. Only the third option, Germany caving to Greek demands, can save the EU. But Merkel and Schäuble have prepped their people to such an extent with the wasteful lazy Greeks narrative that they would have a hard time explaining why they want to give in. The EU may thus fall victim to its own propaganda

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-19/how-germany-blowing-european-union

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It's Official: Global Economy Back In Contraction For First Time Since 2012 According To Goldman

After spending the past year deteriorating with each passing month, as global acceleration dipped decidedly in the negative camp, the only thing that kept the Goldman Global Leading Indicator "swirlogram" somewhat buoyant was that "Growth" measured in absolute terms had remained slightly positive. Not any more: according to Goldman's latest global economic read, the world is now officially in contraction, following a sharp plunge in both acceleration and growth in February.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-19/its-official-global-economy-back-contraction-first-time-2012-according-goldman

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Russian Revenge – "Siberian Express" Blankets US In Record Cold

Hacking – blame The Russians. Global geopolitical instability – blame The Russians. Stock market lower – blame The Russians. Extreme cold weather… guess who?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-19/russian-revenge-siberian-express-blankets-us-record-cold

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Stunning Images Of The "Siberian Express" FreezeNado

More than 100 million Americans are set to be impacted by the arctic blast known as the "Siberian Express" as record (low) temperatures are being broken across the eastern third of the nation. NBC News reports, Chicago is experiencing its coldest February since 1875 with roads in an "ice skating rink-like condition." From ice geysers to snow-golf and frozen falls, we can only imagine the breath-taking impact this 'polar-vortex'-esque weather will have on US GDP…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-19/stunning-images-siberian-express-freezenado

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Ukraine Fighting Shifts To Mariupol Whose Capture Would Grant Russian Land Corridor To Crimea

Yesterday, when we reported that the last Ukraine outpost in the rebel-controlled eastern territory, the town of Debaltseve, has fallen into separatist hands, we concluded that "perhaps the only question is whether fighting continues around Mariupol which would enable Russia to have a land corridor all the way to Crimea." Moments ago we got the answer when Reuters reported that "pro-Russian separatists have launched mortar attacks on government-held positions near the coastal town of Mariupol in southeast Ukraine and are building up their forces there, local military reached by telephone said on Thursday."

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Btw, Gorlovka and Donetsk are being bombarded as we speak. Not a peep from the usual suspects. Like the last ceasefire, Ukraine can do whatever it wants and the US and the EU will not blame it for violating the ceasefire. The US and the EU expect Russia and the rebels to surrender to their power grab in Ukraine. Failure to surrender brings sanctions and threats to Russia.

It's easy to determine where this is heading. Just look where the blame is placed and who is spared from any culpability. Lack of impartiality means there's no compromise from the other side.

Just read the statements coming from US officials. They never talk about what Ukraine does, only about what "Russian-backed" separatists do.

[Feb 20, 2015] Debaltsevo fallout in Banderastan

I think Gary (see comments below) forget about one interesting side effect "reaction of Ukrainian to the attempt to depose Kiev junta by military force". Now after Odessa Massacre of May 2, 2014, crimes committed by Right Sector, and territorial battalions of neo-Nazis (such as Azov) indiscriminate shelling of Donbass by Ukrainian army, killing woman and children this reaction on South East will be completely different. People saw the real danger with their own eyes. Russia now have at least 2.5 million people who are ready to die fighting with her. And neutrality of approval of majority of the rest of South East. That's a big, big difference with the situation in February 2014, when Russia occupying Ukraine would look ore like aggressor then liberator.
Also the fact that the US weapons and foreign fighters were captured in Debaltsevo put the USA in vulnerable position now, as blood of woman and children of Donbass cry for revenge.
Quote: In the Russian view, US overt recognition and support for Ukrainian neo-Nazis, its support of an unconstitutional coup in Kiev, and its defense of it later, is not only an insult but also a betrayal. It was seen not only as an act of breaking all norms and laws and in posing a direct danger for Russia and ethnic Russians in Ukraine, but also as a betrayal of the worse kind in which the other side has shown clearly that it holds nothing sacred.
The Vineyard of the Saker

An EU Coalition of the Willing?

When I first heard of Poroshenko's latest idea about sending peacekeepers to the Ukraine, I had figured that he was talking about UN peacekeepers, the only ones with any possible legality for such an operation. Turns out I had "misunderestimated" Poroshenko. His idea is even crazier: he wants *EU* "peacekeepers"! This is what the official website of the President of the Ukraine says:

Ukraine considers the EU mission in the framework of the Common Security and Defense Policy the best option of peacekeeping operation in Donbas, as stated by President Petro Poroshenko at the meeting with Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn in Kyiv.

The Head of State has outlined clear position: "Russia, as country-aggressor, cannot and will not take part in the peacekeeping operation". "Ukraine will not agree to a peacekeeping format, which threatens to legalize thousands of Russian militaries – we already have enough such "peacekeepers"," Petro Poroshenko noted.

The President has informed on the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to appeal to the UN Security Council with a request for an international peacekeeping mission to ensure the preservation of peace in Donbas and control the Ukrainian-Russian border in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. "The format of the European Union Police Mission is preferable," the President added.

Am I the only one who is detecting a distinctly American "handwriting" behind this latest idea? Look again: the idea is this - first go to the UN and when the Russians and Chinese veto it, then turn to the EU and use EU states to make a "coalition of the willing". Why? Let me spell out the rationale here:

The prime goal of the USA was to get Russia to militarily intervene in the Donbass to trigger a continental war. Now that this has clearly failed, they want the Europeans to enter the Donbass with exactly the same goal. Once the EU peacekeepers are deployed, all it would take is a bloody false flag (an artillery strike, or a bomb) killing enough EU peacekeepers to raise the immediate need to protect them. Except that the EU does not have any "EU armed forces" so can you guess who would be sent it? Exactly - NATO.

Will the Europeans fall for that? I doubt it. Even the Eurocretins seemed to have lost their taste for crazy US Neocon schemes. Besides, Russia is not Serbia and there is no way the EU will bypass the UNSC for a military operation, not without triggering a huge political crisis inside Europe. To me this latest plans smacks of something McCain and Saakashvili could have cooked up and not something coming out of this White House. God knows I have no sympathy for the Obama Administration or for the Eurocretins in Brussels, but this latest stunt is dumb even by their standards.

Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen! SA marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt. (The flag on high! The ranks tightly closed! The SA march with quiet, steady step. Horst Wessel Lied - Nazi anthem)

Looks like the Nazi death squads are on the march again, this time they are looking at Kiev. Thirteen death-squad (aka "volunteer battalion") leaders have now declared that they are forming their own military command under the command of the notorious Semen Semenchenko. Officially, they are not in any way opposed to the current regime, so said Semenchenko, but in reality their rank and file members are pretty clear about what they want to do: organize a third Maidan and toss out Poroshenko. What makes these 21st century version of the SA so dangerous for Poroshenko it that he, unlike Hitler, does not have a 21st century version of the SS to eliminate them all overnight.

In fact, according to many reports the entire southern part of the rump-Ukraine is now "Kolomoiski-land" fully under the control of the oligarch who finances these death-squads. Add to this the fact that most of the Rada is composed of the very same battalion commanders and assorted Nazi freaks, and you will why Poroshenko is now very much in danger.

The next leaders of Banderastan?

Poroshenko can try to present the Debaltsevo disaster as a huge victory, but apparently everybody in the Ukraine knows the truth and that, in turn, designates Poroshenko as the ideal scape-goat and culprit for what happened. The sad reality is that there is simply nobody in the Ukraine capable of disarming these so-called "volunteer battalions". There are now thousands of uniformed Nazi freaks roaming around with guns who can now impose their law of the jungle on everybody. It sure looks like the future of Banderastan will be something like a mix of Somalia and Mad Max - a failed state, a comprehensively destroyed economy, a collapsed social order and the law of armed gangs of thugs.

In a couple of days it will be one year since the US-backed Nazis took power in Kiev and when I think of what they have "achieved" in such a short period of time I wonder if the idiots who were jumping on the Maidan and screaming "he who does not jump is a Moskal" and "glory to the Ukraine! to the heroes glory!" had any idea that their actions would completely destroy the country which they wanted to bring into the EU.

pug

Interesting and extensive interview with Ukrainian Azov Battalion POW, with English subtitles.
NAF is treating its prisoners humanely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOv_KSWRRc

Kat Kan

"[none]...had any idea that their actions would completely destroy the country which they wanted to bring into the EU..,".

And now never will.

Yanukovich should have laid it out in detail what the real costs would be.

Any decent government should be straight with its people about what they're doing. Every minister should be able to do a one hour Q&Am dont expect them to go 4 hours like Putin. In "democracy" they talk, debate, avoid or answer questions, to sell themselves as the best candidate. Then their press secretaries do everything to keep them from giving a straight answer. What they should do is give account of themselves afterwards, twice a year.

There may be a small number of potentially acceptable people in the Rada. Everyone else would have to be from the people who know things, not those who just want stuff.

Russia, old or new, would have to have a hand in a change, it won't happen just by itself.

andrei put:

EU peacekeepers are not a new idea.

EU have been present in ukraine since 2005 as the EUBAM european bored Assistance Mission and have bee in Palestine as

"EUPOL COPPS - POLICE AND RULE OF LAW MISSION FOR THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES"

This is a document you can get from European union External Action site and is part of Common Security and Defence Policy

nothing new here.

Penelope:

What a Machiavelian mind you have, Saker! Sucker the EU in for peacekeeping in order to attack them w a falseflag. You're probably right.

What's more, Porky wants the EU to monitor the Rus-Donbas border to prevent supplies reaching Donbas, while US supplies to Kiev wd be completely unmonitored since they don't occur at the ceasefire line.

The Kiev kleptocrats recently sold off the last of the grain reserves. Agricultural inputs for Spring planting are not available yet-- fuel, lubricants. I suppose Monsanto will be supplying GMO seed & will be allowed to buy up the land of all the bankrupt farmers.

Usual Ukrainian crops are wheat, barley, vegetables, sugar beets, sunflower seeds. Monsanto makes GMO seed for sugar beets and for wheat and a few vegetables.

One hates to see the chaos of fullscale rebellion, especially because CIA, Mossad, etc might use it to destroy the infrastructure. But the only other possibility for escape from Ukraine's dismal future wd be a benevolent countercoup.

Anonymous

Let's hope they get at each others throats BEFORE they send in the UN or EU peacekeepers. And I do believe that the US is stupid enough to play this game after all they pulled the coup didn't they. American's act with impunity because the their is no price for failure born by those who promote the failed polices in fact many of them get promotions just to cover up the failure. Something like Pornoshenko is trying to do now only thing is he is not John MCCain sitting in the US Senate he is in Kiev....and puppets don't matter to anyone.
RR

Penelope

Martijn, interesting about Eurocorps. I understood that the Maastricht Treaty that created EU provided for an independent military force, but tha the US had such a prolonged hissy-fit that EU gave up & put it under NATO command.

It is not obvious from the Wikipedia entry that Eurocorp is under NATO command but it does say "From 1 July 2006, to 10 January 2007, the headquarters of the corps was the land component stand by element of the NATO Response Force 7." It then has its "headquarters" at other NATO Response Forces. So I doubt that it is independent of NATO.

Gary said...

Saker said, "The prime goal of the USA was to get Russia to militarily intervene in the Donbass to trigger a continental war."

This assertion keeps being made with no logical argument to back it up. Saker is always challenging us to back up our assertions. I return the favor.

This assumes NATO would enter Ukraine to fight against Russian troops, therefore fulfilling US plans to engage Europeans against Russia in Europe. Right? Who else would be engaged in a continental war against Russia?

Let me grant the Saker, Starikov, Putin the benefit of the doubt. They have far more inside info, experience, and insight than any of us mere mortals. Seriously, I mean it.

Russia succeeded in its mission to help defend Donbass without sending its own military. Mission accomplished, for now. I'll grant them that.

Novorossia can have national pride that it defended itself without big brother stepping in. That is probably worth a lot.

So this is a moot point for now, until next time NATO/Kiev attack Novorossia. So the question must be asked. What should they do next time?

Consider the cost of all the dead civilians. Was it necessary to allow this?

Strelkov says no. I agree with him.

Here is why.

Every bit of Western media and every public figure in every Western country says Russia invaded. So what difference would it have made if Russia actually did? None.

If Russia invaded why is there even debate about sending weapons, and/or NATO troops to Ukraine? According to argument above, Russian invasion would immediately trigger "continental war". It didn't, therefore proving the above statement is wrong. The public believes Russia invaded. Every single person I have talked to says they did. So as far as the west is concerned Russia did invade.

The statement above is premised that NATO or someone would have invaded Ukraine to defend against Russian "aggression", therefore triggering a continental war. There is NO WAY US/NATO would engage with Russia. The US is a bully, and bullies only attack the weak. Russia is not weak.

Would Europe go along with an invasion of Ukraine even if US wanted to? I doubt it. Ukraine is far more important to Russia than to Europe, and you can see Europe backtracking now that the blitzkrieg wasn't a cakewalk.

Estimates were that Russia could have rolled back the Kiev attack on Donbass in anywhere from 48hrs to one week. What would US/NATO do in that time? I doubt they could make a decision that fast.

In the psychological warfare game, I think the US scored one point, maybe losing others. Using its standard reverse projection (McMurtry-blame others for what you are doing), the US put Russia on the defensive and influenced it NOT to invade, so as not to be thought an "aggressor". So they fell for this psy-op to prevent them from invading as a defensive anti-genocide force.

Starikov claims that the advocates of Russian invasion in Russia were pointed to by US as evidence of "Russian Aggression". This assertion is totally wrong. US doesn't need any evidence. STarikov needs to read McMurtry.

Russia could have gone to the security council and called for UN troops to protect Donbass from ethnic cleansing. This would have been vetoed by US. Russia could then claim R2P and sent troops to protect civilians in Donbass, and clear out the NAZIs.

I will concede to opponents of this position that Russia succeeded without invading Ukraine. But was it necessary to allow ethnic cleansing to take place? I don't think so.

If anyone can refute what I'm saying, please do. I could be wrong.

Luca K said...

Banderastan?
More like Neoconistan, no?

This whole thing in the Ukraine has the the neocons's fingerprints all over it.

Does Mr.Saker know that Neoconservatism is a Jewish political and intectual movement?

Main themes; Israel and whats good for the jews..

The "nazis" in the Ukraine are paid by a Jewish/israeli oligarch... right. And the nationalists want to actually join the most anti-nationalist organization in the world, the freakish EU.

American Kulak said...

@ Alien Tech 20 February, 2015 04:31

On the whole NATO troops thing and the NAF saying they overheard English, Polish and Flemish (? Belgian language) on the UAF radio sets: I think after 'outta my face' guy got caught on camera in Mariupol OPSEC was tightened up. I also do not believe the Poles are present in the numbers they were used in the late spring and summer phases of the 'ATO' when we know they were deployed around Slavyansk and some may have died on board the IL-76 full of elite paratroopers that was to land in Donetsk but got shot down due to the UAF's poor intel about NAF MANPAD capabilities.

Jim Willie told the Ontario resident Paul Sandhu on his Wake Up and Live radio show this week that the NATO mercs were evacuated as part of the quid pro quo between Merkel, Hollande and Putin. Although VVP is a good poker player the unconcealed glee on Putin's face to me suggests a man who had Poroshenko and his sponsors by the gonads and knew it. Foreign mercs after all the howling about '#RussiaInvadedUkraine' getting exposed in a big way would not be a game changer but it would make US/UK media take the bleating about #RussiaInvadedUkraine slightly less seriously.

I am still waiting for the Polish version of Glenn Greenwald to publish about the 'vacationers' especially from the country's elite GROM special forces sniper unit and among Poland's Su-25 pilots who didn't come back. But that's far off. I doubt the Lithuanians would've provided enough numbers to make much of a difference except for the very early, limited number battles around Slavyansk and Kramatorsk where Strelkov's group was outnumbered 20 to 1. It is far safer for the foreigners to have units with which they can blend in but we also know from UAF defectors/deserters to the NAF that the American mercs were kept segregated from the Ukrainians at their base and did as little speaking as possible, probably to train the men against a sudden native English speaker outburst like 'outta my face' guy who 90% was from the northeastern U.S. Regrettably some even on the pro-NAF side on Twitter seem confused or to conflate outta my face guy with the Brit Azov Battalion Nazi volunteer Chris "Swampy" Garrett but Swampy has a beard in the footage where he's looking for munitions in Mariupol whereas outta my face guy was clean shaven. That's an American merc and I would place his place of being raised as between Philadelphia and Buffalo, NY.

Alien Tech said...

Gary said...

"The prime goal of the USA was to get Russia to militarily intervene in the Donbass to trigger a continental war."

Well that is the first goal. Get Russia to accept the tar baby after which Europe will split. Russia being the biggest European market means a lot more American goods. No more Russian gas means a lot bigger market for US gas. US would also be able to point out what Russia did to other countries and get them to turn against Russia.

Until now there is no evidence that Russia invaded. They all come down to Russia invaded Crimea.. Which is why people believe Russia invaded Ukraine. Earlier it was mentioned that thousands of Russians were in the NAF forces, I am thinking the actual number of people who took time off from the RF forces are very few. Remember, anyone with soviet passport can get a Russian passport, does not mean they are Russian, Only in technicality they are Russian so we can say everyone fighting in Ukraine are Russian, either they hold a Russian passport or speak Russian or have relatives in Russia. But it wont hold up in court that they acted on behalf of the Russian government which is a huge stumbling block, Propaganda does not affect court proceedings. Just like the mayor of London cant be considered an American even though he was born in the US and hold a US passport.

Many of the things you mentioned works because like 911 where the US forced everyone to accept their version of things, without showing any proof. They mostly force the justice department to reject anyone questioning the governments version but that only works in the US for now. The EU is neck deep in this fiasco considering it was merkels plan for a greater German empire. The world has their own legal system, but they need proof.. US has no proof so only thing they can do is use force against those with them to go along. The world is not just the US/EU.. I am sure even the Chinese would be careful since they also have a restless population that ants their own country, siding with another country that foments such things would make them nervous. India another such country, When Russians tell Indian leaders they are not doing it, its taken as money in the gold vault. There has to be honesty and trust.. If Russia is doing a Pakistan, no one will trust them.

Also remember, in time the truth will come out. We know not to take anything the US says at face value. Now we dont even take what the EU says at face value, in fact we believe they are lying about everything and without proof nothing they say matter. More and more people will now not take it for granted when Europeans come bearing gifts.. Most will wonder what poison is in the cookies..

In less than 10 years, an entire race of people have turned in lying deceitful cretins and the people living there let it happen without a fight. Even their allies are very nervous because they don't know where they stand. Nice reassuring words are meaningless.

When Iran says, invading Syria is an act that would be the same as invading Iran. Anyone doubt that? I highly doubt the convictions of EU/nato....

Alien Tech said...

Gary said... and here is a far better answer... The underlying tactics of each side.. And why one side does something and the other does things differently. Even if both wants the same outcome.

While US support for the coup in Kiev could be analyzed from the perspective of traditional imperialism with the US seeking to impose its will and ensure that its will overrides others, even that of regional powers, the way it has managed to convince many in the West of the righteousness of its cause and in its support of the Kiev post-coup government, was due to an appeal to the Western sense of justice and law with Russia being presented as an aggressor and violator. Furthermore, Russia was presented as practicing the "laws of the jungle" as Angela Merkel put it, and therefore as a barbarian.

If one wishes to understand the crisis and its nature, it is necessary to analyze the respective mentalities of each side.

The rule of law is held sacred as it is the mechanism by which the market operates, even when the law serves to strengthen the control of corporations over the lives of ordinary people. Within this framework, the creation of an independent, rational actor, who must live for his or her own sake and seek to express his worth via his external accomplishments, is the hallmark of the Western civilization. and yet does not have the support of a larger community to a degree more common in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The individual in the West is judged solely on his accomplishments and not on his internal value as a human being. For this reason, he is constantly insecure and seeks to prove himself. The easiest way one can feel secure about himself, therefore, is by seeing how he is better than others, and ways in which he is superior. Therefore, by pointing at how he is better than others, more moral than them, more professional and so on, he feels better about himself and is secure.

Western history, especially of the UK, US, Germany, it is replete with aggressive expansion, imperialism, bloodshed, colonialism, exploitation and slavery. wars conducted by the US and UK have continued and intensified in recent decades. The Western mentality, still holds that the West is better than all other 'oppressive' countries, despite the fact that the latter did not engage in bombing campaigns of 'backward' countries.

Therefore, it is all too convenient for it to point a finger at Russia for violating international law By blaming Russia, the West feels better about itself.

Although strong ties in the community have weakened in Russia in the past two decades, the individual is still not viewed wholly as an atom who lives for his own fulfillment, but as one who belongs to a community and a nation, and must live for a moral purpose.

Russians tend to be very critical of themselves in how well they live up to certain standards and are not too comfortable with themselves in the way Westerners tend to be.

In Russia, despite the image of immense corruption that is common in how Westerners view it, friendship usually comes before career. People will go out of their way to help a friend in most cases, even at their expense of their professional development, in the Russian mentality, basic decency is to be generally respected and people are not to be humiliated or mocked without mercy unless in exceptional cases as a response to an aggressive action.

What is true for the individual is also true for the society at large.

Alien Tech said...

Gary said... and here is a far better answer... The underlying tactics of each side.. And why one side does something and the other does things differently. Even if both wants the same outcome.

While US support for the coup in Kiev could be analyzed from the perspective of traditional imperialism with the US seeking to impose its will and ensure that its will overrides others, even that of regional powers, the way it has managed to convince many in the West of the righteousness of its cause and in its support of the Kiev post-coup government, was due to an appeal to the Western sense of justice and law with Russia being presented as an aggressor and violator. Furthermore, Russia was presented as practicing the "laws of the jungle" as Angela Merkel put it, and therefore as a barbarian.

If one wishes to understand the crisis and its nature, it is necessary to analyze the respective mentalities of each side.

The rule of law is held sacred as it is the mechanism by which the market operates, even when the law serves to strengthen the control of corporations over the lives of ordinary people. Within this framework, the creation of an independent, rational actor, who must live for his or her own sake and seek to express his worth via his external accomplishments, is the hallmark of the Western civilization. and yet does not have the support of a larger community to a degree more common in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The individual in the West is judged solely on his accomplishments and not on his internal value as a human being. For this reason, he is constantly insecure and seeks to prove himself. The easiest way one can feel secure about himself, therefore, is by seeing how he is better than others, and ways in which he is superior. Therefore, by pointing at how he is better than others, more moral than them, more professional and so on, he feels better about himself and is secure.

Wstern history, especially of the UK, US, Germany, it is replete with aggressive expansion, imperialism, bloodshed, colonialism, exploitation and slavery. wars conducted by the US and UK have continued and intensified in recent decades. The Western mentality, still holds that the West is better than all other 'oppressive' countries, despite the fact that the latter did not engage in bombing campaigns of 'backward' countries.

Therefore, it is all too convenient for it to point a finger at Russia for violating international law By blaming Russia, the West feels better about itself.

Although strong ties in the community have weakened in Russia in the past two decades, the individual is still not viewed wholly as an atom who lives for his own fulfillment, but as one who belongs to a community and a nation, and must live for a moral purpose.

Russians tend to be very critical of themselves in how well they live up to certain standards and are not too comfortable with themselves in the way Westerners tend to be.

In Russia, despite the image of immense corruption that is common in how Westerners view it, friendship usually comes before career. People will go out of their way to help a friend in most cases, even at their expense of their professional development, in the Russian mentality, basic decency is to be generally respected and people are not to be humiliated or mocked without mercy unless in exceptional cases as a response to an aggressive action.

What is true for the individual is also true for the society at large.

In the Russian view, US overt recognition and support for Ukrainian neo-Nazis, its support of an unconstitutional coup in Kiev, and its defense of it later, is not only an insult but also a betrayal. It was seen not only as an act of breaking all norms and laws and in posing a direct danger for Russia and ethnic Russians in Ukraine, but also as a betrayal of the worse kind in which the other side has shown clearly that it holds nothing sacred.

http://syncreticstudies.com/2015/02/15/the-battle-of-wills-between-the-west-and-russia-which-side-will-win/

Gary said...

Perhaps Russia feared another Afghanistan quagmire, where US/NATO could launch a guerrilla war against them and keep attacking them and costing them. That would be a logical fear to keep out.

But if they moved in-moved out, turned over border defense to Donbass, that wouldn't happen.

McMurtry calls Ukraine, "the biggest ethnic cleansing operation of the millennium."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41051.htm

And that doesn't justify military intervention? If not what does? I keep going back to the talk I heard from Romeo Dallaire, head of UN in Rwanda.

Put the shoe on the other foot. If Americans or US business interests in, I don't know, say Panama, Grenada, or Cuba were threatened, would the US hesitate to invade to protect them? Oh yeah I forgot, they DID invade those countries.

eimar clark

Very well said. I wonder if the obsession with 'proving oneself' as a superior individual (the ubermensch who must make untermensch of others, since this valuation must be relative) has it's roots in aristocratic primogeniture?

Once the heir was produced, the 'spare' - or more - had no entitlement. Many of then went abroad to colonize other lands as a result. That insecurity led to am obsession with control - and the political pathologies of, lets say, the apartheid state of South Africa. The absence of roots or sense of belonging and the lack me connection to family may very well have generated a 'race' of the 'rootless' - and so became ruthless.

It's a possibility, don't you think ?

Selected comments form M of A Biden Donates Counter Mortar Radar To Russian Weapon Exhibition

Charles | Feb 20, 2015 5:29:47 PM | 8

The loss of Debaltsevo is an enormous and well-deserved embarrassment for Kiev. But my feeling is that it's not quite the disaster the rebels are claiming. Here's my analysis, which I admit is just a layman's read of the situation. I'm guesstimating 30% KIA/WIA/captured, with most of the discrepancy being due to desertion, and a loss of 50-70% of their mechanized equipment and heavy weaponry.

Meanwhile, it's the rebels and their families whose homes have been destroyed and who are surviving on crumbs. It doesn't look like a great victory to me. Though it might be enough to force Kiev to grant limited autonomy to the Donbas, as prescribed in Minsk 2.

Anyway, I am outsourcing further analysis to Moon. This is a very difficult story to follow, especially for this non-Russian speaker.

Demian | Feb 20, 2015 5:43:36 PM | 11

Edifying video in which one first sees Ukrainian soldiers alive, and then one sees them dead. Ukrainian soldiers make football hooligans come across as opera goers.
Demian | Feb 20, 2015 6:15:54 PM | 15
Here's a Polish map of what Europe will look like. According to this conception, a rump Banderastan centered around Kiev will remain. But it remains to be seen whether any trace of Banderastan will remain. By allowing themselves to be tricked by Obama and Victoria Nuland, thus showing their true fascist nature, Ukrainians lost their right to having any kind of country, no matter how tiny.
Demian | Feb 20, 2015 6:34:24 PM | 17

@S-true #14:

If I were Russia, and WW3 does indeed come (which it seems it will), I'd target Germany first.

Yes, but you're not Russia. The Russians are inveterate Germanophiles. Even though I have said that Merkel's conduct in this crisis has been more disgusting than Obama's, I still can't hold anything against Germany.

Germany and Russia have deep cultural affinities, whereas the Anglosphere is alien to both of them. This has been obscured by Germany's nature being temporarily effaced by its current American occupation.

S-true | Feb 20, 2015 6:35:11 PM | 18

Here's a Polish map of what Europe will look like. According to this conception, a rump Banderastan centered around Kiev will remain. But it remains to be seen whether any trace of Banderastan will remain. By allowing themselves to be tricked by Obama and Victoria Nuland, thus showing their true fascist nature, Ukrainians lost their right to having any kind of country, no matter how tiny.

Screw that!
Kiev is "the mother of all Russian cities", and ending up in "Banderistan" ain't feasible. Many mighty empires throughout history have fallen, and the Bandera/ISIS/Israel backers are no different...they'll fall too.

Besides, anything that's coming from Poland or has an "Euro" prefix isn't something that should be taken seriously. It's Monty Python stuff.

This whole Ukraine/Syria/Libya/Iraq/Afghanistan/Bosnia/Kosovo/Serbia mess was a true eye-opener for me!

Demian | Feb 20, 2015 7:11:41 PM | 23

@Lochearn #16:

I see some young guys laughing and joking

Yes, that is a large part of the problem. Ukrainians see exterminating Russians as fun and a laughing matter. There are countless posts on social media in which Ukrainians laugh and express glee about Ukrainians massacring innocent Russian civilians. That began with the Odessa Union Building massacre, in which Ukrainians joked on social media about the Colorados getting barbecued. This is what makes Ukrainians more ineffably evil than the original Nazis.

@chuckvw #20:

Look like the guys I served with many moons ago, trying to laugh off an effed up situation. Pawns in a game over which they have no control.

This is not like US grunts killing Vietnamese. It is like boys from New Jersey thinking that killing Bostonians is a fun joke. Would you have any sympathy with such people? Their being branewashed by their educational system and mass media does not exculpate them. If they had any grain of basic human decency, they would not think that killing their own people is a joke.

[Feb 19, 2015] Brokering power US role in Ukraine coup hard to overlook

RT News

After months of denying having a hand in the Ukrainian coupe, US President Barack Obama admitted playing power broker for the "transition." This probably falls short of America's actual involvement.

READ MORE: Obama openly admits 'brokering power transition' in Ukraine

Washington was investing heavily in Ukraine long before the Maidan protests started in Kiev in 2013. According to Victoria Nuland, the State Department's top diplomat for Europe, since 1991 America has poured $5 billion of taxpayers' money into what she called assisting Ukrainians in building "democratic skills and institutions."

Some of the money went into sponsoring various NGOs, political parties and media outlets. For instance, Hromadske.tv, an internet-based television channel created in summer 2013, received a grant of some $50,000 from the US embassy. The channel provided full-time coverage of the Maidan protests and gave a platform to various opposition figures.

Such funding is a well-known tool of the American government. Washington describes it as promoting a positive change and denies accusations that it gives money to get leverage to pursue its own goals in targeted countries. But in Ukraine US officials played a far more prominent role than simply funding local players.

Some like film director Oliver Stone even call it a US-staged coup, while former US Congressman Ron Paul called for the US to stop meddling in Ukraine.

Nuland's cookies

A parade of Western officials descended on Kiev to support the protesters and discourage President Viktor Yanukovich from taking tougher measures against them. One vocal star of the US political stage, Senator John McCain, enjoyed an evening with opposition leaders and tweeted photos of the crowds in the square. He went on to address the protesters the next day.

Nuland herself is probably most remembered now for handing out cookies to riot police officers and demonstrators, while on a November 2013 Maidan tour accompanied by Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt.

Read more: 'F**k the EU': Snr US State Dept. official caught in alleged phone chat on Ukraine

Behind the scene, the duo were engaged in power brokering. In January, it was Pyatt who made radical protesters withdraw from the Ministry of Justice building, which they had previously seized by force. Ukraine's Interior Ministry, then still loyal to Yanukovich, officially thanked the ambassador.

Later in February, a leaked phone conversation, notable for Nuland's unprintable expletive at her frustration with the EU, revealed the pair discussing who should lead the new Ukrainian government (Arseny Yatsenyuk, incidentally, the current PM) and who should not be in it (Vitaly Klitchko, currently mayor of Kiev).

Rule by foreigners?

The US government's support for the post-coup government in Kiev never dwindled even as it went on to encroach on media freedom and the free speech and launched a military crackdown on its dissenting eastern regions. At times, critics say, it was difficult to distinguish the new Ukraine from an entity directly ruled from Washington.

One ironic episode occurred in December, when the Ukrainian Security Service building flew a US flag alongside a Ukrainian one over its entrance. Photos of the flags were quickly dismissed as a propaganda fake by Ukrainian bloggers, but the SBU later confirmed that it ran up the stars and stripes to honor visiting US Under Secretary Rose Gottemoeller, who is in charge of arms deals with the State Department.

The debate over the flag was partially fuelled by rumors in Ukraine that the SBU allocated an entire level in its HQ to US consultants, including active CIA agents.

The rumors may be insulting to Kiev's sovereignty, but there could be some substance behind it. Ukraine didn't hesitate to appoint several foreigners as ministers, hastily giving them Ukrainian citizenship necessary for the jobs. Among them is Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a former section chief at the US embassy and chair of an investment fund, which distributed US Congress money provided thorough the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Biden's chairmanship

A similar episode transpired in April, when US Vice-President Joe Biden arrived in Kiev on a state visit. The top American official came just after then-acting President Aleksandr Turchinov had declared the military campaign against the rebel forces in Donetsk and Lugansk regions was active. This later escalated into a full-fledged civil war.

A humorous moment came in Biden's trip when he chaired a session with Ukrainian officials, taking the seat normally reserved for the president of Ukraine. Ironically, Dozhd TV, a leading Russian opposition TV channel, erroneously called Biden the acting president of Ukraine and misquoted him as demanding that Russia "stopped meddling into US internal affairs."

Read more: White House: No ethical issues with Veep's son joining Ukraine gas giant

For Biden, Ukraine's economic future is a matter of concern not only due to his office but also due to his family's ties with the Ukrainian energy sector. In May, Ukraine's largest private gas company, Burisma Holdings, announced the appointment of VP Biden's son, Hunter, to its board of directors. The White House insisted the appointment posed no conflict of interest for America's second-ranking public official.

These and other examples of US "power brokering" raise some doubt about Washington's claimed distance from the regime change in Ukraine. After all, the US has a long record of meddling in other countries' affairs, ousting governments Washington didn't like and imposing those it did. Why would Ukraine be any different, skeptics ask?

[Feb 18, 2015] A Bloody Retreat From Debaltseve as Ukrainian Forces Suddenly Withdraw

Feb 18, 2015 | NYTimes.com

Amid heavy fighting, Ukrainian soldiers were ordered to retreat from the strategic town of Debaltseve, where they had been surrounded by Russian-backed rebels.
Publish Date February 18, 2015.

By midday on Wednesday, limping and exhausted soldiers were showing up on the Ukrainian side of the front lines in the conflict, describing a harrowing ordeal that began with a surprise 1 a.m. order to retreat.

"Many trucks left, and only a few arrived," said one soldier, who offered only his rank (sergeant) and his given name (Volodomyr) as he knelt on the sidewalk smoking. "A third of us made it, at most," the soldier said.

Others said that a majority, at least, of the soldiers who set off from the town in a column of about 100 trucks had managed to escape the encirclement, many of them straggling out on foot after their vehicles were blown up.

The order to retreat was kept secret until the last minute, and soldiers were told to prepare in 10 minutes and pile into the beds of troop transport trucks, according to Albert Sardaryen, a 22-year-old medic who made the journey.

The trucks lined up on the edge of town, Mr. Sardaryen said, while tanks and tracked vehicles formed lines on either side of the truck convoy to try to shield the soldiers. The column drove through farm fields rather than use a main road that had been mined, and the trucks kept their headlights off to make them harder to spot.

The column came under attack almost immediately, he said, and trucks started breaking down and colliding in the dark. By dawn, the column was strung out on the plain and taking fire from all sides.

"They were shooting with tanks, rocket propelled grenades and sniper rifles," and firing at the disintegrating column with rockets, he said. Dead and wounded soldiers were left on the snowy fields because there were too many of them to carry once the trucks were hit.

"We stabilized them, applied tourniquets, gave them pain killers and tried to put them in a place with better cover," Mr. Sardaryen said of the wounded. Later, a Ukrainian unit from outside the encirclement drove in to try to retrieve the wounded, he said.

Mr. Sardaryen said he ran on foot for the final four miles or so. Many of the soldiers who made it out also did so on foot, though some trucks made it all the way through, he said.

Oleksandr I. Bogunov, an army private, said the order came to carry only what would be useful for the fight on the way out, and leave all other ammunition and weaponry behind.

Porco Rosso
1 hour ago
Average Ukrainians are now far more scared of the Kiev junta fascists that are now in power and who are nowadays literally masters of life...

Mr. Poroshenko's order came after the separatists boasted of controlling the town on Tuesday, and after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia suggested at a news conference in Hungary that Ukraine should accept its defeat at Debaltseve by the separatist forces, whom he described as "underdogs." Russia is widely believed to be actively supporting the separatists.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian national security and defense council, confirmed the retreat from Debaltseve on at a briefing Wednesday afternoon in Kiev, the capital. He said the pullout was nearly completed.

Porco Rosso, Chicago 1 hour ago

Average Ukrainians are now far more scared of the Kiev junta fascists that are now in power and who are nowadays literally masters of life and death in the rest of the Ukraine than of the separatists in the east. Next thing to expect, will be upraise of the Ukrainians against the Right Sector fascists that currently control army and police and the rest of Kiev Junta oligarchs that have been hoping to rip off EU or US budgets by perpetuating this war that except DC neocons nobody wants.

Maiklas, Lithuania 1 hour ago

How could the Minsk agreement have neglected to specify in detail what to do about the pocket of Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve? Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko, and Putin need to meet again, but this time with representatives also from the DPR and the Right Sector.

In any case, never forget that this started as an illegal coup of a democratic government, facilitated by neocons McCain, Nuland, and Obama.

Wendell Murray, Kennett Square PA USA 1 hour ago

No surprise. The Ukrainian army conscripts have no desire on average to be killed or to kill their fellow Ukrainians. The locals are fighting for their lives. Forget the nonsensical "Russian-backed separatists" moniker applied to the locals in USA and western European mainstream media outlets.

They are local citizens fighting the fascist government in Kiev that overthrew - with prior USA governmental connivance and immediate post-coup support - the elected government a year ago. The propaganda on all this from the NYTimes and other theoretically neutral media outlets, not to mention the onslaught of disgusting nonsense from the USA government and its factota in so-called "think tanks is reprehensible.

Tony Borrelli, Suburban Philly 2 hours ago

It's rapidly becoming time for the USA (and the supportive US Media) to acknowledge that the USA/UK/EU agenda was behind the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine, that the new government is a right wing tainted oligarchy, and that the resolve of the Russians is to NOT allow this faction to continue to surround them. In many ways the USA behaves like a doctor who refuses to acknowledge that his treatment failed and the patient is dying. We have had many adventures in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East where our tactics to create a sphere of influence have succeeded. This, like Cuba, is not going to be one of them. The Soviet Union is dead. The resolve of the Russian people who lost 20 million people defending the Motherland is not. This is where the European populace is going to tell their governments "enough of tweaking Russia's nose on behalf of the USA & UK".

mervyn, nyc 1 hour ago

You got be kidding me. This is the exact attitude to get us into the bind. The State Department was using thugs from Kiev to overthrow the government, and pushed Rebels to the boarder until last fall. The rebels then regrouped and came back with Russian armors. Live to fight another day? There will be no other days. If Putin uses full force of Russian Army like in Georgia, he can take Kiev in 2 weeks.

NYReader, NY 2 hours ago

How come every single place US and the allies get involved in becomes a terrible mess? You name it: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt, Yemen, etc. One failure and one miscalculation after another. And please don't pass this off as George Bush, as Obama is now a war president also.

The United States has refused to recognize Russia's traditional interests in Ukraine. Apparently there is the Monroe Doctrine to protect our interests in the Western Hampshire, but Russia gets the same old cold war policy of a "ring of steel". We have recruited Nato membership among the former Eastern Block, tried to surround Russia with missiles, and shamelessly interfered with Ukrainian domestic politics - all of them failures.

The mess that the neocons have created in Ukraine is splitting that country apart and may lead to a global confrontation. President Obama should resist the call for arming the coup leaders in Kiev and should join Germany and France for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine that will bring peace to the country and to Europe. The warmongers should be told to calm down or volunteer to go and fight as partisans. They should leave the rest of America alone.

Varenik, Boston 2 hours ago

Maybe it would not end up like this if Poroshenko had not thrown the neo-nazi brigades against the mostly, ethnically, Russians protesting the coup in Kiev which in itself was an insult to those who grew up with memories of what was done to them during WWII. The real memories, not the hazy western interpretations where US had saved the day. The US media kept almost complete silence about the bombardment of Donetsk with scores of civilians dying in process, same way nobody is reminding Americans how this was US orchestrated and financed coup, and the same way everybody is keeping mum on the huge neo-nazi undercurrent in Ukraine. One is left to wonder as to where Kerry's idealism has gone...

Clark M. Shanahan, Oak Park, Illinois 10 hours ago

There are enough sour grapes on this page to go around.

Maidan understood, before taking over, that the people of SE Ukraine were not on board. The US, not understanding that some people do not necessarily view our "free enterprise/market system" as the greatest thing since sliced bread, was convinced that the southeast would "reluctantly go along"..

(That's just one more example how our 'experts' don't have the faintest clue.)

How Porochenko thought he could resolve things by simply bombing a sizable minority, to come around, was ham-fisted, if not, outright criminal.

David, Chicago 11 hours ago

The Minsk agreement had the fatal flaw that its negotiation excluded one of the two sides in Ukraine's civil war. By excluding the separatist rebels, the negotiators were able to gloss over the key point of whether Debaltseve was located in rebel-controlled territory or government-controlled territory. This may seem like a trivial point, but the accord called for both sides to withdraw behind their front lines. How is this possible if one of the sides has forces implanted in a besieged pocket deep within territory controlled by the other side? The separatist rebels reasonably asserted that the Ukrainian troops garrisoned in Debaltseve should withdrawn to behind the front line of territory controlled by the Ukrainian army.

The Ukrainian army, urged on by its Western allies, insisted on not giving up this strategically important salient in the enemy's territory. Russia's much maligned president insisted on this rather obvious sticking point, this anomaly that the accord didn't address, but in the end he capitulated to the rest and allowed the point to remain unresolved.

Minsk was a textbook example of how not to negotiate a truce. It made no logical sense and practically guaranteed continued fighting for control of Debaltseve. On the positive side, now that Ukrainian troops have been defeated there, the other front lines between the two sides appear to be recognized by both sides and therefore are relatively quiet.

So not all hope is lost for the truce.

Dan Elson, London 9 hours ago

I grew up in Europe during the coldest period of the "cold war" living in fear of Russian (or Soviet) aggression which was very real at the time.

Reading the papers today though I am not entirely convinced that Putin is the new "Hitler" and can only "be put in his place" through military force at any cost as many suggest. Russia is a dwarf compared to America in terms of military power and presence abroad. Putin has also previously showed his good will to collaborate not in the least by finally paying back to the West Russia's entire war loans 2006.

In this conflict I can understand that Russia wants to keep Ukraine out of NATO in the same way as America would not have wanted Canada to join the Warsaw Pact in the 80's but naturally I don't sympathise with their methods for achieving this goal. It would be ill advised though to believe that there is a military solution to the problem.

Thanks to Stalin's madness with famine and deportations Ukraine today is one of the most complex places to be found. Politics span from extreme Fascism to old Communism with nearly 20% of the population being Russian. Instead of trying to govern something like that they should just divide the country peacefully like Czechoslovakia did without bringing NATO into the equation.

jdd, New York, NY 11 hours ago

There was no rebel offensive, they simply held their ground. At Minsk, Putin tried to warn Poroshenko that his forces were surrounded and should surrender, but he wanted none of that. He should have listened to that advice as now the survivors and the Nazi battalions ("Right Sector") are talking coup.

S.D. Keith, Birmingham, AL 9 hours ago

And so Putin incrementally again decreases the footprint of Western hegemony. Make no mistake. Ukraine is a proxy for the ages-old power struggle between Eastern and Western Europe. The West seemed ascendant, until recently. Now Putin appears to have poked and prodded until he discovered the West's latent weakness--after sixty years of relative peace, it can't stomach the idea of another Continental bloodbath. Those that won't fight always lose to those that will.

The West, including of course Western Europe's overseer and protector, the US, has very few options short of deploying ground forces to help Ukraine, and Putin knows it won't deploy ground forces to help Ukraine. So the Russian Empire will reconstitute that portion of the Soviet Union lost in the Cold War.

The only question is who's next?

Olga, Brooklyn 10 hours ago

There was indeed a violation of Minsk agreements in Debaltsevo: however it was from Ukranian side, who for several days delayed the cease-fire and removal of the troops/heavy weaponry. Debaltsevo is part of rebel-controlled zone according to Minsk agreement, and there is no way the 'rebels' can cease fire while being under attach and while agreements are violated. The twisted interpretation of the of the situation by Ukraine and the west is to be expected.

It is unfortunate that the real leader emerging in the ukraine is Zakharchenko, while Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, etc continue to play games and discredit themselves. Understandable, right now Urkaine has a weaker hand, and bidding for time (and money) is useful for it -- but the continues propaganda and falsification of events are becoming a constant there.

Nowhere in NYtimes does one read about misrepresentation of history, that is recently very popular in the Ukraine; about severe restrictions on freedom of speech and information (as russian news sources are banned, as russian journalists are not allowed in the Ukraine) -- if this were happening in other 'good' european countries or, g. forbid, Russia, it would an outrage.

George, Germany 9 hours ago

Gotta love the Americans. Their answer to everything is more war, more weapons. You people will not be satisfied until there are rivers of blood in Ukraine.

Putin will never back down. If he does he will be no longer Russian president. Get this in your heads.

dogsecrets, GA 10 hours ago

Good just give the Russian what they want a land bridge to Crimea

This war did not have to happen the Stupid European and American thinking that Russian would stand by while Ukraine join the EU, just look at how we acted when Cuba was getting close to Russia and we still treat Cuba like crap 50 years later, Wake up Ukraine and Ukrainian people are not worth fighting for.

R36, New York 6 hours ago

I do blame Obama because he has allowed the situation to get out of hand. He could have said,

"Just as we Americans were fighting for our freedom from the British, the rebels in east Ukraine are fighting for their freedom from Poroshenko and his regime in Kiev. Just as France helped us against the British, Russia is helping the rebels against Kiev.

"It is foolish to risk world war to prevent the people from the Donblass to have their freedom."

He could have said that and pressured Poroshenko to allow autonomy or federalization. Then we could have had peace and the 8000 Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve would still be alive.

Before he went to Minsk, Poroshenko said explicitly that he was not interested in compromise and he rejected federalization.

He has reaped what he sowed. And Ukraine has reaped what America sowed.

Phil, Brentwood 7 hours ago

Have ANY revolutions since the "Arab Spring" turned out well? Egypt is no better off, Syria is a killing field and Libya is a catastrophe. Sadly, Ukraine is following this pattern. The overthrow of their elected president has led to bloodshed and loss of control of the eastern portion of their country. Lesson: before you jump in a dark hole, figure out what's at the bottom.

Under the circumstances, the escape of the Ukrainian troops from Debaltseve is the best outcome possible. It is considerably better than having them surrender.

[Feb 15, 2015] Michael Hudson: Has the IMF Annexed Ukraine?

February 15, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. Ukraine is going into an IMF program in even worse condition that Greece with its various loans from the Troika in 2010, and we can see how well borrowing more when you were already overindebted worked out for Greece. In addition, this interview with Michael Hudson makes clear that the loan to Ukraine is wildly out of line with IMF rules, making it painfully obvious that this "rescue" is all about propping up the government so it can continue to wage war rather than economic development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MptYEsV159s

SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Michael Hudson report on The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.

A ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine has been agreed to, following a marathon all-night, 17-hour negotiation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko. They were flanked by other European leaders keeping vigil. Russia and Ukraine may have many differences, but what they have in common is a looming economic crisis, with oil prices taking a dive on the Russian side and a very expensive war they were not counting on on the Ukrainian side.

Joining us now to talk about all of this is Michael Hudson. He is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His upcoming book is titled Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroyed the Global Economy.

Michael, thank you, as always, for joining us.

MICHAEL HUDSON, ECONOMICS PROF., UNIV. OF MISSOURI, KANSAS CITY: Good to be here.

PERIES: So, Michael, in a recent interview published in The National Interest magazine, you said that most media covers Russia as if it is the greatest threat to Ukraine. History suggests the IMF may be far moredangerous. What did you mean by that?

HUDSON: First of all, the terms on which the IMF make loans require more austerity and a withdrawal of all the public subsidies. The Ukrainian population already is economically devastated. The conditions that the IMF's program is laying down for making loans to Ukraine is that it must repay the debts. But it doesn't have the ability to pay. So there's only one way to do it, and that's the way that the IMF has told Greece and other countries to do: It has to begin selling off whatever the nation has left of its public domain; or, to have your leading oligarchs take on partnerships with American or European investors, so that they can buy out into the monopolies in the Ukraine and indulge in rent-extraction.

This is the IMF's one-two punch. Punch number one is: here's the loan -- to pay your bondholders, so that you now owe us, the IMF, to whom you can't write down debts. The terms of this loan is to believe our Guiding Fiction: that you can pay foreign debt by running a domestic budgetary surplus, by cutting back public spending and causing an even deeper depression.

This idea that foreign debts can be paid by squeezing out domestic tax revenues was controverted by Keynes in the 1920s in his discussion of German reparations. (I devote a chapter to reviewing the controversy in my Trade, Development and Foreign Debt.) There is no excuse for making this error -- except that the error is deliberate, and is intended to lead to failure, so that the IMF can then say that to everyone's surprise and nobody's blame, their "stabilization program" destabilized rather than stabilized the economy.

The penalty for following this junk economics must be paid by the victim, not by the victimizer. This is part of the IMF's "blame the victim" strategy.

The IMF then throws its Number Two punch. It says, "Oh, you can't pay us? I'm sorry that our projections were so wrong. But you've got to find some way to pay -- by forfeiting whatever assets your economy may still have in domestic hands.

The IMF has been wrong on Ukraine year after year, almost as much as it's been wrong on Ireland and on Greece. Its prescriptions are the same as those that devastated Third World economies from the 1970s onward.

So now the problem becomes one of just what Ukraine is going to have to sell off to pay the foreign debts -- run up increasingly for waging the war that's devastated its economy.

One asset that foreign investors want is Ukrainian farmland. Monsanto has been buying into Ukraine -- or rather, leasing its land, because Ukraine has a law against alienating its farmland and agricultural land to foreigners. And a matter of fact, its law is very much the same as what the Financial Times reports Australia is wanting to do to block Chinese and American purchase of farmland.[1]

The IMF also insists that debtor countries dismantle public regulations againstforeign investment, as well as consumer protection and environmental protection regulations. This means that what is in store for Ukraine is a neoliberal policy that's guaranteed to actually make the situation even worse.

In that sense, finance is war. Finance is the new kind of warfare, using finance and forced sell-offs in a new kind of battlefield. This will not help Ukraine. It promises to lead to yet another crisis down the road very, very quickly.

PERIES: Michael, let's unpack the debt in this crisis. The war has led Ukraine into a deeper crisis. Talk about the devastation that has caused and what they have to manage in addition to what the IMF is trying to impose on it.

HUDSON: When Kiev went to war against Eastern Ukraine, it fought primarily the coal mining region and theexport region. Thirty-eight percent of Ukraine's exports are to Russia. Yet much of this export capacity has been bombed out of existence. Also, the electric companies that fuel the electricity to the coal mines been bombed out. So Ukraine can't even supply itself with coal.

What is so striking about all this is that just a few weeks ago, on January 28, Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said that the IMF does not make loans to countries that are engaged in war. That would befunding one side or another. Yet Ukraine is involved in a civil war. The great question is thus when the IMF will even begin to release the loan it has been discussing.

Also, the IMF articles of agreement say that it cannot make loans to an insolvent country. So how on earth can it be part of a loan bailout for the Ukraine if, number one, it's at war (which has to stop totally), and number two, it's insolvent?

The only solution is that Ukraine will scale back its debts to private investors. And that means a lot of contrarian hedge funds investors. The Financial Times today has an article showing that one American investor alone, Michael Hasenstab, has $7 billion of Ukraine debts and wants to speculate in it, along with Templeton Global Bond Fund.[2] How is Ukraine going to treat the speculators? And then, finally, how is the IMF going to treat the fact that Russia's sovereign fund lent 3 billion euros to the Ukraine on harsh terms through the London agreement terms that can't be written down? Is the IMF going to insist that Russia take the same haircut that it's imposing on the hedge funds? All of this is going to be the kind of conflict that's going to take much more effort than even the solutions that we've seen over the last few days have taken on the military battlefront.

PERIES: And so how could Ukraine imagine getting out of this crisis?

HUDSON: It probably imagines a dream world in which it'll get out of the crisis by the West giving it $50 billion and saying, here's all the money you need, spend it as you want. That's the extent of its imagination. It is fantasy, of course. It's living in a dream world -- except that a few weeks ago, George Soros came out in The New York Review of Books and urged Congress and "the West" to give Ukraine $50 billion and look at it as a down payment on military or with Russia. Well, immediately Kiev said, yes, we will only spend them on defensive arms. We will defend Ukraine all the way up toSiberia as we wipe out the Russians.

Bit today a Financial Times editorial said, yes, give Ukraine the $50 billion that George Soros asked for.[3] We've got to enable it to have enough money to fight America's New Cold War against Russia. But the continental Europeans are saying, "Wait a minute. At the end of this, there'll be no more Ukrainians to fight. The war might even spread into Poland and into elsewhere, because if the money that's given to Ukraine is really for what the Obama administration and Hillary and Soros are all pressing for -- to go to war with Russia -- then Russia's going to say, 'Okay, if we're being attacked by foreign troops, we're going to have to not only bomb the troops, but the airports they are coming in through, and the railway stations they're coming in through. We're going to extend our own defense towards Europe.'"

Apparently there are reports that Putin told Europe, look, you have two choices before you. Choice one: Europe, Germany and Russia can be a very prosperous area. With Russia's raw materials and European technology, we can be one of the most prosperous areas in the world. Or, Choice two: You can go to war with us and you can be wiped out. Take your choice.

PERIES: Michael, complex and interesting times in Ukraine, as well as at the IMF. Thank you so much for joining us.

HUDSON: It's good to be here, Sharmini.

PERIES: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

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    cripes, February 15, 2015 at 4:20 am

    Well, Michael, don't sugarcoat it for us.

    Of course, it's hard to argue with his perspective: the war state impoverishes everyone except the war profiteers, which now includes the western financial system in full flower.

    Maybe my 401K has an emerging market fund so I can profit from Slavic misery?

    That's about the extent of our democratic participation in this fiasco.
    Disgusting.

    participant-observer-observed, February 15, 2015 at 3:39 pm

    Hudson's voice needs echoing, since the reality here is much worse than 401k investments gone evil

    As FL Rep A Grayson pointed out in January (Fake Trade TPP), with 14 yeas of half-trillion trade deficits, USA has nothing left to export than death and destruction, and since no one wants to buy it, it can only be peddled through force or swindling.

    That's one reason Hudson did not fail to mention Monsanto, which has found no one is interested in their sterile seeds. This is like dumping nuclear wastes in developing countries.

    James Levy, February 15, 2015 at 6:41 am

    Every army needs motivated and competent trigger-pullers. What this and other policies of Washington, Berlin, and Kiev are doing is making almost all potential Ukrainian trigger-pullers (except for the fanatical right-wing nationalist kind) disgruntled, demoralized, or already in flight from service. The more desperate measures the West and Kiev take to "win" this war the worse things get and the less likely they are to come out with even a respectable draw. The Donbas rebels and their Russian backers would be wise to just apply moderate pressure over time and let the Kiev government implode.

    Procopius., February 15, 2015 at 7:39 am

    This is why I've thought there was a Great Divide within the IMF.

    After reading Prof. Hudson's comments here I'm thinking there isn't really a divide - the so-called research part of the IMF is actually a public relations exercise.

    They come out and say, "Oh, our new research shows that we actually greatly underestimated the multiplier effect of austerity. So sorry, we won't make that mistake again."

    Then the knuckledraggers* who actually implement IMF policy go out and demand exactly the same terms the next time. From what I've read the IMF research people are actually pretty good, and lots of stenographers and right-leaning economists praise them to the skies as creating good policy, but they don't actually affect policy at all.

    *knuckledraggers - originally the operations division in the CIA, the guys who were actually out there conducting coups and killing people, so called in contrast to the analysts. I don't know what the operations people called the analysts, but I'll bet it's not fit for a family oriented publication.

    Pearl, February 15, 2015 at 8:39 am

    I hate that I'm always the one here at N.C. who has to have things "dumbed down" for me.

    But I have learned that when Michael Hudson speaks -- I want to be in the front row and listening intently to what he has to say -- because, where Professor Hudson leads, I ultimately always seem to follow. So, may I stop and regurgitate what I think Professor Hudson is saying -- and then let you smart people correct me and, hopefully (and helpfully) enable me to make sure that I have, at least, a rudimentary grasp on that which he has said? (And to correct me and to further elaborate, if anyone has the time or patience for it.)

    Okay. So, if my pea-sized brain were asked to explain (in housewife-ese) what Professor Hudson is saying, would I be on the right track in asking the following questions and making the following assumptions?

    1) Is Professor Hudson suggesting that Putin is suggesting one of two options -- that Russia, Germany, and Europe will either be allowed to play nice together (in the sandbox that we call the European Continent), making up a happy, well-balanced, partnership/playgroup, OR…… the U.S. will help fund the defense of Ukraine so that Ukraine will go to war defending itself against Russia (which Ukraine would, obviously and ultimately lose without U.S. boots on the ground)?

    2) And is Professor Hudson suggesting that Putin is saying that if the latter scenario is chosen, and that once a military operation involving the U.S. is underway, Russia would just go ahead and undertake a more hostility-induced "insertion of itself" into said German/European sandbox?

    3) Although not addressed directly in Professor's Hudson's commentary above, does Professor Hudson think that this is Putin's Russia trying to re-assert Russia's domination over the European continent or is this just Russia wanting to be taken as a serious and trustworthy playmate in the EU sandbox? (Is Russia having a little temper tantrum that is worth giving in to, or is this Russia being, ya know -- just a re-branded USSR?)

    *******

    Because the latter seems like a pretty significant threat, doesn't it?

    And if (we think) that Putin's end-goal is "total bully-driven European sandbox domination," that sort of seems like not a very good situation for Europe or for the U.S. (I would think?)

    And, furthermore, if "total bully-driven European sandbox domination," is what Putin has in mind, I think I could see my way clear to allowing a few of our militaristic capabilities a bit closer-in and a bit more "visible" to Putin at this point in time. (I mean -- we gotta park our fleet of battleships somewhere, anyway.)

    I don't want a war with Putin's Russia, but I think that I so much don't want a war that I would tend to want for Putin to get the message that he'll be given very little latitude in his behavior -- until we're absolutely certain that his intention is only to be allowed to make new friends and to flourish in the EU sandbox; not total sandbox domination.

    (And, btw, he can start by leaving his shirt on and leaving his tiger at home. I mean -- we need to see that he is capable of confining himself to a few very basic social norms, right?) :-)

    Nevertheless, I'm still not sure that I have understood the true underlying issues as Professor Hudson has tried to convey them -- and I have always looked to Professor Hudson as always being an authoritative commentator on "underlying issues."

    So -- I would greatly appreciate any feedback, insight or clarification that anyone has to offer me. Thanks.

    sleepy, February 15, 2015 at 9:01 am

    Really? No need to dress up your Putin hate in rhetorical cuteness.

    Pearl, February 15, 2015 at 12:22 pm

    @ Sleepy.

    May I call you "Grumpy," instead? :-)

    I'm sorry if I prompted you to distill down my words into some organic form of "Putin-hatred."

    On the other hand, thank you for referring to my rhetoric as "cute." (I must admit -- I'm quite flattered. Ya know -- I'm at that awkward age of 51 -- anything about me that may once have been considered "cute" is now sagging or drooping or expanding or wrinkling. And any promise of being "cute," as in the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sense of the word, the "lovable Bubbe" sort of "cute" -- is still quite a few years off.) So I sorta feel like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the 1960s Rankin Bass classic of the same name when Clarice refers to Rudolf as "cute." Indeed -- all day long there's gonna be an extra little bounce in my step as I think to myself, "Sleepy" at Naked Capitalism thinks my rhetoric is CUTE!!!

    I did not mean for my questions and/or comments to come off as sounding as though I hated Mr. Putin. Indeed, I have never met the man, and I do not know if I would like him or not. But my bar for hatred is a very high bar -- like Adolf Hitler high. So I doubt very much that I would hate Mr. Putin.

    Perhaps, if I were a better writer, my view of Mr. Putin would have struck you as nothing more than a healthy respect for a well-armed and powerful leader of a large country that is largely run by a handful of powerful business oligarchs in whom I have no trust.

    I made reference to the shirtless thing and the tiger thing (which, in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done) only because my brain often frames world issues in terms of how I, a former preschool teacher, would deal with a playground of preschoolers.

    Putin's behavior in seemingly insignificant forums (i.e. shirtless, tiger-hugging photo-ops) is something that I refuse to disregard as "quirkiness." Indeed, I personally regard such behavior as a "red flag" that this is a person who operates outside of social norms, and is, therefore less predictable, and is therefore, more worthy of keeping a closer eye on.

    That's all.

    Furthermore, as a preschool teacher -- I would be keeping my eyes on my whole class. Putin? I would probably recommend a one-on-one aide for his initial mainstreaming. (It would benefit him in that it might help him to not fail, and it would benefit the other children who might be harmed by any of the many ways in which he might fail.)

    And, if Putin had been one of my preschoolers -- I most-certainly wouldn't have hated him; I've never hated a preschooler. I've never even disliked a preschooler.

    The IMF? I view them as administrators of the preschool who have never had any hands-on preschool teaching experience, and therefore, usually walk a precarious tightrope of being either useless or harmful. (Some of whom are UNintentionally clueless, some of whom are idiots, and some of whom are decent -- yet exist in a bubble without realizing it. Which makes most of them ill-suited for their jobs.)

    I don't exactly parade around N.C. as some sort of policy wonk. I am authentically what I claim to be. I'm literally just a housewife. And it just so happens that I used to teach preschool. And I am the first to admit that my "C.V." does not measure up to the C.V. of practically any of the other folks who occasionally comment here.

    I cannot convey to you the extent to which I wish that I could bring to this forum the background and experience of one who was expert in international diplomacy or geo-politics or even basic economics and finance. But I realized a long time ago that Yves allows me to come to this forum with the only experience and background that I have -- which is, admittedly, no more than and no less than that of an average housewife. (And, truth be told -- I'm really not even any good at being a housewife.)

    So, I'm grateful to have a forum such as Naked Capitalism to read and to sometimes even feel welcome enough to chime in, despite my lowly status. Indeed, I always look forward to having my questions answered and I look forward to gleaning insightful feedback to my occasional comments.

    But now I know I can come here for compliments on my rhetorical style, too!

    Now. How about you go pour yourself a cup of coffee, "Sleepy," and we'll call you "Happy," instead of "Sleepy" or "Grumpy?"

    (Did I mention that I used to teach preschool?)

    Left in Wisconsin, February 15, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    Complements on your sense of humor and good-natured-ness also.

    Ned Ludd, February 15, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    Examples of Pearl's sense of humor and good-natured-ness:

    • "Is Russia having a little temper tantrum that is worth giving in to, or is this Russia being, ya know -- just a re-branded USSR?… Because the latter seems like a pretty significant threat, doesn't it?"
    • "And, furthermore, if 'total bully-driven European sandbox domination,' is what Putin has in mind, I think I could see my way clear to allowing a few of our militaristic capabilities a bit closer-in and a bit more 'visible' to Putin at this point in time. (I mean -- we gotta park our fleet of battleships somewhere, anyway.)"

    A "fleet of battleships" is an instrument of war and death. Rhetorical cuteness should not mask the implied threat of violence, when moving "a few of our militaristic capabilities a bit closer-in and a bit more 'visible' to Putin".

    From Raúl Ilargi Meijer:

    [O]ur media told us Putin is the bogeyman. And 'we' never asked for any proof. […]

    But here we are: no proof and layer upon layer of sanctions. And nary a voice is raised in the west. If one is, it's to denounce the Russians as bloodthirsty barbarians. Even though there is no proof they did anything other than protecting what they see as their own people. Something we all would do too, no questions asked.

    Ukraine defines 2014 as the year western propaganda came into its own. Not just fictional stories about an economic recovery anymore, no, we had our politico-media establishment ram an entire new cold war down our throats. And we swallowed it whole.

    - 2014: The Year Propaganda Came Of Age

    craazyboy, February 15, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    I guess it's not surprising the Obots will be out in support of the New Cold War -- if they even plan on keeping it only a Cold War.

    No Drama Obama???? Puleeze.

    Besides -- I like seeing Putin having to pander to Russian voters. (all the macho leader stuff). Makes him seem like less of a "Mad Dictator".

    Pearl, February 15, 2015 at 6:16 pm

    @Ned Ludd

    Perhaps I wasn't clear, or perhaps my original comment was not put in the context of Michael Hudson's interview.

    Or perhaps most everyone on this thread had a really crappy Valentine's Day yesterday and they're taking out their frustrations on me today. I don't know.

    But I know this.

    I am the daughter of a Nazi Holocaust Camp Liberator. Here is a video clip of the day my father, an 18 year old Private from Sioux City Iowa, along with allied forces, liberated the Nazi camp at Ludwigslust.

    http://www.ushmm.org/online/film/display/detail.php?file_num=1397

    I was born into, raised in, and am a product of a family that is as about as "war-avoidant" as one could imagine. Nevertheless, I also understand and appreciate that there are times when it's nice to have a military force so that you can do stuff like helping to stop the extermination of entire race of humans.

    I also appreciate that Russians were our allies in that effort, and I grieve for the (literally) millions of Russians who died as a result of that war.

    So please do not misunderstand or mis-characterize any of my statements as being that of some sort of war monger.

    Here is the part of Michael Hudson's interview to which I was referring and then asking for clarification about:

    "[Bit] today a Financial Times editorial said, yes, give Ukraine the $50 billion that George Soros asked for.[3] We've got to enable it to have enough money to fight America's New Cold War against Russia. But the continental Europeans are saying, "Wait a minute. At the end of this, there'll be no more Ukrainians to fight. The war might even spread into Poland and into elsewhere, because if the money that's given to Ukraine is really for what the Obama administration and Hillary and Soros are all pressing for -- to go to war with Russia -- then Russia's going to say, 'Okay, if we're being attacked by foreign troops, we're going to have to not only bomb the troops, but the airports they are coming in through, and the railway stations they're coming in through. We're going to extend our own defense towards Europe.'"

    Apparently there are reports that Putin told Europe, look, you have two choices before you. Choice one: Europe, Germany and Russia can be a very prosperous area. With Russia's raw materials and European technology, we can be one of the most prosperous areas in the world. Or, Choice two: You can go to war with us and you can be wiped out. Take your choice."

    So, my question/observation was just (if the question is should we arm Ukraine against the Russians) is that, no we shouldn't -- because there would (in all likelihood) be a greater loss of life if we did that. And, in alternate, I was asking -- couldn't we, instead, just park a few of our ships over there and hope that everyone will play nice (as nice as possible under the circumstances.)

    I'm not saying that the parking of a few battleships over there is a good idea -- In fact, I'll gladly concede that it's quite possibly an entirely sucky idea. I was simply trying to come up with an alternative option to arming Ukraine with $50 billion of weaponry.

    We have a bloated military industrial complex; I hate that we do, and I wish that it weren't the case.

    I was just wondering if -- being that we already have this bloated military industrial complex -- couldn't we at least try to use it for something more innocuous -- like just some plumage-showing as opposed to arming a country that would lead ultimately to lot of death and destruction -- when, in the alternate, maybe just plumage-showing would do the trick.

    So I know this thread has out-lived its time -- but I just couldn't leave it inferred and dangling out there an insinuation that I am some sort of war-monger.

    OIFVet, February 15, 2015 at 6:50 pm

    "Plumage-showing" should be reserved for mating rituals. In matters of war and peace, it leads to escalations.

    Perhaps you missed this past year's attempts by the US to goad Russia into a war, and the Euro poodles willingness to submit to the US "leadership" even though that's ultimately not in their own best interests. That's what Putin would have been referring to when it came to the Euro's choices. This past week also saw the Euro's realization that the US is not interested in de-escalaton, and that any further escalation is only going to hurt Europe more. That's why Merkel and Hollande went to Moscow. They know that cornering Russia can only lead to Russia lashing out, Russia will never back out as it is not their way, and besides they have no place left to back out to, what with NATO's eastward march. . So please explain, if you can, how will "plumage showing" lead to de-escalation and enhanced Euro poodle security?

    Pearl, February 15, 2015 at 7:07 pm

    @Left in Wisconsin.

    I like you.

    You're my favorite.

    :-)

    juliania, February 15, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    I believe sleepy's comment was justified. No need to pile on. You gave two alternative negative assessments of Putin's motives.

    How about this one? A ceasefire in Ukraine, commencing now on an important Russian feast day and the 70th anniversary of the dreadful allied firebombing of Dresden, has components to it that are hugely humanitarian and devoutly to be wished for. You seem to be ignoring that fact in your rush to judgment.

    I will leave it at that.

    Pearl, February 15, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    @Juliania

    Who gave two alternative negative assessments of Putin's motives?

    I did?

    (I can't tell for sure if your comment was directed at me or not.)

    Just in case it was aimed at me, please let me draw attention to the fact that I was quoting Michael Hudson when he said:

    Apparently there are reports that Putin told Europe, look, you have two choices before you. Choice one: Europe, Germany and Russia can be a very prosperous area. With Russia's raw materials and European technology, we can be one of the most prosperous areas in the world. Or, Choice two: You can go to war with us and you can be wiped out. Take your choice.

    So those were NOT my assessments, and I don't even know that those were Michael Hudson's assessments. In fact I was trying to gain clarity on that point.

    And of course I want a ceasefire. I'm always in the "let's stop shooting at each other" camp.

    Hope that clears it up.

    Geesh. Rough crowd today.

    (You have a pretty name, btw. I was gonna name my son Juliana -- had he not been, you know -- a son. I like Juliania even more.) :-)

    OIFVet, February 15, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    Whose "mainstream" are you referring to? American? If so, that's rather blatant exceptionalism and "indispensable nation"-mongering. Which is the US political way of going shirtless on a horse while pledging to spread "freedum and democracy" everywhere there's oil and/or other strategic interests.

    craazyboy, February 15, 2015 at 9:08 am

    The Pentagon has already revealed the Weird and Shocking Truth -- Putin is one of the Lizard People!

    He has plans to subvert the IMF using alien mind control techniques and have the IMF loan Mexico 50 billion dollars so that Mexico may purchase arms (the defensive kind -- like the US DEFENSE DEPT has!) and defend itself from US and NATO Adventurism. But Inquiring minds ask, "Will It Stop There?! Will Mexico roll across our borders?". Of course they will. Central America basically sucks, so no reason to go that direction.

    Clearly, the West must act preemptively towards this real threat and defend whatever allies we install -- anywhere in our free world!

    NotTimothyGeithner, February 15, 2015 at 9:13 am

    From Putin's perspective, NATO has been rapidly growing, the U.S. is a drunk child on the world stage, Russian peace keepers have already been attacked by an adviser to Poroshenko*, has faced economic sanctions (an act of war by most standards), sees old time Bandarists running Kiev, is compared in public to ISIS and Ebola by the U.S. President, was accused of downing a civilian airliner**, and even has American officials publishing fake evidence of Russian troops in the Ukraine.

    War has been declared, and if the 500 million people in the EU can't handle a population of 150 million recovering from the Yeltsin years and predatory Western finance (Putin kicked them out; his real sin), it would probably be for the best if Russian troops returned to Berlin.

    *Georgia hasn't come up in the propaganda for a reason.
    **Obama and crew haven't brought it up, and the official dutch report mentions a plane crash.

    Also, Putin likely means Western Europe can stop being a U.S. vassal or be frozen out of the Shangai Cooperative which includes Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and non-EU members of the USSR. The U.S. isn't going to fuel Europe any time soon, and most of Europe's governments are weak with major employment problems.

    As for Crimea, the old Ukraine ceased to exist after the coup, and every sane person in the world recognized that Russian defense depends on Crimea. They will never risk losing it.

    Santi, February 15, 2015 at 9:48 am

    The next blog entry (Itargi's) is about being trapped in narrative. After reading it you might feel less so…

    Regarding narratives, I am very much remembered of Cuban missile crisis and subsequent naval blockade by the USA.

    I guess US people should not feel strange if Putin warns aggressively when they get too close to Russia. Negotiations between the IMF and Russia should ensue, I think Poroshenko, Merkel and Hollande are not really useful in the talks. (Tongue in cheek)

    OIFVet, February 15, 2015 at 2:16 pm

    " I think I could see my way clear to allowing a few of our militaristic capabilities a bit closer-in and a bit more "visible" to Putin at this point in time." So you would? I just want to ask, who will pick up the tab and the responsibility for the consequences of your cock-swinging contest with Putin? These policies do not do anything to undermine Putin but they do a lot to destabilize US colonies, or as we colloquially refer to them, "allies". I wrote about the latest such case a few days ago.

    Chaos only benefits American imperial elites, thus chaos is our main export these days. So why in the world would you want to support such non-sense? I doubt that's where Michael Hudson will ever take you but you can bet your bottom dollar that's where the warmongers in DC want to take us.

    participant-observer-observed, February 15, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    Did you watch the video or just read the transcript? Because my viewing didn't lead me to hear Michael's thesis to be about Putin and Russia at all.

    Rather, Hudson is pointing out that once past military interventions, rape, pillage etc. of the brutish, arm-to-arm combat sort, we will still have the spectacle to observe of the economic rape & pillage to contend with. I.e., that the "solutions" on offer (Oligarchic tunnel vision as usual), from all directions, are just more of the same problem-creating dynamic.

    He is essentially elaborating on German Chancellor's point of there being no military solution, and following it to the natural conclusion, which consequence remaining is absurdity showing economic solutions on offer are just a slower and more painful death and suffering than the brutish variety. (It is a logical argument form going back millennia "reduction to the absurd")

    You point out an important issue: Hudson's message is quite subtle, and therefore may be hard for many people to grasp (let alone try like yourself), which is actually quite sad, because somewhere in Ukraine right now some babies are being born to parents who want their kid to live a life not dictated by death and destruction, of the slower or coarser varieties!

    Doug Terpstra, February 15, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    False humility and self-deprecation hardly mask your russophobia. And to your purported honest inquiry with a clever twist of Hudson's arguments: yep, you've got it exactly bass-ackwards (but points scored for creativity in regurgitating all the standard agit-prop behind a mask of feigned curiosity).

    One more time, the Ukrainian coup was US sponsored; the evidence, including recordings, is beyond dispute; all of the evidence of Russian aggression (including the now disappeared flight MH17) that you blithely presume has been demonstrably, repeatedly discredited; there is no evidence of Russian aggression, not in Crimea (peacefully re-admitted) nor anywhere else in Europe. And Hudson's representation of Putin's choice was not an ultimatum for one of two forms of domination as you disingenuisly paraphrased it, but one of mutually beneficial peace or war at only at their unilateral insistence.

    If your inqiry is genuinely honest, start your preschool education at another of today's posts by Ilargi, and if you want to get to the beginning, visit his site.

    Vatch. February 15, 2015 at 4:39 pm

    One more time, the Ukrainian uprising was not U.S. sponsored. The Ukrainian people were sick and tired of a succession of corrupt governments, and they wanted a change. Coups d'état are not characterized by massive crowds numbering in tens or hundreds of thousands. Coups d'état are carried out by small groups, often with the assistance of a country's military. What the U.S. sponsored were some of (or many of) the members of the post-uprising temporary government. This is what was recorded by eavesdropping.

    The seizure of Crimea was mostly peaceful, but it was a military event, nonetheless. In February, 2014, Russian soldiers stationed in Crimean bases illegally left those bases and seized Ukrainian government installations. Of course, the Russians have plausible deniability, because the Russian soldiers were not wearing any insignia that might identify them as Russians; hence their nickname "the Little Green Men". The referendum in March, 2014, was a farce worthy of North Korea: more than 96% in favor of unification with Russia. An honest election would probably still have approved the referendum, but 96%? Give me a break!

    Is Russia still paying for the use of the naval base in Crimea? They're obligated to do so under an international treaty with Ukraine, but of course Russia unilaterally abrogated that treaty:

    The Agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine, widely referred to as the Kharkiv Pact (Ukrainian: Харківський пакт)[1][2] or Kharkiv Accords (Russian: Харьковские соглашения),[3][4][5] was a treaty between Ukraine and Russia whereby the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea was extended beyond 2017 until 2042, with an additional five year renewal option in exchange for a multiyear discounted contract to provide Ukraine with Russian natural gas.[6] The agreement, signed on 21 April 2010 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and ratified by the parliaments of the two countries on 27 April 2010, aroused much controversy in Ukraine. The treaty was a continuation of a treaty signed in 1997 between the two nations. Shortly after the (disputed) March 2014 accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation,[7] Russia unilateral [sic] terminated the treaty on 31 March 2014.

    OIFVet. February 15, 2015 at 4:59 pm

    "Coups d'état are not characterized by massive crowds numbering in tens or hundreds of thousands." They were used as a cover. It's called "legitimizing the junta", giving it the appearance of "popular" support. Yes, the people were sick and tired of corruption. What they got was another set of corrupt flunkies, this time loyal to the US, who hijacked the Maidan. Your recurring desperate attempts to legitimize the junta by invoking the Maidan only delegitimizes the latter.

    "What the U.S. sponsored were some of (or many of) the members of the post-uprising temporary government." LOL, funny how the US sponsorees and US citizens ended up taking the reigns, and not temporarily either. They must be exceedingly honest and democratic lovers of freedum.

    "Is Russia still paying for the use of the naval base in Crimea?" Inanity, thy name is Vatch. I will play though, so tell me how much is the US paying Cuba for Guantanamo?

    Vatch. February 15, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    Crowds in coups d'état might be used as cover while the overthrow is occurring, or after it has already happened. They do not occur months before the overthrow, which is exactly what happened in Ukraine starting in November, 2013.

    I have no argument with you about the people who have joined the government since the uprising. Obviously the U.S. retains a huge influence.

    I think the U.S. does pay a trivial amount to Cuba for the Guantanamo naval Base under the terms of the treaty. This amount should be renegotiated. Even better, the U.S. should shut it down.

    OIFVet. February 15, 2015 at 5:21 pm

    "They do not occur months before the overthrow…" I know your reading comprehension couldn't possibly be this bad, even if you are a Chicago public school product. The US saw a great opportunity to throw a little coup d'etat and claim that it was the will of the crowds. Hence, my use of the term 'cover'. It really is not that hard to comprehend for anyone with an ounce of objectivity. And since you brought up the Nuland recording, is she some clairvoyant latter day Nostradamus that she foresaw that Yats will be the PM several weeks prior to the coup?

    "I think the U.S. does pay a trivial amount to Cuba for the Guantanamo naval Base under the terms of the treaty." No, it doesn't. Cuba, unlike Ukraine, has a modicum of self-respect and refuses to accept the generous lease payment of $4,000. Also, since when is Russia supposed to pay a lease for anything located on its sovereign territory?

    Ned Ludd. February 15, 2015 at 6:10 pm

    They do not occur months before the overthrow, which is exactly what happened in Ukraine starting in November, 2013.

    Chile, 1973.

    Ned Ludd. February 15, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    The words change, but the music stays the same.

    Earlier this year, we broke the story about USAID co-investing with Omidyar Network in Ukraine NGOs that organized and led the Maidan revolution in Kiev, resulting in the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. […]

    The truth is, USAID's role in a covert ops and subversion should be common knowledge-it's not like the record is that hard to find. Either USAID has developed those Men In Black memory-zappers, or else-maybe we don't want to remember. […]

    After populist left-wing candidate Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the first democratic elections in Haiti in 1990, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy began pouring funds into opposition groups opposed to Aristide. Noam Chomsky writes:

    "Aid for 'democracy promotion' sharply increased, directed to antigovernment, probusiness groups, mainly through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), also the National Endowment for Democracy and AIFLD (the AFL-CIO affiliate with a notorious antilabor record throughout the Third World). One of the closest observers of Haiti, Amy Wilentz, wrote that USAID's huge 'Democracy Enhancement' project was 'specifically designed to fund those sectors of the Haitian political spectrum where opposition to the Aristide government could be encouraged.'"

    A few months later, in 1991, Aristide was overthrown in a coup.

    Doug Terpstra. February 15, 2015 at 8:07 pm

    Not one but TWO Gallup polls tend to support the legitimacy of the election results in Crimea and there is little evidence of fraud or coercion… at the level suggested by your cogent "gimme a break" innuendo that Crimea is equivalent to North Korea.. This is further corroborated by the manifest peacefulness of the process itself and the year since - little or no unnrest or discontent. This was the overwhelming will of a people in the aftermath of an illegitimate coup, who had for generations prior always been Russian.

    And yes, one more time, what don't you get about "f**k the EU" and "our man Yats", and. "five billion dollars" and the neo-Nazis militantscCain and Pyatt pal around with.

    Steve H.. February 15, 2015 at 9:17 am

    Russia has far too much investment in corrupt European politicians to want a war with Europe (see Gerhard Schröder). The taking of Crimea at U.S. expense (see Nuland) was a strategic opportunity that would have been foolish to disregard. Russia is placing itself in the middleman position for the transport of commodities, the link between Asia and Europe, and has made the point in the past (during the Georgia uprising) that the infrastructure for European needs is tremendously vulnerable.

    Russia without Putin would likely still pursue these goals. The steppes are like the huge big brother at their back, such that there is no existential threat to the existence of Russia. He is making the point that Europe has far more to lose, if necessary Russia can cut them off and turn to Asia.

    Please review this article for insight into the internal processes of Russian governance:
    http://20committee.com/2014/12/27/putins-orthodox-jihad/

    Steve H.. February 15, 2015 at 9:19 am

    (Reply meant for Pearl.)

    Pearl. February 15, 2015 at 12:42 pm

    Thank you so very much, Steve H.!

    I am only a few paragraphs into your link, but it is providing the background and texture for which I wanted and needed to overlay the information in the Michael Hudson interview.

    (I didn't want you to have wait an hour or two for me to thank you -- so I'm going to get back to reading that which you sent. Thanks again, so much.)

    Pearl. February 15, 2015 at 1:57 pm

    Wow. That website to which you linked is amazingly thought-provoking. (Dare I say….addictive!) :-0 I'm hooked. The comments are really interesting, as well.

    It's fascinating to me that we have these two great powers, Russia and the United States; one currently being led by a President who has been been nicknamed "No Drama Obama," and the other country being led by a seemingly 180-degree opposite personality -- an "all drama," or if you will, a "Tooten' Putin."

    Indeed, this in itself would tend to set the stage for some very interesting and very complex geo-politics.

    Have you read much about the (subset?) of Nash Equilibrium/Game Theory that is referred to as "Drama Theory?" I wonder how "Drama Theory" would fit into this conflict. It's older work, but interesting:

    http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/092.html ("Don't Get Even, Get Mad: When it looks like you just can't win, what's the most rational thing to do? Try going completely crazy," suggests Robert Matthews.)

    Anyway, thanks again for the link.

    OIFVet. February 15, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    "Russia has far too much investment in corrupt European politicians…" Not nearly as much as the US. See all "liberul" Euro politicians both in the East and in the West, eagerly selling their countries' interests for a few silver dollars.

    lolcar. February 15, 2015 at 9:18 am

    Russia's military budget is exceeded by France and the UK alone, let alone the EU as a whole, let alone the entire NATO alliance. Not sure how you get to Russia being in any position to "bully" Europe. Parking a fleet of battleships in Russia's backyard or, more useful in this day and age, a fleet of ballistic missiles on Russia's border would of course in no way be "bullying" because we in the West are such special snowflakes who only engage in violence reluctantly and for the highest of moral purposes.

    NotTimothyGeithner. February 15, 2015 at 10:07 am

    How much goes to the military and how much goes to hookers and blow is a huge deal. The U.S. has captive markets and can force F-35 contracts. The Russian planes need to work to be sold, and they don't have oceans protecting them.

    NATO trained and equipped soldiers haven't been fairing too well without overwhelming air power. See Iraq and Georgia. In the case of Georgia, the ex-President currently hiding out from trial in the now NATO ally here in the U.S. started the hostilities.

    lolcar. February 15, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Actually meant as a reply to Pearl's interpretation of

    "Putin told Europe, look, you have two choices before you. Choice one: Europe, Germany and Russia can be a very prosperous area. With Russia's raw materials and European technology, we can be one of the most prosperous areas in the world. Or, Choice two: You can go to war with us and you can be wiped out"

    as some kind of Russian threat of complete domination of Europe. But of course, you're right -- the actual fighting power per dollar spent may well be a lot lower in the NATO alliance.

    bob. February 15, 2015 at 2:23 pm

    "Georgia, the ex-President currently hiding out from trial in the now NATO ally here in the U.S. started the hostilities."

    The now williamsburg, brooklyn hipster?

    http://news.yahoo.com/georgias-saakashvili-appointed-aide-ukraine-leader-095756606.html

    Leading a line of tanks with his fixie.

    bob. February 15, 2015 at 4:58 pm

    He derives his power from his lime green shoes:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/world/europe/mikheil-saakashvili-georgias-ex-president-plots-return-from-williamsburg-brooklyn.html?_r=0

    Pearl. February 15, 2015 at 2:51 pm

    @lolcar regarding your reply to my comment:

    "Not sure how you get to Russia being in any position to "bully" Europe."

    I'm not sure that they are -- I guess I just assumed it was possible because of Russia's nuclear capability and because of Russia's sheer size? I dunno.

    But I really was just trying to have clarified if that is how the two choices given by Putin (per Michael Hudson) were intended to be taken. I really wasn't sure -- and that's why I was asking.

    Btw, and thank you for bringing to my attention, the following information -- which I did not know:

    "Russia's military budget is exceeded by France and the UK alone, let alone the EU as a whole, let alone the entire NATO alliance."

    I really didn't realize that.

    And, btw, I agree that the U.S. is not a special snowflake that does not ever provoke war. Ironically (predictably) the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld misguided invasion of Iraq just made the United States more "hated," less respected, and less trusted. So in a way, it just seems like we have to be more "on guard" now because we're more hated/disrespected/distrusted (understandably) than we were before we (ever-so-thoughtfully) invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and helped to further destabilize an entire region of the world. It was the gift that keeps on giving, no?

    Anyway, I appreciate your insight. It's difficult to keep up with geo-politics, and I was actually caught fairly off guard as to the Ukraine situation when it all exploded, and I'm trying to catch up in getting a grasp on it.

    (Although, now I'm thinking of giving up on ever being able to grasp it, as my brain seems ready to explode just in scratching the surface here!) :-)

    Pension60. February 15, 2015 at 9:53 am

    The EU is waging war on Russia for parts of eastern Europe that historically were Russian and have Russians living in them. And who cares about bits of the Ukraine, when the EU will starve to death the Ukrainians with the help of the IMF just as they did in Greece.

    At least with Russia, Ukraine people would eat.

    As Gandhi observed, People's Politics Are Their Daily Bread.

    The UK has no EU debt, but starves its poor to such an extent that after the general election in May that the poor will not bother to come out and vote and leave a hung parliament of twiddledee and twiddledum parties, the UN will return to continue its investigation into early deaths and suicides caused by UK's welfare reform.

    There is a way to get rid of the big neo-liberal parties altogether in this UK general election.

    See how on: http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk

    I belong to no political member. I am a voter suffering our political class stuck 1000 years into the past, educated in an ancient feudal mindset of past aristocracy in public schools (elite private schools) and Oxford and Cambridge universities.

    MartyH. February 15, 2015 at 11:00 am

    Michael Hudson graced us at the last NY NC Meet-Up. He's as blunt and brilliant in person. While I am sure his analysis on this is as accurate as is usual for him, I just wonder how the IMF expects to plunder what has already been strip-mined by the oligarchs and the other vultures for the past decade or more. I guess their specialty is extracting blood from stones.

    susan the other. February 15, 2015 at 11:42 am

    I think the objective is political control. It has worked quite well for decades. An impoverished country that is forced to privatize its most valuable resources is being reduced to a political non-entity. It's the sovereignty question all over again.

    cassandra. February 15, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    Au contraire, in some ways, a broken country is ideal for extraction. Privatised assets can be had on the cheap, and with declining living standards, labor costs plunge as well. True, birth rates fall and suicides rise, but managed correctly, the resulting social malaise ensures political docility, and drives those with the intelligence and energy to resist, to emigrate instead. What's not to like? And in Ukraine, there's even more to like. We have farmland (coveted by Cargill et al.), well-known iron ore and coal deposits, and less-frequently discussed strategic metals (guess who's been the worldwide exporter of titanium sponge?). One report on such connections can be found at https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/16/corporate-interests-behind-ukraine-putsch/, but a targeted internet search uncovers a lot more roaches hiding under these stones. Imposing such an austerity package is, after all, what the IMF is for.

    cassandra. February 15, 2015 at 2:01 pm

    Au contraire, in some ways, a broken country is ideal for extraction. Privatised assets can be had on the cheap, and with declining living standards, labor costs plunge as well. True, birth rates fall and suicides rise, but managed correctly, the resulting social malaise ensures political docility, and drives those with the intelligence and energy to resist, to emigrate instead. What's not to like? And, in Ukraine specifically, there's even more to like: farmland (coveted by Cargill et al.), well-known iron ore and coal deposits, and less-frequently discussed strategic metals (guess who's been the worldwide exporter of titanium sponge?). Previously-resisted fracking becomes possible; check out Burisma Holdings, where Joe Biden's son Hunter plays footsie with Igor Kolomoisky. An excellent report can be found at Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Putsch . IMF job creation in action.

    bob. February 15, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    That's also probably what pissed Putin off the most, re cargill. They were probably buying food from Ukraine with Roubles, not anymore? I haven't been able to find any numbers that I trust on either russian imports of food, or Ukrainian exports. Even less on the denomination of the trades.

    It's been some time since I looked. Maybe worth another look now.

    Food can really screw with the balance of payments. In this case, russia may now have to cough up dollars for food it might have been buying with roubles. Effectively, a double hit.

    Big deal.

    susan the other. February 15, 2015 at 11:31 am

    Back when Rummy was dismissing the EU as "Old Europe" and pushing all of eastern Europe to join NATO -- that was 2001 -- we were overwhelmed with news from Afghanistan and Iraq. Now that Middle East oil has been secured everything is fine. Oh wait. I must have missed something. As Bremmer cryptically informed us, Ukraine is part of the larger plan. Rummy wanted to call it a crusade -- since those guys fought each other for centuries. But it was tactless so he settled on "Odyssey Dawn." How poetic. Good thing he didn't call it the Siege of Troy. Because the Achilles heel of NATO is -- ta da! -- oil. It is all about oil and NATO doesn't have any. We shouldn't be distracted with idiotic news reports about ISIL. That is until ISIL decides to take the Caspian. Then we will start to see what is really going on. In the meantime we will worm and weasel our way into a position in Ukraine to attack from the north. Maybe.

    NotTimothyGeithner. February 15, 2015 at 12:00 pm

    The goal was never to attack Ukraine or Russia. The goal was to isolate Russia from both China and the EU and the International arms/tech market.

    The U.S. shale and natural gas industry wants to export to Europe, but they aren't close to ready. If Russia develops, they will export, and between Russia and green energy, there goes that plan.

    As far as arms, would a country rather have a pos F-22/35 or a much cheaper S-400. F-35s aren't needed to put down local thugs. They are a tool of shock and awe. Countries not interested in invasion don't need them when cheaper alternatives to air defense exist. The U.S. controls it's hemisphere. We don't invest in air defense, just supremacy. It's a market we just don't compete in.

    Jack. February 15, 2015 at 7:02 pm

    The F-22 isn't a POS. It does exactly what it was designed to do. The problem is that what it was designed to do is largely superfluous, and it's too expensive. We aren't exporting it anyway, and since its chief selling point, the stealth, is almost certainly utterly worthless, potential buyers would be better off buying any of a number of other planes even if we were exporting it. Of course the constant slashing of military budgets as part of austerity means that most of Europe can't even afford their own natively developed alternative, the Eurofighter Typhoon. You're correct though that cheap and effective AA systems mean any air war isn't likely to last long. And Russia would be playing defensive in any conflict. They'd just sit back and snipe the skies clear.

    skippy. February 15, 2015 at 7:54 pm

    Starwars all over again…

    susan the other. February 15, 2015 at 11:52 am

    Hudson's new book sounds great. "Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroyed the Global Economy." Excerpts please, lots of them.

    susan the other. February 15, 2015 at 11:57 am

    I hope there is a long chapter in it about the mind-boggling expenses of today's modern military.

    Chief Bromden. February 15, 2015 at 12:55 pm

    "Shock Doctrine" is alive and well… and I thought for sure Ukraine was another U.S. humanitarian exercise.

    "By encouraging reforms such as the deregulation of seed and fertiliser markets, the country's agricultural sector is being forced open to foreign corporations such as Dupont and Monsanto.
    The Bank's activities and its loan and reform programmes in Ukraine seem to be working toward the expansion of large industrial holdings in Ukrainian agriculture owned by foreign entities."

    http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08/what-do-the-world-bank-and-imf-have-to-do-with-the-ukraine-conflict/

    Jim Haygood. February 15, 2015 at 1:18 pm

    Time limitations may have precluded Michael Hudson from mentioning Ukraine's devaluation of the hyrvnia. WSJ, Aug. 2014:

    '[In late April] the IMF said Ukraine might need to inject the equivalent of 5% of the country's gross domestic product, roughly $6 billion, into its banks to stabilize the financial sector if the exchange rate rose above 12.5 hryvnia to the dollar.'

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/08/12/ukraines-currency-drop-may-swell-emergency-bailout-needs/

    Bloomberg, Feb. 2015:

    'Ukraine's foreign-debt costs ballooned after the central bank let the hryvnia depreciate by 31 percent on Feb. 5 to bring the exchange rate closer to black-market levels [of around 24 hryvnia per dollar], a move backed by the IMF.'

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-09/ukraine-talks-no-cause-for-market-optimism-east-europe-credit

    Classically, IMF programs urged devaluation to boost export competitiveness. Last April the IMF said a hryvnia exchange rate below 12.5 would weaken the banks; now it's about 26.3 hryvnia per dollar.

    Ukraine FinMin Natalie Jaresko seems to be 'letting the hryvnia slide' to get in the IMF's good graces for the next tranche, even as the prospects for defaulting on foreign currency debt rise. This suggests a modified version of Michael Hudson's IMF modus operandi:

    'Don't pay your bondholders, so that you're now in selective default to them and owing us, the IMF, to whom you can't write down debts. '

    gordon. February 15, 2015 at 7:53 pm

    There is a very simple solution to the problems of the Ukraine, one that should be familiar to any European statesperson: partition.

    I'm thinking a 3-way division between Russia, Germany and the US (which would act as the representative of Monsanto, Cargill and the other agribusiness giants). I'm sure the OSCE could form the basis for a Partition Commission which could meet (maybe in Vienna, for historical reasons) to supervise the negotiations over boundaries and set up an agreed framework for investment in the ex-Ukrainian territories and the marketing of their products. A continuing Commission of the Partitioning Powers might be required to oversee and if necessary adjust the operation of such arrangements. Obviously, no Ukrainian representatives would be required for this work. I think the partition should be complete, ie. there should be no remaining independent "Ukrainian" territory, because this would only be a platform for tiresome and destabilising Ukrainian irredentism.

    Such a solution along good old 18th Century lines would leave only the problem of outstanding Ukrainian debts. Perhaps the best solution here would be the formation of an international Sinking Fund to which workers in ex-Ukrainian territories would be required to contribute a proportion of their earnings. Setting up such a Fund could be another part of the work of the continuing Commission.

    I'm sure there's much more to be said about partition arrangements once people get their heads around the basic idea and realise that moving Back To The Future in this way offers the best hope for a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian problem. After all, the problem is not new; it is a problem that has confronted European powers many times in the past and has often been solved in this way. Ask any Pole.

  • [Feb 15, 2015] Ron Paul: Ukraine Coup Planned By Nato And EU

    Ron Paul: "The Ukraine coup was planned by NATO and EU... The best thing we can do for Ukraine is get the foreigners out." Quote from comments: "That is where anyone who does not believe that USA, EU and NATO are totally responsible for the violent mess Ukraine has become."
    Feb 15, 2015 | zerohedge.com

    As Ron Paul recently exclaimed, the war propagandists are very active and are winning over the support of many unsuspecting American citizens. So we thought the followingg 90 seconds of 'pure Paul' would provide a refreshingly different perspective as he explains, "I'm not pro-Russia, I'm not pro-Putin, I'm pro-facts."

    "The Ukraine coup was planned by NATO and EU... The best thing we can do for Ukraine is get the foreigners out."

    As Ron Paul previously concluded:

    Our government has no more credibility in telling us the truth about the facts that require us to expand our military presence in this region than Brian Williams.

    Constant war propaganda has proven too often to be our nemesis in supporting constant war promoted by the neoconservatives and the military industrial complex.

    ...

    The only way that Congress can be persuaded to back off with our dangerous interventionism, whether it's in the Middle East or Ukraine, is for the American people to speak out clearly in opposition.

    ekm1

    Where are the facts Mr Ron Paul?

    Ron Paul is making up stuff in order to sell products to disciples.

    Coup in Ukraine was staged by Putin via Yanukovych. Yanuk did not camapaign on joing eurasian union.

    Joining eurasian union was a coup d'etat by Putin and Yanukovych.

    What happened was the counter coup, which yes, was urged by USA and nato

    cigarEngineer

    EKM1, how is the air conditioning at US Misinformation Warfare Headquarters? Do you get paid weekly or bi-weekly? Then again, at $15/hr, who cares, right...

    Ignatius

    Lying for a living. Don't he know that politics pays better? Maybe he's just packin' his resume.

    Winston Churchill

    EKM just graduated to my do not bother to read comment list.

    Maybe PPT really stands for Piss Poor Trolls.

    Calmyourself

    British Battalion 77 peter puffers have arrived.. EKM, which barracks you out of? I am sure you will tell us next multiculturism is strengthing Britain..

    Jack Burton

    Winston, I don't know if you have noticed, but over the last few months the State Department Internet posters have moved away from ZH. Perhaps they consider us a lost cause. But some months back they were still very active here, posting sometimes dozens of State Department talking points, but winning no converts. As of late, they have withdrawn to troll more mainstream blogs and News Paper comments sections.

    The one benefit of the Ukraine Coup and civil war has been the western media exposing it'self like never before as one channel propaganda. Never before has media told so many demonstrable lies in so short a time. The transparent lies have begun to catch many people's attention. The script they read from is not at all clever or well thought out. The script is terribly transparent, and so easily proved to be lies.

    So, will this new war propaganda win? So far I say it's 75 yes, 25% no. So many Americans just lap up the lies without trying to get the real story. Fools have been

    TungstenBars

    "The one benefit of the Ukraine Coup and civil war has been the western media exposing it'self like never before as one channel propaganda."

    I agree 100% with this; more and more people are seeing the US state sponsored propaganda for what it is.

    In regards to "So, will this new war propaganda win?":

    I stated here before that the secondary objective of modern state sponsored propaganda in the west is to gain popular support, but the main objective is to send out the "offical accepted version of world events", meaning that it does not matter if 99% of Americans do not believe it. So long as America does not erupt in a civil war, what the state sponsored media says stands and nothing else matters and will be ignored. Anyone asking questions or causing trouble will be pointed to or judged based on that propaganda as if it was truth. Pretty much 1984.

    angel_of_joy

    He's from Toronto... the navel of the Universe (in their own opinion). Their view of the world is somewhat distorted, and "potted"...

    TungstenBars

    The state-sponsored anti-russian propaganda in Canada is in overdrive. Harper has gone full retard and traitor to appease to certain foreign interests.

    Most people don't believe the nonsense whatsoever. EKM, I don't get why he is so special as to actually believe it. He speaks for no-one.

    Jack Burton

    Canada just happened to be where the allies shipped the Ukrainian Nazis and SS veterans after World War II. The allies knew their strong anti communist and anti Russia bent, so figured to save as many as possible to form the useful agents they and their families now are. Harper is feeding those Western Ukrainian trolls and they in turn help ramp up public opinion into fever pitch.

    I am sick of this shit. My response to every person who repeats the lies, I will tell them that it is "their duty to go to this war in person, I will not accpet bullshit lies and then people asking others to due the fighting!" Put up or shut up assholes!

    Why does the west feed this war fever, and why the coup in the first place? War allows the public to be stripped of tax revenues, it allows national security to trump privacy and freedom, and it allows politicians to claim a patriotic mandate to rule us. Plus corporate profits and stocks are off the charts money makers.

    Spitzer

    This is true. They are scattered all over alberta and Sk. I met one recently that was bragging about cross burnings in Provost. Provost is a nazi ukranian KKK town

    Latina Lover

    Quoting Jack Burton:

    "I am sick of this shit. My response to every person who repeats the lies, I will tell them that it is "their duty to go to this war in person, I will not accpet bullshit lies and then people asking others to due the fighting!" Put up or shut up assholes!"

    I couldn't have said better myself. As a former grunt who saw some action when I was young and very stupid, any idiot advocating violence against others should put their money where their mouth is and lead by example.

    Instead we have this hypocrite drone army, spewing endless BS to induce others to die for their shabby causes, cowards hiding behind keyboards. To hell with all of them!

    schadenfreude

    http://www.kas.de/ukraine/en/publications/21063/

    This is from Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung a NOG from Germany. So this mght be propaganda or not. In fact there never were real elections Ukraine ever. Lawful was not one government there.

    giovanni_f

    Konrad-Adenauer-Siftung is anything but an unbiased organisation. Actually it is a transatlantic networking group in the business to spread neocon messages in Germany. The page you refer to does not contain ANY actual, proven issue but just the general out-of-the-air claim that the elections didn't meet demoratic standards.

    Try harder, Neocon troll.

    El Vaquero

    Are you claiming that Ron Paul was wrong when he said that we had a recording of the assistant US secretary of state and the US ambassador to Ukraine discussing who is going to take power in Ukraine BEFORE the coup in Ukraine?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvRljAaNgg


    ekm1

    Nuland did the right thing. It prepared the counter coup against Putin's coup

    El Vaquero

    Yes, Nuland took part in starting a civil war that has killed innocent people. That is obviously the right thing. Civil war is good for the people, or didn't people realize that?

    JESUS! FUCK!

    EU-Ukraine-Russia trade deals are NONE OF OUR FUCKING BUSINESS!

    BlindMonkey

    so the Nazi Ukies could have gone about their protests by peaceful means but Nazis gonna Nazi and tortured, burned, raped and stole their merry way across the countryside. Even the Ukies have had enough of their shit and have tried to pull them back at various times just to see the Nazis flex and storm the buildings of their own gov.

    As I write this I am wondering what ahit are you trying to pull? You don't seem to be a satire artist like MDB. Paid troll? Maybe. I don't see how anyone can objectively read the news and come to the same conclusions as you.

    El Vaquero

    That is some seriously fucked up reasoning. The US did the right thing by kicking off something that was inevetable and accomplished nothing except putting the US and Russia closer to war, which, BTW would go nuclear. You call that the right thing?

    You're fucking nuts. This should be none of the US's fucking business. I'm sick of sending our soldiers over to die for somebody else's cause. Why don't you Eastern Europeans solve your own fucking problems?

    ekm1

    USA is now the business of world police. Becoming a soldier is the safest way of employment.

    World security is USA's export now. There is no other way, for now.

    Soldiers know very well they will end up in interventions, but they like the money and the thrill of it.

    Nobody forces young people to enroll. The money and the thrill entice them to

    El Vaquero

    So you want the USA to solve your problems? Being globo-cop is proving to be an unethical gig for the US, and should stop.

    And have you ever heard a US soldier talk about how they were defending the US in our interventionist wars? I have. They actually believe it. Young people don't know what they are signing up for, and often they fail to realize what they have done after they are finished.

    So, again, why can't you Eastern Euroopeans solve your own fucking problems? You know that the US is not going to be able to backstop you forever. What then?

    ekm1

    Yes. I've spoken with many. Most love it being in the military, absolutely love it

    El Vaquero

    Gee, that must explain the excessively high suicide rate amongst US vets.

    ThroxxOfVron

    "Most love it being in the military, absolutely love it "

    I believe it. Oh, the gory glory. Oh, the rush of being tough and exerting power.

    ...& dumb women love a douche with a paycheck in a tidy uniform.

    angel_of_joy

    That love generally stops suddenly when they come to suffer the consequences of their choice (i.e. the possibility of getting maimed or dying in combat).

    The military is a wonderful (state supported and encouraged) vehicle for crass freeloading, until a war happens. Then, a soldier's personal ROI becomes dramatically (even terminally, for many) NEGATIVE !

    The_Prisoner

    Course they do. They're sociopaths like you to whom only personal gain, even at the cost of murdering others whom just want to live their lives is justified.

    g speed

    A lot of these kids just do what their parents want them to do---very sad---kids come home with no legs and look at dad and ask why?

    green888

    Dispute resolution ? Kill someone is your only way- look at your films, entertainment; there is a bad guy and then the "good guy" kills him. It has all become part of your psyche, as ultimately any of your disputes has to be resolved in this way; but the resentment you leave behind has a price.

    If you complain about others, you should go home and conduct a self examination.

    RichardParker

    EKM1:

    You want to know what your masters think of the military?

    POS Kissinger actually told the truth for once when he explained how ""Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."

    JustUsChickensHere

    Somebody seems to have hacked the ekm1 account. He was always sort of necon, but never this blatantly wacko before.

    El Vaquero

    He's Eastern European. I suspect that some deep cultural hatred of the Russians going back a century or 5 has something to do with it. I want nothing to do with that tribal mentality bullshit when it comes to a potential US-Russia confrontation because I don't want to see mushroom clouds over Kirtland AFB with my own eyes. Call me crazy for that.

    TheFourthStooge-ing

    He's Albanian, which makes him half Latvian, half Polack, and half Bulgoslovenakian.

    OpenThePodBayDoorHAL

    WTF you fascist, the world does not want or need American storm troopers telling them how to run their lives for the benefit of America. History is a story of lesser powers uniting to oppose tyranny and eventually winning, this will be no different. Get the fuck back in your cave deep in exceptionalist Anglo-American fantasy land and leave the rest of the world the fuck alone.

    reload

    @EKM

    'world security'

    Right: let's have a little stock take shall we of those recent lucky nations receiving the security export.

    • Iraq
    • Libya
    • Egypt
    • Yemen
    • Ukraine
    • Somalia

    Notice the trend? All places of great insecurity due to US led attempts to insert or maintain puppet client governments whose purpose is to loot their host countries.

    You used to make sense on some issues, even when you were needlessly cryptic you were thought provoking. Hell, you even called for oil to trade with a $40 handle even though your reasoning was off, it Has happened.

    You have lost the plot tonight.

    Libertarian777

    because... Putin wants to rule a basket case? that's why he started a civil war?

    I haven't heard any logical arguments for why Putin would want to take over the Ukraine. Next I'll hear he wants to take over Greece. For what purpose? Cos he wants their monuments? Or does he like their national debt and 30 hour workweek?

    The Russians are saying they are intervening to protect Russian people. The West claims Russia is trying to rebuild the Soviet Union.

    On the other hand the west is trying to expand NATO up to Russia's border (think of it as a 'western union').

    So even if Putin wants to recreate the USSR, why is it 'bad' when he wants to do it, but 'OK' when the west wants to do it? What is the distinction? Let me guess... human rights? Well the USA with a population of 330 million has MORE people incarcerated than CHINA with 1.2 BILLION people. (4x). Where's the 'human rights'?

    How many countries has Russia invaded. I'll even give you Crimea, so Crimea and Georgia.. that's 2.

    How many countries has the USA invaded... Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia.

    I can't follow the logic.

    LocalBoy

    NATO / IMF controlling Ukraine, along with Sevastopol, is instant suicide for Russia.
    Their choice was give in or fight. War became inevitable when NATO expanded toward Russia -

    It is well known that Russia will not give up Sevastopol, will not give up Ukraine to a foreign military alliance.

    lasvegaspersona

    'Nuland did the right thing'...sure...unless you believe in that whole 'democracy' thingy.

    An elected government was overthrown in violent protests that it appears the US organized and aided.

    This was done because NATO was displeased that the Ukes were not willing to move closer to the EU.

    NATO has shamelessly disregarded the agreements made way back when Gorby was in charge. They have place missiles in Poland fer-cryin-out loud.

    I think if I were Putin (and Russia) I'd be worried.

    chinoslims

    That's a bingo!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5pESPQpXxE

    will ling

    ah, nuland, mccrazy, kristol, et al , are "just soft" war criminals.

    ebworthen

    Oh ekm 1, puhleease! Yanukovych was elected by the people of Ukraine.

    How is an elected leader ousted by pro a EU Maidan which is supported by: the EU, NATO, our State Department, and meddling U.S. Senators - a coup by Putin?

    What is it you are smoking to make you believe such a thing?

    El Vaquero

    Observable facts do not matter to the narrative. Most will not look at them anyway. Putin could be the most evil sonofabitch the world has ever seen, and that still would not justify our destabilizing Ukraine.

    Element

    You realize Ukraine was totally broke well before any of this? Deeply in debt, big bills to pay, pooched economy? That sound stable to you?

    The reason Yanukovych was trying to obtain an association with the EU at all was because Ukraine was so broke and desperate for a new sugar daddy.

    And Yanukovych definitely would have gone that way too, if the IMF had not tried to fuck Ukraine so badly that Yanukovych was forced to walk away as it was national financial suicide to accept the terms Legarde wanted to inflict.

    The real source of the instability was Ukraine's own mess.

    What came next was just the rush to get the best bits of the carcass.

    So who was doing, or rather had already done, the destabilizing of the country?

    El Vaquero

    Yes, Ukraine was a corrupt broke mess. Why the fuck were our politicians over there? Why were they acting as though they knew that "Yats" was going to be the new PM? Why the fuck was John Brennan over there? What fucking business is it of ours?

    Miffed Microbio...

    The time will end for us as Global Cop as it always has in history. This is assured. However, only after millions have died during the posturing. And those who have played this role have never risen to that status again.

    This country will pay, including the innocents who were against the whole thing in the first place. We just get to watch while others distract themselves with amusements and trinkets.

    It is not our business now nor ever was. Why Ron Paul wasnt elected just blows my mind. That was our last hope for redemption.

    Miffed

    chinoslims

    It's not global cop. It's global robbery.

    El Vaquero

    Haven't you been paying attention to policing in the US lately? Civil asset forefitures plus shooting people because they dared to turn their back on the police while holding a plastic spoon means that cops and robbers are often one in the same.

    TheFourthStooge-ing

    The term you're looking for is protection racket.

    Element

    Nicely said, I see you have no trouble coming to terms with it, must be trauma ward experience kicking in.

    Miffed Microbiologist

    I accept the reality of it but this is no means a personal relief of my own responcibilities as a participant nor is it an escape into futility of action. Yes, if omnipotent, I would end this fast but since I am woefully lacking in such power I must content myself to personal and local rebellion. I hope others will join me at some point but it is always unwise to count on others.

    Americans have become slothful and content in their status in the world. It is ending now but few truly perceive it being subtle at this stage. When one is unconcerned about the atrocities this country is perpetuating on its own citizens or those in other nations, be it overt attacks or political maneuvering, then ones humanity is lost. I am not sure if it can be truly recovered. We brand our leaders as psychopathic but we should examine our own hearts as well.

    Yes, the inward trauma ward is not very pleasant. ;-)

    Miffed

    Element

    You don't really need a lesson on how geopolitics is played do you? I'll give you credit and presume you don't. But you better start to get real about this ElV, it isn't going to go away via wishes and idealism.

    It is real, and it is ugly, and it is about survival, or else not, and you do have to accept that it's happening and face it as it is, not how you would wish it to be.

    And that's all the slack I'm ever cut you on this topic.

    El Vaquero

    Serious question: Do you support a war with Russia? Because that is a very real danger with the kind of geopolitics being played today.

    Element

    Of course not.

    That said, it appears one key Russian does support war with NATO, given actions speak louder than words. It won't take long to find out if Putin is effectively suicidal. I think he's certainly become erratic over the past year, and made unexpectedly bad choices and extraordinary mistakes. I've been amazed by how badly he's done. So if this goes pear-shaped his recent judgement and decision-making under pressure doesn't inspire confidence.

    There's a moderate to reasonably good chance we're stuffed.

    The_Prisoner

    That's very magnanimous of you.

    You must have patience with us peons. Not all of us went to Duntroon and had the honor of serving the Empire.

    Thanks again, milord.

    Calmyourself

    Yanukovych pivoted to Russia for a saving loan and then what happened when he did not take money from EU bankers to prolong their party, that's right Nuland showed up to kick his ass out.. Get with the everlasting gobstopper of debt program or get "destabilized"

    Volkodav

    Yanuk was only thief, not open murderer... He also Ukrainian, not outsider alien passport gang

    Hefar lesser heavy handed than the "Red" mafia now in Kiev..who prove themselves killers.

    schadenfreude

    With all the propaganda dished out to the people it's difficult to know who staged what. But at least there are some facts, where eyerybody can draw conclusions.

    • French, German and Polish foreign ministers negotiated a deal with Yanukovich to have elections in September 2014. In the evening after this deal people on Maidan Sq. got shot. This caused the putsch against the government.
    • So the trigger was the shooting on Maidan Sq. which was never really investigated.
    • All actions afterwards was reaction and counter-reaction by the involved parties.
    • Nulands phone call is fact as well. This is an evidence of US involvement. Whether they initiated the shootings or Yanukovichs people for me is not proven, but likely. Why should Yanukovich do this, a couple of hours after he signed a deal with EU?

    Chupacabra-322

    Let's also not forget Criminal Psychopath / Sociopath Nuland's 5 Billion Dollar Fascist investment

    Victoria Nuland - Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs

    US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Nuland said: "Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government - all that is necessary to achieve the objectives of Ukraine's European. We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. " Nuland said the United States will continue to "promote Ukraine to the future it deserves."

    HowdyDoody

    Not to mention the repeated strange coincidence that the Nazi violence ramps up after visits from major US/CIA gov actors.

    geno-econ

    Nuland has admitted publicaly that State Dept has spent $ 5 Billion influencing Kiev regime change over last several years. Granted much of this was in form of encouraging ex-patriots here in States, propaganda directed towards Ukrainian citizens and aide money. Only people in government know how much was allocated for actual arms but everyone knows the activities of Neocons in Washington.

    The point is the US encourages regime change and recently has had a dismal record of failure and huge wasteful spending.

    Just look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Georgia, Yeman and now Ukraine. Ron Paul is correct.

    nailgunnin4you

    Joining eurasian union was a coup d'etat by Putin and Yanukovych.

    I think coup d'état is a little strong here, which American talking head has you recycling this verbal diarrhoea? Only a war-mongering murrican would say establishing a better trade deal for your country is a coup d'état.

    Yanuk did not camapaign on joing eurasian union.

    So, in your bubble, a country's leader can only establish trade deals/policies/legislature et cetera that he campaigned on, and anything else he did not take to a previous election is a coup d'état even if it is a simple trade deal benefitting the people?

    You're not this stupid, please stop.

    JustObserving
    Ron Paul: Ukraine Coup Planned By Nato And EU

    Of course. Maidan terrorists were trained months before in Poland:

    Ukraine: Poland trained putchists two months in advance

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article183373.html

    And now USA and Ukraine are destroying the new ceasefire:

    US and Ukrainian officials seek to torpedo Minsk cease-fire agreement

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/14/ukra-f14.html

    q99x2

    If the NWO is successful in killing Ukranian's it won't be long before they start killing Americans. Globalists are traitors against all nations.

    Element

    Great sentiments and rhetoric, not much else, as what he's calling for is the end of US involvement in NATO. OK, what then?

    US forces have to leave Europe ... completely, the lot. But Europe is most definitely not going to butt-out of the changing of borders in Ukraine using Russian force and support.

    He seems to want to ignore that Russia is in fact attacking Ukraine, has stolen its navy, has taken Crimea, and has tried to carve off more and more of Eastern Ukraine, even in the past couple of days.

    "I'm pro-facts."

    OK, but are you also prepared to accept the implications and imperatives that those facts, Ron?

    SMC

    OK, what then?

    PEACE

    Element

    Peace since WWII involved the "balance of terror" of MAD. It is a BALANCE of forces and strategy and position.

    Change the balance radically and the strategic game changes radically, i.e. not-peace. And it happens in multiple locations.

    rejected

    Fact: Crimea was 'gifted' to Ukraine in the 1950's by crazy Khrushchev without a plebiscite.

    Fact: Crimea voted for reunification when given the chance.

    Fact: Ukraine only owned the Sevastopol Navel base by the graciousness of Russia.Russia even paid for a lease.

    Fact: The Ukrainian Navy was allowed to exit Sevastopol after the reunification vote. Why would Russia want their junk?

    Fact: Sevastopol would never have been given up by Russia regardless of the reunification vote just as the USSA refuses to leave Guantanamo.

    Fact: Russia has given Ukraine control of all the borders including the break away provinces with the new Minsk agreement.

    Fact: You are full of shit.

    Element

    Fact: Crimea is the UN recognized Sovereign territory of Ukraine in law.

    Fact: Crimea being Ukrainian territory is recognized by the overwhelming majority of countries on Earth.

    Deal with it.

    angel_of_joy

    UN does not recognize the Kosovo entity, but it still exists. UN din't sanction the entire war against Serbia, but it still took place.

    Reality is different than UN's view of the world, and the realities on the ground in Ukraine are changing as we speak. Deal with it !

    rejected

    Fact: The UN is not a sovereign state.

    Fact: The UN is funded mainly by the U.S

    Fact: The UN has no authority to recognize any state.

    Fact: The UN 'supposedly' supports self determination by it's very charter.

    Fact: You are still full of shit.

    Element

    Chancellor Merkel: (a few days ago)
    "One particular priority was given to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia this morning. We stand up for the same principles of inviolability of territorial integrity. For somebody who comes from Europe, I can only say if we give up this principle of territorial integrity of countries, then we will not be able to maintain the peaceful order of Europe that we've been able to achieve. This is not just any old point, it's an essential, a crucial point, and we have to stand by it. And Russia has violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine in two respects: in Crimea, and also in Donetsk and Luhansk.

    So we are called upon now to come up with solutions, but not in the sense of a mediator, but we also stand up for the interests of the European peaceful order. And this is what the French President and I have been trying to do over the past few days. We're going to continue those efforts.

    And I'm very grateful that throughout the Ukraine crisis, we have been in very, very close contact with the United States of America and Europe on sanctions, on diplomatic initiatives. And this is going to be continued. And I think that's, indeed, one of the most important messages we can send to Russia, and need to send to Russia.

    We continue to pursue a diplomatic solution, although we have suffered a lot of setbacks. These days we will see whether all sides are ready and willing to come to a negotiated settlement. I've always said I don't see a military solution to this conflict, but we have to put all our efforts in bringing about a diplomatic solution. ..."

    i.e. Europe doesn't want the US to leave, and Washington does not want the US to leave either.

    SO THE USA IS NOT LEAVING EUROPE

    Get it?

    Both consider this to be in their vital interests.

    So these also are the facts of the situation, and you can try to ignore these facts, because you do not like them, you do not like the ugliness of geopolitics, but that changes nothing about geopolitics.

    All I'm doing here is pointing that out.

    So cry a river of tears if you think it changes anything, or that if merely I changed my mind, it would make you less pissy and aggrieved.

    But those facts of this situation, will remain.

    That's where Ron Paul, and people like you, have your heads rammed firmly up your butts, screaming to mother to make it all go away.

    And I understand (perfectly) why you would want the world to be different than it is, but it simply isn't going to be.

    Now seriously, grow up and try to cope with that, rhetorical fantasies don't help.

    Volkodav

    bored. Chancellor Merkel sang differently about Kosovo.

    Victory_Garden

    "Both consider this to be in their vital interests."

    Good sir, who's interests? Certainly you do not refer to the average American.

    From this heart, how does the extreme waste of manpower and money and MIC profit pumping for moar bankster profits become a "vital interest" to we, the average Americans? How is that "in their vital interest" to the rest of the world? All the warmongering for profits, world domination, and population elimination is NOT interesting, or in the better "interests" of America and the world's people at all.

    How can you justify the out right blatant murder of innocents, women, and children for the moneygod? Whose really vitally interested in that? Constant never ending warmongering in foreign lands is NOT the choice of real truth following Americans at all, nor in their best interests. It is ONLY for evil zionist/luciferian/sataninc interests and NO covering up that FACT will change this truth.

    Darn, never thought about disagree with you before, for your truth really lit the Way for many here once ago.

    From this perspective, if they were to go after the evil bankster empire of chaotic dust in Europe, THAT would be of "vital interest" to the freedom loving American people. In fact, the world would rejoice if ALL these evil things were rounded up and placed on an island in the middle of the ocean to do what they will. Good riddance say we all! War is of NO vital interest to anyone. It just does not work.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGpwKQo5_Z0

    Ventnor

    Element,

    Yes, but in Ukraine, things are going Putin's way, not yours. He will play his long game and he will prevail.

    It could mean the end of your beloved NATO, which will have no viable purpose if it cannot dragoon Ukraine into its ranks so as to encircle and ultimately destroy Russia.

    It could also mean the end of the the EU, but that appears to be coming apart at the seams anyway.

    You say Europe is dead keen on having the US remain in Europe. That's true of the elite -- largely because Paris and Berlin are terrified of the vacuum that would be created by US withdrawal. Paris knows Germany would have the whip hand; Germany is afraid of being alone at the top.

    Nevertheless, our murderous and immoral Ukraine policy is earning us lots of new enemies among European populations. We are playing with fire. Not sure if we don't know that, or just don't care.

    Element

    Yes, but in Ukraine, things are going Putin's way, not yours.

    • I am not taking a side.
    • I am totally non-partisan.
    • I am pointing out what is going to happen.
    • Not what people want to happen.
    • I am pointing it out to >>95% partisans. You are one of them.

    Partisans usually do not like how things will develop to be stated plainly, as it often goes against the way they want things to develop.

    So partisans then shoot the messenger, rather than take the warning, on its face value.

    Miffed Microbiologist

    Element, I happen to agree with you though it does bother me personally. Sometimes hard facts are unpleasant to truly face and hopes of alternative choices are seductive though not likely relevant in these games of power.

    My only grief is this is being played with a participant that is rotting from within. Given up its manufacturing base. Economically in the crapper and showering many with money just to live day to day. An aging sick population. We see this farce play out everyday. We are being drained dry internally and will soon be unable to fill this role losing our strong foundation. And when it ends, another will assume the role as it always has been throughout history. Can you blame us for wanting an end to this?

    As a small player in this, one who will be likely swept away when the power shifts, I can only watch it unfold. And this gives me no pleasure to admit such a thing.

    Miffed

    YHC-FTSE

    Mrs.M, if you examine his post it's quite easy to see that he is suffering from a condition called, "Fatalism".

    "Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine stressing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate. Fatalism generally refers to any of the following ideas: The view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do."

    His argument that the convolutions of geopolitics are a natural result of survival and therefore beyond the scope of our control or wishful thinking is both wrong and indifferent to the real crimes being committed in our name.

    • We know who is involved in supporting the neo-nazis and zionists in Ukraine: Victoria Nuland of the US State Dept.
    • We know thousands of innocent people have died as a result. We know wholesale looting is taking place by the Israeli oligarchs.
    • We know, from their own words, from the mouth of the current Ukrainian Prime Minister that those who oppose the coup are being threatened with being burnt alive - in fact many Russian language speaking Ukrainians in Odessa and Mariupol have actually been murdered in this way.

    What else could they do but fight against the nutjobs in Kiev and ask for help from Russia? Be burnt alive or become refugees?

    Yet to brush all this aside with glib remarks about geopolitics and national survival with quite insane philosophies on death lacking in any depth of analysis or empathy for the victims of these horrendous crimes is, I think, quite revolting. Yes, control of our fate is an illusion, but we are also the cumulative sum of all of our decisions.

    So, Mrs.M, you keep your compassion alive. Your empathy and reason do you credit in a world full of cold sociopaths. Without such sweet and bitter experiences to guide our moral values in life, life would be very dull and useless indeed.

    YHC-FTSE

    "I am not taking a side.
    I am totally non-partisan."

    For a guy who believes he is non-partisan you sure do have a LOT to say about it for one side.

    "I am pointing out what is going to happen."

    For a guy who thinks he is a realist or pragmatist, you sure are delusional about being able to tell what is going to happen. Newsflash: NOBODY knows the future. Not even you.

    What's wrong with you? There's nothing coherent in your "message" at all - perhaps that's why you're getting junked.

    angel_of_joy

    Americans shouldn't leave, but stay there and keep paying for (and subsidizing with manpower and equipment) the European "security".

    That would be a sure way toward self-destruction of contemporary US, which is already practically bankrupt (and not only from a moral point of view...).

    LocalBoy

    Ukraine's government was functioning under a Constitution. Within the Constitution was allowances for Crimea to remain autonomous. The Ukrainian Constitution was trashed when the overthrow occurred allowing Crimea to vote for independence.

    How can you argue rule of law when the existing government is outside the rule of law while Crimea is within the law ?

    Good point about stealing your Navy - and the fact is there is very little that CAN be done about it. Russia took it and nothing will change that. Destroying Russia to give Crimea back to an illegitimate government will not fly - its all about price discovery. What price CAN be forced on Russia........so far very little.

    What price has the US already paid

    Red Lenin

    Fact: Crimea is the UN recognized Sovereign territory of Ukraine in law.

    Fact: Yugoslavia was recognized by the UN as a sovereign country. It no longer exists.

    Volkodav

    UN is worthless except for fill pockets with US taxpayer $.

    same as your opinion:

    • Crimea seceded
    • Crimea is peaceful
    • Crimea is free

    The_Prisoner

    Now you're fronting. Next thing you'll say Israel is legitimate

    Urban Roman

    "... and has tried to carve off more and more .."

    Really? The Russian Army has been fighting a random bunch of warmed-over nazi skinheads for almost a whole year, and can't manage to take a couple of oblasts west of the Don?

    Whatchoo smokin' over dere? Login or register to post comments

    angel_of_joy

    There was no Ukraine prior to 1991. Contemporary Ukraine is an artificially induced state, created in a moment of maximum weakness of the Russian state. As a result, it has no future, and no amount of US propping will change the facts on the ground. Crimea is populated by Russians in vast majority, who decided they don't want to be rulled by Kiev after the US led coup. More so, the Ukrainian "fleet" was built during USSR so it represents a Russian asset too. Your narrative is as dumb as this entire war... which will end badly for US.

    Volkodav

    Ukraine has never been a sovereign nation.

    Victory_Garden

    Darn Element, what happened to you?

    In the past, you were so spot on about all the fuckyoushima tragedy and offered much light for many who listened intently to your truth. We are grateful for all that light.

    Now, it seems as if you have been co-opted, or banned and someone else is using your handle to put out the same trash the organized criminal lame stream media propagandists are putting out for public consumption. It's ONLY regurgitation of the filthiest yukkity-muck ever.

    We all miss the truth bearing Element and wonder, are you really another dis-informationist? It would be a shame and big loss to find this out, as your great intelligence is needed to combat the evil that has run rampant over the planet for centuries. Is it money or love you quest after, dear One?

    Ask, would you rather have a Ron Paul for president, or the evil illegal usurping alien bushonian bankster puppet we have now? Truly, the puppet soterobama is absolutely the most vile evil and destructive worst president America has ever had.. History will reflect this fact. We may not see another righteous president ever again in America's coming to an end history. Sad to ponder that, eh!

    WE WANT GOD BACK IN AMERICA NOW!

    (Side-swiping truth, God is Love. Period!)

    new game

    hmmm, then silence...

    schadenfreude

    You are correct. All germans I spoke to said, that they should leave Russia with Crimea and the Donbass region.

    You are incorrect, that Ukraine is Russia. It is not. After WWII Stalin made the deal that he could enlarge Russia to the West. So he deported the polish to what was once Germany. This artificial enlargement divides Ukraine and is a rated break point that runs through the country. So both sides have a legitimate claim.

    Victory_Garden

    The latest rant on the GW story.

    Ron Paul WAS America's last chance to remain free from the horridness of the banksteronian evil that runs rampant over the land like diarrhea running out of a goose's arse.

    HowdyDoody

    NATO was created to force the USSR to target two widely separated entities (Europe and continental US) before the time of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This was to keep the USSR focused on Europe. In any envisioned war, Europe and USSR would be destroyed or severely weakened, strengthening the US position.

    steelhead23

    There is but one thing in all of this that is perfectly clear to me. The situation is quite confusing, lying is rampant, and unnecessarily provoking the Russian Bear is about the most dangerous thing anyone could do.

    My preference for U.S. policy is neither isolationism nor militarism. It's diplomacy. Further, the U.S. should abandon its use of economic sanctions against the Bear for his annexation of Crimea because Putin would never leave Crimea, meaning this economic cattle prod will continue to annoy the Bear.

    Instead, the U.S. and NATO should be willing to trade some form of recognition of Russian presence in Crimea for ending the war in eastern Ukraine. I would also hope that Kiev and Washington would be willing to see an autonomous region, perhaps more aligned with Moscow than Kiev and agreement not to place NATO troops or materiel in Ukraine.

    But of course, none of this is likely - everyone is lying and the trust needed for real diplomacy is nil.

    Herdee

    I guess that the CIA Director,Stephen Harper, Victoria Wench Nuland were only in Ukraine for a nice vacation?

    It shows anyone with a grade 2 education how the world still works.

    Bunga Bunga

    We couped some folks.

    655321

    RP gives me the impression he a form of controlled opposition, almost like a pressure release valve, giving people false hope and at same giving people false conclusions on key issues such as 9/11.

    Savyindallas

    You can't take on too many issues. Paul knows 911 was an inside job. His supporters know. Someday he will go public. I don't agree with the way he handles this, just as I don't like the politics of rand paul on many issues. TPTB would have loved RP to come out as a Truther - they would have detroyed him and his credibility as the sheeple just have no idea what is really going on.

    LeftyGoldblatt

    LiveLeak.com

    Ross Kemp Extreme World. Ukraine

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=98d_1423931054

    Berspankme

    Watched it. The nazi's are taking over west ukraine. Porkoshenko better watch his back.

    HowdyDoody

    Dmitry Yarosh, the leader of the far right Pravy Sektor group (financed by Kolomoisky) has brought together the remnants of the Nazi volunteer battalions as one entity, under his control. He has also stated that they (again) will not comply with the ceasefire. These will be the shock troops in the next stage of this saga.

    Victory_Garden

    Yup!

    (use subtitles)

    TeaClipper

    This is how they do business in Ukraine parliament, whichever government is in

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9c7HbeKpeM

    gcjohns1971

    If the US were isolationist, a lot of Dead Ukrainians would likely be alive right now.

    With that said, there are plenty of intrigues to go around even the US were somehow frozen.

    There are many powerful entities who have their fingers in the Ukraine. Not the least of them are the Ukrainians themselves, both Eastern and Western variety.

    Neither the West's position, that everyone should account all Ukrainians both East and West to be homogenous, nor the East's position, that the East Ukraine is Russia, and the West Ukraine is an illegitimate province of Poland or LIthuania and therefore unworthy of self rule, is workable.

    Both of those positions lead to dead ends. The Ukrainians are Ukrainians because they are the descendants of those who followed the Kiev 'Rus' (Russians). The Russians are those who followed the Prince of Moscow. All of Russia and part of Ukraine was conquered by the Mongols. The part not conquered are the West Ukrainians. The part conquered are the East Ukrainians...plus many soviet era Russian imports.

    Russia's stake is control of the Black Sea Basin...which will cement Russia as mandatory near monopoly energy supplier to Europe. Europe's stake is to have access to non-Russian energy. The US's and NATO's stake is to prevent the re-arming of Europe by ensuring they have no REASON to re-arm.

    Pick your outcome:

    If Russia gets both Crimea and East Ukrainian land routes to Ukraine, then they decisively control energy to Europe. Europe's choices are then to EITHER a) Trust the US to ensure their economies and access to energy b) Ensure European access to energy themselves - militarily c) Become Russian colonies.

    Russia's choices are: a) Commit Russia to militarily conquering Ukraine and then use the economic benefit of that position to arm themselves for the inevitable world war that will result b) Resign itself to open competition for energy by surrendering either East Ukraine or Crimea.

    The US's choices are: a) Incrementally increase pressure on Russia via economic and/or military means until they allow Europe to have access to non-Russian energy b) Ignore Ukraine with the cost of later involvement in a world war in europe c) Ignore Ukraine and then withdraw from the transatlantic alliance.

    The fact is that the US is over-extended and should not have given Putin a reason for overt involvement. The fact is that Europe is un-prepared to militarily deter Russia from turning them into energy-plantation slaves. The fact is that EUrope is too proud and powerful for Russia as currently composed to force into energy submission simultaneously detering Europe from contesting the matter militarily.

    In the next 20 years there will be a major war in Europe, on the scale of WWII. Russia will be facing all of Western Europe.

    Russia propaganda seems confused about the organization of Power in the West, presenting it as a US-led top-down organization. In fact it is led by powerful European interests who act through governments. This is all highly observable. What did you think the eminence of the CFR was all about? What did you think Bilderberg was for??? When the European governments were decimated after WWII those interests acted through the US government.

    Europe is no longer decimated, and the shift of power from US to European entities has been historic and EASILY observable. What do you think the Eurozone and EU are all about??

    There's a lot of high-time preference going on - on every side of this, as each side too heavily weights the desirability of the fruit they see before them, and overly discounts the later costs of that fruit - both Europe and Russia wanting the Ukrainian fruit for the energy power it gives them, and the US in underestimating the costs of their chosen course to placate Europe via meddling in Ukraine.

    This is not going to end well for anyone in Europe no matter how it plays out. The stakes are too big for too many big powers.

    The US would be better off isolationist, and preparing to re-open ellis island. A lot of war refugees will need a home soon.

    China need only wait to inherit Eurasia from those who plan to foolishly decimate themselves.

    Rusputin

    So that would be a US/NATO/EU coup on a US/NATO/EU coup?

    Isn't one coup normally enough for a few years? The first one lasted 12 months and obviously the backstops weren't placed carefully enough, me thinks the bribery money is running out (has run out)!

    Catullus

    Here's Ron Paul in 2002 asking why the US was meddling with Ukrainian elections...

    http://antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=5688

    Armed Resistance

    Here you go: Victoria Nuland admitting that the US spent $5B to have regime change..

    http://youtu.be/U2fYcHLouXY

    Flybyknight

    Off the wall? That is where anyone who does not believe that USA, EU and NATO are totally responsible for the violent mess Ukraine has become.

    [Feb 15, 2015] Europe's Desperate Hail Mary to Save Ukraine by Nikolas K. Gvosdev

    February 13, 2015 | http://nationalinterest.org/feature/europes-desperate-hail-mary-save-ukraine-12244

    It is never a good sign when differences in interpretation as to what an agreement means arise before the ink is even dry. The cease-fire accord reached in Minsk between the Ukrainian government, the eastern separatists and Russia, under the aegis of the good offices of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Francois Hollande of France, could stop the fighting and lay the basis for a political settlement-but it requires that all parties be prepared to implement its provisions. With two previous cease-fires failing amidst mutual recriminations about violations, the newest agreement contains similar problems that could torpedo its implementation.

    First and foremost, the cease-fire calls for an exclusion zone where heavy weapons are to be withdrawn. As we've seen in the past, it can be quite easy to cheat-to hide weaponry and not to give up optimal firing positions. The first challenge will be what happens to the cease-fire when we see that not all heavy weapons have been removed; will one violation cause the collapse of the cease-fire, or will the emphasis be on a "ninety percent" solution-that is, if most weapons are pulled back, will that be considered sufficient?

    The fate of the Ukrainian government pocket at the key railway junction of Debaltseve is also unclear. Will the town remain in Ukrainian hands, even if forces and equipment are withdrawn-as the government prefers? Or will the government surrender control, as the separatists prefer? Given that the cease-fire will not begin until Sunday, the race is on to see who can determine the status of Debaltseve.

    Beyond the immediate cease-fire, there are contentious political questions. The agreement commits Ukraine to pass legislation that effectively gives the two separatist regions special status, including the ability to organize their own police forces and to be able to trade directly with Russia. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko will face a tremendous challenge getting the Rada to pass the necessary laws-and the risk here is that Ukrainian lawmakers, in an effort to save face, will insert provisions in the draft legislation that will be unacceptable to the separatists. Poroshenko has already stressed that the deal does not commit Ukraine to accept federalization or decentralization. But separatist leaders have argued that the agreement is the last chance for Ukraine to consider major constitutional changes.

    In turn, the separatists are committed, under the terms of the agreement, to rehold elections according to Ukrainian law so that the Donetsk and Lugansk authorities can be properly constituted. What is not clear is how people displaced from the region will be able to vote. Kyiv will insist that internally displaced refugees living in other parts of Ukraine should be able to cast ballots. The separatists, in turn, are not going to want any sort of process that challenges their position. If elections are held that the Poroshenko administration declines to certify as valid, what then?

    Finally, the agreement sets up a process by which the central government would regain control over the border with Russia. However, this will not occur if the special status of Donetsk and Lugansk has not been set up. Again, we have a challenge. If the Ukrainian legislation falls short of what the separatists-and Moscow-have envisioned, then the border question will be stalemated.

    Left unaddressed in the Minsk talks, of course, are U.S. proposals to begin training and equipping Ukrainian government forces. The United States did not take part in the Minsk process, and while the cease-fire may be cautiously welcomed, it will not diminish the momentum, particularly on Capitol Hill, for shipping arms to Ukraine. The separatists cannot be unmindful of the Croatian precedent, where a long-term program to strengthen the Croatian military facilitated the operation that destroyed the Serbian separatist entity in eastern Croatia. Already some separatists are grumbling that Ukraine is not committed to a settlement, but will use the time to strengthen its forces and go back on the offensive later this year. Those suspicions, in turn, may cause them to be less than thorough in their own observation of the agreement's provisions. The Germans and the French hope that the accord will cause Washington to put its plans on hold.

    And what does Vladimir Putin hope to gain? All the reports suggest that Putin put enormous pressure on the separatists to accept the deal. In turn, he may be expecting that once the cease-fire takes hold, the Europeans will move on sanctions relief. But if that is not forthcoming, what will be his continuing commitment to the agreement? Also left unaddressed are Russian demands for the "neutralization" of Ukraine. The deal as currently structured would not give the eastern regions veto power over Ukraine's foreign policy.

    The Minsk deal appears to be the last hope for any sort of a political settlement. If this agreement breaks down-and it has many vulnerabilities-there will not be a fourth attempt. We will see if all sides have the political will to make it work.

    Nikolas Gvosdev, a professor of national security studies and a contributing editor at The National Interest, is co-author of Russian Foreign Policy: Vectors, Sectors and Interests (CQ Press, 2013). The views expressed here are his own.

    [Feb 14, 2015] Don't Arm Ukraine by John J. Mearsheimer

    Feb 8, 2015 | NYTimes.com

    ...Going down that road would be a huge mistake for the United States, NATO and Ukraine itself. Sending weapons to Ukraine will not rescue its army and will instead lead to an escalation in the fighting. Such a step is especially dangerous because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and is seeking to defend a vital strategic interest.

    ...the conflict will not end there. Russia would counter-escalate, taking away any temporary benefit Kiev might get from American arms. The authors of the think tank study concede this, noting that "even with enormous support from the West, the Ukrainian Army will not be able to defeat a determined attack by the Russian military." In short, the United States cannot win an arms race with Russia over Ukraine and thereby ensure Russia's defeat on the battlefield.

    ... ... ...

    This coercive strategy is also unlikely to work, no matter how much punishment the West inflicts. What advocates of arming Ukraine fail to understand is that Russian leaders believe their country's core strategic interests are at stake in Ukraine; they are unlikely to give ground, even if it means absorbing huge costs.

    Great powers react harshly when distant rivals project military power into their neighborhood, much less attempt to make a country on their border an ally. This is why the United States has the Monroe Doctrine, and today no American leader would ever tolerate Canada or Mexico joining a military alliance headed by another great power.

    ... ... ...

    Upping the ante in Ukraine also risks unwanted escalation. Not only would the fighting in eastern Ukraine be sure to intensify, but it could also spread to other areas. The consequences for Ukraine, which already faces profound economic and social problems, would be disastrous.

    ... ... ...

    Our understanding of the mechanisms of escalation in crises and war is limited at best, although we know the risks are considerable. Pushing a nuclear-armed Russia into a corner would be playing with fire.

    Advocates of arming Ukraine recognize the escalation problem, which is why they stress giving Kiev "defensive," not "offensive," weapons. Unfortunately, there is no useful distinction between these categories: All weapons can be used for attacking and defending. The West can be sure, though, that Moscow will not see those American weapons as "defensive," given that Washington is determined to reverse the status quo in eastern Ukraine.

    ...Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, seems to recognize that fact, as she has said Germany will not ship arms to Kiev. Her problem, however, is that she does not know how to bring the crisis to an end.

    She and other European leaders still labor under the delusion that Ukraine can be pulled out of Russia's orbit and incorporated into the West, and that Russian leaders must accept that outcome. They will not.

    To save Ukraine and eventually restore a working relationship with Moscow, the West should seek to make Ukraine a neutral buffer state between Russia and NATO. It should look like Austria during the Cold War. Toward that end, the West should explicitly take European Union and NATO expansion off the table, and emphasize that its goal is a nonaligned Ukraine that does not threaten Russia. The United States and its allies should also work with Mr. Putin to rescue Ukraine's economy, a goal that is clearly in everyone's interest.

    It is essential that Russia help end the fighting in eastern Ukraine and that Kiev regain control over that region. Still, the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk should be given substantial autonomy, and protection for Russian language rights should be a top priority.

    Crimea, a casualty of the West's attempt to march NATO and the European Union up to Russia's doorstep, is surely lost for good. It is time to end that imprudent policy before more damage is done - to Ukraine and to relations between Russia and the West.

    John J. Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics."

    [Feb 14, 2015] Even if Cease-Fire Holds, Money Woes Will Test Kiev

    NYTimes.com

    Judyw, cumberland, MD 48 minutes ago

    People don't realize but since its independence, RUssia has really supported Ukraine. Cheap gas, buying the products of their heavy industry, contracts with such industry, allowing Ukrainian to freely cross the border and work in Russia, and taking their pay home to Ukraine. The oligarchs made tons of money buying up the various industries when Ukraine got its independence. All Ukrainian presidents ended up as millionaires while in office. Well the bubble burst - courtesy of the US.

    Now we find a broken-down country that cannot afford to pay pensions or salaries, tax oligarchs, in short it can't even run its own government. Two Rada members just the other day had a fist fight in the hall over some bill.

    http://www.euronews.com/2015/02/12/watch-ukraine-mps-have-fierce-fist-fi...

    Does any country really want to invest in Ukraine - it is more of a banana republic than a European country. Money to Ukraine will just go into pockets of ministers and other civil servants has it has done for decades.

    Instead of trying to end a war which is costing it several million dollars which it doesn't have, the country keeps on fighting and postponing needed reforms.
    Poroshenko will hire Mikheil Saakashvili as an advisor.
    http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/interviews/1467-i-will-be-back

    Ukraine will have to lay off miners, close obsolete factories, cut pensions and benefits - What IMF always requires when it steps in to help. How will people react then?

    koyaanisqatsi, Upstate NY 48 minutes ago

    So most of Ukraine's economic problem arise from their coup. I'm not surprised. Ukraine should have accepted Russia's pre-coup offer of assistance. Oh, wait...they did accept it. Then came the US-sponsored coup. Have the people of western Ukraine never heard "be careful of what you ask for....?" Now, the IMF and EU will demand "austerity" measures from the people of Ukraine, just as they have from Greece who: has 25% unemployment, a 22% fall in GDP since 2009, and a 35% increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio. I'm sure it'll turn out OK.

    Wolff, Arizona

    The $30B debt Ukraine owed to Russia for oil sold to Europe has now climbed to $40B. The Ukraine oil moguls did the same thing Wall Street has done in America - take the profits (average $10B apiece for baksheesh for Russian oil flowing through Ukraine) and leave the debts to the Ukrainian People.

    Even the IMF cannot collect funds from US, Germany, England and France to pay off these Ukrainian debts. Could it be that the Western Banking Establishment is finally at its limits to motivate the US military to support Capitalist thugs in those nations that are its "Allies" by waging war against those trying to collect debts from them?

    Is America becoming a Criminal Nation?

    FS, NY

    It is not just Ukraine but many other countries which joined NATO are basket case and will require continuous help. The Cold War ended but our paranoia did not. We have these basket case countries join NATO or military alliances to encircle Russia and China. Such alliances and policies may embolden our "allies" to create unwanted conflicts that may become burden for us. Counting on American help, Mr. Modi and Mr. Abe are already issuing bellicose statements. During Cold War Soviet Union built alliances with many basket countries that require continuous support and it bankrupted Soviet Union. Are we not making the same mistake by continuing our unilateral Cold War policy? May be Ukraine crisis is awakening call to reevaluate our unilateral cold war policy!

    U.S. Faults Russia as Combat Spikes in East Ukraine - NYTimes.com

    BhomasTrown, Zaltimore 1 hour ago

    The alternative media is saying that the US is the provocateur here. Don't know who to believe, but I sure DO NOT trust the US government to tell the plain truth anymore because we don't really know who the US government is working for anymore, but we do know that more and more, they are not working for the average citizens of the US, instead favoring the plutocrats. The basic policy of the US government seems to be: We're lying to protect you from the horrible truth.

    CAF, Seattle 1 hour ago

    In a shocking miscalculation, American political elites realy did thing Russia would stand by and do nothing as the US backed a coup on Russia's border, attempting to take core trade, geographic, military, and economic interests from Russia, and setting up an existential military threat to Russia 300 miles from Moscow. This involved overthrowing a duly elected government, but the US never shies from that.

    Unsurprisingly, the competent and intelligent, if autocratic Russian political elites responded forcefully, defending the lands and peoples closest to the Russian border, along with Russian security and all those interests.

    Appallingly, the American temper tantrum included accusing Russia of "aggression", laughably, in defending its people, security, and near interests, from American imperialists on the other side of the planet.

    Attempting to take Ukraine through soft force was a stupid idea, and revealing in that American arrogance and overconfidence were exposed.

    ReaderNYC, NYC 1 hour ago

    The mess that the neocons have created in Ukraine is splitting that country apart and may lead to a global confrontation. President Obama should resist the call for arming the coup leaders in Kiev and should join Germany and France for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine that will bring peace to the country and to Europe.

    The warmongers should be told to calm down or volunteer to go and fight as partisans. They should leave the rest of America alone.

    [Feb 13, 2015] IMF rescues Ukraine All media content

    They mean IMF rescues German and Austrian banks...
    DW.DE 13.02.2015
    The International Monetary Fund has announced a massive bailout totalling $40 billion for Ukraine. Kyiv will get the money over a period of four years in exchange for carrying out broad economic reforms. The funds are urgently needed to stave off a financial collapse. The IMF will provide $17.5 billion.

    [Feb 11, 2015] The Bout Opening – Stick to Checkers, America. Not Up In Here

    See also comments to Ukraine: draft dodgers face jail as Kiev struggles to find new fighters by Shaun Walker
    Notable quotes:
    "... Take a look at this exposure of Grauniad bias: ..."
    "... "We have to twist arms when countries don't do what we need them to" ..."
    "... Ukraine President Poroshenko Threatens Martial Law: http://t.co/YiPgu0yPEY His main target: rising dissent in western Ukraine. ..."
    Feb 11, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

    Moscow Exile , February 11, 2015 at 8:38 am

    Take a look at this exposure of Grauniad bias:

    Luhansk Women Curse Ukrainian Rocket Attack – Guardian Blames "Pro-Russian Rebels"

    patient observer, February 11, 2015 at 9:02 am

    Per:

    http://rt.com/news/231279-obama-foreign-policy-power/

    Our Nobel peace prize wiener says

    "We have to twist arms when countries don't do what we need them to"

    and if arm twisting does not work we will murder your families, embargo food and medicine, destroy your economy, lay waste to a generation of your children, and blacken your name for all history.

    He is truly a stinky turd in the cesspool that is Washington DC. But fear not, Hillary Clinton will be a worthy successor and will out-stink, out-murder and out-destroy Obama.

    Who in America can stop this madness? (rhetorical/trick question, no one can).

    Warren, February 11, 2015 at 6:53 am

    Ukraine President Poroshenko Threatens Martial Law: http://t.co/YiPgu0yPEY His main target: rising dissent in western Ukraine.

    - Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) February 11, 2015

    Moscow Exile , February 11, 2015 at 1:10 am
    Another Walker special:

    Ukraine: draft dodgers face jail as Kiev struggles to find new fighters

    The government has avoided officially declaring a state of war, instead referring to the operations in the east as an anti-terrorism operation, despite clear evidence of Russian military incursion. Part of the reason for this is the fact that Kiev would have trouble securing a much-needed support package from the International Monetary Fund if it was officially at war.

    A series of gruesome videos, sometimes shown on Russian television, has increased the psychological pressure on Ukrainians. One, released last month, showed a rebel commander waving a sword in the faces of bloodied Ukrainian soldiers, slicing off their insignias and forcing the men to eat them.

    Shit! I must have missed that one!

    "A friend of mine told me his friend was down there in the east and they ran into Chechens, who sliced off all their testicles. There were about 100 of them, and the Chechens castrated the lot of them. If I get called up, I think I'll go into hiding. I want a family and kids."

    'Kin' hell!!!!!!!

    karl1haushofer , February 10, 2015 at 11:21 pm

    "It may have escaped your notice, but Putin and Moscow have been calling for a ceasefire all along"

    I have grown to hate the whole word of "ceasefire" during this war. A real ceasefire would be great. But it is not going to happen until Kiev military is fully defeated!

    Another bogus "ceasefire" in Minsk means the following:

    1. Kiev gets to withdraw its men AND WEAPONS out of the Debaltsevo cauldron and the rebels will not be allowed to stop it..
    2. The rebels will not be able to give a big blow to the Kiev military by either annihilating or at least capturing the most competent part of their military in Debaltsevo and their weapons.
    3. The thousands of Kiev troops in Debaltsevo cauldron AND THEIR WEAPONS will be used in the future against Novorossiya.
    4. The shelling of civilians will continue as it was before. The "ceasefire" will not be applied to Kiev side, only to rebels.
    5. NATO will start the training and arming of Kiev troops. Next offensive will start next spring.
    6. The morale of the rebels will take a bit hit. They will realize that their military efforts and success is meaningless as they are not allowed win this war.

    Moscow must not allow Kiev to withdraw its troops and weapons out of that cauldron in any circumstances. That would be a treason against the troops that fought to create that cauldron. And that would be a treason against the whole Novorossiya.

    This war will not end until one side is fully defeated. It will be either Kiev or Novorossiya. Annihilating or capturing the Kiev troops and weapons in Debaltsevo cauldron would be a big military defeat for Kiev.

    marknesop, February 11, 2015 at 8:00 am

    "This war will not end until one side is fully defeated. It will be either Kiev or Novorossiya. Annihilating or capturing the Kiev troops and weapons in Debaltsevo cauldron would be a big military defeat for Kiev."

    On the contrary, the war could continue for many years yet without either side firing a shot, in much the same way the Georgian government never accepted the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and even designated a ministerial position for winning them back into the fold. Disagreement over the borders within Ukraine will keep them out of NATO for the foreseeable future, while their ruined economy will keep them out of the EU. A future government may mend its ties with Russia, but if it does not, Ukraine is doomed to decades of poverty and a steady drain of its population for better prospects. It can thank the west for that, and its own population's extremist element.

    Once again, there is no reason for Putin to become "the most hated man in Novorossiya" if it shakes out as you describe. The rebels must accept the deal on their own behalf, and it is not for Putin to agree to anything; Russia is simply acting as a sort of guarantor, by being part of the agreement but kind of like an honest broker, to ensure the western countries keep their word.

    I agree the Ukrainian forces should not be permitted to withdraw from Debalseve with their weapons, after getting cauldroned for the second time due to their own stupidity, lack of tactical knowledge and poor leadership. but i doubt that will happen, unless the rebels are idiot negotiators, because Semenchenko's battalion had to leave their weapons behind when they were allowed out of the southern cauldron, and it plainly did not teach the Ukies anything. Why would they be allowed to keep their weapons this time? But even if they do not, weapons are not going to be a problem to replace, and you know it.

    [Feb 11, 2015] Poroshenko: Ukraine conflict risks spiralling out of control

    Quote: Ironically (and rather disingenuously), US talking heads, media parrots and politicians in Washington – are still recycling their worn-out sound bites: "Russia is invading the Ukraine", "Moscow is responsible for the destabilization of the Ukraine", and it goes on.

    Military industrial lobbyists like US State Dept. Euro Secretary Victoria Nuland, and US Senator John McCain have played a key role in the Kiev's Nazi renaissance from the beginning – a new low point in international racketeering…

    Feb 11, 2015 |theguardian.com

    Ian56789

    War by media and the triumph of propaganda by John Pilger

    Why has so much journalism succumbed to propaganda? Why are censorship and distortion standard practice? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious power? Why do the New York Times and the Washington Post deceive their readers?

    Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what's called the mainstream media is not information, but power?

    These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war - with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003.

    The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government". It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies.

    The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions.

    This power to create a new "reality" has building for a long time. Forty-five years ago, a book entitled The Greening of America caused a sensation. On the cover were these words: "There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual."

    I was a correspondent in the United States at the time and recall the overnight elevation to guru status of the author, a young Yale academic, Charles Reich. His message was that truth-telling and political action had failed and only "culture" and introspection could change the world.

    Within a few years, driven by the forces of profit, the cult of "me-ism" had all but overwhelmed our sense of acting together, our sense of social justice and internationalism. Class, gender and race were separated. The personal was the political, and the media was the message.

    Read more at :- http://johnpilger.com/articles/war-by-media-and-the-triumph-of-propaganda

    centerline

    The Minsk talks are about to enter their tenth hour, with the delegations of Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine still trying to reach a final compromise and come up with a joint resolution. Journalists have been covering the event for almost 12 hours now.

    http://rt.com/news/231327-minsk-peace-talks-updates/

    Pity the guardian doesn't have any journalists.

    Nickel07 -> centerline

    They rely on the arduous task of watching FOX (and it is incredibly arduous) or repeating whatever dribble comes out of the BBC

    Ian56789

    Nato's action plan in Ukraine is right out of Dr Strangelove by John Pilger

    (Extract)

    The genius of Stanley Kubrick's film is that it accurately represents the cold war's lunacy and dangers. Most of the characters are based on real people and real maniacs. There is no equivalent to Strangelove today because popular culture is directed almost entirely at our interior lives, as if identity is the moral zeitgeist and true satire is redundant, yet the dangers are the same. The nuclear clock has remained at five minutes to midnight; the same false flags are hoisted above the same targets by the same "invisible government", as Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations, described modern propaganda.

    In 1964, the year Dr Strangelove was made, "the missile gap" was the false flag. To build more and bigger nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination, President John F Kennedy approved the CIA's propaganda that the Soviet Union was well ahead of the US in the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This filled front pages as the "Russian threat". In fact, the Americans were so far ahead in production of the missiles, the Russians never approached them. The cold war was based largely on this lie.

    Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its Nato enlargement project. Reneging on a US promise to the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that Nato would not expand "one inch to the east", Nato has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato's military build-up is the most extensive since the second world war.

    In February, the US mounted one of its proxy "colour" coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly antisemitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler's Nazis, who were supported by the infamous Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA) which was responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, of which the UPA was the military wing, inspires today's Svoboda party.

    Since Washington's putsch in Kiev – and Moscow's inevitable response in Russian Crimea to protect its Black Sea fleet – the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news to the "Russian threat". This is fossilised propaganda. The US air force general who runs Nato forces in Europe – General Philip Breedlove, no less – claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000 Russian troops "massing" on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin Powell claim to have pictures proving there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is certain is that Barack Obama's rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap.

    Following a 13-year rampage that began in stricken Afghanistan well after Osama bin Laden had fled, then destroyed Iraq beneath a false flag, invented a "nuclear rogue" in Iran, dispatched Libya to a Hobbesian anarchy and backed jihadists in Syria, the US finally has a new cold war to supplement its worldwide campaign of murder and terror by drone.

    Read more at:- http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/17/nato-ukraine-dr-strangelove-china-us

    HisRume

    Lets be clear. Kiev must answer for their crimes when this is settled:

    On June 2nd 2014 a Ukraine jet fighter attacked the central administrative building in Lugansk city killing seven civilians. It was a gross act of state terrorism It was not a military target.

    Immediately the US and the Ukraine UN Representative lied, saying it was a misfiring rebel anti-aircraft manpad device that struck the buildings air con.

    Yet, when the osce investigation pronounced it had been a jet fighter attack, Kiev and Washington still denied it.

    They have still not answered to this war crime - the first terrorist act of this crisis incidentally.

    Lets not forget WHO is responsible for the appalling, criminal deaths in the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk and who started the "terror".

    Hermius

    GreatMountainEagle

    'The one constant here is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the leader of the free and thinking world who has not changed from the beginning and is to the people of Earth as the North star has been to sailors on the oceans for centuries.'

    This has to be the funniest thing ever posted on here (and saddest for those trapped in the PutinSSR)

    Ian56789 -> GreatMountainEagle

    Why do you get off on being a Goldman Sachs / Neocon troll?

    Ian56789 -> GreatMountainEagle

    Putin currently has an 86% approval rating in Russia. Primarily this is because they were ruled by Goldman Sachs and the US under Yeltsin in the 1990's. Yeltsin caused the collapse of the Russian economy and a 40% drop in people's living standards. Russia was a total mess by the late 1990's.

    Putin enjoys a very high approval rating because they do NOT want to be ruled by Goldman Sachs again and they see Putin as the only guy that can stop it from happening.

    Americans and Europeans haven't done so well living under Goldman Sachs rule for the last circa 15 years either. People's real standards of living in the developed countries has declined significantly.

    richiep40

    Forgetting all the name calling, who started it etc. what I don't get is how anyone can think this will work.

    The only premise where this will be possible is if the West will reign in Kiev's wish to obliterate the East of Ukraine and Russia can persuade the rebels that this is true.

    Without at least some assurances from the West about the safety of the East, the rebels will fight on, even if Putin removed his support (which he won't do if he thinks there will be a bloodbath, it would be political suicide for him).

    You can't ask Russia to get out of the situation if they think the Lunatics in charge of Kiev will do what they want to do.

    NormVan

    The US always attacking Putin. Russia has a functioning, united government of which Putin is one part. When the US decides to attack, the first thing they create is an evil dictator. They can bring freedom to the masses. US freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose.

    Obama having a hissy fit with Putin is childish. Obama got a start working for Henry Kissinger and rumored to work for the CIA.
    If he wants to do something useful he could send Mrs Nuland back to Kiev with some of her delicious cookies

    Goodthanx -> NormVan

    To gain a nomination of Presidency, you are prescreened by the Cia. Meaning, are you willing to be a lacky for the Cia, and the Military industrialists?
    No president has a long future without the support of both. JFK case in point.

    Nickel07

    Once the peace agreement is signed...what are you lot on the dark side going to do just come here and try to push back the tide of the investigations that will surely follow? What are you going to do try to scream Putin is a Nazi like kindergarten kids?

    I think you are about to lose big time and not just in Ukraine, but also by losing the little credibility you still have with some countries as demonstrated by the approach taken by Hollande and Merkel.
    And, to compound it all:

    "the reality of "American leadership" at times entails "twisting the arms" of states which "don't do what we need them to do," and that the US relied on its military strength and other leverage to achieve its goals."

    Translation : We coerce some folk.

    Mulefish

    Why tell us what Poro thinks, Guardian; he always lies, wasting our time and Guardian outdated reporters ink.

    Why tell us what Obama thinks, mass murderer. evil, inadequate, coward, fool, and the cause of all this. He is out of his depth; this is not any of his business; he should butt out He will have to.

    Merkel is just finding her voice and her brains and cutting loose the Yankee Nazi twits.

    The one constant here is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the leader of the free and thinking world who has not changed from the beginning and is to the people of Earth as the North star has been to sailors on the oceans for centuries.

    Ian56789

    NATO's Nazis: Ethnic Cleansing Their Opposition in East Ukraine
    November 17, 2014

    Nearly one year on from the US-backed faux 'colour revolution' in Maidan Square, the Ukraine has been violently ripped into pieces by the new CIA-backed government in Kiev.

    What began with pro-EU colour mobs and far right-wing neo-Nazi gangs in Kiev, has escalated to ethnic cleansing in the eastern half of the country. The horrors are unspeakable, as detailed in the report below (with video). NATO, led by the US and Britain, are actively backing Kiev's military brutal campaign of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing against Russian-speaking people in the east of that country.

    Ironically (and rather disingenuously), US talking heads, media parrots and politicians in Washington – are still recycling their worn-out sound bites: "Russia is invading the Ukraine", "Moscow is responsible for the destabilization of the Ukraine", and it goes on.

    Military industrial lobbyists like US State Dept. Euro Secretary Victoria Nuland, and US Senator John McCain have played a key role in the Kiev's Nazi renaissance from the beginning – a new low point in international racketeering…

    Read more at:- http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/11/17/natos-nazis-ethnic-cleansing-their-opposition-in-east-ukraine/

    richiep40

    Interesting Newsnight on the Maidan shootings, perhaps it wasn't so black and white.

    The much more devastating ARD (German TV) report (from about a year ago) seems to have been removed from the Internet. It used to be on YouTube.

    The only place I can find it is

    http://potentnews.com/2014/04/29/german-tv-10-4-14-who-were-the-maidan-snipers-ukraine/

    But don't bother ARD has removed the right to broadcast it for 'licencing' reasons.

    For a textual analysis of ARD's report try this, it about two pages down

    http://www.bne.eu/content/story/snipergate-who-ordered-shootings-kyivs-maidan

    Ian56789 richiep40

    The sniper shootings in Maidan

    The sniper fire came from the upper floors and roofs of buildings controlled by the protestors
    (Other pictures show the Berkut Police firing - but they are firing downwards in front of the protestors to try and stop their advance NOT firing at them.)

    The sniper's massacre in Maidan Feb 18th to 20th, that directly led to the Coup in Ukraine:-
    An academic analysis by a Canadian http://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine

    Kiev snipers were hired by Maidan leaders - the leaked EU's Ashton phone tape http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/

    Full Videoproof of Maidan snipers killing Ukraine Civilians Shooting From Behind! warning GRAPHIC 18+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnBa0Uj3Ijw&feature=youtu.be

    ​'No evidence of Berkut police behind mass killing in Kiev' – probe head
    There is no forensic evidence linking the victims of mass killings in Kiev on February 20 with officers from the Berkut police unit, the head of the parliamentary commission investigating the murders told journalists.

    "This will be yet another case, like the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, which is still being investigated today," Gennady Moskal reported.

    The MP made the statements at a media conference on Tuesday gathered to announce preliminary results of his commission's probe. He assured that despite the Ukrainian General Prosecutor's office having arrested 12 Berkut officers on allegations of committing the mass killings, forensic evidence suggests their innocence.

    He said the bullets that killed people in Kiev on the bloodies day of confrontation between protesters seeking to oust President Viktor Yanukovich and riot police didn't match any of the firearms issued to Berkut's special unit, which, unlike the majority of riot police, was allowed to carry lethal weapons.

    http://rt.com/news/158864-kiev-snipers-not-berkut/

    The man in charge of those controlling the buildings from which the snipers fired was Andrey Parubiy who after the Coup was appointed head of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

    Read more at:- http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/how-february-coup-in-kiev-was-plotted.html

    Mulefish -> Ian56789

    This was all reported on R.T.V. at the time.

    They had reporters on the ground when this was happening. They showed us the remarkable restraint shown by the Berkut in the face of being in the face of being viciously assailed by infused, probably drug fuelled, certainly Yankee pie and five billion fuelled, Nazi thugs, and the illogical directions from which the sniper bullets came. (~This type of third party sniping is typical Yank false flag trickery. They probably provided the snipers too.)

    They also broadcast the transcript of the Ashton phone call and her goofy, coward, reaction, not taken up, indeed studiously ignored, by the Western so-called press.

    In like vein, Putin offered up his radar records for the downing of MH17, including records of the presence of Ukrainian fighter planes present at the time, an offer not matched by the Kiev Junta or the mouthy U.S. deep in the throes of lying about the incident , all the same, with typical foul mouthedness.

    So easy to fool the common denizens of the West, especially the "exceptional" Yankees and their British government ass lickers.

    richiep40 -> Ian56789

    Thanks for all the info, I wouldn't say I knew all about all the research, but I definitely got the drift.

    I was really just commenting that the BBC Newsnight report was the first time that any of the British Media have come even slightly off message.

    For instance there were some reports from Donetsk on the horrible conditions there and the civilian casualties on BBC Radio this morning, but not once did they mention these were all in the City Centre held by the rebels and the only conceivable people launching the attacks were the Ukrainian forces.

    Now to anyone who takes an interest it is obvious, but for the casual listener who doesn't have an interest, I doubt it.

    coober

    Every government can use the full employment equation:
    Full Employment (FE) = Pension (P) X 1.2 X Money Velocity (MV) X 0.001
    That equation is for all Nations and States.

    A Ukraine Government can immediately tax Murdoch-type tax evaders, etc at 0.001% of money velocity and pay a new 20% State Pension.

    There is absolutely no valid excuse for unemployment in Ukraine. The State Pension can be adjusted lower and the tax rate can be adjusted higher. The pension is to spread the money around to create more small businesses and more jobs. The tiny rate of tax is for High Frequency Traders, Gamblers, Murdoch-types etc. Everyday people will not notice it.

    When Governments and people learn how good this modern tax is, we will be able to use it to replace Income Tax etc. War is obsolete.

    centerline coober

    One small hitch. It is the Murdoch type that make the taxes. They put people in power who will tax the poor so the government can subside the Murdochs.

    Murdoch moved his Australian accounting office offshore a few years ago so the Australian tax office paid Murdoch three quarters of a billion dollars.

    Bud Peart

    "Obama rounded unusually personally on Putin. "He has a foot very much in the Soviet past. That's how he came of age. He ran the KGB,"

    He ran the FSB, is he stupid or was this a planned lie to ratchet up cold war hysteria?

    [Feb 10, 2015] Merkel to meet Obama amid growing US scepticism over Ukraine peace talks

    Notable quotes:
    "... They pushed and pushed without any regard for people they tramped underfoot expecting Russia to fold any day and beg for mercy. ..."
    "... Chechnya - Islamist insurgency like what Iraq is facing. S. Ossetia. - Georgian shelling and invasion of this province designed to get NATO to help out. Instead the Russians deal to the invaders. Sorry mate - your argument is as flaky as the hoary old one of Iran wanting to annihilate Israel based on a mistranslated Ahmedinejad speech (which some historically challenged folks still try and drag up) ..."
    "... When "destabilisation" looks like a western sponsored coup, quacks like a western sponsored coup..... ..."
    "... Putin will be crucified in Russia if he is seen pushing the rebels to accept an agreement against their interests. The bottom line is unless the West gives strong indications that it is prepared to negotiate in good faith, the commodity it so far lacked, nothing will happen. If the West waits much longer, the only subject for negotiations will be an unconditional surrender of the Ukrainian army in Donbass. ..."
    "... One of the latest statements of Angela Merkel was: "We want to establish security in Europe with Russia, not against Russia" (0:20 in this video). Sorry, but to me it does not sound like preparation "for a generational, long-haul effort peacefully containing and isolating Russia". ..."
    Feb 10, 2015 | The Guardian

    sodtheproles ID1439675 10 Feb 2015 16:51

    Wrong. The EU and Americans started this when refusing Yanukovich more time to consider the trade deal, and when encouraging the billionaires to send their thugs onto Maidan. Tsarev and many others were aware that a coup was on the menu back in October 2013, when he spoke in the Rada. The EU deal had the support of the billionaires, not least because it offered them the chance to apply on a wider stage the skills they had acquired defrauding the Ukrainian state in the 90s, whereas if Ukraine turned towards the Eurasian Union, they'd have to deal with Putin, who if nothing else a reined in the billionaires.

    caliento 10 Feb 2015 15:52

    Wonder why Putin is welcomed by Turkey, Egypt, Hungary, Greece? It is called respect for a leader who stands behind his position showing no fear. Obama, Merkel, Hollande, Cameron E.U., NATO have no respect. And why should they? Obama's "yellow line" is constantly on display along with the rest of the misfits in Europe. More talks, more "signed" "peace" agreements? More Russian lies? Is this group of misfits just "stuck on stupid"? Putin has uttered another threat....that should be enough for the misfits to surrender & deny reality on the ground & leave Ukraine abandoned once again. I taught Bush was bad but Obama is one for the history books on how not to be a "world leader".

    Yuriy11 -> TeeJayzed Addy 10 Feb 2015 13:12

    And the ally of what Ukraine wish to be the USA? If America considers itself as the guarantor of freedom, democracy and protection of human rights it should support the population of Donbass and Lugansk. The population of these regions of Ukraine wished to have only the rights which are written down in the country Constitution.

    Instead of guaranteeing it these rights, the new management of Ukraine began to bomb and fire at peace cities of Donetsk and Lugansk areas. Instead of solving all problems by negotiations. Also Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and other steels openly to glorify Banderu - the fascist, the military criminal. The youth has started to use nazi symbolics and nazi slogans.

    Can be the USA wishes to become the ally of new fascists? Judging by statements, Obama about desire to deliver to Ukraine the weapon, very similar, that it is going to support fascist government Poroshenko.

    EugeneGur 10 Feb 2015 10:46

    Merkel is the stiffest opponent of supplying weapons, while holding firm against any other concessions to Putin

    Why no concessions? Is that how negotiations are conducted, without any concessions on one side, with all the concessions on the other? I understand this is the American style. But it should be obvious by now to everybody with half a brain that Putin is not the type to be easily intimidated. He can be negotiated with but not blackmailed. They should've also known before they started this mess that Russia isn't Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia or even Vietnam but a much bigger, nastier and better armed country. Germany, of all countries, should've known that you don't want to piss Russia off, you really don't.

    What I see in all these jerking movements is a bunch of very scared "world leaders" who have no idea what to do next. They pushed and pushed without any regard for people they tramped underfoot expecting Russia to fold any day and beg for mercy. When it didn't happen and looks unlikely to happen, there is no plan B. And, of course, honest in good faith negotiations with Russia are entirely out of the question. They just don't know what it means.

    Angela Merkel and Barack Obama are under pressure to shore up western unity over the Ukraine crisis

    Who cares about your "unity"? We have a pretty good idea what kind of "unity" that is. People are dying over there, and these bunch of cheating clowns are concerned with saving whatever is left of their faces. Disgusting.

    Albert_Jacka_VC 10 Feb 2015 08:53

    As usual, the Russophobes don't get it. But they will!

    This morning NAF scouts spotted NATO tanks inside the encirclement (cauldron) at Debaltseve. According to their information the possibility is strong that up to 25% of the trapped army may be NATO. !

    Shell remnants marked clearly with US identifying numbers from 155mm shells, shot by the Paladin artillery system have been recovered from areas the Ukrainian army have attacked civilian targets.

    If the NATO troops are there - (who else would be running the complicated military equipment?) - Zackharchenko's people may display them to the world.

    Everyone will see that the junta that brought us a non-existent Russian invasion has illegitimate and illegal support from NATO's warmongers!

    This explains both the US and EU fudging a new peace initiative. If NATO troops are taken captive, what then?

    Then they are, by Poro's own admission, war criminals. And their urgers (Kerry, Nuland, Stoltenberg, Rasmussen, and the whole foul rabble, are war criminals too.

    Елена Петрова 9 Feb 2015 21:29

    Powerful Documentary on the People of Donbass and why NATO will be in a Tough Fight Should it Invade the Region

    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/07/powerful-documentary-on-the-people-of-donbass-and-why-nato-will-be-in-a-tough-fight-should-it-invade-the-region/

    And yet another says, "Who started it? Everyone knows who started this. How to put it better? Everything started by America's hallooing. The same sh#t happened with Georgia, and now here in Ukraine."

    Albert_Jacka_VC -> jezzam 9 Feb 2015 21:10

    All your info is wrong. Putin himself advocated Ukraine enter a trading arrangement with BOTH Russia and the EU. The EU would have none of it.

    Or rather, Nuland banned it. The EU had no say. We know what Nuland said.
    The coup was a violent, murderous act, and Yanukovych fled after death threats, because his disarmed Berkut could not protect him.

    As to Putin's actions in Ukraine, you buy the spin in the Western press. that's why you're deluded. Donetzkers fight to stay alive, against Kolomoisky's killers.
    Ukraine is illegal, Nazi, and now defeated. Its currency crashed 15% yesterday. How much today?

    That is why the warmongers are flapping about. No other reason than that their war on Russia via 'Ukraine' is a flop.

    Albert_Jacka_VC -> david wright 9 Feb 2015 20:43

    Ukraine is not a sovereign state. Ukraine is an illegal junta of Nazis who took power by murder, and threatrs of murder. that is why even their Ukrainian citizens will not fight for the junta.

    Listen to the babushka [turn captions on] --

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQjmwVC_Dts

    preventallwarsdotorg 9 Feb 2015 19:40

    From the Obama-Merkel Washington press conference; on Ukraine, Angela Merkel seemed optimistic on the chances of 'diplomacy'. But President Obama seemed so determined in 'seeing-off' President Putin by any means; repeatedly, labelling him 'the aggressor'.

    Does President Obama have a personal problem with President Putin?
    Unfortunately, terrible historic armed conflicts arise for populations from intractable inter-personal disagreements between their antagonistic national political leaders. But while their personal safeties are secured, their populations are destroyed.

    National leaders still can't see that nowadays wars generally have 'un-winnable' and frustrating outcomes for even the best equipped militaries. Yet, with seeming careless abandon, their inclinations to increase arms in wars remain unbridled.

    But why did none of the correspondents at the Press conference press the leaders on their likely expectations for Ukraine, Europe and the world if more arms are sent to Ukraine against Russia!
    If national political leaders would be victims of their sponsored wars, would they be as insistent with such risky, futile and potentially increased destructive recipes?

    Yet, the world still seems as impervious to politicians' handling of war crises!
    Why can't it be more innovative to accept or devise better alternatives to the persistently failed and disastrous politicians' bent for even more wars?!

    Andrew Nichols -> Milton 9 Feb 2015 19:02

    And as for those who say they believe that Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are all that Putin is after, I suggest you look at Russia's interventions in Chechnya and Georgia/S.Ossetia,

    Chechnya - Islamist insurgency like what Iraq is facing. S. Ossetia. - Georgian shelling and invasion of this province designed to get NATO to help out. Instead the Russians deal to the invaders. Sorry mate - your argument is as flaky as the hoary old one of Iran wanting to annihilate Israel based on a mistranslated Ahmedinejad speech (which some historically challenged folks still try and drag up)

    Andrew Nichols Milton 9 Feb 2015 18:57

    "But the west did not send troops or tanks into Ukraine. It didn't attempt political destabilisation." When "destabilisation" looks like a western sponsored coup, quacks like a western sponsored coup.....

    EugeneGur 9 Feb 2015 18:45

    amid growing US scepticism that European peace talks with Russia will succeed in deterring its continued military support for separatists.

    I am pretty sure that Russia supports the rebels militarily to a certain extent although I am not sure how far that support goes. Most of Russia is convinced that it doesn't go far enough. Considering that nobody has been able to prove anything (where are these marvelous American satellites when you need them?), probably, Russian public is right, the support is modest, so it's easy to hide. The West wants Russia to stop supporting the rebels. My question is why would Russia do that? What's in it for Russia?

    You will say the magic word "sanctions". First, Russia is not all that eager about the sanctions to be lifted, because we know they are hurting Europe as much, if not more. Second, Russia doesn't believe the West, and for a good reason. Putin organized the Minsk agreements single-handedly and made the rebels accept it. It was a gift that Putin gave both to the West and to Ukraine, because he convinced the rebel army to stop in the middle of a very successful offensive. By doing so, he risked a lot of his political capital, since everybody in Russia as well as in Donbass hated it and believed it was a mistake, which it turned out to be. What did he get in return? Less than nothing - he got additional sanctions, additional demands, which, I hope proved to him finally that the West is double-dealing and entirely untrustworthy.

    Putin will be crucified in Russia if he is seen pushing the rebels to accept an agreement against their interests. The bottom line is unless the West gives strong indications that it is prepared to negotiate in good faith, the commodity it so far lacked, nothing will happen. If the West waits much longer, the only subject for negotiations will be an unconditional surrender of the Ukrainian army in Donbass.

    Paul Easton 9 Feb 2015 18:30

    Ok now we know what Obama wants. He says he doesn't want to arm Ukraine but as usual he is lying because his new choice for War Secy is in favor. The remaining question is whether European countries will go along with this insanity. European people had better take to the streets en masse if they value their lives.

    Come gather 'round people
    Wherever you roam
    And admit that the waters
    Around you have grown
    And accept it that soon
    You'll be drenched to the bone
    If your time to you
    Is worth savin'
    Then you better start swimmin'
    Or you'll sink like a stone
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    alsojusticeseeker 9 Feb 2015 17:57

    US secretary of state John Kerry said in an interview aired on Sunday. "Hopefully he will come to a point where he realises the damage he is doing is not just to the global order, but he is doing enormous damage to Russia itself."

    So, finally Kerry unveils that they are after ordinary people in Russia, not exclusively after "Putin's close circle" and all that crap.

    PeraIlic jezzam 9 Feb 2015 17:22

    Perhaps if Russia really wants E. Ukraine it should be allowed to take it, with all the consequences this entails, including the economic burden of rebuilding the areas... It seems that these guys from Kiev have similar ideas as you.

    Huge explosion at Donetsk chemical plant, Kiev blames 'dropped cigarette butt' (VIDEO)

    The spokesman for Kiev's Anti-Terrorist Operation said that rebels were at fault for the accident.

    "This was caused by a dropped cigarette butt," Andrey Lysenko told the media on Monday.

    "Accidents often happen in factories where no one is responsible for fire safety. Well, it's chaos, and they are barbarians."

    Not all pro-Kiev officials agreed.

    The Ukrainian military deployed a Smerch (the BM-30 Tornado) multiple rocket system to shell the area in the city, Boris Filatov, former deputy head of the industrial Dnepropetrovsk Region and a member of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), said on his Facebook page.

    According to Filatov, the men who fired the missiles "do not know what they hit because they were shooting based on coordinates."

    Earlier, Ukrainian far-right politician and paramilitary commander Dmitry Yarosh, who is involved in the Kiev military action in southeastern Ukraine, confirmed on his Facebook page that the explosion was caused by Ukrainian artillery.

    PeraIlic 9 Feb 2015 17:13

    Merkel is the stiffest opponent of supplying weapons, while holding firm against any other concessions to Putin and calculating that the west may need to prepare for a generational, long-haul effort peacefully containing and isolating Russia and seeking to build up Ukraine.

    One of the latest statements of Angela Merkel was: "We want to establish security in Europe with Russia, not against Russia" (0:20 in this video). Sorry, but to me it does not sound like preparation "for a generational, long-haul effort peacefully containing and isolating Russia".

    [Feb 10, 2015] Merkel to meet Obama amid growing US scepticism over Ukraine peace talks

    Notable quotes:
    "... They pushed and pushed without any regard for people they tramped underfoot expecting Russia to fold any day and beg for mercy. ..."
    "... Chechnya - Islamist insurgency like what Iraq is facing. S. Ossetia. - Georgian shelling and invasion of this province designed to get NATO to help out. Instead the Russians deal to the invaders. Sorry mate - your argument is as flaky as the hoary old one of Iran wanting to annihilate Israel based on a mistranslated Ahmedinejad speech (which some historically challenged folks still try and drag up) ..."
    "... When "destabilisation" looks like a western sponsored coup, quacks like a western sponsored coup..... ..."
    "... Putin will be crucified in Russia if he is seen pushing the rebels to accept an agreement against their interests. The bottom line is unless the West gives strong indications that it is prepared to negotiate in good faith, the commodity it so far lacked, nothing will happen. If the West waits much longer, the only subject for negotiations will be an unconditional surrender of the Ukrainian army in Donbass. ..."
    "... One of the latest statements of Angela Merkel was: "We want to establish security in Europe with Russia, not against Russia" (0:20 in this video). Sorry, but to me it does not sound like preparation "for a generational, long-haul effort peacefully containing and isolating Russia". ..."
    Feb 10, 2015 | The Guardian

    sodtheproles ID1439675 10 Feb 2015 16:51

    Wrong. The EU and Americans started this when refusing Yanukovich more time to consider the trade deal, and when encouraging the billionaires to send their thugs onto Maidan. Tsarev and many others were aware that a coup was on the menu back in October 2013, when he spoke in the Rada. The EU deal had the support of the billionaires, not least because it offered them the chance to apply on a wider stage the skills they had acquired defrauding the Ukrainian state in the 90s, whereas if Ukraine turned towards the Eurasian Union, they'd have to deal with Putin, who if nothing else a reined in the billionaires.

    caliento 10 Feb 2015 15:52

    Wonder why Putin is welcomed by Turkey, Egypt, Hungary, Greece? It is called respect for a leader who stands behind his position showing no fear. Obama, Merkel, Hollande, Cameron E.U., NATO have no respect. And why should they? Obama's "yellow line" is constantly on display along with the rest of the misfits in Europe. More talks, more "signed" "peace" agreements? More Russian lies? Is this group of misfits just "stuck on stupid"? Putin has uttered another threat....that should be enough for the misfits to surrender & deny reality on the ground & leave Ukraine abandoned once again. I taught Bush was bad but Obama is one for the history books on how not to be a "world leader".

    Yuriy11 -> TeeJayzed Addy 10 Feb 2015 13:12

    And the ally of what Ukraine wish to be the USA? If America considers itself as the guarantor of freedom, democracy and protection of human rights it should support the population of Donbass and Lugansk. The population of these regions of Ukraine wished to have only the rights which are written down in the country Constitution.

    Instead of guaranteeing it these rights, the new management of Ukraine began to bomb and fire at peace cities of Donetsk and Lugansk areas. Instead of solving all problems by negotiations. Also Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and other steels openly to glorify Banderu - the fascist, the military criminal. The youth has started to use nazi symbolics and nazi slogans.

    Can be the USA wishes to become the ally of new fascists? Judging by statements, Obama about desire to deliver to Ukraine the weapon, very similar, that it is going to support fascist government Poroshenko.

    EugeneGur 10 Feb 2015 10:46

    Merkel is the stiffest opponent of supplying weapons, while holding firm against any other concessions to Putin

    Why no concessions? Is that how negotiations are conducted, without any concessions on one side, with all the concessions on the other? I understand this is the American style. But it should be obvious by now to everybody with half a brain that Putin is not the type to be easily intimidated. He can be negotiated with but not blackmailed. They should've also known before they started this mess that Russia isn't Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia or even Vietnam but a much bigger, nastier and better armed country. Germany, of all countries, should've known that you don't want to piss Russia off, you really don't.

    What I see in all these jerking movements is a bunch of very scared "world leaders" who have no idea what to do next. They pushed and pushed without any regard for people they tramped underfoot expecting Russia to fold any day and beg for mercy. When it didn't happen and looks unlikely to happen, there is no plan B. And, of course, honest in good faith negotiations with Russia are entirely out of the question. They just don't know what it means.

    Angela Merkel and Barack Obama are under pressure to shore up western unity over the Ukraine crisis

    Who cares about your "unity"? We have a pretty good idea what kind of "unity" that is. People are dying over there, and these bunch of cheating clowns are concerned with saving whatever is left of their faces. Disgusting.

    Albert_Jacka_VC 10 Feb 2015 08:53

    As usual, the Russophobes don't get it. But they will!

    This morning NAF scouts spotted NATO tanks inside the encirclement (cauldron) at Debaltseve. According to their information the possibility is strong that up to 25% of the trapped army may be NATO. !

    Shell remnants marked clearly with US identifying numbers from 155mm shells, shot by the Paladin artillery system have been recovered from areas the Ukrainian army have attacked civilian targets.

    If the NATO troops are there - (who else would be running the complicated military equipment?) - Zackharchenko's people may display them to the world.

    Everyone will see that the junta that brought us a non-existent Russian invasion has illegitimate and illegal support from NATO's warmongers!

    This explains both the US and EU fudging a new peace initiative. If NATO troops are taken captive, what then?

    Then they are, by Poro's own admission, war criminals. And their urgers (Kerry, Nuland, Stoltenberg, Rasmussen, and the whole foul rabble, are war criminals too.

    Елена Петрова 9 Feb 2015 21:29

    Powerful Documentary on the People of Donbass and why NATO will be in a Tough Fight Should it Invade the Region

    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/07/powerful-documentary-on-the-people-of-donbass-and-why-nato-will-be-in-a-tough-fight-should-it-invade-the-region/

    And yet another says, "Who started it? Everyone knows who started this. How to put it better? Everything started by America's hallooing. The same sh#t happened with Georgia, and now here in Ukraine."

    Albert_Jacka_VC -> jezzam 9 Feb 2015 21:10

    All your info is wrong. Putin himself advocated Ukraine enter a trading arrangement with BOTH Russia and the EU. The EU would have none of it.

    Or rather, Nuland banned it. The EU had no say. We know what Nuland said.
    The coup was a violent, murderous act, and Yanukovych fled after death threats, because his disarmed Berkut could not protect him.

    As to Putin's actions in Ukraine, you buy the spin in the Western press. that's why you're deluded. Donetzkers fight to stay alive, against Kolomoisky's killers.
    Ukraine is illegal, Nazi, and now defeated. Its currency crashed 15% yesterday. How much today?

    That is why the warmongers are flapping about. No other reason than that their war on Russia via 'Ukraine' is a flop.

    Albert_Jacka_VC -> david wright 9 Feb 2015 20:43

    Ukraine is not a sovereign state. Ukraine is an illegal junta of Nazis who took power by murder, and threatrs of murder. that is why even their Ukrainian citizens will not fight for the junta.

    Listen to the babushka [turn captions on] --

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQjmwVC_Dts

    preventallwarsdotorg 9 Feb 2015 19:40

    From the Obama-Merkel Washington press conference; on Ukraine, Angela Merkel seemed optimistic on the chances of 'diplomacy'. But President Obama seemed so determined in 'seeing-off' President Putin by any means; repeatedly, labelling him 'the aggressor'.

    Does President Obama have a personal problem with President Putin?
    Unfortunately, terrible historic armed conflicts arise for populations from intractable inter-personal disagreements between their antagonistic national political leaders. But while their personal safeties are secured, their populations are destroyed.

    National leaders still can't see that nowadays wars generally have 'un-winnable' and frustrating outcomes for even the best equipped militaries. Yet, with seeming careless abandon, their inclinations to increase arms in wars remain unbridled.

    But why did none of the correspondents at the Press conference press the leaders on their likely expectations for Ukraine, Europe and the world if more arms are sent to Ukraine against Russia!
    If national political leaders would be victims of their sponsored wars, would they be as insistent with such risky, futile and potentially increased destructive recipes?

    Yet, the world still seems as impervious to politicians' handling of war crises!
    Why can't it be more innovative to accept or devise better alternatives to the persistently failed and disastrous politicians' bent for even more wars?!

    Andrew Nichols -> Milton 9 Feb 2015 19:02

    And as for those who say they believe that Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are all that Putin is after, I suggest you look at Russia's interventions in Chechnya and Georgia/S.Ossetia,

    Chechnya - Islamist insurgency like what Iraq is facing. S. Ossetia. - Georgian shelling and invasion of this province designed to get NATO to help out. Instead the Russians deal to the invaders. Sorry mate - your argument is as flaky as the hoary old one of Iran wanting to annihilate Israel based on a mistranslated Ahmedinejad speech (which some historically challenged folks still try and drag up)

    Andrew Nichols Milton 9 Feb 2015 18:57

    "But the west did not send troops or tanks into Ukraine. It didn't attempt political destabilisation." When "destabilisation" looks like a western sponsored coup, quacks like a western sponsored coup.....

    EugeneGur 9 Feb 2015 18:45

    amid growing US scepticism that European peace talks with Russia will succeed in deterring its continued military support for separatists.

    I am pretty sure that Russia supports the rebels militarily to a certain extent although I am not sure how far that support goes. Most of Russia is convinced that it doesn't go far enough. Considering that nobody has been able to prove anything (where are these marvelous American satellites when you need them?), probably, Russian public is right, the support is modest, so it's easy to hide. The West wants Russia to stop supporting the rebels. My question is why would Russia do that? What's in it for Russia?

    You will say the magic word "sanctions". First, Russia is not all that eager about the sanctions to be lifted, because we know they are hurting Europe as much, if not more. Second, Russia doesn't believe the West, and for a good reason. Putin organized the Minsk agreements single-handedly and made the rebels accept it. It was a gift that Putin gave both to the West and to Ukraine, because he convinced the rebel army to stop in the middle of a very successful offensive. By doing so, he risked a lot of his political capital, since everybody in Russia as well as in Donbass hated it and believed it was a mistake, which it turned out to be. What did he get in return? Less than nothing - he got additional sanctions, additional demands, which, I hope proved to him finally that the West is double-dealing and entirely untrustworthy.

    Putin will be crucified in Russia if he is seen pushing the rebels to accept an agreement against their interests. The bottom line is unless the West gives strong indications that it is prepared to negotiate in good faith, the commodity it so far lacked, nothing will happen. If the West waits much longer, the only subject for negotiations will be an unconditional surrender of the Ukrainian army in Donbass.

    Paul Easton 9 Feb 2015 18:30

    Ok now we know what Obama wants. He says he doesn't want to arm Ukraine but as usual he is lying because his new choice for War Secy is in favor. The remaining question is whether European countries will go along with this insanity. European people had better take to the streets en masse if they value their lives.

    Come gather 'round people
    Wherever you roam
    And admit that the waters
    Around you have grown
    And accept it that soon
    You'll be drenched to the bone
    If your time to you
    Is worth savin'
    Then you better start swimmin'
    Or you'll sink like a stone
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    alsojusticeseeker 9 Feb 2015 17:57

    US secretary of state John Kerry said in an interview aired on Sunday. "Hopefully he will come to a point where he realises the damage he is doing is not just to the global order, but he is doing enormous damage to Russia itself."

    So, finally Kerry unveils that they are after ordinary people in Russia, not exclusively after "Putin's close circle" and all that crap.

    PeraIlic jezzam 9 Feb 2015 17:22

    Perhaps if Russia really wants E. Ukraine it should be allowed to take it, with all the consequences this entails, including the economic burden of rebuilding the areas... It seems that these guys from Kiev have similar ideas as you.

    Huge explosion at Donetsk chemical plant, Kiev blames 'dropped cigarette butt' (VIDEO)

    The spokesman for Kiev's Anti-Terrorist Operation said that rebels were at fault for the accident.

    "This was caused by a dropped cigarette butt," Andrey Lysenko told the media on Monday.

    "Accidents often happen in factories where no one is responsible for fire safety. Well, it's chaos, and they are barbarians."

    Not all pro-Kiev officials agreed.

    The Ukrainian military deployed a Smerch (the BM-30 Tornado) multiple rocket system to shell the area in the city, Boris Filatov, former deputy head of the industrial Dnepropetrovsk Region and a member of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), said on his Facebook page.

    According to Filatov, the men who fired the missiles "do not know what they hit because they were shooting based on coordinates."

    Earlier, Ukrainian far-right politician and paramilitary commander Dmitry Yarosh, who is involved in the Kiev military action in southeastern Ukraine, confirmed on his Facebook page that the explosion was caused by Ukrainian artillery.

    PeraIlic 9 Feb 2015 17:13

    Merkel is the stiffest opponent of supplying weapons, while holding firm against any other concessions to Putin and calculating that the west may need to prepare for a generational, long-haul effort peacefully containing and isolating Russia and seeking to build up Ukraine.

    One of the latest statements of Angela Merkel was: "We want to establish security in Europe with Russia, not against Russia" (0:20 in this video). Sorry, but to me it does not sound like preparation "for a generational, long-haul effort peacefully containing and isolating Russia".

    [Feb 09, 2015] The west must talk to Vladimir Putin about Ukraine

    Looks like guardian staff got new different instructions from their MI5 handlers...
    Notable quotes:
    "... Hove, East Sussex ..."
    Feb 09, 2015 | The Guardian

    David Stainwright, Hove, East Sussex

    I have no love for modern capitalist Russia, or for Vladimir Putin, but there are always two sides to a conflict. Regrettably, the Guardian gives credence mainly to the anti-Putin version. In that narrative, the Russian leader is alleged to have violated Ukraine's sovereignty, though no hard evidence is offered. For those who support western Ukraine's criticism of Putin it is salutary to remember that the present government came to power via a coup. Moreover, many of its supporters are self-confessed followers of Nazi ideology.

    For the Guardian, one of Putin's main transgressions has been the annexation of Crimea. But this is dangerous ground for western critics of Putin, as a moment's reflection should remind one that Israel routinely annexes Palestinian land but has never been censured for its action. Turkey, which annexed northern Cyprus, has never been subjected to sanctions. Two wrongs do not make a right, but it is morally shaky ground for western leaders to condemn one country for annexation while condoning it by another power.

    As David Owen has pointed out (26 August 2014), Russian leaders are understandably worried by the eastward march of Nato, threatening its security. If we wish to avoid catastrophe in Europe the west must come to a diplomatic agreement with Russia, however difficult that may be (Report, 8 February). The alternative is unthinkable.

    Tim Dyce, London

    The solution to Ukraine has been floated – and ignored – before. Treat Russia as part of continental and cultural Europe. Field a joint EU peacekeeping force with Russia and Ukraine. Fly all three flags. Enforce and police the Minsk agreement. Leave Crimea for another day. Use an EU Marshall plan to rehabilitate eastern Ukraine. Recognise significant regional autonomy within a unified Ukraine. This is something the UK should lead with France and Germany, rather than waiting for Washington to let us do it.

    Stephen Mennell, Dublin

    David Cameron could play no part in the Moscow talks (Report, theguardian.com, 7 January). Britain is a US puppet state, which for decades has not had a foreign policy separate from that of the US. Since America precipitated the Ukraine crisis by orchestrating the coup in Kiev, it would not be appropriate for Britain to play any part in mediation.

    [Feb 09, 2015] The west must talk to Vladimir Putin about Ukraine

    Looks like guardian staff got new different instructions from their MI5 handlers...
    Notable quotes:
    "... Hove, East Sussex ..."
    Feb 09, 2015 | The Guardian

    David Stainwright, Hove, East Sussex

    I have no love for modern capitalist Russia, or for Vladimir Putin, but there are always two sides to a conflict. Regrettably, the Guardian gives credence mainly to the anti-Putin version. In that narrative, the Russian leader is alleged to have violated Ukraine's sovereignty, though no hard evidence is offered. For those who support western Ukraine's criticism of Putin it is salutary to remember that the present government came to power via a coup. Moreover, many of its supporters are self-confessed followers of Nazi ideology.

    For the Guardian, one of Putin's main transgressions has been the annexation of Crimea. But this is dangerous ground for western critics of Putin, as a moment's reflection should remind one that Israel routinely annexes Palestinian land but has never been censured for its action. Turkey, which annexed northern Cyprus, has never been subjected to sanctions. Two wrongs do not make a right, but it is morally shaky ground for western leaders to condemn one country for annexation while condoning it by another power.

    As David Owen has pointed out (26 August 2014), Russian leaders are understandably worried by the eastward march of Nato, threatening its security. If we wish to avoid catastrophe in Europe the west must come to a diplomatic agreement with Russia, however difficult that may be (Report, 8 February). The alternative is unthinkable.

    Tim Dyce, London

    The solution to Ukraine has been floated – and ignored – before. Treat Russia as part of continental and cultural Europe. Field a joint EU peacekeeping force with Russia and Ukraine. Fly all three flags. Enforce and police the Minsk agreement. Leave Crimea for another day. Use an EU Marshall plan to rehabilitate eastern Ukraine. Recognise significant regional autonomy within a unified Ukraine. This is something the UK should lead with France and Germany, rather than waiting for Washington to let us do it.

    Stephen Mennell, Dublin

    David Cameron could play no part in the Moscow talks (Report, theguardian.com, 7 January). Britain is a US puppet state, which for decades has not had a foreign policy separate from that of the US. Since America precipitated the Ukraine crisis by orchestrating the coup in Kiev, it would not be appropriate for Britain to play any part in mediation.

    [Feb 08, 2015] Ukraine conflict: four-nation peace talks in Minsk aim to end crisis

    Notable quotes:
    "... Oh yes. There is also an issue of mercenaries. It is said that the Ukrainian army encircled in the Debaltsevo cauldron has Western mercenary units that Merkel and Hollande are desperate to evacuate before the extent of the Western involvement in fully revealed. ..."
    "... Lithuania has already admitted it's sending Kiev weapons. Poland likely as well given their stance. And if anyone thinks the US is quietly sitting on the sidelines given stuff such as Contragate in the past, they're almost certainly deluded. ..."
    "... The German intelligence service puts the number of dead in Ukraine at closer to 50 thousand rather than 5 thousand. ..."
    The Guardian

    ID5868758 -> centerline 8 Feb 2015 23:44

    CIA and Americans caught in the cauldron, or whatever they're calling it? That's what some on a German comment thread were saying today.

    EugeneGur -> centerline 8 Feb 2015 23:44

    Oh yes. There is also an issue of mercenaries. It is said that the Ukrainian army encircled in the Debaltsevo cauldron has Western mercenary units that Merkel and Hollande are desperate to evacuate before the extent of the Western involvement in fully revealed.

    TuleCarbonari -> EugeneGur 8 Feb 2015 23:31

    What is special about the East? It is richer in natural resources than the West. Joe Biden's son and other businessmen won't be able to operate in a politically volatile area. It must be pacified somehow.

    Bullybyte -> WiseOldManNo476 8 Feb 2015 23:43

    There will be no war.

    Earth to WiseOldManNo476. You obviously haven't noticed. There already IS a war; it is about to escalate; and the UK will be involved in it right up to its neck.

    The problem being a bully (the US) is that it becomes arrogant and expects its own way all of the time, when someone pushes back, they fold. This isn't Iraq you know.

    And who is pushing back? You?

    Looks like the EU will be choosing the lesser of two evils.

    Yes. Listen to the tough talk by Cameron. Look how the EU ratcheted up their sanctions on Russia only a few days ago. The EU have already chosen the lesser of two reasons.

    BTW, enjoy your collapsing petro dollar and associated hyper inflation coming your way very soon.

    And this will be happening when? After your kids have been killed?

    KrasnoArmejac Roodan 8 Feb 2015 23:20

    no roodan, we should not go to war. it is ukraines fight, not ours. but we should not treat putin like he is a normal politician (or person for that matter). we should not have our newspapers asking questions that have been answered a million times before, just so we could be proud of our political corectness. you know those questions, right? questions like: are those really russians that are fighting the ukranians? it's like answering the question: is the sky blue? over and over and over again. we should not keep satellite images proving russian tanks crossing the border classified, just so mister putin could have a face-saving exit once this is all over with. because my dear roodan, contrary to what your mother (and all mothers for that matter) told you: ignoring the bully will not make him stop punching you. it will just make you a loser-for-life. if you don't trust me ask mister neville chamberlain and his piece of paper

    EugeneGur 8 Feb 2015 23:13

    the latest Franco-German peace initiative . . . was driven by the urgent desire to avoid a new bloodbath in the besieged Ukrainian-held town of Debaltseve

    Really? What is so special about Debaltsevo that makes the European leaders so concerned about its fate? What sets it apart so decisively from Donetsk, Gorlovka, Krasnoarmeisk, Shakhtursk, and a dozen of other Donbass towns that have been pounded by artillery fire for months. Hundreds of civilians died, and the only response from our European friends was deafening silence about the killings and loud accusations against Russia of everything and anything.

    I'll tell you what's special about Debaltsevo. A large number of Ukrainian troops are trapped there, and unless something is done, there are likely end up dead. This means another devastating defeat for the Ukrs, from which they are unlikely to recover. So, Merkel and Hollande rushed (or were dispatched?) to the rescue of their little nazi Ukrainian protegees. One cannot help but feel contempt for such European "leaders" and generally for what Europe turned into under American patronage.

    sbmfc 8 Feb 2015 10:22

    Given the still unfolding disasters in Syria and Libya surely the policy of the west attempting to pick a winner in a local conflict is completely discredited.

    It may be the case that war in Europe suits the American agenda but the EU should only be focused on a peaceful solution. Borders in Europe have always been fluid and it is impossible to see the rebel areas now ever peacefully existing within Ukraine.

    snowdogchampion -> Strummered 8 Feb 2015 10:17

    there ARE English speaking troops that sound AMERICAN Foreign fighters filmed on ground with Kiev army not to mention the CIA agents ;-)

    Kal El -> Eric Hoffmann 8 Feb 2015 10:13

    And where is Kiev getting all its weapons etc from ? Their stuff was 20 year old USSR stuff. Mothballed and rusting.

    Lithuania has already admitted it's sending Kiev weapons. Poland likely as well given their stance. And if anyone thinks the US is quietly sitting on the sidelines given stuff such as Contragate in the past, they're almost certainly deluded.

    NoBodiesFool 8 Feb 2015 10:12

    If peace breaks out what will the poor weapons dealers and their bankster backers do? Someone please think of the poor children of the weapons dealers and the banksters. Also, think of the poor children of the fossil fuel cartels that all of this is really about. They really don't have enough money and they so would like another Bugatti for New Year's. Please, give war a chance - for the children.

    Rialbynot 8 Feb 2015 10:12

    When the German-speaking population in South Tyrol rebelled against Italian rule in the late 1960s, the Italian government initially attempted to put down the rebellion using force.

    However, a campaign of sabotage and bombings by German-speaking separatists led by the SouthTyrolean Liberation Committee continued.

    Finally, the issue was resolved in 1971, when a new treaty was signed and ratified by the Austrian and Italian governments. It stipulated that disputes in South Tyrol would be submitted for settlement to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and that the province would receive greater autonomy within Italy. The new agreement proved broadly satisfactory to the parties involved and the separatist tensions soon eased.

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trentino-Alto_Adige/S%C3%BCdtirol

    Europe has a blueprint for resolving the (far more deadly) East Ukraine crisis.

    Asimpleguest -> CaptainBlunder 8 Feb 2015 10:09

    strange - I read otherwise

    ''MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. Russian military led by Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces Alexander Lentsov are providing assistance to the Ukrainian south-east conflict sides in reaching compromise for deescalation of tension and troops' pullout, Chief of the Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov said on Wednesday.

    The mission was sent at the request of the Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff, Viktor Muzhenko, said Gerasimov.''

    snowdogchampion 8 Feb 2015 10:09

    thanks god! mind that the US warmongers will not be part of the PEACE talks cause they want WAR at our doorstep.. McCain & Co. must be p!ssed off.. hope Merkel's security has been increased, you never know, there might be a CIA agent around

    SHappens 8 Feb 2015 10:08

    Merkel is due to meet Barack Obama, the US president, in Washington on Monday, in a bid to synchronise US and western European positions on Ukraine ahead of the Minsk summit. Or how to make a peaceful initiative go jeopardized. All Putin has to do is sit and wait. And let them EU and US paddle.

    Merkel feels they owe the East Ukrainians to stop the war they promoted and encouraged for months but McCain says that these poor Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves. I suppose he is referring to the East Ukrainians, as they did not attack anybody in Kiev and are indeed defending themselves from undiscriminated shelling from Kiev. Let's hope the Nobel prize will honor it.

    Koninklijk 8 Feb 2015 10:08

    Even if there is no further escalation, these repercussions are going to be felt in Europe for a long time. We'll just have to hope nobody really wants a war in Europe, in the short or long term.

    Kal El 8 Feb 2015 10:05

    The German intelligence service puts the number of dead in Ukraine at closer to 50 thousand rather than 5 thousand.

    Which when you think about is more of a truer number given that Ukraine is currently on its 4TH, yes 4TH mobilisation/conscription wave.

    If the number of dead/injured is what Kiev claims, quite clearly they would NOT need all of these mobilisations in the last year. The current mobilisation even includes women.

    [Feb 08, 2015] Remarks at the Congress of Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia

    Russia revolt against neoliberal empire with the capital is Washington...
    [Feb 07, 2015] President of Russia

    PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN:

    ... ... ...

    Finally, about a war waged against this country. Fortunately, there is no war. Let us not pay too much attention to this. There is, however, an attempt to restrain our development by different means, an attempt to freeze the world order that has taken shape in the past decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with one single leader at its head, who wants to remain an absolute leader, thinking he can do whatever he likes, while others can only do what they are allowed to do and only if it is in this leader's interests. Russia would never agree to such a world order.

    Maybe some like it, they want to live in a semi-occupied state, but we will not do it. However, we will not go to war with anyone either, we intend to cooperate with everyone. The attempts made, including through the so-called sanctions, do not make anyone happy in the final count, I believe. They cannot be effective when applied to such a country as ours, though they are doing us certain harm. We have to understand this and enhance our sovereignty, including economic sovereignty. Therefore, I would like to call on you to show understanding of what is going on and to cooperate with the state and the Government.

    ... ... ...

    Someone also said a 'spectre of recession' is roaming the world. As we all know, it used to be the 'spectre of communism', and now it is a 'spectre of recession'. Representatives of our traditional confessions say it is enough to turn to God and we would not fear any spectres. However, a popular saying tells us that God helps him who helps himself. Therefore, if we work hard and retain a responsible attitude to our job, we will succeed.

    Thank you very much.

    [Feb 08, 2015] Ukraine crisis Do not try to scare Putin, warns Merkel By Tom Parfitt, Moscow and Justin Huggler in Berlin

    Another terrible and extremely brutal created by West civil war in the name of neo-colonial domination of the territory, resources and markets is in full swing. And that's after Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afganistan, Libya... Already probably over 50K of dead and several times more wounded. More then a million of refuges (mostly in Russia)...
    Feb 07, 2015 | Telegraph

    Sending arms to Ukraine will not scare Vladimir Putin, warns Angela Merkel while Francois Hollande warns it could lead to war

    It was a day of bluster and speeches but also paralysis over how to bring the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine to an end.

    On one side, hawks in Washington favour supplying "advanced weapons" to Ukraine's government in Kiev. On the other, cautious European leaders warned it is easier to provoke Vladimir Putin than to scare him.

    "I am firmly convinced this conflict cannot be solved with military means," said Angela Merkel, the German chancellor at the Munich Security Conference.

    Mrs Merkel, who is the only major Western leader to have a working relationship with Mr Putin, said a flow of American arms to Ukraine would not intimidate the Russian leader.

    "I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily," she said. "I have to put it that bluntly."

    She added that force had not proved to be the solution in the past when dealing with Russia. "I grew up in East Germany, I have seen the Wall," she said. "The Americans did not intervene in the Wall, but in the end we won."

    More than 5,300 people have died in the conflict so far, many in devastating artillery barrages, and Kiev warned yesterday that rebel troops were massing for a fresh offensive.

    An increasing number of US politicians and senior officials have suggested countering the rebel troops by supplying "defensive weapons" such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, small arms and ammunition to allow Ukraine to strike back at the tanks, artillery and troops that Russia appears to be sending to the east of the country.

    General Philip Breedlove, Nato's top military commander, insisted on Saturday that the option should remain on the table. "I don't think we should preclude out of hand the possibility of the military option," he said, adding: "There is no conversation about boots on the ground."

    President Barack Obama has remained silent so far, but Ashton Carter, his nominee for defence secretary, told a Senate committee last week that he is "very much inclined" to provide arms to Petro Poroshenko's government.

    A day after five hours of talks in Moscow between Mrs Merkel, François Hollande and Mr Putin yielded no public agreement beyond a commitment to a further phone call, all the major players in the crisis met at the Munich Security Conference, electrifying what is usually a dry affair.

    There was no mistaking where the sympathies of the audience, made up of international leaders including 20 heads of state, lay. When Mrs Merkel mentioned in her speech that she was glad to see Petro Poroshenko present, the Ukrainian President stood up and took a bow, to rapturous applause. Brandishing the passports of several Russian soldiers allegedly seized on Ukrainian territory, he said they were the "best evidence for the aggression and for the presence of Russian troops".

    Mr Hollande has said he is against arming Ukraine and Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, said the UK also supports a diplomatic solution while he denounced Mr Putin's "bully-boy" tactics.

    "At the moment we do not feel that the supply of arms would be a helpful contribution," said Mr Hammond. "And so long as there is something approximating a military stalemate, the focus must be on finding a political solution to resolve it."

    He also rejected accusations that the UK had become a "diplomatic irrelevance", saying: "We will decide, together, what is the best way to go forward. The United States and the United Kingdom will be at that table with France and Germany."

    But Malcolm Rifkind, the former Defence and Foreign Secretary, was one of several delegates who pressed Mrs Merkel on how Mr Putin could be tackled without bolstering Ukraine's army. "Frederick the Great said that diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments," the Tory MP pointed out.

    Joe Biden, the US vice president, appeared to leave a route open for weapons supplies to Kiev, saying: "We do not believe in a military solution to the conflict, but we do not believe that Putin has the right to do whatever he wants." He added: "Too many times, President Putin has promised peace and delivered tanks."

    On Sunday, Mrs Merkel, Mr Hollande, Mr Putin and Mr Poroshenko will resume the debate and are expected to thrash out a blueprint on a conference call. But it remains unclear what incentive, or threat, Moscow requires in order to scale back its support for the thousands of heavily armed militiamen in east Ukraine.

    On Saturday Mr Putin insisted that his country was innocent, saying during a visit to Sochi on the Black Sea: "We are not going to wage war on anyone, we plan to cooperate with everybody."

    "There clearly is an attempt to restrain our development with different means," he told trade union activists. "There is an attempt to perturb the existing world order... with one incontestable leader who wants to remain as such thinking he is allowed everything while others are only allowed what he allows and only in his interests. This world order will never suit Russia."

    In Munich, Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, took the West to task for allegedly escalating the conflict but expressed hope the renewed peace talks would bear fruit. "We believe there is every possibility that we will reach a result and agree the recommendations that will allow the sides to really untie this knot of a conflict," he said.

    Representatives of the rebels, Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe signed a peace deal in Minsk, Belarus, in September. That deal agreed a ceasefire, a withdrawal of artillery, prisoner exchanges and other concessions but was never implemented in full. Despite some lulls, fighting and shelling continued and last month the rebels announced they were abandoning talks over a ceasefire and going on the offensive.

    French and German officials have said the current peace talks are seeking a way to implement the original Minsk agreement, possibly conceding more land to the rebels to reflect their recent advances.

    But Mr Poroshenko said any new deal should not expand the territory given over to rebel control, and its signatories could not pick and choose which points to fulfil.

    "The Minsk protocol is not a buffet in the Bayerischer Hof hotel," he said, referring to the location of the Munich conference.

    [Feb 08, 2015] Remarks at the Congress of Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia

    Russia revolt against neoliberal empire with the capital is Washington...
    Notable quotes:
    "... There is, however, an attempt to restrain our development by different means, an attempt to freeze the world order that has taken shape in the past decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with one single leader at its head, who wants to remain an absolute leader, thinking he can do whatever he likes, while others can only do what they are allowed to do and only if it is in this leader's interests. Russia would never agree to such a world order. ..."
    "... Maybe some like it, they want to live in a semi-occupied state, but we will not do it. However, we will not go to war with anyone either, we intend to cooperate with everyone. The attempts made, including through the so-called sanctions, do not make anyone happy in the final count, I believe. They cannot be effective when applied to such a country as ours, though they are doing us certain harm. We have to understand this and enhance our sovereignty, including economic sovereignty. Therefore, I would like to call on you to show understanding of what is going on and to cooperate with the state and the Government. ..."
    [Feb 07, 2015] President of Russia

    PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN:

    ... ... ...

    Finally, about a war waged against this country. Fortunately, there is no war. Let us not pay too much attention to this. There is, however, an attempt to restrain our development by different means, an attempt to freeze the world order that has taken shape in the past decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with one single leader at its head, who wants to remain an absolute leader, thinking he can do whatever he likes, while others can only do what they are allowed to do and only if it is in this leader's interests. Russia would never agree to such a world order.

    Maybe some like it, they want to live in a semi-occupied state, but we will not do it. However, we will not go to war with anyone either, we intend to cooperate with everyone. The attempts made, including through the so-called sanctions, do not make anyone happy in the final count, I believe. They cannot be effective when applied to such a country as ours, though they are doing us certain harm. We have to understand this and enhance our sovereignty, including economic sovereignty. Therefore, I would like to call on you to show understanding of what is going on and to cooperate with the state and the Government.

    ... ... ...

    Someone also said a 'spectre of recession' is roaming the world. As we all know, it used to be the 'spectre of communism', and now it is a 'spectre of recession'. Representatives of our traditional confessions say it is enough to turn to God and we would not fear any spectres. However, a popular saying tells us that God helps him who helps himself. Therefore, if we work hard and retain a responsible attitude to our job, we will succeed.

    Thank you very much.

    [Feb 07, 2015] Fear of Vladimir Putin grows in EU capitals amid spectre of total war

    theguardian.com

    FranklyMrShandy -> demdike 7 Feb 2015 11:57

    Oh, that sounds like a great solution!

    You may as well bomb Moscow if you do that, because (as the article makes clear) to Putin the two would be equivalent.

    Why the F*** were Obama and Nato so keen to have more pieces on their pie... this really bugs me. Ok, so Ukraine was not "neutral in the right way" and was under heavy Russian influence. And so? It's on Russia's doorstep for f***'s sake! What do you expect!

    If China masterminded a coup in Mexico with the aim of bringing the country into a defense treaty with Beijing ... do you think that Washington would not do everything possible to stop it?

    jeeeeez

    Amazon10 7 Feb 2015 11:43

    What people seem to have forgotten is that Russia is NOT the Soviet Union but a free market state that like all others and wants to protect it's own interests. It is confronted by agressive NATO states that have encroached on territories that they agreed they would not.

    In addition thay have a circle of nuclear based with missiles pointing at them. Ukraine, which was a past soviet state but then became neutral after the fall of the Soviet Union. However the US had other ideas as voiced by their representative to the EU Newland who inadvertently had her plans for the Ukraine exposed. Their intended coup took place despite a democratically elected being in place and a government was installed committed to Western imperialism and expansion of NATO.

    The population of the eastern region rejected this coup and it's nazi composition and found that the only way they could resist the military forced brought upon them by Kiev and it's western supporters was by fighting back. This is where we are at today. I am sure that Russia have aided the east with military weapons and have accept over 1million refugees. There has not been a single piece of evidence to show that Russian forces have involved on Ukraine soil. The aggressive rhetoric from the West towards Russia make the likelihood of war real and could have grave consequences for us all if we allow the real truth to be distorted in order to bring this about. The leaders of Europe must be made aware that we will not let this happen and that our constant aggression towards whoever we disagree with is not an excuse for war

    dylan kerling -> Spockdem 7 Feb 2015 11:42

    his post clearly implied it and if you've seen any of his other posts in other articles you would realize he clearly does seem to look at this situation as a dichotomy of good vs evil, west vs Russia.

    When someone lists some atrocities while only referring to one side and completely ignoring the fact that the other has done all of it only more frequently and with less of a reason I would say he's excusing the west from it.

    Lastly I'm not condoning Russia, I'm pointing out US hypocrisy and the fact that we still hear all this talk of how Russia is doing all these terrible things from our political leaders while completely white washing that we've done the very same time and time again.

    If anyone is a shill is all of you that seem to think it's OK when the west does it but if those evil Russians do anything oh boy are they in trouble.

    LarsNil -> Ram2009 7 Feb 2015 11:41

    "Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is identified in State Department documents as an informant for the U.S. since 2006. The documents describe him as "[o]ur Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko." The State Department documents also report that Poroshenko is "tainted by credible corruption allegations."

    The most recent top official to join the Ukrainian government is Natalia A. Jaresko, a long-time State Department official, who went to Ukraine after the U.S.-sponsored Orange Revolution. Jaresko was made a Ukrainian citizen by the president on the same day he appointed her finance minister. William Boardman reports further on Jaresko:

    Natalie Jaresko, is an American citizen who managed a Ukrainian-based, U.S.-created hedge fund that was charged with illegal insider trading. She also managed a CIA fund that supported 'pro-democracy' movements and laundered much of the $5 billion the U.S. spent supporting the Maidan protests that led to the Kiev coup in February 2014. Jaresko is a big fan of austerity for people in troubled economies."

    http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/chomsky_and_kissinger_agree_avoid_historic_tragedy_in_ukraine_20150206

    Vatslav Rente 7 Feb 2015 11:35

    Fakes of the Ukrainian government. The Best.

    September 9, 2014 The head of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriya Gontareva during a round table in Kiev, said: "200 FSB agents work on loosening the Ukrainian banking system and the hryvnia" :)

    February 5, 2015 "The reasons for the fall of the hryvnia - no," - said the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Abramavičius.

    February 4, 2015: $ 1/17 hryvnia, February 7, 2015 $ 1/26 hryvnia.

    February 6, 2015 Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Ukrainian TV channel 24: "spirit of the Ukrainian soldiers the best in the world. If you give them the necessary knowledge, skills and weapons, they will be able to capture the whole of Russia "

    Damn sclerosis. Apparently he forgot how as Russia routed the Georgian army for 4 days.

    Let me remind you, this man was considered for the post of head of the Anti-Corruption Committee of Ukraine. In Georgia, he declared a national search in. The Prosecutor's Office indicted in absentia Saakashvili of abuse of power, embezzlement of budget funds, the attempt to seize other people's property. The investigation is conducted from 25 October 2013, and during this period were collected 80 volumes of evidence, questioned nearly 100 witnesses.

    2013 Yatsenyuk in an interview with Ukrainian TV: "In the Ukrainian authorities are amateurs!" Prime Ministers of Ukraine Azarov, Foreign exchange reserves of more than 22 billion dollars, the rate of $ 1 / 8.5 hryvnia.
    Now Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, gold and currency reserves of $ 6 billion, the rate of $ 1/26 hryvnia.

    Davos January 21, 2015 President of Ukraine Poroshenko: "In my country there are more than 9000 troops from the Russian Federation, 500 tanks, heavy artillery and armored vehicles."
    Wow, it's strange that the separatists have not yet reached the border with Poland :)

    February 7, 2015 security conference in Munich. Showing the passport of Russian citizens and military tickets Poroshenko said: "What you still need more facts, evidence of the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine?"
    Ok, but the soldiers of the Russian Army during the service do not have passports, only military ID. But of course when traveling to Ukraine they are given a complete set, in case of capture. Ha ha ha :)

    The Mayor Of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko. At a meeting with Ukrainian soldiers: "they Say that there is no body armor, but it is physical protection. The main armor for each of you, is have a mother, wife, children... Social standards - this is the armor. When everyone knows that if something happens, his family will receive good compensation and will not have to beg" :) Uh... good consolation for the soldiers...

    You do not cast doubt on the adequacy of the new government of Ukraine? I think that these clowns, already tired most of the Ukrainians.

    cherryredguitar Yubin Underok 7 Feb 2015 11:16

    Here is why: Russia has an army of online shills.

    Of course, those nice trustworthy people at GCHQ and Langley wouldn't do stuff like that, would they?

    [Feb 07, 2015] Putin and Ukraine leader to hold phone talks after inconclusive end to summit

    Notable quotes:
    "... Moscow is not satisfied with the attempts to restrain the development of Russia and to preserve the unipolar world. ..."
    "... there are really an attempt to keep our development by a variety of means, ..."
    "... To stay in the belief that he can do all, while others can be something that only permuted by him and only in his best interest, "- said the head of state. ..."
    "... If someone likes it, wants to live in the condition of half occupation -- but we will not do this. ..."
    Feb 06, 2015 | The Guardian

    1waldo1 7 Feb 2015 10:05

    To stop the spreading of this increasingly dangerous conflict, there is a solution, that is in the interest of all affected:

    The USA should butt out. It's that simple. This is a European 'problem' (instigated by and foisted upon by the Americans) and will be solved by Europe and Europe alone.

    "The German chancellor said she wanted to secure peace in Europe with Russia and not against it." Wise words.

    Paul Feeney Spiffey 7 Feb 2015 10:00

    NATO is a One trick pony..and it's only one trick is War. NATO should have been dismantled when the old Soviet Union broke up. Instead, it's been taken over by the USA to aid its geopolitical S&P 500 agenda. If anyone should be in front of a War crime tribunal, it's not Lavrov but Obama for 3000 Pakistani people DRONED or Bush & Blair for one million Iraq's in the name of WMD's, if the 'Report' into it ever sees the light of day. International Diplomacy is the answer to Ukraine not more WAR....

    Regnom 7 Feb 2015 09:29

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, said that the actions of Washington and its allies have undermined the structure of European security. "The construction of European security, which is based on the UN Charter and the Helsinki principles, has long been undermined the actions of the US and its allies," - he said. Russian Foreign Minister also stressed that in any difficult situation, Washington is trying to accuse Moscow. "In every difficult situation our American colleagues are trying to" throw a switch" to Russia", - he said. As an example of his words Lavrov led to "revive the recent talks on a treaty on intermediate- and shorter-range missiles."

    According to him, now there is a "culmination" of course conducted by the West to retain its dominance in the world: "We believe that there is a culmination held during the last quarter of a century the course of our Western colleagues to maintain any means of its dominance in world affairs, to capture geopolitical space in Europe."

    Regnom 7 Feb 2015 09:21

    Putin today:

    "Moscow is not satisfied with the attempts to restrain the development of Russia and to preserve the unipolar world.

    "War, thank God, is not happens. But there are really an attempt to keep our development by a variety of means, there are an attempt to "freeze" the world order led by one undisputed leader, who wants to stay as such. To stay in the belief that he can do all, while others can be something that only permuted by him and only in his best interest, "- said the head of state.

    "Such a world order will never satisfied Russia," - he added. "If someone likes it, wants to live in the condition of half occupation -- but we will not do this. At the same time, we are not going to war with anyone and we are going to work with everyone"- said Putin.

    snowdogchampion -> snowdogchampion 7 Feb 2015 09:08

    here Merkel's speech (1hr) https://www.securityconference.de/en/media-library/video/single/statement-and-discussion-with-dr-angela-merkel/

    and Lavrov (45min) https://www.securityconference.de/en/media-library/video/single/statement-and-discussion-with-sergey-lavrov-1/

    and more

    [Feb 07, 2015] Merkel downbeat as world awaits Putin's response to latest Ukraine peace plan by Julian Borger in Munich

    Feb 07, 2015 | The Guardian


    Nickel07 Tepluken 7 Feb 2015 23:15

    of course it is a mafia state no different than the US...but you guys are the ones screaming your titties off about wonderful Yats is , you put the pusillanimous bastard in power...

    centerline Tepluken 7 Feb 2015 23:14

    international isolation

    Explain international. I know the US believes it is the centre of the universe but the majority of people on earth do not agree. (I guess I should explain to a dumb as dogshit yank) A majority is over 50%.

    centerline hdc hadeze 7 Feb 2015 23:10

    Schwarzenegger and Stallone are pretty tough blokes too. I see those flowers were fund raising for the hard done by Israel so the could blast a few more UN schools.

    John Smith 7 Feb 2015 23:07

    The Russians should connect via land to Crimea, push 100km past THAT, and THEN have a buffer zone. That would allow a end to this. Anything less and the CIA will just ramp up Ukrainian arms for a year or two until they have the means to attack again.

    Ukraine and it's quasi-fascist nationalists cannot be trusted, emboldened by American money, they REALLY cannot be trusted. I say that as a patriotic American.

    Friend4you 7 Feb 2015 23:04

    I agree with you John Smith , this war criminal John McCain is like Dracula , he lives on blood , this sick man used to travel to Egypt and meet the Muslim Brotherhood , supply them with money to destabilize Egypt . Wherever there are troubles you will find this blood thirsty man.

    MaxBoson Laurence Johnson 7 Feb 2015 23:01

    Motivated by your post, I checked the Web and found a Wiki piece on the Minsk Agreement. According a map there, the airport is smack dab on the red line designated as the "insurgent line of control". Since the Ukrainian forces were supposed to remain outside a 15km buffer zone, the question is why their attacks on the airport went unreported in Western media. This is a really bizarre situation; comments are now a better source of information the article being commented on.

    John Smith 7 Feb 2015 22:56

    I've had endless support pounding the New York Times every time it runs another lying anti-Putin, anti-Russia op-ed. We have the usual large block of idiot American Neocons who simply rise to any bait to throw hate at the supposed badguy Russian leader. But we also have endless numbers of smart people who watched this mess go down, and know better than to join the Neocon dopes in a let's-arm-Ukraine hatefest.

    If one guy is the King of Neocon Idiots it's Sen John McCain. The old war criminal is a one man disaster on foreign policy. Thank the mythical Christ the asshole was defeated by the idiot Obama.

    centerline Outfit17 7 Feb 2015 22:56

    Democracy is good if it votes for the US. IF the majority vote against the US then that is dictatorship. (democracy is defined as pro US voting)

    [Feb 07, 2015] Putin and Ukraine leader to hold phone talks after inconclusive end to summit

    Notable quotes:
    "... Moscow is not satisfied with the attempts to restrain the development of Russia and to preserve the unipolar world. ..."
    "... there are really an attempt to keep our development by a variety of means, ..."
    "... To stay in the belief that he can do all, while others can be something that only permuted by him and only in his best interest, "- said the head of state. ..."
    "... If someone likes it, wants to live in the condition of half occupation -- but we will not do this. ..."
    Feb 06, 2015 | The Guardian

    1waldo1 7 Feb 2015 10:05

    To stop the spreading of this increasingly dangerous conflict, there is a solution, that is in the interest of all affected:

    The USA should butt out. It's that simple. This is a European 'problem' (instigated by and foisted upon by the Americans) and will be solved by Europe and Europe alone.

    "The German chancellor said she wanted to secure peace in Europe with Russia and not against it." Wise words.

    Paul Feeney Spiffey 7 Feb 2015 10:00

    NATO is a One trick pony..and it's only one trick is War. NATO should have been dismantled when the old Soviet Union broke up. Instead, it's been taken over by the USA to aid its geopolitical S&P 500 agenda. If anyone should be in front of a War crime tribunal, it's not Lavrov but Obama for 3000 Pakistani people DRONED or Bush & Blair for one million Iraq's in the name of WMD's, if the 'Report' into it ever sees the light of day. International Diplomacy is the answer to Ukraine not more WAR....

    Regnom 7 Feb 2015 09:29

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, said that the actions of Washington and its allies have undermined the structure of European security. "The construction of European security, which is based on the UN Charter and the Helsinki principles, has long been undermined the actions of the US and its allies," - he said. Russian Foreign Minister also stressed that in any difficult situation, Washington is trying to accuse Moscow. "In every difficult situation our American colleagues are trying to" throw a switch" to Russia", - he said. As an example of his words Lavrov led to "revive the recent talks on a treaty on intermediate- and shorter-range missiles."

    According to him, now there is a "culmination" of course conducted by the West to retain its dominance in the world: "We believe that there is a culmination held during the last quarter of a century the course of our Western colleagues to maintain any means of its dominance in world affairs, to capture geopolitical space in Europe."

    Regnom 7 Feb 2015 09:21

    Putin today:

    "Moscow is not satisfied with the attempts to restrain the development of Russia and to preserve the unipolar world.

    "War, thank God, is not happens. But there are really an attempt to keep our development by a variety of means, there are an attempt to "freeze" the world order led by one undisputed leader, who wants to stay as such. To stay in the belief that he can do all, while others can be something that only permuted by him and only in his best interest, "- said the head of state.

    "Such a world order will never satisfied Russia," - he added. "If someone likes it, wants to live in the condition of half occupation -- but we will not do this. At the same time, we are not going to war with anyone and we are going to work with everyone"- said Putin.

    snowdogchampion -> snowdogchampion 7 Feb 2015 09:08

    here Merkel's speech (1hr) https://www.securityconference.de/en/media-library/video/single/statement-and-discussion-with-dr-angela-merkel/

    and Lavrov (45min) https://www.securityconference.de/en/media-library/video/single/statement-and-discussion-with-sergey-lavrov-1/

    and more

    [Feb 07, 2015] Merkel downbeat as world awaits Putin's response to latest Ukraine peace plan by Julian Borger in Munich

    Feb 07, 2015 | The Guardian


    Nickel07 Tepluken 7 Feb 2015 23:15

    of course it is a mafia state no different than the US...but you guys are the ones screaming your titties off about wonderful Yats is , you put the pusillanimous bastard in power...

    centerline Tepluken 7 Feb 2015 23:14

    international isolation

    Explain international. I know the US believes it is the centre of the universe but the majority of people on earth do not agree. (I guess I should explain to a dumb as dogshit yank) A majority is over 50%.

    centerline hdc hadeze 7 Feb 2015 23:10

    Schwarzenegger and Stallone are pretty tough blokes too. I see those flowers were fund raising for the hard done by Israel so the could blast a few more UN schools.

    John Smith 7 Feb 2015 23:07

    The Russians should connect via land to Crimea, push 100km past THAT, and THEN have a buffer zone. That would allow a end to this. Anything less and the CIA will just ramp up Ukrainian arms for a year or two until they have the means to attack again.

    Ukraine and it's quasi-fascist nationalists cannot be trusted, emboldened by American money, they REALLY cannot be trusted. I say that as a patriotic American.

    Friend4you 7 Feb 2015 23:04

    I agree with you John Smith , this war criminal John McCain is like Dracula , he lives on blood , this sick man used to travel to Egypt and meet the Muslim Brotherhood , supply them with money to destabilize Egypt . Wherever there are troubles you will find this blood thirsty man.

    MaxBoson Laurence Johnson 7 Feb 2015 23:01

    Motivated by your post, I checked the Web and found a Wiki piece on the Minsk Agreement. According a map there, the airport is smack dab on the red line designated as the "insurgent line of control". Since the Ukrainian forces were supposed to remain outside a 15km buffer zone, the question is why their attacks on the airport went unreported in Western media. This is a really bizarre situation; comments are now a better source of information the article being commented on.

    John Smith 7 Feb 2015 22:56

    I've had endless support pounding the New York Times every time it runs another lying anti-Putin, anti-Russia op-ed. We have the usual large block of idiot American Neocons who simply rise to any bait to throw hate at the supposed badguy Russian leader. But we also have endless numbers of smart people who watched this mess go down, and know better than to join the Neocon dopes in a let's-arm-Ukraine hatefest.

    If one guy is the King of Neocon Idiots it's Sen John McCain. The old war criminal is a one man disaster on foreign policy. Thank the mythical Christ the asshole was defeated by the idiot Obama.

    centerline Outfit17 7 Feb 2015 22:56

    Democracy is good if it votes for the US. IF the majority vote against the US then that is dictatorship. (democracy is defined as pro US voting)

    [Feb 06, 2015] Merkel and Hollande to present Ukraine peace plan to Putin

    Those who are responsible for soaking Donbass in blood will not stop. They need to be stopped by force. Ukrainian citizens have become either consumable or brainwashed. And for Western Ukrainians, the core supported of Yatsenyuk & Poroshenko clan (forme junta that now is integrated into Porosheko government) the war is far from their territory. People are dying there in Debaltsevo and Uglegorsk, Donetsk and Luhansk, while the military and mercenaries are trying to prove their side of the story through shelling of infrastructure and killing citizens. Donbass meetings and referendums were a result EuroMaidan, and emergence of separatst are direct result of absurd actions of the new Ukrainian government, which turn their county into a death factory for the sake of enforcing on the country Western Ukranian brand of nationalism. Those who are living in peace and whose relatives are protected from conscption are demanding the continuation of the war the most loudly. They nurture and inspire her, feeding infernal demons. They created a diabolical request to victims. and they got them: woman, children, eldery, like in any civil war. But they now infected with their bloodthirsty bacillus and can't stop. So people like Yatsenyuk and Turchinov need to be stopped first, removed from this current position and sent to the Hague court before we can talk about peace. And let's don;t forget that the blood of victims of Odessa massacre in also on them. We are talking about repetion of civil war in Spain here with their 200 thousand victims. Looks like Europeans learned nothing from two world war and as soon the the generation the fought the war is in graved a new war is immediately started.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Seems the US is not happy at loosing year on year its percentage of global GDP and is aggressively trying to protect its satrapies or even enlarge them. ..."
    theguardian.com

    Laurence Johnson -> Agatha_appears 6 Feb 2015 15:51

    There are two proxies in the West. Poroshenko is clearly the EU"s man in Ukraine, and Yatsenyuk is very clearly the US's man in Ukraine.

    Whatever Merkel and Hollande come up with for a peace plan, you can guarantee that Yatsenyuk will derail it as soon as possible.

    For Yats, only the supply of weapons, and many more billions of handouts and debt forgiveness will do. In the world for Yats, the war must go on.

    hodgeey nino45 6 Feb 2015 15:27

    I think most people who write here are compassionate; there are few people who have not been touched by tragedy and they learn to be both sympathetic and empathetic, but hesitate to show it.

    Having worked with Russians in Russia I can tell you we are not very different.

    nino45 ID1439675 6 Feb 2015 15:19

    Thank you for your concern, maybe I said it in a wrong way.. my English is not that good. I wanted to express the feeling our elders here have when watching the news. Many people have friends and relatives there, so it is very hard on them. I just wanted to say that ordinary Russian people show compassion in many ways, well not writing comments here in English, but calling their relatives and sending them packages...


    JCDavis -> ID1439675 6 Feb 2015 14:45

    If the US has advisors and a CIA office in Kiev they are there by invitation

    It's the other way around. The CIA invited the present government -- traitors all -- to join in their coup.

    JCDavis -> Agatha_appears 6 Feb 2015 13:58

    You are badly misreading the situation. Ukraine is pawn in a geopolitical struggle for world empire. It will be sacrificed in an instant if it suits the purposes of any of these people. Except Yats, the CIA's pick for the coup, a traitor who will be sacrificed in any case. Who could trust such a person?

    Agatha_appears 6 Feb 2015 13:48

    Let them negogiate peace. Merkel wants peace, Hollande needs peace, Putin desperately is seeking peace. Poroshenko is reasonable and negogiable. But imbecile Yatzenuk is non-negogiable. Let us pray that tkhe talks end with peaceful project.

    JCDavis -> harryphilby 6 Feb 2015 13:23

    The Yanks don't do peace.

    This is true. Obama is Cheney's blackmailed puppet, and Cheney was the only neocon in Bush's criminal administration who actually wanted to fight Russia. He is quite mad, and he is the most powerful man in the world. Bad combination.

    Euphobia1 6 Feb 2015 13:21

    One problem is the history of the Ukraine which except for very short periods has always been part of Russia. Only an accident of fate made Ukraine a country and many of its citizens feel Russian and still want to be part of Russia.

    Russia never invaded the Ukraine because it didn't have to as it was Russia. It would be like say East Anglia becoming a separate state in UK just because a politician who lived there thought it might be nice and then finding itself a sovereign state. Khrushchev did this for the Ukraine when he was the boss. Khrushchev never thought the Soviet Union would break up and Ukraine become a separate country for only the second time in it's history.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed the USA treated it so badly. Instead of embracing it when it asked to join the EU Russia was rejected and the West has been encroaching on to it's borders ever since. No wonder Russia is fearful. The USA likes to fight wars in other people's countries. Good for business.

    Russia is big powerful and proud country. Ukraine used to be the major part of it and many living there may still want to be part of it too. The West should wake up and start seeking solutions fast. War is not an answer.


    Justthefactsman 6 Feb 2015 13:20

    Anybody seen pictures that confirm that Russian Federation troops are in the Eastern Ukraine ?

    With todays satellite technology it is almost possible to recognise a packet of cigarettes, how come we haven't seen any satellite images of these massive troop movements ?

    What has happened about the inquiry that is supposed to be investigating the shooting down of the Malayan airliner? Why is the progress not being reported.?

    Shit, it those crafty nasty Russians who are holding up the investigation. How? By asking to see the whole truth about the situation, and we wouldn't want to embarrass the coup inheritors in Kiev by revealing the truth, would we ?

    TrueCopy -> Eric Hoffmann 6 Feb 2015 13:17

    Dude there is no military solution to the mess. The most effective forces on the ground on the Ukraine regime side are Ukrainian "volunteer" paramilitary forces, who are coming from the western part of Ukraine, no one is talking giving them weapons, although Poland has been supporting them for a while. The Ukrainian army isn't going to fight any better no matter what they get. The best thing US can provide them is satellite intelligence, that is already doing. Russia isn't directly involved, but even if the invade Ukraine, there is not much we can do, it is better to just cut a deal and move on.

    JCDavis 6 Feb 2015 13:14

    So Hollande and Merkel and threatening Putin with early membership of Ukraine in NATO, completing Obama's new iron curtain earlier rather than later. Thus this stupid ploy will fail and Congress will throw gas on the fire (boneheads that they are) and Russia will move in with real troops and take all of southern Ukraine. This seems inevitable. Ukraine's goose was cooked when Ukrainian traitors conspired with the CIA Only the carving up is not complete.


    zchabj6 6 Feb 2015 13:13

    It is in the US strategic interest to have a war on Russia's border indefinitely as they already had a part in in Chechnya and Georgia. Georgia is now part of NATO so it worked quite well for the US despite the unnecessary loss of life, not that any nation cares anymore it seems.

    It is not in the interest of Russia, Eurozone, EU or any European state .

    Hence the Russian organized Minsk peace process and some belated EU help to make it happen while the US considers prolonging the war through weapons transfers as they have done and continue in Syria, another Iran/Russia ally.

    Seems the US is not happy at loosing year on year its percentage of global GDP and is aggressively trying to protect its satrapies or even enlarge them.

    [Feb 06, 2015] U.S. Pushes For War In Europe

    Two questions: who will pay for the restoration of the economy of Ukraine, if any? The second question: are the USA ready to wage war against Russia?
    Feb 06, 2015 | www.moonofalabama.org

    It is pretty obvious that significant forces in Washington push for a big war in Europe, cold at least but hot if possible. European countries, aside from some small U.S. puppets, are well aware that they would be hit hard in such a war, and do not want it.

    The U.S. wants to deliver additional weapons to Ukraine and to thereby goad Russia into such a wider war. The arguments made that such weapon delivers would somehow restrict Russia are just stupid and only hide the real plans: Escalation until Europe is (again) up in flames.

    There is full steam lobbying by the U.S. to widen the conflict in Ukraine which it instigated in the first place:

    As President Barack Obama's pick to run the Pentagon said Wednesday he's inclined to support lethal weapons transfers, Ukraine's president said he was confident the U.S. would do so. Meanwhile, outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry were flying to discuss Ukraine and other issues with allies in Europe. Vice President Joe Biden is due to follow them Thursday.

    France, the U.K., Germany and other Europeans have spoken out against any such weapon deliveries and the escalation they bring.

    Kerry has flown to Kiev today to push for the Ukraine puppets into escalation. Merkel and Hollande will also fly to Kiev and will hopefully try to convince Poroshenko to deescalate and to make peace with the federalists in east-Ukraine. I have my doubts about their independence though and it may be that their appearance is is just part of the show. Why else did they agree to NATO's increase in capacities and infrastructure in east Europe?

    The solution for the Ukraine is simple. Federalization, official acceptance of the Russian language which is spoken in the East and democratic elections of local governors. These have been the demands in the east and these have been solutions even U.S. foreign policy luminaries urged to accept a year ago.

    The Ukraine is bankrupt. This morning its currency lost 30% in just a few hours. Instead of further instigating a civil war and pushing for its escalation it is urgently time to discuss how that problem can be solved. The solution can not be waging war and permanent subsidization of Europe's most corrupt country.

    Federalization and constitutional reform (i.e. Point 3 Decentralization of power ...) are a major point agreed upon by both sides in the Minsk protocol about a ceasefire in east-Ukraine. But despite insisting on other points of the agreement himself Poroshenko still rejects those most important agreed upon conditions.

    Should the U.S. win in its drive to escalate the situation by delivering more weapons to Kiev Russia will not cave in. History suggest that a Ukraine under NATO at its border is a deadly danger. Russia must and will take countermeasures. The U.S. will then cite those countermeasures as signs of "further aggression" and as justification for another round of escalation. A few more rounds of such and Europe will be up in flames.

    That would be good for the U.S. economy but terrible for the Ukraine and Europe.

    Update Funny. What "important" people are told:

    Cont. reading: U.S. Pushes For War In Europe

    Posted by b at 07:57 AM | Comments (132)

    somebody | Feb 5, 2015 8:36:29 AM | 2

    ... going up in flames, here is a demonstration

    Russian animation with matches - conflict

    Actually, I am not sure Kerry is in Kyiv to make a gift of weapons. Here is the official statement

    And obviously, we'll be talking about the dire security situation in the east of Ukraine and the grave acceleration of the fighting over the Minsk lines by the separatists enabled by Russian weapons, Russian expertise, Russian command and control. He will be endeavoring to support efforts by the Ukrainians to get to a ceasefire, to get back to serious negotiations in the Trilateral Contact Group where the Minsk signatories – Russia, Ukraine, and the separatists – sit. And he will be offering U.S. support to any diplomatic framework that can be successful in this context.

    I guess, Ukraine and the West desperately need a ceasefire now. To throw weapons on it won't help. The IMF has linked further loans to peace and territorial integrity.

    Willy2 | Feb 5, 2015 8:47:15 AM | 5

    Is more chaos not just what the US Empire wants ? "Divide & Conquer", right ? And that chaos would/is bound to spill over into Russia.

    "Mission Accomplished", right ?

    somebody | Feb 5, 2015 9:16:27 AM | 7

    Re: Petrodollar System | Feb 5, 2015 8:39:39 AM | 3

    If Russia decides that is is attacked by NATO and not just threatened by a NATO proxy force within Ukraine and decides to counterattack, then what? Where to end? So much for the feasibility of NATO weapons in Ukraine - some are supposed to be there already.

    The vast majority of Ukrainians expect federalization as the end result. They are not stupid. They know this is all about the Petrodollar.

    Not really. It is about Russian influence in South East Europe via gas pipelines. A Russia friendly government in Kiew and federalization would be not an issue apart from Western Ukraine that does have close connections with the EU.

    Hopefully the brinksmanship going on now is really just a way of bettering the NATO negotiating position about who, with federalization, will really control which province. I have a hope the negotiations are down to one particular province now; the sticking point far from the current front. I can see that being worked out. Maybe UN forces can patrol the area of the sticking point.

    I doubt that very much as no one wants to cede the pipeline routes. Nor is it really open to negotiation as Ukrainian infrastructure and flow of goods are hard to reverse.

    US/EU negotiating position just went from bad to worse. UN peacekeepers will be Russian.

    ǝn⇂ɔ | Feb 5, 2015 10:08:30 AM | 10

    From a quick posting troll - inaugural member of the 77th battalion? - said:

    "the only country involved in a war in a Europe is RussiaAmerica. It's supplying arms, men, logistics. It lies about it, because it can. It's not a democracy, it neveronce was and it {will} never will be {again}. It can do what it likes, it controls the media, the industry (as crappy as it is). It silences any opposition, either through outright murder, by imprisonment or by whatever means necessary. {through horizontal censorship and military/intelligence agency sponsored social media trolling} "

    http://pando.com/2015/02/04/the-geometry-of-censorship-and-satire/

    Edited for accuracy...

    fairleft | Feb 5, 2015 10:13:11 AM | 11

    It could not be any more obvious that Kerry is in Kiev to keep the bloody war going. His first words are to back up Ukrainian propaganda and blame the entire conflict on Russia and then set impossible conditions:

    pulling back heavy weapons beyond the range of civilian populations, removing foreign troops and heavy equipment from Ukraine, and closing the Russia-Ukraine border.

    The only way the conflict gets solved is to deal respectfully with the legitimate grievances of Eastern Ukraine, and that is exactly what Kerry didn't say a word about. The ridiculous appointment by corrupt Kiev of oligarchs as governors in the regions is the biggest offense, and democratic federalization has always been the reasonable solution. Poroshenko is STILL not talking to the East and still calling them terrorists. This is the guy Kerry is hugging and reassuring with these wonderful words: "LET'S HAVE A WAR!"

    dh | Feb 5, 2015 10:42:35 AM | 12

    Kerry can't be that stupid. He must know that even if Kiev gets more 'defensive' weapons one month later and they'll be asking for planes and cruise missiles.

    farflungstar | Feb 5, 2015 10:44:28 AM | 13

    USSA plans to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian, makes it seem like it's all Russia's fault. I hope Russia wastes no expense in reminding the average Ukrainian who the real monstrous a$$hole is here, pulling conflicts out of thin air and playing everyone like pawns.

    I have a sneaking suspicion the Ukraine will ultimately look back with grim nostalgia at the peace they had before the Maidan.

    Alberto | Feb 5, 2015 10:52:27 AM | 14

    The main objective of the Ukraine putsch appears to be the perpetuation of NATO by manufacturing a war with Russia? Do not ever forget that the Czar of WHITE RUSSIA backed the colonists in the Revolutionary War against England. The same actors of 250 years ago are still the propelling force behind all present weapons manufacture/sales, genocide, violence and civil wars.

    22 COUNTRIES NEVER INVADED BY ENGLAND ...

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html

    WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE

    Noirette | Feb 5, 2015 11:02:13 AM | 15

    Btw the previous Ukr. currency failed in 1996. It was called the Kupon! (Inflation, mis-management.)

    The PTB in the Kiev-coup Gvmt will not hear of federalization. I even doubt anybody could coerce them into agreeing with that. No matter how dominant or powerful one considers the US, the EU, the CIA or whomever. The Donbass is now (and was previous) a cancer to extirpate.

    In fact besides cutting off all usual country ties (pensions, teachers salaries, state services, police, taxation..), Kiev has cut off the banks and financial services.

    Also, set up checkpoint so that nobody can leave. (A request with a pile of paper has to be made, then, zilch, turned back at the border. Yes a border.) Kiev has also cancelled public bus/train transport, trains no longer run. into the Donbass. Poroshenko when he stated "their children will starve in the cellars while ours go to school" was not kidding. So the Donbass, for ex., can no longer import meds. Besides its hospitals being shelled to bits…

    Palestine, anyone?

    From the other side, Donesk + Lugansk Rs will not turn back, the killing has been too atrocious. Putin and the W may still be mouthing about a 'unitary Ukraine', that ship has sailed. Federalization can take place in certain conditions, not these. I reckon the parties who propose it know that very well.

    NotTimothyGeithner | Feb 5, 2015 11:03:19 AM | 16

    @6 This is why I don't think the Russians have been more active. A collapse in Kiev will leave an angry and bitter populace behind which will have a hard time moving East.

    I suspect a sense of national betrayal to develop in greater Kiev against the West. They will say, "the jews betrayed us," because that is traditional and create terrorist operations against nominally anti-Russian countries such as Poland who won't be interested in helping Kiev when the going gets tough.

    radiator | Feb 5, 2015 11:57:20 AM | 18

    I actually believe that the tide is turning against nato. Open supply of arms would, imho, make the population in western ukraine go and throw poroshenko from the rooftop - people are not so stupid that they wouldn't notice that the us uses them as cannon fodder to fight its wars, like they do everywhere else on the globe. it's just my opinion but i believe that among what used to be the soviet countries, there's still somewhat more sensitivity and insight for the evil ways of the us empire.

    So to me, this merkel-hollande-kerry visits look more like a panicked effort to either gain time or push for a ceasefire and maybe even federalization before the Ukrainian nazi militias are obsolete and the country takes a reconquista coup from their own population.

    Should there come an anti-maidan with support of the sensible parts of the ukrainian army, the whole country might be back under russian influence for some time. The western politicians are trying to avoid that if possible.

    The way the russians have played this game thus for I am firmly convinced that they'll know how to play this, now advantage, for the best.

    Pat Bateman | Feb 5, 2015 12:15:54 PM | 19

    @Noirette#15 - You are right about Kiev's attitude to federalism. Is there a disconnect here?

    Having watched Willy Wonka's press conference with Kerry, Porky was reminded that Donbass should have a special status. But I noticed in his earlier interview with Germany's Welt newspaper, the idea of federalism was rejected by Poroshenko as a solution to separatist demands. Has he now been publicly put in his place by Kerry, or are the aims of Kiev disconnected from Washington? Does Porky fear being turned into bacon if he caves in to the will of the East; to being dragged through the streets by the same fun loving criminals used to bring down his predecessor?

    Just who really can control the spirits unleashed?

    S-true | Feb 5, 2015 12:40:28 PM | 20

    Well...this is kinda interesting:

    AJC calls for western support of Ukraine

    The American Jewish Committee concluded a solidarity mission to Ukraine on Thursday, expressing its support for the former Soviet republic in its conflict with Russia.

    "First and foremost, we visited Kiev to express our ongoing solidarity with, and support for, the Ukrainian quest to chart its own destiny," AJC Executive Director David Harris said in a statement.

    "We applaud the current government's determination in the face of overwhelming adversity. With so much at stake for Ukraine and regional and global security, it is critical that Western governments respond with appropriate support for the country. This is nothing less than a defining era."

    The delegation met with senior officials -including security officials and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk- as well as Jewish leaders, the American organization said in a statement.

    Among the topics discussed were "financial, military, and other forms of international support needed by Ukraine" and the well-being of Ukrainian Jewry, the AJC stated.

    JerusalemPost

    Don't know about you, but I find this support for the Kiev government (which obviously has some radical right-wing elements) by a Jewish Association truly remarkable, if not stunning.
    UNLESS they're doing it guided by "some higher interest"...

    radiator | Feb 5, 2015 1:15:12 PM | 27

    Re: #23

    well imho having a nato controlled portion of ukraine nearby would be a danger and defeat for russia.

    it's already bad enough to have poland and the baltics under nato control... i guess they'd make other concessions, have some persona non grata in the ukrainian government or whatever, as long as they can make sure that ukraine stays militarily neutral.

    the best outcome for russia would surely be a somewhat federalized but in any case unified ukraine that's not a member or associate of nato. soon they'll have the means to accomplish exactly this (would be my guess).

    Fernando | Feb 5, 2015 2:01:27 PM | 31

    The plan is for war in Ukraine, Moldova and inside Russia if possible. The USA doesn't really want war in UK, Germany or France. It's to be a limited war, a fast food war but in ebbs and flows that helps the economy grow stupid doncha know?

    VietnamVet | Feb 5, 2015 2:40:02 PM | 32

    The Clash of Civilizations never went away; it was tamped down for a while by realists who avoided a nuclear war between the West and the East. This century ideologues and true believers seized power in the West. Today it is everybody for themselves.

    Aggregating wealth, flushing sovereign government down the toilet, regime change and chaos are the goals of the Western Rulers. It all has come together in the Ukraine. The realist position is a neutral federated Ukraine.

    Instead a civil war was started and prodded along until mankind is just one mistake away from Armageddon.

    Laguerre | Feb 5, 2015 3:29:50 PM | 37

    I don't know much about Ukraine, in comparison to others here, but I would have thought it obvious that if Merkel, Hollande and Kerry are in Kiev, it is because the Kiev regime is on the point of collapse, as already appreciated by b and others.

    The collapse is military, not financial, even if Ukraine is also bankrupt. Otherwise immediate presence would not be necessary. Many countries fight wars while being bankrupt.

    The US talks of offering defensive arms. That seems inappropriate, a proposal more adapted to Syria. Ukraine has plenty of arms, indeed manufactures them. The problem is human, not weapon-related. Conscript Ukrainians are fleeing in large numbers. No-one wants to fight for Kiev.

    I doubt that Russia is intervening actively, in the sense of a desire to integrate Novorussiya into Russia. I recall the discussions last autumn, where the lack of interest for Putin was emphasised. Nevertheless Russia is obligated to help its relatives, and equally, if they don't do it, it would be a shame. I don't see any way that Russia has passed beyond what is necessary to help their relatives.

    One could compare to the Kurds, where it was thought OK for the Peshmerga to depart from Erbil to help their relatives far away in Kobani.

    Ulster | Feb 5, 2015 3:37:03 PM | 38

    @25 No doubt that Kulikov knows what he's saying about the war in "highly populated areas" as he was commanding Russian forces in Chechnya. He chose tactics that was indeed much more effective compared to the one Ukrainians now use in Donbass - Russians in Chechnya just bombed everything from artillery and air until it was burned to the ground (but a high number of civilian casualties was never a significant problem for Russian army).

    But I would be still skeptical as it comes to Ukrainian army "being close to defeat". Everyone in Russia - and on MoA - was repeating this mantra over and over again since April last year. Ukraine was "close to defeat" in April, in August, in November and so on. But since then the Russia backed separatist made literally no progress, neither military, nor political.

    NotTimothyGeithner | Feb 5, 2015 3:41:24 PM | 39

    @37 Kerry and the gang might not be offering new arms as much as trying to find an explanation for existing arms especially if the current Ukrainian cauldron surrenders.

    Anonymous | Feb 5, 2015 3:58:00 PM | 40

    Just read that Ukraine nazis will start murdering soldiers that refuse to wage war in the east.

    ruralito | Feb 5, 2015 4:27:40 PM | 41

    @ Ulcers "But since then the Russia backed separatist made literally no progress, neither military, nor political."

    So, Kiev doesn't need military supplies from the west?

    Justin O | Feb 5, 2015 4:29:33 PM | 42

    The crisis in Ukraine has nothing to do with "freedom and democracy" (or free-dumb and demo-crazy as I like to call it). The root cause of the crisis is the overwhelming desire on the part of the US to prevent a Eurasian integration project dominated by the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet space. It is the US/EU who have interfered in Ukraine's internal affairs and are destabilising Ukraine not Russia.

    The criminal nature of the Ukrainian government is well known and understood by US and EU policy makers but their crimes are being downplayed or totally ignored.

    Any decent human being with a conscience would understand that it is the US-led "democratic" project that is responsible for the bloodshed in Ukraine.

    Demian | Feb 5, 2015 4:33:53 PM | 43

    @Ulter:

    You must be Ukrainian. I don't think even Poles or Latvians would harp on the Chechen wars while the UAF are intensively bombarding populated areas of Donbass. In any case, there is absolutely no comparison between what the junta is doing and what Russia did in Chechnya. Russia was brutal with Chechnya yes, but there was no other way of putting down the foreign jihadists. Those were brutal wars, but every action Russia took had a military purpose. In contrast, Kiev's murder of civilians and destruction of infrastructure, kindergartens, schools, and hospitals has absolutely no military purpose. It is genocide, plain and simple. The objective was to eliminate Ukrainians who identify as Russian from Ukraine, because only Ukrainians who identify as Russian resist fascism and hence the junta. But now Kiev knows that it has lost the Donbass. The bombing is now done out of nothing but spite: if Ukrainians can't have Donbass, they will leave Novorossiyans with a wasteland.

    New York Observer:
    The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs

    On January 5, the new minister for economy appointed former Estonian Jaanika Merilo-a young dark-haired beauty-as his advisor on foreign investments, improvement of business climate in Ukraine, coordination of international programs and so on. Directly after her appointment, the young lady put online not her resume or a program for Ukrainian financial stabilization but a series of candid shots that display her long legs, plump lips and prominent cleavage. In some shots, she places a knife to her lips a la Angelina Jolie and sits on the chair a la Sharon Stone.

    One new face in the Rada-leader of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist party and former warlord Dmytro Yarosh-admitted in a January interview with Ukrainian TV that he caresses a real hand grenade in his pocket while inside the Rada. Because he is MP, the security personnel has no right to check his pockets. They just ask if he has anything dangerous on his person and he says no. The reason to have a hand grenade on his body is that there are too many enemies of Ukraine within the MP crowding him during the voting process. He is not afraid, of course. But when the time comes, he will use this grenade and with a bit of luck he will take a lot of them with him if he dies.

    The people now running the Ukraine are more psychotic than the original Nazis ever were. America's Great Generation who fought against the Nazis must be turning in their graves.
    Demian | Feb 5, 2015 6:05:38 PM | 54

    @NotTimothyGeithner #51:

    I'll disagree about the Kiev government being crazier than the nazis.
    German nationalism makes sense, because Germany is a great nation. Ukrainian nationalism makes no sense at all, because not only is Ukraine not a great nation - it's not even a nation.

    It is an artificial construct clumped together from parts of other countries. The reason that the Banderites are so dead set against federalization is that they realize this, and they want to solve the problem by forcibly Ukrainizing all Ukrainian citizens who are not ethnically and/or culturally Ukrainian.

    I'm positive Hillary and Obama would be devastated if they met victims of their crimes.
    I seriously doubt that. They know the consequences of their actions. They just place no value on human life. They are both psychopaths. Hillary with her joke "We came, we saw, he died"; Obama with his pride about his personally going over the White House kill list.

    @Scott #52:

    This might be a pivotal weekend boys and girls.
    Yes, that's what Russian bloggers are saying. A Russian general said on Russian TV that NAF should advance to the administrative borders of DPR and LPR.

    Israel likes to talk about "facts on the ground". It doesn't seem to have sunk into the Obama regime yet that the facts on the ground in Donbass are not in its favor. Obama and Kerry continue their bluster.

    The Empire's fall back plan, in case it could not hold on to the Ukraine, is perpetual chaos in the area between NATO and Russia. But I think that if Russia was able to pacify Chechnya, it will be able to eventually pacify Ukraine. Of course, that will largely depend on the Ukrainians coming to their senses. That process will begin by their suffering a decisive military defeat won by non-fascist Ukrainians. Hopefully that will teach them that being a fascist is a losing proposition.

    Demian | Feb 5, 2015 8:37:00 PM | 63

    @rufus magister #59:

    Our current crop of fascists have a lot of catching up to do before any comparison can be made to their old allies. Nowhere near as brutal, crazy, or thankfully as capable.
    I obviously agree with you about the "capable" part.

    But I really don't see how you can make your other two claims.

    How can one be more brutal than burning people alive as the Ukrainian nationalists did with the Odessa Khatyn? In Khatyn, Ukrainian nationalist Nazi collaborators forced people into a building and then set it on fire.

    That is exactly what Ukrainian nationalists did in May of last year in Odeassa. Right Sector is composed of exactly the same people as the Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

    I hope you don't mean to suggest that Ukrainian Nazi collaborators were less brutal and crazy than the Nazis themselves. Thus, your claim that today's Ukrainian nationalists are [nowhere near as brutal, crazy" as the Nazis is not only false: it is incoherent.

    Carnival of wild baboons

    Kiev bloggers joke: "A shell hit the hospital Donetsk. Get well, shell." I think this goes completely beyond the limit.

    It's hard to imagine that even Nazi newspapers joked this way during World War II. (they strongly denied these facts, as they had some understanding that it (the shelling of hospitals) is "shameful" and "wrong" even for their audience). …

    The main thing is not the producer, the main thing – the audience. All they have so – under the laughter, jokes and "culture of laughter carnival" overthrown the legitimate authority, and burned a hundred "Vatnikov" in Odessa, unleashed carnage in the East. And so far it's funny.

    So yes, Ukrainian nationalists are more depraved than the original Nazis were. It is hard for Westerners to accept that, because it is a central dogma of the new Western religion that the Nazis were a unique, absolute evil, to which no other genocidal regimes can be compared, no matter how brutal they are and how depraved and nihilistic their members are.

    Nana2007 | Feb 5, 2015 9:33:02 PM | 71

    Sorry@68 referring to the ceasefire-
    Ukraine SITREP: *Extremely* dangerous situation in Debaltsevo The Novorussian and the junta have agreed to a cease-fire to allow the civilian population to leave Debaltsevo. In theory, each civilian will get to chose whether he/she wants to be evacuated to Novorussia or to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. The convoy of refugees will be escorted by senior OSCE officials. Both sides to the conflict have pledged not to open fire during the time needed for this operation. Now consider this:

    1) The only thing protecting the junta forces are, precisely, these civilians. If these civilians leave, then Debaltsevo will turn into Saur Mogila. Until now, the Novorussians have advanced rather slowly precisely because they could not use the full power of their artillery to soften up the well dug-in junta forces. But thanks to the Voentorg, the Novorussians now have plenty of firepower now and if they decide to really open up upon the junta forces the latter will suffer the same devastating consequences as their (now dead) colleagues in Saur Mogila. Everybody understands that.

    2) Tonight the junta has used white phosphorus again, and in the recent days they have used both ballistic missiles and cluster munitions. Why this sudden concern with the Debaltsevo civilians (whom the Nazis consider as "bugs" anyway)? Does anybody really believe that the Nazi freaks in Kiev care for Novorussian civilians?!

    3) Kerry, Hollande and Merkel were in Kiev today. The latter two will be in Moscow tomorrow. In Germany, the Munich Security Conference is meeting. NATO is still claiming that "hundreds and hundreds" of Russian Federation soldiers are operating in Novorussia. While some US officials speak of sending "lethal aid" to the junta, others seem to oppose it.

    http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com

    Demian | Feb 5, 2015 10:01:03 PM | 74

    @Nana2007 #70:

    Yes, everyone expects the junta to pull a false flag soon (as the Saker says in the part you didn't quote), but the junta has pulled at least three false flags already (MH17, the shelling of a bus, the shelling of a residential area in Mariopul), but none of those did the junta much good. (The downing of MH17 did enable the US to get the EU to impose more sanctions on Russia, though.)

    I think that a sufficient amount of Westerners have realized by now that the junta is brutally killing its own people, whereas the NAF are just trying to defend their people. The illusion that this is not the case is maintained by politicians and the corporate media never speaking the truth about this. But because many Westerners are coming to understand the true nature of the Kiev regime (Europeans anyway, if not Anglos), I think that further false flags are going to have limited effectiveness.

    Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 5, 2015 10:51:48 PM | 77

    Re: Nana2007 | Feb 5, 2015 9:39:07 PM | 71

    No. They won't pull back and apologize. They'll do what cowards usually do...
    -keep bullying their Kiev junta
    -keep lying about Kiev's massacres
    -keep smearing Putin and blaming him for Kiev's crimes
    -keep reinforcing the meme that Putin is so evil that Russia should be Iraqified to save it from Putin
    -keep blaming anyone and everyone but themselves for their angst
    -gnash their gums while they dream up more veils and excuses for their depravity.

    Nana2007 | Feb 5, 2015 11:04:04 PM | 78

    There's a piece up at RI that confirms my misgivings re US/NATO:

    US arming Ukraine is very likely. When you see a policy discussion report in The New York Times, experience shows the policy is already being conducted covertly and this is just a way to bringing into public view a program that's already been initiated (NATO shell rounds are already detected in Gorlovka, Ukraine). Nobody in Washington imagines with the best of support Kiev forces will be able to win this militarily.

    Arming of Ukraine is primarily directed against Europeans. Since there is more and more dissension in European ranks from the US' confrontational policy the only way to scare the EU wimps back into a more confrontational position is to turn up the heat and the chaos. (Chief of US Army in the Europe is already awarding medals to crippled Ukrainian soldiers).

    This is a clear parallel to the Balkan conflicts. There the United States also needed to demonstrate leadership by escalating conflict and dragging reluctant Europeans with them (bombing Serbs in 1995 and 1999, facilitate an inflow of Islamists to bolster the Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia and Albanian separatists in Serbia, and finally creating a NATO client state in Kosovo)

    Perhaps there's more to Hollande/Merkel's presence in Kiev than the good cop bad cop routine. They're on to Moscow tomorrow.

    ToivoS | Feb 5, 2015 11:14:44 PM | 79

    Demain 67 and rufus 74. There is little doubt that the neoNazi thugs running amok in Ukraine are barely distinguishable from the real thing in Germany 90-to 70 years ago. What does distinguish them is that the German Nazis had total control over the levers of state after 1938; their descendants in Ukraine have not yet achieved total control. Neither the EU nations nor the US is quite ready to support them in their desire to ethnic cleanse Donbas of its Russian population. That is the current political reality. I seriously doubt that Poroshenko shares the Nazi dream of purging 'slavs' from Ukraine. Unfortunatley his ability to negotiate with the Donbas people is seriously circumscribed by the neo-Nazi militias that now make up a big part of his armed forces.

    Interesting times to be sure. The US is pushing war in Ukraine but it will come down, it seems to me, how far Obama is willing to accept an alliance with the Nazis. At some point he will have to decide and that time will come when it is no longer possible to hide the fact that war in Ukraine is being pushed by the Nazi forces.

    Demian | Feb 5, 2015 11:17:52 PM | 80

    @rufus magister #74:

    No concentration camps, no death camps. No "Night of the Long Knives" yet, the regime is not far along of its trajectory of decay and destruction. They have the capacity to get that crazy, granted. But if maybe in possession of means, not yet the opportunity.
    The junta would do all those things if they could. The reason they don't is (1) as you said at #59, they are not as capable as the Nazis; (2) unlike the Nazis, the Ukraine is not a sovereign nation, but a colony of the US, and USG realizes that the junta setting up concentration and death camps would be bad for PR; (3) the Nazis did not have to worry about the Internet. The bottom line is that the worst thing the Nazis did was to commit genocide, and that is exactly what the Ukrainians are doing now, which means that the Ukrainians are not the least bit better than the Nazis. The western Ukrainians are just picking up where their Banderite grandfathers left off.

    Trying to find ways in which the junta is not as bad as the Nazis is a pointless intellectual exercise which just serves to obscure the true nature of Ukrainian nationalism and the junta, IMO.

    As for the tempo of the advance: I think that Novorossiya and Russia should set the goal of the DPR and LPR comprising all of the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the former Ukraine. How that goal is to be achieved (by a military advance; if so, how quick should it be?; through negotiation; by waiting for the Ukrainian state to collapse) is a separate matter.

    There are at least four players here: (1) Russia; (2) USG; (3) the people's republics; (4) the junta. I think it's safe to say that Russia has a significantly better understanding of USG's strategy and overriding goals than USG has of Russia's strategy and overriding goals.

    The junta is USG's puppet, but the puppet is so crazy that USG's control over it is limited. Russia keeps Novorossiya on a leash, but the leash is not very short. Also, no one knows what the Kremlin's strategy is, whereas everyone who reads this blog knows what USG's strategy is.

    Finally, USG has not the least bit of concern about Ukrainians, whereas Moscow is deeply concerned about the welfare of Novorossiyans, although it places its geopolitical interests over humanitarian concerns.

    As you may have noticed, I do not consider Germany or France to be players here. They could have been, but they left the game when they did not resist pressure from USG for them to act against their own self interest.

    Robert | Feb 5, 2015 11:34:25 PM | 81

    "The solution for the Ukraine is simple. Federalization, official acceptance of the Russian language which is spoken in the East and democratic elections of local governors."

    Really? After all the atrocities and mass murders committed by the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian nazis, the solution is ... so simple. The author is either extremely naive or extremely underinformed. Both the leaders of Novorussia and ordinary people have repeatedly said that they don't ever want to be part of the illegal neo-nazi government in Kiev. Perhaps "federalization" was still possible before the Odessa massacre. No more.

    Fete | Feb 5, 2015 11:54:29 PM | 82

    Russian Spring

    02/06/2015-00:22

    Representative of Defense Ministry of Donetsk Republic Eduard Basurin says: "The Ukrainian side accepted our offer that we open a passage for the locals to leave Debal`tsevo tomorrow."

    From his words, the locals will be provided busses: "Right now, Donetsk Republic prepares busses and autos to transportat Debal`tsevo locals through a humanitarian corridor to Gorlovka (Donetsk Republic) or Artemovsk (Ukraine)."

    Russian Spring

    02/05/2015-23:04

    Combatant Prokhorov informed about situation and clashes on February 5:

    "Afternoon (February 4) the Ukrainians tried to seize hamlet Shirokovo (near Mariupol`). The attack was repelled. Battalion "Azov" reported 2 "200th" (killed) and 1 "300th" (wounded) – understated five times.

    (February 5) under Mariupol` (information is traditionally scarce from there) border troops were struck in Sartana(?) and positions of the Ukrainian forces in Priovrazh`ye(?). And just one hour ago a Ukrainian patrol was liquidated near Shirokovo. So far, 2 fallen and 2 wounded were reported (understated by multiple times).

    Under Debal`tsevo (Chernukhino) a company of 25th battalion "Kiyevskaya Rus`" was surrounded. From 80 men about 40 are alive.

    The Ukrainian tried to slip in enforcement disguised under a mission of "Red Cross". Combatants were indignant, the Ukrainians turned back. The Ukrainians attempted to pass on their own – 4 "KRAZs" (lorry trucks) and 2 tanks. Only 1 tank with wounded returned, everything else was burned."

    Vintage Red | Feb 5, 2015 11:54:44 PM | 83

    I agree with Demian that the Ukrainian Nazis are if anything more depraved than their erstwhile Hitlerian mentors; the only thing holding them back from exceeding the horrors of the Third Reich is lack of capability, which as ToivoS points out would change if they had more time to consolidate their power and were free from US control. Months ago I posted a link to The Nazis Even Hitler Was Afraid Of, which I humbly resubmit toward this estimation.

    fairleft | Feb 6, 2015 12:14:38 AM | 84

    There's a very similar column in Salon:

    The choreography at work in the Times report is remarkable even for a paper accustomed to doing what it is told. Michael Gordon, a long-serving defense and security correspondent noted for his obedience, reported the deliberations in Washington (without naming a single source) the same day the Brookings report appeared (and in the same story).

    First, anyone who continues to mistake a clerk such as Gordon for a journalist must by now be judged irredeemably naive. This is a case study of how the Times functions and the place it occupies in public space. Were Pravda to work similar angles in the old Soviet days, the Times' Moscow bureau would be all over it for its servitude.

    Second and more important, the careful coordination of the disclosures spoon-fed Gordon suggests very strongly that a) public opinion is now being prepared for a new military intervention and b) planning for this intervention is in all likelihood already in motion.

    The former IHT foreign correspondent goes on to PLEAD with his fellow Americans to wake the f@ck up, like our brothers and sisters in Greece and Spain are doing spectacularly. Don't see it, though. Instead, at an Iraq 2 moment like this, 'The Sniper' is kicking ass and killing Ayrabs at the box office.

    Noirette | Feb 6, 2015 5:33:59 AM | 99

    Re: Toivos at 78.

    There is little doubt that the neoNazi thugs running amok in Ukraine are barely distinguishable from the real thing in Germany 90- to 70 years ago. What does distinguish them is that the German Nazis had total control over the levers of state after 1938; their descendants in Ukraine have not yet achieved total control.

    Absolutely. Huge powerful country, huge State machine, and, I wanted to add, the support of the population (with exceptions too small to matter.)

    Ukraine's neo-Nazis are a loose network of interconnected people and organisations, some of them quite informal, with some of course sitting in the Gvmt. And the population is not pro (for the largest part.)

    They subsist and are effective precisely because of this structure, also because the landscape around them is so confused and volatile, violence on a personal or quasi-personal level has a high premium. Which also has the effect of making them appear more depraved.

    I seriously doubt that Poroshenko shares the Nazi dream of purging 'slavs' from Ukraine.

    I agree (although my post could be read as implying the opposite.) But Yats does adhere. Hah as I now see you said above at 94.

    Game without rules

    Some more B.S. from the Financial Times.

    One of the commenters, named "DarkPull", nailed his landing on this piece of crap:

    I refrained from commenting under the first part, because I thought that we were only half eay through the story. I hoped that the first part, clearly biased and one-sided, would be complemented by the other side of the story. Alas, it seems that the two sides are the German narrative and the Ukrainian one. Disappointing, but not exactly surprising.

    I am amazed that what purports to be a comprehensive coverage of the Ukraine story fails to as much as mention Putin's Valdai speech, which was one of the kost important political manifestos of the last decade. Notably, the session during which Putin spoke was titled "The World Order: New Rules or a Game without Rules?"

    As to what found its way into the text: the notion that Poroshenko had leverage over Putin during Minsk negotiations because of his alleged posession of Russian dog tags, the very idea is borderline crazy. Putin did not budge after sanctions, plumetting oil, M17 media campaign, or nothing else really. But he did budge because of - boo hoo - dog tags? It just does not sound very plausible. Especially since there was no public disclosure after the Minsk accord collapsed.

    Also, the suggestion that the Russians are the only ones to blame for the Minsk failure, because they failed to protect the Ukrainian border from themselves and continued supporting the rebels gives up any pretense of balanced reporting. There is no mention of the Russian request that the OSCE deploy observers patrolling the border, and why that it has never really happened. There is not a sentence about the regrouping and counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army.

    The authors point out that "Dozens of civilians have been killed by heavy shelling since mid-January in east Ukraine." But what about all the civilians killed or displaced before January, due to Ukrainian shelling of Donbas? Never happened?

    The entire piece reads like a retelling of a phone conversation overheard by someone who stood beside one of the interlocutors and now reports utterances of that person only, guessing what was going on and what was said on the other side. It is no wonder that the FT is so confused about Russia's objectives and motives.

    yalensis, February 5, 2015 at 4:10 am

    Interesting interview with Yanukovich's former Prime Minister Azarov . Here is the English translation.

    Snippet:
    "It was the first time in history that over 120 people, including 26 law enforcement officers were shot in cold blood on Maidan. Yanukovych lost heart in these circumstances. And those who devised the coup had their hands untied. Groups were put together to catch him and put the Libyan scenario into practice. He was supposed to die the way Gaddafi did. I had resigned, why was my car fired at with an assault rifle? Whom did I threaten? I wasn't in the car, my wife was in it. It's a miracle that she survived this. Who has been called to answer for this? Why not a single investigation has been conducted?" he said.

    And lots more interesting stuff…

    [Feb 06, 2015] War in the Ukraine by Alexander Mercouris

    Russia Insider has published my latest piece on the course of the Ukrainian war. It is a more refined and thought through version of the piece I previously wrote on this Page.

    http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/02/02/3054

    1. My key point is that it is not minor tactical movements that are determining the course of this war. It is the level of casualties the Ukrainian military is suffering. They were hammered in the summer and they are being hammered again now.

    In my pieces for Russia Insider I quoted the number of Ukrainian military deaths on the basis of official Ukrainian documents obtained by a hacking group as 1,100 for a two week period that covered the battle for Donetsk airport. The NAF today puts the total number of Ukrainian military deaths presumably since the resumption of the fighting at 1,500. Colonel Cassad yesterday was saying that the number could be over 1,800.

    The figures of 1,500 and 1,800 cover a longer period than the 1,100 in the hacked Ukrainian documents. The fact that they are all of the same order of magnitude however suggests that all these figures are reliable. If so then that that shows that my guess that the Ukrainian army is suffering deaths at a rate of several hundred a week is probably correct.

    2. Of course the NAF is also currently suffering a high rate of losses. However it is clear that these are at a substantially lesser level than the Ukrainian. As I said in the Russia Insider piece an NAF spokesman put the loss ratio at 4 to 1. Colonel Cassad put the total number of NAF deaths at 600 for the same period as that of his 1,800 estimate for Ukrainian deaths. That is a 3 to 1 ratio.

    I suspect that the number of NAF deaths over the last 3 weeks is higher than usual because the NAF has been on the attack for most of this period. When that stage ends after the Debaltsevo pocket is fully encircled I would guess the number will fall. By contrast as the pocket collapses the rate of deaths of Ukrainians will rise especially if the pattern of unsuccessful counterattacks the Ukrainians have a habit of launching is followed.

    3. As I said in the article for Russia Insider the Ukrainian military simply cannot go on taking losses at a rate of several hundred a week. In the slugfest we are seeing it is only a matter of time before it breaks. This is especially so since I strongly suspect that I have greatly overestimated the total number of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass in my Russia Insider piece. I put the number in the same range of 60,000 or so thousand that was the case in the summer. I suspect the real total is substantially less, thus the attempted mobilisations about which in the Russia Insider piece I have much to say.

    4. On the political front, the DPR/LPR are taking a very hardline in the negotiations. Specifically:

    (1) they are now formally challenging Kuchma's plenipotentiary rights i.e. his right to sign agreements that formally and legally bind the junta. They are insisting that he formally be given such rights.

    As I have argued before there was no doubt that Kuchma was acting on behalf of the junta when he signed the Minsk Protocol and it is fatuous to deny the fact. However the junta has repeatedly resisted pressure to formalise Kuchma's position since if they formally admit he is their representative then they formally admit they are negotiating with the NAF, which is something for political and ideological reasons they emphatically do not want to do.

    (2) the NAF has said that they would agree to a new ceasefire on the basis of the actual combat line and not the line agreed in the Minsk Memorandum. This is a way of rejecting calls for a ceasefire because they know perfectly well that the junta will not agree to this. Importantly the NAF rejected a call for a temporary 7 day ceasefire in Debaltsevo today. I think this is the first time the NAF has rejected a ceasefire when it has been offered.

    This is a fundamental shift from the position last spring and summer. At that time it was the NAF (and the Russians) who were repeatedly calling for a ceasefire and the junta that was ignoring such calls even as it purported to agree to them. Now the situation is reversed. There is no better indicator that the initiative has now passed to the NAF than that.

    (3) The Russians are backing the NAF line. It has been completely overlooked but yesterday 2nd February 2015 Interfax carried this brief but momentous report at 20:03 hours Moscow time:

    "Kremlin source: East Ukraine militias' hardline 'absolutely justifiable'"

    As I have said previously, the Russians have abandoned hope of Western pressure to force the junta to negotiate. This provides further confirmation. The NAF has the green light from Moscow to see its offensive through.

    (4) To understand why the Russians have given up hope of a negotiated solution consider Poroshenko's latest statement today. Even as the situation collapses around him he is continuing to reject calls for federalisation and is continuing to say that the Ukraine will remain a unitary state. As I have said previously, the ideological and political nature of the junta makes no other response possible and anyone who thinks the junta will voluntary agree a compromise is fooling himself.

    5. I am not going to say anything about what looks like a gathering political crisis in Kiev because there are others who understand it better than me.
    ----------------
    Saker commentary: here is what I wrote in the comments section of Russia Insider under Alexander's analysis.

    Since Alexander has been so kind as to mention me I just want to say that I indeed *fully* agree with his analysis, especially when he predicts further disaster for the Ukrainian military. He is also correct when he says that the number of killed Ukrainians is a humanitarian catastrophe: we might well see something quite amazing happening - a war where there are more military casualties then civilian ones. Furthermore, I also fully agree that the decision to stop the massacre depends not on Kiev, but on Washington. This war will last as long as the US wants to keep this bleeding wound open and no amount of western "aid" (lethal or otherwise) will turn the tide in this war. The only question is how many Ukrainians will have to die for this abomination to finally stop. Even the "solution" to this war is obvious and understood by everybody: a nominally unitary Ukraine with full cultural, economic and political autonomy for *all* its regions, not only the Donbass and a full recognition of the Novorussian authorities as a equal partner for negotiations. All this nonsense about "9000 Russian troops" "invading" the Ukraine and Russia as the "aggressor country" (as the Rada says) or the nonsense about the LNR and DNR being "terrorist organizations" (official Kiev position) only delays the inevitable and will generate more useless deaths. Finally, I also agree that the US/NATO cannot and therefore will not send forces to crush the Novorussians. What US/NATO can, and will, do is provide some financial and some military aid, and lots of hot air and big empty statements and promises. That will not be enough. Alexander's analysis is flawless.
    Cheers,
    The Saker

    [Feb 06, 2015] Recognition by Obama and Americals as "players" in Ukranian conflict

    Feb 3, 2015 | valery-pavlov.livejournal.com

    American political and economic language has the notion of "player". It is beyond morality (as well as U.S. foreign policy in General). The player in the financial market or political player in the middle East, etc. Well, if you play chess or a shoot-and-kill videogame game of some kind, the murder of a pawn, knight, or military unit is not subject to moral evaluation. That's what game requires.

    Recognition made by Obama that the USA has prepared a coup in Ukraine, is the recognition of a smug "player". Which slightly opened the card for psychological pressure signaling something to rebels or political opponents, or voters within the US.

    Classic moral definitions have been substituted by the USA neoliberal elite with the concepts, which they call "legitimacy". On this planet they now reserved for themselves that right to define what is "legitimate" and what is not.

    The problem is that directly or indirectly Americans kill not pawns and not units in videogame. But human beings. After ww2 toll of Americans victims is already on millions. Collapse of indigenous cultures, of the states, of established international contacts and relations, etc.. And they propose nothing in return for destroyed lives, cultures and states other then neoliberal order. Which is not a worthy replacement. Or offer of Washington consensus which was applied to several states-victims and destroyed all of them. All those IMF reforms does not work, because they were designed not to work and benefit countries in question but the USA and international corporations. Now those "gamers" face certain difficulties. Because the whole world is not the USA. Which remembers who caused suffering to many millions of people.

    But I digress. We are discussion Obama admission of the organization of year another coup d'état in another banana revolution (in this case - European county called Ukraine) and he provided some interesting details. Now about details.

    For example, I am sure that the group thugs in masks on the Maidan which brutally attacked f law-enforcement officers, which threw burning petrol at police and hit police with chains were iether of non-Ukrainian origin or specially brainwashed and trained by West units. Where they were trained? Who are these people? Who financed and built-up racist, anti-Russian hysteria in the media and on the Internet, in social networks? Who on the American side was negotiating with Putin and Yanukovich, how they cheated and they had expected? Give us names !

    Well, since Obama opened the card, then I wonder - what's next? And it would be nice to know the details of this dirty operation not after 50 years, but now. Were those methods, using which the USA essentially started civil war in Ukraine, legitimate? Are similar dirty method of overthrowing legitimate government now OK to everybody?

    [Feb 05, 2015] Merkel and Hollande to fly to Moscow in new effort to resolve Ukraine crisis by Shaun Walker in Kiev, Ian Traynor in Brussels, Dan Roberts in Washington and Alec Luhn in Moscow

    Notable quotes:
    "... is the most wasteful abuser of the world's scarce resources, ..."
    "... I have been to Croatia and Serbia I was in Vukovar a few years ago. It was truly horrendous. Yugoslavia was destabilized by the US government and that no one can deny. The UN had no chance against heavily armed Serbs and Croats to stop the chaos. US are doing the same in Ukraine. Well it is not the USA people its the 0.00001% of the USA, ..."
    "... The EU also has a similar problem, they need another country to leech off every few years to keep the EURO going. The moment countries start to drop out or the EU fails to find more victims to feed off, the EURO along with the EU will collapse. ..."
    "... General - the BBC is state-funded. Do you refuse to believe a word it says? But why is funding from a state less likely to produce balanced journalism than funding from the five or six billionaires who own almost all the world's media? Especially when those billionaires effectively control the state apparatus anyway. ..."
    "... I'm not condoning Russia's recent actions, but the American people and politicians seem incapable of "walking a mile in the other man's shoes". The USA has attempted to encircle Russia with armed NATO members - what do you think our reaction would be if Mexico and the Caribbean contained hostile troops and missiles aimed at us? I think we know the answer to that from the Cuban missile crisis. ..."
    "... The fundamental question Is, what brought Ukraine into this mess? It is the expansion of NATO to the backyards of Russia. It happened at a time when Russia was weak and was still struggling to recover from the collapse of the Soviet system upon which their life and economy was built. And what was the goal of the US to expand NATO to the doorsteps of Russia? The US policy of domination of the world. It is this policy that poses the greatest danger to the security of the world since the fall of the bipolar world in the early 90s. The world, especially the Europe is facing a critical choice at this point of time in history. Europe has to set itself free of the US bondage or stay a mute spectator to the aggressive and intolerant policies of the conservative hard liners in the US, that would multiply the conflicts across the globe. Today, these hard liners in the US pose the greatest threat to the stability and overall growth of the people of this planet. ..."
    "... Ethnic cleansing, though always popular with ultra-nationalists, is not the only way forward. Let the people decide. Not Kerry, not Merkel, not Putin, not Hollande, not Poroshenko not Yatzenyuk. Public votes. ..."
    "... Absolutely. And when are we going to here the truth about that damn plane crash?? ..."
    "... CNN is a joke, it should be called "CORRUPTED NEWS NETWORK". The sort of trash they report is what feeds all the Obama Drones, after all, they need their fuel from some where. ..."
    "... The thing Rand missed was the "government" is run by the same 1% that she praises as the "job creators". ..."
    "... They are playing the same "game" that sociopathic kings have played since the beginning of time. Why the "rest of us" allow ourselves to be governed by sociopaths remains a mystery. ..."
    "... That would be heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction. What if Russia had taken a similar stand over the 'territorial integrity of Serbia' during the Kosovo affair? Aren't the situations analogous? ..."
    "... I'm more and more disappointed with Merkel. ..."
    "... It does however look as if the Hawks want to re-arm Ukraine so that they don't have to pay! This is on a par with shooting the debt collector when he comes to your house. ..."
    "... I am sorry to say that the antics of western politicians are starting to resemble a virility contest and I would like this to cease forthwith as there are other far more serious problems to deal with. ..."
    "... Georgia had announced their withdrawal from the 'Coalition of the Billing' in Afghanistan and the Bushies conveniently airlifted their entire combat contingent back home almost overnight. ..."
    "... The US worked to stir up trouble for the democratically elected Ukrainian Government, under Yushchenko, despite the wishes of its EU Partners. At the time, US State Department Neo-Con Victoria Nuland was notoriously quoted as saying "F*ck the EU!" ..."
    "... Educate yourself please. This information is readily available. ..."
    Feb 05, 2015 | The Guardian


    Soul_Side -> Dick Harrison 5 Feb 2015 20:16

    Dick Harrison

    Better than being a russian proxy state, look how advanced America is

    Advanced? A nation that can't, or won't, provide adequate healthcare for its own citizens, has more than 40million living souls dependent on food stamps, that has the greatest income-disparity on the planet, is the most wasteful abuser of the world's scarce resources, trades the most weapons in the world, spends the most on war in the world, and imprisons the highest proportion of its citizens of all the countries in the world.

    You could be forgiven for not wanting to buy into all that.

    thomas142 -> ID9187603 5 Feb 2015 20:15

    I have been to Croatia and Serbia I was in Vukovar a few years ago. It was truly horrendous. Yugoslavia was destabilized by the US government and that no one can deny. The UN had no chance against heavily armed Serbs and Croats to stop the chaos. US are doing the same in Ukraine. Well it is not the USA people its the 0.00001% of the USA,

    AlienLifeForce Dugan222 5 Feb 2015 20:13

    The problem is the US depends on war to keep the USD going just like they need the petrodollar, without them the USD will be like a drop of water in the desert.

    The EU also has a similar problem, they need another country to leech off every few years to keep the EURO going. The moment countries start to drop out or the EU fails to find more victims to feed off, the EURO along with the EU will collapse.

    Remember Germany relies very much on export, which is why the EU increasing pressure to expand. Merkel has not been looking her self recently, what with everything in Greece going wrong and now Ukraine has gone to plan, things don't look too good for the USD and the EURO.

    Caroline Louise Generalken 5 Feb 2015 20:11

    General - the BBC is state-funded. Do you refuse to believe a word it says? But why is funding from a state less likely to produce balanced journalism than funding from the five or six billionaires who own almost all the world's media? Especially when those billionaires effectively control the state apparatus anyway.

    NigelRG 5 Feb 2015 20:09

    I'm not condoning Russia's recent actions, but the American people and politicians seem incapable of "walking a mile in the other man's shoes". The USA has attempted to encircle Russia with armed NATO members - what do you think our reaction would be if Mexico and the Caribbean contained hostile troops and missiles aimed at us? I think we know the answer to that from the Cuban missile crisis.

    nadodi 5 Feb 2015 20:07

    The fundamental question Is, what brought Ukraine into this mess? It is the expansion of NATO to the backyards of Russia. It happened at a time when Russia was weak and was still struggling to recover from the collapse of the Soviet system upon which their life and economy was built. And what was the goal of the US to expand NATO to the doorsteps of Russia? The US policy of domination of the world. It is this policy that poses the greatest danger to the security of the world since the fall of the bipolar world in the early 90s. The world, especially the Europe is facing a critical choice at this point of time in history. Europe has to set itself free of the US bondage or stay a mute spectator to the aggressive and intolerant policies of the conservative hard liners in the US, that would multiply the conflicts across the globe. Today, these hard liners in the US pose the greatest threat to the stability and overall growth of the people of this planet.

    desconocido Dick Harrison 5 Feb 2015 20:04

    I think it's a question of first or second language and also of cultural identity. And also of course noticing that you are being shafted by west ukrainian nazis.

    Davo3333 laSaya 5 Feb 2015 20:03

    Because the land they are living on has been Russian land for centuries. So Crimea is Russian and should never have been part of Ukraine at all after the Soviet Union split up and Eastern and Southern Ukraine are also Russian but the first step for those regions would be to form new independent countries which could then decide whether they wished to rejoin Russia or remain independent. The Ukrainians live in West Ukraine and it is them who should move into their own areas and leave Eastern and Southern Ukraine alone. And another thing the population of Russia has been increasing in the last few years , not decreasing as you have stated.

    Soul_Side laSaya 5 Feb 2015 20:01

    laSaya said:

    Why don't those Russian speaker just hop in a bus and journey to Russia. The Russian landmass is big enough to take those Russia lovers in.

    Let me understand this point of view exactly, you think they should leave their homes, livelihoods, their aged, disabled and infirm relatives too weak to travel, their land, their places of birth, their local culture and local identity and just move somewhere else because their neighbour seeks to dominate them? Would you?

    Ethnic cleansing, though always popular with ultra-nationalists, is not the only way forward. Let the people decide. Not Kerry, not Merkel, not Putin, not Hollande, not Poroshenko not Yatzenyuk. Public votes.

    angdavies 5 Feb 2015 19:56

    Ahhh.. I love the smell of proxy war in the morning!

    Just let Putin save some face. Any Ukrainian who loves her country should back any peace talks up to the hilt, otherwise there'll be no Ukraine worth living in if the US starts to pump in the weapons. That will kick-off full scale Russian nationalist jihadism - a war that cannot be won.

    AlienLifeForce -> Seriatim 5 Feb 2015 19:56

    Absolutely. And when are we going to here the truth about that damn plane crash??

    Strange you should ask, when I last looked, the US had decided that the findings of the investigation should remain classified. If there was any evidence to point the finger at Russia, don't you think they would have used it?

    glit00 -> senya 5 Feb 2015 19:50

    courtesy of google translate:

    Commander (Chief) under the extraordinary period, including a state of martial law or a battle, in order to arrest a soldier who commits an act that falls within the elements of a crime related to disobedience, resistance or threats boss, violence, unauthorized leaving the fighting positions and designated areas of deployment units (units) in the areas of combat missions, shall have the right to apply measures of physical restraint without causing damage to the health of military and special funds sufficient to stop illegal actions.

    In a battle commander (chief) can use weapons or give orders to subordinates of their application, unless otherwise impossible to stop the unauthorized retreat or other similar actions, while not causing the death of soldier.

    If circumstances permit, the commander (chief) before use of physical effects, special tools or weapons should give voice warning, shot up or by other means notify the person against whom he may apply such measures

    suzi 5 Feb 2015 19:38

    suspicions that Putin is seeking to split Europe and America

    He need hardly bother when the US itself is doing such a good job in that direction!

    cycokan -> thomas142 5 Feb 2015 19:36

    While I agree, that US foreign policy is often very, let's say, adventurous, I do not see them as idiots.

    Trying to force Germany or France and most, if not all other European countries into an open war with Russia would be the end of NATO and the end of any American sphere of influence in Europe, because, I can assure you, at least the German populace would simply never join such an adventure.

    AlienLifeForce Haynonnynonny 5 Feb 2015 19:40

    CNN is a joke, it should be called "CORRUPTED NEWS NETWORK". The sort of trash they report is what feeds all the Obama Drones, after all, they need their fuel from some where.

    AlienLifeForce -> MentalToo 5 Feb 2015 19:35

    Putin thinks that by making Merkel and Hollande come to him, he is the greater man.

    Putin did not make them come to him, Merkel and Hollande are going because if they have any sense, they will try and repair relations between Europe and Russia as well when an agreement can be made.

    He has basically created this war because the people of Ukraine dared to reject him.

    The US created the problems in Ukraine and if the people of Ukraine rejected Putin, why are large numbers of them heading towards the Russian boarder?

    he has disregarded everything from international law, human rights, human lives, basic humanity including been the source to numerous war crimes and crimes towards humanity.

    If anything this fits the description of the US more then Russia, especially when we look at the last 20 - 30 years. Russia has done everything that was agreed when the cold war ended and has since established good working relations world wide with out wars and conflicts.

    He claims it was because Russia was threatened and needed protection. But Russia wasn't.

    Again, Russia kept to the agreements made after the cold war ended, the US never did and has continued to move NATO ever closer to the Russian boarders. How does this represent good business relations from the west and why should Russia accept this to begin with.

    All this was simply because his ego was hurt.


    It is just as well Putin is not the sort of person you describe, because we would all be ash by now.

    If anything is "poor", its you with your lack of understanding and ignorance.

    KauaiJohnnie sasha19 5 Feb 2015 13:57

    Of course if Putin did nothing there wouldn't be a conflict. But NATO was pushing on Russia's borders in violation of the agreements made with Gorbachev 30 years ago. What possible benefit is that to you and me?

    Likewise, the deployment of Star Wars, which hasn't been shown to work but has cost billions (and billions) in Europe is hardly for protection against Iranian missiles.

    This is just to demonstrate the strength of the USA military. And for what purpose? In "Atlas Shrugged" why did the government want to build a bigger bomb? To threaten anyone and everyone who wouldn't bow to the government wishes. The thing Rand missed was the "government" is run by the same 1% that she praises as the "job creators".

    They are playing the same "game" that sociopathic kings have played since the beginning of time. Why the "rest of us" allow ourselves to be governed by sociopaths remains a mystery.

    roundthings 5 Feb 2015 13:55

    "We will make a new proposal to solve the conflict which will be based on Ukraine's territorial integrity."

    That would be heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction. What if Russia had taken a similar stand over the 'territorial integrity of Serbia' during the Kosovo affair? Aren't the situations analogous?

    Sure, Putin has been out of order. He deserves a smack. But the price of doing so is too high. These politician boneheads are dragging us into a war - a stupid war, an unnecessary war.

    I'm more and more disappointed with Merkel. Her first strike was the panicked flight out of nuclear. No 2 was not recognizing that, yes the Greeks need to be made to lift their game, maybe take on a few of Schaeuble's tax collectors; but mindless squeezing of the bloke on the Athenian street is in no-one's interest. Could her failure to see sense on Ukraine be strike no 3?

    Joe Bloggs 5 Feb 2015 13:55

    Phew! I just like to say Not In My Name as it looks to me as if Hawks are milking the situation for all it is worth so that they can have a go at Russia. As far as I know the land in dispute is populated by Russian speakers who make up 95% of the population. There was also a referendum which had a landslide result showing that almost everyone wanted to be allied with Russia.

    Of course the Hawks claimed that the result was invalid! IMHO it is really a problem caused by boundary disputes that came about when the USSR ceased to exist.

    I propose the same solution that was used by the British Raj in India in 1947, what could be simpler? As to Russia compensating the Ukraine, allegedly Ukraine owes Russia an astronomical amount in unpaid gas bills. It does however look as if the Hawks want to re-arm Ukraine so that they don't have to pay! This is on a par with shooting the debt collector when he comes to your house.

    I am sorry to say that the antics of western politicians are starting to resemble a virility contest and I would like this to cease forthwith as there are other far more serious problems to deal with.

    Spaceguy1 -> One sasha19 5 Feb 2015 13:54

    Naah, Zerohedge is predominantly a financial blog. Plenty of their articles are actually spot on. I use Zerohedge just as another source of information filtering out some of their conspiracies. Besides the article in Zerohedge just copied what the Russian news agency reported here; http://tass.ru/en/russia/775419

    Canajin -> ID8787761 5 Feb 2015 13:53

    They should also return Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Hawaii to their people. Not to mention Guam, Marianas, etc.

    BradBenson -> Gene428 5 Feb 2015 13:52

    Where do you get your information? We are the ones who have been constantly kicking the Russian Bear in the ass. Here are the facts.

    In regard to Georgia

    The Georgian Invasion of the neutral provinces of Ossetia and Abkhazia was completely orchestrated by the Bushies, while Putin was attending the previous Olympic Games in China.

    Georgia had announced their withdrawal from the 'Coalition of the Billing' in Afghanistan and the Bushies conveniently airlifted their entire combat contingent back home almost overnight. They were then immediately deployed to attack the neutral provinces. The whole thing was an attempt to seize key Russian controlled oil pipelines from the Caucasus to the Black Sea.

    Then, as now, Putin was forced to react to aggression on his borders. He flew home, issued an ultimatum and then sent in the Russian Army to clean out the Georgian Invaders, chasing them all the way back to Tbilisi until their CIA installed President begged the world for help. Not surprisingly, none came, but John McCain was able to proudly proclaim, "We are all Georgians today".

    During the after battle clean-up, it was reported that there were a number of black soldiers among the dead Georgians. Those Georgians were most likely from Atlanta, Resaca and Augusta.

    In regard to the Crimea

    The presence of Russian ground forces and the only warm water ports for the Russian Navy made the Crimea a de facto Russian Territory. When the illegal coup d'état was pulled off in the Maidan, Putin and the Russian Military secured their bases on the Black Sea and in the Crimea.

    Why should the neo-Nazis in Kiev, or their CIA backed puppet-masters have thought that the Russians would allow this territory to be illegally seized as was the rest of the Ukraine? When coup d'état's occur, borders can change unexpectedly. The people of the Crimea overwhelmingly support the presence of the Russians.

    In regard to the coup d'état in Kiev

    The US worked to stir up trouble for the democratically elected Ukrainian Government, under Yushchenko, despite the wishes of its EU Partners. At the time, US State Department Neo-Con Victoria Nuland was notoriously quoted as saying "F*ck the EU!"

    However, during the rest of that famous 4 minute telephone call, Ms. Nuland was recorded as she outlined who the US wanted in the new Ukrainian Government--the one that would replace the existing government after it was overthrown. This happened despite the fact that Ukrainian Elections for a new President were already scheduled roughly two months hence. Then, against the wishes of its reluctant EU Partners, the US stage-managed the illegal coup d'état in Kiev using neo-Nazis as their vanguard in the streets.

    Educate yourself please. This information is readily available.

    ID5868758 -> ID8787761 5 Feb 2015 13:45

    "Russia invaded Georgia." A perfect example of a western lie, that has been repeated over and over again, so many times that the lie has become the "truth".

    [Feb 05, 2015] What caused such officials as Kerry, Merkel and Hollande to leave their warm places and fly to cold Kiev and Moscow in the depth of the winter

    Looks like EuroMaidan color revolution turns in full scale Libyan style crisis with West holding the bad -- it now need to support impoverished Poroshenko regime with dollars instead of getting those dollars from Ukraine as the winners of EuroMaidan coup. Russia also overestimated their capabilities and now is paying a huge price for confronting world neoliberal order with the headquarters in Washington.

    The establishment of fire control of highway M-103 still does not mean that formed right encirclement of Ukrainian troupes in Debaltsevo. But even what already happened, has caused a diplomatic consequences.

    The capture of Uglegorsk put rebels at the distance of artillery fire to key supply lines of Ukrainian troops, which not only caused a serious operational crisis of the Ukrainian army, which Ukrainian commanders try to solve by local counterattacks which do not change for grave situation of semi-encircled troops.

    In addition, the we see "spontaneous" of activity of the OSCE and the UN directed on halting advancement of the rebels and encirclement of Debaltsevo which would happen with the capture of the only road that currently exists for evacuation of civilian and retreat of the Ukrainian army for this this semi-encirclement.

    In this regard, we see how the fights for the little-known towns and height are directly affecting Great states politics, when dangerous narrowing of the neck Develasco encirclement, forced such officials as Kerry, Merkel and Hollande to leave their warm places and fly to cold Kiev and Moscow in the depth of the winter.

    [Feb 05, 2015] France and Germany Enter Last Call Ukraine Peace Talks With Russia

    Feb 05, 2015 | Forbes

    In east Ukraine, renewed fighting has cost the lives of dozens of soldiers and civilians and killed a five-months old truce. The United States is considering supplying arms to the Ukraine regular army in order to push back the separatist rebels which, according to NATO, are supported by Russia.

    Both the Russian economy and western firms are smarting from the fall out of economic sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis, which started with the absorption of the Crimea region, and the Russian counter sanctions. In Russia some goods are getting scarce while in Europe firms from European fruit and vegetable exporters, French ski resorts to automobile firms and ship yards are suffering from the sanctions.

    In Ukraine, the economy is in shatters and the central bank raise the interest rates and eased its management of the hryvnia currency that is being hit by a "panic mood"

    [Feb 05, 2015] Ukraine Crisis Calls For Peacekeepers, Not Arms Supplies by Marcel Michelson

    Quote: "There is a civil war in the east of the Ukraine and it is up to the international community to try and defuse the situation instead of fanning the flames of hate and war."
    Forbes

    In other countries and conflicts, the United Nations sent blue helmet soldiers into the disputed zones with a mission of restoring and maintaining the peace.

    The same should be applied to Ukraine – an international operation of peacekeeping troops should be deployed to silence the guns, protect the civilians and create conditions for negotiations between the fighting parties.

    ... ... ...

    There is a civil war in the east of the Ukraine and it is up to the international community to try and defuse the situation instead of fanning the flames of hate and war.

    [Feb 05, 2015] Former Ukranian Prime minister Azarov opinion about who organized EuroMaidan color revolution

    Feb 05, 2015 | matveychev-oleg.livejournal.com

    Revolution in Kiev was led by Biden and the U.S. Embassy

    The former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov in his book "Ukraine at the crossroads" said The USA was behind the coup d'état in the country. They simultaneously controlled both President Viktor Yanukovich and his enemies in the winter of 2013-2014.

    "Ten days with 1 on 10 December was the most severe in the first phase of the revolution. The conspirators thought that if they put a little more effort they will be able to capture all government agencies. Yanukovich, paralyzed by numerous calls from Western leaders, did not give any decisive orders about restoration of law and order. He went to China on a state visit. During this period, the conspirators captured the building of the Kyiv city administration, the House of trade unions, building on the European square, completely surrounded by buildings of the Government and the Verchonaya Rada", - he recollect the events in the book.

    Azarov says that the Ukrainian authorities had information about the upcoming provocations against representatives of AntiMaidan:

    "It was necessary to separate these two meetings, to put between them a police cordon. Ukrainian law enforcement did exactly that during the night from 9 to 10 December. It should be noted that this was the first and last active operation by law enforcement officers, " adds the author of the book. The chain of command : "American Embassy - Biden - President Yanukovich" work perfectly reliably

    After threats by Biden Yanukovich gave the command to stop the operation. It became clear that the United States control the EuroMaidan protest. Deputy Secretary Nuland flew in Kiev, while the militants started building barricades around the perimeter, and to arm themselves without any look back on law enforcement".

    Former Prime Minister of Ukraine writes that citizens of country were surprised by the inaction of the authorities. But during this time he was unable event to contact President Viktor Yanukovich.

    "He was fully immersed in the negotiation process with Western leaders, which, in my opinion, was a cover for the accumulation of forces by militants, demoralization of the law enforcement and the implementation of a coup. When I analyze available to me facts now, I can clearly see that the coordination of the actions of the opposition and the rebels was completely controlled by the group of senior officials of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

    It was to them opposition leaders drive each like as if this was their job place, and it is from them opposition leaders went to talks with Yanukovich. After which they got full information about the content of these negotiations," said Mykola Azarov.

    Anonimous:

    What Azarov announced, was clear as a day to any sober person a year ago. Any police officer knew by heart how to act during the riots on the square or in any other place. And if such an officer was given the command of the Ukrainian security forces and acted according to the existing instruction, all the heroism of Maidan protesters would have been ended after 15 minutes.

    What we now see is the fact the betrayal in the Ukrainian elite including some persons at the top of the government.

    Ukrainians, as always, where thrown under the bus..

    [Feb 05, 2015] Financial Warfare As The New Regime Change Instrument

    Just two weeks ago some idiot published this on "War Is Boring":

    After six years of massive expenditures and lurid propaganda, on Jan. 9 Tehran shut down its troubled space program. The unceremonious cancellation occurred without notice in the Iranian press.

    Authorities are spreading the space agency's manpower and assets across four ministries including the telecoms ministry and the ministry of defense.

    That story was likely planted to instigate some riffs within Iranian politics. That did not work well. Here is notice in the Iranian press:

    Tehran, Feb 2, IRNA - Manager of Electronic Industries Space Projects Mehdi Sarvi on Monday declared that Fajr satellite has established its contact with ground station, hours after it was launched and put into the orbit.
    ...
    During the ceremony, Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said the project was accomplished only thanks to the sincere endeavors of the Iranian scientists.

    Developed by indigenous technology and know-how, he noted, the satellite which is called 'Fajr' indicated the high capabilities of Iran's satellite-carriers.
    ...
    The minister referred to the chance to develop and design a new generation of satellite-carriers and also enter the world market of space services, using domestic potential and planning complicated space missions as some of the achievements of the project.

    Congrats to Iran for this successful launch.

    The above just demonstrates again that one can not trust any "news" on countries not liked by Washington. Consider this headline by NBC: Ex-Los Alamos Scientist Gets 5 Years in Venezuelan Nuclear Bomb Plot. A headline fitting the story would be something like "Crazy old scientist falls for FBI sting". The story has nothing to do with Venezuela and the whole "nuclear bomb" stuff was just phantasies an FBI agent used to entrap some poor old person. But Venezuela is on Washington's shit list and the CIA is currently busy instigating another coup against the elected Venezuelan government.

    The CIA and the State Department are also involved in instigating the current demonstrations in Hungary. Another attack on an elected government that does not walk the line the U.S. administration orders it to walk. Next in line is likely the new government of Greece.

    But instigating color revolutions, protests and coups is often not enough to destroy a government that the U.S. dislikes. In a recent interview Alastair Crooke points to the newest weapon in Washington's regime change arsenal - financial warfare:

    The International Order depends more on control by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve than on the UN as before.

    It started principally with Iran and it has been developed subsequently. In a book, "Treasury's War," the tool of exclusion from the dollar-denominated global financial system is described as a "neutron bomb." When a country is to be isolated, a "scarlet letter" is issued by the US Treasury that asserts that such-and-such bank is somehow suspected of being linked to a terrorist movement -- or of being involved in money laundering. The author of "Treasury's War" [Juan Zarate], who was the chief architect of modern financial warfare and a former senior Treasury and White House official, says this scarlet letter constitutes a more potent bomb than any military weapon.

    This system of reliance on dollar hegemony no longer requires American dependency on the UN and hands control to the US Treasury overseen by Steve Cohen -- a reflection of the fact that the military tools have become less available to the US administration, for domestic political reasons.

    Crooke believes that the drop in the Russian ruble a few weeks ago was engineered by the U.S. Treasury. He is not completely right though about David S. Cohen, the U.S.Treasury man who has implemented the financial warfare instruments against Iran and Russia. That man is no longer with the U.S. Treasury but is the new number 2 in the CIA. That tells you all you need to know about the intensity with which the U.S. plans to use these new weapons.

    Any country that does not do do what Washington wants is now threatened with financial ruin. China and Russia are preparing defenses against such a threat but smaller countries have little chances to escape such attacks.

    The media though will not delve into that. Should some country's economy drown (see Venezuela) because of U.S. financial marked manipulations all blame will be put on the foreign government and its "irresponsible economic policies" and the media will again call for and support "regime change".

    Posted by b at 02:14 PM | Comments (28)

    Yul | Feb 2, 2015 4:32:10 PM | 9

    @ b

    Interesting pieces :

    Cohen will also visit Israel for regular consultations on issues of shared interest.

    We know about shared interest

    "For the last five years, he's been diligently focusing at Treasury on terrorism financial issues, and that is particularly important to our community," Daroff said, noting the existential threat to Israel posed by Iran. Cohen, according to Daroff, strives to make sure sanctions against Iran "are in place and strong." Daroff credited Cohen with making sure those sanctions are "written with a smart, enforceable mechanism" that has pushed Iran to the negotiating table.

    So will he make himself available to the Jewish community, AIPAC , JINSA et al.

    brian | Feb 2, 2015 4:33:51 PM | 10

    The CIA and the State Department are also involved in instigating the current demonstrations in Hungary. Another attack on an elected government that does not walk the line the U.S. administration orders it to walk. Next in line is likely the new government of Greece.'

    Govts that dont want to be unceremoniously removed need to close the local US embassy. Bolivia did ad sleep better at night now.

    Lochearn | Feb 2, 2015 4:39:24 PM | 12

    @b: "The CIA and the State Department are also involved in instigating the current demonstrations in Hungary."
    The man behind it is Andre Goodfriend, who was a good friend to ISIS when he was US ambassador to Syria from 2009 to 2012 (key dates those). He then was sent to Budapest to stir up some more shit (three Maidan style demos in three months) with cash allegedly from the "Norwegian Fund." Of the November demonstration Vladislav Gulevich wrote:

    "Other signs of a 'Hungarian Maidan' were also evident: demonstrators defiantly jumped around chanting "He who does not jump pays the tax" (the Ukrainian version of this standard spectacle is "He who does not jump is a Moskal"). See full article at http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/11/12/viktor-orban-threatened-by-maidan-style-protest-movement.html.

    Goodfriend managed to rile the Hungarian government to the extent that he was demoted to senior advisor and is now Chief of Mission pending the arrival of the new ambassador, Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer. John McCain was furious:

    "We're about to vote on a totally unqualified individual to be ambassador to a nation which is very important to our national security interest," McCain said on the Senate floor. "Her qualifications are as a producer of the television soap opera 'The Bold and The Beautiful,' contributed 800,000 [dollars] to Obama in the last election and bundled more than $2.1 million for President Obama's re-election effort." McCain had in December called Hungary's PM Viktor Orban a "neo-fascist dictator."

    somebody | Feb 2, 2015 4:59:13 PM | 13

    That pretty much sums up Germany.

    Merkel in Hungary talking democracy is crazy. It sure smells color revolution. She needs it now as Orban will hate her.

    She has been harping on about Russia's influence in South East Europe for the last few weeks.

    It sounds like refighting WW1 all over again.

    Willy2 | Feb 2, 2015 5:20:59 PM | 15

    Several related thoughts/facts:
    - Venezuela has implemented a disastrous financial policy from the day Hugo Chavez took office. And now with oil at ~ $ 50 "the chickens are coming home to roost". In that regard the "Evil Empire" doesn't have to do anything. Just wait & see how Venezuela blows itself up.
    - Remember the coup in april 2002 ?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat_attempt
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-coup-and-countercoup-revolution/18618
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela

    - Chavez wanted to improve relations with the US in 2009 (after G.W.Bush was gone) but it seems that was rebuffed by the US.

    For those who "dislike" the US Empire, I can say that the Empire is on the precipice of a financial collapse as well. From 1981 onwards the US federal debt has increased from ~ $ 1 trillion to over ~ $ 18 trillion now in 2014/2015. The interest payments remained "manageable" because US interest rates went down from over 15% in 1981 to ~ 1.7% in very late 2014. But when I look at the charts then I think US interest rates will/could rise/explode higher in the near future and that WILL kill the US housing market & the US economy.

    In that regard, I am surprised to see that the US Empire continues to "double down".

    Matt | Feb 2, 2015 5:28:52 PM | 16

    "In that regard, I am surprised to see that the US Empire continues to "double down""

    The entire course of U.S. history has been one double-down piled upon another.

    Gareth | Feb 2, 2015 6:12:13 PM | 18

    The US should think twice about weaponizing the financial system when Wall Street is sitting on top of a smoldering volcano of derivatives, just waiting for the next unexpected crisis to trigger an eruption. Who is to say that others can't play the financial warfare game?

    guest77 | Feb 2, 2015 8:41:40 PM | 22

    @Willy2 - More and more you're just pushing out US government claptrap.


    "Venezuela has implemented a disastrous financial policy from the day Hugo Chavez took office. And now with oil at ~ $ 50 "'the chickens are coming home to roost'. In that regard the "Evil Empire" doesn't have to do anything. Just wait & see how Venezuela blows itself up."


    Sorry, but Venezuelan revolution has not survived two decades in the crosshairs of the United States by following "disastrous policies".

    Yes, the Venezuelan economy has ups and down - but it always has, and in this regard, the Chavista era is one of remarkably (relative) low inflation and economic growth. Not to mention the major facts that will help the country survive and thrive in the future - the massive reduction of poverty and the spreading of education to all sectors of the society. Not to mention the $250 billion that China has committed to invest in Latin America will certainly help shore up the weak sectors.

    Venezuela has not only avoided becoming a neo-liberal dumping ground through this "disastrous policy", it has lead the entirety of South America and the Caribbean into a remarkable era of independence from the United States. Those like Willy here who want to join in the constant put downs of Venezuela and lay out the next predictions of its downfall (we've heard them since day one) ought to consider that that flock of chickens they keep waiting to scratch their way to Venezuela - might be bound for their country instead.

    guest77 | Feb 2, 2015 8:58:51 PM | 23

    Thanks for that NBC piece b. I hadn't heard that. Reminds one, of course, of the case of Wen Ho Lee, another nuclear scientist the US government tried to railroad using the basest racism (but eventually had to pay $1.6 million to him). Looks like this time they "got their (80 year old) man". Similar to how they convince mentally defective teenagers (is there any other kind) to blow up Christmas celebrations and then declare they've "saved America" from another Terror plot.

    The FBI, it seems, picks on the very young and the very old and the slow - in this regard they are hardly better than people running email scams out of Nigeria.

    That NBC News picks up on this and puffs up its headlines with the only part of the story which is a fiction in its entirety: that the Venezuelan government had anything at all to do with this - is a perfect of how manipulative the US media.

    The US media, like the US economy and our pop culture and, well, like every other aspect of US society, has been converted away from our benign national traditions, into dangerous weapons with one purpose - to be yielded by the US elite in their quest for power.

    It is the very definition of totalitarian.

    guest77 | Feb 2, 2015 9:38:40 PM | 25

    No doubt that b is right, the US uses its tightly controlled economy in the same way it might use its military - as a weapon. And that is one of the reasons that it prefers to maintain an economy which is by far the most imbalanced and unequal in the world - for the control it gives them in wielding it as such.

    Though they are struggling to come to grips with how to manage the effects of such aggressive US actions, the rest of the world is not simply accepting this status quo. China's pumping $250 Billion into Latin America, as well as China's pledges to shore up the Russian economy - should this be required - is evidence that they are not resigned to the whims of the United States.

    In Xinhua today, one can read The full text of joint communique of Russian, Indian, Chinese foreign ministers' meeting that was held today, and it has some very telling passages. The main take away is this: the US is fooling itself if it believes for a second - as you'll often hear in its media - that it can turn any of the BRICS against each other. The US is clearly the isolated nation - its tactics are a danger to everyone across the globe.

    The Ministers noted the significant and rapid changes underway in the world and underlined that the international community should remain committed to democratization of international relations and multi-polarity. They expressed their support to the idea of adopting a UN General Assembly resolution on the inadmissibility of intervention and interference in the internal affairs of states. They opposed forced regime change in any country from the outside, or imposition of unilateral sanctions based on domestic laws.

    The Ministers recognized that the year 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the victory in the Second World War, and paid tribute to all those who fought against Fascism and for freedom.

    Acknowledging India's important role in driving global economic growth, and supporting the openness of APEC, China and Russia would welcome India's participation in APEC...China and India shared the plans of Russia's Chairmanship in the SCO... China and Russia welcomed India's application for full membership of SCO and supported India to join the SCO after completing all necessary negotiations and legal processes.

    The Ministers affirmed the need for all countries to join efforts in combating terrorism under the auspices of the United Nations...They underlined the need to bring to justice perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of terrorist acts. Highly alarmed by the new trends in international terrorist acts...

    They expressed support for the efforts of the Syrian Government to combat terrorism....

    The Ministers stressed that an independent, objective, fair and transparent international investigation should be carried out for the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17....

    called for immediate reform of the international financial system ...[they] reject protectionism as well as all forms of unilateral measures of economic pressure taken without relevant decisions of the UN Security Council...

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015-02/02/c_133965412.htm

    ben | Feb 2, 2015 11:27:40 PM | 29

    War by other means - IMF - World Bank are weapons of war, by John Pilger:

    http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017242138

    [Feb 05, 2015] How Kremlin TV Covers America and Why It Matters by Lincoln Mitchell

    Another signal from 2015 about forthcoming clump down on RT. RT is Russian propaganda site, but that does not exclude them providing high quality critical coverage of US and European events. In any case RT is preferable to BBC, although comparing two can get you at higher level of understanding, than watching just one
    Notable quotes:
    "... simply to portray an image of the US as a deeply flawed country with a corrupt and ineffective political system, ..."
    "... at least as legitimate a representation of the realities of the U.S. and of American politics than, for example, Fox News, and generally offers considerably more depth than what is offered by how ABC, CBS or NBC present the news. ..."
    "... Lincoln Mitchell is national political correspondent at the Observer. Follow him on Twitter ..."
    Feb 03, 2015 | Observer

    At first glance, Lee Camp, Thom Hartmann and Larry King don't seem to have a lot in common. Mr. Camp is a comedian who seeks to fuse progressive politics with humor. He is perhaps best known for his "Moment of Clarity" rants, where he colorfully, and occasionally profanely, analyzes an issue from the news. Mr. Hartmann is a progressive radio host, author and pundit who has written numerous books, articles and blogs. Larry King is legendary talk show host and erstwhile Little League coach. He has interviewed presidents, actors, musicians and even Oprah.

    All three of these media personalities, however, share a link to RT (formerly Russia Today), the English-language arm of the Russian government's media operation. In less diplomatic terms, it is a Kremlin propaganda machine. RT's coverage of Russia, the conflict in Ukraine and other issues having direct bearing on Moscow's role in the world, include headlines that sound like they could have been written by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. Mother Russia is portrayed as a force for only good and peace in the world. It's anchors and "reporters" have enthusiasm for euphemisms such as "stabilizing force" ("invading army") and "humanitarian aid" ("military intervention"). RT's coverage of Russian politics is heavy-handed, unsubtle and, in the U.S., not particularly effective. Despite RT's best efforts to gin up sympathy for Russia in the current Ukraine conflict, most mainstream politicians and media outlets continue to compete with each other to see who can demonize Putin most.

    RT's coverage of the U.S., however, is different. While it certainly has an political agenda, one that is not of the left or the right, but simply to portray an image of the US as a deeply flawed country with a corrupt and ineffective political system, RT covers news, and offers perspectives that are not often seen American broadcast television. RT touts itself as offering a "second opinion," through its American media campaign, described by Ronn Torossian recently here at the Observer. RT is certainly neither objective or balanced, but it is at least as legitimate a representation of the realities of the U.S. and of American politics than, for example, Fox News, and generally offers considerably more depth than what is offered by how ABC, CBS or NBC present the news.

    Recent RT headlines such as "Police Brutality Activists Angry Obama Glossed Over Ferguson 'Events' in SOTU" and "Majority of America's Public School Children are Living in Poverty," span a reasonably broad ideological range, but seek to consistently to portray the U.S. in a negative light. These are also stories that much of the media overlooks. This approach, and similar language can also be found in RT America's busy Twitter feed. If RT were funded through advertising or the largesse of a quirky American billionaire and only covered domestic politics here in the U.S., it would be viewed by many as a useful component of a diverse media environment. For these reasons, RT is now the most watched foreign news outlet in the U.S., with an audience that is estimated to be 6.5 times as large as its closest rival, Al Jazeera America.

    In addition to its news coverage, RT has also become a clearinghouse for the opinions of American dissidents, including those on the far left like Noam Chomsky, the far, if twisted, right like Pat Buchanan, and increasingly fringe Libertarians like Ron Paul. While opinions like these are provocative, unpopular and often a little wacky, RT gives American audiences access to ideas and opinions that are considerably beyond the narrow bandwidth in which most debate in the media usually occurs. Clearly, these opinions are more extreme than the more genial progressive politics of Mr. Camp or Mr. Hartmann or of the generally politically neutral work of Mr. King, but taken as a whole, RT provides a very broad range of political outlooks.

    Somebody who only watched RT would have an image of the U.S. as a place of radical economic inequality, widespread civil unrest, corrupt politicians, racial animus and a collapsing economy, committed to expanding its global influence through military might. Of course, somebody who watched only Fox News, would understand the U.S. to be a country that is in the throws of a socialist takeover where an oppressed minority of white, heavily Christian citizens, are now losing the country that was given to them by the almighty, to hordes of illegal immigrants, non-whites, homosexuals and atheists. Both Fox and RT are propaganda organs espousing very biased views of American politics. The major difference may be that Fox represents one extreme of the domestic political spectrum while RT is the propaganda arm of a foreign government. While RT draws more viewers than other foreign news networks like CCTV from China, Al Jazeera America or even the BBC, its viewership is dwarfed by major American news stations like Fox; RT America has 194,000 Twitter followers compared with Fox News has 4.83 million Twitter followers.

    But dismissing RT's coverage as simply a Russian propaganda, however, is a mistake. The insights of people like Mr. Camp and Mr. Hartmann, while not universally agreed upon, certainly resonate with many Americans. It is significant that it is only on a Moscow-funded station that voices like those can be heard, reflecting how the major media outlets still only present a relatively narrow range of views on most topics. Second, providing a critical and resonant portrayal of American politics to American viewers will eventually make those viewers more open to RT's dubious presentation of foreign affairs and Russian politics. The Kremlin hopes that the same people who watch RT's US programming and wonder why stories about, for example, why the US is classifying information about aid to Afghanistan, will soon begin to question why so few voices on American media are critical of the Ukrainian government.

    Consider RT's coverage of American politics as a bait and switch, from critical insight about the US to dishonest propaganda regarding Russia.

    Lincoln Mitchell is national political correspondent at the Observer. Follow him on Twitter

    Alfred Cossi Chodaton

    RT does nothing different from what major media outlets do.

    Ilya Nesterovich

    Lie, lie and lie. That's all. RT show different opinion from official, and, of course, USA doesn't like it.

    Mstislav Pavlov

    In Russia there is no need for propaganda. Your media better than any propaganda. Kremlin even do not need anything :)

    [Feb 05, 2015] Merkel and Hollande to fly to Moscow in new effort to resolve Ukraine crisis by Shaun Walker in Kiev, Ian Traynor in Brussels, Dan Roberts in Washington and Alec Luhn in Moscow

    Notable quotes:
    "... is the most wasteful abuser of the world's scarce resources, ..."
    "... I have been to Croatia and Serbia I was in Vukovar a few years ago. It was truly horrendous. Yugoslavia was destabilized by the US government and that no one can deny. The UN had no chance against heavily armed Serbs and Croats to stop the chaos. US are doing the same in Ukraine. Well it is not the USA people its the 0.00001% of the USA, ..."
    "... The EU also has a similar problem, they need another country to leech off every few years to keep the EURO going. The moment countries start to drop out or the EU fails to find more victims to feed off, the EURO along with the EU will collapse. ..."
    "... General - the BBC is state-funded. Do you refuse to believe a word it says? But why is funding from a state less likely to produce balanced journalism than funding from the five or six billionaires who own almost all the world's media? Especially when those billionaires effectively control the state apparatus anyway. ..."
    "... I'm not condoning Russia's recent actions, but the American people and politicians seem incapable of "walking a mile in the other man's shoes". The USA has attempted to encircle Russia with armed NATO members - what do you think our reaction would be if Mexico and the Caribbean contained hostile troops and missiles aimed at us? I think we know the answer to that from the Cuban missile crisis. ..."
    "... The fundamental question Is, what brought Ukraine into this mess? It is the expansion of NATO to the backyards of Russia. It happened at a time when Russia was weak and was still struggling to recover from the collapse of the Soviet system upon which their life and economy was built. And what was the goal of the US to expand NATO to the doorsteps of Russia? The US policy of domination of the world. It is this policy that poses the greatest danger to the security of the world since the fall of the bipolar world in the early 90s. The world, especially the Europe is facing a critical choice at this point of time in history. Europe has to set itself free of the US bondage or stay a mute spectator to the aggressive and intolerant policies of the conservative hard liners in the US, that would multiply the conflicts across the globe. Today, these hard liners in the US pose the greatest threat to the stability and overall growth of the people of this planet. ..."
    "... Ethnic cleansing, though always popular with ultra-nationalists, is not the only way forward. Let the people decide. Not Kerry, not Merkel, not Putin, not Hollande, not Poroshenko not Yatzenyuk. Public votes. ..."
    "... Absolutely. And when are we going to here the truth about that damn plane crash?? ..."
    "... CNN is a joke, it should be called "CORRUPTED NEWS NETWORK". The sort of trash they report is what feeds all the Obama Drones, after all, they need their fuel from some where. ..."
    "... The thing Rand missed was the "government" is run by the same 1% that she praises as the "job creators". ..."
    "... They are playing the same "game" that sociopathic kings have played since the beginning of time. Why the "rest of us" allow ourselves to be governed by sociopaths remains a mystery. ..."
    "... That would be heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction. What if Russia had taken a similar stand over the 'territorial integrity of Serbia' during the Kosovo affair? Aren't the situations analogous? ..."
    "... I'm more and more disappointed with Merkel. ..."
    "... It does however look as if the Hawks want to re-arm Ukraine so that they don't have to pay! This is on a par with shooting the debt collector when he comes to your house. ..."
    "... I am sorry to say that the antics of western politicians are starting to resemble a virility contest and I would like this to cease forthwith as there are other far more serious problems to deal with. ..."
    "... Georgia had announced their withdrawal from the 'Coalition of the Billing' in Afghanistan and the Bushies conveniently airlifted their entire combat contingent back home almost overnight. ..."
    "... The US worked to stir up trouble for the democratically elected Ukrainian Government, under Yushchenko, despite the wishes of its EU Partners. At the time, US State Department Neo-Con Victoria Nuland was notoriously quoted as saying "F*ck the EU!" ..."
    "... Educate yourself please. This information is readily available. ..."
    Feb 05, 2015 | The Guardian


    Soul_Side -> Dick Harrison 5 Feb 2015 20:16

    Dick Harrison

    Better than being a russian proxy state, look how advanced America is

    Advanced? A nation that can't, or won't, provide adequate healthcare for its own citizens, has more than 40million living souls dependent on food stamps, that has the greatest income-disparity on the planet, is the most wasteful abuser of the world's scarce resources, trades the most weapons in the world, spends the most on war in the world, and imprisons the highest proportion of its citizens of all the countries in the world.

    You could be forgiven for not wanting to buy into all that.

    thomas142 -> ID9187603 5 Feb 2015 20:15

    I have been to Croatia and Serbia I was in Vukovar a few years ago. It was truly horrendous. Yugoslavia was destabilized by the US government and that no one can deny. The UN had no chance against heavily armed Serbs and Croats to stop the chaos. US are doing the same in Ukraine. Well it is not the USA people its the 0.00001% of the USA,

    AlienLifeForce Dugan222 5 Feb 2015 20:13

    The problem is the US depends on war to keep the USD going just like they need the petrodollar, without them the USD will be like a drop of water in the desert.

    The EU also has a similar problem, they need another country to leech off every few years to keep the EURO going. The moment countries start to drop out or the EU fails to find more victims to feed off, the EURO along with the EU will collapse.

    Remember Germany relies very much on export, which is why the EU increasing pressure to expand. Merkel has not been looking her self recently, what with everything in Greece going wrong and now Ukraine has gone to plan, things don't look too good for the USD and the EURO.

    Caroline Louise Generalken 5 Feb 2015 20:11

    General - the BBC is state-funded. Do you refuse to believe a word it says? But why is funding from a state less likely to produce balanced journalism than funding from the five or six billionaires who own almost all the world's media? Especially when those billionaires effectively control the state apparatus anyway.

    NigelRG 5 Feb 2015 20:09

    I'm not condoning Russia's recent actions, but the American people and politicians seem incapable of "walking a mile in the other man's shoes". The USA has attempted to encircle Russia with armed NATO members - what do you think our reaction would be if Mexico and the Caribbean contained hostile troops and missiles aimed at us? I think we know the answer to that from the Cuban missile crisis.

    nadodi 5 Feb 2015 20:07

    The fundamental question Is, what brought Ukraine into this mess? It is the expansion of NATO to the backyards of Russia. It happened at a time when Russia was weak and was still struggling to recover from the collapse of the Soviet system upon which their life and economy was built. And what was the goal of the US to expand NATO to the doorsteps of Russia? The US policy of domination of the world. It is this policy that poses the greatest danger to the security of the world since the fall of the bipolar world in the early 90s. The world, especially the Europe is facing a critical choice at this point of time in history. Europe has to set itself free of the US bondage or stay a mute spectator to the aggressive and intolerant policies of the conservative hard liners in the US, that would multiply the conflicts across the globe. Today, these hard liners in the US pose the greatest threat to the stability and overall growth of the people of this planet.

    desconocido Dick Harrison 5 Feb 2015 20:04

    I think it's a question of first or second language and also of cultural identity. And also of course noticing that you are being shafted by west ukrainian nazis.

    Davo3333 laSaya 5 Feb 2015 20:03

    Because the land they are living on has been Russian land for centuries. So Crimea is Russian and should never have been part of Ukraine at all after the Soviet Union split up and Eastern and Southern Ukraine are also Russian but the first step for those regions would be to form new independent countries which could then decide whether they wished to rejoin Russia or remain independent. The Ukrainians live in West Ukraine and it is them who should move into their own areas and leave Eastern and Southern Ukraine alone. And another thing the population of Russia has been increasing in the last few years , not decreasing as you have stated.

    Soul_Side laSaya 5 Feb 2015 20:01

    laSaya said:

    Why don't those Russian speaker just hop in a bus and journey to Russia. The Russian landmass is big enough to take those Russia lovers in.

    Let me understand this point of view exactly, you think they should leave their homes, livelihoods, their aged, disabled and infirm relatives too weak to travel, their land, their places of birth, their local culture and local identity and just move somewhere else because their neighbour seeks to dominate them? Would you?

    Ethnic cleansing, though always popular with ultra-nationalists, is not the only way forward. Let the people decide. Not Kerry, not Merkel, not Putin, not Hollande, not Poroshenko not Yatzenyuk. Public votes.

    angdavies 5 Feb 2015 19:56

    Ahhh.. I love the smell of proxy war in the morning!

    Just let Putin save some face. Any Ukrainian who loves her country should back any peace talks up to the hilt, otherwise there'll be no Ukraine worth living in if the US starts to pump in the weapons. That will kick-off full scale Russian nationalist jihadism - a war that cannot be won.

    AlienLifeForce -> Seriatim 5 Feb 2015 19:56

    Absolutely. And when are we going to here the truth about that damn plane crash??

    Strange you should ask, when I last looked, the US had decided that the findings of the investigation should remain classified. If there was any evidence to point the finger at Russia, don't you think they would have used it?

    glit00 -> senya 5 Feb 2015 19:50

    courtesy of google translate:

    Commander (Chief) under the extraordinary period, including a state of martial law or a battle, in order to arrest a soldier who commits an act that falls within the elements of a crime related to disobedience, resistance or threats boss, violence, unauthorized leaving the fighting positions and designated areas of deployment units (units) in the areas of combat missions, shall have the right to apply measures of physical restraint without causing damage to the health of military and special funds sufficient to stop illegal actions.

    In a battle commander (chief) can use weapons or give orders to subordinates of their application, unless otherwise impossible to stop the unauthorized retreat or other similar actions, while not causing the death of soldier.

    If circumstances permit, the commander (chief) before use of physical effects, special tools or weapons should give voice warning, shot up or by other means notify the person against whom he may apply such measures

    suzi 5 Feb 2015 19:38

    suspicions that Putin is seeking to split Europe and America

    He need hardly bother when the US itself is doing such a good job in that direction!

    cycokan -> thomas142 5 Feb 2015 19:36

    While I agree, that US foreign policy is often very, let's say, adventurous, I do not see them as idiots.

    Trying to force Germany or France and most, if not all other European countries into an open war with Russia would be the end of NATO and the end of any American sphere of influence in Europe, because, I can assure you, at least the German populace would simply never join such an adventure.

    AlienLifeForce Haynonnynonny 5 Feb 2015 19:40

    CNN is a joke, it should be called "CORRUPTED NEWS NETWORK". The sort of trash they report is what feeds all the Obama Drones, after all, they need their fuel from some where.

    AlienLifeForce -> MentalToo 5 Feb 2015 19:35

    Putin thinks that by making Merkel and Hollande come to him, he is the greater man.

    Putin did not make them come to him, Merkel and Hollande are going because if they have any sense, they will try and repair relations between Europe and Russia as well when an agreement can be made.

    He has basically created this war because the people of Ukraine dared to reject him.

    The US created the problems in Ukraine and if the people of Ukraine rejected Putin, why are large numbers of them heading towards the Russian boarder?

    he has disregarded everything from international law, human rights, human lives, basic humanity including been the source to numerous war crimes and crimes towards humanity.

    If anything this fits the description of the US more then Russia, especially when we look at the last 20 - 30 years. Russia has done everything that was agreed when the cold war ended and has since established good working relations world wide with out wars and conflicts.

    He claims it was because Russia was threatened and needed protection. But Russia wasn't.

    Again, Russia kept to the agreements made after the cold war ended, the US never did and has continued to move NATO ever closer to the Russian boarders. How does this represent good business relations from the west and why should Russia accept this to begin with.

    All this was simply because his ego was hurt.


    It is just as well Putin is not the sort of person you describe, because we would all be ash by now.

    If anything is "poor", its you with your lack of understanding and ignorance.

    KauaiJohnnie sasha19 5 Feb 2015 13:57

    Of course if Putin did nothing there wouldn't be a conflict. But NATO was pushing on Russia's borders in violation of the agreements made with Gorbachev 30 years ago. What possible benefit is that to you and me?

    Likewise, the deployment of Star Wars, which hasn't been shown to work but has cost billions (and billions) in Europe is hardly for protection against Iranian missiles.

    This is just to demonstrate the strength of the USA military. And for what purpose? In "Atlas Shrugged" why did the government want to build a bigger bomb? To threaten anyone and everyone who wouldn't bow to the government wishes. The thing Rand missed was the "government" is run by the same 1% that she praises as the "job creators".

    They are playing the same "game" that sociopathic kings have played since the beginning of time. Why the "rest of us" allow ourselves to be governed by sociopaths remains a mystery.

    roundthings 5 Feb 2015 13:55

    "We will make a new proposal to solve the conflict which will be based on Ukraine's territorial integrity."

    That would be heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction. What if Russia had taken a similar stand over the 'territorial integrity of Serbia' during the Kosovo affair? Aren't the situations analogous?

    Sure, Putin has been out of order. He deserves a smack. But the price of doing so is too high. These politician boneheads are dragging us into a war - a stupid war, an unnecessary war.

    I'm more and more disappointed with Merkel. Her first strike was the panicked flight out of nuclear. No 2 was not recognizing that, yes the Greeks need to be made to lift their game, maybe take on a few of Schaeuble's tax collectors; but mindless squeezing of the bloke on the Athenian street is in no-one's interest. Could her failure to see sense on Ukraine be strike no 3?

    Joe Bloggs 5 Feb 2015 13:55

    Phew! I just like to say Not In My Name as it looks to me as if Hawks are milking the situation for all it is worth so that they can have a go at Russia. As far as I know the land in dispute is populated by Russian speakers who make up 95% of the population. There was also a referendum which had a landslide result showing that almost everyone wanted to be allied with Russia.

    Of course the Hawks claimed that the result was invalid! IMHO it is really a problem caused by boundary disputes that came about when the USSR ceased to exist.

    I propose the same solution that was used by the British Raj in India in 1947, what could be simpler? As to Russia compensating the Ukraine, allegedly Ukraine owes Russia an astronomical amount in unpaid gas bills. It does however look as if the Hawks want to re-arm Ukraine so that they don't have to pay! This is on a par with shooting the debt collector when he comes to your house.

    I am sorry to say that the antics of western politicians are starting to resemble a virility contest and I would like this to cease forthwith as there are other far more serious problems to deal with.

    Spaceguy1 -> One sasha19 5 Feb 2015 13:54

    Naah, Zerohedge is predominantly a financial blog. Plenty of their articles are actually spot on. I use Zerohedge just as another source of information filtering out some of their conspiracies. Besides the article in Zerohedge just copied what the Russian news agency reported here; http://tass.ru/en/russia/775419

    Canajin -> ID8787761 5 Feb 2015 13:53

    They should also return Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Hawaii to their people. Not to mention Guam, Marianas, etc.

    BradBenson -> Gene428 5 Feb 2015 13:52

    Where do you get your information? We are the ones who have been constantly kicking the Russian Bear in the ass. Here are the facts.

    In regard to Georgia

    The Georgian Invasion of the neutral provinces of Ossetia and Abkhazia was completely orchestrated by the Bushies, while Putin was attending the previous Olympic Games in China.

    Georgia had announced their withdrawal from the 'Coalition of the Billing' in Afghanistan and the Bushies conveniently airlifted their entire combat contingent back home almost overnight. They were then immediately deployed to attack the neutral provinces. The whole thing was an attempt to seize key Russian controlled oil pipelines from the Caucasus to the Black Sea.

    Then, as now, Putin was forced to react to aggression on his borders. He flew home, issued an ultimatum and then sent in the Russian Army to clean out the Georgian Invaders, chasing them all the way back to Tbilisi until their CIA installed President begged the world for help. Not surprisingly, none came, but John McCain was able to proudly proclaim, "We are all Georgians today".

    During the after battle clean-up, it was reported that there were a number of black soldiers among the dead Georgians. Those Georgians were most likely from Atlanta, Resaca and Augusta.

    In regard to the Crimea

    The presence of Russian ground forces and the only warm water ports for the Russian Navy made the Crimea a de facto Russian Territory. When the illegal coup d'état was pulled off in the Maidan, Putin and the Russian Military secured their bases on the Black Sea and in the Crimea.

    Why should the neo-Nazis in Kiev, or their CIA backed puppet-masters have thought that the Russians would allow this territory to be illegally seized as was the rest of the Ukraine? When coup d'état's occur, borders can change unexpectedly. The people of the Crimea overwhelmingly support the presence of the Russians.

    In regard to the coup d'état in Kiev

    The US worked to stir up trouble for the democratically elected Ukrainian Government, under Yushchenko, despite the wishes of its EU Partners. At the time, US State Department Neo-Con Victoria Nuland was notoriously quoted as saying "F*ck the EU!"

    However, during the rest of that famous 4 minute telephone call, Ms. Nuland was recorded as she outlined who the US wanted in the new Ukrainian Government--the one that would replace the existing government after it was overthrown. This happened despite the fact that Ukrainian Elections for a new President were already scheduled roughly two months hence. Then, against the wishes of its reluctant EU Partners, the US stage-managed the illegal coup d'état in Kiev using neo-Nazis as their vanguard in the streets.

    Educate yourself please. This information is readily available.

    ID5868758 -> ID8787761 5 Feb 2015 13:45

    "Russia invaded Georgia." A perfect example of a western lie, that has been repeated over and over again, so many times that the lie has become the "truth".

    [Feb 04, 2015] Donetsk hit by shells as violence intensifies in Ukraine – video

    Note the headline " Donetsk hit by shells as violence intensifies in Ukraine". No one is responsible for shelling. It was just hit. Compare this with headlines about supposed "separatists" shellings.
    theguardian.com

    At least three people were killed in a series of shellings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Wednesday that pro-Russian separatists said were Uragan missiles fired by Ukrainian forces. Earlier, the Ukrainian military said two of its soldiers had been killed and 18 wounded in fighting against pro-Russian separatists in the previous 24 hours

    [Feb 04, 2015] Q A: Should US send lethal military assistance to Ukraine?

    Feb 03, 2015 | The Guardian

    AlienLifeForce -> Robert Looren de Jong 3 Feb 2015 22:29

    Ukrainian Government: "No Russian Troops Are Fighting Against Us"
    Posted on January 30, 2015 by Eric Zuesse.

    Ukraine's top general is contradicting allegations by the Obama Administration and by his own Ukrainian Government, by saying that no Russian troops are fighting against the Ukrainian Government's forces in the formerly Ukrainian, but now separatist, area, where the Ukrainian civil war is being waged.

    The Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, is saying, in that news-report, which is dated on Thursday January 29th, that the only Russian citizens who are fighting in the contested region, are residents in that region, or of Ukraine, and also some Russian citizens (and this does not deny that perhaps some of other countries' citizens are fighting there, inasmuch as American mercenaries have already been noted to have been participating on the Ukrainian Government's side), who "are members of illegal armed groups," meaning fighters who are not paid by any government, but instead are just "individual citizens" (as opposed to foreign-government-paid ones). General Muzhenko also says, emphatically, that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

    In other words: He is explicitly and clearly denying the very basis for the EU's sanctions against Russia, and for the U.S.'s sanctions against Russia: all of the sanctions against Russia are based on the falsehood that Ukraine is fighting against "the regular units of the Russian army" - i.e., against the Russian-Government-controlled-and-trained fighting forces.

    The allegation to the effect that Ukraine is instead fighting against "regular units of the Russian army" is the allegation that Vladimir Putin's Russia has invaded Ukraine, and it is the entire basis for the economic sanctions that are in force against Russia.

    Those sanctions should therefore be immediately removed, with apology, and with compensation being paid to all individuals who have been suffering them; and it is therefore incumbent upon the Russian Government to pursue, through all legally available channels, restitution, plus damages, against the perpetrators of that dangerous fraud - and the news reports have already made clear precisely whom those persons are, who have asserted, as public officials, what can only be considered to be major libel.

    Otherwise, Ukraine's top general should be fired, for asserting what he has just asserted.

    If what General Muzhenko says is true, then he is a hero for having risked his entire career by having gone public with this courageous statement. And, if what he says is false, then he has no place heading Ukraine's military.

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/ukrainian-government-russian-troops-fighting-us.html

    USCricketer 3 Feb 2015 22:06

    While there is no doubt about covert US military aid already going to Ukraine it'll be another foolhardy step for Mr. Obama, or for the Republicans now in control, to overtly jump into the Ukrainian mess. One 'unintended consequence' of raising such stakes would be Russia coming out openly in support of Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, which will be extremely bad news for Israel and the US Jewish American lobby.

    Did somebody say that Obama and the Republicans are regretting the 'unintended consequences' in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen ??

    And they now want to open another front in Ukraine?

    Where will the money for this yet another foolhardy endeavor come from ?

    Ah, No..I forgot the news that Mr. Obama is setting up a brand new dollar printing press to pay for his Ukraine adventure to-be..


    greatwhitehunter -> EugeneGur 3 Feb 2015 21:14

    the beating kiev took proir to the ceasefire was requested by poroshenko. The separatists targeted the azov battalion . poroshenko new he couldnt have a ceasefire until the asov battalion was taken down a peg or two. kiev is not a united force.

    poroshenko is more likely to side with the east than the far right in the long term. The real civil war has yet to start.

    PeraIlic -> Robert Looren de Jong 3 Feb 2015 20:13

    i want russia to take their soldiers and weapons back from ukraine and stop invading a spovreign country quite simple. then war will be over meanwhile you advocate further bloodshed all the time with no regard for ukrainians

    I think it's better Poroshenko to return his army to the west, where they came from, and miners from Donbas that he left alone to dig coal as before.


    EugeneGur -> Robert Looren de Jong 3 Feb 2015 19:12

    I hope Russia did equip them enough to kick the Ukrs out of Donbass for good. It is intolerable to watch day after day as unarmed people are deliberately targeted and killed and do nothing. Finally, the Russian government came to its senses realizing that without a decisive military victory by the Donbass fighters there won't be any peace in Ukraine.

    [Feb 04, 2015] It was the EU that provoked the Ukrainian shambles, not Vladimir Putin By Christopher Booker

    The EU "Drang nach Osten" was inevitable as Germany needs new markets, new economic "liberstratum". Which the USA want to isolate, weaken, and, if possible, to dismember Russia. This is a marriage of convenience brought to the life EuroMaidan. Ukrainian nationalists were on short leash and can't be counted as independent force before they got to power. They did the EU and the USA bidding. So nothing new here. Ukraine is just a pawn in a complex geopolitical game. And it was sacrificed in the strategic gambit of isolating Russia.
    Dec 20, 2014 | Telegraph

    The EU has a remorseless urge to draw the cradle of Russian identity into its own empire, writes Christopher Booker.

    Quite one of the oddest and most frightening stories of the year has been the ludicrous and persistent misrepresentation in the West of the reason for the tragic shambles unfolding over Russia and Ukraine.

    This has been presented as wholly the fault of the Russian "dictator" Vladimir Putin, compared by Hillary Clinton and the Prince of Wales to Hitler, for his "annexing" of Crimea and for fomenting the armed uprising in eastern Ukraine. Almost entirely blotted out has been the key part played in triggering this crisis by the remorseless urge of the EU to draw the cradle of Russian identity into its own empire.

    It was entirely predictable that Russia and the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine would respond as they have done. So, too, was the wish of the vast majority of Crimeans, 82 per cent of them Russian speakers, to rejoin the country of which they were part for most of two centuries – let alone Russia's reaction to the prospect of seeing their warm-water ports taken over by Nato.

    The real significance of this unholy mess is that it marks the moment when the remorseless expansionism of the EU, founded to eradicate nationalism, finally ran into that implacable sense of national identity personified, for all his failings, by President Putin.

    He and his people may now be paying a terrible price. But there was no way that poking the Russian bear like this, with such silly boasts as David Cameron's declaration that he wished to see "Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals", would not arouse just such a reaction. As I wrote last March, the EU's reckless bid to absorb Ukraine will eventually be seen as as much an act of fateful self-delusion as its equally reckless launch of the euro.

    Selected Skeptical Comments

    Huaimek

    Through ignorance and lack of research the west has made a terrible mistake in its misjudgement of Ukraine and its misjudgement of Putin and Russian reaction to the EU trying to draw Ukraine to the west , with a view to joining the EU and NATO .

    Peace is achievable , but Crimea will have to be left out of any negotiations . Joining the EU is not something Ukraine is ready to do in the foreseeable future , so should be set aside for the time being . Plans to join NATO should be dropped . The problem of the eastern region as I see it , is that it is the principal industrial region , that maybe earns the GDP for Ukraine . As I have read , the industries of eastern Ukraine are closely intertwined with Russia , manufacturing expressly for a Russian market and not so easily adaptable to European or world wide markets . I believe I'm correct , that the eastern region was part of Russia till the fall of the USSR . The west's stance against Russia is not doing anybody any good , least of all Ukraine , that is effectively bankrupt and nobody want to put a hand in their pocket to help .

    Poroshenko needs to be told to withdraw all troops to base , that will end the fighting .
    All sanctions against Russia should be lifted in conjunction with Russian sanctions against the west . Ukraine needs to return to being an independent country , it wasn't ruled by Russia , but its own government ruled along similar lines . A degree of autonomy needs to be given to the East in return for being part of Ukraine and contributing to rebuilding the economy .

    concernedyorkie

    The real significance of this unholy mess is that it marks the moment when the remorseless expansionism of the EU, founded to eradicate nationalism, finally ran into that implacable sense of national identity personified, for all his failings, by President Putin. - One may not like the present regime governing Russia but for the EU, in the form of Ashton et al, to attempt annexing the area without some form of reaction from the Kremlin indicates how naive the EU's foreign policy commissioner's assessment at the time really were !!

    Vivienne Perkins

    How pleasant to read the truth for a change, or at least most of it. The other part is the fact that Washington's State Dept/CIA/Blackwater operatives organized and carried out the Feb. 22 coup that deposed a legitimate government and put into power the US/EU puppets, Yatsenyuk/Poroshenko (who promptly attacked the eastern provinces, who had already voted for independence). Another left out piece is the role of neo-Nazis in the Y/P puppet government and the role of US corporations that are even now stripping western Ukraine of its resources while the US Congress votes overwhelmingly for a new Cold War against Russia and is anxious to provoke WWIII.

    The US and its ally Saudi Arabia have also engineered the drop in oil prices as a way to ruin the Russian economy. All these neo-Con moves are right out of Z. Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard" where he describes eliminating Russia on the US military's drive through the Eurasian landmass to its ultimate goal, controlling the energy resources of the Caspian and "containing" China. The mass media, which of course is corporately controlled, continues to spew lies, misinformation and propaganda.

    Richard de Lacy

    Well said, Mr Booker. Looking forward to reading all the semi-literate whining from the pro-EU, pro-Nato trolls. Merry Christmas and New Year to you and all your readers, including the anti-Russian keyboard warriors (libtards are far too spoilt and miserable for merriment, I know, but there's no harm in wishing the idiots would cheer up a bit).

    [Feb 04, 2015] Washington fails to isolate Russia

    RT Op-Edge

    RT: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Obama's words are a clear confirmation of America's involvement in the Ukrainian shift of power. Do you think Washington is responsible for the violence that followed?

    William Engdahl: There is no question about it that they are responsible. I think president Obama sadly regrets his wording on the interview last night because he de facto admitted as [Foreign] Minister Lavrov also indicated that the US created a de facto coup d'état, brought neo-Nazis in the power, brought oligarchs in the power to replace oligarchs that were democratically elected at least.

    They have fed the violence with Blackwater mercenaries with other soldiers that they have been training in various NATO countries and with hundreds of CIA on the ground, special forces on the ground. And this has been documented; people have been captured in the East Ukraine in recent days with the thick London accent. I've seen YouTube videos myself.

    ... ... ...

    Ironically the very economic financial warfare that Washington has launched through the US Treasury in recent months, the sanctions so-called, is an active war, have produced the opposite effect. It's brought Russia closer to China, it's brought China closer to Russia, it's brought an integration among the BRICS countries: Brazil, South Africa, Russia, China and India, it's brought India and Russia closer together. [It is] so far from isolating Russia.

    Stuart Cleary

    The 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine (US Defense Planning) laid it out: "U.S. must show leadership necessary to establish & protect a new order... convincing (countries) they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their *legitimate interests*. -we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or overturn established political and economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."!!!
    Iraq was a threat to the Petro-Dollar & Israel. Gaddafi was a threat to the Financial domination of Africa by the US & EU; Syria & Iran are a threat to the financial domination of the Mid East by the US, EU, Saudi & Israel...

    Russia is considered a "Threat" to this "Order" on several fronts: Putin was Not a US Puppet like Yeltsin, he cleaned out the corporate oligarchs who had ransacked & profited from the pillaging of Russia. Putin's Political Prowess increased with the creation & success of BRICS; Russia/Putin used this political power in Syria, Iran, India, Pakistan, Latin America & throughout Central Asia. The US considered (in 92) that Russia was the only country capable of destroying the US (Nuclear Arsenal). "BRICS has engineered the first credible Threat to US/EU/UK Global Financial Domination" which is at the Heart of hostilities towards Russia.

    Robert Undisclosed

    This guy is an award winning journalist ? Never heard of him. However, he sounds more like Putin's mouthpiece. According to this clown the Russian economy is doing great. Yeah. and how's the ruble doing ? LOL, LOL.

    Timo Sjöberg

    You don't know so much about economy? currency variations has nothing to do with the general economy. In a government you can rise or lower your own currency in order to help import or export markets in the country. The reasons behind the rubles fall, is down to that on the international market, it's considered to have a small investment and speculation value for brokers and financial investors. But since Russia already have a plan to deal with that - spelled BRIC, it doesn't matter. China needs Russia to continue to grow and to stablize their own economy.

    Hence the exchange of chinese yuan and russian rubles. US is in way over their heads, with a large debt and now losing out on big countries such as russia and china, who are selling their reservs of dollars and US state bonds. That will hurt the US economy much more than any sanction against Russia. US is holding the wrong end of the stick here...

    [Feb 04, 2015] Q A: Should US send lethal military assistance to Ukraine?

    Feb 03, 2015 | The Guardian

    AlienLifeForce -> Robert Looren de Jong 3 Feb 2015 22:29

    Ukrainian Government: "No Russian Troops Are Fighting Against Us"
    Posted on January 30, 2015 by Eric Zuesse.

    Ukraine's top general is contradicting allegations by the Obama Administration and by his own Ukrainian Government, by saying that no Russian troops are fighting against the Ukrainian Government's forces in the formerly Ukrainian, but now separatist, area, where the Ukrainian civil war is being waged.

    The Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, is saying, in that news-report, which is dated on Thursday January 29th, that the only Russian citizens who are fighting in the contested region, are residents in that region, or of Ukraine, and also some Russian citizens (and this does not deny that perhaps some of other countries' citizens are fighting there, inasmuch as American mercenaries have already been noted to have been participating on the Ukrainian Government's side), who "are members of illegal armed groups," meaning fighters who are not paid by any government, but instead are just "individual citizens" (as opposed to foreign-government-paid ones). General Muzhenko also says, emphatically, that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

    In other words: He is explicitly and clearly denying the very basis for the EU's sanctions against Russia, and for the U.S.'s sanctions against Russia: all of the sanctions against Russia are based on the falsehood that Ukraine is fighting against "the regular units of the Russian army" - i.e., against the Russian-Government-controlled-and-trained fighting forces.

    The allegation to the effect that Ukraine is instead fighting against "regular units of the Russian army" is the allegation that Vladimir Putin's Russia has invaded Ukraine, and it is the entire basis for the economic sanctions that are in force against Russia.

    Those sanctions should therefore be immediately removed, with apology, and with compensation being paid to all individuals who have been suffering them; and it is therefore incumbent upon the Russian Government to pursue, through all legally available channels, restitution, plus damages, against the perpetrators of that dangerous fraud - and the news reports have already made clear precisely whom those persons are, who have asserted, as public officials, what can only be considered to be major libel.

    Otherwise, Ukraine's top general should be fired, for asserting what he has just asserted.

    If what General Muzhenko says is true, then he is a hero for having risked his entire career by having gone public with this courageous statement. And, if what he says is false, then he has no place heading Ukraine's military.

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/ukrainian-government-russian-troops-fighting-us.html

    USCricketer 3 Feb 2015 22:06

    While there is no doubt about covert US military aid already going to Ukraine it'll be another foolhardy step for Mr. Obama, or for the Republicans now in control, to overtly jump into the Ukrainian mess. One 'unintended consequence' of raising such stakes would be Russia coming out openly in support of Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, which will be extremely bad news for Israel and the US Jewish American lobby.

    Did somebody say that Obama and the Republicans are regretting the 'unintended consequences' in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen ??

    And they now want to open another front in Ukraine?

    Where will the money for this yet another foolhardy endeavor come from ?

    Ah, No..I forgot the news that Mr. Obama is setting up a brand new dollar printing press to pay for his Ukraine adventure to-be..


    greatwhitehunter -> EugeneGur 3 Feb 2015 21:14

    the beating kiev took proir to the ceasefire was requested by poroshenko. The separatists targeted the azov battalion . poroshenko new he couldnt have a ceasefire until the asov battalion was taken down a peg or two. kiev is not a united force.

    poroshenko is more likely to side with the east than the far right in the long term. The real civil war has yet to start.

    PeraIlic -> Robert Looren de Jong 3 Feb 2015 20:13

    i want russia to take their soldiers and weapons back from ukraine and stop invading a spovreign country quite simple. then war will be over meanwhile you advocate further bloodshed all the time with no regard for ukrainians

    I think it's better Poroshenko to return his army to the west, where they came from, and miners from Donbas that he left alone to dig coal as before.


    EugeneGur -> Robert Looren de Jong 3 Feb 2015 19:12

    I hope Russia did equip them enough to kick the Ukrs out of Donbass for good. It is intolerable to watch day after day as unarmed people are deliberately targeted and killed and do nothing. Finally, the Russian government came to its senses realizing that without a decisive military victory by the Donbass fighters there won't be any peace in Ukraine.

    [Feb 02, 2015] Ukraine crisis: Kiev hopes talks will go ahead despite renewed violence

    So after killing several hundred thousand Iraqis the USA want to kill several hundred thousand Ukrainians to further imperial ambitions of neocon elite... Now we have the situation that that reminds me Spanish civil war.
    Notable quotes:
    "... it would take far more than these two and a few russians to instigate a civil war in Ukraine. ..."
    Feb 01, 2015 | The Guardian

    The recent upsurge in violence has alarmed Ukraine's western allies, with US secretary of state John Kerry announcing plans to express his support for the nation during talks in Kiev on Thursday with Poroshenko and prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.


    fedupwiththeliesalso -> maninBATHTUB 2 Feb 2015 05:48

    The situation is far more complex than that.

    it would take far more than these two and a few russians to instigate a civil war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government were never attacked by anyone in the east or russia. But it attacked Easterners. To say this is a Russians instigated situation is untrue.

    IvanMills 1 Feb 2015 22:48

    Kiev launched a civil war against its citizens in the east. Kiev's military is bombing cities killing civilians and destroying property.

    What do the US and the EU have to do with another country's internal conflict.


    AlienLifeForce Oskar Jaeger 1 Feb 2015 19:58

    Yes, its rediculous that thousands of civilians have been killed while the EU & US turn their backs and blame Russia for an invasion they cant even prove. Must be hard for the US to explain with all those drones they have?


    AlienLifeForce Oskar Jaeger 1 Feb 2015 19:29

    There is no doubt that the events that have taken place in Ukraine have been very interesting, and like I have pointed out before, I have always been curious as to why there has not been any real news coverage on the ground from the western media since the government was overthrown. Because of this you end up looking for further information through the web, like most sensible people do. I can honestly say I have followed this story from the start and like I said, when you have interest in something, you want to know everything about it. What has surprised me the most, is that I have not been able to find any evidence to support the Russian invasion. Instaed I have found out about Tech Camp, Black Water and all the other reasons you can think of that support the interest of the EU & US, very interesting.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576490/Are-Blackwater-active-Ukraine-Videos-spark-talk-U-S-mercenary-outfit-deployed-Donetsk.html

    AlienLifeForce

    The Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, is saying, in that news-report, which is dated on Thursday January 29th, that the only Russian citizens who are fighting in the contested region, are residents in that region, or of Ukraine, and also some Russian citizens (and this does not deny that perhaps some of other countries' citizens are fighting there, inasmuch as American mercenaries have already been noted to have been participating on the Ukrainian Government's side), who "are members of illegal armed groups," meaning fighters who are not paid by any government, but instead are just "individual citizens" (as opposed to foreign-government-paid ones). General Muzhenko also says, emphatically, that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

    In other words: He is explicitly and clearly denying the very basis for the EU's sanctions against Russia, and for the U.S.'s sanctions against Russia: all of the sanctions against Russia are based on the falsehood that Ukraine is fighting against "the regular units of the Russian army" - i.e., against the Russian-Government-controlled-and-trained fighting forces.

    The allegation to the effect that Ukraine is instead fighting against "regular units of the Russian army" is the allegation that Vladimir Putin's Russia has invaded Ukraine, and it is the entire basis for the economic sanctions that are in force against Russia.

    Those sanctions should therefore be immediately removed, with apology, and with compensation being paid to all individuals who have been suffering them; and it is therefore incumbent upon the Russian Government to pursue, through all legally available channels, restitution, plus damages, against the perpetrators of that dangerous fraud - and the news reports have already made clear precisely whom those persons are, who have asserted, as public officials, what can only be considered to be major libel.

    AlienLifeForce

    Ukranian general admitted junta targeted purposely civilians and perfirmed genocide just to get Russia involved in conflict but failed.

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/ukrainian-government-russian-troops-fighting-us.html


    fedupwiththeliesalso -> jezzam 1 Feb 2015 17:52

    "democracy, justice, freedom of speech, increased happiness, health, prosperity"

    What does America know of any of those things? They only apply if you can afford it.

    Joao Silva 1 Feb 2015 17:19

    The result that came out the ballots in Greece are a signal to the other opposition leaders in Europe. A unanimous decision to sanction Russia over Ukraine turned out to change the regime in Greece. Unanimous is stupidity. Spain is going to be the next. I have no bets on the third, forth ones.

    So it seems that to confront EU's hardness on Russia can change the mind of voters across Europe. after all, it is only a USA/UK/France/Germany/Poland, Ukraine(Big 6) war. The others countries will get nothing but losses on their fragile economies. But they had been, until Greece's voters changed it, being like sheep heading to the slaughterhouse following the command of the Big 6.

    LinkMeyer maninBATHTUB 1 Feb 2015 15:57

    "
    The best weapon against a psychopath is to let them destroy themselves."
    How long will it take you?

    GardenShedFever Metronome151 1 Feb 2015 15:46

    I have read this unsupported accusation against Russia many times, yet when the facts on the ground are ascertained, it is Kiev that sent its tanks against its own people in Donetsk and Luhansk. Those East Ukrainians, as Crimeans before them, rejected Kiev's violence, violence fomented in Lviv, Kiev, and further afield, Brussels and Washington. They have looked to Russia for help once the shells began to rain down on them. Russia's response has been less than requested, but has halted at least some of Kiev's murderous rampage. At the least, it has restricted Kiev's air support for its mercenerary brigades. For that, the people of East Ukraine will be forever thankful.

    [Feb 02, 2015] Obama May Have Been Kept in Dark Over Planned Ukraine Coup

    Feb 02, 2015 | Sputnik International

    There is a possibility that US President Barack Obama wasn't informed about the plan to overthrow the Yanukovych government in Ukraine, according to former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts.

    WASHINGTON, February 2 (Sputnik) - US President Barack Obama might not have been informed by his foreign policy officials about a plot to overthrow the Yanukovych government in Ukraine, but he is definitely behind the approval of the post-February 2014 coup decisions, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts told Sputnik.

    "It is possible that Obama was told that Yanukovych was corrupt and a Russian stooge and that the Ukrainian people rose up against him and drove him out of office," Roberts said, adding that such an explanation more or less coincides with the Western media reports. "So, Obama could have been caught off guard by events, but the neoconservatives in control of Obama's government's foreign policy were not caught off guard."

    Roberts noted that neoconservatives occupying powerful positions in the executive branch of the US government can impose their agenda regardless of the views of the president.

    ''While Russia was preoccupied with the Olympics, the neoconservatives launched their coup in Ukraine," he asserted. "I do not know whether Obama knew about the coup. I do know that it was not necessary for him to know about it, because the neoconservatives control the information flow."

    In a recent interview with CNN, Obama claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin made his decisions on Crimea after being caught off-guard by mass anti-government protests on Kiev's Independence Square, as well as by then-President Viktor Yanukovich fleeing, after the West "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine."

    "What is the meaning of Obama's CNN interview? Obama cannot help but know of the US government's involvement once the coup occurred," Roberts stressed, reminding the intercepted telephone call in which Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador in Kiev discussed who they intend to install as the new Ukrainian government. "Certainly Obama knows it, because once the coup occurs, post-coup decisions have to be made that cannot be made without the president."

    The former US official said that the information that reached Obama was that by overthrowing the Yanukovych regime, the Ukrainian people created an unstable situation that the Russians are exploiting, and in order to stop an alleged Russian takeover of Ukraine, his government had to take action.

    "This kind of approach to Obama guarantees his approval. Otherwise, the neoconservative beat the drums against him," he explained.

    Roberts thinks that the point of the neoconservatives' coup in Ukraine was "to take Russia down a peg or two."

    "Under Putin's leadership, Russia had reappeared as a constraint on the unipower's power," Roberts said. Putin found diplomatic solutions that blocked Washington's planned invasion of Syria and Washington's planned bombing of Iran. In the neoconservative ideology, no country is permitted to rise to the capability of blocking Washington's will."

    The former US official claimed that the neoconservatives' plan was to take control over Ukraine evicting Russia from its major naval base in Crimea, thus cutting it from the Mediterranean and its naval base in Tartus, Syria.

    Mass protests erupted in Ukraine after Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Weeks of violent protests resulted in his ouster and the installation of a pro-Western government backed by Brussels and Washington.

    [Feb 02, 2015] US Sticks to Tried and True Policy of Supporting Coups

    Feb 02, 2015 | Sputnik International

    US President Barack Obama revealed the United States' involvement in the Ukrainian crisis from its outset and admitted that the United States "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine."

    MOSCOW, February 2 (Sputnik) - US President Barack Obama's recent interview with CNN's Fareed Zakiria reveals the United States' involvement in the Ukrainian crisis from its outset and that the country worked directly with Ukrainian right-wing fascist groups, experts told Sputnik.

    On Sunday, in his interview with CNN, Obama admitted that the United States "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine."

    "Obama's statement is reiterating something that the world public opinion already knew - the US was involved in the coup of [ex-Ukrainian President] Viktor Yanukovych from the start. History shows us that the US has overthrown numerous governments in Latin America, Asia and Africa and replaced them with leaders that ruled with a fascist ideology that proved useful for Washington's geopolitical interests," independent researcher and writer Timothy Alexander Guzman told Sputnik.

    Yanukovych's decision to not sign an association agreement with the European Union in late 2013 triggered a mass wave of protests across Ukraine, culminating in the February 2014 coup. Following the transition of power, Kiev forces launched military operation against those who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government.

    Guzman claimed that during the Ukrainian conflict, Washington and its NATO allies worked directly with right-wing Ukrainian Fascist groups, including the neo-Nazi inspired Right Sector militia.

    International law professor at the University of Illinois College of Law Francis Boyle shares a similar opinion, also arguing also that Obama's approach to Ukraine is no different to the neoconservative approach of former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, or political scientist Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" philosophy.

    "I think he [Obama] has made it very clear that he is going to continue to take a Brzezinski hard-lined approach toward Ukraine and Russia and that there are not going to be any compromises at all, and effectively he expects President Putin to throw in a towel, capitulate, whatever, it does not appear to me there is any ground for negotiations in light of what President Obama at least said publicly," he said in an email to Sputnik.

    Boyle also stated that the United States may already be sending covert offensive military equipment to Ukraine, despite Washington's claims that it provides Kiev only with non-lethal aid.

    The expert also claimed that Obama's ignorance of the Minsk agreements and of Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposals to negotiate the conflict peacefully, indicates that Washington is going to continue with its aggressive policy in Ukraine.

    "How can Russia tolerate this gang of Nazis in Kyiv [Kiev] setting up shop right there on the borders of Russia, and being armed, equipped and supplied by NATO? Of course, Russia cannot tolerate that,"

    Boyle concluded, adding that the Unites States itself would not tolerate such threats close to its borders.

    "The very fact that Obama feels he needs to comment on [the] US direct role in the regime change [in Ukraine] and on Putin's response over Crimea in this manner, rather than calling Putin a Hitler with well thought out expansionist designs, as has become the norm in the US, speaks for itself: perhaps, the White House is finally coming to the view that it needs to come to its senses and negotiate with Moscow," Vlad Sobell, a professor at New York University's Prague campus stated.

    On Sunday, US President Barack Obama, in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakiria, explained that the United States "brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." The US President said that Russian President Vladimir Putin made his decision to legally annex Crimea "not because of some grand strategy, but essentially because he was caught off-balance by the protests in the Maidan."

    In late 2013 a decision by Ukraine then-President Viktor Yanukovych to avoid signing an association agreement with the European Union triggered mass protests across Ukraine, dubbed Maidan, culminating in the February coup. Following the coup and a rise in aggressive nationalism in the country, Crimea seceded by referendum from Ukraine and rejoined Russia in March 2014.

    Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for Asia Times, Hong Kong, who has closely followed developments in Ukraine, told Sputnik of his belief that every independent observer, including himself, "had known from the beginning those $5 billion, [US Assistant Secretary of State] Victoria Nuland's number, over the years unleashed to boost 'freedom' in Ukraine one day would come to fruition."

    "And Putin was not 'caught off-balance'," Escobar added. "Russian intelligence knew in a few hours that Maidan would be replicated in Crimea, so the Kremlin acted swiftly," he stated.

    Professor Sobell claims that "Mr President [Obama] should be aware that Yanukovych fled [Ukraine] because he had solid reasons to fear for his life. The hallowed Maidan was not a peaceful democratic regime change, as it was presented in Western media, but a violent putch complete with murderous acts by hired assassins."

    Sobell states that unnamed EU officials affirm that on February 20 snipers shot both demonstrators and police dead, in order to provoke chaos. These crimes, he continued, are not being investigated by Kiev's "democratic - Western values" regime or its Western sponsors, as "today it is ok to install a Nazi-driven regime by these means and then demand that Western tax- payers support it."

    According to Escobar, the way the Ukrainian coup will be perceived "all across the Global South is […] another US regime change operation, using local patsies."

    Commenting on the recent increase in hostilities between Kiev and independence supporters in the southeast of Ukraine, Sobell said the situation has changed in favor of the Donbas militia.

    "Washington knows it and knows that they must either compromise, start genuine negotiations with Moscow and separatists, or escalate support for the Nazi regime by supplying it with arms. This would lead to major escalation of the conflict – at this point we cannot rule out that Obama will opt of this," Sobell insisted.

    Russia's relations with the West deteriorated sharply in 2014, following Crimea's reunification with Russia and the start of the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine. The United States and its allies accused Moscow of interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs and imposed several rounds of economic sanctions, targeting Russia's energy, banking and military sectors, as well as several high-ranking individuals.

    [Feb 02, 2015] Ukraine was replaced with Euromaidan Republic, Neo-Khazaria and the Union of Donbass Republics by Semen Uralov (Ukrainian Political Scientist)

    February 1, 2015 | Fort Russ

    "Sunday Night with Vladimir Solovyev" on Russia 1
    Translated by Kristina Rus

    Kuchma is first of all the Godfather of the oligarchic model which brought Ukraine to this crisis. This is why he is sent to Minsk, although he doesn't have any power.

    There are two factors to this crisis. There is the intra-political factor. The power was seized by raiders just as they raided their factories in the 90's, built their empires, like Kolomoisky with his Privat Group. Now they can apply these methods at the framework of the entire country.

    The task is to bankrupt the assets, so that people wouldn't even as for salaries. Same model worked with companies in Russia. This is the intra-Ukrainian factor. The raiders are using those methods which they had perfected in the 90's.

    And then there is the outside factor.

    The ultimate goal is the free trade zone between the EU and the USA. Ukraine is the working material, is the motor oil, which has to be utilized, then burned down and disposed of.

    Therefore there is a congruence of two interests - of the American party which is playing for the free trade zone, and a break up of the relationship between Russia and EU, and - the raiders who are on the inside and are given carte blanche for any actions.

    And for peace talks you need the correct number of entities.

    There are not just two quasi-state formations in Ukraine. Ukraine is not Ukraine anymore.

    There is a separate "Euromaidan Republic" with the capital in Kiev. There is a "Union of Donbass Republics" - LPR and DPR.

    And, as we coined the name - "Neo-Khazaria" with the capital in Dnepropetrovsk. Because Mr. Kolomoisky controls Dnepropetrovsk region and Odessa region.

    This is hypothetical, of course.

    But de facto these are the three entitiess which act rather autonomously. Nuland comes for talks with Kolomoisky in Odessa, and there are no representatives from Kiev. Accordingly he is not represented at the peace talks with DPR and LPR.

    So the quantity of acting entities should be taken into account.


    And the fourth entity (of interest) is Crimea.

    Why is the Ukrainian elite so outraged by Crimea?

    Because Ukrainian elites plundered Crimea for the last 20 years. Beginning with each deputy and ending with each minister, each one of them has their own summer house, a boat and a factory in Crimea. And now they lost all of it. And this is why Crimea is a subject of interest.

    [Feb 02, 2015] Ukraine crisis: Kiev hopes talks will go ahead despite renewed violence

    So after killing several hundred thousand Iraqis the USA want to kill several hundred thousand Ukrainians to further imperial ambitions of neocon elite... Now we have the situation that that reminds me Spanish civil war.
    Notable quotes:
    "... it would take far more than these two and a few russians to instigate a civil war in Ukraine. ..."
    Feb 01, 2015 | The Guardian

    The recent upsurge in violence has alarmed Ukraine's western allies, with US secretary of state John Kerry announcing plans to express his support for the nation during talks in Kiev on Thursday with Poroshenko and prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.


    fedupwiththeliesalso -> maninBATHTUB 2 Feb 2015 05:48

    The situation is far more complex than that.

    it would take far more than these two and a few russians to instigate a civil war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government were never attacked by anyone in the east or russia. But it attacked Easterners. To say this is a Russians instigated situation is untrue.

    IvanMills 1 Feb 2015 22:48

    Kiev launched a civil war against its citizens in the east. Kiev's military is bombing cities killing civilians and destroying property.

    What do the US and the EU have to do with another country's internal conflict.


    AlienLifeForce Oskar Jaeger 1 Feb 2015 19:58

    Yes, its rediculous that thousands of civilians have been killed while the EU & US turn their backs and blame Russia for an invasion they cant even prove. Must be hard for the US to explain with all those drones they have?


    AlienLifeForce Oskar Jaeger 1 Feb 2015 19:29

    There is no doubt that the events that have taken place in Ukraine have been very interesting, and like I have pointed out before, I have always been curious as to why there has not been any real news coverage on the ground from the western media since the government was overthrown. Because of this you end up looking for further information through the web, like most sensible people do. I can honestly say I have followed this story from the start and like I said, when you have interest in something, you want to know everything about it. What has surprised me the most, is that I have not been able to find any evidence to support the Russian invasion. Instaed I have found out about Tech Camp, Black Water and all the other reasons you can think of that support the interest of the EU & US, very interesting.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576490/Are-Blackwater-active-Ukraine-Videos-spark-talk-U-S-mercenary-outfit-deployed-Donetsk.html

    AlienLifeForce

    The Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, is saying, in that news-report, which is dated on Thursday January 29th, that the only Russian citizens who are fighting in the contested region, are residents in that region, or of Ukraine, and also some Russian citizens (and this does not deny that perhaps some of other countries' citizens are fighting there, inasmuch as American mercenaries have already been noted to have been participating on the Ukrainian Government's side), who "are members of illegal armed groups," meaning fighters who are not paid by any government, but instead are just "individual citizens" (as opposed to foreign-government-paid ones). General Muzhenko also says, emphatically, that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

    In other words: He is explicitly and clearly denying the very basis for the EU's sanctions against Russia, and for the U.S.'s sanctions against Russia: all of the sanctions against Russia are based on the falsehood that Ukraine is fighting against "the regular units of the Russian army" - i.e., against the Russian-Government-controlled-and-trained fighting forces.

    The allegation to the effect that Ukraine is instead fighting against "regular units of the Russian army" is the allegation that Vladimir Putin's Russia has invaded Ukraine, and it is the entire basis for the economic sanctions that are in force against Russia.

    Those sanctions should therefore be immediately removed, with apology, and with compensation being paid to all individuals who have been suffering them; and it is therefore incumbent upon the Russian Government to pursue, through all legally available channels, restitution, plus damages, against the perpetrators of that dangerous fraud - and the news reports have already made clear precisely whom those persons are, who have asserted, as public officials, what can only be considered to be major libel.

    AlienLifeForce

    Ukranian general admitted junta targeted purposely civilians and perfirmed genocide just to get Russia involved in conflict but failed.

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/ukrainian-government-russian-troops-fighting-us.html


    fedupwiththeliesalso -> jezzam 1 Feb 2015 17:52

    "democracy, justice, freedom of speech, increased happiness, health, prosperity"

    What does America know of any of those things? They only apply if you can afford it.

    Joao Silva 1 Feb 2015 17:19

    The result that came out the ballots in Greece are a signal to the other opposition leaders in Europe. A unanimous decision to sanction Russia over Ukraine turned out to change the regime in Greece. Unanimous is stupidity. Spain is going to be the next. I have no bets on the third, forth ones.

    So it seems that to confront EU's hardness on Russia can change the mind of voters across Europe. after all, it is only a USA/UK/France/Germany/Poland, Ukraine(Big 6) war. The others countries will get nothing but losses on their fragile economies. But they had been, until Greece's voters changed it, being like sheep heading to the slaughterhouse following the command of the Big 6.

    LinkMeyer maninBATHTUB 1 Feb 2015 15:57

    "
    The best weapon against a psychopath is to let them destroy themselves."
    How long will it take you?

    GardenShedFever Metronome151 1 Feb 2015 15:46

    I have read this unsupported accusation against Russia many times, yet when the facts on the ground are ascertained, it is Kiev that sent its tanks against its own people in Donetsk and Luhansk. Those East Ukrainians, as Crimeans before them, rejected Kiev's violence, violence fomented in Lviv, Kiev, and further afield, Brussels and Washington. They have looked to Russia for help once the shells began to rain down on them. Russia's response has been less than requested, but has halted at least some of Kiev's murderous rampage. At the least, it has restricted Kiev's air support for its mercenerary brigades. For that, the people of East Ukraine will be forever thankful.

    [Feb 01, 2015] US considers providing arms to Ukraine as rebels step up attacks, says report

    It does not make much sense to read or quote that article: a typical propaganda peace... From comments:
    "The Guardian, not alone among the western MSM, that has been incredibly biased in reporting on what is happening in Ukraine. It would be reasonable to expect less blatantly biased reporting from The Guardian, and it amazes me that day after day it faithfully repeats the propaganda from the US etal as though it is fact-based news ... in many cases, especially, for example, when reporting on the shelling of towns (e.g. Mariupol) it reports shelling by the Kiev 'government' as being shelling by the Novorussians - why do this?
    and
    "Typical propaganda comment. In your opinion peace will not be reach until Russia bends over to Uncle Sam and say yes sir no sir three bags full sir? I don't think it's in their nature. Whole world knows current PM of Ukraine is appointed by US foreign office. Do a bit of research it helps with facts"
    Notable quotes:
    "... Doesn't he realize that the only time when Poroshenko talks about cease fire is when he is under pressure from the rebels. ..."
    "... Couldn't Obama mind his own business for once? ..."
    "... Ukraine is a failed state. It has ceased to exist as anything but the frontline for US geopolitical machinations. ..."
    "... I am sure they don't want to be enslaved to the CIA either. ..."
    Feb 01, 2015 | The Guardian

    TG Asch, everybody's closet neoliberal and neocon, blah-piece today is simply warmongering dressed-up as journalism - equating Putin to Milosevic simply illustrates his lack of current or historical knowledge and understanding. Asch was and is in fact a propagandist, not a journalist.

    There is a wealth of much more accurate and nuanced information on what has and is happening in the Ukraine available in the public domain. It seems that the people working for The Guardian (and the BBC) are choosing to ignore this and stick to the White House's and Downing Street's disinformation handouts" ...

    For The Guardian to be posting pieces advocating more war - as Asch does - is simply irresponsible in the current circumstances, especially when it is impossible to find any alternate views being given any space at all - not equal space, any space - by The Guardian. Balance, Fairness, Judgment, Independence - these all seem to have gone out the window when it comes to the Ukraine and The Guardian has placed itself on the side of the warmongers.

    Why is the Guardian doing this?

    Selected Skeptical Comments

    vr13vr 1 Feb 2015 22:29

    Looks like Obama's goal is to maintain the conflict there indefinitely. Doesn't he realize that the only time when Poroshenko talks about cease fire is when he is under pressure from the rebels. If you give him more weapons, and if you embolden him, he will not be talking about truce.

    This conflict will just go on, and that's what Obama seems to prefer.

    edwardrice peacefulmilitant 1 Feb 2015 22:29

    Putin has ''pushed'' Obama? Couldn't Obama mind his own business for once?

    What has a deeply corrupt bankrupt dysfunctional country 1000s of miles from the US got to do with the Obama? Why should the US tax payer fund another foreign war?

    What right does the US have to trample over the heads of 500 million Europeans and escalate a civil war in Europe!

    scruffythejanitor 1 Feb 2015 22:28

    I really don't see much American enthusiasm to be involved in Ukraine- it seems more like they can't extricate themselves from it. Nations seem to behave like nations. The US is committed to supporting Europe and condemning russian aggression in annexing Ukraine, as any large country would when one country violates another's sovereignty. You don't get to violate another country's borders, officially.

    Russia persistently cries foul whenever the US publicly interferes with another nation's affairs, such as in Iraq, the presumption being that each country does not clandestinely interfere in it's own way. The crocodile tears over US violations of sovereignty looked a lot more convincing ten years ago than they do today.

    ID1011951 1 Feb 2015 22:28

    The Guardian, not alone among the western MSM, that has been incredibly biased in reporting on what is happening in Ukraine. It would be reasonable to expect less blatantly biased reporting from The Guardian, and it amazes me that day after day it faithfully repeats the propaganda from the US etal as though it is fact-based news ... in many cases, especially, for example, when reporting on the shelling of towns (e.g. Mariupol) it reports shelling by the Kiev 'government' as being shelling by the Novorussians - why do this?

    TG Asch, everybody's closet neoliberal and neocon, blah-piece today is simply warmongering dressed-up as journalism - equating Putin to Milosevic simply illustrates his lack of current or historical knowledge and understanding. Asch was and is in fact a propagandist, not a journalist.

    There is a wealth of much more accurate and nuanced information on what has and is happening in the Ukraine available in the public domain. It seems that the people working for The Guardian (and the BBC) are choosing to ignore this and stick to the White House's and Downing Street's disinformation handouts ...

    For The Guardian to be posting pieces advocating more war - as Asch does - is simply irresponsible in the current circumstances, especially when it is impossible to find any alternate views being given any space at all - not equal space, any space - by The Guardian. Balance, Fairness, Judgment, Independence - these all seem to have gone out the window when it comes to the Ukraine and The Guardian has placed itself on the side of the warmongers.

    Why is the Guardian doing this?

    Dugan222 1 Feb 2015 22:07

    Great....my disgust is beyond words. In all the peace talks, there were not a single American representative present. When comes to arming Ukraine, America is already taking the lead and making unilateral decisions even without the EU consent. Yeah, leading from behind when comes to peace. Taking a leadership role when comes to starting a war. America is greatest. I guess Russia will do the same openly and officially. Ukrainian crisis will become a proxy war for the West to bring back the Cold War.

    Both the Russian backed separatists and American backed Ukrainians will murder and kill each others...until a demarcation line is drawn somewhere in Kiev. Wondering who would build the Kiev Wall first. The East, the Russian side, or the West, American side?? Ha...the Kiev Wall.... Is not America's problem since the conflict is thousands of miles away.

    BTW, Ukraine has been received arms through various Nato members already. And there are reports of US mercenaries on the ground as well. Obviously, the Obama administration wants to make it official. For Putin, he does not really need to make it official though.

    GardenShedFever -> David Dalton Lytle Jr. 1 Feb 2015 22:06

    I'm English, but I think you are American.

    And film of weapons caches captured from the cyborgs that include brand new, advanced weapons not issued to the Ukraine military (but, of course, the cyborgs are Kolomoisky's merceneries, supported by McCain et al) demonstrates the US finger in the Kiev pie.

    GardenShedFever HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 22:02

    Poroshenko was "elected" on the lowest turnout in Ukraine's history, with vast swathes of Ukraine boycotting the election, opposition parties banned, opposition politicians abused, assaulted, and disappeared.

    There is no democracy in Ukraine. Its sovereignty disappeared with the US sponsored coup that toppled Yanukovych.

    HollyOldDog HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 22:00

    Since when? The West Ukraine army never put into practice the last MINSK Agreement. The shelling on East Ukraine never stopped.

    GardenShedFever HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 21:57

    Good enough to know that, with a boycott of elections in the south and east of Ukraine, there is not even a semblance of democracy there, as the people are neither represented in Kiev, nor do they want to.

    Ukraine is a failed state. It has ceased to exist as anything but the frontline for US geopolitical machinations.

    When the EU made a last ditch agreement with Yanukovych, to introduce early elections, what was the US response?

    "Fuck the EU" said Victoria Nuland. That tells you all you need to know.


    MediaWatchDog ID6674371 1 Feb 2015 21:56

    Typical propaganda comment. In your opinion peace will not be reach until Russia bends over to Uncle Sam and say yes sir no sir three bags full sir? I don't think it's in their nature. Whole world knows current PM of Ukraine is appointed by US forigen office. Do a bit of research it helps with facts

    Parangaricurimicuaro 1 Feb 2015 21:54

    This new development only shows how badly Kiev is losing.

    MediaWatchDog 1 Feb 2015 21:51

    German Chancellor Angela Markels mobile phone is/was tapped by US president and her plan for peaceful and democratic settlement of Ukraine was fu**ed by US forigen deputy secretary Victoria Nuland.

    Now CIA is in full command arming extremists, again!

    MediaWatchDog -> Kavi Mazumdar 1 Feb 2015 21:45

    Scotland style referendum? Scaremongering and ganging up on voters by big businesses and Westminster politicians? F that it will hard to keep Victoria Nuland types out, CIA is way too powerful than Westminster. Why not have a proper referendum, not like Crimea or Scotland!

    MediaWatchDog -> randomguyfromoz 1 Feb 2015 21:42

    Ethic Russians don't want to be part of Russia in your opinion? You are probably right, I am sure they don't want to be enslaved to the CIA either.

    Zwoman48 1 Feb 2015 21:41

    The U.S. instigated and supported the coup in Ukraine and is thinking of arming the fascists. All you need to know, everyone.

    MediaWatchDog 1 Feb 2015 21:40

    Fact 1. Victoria Nuland topple old regime and appointed Yats as nations PM, fuc**d EU plan of democratic transional government.

    Fact 2. Since then head of CIA and other top level US officials have actively involved on Ukraine.

    Fact 3. Now they are considering providing weapons.

    Thanks to the US Empire for successfully opening up new cold war at European borders.

    Hoon -> Ai Ooi 1 Feb 2015 21:34

    Someone has to pay for this. The UK had just finish paying USA for their debts from the 1st World War! What about the 2nd? And now Ukrain! & Middle East. This will bankrupt the EU for sure!

    Zwoman48 HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 21:44

    Bollocks! That's the absolute lie the western media wants you to swallow. Oh. I see you HAVE.

    HHeLiBe -> Kavi Mazumdar 1 Feb 2015 21:32

    How about Pakistan invades Kashmir with special forces, causes so much disturbance all the Indians flee for their lives, and then forces a referendum on those who remain?

    TommyGuardianReader , Feb 1, 2015 21:31

    Given that comments have prematurely been closed on yesterday's Guardian "Comment is Free" article, in which a salesman masquerading as a journalist spins the line that "sometimes only guns can stop guns",

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propaganda

    It's worth reflecting that guns can stop gunners and civilians (see Martin Place), but they cannot stop guns. Whether it's Tokyo or Dallas, Texas, guns, munitions and drones are big money.

    During the First World War the British government continued to pay Krupp's of Essen royalties for some of their gun patents. It was probably insider traders linked to Krupp's of Essen who dobbed in Sir Roger Casement's naive attempts to get German arms to Irish independence fighters in order to try to avert the long-planned Imperial utility World War.

    He was a bit like the David Kelly of his day, in that he got in the way of the machine.

    By the way, on an unrelated matter, isn't all this noise about Russia and Putin distracting us from the Chilcott Inquiry, and the roles of Bush, Cheney and Putin in the Coalition Of The Willing?

    As Don Henderson wrote in his song "Was War For Those Who Want It":

    "The men who build the planes and make the tanks
    Are neutral and get payment in Swiss francs
    While the rich on both sides prosper the poor will kill the poor
    Was war for those who want it, they would want an end to war."


    Maria Meri 1 Feb 2015 21:30

    Can anybody name one year after the 2nd WW whn the US hadn't been policing somewhr - war indeed seems to form it's economic base (commies said this ages ago)

    GardenShedFever 1 Feb 2015 21:21

    Considering the weapons caches captured by the rebels after dislodging Ukraine's "cyborgs" from Donetsk airport, the US has been arming Kiev's forces for some time. Advanced US weapons are not routine equipment for the Ukraine military, are they?
    It is no surprise the USA is clamouring to escalate this civil war. They began it, and they expected a near bloodless coup, like the Orange Revolution. Their problem this time, however, was they backed and funded far-right Ukrainian Nationalists who are despised in the South and East, and although the Maidan protests had sympathy, the commandeering of those protests by Right Sektor and Svoboda has alienated vast swathes of the Ukrainian populace. The rejection of the Kiev coup was overt, and the coup leaders' response to that rejection horrifying. No matter how much western media have tried to brush it under the carpet, the mass murder in Odessa last May polarised opinion. Those with Russian sympathies realised they were targets, and so the kick-back happened. In Donetsk and Luhansk, this mayterialised as mass support for declarations of independence, in Kharkhiv more subtle, partisan resistance, but the fact is irrefutable. Kiev only rules via terror.

    And now that terror is to be overtly supported by Washington. Honesty, at least and at last. The warmongers have their war.

    Zogz 1 Feb 2015 21:21

    Only a matte of time till the US arms Kiev. They have been itching to do it since they organized the coup. The "military advisors" are already on the ground some suggest they are working with the Kiev troops. Whist such war mongery is not unusal for the US, I cannot help bu be suprised with EU reactions. Allowing the US to escalate tensions on the border of Europe is foolhardy in the extreme. All it wll do is make Europe more dependent on the US, more insecure, and more at risk. A win win for the US, but for Europe?

    AstheticTheory 1 Feb 2015 21:08

    So America has revealed its open secret: it intervened to secure the government in Ukraine it wanted and now it is prepared to escalate its defence of its new possession

    [Feb 01, 2015] Putin must be stopped. And sometimes only guns can stop guns

    If west make Yats, Turchinov, Poroshenko, Kolomysky, Avakov and Co Persona non grata - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in EU and USA and the USA annul green-card/citizenship for crimes committed the war would stop in one day. They don't want to do that, so that means that they want the continuation of the war. From comments: 'From the increasingly hysterical pronouncements form Garton Ash, Bildt and other luminaries of Post-Democratic Europe it seems they are getting nervous about their gravy train hitting the buffers."
    Notable quotes:
    "... The same country (Germany) caused Yugoslavia to be destroyed ..."
    Feb 01, 2015 | The Guardian

    CityCalledNain 1 Feb 2015 16:54

    From the increasingly hysterical pronouncements form Garton Ash, Bildt and other luminaries of Post-Democratic Europe it seems they are getting nervous about their gravy train hitting the buffers.

    Grexit, Brexit, Spexit .....

    This all spells trouble for people who live high on the hog off the largesse of EU NGO funds.


    Kyrin Bekuloff -> Lesia Menchynska 1 Feb 2015 16:54

    Yeah, I actually understand both Russian and Ukrainian, and I can tell you with complete confidence that the Ukrainian side is full of nutheads. The latest thing they claimed is that they destroyed a Russian Armata tank. (yet they haven't even been built yet)

    Miriam Bergholz 1 Feb 2015 16:53

    "We need to counter this propaganda not with lies of our own but with reliable information and a scrupulously presented array of different views. No one is better placed to do this than the BBC."

    I couldn't stop laughing!

    Even better: "The US may have the best drones in the world, and Germany the best machine tools, but Britain has the best international broadcaster." As in: the US kills better, Germany makes the best machines (do you refer to guns or spades?), and the UK broadcast the best news on what? Invasion of Iraq, Lybia, etc.etc. torture, Chilcot inquire? What? Oh yes, the need to confront Russia at all cost.

    Though I recorded the fact that the BBC actually at some point reported on the neo-nazi batallion in East Ukraine, issue that Russian and other media did report from the very beginning. I suppose that now that apparently the batallion have been dispersed, (though they said that they will continue fighting) it will start (again) the demonization of Putin. What is the move now? Convince us on the necessity to send NATO troops to replace them?

    The corporate media have been competing in informing with half lies and half truth, very easy to catch, so, how can you convince somebody? There is a lot of very good alternative media in the US, Europe, and Asia. If established papers like the Guardian wants to keep their readers should start doing what they are supposed to do: tell the truth but nothing but the truth, and please not more crap about Putin, it is very boring, though I recognize it was kind of funny the Independent telling that Putin is a psychopath. You should read the comments, very enlightening. I asked whether they had the pressure from the government to start again this crude demonization. The Guardian as well? It is a very good sync because there are at the least four European news telling more or less the same with some different dramatics!

    Anyway, why the stress? Is it because the results of the Greece election and some of their statements regarding Russia? or it is that NATO really wants a war with Russia and you are trying to convince us that it is a very good idea? Or is it that the alternative media is gaining the field? All three?


    halduell 1 Feb 2015 16:52

    And again, who "has deployed heavy military equipment, energy-supply blackmail, cyber-attack, propaganda by sophisticated, well-funded broadcasters, covert operations and agents of influence in EU capitals"?

    Through the looking glass here with a monstrous piece of yellow journalism in which up is down, back is front and the phenomenon of projection is apparent in every sentence.
    Rubbish, Mr Ash. Pure rubbish.


    micktravis1968 1 Feb 2015 16:52

    Btw I wonder if James Harding, the head of BBC News, is any relation to Luke Harding, the Graun correspondent whose Kiev-Junta -friendly dispatches from East Ukraine are reminiscent of the sort of reports the Volkischer Beobachter correspondents used to send from places like Guernica.


    whitja01 1 Feb 2015 16:48

    Apparently, Obama just admitted on CNN to the US being involved in 'brokering power-transition' in Ukraine, i.e. regime change. So now we have not only Nuland's word, but that of the US president himself.

    So who is the war-monger, TGA? Who is the greater danger to world peace, Russia or the US?


    RoyRoger 1 Feb 2015 16:46

    Putin must be stopped.

    Mr. Timothy Garton Ash !!!.

    Why did we not hear you shout: Rasmussen, Nuland, Kerry, McCain, Hague and Ashton ''must be stopped!!?

    '' Must be stopped '' entering a sovereign democratic country that was less then 12 months from their general election.

    Why did we not hear you shout ''must be stopped'' from giving sustenance to a bunch of, Kiev, Molotov cocktail throwing police murdering (39 dead and 139 injured) coup d' etat' neo Nazis; thugs.

    Mr. Timothy Garton Ash, blame, Putin, and the Russian people for all manner of things across the world if you wish and the suggestion that, Putin, eats four babies for breakfasts every monning.

    But one thing I know; the blame for the troubles in, Ukraine, rests with the Corporate corrupt White House and NATO. The Ukraine is their self-made crisis and it will, very soon, bite the bastards on the arse.

    These incompetent fuckers, Rasmussen, Nuland, Kerry, McCain, Hague and Ashton, will go down in history as the creators of the biggest political and economical blunder in history.

    Come on !!, Mr. Timothy Garton Ash, fess-up, you know in your heart that Putin and the Russian people did not create the coup d' etat' in, Kiev.

    If these five political imbeciles, Rasmussen, Nuland, Kerry, McCain, Hague and Ashton, had not gone swanning around the, Maidan Square in, Kiev, we would't be in the mess we are now. This is NATO's and the Corporate corrupt White House fucking political disaster.

    And the bill is going to be dropped in the laps of the Europeans.

    We must never forget: Ukraine is not part of the European Union nor is it a member of NATO. So what the fuck are we doing sticking our fucking noses in a sovereign democratic country without a mandate from our Parliament?


    herditbefore 1 Feb 2015 16:44

    The situation in the Ukraine is the same as was the case in Cyprus. There was a government that wanted to take Cyprus into a union with Greece, the north mostly Turkish speakers opposed this and Turkey stood by their kith and kin.

    In the Ukraine there is a government which wants to go into a union with the EU and the eastern ethnic Russians oppose this.

    There as been a cease fire in Cyprus for about 40 years, not ideal but it does not stop the mainly Greek Cypriots from joining the EU or getting on with life, the same thing could happen with the eastern Ukraine if they think they will be happier outside of the EU let them.

    The grass is not always better on the other side and living is not just about Mercedes and BMWs.


    Klashii 1 Feb 2015 16:44

    As a direct result of the kind of garbage TGA is advocating here, millions have already died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere this century. And how could we forget Vietnam in the last century when the US tried to bring 'democracy' to those that weren't in the slightest bit interested in having it.

    When will the West wake up and realize that not everyone wants 'democracy'shoved down their throats - especially American 'democracy'.


    rodmclaughlin 1 Feb 2015 16:43

    "Ukraine urgently needs military support". Go to hell. For NATO to give military support to Kiev would be a dangerous escalation. A cornered bear is a dangerous animal. The author is effectively asking people in the NATO countries to risk their lives for Kiev. Interfering in the nations located on the tank practice ground between Moscow and Berlin always ends in tears.

    NikLot 1 Feb 2015 16:41

    "German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have been right to keep trying diplomacy, but even they concluded in mid-January that it wasn't worth going to meet Putin in Kazakhstan."

    Why should anyone care what Herr and Frau think on the subject!? They essentially torpedoed any jaw-jaw, giving preference to the alternative - it is Ukrainian and Russian blood after all.

    The same country (Germany) caused Yugoslavia to be destroyed, the moment they got reunited, with Britain and France staying shamefully quiet. The Helsinki final document was torn to shreds with that.

    [Feb 01, 2015] Putin must be stopped. And sometimes only guns can stop guns

    If west make Yats, Turchinov, Poroshenko, Kolomysky, Avakov and Co Persona non grata - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in EU and USA and the USA annul green-card/citizenship for crimes committed the war would stop in one day. They don't want to do that, so that means that they want the continuation of the war. From comments: 'From the increasingly hysterical pronouncements form Garton Ash, Bildt and other luminaries of Post-Democratic Europe it seems they are getting nervous about their gravy train hitting the buffers."
    Notable quotes:
    "... The same country (Germany) caused Yugoslavia to be destroyed ..."
    Feb 01, 2015 | The Guardian

    CityCalledNain 1 Feb 2015 16:54

    From the increasingly hysterical pronouncements form Garton Ash, Bildt and other luminaries of Post-Democratic Europe it seems they are getting nervous about their gravy train hitting the buffers.

    Grexit, Brexit, Spexit .....

    This all spells trouble for people who live high on the hog off the largesse of EU NGO funds.


    Kyrin Bekuloff -> Lesia Menchynska 1 Feb 2015 16:54

    Yeah, I actually understand both Russian and Ukrainian, and I can tell you with complete confidence that the Ukrainian side is full of nutheads. The latest thing they claimed is that they destroyed a Russian Armata tank. (yet they haven't even been built yet)

    Miriam Bergholz 1 Feb 2015 16:53

    "We need to counter this propaganda not with lies of our own but with reliable information and a scrupulously presented array of different views. No one is better placed to do this than the BBC."

    I couldn't stop laughing!

    Even better: "The US may have the best drones in the world, and Germany the best machine tools, but Britain has the best international broadcaster." As in: the US kills better, Germany makes the best machines (do you refer to guns or spades?), and the UK broadcast the best news on what? Invasion of Iraq, Lybia, etc.etc. torture, Chilcot inquire? What? Oh yes, the need to confront Russia at all cost.

    Though I recorded the fact that the BBC actually at some point reported on the neo-nazi batallion in East Ukraine, issue that Russian and other media did report from the very beginning. I suppose that now that apparently the batallion have been dispersed, (though they said that they will continue fighting) it will start (again) the demonization of Putin. What is the move now? Convince us on the necessity to send NATO troops to replace them?

    The corporate media have been competing in informing with half lies and half truth, very easy to catch, so, how can you convince somebody? There is a lot of very good alternative media in the US, Europe, and Asia. If established papers like the Guardian wants to keep their readers should start doing what they are supposed to do: tell the truth but nothing but the truth, and please not more crap about Putin, it is very boring, though I recognize it was kind of funny the Independent telling that Putin is a psychopath. You should read the comments, very enlightening. I asked whether they had the pressure from the government to start again this crude demonization. The Guardian as well? It is a very good sync because there are at the least four European news telling more or less the same with some different dramatics!

    Anyway, why the stress? Is it because the results of the Greece election and some of their statements regarding Russia? or it is that NATO really wants a war with Russia and you are trying to convince us that it is a very good idea? Or is it that the alternative media is gaining the field? All three?


    halduell 1 Feb 2015 16:52

    And again, who "has deployed heavy military equipment, energy-supply blackmail, cyber-attack, propaganda by sophisticated, well-funded broadcasters, covert operations and agents of influence in EU capitals"?

    Through the looking glass here with a monstrous piece of yellow journalism in which up is down, back is front and the phenomenon of projection is apparent in every sentence.
    Rubbish, Mr Ash. Pure rubbish.


    micktravis1968 1 Feb 2015 16:52

    Btw I wonder if James Harding, the head of BBC News, is any relation to Luke Harding, the Graun correspondent whose Kiev-Junta -friendly dispatches from East Ukraine are reminiscent of the sort of reports the Volkischer Beobachter correspondents used to send from places like Guernica.


    whitja01 1 Feb 2015 16:48

    Apparently, Obama just admitted on CNN to the US being involved in 'brokering power-transition' in Ukraine, i.e. regime change. So now we have not only Nuland's word, but that of the US president himself.

    So who is the war-monger, TGA? Who is the greater danger to world peace, Russia or the US?


    RoyRoger 1 Feb 2015 16:46

    Putin must be stopped.

    Mr. Timothy Garton Ash !!!.

    Why did we not hear you shout: Rasmussen, Nuland, Kerry, McCain, Hague and Ashton ''must be stopped!!?

    '' Must be stopped '' entering a sovereign democratic country that was less then 12 months from their general election.

    Why did we not hear you shout ''must be stopped'' from giving sustenance to a bunch of, Kiev, Molotov cocktail throwing police murdering (39 dead and 139 injured) coup d' etat' neo Nazis; thugs.

    Mr. Timothy Garton Ash, blame, Putin, and the Russian people for all manner of things across the world if you wish and the suggestion that, Putin, eats four babies for breakfasts every monning.

    But one thing I know; the blame for the troubles in, Ukraine, rests with the Corporate corrupt White House and NATO. The Ukraine is their self-made crisis and it will, very soon, bite the bastards on the arse.

    These incompetent fuckers, Rasmussen, Nuland, Kerry, McCain, Hague and Ashton, will go down in history as the creators of the biggest political and economical blunder in history.

    Come on !!, Mr. Timothy Garton Ash, fess-up, you know in your heart that Putin and the Russian people did not create the coup d' etat' in, Kiev.

    If these five political imbeciles, Rasmussen, Nuland, Kerry, McCain, Hague and Ashton, had not gone swanning around the, Maidan Square in, Kiev, we would't be in the mess we are now. This is NATO's and the Corporate corrupt White House fucking political disaster.

    And the bill is going to be dropped in the laps of the Europeans.

    We must never forget: Ukraine is not part of the European Union nor is it a member of NATO. So what the fuck are we doing sticking our fucking noses in a sovereign democratic country without a mandate from our Parliament?


    herditbefore 1 Feb 2015 16:44

    The situation in the Ukraine is the same as was the case in Cyprus. There was a government that wanted to take Cyprus into a union with Greece, the north mostly Turkish speakers opposed this and Turkey stood by their kith and kin.

    In the Ukraine there is a government which wants to go into a union with the EU and the eastern ethnic Russians oppose this.

    There as been a cease fire in Cyprus for about 40 years, not ideal but it does not stop the mainly Greek Cypriots from joining the EU or getting on with life, the same thing could happen with the eastern Ukraine if they think they will be happier outside of the EU let them.

    The grass is not always better on the other side and living is not just about Mercedes and BMWs.


    Klashii 1 Feb 2015 16:44

    As a direct result of the kind of garbage TGA is advocating here, millions have already died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere this century. And how could we forget Vietnam in the last century when the US tried to bring 'democracy' to those that weren't in the slightest bit interested in having it.

    When will the West wake up and realize that not everyone wants 'democracy'shoved down their throats - especially American 'democracy'.


    rodmclaughlin 1 Feb 2015 16:43

    "Ukraine urgently needs military support". Go to hell. For NATO to give military support to Kiev would be a dangerous escalation. A cornered bear is a dangerous animal. The author is effectively asking people in the NATO countries to risk their lives for Kiev. Interfering in the nations located on the tank practice ground between Moscow and Berlin always ends in tears.

    NikLot 1 Feb 2015 16:41

    "German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have been right to keep trying diplomacy, but even they concluded in mid-January that it wasn't worth going to meet Putin in Kazakhstan."

    Why should anyone care what Herr and Frau think on the subject!? They essentially torpedoed any jaw-jaw, giving preference to the alternative - it is Ukrainian and Russian blood after all.

    The same country (Germany) caused Yugoslavia to be destroyed, the moment they got reunited, with Britain and France staying shamefully quiet. The Helsinki final document was torn to shreds with that.

    [Feb 01, 2015] US considers providing arms to Ukraine as rebels step up attacks, says report

    It does not make much sense to read or quote that article: a typical propaganda peace... From comments:
    "The Guardian, not alone among the western MSM, that has been incredibly biased in reporting on what is happening in Ukraine. It would be reasonable to expect less blatantly biased reporting from The Guardian, and it amazes me that day after day it faithfully repeats the propaganda from the US etal as though it is fact-based news ... in many cases, especially, for example, when reporting on the shelling of towns (e.g. Mariupol) it reports shelling by the Kiev 'government' as being shelling by the Novorussians - why do this?
    and
    "Typical propaganda comment. In your opinion peace will not be reach until Russia bends over to Uncle Sam and say yes sir no sir three bags full sir? I don't think it's in their nature. Whole world knows current PM of Ukraine is appointed by US foreign office. Do a bit of research it helps with facts"
    Notable quotes:
    "... Doesn't he realize that the only time when Poroshenko talks about cease fire is when he is under pressure from the rebels. ..."
    "... Couldn't Obama mind his own business for once? ..."
    "... Ukraine is a failed state. It has ceased to exist as anything but the frontline for US geopolitical machinations. ..."
    "... I am sure they don't want to be enslaved to the CIA either. ..."
    Feb 01, 2015 | The Guardian

    TG Asch, everybody's closet neoliberal and neocon, blah-piece today is simply warmongering dressed-up as journalism - equating Putin to Milosevic simply illustrates his lack of current or historical knowledge and understanding. Asch was and is in fact a propagandist, not a journalist.

    There is a wealth of much more accurate and nuanced information on what has and is happening in the Ukraine available in the public domain. It seems that the people working for The Guardian (and the BBC) are choosing to ignore this and stick to the White House's and Downing Street's disinformation handouts" ...

    For The Guardian to be posting pieces advocating more war - as Asch does - is simply irresponsible in the current circumstances, especially when it is impossible to find any alternate views being given any space at all - not equal space, any space - by The Guardian. Balance, Fairness, Judgment, Independence - these all seem to have gone out the window when it comes to the Ukraine and The Guardian has placed itself on the side of the warmongers.

    Why is the Guardian doing this?

    Selected Skeptical Comments

    vr13vr 1 Feb 2015 22:29

    Looks like Obama's goal is to maintain the conflict there indefinitely. Doesn't he realize that the only time when Poroshenko talks about cease fire is when he is under pressure from the rebels. If you give him more weapons, and if you embolden him, he will not be talking about truce.

    This conflict will just go on, and that's what Obama seems to prefer.

    edwardrice peacefulmilitant 1 Feb 2015 22:29

    Putin has ''pushed'' Obama? Couldn't Obama mind his own business for once?

    What has a deeply corrupt bankrupt dysfunctional country 1000s of miles from the US got to do with the Obama? Why should the US tax payer fund another foreign war?

    What right does the US have to trample over the heads of 500 million Europeans and escalate a civil war in Europe!

    scruffythejanitor 1 Feb 2015 22:28

    I really don't see much American enthusiasm to be involved in Ukraine- it seems more like they can't extricate themselves from it. Nations seem to behave like nations. The US is committed to supporting Europe and condemning russian aggression in annexing Ukraine, as any large country would when one country violates another's sovereignty. You don't get to violate another country's borders, officially.

    Russia persistently cries foul whenever the US publicly interferes with another nation's affairs, such as in Iraq, the presumption being that each country does not clandestinely interfere in it's own way. The crocodile tears over US violations of sovereignty looked a lot more convincing ten years ago than they do today.

    ID1011951 1 Feb 2015 22:28

    The Guardian, not alone among the western MSM, that has been incredibly biased in reporting on what is happening in Ukraine. It would be reasonable to expect less blatantly biased reporting from The Guardian, and it amazes me that day after day it faithfully repeats the propaganda from the US etal as though it is fact-based news ... in many cases, especially, for example, when reporting on the shelling of towns (e.g. Mariupol) it reports shelling by the Kiev 'government' as being shelling by the Novorussians - why do this?

    TG Asch, everybody's closet neoliberal and neocon, blah-piece today is simply warmongering dressed-up as journalism - equating Putin to Milosevic simply illustrates his lack of current or historical knowledge and understanding. Asch was and is in fact a propagandist, not a journalist.

    There is a wealth of much more accurate and nuanced information on what has and is happening in the Ukraine available in the public domain. It seems that the people working for The Guardian (and the BBC) are choosing to ignore this and stick to the White House's and Downing Street's disinformation handouts ...

    For The Guardian to be posting pieces advocating more war - as Asch does - is simply irresponsible in the current circumstances, especially when it is impossible to find any alternate views being given any space at all - not equal space, any space - by The Guardian. Balance, Fairness, Judgment, Independence - these all seem to have gone out the window when it comes to the Ukraine and The Guardian has placed itself on the side of the warmongers.

    Why is the Guardian doing this?

    Dugan222 1 Feb 2015 22:07

    Great....my disgust is beyond words. In all the peace talks, there were not a single American representative present. When comes to arming Ukraine, America is already taking the lead and making unilateral decisions even without the EU consent. Yeah, leading from behind when comes to peace. Taking a leadership role when comes to starting a war. America is greatest. I guess Russia will do the same openly and officially. Ukrainian crisis will become a proxy war for the West to bring back the Cold War.

    Both the Russian backed separatists and American backed Ukrainians will murder and kill each others...until a demarcation line is drawn somewhere in Kiev. Wondering who would build the Kiev Wall first. The East, the Russian side, or the West, American side?? Ha...the Kiev Wall.... Is not America's problem since the conflict is thousands of miles away.

    BTW, Ukraine has been received arms through various Nato members already. And there are reports of US mercenaries on the ground as well. Obviously, the Obama administration wants to make it official. For Putin, he does not really need to make it official though.

    GardenShedFever -> David Dalton Lytle Jr. 1 Feb 2015 22:06

    I'm English, but I think you are American.

    And film of weapons caches captured from the cyborgs that include brand new, advanced weapons not issued to the Ukraine military (but, of course, the cyborgs are Kolomoisky's merceneries, supported by McCain et al) demonstrates the US finger in the Kiev pie.

    GardenShedFever HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 22:02

    Poroshenko was "elected" on the lowest turnout in Ukraine's history, with vast swathes of Ukraine boycotting the election, opposition parties banned, opposition politicians abused, assaulted, and disappeared.

    There is no democracy in Ukraine. Its sovereignty disappeared with the US sponsored coup that toppled Yanukovych.

    HollyOldDog HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 22:00

    Since when? The West Ukraine army never put into practice the last MINSK Agreement. The shelling on East Ukraine never stopped.

    GardenShedFever HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 21:57

    Good enough to know that, with a boycott of elections in the south and east of Ukraine, there is not even a semblance of democracy there, as the people are neither represented in Kiev, nor do they want to.

    Ukraine is a failed state. It has ceased to exist as anything but the frontline for US geopolitical machinations.

    When the EU made a last ditch agreement with Yanukovych, to introduce early elections, what was the US response?

    "Fuck the EU" said Victoria Nuland. That tells you all you need to know.


    MediaWatchDog ID6674371 1 Feb 2015 21:56

    Typical propaganda comment. In your opinion peace will not be reach until Russia bends over to Uncle Sam and say yes sir no sir three bags full sir? I don't think it's in their nature. Whole world knows current PM of Ukraine is appointed by US forigen office. Do a bit of research it helps with facts

    Parangaricurimicuaro 1 Feb 2015 21:54

    This new development only shows how badly Kiev is losing.

    MediaWatchDog 1 Feb 2015 21:51

    German Chancellor Angela Markels mobile phone is/was tapped by US president and her plan for peaceful and democratic settlement of Ukraine was fu**ed by US forigen deputy secretary Victoria Nuland.

    Now CIA is in full command arming extremists, again!

    MediaWatchDog -> Kavi Mazumdar 1 Feb 2015 21:45

    Scotland style referendum? Scaremongering and ganging up on voters by big businesses and Westminster politicians? F that it will hard to keep Victoria Nuland types out, CIA is way too powerful than Westminster. Why not have a proper referendum, not like Crimea or Scotland!

    MediaWatchDog -> randomguyfromoz 1 Feb 2015 21:42

    Ethic Russians don't want to be part of Russia in your opinion? You are probably right, I am sure they don't want to be enslaved to the CIA either.

    Zwoman48 1 Feb 2015 21:41

    The U.S. instigated and supported the coup in Ukraine and is thinking of arming the fascists. All you need to know, everyone.

    MediaWatchDog 1 Feb 2015 21:40

    Fact 1. Victoria Nuland topple old regime and appointed Yats as nations PM, fuc**d EU plan of democratic transional government.

    Fact 2. Since then head of CIA and other top level US officials have actively involved on Ukraine.

    Fact 3. Now they are considering providing weapons.

    Thanks to the US Empire for successfully opening up new cold war at European borders.

    Hoon -> Ai Ooi 1 Feb 2015 21:34

    Someone has to pay for this. The UK had just finish paying USA for their debts from the 1st World War! What about the 2nd? And now Ukrain! & Middle East. This will bankrupt the EU for sure!

    Zwoman48 HHeLiBe 1 Feb 2015 21:44

    Bollocks! That's the absolute lie the western media wants you to swallow. Oh. I see you HAVE.

    HHeLiBe -> Kavi Mazumdar 1 Feb 2015 21:32

    How about Pakistan invades Kashmir with special forces, causes so much disturbance all the Indians flee for their lives, and then forces a referendum on those who remain?

    TommyGuardianReader , Feb 1, 2015 21:31

    Given that comments have prematurely been closed on yesterday's Guardian "Comment is Free" article, in which a salesman masquerading as a journalist spins the line that "sometimes only guns can stop guns",

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propaganda

    It's worth reflecting that guns can stop gunners and civilians (see Martin Place), but they cannot stop guns. Whether it's Tokyo or Dallas, Texas, guns, munitions and drones are big money.

    During the First World War the British government continued to pay Krupp's of Essen royalties for some of their gun patents. It was probably insider traders linked to Krupp's of Essen who dobbed in Sir Roger Casement's naive attempts to get German arms to Irish independence fighters in order to try to avert the long-planned Imperial utility World War.

    He was a bit like the David Kelly of his day, in that he got in the way of the machine.

    By the way, on an unrelated matter, isn't all this noise about Russia and Putin distracting us from the Chilcott Inquiry, and the roles of Bush, Cheney and Putin in the Coalition Of The Willing?

    As Don Henderson wrote in his song "Was War For Those Who Want It":

    "The men who build the planes and make the tanks
    Are neutral and get payment in Swiss francs
    While the rich on both sides prosper the poor will kill the poor
    Was war for those who want it, they would want an end to war."


    Maria Meri 1 Feb 2015 21:30

    Can anybody name one year after the 2nd WW whn the US hadn't been policing somewhr - war indeed seems to form it's economic base (commies said this ages ago)

    GardenShedFever 1 Feb 2015 21:21

    Considering the weapons caches captured by the rebels after dislodging Ukraine's "cyborgs" from Donetsk airport, the US has been arming Kiev's forces for some time. Advanced US weapons are not routine equipment for the Ukraine military, are they?
    It is no surprise the USA is clamouring to escalate this civil war. They began it, and they expected a near bloodless coup, like the Orange Revolution. Their problem this time, however, was they backed and funded far-right Ukrainian Nationalists who are despised in the South and East, and although the Maidan protests had sympathy, the commandeering of those protests by Right Sektor and Svoboda has alienated vast swathes of the Ukrainian populace. The rejection of the Kiev coup was overt, and the coup leaders' response to that rejection horrifying. No matter how much western media have tried to brush it under the carpet, the mass murder in Odessa last May polarised opinion. Those with Russian sympathies realised they were targets, and so the kick-back happened. In Donetsk and Luhansk, this mayterialised as mass support for declarations of independence, in Kharkhiv more subtle, partisan resistance, but the fact is irrefutable. Kiev only rules via terror.

    And now that terror is to be overtly supported by Washington. Honesty, at least and at last. The warmongers have their war.

    Zogz 1 Feb 2015 21:21

    Only a matte of time till the US arms Kiev. They have been itching to do it since they organized the coup. The "military advisors" are already on the ground some suggest they are working with the Kiev troops. Whist such war mongery is not unusal for the US, I cannot help bu be suprised with EU reactions. Allowing the US to escalate tensions on the border of Europe is foolhardy in the extreme. All it wll do is make Europe more dependent on the US, more insecure, and more at risk. A win win for the US, but for Europe?

    AstheticTheory 1 Feb 2015 21:08

    So America has revealed its open secret: it intervened to secure the government in Ukraine it wanted and now it is prepared to escalate its defence of its new possession

    [Jan 31, 2015] Ukraine's ability to fight separatist forces is tested by economic and military challenges

    Handlers of current Ukrainian government want the whole peace. That's the problem.
    Jan 31, 2015 | The Washington Post

    Kiev's political will to fight to reclaim or secure through a peace deal the industry-rich territories of Donetsk and Luhansk from pro-Russian rebels may be strong. But it is limited by money, competence, and popular support.

    ... ... ...

    Valentina Kuznetsova, 75, is one of those pensioners. A recent arrival from Luhansk, she lives in Kiev with her husband, daughter and granddaughter - none of whom can find work. Like many others displaced by the conflict, she is ready to end the war and focus on problems closer to home.

    "Give the territory away," Kuznetsova said. "Why are we doing this? Why do we need to kill each other?"
    But the troop buildup suggests that Kiev has no intention of backing down, which poses another problem: ensuring that the military can train tens of thousands of fresh recruits to wage a guerilla-style war against an enemy thought to be backed by one of the largest military complexes in the world.

    ... ... ...

    If someone closes our mines, we will be dying of hunger," Yakubuk said. "But it is better to die from hunger than from an enemy."

    "I'm not sure about that," interjected his mining colleague, Maryan Dubetskiy, 34, a electrical welder. "At war, men die. But at home, it's women and children who suffer."

    SirGalahad

    ""Give the territory away," Kuznetsova said. "Why are we doing this? Why do we need to kill each other?" "

    Exactly. If the separatists want their own country, let them have it. If the Scots had voted YES, would Camoron have started shelling Glasgow?

    Doesn't the West believe in democracy any more?

    Can anyone think of a single reason why these cities are being shelled?
    Why are western governments supporting this war-crime?

    [Jan 30, 2015] Ukraine Through the Fog of the Presstitutes by Paul Craig Roberts

    Mar 06, 2014 | CounterPunch

    Gerald Celente calls the Western media "presstitutes," an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.

    Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia's alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to the Bush regime's illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had NBC's highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence. Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR is immediately fired.

    Russia's RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.

    I agree with Greenwald. You can read his article here. Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. As for RT's Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.

    My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin grandstanded on "Russia's invasion of Ukraine" in order to boost her chances of moving into the more lucrative "mainstream media." My point is quite different. Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.

    For example, Martin's denunciation of Russia for "invading" Ukraine is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy Crimea. The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement, Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.

    Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent and aware people, knew this fact. Washington's propaganda is so pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.

    As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia's border in order to degrade Russia's nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept Washington's hegemony.

    Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.

    It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under Washington's propaganda.

    They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat's column calling on readers to "resist the war party on Crimea" opens with Washington's propagandistic claim: "With Vladimir Putin's dispatch of Russian Troops into Crimea."

    No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole Washington's coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and western Ukraine.

    So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

    It appears that the power of Washington's propaganda is so great that not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its influence.

    What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged "invasion" that has not taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has taken place?

    The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is a propaganda production. The presstitutes told us that the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On the basis of these false reports, Washington's stooges, who comprise the existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. In an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister Catherine Ashton and Etonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: "There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition." Paet goes on to report that "all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened." Ashton, absorbed with EU plans to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear Paet's report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation. You can listen to the conversation between Paet and Ashton here: http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/

    What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These threatened Russians have appealed for Russia's help, and just like the Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia's help.

    The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.

    Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book The Failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Roberts' How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format.

    [Jan 30, 2015] Notes for Vienna 2015 Com.Sult Congress: It Is Time to Look at the Ukrainian Crisis in a Broader Context

    Ukraine EuroMaidan was organized and financed by the West using standard "color revolution" script. So EuroMaidan and subsequent civil war is definitely more about Western neocolonialism that Ukranian nationalism or Russian encirclement by NATO concerns. Quote: "The current Ukrainian crisis turned into a problem heavily influenced if not dominantly masterminded from abroad.[1] Due to this, an initially domestic problem has been gradually transformed into a fight about the dominance in Europe (and the world) and into a conflict between the West and a more and more self-assured Russia. The Ukrainians have been trapped in a situation where they are only instrumental and in many respects passive objects. Are they aware of it? At least its politicians and intellectual elites? I am not sure about it.
    Jan 20, 2015 | klaus.cz

    When I was asked by David Ungar-Klein to speak here today on Ukraine, I hesitated. My knowledge of Ukraine is rather limited and I don t pretend to be an expert on this sorely tried country. I am not someone who follows the day by day developments there. I also know that my views on that topic are against the mainstream and that they would not be much welcome. I know as well that there are real experts on Ukraine here in this audience (not only foreign observers but insiders), President Yushchenko being one of them.

    In spite of all that, I accepted the invitation to address this gathering because with the passing of time I have become more and more convinced that the so called Ukrainian crisis is only mistakenly considered to be an Ukrainian crisis or Ukrainian-Russian conflict. It is not so. Ukraine is -- to my great regret -- only a place where the much more general crisis manifests itself most visibly. I have in mind an evident crisis of the West, which we experience but are not ready to admit. We try to hide it. One of its manifestations is an intensive and widespread dissemination of Western values all over the world which creates new seeds of tension. Ukraine is one of them.

    Let me develop this point. On the one hand, the current crisis in Ukraine is undoubtedly originally home-made. It is basically the consequence of the evident failure of this country to make a successful transition from communism to the system of freedom, pluralistic parliamentary democracy and market economy, from passive role in Soviet imperium to its own statehood and sovereignty. Ukraine probably failed in this respect more than almost any other Central and East European country. It can't be denied. To be fair, however, it would be worth seriously discussing whether this was -- considering the circumstances -- inevitable, or at least excusable, or not. The indisputable fact is that the country was artificially created, was and is deeply divided, and used to have and had even before November 2013 very weak internal coherence. This was an evident obstacle in the difficult transformation process.

    On the other hand, the current Ukrainian crisis turned into a problem heavily influenced if not dominantly masterminded from abroad.[1] Due to this, an initially domestic problem has been gradually transformed into a fight about the dominance in Europe (and the world) and into a conflict between the West and a more and more self-assured Russia. The Ukrainians have been trapped in a situation where they are only instrumental and in many respects passive objects. Are they aware of it? At least its politicians and intellectual elites? I am not sure about it.

    I was -- while attending various EU and NATO summits -- always nervous when the debate about Ukrainian EU or NATO membership started. I had the unpleasant feeling that to force Ukraine into making a premature decision whether the country belongs to the West or to the East is a certain and guaranteed way how to destroy it. I formulated it year ago, in February 2014, quite resolutely: "Giving Ukraine a choice between the East and the West means destroying it" It leads the country into an insolvable conflict that cannot have but a tragic ending."[2] This is exactly what we see developing in front of our eyes right now.

    The current geopolitical game started with "colored" revolutions in the post-Soviet Union as well as some Arab countries, with attempts to export democracy and Western concept of human rights into unprepared and geographically remote territories and different cultural and civilizational areas. I must admit that I saw the birth of today s problem already in the -- for me unclear and unpersuasive -- "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine ten years ago. As I see it, it was only partly a genuine domestic political uprising. It was more importantly an externally organized export of democracy in an attempt to increase the geopolitical position of one country or another or hide some daunting domestic problems, if not a gradual loss of its own identity.

    Ukraine has been lowered to the role of an instrument in this much bigger game. The question is how to get out of it. The developments in the last 15 months have proved that a continuation of this dangerous game only increases the costs of the crisis, deepens the division of the country and leads to a further destabilization. If we look at the developments in Ukraine with open and not a priori distorted eyes, we have to come to the conclusion that Ukraine was trapped in the historical shift of geopolitical positions, and that Russia -- on the contrary -- due to it, found its new identity, or at least strengthened its old one. This changing geopolitical setting is the product of the West's loss of identity, of its cultural and civilizational demise, and its economic stagnation.

    To my great disappointment, the dominant political forces in Ukraine keep relying on some future external intervention and are not searching for an internal political solution. They haven't come up with any compromise proposal they could offer to the people of the Eastern part of their country to win their confidence. They rely on repression and on unrealistic expectations of Western economic and military aid. It will not come.

    There is no other way out of the current stalemate than negotiations and a compromise. It must be done soon. Preserving the current state of affairs can be neither in the interest of Ukraine, nor in the interest of the West or Russia. In the long run, all of us will be losing.

    The recent developments in Ukraine also contribute to the destruction of the existing system of international relations which means that we are losing some proven, however shabby procedures to tackle other threatening issues -- the Middle East problem or terrorist s attacks in Europe.

    Let me summarize my today s message. Instead of discussing Ukraine or Russia, we should discuss Europe and the West. Thank you for your attention.

    [1] See my hearings in the House of Lords about Ukraine, London, November 10, 2014, http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/3656.

    [2] "Václav Klaus Institute's public statement on the situation in the Ukraine", February 25, 2014, www.klaus.cz/clanky/3528. More in the publication of the Václav Klaus Institute (in Czech language) "ZámÄ?rnÄ? plochá diskuse o ukrajinske krizi", No. 12/2014. The English shorter version is V. Klaus, J. Weigl: "Let's start a real Ukrainian debate", April 22, 2014, www.klaus.cz/clanky/3553.

    Václav Klaus, Presentation at the panel "Europe, the Ukraine and Russia", Vienna Com.Sult Congress, House of Industry, Vienna, January 20, 2015.

    http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/3690

    Comments from https://marknesop.wordpress.com
    Tim Owen, January 29, 2015 at 5:24 pm
    Vaclav Klaus's latest:

    http://www.opednews.com/populum/pagem.php?f=A-Right-Wing-Former-Czech-by-Vaclav-Klaus-Conflict_Congress_Crisis_Debate-150127-565.html

    On a quick read I'd say that's a masterful mix of honesty and realism. He also skates over very real grievances that come with the civil war in the pursuit of making constructive comments. I think he's spot on.

    marknesop, January 29, 2015 at 8:11 pm
    Yes, that is a very good piece. The author is aware his views are not mainstream, but he defends them well and they are lent the persuasive weight of unfolding events.
    Warren, January 29, 2015 at 8:26 pm
    Vaclav Klaus has gone off the Atlantcist reservation and subsequently he has become a hate figure for the pro-US hegemony Atlanticist crow.

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9322652/europe-needs-systemic-change/

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/22/vaclav-klaus-libertarian-hero-has-his-wings-clipped-by-cato-institute.html

    [Jan 30, 2015] Ukraine Through the Fog of the Presstitutes by Paul Craig Roberts

    Mar 06, 2014 | CounterPunch

    Gerald Celente calls the Western media "presstitutes," an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.

    Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia's alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to the Bush regime's illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had NBC's highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence. Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR is immediately fired.

    Russia's RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.

    I agree with Greenwald. You can read his article here. Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. As for RT's Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.

    My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin grandstanded on "Russia's invasion of Ukraine" in order to boost her chances of moving into the more lucrative "mainstream media." My point is quite different. Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.

    For example, Martin's denunciation of Russia for "invading" Ukraine is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy Crimea. The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement, Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.

    Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent and aware people, knew this fact. Washington's propaganda is so pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.

    As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia's border in order to degrade Russia's nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept Washington's hegemony.

    Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.

    It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under Washington's propaganda.

    They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat's column calling on readers to "resist the war party on Crimea" opens with Washington's propagandistic claim: "With Vladimir Putin's dispatch of Russian Troops into Crimea."

    No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole Washington's coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and western Ukraine.

    So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

    It appears that the power of Washington's propaganda is so great that not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its influence.

    What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged "invasion" that has not taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has taken place?

    The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is a propaganda production. The presstitutes told us that the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On the basis of these false reports, Washington's stooges, who comprise the existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. In an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister Catherine Ashton and Etonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: "There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition." Paet goes on to report that "all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened." Ashton, absorbed with EU plans to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear Paet's report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation. You can listen to the conversation between Paet and Ashton here: http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/

    What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These threatened Russians have appealed for Russia's help, and just like the Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia's help.

    The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.

    Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book The Failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Roberts' How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format.

    [Jan 28, 2015] Ukraine at war: 'People feel abandoned'

    Those brazen propagandists from Guardian now resort to postmodernism: "The fighting has intensified dramatically since last week". In reality this is indiscriminate shelling of Donetsk, one million city by Kiev army. Ukrainian army is shelling one million city in the center of Europe and nobody in Western capitals gives a f*ck.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Until recently, I also thought as you. But recently it became known fact that it was the Maidan smokescreen. Matter was not addressed in the Maidan. The question was decided in quiet rooms. Maidan does not put pressure on decision-making. (This issue was resolved in Washington) ..."
    "... To me, the conflict is all about the the Galicians wanting to eradicate Russian civic identity. The Galicians have been like that from the start. In that respect, they are kind of like fanatics. ..."
    "... It seems Russain Orthodox commanders did not take well the Scientologist from Lviv (Yats) and the Baptist with strong connections with the PL govt. (Turch.). ..."
    "... The Ukrainian army is attacking its own people in the south east using indiscriminate shelling. The rebels have been defending for almost a year ..."
    "... The reality is that most Ukrainians are not motivated to fight for Kiev. The Ukrainian people want peace. Only the Galician ideologically driven hard cores are willing to do combat, and their morale is falling fast because of their endless defeats. ..."
    "... Ukrainian military casualties are roughly 3,500 killed in action, and another 9,000 wounded. That is shocking. Kiev is trying to hide the magnitude of the disaster from its own people, but Ukrainian citizens are becoming aware of the horrible battle losses. Entire villages in Ukraine are reportedly ignoring Kiev's draft notices. ..."
    Jan 28, 2015 | The Guardian

    The fighting has intensified dramatically since last week and the situation here is deteriorating rapidly. In the past five days, there has been heavy fighting. We hear the constant boom of shelling and crackle of shooting.

    More than 70 houses are reported to have been damaged or destroyed in the last week, and several hospitals have been damaged since the fighting began in the summer. In recent days, a building of a psychiatric institution that we're supporting was destroyed by shelling.

    It's getting more complicated to get into the areas caught in the conflict. Last week the checkpoints to cross into the rebel-controlled areas were closed and no one has been allowed to pass.

    Medical supply lines have been cut and little medicine is getting through, as has been the case for months. When Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) started working here in May, we focused on supplying hospitals on the frontline with kits to treat war injuries. Obviously, when you're in a conflict zone, the frontline is where the people are being seriously injured and killed.

    After months of stress on the health system, it is clear that the conflict is having an impact on the whole population of the area. Basic healthcare, maternity care, treatment of chronic diseases; everything is affected.

    ... ... ...


    Mij Swerdna shakesomeaction 28 Jan 2015 18:56

    More like Kiev won't let Donbas decide it's own destiny. It is not they who have gone to the west to kill. More like the other way around.


    Mij Swerdna alpamysh 28 Jan 2015 18:04

    Everyone here is responsible for their own actions. The side you are against is not responsible for what both sides do. People like you are devoid of compassion until hardships that you regard with indifference are visited on you and yours.

    And then it's people like you who cry and whine the loudest.

    Mij Swerdna -> alpamysh 28 Jan 2015 17:57

    What are talking about? They did those things at Maidan- but that was okay because you sympathize with neo-Nazis. Hypocrite.

    Mij Swerdna -> vr13vr 28 Jan 2015 16:07

    And the Holodomor did not take place anywhere near the ones who go on about it the most. It happened in eastern Ukraine and southern Russia.

    Mij Swerdna -> Pomario 28 Jan 2015 15:33

    Your imagination seems to go to any lengths to make Russia a villain. You are motivated by hatred (bigotry, the stupid kind).

    Mij Swerdna -> firstgeordie 28 Jan 2015 15:26

    Very bigoted of you. Actually, they are more apt to sacrifice. I wouldn't confuse that virtue with a lack of respect for life because that very lack is more than rampant in the west except that there is a growing tendency on the part of the west to arrange for "lesser" peoples to serve as cannon fodder.

    Mij Swerdna -> Pomario 28 Jan 2015 15:14

    Not quite. What he was worried about was the massive propaganda blitz that would have resulted if Russia had opted to honor the Donbas referendum and annexed it. As it turns out, he needn't have. They were going to do what they were going to do to Russia regardless. They should have saved Donbas because those incompetent cowards in the west would not have challenged them militarily if they were part of Russia. There would be wailing and gnashing of teeth to be sure- but no destroyed infrastructure and no thousands of dead civilians and refugees.

    The real aggressors in this conflict are the people who want to exterminate the people of Donbas. I am judging by actions mind you, not the lawyer like gibberish used to justify those actions. If it walks like a duck...

    buttonbasher81 Robobenito 28 Jan 2015 14:51

    Again you haven't actually stated what is meant by support, all you use are conjecture and conspiracy by reffering back to bad things the US has done in the past. All the thousands of people marching on the streets were all CIA operatives were they? Sounds about as believeable as putins Russian soldiers being in the East of Ukraine on holiday to me. And don't trot out that 5bn line, its been stated again and again that was spent over a number of years in the Ukraine and moreover some of which would have gone to Yanukovychs Government. You going to argue the US paid him to overthrow himself?


    Mij Swerdna Jeremn 28 Jan 2015 08:43


    They are inhuman. Kiev is ideologically driven by Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Volyn (with US blessing).These oblasts had the highest voter turnout and were solidly in Yat's corner. The fact that the actual far right parties did not do well in elections means nothing. They are hiding behind Yats.


    Kolo07 -> EddieGrey1967USA 28 Jan 2015 04:25

    Until recently, I also thought as you.

    But recently it became known fact that it was the Maidan smokescreen.

    Matter was not addressed in the Maidan. The question was decided in quiet rooms.

    Maidan does not put pressure on decision-making. (This issue was resolved in Washington)


    EddieGrey1967USA BMWAlbert 27 Jan 2015 21:58

    You are probably correct about the numbers of troops involved in Crimea. Thanks for the more accurate info. Still, your figures aren't too far out of line with mine.

    I agree with your final comment about Donbas and a national unity government. It is quite interesting to consider what might have followed if the Euromaidan crew had been smart enough to reach out immediately to Donbass last February. Indeed, if they had included Donbass powerbrokers from the early days, they might have held the country together.

    However, to include Donbass powerbrokers in Euromaidan, the new government would have needed to distance itself from the Galician ultranationalists. Do you think that could have happened in theory? My guess is that it couldn't have happened, now that I think about it. I say that because the Galicians were -- and continue to be -- a powerhouse behind the entire Euromaidan revolt, in addition to shaping the government that followed.

    To me, the conflict is all about the the Galicians wanting to eradicate Russian civic identity. The Galicians have been like that from the start. In that respect, they are kind of like fanatics.

    EddieGrey1967USA -> Oskar Jaeger 27 Jan 2015 21:52

    There's a big difference between Serbia and Ukraine, though. That's because the USA is backing the nationalists in Kiev, essentially encouraging them to pursue the dream of an enlarged Ukraine, or a Greater Ukraine (fighting war to keep colonies in Donbass, etc.). By contrast, the USA was opposing Milosevic's efforts to create a Greater Serbia.

    So, even after Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko, Lysenko, Parubiy, etc. are defeated and overthrown, they will never face war crimes tribunals. That's because they will have American protection.

    The only exception to this situation is if the Russians actually capture Yats, Poroshenko, Parubiy etc. and charge them with war crimes. However I don't think this will happen. Most likely Yats & Co will escape west before that ever happens.

    You make a very interesting point about Ukraine being divided on the issue of joining the EU and Russia. In that sense, post war Ukraine could resemble post-Milosevic Serbia. I agree.


    BMWAlbert -> Oskar Jaeger 27 Jan 2015 19:51

    Eddue, the Krim figures I have read state that there were 18,000 (maybe 2500 is paper strength, NOT the real strength).

    Of these 18K I believe about one third (circa 6000) stayed with UA army and were allowed to leave.

    Of the 12000 UA Army troops remaining, only half actually joined the RU Army. 6000 thus chose a 'middle way'. That 12000 total may be aligned with the 13000 figure you cite (?).

    It might be noted that the whole of the semi-autonomous province might not have been lost at all had commanders of the UA Army reserve forces actually acted in March 2014 (as ordered) to secure the isthmus. They did not move. It seems Russain Orthodox commanders did not take well the Scientologist from Lviv (Yats) and the Baptist with strong connections with the PL govt. (Turch.).

    Different people have different views on which North American and EU countries might have had influence over these important initial choices for PM and President at a time when UA needed a national unity govt. NOT a single cabinet post was chosen from Donbas. Not smart.


    EddieGrey1967USA 27 Jan 2015 18:12

    What will become of Ukraine, when this is all over?

    When a nation is defeated in war, all of its people undergo psychological shock. The country questions its self-worth, and it experiments with changes in politics, culture, and social issues. Defeated nations do this as they come to terms with the realization that they have failed the ultimate test.

    These periods of anguished, inward self-reflection on a national scale are especially true for countries that are defeated and conquered. We saw this in France after 1817, during the so-called La Belle Epoque. Something similar happened in Prussia after 1806, and in Germany after 1918 and 1945.

    Ukraine will not only suffer defeat, but it may also lose its independence. How will this generation of young Ukrainians -- the so called Euromaidan Generation -- react to this national trauma? Everything that they have been raised to believe about themselves and their country will have been proven to be false...mythological. Just one big lie.

    Young Ukrainians, after this war, will totally lose respect for the leaders movements like Euromaidan. These young people will question their own values and beliefs. Like the Germans after 1945, Ukrainians, I think, will then work hard to create a new and honest society for themselves. They will renounce ultranationalism, and they will advocate the virtues of peace and political stability.

    That is when Ukraine's true moment of glory will occur. Defeated, conquered...true....but repentant, wise, and progressive. Ukrainians will then be celebrated worldwide for their maturity and commitment to peace, just like the West Germans after 1945.

    EddieGrey1967USA -> Oskar Jaeger 27 Jan 2015 18:02

    You are wrong. The rebel army is large and strong, particularly since so many Donbass men are now enlisting. Read yesterday's article in DB written by Kyiv Post writer/hack/propagandist James Miller and his colleague, Michael Weiss. They confirm this.

    ID8787761 -> alpamysh 27 Jan 2015 15:12

    Not true. US or UK solider caught on camera in Mariopul:
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-25/out-my-face-please-why-are-us-soldiers-mariupol

    The general is far from alone.

    Actually you're not getting it old boy. The Ukrainian army is attacking its own people in the south east using indiscriminate shelling. The rebels have been defending for almost a year. And you plucked that 9000 number from thin air. Without tangible evidence your statement of 9000 people is meaningless.

    EddieGrey1967USA 27 Jan 2015 15:11

    What surprises me especially is that Western news suppresses information about the severity of Ukrainian military defeats. The Western media has been doing this from the very beginning.

    For example, in Crimea last March, 13,000 Ukrainian troops defected to the Russians immediately. That is out of a total of 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Crimea at the time. Only a few Western media sources reported the shocking truth about these Ukrainian defections.

    The reality is that most Ukrainians are not motivated to fight for Kiev. The Ukrainian people want peace. Only the Galician ideologically driven hard cores are willing to do combat, and their morale is falling fast because of their endless defeats.

    At this point in time, I would imagine that the Galician troops must feel overawed and frightened at the prospect of doing combat with the pro-Russian rebels. Does the Ukrainian military even have medical psychiatric support to treat the combat trauma suffered by these troops?

    What will happen after the war, when these defeated and traumatized soldiers -- many suffering from combat induced psychosis -- return home to Galicia? It's upsetting to realize the things that might happen.

    But Kiev started this war....the Donbass people didn't start it.

    EddieGrey1967USA 27 Jan 2015 15:05

    Ukraine is facing total disaster now, kind of like a sinking ship. It's economy is destroyed, and it is losing a war so badly that all of Ukraine may eventually be conquered by the rebels.

    Ukrainian military casualties are roughly 3,500 killed in action, and another 9,000 wounded. That is shocking. Kiev is trying to hide the magnitude of the disaster from its own people, but Ukrainian citizens are becoming aware of the horrible battle losses. Entire villages in Ukraine are reportedly ignoring Kiev's draft notices.

    For historicians, social scientists, and economists, Ukraine is a classic case of a nation in defeat. The experts are observing Ukraine closely as it disintegrates.

    All of this would have been avoided if only the Euromaidan government consisted of reasonable people.

    [Jan 28, 2015] Doubt everything – Ukrainian students warning to Russian counterparts

    Guardian reprints RFE aka Radio F*ck Europe. Well done Guardian. Saves money. From comments: "Rubbish. The most dangerous squirrel-brains are perched at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and at the State Dept. building not far away. It was they who inflamed the Kiev putsch and now may be wondering if the Pandora's box they opened is tough to control."
    Notable quotes:
    "... as well as the electromagnetic spectrum and information space ..."
    Jan 28, 2015 | The Guardian

    axiomparadigm -> MrBepec 28 Jan 2015 19:59

    A pity I had to ask a Russian speaking friend to tell me the ist of it and he said there are cries for Bandeira... So it is a right wing nazi supporting rally.

    Walter Potocki 28 Jan 2015 19:47

    Take a cooky from Nuland and march to eastern front, empire will give you a postmortem medal.

    Sehome -> alpamysh 28 Jan 2015 19:42

    Rubbish. The most dangerous squirrel-brains are perchjed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and at the State Dept. building not far away. It was they who inflamed the Kiev putsch and now may be wondering if the Pandora's box they opened is tough to control.

    yataki -> yataki 28 Jan 2015 19:30

    ...and they are saying that Yanukovich was a 'dictator'. Oh, excuse me, no matter how corrupted he was, he was a democratically elected president legally recognized by the international community. Even Vic Nuland admitted that. You people could have voted him out of the office, but you preferred an armed coup. You can disagree with me, but to me and many people around the world, it was clearly a violent coup led by the far-right. There was nothing heroic about it.

    yataki 28 Jan 2015 19:17

    "Check what you hear, doubt what you see."
    I suggest these bright young people should first check what they hear from their own government, and seriously doubt what they see. One should never stop checking and doubting his/her own government. There is nothing wrong about that.
    Would be interested to see Russian students' answer to that sort of cheap propaganda.

    BunglyPete 28 Jan 2015 18:26

    If and when the truth behind this gets out the fallout could be massive.

    US, EU and many top western officials on board, an entirely complicit media, and we are talking about actual nazis actually killing civilians on the doorstep of actual Europe, and looking at war with Russia.

    If if it gets enough attention this could cause a big impact across the globe. Interesting times.

    centerline 28 Jan 2015 18:23

    The video goes on to counter claims from Russian-state media that the Euromaidan protests in Kiev were a US funded coup.

    Full Spectrum Dominance. Part of the US military doctrine.

    Full spectrum dominance includes the physical battlespace; air, surface and sub-surface as well as the electromagnetic spectrum and information space. Control implies that freedom of opposition force assets to exploit the battlespace is wholly constrained.

    https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Full-spectrum_dominance.html

    unended 28 Jan 2015 18:18

    From the article:

    It also accuses pro-Russian separatists of forcing many in Crimea "at gunpoint" to vote in favour of joining Russia.

    From the Pew Research Center:

    Crimean residents are almost universally positive toward Russia. At least nine-in-ten have confidence in Putin (93%) and say Russia is playing a positive role in Crimea (92%). Confidence in Obama is almost negligible at 4%, and just 2% think the U.S. is having a good influence on the way things are going on the Crimean peninsula. . . .

    For their part, Crimeans seem content with their annexation by Russia. Overwhelming majorities say the March 16th referendum was free and fair (91%) and that the government in Kyiv ought to recognize the results of the vote (88%).p> http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/

    I wonder what would make these western Ukrainian students think that about Crimea? Could it have something to do with having been subjected to "rampant propaganda"?

    Manolo Torres 28 Jan 2015 17:57

    And from where did this students get this idea? Perhaps From their own ministry of truth?

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/19/-sp-ukraine-new-ministry-truth-undermines-battle-for-democracy

    Was it a US initiative?

    Ukraine freedom support act.
    Expanded Broadcasting in Former Soviet Republics:
    Mandates the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors to submit a plan and cost estimate to increase Russian-language broadcasting into countries of the former Soviet Union funded by the United States in order to counter Russian propaganda

    Is it perhaps just another youtube video operation, produced by neoconservatives in the NED and the US State department?, in the style of the "I am an Ukrainian?" Perhaps it was made by the same RFE/RL, whose origins we all know?

    I wonder if this students would be as "receptive" as this citizens in Kiev, when a woman from Luhansk was trying to tell them about her experience with airstrikes on June the 2nd.

    Judge by yourselves, it seems to me that the Ukrainian students should be addressing themselves.

    jonsid 28 Jan 2015 17:46

    And the smearing starts. First shot by Radio Fuck Europe.

    New Greek Government Has Deep, Long-Standing Ties With Russian Eurasianist Dugin

    A five year old could write the script....

    http://www.rferl.org/content/greek-syriza-deep-ties-russian-eurasianist-dugin/26818523.html

    1waldo1 28 Jan 2015 17:30

    And these very attractive and innocent-looking students did this all on their own. Not a word of encouragement from the new Ministry of Propaganda or whatever it's called in Kiev.
    And how did the video reach the Guardian so quickly?

    [Jan 28, 2015] Foreign intervention '100 times more likely' in oil-rich states – study

    January 28, 2015 | RT UK

    Cutting-edge research from British universities has confirmed a belief long held by conspiracy theorists, realists and hawkish neoconservatives alike: oil drives foreign intervention and war.

    Foreign governments are 100 times more likely to intervene in civil wars if the troubled state is home to hydrocarbon reserves, according to a new report by academics from the universities of Warwick, Portsmouth and Essex.

    Following systemic analysis, the academics found that economic incentives are major drivers of foreign intervention.

    One of the report's authors, Dr. Petros Sekeris of the University of Portsmouth, told the Independent he and his colleagues had uncovered "clear evidence that countries with potential for oil production are more likely to be targeted by foreign intervention if civil wars erupt."

    "Military intervention is expensive and risky. No country joins another country's civil war without balancing the cost against their own strategic interests," he added.

    The report, published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, examined 69 civil wars between 1945 and 1999. It said civil wars amount to 90 percent of all militarized conflicts since the close of World War II, and almost 67 percent of these have been characterized by foreign intervention.

    The research frames oil as a dominant motivating factor in conflicts, and argues hydrocarbons heavily influenced the West's military intervention in Libya. It also suggests oil plays a noteworthy factor in the US-lead war against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

    Dr. Vincenzo Bove, of the University of Warwick, said IS militants received little attention from Western media outlets until they began to encroach upon the oil-rich Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

    "But once ISIS got near oil fields, the siege of Kobani in Syria became a headline and the US sent drones to strike ISIS targets," Bove told the Independent.

    After carefully modeling the decision-making processes of a series of third-party interventions throughout history, the researchers reached a number of conclusions.

    Factors which played a part in influencing a foreign government's decision to intervene included the military might and strength of insurgents on the ground, and the extent to which they sought to control valuable resources such as oil.

    The report found that foreign governments' decision to intervene was largely dominated by their desire to control oil supplies in conflict-ridden states, while historical, geographic and cultural/ethnic ties were far less important.

    The researchers noted that America maintains a military presence in Gulf states that produce oil, and has a long history of backing despotic regimes despite the US administration's supposed agenda of democratization.

    But they argued a recent rise in US oil production indicates the state will intervene less in the near future.

    Additionally, they suggest the world can expect a cycle of low intervention in years to come because plunging oil prices make it a less valuable resource to protect.

    The report's authors also said China may assume a leading role in foreign intervention in future years.

    Britain has a long history of foreign intervention. If viewed through a lens of economic incentives, a stark pattern begins to emerge, according to the report's authors.

    Britain intervened in Nigeria's civil war between 1967 and 1970. Because the British government was heavily dependent on oil located in the eastern Nigeria, stability in the region was critical.

    Likewise, Britain invaded oil-rich Iraq in 2003. Political analysts across the globe maintain the US-UK invasion was in part motivated by a desire to control the region's oil reserves.

    Finally, in 2011 Britain partook in a Western coalition that intervened in Muammar Gaddafi's Libya in 2011 – another state noted for its plentiful hydrocarbon reserves.

    By contrast, Britain failed to intervene in Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war (1991-2002), which ravaged the nation and left over 50,000 dead.

    The British government also failed to intervene in war-torn Syria, after President Bashar Assad was alleged to have launched a chemical attack against his people in 2013. Much like Sierra Leone, Syria is not a big oil producer.

    Experts suggest the most significant motivations for wars are generally the least discussed, while peripheral or false motivations are often circulated with gusto.

    Traditionally, war and foreign intervention are thought to be driven by a complex cocktail of factors. Such factors are widely accepted to be propelled by governments' pursuits of strategic interests, which generally benefit elite members of their societies.

    The desire to control valuable resources, the desire to dominate key geographic territories, the strengthening of a lucrative military industrial complex, the desire to intimidate enemy states and the extension of financial deregulation across the globe are often cited as key factors.

    [Jan 28, 2015] Doubt everything – Ukrainian students warning to Russian counterparts

    Guardian reprints RFE aka Radio F*ck Europe. Well done Guardian. Saves money. From comments: "Rubbish. The most dangerous squirrel-brains are perched at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and at the State Dept. building not far away. It was they who inflamed the Kiev putsch and now may be wondering if the Pandora's box they opened is tough to control."
    Notable quotes:
    "... as well as the electromagnetic spectrum and information space ..."
    Jan 28, 2015 | The Guardian

    axiomparadigm -> MrBepec 28 Jan 2015 19:59

    A pity I had to ask a Russian speaking friend to tell me the ist of it and he said there are cries for Bandeira... So it is a right wing nazi supporting rally.

    Walter Potocki 28 Jan 2015 19:47

    Take a cooky from Nuland and march to eastern front, empire will give you a postmortem medal.

    Sehome -> alpamysh 28 Jan 2015 19:42

    Rubbish. The most dangerous squirrel-brains are perchjed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and at the State Dept. building not far away. It was they who inflamed the Kiev putsch and now may be wondering if the Pandora's box they opened is tough to control.

    yataki -> yataki 28 Jan 2015 19:30

    ...and they are saying that Yanukovich was a 'dictator'. Oh, excuse me, no matter how corrupted he was, he was a democratically elected president legally recognized by the international community. Even Vic Nuland admitted that. You people could have voted him out of the office, but you preferred an armed coup. You can disagree with me, but to me and many people around the world, it was clearly a violent coup led by the far-right. There was nothing heroic about it.

    yataki 28 Jan 2015 19:17

    "Check what you hear, doubt what you see."
    I suggest these bright young people should first check what they hear from their own government, and seriously doubt what they see. One should never stop checking and doubting his/her own government. There is nothing wrong about that.
    Would be interested to see Russian students' answer to that sort of cheap propaganda.

    BunglyPete 28 Jan 2015 18:26

    If and when the truth behind this gets out the fallout could be massive.

    US, EU and many top western officials on board, an entirely complicit media, and we are talking about actual nazis actually killing civilians on the doorstep of actual Europe, and looking at war with Russia.

    If if it gets enough attention this could cause a big impact across the globe. Interesting times.

    centerline 28 Jan 2015 18:23

    The video goes on to counter claims from Russian-state media that the Euromaidan protests in Kiev were a US funded coup.

    Full Spectrum Dominance. Part of the US military doctrine.

    Full spectrum dominance includes the physical battlespace; air, surface and sub-surface as well as the electromagnetic spectrum and information space. Control implies that freedom of opposition force assets to exploit the battlespace is wholly constrained.

    https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Full-spectrum_dominance.html

    unended 28 Jan 2015 18:18

    From the article:

    It also accuses pro-Russian separatists of forcing many in Crimea "at gunpoint" to vote in favour of joining Russia.

    From the Pew Research Center:

    Crimean residents are almost universally positive toward Russia. At least nine-in-ten have confidence in Putin (93%) and say Russia is playing a positive role in Crimea (92%). Confidence in Obama is almost negligible at 4%, and just 2% think the U.S. is having a good influence on the way things are going on the Crimean peninsula. . . .

    For their part, Crimeans seem content with their annexation by Russia. Overwhelming majorities say the March 16th referendum was free and fair (91%) and that the government in Kyiv ought to recognize the results of the vote (88%).p> http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/

    I wonder what would make these western Ukrainian students think that about Crimea? Could it have something to do with having been subjected to "rampant propaganda"?

    Manolo Torres 28 Jan 2015 17:57

    And from where did this students get this idea? Perhaps From their own ministry of truth?

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/19/-sp-ukraine-new-ministry-truth-undermines-battle-for-democracy

    Was it a US initiative?

    Ukraine freedom support act.
    Expanded Broadcasting in Former Soviet Republics:
    Mandates the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors to submit a plan and cost estimate to increase Russian-language broadcasting into countries of the former Soviet Union funded by the United States in order to counter Russian propaganda

    Is it perhaps just another youtube video operation, produced by neoconservatives in the NED and the US State department?, in the style of the "I am an Ukrainian?" Perhaps it was made by the same RFE/RL, whose origins we all know?

    I wonder if this students would be as "receptive" as this citizens in Kiev, when a woman from Luhansk was trying to tell them about her experience with airstrikes on June the 2nd.

    Judge by yourselves, it seems to me that the Ukrainian students should be addressing themselves.

    jonsid 28 Jan 2015 17:46

    And the smearing starts. First shot by Radio Fuck Europe.

    New Greek Government Has Deep, Long-Standing Ties With Russian Eurasianist Dugin

    A five year old could write the script....

    http://www.rferl.org/content/greek-syriza-deep-ties-russian-eurasianist-dugin/26818523.html

    1waldo1 28 Jan 2015 17:30

    And these very attractive and innocent-looking students did this all on their own. Not a word of encouragement from the new Ministry of Propaganda or whatever it's called in Kiev.
    And how did the video reach the Guardian so quickly?

    [Jan 28, 2015] Ukraine at war: 'People feel abandoned'

    Those brazen propagandists from Guardian now resort to postmodernism: "The fighting has intensified dramatically since last week". In reality this is indiscriminate shelling of Donetsk, one million city by Kiev army. Ukrainian army is shelling one million city in the center of Europe and nobody in Western capitals gives a f*ck.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Until recently, I also thought as you. But recently it became known fact that it was the Maidan smokescreen. Matter was not addressed in the Maidan. The question was decided in quiet rooms. Maidan does not put pressure on decision-making. (This issue was resolved in Washington) ..."
    "... To me, the conflict is all about the the Galicians wanting to eradicate Russian civic identity. The Galicians have been like that from the start. In that respect, they are kind of like fanatics. ..."
    "... It seems Russain Orthodox commanders did not take well the Scientologist from Lviv (Yats) and the Baptist with strong connections with the PL govt. (Turch.). ..."
    "... The Ukrainian army is attacking its own people in the south east using indiscriminate shelling. The rebels have been defending for almost a year ..."
    "... The reality is that most Ukrainians are not motivated to fight for Kiev. The Ukrainian people want peace. Only the Galician ideologically driven hard cores are willing to do combat, and their morale is falling fast because of their endless defeats. ..."
    "... Ukrainian military casualties are roughly 3,500 killed in action, and another 9,000 wounded. That is shocking. Kiev is trying to hide the magnitude of the disaster from its own people, but Ukrainian citizens are becoming aware of the horrible battle losses. Entire villages in Ukraine are reportedly ignoring Kiev's draft notices. ..."
    Jan 28, 2015 | The Guardian

    The fighting has intensified dramatically since last week and the situation here is deteriorating rapidly. In the past five days, there has been heavy fighting. We hear the constant boom of shelling and crackle of shooting.

    More than 70 houses are reported to have been damaged or destroyed in the last week, and several hospitals have been damaged since the fighting began in the summer. In recent days, a building of a psychiatric institution that we're supporting was destroyed by shelling.

    It's getting more complicated to get into the areas caught in the conflict. Last week the checkpoints to cross into the rebel-controlled areas were closed and no one has been allowed to pass.

    Medical supply lines have been cut and little medicine is getting through, as has been the case for months. When Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) started working here in May, we focused on supplying hospitals on the frontline with kits to treat war injuries. Obviously, when you're in a conflict zone, the frontline is where the people are being seriously injured and killed.

    After months of stress on the health system, it is clear that the conflict is having an impact on the whole population of the area. Basic healthcare, maternity care, treatment of chronic diseases; everything is affected.

    ... ... ...


    Mij Swerdna shakesomeaction 28 Jan 2015 18:56

    More like Kiev won't let Donbas decide it's own destiny. It is not they who have gone to the west to kill. More like the other way around.


    Mij Swerdna alpamysh 28 Jan 2015 18:04

    Everyone here is responsible for their own actions. The side you are against is not responsible for what both sides do. People like you are devoid of compassion until hardships that you regard with indifference are visited on you and yours.

    And then it's people like you who cry and whine the loudest.

    Mij Swerdna -> alpamysh 28 Jan 2015 17:57

    What are talking about? They did those things at Maidan- but that was okay because you sympathize with neo-Nazis. Hypocrite.

    Mij Swerdna -> vr13vr 28 Jan 2015 16:07

    And the Holodomor did not take place anywhere near the ones who go on about it the most. It happened in eastern Ukraine and southern Russia.

    Mij Swerdna -> Pomario 28 Jan 2015 15:33

    Your imagination seems to go to any lengths to make Russia a villain. You are motivated by hatred (bigotry, the stupid kind).

    Mij Swerdna -> firstgeordie 28 Jan 2015 15:26

    Very bigoted of you. Actually, they are more apt to sacrifice. I wouldn't confuse that virtue with a lack of respect for life because that very lack is more than rampant in the west except that there is a growing tendency on the part of the west to arrange for "lesser" peoples to serve as cannon fodder.

    Mij Swerdna -> Pomario 28 Jan 2015 15:14

    Not quite. What he was worried about was the massive propaganda blitz that would have resulted if Russia had opted to honor the Donbas referendum and annexed it. As it turns out, he needn't have. They were going to do what they were going to do to Russia regardless. They should have saved Donbas because those incompetent cowards in the west would not have challenged them militarily if they were part of Russia. There would be wailing and gnashing of teeth to be sure- but no destroyed infrastructure and no thousands of dead civilians and refugees.

    The real aggressors in this conflict are the people who want to exterminate the people of Donbas. I am judging by actions mind you, not the lawyer like gibberish used to justify those actions. If it walks like a duck...

    buttonbasher81 Robobenito 28 Jan 2015 14:51

    Again you haven't actually stated what is meant by support, all you use are conjecture and conspiracy by reffering back to bad things the US has done in the past. All the thousands of people marching on the streets were all CIA operatives were they? Sounds about as believeable as putins Russian soldiers being in the East of Ukraine on holiday to me. And don't trot out that 5bn line, its been stated again and again that was spent over a number of years in the Ukraine and moreover some of which would have gone to Yanukovychs Government. You going to argue the US paid him to overthrow himself?


    Mij Swerdna Jeremn 28 Jan 2015 08:43


    They are inhuman. Kiev is ideologically driven by Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Volyn (with US blessing).These oblasts had the highest voter turnout and were solidly in Yat's corner. The fact that the actual far right parties did not do well in elections means nothing. They are hiding behind Yats.


    Kolo07 -> EddieGrey1967USA 28 Jan 2015 04:25

    Until recently, I also thought as you.

    But recently it became known fact that it was the Maidan smokescreen.

    Matter was not addressed in the Maidan. The question was decided in quiet rooms.

    Maidan does not put pressure on decision-making. (This issue was resolved in Washington)


    EddieGrey1967USA BMWAlbert 27 Jan 2015 21:58

    You are probably correct about the numbers of troops involved in Crimea. Thanks for the more accurate info. Still, your figures aren't too far out of line with mine.

    I agree with your final comment about Donbas and a national unity government. It is quite interesting to consider what might have followed if the Euromaidan crew had been smart enough to reach out immediately to Donbass last February. Indeed, if they had included Donbass powerbrokers from the early days, they might have held the country together.

    However, to include Donbass powerbrokers in Euromaidan, the new government would have needed to distance itself from the Galician ultranationalists. Do you think that could have happened in theory? My guess is that it couldn't have happened, now that I think about it. I say that because the Galicians were -- and continue to be -- a powerhouse behind the entire Euromaidan revolt, in addition to shaping the government that followed.

    To me, the conflict is all about the the Galicians wanting to eradicate Russian civic identity. The Galicians have been like that from the start. In that respect, they are kind of like fanatics.

    EddieGrey1967USA -> Oskar Jaeger 27 Jan 2015 21:52

    There's a big difference between Serbia and Ukraine, though. That's because the USA is backing the nationalists in Kiev, essentially encouraging them to pursue the dream of an enlarged Ukraine, or a Greater Ukraine (fighting war to keep colonies in Donbass, etc.). By contrast, the USA was opposing Milosevic's efforts to create a Greater Serbia.

    So, even after Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko, Lysenko, Parubiy, etc. are defeated and overthrown, they will never face war crimes tribunals. That's because they will have American protection.

    The only exception to this situation is if the Russians actually capture Yats, Poroshenko, Parubiy etc. and charge them with war crimes. However I don't think this will happen. Most likely Yats & Co will escape west before that ever happens.

    You make a very interesting point about Ukraine being divided on the issue of joining the EU and Russia. In that sense, post war Ukraine could resemble post-Milosevic Serbia. I agree.


    BMWAlbert -> Oskar Jaeger 27 Jan 2015 19:51

    Eddue, the Krim figures I have read state that there were 18,000 (maybe 2500 is paper strength, NOT the real strength).

    Of these 18K I believe about one third (circa 6000) stayed with UA army and were allowed to leave.

    Of the 12000 UA Army troops remaining, only half actually joined the RU Army. 6000 thus chose a 'middle way'. That 12000 total may be aligned with the 13000 figure you cite (?).

    It might be noted that the whole of the semi-autonomous province might not have been lost at all had commanders of the UA Army reserve forces actually acted in March 2014 (as ordered) to secure the isthmus. They did not move. It seems Russain Orthodox commanders did not take well the Scientologist from Lviv (Yats) and the Baptist with strong connections with the PL govt. (Turch.).

    Different people have different views on which North American and EU countries might have had influence over these important initial choices for PM and President at a time when UA needed a national unity govt. NOT a single cabinet post was chosen from Donbas. Not smart.


    EddieGrey1967USA 27 Jan 2015 18:12

    What will become of Ukraine, when this is all over?

    When a nation is defeated in war, all of its people undergo psychological shock. The country questions its self-worth, and it experiments with changes in politics, culture, and social issues. Defeated nations do this as they come to terms with the realization that they have failed the ultimate test.

    These periods of anguished, inward self-reflection on a national scale are especially true for countries that are defeated and conquered. We saw this in France after 1817, during the so-called La Belle Epoque. Something similar happened in Prussia after 1806, and in Germany after 1918 and 1945.

    Ukraine will not only suffer defeat, but it may also lose its independence. How will this generation of young Ukrainians -- the so called Euromaidan Generation -- react to this national trauma? Everything that they have been raised to believe about themselves and their country will have been proven to be false...mythological. Just one big lie.

    Young Ukrainians, after this war, will totally lose respect for the leaders movements like Euromaidan. These young people will question their own values and beliefs. Like the Germans after 1945, Ukrainians, I think, will then work hard to create a new and honest society for themselves. They will renounce ultranationalism, and they will advocate the virtues of peace and political stability.

    That is when Ukraine's true moment of glory will occur. Defeated, conquered...true....but repentant, wise, and progressive. Ukrainians will then be celebrated worldwide for their maturity and commitment to peace, just like the West Germans after 1945.

    EddieGrey1967USA -> Oskar Jaeger 27 Jan 2015 18:02

    You are wrong. The rebel army is large and strong, particularly since so many Donbass men are now enlisting. Read yesterday's article in DB written by Kyiv Post writer/hack/propagandist James Miller and his colleague, Michael Weiss. They confirm this.

    ID8787761 -> alpamysh 27 Jan 2015 15:12

    Not true. US or UK solider caught on camera in Mariopul:
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-25/out-my-face-please-why-are-us-soldiers-mariupol

    The general is far from alone.

    Actually you're not getting it old boy. The Ukrainian army is attacking its own people in the south east using indiscriminate shelling. The rebels have been defending for almost a year. And you plucked that 9000 number from thin air. Without tangible evidence your statement of 9000 people is meaningless.

    EddieGrey1967USA 27 Jan 2015 15:11

    What surprises me especially is that Western news suppresses information about the severity of Ukrainian military defeats. The Western media has been doing this from the very beginning.

    For example, in Crimea last March, 13,000 Ukrainian troops defected to the Russians immediately. That is out of a total of 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Crimea at the time. Only a few Western media sources reported the shocking truth about these Ukrainian defections.

    The reality is that most Ukrainians are not motivated to fight for Kiev. The Ukrainian people want peace. Only the Galician ideologically driven hard cores are willing to do combat, and their morale is falling fast because of their endless defeats.

    At this point in time, I would imagine that the Galician troops must feel overawed and frightened at the prospect of doing combat with the pro-Russian rebels. Does the Ukrainian military even have medical psychiatric support to treat the combat trauma suffered by these troops?

    What will happen after the war, when these defeated and traumatized soldiers -- many suffering from combat induced psychosis -- return home to Galicia? It's upsetting to realize the things that might happen.

    But Kiev started this war....the Donbass people didn't start it.

    EddieGrey1967USA 27 Jan 2015 15:05

    Ukraine is facing total disaster now, kind of like a sinking ship. It's economy is destroyed, and it is losing a war so badly that all of Ukraine may eventually be conquered by the rebels.

    Ukrainian military casualties are roughly 3,500 killed in action, and another 9,000 wounded. That is shocking. Kiev is trying to hide the magnitude of the disaster from its own people, but Ukrainian citizens are becoming aware of the horrible battle losses. Entire villages in Ukraine are reportedly ignoring Kiev's draft notices.

    For historicians, social scientists, and economists, Ukraine is a classic case of a nation in defeat. The experts are observing Ukraine closely as it disintegrates.

    All of this would have been avoided if only the Euromaidan government consisted of reasonable people.

    [Jan 26, 2015] Ukraine's advantage for the new German empire is precisely that it doesn't exist by Olivier Berruyer

    EMMANUEL TODD GERMANY'S FASTHOLDON THE EUROPEAN An interview CONTINENT by Olivier Berruyer

    OB: The integration of the Ukrainian population by the German system would represent a qualitative jump in this dynamic unbalance. Granted, it is a numerous population, but it is poor and produces little…

    ET: Yes, but annexing the geographically contiguous and politically controllable poor, in a globalized world craving low-cost labor forces, can be an advantage. Our world is now post-democratic and un-egalitarian; it therefore fosters virtual expansion in zones of very low salary rates.

    And Ukraine's advantage for the new German empire is precisely that it doesn't exist. It is double, even triple. It is a disintegrating system. In reality, Ukraine has never existed as a correctly functioning national entity. It's a false state, and it is bankrupt. The fundamental proof of Ukrainian incapacity of statehood, and this has not been stressed, is the role played by the leaders of the Western Ukrainians, at the periphery of the country. One sometimes gets indignant over this, and starts counting their deputies, their ministers, but the Western Ukrainians, altogether, do not represent much. However, what is striking, is the inaction of the central Ukrainians, that is, those who speak Ukrainian, who do not like the Russians that much, who belong originally to the Orthodox religion but who are not tempted by the far-right. The rise in power of Western Ukraine shows at what point Central Ukraine, which is the majority, is atomized, incapable of organizing itself, in a state of pre-statehood.

    The confrontation playing itself out between the Ukrainian far-right and the pro-Russians in Eastern Ukraine makes evident the historical inexistence of the country. The Western Ukrainians want to adhere to Europe. This is perfectly normal as far as they are concerned: why would extreme-right movements which have a tradition of collaborating with Nazi Germany refuse to join a Europe under German control?

    All this said, this exceptional Ukrainian catch has not yet been bagged by Germany. The game, or rather the war, is only beginning.

    As for the Central Ukrainians, I think that the question has been taken care of. The system will continue disintegrating: the GDP will contract, the situation will get worse, and I think that this is the real reason why the Russians are so prudent, are so little inclined to go to war and, contrarily to what is being asserted, do not want to annex bits and pieces of Ukraine. Russia is not afraid of Western sanctions. But it does not want to become hated in Central Ukraine. In its central mass, Ukraine is mistrustful of Russia at the present stage, but one must recognize to the Russians a great historical capacity to play with space and time. After two years of being handled by German Europe, what will the people of Kiev think? Maybe they will want to return to Moscow. A disintegrating system does not adhere, it continues disintegrating.

    OB: Let's return to the global might of the American system, which is so far away from Ukraine, and therefore has very little capacity to benefit from its integration-disintegration through the " Western system."

    ET: The American system, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, is the control by the United States of the two great industrial regions of Eurasia, Japan and Germany. But this can function only under the condition of the hypothesis where America itself is clearly superior in terms of industrial weight (see table on the right )

    As early as 1928, the American industrial production represented 45% of the total world industrial output. After the war, in 1945, America still represented 45%. Now America is down to 17.5 %: the Brzezinski system of a control of Eurasia cannot hold in regard of the present numbers. As I observed in After the Empire, its economic exchanges with Ukraine are insignificant. In Eastern Europe, NATO is in fact securing a German space. One should re-actualize, for the sake of Washington, the French expression "to wage war for the King of Prussia".

    OB: In such a context, what future can there be for German-American relations?

    ET: If you live in the enchanted world of the presently dominant ideology of the newspaper Le Monde, of François Hollande, which is also the ideology of naive anti-imperialists, the Western block, a union of America and Europe, with its ward Japan, must and can contain Russia. In the hypothesis that presuppose a good strategic understanding and a strong collaboration between partners, the West could defeat the Russian economy. Maybe… But then there is China, India, Brazil, the world is big…

    But if we move into the world of strategic realism, which sees the reality of the relationships of power without a reference to real or mythic values, we see that there exist presently two great developed industrial worlds, America on the one side and this new German empire on the other. Russia is a secondary question. We must therefore foresee a completely different future for the twenty years to come than the East-West conflict: the rise in power of the German system suggests that the United States and Germany are moving in the direction of conflict. This is an intrinsic logic founded upon relations of force and domination. In my view it is unrealistic to foresee a peaceful co-existence for the future.

    Yet at this stage, we may reintroduce the notion of value. But precisely in order to stress that, for an anthropologist, in his own way a realist, or for a historian of the long term, the United States and Germany do not share the same values. Confronted with the economic stress of the Great Depression, America, the country of liberal democracy, produced Roosevelt, whereas Germany, a country of an authoritarian and non-egalitarian culture, produced Hitler.

    Granted that the belief of Americans in equality is very relative. The United States are the leading country in the rise of economic inequalities – even when putting aside segregation towards the Blacks, a problem which is far from having been solved, as can be seen from the riots in Ferguson. But it is also, at the present stage, a leading country

    But it is also, at the present stage, a leading country in its attempt to create a unified world, with populations of very diverse origins. In this sense, the election of Obama remains strongly symbolic, despite the evident wear and tear shown by the President during his second term.

    If one takes only into account the corpus of citizens of Germany, we can say that the rise of inequalities remains very reasonable, much lower to what we can observe in the Anglo-American world. But if one observes the German system in its European globality, integrating the low salaries of Eastern Europe and the compressions of salaries in the South, one can identify a system of a much stronger un-egalitarian domination in a state of gestation. The equality in this case is left as a concern for only the dominant, German citizens.

    At this stage, I will take up this concept of political science of the Belgian anthropologist Pierre van den Berghe : the Herrenvolk democracy, that, is the democracy of the master people. Now don't jump to the ceiling! These words are not going to bring down the world – I have recently expressed myself in these terms in an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit.

    At the beginning, Pierre van den Berghe was applying this concept of an ethnic democracy to apartheid South Africa, where there existed a corpus of equal citizens which was functioning perfectly well according to the liberal and democratic rules, but whose liberty and democracy could only hold because there existed these dominated groups. It was the same for America at the time of segregation: the internal equality of the white group was assured by its domination over the Indians, the Blacks… One could in the same way characterize Israel as being a Herrenvolk democracy. What cohesion and liberty there is in the Israeli democracy is bolstered by the existence of an enemy mass of Arabs.

    If I had to describe present day Europe, if I had to comment the economic map at the political level, I would say that Europe, or the German Empire, is beginning to take the general shape of a Herrenvolk democracy with, at its heart, a German democracy reserved for the dominating people and, around it, a whole hierarchy of populations more or less dominated, whose votes no longer have any importance. It is easier to understand, in such a model, why, when one elects a President in France, nothing happens. Because he no longer has any power: particularly not on the monetary system.

    So one finds oneself in a democracy in which the liberties of the press, of opinion, and others, are perfectly respected; where there is no problem but where, fundamentally, the stability of the system rests on the subconscious solidarity inside the dominating group. In the Europe taking shape, one can see the Germans as the Whites in segregation America.

    Presently, political inequality is evidently stronger in the German system than in the American system. The Greeks and others cannot vote in the elections to the Bundestag, whereas the Blacks and the Latinos can vote in presidential and congressional elections. The European Parliament is baloney, the American Congress is not.

    OB: After such an indictment, do you think that we should be more vigilant to-wards Germany?

    ET: It's true that I am pessimistic. The probability that Germany will turn out right is getting lower every day. It is quite small already. The authoritarian German culture generates a systemic mental instability of the leaders when they are in a situation of domination – something that has not happened since the war. Their frequent historical incapacity – in a situation of dominance – of imagining a peaceful and reasonable future for everybody re-emerges today in the form of an export mania.

    To this is now added, for these leaders, the interaction with Polish absurdity and Ukrainian violence. Sadly, the fate of Germany doesn't appear to me as a total unknown.

    In what way will the Germans turn wrong? The median age or the absence of a military apparatus may put a brake to the process, but one notices every week a radicalization in the German posture. Contempt for the English, for the Americans, shameless visit of Merkel to Kiev. The relationship to the French, the voluntary servitude of whom is essential for the control of Europe, will be revelatory.

    But we know already. With the affair of the sales of the Mistral to Russia: the German leaders are now asking the French to liquidate whatever military industry they have left. The German culture is un-egalitarian: it makes difficult the acceptance of a world of equals. When they are feeling that they are the strongest, the Germans will take very badly the refusal of the weaker to obey, a refusal which they perceive as unnatural, unreasonable.

    In France, it would rather be the contrary. Disobedience is a positive value. One lives with it, it's part of the French charm because in France, too, there exists a mysterious potential for order and efficiency.

    The relationship of America to discipline and inequality is complex in another way, and would deserve many pages of analysis. Let's be brief and jump to the conclusion: a disciplined inferior-superior rapport of the German type will not pass easily. Anglo-Saxon culture is not egalitarian but it is truly liberal. Equal, unequal, it's the same thing in the end. The reasonable difference made within families between brothers leads to the notion of a reasonable difference among individuals, among peoples. This is actually the reason for the success of the American model: the Anglo-American culture is capable of managing reasonably international differences.

    In the end, we cannot but observe that both blocks – the American and the German – are antagonist by nature. They combine all the elements which generate conflict: rupture in the brute economic balance, difference in values. The faster Russia will be out of the game, either broken or marginalized, the faster these differences will come to express themselves.

    For me, the real historical question at present, the one nobody is asking, is the following: will the Americans accept to see this new reality of a Germany which is threatening them, and if yes, when?

    OB: When you are prophesizing a conflict between the American nation and the new German empire, are you sure of yourself?

    ET: Of course not. I am only broadening the prospective field. I am describing one possible future among other possible futures. Another would be a solidifying of the group Russia-China-India in a continental block opposing the Western Euro-American block. But this Eurasian block can only function with the addition of Japan, who alone is capable of bringing it up to the Western technological level. But what will Japan do? For the time being, it is more loyal towards the United States than is Germany. But it might get tired of the old Western conflicts.

    The present shock is paralyzing its rapprochement with Russia, which should be completely logical for it from the energetic and military point of view, an important element in the new political course engaged by the Japanese Prime Minister Abe. This is another risk for the United States, deriving from the new aggressive German course.

    OB: Several futures are possible, but not an infinity; 4 or 5, maybe…

    ET: I have gone back to reading science fiction in order to deep-cleanse my brain and open my mind. I much recommend an exercise of the same type to the people who are our leaders and who, without knowing where they are going, are pressing ahead with such a firm step.

    [Jan 26, 2015] Ukrainian Forces Struggle as Fighting Flares in East

    Like in any neo-colonial war the main casualties suffer civil population. this is not yet the scale of Iraq war were almost a million perished, but it can became very similar. the only difference is that Iraq was war for oil, while Ukraine is fight for geopolitical space for EWU and first of all Germany, as well as for implementation of encircling of Russia plan by the USA. Starting from the February coup this is yet another color revolution initiated by West, which turn in civil war. Poor Ukraine. It has wrong space on the map with Russia on one side and NATO on the other.
    NYTimes.com

    The shattered remains of a tank bearing a tattered Ukrainian flag sat beside the main highway to Mariupol on Monday afternoon, a remnant of what pro-Russian rebel forces said was a failed attempt by Ukrainian forces to push into rebel-held territory a few days after a shelling attack left 30 dead in that port city.

    With a cease-fire in shreds, pro-Russian separatist forces mounting regular new attacks and the Ukrainian military struggling to rebound from losses at the Donetsk airport last week, eastern Ukraine is seeing by far the heaviest fighting since August. Thunderous artillery blasts could be heard from several directions Monday in the largely isolated city of Donetsk.

    The Ukrainian government declared a state of emergency in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the areas controlled by the rebels, and put the entire country on high alert. In Brussels, at the request of the Ukrainian government, the ambassadors from 28 NATO nations were set to meet on Monday to discuss the situation, the first such gathering since August.

    Separatist leaders have said they had no choice last week but to end the shaky cease-fire, which had been in effect since September, and begin offensives to push back Ukrainian forces attacking rebel-held cities.

    Ukrainian military officials said the rebel attacks followed a prolonged buildup of heavy weaponry and troops from Russia, something the Kremlin vociferously denies. However, Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, had some harsh words for the Ukrainian military, which he derided as a tool of the West.

    On a visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, he said that men were fleeing to Russia rather than become "cannon fodder" in Ukraine's military. "In essence, this is not an army," he said. "This is a foreign legion - in this particular case NATO's foreign legion, which of course does not pursue the objective of serving Ukraine's national interests."

    Ukrainian officials said that seven of their soldiers had been killed and at least two dozen were wounded in Monday's fighting. There were reports of some deaths and many casualties in rebel-held regions, but officials there offered no estimates. In all, United Nations human rights officials have said, more than 5,000 people have been killed since fighting started in eastern Ukraine early last year.

    [Jan 25, 2015] What are Ukrainians fighting for

    The key problem is that Ukraine became a satellite of EU, which does not want to pay any money and all it wants is a market for EU goods and cheap work force. The USA are destroying the country while pursuing their imperial ambitions. Nobody is interested in real independence or economic revival of Ukraine. In both cases the county is viewed as neo-colony, not as an independent state. And compradors that are now running the country are completely subservient to the West.
    January 23, 2015 | New Cold War Ukraine and Beyond

    What are Ukrainians fighting for?

    Commentary By Halyna Mokrushyna, published on Counterpunch Jan. 23, 2015

    What is truth? Can it be absolute? There is a saying in Ukrainian which says: "Everybody has her/his own truth".

    Ukrainians have their own truth – they are fighting a war against imperialist Russia, against "Rascists"(a play on words – Russia plus fascists). A patriotic drive sweeps across the country: people collect money to buy equipment and uniform for their sons, husbands, brothers who are going to the east to fight in war. Ordinary Ukrainians, whose earnings have been cut in half by inflation and a nearly fifty per cent depreciation of the national currency, are sending text messages to urge donations to support the Ukrainian army.

    The high command of the Ukrainian army sends the sons of the Ukrainian nation to the meat grinder in Donbas [the region of southeast Ukraine where the war is raging] unprepared, underequipped and ignorant about the current situation on the battlefield. Those who present themselves to the recruitment centers are told they must buy their own ammunition.

    Agents of the Russian secret police, the FSB, are said to be blending into the crowds of relatives and friends of new recruits, giving out free alcohol in the conscription lineups, trying to make the new recruits drunk and unfit for military service. Agents of the FSB are everywhere, even in the National Bank of Ukraine. According to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, around 200 FSB agents are working on destabilizing the foreign exchange market of Ukraine, sending the national Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, into a tailspin.

    Insurgents in Donbas have also their own truth. They are fighting against a fascist junta in Kyiv. They are repeating over and over again to Ukrainians: do not send your sons to our territory. They will be killed. And they were killed, including in the surrealistic, Armageddon-style futuristic decors of the Donetsk airport. When I watch videos of interviews of these Ukrainian soldiers captured by Donbas insurgency, I feel such a deep sorrow. As Bezler, one of the leaders of the insurgency, said, these simple guys–kolkhozniki (peasants) and workers–are taken from their ploughs and their machine tools and driven like cattle to fight against "Russian terrorists".

    In the spring of last year, Ukrainian soldiers and Donbas rebels were sitting at the same table–eating the same food, drinking the same vodka and singing the same songs. These are the words of one of the officers of the Ukrainian army, who was born in Donetsk. He pronounced them during Skype talks with a leader of the insurgency, Alexei Mozghovoi, that were broadcast on the Internet. These local talks were initiated by the Ukrainian side in the hope of finding a peaceful solution to this absurd, fratricide war. There are other signs of Ukrainians reaching out to rebellious Donbas.

    This war is absurd. When one watches videos of the ruins in Donetsk and interviews with local people, they are all saying: "We do not want this war. Stop it!"

    The Ukrainian President recently stated that he will restore the 'Ukrainianness' in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. What 'Ukrainianness' does he mean? A European one, to which western Ukraine believes to have belonged all throughout its history? Judging by his speeches, this is what Poroshenko means.

    In the law on special status of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) on September 16, are spelled out answers to the demands of Donbas. Self government: people elect officials on all levels of municipal and regional administration, and local officials "participate in the appointment of prosecutor general and judges". Regional economic autonomy and the right to conduct "a trans-border" cooperation with "certain" regions and cities in Russia. The right to use Russian and other minority languages in public and private life. Ukrainian state support of socio-economic development of the region. Finally, the law also stated somewhat vaguely that the state guarantees that persons who "participated in the event [rebellion] on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions" will not be prosecuted.

    This law is imperfect, imprecise and far from complete. "Certain districts", temporary status for three years… But the principles stated in this law is what Ukraine needs if it wants to survive.

    I received a letter from my close friend in Kyiv. She says that now Ukrainians care much less about material aspects of life. Fundamental values, such as human life, love, and support came to the forefront. They watch on TV burials of Ukrainian soldiers, young and old, without tears. They have become used to the bad news and inured to it.

    This civil war is tragic and absurd. The Euromaidan movement in western Ukraine and the "Russian spring" response to it in eastern Ukraine, then the Donetsk rebellion, were said to be about the same thing: government free of corruption, a socially-oriented state and a life with dignity. Insurgents in Donetsk have stated on many occasions that they do not want to fight against fellow Ukrainians. They are defending their land from people who intervened from the west. They did not start this war. Kyiv started it, masquerading it as an "anti-terrorist" operation. Kyiv must stop it before Donbas is lost to Ukraine forever. All the tools are there. The only thing lacking is an independent political will of the Ukrainian leadership.

    What we see, instead, is an increasing militarization of Ukrainian official political discourse and the government budget. Millions more are needed to buy weaponry, while Ukraine is on the brink of economic default. The Ukrainian police now has the right to apply without warning physical force and firearms to those who are deemed "terrorists" or "separatists" by the law. The Ukrainian government is waging a real war under the disguise of an "anti-terrorist operation". The Ukrainian army is continuing its indiscriminate shellings of cities and towns in Donbas. New deaths of civilians, new destroyed houses: Horlivla, Stakhanov, Slavianosebsk. If this is a war with Russia, why not declare it officially?

    A "bloody pastor", Turcnynov, the secretary of the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine, came to Donetsk to take personal command of Ukrainian warrior "cyborgs" heroically defending a Donetsk airport reduced by Ukraine to rubble and in the hands of insurgency. I doubt Mr. Turchynov will be at the front line, or will lead the charge taking Ukrainian soldiers to victory.

    Donetsk insurgents have declared themselves to be grandsons of Soviet soldiers who fought and won the Second World War. That is, they will fight to the finish to repel any presence of fascism from their homeland. The Ukrainian leadership should heed these words.

    [Jan 24, 2015] A typical pattern of behaviour of western MSM in Ukraine civil war coverage

    Looks like cold War Ii started and propaganda is in full swing. Propaganda is generally an appeal to emotion, not intellect. There are four conditions for a message to be considered propaganda. Propaganda involves the intention to persuade and deceive. Propaganda is sent on behalf of a state, organization, or cause. It is distributed to a significant group of people. Finally, propaganda is a struggle for mind of people (as the term brainwashing implies).
    Notable quotes:
    "... The MSM finds the shelling of civilians newsworthy only when it can be blamed on the rebels. ..."
    Jan 24, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

    karl1haushofer , January 24, 2015 at 7:34 am

    Western MSM is having a field day over the Mariupol GRAD attack that killed civilians and was supposedly done by the rebels. The MSM finds the shelling of civilians newsworthy only when it can be blamed on the rebels.

    Finnish MSM is in a full propaganda swing. They are ignoring the shelling in Gorlovka that has killed many civilians but are reporting the Mariupol shelling with big headlines. And they are once again censoring the user comments with a heavy hand that try to point of the media hypocrisy.

    [Jan 24, 2015] OPINION - the Monster came for his Creator by Darya Mitina

    France reports about the prevention of another terrorist attack, and it is possible that he also has Islamic footprint. Those developments French authorities are trying to explain within the topic of freedom of speech and insult religious feelings, but we must not forget that France has made a tremendous contribution to the strengthening of radical Islamists. Primarily by its participation in the Syrian war.

    An interesting coincidence: the day before the tragedy with the execution of cartoonists French President Francois Hollande, speaking on radio France Inter, expressed regret that the French did not invaded Syria in 2013, when " the chemical weapons there were used," In the same program, answering the question whether France will cooperate with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against ISIL, Hollande said that it is better to avoid such relationships.

    "The presidents Sarkozy and Hollande literally forced the French diplomatic corps and intelligence to falsify data, which served as a justification for the overthrow of Assad"

    However, not all will find such a coincidence revealing. Because of the abundance of people willing to take responsibility for the terrorist act, the world community still has doubts about the chief culprit. The ownership of extremists now is loudly disputed al-Qaeda and separated from it the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). We still do not know about the results of the investigation yet, and any of them can be the perpetrator, but we should think about how the powerful organization which was able to capture half of Iraq and a third of Syria emerged and why there is a French footprint in this whole story.

    The reason of the active participation of France in the current events related to repartitioning of the Middle East is clear - with the collapse of the world colonial system collapsed so-called "Sykes - Picot" framework, which in the beginning of XX century defined spheres of influence of Western powers in the region. In recent years, Paris put tremendous efforts in restoring its presence on the African continent: it was due the initiative of France that Libya was practically wiped off the face of the earth. As a result of direct French military intervention occurred coups and began a bloody war in Côte D'ivoire and Mali. No less aggressive French government behaves in the Syria and Lebanon, which its traditionally considered its own colonies. Volume were written about the role the United States and other Western powers in creation and nurturing long-term growth of terrorist organizations like al-Qaida, but it is difficult not to note the special role of France in those events, especially its role in the incitement of the current civil conflict in Syria. The tragedy that spawned ISIL in the form in which we now know it.

    With the coming to power of the younger Assad France tried to restore its influence in the country, proposing to the Syrian government reform package. A key innovation was the re-equipment of the Syrian army, reducing its number, rejection of military-technical cooperation with Russia and China and the shift towards France of all programs of the acquisition of military equipment. The French plan had been developed with the involvement of closely associated with the Saudi elite and personally Jacques Chirac Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, It was rejected by Assad, A move that predetermined the further anti-Syrian strategy of the French authorities. Another worry for French was the desire of Damascus toward the establishment of closer economic relations with Turkey, In general, the death sentence to the government of Bashar al-Assad was signed much earlier than the beginning of the so-called "Arab spring".

    Analyst STRATFOR Scott Stewart called France "the most consistent supporter of tough measures against Syria from all European countries".

    Over the centuries the methods, in fact, has not changed - still the same game on the contradictions of ethnic and religious minorities. Hoping to regain lost positions in independent and secular Syrian Republic Paris creates simulacra - prototypes neo-colonial administration, privacy for this runaway Syrian officials and saturating money and weapons dummy patterns émigré opposition. It is no coincidence that in Paris found refuge the richest man in Syria, the oligarch and former Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, cherishing the dream of return to spit on the grave of Bashar al-Assad" (back in 2006, he announced the creation of "the Syrian government in exile").

    It was in Paris with the help of French secret service defected the son of a former defense Minister, commander of the elite 10th brigade of the Republican guard General Manaf Tlass, publicly, through the media, thanking the government of France for the organization of his escape. Paris is now the center of attraction Syrian losers - including the new political alignment of clowns calling themselves the National coalition of Syrian revolutionary and opposition forces (NCSROF). It is not surprising that France became the first state to officially recognize this "government in exile" and organized a public fundraising for the organization in the "liberated from Assad" (read: occupied by insurgents) areas. And again, it was France at the beginning of the Syrian revolt initiated the creation of the so-called "group of friends of Syria", and de facto anti-Syrian coalition consisting of 11 countries (UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Italy, Germany, France, Egypt, USA and UK), which today plays first fiddle in the conflict. For any couple of years by the efforts of this coalition was established mobilization structure which was capable to destabilize the situation in Syria and ultimately maintain a full-fledged civil war.

    France is also the initiator and the lobbyist of all anti-Syrian resolutions in the UN security Council. Several attempts to legitimize intervention in Syria through the security Council faced a Russian veto, which, however, did not prevent the Western powers (especially the US and the same France) to provide both overt and covert support to Syrian anti-government groups. After France took on the post of the Chairman, the Paris several times brokered the sending of the UN observer mission in Syria. In addition, in June 2012, Hollande said about the need for tougher sanctions against the Syrian authorities including the use of military force, and the head of the French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius called on to create over the Republic no-fly zone based on Libyan model, calling the Syrian government "clique killers" and accusing Russia (followed by U.S. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton) in supplying Damascus weapons.

    The basis for military intervention by the French President tried to make a massacre in al-Houla, blaming the Syrian army, but then that failed it has found a new, long-running fake pretext for intervention based on supposed use by Damascus of chemical weapons. Swinging this agenda and using support of London, Paris began to push the subject of the abolition of the European embargo on arms supplies to Syrian rebels. Under France pressure at the end of February 2013, the EU Council soften the embargo, allowing to put in SAR "non-lethal goods", including armored vehicles, body armor, communications equipment and night vision devices. A little later, without waiting for a harmonized EU decision to lift the restrictions, Paris announced the readiness of their own, regardless of the position of other EU member States to arm Syrian insurgents by restoring the balance of forces in the conflict between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the opposition. "It is our duty to help the coalition and the Free Syrian army in all possible ways," said Hollande.

    Messages Syrian rebels on regular destruction of government aircraft testify about the possession of modern air defenses (formally, they are not offensive but defensive weapons and are not covered by sanctions ), and military experts clarify: we are talking about the French Mistral MANPADS. Delivery militants communications, protected from interception, the French authorities have acknowledged before, from the very beginning of the crisis. Here it is worth remembering that in the case of Libya Paris have violated the UN security Council resolution banning supply of weapons. And in the recently published book, the ideologist of the French neo-colonialism Bernard Henri levy directly says that the first list of required weapons, the defector - General Abdul Fatah Younis handed personally to President Sarkozy on the first day of their meeting at the Elysee Palace.

    In may 2014 Laurent Fabius said in Washington on 14 cases of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria since October 2013 (including chemical attack in Eastern Guta and the village of Kafr Zeta in the province of Hama), attributing them all, without exception, the Syrian army. But at the same time expressed regret that the United States is not launched in August 2013 rocket attacks on government facilities, because it would change many things." In parallel, France tried to push through the UN security Council a draft resolution transmitting the case about the situation with the civil war in Syria to the international criminal court "to deal with war crimes and crimes against humanity". And as you can guess the accused party is only the government.

    After a chemical attack near Damascus, which looked like a rough, but very timely provocation, France was the only European state, which unconditionally supported of the USA and have expressed a willingness to undertake military intervention without a UN mandate, even after a supposed ally, the UK said "no" to this initiative in the Parliament.

    In an exclusive interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, August 20, 2014 French President for the first time recognized directly in supplying terrorists with weapons:

    "Who told you that we are not supplying weapons to the rebels, that is, the democratic opposition? The international community bears a great responsibility for what is happening in Syria. If two years ago steps were taken to organize the transfer of power, we wouldn't have gotten ISIL. If a year ago the world powers react to the use of Bashar al-Assad, chemical weapons, we would not need to make a terrible choice between a dictator and a terrorist. The rebels deserve our active support."

    According to available all of the same Le Monde, the supply of arms was carried out secretly and included machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber, grenade launchers, armor, night vision goggles and communications. Formally, the assistance was directed rebel detachments which were members of the "free Syrian army", however, soon after the start of delivery, according to the French side, the fighters of the Islamic front looted armories of FSA on the Syrian-Turkish border. However, this has not affected the readiness of Paris to arm Syrian anti-government forces and forth. "We must not weaken the support that we had these rebels is the only one who shares democratic sentiments," said the President in August 2014.

    In published recently, but has already become a sensation book journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Secno "Road to Damascus: the black dossier Franco-Syrian relations" describes how the presidents Sarkozy and Hollande literally forced the French diplomatic corps and intelligence to falsify data, which served as a justification for the overthrow of Assad. In particular, information about the use of government forces of Syria's chemical weapons was falsified. On the direct orders of Hollande's special adviser of the Ministry of defense Jean-Yves Le Drian was "editing" database of the main intelligence Directorate and the General staff of France about the chemical attack in the area of Guta. This sarin attack gave rise to large-scale propaganda campaign in the press that accompanied the efforts of the French authorities to lobby through the UN authorization for use of military force.

    One of the heroes of the book, former French Ambassador to Syria Eric Chevallier warned the Elysee Palace about what is the consequence of the underestimation of the strength of positions of the Syrian government in their own country: "the Assad Regime will not fall, its position is strong, people will not turn away from him." But then foreign Minister Alain Juppe directly said to the French Ambassador in Damascus: "We don't care about your information it uninteresting. Bashar Assad must go, and he will go".

    It is extremely significant that the efforts made by France to overthrow the legitimate government in Syria are far greater than the measures taken by the West against the spread on the Middle East militants of the Islamic state, whose crimes against humanity, unlike the mythical crimes of the Syrian President, today the world is watching live. Apparently, because the enemy of my enemy may not be exactly friend, but certainly is a valuable ally.

    While we share the grief with French society, I am reminded about the words of the Minister of internal Affairs of France Manuel Valls that hundreds of Islamists with French passports today fighting in Mali, Yemen, Somalia and Syria. It is naive to assume that, in gross violation of international law in favor of the right forces, initiating several coups at the same time, cherishing and nurturing terrorist ulcers around the world, it is possible to insure its own citizens from tragic incidents like the recent terrorist attack in the staff of the satirical magazine.

    The trouble is not only that captured now by ISIL Syrian (and Iraq) territories have a highest concentration of animal cruelty on Earth (which includes is the reported execution of 13 teenagers for watching football game). The trouble is that this hotbed of Islamic extremism is spreading and has already reached other continents. ISIL very professional campaigning on the Internet and attracts new movement supporters as well as promote radicalization peaceful followers of Islam.

    ISIL now is a training camp for European Muslims, from which they are returning to the EU as "dogs of war". ISIL is a continuous source of violence. ISIL is now a real force, the brand name. and it's by-and-large due to French efforts.

    The movement would not be what it now is without weapons and logistical support from its allies, including France, and the Libyan opposition. They allow it which became a real force, which the West (and especially France) carefully nurtured.

    In other words ISIL is the Golem that has returned to hunt its Creator, who naively decided, that it can be controlled.

    [Jan 24, 2015] War Is Exploding Anew in Ukraine; Rebels Vow More

    NYTimes.com

    If one were to ask the remaining residents of Donetsk, even those who have been loyal to the Kiev government, whether they supported this new rebel advance, they would say yes, Mr. Menendez said - and not necessarily for political reasons.

    "They just want to push the front lines out of the city," he said, "to stop the shelling on them."

    [Jan 24, 2015] German expert Michael Lüders speaks of 500 Blackwater US mercenaries active in E. Ukraine

    Moscow Exile, January 23, 2015 at 7:17 am

    German expert Michael Lüders speaks of 500 Blackwater US mercenaries active in E. Ukraine and that Kiev is determined to fulfill a military solution to the separatist problem there:

    Ukraine-Krise ARD erwähnen Blackwater-Söldner

    [The Ukraine Csisis: ARD speaks of Blackwater mercenaries.]

    He says that the Yukies haven't made this decision by themselves as they are essentially insolvent and have, therefore, no money in order to engage in a lengthy war in the east. Because of this, and also because the EU does not want to see an escalation of hostilities, the Kiev regime has turned to Washington, whence 500 Blackwater mercenaries have come to the Ukrainian regime's aide. This is dangerous, he says, because this could lead to escalation that might get out of control if either side decides that it has to pull out all the stops in order to win.

    The presenter then says that this must indicate that there is no longer a dialogue between the EU and Washington.

    Lüders replies that he has reached the conclusion that the Europeans have finally realized that the US interests in the Ukraine are not the same as theirs, and in particular the heightening of tensions with Russia that will result in serious economic consequences. He talks of the reduction of trade between Germany and Russia by 50% over the past 6 months, which has caused financial losses of tens of billions of Euros, whereas the USA has comparatively very little trade with Russia. So, he says, the EU is suffering far more than the US and it is the EU that is providing financial help to the Ukraine, which is a bottomless pit and, furthermore, it is spending money on waging war in the east.

    He just goes on to say that the Ukraine will not negotiate and accuses Russia of being the aggressor etc, etc. He then says that it all boils down to the EU telling the US that it will not tolerate the unleashing of a war in Central Europe – a war distant from the American homeland – and that a middle ground should be found – not that he's saying that Russia is beyond criticism – and that a diplomatic solution be found. He talks about the dangers of such people as Yatsenyuk, who, as regards his recent speech in Berlin is trying to rewrite history. He reckons that there should no more discussions with people such as "Yats" and corporation with others in the Ukraine should be sought.

    [Jan 24, 2015] A typical pattern of behaviour of western MSM in Ukraine civil war coverage

    Looks like cold War Ii started and propaganda is in full swing. Propaganda is generally an appeal to emotion, not intellect. There are four conditions for a message to be considered propaganda. Propaganda involves the intention to persuade and deceive. Propaganda is sent on behalf of a state, organization, or cause. It is distributed to a significant group of people. Finally, propaganda is a struggle for mind of people (as the term brainwashing implies).
    Notable quotes:
    "... The MSM finds the shelling of civilians newsworthy only when it can be blamed on the rebels. ..."
    Jan 24, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

    karl1haushofer , January 24, 2015 at 7:34 am

    Western MSM is having a field day over the Mariupol GRAD attack that killed civilians and was supposedly done by the rebels. The MSM finds the shelling of civilians newsworthy only when it can be blamed on the rebels.

    Finnish MSM is in a full propaganda swing. They are ignoring the shelling in Gorlovka that has killed many civilians but are reporting the Mariupol shelling with big headlines. And they are once again censoring the user comments with a heavy hand that try to point of the media hypocrisy.

    [Jan 22, 2015] Donetsk trolleybus explosion blows Ukraine peace negotiations apart by Shaun Walker

    Notable quotes:
    "... Shaun, maybe you can explain why a few days ago the Graun/Observer printed nonsensical stories about the Ukrainian army's victory at the S.S. Prokofiev airport? ..."
    "... You never wondered why there are 300 articles on US/UK mainstream articles, *explicitly* targeted to and titled after Putin, did you? ..."
    The Guardian

    CityCalledNain 22 Jan 2015 17:33

    Shaun, maybe you can explain why a few days ago the Graun/Observer printed nonsensical stories about the Ukrainian army's victory at the S.S. Prokofiev airport?

    After the fiasco of the Graun/BBC trumpeting Ukrainian's supposed victory just before they were crushed at Ilovaisk you should have learned your lesson.

    But, once again you have made yourselves look like idiots, and once again Russian and Novorossiyan news sources have been proved to be accurate


    Vermithrax -> ShermanPotter 23 Jan 2015 07:38

    In my youth the USSR stood at the West German border with a 13-1 tank superiority. Then they were a threat. Now they are hundreds of miles further east with a fraction of the forces at their disposal. They are being used as a convenient bogeyman for policies that do not benefit Europe one jot. They have all the oil and gas Europe needs without the fundamentalist religion. In many ways now they are a natural ally, especially as the alternative is that China will benefit from it.

    I suppose there will always be some Grima Wormtongue's who think being America's fawning client state is a good idea.

    unclesmurf ijustwant2say 22 Jan 2015 17:32

    Putin, is being attacked by the same mechanism that has been attacking governments around the globe for the last seventy years. The one described here:

    http://williamblum.org/books/americas-deadliest-export

    And of course the do not care *at all* about Putin. What they care about, is that how they may get their hands on the huge natural resources of the vast slab of the planet called Russia. You see, Putin, the bad guy, is keeping everything PUBLIC, with the earnings of everything, oil, gas, weapons, going to the Russian state and nor to the bank accounts of very few, insanely rich individuals.

    But I assume you are ok with the UK privatizing British Aerospace, and having now to pay a huge surcharge to the shareholders of QinetiQ. Simply to buy the *same* weapons, designed by the *same* engineers and built by the *same* technicians. But No: "We HAVE to privatize it".

    I also assume you are ok with the trains here in the UK being a complete ripoff, because they are of course private, even if it is the government who pays for the track and even if it they private rail companies are subsidized (as if the huge ticket prices were not sufficient) by the Government, to the tune of BILLIONS annually.

    But No: "We have to privatize it".

    You never wondered why there are 300 articles on US/UK mainstream articles, *explicitly* targeted to and titled after Putin, did you?

    thingreen -> edwardrice 22 Jan 2015 17:28

    Interesting, though that working 'class' people make up bulk of soldiers is not exactly a startling revelation in any war - if you looked at the casualty lists for our anti-terrorist operations against the freedom fighters of PIRA you'd see a similar make up of people who I suspect many here would consider as dupes and economic conscripts.

    Simon311 Damocles59 23 Jan 2015 07:31

    How are they "so-called" rebels?

    It is clear these areas are beyond Kiev' s control and it is time to acknowledge this.

    And If Abkhazia and Ossetia are "basket cases" why are they not asking to join the wonderful nation of Georgia?

    Simon311 Robert Looren de Jong 23 Jan 2015 07:29

    Whatever it is clear that the people in these regions are not going to be reconciled to the Kiev Government.

    Time to recognise this and end the fighting.

    wombat123 -> Custodis 23 Jan 2015 07:26

    The people labeled "rebels" started off by refusing to recognize the leaders of the coup as a lawful government, which in fact, they were not under the Ukrainian constitution. These people included most of the police officers in eastern Ukraine. The killing started when the supporters of the coup came east and attacked those refusing to accept the coup so the fighting did not start with a rebellion as the term is normally understood.

    It is perverse to label those who oppose the violent overthrow of lawful authority as "rebels". It was clear that most people in the east thought the coup was a criminal act and its leaders were not the lawful government. It is quite clear that it was the supporters of the coup who are the aggressors and they came east and attacked people who did not accept the coup as lawful.

    Some of the first combat started when supporters of the coup started attacking police in the east. Were the police officers "rebels" for opposing the armed overthrow of their country's constitutional order and elected government? "Rebel" does not seem like an honest term for someone in that situation.

    DCarter -> Gaz0007 23 Jan 2015 07:06

    The USSR collapsed largely because it's people, particularly in the non-Russian republics, desired the same rights and freedoms as people in Western Europe and North America...all of whom managed to maintain those freedoms throughout the Cold War by forming a military alliance called NATO.

    In retrospect though those freedoms were illusory, or at best transient, and all we did was to trade domination by a party apparatus for domination by a corporate oligarchy. And it is in those corporate interests that NATO now acts, not in the interests of the people if Eastern Europe or Western Europe or even North America.

    Solongmariane -> Spiffey 23 Jan 2015 07:01

    DNR is getting experienced with the ceasefires from KIEV. It's just asking a time-out to recuoerate losses, to send re-inforcements, and to get new weapons. It was so at 6 sept, and 19 dec. Not again, such time out.

    SHappens 23 Jan 2015 06:42

    The main pro-Russian rebel leader in eastern Ukraine says his troops are on the offensive and he does not want truce talks with Kiev anymore.

    At lest this has he merit to be clear. No more hypocrisy as Kiev never intended to respect any ceasefire but used this time to regroup.

    On the other hands, when you read this below, the dice are loaded and the US goals is war against Russia whatever on the ground. This is a dialogue of the deaf.

    ---

    "This tactic of avoiding questions about what the Ukrainian government is doing by pointing to Russia is becoming increasingly obvious," the journalist said.

    Here is an excerpt from the briefing:

    Gayane Chichakyan: Do the actions of the Ukrainian government comply with the Minsk agreement?

    Jen Psaki: In general Russia has illegally – and Russian-backed separatists have illegally – come into Ukraine, including Donetsk. Ukraine has a responsibility and an absolute right to defend itself. We certainly expect both sides to abide by the Minsk agreements. We have not seen that happen, we've seen a lot of talk, not a lot of backup from the Russian side.

    GC: I am specifically asking about the actions of the Ukrainian government. Can you give a more definitive answer, whether or not they comply with the Minsk agreements?

    JP: You are not talking about a specific incident, I think I'll leave it at what I said.

    GC: With the Minsk agreement, do they comply? You pass a judgment that Russia is not complying with the agreement, can you assess whether Ukraine is complying?

    JP: I listed a range of specific ways Russia is not complying.

    GC: Under the agreement sides must avoid deploying and using heavy artillery. Isn't it what the Ukrainian government is doing right now?

    JP: First of all, let's start again with the fact that Russia has illegally intervened in Ukraine and come into a country that was a sovereign country. So I am not sure that you are proposing that a sovereign country doesn't have the right to defend themselves.

    GC:I am asking specifically about the actions of the Ukrainian government, you are veering off.

    JP: I think we are going to leave it at that.

    [Jan 22, 2015] M of A - Ukraine War In Kiev And Beyond

    moonofalabama.org
    Today the Ukrainian government finally admitted, three days after it happened, that it has lost its foothold at the Donetsk airport. Its position at the airport covered the artillery position the Ukrainian army has to the north-west of Donetsk. Those artillery units were shelling the federalist held city and the federalists attacked the airport to push them further away.
    According to statistics provided to VICE News by the morgue, 157 casualties have been recorded in Donetsk since the beginning of January, with 119 of these occurring in the last two weeks.

    It took quite a while but the federalist finally managed to capture the whole airport. Several counterattacks by the Ukrainian army were repelled and the counterattacking forces were destroyed.

    Parts of the airport had been held for months by the "volunteer" right sector radicals that are now the "National Guard" of Ukraine. Their number three on the election list was captured by the federalists and their leader Dmytro Yarosh was wounded when he visited their airport position.

    There is also some indecisive fighting further south near Mariupol and fighting in the north east near Lukhansk with the federalist making some slight advance. Still the general map has not changed much over the last months.

    The Ukrainian army continues to mobilize and, with the help of some NATO members, is building up more forces. I doubt that whatever they come up with will have the motivation, training, equipment or leaders needed to be successful on the battlefield. Grandma's won't do. The soldiers on the other side have proven to be better in all aspects. Despite repeated claims form the Ukrainian government that 1,000, 2,000 or 9,000 Russian regular soldiers and hundreds of Russian tanks are fighting with the federalists none have been documented.

    The Ukrainian army can not win a war against the federalist backed by Russia. The Ukrainian government is broke and will not get bailed out. Why is it still trying to wage war? My impression is that the U.S. is still pushing the Ukrainian government to continue its useless efforts to make any Europe-led ceasefire agreement with Russia null an void and to thereby keep the sanctions against Russia in place. Cold War 2.0 with proxy fighting in Ukraine is the U.S. plan to keep Russia from challenging its me-and-only-me-first global position.

    The whole conflict seem to be based on more long-term plans:

    American soldiers will deploy to Ukraine this spring to begin training four companies of the Ukrainian National Guard, the head of US Army Europe Lt. Gen Ben Hodges said during his first visit to Kiev on Wednesday.

    The number of troops heading to the Yavoriv Training Area near the city of L'viv - which is about 40 miles from the Polish border - is still being determined, however.

    Hmm. The Ukrainian National Guard mainly consists of the fascist units responsible for the Maidan fighting that led to the coup against the Ukrainian government. Lviv is the west Ukrainian capitol of the Ukrainian fascists. Why would the U.S. military train those units near Lviv when the regular Ukrainian army is also obviously in urgent need of training? Why train them in spring when the conflict, with some good will from both sides, could be over in a month or two?

    Experience tells that whenever the U.S. announces official training will start then and there that unofficial training is already ongoing. I have zero doubt that some U.S. special forces, probably under the guise of "contractors", are already training semi-irregular Ukrainian units. As conventional warfare is unlike to help the Ukrainian government's cause those units may prepare for other means.

    There are indeed signs that partisan warfare against the federalists is already happening. Today some mortars fired at civilian areas in Donetsk hit a bus and killed at least 13 people. Unlike regular artillery mortars are rather short ranged weapons. Those who fired them likely did so from inside the generally federalist held, but only lightly controlled areas. Also Alec Luhn, reporting for the Guardian from Donetsk, tweeted today:

    Partisan war? Dnipro-1 battalion says pro-Ukraine partisans in Luhansk region blew up a train carrying coal to Russia http://nr2.com.ua/News/...

    If what I suspect is happening, that Ukrainian government semi-regular units are waging a guerrilla campaign in federalist held regions, then the obvious response by the federalists will be the dispatch of similar units to Ukrainian government held areas. That means war in Kiev and beyond.

    Posted by b at 12:26 PM | Comments (31)

    Arius | Jan 22, 2015 1:10:25 PM | 2

    In the early 1990's I remember thinking that a new northern hemisphere of peace and prosperity was coming into being with the collapse of the USSR. Was I mistaken. I didn't anticipate what I now can clearly see: that the US Deep State will not allow peaceful development of the non-Western world unless it is in control and writes the rules in its favor.

    The West is a leech on the rest of world. It creates chaos where it cannot exert its control. It has violated every decent principal inherited from its ancestors and is not worthy of that inheritance. Its people live in a temple of cognitive dissonance sustained by the evil within its Deep State.

    Will the West will be able to change direction to avoid leading the world into a catastrophe? The time is coming when the coalescing East will be able to draw a line that the West should not cross. That will be the moment of truth. Will the 'exceptional and indispensable' US wake up and back off or plunge ahead like another people that thought they were 'uber alles'?

    Oui | Jan 22, 2015 1:24:14 PM | 4

    The Brzezinski doctine, Afghanistan or Georgia all over again. Unfortunately, NATO got Europe involved on the wrong side of the economic war. In the short term, Obama and his Wall Street minions want the TTIP pushed through the EU before 2016. The US corporate lobby already succeeded in gaining a GMO foothold in Europe.

    Mike Maloney | Jan 22, 2015 1:53:09 PM | 7

    It will be interesting to see if NATO eventually joins the U.S. training mission in Lviv, ground zero for Right Sector. Maybe then German prosecutors can investigate Brussels as they are the hapless Pegida leader Lutz Bachmann for posting a picture of himself on his Facebook page impersonating Hitler.

    "German law forbids the display of Nazi symbols and punishes incitement and hate speech."

    Noirette | Jan 22, 2015 2:39:49 PM | 10

    Financial aspects.

    Ukraine is in default, as is Greece (defaulted 2x, saved by bailouts, coming up for a third round, maybe some of the foreign banks were paid off so now a GREXIT can be contemplated.)

    Neither the US or the EU want to pay for Ukr., the IMF actually shouldn't even consider it, against their rules. They all know that what they give / lend vanishes down a black hole, stolen on reception, is not ever accounted for, and they can fire bankers etc., such as Gontareva Head Bankster since a few months, to no avail, nothing will change.

    The second problem is what is shunted if it goes anywhere, is to Russia, for energy debts, and continuing energy delivery. Because if ppl freeze they will not only go out on the streets with shouted slogans and banners, but they will shoot to kill or use whatever is to hand, and sacrifice the front lines.

    This whole story has to be top in the annals of giant rip-offs, it is incredible.

    See:

    Mercouris and the FT:

    http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/01/22/2612

    John Helmer:

    http://johnhelmer.net

    Taken up, with detours and details, by naked capitalism:

    http://tinyurl.com/orfl6lk


    1968ES330 | Jan 22, 2015 2:43:02 PM | 11

    @ Arius @ 2

    I can relate. I remember having similar feelings - but now I realize I was wrong about everything else too. The Soviet Union was an Important check against capitalist imperialist ambitions. Nothing stands in their way now except their tripping over their own bottomless immorality and the gravity of sober real world conditions, which will pull downs their hot air and helium inflated balloons, but will take everyone and everything else down with them

    Martin Finnucane | Jan 22, 2015 2:43:40 PM | 12

    Perhaps the (para)military training of Right Sector/National Guard "soldiers" is really an example of the usual US-style "democracy building." RS is not only a movement but is actually a formal political party. As a political party it commands only a small percentage of the popular vote, even with Russophones and other "undesirables" excluded from the polls.

    Yet its energy, youth, international support, and proclivity to violence allows it to punch well above its weight. Perhaps the Kiev junta's US/NATO sponsors want to keep it that way, in part by giving some RS cadres the skills necessary (in intelligence, sabotage, assassination, etc.) to act as enforcers amongst the regime itself.

    I sense that Poroshenko is frightened of some of his own people and is acutely aware of what after all really got him where he is. I also sense that his US/NATO handlers are leery of him, since some form of rapprochement with Russia would be in his (and the Ukraine's) best interests right now.

    Thus the RS/NG has a useful role of holding Poroshenko's feet to the fire, the welfare of the nation be damned. I wouldn't trade places with Poroshenko for anything.

    Lone Wolf | Jan 22, 2015 3:37:40 PM | 14

    @b

    It took quite a while but the federalist finally managed to capture the whole airport. Several counterattacks by the Ukrainian army were repelled and the counterattacking forces were destroyed.

    FYI, the "cyborgs", as these neo-Nazi rag-tag "army" got to be known, are being "repaired" by doctors in Donetsk.

    http://slavyangrad.org/2015/01/22/donetsk-doctors-repair-ukrainian-cyborgs/

    The "cyborgs" on repair got luckier than some of their captured partners in crime.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6TbpeZkwtI

    The US/Eurostan, ehem, "strategy" for Ukraine 2015 will be to train the useless Ukrainian army to NATO standards, with the old purpose of making Ukraine NATO's front-line state to the east of Eurostan, keeping the fighting going against DPR and LPR, justifying it all on the "Russian invasion/aggression."

    http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/01/22/2632

    In purely military terms, Ukraine has been defeated, the initiative is back with the federalists, and no NATO training can offset the current balance. Ukraine's rag-tag army has been routed again and again, their "efficiency" good to kill civilians, bomb hospital, kindergartens, public transportation, and so on.

    The Kiev puppeteers, Yats et al, are only the face of the masquerade, while the CIA/MI5 et al run the show behind the curtains. As long as the Russians stay away from full intervention, bankrupt Ukraine will have to, eventually, bargain for a political/diplomatic settlement.

    http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/01/21/2591

    Mina | Jan 22, 2015 3:55:45 PM | 18

    No Justice, No Peace!

    http://angryarab.blogspot.de/2015/01/turkish-defector-exposing-role-in-syria.html

    An ex-Senior MIT (Turkish intelligence) official, working on Syria during early stages of the armed uprising and handed over Hussain Harmoush who was believed to be mastermind behind bloody massacre in Jisr ash-Shougur in 2011 to Syrian authorities breaks the silence and exposes their role in the war.

    * I didn't gave Harmoush to Syrian government for money, I did it for may conscience, we knew that he killed 138 people in Jisr ash-Shougur but MIT attached importance to him, this was disturbing me.
    • Thousands of people from different countries were coming to Turkey with no legal papers, and Turkish officials helped them to cross the border.
    • Turkish port of Iskenderun was used as an hub to arm the jihadists. Ships unload the weapons to Iskenderun port where they were load to lorries and sent to border.
    • Leading Syrian oppositions figures continued their anti-Alawite rhetoric in Hatay. They told Syrian refugees that be careful about Alawite doctors and nurses etc.
    • I am ready to expose the role of Turkish government in any international court. I am ready to give testimony as a witness. "

    jfl | Jan 22, 2015 5:31:18 PM | 19

    b:

    'federalists' ... what a difference that word makes! Thanks. Might be too late though, or very, very hard to revive.

    I wish the distinction between West Ukrainian conscripts and US/DE funded, trained, and armed NAZIs were more starkly delineated by the federalists.

    @2

    Please repeat that statement in any and all forums you may visit. Americans must become conscious of how much 'ou' county is hated and despised by ordinary people throughout the world ... but especially by those in its 'allied' countries in the West. Ukraine is Yet Another Answer to the question, "Why do they hate us?"

    @3

    There's nothing 'hilarious' in any of this, that I can see. You ought to sign your name to your posts. It helps inhibit such remarks.

    @5

    They're being trained in Lviv, Lvov because that's where the NAZIs are?

    @10

    You are so right. You'd think the Germans of all people would have discovered how much this costs and who ...

    @11

    I can't relate.

    @17

    And he or his homeboy 'reminded' us all that it was the Ukrainians (must have been an OUN unit?) that liberated Auschwitz

    @10

    ... but I guess the cost is part of the equation. They're going for broke - with all of the riches of a devastated Russia as the payoff, aren't they? The payback will still be orders of magnitude greater, in their overheated brains and stone cold hearts.

    jfl | Jan 22, 2015 5:35:25 PM | 20

    jfl | Jan 22, 2015 5:35:25 PM | 20

    @10
    ... but I guess the cost is part of the equation. They're going for broke - with all of the riches of a devastated Russia as the payoff, aren't they? The payback will still be orders of magnitude greater, in their overheated brains and stone cold hearts.

    Akira | Jan 22, 2015 5:38:38 PM | 21

    http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/01/press-conference-of-minister-of-defense.html
    Minister of Defense of DPR, Eduard Basurin:

    597 Ukrainian soldiers died at the airport so far - and those are just the bodies found so far near the airport and Peski, 44 POWs, 49 tanks destroyed, 49 BMP's and BTR's - just destroyed by DPR, wounded evacuated - over 1,500 (Ukrainians).

    Large quantities of American weapons, a lot of religious literature in European languages. Found bodies in NATO uniform of contractors from foreign private military companies.

    Today there were 19 violations of ceasefire - 13 dead (on a Donetsk trolley). No dead among the militia.

    Andoheb | Jan 22, 2015 5:44:41 PM | 22


    Ukraine has apparently defaulted on several billions owed to China.

    KMF | Jan 22, 2015 7:24:22 PM | 26

    Hard Pounding in Donbass: https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/hard-pounding-in-donbass/

    james | Jan 22, 2015 7:38:18 PM | 27

    b - thanks. the ukees kept using the airport to lob bombs on the people of donetsk. now they have to use longer range equipment and as you suggest near the end of your post, a guerilla. type campaign which leads you to believe this will go to kiev...you might be right. the support from the west will continue as the prime objective of isolating russia requires no stop to the war. the support for right sektor turned national gaurd from nato countries is interesting juxapositioned next to the commemerations set for poland.. how do these people sleep properly at night? i guess lying to themselves is the main requirement.. more security knowing others are lying the same bs way..

    martin @12. thanks for your comments. porky if he had a brain, would quit.. i guess he feels he has a better chance at protecting his money as leader.. hard to know what lies he tells himself to keep on going, or to keep up with appearances..

    Lone Wolf | Jan 22, 2015 8:30:15 PM | 28

    @lysias@25

    Washington Post: Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a wily king who embraced limited reform, dies.

    Good riddance, problem is he left his evil children with billions of $$ spreading the Wahhabi trash all over the world. So, he "embraced limited reform" according to the WAPO? That mouthpiece of the Washington establishment has no shame. On another note, Abdullah is leaving SA in a very fragile position vis-a-vis his US masters and protectors, who are now looking so strongly in the direction of their arch-enemies, Iran, the Saudis are playing with the idea of Russia as a strategic ally.

    A very special place in hell is waiting for Abdullah, a main financier of Wahhabi terror on the planet.

    jfl at 19 --

    That Lvov has a good ideological profile for recruiting helps. But perhaps an added consideration is, a base further to the east might be threatened or even lost by an advance.

    rufus magister | Jan 22, 2015 9:23:49 PM | 31

    I think Anon. at 3 is indulging in a little gallows humor. I personally thought that the ChocoKing's statement, where he stated 9K Russian regulars were in the Ukr., but under cloaks of invisibility, added a certain air of levity to the proceedings.

    Arius & 1968ES330, at 2 & 9, 11

    I was quite active in the left in the 80-s & 90-s. There was a naive belief prior to the collapse of the Soviets that once the demon of its existence was exorcised from the body politic of socialism, people would see the shiny happy sincerity and cleverness of the Left and begin the march towards "true socialism" (variously defined).

    So when the Union collapsed, I immediately braced myself for a rough ride. It was the counter-revolution that Trotsky predicted, as the oligarchs used physical and economic violence to expropriate the collective property of the Soviet people.

    The ideological and organizational weakness of the left is such that at present it is capable of little; the Great Recession should have been a field day for any 3rd. rate socialist party. Instead, the far right has largely seized the field (hopeful exception of Greece, ongoing success of Venezuala excepted)

    You're right in noting that despite the manifest deficiencies of the Soviets, they were counterweight and could be counted on to aid many progressive struggles (e.g., ANC and later via Cuba Angola & Mozambique vs. So. Afr.).

    "What's different now is the US has descended essentially, into fascism and wages its dirty wars in the open. Also this is the heartland of Europe. That Reagan and the war criminals of former years were never punished is what led us into this. " Well said. What we used to quietly tolerate in our more disreputable clients (like in El Salvador) we now boast of as signs of our "realism," "toughness," and "determination."

    But not the first time in Europe, see our friends in Croatia.

    And if I might say, Barflies, so far a very interesting and productive thread, (e.g., 14, 18 Mina & LW) I hope that I have kept up.

    Je suis Pervomaisk. ("First of May-sk").

    [Jan 20, 2015] The Guardian View of war in Ukraine maintain the pressure on Russia

    Notable quotes:
    "... DNR reports can't be taken at face value, though. They're biased. To me, DNR reports are only good if they are backed up by AP or Reuters info, or if they're associated by twitter announcements from people near the battle zone who are known not to be trolls (i.e., people who are reasonably objective). ..."
    "... "The artillery and aviation overwhelm the city with their shells, and then we're going to clean-up operation, it is normal procedure in this war." ..."
    Jan 20, 2015 | The Guardian

    EdwardGreen1968 -> IngAzazello 20 Jan 2015 19:04

    Putin wants Donbass to remain in Ukraine as a self-governing part of the country. Obviously he's hoping to maximize Russian influence in Ukraine by operating through the Donbass's future leaders. For Putin, such an arrangement will work like a Trojan Horse strategy.

    For the obvious reasons, Kiev isn't happy with Putin's aims. That's understandable. What's reprehensible about Kiev, however, is that it won't simply cut Donbass loose and end the war. After all, we're talking about millions of people in east Ukraine who don't want to be part of Ukraine anymore. Kiev has no good reason for fighting over this.

    Kiev could solve two problems at once by allowing Ukraine to divided. Think about it.

    EdwardGreen1968 -> Kolobok07 20 Jan 2015 18:57

    That could very well happen, but Poroshenko will be replaced by Yatsenyuk and the pro-war party. Those ultranationalists and far rightists are the ones pressuring Poroshenko to somehow "win" the war. Poroshenko's position becomes more and more insecure every time the Ukrainian army's inferiority in combat is demonstrated.

    The only light at the end of the tunnel here, I think, is that the pro-war party is drawing most of its support from the far western provinces of Ukraine. That's the only region that's really hyped up for war. I don't think the rest of Ukraine is really willing to tolerate the agony of ongoing combat. So, when the far western provinces burn out on war, politicians will emerge in Kiev who are ready for peace. But how long will it take to get to that point?

    EdwardGreen1968 wombat123 20 Jan 2015 18:45

    Wombat: I agree with you completely. My greatest fear is that, because of domestic political weakness, Poroshenko won't bite the bullet and make peace.

    From there, Western foreign policy hawks will keep enabling Kiev to go back into battle -- to get destroyed again -- for no good reason.

    EugeneGur -> sasha19 20 Jan 2015 18:38

    Cargo 200 reports are all false?

    They likely are. Some have been proven to be false. Most are repetitions of the same statements from the same sources. Some of these reports claim that there are as many as 15,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Donbass. Have you ever asked yourself a question how come that not a single one has ever been killed or captured to be shown to the world to be positively identified as an active member of the Russian army? All we have is some unlabeled graves that could belong to anybody, some unknown people making claims that cannot be verified. Everything I've seen coming from Donbass shows that there are no Russian soldiers there only volunteers, but that nobody denies.

    Colin Robinson 20 Jan 2015 18:34

    Use of SS insignia by the Azov Battalion is blatant enough to have been noticed by the BBC. They are nazis, self-proclaimed... but after all (some say) they're just one little section of a broader nationalist movement... If the majority of Kiev's enforcers do not wear such blatant fascist gear, why worry?

    Thing is, fascists have historically used a range of symbols, not all of German origin. The National Front in Britain is a militant, ultra-nationalist movement with a history of marching behind the Union Jack... While SS logos are a serious provocation in themselves, what people wear is in the end less important that what they do.

    The nationalistic movement currently dominant in Kiev has a record of lethal violence - the riot police set alight by petrol bombs in Maidan, the mass lynching in Odessa on May 2, the shooting of civilians from armoured vehicles in Mariupol on May 9... Maybe behaviour like this should have been enough to set alarm bells ringing around the world, with or without SS insignia?

    wombat123 20 Jan 2015 18:13

    Putin already chose peace. It is the leaders of the coup and their NATO backers who chose violence and civil war instead of elections. As a consequence, there is no government that is legitimate under Ukraine's constitution or in the eyes of all regions of the country.

    Just as it was the NATO-backed leaders of the coup that overthrew the elected government through violence and civil war, it is they who are massively violating the ceasefire agreement with large scale shelling of civilians in eastern cities. They would not have done this without a green light and support from NATO. NATO is not just supporting a renewal of the civil war but serious war crimes as well.

    MaxBoson -> moncur 20 Jan 2015 17:42

    At the time the exodus took place, TV was full of pictures of highways filled with Serbs in endless ten-wide columns fleeing Croatia. Some say they left out of fear, some that they were driven out; regardless of the details, it boils down to an expulsion. In any event, it is beyond dispute that the Serbs left and that there were around 300,000 of them. This event has been called the largest ethnic-cleansing of the entire Balkan tragedy.

    EugeneGur -> EdwardGreen1968 20 Jan 2015 17:28

    We all wish for that but I am not sure it's realistic. At least, to stop the destruction of the cities would be great. Gorlovka is devastated and Donetsk is in a bad shape.

    The info is from

    http://rusvesna.su/

    They've proven to be reasonably reliable before.


    Manolo Torres -> sasha19 20 Jan 2015 17:19

    Can you quote those articles, because other more compelling evidence like Russian prisoners of war or Russian death soldiers (remember when we were told that the Ukranians obliterated all those tanks?) in Ukraine simply doesn´t exist, and it is indeed very difficult to believe that there has been none when there are supposed to be thousands of official Russian forces deployed.

    At the same time the Russian army is apparently a very though place to be, in 2000 more than 1000 Russian soldiers died as "non combatants" , in 2007 around 450. I have my doubts that, for example, the people that run the comittee of mothers of Russian soldiers, and associations of that sort, that received huge amounts of money from US agencies, are not doing some dirty work convincing the families that their sons were indeed killed in Ukraine.

    A link to Khodorkovsky´s foundation, compiling a list from a dubious facebook group, will not do.

    Wu Bravo -> MarcelFromage 20 Jan 2015 17:12

    I read from different sources, because I think herewith I might have a more objective view, description from different perspectives and angles. And even by doing this I never state, I have obtained the only and the very truth. Of course not. Education is the answer, my dear friend. If you do a research, it is obligatory to look at different sources, even though you might disagree with them. So do I, my dear, friend. I do not bother myself, I educate myself and I am trying to be objective, thus relying on FACTS and not on bullshit and not fact-based comments. I disagree with this article but I did not told that my opinion is the only possible truth. However, in comparison to you, my remarks were fact based and to the point, in your case your remarks may be treated as personnel but not fact-based and not to the point. like baby: "may be you are right, but your haircut is awful :). Sorry my friend, if I have offended you by this, it was never my intention, and I will be ready to discuss this issues with you if you provide some facts, I have not noticed

    unended 20 Jan 2015 17:11

    Indeed, it takes a twisted conspiratorial mindset, or brainwashing by Russian propaganda, to even attempt to deny that Russia's armed forces have been deeply engaged in backing the rebel separatists of Donetsk and Luhansk, and making sure Ukraine's sovereignty over its internationally recognised territory is not restored.

    Am I reading the Wall Street Journal opinion page?

    Here's one to try on

    It takes a twisted conspiratorial mindset, or brainwashing by Guardian propaganda, to even attempt to deny that the US and EU have been deeply engaged in backing the rebel fascists of Lviv, and making sure Ukraine's democracy is not restored.

    Manolo Torres -> MarcelFromage, 20 Jan 2015
    Of course, I always do. Here you have it, but next time try doing your own research.

    Kiev MOHYLA school of journalism, partners:

    Rinat Akhmetov Foundation for Development of Ukraine and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy are pleased to announce the launch of the 2nd year of the Digital Media for Universities Project.

    If you go all the way down to that webpage you find:

    © 2007 Kyiv-Mohyla School of Journalism
    Design: Yuri Panin. Programming: Bogdan Tokovenko. Powered by ExpressionEngine.
    The web site is created with an assistance from the U.S. Department of State through the Educational Partnership Program.

    BBC: Ukrainian tycoon Rinat Akhmetov confronts rebellion

    Separatist leaders have threatened to "nationalise" Mr Akhmetov's assets.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinat_Akhmetov

    As of April 2014, he was listed as the 101st richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of US 11.6 billion.[5] T here have been claims Akhmetov has been involved in organized crime.

    EdwardGreen1968 -> EugeneGur 20 Jan 2015
    There is a real possibility of encircling the 24th brigade of the Ukrainian army unless they withdraw.

    Wow! That is dramatic. Where are you getting this info? Let's hope it's true.

    The idea is to push the Ukrainian army as far away from the main cities as possible, so they wouldn't be able to fire at them even from far range artillery.

    To be honest, it would be much better for everyone if the rebels execute a complete encirclement of the Ukrainian army. If that's accomplished, Kiev will not be able to play games any longer with fake peace talks, lobbing shells at Donetsk civilians, etc.

    Something decisive like Stalingrad or Dien Bin Phu. That's the kind of victory that will finally end this war.

    EugeneGur 20 Jan 2015 16:48

    The latest - the rebels are gaining pretty well along the entire front. In LPR, the took blockpost 31 and attacking blockpost 29. There is a real possibility of encircling the 24th brigade of the Ukrainian army unless they withdraw. In DPR, rebels took Peski near airpost. Peski, together with Avdeevka, were the towns from which the Ukrainian army fired at Donetsk during the entire period of so called "cease-fire". The idea is to push the Ukrainian army as far away from the main cities as possible, so they wouldn't be able to fire at them even from far range artillery.

    Elena Hodgson -> EdwardGreen1968 20 Jan 2015

    Edward, people are dying! The sooner this war ends, the less civilians are killed and maimed! Yats with his war speeches is a Rabid Rabbit!

    EdwardGreen1968 -> ID6741142 20 Jan 2015

    A final aside/ note: If, though it will not, the Kievan forces did 'win' the war on the ground what do you think will happen to the people who are caught up in this? Do you think that having been labelled 'terrorists' they will be allowed to sleep easy when the guns stop? What will happen to the women as the invaders arrive? Wake up or this does not have a happy ending!

    That's the reality that Western media reporters and editors are not allowed to talk about. They'll lose their jobs if they do.

    Either way, that horrifying outcome you describe will only happen if Moscow caves in under economic pressure. Kiev can't get to that position militarily. Based on battlefield news, Kiev is destined to lose every single battle, and very badly at that.

    EdwardGreen1968 -> Kolobok07 20 Jan 2015 16:28

    What I meant is that the Ukrainian army is being forced back in combat, but that it's probably succeeding in making an organized retreat. That means that the Ukrainians take casualties, lose ground, but reestablish defensive lines slightly to the west. That is an indecisive victory for the pro-Russian rebels.

    On the other hand, if there were reports that the Ukrainian lines were broken, and that their units were getting encircled (put in kettles) -- just like at Ilovaisk -- then it would be a decisive victory for the rebels.

    It's hard to tell what's really happening based on the reports. The good thing about a decisive outcome -- if it ever happens -- is that it may lead directly to peace (which is what I really want to see).

    EdwardGreen1968 -> Kolobok07 20 Jan 2015

    DNR reports can't be taken at face value, though. They're biased. To me, DNR reports are only good if they are backed up by AP or Reuters info, or if they're associated by twitter announcements from people near the battle zone who are known not to be trolls (i.e., people who are reasonably objective).

    Either way, the proliferation of data during these past few hours suggests the Ukrainians are being backed down at multiple points on the front.

    ID6741142 20 Jan 2015 16:19

    What saddens me in reading so many threads is the real victims of this conflict, the innocent citizens of East Ukraine are, with the odd exception, being ignored. Too many of you seem to want to score political points, trading 'fact's' that none of you will even give time for consideration since they are obviously propaganda, whichever 'side' you support. It is pointless.

    Yet people are dying and a lot more will unless the focus changes, not just on here but in the political world towards actually caring about the people.

    A couple of you deserve commendation as you have recognised this. Also you recognised that BOTH sides have played games.

    Russia does have a regime that has extreme views on many issues. It is willing to exert it power to stop the growth of western influence on its doorstep. And it does have a strong, biased propaganda machine - I know I have Russian friends living in Russia.

    However the West did play a hand in the change of Gov't. It knew that there were strong far-right groups involved in that overthrow & it knows they are exerting a higher level of influence than they should in the current conflict. The West does not have a good track record of backing the 'right' groups.

    Meanwhile, people who did not want a war, die in their homes.

    There is hypocrisy on BOTH sides.

    When it is over there will almost certainly be war crimes that will come to light on both sides.
    Is that why the media is not as high a presence as might be expected?

    You rant about the shelling as if that is the only weapon used against the citizens of the Eastern Ukraine. What about the stopping of aid lorries from the west by the pro-Kiev units - under the control of RW-nationalist leaders?

    Hearts & Minds - that is what wins all civil conflicts, and more importantly underpins any chance to repair the serious damage done to 'trust'. The people in the East will believe Russia more because it is not shooting at them AND more importantly it's aid is getting through. (Yes I know it convoys also have weapons etc hidden but we play those 'games too when it suits.) The West is slow to learn this lesson. It has failed time and again in its middle eastern, conflicts to get this right, it thinks guns not grain, missile not milk & water, even though these cost far less to provide.

    The ONLY solution, whatever anyone may say, is, as already stated, for Ukraine to become, for the foreseeable future, a totally neutral state in which the rights of all citizens/cultures are protected (not just Russian & other ethnic minorities but also cultural sub groups (i.e. LGBT)).

    This may not be what the ordinary Ukrainians want.Not the oligarchs who drove the Kiev changes because they would make more money in the EU!, who rule in this corrupt country (yes corrupt that has been part of he EU's demands to sort it out), What the people really want is not as clear as some might think , and do they actually have the facts to work it out? If we can't be sure about the value of being in the EU in GB, with our so called 'open/ democratic' media what chance do the ordinary Ukrainians have?

    But if getting the country working and people cared for is the true aim of all 'outside influential states' then that 'sacrifice' is worth it to bring peace, and the chance to build a balanced state and economy. It will NEED both Russian and EU/USA support otherwise it will be almost impossible to achieve especially with the war damage to be sorted!

    But while the politicians behave like too many of you on here, with partisan fervour, nationalistic pride etc and blinkered bar room vision, then the people who live in this potentially beautiful and culturally rich nation will continue to die.

    Come on Guardian stop focusing on the politics - we have heard it all before & it is not changing anybody's opinion. Be brave. Lead the field and get the world to know just what price is being paid by the old and young, and agitate for the peace that must happen now, before a humanitarian disaster overtakes it all, and not when nationalistic pride allows it to.

    A final aside/ note: If, though it will not, the Kievan forces did 'win' the war on the ground what do you think will happen to the people who are caught up in this? Do you think that having been labelled 'terrorists' they will be allowed to sleep easy when the guns stop? What will happen to the women as the invaders arrive? Wake up or this does not have a happy ending!

    JezNorth noshtgchq 20 Jan 2015 16:18

    Could be dangerous , these loonies could start another masive false flag - Maidan snipers , MH-17 , buss etc .

    Do you really think this helps your cause or just makes you come off as an crass insta-mod.

    PeraIlic -> Expats10 20 Jan 2015 16:17

    To fight from civilian areas when you have a choice is cowardice.

    What kind of choice are you talking about when the Ukrainian army was practically came to the suburbs of Lugansk and Donetsk. Almost until yesterday, they were bombing the cities from their airports, is not it?

    Ukrainian commander of the attack on Ilovaisk testified before the cameras, "The artillery and aviation overwhelm the city with their shells, and then we're going to clean-up operation, it is normal procedure in this war."

    If you do not believe me, I can very easily find the URL address of the video, just for you.


    Kolobok07 -> EdwardGreen1968 20 Jan 2015 16:17

    No, the Ukrainian army has resisted ...

    But there are reports of the capture of 39 and 41 checkpoints and attack extended to other positions.
    Pesky and Avdeyevka not completely stripped from the Ukrainian military.


    EugeneGur 20 Jan 2015 16:15

    Indeed, it takes a twisted conspiratorial mindset, or brainwashing by Russian propaganda, to even attempt to deny that Russia's armed forces have been deeply engaged in backing the rebel separatists of Donetsk and Luhansk

    I confess I have that twisted conspiratorial mindset - I do not for a second believe that Russian army is involved in the Donbass fighting. Not only not a shed of evidence has ever been produced, not a single soldiers captured (apart from those unfortunate 10 soldiers that wandered into Ukraine and did not fire a single shot) or a body shown, nothing.
    I do not doubt that Russia supports Donbass, and it should. These are our people that refuse to recognized an illegal "government" imposed on them by foreign powers as a result of a coup, and they appealed to Russia for help. Why shouldn't Russia help? Because the West says so? Furthermore, these people came under attack by the Kiev junta and are fighting for their freedom and their lives. The only fault I can find with the Russian government's behavior is that it doesn't do enough. Nevertheless, they are winning. Junta miscalculated yet again, and the only thing it is capable of is killing civilians.

    graduated reduction in sanctions in return for Russian concessions and cooperation in Ukraine and elsewhere has been set aside

    Why should Russia give concessions in Ukraine and cooperate in killing our people in Donbass? Why should Russia cooperate in supporting what it considers to be a government based on nazi ideology in Ukraine? Give me one good reason.

    For that matter, why should Europe do that? Feeling nostalgic about nazism?

    [Jan 20, 2015] One year after Maidan, Ukraine turns into Nazi, US-obedient puppet state

    Pro-russian view on EuroMaidan events...
    21.11.2014 | pravda.ru

    Maidan in Ukraine started a year ago. Now it is time to look back and see how it started and what it led to. Pravda.Ru interviewed the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Natalia Vitrenko, about the events which marked the beginning of the civil war, the social and economic disaster and the collapse of Ukraine.

    "One year after Maidan, what, in your opinion, were the aspirations of the Ukrainian people, who toppled Yanukovych? What are the results of the Ukrainian revolution? Has anything been done?"

    "The fact is that the people were called to come to Maidan. Large protests started on November 23, 2013, when people demanded Yanukovych should sign the association agreement with the EU. Before November 2013, the Party of Regions together with Communists and the Litvin Bloc had the majority in the parliament. For 2.5 years, those parties were maintaining public psychosis in the country about the need to join the European integration. They were the prime initiators of the European integration. On 1 July 2010, they adopted the law about the foundations of domestic and foreign policy. Article 11 of the law said that Ukraine would be integrated into European space, that the goal of Ukraine was to become a EU member.

    "The administration of President Yanukovych, above all, the head of administration, Sergei Levochkin, was monitoring the situation on television. They did not allow hosts on the country's most popular talk shows who would advocate for a different course for Ukraine - the course for integration with Russia. The research on Ukraine's integration into the Customs Union showed excellent prospects for Ukraine. I myself was making those calculations - two respectable economic institutions were working on that - the Russian and the Ukrainian academies of sciences engaged. The calculations convincingly showed all benefits from the integration of Ukraine in the East.

    "As for calculations of benefits from Ukraine's integration into the European Union, no one has seen them. Without any arguments, they would be broadcasting psychosis from morning till night on all radio and TV channels. And, of course, the orange associations - the Tymoshenko bloc and Our Ukraine - would only nod to the majority of deputies. They had been doing this since 2010.

    "Russia was watching all that favorably. United Russia had cross-party co-operation agreements with the Party of Regions, the Communist Party. Russia was showing absolutely no impact outhouse political forces. We were fighting against the policy of European integration, but all were pulling Ukraine into Europe. Our party and several others would be subjected to obstruction, because we were defending and defend a completely different vector of integration.

    Suddenly, on November 21, Azarov's government decided to suspend the signing of the association agreement. I knew that the decision was taken after the government and the president were introduced to calculations of the economic disaster in Ukraine, about the inevitability of default, in case Ukraine had signed the agreement on association. Ukraine has nothing to enter the free trade zone with the EU. Ukrainian products are uncompetitive on the European market. When the government made that decision on November 21, it produced a shock in the camp. Two days later, opponents came to their senses and called people to gather on Maidan.

    "Kiev residents came, students came, people from Western Ukraine were brought too, who understand nothing, but can frantically yell that all they need is Europe. Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, Tyagnibok and Poroshenko started flaming Maidan up. They showered people with promises that Ukraine would receive unprecedented benefits from the association with Europe, that Ukraine would be a civilized European country, where all rights and freedoms would be ensured and guaranteed. That means a sharp rise in wages, pensions and social benefits in accordance with all European standards.

    "The people, of course, succumbed to that pressure. Imagine that they have been listening to all that propaganda for 2.5 years, and then Maidan confirmed all that too. Therefore, most people in Ukraine believeв that Ukraine must sign this agreement. They assumed that Yanukovych would be their prime enemy, if he refused to sign the agreement.

    On November 29, when it became clear that Yanukovych did not sign it, Yatsenyuk, Tyagnibok and Klitschko were ready to dissolve Maidan because they were confused. They thought think that their pressure would be decisive. Nevertheless, Yanukovych did not sign the papers. After they returned from Brussels, they gathered on Maidan and announced that everyone should go home for the time being.

    They started to remove the stage and the sound equipment, when the second scenario started working. Later it became known that this scenario had been prepared in advance by the presidential administration. The scenario was about the use of Berkut fighters to put up a New Year tree, but they use well-prepared militants to attack Berkut fighters. As a result, the protesters clashed with Berkut. At night, all national TV channels of Ukraine were filming all that on the square. They were filming the episodes that would be very good for the USA, as the entire scenario had been agreed with Washington and Brussels. At first, all instructions were coming from the US Embassy in Ukraine.

    "They were filming how Berkut fighters were beating students, children, but they did not show how the protesters were throwing rocks at Berkut soldiers, how they would set soldiers ablaze. On the basis of this footage that produced a bombshell effect, people started coming to Maidan. On December 1, a massacre occurred on Bankovaya Street. There were militants wielding chains, bats, Molotov cocktails and boulders. Militants started taking administrative buildings in Kiev. Nineteen administrative buildings were seized, the center of Kiev was seized too.

    The capital was paralyzed. But Yanukovych was instructed not to touch the peaceful protesters, as they said. The West wanted to see the resistance growing. It was growing in waves, because Maidan did not have the support of the majority of the people. On January 19, militants attacked the Berkut fighters, who were defending the government quarter. Car tires were burning in the street, on European Square and Kreshchatik Street.

    Maidan was ideologized, it was a Russophobian, Nazi Maidan that was rigidly following the direction against Russia. For Ukrainians, Russia is the enemy, "Glory to the nation, death to the enemy" - that was the directive. This hatred was infecting more and more people.

    Anti-Maidan could not oppose anything. As a result, on February 18, the Verkhovna Rada was attacked. On February 20, they were already armed. Maidan activists obtained weapons after they captured military and police arms caches.

    "On February 21, Yanukovych signed an agreement with Maidan leaders. Three Foreign Ministers of European countries: Germany, France and Poland acted as guarantors of the agreement. I listened to the press conference of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs with his Russian counterpart Lavrov. He looked disgraceful. When he was asked why he did not observe the execution of that agreement, he suddenly said that it was because Yanukovych had fled the country. What did Yanukovych have to do with it? To hell with him, I am sorry about the country and the people.

    "The agreement stipulated for the disarmament of all illegal armed groups and the creation of the government of national consent. Nothing was done. As a result of the armed neo-Nazi putsch, the new government was formed. MPs were mocked and humiliated, and the Parliament was eventually reformatted and start serving the neo-Nazi coup. In violation of the Ukrainian constitution, Yanukovych was suspended from power, and the parliament speaker was given an opportunity to become acting president.

    "That is, they started doing what they wanted, and the US and EU were condoning that. They wanted that in Ukraine, they did it and got it. The only thing that they did not anticipate was the protest in the Crimea and in the Donbas. The Crimea saw the essence of this revolution, heard those slogans - "Muscovites on knives!" and realized that Ukraine would be for Ukrainians. Of course, they all went to the referendum and voted to pull out from that Ukraine. And then the Donbass rebelled against Kiev too. The people of Donbass identify themselves as members of the Russian world. They also understood that as long as Ukraine was going to be for Ukrainians, then they would be killed. They understood that Ukraine would be built into NATO.

    If Ukraine was going to become Europe's servant, it would break economic and industrial ties with Russia, and the Donbass would be left with nothing, because the Donbass was tied to Russia up whole.

    Donbass realized that it was doomed either way. That is why the uprising began in the region. Ukraine faced a civil war. According to experts' estimates, over 40 thousand people have been killed, including the rebels, the Ukrainian military and civilians. Two million refugees. Hundreds of thousands of wounded, shell-shocked ... Many return from the zone of the so-called anti-terrorist operation to Ukraine as mentally ill individuals. Children are deeply traumatized. The gene pool of the nation was generally undermined. This is what Maidan has done to Ukraine.

    "Where are their successes? They signed the association agreement, and it was ratified in September. Where is the money that Europe promised? 30-40 billion euros. Ukraine begged to receive $6 billion from the IMF and the World Bank, another 900 million euros came from Europe and that was it. Our people die. In hospitals, there are no medications, patients do not receive any food. Last week in Kiev, they stopped giving bread to patients. That's what the United States and Europe have done. And, of course, they have put Ukraine in a position when the authorities are only interested in war. We are all sitting on a powder keg; every day we wait what provocation Ukraine would arrange to draw Russia into the war to start Third World War. The are the results of Maidan.

    "According to President Poroshenko, the planned reforms, not less than 60, will embrace all areas of life, from public utilities to courts. Are there any reforms being conducted now?"

    "They launched lustration. I do not know in which way it can relate to European values, when they fire people from jobs - specialists, professionals - they throw people in garbage cans. This is something barbarous, shameful, ape-like behaviour. They unfold reforms and say that they will reduce the amount of taxes. How are they going to do that? Whose shoulders will carry the burden of these taxes? We can not expect anything good from this government, no reforms whatsoever, because it is oligarchs that rule Euromaidan. They fund volunteer battalions and the new parliament.

    They do not worry about the fate of the people. They will enhance exploitation and amass their fortunes. This is the essence of their reforms. They say that they will start an education reform, but at the same time they zombify children with ideas of neo-Nazism. They plant seeds of hatred to other nations, civilizations, primarily Russia. They hammer into children's heads the idea that Ukrainians originate from a super-ancient civilization. These reforms are a disaster for Ukraine.

    "They allow to use the Russian language on the level of private, personal communication; they root it out from Ukraine. They will undoubtedly continue to struggle with dissent. Already today, the parties and movements that protect other ideology can not hold their own peaceful public actions. We could not take part in the elections, because we were openly threatened with violence, beatings and death. Ukraine is taking the shape of a Nazi state with totalitarian dictatorship - an ardent enemy of Russia and a very comfortable obedient puppet of the United States."

    "Why is there no progress in investigating high-profile cases?"

    "Because for the current authorities, the truthful results on the investigation of the Boeing tragedy, shootings on Maidan and other cases would mean the end. After all, no matter how they try to hide it, all paths in those cases lead to him. Irrefutable facts show that Porubiy was commanding the snipers on Maidan. More than 80 people were killed at once at his command. When the people saw the dead bodies, it produced an immediate effect, and they went on a desperate attack on the government. That's why they needed the snipers and deaths on Maidan. The downing of the Boeing was needed to shift the blame on Russia and the militia of the Donbass. But they failed."

    "A year ago, on Kiev Maidan, people were protesting and even dying for Europe. A few months after winning the "revolution of dignity," Ukraine has not gotten any closer to Europe. On the contrary, Ukraine has slipped down to the level of Africa," this is what TV presenter of a Lviv channel, Ostap Drozdov said. The average pension in Ukraine after the "revolution of dignity" makes up 50 euros. This is the level of Africa. Do you agree with this opinion?"

    "I agree that after Maidan, Ukraine has gone decades and even centuries back. We now have the power of barbarians, who do not recognize the rule of law, who trample on the Constitution, violate laws, refuse to fulfill international obligations. Poroshenko's decree from 4 November is a bright example of that. One should introduce international sanctions against Poroshenko's Ukraine. Otherwise, it is impossible to bring to reason the man, whose power destroys all norms of law. But Europe is silent, the international community is silent under the thumb of the US - they are fine and satisfied with it. They are satisfied with the jungle in the middle of Europe, on the territory of Ukraine."

    Interviewed by Lyuba Lulko

    Pravda.Ru

    [Jan 20, 2015] Ukraine Goes to War – and Always Will as Long as Maidan Holds Power

    Jan 20, 2015 | network54.com

    ... ... ...

    Previously, back in September, I discussed the Minsk Protocol in detail here, where I said

    "…..the Protocol is in my opinion a total red herring. The Protocol is not a contract or treaty. There is no court or tribunal that will arbitrate on the meaning of its words. All the sides will construe it as they wish. The junta will not of course construe it as I have done and nor will its western backers even though my interpretation is undoubtedly the correct one. The junta will continue to call the NAF (the "Novorossian Armed Forces" - AM) "terrorists" and will continue to deny they are the representatives of the Donbas whether they win the election or not. Certainly the junta will not recognise an election the NAF wins or any declaration of independence the NAF makes. For what it's worth in my opinion there is little chance of the terms of such an election being agreed upon or such an election taking place whilst the Donbas remains part of the Ukraine".

    Every word in this paragraph has come true. The Ukrainian government still refuses to recognise the Donbass leaders Zakharchenko and Plotnisky as the representatives of the people of the Donbass even though their signatures are on the Minsk Protocol, which the Ukrainian government negotiated with them and itself signed. Elections in the Donbass did take place in November but as I predicted the Ukrainian government did not agree their terms. The Ukrainian government still calls Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky and the other Donbass leaders "terrorists".

    The reason I was able to make that prediction in September with such confidence and why that prediction has in every respect come true, is because the nature of the Ukrainian government allowed for no other.

    The basic truth about the crisis in Ukraine and why there is a war there - the one that many people especially in the West refuse to acknowledge - is that the faction that seized power in Ukraine through the February 2014 coup is structurally incapable of negotiation or compromise with those it considers its opponents.

    I discussed the nature of this faction when I discussed the results of the elections in Ukraine last November. Briefly, the whole purpose of the February coup was so that the faction in Ukraine that holds power now could achieve the unrestricted dominance of Ukrainian society which is its only way of making true its vision of a unitary, monolingual, monocultural Ukraine that is forever distanced from Russia.

    Given the diversity of Ukrainian society, it cannot compromise with its opponents since were it to do so that would jeopardise the entire project that is the reason for its existence and the justification for its hold on power. That is why it acted in February to eliminate from Ukrainian political life the faction that had held power in Ukraine before and why it remains committed to eliminating its opponents in the Donbass now.

    It is also incidentally the reason for the repeated attacks on the Lenin statues discussed by Paul Robinson here. Given the regime's overriding, aggressive drive to reshape Ukraine in its own image, it cannot tolerate the existence of these statues precisely because so many Ukrainians adhere to them and by doing so hold fast to a different vision of Ukraine from the one the regime has. The very reason why Robinson says it is a mistake to attack these statues is therefore for the regime a compelling reason to destroy them. The statues have to be eliminated from Ukraine just as opponents who think of Ukraine differently must be.

    It is this drive - not Russia's actions - which is why Ukraine is in a state of perpetual war and crisis and why atrocities like the 2nd May 2014 Odessa fire can happen without being properly investigated or the perpetrators brought to account.

    Though the Maidan regime is deeply divided and factionalised, its drive to remake Ukraine and to eliminate all opponents of its vision, is the common denominator of all its factions. As factional differences intensify as the economic situation deteriorates, fulfilment of the drive through war increasingly becomes the way the regime retains coherence, making a renewal of the war inevitable.

    What this means in practice is that negotiations between the Ukrainian government and the Donbass as a route to peace in Ukraine are all but impossible. As Yanukovych repeatedly discovered during the Maidan crisis (see our discussion of his ouster here), any attempt to achieve a compromise is bound in the end to fail since the Maidan movement which holds power in Ukraine now is structurally unable to compromise.

    ThatJ, January 20, 2015 at 11:25 am

    Ukraine Goes to War – and Always Will as Long as Maidan Holds Power
    as Alexander Mercouris writes for Russia Insider

    Here some excerpts:

    "The basic truth about the crisis in Ukraine and why there is a war there – the one that many people especially in the West refuse to acknowledge – is that the faction that seized power in Ukraine through the February 2014 coup is structurally incapable of negotiation or compromise with those it considers its opponents.

    "… the whole purpose of the February coup was so that the faction in Ukraine that holds power now could achieve the unrestricted dominance of Ukrainian society which is its only way of making true its vision of a unitary, monolingual, monocultural Ukraine that is forever distanced from Russia.

    "Given the diversity of Ukrainian society, it cannot compromise with its opponents since were it to do so that would jeopardize the entire project that is the reason for its existence and the justification for its hold on power. That is why it acted in February to eliminate from Ukrainian political life the faction that had held power in Ukraine before and why it remains committed to eliminating its opponents in the Donbass now.

    "… Though the Maidan regime is deeply divided and factionalised, its drive to remake Ukraine and to eliminate all opponents of its vision, is the common denominator of all its factions. As factional differences intensify as the economic situation deteriorates, fulfillment of the drive through war increasingly becomes the way the regime retains coherence, making a renewal of the war inevitable.

    "What this means in practice is that negotiations between the Ukrainian government and the Donbass as a route to peace in Ukraine are all but impossible. … any attempt to achieve a compromise is bound in the end to fail since the Maidan movement which holds power in Ukraine now is structurally unable to compromise."

    Medvedev the Economic attitude of the EU to Kiev reminiscent of neo-colonialism


    Dec 15, 2014 | news.rin.ru

    Economic cooperation between Brussels And Kiev is reminiscent of neo-colonialism: Ukraine necessary for the European Union, the 1st and foremost, as a source of raw materials And markets, And not an equal partner, said the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev D. A..

    " From the standpoint of economic cooperation between the EU to Ukraine more like neo-colonialism. Under the guise of " European fair " competition was dented unilateral advantages for European And closely related to Ukrainian organizations. Ukraine necessary for the European Union, most importantly, as a source of part of the raw materials. And, no doubt, as a market for European organizations, " wrote Medvedev published in " Nezavisimaya Gazeta ".

    If we talk about the structure of foreign trade of Ukraine, the majority of imports accounts for goods of final consumption And exports are dominated by commodities, the Prime Minister said. Reviews Medvedev, a significant part of Ukrainian plants in your own market will not withstand competition With European goods, which will swing with the introduction of the free trade regime, as under the terms of the agreement, Ukraine is almost completely cancel import duties.

    " And what will happen With the Ukrainian manufacturers - Nobody, it seems, was not calculated. Nobody can say what the prospects are for its part, appears instead to Ukrainian enterprises in the highly competitive European market, " he says. The amount of preferences that will give Ukraine the Europeans, was estimated at 400 million euros per year, But it is unlikely that it could compensate for even a few % of future losses, sure Medvedev.

    If we talk about the agrarian sector of Ukraine, which accounts for 17% of GDP And 27% of national exports, the Outlook is not too rosy. Ukrainian farmers are initially in a losing situation, And among them because of the subsidies, which are allocated to European farmers. In addition, the Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU will be quoted, And other supplies to duty, which increases them, says Russian Prime Minister.

    Individual effort And cost will require a transition to European thestandard And norms, which in a few years will be required to work the industry And agriculture of Ukraine." may be to estimate the costs of these transformations, called Yanukovych government - from 160 to five hundred billion euros over ten years - And overpriced. But anyway, this is caused by very large allocations. Wait compensate for these costs from the EU - it would be naive, " said the Medvedev.

    Polish Colonialism and Ukraine's Neo-Nazism

    Polish Colonialism and Ukraine's Neo-Nazism
    By Nikolai MALISHEVSKI
    Nov 30, 2014 - 1:19:22 AM

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    Polish Colonialism and Ukraine's Neo-Nazism

    Nikolai MALISHEVSKI | 29.11.2014 | 00:15


    Speaking in parliament recently Leszek Miller, former Poland's Prime Minister and head of Democratic Left Alliance, said about the Russia-Ukraine relations "Poland has become rather a problem than a solution". The remark did not go unnoticed and he came under harsh criticism from media.

    Some voiced concern over the possibility that such statements could provoke "radical changes" and prompt Europe to look at the east "through the eyes of Orban, Berlusconi and Miller". Nevertheless nobody denied the fact that the Poland's stance on Ukraine is one of factors to spur the conflict. It's obvious.

    Since the very first days of Maidan protests Poland has applied a lot of effort to turn Ukraine into a European problem. And it has closely cooperated with the United States.

    According to Alexander Yakimenko, the former head of Ukraine's Security Service operative, "All the orders were given either by the US embassy or by Jan Tombinski, a Polish representative who worked in the EU mission in Kiev. Poland played an invaluable role in the coup. It has always dreamt of restoring its former power and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth".

    In September 2012 Kiev welcomed the appointment of Jan Tombinski as head of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine. According to Polish media, as soon as Mr. Tombinski took office, the EU office turned into the headquarters of the extremists who overthrew the legal authorities and actually sparked a civil war in the country.

    As soon as Ukraine was set on fire some compatriots of Tombinski joined his efforts, like, for instance, Andrzej Derlatka, former chief of the Polish Intelligence Agency, who has been responsible for interaction with the US Central Intelligence Agency. He had to resign as a result of scandal related to CIA's secret prisons operating on Polish soil. Derlatka held talks with President Poroshenko about the activities of Polish secret services in Ukraine including the protection of top NATO officials (the US delegated this responsibility to Poland). Jeffrey Egan и Raymond Mark Davidson, former and current heads of CIA station in Kiev, acted as intermediaries at the talks. Since the very start Polish and American secret services preferred to cooperate with retired veterans instead of officers on active service, many of whom had dubious reputations or intelligence identities revealed. Here is a good example. Jerzy Dziewulski, the security advisor to former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, worked as a security guard to protect Ukrainian former acting President Turchinov, whom he accompanied during the trips to the Donbass after the civil war started.


    According to Polish experts, the Ukraine's high standing officials befriended Polish politicians a long time ago. For example, Ukraine's tycoon Mykola Zlochevsky, ex-Minister of Ecology, and former President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski are on the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings (the company has a lot of interest in a potential shale gas exploration in the east of Ukraine).

    In October Petro Poroshenko met Eva Kovacs, the Poland's new Prime Minister, to discuss 'strategic partnership". The next day Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Shetina compared the relationship of Warsaw and Kiev with the relations between European countries and their colonies in Africa.

    He elaborated on his statement on November 6, "Talking about Ukraine without Poland - the same as that discussing the case of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco without Italy, France and Spain". It sounded defiantly enough to evoke concern in Kiev but Ukraine's officials had no guts to send a note to Warsaw. The Ukrainian media raised ballyhoo about it but emphasized that not all Polish outlets shared the opinion of Polish Foreign Minister.

    Popular Rzeczpospolita published the article titled Ukraine as Polish Colony. Schetyna's Words Arouse Indignation. It cited the opinion of Ukrainian expert, "If the Polish foreign minister said this, it should be his last thing he says in this capacity", said Vasyl Filipchuk, former Ukrainian diplomat and currently Chairman of the ICPS (International Centre for Policy Studies) Board. But nobody paid attention to his words.

    Meanwhile Ukraine's officials are going through training in Poland to enhance their professional skills for doing a better job while serving in the "colonial administration", as

    Grzegorz Shetina would call it. According to Jakub Korejba, a Polish researcher, the National School of Public Administration in Warsaw is responsible for the process. It was created with the help of French specialists patterned after the National School of Administration (The École nationale d'administration –ENA) in Paris. Jacek Czaputowicz, the former director the school, has been a militant of the Solidarity radical wing and Director at the Department of Foreign Policy Strategy and Planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Jan Pastwa, the School's current director, has served as Polish Ambassador to the Czech Republic. The both men are ardent supporters of the concept aimed at containment of Russia in Europe. Pastwa is a member of radical extremist group ZHR (the Scouting Association of the Republic, Polish: Związek Harcerstwa Rzeczypospolitej -ZHR) which proclaims the return of Western Belarus and Ukraine to Poland as its foreign policy goals.

    Leszek Miller is right. Poland has become part of big problem.

    http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/11/29/polish-colonialism-and-ukraine-neo-nazism.html

    [Jan 20, 2015] Washington Pushing Ukraine to the Brink by Mike_Whitney

    Jul 13, 2014 | The Market Oracle
    What does a pipeline in Afghanistan have to do with the crisis in Ukraine?

    Everything. It reveals the commercial interests that drive US policy. Just as the War in Afghanistan was largely fought to facilitate the transfer of natural gas from Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea, so too, Washington engineered the bloody coup in Kiev to cut off energy supplies from Russia to Europe to facilitate the US pivot to Asia.

    This is why policymakers in Washington are reasonably satisfied with the outcome of the war in Afghanistan despite the fact that none of the stated goals were achieved. Afghanistan is not a functioning democracy with a strong central government, drug trafficking has not been eradicated, women haven't been liberated, and the infrastructure and school systems are worse than they were before the war. By every objective standard the war was a failure. But, of course, the stated goals were just public relations blather anyway. They don't mean anything. What matters is gas, namely the vast untapped reserves in Turkmenistan that could be extracted by privately-owned US corporations who would use their authority to control the growth of US competitors or would-be rivals like China. That's what the war was all about. The gas is going to be transported via a pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the Arabian sea, eschewing Russian and Iranian territory. The completion of the so called TAPI pipeline will undermine the development of an Iranian pipeline, thus sabotaging the efforts of a US adversary.

    The TAPI pipeline illustrates how Washington is aggressively securing the assets it needs to maintain its dominance for the foreseeable future. Now, check this out from The Express Tribune, July 5:

    "Officials of Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan are set to meet in Ashgabat next week to push ahead with a planned transnational gas pipeline connecting the four countries and reach a settlement on the award of the multi-billion-dollar project to US companies.

    "The US is pushing the four countries to grant the lucrative pipeline contract to its energy giants. Two US firms – Chevron and ExxonMobil – are in the race to become consortium leaders, win the project and finance the laying of the pipeline," a senior government official said while talking to The Express Tribune.

    Washington has been lobbying for the gas supply project, called Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (Tapi) pipeline, terming it an ideal scheme to tackle energy shortages in Pakistan. On the other side, it pressed Islamabad to shelve the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline because of a nuclear standoff with Tehran…

    According to officials, Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will lead a delegation at the meeting of the TAPI pipeline steering committee on July 8 in Ashgabat.

    …At present, bid documents are being prepared in consultation with the Asian Development Bank, which is playing the role of transaction adviser. The documents will be given to the two companies only for taking part in the tender.

    Chevron is lobbying in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to clinch a deal, backed by the US State Department. However, other companies could also become part of the consortium that will be led either by Chevron or ExxonMobil." (TAPI pipeline: Officials to finalise contract award in Ashgabat next week, The Express Tribune)

    So the pipeline plan is finally moving forward and, as the article notes, "The documents will be given to the two companies only for taking part in the tender."

    Nice, eh? So the State Department applies a little muscle and "Voila", Chevron and Exxon clinch the deal. How's that for a free market?

    And who do you think is going to protect that 1,000 mile stretch of pipeline through hostile Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?

    Why US troops, of course, which is why US military bases are conveniently located up an down the pipeline route. Coincidence?

    Not on your life. Operation "Enduring Freedom" is a bigger hoax than the threadbare war on terror.

    So let's not kid ourselves. The war had nothing to do with liberating women or bringing democracy to the unwashed masses. It was all about power politics and geostrategic maneuvering; stealing resources, trouncing potential rivals, and beefing up profits for the voracious oil giants. Who doesn't know that already? Here's more background from the Wall Street Journal:

    "Earlier this month, President Obama sent a letter to (Turkmenistan) President Berdimuhamedow emphasizing a common interest in helping develop Afghanistan and expressing Mr. Obama's support for TAPI and his desire for a major U.S. firm to construct it.

    …Progress on TAPI will also jump-start many of the other trans-Afghan transport projects-including roads and railroads-that are at the heart of America's "New Silk Road Strategy" for the Afghan economy.

    The White House should understand that if TAPI isn't built, neither U.S. nor U.N. sanctions will prevent Pakistan from building a pipeline from Iran." (The Pipeline That Could Keep the Peace in Afghanistan, Wall Street Journal)

    Can you see what's going on? Afghanistan, which is central to Washington's pivot strategy, is going to be used for military bases, resource extraction and transportation. That's it. There's not going to be any reconstruction or nation building. The US doesn't do that anymore. This is the stripped-down, no-frills, 21st century imperialism. "No nation for you, buddy. Just give us your gas and off we'll go." That's how the system works now. It's alot like Iraq –the biggest hellhole on earth–where "oil production has surged to its highest level in over 30 years". (according to the Wall Street Journal) And who's raking in the profits on that oil windfall?

    Why the oil giants, of course. (ExxonMobil, BP and Shell) Maybe that's why you never read about what a terrible mistake the war was. Because for the people who count, it really wasn't a mistake at all. In fact, it all worked out pretty well.

    Of course, the US will support the appearance of democracy in Kabul, but the government won't have any real power beyond the capital. It never did anyway. (Locals jokingly called Karzai the "mayor of Kabul") As for the rest of the country; it will be ruled by warlords as it has been since the invasion in 2001. (Remember the Northern Alliance? Hate to break the news, but they're all bloodthirsty, misogynist warlords who were reinstated by Rumsfeld and Co.)

    This is the new anarchic "Mad Max" template Washington is applying wherever it intervenes. The intention is to dissolve the nation-state in order to remove any obstacle to resource extraction, which is why failed states are popping up wherever the US sticks its big nose. It's all by design. Chaos is the objective. Simply put: It's easier to steal whatever one wants when there's no center of power to resist.

    This is why political leaders in Europe are so worried, because they don't like the idea of sharing a border with Somalia, which is exactly what Ukraine is going to look like when the US is done with it.

    In Ukraine, the US is using a divide and conquer strategy to pit the EU against trading partner Moscow. The State Department and CIA helped to topple Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych and install a US stooge in Kiev who was ordered to cut off the flow of Russian gas to the EU and lure Putin into a protracted guerilla war in Ukraine. The bigwigs in Washington figured that, with some provocation, Putin would react the same way he did when Georgia invaded South Ossetia in 2006. But, so far, Putin has resisted the temptation to get involved which is why new puppet president Petro Poroshenko has gone all "Jackie Chan" and stepped up the provocations by pummeling east Ukraine mercilessly. It's just a way of goading Putin into sending in the tanks.

    But here's the odd part: Washington doesn't have a back-up plan. It's obvious by the way Poroshenko keeps doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. That demonstrates that there's no Plan B. Either Poroshenko lures Putin across the border and into the conflict, or the neocon plan falls apart, which it will if they can't demonize Putin as a "dangerous aggressor" who can't be trusted as a business partner.

    So all Putin has to do is sit-tight and he wins, mainly because the EU needs Moscow's gas. If energy supplies are terminated or drastically reduced, prices will rise, the EU will slide back into recession, and Washington will take the blame. So Washington has a very small window to draw Putin into the fray, which is why we should expect another false flag incident on a much larger scale than the fire in Odessa. Washington is going to have to do something really big and make it look like it was Moscow's doing. Otherwise, their pivot plan is going to hit a brick wall. Here's a tidbit readers might have missed in the Sofia News Agency's novinite site:

    "Ukraine's Parliament adopted .. a bill under which up to 49% of the country's gas pipeline network could be sold to foreign investors. This could pave the way for US or EU companies, which have eyed Ukrainian gas transportation system over the last months.

    …Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was earlier quoted as saying that the bill would allow Kiev to "attract European and American partners to the exploitation and modernization of Ukraine's gas transportation," in a situation on Ukraine's energy market he described as "super-critical". Critics of the bill have repeatedly pointed the West has long been interest in Ukraine's pipelines, with some seeing in the Ukrainian revolution a means to get access to the system. (Ukraine allowed to sell up to 49% of gas pipeline system, novinite.com)

    Boy, you got to hand it to the Obama throng. They really know how to pick their coup-leaders, don't they? These puppets have only been in office for a couple months and they're already giving away the farm.

    And, such a deal! US corporations will be able to buy up nearly half of a pipeline that moves 60 percent of the gas that flows from Russia to Europe. That's what you call a tollbooth, my friend; and US companies will be in just the right spot to gouge Moscow for every drop of natural gas that transits those pipelines. And gouge they will too, you can bet on it.

    Is that why the State Department cooked up this loony putsch, so their fatcat, freeloading friends could rake in more dough?

    This also explains why the Obama crowd is trying to torpedo Russia's other big pipeline project called Southstream. Southstream is a good deal for Europe and Russia. On the one hand, it would greatly enhance the EU's energy security, and on the other, it will provide needed revenues for Russia so they can continue to modernize, upgrade their dilapidated infrastructure, and improve standards of living. But "the proposed pipeline (which) would snake about 2,400 kilometers, or roughly 1,500 miles, from southern Russia via the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and ultimately Austria. (and) could handle about 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, enough to allow Russian exports to Europe to largely bypass Ukraine" (New York Times) The proposed pipeline further undermines Washington's pivot strategy, so Obama, the State Department and powerful US senators (Ron Johnson, John McCain, and Chris Murphy) are doing everything in their power to torpedo the project.

    "What gives Vladimir Putin his power and control is his oil and gas reserves and West and Eastern Europe's dependence on them," Senator Johnson said in an interview. "We need to break up his stranglehold on energy supplies. We need to bust up that monopoly." (New York Times)

    What a bunch of baloney. Putin doesn't have a monopoly on gas. Russia only provides 30 percent of the gas the EU uses every year. And Putin isn't blackmailing anyone either. Countries in the EU can either buy Russian gas or not buy it. It's up to them. No one has a gun to their heads. And Gazprom's prices are competitive too, sometimes well-below market rates which has been the case for Ukraine for years, until crackpot politicians started sticking their thumb in Putin's eye at every opportunity; until they decided that that they didn't have to pay their bills anymore because, well, because Washington told them not to pay their bills. That's why.

    Ukraine is in the mess it's in today for one reason, because they decided to follow Washington's advice and shoot themselves in both feet. Their leaders thought that was a good idea. So now the country is broken, penniless and riven by social unrest. Regrettably, there's no cure for stupidity.

    The neocon geniuses apparently believe that if they sabotage Southstream and nail down 49 percent ownership of Ukraine's pipeline infrastructure, then the vast majority of Russian gas will have to flow through Ukrainian pipelines. They think that this will give them greater control over Moscow. But there's a glitch to this plan which analyst Jeffrey Mankoff pointed out in an article titled "Can Ukraine Use Its Gas Pipelines to Threaten Russia?". Here's what he said:

    "The biggest problem with this approach is a cut in gas supplies creates real risks for the European economy… In fact, Kyiv's efforts to siphon off Russian gas destined to Europe to offset the impact of a Russian cutoff in January 2009 provide a window onto why manipulating gas supplies is a risky strategy for Ukraine. Moscow responded to the siphoning by halting all gas sales through Ukraine for a couple of weeks, leaving much of eastern and southern Europe literally out in the cold. European leaders reacted angrily, blaming both Moscow and Kyiv for the disruption and demanding that they sort out their problems. While the EU response would likely be somewhat more sympathetic to Ukraine today, Kyiv's very vulnerability and need for outside financial support makes incurring European anger by manipulating gas supplies very risky." (Can Ukraine Use Its Gas Pipelines to Threaten Russia, two paragraphs)

    The funny thing about gas is that, when you stop paying the bills, they turn the heat off. Is that hard to understand?

    So, yes, the State Department crystal-gazers and their corporate-racketeer friends might think they have Putin by the shorthairs by buying up Ukraine's pipelines, but the guy who owns the gas (Gazprom) is still in the drivers seat. And he's going to do what's in the best interests of himself and his shareholders. Someone should explain to John Kerry that that's just how capitalism works.

    Washington's policy in Ukraine is such a mess, it really makes one wonder about the competence of the people who come up with these wacko ideas. Did the brainiacs who concocted this plan really think they'd be able to set up camp between two major trading partners, turn off the gas, reduce a vital transit country into an Iraq-type basketcase, and start calling the shots for everyone in the region?

    It's crazy.

    Europe and Russia are a perfect fit. Europe needs gas to heat its homes and run its machinery. Russia has gas to sell and needs the money to strengthen its economy. It's a win-win situation. What Europe and Russia don't need is the United States. In fact, the US is the problem. As long as US meddling persists, there's going to be social unrest, division, and war. It's that simple. So the goal should be to undermine Washington's ability to conduct these destabilizing operations and force US policymakers to mind their own freaking business. That means there should be a concerted effort to abandon the dollar, ditch US Treasuries, jettison the petrodollar system, and force the US to become a responsible citizen that complies with International law.

    It won't happen overnight, but it will happen, mainly because everyone is sick and tired of all the troublemaking.

    By Mike Whitney

    Email: [email protected]

    Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

    © 2014 Copyright Mike Whitney - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

    [Jan 20, 2015] The Guardian View of war in Ukraine maintain the pressure on Russia

    Notable quotes:
    "... DNR reports can't be taken at face value, though. They're biased. To me, DNR reports are only good if they are backed up by AP or Reuters info, or if they're associated by twitter announcements from people near the battle zone who are known not to be trolls (i.e., people who are reasonably objective). ..."
    "... "The artillery and aviation overwhelm the city with their shells, and then we're going to clean-up operation, it is normal procedure in this war." ..."
    Jan 20, 2015 | The Guardian

    EdwardGreen1968 -> IngAzazello 20 Jan 2015 19:04

    Putin wants Donbass to remain in Ukraine as a self-governing part of the country. Obviously he's hoping to maximize Russian influence in Ukraine by operating through the Donbass's future leaders. For Putin, such an arrangement will work like a Trojan Horse strategy.

    For the obvious reasons, Kiev isn't happy with Putin's aims. That's understandable. What's reprehensible about Kiev, however, is that it won't simply cut Donbass loose and end the war. After all, we're talking about millions of people in east Ukraine who don't want to be part of Ukraine anymore. Kiev has no good reason for fighting over this.

    Kiev could solve two problems at once by allowing Ukraine to divided. Think about it.

    EdwardGreen1968 -> Kolobok07 20 Jan 2015 18:57

    That could very well happen, but Poroshenko will be replaced by Yatsenyuk and the pro-war party. Those ultranationalists and far rightists are the ones pressuring Poroshenko to somehow "win" the war. Poroshenko's position becomes more and more insecure every time the Ukrainian army's inferiority in combat is demonstrated.

    The only light at the end of the tunnel here, I think, is that the pro-war party is drawing most of its support from the far western provinces of Ukraine. That's the only region that's really hyped up for war. I don't think the rest of Ukraine is really willing to tolerate the agony of ongoing combat. So, when the far western provinces burn out on war, politicians will emerge in Kiev who are ready for peace. But how long will it take to get to that point?

    EdwardGreen1968 wombat123 20 Jan 2015 18:45

    Wombat: I agree with you completely. My greatest fear is that, because of domestic political weakness, Poroshenko won't bite the bullet and make peace.

    From there, Western foreign policy hawks will keep enabling Kiev to go back into battle -- to get destroyed again -- for no good reason.

    EugeneGur -> sasha19 20 Jan 2015 18:38

    Cargo 200 reports are all false?

    They likely are. Some have been proven to be false. Most are repetitions of the same statements from the same sources. Some of these reports claim that there are as many as 15,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Donbass. Have you ever asked yourself a question how come that not a single one has ever been killed or captured to be shown to the world to be positively identified as an active member of the Russian army? All we have is some unlabeled graves that could belong to anybody, some unknown people making claims that cannot be verified. Everything I've seen coming from Donbass shows that there are no Russian soldiers there only volunteers, but that nobody denies.

    Colin Robinson 20 Jan 2015 18:34

    Use of SS insignia by the Azov Battalion is blatant enough to have been noticed by the BBC. They are nazis, self-proclaimed... but after all (some say) they're just one little section of a broader nationalist movement... If the majority of Kiev's enforcers do not wear such blatant fascist gear, why worry?

    Thing is, fascists have historically used a range of symbols, not all of German origin. The National Front in Britain is a militant, ultra-nationalist movement with a history of marching behind the Union Jack... While SS logos are a serious provocation in themselves, what people wear is in the end less important that what they do.

    The nationalistic movement currently dominant in Kiev has a record of lethal violence - the riot police set alight by petrol bombs in Maidan, the mass lynching in Odessa on May 2, the shooting of civilians from armoured vehicles in Mariupol on May 9... Maybe behaviour like this should have been enough to set alarm bells ringing around the world, with or without SS insignia?

    wombat123 20 Jan 2015 18:13

    Putin already chose peace. It is the leaders of the coup and their NATO backers who chose violence and civil war instead of elections. As a consequence, there is no government that is legitimate under Ukraine's constitution or in the eyes of all regions of the country.

    Just as it was the NATO-backed leaders of the coup that overthrew the elected government through violence and civil war, it is they who are massively violating the ceasefire agreement with large scale shelling of civilians in eastern cities. They would not have done this without a green light and support from NATO. NATO is not just supporting a renewal of the civil war but serious war crimes as well.

    MaxBoson -> moncur 20 Jan 2015 17:42

    At the time the exodus took place, TV was full of pictures of highways filled with Serbs in endless ten-wide columns fleeing Croatia. Some say they left out of fear, some that they were driven out; regardless of the details, it boils down to an expulsion. In any event, it is beyond dispute that the Serbs left and that there were around 300,000 of them. This event has been called the largest ethnic-cleansing of the entire Balkan tragedy.

    EugeneGur -> EdwardGreen1968 20 Jan 2015 17:28

    We all wish for that but I am not sure it's realistic. At least, to stop the destruction of the cities would be great. Gorlovka is devastated and Donetsk is in a bad shape.

    The info is from

    http://rusvesna.su/

    They've proven to be reasonably reliable before.


    Manolo Torres -> sasha19 20 Jan 2015 17:19

    Can you quote those articles, because other more compelling evidence like Russian prisoners of war or Russian death soldiers (remember when we were told that the Ukranians obliterated all those tanks?) in Ukraine simply doesn´t exist, and it is indeed very difficult to believe that there has been none when there are supposed to be thousands of official Russian forces deployed.

    At the same time the Russian army is apparently a very though place to be, in 2000 more than 1000 Russian soldiers died as "non combatants" , in 2007 around 450. I have my doubts that, for example, the people that run the comittee of mothers of Russian soldiers, and associations of that sort, that received huge amounts of money from US agencies, are not doing some dirty work convincing the families that their sons were indeed killed in Ukraine.

    A link to Khodorkovsky´s foundation, compiling a list from a dubious facebook group, will not do.

    Wu Bravo -> MarcelFromage 20 Jan 2015 17:12

    I read from different sources, because I think herewith I might have a more objective view, description from different perspectives and angles. And even by doing this I never state, I have obtained the only and the very truth. Of course not. Education is the answer, my dear friend. If you do a research, it is obligatory to look at different sources, even though you might disagree with them. So do I, my dear, friend. I do not bother myself, I educate myself and I am trying to be objective, thus relying on FACTS and not on bullshit and not fact-based comments. I disagree with this article but I did not told that my opinion is the only possible truth. However, in comparison to you, my remarks were fact based and to the point, in your case your remarks may be treated as personnel but not fact-based and not to the point. like baby: "may be you are right, but your haircut is awful :). Sorry my friend, if I have offended you by this, it was never my intention, and I will be ready to discuss this issues with you if you provide some facts, I have not noticed

    unended 20 Jan 2015 17:11

    Indeed, it takes a twisted conspiratorial mindset, or brainwashing by Russian propaganda, to even attempt to deny that Russia's armed forces have been deeply engaged in backing the rebel separatists of Donetsk and Luhansk, and making sure Ukraine's sovereignty over its internationally recognised territory is not restored.

    Am I reading the Wall Street Journal opinion page?

    Here's one to try on

    It takes a twisted conspiratorial mindset, or brainwashing by Guardian propaganda, to even attempt to deny that the US and EU have been deeply engaged in backing the rebel fascists of Lviv, and making sure Ukraine's democracy is not restored.

    Manolo Torres -> MarcelFromage, 20 Jan 2015
    Of course, I always do. Here you have it, but next time try doing your own research.

    Kiev MOHYLA school of journalism, partners:

    Rinat Akhmetov Foundation for Development of Ukraine and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy are pleased to announce the launch of the 2nd year of the Digital Media for Universities Project.

    If you go all the way down to that webpage you find:

    © 2007 Kyiv-Mohyla School of Journalism
    Design: Yuri Panin. Programming: Bogdan Tokovenko. Powered by ExpressionEngine.
    The web site is created with an assistance from the U.S. Department of State through the Educational Partnership Program.

    BBC: Ukrainian tycoon Rinat Akhmetov confronts rebellion

    Separatist leaders have threatened to "nationalise" Mr Akhmetov's assets.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinat_Akhmetov

    As of April 2014, he was listed as the 101st richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of US 11.6 billion.[5] T here have been claims Akhmetov has been involved in organized crime.

    EdwardGreen1968 -> EugeneGur 20 Jan 2015
    There is a real possibility of encircling the 24th brigade of the Ukrainian army unless they withdraw.

    Wow! That is dramatic. Where are you getting this info? Let's hope it's true.

    The idea is to push the Ukrainian army as far away from the main cities as possible, so they wouldn't be able to fire at them even from far range artillery.

    To be honest, it would be much better for everyone if the rebels execute a complete encirclement of the Ukrainian army. If that's accomplished, Kiev will not be able to play games any longer with fake peace talks, lobbing shells at Donetsk civilians, etc.

    Something decisive like Stalingrad or Dien Bin Phu. That's the kind of victory that will finally end this war.

    EugeneGur 20 Jan 2015 16:48

    The latest - the rebels are gaining pretty well along the entire front. In LPR, the took blockpost 31 and attacking blockpost 29. There is a real possibility of encircling the 24th brigade of the Ukrainian army unless they withdraw. In DPR, rebels took Peski near airpost. Peski, together with Avdeevka, were the towns from which the Ukrainian army fired at Donetsk during the entire period of so called "cease-fire". The idea is to push the Ukrainian army as far away from the main cities as possible, so they wouldn't be able to fire at them even from far range artillery.

    Elena Hodgson -> EdwardGreen1968 20 Jan 2015

    Edward, people are dying! The sooner this war ends, the less civilians are killed and maimed! Yats with his war speeches is a Rabid Rabbit!

    EdwardGreen1968 -> ID6741142 20 Jan 2015

    A final aside/ note: If, though it will not, the Kievan forces did 'win' the war on the ground what do you think will happen to the people who are caught up in this? Do you think that having been labelled 'terrorists' they will be allowed to sleep easy when the guns stop? What will happen to the women as the invaders arrive? Wake up or this does not have a happy ending!

    That's the reality that Western media reporters and editors are not allowed to talk about. They'll lose their jobs if they do.

    Either way, that horrifying outcome you describe will only happen if Moscow caves in under economic pressure. Kiev can't get to that position militarily. Based on battlefield news, Kiev is destined to lose every single battle, and very badly at that.

    EdwardGreen1968 -> Kolobok07 20 Jan 2015 16:28

    What I meant is that the Ukrainian army is being forced back in combat, but that it's probably succeeding in making an organized retreat. That means that the Ukrainians take casualties, lose ground, but reestablish defensive lines slightly to the west. That is an indecisive victory for the pro-Russian rebels.

    On the other hand, if there were reports that the Ukrainian lines were broken, and that their units were getting encircled (put in kettles) -- just like at Ilovaisk -- then it would be a decisive victory for the rebels.

    It's hard to tell what's really happening based on the reports. The good thing about a decisive outcome -- if it ever happens -- is that it may lead directly to peace (which is what I really want to see).

    EdwardGreen1968 -> Kolobok07 20 Jan 2015

    DNR reports can't be taken at face value, though. They're biased. To me, DNR reports are only good if they are backed up by AP or Reuters info, or if they're associated by twitter announcements from people near the battle zone who are known not to be trolls (i.e., people who are reasonably objective).

    Either way, the proliferation of data during these past few hours suggests the Ukrainians are being backed down at multiple points on the front.

    ID6741142 20 Jan 2015 16:19

    What saddens me in reading so many threads is the real victims of this conflict, the innocent citizens of East Ukraine are, with the odd exception, being ignored. Too many of you seem to want to score political points, trading 'fact's' that none of you will even give time for consideration since they are obviously propaganda, whichever 'side' you support. It is pointless.

    Yet people are dying and a lot more will unless the focus changes, not just on here but in the political world towards actually caring about the people.

    A couple of you deserve commendation as you have recognised this. Also you recognised that BOTH sides have played games.

    Russia does have a regime that has extreme views on many issues. It is willing to exert it power to stop the growth of western influence on its doorstep. And it does have a strong, biased propaganda machine - I know I have Russian friends living in Russia.

    However the West did play a hand in the change of Gov't. It knew that there were strong far-right groups involved in that overthrow & it knows they are exerting a higher level of influence than they should in the current conflict. The West does not have a good track record of backing the 'right' groups.

    Meanwhile, people who did not want a war, die in their homes.

    There is hypocrisy on BOTH sides.

    When it is over there will almost certainly be war crimes that will come to light on both sides.
    Is that why the media is not as high a presence as might be expected?

    You rant about the shelling as if that is the only weapon used against the citizens of the Eastern Ukraine. What about the stopping of aid lorries from the west by the pro-Kiev units - under the control of RW-nationalist leaders?

    Hearts & Minds - that is what wins all civil conflicts, and more importantly underpins any chance to repair the serious damage done to 'trust'. The people in the East will believe Russia more because it is not shooting at them AND more importantly it's aid is getting through. (Yes I know it convoys also have weapons etc hidden but we play those 'games too when it suits.) The West is slow to learn this lesson. It has failed time and again in its middle eastern, conflicts to get this right, it thinks guns not grain, missile not milk & water, even though these cost far less to provide.

    The ONLY solution, whatever anyone may say, is, as already stated, for Ukraine to become, for the foreseeable future, a totally neutral state in which the rights of all citizens/cultures are protected (not just Russian & other ethnic minorities but also cultural sub groups (i.e. LGBT)).

    This may not be what the ordinary Ukrainians want.Not the oligarchs who drove the Kiev changes because they would make more money in the EU!, who rule in this corrupt country (yes corrupt that has been part of he EU's demands to sort it out), What the people really want is not as clear as some might think , and do they actually have the facts to work it out? If we can't be sure about the value of being in the EU in GB, with our so called 'open/ democratic' media what chance do the ordinary Ukrainians have?

    But if getting the country working and people cared for is the true aim of all 'outside influential states' then that 'sacrifice' is worth it to bring peace, and the chance to build a balanced state and economy. It will NEED both Russian and EU/USA support otherwise it will be almost impossible to achieve especially with the war damage to be sorted!

    But while the politicians behave like too many of you on here, with partisan fervour, nationalistic pride etc and blinkered bar room vision, then the people who live in this potentially beautiful and culturally rich nation will continue to die.

    Come on Guardian stop focusing on the politics - we have heard it all before & it is not changing anybody's opinion. Be brave. Lead the field and get the world to know just what price is being paid by the old and young, and agitate for the peace that must happen now, before a humanitarian disaster overtakes it all, and not when nationalistic pride allows it to.

    A final aside/ note: If, though it will not, the Kievan forces did 'win' the war on the ground what do you think will happen to the people who are caught up in this? Do you think that having been labelled 'terrorists' they will be allowed to sleep easy when the guns stop? What will happen to the women as the invaders arrive? Wake up or this does not have a happy ending!

    JezNorth noshtgchq 20 Jan 2015 16:18

    Could be dangerous , these loonies could start another masive false flag - Maidan snipers , MH-17 , buss etc .

    Do you really think this helps your cause or just makes you come off as an crass insta-mod.

    PeraIlic -> Expats10 20 Jan 2015 16:17

    To fight from civilian areas when you have a choice is cowardice.

    What kind of choice are you talking about when the Ukrainian army was practically came to the suburbs of Lugansk and Donetsk. Almost until yesterday, they were bombing the cities from their airports, is not it?

    Ukrainian commander of the attack on Ilovaisk testified before the cameras, "The artillery and aviation overwhelm the city with their shells, and then we're going to clean-up operation, it is normal procedure in this war."

    If you do not believe me, I can very easily find the URL address of the video, just for you.


    Kolobok07 -> EdwardGreen1968 20 Jan 2015 16:17

    No, the Ukrainian army has resisted ...

    But there are reports of the capture of 39 and 41 checkpoints and attack extended to other positions.
    Pesky and Avdeyevka not completely stripped from the Ukrainian military.


    EugeneGur 20 Jan 2015 16:15

    Indeed, it takes a twisted conspiratorial mindset, or brainwashing by Russian propaganda, to even attempt to deny that Russia's armed forces have been deeply engaged in backing the rebel separatists of Donetsk and Luhansk

    I confess I have that twisted conspiratorial mindset - I do not for a second believe that Russian army is involved in the Donbass fighting. Not only not a shed of evidence has ever been produced, not a single soldiers captured (apart from those unfortunate 10 soldiers that wandered into Ukraine and did not fire a single shot) or a body shown, nothing.
    I do not doubt that Russia supports Donbass, and it should. These are our people that refuse to recognized an illegal "government" imposed on them by foreign powers as a result of a coup, and they appealed to Russia for help. Why shouldn't Russia help? Because the West says so? Furthermore, these people came under attack by the Kiev junta and are fighting for their freedom and their lives. The only fault I can find with the Russian government's behavior is that it doesn't do enough. Nevertheless, they are winning. Junta miscalculated yet again, and the only thing it is capable of is killing civilians.

    graduated reduction in sanctions in return for Russian concessions and cooperation in Ukraine and elsewhere has been set aside

    Why should Russia give concessions in Ukraine and cooperate in killing our people in Donbass? Why should Russia cooperate in supporting what it considers to be a government based on nazi ideology in Ukraine? Give me one good reason.

    For that matter, why should Europe do that? Feeling nostalgic about nazism?

    [Jan 19, 2015] They were never there: Russia's silence for families of troops killed in Ukraine by Alec Luhn

    From comments: "With all the respect for the dead and their families, if this is the number of Russian soldiers dead, damn good they are, I take my hat, what an army, almost invisible and extremely professional. "
    The Guardian

    freedomcry iangio 19 Jan 2015 19:42

    I still don't see what Putin is getting out of his Novrossya rampage.

    Bingo. He's getting nothing, and that's why he's so dovish and reluctant to commit. It's just one of those instances where he can't ignore the fact that he's got a people to answer to. We all want a free Novorossia and a Crimea that's reunited with the rest of us and forever safe from Ukrainian petty imperialism.

    We don't need Putin or the television to tell us that. On the contrary, it's because of the Russian people that Putin, however hard he might try to be his usual neither-here-nor-there self, can't afford to not have a bottom line in this.

    Tom20000 Eye Spy 19 Jan 2015 19:45

    I don't think you understand what free speech is. The guardian is a private organisation with no obligation to show all comments.

    Georgethedog 19 Jan 2015 19:52

    "During a meeting with the president, Krivenko even handed Putin a list of about 100 soldiers killed in eastern Ukraine"

    With all the respect for the dead and their families, if this is the number of Russian soldiers dead, damn good they are, I take my hat, what an army, almost invisible and extremely professional.

    Good Luck Kiev Junta!

    Vignola1964 -> Tom20000 19 Jan 2015 19:31

    There is much I do not know about this and other conflicts taking place around the world at the moment, but we can all feel the sinister hands behind the scenes, driving ordinary people into hostilities. There are no innocents anywhere.

    In my opinion, the 1% profit from the other 1% constantly at conflict at any one time. The more the merrier as far as they are concerned. For me this is evil.

    kowalli -> Tom20000 19 Jan 2015 19:16

    It must be embarrassing for the general public.

    ??? general public just think why west can't give any real proof, but give us bunch of lies. You really think that this 7 guys can do anything?
    You didn't even tell us results of mh17 Boeing or why ukrainians are shelling civilians like USA in Iraq.
    West just copypasting what USA tell them and think that they are exceptional people.

    RicardoFloresMagon -> vr13vr 19 Jan 2015 19:14

    Whether the claims have any merit or not, just the existence of all those groups who file petitions and challenge authorities suggests there is much more democracy in Russia than it is in the US. I can't even imagine similar organizations in the US criticizing and pressuring Obama's administration or questioning military commanders whether the death of their sons in Iraq was justified.

    InternationalANSWER
    United for Peace and Justice
    Iraq Veterans Against the War
    Code Pink
    Not in Our Name
    GI Rights Network
    and a few more...
    ... not to mention millions protested the war before it even started in every major city.

    JanZamoyski -> iangio 19 Jan 2015 19:11

    A nice leverage to control an escaped satellite state. Either by constant war which will bleed Ukraine and damage it chances of joining EU / NATO or by planting an autonomous, hostile region which MPs are going to paralyse the Ukrainian parliament. Like they need more fist fights...

    Christine Cannon -> Alexander Sokolov 19 Jan 2015 19:11

    So why are these young boys killing their neighbors. what is in it for them. Death

    psygone -> Vignola1964 19 Jan 2015 19:10

    "UK observers" is a little bit different than "deployments of HM Special Forces"

    Popeyes 19 Jan 2015 19:04

    This is nothing more than a proxy war between the West and Russia, and as Russia supports and arms Donbass, Washington has been supplying Kiev with weapons including stingers, anti-tank missiles, anti-armor weapons and other heavy weapons, as are many NATO countries.

    Poroschenko has just signed a decree that mobilizes up to 50,000 "healthy men and women" aged 25 to 60 to the frontlines in Eastern Ukraine... just how does that sit with the E.U? The U.S wanted a full scale war when this all started last year and it seems nothing has changed.

    JanZamoyski -> cheburawka 19 Jan 2015 19:03

    The same silly argument yet again. Kremlin isn't interested in occupying Ukraine. Putin is too smart for that.

    This isn't Chechnya with its 1 million population, but a much bigger country with 45 million population. Despite some sympathetic population, many Ukrainians would react with hostilities to such occupation. This would mean long bloody and expensive conflict Putin doesn't want to pay for.

    Chechnya despite it size was hell for Russia and Putin who was PM during second Chechnyy war realises Ukrainian occupation would be the end of him.

    In the end in Chechnya Putin found some locals to fight his war for him and that's what happened to some extent in Crimea and Donbass.
    The overblown issue of ethnic Russian population being oppressed was a joke, but with some external military help it doesn't matter now.
    Thanks to 5000+ dead in this conflict is fuelling itself and all Putin has to do is feed the flame with equipment, ammo and some "volunteers" if necessary.

    FFS this "war" has been on for seven months now. Where do you think the rebels are getting their money, ammo and vehicles from ? From babushkas donations and not existing pensions ?

    This region needs regular humanitarian food conveys but somehow has never ending supply of military vehicles and ammo. Stop trolling or open your eyes.

    Anette Mor 19 Jan 2015 19:03

    260 russian nationals secretly killed in east ukraine? Out of 5000? Totally looks like an invasion to me. There are at least half a million with Russian passports permanently living or visiting close family. Time to stop writing this useless none stories and start contributing to finishing that war.

    cherryredguitar -> False_Face 19 Jan 2015 19:42

    You haven't got a bit of evidence that there is some sort of American conspiracy here.

    I've got a documented American admission that they funded these Russian Soldiers Mothers groups.
    Now you may think that it's entirely a coincidence that the Russian Soldiers Mothers groups are saying exactly what the Americans who fund them would want them to say, but some of us are a tad more cynical, made that way by the lies of the warmongers.

    tanyushka -> iangio 19 Jan 2015 19:39

    Actually, Kiev was the first capital of Russia & the first royal dinasty, the Ruriks, lived there & then moved to Moscow... once in Moscow came the time of Romanovs, but much later...

    do you suggest Russia should also claim Kiev since it was its first capital?

    Putin has only said he's going to seek re-election, which is perfectly legal... why shouldn't he if he is a popular president? do you suggest Russia should change its Constitution to please its enemies?

    about economic ruin... well, that was Boris the drunkard, the favourite of the West, & oligarchs like Khodorkovsky, Brezovsky, etc. Never Heard of the Wild, Wild East?

    Putin brought order and control & the economy has been doing great so far... check your info instead of repeating lies...

    onu labu -> MacCosham 19 Jan 2015 19:39

    Note that hundred of military personnel die every year in Russia from various causes.

    noted.

    Vignola1964 -> psygone 19 Jan 2015 19:38

    It might not occur to you but special forces operatives tend to know potential adversaries quite well. They know how they are trained, might even have worked alongside them. They are professional. Hague was not. He should never alluded to any official or unofficial UK presence in Maidan. The fact that he did was worse than poor form..it endangered those same observer's lives. Were Hague to utter the words that would deny you your rejoinder to my point, even you would question his sanity.

    Eye Spy -> Robert Looren de Jong 19 Jan 2015 19:34

    are you for real.

    So the people of Crimea were all forced to go and vote at gunpoint and all these Russian guns at the heads of the voters were airbrushed out of the images that were beamed into our homes...well I never

    that means that there were thousands of Crimeans who were shot and buried because they decided to take the bullet....oh my gosh

    that means when the Americans roll in to liberate the captive Crimean' they are going to be met with flowers being thrown at their feet and they will discover mass graves....sounds like Iraq.

    You are fanciful but I can be just as inventive.

    Scipio1 19 Jan 2015 19:34

    I see the Guardian has published a photograph of the latest friend of freedom and democracy - Yatsenuik - who was part of the corrupt Orange regime of Yuschenko and Tymoshenko, 2004-2010, and who also recently accused the USSR of invading Ukraine and Germany after 1941. Does this mean something I wonder?

    As for Russian troops being in eastern Ukraine, well this seems probable. However, this is quite different from an invasion. An invasion would involve tens of thousands with air support and taking of towns and large areas of land.

    Clearly this has not and will not happen. Principally because no-one wants to take on a basket case like Ukraine. Russian troops are probably present but this is to ensure that their kith and kin in the Don Bas are not ethnically cleansed and murdered by Russophobic neo-Nazi outfits like the Azov Battalion, the Aidar Battalion, Pravy Sector (whoops, I mean the National Guard of course) whose multiple atrocities in the East have been blacked out by the western media, even the trendy faux media like ....

    It is difficult to work out exactly what the Kiev regime is trying to do in its anti-terror operation. Obviously not trying to win hearts and minds in the east by systematic bombardment and wiping out the infrastructure (very much in the style of the IDF - the hasbara doctrine). One would have thought that the massive despoliation of the most productive region of the Ukraine was against their national interests. It would have been a bit like the British during their long war against the IRA shelling Cross Maglen or West Belfast.

    But of course there is no genuine government in Ukraine, this insofar as Yatsenuik, Poroshenko and Kolomoisky are simply carrying out the orders the US Ambassador in Kiev. The US simply wants to keep the pot boiling and making maximum chaos of Russia's western borders. Yes, the US will fight to every last Ukrainian.

    Oh, and by the way there are plenty of foreign troops in West Ukraine, including Poles, US advisers, international fascist and neo-Nazi groups like the above mentioned Azov Battalion. And arms are also pouring in from NATO.

    Did the EUSA-NATO juggernaut, in their relentless push eastwards, think they could prompt yet another colour revolution in a country that had democratically voted in Yanukovich who wanted to maintain a non-aligned status. Russian reaction was very predictable to what they considered to be a massive provocation, and yet regime change was pursued a l'outrance by the US and its vassal states in Europe. And of course the regime change in Ukraine was to be followed by regime change in Russia.

    So who exactly are the aggressors here? Who is the genuine threat to world peace? Well of course it depends who you ask. But outside the Anglosphere the answer of the majority of the world's population is resounding. The great rogue state is .....

    kowalli 19 Jan 2015 19:33

    Western guys are funny - they keep talking about anything, but when they are asked about facts - they can give you anything except of more lies...

    [Jan 15, 2015] The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs by By Mikhail Klikushin

    OK. First WashPost. Now Observer. So much for State Department propaganda efforts...
    Jan 14, 2015 | observer.com

    Prominent Ukrainian MP denounces Obama's weakness, calls him a 'shot-down pilot'

    By Mikhail Klikushin | 01/14/15 8:05am

    There were times in Ukraine's recent history when even the country's military brass were kneeling before the U.S. Literally. In June 2013, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft received the saber of the Ukrainian Cossack in the city of Kherson from a kneeling Ukrainian high-rank military official. Mr. Tefft nowadays is serving the country as an Ambassador to Russia where no such honors are even imaginable.

    But that was then - a previous regime.

    On the surface, today's Ukraine is much more favorably disposed toward everything Western and everything American because of the exciting wind of transformations that swept through the Ukrainian political landscape last year. Its political culture looks modern, attractive, refined and European. For example, at the end of last year a new law was passed that allowed former citizens of other countries to participate in Ukrainian politics and even the government, in case they denounce their former citizenships. The reason given was the fight with notorious Ukrainian corruption. Apparently, in a country of more than 40 million people, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk (called "Rabbit" by his citizens) couldn't find a dozen or so native-born yet not corrupt professionals for his government.

    Now three former foreigners-ex-American Natalia Yaresko (Minister for Finance), ex-Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavičius (Minister For Economy and Trade) and ex-Georgian Alexander Kvitashvili (Minister for Public Health)-are firmly established in their new cabinets. They are just the beginning. They gave up their U.S. and European passports with only two benefits in return: a $200-a-month salary and the chance to build a prosperous new Ukraine.

    In a strange twist of fate, the Ukrainian ministers during their meetings now have to speak hated Russian - former foreigners do not speak Ukrainian well enough and locals do not speak English at the level necessary for complicated discussions on how to save a Ukraine economy that is disappearing before their eyes.

    The problems they are facing are overwhelming. The new minister for economy, Mr. Abromavičius, knows that the country is in fact bankrupt. "To expect that we are going to produce real as opposed to declarative incentive programs is unrealistic," he declared. In other words, the new Ukrainian budget is nothing but a piece of paper. But without this piece of paper there will be no new money from the European Bank and the IMF.

    The first steps he has taken so far are controversial.

    On January 5, the new minister for economy appointed former Estonian Jaanika Merilo - a young dark-haired beauty-as his advisor on foreign investments, improvement of business climate in Ukraine, coordination of international programs and so on. Directly after her appointment, the young lady put online not her resume or a program for Ukrainian financial stabilization but a series of candid shots that display her long legs, plump lips and prominent cleavage. In some shots, she places a knife to her lips a la Angelina Jolie and sits on the chair a la Sharon Stone.

    Ms. Merilo, too, forfeited her European passport in the hope of a better future for her new Motherland.

    By law, double citizenship is not permitted for a Ukrainian governmental official, but, as often happens in Ukraine, for some there is always another way around. The governor of Zaporozhe region, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, for example, has three citizenships.

    As exhilarating winds of change swept through the Ukrainian government, Western newspapers giddily reported the fact that after the last elections for the first time in decades there would be no Communists in the Ukrainian Parliament. But that means all possible organized opposition to the current president and prime minister is gone.

    Instead, the new Rada has a big group of parliamentarians of very uncertain political loyalties and even dubious mental state-former warlords and street activists who distinguished themselves during street fights and tire burnings.

    These government rookies are sometimes turning to strange ways of self-promotion, now within the walls of the Parliament.

    One new face in the Rada-leader of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist party and former warlord Dmytro Yarosh-admitted in a January interview with Ukrainian TV that he caresses a real hand grenade in his pocket while inside the Rada. Because he is MP, the security personnel has no right to check his pockets. They just ask if he has anything dangerous on his person and he says no. The reason to have a hand grenade on his body is that there are too many enemies of Ukraine within the MP crowding him during the voting process. He is not afraid, of course. But when the time comes, he will use this grenade and with a bit of luck he will take a lot of them with him if he dies.

    Ukrainian MPs Yuri Beryoza and Andrei Levus, also former warlords and members of radical parties, became notorious last December after publicly applauding the terrorist attack in the Russian city of Grozny-an attack in which 14 policemen were killed. "On our eastern borders our brothers are coming out from under Russia's power. It's normal. These are the allies of Ukraine," said Mr. Beryoza. This is the same fellow who had earlier promised that the Ukrainian army would soon take Moscow. Andrei Levus proposed Russia withdraw all of her "punishers" from the "People's Republic of Ichkeria" (i.e. Chechnya) immediately.

    Another former warlord, former member of social-national party and today's Ukrainian MP Igor Mosiychuk said to the journalists that Ukraine, "being in the state of war, must stimulate the opening of the second front in the Caucuses, in Middle Asia" against Russia. In the scandalous video, which has been viewed 2.5 million times, he unloaded an assault rifle into the portrait of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov ranting, "Ramzan, you have sent your dogs, traitors into our land. We have been killing them here and we will come after you. We will come after you to Grozny. We will help our brothers to free Ichkeria from such dogs like you. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the free Ichkeria!"

    Despite this bravado, the personal security for all three MPs had to be increased-at high cost to the cash-starved country-after the Chechen leader promised to bring them to justice in Russia for incitement of terrorism.

    [Jan 15, 2015] The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs by Mikhail Klikushin

    OK. First WashPost. Now Observer. So much for State Department propaganda efforts... Mixture of neoliberalism with nationalism proved to be toxic.
    Jan 14, 2015 | observer.com

    Prominent Ukrainian MP denounces Obama's weakness, calls him a 'shot-down pilot'

    There were times in Ukraine's recent history when even the country's military brass were kneeling before the U.S. Literally. In June 2013, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft received the saber of the Ukrainian Cossack in the city of Kherson from a kneeling Ukrainian high-rank military official. Mr. Tefft nowadays is serving the country as an Ambassador to Russia where no such honors are even imaginable.

    But that was then - a previous regime.

    On the surface, today's Ukraine is much more favorably disposed toward everything Western and everything American because of the exciting wind of transformations that swept through the Ukrainian political landscape last year. Its political culture looks modern, attractive, refined and European. For example, at the end of last year a new law was passed that allowed former citizens of other countries to participate in Ukrainian politics and even the government, in case they denounce their former citizenships. The reason given was the fight with notorious Ukrainian corruption. Apparently, in a country of more than 40 million people, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk (called "Rabbit" by his citizens) couldn't find a dozen or so native-born yet not corrupt professionals for his government.

    Now three former foreigners-ex-American Natalia Yaresko (Minister for Finance), ex-Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavičius (Minister For Economy and Trade) and ex-Georgian Alexander Kvitashvili (Minister for Public Health)-are firmly established in their new cabinets. They are just the beginning. They gave up their U.S. and European passports with only two benefits in return: a $200-a-month salary and the chance to build a prosperous new Ukraine.

    In a strange twist of fate, the Ukrainian ministers during their meetings now have to speak hated Russian - former foreigners do not speak Ukrainian well enough and locals do not speak English at the level necessary for complicated discussions on how to save a Ukraine economy that is disappearing before their eyes.

    The problems they are facing are overwhelming. The new minister for economy, Mr. Abromavičius, knows that the country is in fact bankrupt. "To expect that we are going to produce real as opposed to declarative incentive programs is unrealistic," he declared. In other words, the new Ukrainian budget is nothing but a piece of paper. But without this piece of paper there will be no new money from the European Bank and the IMF.

    The first steps he has taken so far are controversial.

    On January 5, the new minister for economy appointed former Estonian Jaanika Merilo - a young dark-haired beauty-as his advisor on foreign investments, improvement of business climate in Ukraine, coordination of international programs and so on. Directly after her appointment, the young lady put online not her resume or a program for Ukrainian financial stabilization but a series of candid shots that display her long legs, plump lips and prominent cleavage. In some shots, she places a knife to her lips a la Angelina Jolie and sits on the chair a la Sharon Stone.

    Ms. Merilo, too, forfeited her European passport in the hope of a better future for her new Motherland.

    By law, double citizenship is not permitted for a Ukrainian governmental official, but, as often happens in Ukraine, for some there is always another way around. The governor of Zaporozhe region, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, for example, has three citizenships.

    As exhilarating winds of change swept through the Ukrainian government, Western newspapers giddily reported the fact that after the last elections for the first time in decades there would be no Communists in the Ukrainian Parliament. But that means all possible organized opposition to the current president and prime minister is gone.

    Instead, the new Rada has a big group of parliamentarians of very uncertain political loyalties and even dubious mental state-former warlords and street activists who distinguished themselves during street fights and tire burnings.

    These government rookies are sometimes turning to strange ways of self-promotion, now within the walls of the Parliament.

    One new face in the Rada-leader of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist party and former warlord Dmytro Yarosh-admitted in a January interview with Ukrainian TV that he caresses a real hand grenade in his pocket while inside the Rada. Because he is MP, the security personnel has no right to check his pockets. They just ask if he has anything dangerous on his person and he says no. The reason to have a hand grenade on his body is that there are too many enemies of Ukraine within the MP crowding him during the voting process. He is not afraid, of course. But when the time comes, he will use this grenade and with a bit of luck he will take a lot of them with him if he dies.

    Ukrainian MPs Yuri Beryoza and Andrei Levus, also former warlords and members of radical parties, became notorious last December after publicly applauding the terrorist attack in the Russian city of Grozny-an attack in which 14 policemen were killed. "On our eastern borders our brothers are coming out from under Russia's power. It's normal. These are the allies of Ukraine," said Mr. Beryoza. This is the same fellow who had earlier promised that the Ukrainian army would soon take Moscow. Andrei Levus proposed Russia withdraw all of her "punishers" from the "People's Republic of Ichkeria" (i.e. Chechnya) immediately.

    Another former warlord, former member of social-national party and today's Ukrainian MP Igor Mosiychuk said to the journalists that Ukraine, "being in the state of war, must stimulate the opening of the second front in the Caucuses, in Middle Asia" against Russia. In the scandalous video, which has been viewed 2.5 million times, he unloaded an assault rifle into the portrait of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov ranting, "Ramzan, you have sent your dogs, traitors into our land. We have been killing them here and we will come after you. We will come after you to Grozny. We will help our brothers to free Ichkeria from such dogs like you. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the free Ichkeria!"

    Despite this bravado, the personal security for all three MPs had to be increased-at high cost to the cash-starved country-after the Chechen leader promised to bring them to justice in Russia for incitement of terrorism.


    Rada deputy Anton Gerashchenko, who also serves as an advisor to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, called US president Barack Obama a 'political midget' or 'dwarf,' a 'shot-down pilot' and says that Obama is in 'ostrich position.'


    While it may be tempting to dismiss these words as the ravings of former warlords who have been traumatized by war, worrisome shifts of the political mindset have been appearing in the mainstream of the Ukrainian political establishment.

    Anton Geraschenko is the poster boy of the next generation of Ukrainian politicians. He holds an important position as the advisor to the minister for internal affairs, executing the role of the Ministry's spokesman. This 36-year-old, well-educated member of the Parliament is a familiar face on TV, and a darling of the nation's political talk shows. He is well-spoken and gives elaborate interviews on every political subject to all major Ukrainian newspapers.

    Last Friday, while on his trip to the U.S., Mr. Gerashchenko published two controversial posts on his Facebook page, which could be considered very revealing from the perspective of the changing mood in the Ukrainian political class toward the United States.

    In the first, Mr. Gerashchenko praised a George Soros article in which the 84-year-old financier is "flying high" like an eagle "over the pettiness of Obama and other political dwarfs." Mr. Gerashchenko blamed Mr. Obama and other "political dwarfs" for not realizing that "Putin's actions towards Ukraine are the tectonic shifts in the world history, much bigger in scale than those that were the results of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington." According to Mr. Gerashchenko, George Soros lost all hope that "Barack Obama will give a chance to the people of the United States to give large-scale economical assistance to the people of Ukraine, not the miserable hand-outs that have been ten times less than the help that was given to Iraq or Afghanistan." Mr. Gerashchenko vented his frustration at Mr. Obama for not giving Ukraine money on the scale of the Marshall Plan or the aid packages that were given to rebuild Japan after WWII or South Korea after the Korean War.

    Prominent Ukrainian lawmaker Anton Gerashchenko's Facebook posts have created a stir, downplaying Sept. 11 and lobbing insults at President Obama.

    According to his post, Mr. Gerashchenko believes that the United States has the obligation to give to the Ukraine enough money so the people of "occupied Crimea and Donbass in a maximum of three or five years would dig tunnels and destroy walls and barbed-wire fences, bursting into the territory of prosperous Free Ukraine … looking for jobs, social assistance, high quality of living – as a counterweight to the Mordor which the Russian Federation will definitely have become" ('total catastrophe') under the leadership of "Putler." ("Putler" being 'Putin' and 'Hitler' combined into one word-a popular new term among Ukraine's new political class.)

    The Facebook post by the young Ukrainian politician created an uproar in both Ukraine and Russia-but Western media preferred to look the other way.

    Inspired by his sudden notoriety, Mr. Gerashchenko posted one more rant on the same subject later on the same day in which he elaborated his ideas even farther.

    "Yes, Obama is a political dwarf because it looks like he does not grasp the full scale the consequences of Putin's capture of Crimea. Because last spring and in the beginning of last summer Obama took the 'ostrich's position' and preferred not to see the Putin's aggression on the continental part of the Ukraine. In the U.S.A., Barack Obama for his indecisive actions and lost positions in foreign politics is called 'lame duck' which is analogous to our expression 'shot-down pilot'. And this name is well deserved. Barack Obama will never be put in the same row with such great U.S. Presidents as Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. And even with Bill Clinton …"

    In his second post Mr. Gerashchenko went on to say that he was expressing not only his own feelings but the attitude of a significant part of the Ukrainian population, "which considers Obama's actions unworthy of the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, the one that made Ukraine give up its nuclear status … Instead of decisive actions, from March on we have seen nothing but declarations that the White House is 'very concerned,' expresses its concerns' and also 'deeply worried' by the situation in our country."

    By Mr. Gerashchenko's light, President Putin's entire operation in Crimea and Donbass was possible only because Mr. Putin knew that Mr. Obama would never risk any strong moves to stop him. According to this star of Ukrainian politics, America gave "only" $1 billion to Ukraine but Mr. Gerashchenko and the like view this as a pittance. Instead, they want a big slice of the hundreds of billions that the U.S. has spent on war from 2001-2014 in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

    These revealing and troubling posts were deleted within hours on the same day they appeared. Deleted or not, Mr. Gerashchenko, as well as some significant number of Ukrainian politicians, rant at Mr. Obama for not doing what George Soros wants him to do - immediately spend $50 billion of U.S. and E.U. taxpayers' money on building an immediate paradise in Ukraine. George Soros' motives could be pragmatic, of course. Some evil tongues have been saying that the financier's arguments for the bailout of a falling Ukrainian economy by the U.S. and European taxpayers have roots not in his love for freedom around the world. They say that he has a lot of the Ukrainian government's bonds in his portfolio and in the case of Ukraine's national default he will lose billions.

    Ironically, the biggest winner of a significant and prompt infusion of Western money into Ukraine would be the hated "Putler." Just last week, Russia, strapped for cash itself as the ruble plummets, started to spread rumors that it is considering demanding early repayment of its $3 billion 2014 loan to Ukraine because the conditions of the loan demand such a step in the event that the national debt of Ukraine exceeds 60 percent of its GDP. By now the national debt of Ukraine is around 70 percent of its GDP and the prognosis is that by the end of this year it will be around 90 percent of its GDP. If any significant amount of money is given to Ukraine, Russia will immediately start sucking out a big part of it as Ukrainian gas and other energy bills will finally be paid on time … to Russia.

    Mr. Gerashchenko's scandalous FB posts are gone, but the questions raised by them still remain. Will the Ukrainian political class turn away from the U.S. and the West if the generosity of the U.S. taxpayers does not match the nebulous expectations of the reformers in the Ukrainian government? Are the Ukrainians ready to rely mostly on themselves on the long and painful journey of building their own independent nation? Amid all the reform talk and the importing of attractive foreign "advisors," one cannot but wonder if it's nothing more than camouflage for the same old Ukrainian game-to convince the world to give, as Mr. Gerashchenko's first Facebook post put it, just one more "large-scale economical assistance."

    [Jan 15, 2015] The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs by By Mikhail Klikushin

    OK. First WashPost. Now Observer. So much for State Department propaganda efforts...
    Jan 14, 2015 | observer.com

    Prominent Ukrainian MP denounces Obama's weakness, calls him a 'shot-down pilot'

    By Mikhail Klikushin | 01/14/15 8:05am

    There were times in Ukraine's recent history when even the country's military brass were kneeling before the U.S. Literally. In June 2013, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft received the saber of the Ukrainian Cossack in the city of Kherson from a kneeling Ukrainian high-rank military official. Mr. Tefft nowadays is serving the country as an Ambassador to Russia where no such honors are even imaginable.

    But that was then - a previous regime.

    On the surface, today's Ukraine is much more favorably disposed toward everything Western and everything American because of the exciting wind of transformations that swept through the Ukrainian political landscape last year. Its political culture looks modern, attractive, refined and European. For example, at the end of last year a new law was passed that allowed former citizens of other countries to participate in Ukrainian politics and even the government, in case they denounce their former citizenships. The reason given was the fight with notorious Ukrainian corruption. Apparently, in a country of more than 40 million people, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk (called "Rabbit" by his citizens) couldn't find a dozen or so native-born yet not corrupt professionals for his government.

    Now three former foreigners-ex-American Natalia Yaresko (Minister for Finance), ex-Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavičius (Minister For Economy and Trade) and ex-Georgian Alexander Kvitashvili (Minister for Public Health)-are firmly established in their new cabinets. They are just the beginning. They gave up their U.S. and European passports with only two benefits in return: a $200-a-month salary and the chance to build a prosperous new Ukraine.

    In a strange twist of fate, the Ukrainian ministers during their meetings now have to speak hated Russian - former foreigners do not speak Ukrainian well enough and locals do not speak English at the level necessary for complicated discussions on how to save a Ukraine economy that is disappearing before their eyes.

    The problems they are facing are overwhelming. The new minister for economy, Mr. Abromavičius, knows that the country is in fact bankrupt. "To expect that we are going to produce real as opposed to declarative incentive programs is unrealistic," he declared. In other words, the new Ukrainian budget is nothing but a piece of paper. But without this piece of paper there will be no new money from the European Bank and the IMF.

    The first steps he has taken so far are controversial.

    On January 5, the new minister for economy appointed former Estonian Jaanika Merilo - a young dark-haired beauty-as his advisor on foreign investments, improvement of business climate in Ukraine, coordination of international programs and so on. Directly after her appointment, the young lady put online not her resume or a program for Ukrainian financial stabilization but a series of candid shots that display her long legs, plump lips and prominent cleavage. In some shots, she places a knife to her lips a la Angelina Jolie and sits on the chair a la Sharon Stone.

    Ms. Merilo, too, forfeited her European passport in the hope of a better future for her new Motherland.

    By law, double citizenship is not permitted for a Ukrainian governmental official, but, as often happens in Ukraine, for some there is always another way around. The governor of Zaporozhe region, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, for example, has three citizenships.

    As exhilarating winds of change swept through the Ukrainian government, Western newspapers giddily reported the fact that after the last elections for the first time in decades there would be no Communists in the Ukrainian Parliament. But that means all possible organized opposition to the current president and prime minister is gone.

    Instead, the new Rada has a big group of parliamentarians of very uncertain political loyalties and even dubious mental state-former warlords and street activists who distinguished themselves during street fights and tire burnings.

    These government rookies are sometimes turning to strange ways of self-promotion, now within the walls of the Parliament.

    One new face in the Rada-leader of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist party and former warlord Dmytro Yarosh-admitted in a January interview with Ukrainian TV that he caresses a real hand grenade in his pocket while inside the Rada. Because he is MP, the security personnel has no right to check his pockets. They just ask if he has anything dangerous on his person and he says no. The reason to have a hand grenade on his body is that there are too many enemies of Ukraine within the MP crowding him during the voting process. He is not afraid, of course. But when the time comes, he will use this grenade and with a bit of luck he will take a lot of them with him if he dies.

    Ukrainian MPs Yuri Beryoza and Andrei Levus, also former warlords and members of radical parties, became notorious last December after publicly applauding the terrorist attack in the Russian city of Grozny-an attack in which 14 policemen were killed. "On our eastern borders our brothers are coming out from under Russia's power. It's normal. These are the allies of Ukraine," said Mr. Beryoza. This is the same fellow who had earlier promised that the Ukrainian army would soon take Moscow. Andrei Levus proposed Russia withdraw all of her "punishers" from the "People's Republic of Ichkeria" (i.e. Chechnya) immediately.

    Another former warlord, former member of social-national party and today's Ukrainian MP Igor Mosiychuk said to the journalists that Ukraine, "being in the state of war, must stimulate the opening of the second front in the Caucuses, in Middle Asia" against Russia. In the scandalous video, which has been viewed 2.5 million times, he unloaded an assault rifle into the portrait of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov ranting, "Ramzan, you have sent your dogs, traitors into our land. We have been killing them here and we will come after you. We will come after you to Grozny. We will help our brothers to free Ichkeria from such dogs like you. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the free Ichkeria!"

    Despite this bravado, the personal security for all three MPs had to be increased-at high cost to the cash-starved country-after the Chechen leader promised to bring them to justice in Russia for incitement of terrorism.

    [Jan 11, 2015] Ukraine's forgotten city destroyed by war by Oleg Orlov for Echo Moskvy

    Notable quotes:
    "... The East Ukrainians won't get any sympathy from Cameron or Merkel as none of their citizens are dying - only pieces on a chess board to them. ..."
    Jan 07, 2014 | The Guardian

    Mr. Russian, Jan 8, 2015 20:50

    I see the Guardian rhetoric has changed, as well as rhetoric of our usual guests from NSA.
    Does that mean that Ukrainian government would finally get a push to end the war?

    PeraIlic -> psygone, 8 Jan 2015 15:35

    That's right - Putin's 12 point cease fire plan makes the Russians 100 percent responsible for its success or failure.

    What kind of twisted logic? One who has proposed a draft of the agreement, he is 100% responsible for its fulfillment, and not those who have signed it???

    For the fulfillment of any agreement are obliged all its signatories, it is old rule, which is still in force, and always will be so. As a reminder, the protocol was signed in Minsk by:

    Swiss diplomat and OSCE representative Heidi Tagliavini
    Former president of Ukraine and Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma
    Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov
    DPR and LPR leaders

    Ralphinengland 9 Jan 2015 18:36

    £2.13 million was given by the UK to ECHO (EU) & CERF (UN) - and who knows where THAT ended up. Considering eastern Ukraine had a population of approx 8 million, less people who fled, then £3.53 million for say 7 million people IF - I repeat IF - that money ever got anywhere near the Donbas, is FIFTY pence per person!!!

    HollyOldDog -> Dunscore 9 Jan 2015 16:26

    The East Ukrainians won't get any sympathy from Cameron or Merkel as none of their citizens are dying - only pieces on a chess board to them. They are a bloodless pair.

    Anette Mor -> psygone 8 Jan 2015 11:59

    You are joking. "Russian refusal or inability"? Donbas is still being bombed daily. All infrastructure destroyed several times over. Yet they got better electricity and gas supply than main Ukraine.

    The war has to stop first for proper recovery to start. The war is on full blow. Help people to survive is the only reasonable expectation for now.

    [Jan 11, 2015] Ukraine's forgotten city destroyed by war by Oleg Orlov for Echo Moskvy

    Notable quotes:
    "... The East Ukrainians won't get any sympathy from Cameron or Merkel as none of their citizens are dying - only pieces on a chess board to them. ..."
    Jan 07, 2014 | The Guardian

    Mr. Russian, Jan 8, 2015 20:50

    I see the Guardian rhetoric has changed, as well as rhetoric of our usual guests from NSA.
    Does that mean that Ukrainian government would finally get a push to end the war?

    PeraIlic -> psygone, 8 Jan 2015 15:35

    That's right - Putin's 12 point cease fire plan makes the Russians 100 percent responsible for its success or failure.

    What kind of twisted logic? One who has proposed a draft of the agreement, he is 100% responsible for its fulfillment, and not those who have signed it???

    For the fulfillment of any agreement are obliged all its signatories, it is old rule, which is still in force, and always will be so. As a reminder, the protocol was signed in Minsk by:

    Swiss diplomat and OSCE representative Heidi Tagliavini
    Former president of Ukraine and Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma
    Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov
    DPR and LPR leaders

    Ralphinengland 9 Jan 2015 18:36

    £2.13 million was given by the UK to ECHO (EU) & CERF (UN) - and who knows where THAT ended up. Considering eastern Ukraine had a population of approx 8 million, less people who fled, then £3.53 million for say 7 million people IF - I repeat IF - that money ever got anywhere near the Donbas, is FIFTY pence per person!!!

    HollyOldDog -> Dunscore 9 Jan 2015 16:26

    The East Ukrainians won't get any sympathy from Cameron or Merkel as none of their citizens are dying - only pieces on a chess board to them. They are a bloodless pair.

    Anette Mor -> psygone 8 Jan 2015 11:59

    You are joking. "Russian refusal or inability"? Donbas is still being bombed daily. All infrastructure destroyed several times over. Yet they got better electricity and gas supply than main Ukraine.

    The war has to stop first for proper recovery to start. The war is on full blow. Help people to survive is the only reasonable expectation for now.

    [Jan 09, 2015] Latvia proposes 'alternative' to Russian TV propaganda

    Jan 07, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com
    et Al , January 8, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    euractiv: Latvia proposes 'alternative' to Russian TV propaganda

    http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/latvia-proposes-alternative-russian-tv-propaganda-311109

    Latvia, which took over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 January, intends to launch a Russian-language TV channel to counter Kremlin propaganda, with EU support, a high ranking government official told journalists in Riga

    Some 40% of Latvians are native Russian speakers and regularly watch several Russian TV channels, including RBK Ren TV, RTR Planeta, NTV Mir .

    Makarovs regretted that the majority of Russian channels broadcasting for Latvia were registered in the UK and in Sweden, and that the regulators of those countries paid no attention to the content and put no pressure whatsoever on the broadcaster. He also argued that the procedure should be that if a media is targeted toward a specific country, it should be registered in that particular country .
    ###

    Firstly, the Balt states announced at various times over the last year or so that they would ban or block Russian channels. But they can't. They are EU member states, so this whole alternative programs is an actually an admission of defeat.

    Secondly, if Russian propaganda is so absurd and unbelievable, then why would alternative programing be necessary? It is cognitive dissonance par excellence!

    What is fairly clear is that the Pork Pie News Networks of 'Europe' and the US are facing much more skepticism than ever before, mostly through incompetence and simply repeating the same old tropes and propganda tactics they have been using for over twenty years now. It doesn't fool anyone any more.

    As for Latvia's presidency of the EU, it is little more than spokesstate since the rotating Presidency was gutted a few years ago to make it much more efficient (i.e cheaper). With small countries, yes they choose certain aspects that they wish to promote for their six months of fame, but the logistics and heavy lifting is usually done (sponsored) by a larger EU state like UK, Nl, DE, Fr etc..). It's not that much different to Mogherini's job as spokeshole for the European External Action Service, aka the EU's foreign minister (and Katherine 'Gosh!' Ashton before her). They don't make policy, just vocalized the lowest common denominator position of 28 EU member states.

    [Jan 05, 2015] US and Russia in danger of returning to era of nuclear rivalry by Julian Borger

    Sign of emergence of this anti-Russian witch hunt from 2015...
    Notable quotes:
    "... This is just US propaganda to get the increased military spending through congress. ..."
    Jan 01, 2015 | The Guardian
    A widening rift between Moscow and Washington over cruise missiles and increasingly daring patrols by nuclear-capable Russian submarines threatens to end an era of arms control and bring back a dangerous rivalry between the world's two dominant nuclear arsenals.

    Tensions have been taken to a new level by US threats of retaliatory action for Russian development of a new cruise missile. Washington alleges it violates one of the key arms control treaties of the cold war, and has raised the prospect of redeploying its own cruise missiles in Europe after a 23-year absence.

    On Boxing Day, in one of the more visible signs of the unease, the US military launched the first of two experimental "blimps" over Washington. The system, known as JLENS, is designed to detect incoming cruise missiles. The North American Aerospace Command (Norad) did not specify the nature of the threat, but the deployment comes nine months after the Norad commander, General Charles Jacoby, admitted the Pentagon faced "some significant challenges" in countering cruise missiles, referring in particular to the threat of Russian attack submarines.

    Those submarines, which have been making forays across the Atlantic, routinely carry nuclear-capable cruise missiles. In the light of aggressive rhetoric from Moscow and the expiry of treaty-based restrictions, there is uncertainty over whether those missiles are now carrying nuclear warheads.

    The rise in tension comes at a time when the arms control efforts of the post-cold-war era are losing momentum. The number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the US and Russia actually increased last year, and both countries are spending many billions of dollars a year modernising their arsenals. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and a failing economy, Vladimir Putin is putting increasing emphasis on nuclear weapons as guarantors and symbols of Russian influence. In a speech primarily about the Ukrainian conflict last summer, Putin pointedly referred to his country's nuclear arsenal and declared other countries "should understand it's best not to mess with us".

    The Russian press has taken up the gung-ho tone. Pravda, the former mouthpiece of the Soviet regime, published an article in November titled "Russian prepares a nuclear surprise for Nato", which boasted of Russian superiority over the west, particularly in tactical nuclear weapons.

    "The Americans are well aware of this," the commentary said. "They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it's too late."

    Some of the heightened rhetoric appears to be bluster. The new version of the Russian military doctrine, published on 25 December, left its policy on nuclear weapons unchanged from four years earlier. They are to be used only in the event of an attack using weapons of mass destruction or a conventional weapon onslaught which "would put in danger the very existence of the state". It did not envisage a pre-emptive strike, as some in the military had proposed.

    However, the new aggressive tone coincides with an extensive upgrading of Russia's nuclear weapons, reflecting Moscow's renewed determination to keep pace with the US arsenal. It will involve a substantial increase in the number of warheads loaded on submarines, as a result of the development of the multi-warhead Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile.

    The modernisation also involves new or revived delivery systems. Last month Russia announced it would re-introduce nuclear missile trains, allowing intercontinental ballistic missiles to be moved about the country by rail so they would be harder to target.

    There is also mounting western anxiety over Russian marketing abroad of a cruise missile called the Club-K, which can be concealed, complete with launcher, inside an innocuous-looking shipping container until the moment it is fired.

    However, the development that has most alarmed Washington is Russian testing of a medium-range cruise missile which the Obama administration claims is a clear violation of the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, the agreement that brought to an end the dangerous standoff between US and Russian cruise missiles in Europe. By hugging the contours of the Earth, cruise missiles can evade radar defences and hit strategic targets with little or no notice, raising fears on both sides of surprise pre-emptive attacks.

    At a contentious congressional hearing on 10 December, Republicans criticised two of the administration's leading arms control negotiators, Rose Gottemoeller of the State Department and Brian McKeon of the Pentagon, for not responding earlier to the alleged Russian violation and for continuing to observe the INF treaty.

    Gottemoeller said she had raised US concerns over the new missile "about a dozen times" with her counterparts in Moscow and Obama had written to Putin on the matter. She said the new Russian cruise missile – which she did not identify but is reported to be the Iskander-K with a reach in the banned 500-5,500km range – appeared to be ready for deployment.

    The Russians have denied the existence of the missile and have responded with counter-allegations about American infringements of the INF treaty that Washington rejects.

    McKeon said the Pentagon was looking at a variety of military responses to the Russian missile, including the deployment of an American equivalent weapon.

    "We have a broad range of options, some of which would be compliant with the INF treaty, some of which would not be, that we would be able to recommend to our leadership if it decided to go down that path," McKeon said. He later added: "We don't have ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe now, obviously, because they are prohibited by the treaty but that would obviously be one option to explore."

    Reintroducing cruise missiles into Europe would be politically fraught and divisive, but the Republican majority in Congress is pushing for a much more robust American response to the Russian missile.

    The US military has also been rattled by the resurgence of the Russian submarine fleet. Moscow is building new generations of giant ballistic missile submarines, known as "boomers", and attack submarines that are equal or superior to their US counterparts in performance and stealth. From a low point in 2002, when the Russian navy managed to send out no underwater patrols at all, it is steadily rebounding and reasserting its global reach.

    There have been sporadic reports in the US press about Russian submarines reaching the American east coast, which have been denied by the US military. But last year Jacoby, the head of Norad and the US northern command at the time, admitted concerns about being able to counter new Russian investment in cruise missile technology and advanced submarines.

    "They have just begun production of a new class of quiet nuclear submarines specifically designed to deliver cruise missiles," Jacoby told Congress.

    Peter Roberts, who retired from the Royal Navy a year ago after serving as a commanding officer and senior UK liaison officer with the US navy and intelligence services, said the transatlantic forays by Akula-class Russian attack submarines had become a routine event, at least once or twice a year.

    "The Russians usually put out a sortie with an Akula or an Akula II around Christmas It normally stops off Scotland, and then through the Bay of Biscay and out over the Atlantic. It will have nuclear-capable missiles on it," he said.

    Roberts, who is now senior research fellow for sea power and maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said the appearance of a periscope off the western coast of Scotland, which triggered a Nato submarine hunt last month, was a sign of the latest such Russian foray.

    He said the Russian attack submarine was most likely heading for the US coast. "They go across to eastern seaboard, usually to watch the carrier battle groups work up [go on exercises].

    "It's something the Americans have been trying to brush off but there is increasing concern about the American ability to track these subs. Their own anti-sub skills have declined, while we have all been focused on landlocked operations, in Afghanistan and so on."

    The Akula is being superseded by an even stealthier submarine, the Yasen. Both are multipurpose: hunter-killers designed to track and destroy enemy submarine and carrier battle groups. Both are also armed with land-attack cruise missiles, currently the Granat, capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

    On any given sortie, Roberts said, "it is completely unknown whether they are nuclear-tipped".

    A Russian media report described the Akula as carrying Granat missiles with 200-kilotonne warheads, but the reliability of the report is hard to gauge.

    The US and Russia removed cruise missiles from their submarines after the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction treaty (Start), but that expired at the end of 2009. Its successor, New Start, signed by Obama and the then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010 does not include any such limitation, nor does it even allow for continued exchange of information about cruise missile numbers.

    Pavel Podvig, a senior research fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and the leading independent analyst of Russian nuclear forces, said: "The bottom line is that we don't know, but it's safe to say that it's quite possible that Russian subs carry nuclear SLCMs [submarine-launched cruise missiles].

    Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and founding publisher of ArmsControlWonk.com, believes the JLENS blimps are primarily a response to a Russian move to start rearming attack submarines with nuclear weapons.

    "For a long time, the Russians have been saying they would do this and now it looks like they have," Lewis said. He added that the fact that data exchange on cruise missiles was allowed to expire under the New Start treaty is a major failing that has increased uncertainty.

    The Russian emphasis on cruise missiles is in line with Putin's strategy of "de-escalation", which involves countering Nato's overwhelming conventional superiority with the threat of a limited nuclear strike that would inflict "tailored damage" on an adversary.

    Lewis argues that Putin's accentuation of Russia's nuclear capabilities is aimed at giving him room for manoeuvre in Ukraine and possibly other neighbouring states.

    "The real reason he talks about how great they are is he saying: 'I'm going to go ahead and invade Ukraine and you're going to look the other way. As long as I don't call it an invasion, you're going to look at my nuclear weapons and say I don't want to push this,'" he said.

    With both the US and Russia modernising their arsenals and Russia investing increasing importance its nuclear deterrent, Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said we are facing a period of "deepening military competition".

    He added: "It will bring very little added security, but a lot more nervous people on both sides."

    InvisibleOISA -> Ethelunready 4 Jan 2015 23:53

    Just how many warheads have the Iranians lofted towards Europe in the past quarter century? Anyhow, the Yanqui ABM system is a pathetic blunderbuss. But extremely profitable for Boeing.

    For instance:

    US ABM test failure mars $1bn N. Korea defense plan
    06.07.2013 10:03

    A $214-million test launch of the only US defense against long-range ballistic missile attacks failed to hit its target over the Pacific Ocean, according to the Missile Defense Agency. There have been no successful interceptor tests since 2008.

    InvisibleOISA 4 Jan 2015 23:41

    Hey Julian. What a wussy propaganda piece. How about a few facts to put things in perspective.

    "All told, over the next decade, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the United States plans to spend $355 billion on the maintenance and modernization of its nuclear enterprise,[3] an increase of $142 billion from the $213 billion the Obama administration projected in 2011.[4] According to available information, it appears that the nuclear enterprise will cost at least $1 trillion over the next 30 years.[5]

    Beyond these upgrades of existing weapons, work is under way to design new weapons to replace the current ones. The Navy is designing a new class of 12 SSBNs, the Air Force is examining whether to build a mobile ICBM or extend the service life of the existing Minuteman III, and the Air Force has begun development of a new, stealthy long-range bomber and a new nuclear-capable tactical fighter-bomber. Production of a new guided "standoff" nuclear bomb, which would be able to glide toward a target over a distance, is under way, and the Air Force is developing a new long-range nuclear cruise missile to replace the current one."

    And what about NATO, the u$a poodle.

    NATO

    "The new B61-12 is scheduled for deployment in Europe around 2020. At first, the guided bomb, which has a modest standoff capability, will be backfitted onto existing F-15E, F-16, and Tornado NATO aircraft. From around 2024, nuclear-capable F-35A stealthy fighter-bombers are to be deployed in Europe and gradually take over the nuclear strike role from the F-16 and Tornado aircraft."

    Source: Arms Control Association

    VikingHiking -> Rudeboy1 4 Jan 2015 23:25

    To sum up the results of the lend-lease program as a whole, the Soviet Union received, over the war years, 21,795 planes, 12,056 tanks, 4,158 armored personnel carriers, 7,570 tractor trucks, 8,000 antiaircraft and 5,000 antitank guns, 132,000 machine-guns, 472 million artillery shells, 9,351 transceivers customized to Soviet-made fighter planes, 2.8 million tons of petroleum products, 102 ocean-going dry cargo vessels, 29 tankers, 23 sea tugboats and icebreakers, 433 combat ships and gunboats, as well as mobile bridges, railroad equipment, aircraft radar equipment, and many other items."

    "Imperialist Powers paid for the blood of Soviet soldiers with limited supplies of obsolete weapons, canned food and other war materiel which amounted to about 4% of total Soviet production during WarII".

    During Cold War all traces of Lend Lease and after UNRRA help were meticulously sanitized and removed; photos of soviet soldiers riding Shermans, Universal Carriers or manning AAA guns were excluded from books and never appeared in magazines.

    Five eights of the total German War effort was expended on the Russian front.

    So it was a combination of allied arms and resources which kaputed the Nazi's, namely
    1) The Russian Army
    2) THE American Air Force
    3) The British Navy and Merchant Marine
    4) Hitler's Stupidity

    Beckow -> StrategicVoice213 4 Jan 2015 23:03

    Are you done with your boasting? By the way, you forgot Hollywood and GMO foods.

    Leaving aside the one-side nature of your list (internet or web were also invented in CERN by a European team), technology or business are not the same as intelligence.

    Most Americans simply don't understand the world, its history, other cultures, don't see others as having independent existence with other choices. They don't get it because they are isolated and frankly quite lazy intellectually. Thus the infamous "we won WW2 in Normandy" boast and similar bizarre claims.

    Are other often similar? Yes, absolutely. But most of the others have no ability to provoke a nuclear Armageddon, so their ignorance is annoying, but not fatal. The article was about the worsening US-Russia confrontation and how it may end (or end everything). The fact that US has actively started and provoked this confrontation in the last few years, mostly out of blissful ignorance and endless selfishness. Thus we get "defensive missiles against Iran on Russia's border", coups in Ukraine, endless demonizations...well, I think you get the picture. If you don't, see the original post

    irgun777 4 Jan 2015 22:59

    " increasingly daring patrols by nuclear-capable Russian submarines "

    What motivates the Cry Wolf tune of this article ?
    Don't we also conduct nuclear and nuclear capable submarine patrols ? Even our allies
    and friends operate routinely " nuclear capable submarines "

    Our military budget alone is 10 times the Russian , we have over 600 military bases around
    the world , some around Russia. We still continue to use heavy , nuclear capable bombers
    for patrol , something Russia stopped doing after the Cold War. Russia did not
    support and financed a coup in our neighbors . Something Ron Paul and Kissinger warned us
    not to do.


    Georgeaussie 4 Jan 2015 22:55

    This is just US propaganda to get the increased military spending through congress. I think its interesting that Americans believe their military personal are defending there country when the United States is usually the aggressor. And that is my view,. And as for people saying Russian bots and Korean bots(which i don't know if they exist) you are sounding just as bad as them, every country has propaganda and everyone has a right to believe what they want, wether its western media or eastern media. People on here don't need people like you with you extreme biases, yes have an opinion, but don't put other peoples opinion down because you think your right, collectively there is no right or wrong, do you know whats going on around closed doors in your govt? Well sorry you probably know less then you think, i like to read different media reports and its interesting, do you "obama bots" know that Russia is helping look for the black box of the air asia flight? I just thought it was interesting not reading that in my "western media" reports over the weeks. So comment and tell me if you honestly think "western bot" are correct and "eastern bots" aren't b/c i would like too know how there i a right and and wrong. In my OPINION there isn't if anything you are both wrong.


    Veritas Vicnit 5 Jan 2015 00:05

    p1. 'Russian General: We Are At War'

    "Gen. Leonid Ivashov... issued a sharp warning about the nature of the strategic crisis unfolding in Ukraine: "Apparently they [US and EU officials] have dedicated themselves, and continue to do so, to deeply and thoroughly studying the doctrine of Dr. Goebbels. . . They present everything backwards from reality. It is one of the formulas which Nazi propaganda employed most successfully: . . . They accuse the party that is defending itself, of aggression. What is happening in Ukraine and Syria is a project of the West, a new type of war: ... wars today begin with psychological and information warfare operations. . . under the cover of information commotion, U.S. ships are entering the Black Sea, that is, near Ukraine. They are sending marines, and they have also begun to deploy more tanks in Europe. . . We see that on the heels of the disinformation operation a land-sea, and possibly air operation is being prepared." (Russian General: 'We Are At War', February 22, 2014)

    "what David Petraeus has done for counter-insurgency warfare, Stuart Levey [later David Cohen] has done for economic warfare" [Sen. Joe Lieberman]

    Russian military sources have disclosed their recognition that offensive operations (economic warfare, proxy warfare, regime change operations, etc.) are active as is the mobilisation of military architecture.

    MattTruth 5 Jan 2015 00:05

    Russia is not a threat to USA. The elite of USA just need a war and need it soon.

    afewpiecesofsilver -> Continent 5 Jan 2015 00:00

    That's exactly why the US/NATO is trying to 'wedge' Ukraine into their EU. Then they can develop military bases in traditionally, socially, culturally, verbally Russian Ukraine, right on Russia's border....After the well known, publicized and continuous international bullying and abuse of Russia and Putin over the last couple of years, and now the recent undermining of it's oil economy by US and NATO, anyone who is condemning Putin and Russia obviously can't read.

    moosejaw12999 5 Jan 2015 00:00

    Might give a few minute warning on cruise missiles but will do nothing against drones will it Barry ? When you start a game , you should think for a minute where it might end . Americas worst enemy is always her own disgruntled people . Drones will be the new weapon of choice in Americas upcoming civil war .

    Ross Kramer 4 Jan 2015 23:58

    "Russia is a regional power" - Obama said last year. Yeah, sure. Just by looking at the map I can see it is twice bigger than the US in territory. Its tails touches Alaska and its head lays on the border with Germany. How on Earth the biggest country in the world with the nuclear arsenal equal to that of the US can be "just a regional power"?

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    [Dec 24, 2018] Income inequality happens by design. We cant fix it by tweaking capitalism

    [Dec 22, 2018] If Truth Cannot Prevail Over Material Agendas We Are Doomed by Paul Craig Roberts

    [Dec 16, 2018] Neoliberalism has had its day. So what happens next (The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics) by Martin Jacques

    [Dec 14, 2018] Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom by Deborah Orr

    [Dec 09, 2018] Neoliberalism is more like modern feudalism - an authoritarian system where the lords (bankers, energy companies and their large and inefficient attendant bureaucracies), keep us peasants in thrall through life long debt-slavery simply to buy a house or exploit us as a captured market in the case of the energy sector.

    [Dec 08, 2018] Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games

    [Dec 07, 2018] Brexit Theresa May Goes Greek! by Brett Redmayne

    [Dec 03, 2018] Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. It's acolytes are required to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be made a fully fledged bastard.

    [Nov 30, 2018] US Warlords now and at the tome Miill's Poer Elite was published

    [Nov 27, 2018] US Foreign Policy Has No Policy by Philip Giraldi

    [Nov 27, 2018] terms that carry with them implicit moral connotations. Investment implies an action, even a sacrifice, undertaken for a better future. It evokes a future positive outcome. Another words that reinforces neoliberal rationality is "growth", Modernization and

    [Nov 27, 2018] The Argentinian military coup, like those in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua, was sponsored by the US to protect and further its interests during the Cold War. By the 1970s neoliberalism was very much part of the menu; paramilitary governments were actively encouraged to practice neoliberal politics; neoliberalism was at this stage, what communism was to the Soviet Union

    [Nov 25, 2018] Let s recap what Obama s coup in Ukraine has led to shall we?

    [Nov 22, 2018] Facing Up to the Gradual Demise of Zionist Political Power

    [Nov 14, 2018] Is Orwell overrated and Huxley undertated?

    [Nov 14, 2018] Nationalism vs partiotism

    [Nov 12, 2018] The Best Way To Honor War Veterans Is To Stop Creating Them by Caitlin Johnstone

    [Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers

    [Nov 11, 2018] Trump's Iran Policy Cannot Succeed Without Allies The National Interest by James Clapper & Thomas Pickering

    [Nov 10, 2018] US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Killed 500,000 by Jason Ditz

    [Nov 09, 2018] Globalism Vs Nationalism in Trump's America by Joe Quinn

    [Oct 25, 2018] Putin jokes with Bolton: Did the eagle eaten all the olives

    [Oct 10, 2018] A Decalogue of American Empire-Building A Dialogue by James Petras

    [Sep 29, 2018] The Schizophrenic Deep State is a Symptom, Not the Disease by Charles Hugh Smith

    [Sep 29, 2018] Trump Surrenders to the Iron Law of Oligarchy by Dan Sanchez

    [Sep 27, 2018] Hiding in Plain Sight Why We Cannot See the System Destroying Us

    [Sep 27, 2018] The power elites goal is to change its appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their expense.

    [Sep 21, 2018] One party state: Trump's 'Opposition' Supports All His Evil Agendas While Attacking Fake Nonsence by Caitlin Johnstone

    [Sep 14, 2018] English Translation of Udo Ulfkotte s Bought Journalists Suppressed

    [Sep 03, 2018] www.informationclearinghouse.info/50168.htm In Memoriam by Paul Edwards

    [Aug 28, 2018] A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes

    [Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM

    [Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov

    [Aug 13, 2018] Imperialism Is Alive and Kicking A Marxist Analysis of Neoliberal Capitalism by C.J. Polychroniou

    [Aug 05, 2018] How identity politics makes the Left lose its collective identity by Tomasz Pierscionek

    [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer

    [Jul 20, 2018] Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace With Russia by Paul Craig Roberts

    [Jul 15, 2018] What Mueller won t find by Bob In Portland

    [Jul 03, 2018] Russia has a lot of information about Lybia that could dig a political grave for Hillary. They did not release it

    [Jul 03, 2018] Corruption Allegations are one of the classic tools in the color revolution toolbox

    [Jul 03, 2018] When you see some really successful financial speculator like Soros or (or much smaller scale) Browder, search for links with intelligence services to explain the success or at least a part of it related to xUSSR space , LA and similar regions

    [Jun 13, 2018] Sanction Trump not Bourbon

    [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern

    [Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare

    [May 27, 2018] Northwestern University roundtable discusses regime change in Russia Defend Democracy Press

    [May 04, 2018] Media Use Disinformation To Accuse Russia Of Spreading Such by b

    [May 03, 2018] The 'Libya model' Trump's top bloodthirsty neocon indirectly admits that N. Korea will be invaded and destroyed as soon as it gives up its nukes by system failure

    [Apr 27, 2018] A Most Sordid Profession by Fred Reed

    [Apr 24, 2018] America's Men Without Chests by Paul Grenier

    [Apr 22, 2018] The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite

    [Apr 21, 2018] It s a tough old world and we are certainly capable of a Salisbury set-up and god knows what else in Syria.

    [Apr 21, 2018] It s a tough old world and we are certainly capable of a Salisbury set-up and god knows what else in Syria.

    [Apr 20, 2018] Stench of hypocrisy British 'war on terror' strategic ties with radical Islam by John Wight

    [Apr 11, 2018] Female neocon warmongers from Fox look like plastered brick walls – heartless and brainless.

    [Apr 10, 2018] The Ghouta Massacre near Damascus on Aug 21, 2013 was not a sarin rocket attack carried out by Assad or his supporters. It was a false-flag stunt carried out by the insurgents using carbon monoxide or cyanide to murder children and use their corpses as bait to lure the Americans into attacking Assad.

    [Apr 09, 2018] Ghouta is Arabic for Reichstag Fire by Publius Tacitus

    [Apr 09, 2018] When Military Leaders Have Reckless Disregard for the Truth by Bruce Fein

    [Apr 02, 2018] Russophobia Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy by A. Tsygankov

    [Mar 28, 2018] Deep State and False Flag Attacks

    [Mar 23, 2018] Inglorious end of career of neocon McMaster

    [Mar 22, 2018] Vladimir Putin: nonsense to think Russia would poison spy in UK

    [Mar 21, 2018] Washington's Invasion of Iraq at Fifteen

    [Mar 21, 2018] How They Sold the Iraq War by Jeffrey St. Clair

    [Mar 16, 2018] Are We Living Under a Military Coup ?

    [Mar 16, 2018] Will the State Department Become a Subsidiary of the CIA

    [Mar 14, 2018] Jefferson Morley on the CIA and Mossad Tradeoffs in the Formation of the US-Israel Strategic Relationship

    [Mar 11, 2018] Reality Check: The Guardian Restarts Push for Regime Change in Russia by Kit

    [Mar 06, 2019] American Meddling in the Ukraine by Publius Tacitus

    [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation

    [Feb 20, 2018] Russophobia is a futile bid to conceal US, European demise by Finian Cunningham

    [Feb 16, 2018] The Deep Staters care first and foremost about themselves.

    [Feb 15, 2018] Trump's War on the Deep State by Conrad Black

    [Feb 12, 2018] The Age of Lunacy: The Doomsday Machine

    [Feb 12, 2018] Ike's Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex Is Alive and Very Well by William J. Astore

    [Feb 10, 2018] The generals are not Borgists. They are something worse ...

    [Jan 30, 2018] Washington Reaches New Heights of Insanity with the "Kremlin Report" by Paul Craig Roberts

    [Jan 30, 2018] The Unseen Wars of America the Empire The American Conservative

    [Jan 27, 2018] The Rich Also Cry by Israel Shamir

    [Jan 19, 2018] No Foreign Bases Challenging the Footprint of US Empire by Kevin B. Zeese and Margaret Flowers

    [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies

    [Jan 02, 2018] Neocon warmongers should be treated as rapists by Andrew J. Bacevich

    [Jan 02, 2018] Jill Stein in the Cross-hairs by Mike Whitney

    [Jan 02, 2018] Who Is the Real Enemy by Philip Giraldi

    [Jan 08, 2019] No, wealth isn t created at the top. It is merely devoured there by Rutger Bregman

    [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

    Sites

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    Society

    Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

    Quotes

    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

    Most popular humor pages:

    Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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